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<p>BOISE, Idaho ( <a href="http://idahonews.com/news/local/homefundme-crowdfunding-for-a-down-payment" type="external">KBOI</a>) - You've likely heard of GoFundMe, the crowdfunding website, but have you heard of HomeFundMe?</p>
<p>It's a website aimed at raising money for the down payment on a home.</p>
<p>"There is no repayment! This is a true gift and anyone can contribute," said Christopher M. George, president and CEO of <a href="http://www.cmgfi.com/" type="external">CMG Financial</a>, the company behind <a href="https://www.homefundme.com/" type="external">HomeFundMe</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, accepting money from non-family members for a down payment wasn't allowed.</p>
<p>Through HomeFundMe, users can accept donations from anyone.</p>
<p>It's pretty simple, <a href="https://www.homefundme.com/how-it-works" type="external">here's what you do</a>:</p>
<p>-Create an account-Apply for prequalification-Build your campaign-Share it with friends-Meet with your HomeFundMe coaches-Buy your home</p>
<p>Users have a year from the time they receive their first donation to close on a house. If enough funds aren't raised within the 12-month timeline, the fundraising coach will assess their campaign to figure out if the goal is still doable. In some cases, an extension will be given. If they decide the goal is unattainable, non-conditional funds will still be gifted and conditional funds will be returned to the contributor.</p>
<p>Right now, HomeFundMe is in its proof of concept phase.</p>
<p>It's a first-of-its-kind concept, but George believes that it could soon become the normal way of making a down payment.</p>
<p>"Today, a lot of folks view their social network as their net worth. So, being able to leverage those folks that are around you, that care for you and want the best for you, in a form of crowdfunding, [is] allowing folks to look at home ownership in a completely different light," said George.</p>
<p>KBOI 2's Abigail Taylor asked, "at risk of sounding crass, what would (you) say to people who might say, 'Whatever happened to doing it yourself?'"</p>
<p>George replied, "You could make the argument [that] the whole concept of GoFundMe could be centered around 'Why don't they do it themselves?' Inherently, people want to help other folks. When asked, as long as you believe in the project you're asked to help with, most people step up and say, 'You know what, I will help you!'"</p>
<p>CMG Financial is also offering a two-for-one grant opportunity where it will give qualifying home buyers $2 for every $1 they raise, up to $2,500.</p>
<p>George said the company's next step is to begin partnering with other companies as a way of incentivizing their employees. Employers would offer to match the fundraising of an employee who is looking to buy a home in the area as a way of acquiring and retaining talented employees.</p> | HomeFundMe: Crowdfunding for a down payment | false | https://circa.com/story/2018/01/21/nation/homefundme-crowdfunding-for-a-down-payment | 2018-01-21 | 1right-center
| HomeFundMe: Crowdfunding for a down payment
<p>BOISE, Idaho ( <a href="http://idahonews.com/news/local/homefundme-crowdfunding-for-a-down-payment" type="external">KBOI</a>) - You've likely heard of GoFundMe, the crowdfunding website, but have you heard of HomeFundMe?</p>
<p>It's a website aimed at raising money for the down payment on a home.</p>
<p>"There is no repayment! This is a true gift and anyone can contribute," said Christopher M. George, president and CEO of <a href="http://www.cmgfi.com/" type="external">CMG Financial</a>, the company behind <a href="https://www.homefundme.com/" type="external">HomeFundMe</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, accepting money from non-family members for a down payment wasn't allowed.</p>
<p>Through HomeFundMe, users can accept donations from anyone.</p>
<p>It's pretty simple, <a href="https://www.homefundme.com/how-it-works" type="external">here's what you do</a>:</p>
<p>-Create an account-Apply for prequalification-Build your campaign-Share it with friends-Meet with your HomeFundMe coaches-Buy your home</p>
<p>Users have a year from the time they receive their first donation to close on a house. If enough funds aren't raised within the 12-month timeline, the fundraising coach will assess their campaign to figure out if the goal is still doable. In some cases, an extension will be given. If they decide the goal is unattainable, non-conditional funds will still be gifted and conditional funds will be returned to the contributor.</p>
<p>Right now, HomeFundMe is in its proof of concept phase.</p>
<p>It's a first-of-its-kind concept, but George believes that it could soon become the normal way of making a down payment.</p>
<p>"Today, a lot of folks view their social network as their net worth. So, being able to leverage those folks that are around you, that care for you and want the best for you, in a form of crowdfunding, [is] allowing folks to look at home ownership in a completely different light," said George.</p>
<p>KBOI 2's Abigail Taylor asked, "at risk of sounding crass, what would (you) say to people who might say, 'Whatever happened to doing it yourself?'"</p>
<p>George replied, "You could make the argument [that] the whole concept of GoFundMe could be centered around 'Why don't they do it themselves?' Inherently, people want to help other folks. When asked, as long as you believe in the project you're asked to help with, most people step up and say, 'You know what, I will help you!'"</p>
<p>CMG Financial is also offering a two-for-one grant opportunity where it will give qualifying home buyers $2 for every $1 they raise, up to $2,500.</p>
<p>George said the company's next step is to begin partnering with other companies as a way of incentivizing their employees. Employers would offer to match the fundraising of an employee who is looking to buy a home in the area as a way of acquiring and retaining talented employees.</p> | 4,200 |
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<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Charlottesville officials met privately Thursday to discuss “personnel matters” in the wake of a deadly white nationalist rally, the city’s mayor said in a statement in which he also asserted he’d been largely shut out of security preparations for the event.</p>
<p>In a lengthy statement on Facebook posted ahead of the meeting, Mayor Mike Signer wrote that under Charlottesville’s form of government, the city manager “has total operational authority” over events like the Aug. 12 rally.</p>
<p>Signer, who has a spot on the five-person City Council, said the group was not given the security plan for the rally. He also wrote that when he asked during a briefing days before the event what he could do to be helpful, Police Chief Al Thomas responded, “Stay out of my way.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The statement comes as city leaders are facing scrutiny over their response to the event, believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade. Crowds fought violently in the streets, one woman was killed when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, and two state troopers died when their helicopter crashed.</p>
<p>Charlottesville residents, rally organizers and law enforcement experts are among those who have criticized the city’s handling of the lead-up to the rally and the chaos that ensued. Anger boiled over at a city council meeting earlier this week, where scores of people screamed and cursed at councilors. Some called for the leaders to resign.</p>
<p>Signer said the events on Aug. 12 “raised serious questions about the city’s handling of security, communications, and governance.”</p>
<p>Those are questions that the city council should ask “as the ultimate authority over the city manager,” he wrote.</p>
<p>The council met behind closed doors Thursday morning. Signer and Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy told reporters as they exited that Thomas and City Manager Maurice Jones were still employed.</p>
<p>Councilors discussed “an array of different things that transpired and how we can improve,” Bellamy told The Associated Press, declining to elaborate further because the meeting was a closed session.</p>
<p>The council has called for an independent review of all decisions related not only to Aug. 12, but also a July KKK rally and a prior torch-lit rally of white nationalists at Emancipation Park, Signer said in his statement. He said he expects details to be announced shortly.</p>
<p>The rally was sparked by the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park, a decision that’s on hold while a lawsuit plays out. On Wednesday, workers draped the statue of Lee and another of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in black fabric meant to symbolize the city’s mourning.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>City officials had been expected to host a “community recovery town hall” Thursday evening in collaboration with the Community Relations Services of the Department of Justice. But they announced Thursday morning that it had been rescheduled for Sunday due to conflicts with a local high school’s student activities.</p>
<p>Officials will provide an update on “recovery efforts” at that meeting and offer opportunities for public comment, according to a news release.</p>
<p>In other developments Thursday, Christopher Cantwell, a white nationalist from Keene, New Hampshire, made an initial appearance in Albemarle County General District Court.</p>
<p>He faces two counts of the illegal use of tear gas or other gases and one count of malicious bodily injury with a “caustic substance,” explosive or fire in connection with a torch-lit rally on the University of Virginia campus the night before the white nationalist rally.</p>
<p>Contacted by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Cantwell acknowledged he had pepper-sprayed a counter-demonstrator. But he insisted he was defending himself, saying he did it “because my only other option was knocking out his teeth.” He also said he was looking forward to his day in court.</p>
<p>UVA police said late Wednesday night that he had turned himself in.</p>
<p>Cantwell told a judge Thursday that he planned to hire his own attorney, The Daily Progress reported . The judge did not set bond, but told Cantwell his attorney could request a bond hearing later.</p>
<p>Also Thursday, a judge waived a hearing for James Alex Fields Jr., the man accused of killing Heather Heyer by driving into the crowd. Fields had a hearing scheduled for Friday, but the judge agreed to a request from prosecutors and Fields’ attorney to continue the case until Dec. 14.</p> | Charlottesville mayor says he was shut out of security talks | false | https://abqjournal.com/1052649/charlottesville-doj-to-host-community-recovery-town-hall.html | 2017-08-24 | 2least
| Charlottesville mayor says he was shut out of security talks
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Charlottesville officials met privately Thursday to discuss “personnel matters” in the wake of a deadly white nationalist rally, the city’s mayor said in a statement in which he also asserted he’d been largely shut out of security preparations for the event.</p>
<p>In a lengthy statement on Facebook posted ahead of the meeting, Mayor Mike Signer wrote that under Charlottesville’s form of government, the city manager “has total operational authority” over events like the Aug. 12 rally.</p>
<p>Signer, who has a spot on the five-person City Council, said the group was not given the security plan for the rally. He also wrote that when he asked during a briefing days before the event what he could do to be helpful, Police Chief Al Thomas responded, “Stay out of my way.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The statement comes as city leaders are facing scrutiny over their response to the event, believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade. Crowds fought violently in the streets, one woman was killed when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, and two state troopers died when their helicopter crashed.</p>
<p>Charlottesville residents, rally organizers and law enforcement experts are among those who have criticized the city’s handling of the lead-up to the rally and the chaos that ensued. Anger boiled over at a city council meeting earlier this week, where scores of people screamed and cursed at councilors. Some called for the leaders to resign.</p>
<p>Signer said the events on Aug. 12 “raised serious questions about the city’s handling of security, communications, and governance.”</p>
<p>Those are questions that the city council should ask “as the ultimate authority over the city manager,” he wrote.</p>
<p>The council met behind closed doors Thursday morning. Signer and Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy told reporters as they exited that Thomas and City Manager Maurice Jones were still employed.</p>
<p>Councilors discussed “an array of different things that transpired and how we can improve,” Bellamy told The Associated Press, declining to elaborate further because the meeting was a closed session.</p>
<p>The council has called for an independent review of all decisions related not only to Aug. 12, but also a July KKK rally and a prior torch-lit rally of white nationalists at Emancipation Park, Signer said in his statement. He said he expects details to be announced shortly.</p>
<p>The rally was sparked by the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park, a decision that’s on hold while a lawsuit plays out. On Wednesday, workers draped the statue of Lee and another of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in black fabric meant to symbolize the city’s mourning.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>City officials had been expected to host a “community recovery town hall” Thursday evening in collaboration with the Community Relations Services of the Department of Justice. But they announced Thursday morning that it had been rescheduled for Sunday due to conflicts with a local high school’s student activities.</p>
<p>Officials will provide an update on “recovery efforts” at that meeting and offer opportunities for public comment, according to a news release.</p>
<p>In other developments Thursday, Christopher Cantwell, a white nationalist from Keene, New Hampshire, made an initial appearance in Albemarle County General District Court.</p>
<p>He faces two counts of the illegal use of tear gas or other gases and one count of malicious bodily injury with a “caustic substance,” explosive or fire in connection with a torch-lit rally on the University of Virginia campus the night before the white nationalist rally.</p>
<p>Contacted by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Cantwell acknowledged he had pepper-sprayed a counter-demonstrator. But he insisted he was defending himself, saying he did it “because my only other option was knocking out his teeth.” He also said he was looking forward to his day in court.</p>
<p>UVA police said late Wednesday night that he had turned himself in.</p>
<p>Cantwell told a judge Thursday that he planned to hire his own attorney, The Daily Progress reported . The judge did not set bond, but told Cantwell his attorney could request a bond hearing later.</p>
<p>Also Thursday, a judge waived a hearing for James Alex Fields Jr., the man accused of killing Heather Heyer by driving into the crowd. Fields had a hearing scheduled for Friday, but the judge agreed to a request from prosecutors and Fields’ attorney to continue the case until Dec. 14.</p> | 4,201 |
<p>BLANKChris Hedges, speaking at a <a href="" type="internal">Truthdig fundraising event</a> in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, made these remarks about Osama bin Laden's death.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click to listen to the audio</a>, or read the transcript below:</p>
<p>I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it - about al-Qaida. I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I'm an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told - me the news, my stomach sank. I'm not in any way naive about what al-Qaida is. It's an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.</p>
<p />
<p>But I'm also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11 - and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha - is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida - that's clear - he's kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide - he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren [Beatty] about [Ian] Kershaw's great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden's role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned.</p>
<p>I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein - I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.</p>
<p>When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism - the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it's about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.</p>
<p>And it's about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can't make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate [them], isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida's operations in the Middle East and Europe.</p>
<p>So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar - who died recently - who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud - someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.</p>
<p>We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to "send a message" to the North Vietnamese - a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.</p>
<p>These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation - the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.</p>
<p>And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism - these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know its intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don't in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p /> | Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden's Death | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/chris-hedges-speaks-on-osama-bin-ladens-death/ | 2011-05-02 | 4left
| Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden's Death
<p>BLANKChris Hedges, speaking at a <a href="" type="internal">Truthdig fundraising event</a> in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, made these remarks about Osama bin Laden's death.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click to listen to the audio</a>, or read the transcript below:</p>
<p>I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it - about al-Qaida. I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I'm an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told - me the news, my stomach sank. I'm not in any way naive about what al-Qaida is. It's an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.</p>
<p />
<p>But I'm also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11 - and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha - is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida - that's clear - he's kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide - he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren [Beatty] about [Ian] Kershaw's great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden's role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned.</p>
<p>I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein - I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.</p>
<p>When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism - the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it's about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.</p>
<p>And it's about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can't make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate [them], isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida's operations in the Middle East and Europe.</p>
<p>So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar - who died recently - who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud - someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.</p>
<p>We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to "send a message" to the North Vietnamese - a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.</p>
<p>These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation - the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.</p>
<p>And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism - these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know its intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don't in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p /> | 4,202 |
<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Washington Lottery's "Hit 5" game were:</p>
<p>04-18-21-24-36</p>
<p>(four, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p>
<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Washington Lottery's "Hit 5" game were:</p>
<p>04-18-21-24-36</p>
<p>(four, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Hit 5' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/73b579bc12c344c2aec324feba6ce898 | 2018-01-09 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'Hit 5' game
<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Washington Lottery's "Hit 5" game were:</p>
<p>04-18-21-24-36</p>
<p>(four, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p>
<p>OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Washington Lottery's "Hit 5" game were:</p>
<p>04-18-21-24-36</p>
<p>(four, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p> | 4,203 |
<p>At moments like these, when every good responsible and enlightened liberal is recognizing the need to destroy the world in order to save it, by getting World War III started with Russia before Trump can move in and damage anything, I believe it is important to remember a few facts that will strengthen our resolve:</p>
<p>The oligarch who owns the Washington Post has CIA contracts worth at least twice what he paid to buy the Washington Post, thus making the Washington Post the most reliable authority on the CIA we have ever, ever had.</p>
<p>When the CIA concludes things in secret that are reported to the Washington Post by anonymous sources the reliability of the conclusions is heightened exponentially.</p>
<p>Phrases like “individuals with connections to the Russian government” are simply shorthand for “Vladimir Putin” because the Washington Post has too much good taste to actually print that name.</p>
<p>Claims to know extremely difficult things to know, like the motivations of said individuals, are essentially fact, given what we know of the CIA’s near perfect record over the decades.</p>
<p>Getting this wrong, much less questioning something or asking to see any evidence, would endanger us all and threaten innocent children with having false statements made about them in a Russian accent.</p>
<p>The fact that the group of people producing our information is referred to as “the Intelligence Community” means it is intelligent and communal, while the fact that people within that community refused to go along with its claims or allow them to become a so-called national intelligence estimate means that there are traitors right in the heart of our holy warriors’ sanctuary.</p>
<p>If you doubt that the CIA is always, always right you need only focus your attention on the fact that there are Republicans questioning these claims, including Republicans who are terrible people, on top of which Donald Trump is a racist, sexist pig.</p>
<p>Good people are loyal Democrats, and when the Democrats did the thing that we now know was revealed by Putin in order to make Trump president (namely cheating its politically and morally superior candidate out of its nomination) that was done as a generous sacrifice for us and our children.</p>
<p>Claims made without public evidence have never turned out to be false or exaggerated in the slightest in the past, certainly not in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Nicaragua, or any other part of the earth.</p>
<p>When I looked into every past war and discovered that they were <a href="" type="internal">always preceded by lies</a>, it was because I had secret psychic information that at some future date Vladimir would reward me. I should wait patiently for his payment and then report it to the CIA/Washington Post.</p> | The CIA Never Ever Lies | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/12/12/the-cia-never-ever-lies/ | 2016-12-12 | 4left
| The CIA Never Ever Lies
<p>At moments like these, when every good responsible and enlightened liberal is recognizing the need to destroy the world in order to save it, by getting World War III started with Russia before Trump can move in and damage anything, I believe it is important to remember a few facts that will strengthen our resolve:</p>
<p>The oligarch who owns the Washington Post has CIA contracts worth at least twice what he paid to buy the Washington Post, thus making the Washington Post the most reliable authority on the CIA we have ever, ever had.</p>
<p>When the CIA concludes things in secret that are reported to the Washington Post by anonymous sources the reliability of the conclusions is heightened exponentially.</p>
<p>Phrases like “individuals with connections to the Russian government” are simply shorthand for “Vladimir Putin” because the Washington Post has too much good taste to actually print that name.</p>
<p>Claims to know extremely difficult things to know, like the motivations of said individuals, are essentially fact, given what we know of the CIA’s near perfect record over the decades.</p>
<p>Getting this wrong, much less questioning something or asking to see any evidence, would endanger us all and threaten innocent children with having false statements made about them in a Russian accent.</p>
<p>The fact that the group of people producing our information is referred to as “the Intelligence Community” means it is intelligent and communal, while the fact that people within that community refused to go along with its claims or allow them to become a so-called national intelligence estimate means that there are traitors right in the heart of our holy warriors’ sanctuary.</p>
<p>If you doubt that the CIA is always, always right you need only focus your attention on the fact that there are Republicans questioning these claims, including Republicans who are terrible people, on top of which Donald Trump is a racist, sexist pig.</p>
<p>Good people are loyal Democrats, and when the Democrats did the thing that we now know was revealed by Putin in order to make Trump president (namely cheating its politically and morally superior candidate out of its nomination) that was done as a generous sacrifice for us and our children.</p>
<p>Claims made without public evidence have never turned out to be false or exaggerated in the slightest in the past, certainly not in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Nicaragua, or any other part of the earth.</p>
<p>When I looked into every past war and discovered that they were <a href="" type="internal">always preceded by lies</a>, it was because I had secret psychic information that at some future date Vladimir would reward me. I should wait patiently for his payment and then report it to the CIA/Washington Post.</p> | 4,204 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>It also can identify an unknown attacker when entered into a national database where it is compared to other DNA evidence.</p>
<p>But DNA evidence collected when a woman, man or child undergoes the rape evidence collection process is useless if it is never tested.</p>
<p>In New Mexico more than 5,000 rape kits are sitting on evidence shelves across the state, untested. Some cases date back to the late 1980s. Clearing the backlog is estimated to cost $8 million and take five years. And that's just the old cases. New cases are added every year. More than 1,400 new cases were filed in 2014 alone.</p>
<p>While there are some legitimate reasons for kits not being tested, such as the rapist confesses or a victim declines to press forward, all involved - alleged victims and alleged victimizers - deserve the truth these kits can provide. There is simply no legitimate excuse for not following through on this most basic tenet of public safety.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The state must clear the backlog, and lawmakers must find the money to do it.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p>
<p /> | Editorial: Clear NM rape kit backlog | false | https://abqjournal.com/684326/clear-nm-rape-kit-backlog.html | 2least
| Editorial: Clear NM rape kit backlog
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>It also can identify an unknown attacker when entered into a national database where it is compared to other DNA evidence.</p>
<p>But DNA evidence collected when a woman, man or child undergoes the rape evidence collection process is useless if it is never tested.</p>
<p>In New Mexico more than 5,000 rape kits are sitting on evidence shelves across the state, untested. Some cases date back to the late 1980s. Clearing the backlog is estimated to cost $8 million and take five years. And that's just the old cases. New cases are added every year. More than 1,400 new cases were filed in 2014 alone.</p>
<p>While there are some legitimate reasons for kits not being tested, such as the rapist confesses or a victim declines to press forward, all involved - alleged victims and alleged victimizers - deserve the truth these kits can provide. There is simply no legitimate excuse for not following through on this most basic tenet of public safety.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The state must clear the backlog, and lawmakers must find the money to do it.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p>
<p /> | 4,205 |
|
<p>Many news websites keep their special projects online for a long time. For instance, the <a href="http://www.nola.com/" type="external">Times-Picayune</a> has an excellent <a href="http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/part1.html" type="external">series of articles</a> on the potential damage that New Orleans would suffer from a direct hit by a hurricane. As that worry has become a reality, the series is pertinent again. But Bill Dedman has a suggestion for such archived Web special reports: Put a date on them. He went to the Times-Picayune feature (referred from a link on <a href="" type="internal">Al's Morning Meeting</a> here on Poynter Online) "and darned if I could figure out when it was published." The Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and computer-assisted reporting expert ended up using <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com" type="external">LexisNexis</a> to find the answer: The series was published in June 2002. The fact that the series is three years old doesn't detract from its value, Dedman says, so he urges producers of such special online material to put a date on every page and every graphic.</p> | Hiding Your Age (Don't Do It) | false | https://poynter.org/news/hiding-your-age-dont-do-it | 2005-08-29 | 2least
| Hiding Your Age (Don't Do It)
<p>Many news websites keep their special projects online for a long time. For instance, the <a href="http://www.nola.com/" type="external">Times-Picayune</a> has an excellent <a href="http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/part1.html" type="external">series of articles</a> on the potential damage that New Orleans would suffer from a direct hit by a hurricane. As that worry has become a reality, the series is pertinent again. But Bill Dedman has a suggestion for such archived Web special reports: Put a date on them. He went to the Times-Picayune feature (referred from a link on <a href="" type="internal">Al's Morning Meeting</a> here on Poynter Online) "and darned if I could figure out when it was published." The Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and computer-assisted reporting expert ended up using <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com" type="external">LexisNexis</a> to find the answer: The series was published in June 2002. The fact that the series is three years old doesn't detract from its value, Dedman says, so he urges producers of such special online material to put a date on every page and every graphic.</p> | 4,206 |
<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>As a pastor, Susan Sparks has been intent on findings ways church members can get to know each other outside of Sunday worship services. As a moderate Baptist, she’s been intent on modeling the kinder, gentler side of the tradition.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Sparks, the pastor at Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, has found the answer to both challenges in one thing.</p>
<p>Beer.</p>
<p>OK, and scripture, too.</p>
<p>Those two things have been combined into an event called “Beer and Bible.”</p>
<p>While a combined suds-and-scripture Bible study should come as no surprise from a motorcycle-riding, cowboy-boot-wearing lawyer and comedian, Sparks said her Southern Baptist roots tingle a little bit at the thought of it.</p>
<p />
<p>“This wouldn’t go over well with my people,” she joked about the event, which is held six to eight times a year. “We have had people outside [the church] question it when I put it on Facebook. We have had pushback, for sure.”</p>
<p>But its effectiveness has been too powerful to ever turn back. “Beer and Bible” features rotating gatherings in members’ homes and apartments, where the host chooses a Bible verse, group of verses or other inspirational topic.</p>
<p>The requirement is that whatever scripture is selected, the ensuing discussion over food and beverages must relate directly and practically to participants’ daily lives and challenges.</p>
<p>Despite its name, Sparks said “Beer and Bible” is not limited only to beer or alcohol consumers.</p>
<p>“This is not a gathering to slam down and play quarters,” she said. “This is an event where non-drinkers and even those in recovery are comfortable.”</p>
<p>She pointed potential critics of the practice to scripture.</p>
<p>“Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine, so I think we ought to back off our concern about that,” she said.</p>
<p>Gatherings around the nation</p>
<p>Sparks and her church are not alone in abandoning that concern.</p>
<p>Many Catholic dioceses around the country have for years offered the <a href="http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-02-24/story/theology-tap-presents-church-teachings-jacksonville-bar" type="external">“Theology on Tap”</a> program. It presents young, drinking-age professionals with scholars, priests and other theological experts who give talks in local taverns.</p>
<p>Localized groups also exist in various American cities.</p>
<p />
<p>In Tampa, Fla., <a href="http://tampaunderground.com/beerandbible/" type="external">“Beer and Bible” gatherings</a> are held in bars to provide “a safe ‘third-place’ where people can encounter the love of Jesus free from judgment,” the group’s website says. It adds that the events are designed to reach those, among others, who want to know Christ but have had negative church experiences.</p>
<p>Another group is the Forth Worth, Texas-based <a href="http://www.thebibleandbeerconsortium.com/?page_id=59" type="external">Bible and Beer Consortium</a>. According to its website, its events are held in pubs where lectures or sermons are presented. The presentations are further explained and then defended in an open-mic question-and-answer session.</p>
<p>Topics include “Jesus of Nazareth: Lord or Legend,” “Science and God” and “The Resurrection of Jesus,” among others.</p>
<p>‘Scripture is the anchor’</p>
<p>But the booze and bar-scene aspect of such events aren’t the focal point for many of those who participate.</p>
<p>Instead, for them it’s about being able to build closer relationships with others in the church.</p>
<p>“That’s what I get out of it,” Madison Avenue Baptist member Cheryl Sims said about the church’s “Beer and Bible” gatherings.</p>
<p>In part it’s because Sims, a 55-year-old school teacher, does not consume alcohol. But she noted that she’s never alone in that fact and that no one is ever seen drinking too much at the events.</p>
<p>What it’s really about is getting to know one another outside the context of worship, she said.</p>
<p>“It’s really a low-key way of talking about life issues as they relate to scripture,” Sims said. “Scripture is the anchor and that’s how we really connect with what we have in common.”</p>
<p>The meetings also have emotional and psychological benefits for Sims.</p>
<p>“A person can go to therapy and spends thousands of dollars to get the same thing we can get sharing as a community at ‘Beer and Bible,’” Sims said.</p>
<p>‘Changing the face of Baptists’</p>
<p>For others, “Beer and Bible” has been an important part of a return to faith after years away from church.</p>
<p>“I guess it’s a radical event for a Baptist church —&#160;and that’s pretty typical for what our church is about,” said Kevin Davis, a 49-year-old architect who grew up Southern Baptist in Kentucky but underwent a period away from congregational life.</p>
<p>Davis said it’s not the idea of adding beer or wine to the Bible that throws him off. Many years living an essentially secular lifestyle made him accustomed to being in bars.</p>
<p>Instead, Madison Avenue Baptist and “Beer and Bible” have helped him reconnect with the scripture he learned so well growing up.</p>
<p>“I am a state Bible drill winner for six consecutive years,” he said.</p>
<p>But the home-based events and the perspectives he’s heard about those verses and passages has deepened his understanding of the Bible, Davis said.</p>
<p>Before finding Madison Avenue some six years ago, Davis said he had no idea he would have made such discoveries in a Baptist church.</p>
<p>And that’s the message her church wants to send the wider world, Sparks said.</p>
<p>“It’s been frustrating that the right has the mic, while progressive and middle-of-the-road Baptists never get their voice out there,” she said.</p>
<p>“In our little way, we are trying to change the face of Baptists from judging and shame to joy and hope, and ‘Beer and Bible’ is a tiny piece of that,” Sparks said.</p> | Church adds a little beer to Bible to soften Baptist reputation | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/church-adds-a-little-beer-to-bible-to-soften-baptist-reputation/ | 3left-center
| Church adds a little beer to Bible to soften Baptist reputation
<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>As a pastor, Susan Sparks has been intent on findings ways church members can get to know each other outside of Sunday worship services. As a moderate Baptist, she’s been intent on modeling the kinder, gentler side of the tradition.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Sparks, the pastor at Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, has found the answer to both challenges in one thing.</p>
<p>Beer.</p>
<p>OK, and scripture, too.</p>
<p>Those two things have been combined into an event called “Beer and Bible.”</p>
<p>While a combined suds-and-scripture Bible study should come as no surprise from a motorcycle-riding, cowboy-boot-wearing lawyer and comedian, Sparks said her Southern Baptist roots tingle a little bit at the thought of it.</p>
<p />
<p>“This wouldn’t go over well with my people,” she joked about the event, which is held six to eight times a year. “We have had people outside [the church] question it when I put it on Facebook. We have had pushback, for sure.”</p>
<p>But its effectiveness has been too powerful to ever turn back. “Beer and Bible” features rotating gatherings in members’ homes and apartments, where the host chooses a Bible verse, group of verses or other inspirational topic.</p>
<p>The requirement is that whatever scripture is selected, the ensuing discussion over food and beverages must relate directly and practically to participants’ daily lives and challenges.</p>
<p>Despite its name, Sparks said “Beer and Bible” is not limited only to beer or alcohol consumers.</p>
<p>“This is not a gathering to slam down and play quarters,” she said. “This is an event where non-drinkers and even those in recovery are comfortable.”</p>
<p>She pointed potential critics of the practice to scripture.</p>
<p>“Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine, so I think we ought to back off our concern about that,” she said.</p>
<p>Gatherings around the nation</p>
<p>Sparks and her church are not alone in abandoning that concern.</p>
<p>Many Catholic dioceses around the country have for years offered the <a href="http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-02-24/story/theology-tap-presents-church-teachings-jacksonville-bar" type="external">“Theology on Tap”</a> program. It presents young, drinking-age professionals with scholars, priests and other theological experts who give talks in local taverns.</p>
<p>Localized groups also exist in various American cities.</p>
<p />
<p>In Tampa, Fla., <a href="http://tampaunderground.com/beerandbible/" type="external">“Beer and Bible” gatherings</a> are held in bars to provide “a safe ‘third-place’ where people can encounter the love of Jesus free from judgment,” the group’s website says. It adds that the events are designed to reach those, among others, who want to know Christ but have had negative church experiences.</p>
<p>Another group is the Forth Worth, Texas-based <a href="http://www.thebibleandbeerconsortium.com/?page_id=59" type="external">Bible and Beer Consortium</a>. According to its website, its events are held in pubs where lectures or sermons are presented. The presentations are further explained and then defended in an open-mic question-and-answer session.</p>
<p>Topics include “Jesus of Nazareth: Lord or Legend,” “Science and God” and “The Resurrection of Jesus,” among others.</p>
<p>‘Scripture is the anchor’</p>
<p>But the booze and bar-scene aspect of such events aren’t the focal point for many of those who participate.</p>
<p>Instead, for them it’s about being able to build closer relationships with others in the church.</p>
<p>“That’s what I get out of it,” Madison Avenue Baptist member Cheryl Sims said about the church’s “Beer and Bible” gatherings.</p>
<p>In part it’s because Sims, a 55-year-old school teacher, does not consume alcohol. But she noted that she’s never alone in that fact and that no one is ever seen drinking too much at the events.</p>
<p>What it’s really about is getting to know one another outside the context of worship, she said.</p>
<p>“It’s really a low-key way of talking about life issues as they relate to scripture,” Sims said. “Scripture is the anchor and that’s how we really connect with what we have in common.”</p>
<p>The meetings also have emotional and psychological benefits for Sims.</p>
<p>“A person can go to therapy and spends thousands of dollars to get the same thing we can get sharing as a community at ‘Beer and Bible,’” Sims said.</p>
<p>‘Changing the face of Baptists’</p>
<p>For others, “Beer and Bible” has been an important part of a return to faith after years away from church.</p>
<p>“I guess it’s a radical event for a Baptist church —&#160;and that’s pretty typical for what our church is about,” said Kevin Davis, a 49-year-old architect who grew up Southern Baptist in Kentucky but underwent a period away from congregational life.</p>
<p>Davis said it’s not the idea of adding beer or wine to the Bible that throws him off. Many years living an essentially secular lifestyle made him accustomed to being in bars.</p>
<p>Instead, Madison Avenue Baptist and “Beer and Bible” have helped him reconnect with the scripture he learned so well growing up.</p>
<p>“I am a state Bible drill winner for six consecutive years,” he said.</p>
<p>But the home-based events and the perspectives he’s heard about those verses and passages has deepened his understanding of the Bible, Davis said.</p>
<p>Before finding Madison Avenue some six years ago, Davis said he had no idea he would have made such discoveries in a Baptist church.</p>
<p>And that’s the message her church wants to send the wider world, Sparks said.</p>
<p>“It’s been frustrating that the right has the mic, while progressive and middle-of-the-road Baptists never get their voice out there,” she said.</p>
<p>“In our little way, we are trying to change the face of Baptists from judging and shame to joy and hope, and ‘Beer and Bible’ is a tiny piece of that,” Sparks said.</p> | 4,207 |
|
<p />
<p>Heather Nauert arguably looks more like a college cheerleader than a 47-year-old mother of two who’s been a nationally recognized reporter and news anchor for most of her 21-year professional career.</p>
<p>But now it looks as if the Rockford, IL native may be leaving Manhattan Island for Washington, DC as one of the newest members of Team Trump.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/fox-friends-anchor-under-consideration-for-state-department-spokesperson/" type="external">The Washington Free Beacon</a>, the “Fox &amp; Friends” anchor is “on the short list&#160;to be the first spokesperson in&#160;the Trump administration’s State Department.”</p>
<p>The report continued;</p>
<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has not signed off on the potential appointment but multiple sources have said&#160;that she is being considered for the position, Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/heather-nauert-state-department-fox-news-235123" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>Nauert was spotted at the White House&#160;last week to &#160;reportedly discuss a communications role in the Trump administration, Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/priebus-flynn-others-on-thin-ice-2258044334.html" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>Nauert, who is also a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, has spent almost&#160;two decades at Fox News,&#160;according to Politico. She graduated from Mt. Vernon College with an undergraduate degree in communications, and has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.</p>
<p>Spokespeople at the State Department did not respond to Politico regarding Nauert’s&#160;potential appointment. The&#160;public relations department of Fox News and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Trump praised Nauert’s show during his&#160;press conference on Thursday.</p>
<p>“I watched this morning a couple of the networks and I have to say, ‘Fox &amp; Friends’ in the morning, they’re very honorable people,” Trump said. “Not because they’re good, because they hit me also when I do something wrong, but they have the most honest morning show. That’s all I can say. It’s the most honest.”</p>
<p>Nauert is making an effort to show she stands in&#160;solidarity with the Trump administration; on Sunday&#160;she tweeted she would go buy Ivanka Trump shoes at Nordstrom to wear on “Fox and Friends.”</p>
<p>Watching Sun shows topic: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Nordstrom?src=hash" type="external">#Nordstrom</a> dropping <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IvankaTrump?src=hash" type="external">#IvankaTrump</a> -reminded me 2 buy. I’ll wear on <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends" type="external">@foxandfriends</a> this week! <a href="https://t.co/2UCQhk1Vzi" type="external">pic.twitter.com/2UCQhk1Vzi</a></p>
<p>— heather nauert (@HeatherNauert) <a href="https://twitter.com/HeatherNauert/status/830813719953338373" type="external">February 12, 2017</a></p> | Fox’s Heather Nauert on ‘Short List’ for Trump State Department | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/foxs-heather-nauert-short-list-trump-state-department/ | 2017-02-17 | 0right
| Fox’s Heather Nauert on ‘Short List’ for Trump State Department
<p />
<p>Heather Nauert arguably looks more like a college cheerleader than a 47-year-old mother of two who’s been a nationally recognized reporter and news anchor for most of her 21-year professional career.</p>
<p>But now it looks as if the Rockford, IL native may be leaving Manhattan Island for Washington, DC as one of the newest members of Team Trump.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/fox-friends-anchor-under-consideration-for-state-department-spokesperson/" type="external">The Washington Free Beacon</a>, the “Fox &amp; Friends” anchor is “on the short list&#160;to be the first spokesperson in&#160;the Trump administration’s State Department.”</p>
<p>The report continued;</p>
<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has not signed off on the potential appointment but multiple sources have said&#160;that she is being considered for the position, Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/heather-nauert-state-department-fox-news-235123" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>Nauert was spotted at the White House&#160;last week to &#160;reportedly discuss a communications role in the Trump administration, Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/priebus-flynn-others-on-thin-ice-2258044334.html" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>Nauert, who is also a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, has spent almost&#160;two decades at Fox News,&#160;according to Politico. She graduated from Mt. Vernon College with an undergraduate degree in communications, and has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.</p>
<p>Spokespeople at the State Department did not respond to Politico regarding Nauert’s&#160;potential appointment. The&#160;public relations department of Fox News and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Trump praised Nauert’s show during his&#160;press conference on Thursday.</p>
<p>“I watched this morning a couple of the networks and I have to say, ‘Fox &amp; Friends’ in the morning, they’re very honorable people,” Trump said. “Not because they’re good, because they hit me also when I do something wrong, but they have the most honest morning show. That’s all I can say. It’s the most honest.”</p>
<p>Nauert is making an effort to show she stands in&#160;solidarity with the Trump administration; on Sunday&#160;she tweeted she would go buy Ivanka Trump shoes at Nordstrom to wear on “Fox and Friends.”</p>
<p>Watching Sun shows topic: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Nordstrom?src=hash" type="external">#Nordstrom</a> dropping <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IvankaTrump?src=hash" type="external">#IvankaTrump</a> -reminded me 2 buy. I’ll wear on <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends" type="external">@foxandfriends</a> this week! <a href="https://t.co/2UCQhk1Vzi" type="external">pic.twitter.com/2UCQhk1Vzi</a></p>
<p>— heather nauert (@HeatherNauert) <a href="https://twitter.com/HeatherNauert/status/830813719953338373" type="external">February 12, 2017</a></p> | 4,208 |
<p>Feministing is currently booking speaking events for spring semester. March – Women’s History Month – is always our busiest time,&#160;so get in touch with us soon to bring members of our crew to your campus. We’ve got brand new&#160;speaking&#160;event options this year – <a href="" type="internal">check out our speaking tour page for all the details</a>, and read on to learn about our panels.</p>
<p>&#160;Feministing:&#160;HBICs</p>
<p>Feministing just celebrated its 10th anniversary, a major milestone in the life of the site and the feminist internet in general.&#160;Lori Adelman, Maya Dusenbery, and Jos Truitt, Feministing’s Co-Executive Directors, are shepherding the site into the next phase of its life. Feministing’s nerd troika brings you a panel focused on the things they think about every day – feminist history, links between campus, grassroots, and online feminism, what we’ve learned in 10 years of feminist interneting, and the next steps necessary to keep moving our movement forward and winning important victories. There is also a lengthy Q&amp;A to discuss topics of interest to folks on campus. Lori, Maya, and Jos are all available for group panels, or can do two ED events, depending on your budget. The EDs are also available for solo events.</p>
<p>Feministing: Offline and Unfiltered</p>
<p>Since Feministing’s founding, we’ve grown from a scrappy “web log” to the most widely read feminist publication of all time–and our crew of contributors has expanded.&#160;We’re modeling buzzwords and phrases like “diversity in media” by centering people of color and elevating marginalized voices. And we’re still evolving. In this panel, Feministing’s award-winning writers and members of the leadership team talk about our feminist work, online and off. We also invite a student panelist from your campus to bring a local perspective. The panel is followed by a lengthy Q&amp;A, an opportunity for dialogue around important feminist topics.</p>
<p>So You Want To Write For The Feminist Internet</p>
<p>This interactive training by Feministing editors and leadership team members focuses on practical skills for adding your voice to the feminist internet. Learn tricks of the trade for writing content, getting it in front of reader’s eyeballs, and contributing to a broader feminist discourse. Feministing sees spreading the word about the activist potential of writing&#160;and educating people about the tools to make it happen as central to our mission.&#160;This training can be combined with a panel event for a discounted rate.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here to learn more about the individual speakers</a>.</p>
<p>We work with a number of different budgets to suit a variety of groups’ needs.&#160;If you’re interested in bringing Feministing to your center, campus, or organization, contact&#160; <a href="" type="internal">jane AT feministing DOT com</a>&#160;for more information on fees and availability.&#160;The sooner you get in touch with us, the better–we’re booking Fall and Spring events now!</p>
<p>Additionally, we’ll be writing on Feministing about&#160;tour&#160;highlights along the way and featuring guest posts by student panelists we bring onto our sessions–giving worldwide attention to the work of your center and/or campus.</p>
<p>Hope to see you on the road!</p> | Bring Feministing to your campus this spring! | true | http://feministing.com/2015/01/23/bring-feministing-to-your-campus-this-spring-2/ | 4left
| Bring Feministing to your campus this spring!
<p>Feministing is currently booking speaking events for spring semester. March – Women’s History Month – is always our busiest time,&#160;so get in touch with us soon to bring members of our crew to your campus. We’ve got brand new&#160;speaking&#160;event options this year – <a href="" type="internal">check out our speaking tour page for all the details</a>, and read on to learn about our panels.</p>
<p>&#160;Feministing:&#160;HBICs</p>
<p>Feministing just celebrated its 10th anniversary, a major milestone in the life of the site and the feminist internet in general.&#160;Lori Adelman, Maya Dusenbery, and Jos Truitt, Feministing’s Co-Executive Directors, are shepherding the site into the next phase of its life. Feministing’s nerd troika brings you a panel focused on the things they think about every day – feminist history, links between campus, grassroots, and online feminism, what we’ve learned in 10 years of feminist interneting, and the next steps necessary to keep moving our movement forward and winning important victories. There is also a lengthy Q&amp;A to discuss topics of interest to folks on campus. Lori, Maya, and Jos are all available for group panels, or can do two ED events, depending on your budget. The EDs are also available for solo events.</p>
<p>Feministing: Offline and Unfiltered</p>
<p>Since Feministing’s founding, we’ve grown from a scrappy “web log” to the most widely read feminist publication of all time–and our crew of contributors has expanded.&#160;We’re modeling buzzwords and phrases like “diversity in media” by centering people of color and elevating marginalized voices. And we’re still evolving. In this panel, Feministing’s award-winning writers and members of the leadership team talk about our feminist work, online and off. We also invite a student panelist from your campus to bring a local perspective. The panel is followed by a lengthy Q&amp;A, an opportunity for dialogue around important feminist topics.</p>
<p>So You Want To Write For The Feminist Internet</p>
<p>This interactive training by Feministing editors and leadership team members focuses on practical skills for adding your voice to the feminist internet. Learn tricks of the trade for writing content, getting it in front of reader’s eyeballs, and contributing to a broader feminist discourse. Feministing sees spreading the word about the activist potential of writing&#160;and educating people about the tools to make it happen as central to our mission.&#160;This training can be combined with a panel event for a discounted rate.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here to learn more about the individual speakers</a>.</p>
<p>We work with a number of different budgets to suit a variety of groups’ needs.&#160;If you’re interested in bringing Feministing to your center, campus, or organization, contact&#160; <a href="" type="internal">jane AT feministing DOT com</a>&#160;for more information on fees and availability.&#160;The sooner you get in touch with us, the better–we’re booking Fall and Spring events now!</p>
<p>Additionally, we’ll be writing on Feministing about&#160;tour&#160;highlights along the way and featuring guest posts by student panelists we bring onto our sessions–giving worldwide attention to the work of your center and/or campus.</p>
<p>Hope to see you on the road!</p> | 4,209 |
|
<p />
<p>In a move aimed at diversifying into the storage chip market, semiconductor Avago Technologies (NASDAQ:AVGO) announced a $6.6 billion buyout on Monday of LSI (NASDAQ:LSI).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Based in San Jose, LSI generated $2.5 billion in 2012 revenue by selling chips that are used in storage devices such as flash drives.</p>
<p>Avago, which makes analog chips used in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) products, agreed to pay $11.15 in cash for LSI, representing a premium of nearly 41% on LSI’s Friday closing price of $7.91.</p>
<p>"This combination will increase the company's scale and diversify our revenue and customer base," Avago CEO Hock Tan said in a statement. "As we integrate LSI onto the Avago platform, we expect to drive LSI's operating margins toward Avago's current levels, creating significant additional value for stockholders."</p>
<p>Avago said the deal is expected to “significantly and immediately” add to its non-GAAP free cash flow and EPS. Avago also sees annual cost savings at a run rate of $200 million by the end of the fiscal year ending November 1, 2015.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of 2014.</p>
<p>"This transaction provides immediate value to our stockholders, and offers new growth opportunities for our employees to develop a wider range of leading-edge solutions for customers," said LSI CEO Abhi Talwalkar.</p>
<p>To pay for the deal, Avago said it plans to use $1 billion of cash from the combined balance sheet as well as fully-committed financing.</p>
<p>The financing consists of a $4.6 billion term loan from a group of banks and a $1 billion investment from private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners. The Silver Lake investment is expected to be in the form of a seven year 2% convertible note with a conversion price of $48.04 per share or preferred stock with equivalent terms.</p>
<p>Shares of LSI surged 38.56% to $10.96 on Monday on the agreement. Avago, which has dual headquarters in Singapore and San Jose, saw its shares rally 9.75% to $50.10.</p> | Avago Plunges Into Chip Storage Market With $6.6B Buyout of LSI | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/12/16/avago-to-buy-storage-chipmaker-lsi-for-66b.html | 2016-03-06 | 0right
| Avago Plunges Into Chip Storage Market With $6.6B Buyout of LSI
<p />
<p>In a move aimed at diversifying into the storage chip market, semiconductor Avago Technologies (NASDAQ:AVGO) announced a $6.6 billion buyout on Monday of LSI (NASDAQ:LSI).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Based in San Jose, LSI generated $2.5 billion in 2012 revenue by selling chips that are used in storage devices such as flash drives.</p>
<p>Avago, which makes analog chips used in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) products, agreed to pay $11.15 in cash for LSI, representing a premium of nearly 41% on LSI’s Friday closing price of $7.91.</p>
<p>"This combination will increase the company's scale and diversify our revenue and customer base," Avago CEO Hock Tan said in a statement. "As we integrate LSI onto the Avago platform, we expect to drive LSI's operating margins toward Avago's current levels, creating significant additional value for stockholders."</p>
<p>Avago said the deal is expected to “significantly and immediately” add to its non-GAAP free cash flow and EPS. Avago also sees annual cost savings at a run rate of $200 million by the end of the fiscal year ending November 1, 2015.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of 2014.</p>
<p>"This transaction provides immediate value to our stockholders, and offers new growth opportunities for our employees to develop a wider range of leading-edge solutions for customers," said LSI CEO Abhi Talwalkar.</p>
<p>To pay for the deal, Avago said it plans to use $1 billion of cash from the combined balance sheet as well as fully-committed financing.</p>
<p>The financing consists of a $4.6 billion term loan from a group of banks and a $1 billion investment from private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners. The Silver Lake investment is expected to be in the form of a seven year 2% convertible note with a conversion price of $48.04 per share or preferred stock with equivalent terms.</p>
<p>Shares of LSI surged 38.56% to $10.96 on Monday on the agreement. Avago, which has dual headquarters in Singapore and San Jose, saw its shares rally 9.75% to $50.10.</p> | 4,210 |
<p>Today marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The agreement was ceremonially signed on December 17, 1992 by President George HW Bush and was ratified the next year by Congress and President Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>NAFTA was controversial from the start when negotiations began in the mid 1980's. Many argued NAFTA would bleed American jobs to Mexico. Others said it would be a boon for the American economy. When President Clinton signed the bill, he said "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs."</p>
<p>The trade agreement allowed for the free flow of fruits and vegetables between the US, Canada and Mexico. There have undoubtedly been winners and losers on both sides. Among the losers: Florida's fresh tomato growers.</p>
<p>The state produces the most fresh tomatoes in the nation. But growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. And now, tomato growers, like Bob Spencer, are fighting back.</p>
<p>At Spencer's packing operation — for his company West Coast Tomato in the city of Palmetto — we watch as thousands of Roma tomatoes roll by every minute on big leather belts. Spencer pointed out cameras that were taking photos of each tomato.</p>
<p>"That picture is then sent up to these computers and it's making a determination of the size and color of the tomato."</p>
<p>Tomatoes were dropping off into different chutes, then seconds later, streams of nearly identical green tomatoes plopped into 25-pound cardboard boxes, bound for the Northeast and Canada. (Having uniform boxes ensures they'll be ripe at the same time.)</p>
<p>On a typical day, West Coast Tomato packages about 750,000 pounds of tomatoes. Impressive, no doubt, but they're running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago.</p>
<p>"And what's happened is the acreage in Florida has dropped as the competition from Mexico has had a dampening impact on our prices," said Sepncer. "A lot of the people that I would go to conventions with 20 years ago are no longer here."</p>
<p>According to the US Department of Agriculture, fresh tomato production in Florida has fallen 41 percent since NAFTA went into effect. Meanwhile tomato production in Mexico has gone the other way. Florida tomato growers argue they can't compete with the lower wages and less environmental oversight in Mexico.</p>
<p>Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA's passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. That included a 1996 deal that set a minimum price for imported tomatoes.</p>
<p>"Little did we know that the enforcement we bargained for was really not going to be any enforcement at all. The end result is we had Barney for our policeman; we didn't have Andy."</p>
<p>For those of you under a certain age, that's a reference to the Andy Griffith Show. Spencer's point: enforcement of imported tomatoes has been weak. So, Spencer and other fresh tomato growers are asking the Department of Commerce to rip up the 1996 minimum price deal. That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes.</p>
<p>Florida growers say the old agreement sets the base price too low and hasn't been updated appropriately to reflect current prices. And further, they accuse the Mexican growers of dumping tomatoes below cost, also known as predatory pricing, to run them out of business.</p>
<p>"One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can't ship in at costs below your costs of production," said Spencer.</p>
<p>That's a difficult accusation to prove though. And one that Mexican tomato farmer Martin Ley said they're not guilty of doing. Ley has been speaking on behalf of growers in his country. He said they're outselling Florida farmers because Mexican farmers are producing a better product, and one that American consumers can get year-round.</p>
<p>"Mexico has brought a tomato that is ripened naturally, is ripened on the plant, is ripened while it's getting all the nutrients, and all the sugars and plants," said Ley. "And that's why it is a good tasting tomato, naturally."</p>
<p>Ley warns that if the Florida growers get their way, consumers would be the biggest losers — he said we'd have fewer tomato varieties that cost more.</p>
<p>And other American farmers could lose if Florida tomato farmers win. The Mexican government is threatening retaliatory tariffs if the Commerce Department sides with American tomato producers. Martin Ley said free trade and NAFTA have worked as advertised.</p>
<p>"The transformation of the Mexican tomato industry has been amazing. NAFTA really made things easy for us to bring technology, to bring equipment, to bring new varieties. Now there is all kinds of cocktail tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, multiple color tomatoes, grape tomatoes, all kinds of stuff that has brought a lot of excitement to the store shelf."</p>
<p>And this is also not a simple case of Mexicans winning and Americans losing, said trade analyst Claude Barfield with the Washington think tank the American Enterprise Institute. He said Mexican tomatoes sold in American grocery stores are helping employ a lot of Americans.</p>
<p>"We have a very large sector that is dependent on trade in terms of the support of cross border trade. And it's not just the good itself, it's not just a truck, but it's the person who has to handle the financing, the people that have to handle the communications that bring this back and forth…"</p>
<p>…As well as lawyers and people stacking produce.</p>
<p>But Florida tomato producer Jim Grainger, owner of the Taylor &amp; Fulton Packing Company, asks: What about him? He said that the federal government needs to stand behind American growers.</p>
<p>"I don't want to see a foreign country put us out of business," said Grainger. "They (the federal government) helped the car manufacturers in Detroit for the same reason, or comparable reasons. And we're just looking for the same treatment. I mean we're not Detroit, we're Florida. And we don't want to be put out of business by the Mexicans or the Canadians. We want to still be in the business of feeding the United States of America, period."</p>
<p>Graninger added for good measure: His tomatoes are better than the Mexicans ones.</p>
<p>"I don't think they'll ever be better than ours in the state of Florida."</p>
<p>Another Florida tomato grower I met said the remaining tomato producers can handle two or three more bad seasons, then they'll all be gone. And if that happens, he said, fresh tomato production in Florida will be gone forever.</p>
<p>Then, he warns, we'll all be eating Mexican tomatoes, no matter which country's tomatoes we actually prefer.</p> | NAFTA 20 Years After: Florida's Tomato Growers Struggling | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-12-17/nafta-20-years-after-floridas-tomato-growers-struggling | 2012-12-17 | 3left-center
| NAFTA 20 Years After: Florida's Tomato Growers Struggling
<p>Today marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The agreement was ceremonially signed on December 17, 1992 by President George HW Bush and was ratified the next year by Congress and President Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>NAFTA was controversial from the start when negotiations began in the mid 1980's. Many argued NAFTA would bleed American jobs to Mexico. Others said it would be a boon for the American economy. When President Clinton signed the bill, he said "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs."</p>
<p>The trade agreement allowed for the free flow of fruits and vegetables between the US, Canada and Mexico. There have undoubtedly been winners and losers on both sides. Among the losers: Florida's fresh tomato growers.</p>
<p>The state produces the most fresh tomatoes in the nation. But growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. And now, tomato growers, like Bob Spencer, are fighting back.</p>
<p>At Spencer's packing operation — for his company West Coast Tomato in the city of Palmetto — we watch as thousands of Roma tomatoes roll by every minute on big leather belts. Spencer pointed out cameras that were taking photos of each tomato.</p>
<p>"That picture is then sent up to these computers and it's making a determination of the size and color of the tomato."</p>
<p>Tomatoes were dropping off into different chutes, then seconds later, streams of nearly identical green tomatoes plopped into 25-pound cardboard boxes, bound for the Northeast and Canada. (Having uniform boxes ensures they'll be ripe at the same time.)</p>
<p>On a typical day, West Coast Tomato packages about 750,000 pounds of tomatoes. Impressive, no doubt, but they're running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago.</p>
<p>"And what's happened is the acreage in Florida has dropped as the competition from Mexico has had a dampening impact on our prices," said Sepncer. "A lot of the people that I would go to conventions with 20 years ago are no longer here."</p>
<p>According to the US Department of Agriculture, fresh tomato production in Florida has fallen 41 percent since NAFTA went into effect. Meanwhile tomato production in Mexico has gone the other way. Florida tomato growers argue they can't compete with the lower wages and less environmental oversight in Mexico.</p>
<p>Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA's passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. That included a 1996 deal that set a minimum price for imported tomatoes.</p>
<p>"Little did we know that the enforcement we bargained for was really not going to be any enforcement at all. The end result is we had Barney for our policeman; we didn't have Andy."</p>
<p>For those of you under a certain age, that's a reference to the Andy Griffith Show. Spencer's point: enforcement of imported tomatoes has been weak. So, Spencer and other fresh tomato growers are asking the Department of Commerce to rip up the 1996 minimum price deal. That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes.</p>
<p>Florida growers say the old agreement sets the base price too low and hasn't been updated appropriately to reflect current prices. And further, they accuse the Mexican growers of dumping tomatoes below cost, also known as predatory pricing, to run them out of business.</p>
<p>"One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can't ship in at costs below your costs of production," said Spencer.</p>
<p>That's a difficult accusation to prove though. And one that Mexican tomato farmer Martin Ley said they're not guilty of doing. Ley has been speaking on behalf of growers in his country. He said they're outselling Florida farmers because Mexican farmers are producing a better product, and one that American consumers can get year-round.</p>
<p>"Mexico has brought a tomato that is ripened naturally, is ripened on the plant, is ripened while it's getting all the nutrients, and all the sugars and plants," said Ley. "And that's why it is a good tasting tomato, naturally."</p>
<p>Ley warns that if the Florida growers get their way, consumers would be the biggest losers — he said we'd have fewer tomato varieties that cost more.</p>
<p>And other American farmers could lose if Florida tomato farmers win. The Mexican government is threatening retaliatory tariffs if the Commerce Department sides with American tomato producers. Martin Ley said free trade and NAFTA have worked as advertised.</p>
<p>"The transformation of the Mexican tomato industry has been amazing. NAFTA really made things easy for us to bring technology, to bring equipment, to bring new varieties. Now there is all kinds of cocktail tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, multiple color tomatoes, grape tomatoes, all kinds of stuff that has brought a lot of excitement to the store shelf."</p>
<p>And this is also not a simple case of Mexicans winning and Americans losing, said trade analyst Claude Barfield with the Washington think tank the American Enterprise Institute. He said Mexican tomatoes sold in American grocery stores are helping employ a lot of Americans.</p>
<p>"We have a very large sector that is dependent on trade in terms of the support of cross border trade. And it's not just the good itself, it's not just a truck, but it's the person who has to handle the financing, the people that have to handle the communications that bring this back and forth…"</p>
<p>…As well as lawyers and people stacking produce.</p>
<p>But Florida tomato producer Jim Grainger, owner of the Taylor &amp; Fulton Packing Company, asks: What about him? He said that the federal government needs to stand behind American growers.</p>
<p>"I don't want to see a foreign country put us out of business," said Grainger. "They (the federal government) helped the car manufacturers in Detroit for the same reason, or comparable reasons. And we're just looking for the same treatment. I mean we're not Detroit, we're Florida. And we don't want to be put out of business by the Mexicans or the Canadians. We want to still be in the business of feeding the United States of America, period."</p>
<p>Graninger added for good measure: His tomatoes are better than the Mexicans ones.</p>
<p>"I don't think they'll ever be better than ours in the state of Florida."</p>
<p>Another Florida tomato grower I met said the remaining tomato producers can handle two or three more bad seasons, then they'll all be gone. And if that happens, he said, fresh tomato production in Florida will be gone forever.</p>
<p>Then, he warns, we'll all be eating Mexican tomatoes, no matter which country's tomatoes we actually prefer.</p> | 4,211 |
<p>Published time: 11 Oct, 2017 03:16Edited time: 11 Oct, 2017 03:31</p>
<p>The US men’s national soccer team has failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia after going down 2-1 away to bottom of the table Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
<p>“We have no excuses. We failed today. We should have walked off this field with at least a point,” said US coach Bruce Arena following the match at Ato Boldon Stadium in the small town of Couva, Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
<p>The score was 2-0 by the 36th minute, and even with Christian Pulisic’s goal after the break, the Americans failed to find an equalizer.</p>
<p>Before the final qualification round, the US was sitting 3rd in the standings among the six remaining CONCACAF nations competing for 3 spots. However, due to Panama beating Costa Rica and Honduras upsetting log leaders Mexico, the US slipped to 5th place.</p>
<p>“It’s a blemish for us,” Arena added, as cited by ESPN FC. “We should not be staying at home for this World Cup. And I take responsibility.”</p> | US misses first FIFA World Cup in 3 decades after 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago | false | https://newsline.com/us-misses-first-fifa-world-cup-in-3-decades-after-2-1-loss-to-trinidad-and-tobago/ | 2017-10-10 | 1right-center
| US misses first FIFA World Cup in 3 decades after 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago
<p>Published time: 11 Oct, 2017 03:16Edited time: 11 Oct, 2017 03:31</p>
<p>The US men’s national soccer team has failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia after going down 2-1 away to bottom of the table Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
<p>“We have no excuses. We failed today. We should have walked off this field with at least a point,” said US coach Bruce Arena following the match at Ato Boldon Stadium in the small town of Couva, Trinidad and Tobago.</p>
<p>The score was 2-0 by the 36th minute, and even with Christian Pulisic’s goal after the break, the Americans failed to find an equalizer.</p>
<p>Before the final qualification round, the US was sitting 3rd in the standings among the six remaining CONCACAF nations competing for 3 spots. However, due to Panama beating Costa Rica and Honduras upsetting log leaders Mexico, the US slipped to 5th place.</p>
<p>“It’s a blemish for us,” Arena added, as cited by ESPN FC. “We should not be staying at home for this World Cup. And I take responsibility.”</p> | 4,212 |
<p />
<p>Via CNN:</p>
<p>Sen. Tim Johnson, D-South Dakota, was hospitalized Wednesday after he suffered stroke-like symptoms in his Washington office, his staff said.</p>
<p>Johnson, who turns 60 on December 28, was taken to George Washington University Hospital by ambulance about 11:30 a.m., sources in his office said.</p>
<p>A statement issued by Johnson’s office said he was suffering from a “possible stroke.”</p>
<p>At this stage he is undergoing a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team,” the statement said. Staffers said that Johnson was conscious when he was transported to the hospital.</p>
<p>A lawyer and longtime state lawmaker, Johnson was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. He served five terms before he was elected to the Senate in 1996.</p>
<p>He is the senior senator from South Dakota and serves on numerous committees, including appropriations, budget, banking, energy and natural resources, and Indian affairs</p>
<p>.Should Johnson not be able to complete his term, which ends in 2008, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, could appoint his replacement, which could shift the balance of power in the Senate.</p>
<p>Johnson battled prostate cancer in 2004, and after surgery, tests showed he no longer had the disease, according to his Web site.</p>
<p /> | Breaking News: Dem Senator Has “Stroke-Like Symptoms.” Could Balance of Power Shift? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/12/breaking-news-dem-senator-has-stroke-symptoms-could-balance-power-shift/ | 2006-12-13 | 4left
| Breaking News: Dem Senator Has “Stroke-Like Symptoms.” Could Balance of Power Shift?
<p />
<p>Via CNN:</p>
<p>Sen. Tim Johnson, D-South Dakota, was hospitalized Wednesday after he suffered stroke-like symptoms in his Washington office, his staff said.</p>
<p>Johnson, who turns 60 on December 28, was taken to George Washington University Hospital by ambulance about 11:30 a.m., sources in his office said.</p>
<p>A statement issued by Johnson’s office said he was suffering from a “possible stroke.”</p>
<p>At this stage he is undergoing a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team,” the statement said. Staffers said that Johnson was conscious when he was transported to the hospital.</p>
<p>A lawyer and longtime state lawmaker, Johnson was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. He served five terms before he was elected to the Senate in 1996.</p>
<p>He is the senior senator from South Dakota and serves on numerous committees, including appropriations, budget, banking, energy and natural resources, and Indian affairs</p>
<p>.Should Johnson not be able to complete his term, which ends in 2008, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, could appoint his replacement, which could shift the balance of power in the Senate.</p>
<p>Johnson battled prostate cancer in 2004, and after surgery, tests showed he no longer had the disease, according to his Web site.</p>
<p /> | 4,213 |
<p>BOSTON, Mass. — Bombing attacks are always accompanied by more than just the loss they entail. People and media outlets, still reeling from the shock of the event, often provide an all-too candid portrait of attitudes that can come to the fore at a time of crisis.</p>
<p>As tragic as they are, massive bouts of violence stir up plenty material for anyone looking to spout out prejudices, provoke political aggression or simply profit from the paranoia and fear that naturally follow any calamity.</p>
<p>The Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three and injured more than 150 people, is hardly unique in bringing people and ideas of all sorts out of the woodwork and providing them with a perfect platform.</p>
<p>In the mere two days that have followed the event, everything from right-wing extremists to Islamic fundamentalists to government conspiracies have been blamed for the attack. All of these accusations are made despite the lack of conclusive evidence in an investigation that FBI officials admit is still in its “infancy.”</p>
<p>False flag: One theory that has leapt into this void of information is that of the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/false-flag-alex-jones-boston-marathon-bombing-family-231742713.html" type="external">“false flag,”</a>notably propagated by radio host Alex Jones. The US government planned the bombing under the auspices of a terrorist organization, Jones claimed, so that fearful citizens would give up more liberties to the federal government.</p>
<p>North Koreans: Others were quick to point at any foreign country that has been in the news lately, even if experts and officials have not in any way connected them to the attack.</p>
<p>I blame North Korea for this explosion at the Boston Marathon <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23LetsNukeThem" type="external">#LetsNukeThem</a></p>
<p>— Jeremy Breen (@_JB30) <a href="https://twitter.com/_JB30/status/323877547882455041" type="external">April 15, 2013</a></p>
<p>That Twitter user <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/boston-marathon-explosions-knee-jerk-twitter-rumors-run-gamut-north-korea-tea-party-1194007" type="external">was not alone</a> in debating the potential for Pyangyong's involvement. A group of South Korean Internet commentators who would like to see the North invaded are hoping that user's sentiment <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/today-north-korea/south-korea-website-boston-marathon-bombing" type="external">catches on in the US.</a></p>
<p>Tax Day: Governments have not been the only scapegoats. The Marathon bombings can seemingly be construed to meet any political or cultural end. Some Twitter users connected tax day and the Tea Party to the violence. Others quickly determined that Islamic extremists were responsible.</p>
<p>Muslims: Columnist Erik Rush did not stop at extremists, and distributed the blame across all Muslims. “Kill them all!” <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/erik-rush-boston-marathon-muslims_n_3087642.html?utm_hp_ref=media" type="external">he tweeted</a>, though later explained he was being sarcastic.</p>
<p>Conspiracy domains: With technology that makes possible the instant, unfiltered spread of ideas, no one is immune to accusations, sarcastic or otherwise. But unfiltered does not mean incurable, as the purchasers of domain names <a href="http://bostonmarathonconspiracy.com/" type="external">http://bostonmarathonconspiracy.com/</a>, <a href="http://bostonmarathonconspiracies.com" type="external">bostonmarathonconspiracies.com</a>, and <a href="http://bostonconspiracies.com" type="external">bostonconspiracies.com</a> can attest. On these websites, you won’t find any premature or outrageous theories. Instead, visitors are met only with the message, “Please keep the victims of this event and their families in your thoughts. Thank you.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Finger-pointing in the wake of the Boston attack | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-04-17/finger-pointing-wake-boston-attack | 2013-04-17 | 3left-center
| Finger-pointing in the wake of the Boston attack
<p>BOSTON, Mass. — Bombing attacks are always accompanied by more than just the loss they entail. People and media outlets, still reeling from the shock of the event, often provide an all-too candid portrait of attitudes that can come to the fore at a time of crisis.</p>
<p>As tragic as they are, massive bouts of violence stir up plenty material for anyone looking to spout out prejudices, provoke political aggression or simply profit from the paranoia and fear that naturally follow any calamity.</p>
<p>The Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three and injured more than 150 people, is hardly unique in bringing people and ideas of all sorts out of the woodwork and providing them with a perfect platform.</p>
<p>In the mere two days that have followed the event, everything from right-wing extremists to Islamic fundamentalists to government conspiracies have been blamed for the attack. All of these accusations are made despite the lack of conclusive evidence in an investigation that FBI officials admit is still in its “infancy.”</p>
<p>False flag: One theory that has leapt into this void of information is that of the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/false-flag-alex-jones-boston-marathon-bombing-family-231742713.html" type="external">“false flag,”</a>notably propagated by radio host Alex Jones. The US government planned the bombing under the auspices of a terrorist organization, Jones claimed, so that fearful citizens would give up more liberties to the federal government.</p>
<p>North Koreans: Others were quick to point at any foreign country that has been in the news lately, even if experts and officials have not in any way connected them to the attack.</p>
<p>I blame North Korea for this explosion at the Boston Marathon <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23LetsNukeThem" type="external">#LetsNukeThem</a></p>
<p>— Jeremy Breen (@_JB30) <a href="https://twitter.com/_JB30/status/323877547882455041" type="external">April 15, 2013</a></p>
<p>That Twitter user <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/boston-marathon-explosions-knee-jerk-twitter-rumors-run-gamut-north-korea-tea-party-1194007" type="external">was not alone</a> in debating the potential for Pyangyong's involvement. A group of South Korean Internet commentators who would like to see the North invaded are hoping that user's sentiment <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/today-north-korea/south-korea-website-boston-marathon-bombing" type="external">catches on in the US.</a></p>
<p>Tax Day: Governments have not been the only scapegoats. The Marathon bombings can seemingly be construed to meet any political or cultural end. Some Twitter users connected tax day and the Tea Party to the violence. Others quickly determined that Islamic extremists were responsible.</p>
<p>Muslims: Columnist Erik Rush did not stop at extremists, and distributed the blame across all Muslims. “Kill them all!” <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/erik-rush-boston-marathon-muslims_n_3087642.html?utm_hp_ref=media" type="external">he tweeted</a>, though later explained he was being sarcastic.</p>
<p>Conspiracy domains: With technology that makes possible the instant, unfiltered spread of ideas, no one is immune to accusations, sarcastic or otherwise. But unfiltered does not mean incurable, as the purchasers of domain names <a href="http://bostonmarathonconspiracy.com/" type="external">http://bostonmarathonconspiracy.com/</a>, <a href="http://bostonmarathonconspiracies.com" type="external">bostonmarathonconspiracies.com</a>, and <a href="http://bostonconspiracies.com" type="external">bostonconspiracies.com</a> can attest. On these websites, you won’t find any premature or outrageous theories. Instead, visitors are met only with the message, “Please keep the victims of this event and their families in your thoughts. Thank you.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,214 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Many more corporate hiring managers are on the lookout for engineering or business majors, according to the survey by Millennial Branding, a research and consulting firm, and <a href="http://Beyond.com" type="external">Beyond.com</a>, a career advisory website.</p>
<p>According to the poll, 27 percent of companies are seeking to recruit engineering and computer students, while 18 percent want business majors.</p>
<p>More than one in four companies are seeking to recruit engineering and computer students, while 18 percent want business majors.</p>
<p>The low percentage of companies seeking liberal-arts majors isn’t a shock given the tenor of today’s job market. However, more than four in five human-resource managers cited communication skills as a top trait they’re looking for in job candidates, a skill typically in abundance among liberal-arts majors.</p>
<p>“In the current economy, majoring in liberal arts won’t yield good job prospects, so you have to pair a liberal arts degree with business courses in order to become a more appealing candidate,” said Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding.</p>
<p>The poll surveyed almost 3,000 job seekers and 281 human-resource managers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As for getting hired, anyone who has ever blindly sent in a résumé to a job board or website should take heart.</p>
<p>According to the survey, 45 percent of companies say they find candidates on job boards. Nearly one in five said they get candidates from their company websites. An additional 17 percent look to employee referrals.</p>
<p>More than seven in 10 HR managers said that referral candidates get high priority when in job searches.</p>
<p>In the brewing debate about the value of a college degree, 73 percent of hiring managers said colleges are only “somewhat preparing” students for the working world.</p>
<p /> | Liberal-arts grads losing out in recruiting hunt | false | https://abqjournal.com/419101/liberalarts-grads-losing-out-in-recruiting-hunt.html | 2least
| Liberal-arts grads losing out in recruiting hunt
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Many more corporate hiring managers are on the lookout for engineering or business majors, according to the survey by Millennial Branding, a research and consulting firm, and <a href="http://Beyond.com" type="external">Beyond.com</a>, a career advisory website.</p>
<p>According to the poll, 27 percent of companies are seeking to recruit engineering and computer students, while 18 percent want business majors.</p>
<p>More than one in four companies are seeking to recruit engineering and computer students, while 18 percent want business majors.</p>
<p>The low percentage of companies seeking liberal-arts majors isn’t a shock given the tenor of today’s job market. However, more than four in five human-resource managers cited communication skills as a top trait they’re looking for in job candidates, a skill typically in abundance among liberal-arts majors.</p>
<p>“In the current economy, majoring in liberal arts won’t yield good job prospects, so you have to pair a liberal arts degree with business courses in order to become a more appealing candidate,” said Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding.</p>
<p>The poll surveyed almost 3,000 job seekers and 281 human-resource managers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As for getting hired, anyone who has ever blindly sent in a résumé to a job board or website should take heart.</p>
<p>According to the survey, 45 percent of companies say they find candidates on job boards. Nearly one in five said they get candidates from their company websites. An additional 17 percent look to employee referrals.</p>
<p>More than seven in 10 HR managers said that referral candidates get high priority when in job searches.</p>
<p>In the brewing debate about the value of a college degree, 73 percent of hiring managers said colleges are only “somewhat preparing” students for the working world.</p>
<p /> | 4,215 |
|
<p>By Sankalp Phartiyal</p>
<p>MUMBAI (Reuters) – Apple Inc (O:) has appointed Michel Coulomb as its top sales executive in India, replacing Sanjay Kaul, a source familiar with the move said on Tuesday, as the U.S. tech giant pursues a bigger share of the world’s third-largest smartphone market.</p>
<p>Coulomb has worked with Apple since 2003 and was most recently the managing director for Apple in South Asia, according to his biography on professional network LinkedIn (NYSE:).</p>
<p>The Economic Times newspaper had reported earlier on Tuesday that Kaul would be leaving after six years with Apple, citing people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Coulomb and Kaul were not immediately reachable.</p>
<p>The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of the iPhone is keen to widen its reach in India where it currently holds just under 3 percent of the smartphone market.</p>
<p>Apple’s sales rose 17 percent to 116.19 billion rupees ($1.81 billion) in the fiscal year to March 2017, much slower than the 50 percent growth in the previous year, regulatory filings show.</p>
<p>It is also seeking incentives and tax breaks from the federal government to expand manufacturing in India.</p>
<p>On Monday, Apple increased prices for all its phones in India by an average 3.5 percent after the government last week raised taxes on imported phones, except the low-cost SE model that it assembles through its Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron (TW:) in Bengaluru.</p>
<p>India’s price-sensitive market is currently dominated by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:), and Chinese players including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.</p>
<p>Apple’s iPhones remain aspirational for a rising middle class but their price keeps them out of the reach of many.</p>
<p>($1 = 64.1500 Indian rupees)</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> | Apple names long-time exec as new India sales head: source | false | https://newsline.com/apple-names-long-time-exec-as-new-india-sales-head-source/ | 2017-12-19 | 1right-center
| Apple names long-time exec as new India sales head: source
<p>By Sankalp Phartiyal</p>
<p>MUMBAI (Reuters) – Apple Inc (O:) has appointed Michel Coulomb as its top sales executive in India, replacing Sanjay Kaul, a source familiar with the move said on Tuesday, as the U.S. tech giant pursues a bigger share of the world’s third-largest smartphone market.</p>
<p>Coulomb has worked with Apple since 2003 and was most recently the managing director for Apple in South Asia, according to his biography on professional network LinkedIn (NYSE:).</p>
<p>The Economic Times newspaper had reported earlier on Tuesday that Kaul would be leaving after six years with Apple, citing people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Coulomb and Kaul were not immediately reachable.</p>
<p>The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of the iPhone is keen to widen its reach in India where it currently holds just under 3 percent of the smartphone market.</p>
<p>Apple’s sales rose 17 percent to 116.19 billion rupees ($1.81 billion) in the fiscal year to March 2017, much slower than the 50 percent growth in the previous year, regulatory filings show.</p>
<p>It is also seeking incentives and tax breaks from the federal government to expand manufacturing in India.</p>
<p>On Monday, Apple increased prices for all its phones in India by an average 3.5 percent after the government last week raised taxes on imported phones, except the low-cost SE model that it assembles through its Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron (TW:) in Bengaluru.</p>
<p>India’s price-sensitive market is currently dominated by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:), and Chinese players including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.</p>
<p>Apple’s iPhones remain aspirational for a rising middle class but their price keeps them out of the reach of many.</p>
<p>($1 = 64.1500 Indian rupees)</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> | 4,216 |
<p />
<p>Families battling to make ends meet in a weak job market and frail economy will continue to fight high food prices throughout the year thanks to rising wheat, corn and milk prices.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Food prices are expected to increase between 2.5%-3.4% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that’s on top of the 3.7% increase that hit cash-strapped families in 2011.</p>
<p>"Wheat and milk are both imbedded in most foods, so if prices for those commodities go up, then those costs will get passed onto the consumer," says Ed Butowsky, wealth manager at Chapwood Investments. "Whether you shop at the grocery store or you only eat out in restaurants, you're going to see the increase. It may only be 5 cents here or 10 cents there, but it adds up."</p>
<p>The high demand for corn, wheat, and dairy combined with sluggish supply due to bad weather conditions earlier this year has created the perfect storm for higher prices, he says. Unfortunately, prices may rise more than projected, increasing by 6%-10% later this year.</p>
<p>"It depends how much corn, how much wheat, how much dairy is available in the world. It comes from everywhere, and it's being sold everywhere, so these days you have to look at overall worldwide demand and there's 7 billion people to feed," he says.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many shoppers have already experienced increased prices at the grocery store, says Stephanie Nelson, founder of <a href="http://www.CouponMom.com" type="external">CouponMom.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"The manufacturers have figured out some clever ways to increase their revenue without shocking consumers," says Nelson. "In the last year I've seen packaging getting smaller and manufacturers demanding that consumers buy greater quantities in order to receive a break in price."</p>
<p>According to Nelson, many brand-name yogurts used to come in eight-ounce packages, now most of the containers contain six ounces, with some dropping to five ounces.</p>
<p>"Five ounces? I'd have to eat three of those!" she says.</p>
<p>Cereal boxes are also shrinking, she says. Two years ago most brand-name boxed cereals came in 16-ounce boxes, now many are only 14 ounces. Of course the price for these items hasn't changed.</p>
<p>"The quantities have gone down, but the prices have remained flat or increased," says Nelson.</p>
<p>The couponing world has also tightened up, she adds. She suggests bargain hunters pay close attention to coupons’ fine prints. Many manufacturers still offer two-for-one specials or half-off deals, but in order to activate the savings, consumers must purchase 10 participating items.</p>
<p>"They're still letting you have items at the sale price, but now you have to spend more to get it.”</p>
<p>Here are three tips from Nelson to combat rising food prices:</p>
<p>1.) Know the prices of the items you frequently buy. For example, if you know your favorite brand of cereal is usually $3 a box and you see it at your local market for $5, you know that's out of line, she says. "Don't be afraid to look at alternative retail options like no frills discount stores or Wal-Mart. You can still beat the rising costs by being strategic."</p>
<p>2.) Be flexible on brands. If you notice that your favorite brand has increased its prices, don't be afraid to test out the competition. "You may find another brand you like even more. Don't get too attached to names."</p>
<p>3.) Understand and take advantage of promotions. "You can still manage to pay what you paid a year ago if you take the time to understand how your store's promotions work," she says. "Don't be afraid to ask questions or shop on certain days of the week if you stand to save more money."</p> | Food Prices are on the Rise, Here’s How to Fight Back | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/06/25/food-prices-are-on-rise-heres-how-to-fight-back.html | 2017-02-08 | 0right
| Food Prices are on the Rise, Here’s How to Fight Back
<p />
<p>Families battling to make ends meet in a weak job market and frail economy will continue to fight high food prices throughout the year thanks to rising wheat, corn and milk prices.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Food prices are expected to increase between 2.5%-3.4% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that’s on top of the 3.7% increase that hit cash-strapped families in 2011.</p>
<p>"Wheat and milk are both imbedded in most foods, so if prices for those commodities go up, then those costs will get passed onto the consumer," says Ed Butowsky, wealth manager at Chapwood Investments. "Whether you shop at the grocery store or you only eat out in restaurants, you're going to see the increase. It may only be 5 cents here or 10 cents there, but it adds up."</p>
<p>The high demand for corn, wheat, and dairy combined with sluggish supply due to bad weather conditions earlier this year has created the perfect storm for higher prices, he says. Unfortunately, prices may rise more than projected, increasing by 6%-10% later this year.</p>
<p>"It depends how much corn, how much wheat, how much dairy is available in the world. It comes from everywhere, and it's being sold everywhere, so these days you have to look at overall worldwide demand and there's 7 billion people to feed," he says.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many shoppers have already experienced increased prices at the grocery store, says Stephanie Nelson, founder of <a href="http://www.CouponMom.com" type="external">CouponMom.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"The manufacturers have figured out some clever ways to increase their revenue without shocking consumers," says Nelson. "In the last year I've seen packaging getting smaller and manufacturers demanding that consumers buy greater quantities in order to receive a break in price."</p>
<p>According to Nelson, many brand-name yogurts used to come in eight-ounce packages, now most of the containers contain six ounces, with some dropping to five ounces.</p>
<p>"Five ounces? I'd have to eat three of those!" she says.</p>
<p>Cereal boxes are also shrinking, she says. Two years ago most brand-name boxed cereals came in 16-ounce boxes, now many are only 14 ounces. Of course the price for these items hasn't changed.</p>
<p>"The quantities have gone down, but the prices have remained flat or increased," says Nelson.</p>
<p>The couponing world has also tightened up, she adds. She suggests bargain hunters pay close attention to coupons’ fine prints. Many manufacturers still offer two-for-one specials or half-off deals, but in order to activate the savings, consumers must purchase 10 participating items.</p>
<p>"They're still letting you have items at the sale price, but now you have to spend more to get it.”</p>
<p>Here are three tips from Nelson to combat rising food prices:</p>
<p>1.) Know the prices of the items you frequently buy. For example, if you know your favorite brand of cereal is usually $3 a box and you see it at your local market for $5, you know that's out of line, she says. "Don't be afraid to look at alternative retail options like no frills discount stores or Wal-Mart. You can still beat the rising costs by being strategic."</p>
<p>2.) Be flexible on brands. If you notice that your favorite brand has increased its prices, don't be afraid to test out the competition. "You may find another brand you like even more. Don't get too attached to names."</p>
<p>3.) Understand and take advantage of promotions. "You can still manage to pay what you paid a year ago if you take the time to understand how your store's promotions work," she says. "Don't be afraid to ask questions or shop on certain days of the week if you stand to save more money."</p> | 4,217 |
<p>With passing day, the likelihood of war in the Gulf region grows despite the efforts of many people, in and out of the realm of international and national politics, to prevent another episode of military violence as a purported means of resolving the problems in Iraq; problems which many people in the world and in our own nation believe could well be handled through diplomacy and the ongoing U.N. weapons inspections.</p>
<p>Yet the almost hypnotic pull toward war, a war that will be dominated by another display of overwhelming high-tech weaponry, looks to prevail in the coming months.</p>
<p>After 9/11, “everything changed.” That was the prevailing theme of comments made in those terrible first weeks after the devastating events. Surely, this seemed as if it was one of the defining moments of human history calling for significant change. But what actually changed? Or did the response to 9/11 simply accelerate the slippery slope humanity has been on since the end of World War II?</p>
<p>The sense of fear we experienced in September 2001 is certainly not diminishing. Almost every new episode of violence is countered by a response of equal or greater violence. Yet to lay the cause of today’s worldwide insecurity exclusively at the door of terrorism and “rogue nations” is to avoid seeing the long-term perspective and threats of our time and the future.</p>
<p>I refer to the widening gap between the magnitude of humankind’s high-technological capacities in the realm of weaponry and warfare, as compared to our limited ability to resolve disputes peacefully. In this dilemma we can, to some extent, foresee the greatest danger of all for this planet and its people. Soon after the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japanese civilian centers at the end of World War II, Albert Einstein, whose discoveries went a long way toward making such weaponry a reality, is quoted as saying: “Everything has changed – except the way we think.”</p>
<p>“If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”</p>
<p>More than 50 years later, we see the awesome but tragic unfolding of a new phase in human history. Our unlimited technology advances and the rapid spread of their use throughout the planet – without a consequent growth of restraint and wisdom – are leading to an unprecedented imbalance in almost every sphere affecting human life and the health of the planet.</p>
<p>Unlike earlier periods, our abilities today to inflict massive destruction on an “enemy” are limited only by the scope of our imaginations. The U.S. arsenal of military weaponry, including missile and nuclear technology, is extraordinary. Yet the patience and wisdom required to seek and utilize methods alternative to brute violence is in short supply.</p>
<p>We persist far too often in the belief that we can control or end opposing ideas we deem evil through our overwhelming military power rather than dealing with international conflicts by nonviolent methods. Despite the growing realization that all beings deserve respect, and that the mass killing of civilians in war is unacceptable, even when classified as “collateral damage,” it is still possible to win support for intense military violence if the case for war is presented with sufficient arguments and “facts” to bolster the image of a fearful enemy.</p>
<p>There is nothing new in the way governments and their leaders use simple psychology tactics to bring the public on board when they believe it is in their interest to do so. At the Nuremberg trials after the end of World War II, Hermann Goering, a high-ranking Nazi official in Germany, stated: “It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to tell them is that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”</p>
<p>There is something very strange and troubling when the world’s foremost military power; the only nation to possess thousands of nuclear bombs, nuclear weaponry, missiles; the only nation to have actually used atomic bombs on a civilian population, demands the total disarmament of a small, devastated nation under threat of pulverizing that nation into total submission and regime change.</p>
<p>Incredibly, this threat includes the possible use of nuclear weapons to deal with the possibility that the other nation might have some nuclear capability.</p>
<p>We would like to believe that the United States could be the force of change that might deliver humanity from its present misery, often as not due to poverty aggravated by endless wars. Yet it is well known that the United States leads the world in sales of weapons of every variety. The character and quality of a nation – even a superpower – can be judged by its priorities. A look at the figures describing our global military expenditures tell the story.</p>
<p>The United States will spend $343 billion this year (and increasing amounts each coming year) for military expenditures. All our allies combined will spend $205 billion in 2003, China $42 billion, Russia $60 billion, while all the so-called rogue states’ military budgets will not exceed $14 billion.</p>
<p>It is not difficult to foresee an abyss into which many centuries of ethical-moral progress may fall. At a time when the technology of war has succeeded in making weaponry more lethal, while bestowing an aura of surgical cleanliness as a way of having modern warfare seem more “acceptable,” it is essential that we not lose the moral foundations of our humanity, still striving to affirm the value of all life against the tremendous odds of a power-dominated planet.</p>
<p>As one of millions of Americans who can see no legitimate reason for a new war, and who has tried to speak sanity to our current leadership, I wonder how we shall endure the anguish of watching the needless massacre of innocent lives and the devastation of fragile regions of our precious Earth. How shall those of us who truly believe that violence only begets more violence, and that the risks of peace are far less than those of war, walk on and not despair?</p>
<p>ALWYN MOSS lives in Blacksburg, Virginia. She is a writer, art teacher and member of the Society of Friends. Moss can be reached at: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | When Wisdom Lags Behind Technopower | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/01/24/when-wisdom-lags-behind-technopower/ | 2003-01-24 | 4left
| When Wisdom Lags Behind Technopower
<p>With passing day, the likelihood of war in the Gulf region grows despite the efforts of many people, in and out of the realm of international and national politics, to prevent another episode of military violence as a purported means of resolving the problems in Iraq; problems which many people in the world and in our own nation believe could well be handled through diplomacy and the ongoing U.N. weapons inspections.</p>
<p>Yet the almost hypnotic pull toward war, a war that will be dominated by another display of overwhelming high-tech weaponry, looks to prevail in the coming months.</p>
<p>After 9/11, “everything changed.” That was the prevailing theme of comments made in those terrible first weeks after the devastating events. Surely, this seemed as if it was one of the defining moments of human history calling for significant change. But what actually changed? Or did the response to 9/11 simply accelerate the slippery slope humanity has been on since the end of World War II?</p>
<p>The sense of fear we experienced in September 2001 is certainly not diminishing. Almost every new episode of violence is countered by a response of equal or greater violence. Yet to lay the cause of today’s worldwide insecurity exclusively at the door of terrorism and “rogue nations” is to avoid seeing the long-term perspective and threats of our time and the future.</p>
<p>I refer to the widening gap between the magnitude of humankind’s high-technological capacities in the realm of weaponry and warfare, as compared to our limited ability to resolve disputes peacefully. In this dilemma we can, to some extent, foresee the greatest danger of all for this planet and its people. Soon after the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japanese civilian centers at the end of World War II, Albert Einstein, whose discoveries went a long way toward making such weaponry a reality, is quoted as saying: “Everything has changed – except the way we think.”</p>
<p>“If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”</p>
<p>More than 50 years later, we see the awesome but tragic unfolding of a new phase in human history. Our unlimited technology advances and the rapid spread of their use throughout the planet – without a consequent growth of restraint and wisdom – are leading to an unprecedented imbalance in almost every sphere affecting human life and the health of the planet.</p>
<p>Unlike earlier periods, our abilities today to inflict massive destruction on an “enemy” are limited only by the scope of our imaginations. The U.S. arsenal of military weaponry, including missile and nuclear technology, is extraordinary. Yet the patience and wisdom required to seek and utilize methods alternative to brute violence is in short supply.</p>
<p>We persist far too often in the belief that we can control or end opposing ideas we deem evil through our overwhelming military power rather than dealing with international conflicts by nonviolent methods. Despite the growing realization that all beings deserve respect, and that the mass killing of civilians in war is unacceptable, even when classified as “collateral damage,” it is still possible to win support for intense military violence if the case for war is presented with sufficient arguments and “facts” to bolster the image of a fearful enemy.</p>
<p>There is nothing new in the way governments and their leaders use simple psychology tactics to bring the public on board when they believe it is in their interest to do so. At the Nuremberg trials after the end of World War II, Hermann Goering, a high-ranking Nazi official in Germany, stated: “It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to tell them is that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”</p>
<p>There is something very strange and troubling when the world’s foremost military power; the only nation to possess thousands of nuclear bombs, nuclear weaponry, missiles; the only nation to have actually used atomic bombs on a civilian population, demands the total disarmament of a small, devastated nation under threat of pulverizing that nation into total submission and regime change.</p>
<p>Incredibly, this threat includes the possible use of nuclear weapons to deal with the possibility that the other nation might have some nuclear capability.</p>
<p>We would like to believe that the United States could be the force of change that might deliver humanity from its present misery, often as not due to poverty aggravated by endless wars. Yet it is well known that the United States leads the world in sales of weapons of every variety. The character and quality of a nation – even a superpower – can be judged by its priorities. A look at the figures describing our global military expenditures tell the story.</p>
<p>The United States will spend $343 billion this year (and increasing amounts each coming year) for military expenditures. All our allies combined will spend $205 billion in 2003, China $42 billion, Russia $60 billion, while all the so-called rogue states’ military budgets will not exceed $14 billion.</p>
<p>It is not difficult to foresee an abyss into which many centuries of ethical-moral progress may fall. At a time when the technology of war has succeeded in making weaponry more lethal, while bestowing an aura of surgical cleanliness as a way of having modern warfare seem more “acceptable,” it is essential that we not lose the moral foundations of our humanity, still striving to affirm the value of all life against the tremendous odds of a power-dominated planet.</p>
<p>As one of millions of Americans who can see no legitimate reason for a new war, and who has tried to speak sanity to our current leadership, I wonder how we shall endure the anguish of watching the needless massacre of innocent lives and the devastation of fragile regions of our precious Earth. How shall those of us who truly believe that violence only begets more violence, and that the risks of peace are far less than those of war, walk on and not despair?</p>
<p>ALWYN MOSS lives in Blacksburg, Virginia. She is a writer, art teacher and member of the Society of Friends. Moss can be reached at: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,218 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — James Harrison, the owner of a Phoenix-based specialty construction firm, employs three workers protected by an Obama-era immigration program that the Trump administration took steps Tuesday to eliminate .</p>
<p>Should those workers — who were brought to the United States illegally as children — be deported, Harrison doubts he would find other workers to replace them anytime soon.</p>
<p>“These are some of my top guys,” Harrison said. “They don’t drink, they don’t do drugs, they don’t do anything but work.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>His own grandfather, Harrison said, immigrated to the United States from England without any paperwork.</p>
<p>His on-the-ground viewpoint couldn’t be more different from that of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who made the questionable assertion Tuesday that the Obama administration’s measure “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.”</p>
<p>Nearly all economists and most business leaders reject Sessions’ view. Ending the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, won’t boost U.S. employment at a time when an aging workforce and a low jobless rate have left many employers struggling to find skilled workers. Eliminating the program might even cost jobs in the long run, they say.</p>
<p>The program allows immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay in the United States, attend school and find jobs. Those who benefit are sometimes called “Dreamers,” after early proposals in Congress that never passed. President Barack Obama implemented the program in 2012.</p>
<p>The administration said the measure will phase out over six months, giving Congress an opportunity to approve a replacement plan.</p>
<p>More broadly, economists warn that eliminating DACA, along with other steps the Trump administration has taken, such as banning travel from several Muslim nations and proposing cuts to legal immigration, could inflict long-term damage on the economy. The proposals could discourage potential immigrants, including those with advanced degrees and skills, from entering the United States. Some immigrants already in the U.S. might refrain from starting businesses, analysts say.</p>
<p>“It says to immigrants in the United States that you have no certainty in this country,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That will have economic impacts that will go well beyond the employment circumstances and prospects of the Dreamers themselves.”</p>
<p>Immigrants are generally more likely to start companies than are native-born Americans, Alden said. About 40 percent of Silicon Valley companies have had at least one immigrant founder.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Harrison’s company performs sand-blasting work that strips lead paint and mold. He was planning to leave for Houston to take part in recovery work from Hurricane Harvey.</p>
<p>Last week, Harrison signed a letter , along with about 400 other CEOs, urging the administration to preserve the DACA program. The letter says nearly three-quarters of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies employ some of the roughly 800,000 people protected by the measure.</p>
<p>Microsoft, which says it employs at least 39 beneficiaries of the program, urged Congress to approve legislation that would keep the policy before it takes up tax reform.</p>
<p>Studies have found that the economic damage caused by expelling those protected by the measure would be modest but noticeable. The libertarian Cato Institute estimated it would cost the U.S. economy $215 billion over 10 years, a small drop given that the nation’s output is roughly $17 trillion every year.</p>
<p>But most economists see immigration generally as an economic boon. That’s particularly true as the U.S. ages, which means more Americans are retiring. Those retirements have slowed the growth of the U.S. workforce — a trend that, in turn, limits the economy’s potential expansion.</p>
<p>The U.S. economy has expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate since the Great Recession ended in 2009. President Donald Trump has said he wants to raise that pace to at least 3 percent.</p>
<p>“If you want to raise the economy’s underlying growth rate, we should be increasing immigration, not reducing it,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.</p>
<p>The Cato study notes that beneficiaries of DACA are similar to the highly-skilled immigrants who are granted H-1B visas to work in the United States. The average beneficiary is 22, has a job, and earns about $34,000 a year, Cato says.</p>
<p>Nearly three-fifths reported finding work after the program was implemented, a 2014 survey found, and 45 percent said they received a pay increase.</p>
<p>Deporting DACA recipients would reduce Social Security and Medicare tax revenue by $24.6 billion over a decade, according to research by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.</p>
<p>Like Harrison, many business owners say they are struggling to fill open jobs. The unemployment rate is near a 16-year low, and the number of available jobs in June reached the highest level on records dating to 2001.</p>
<p>Andy Shallal, the owner of Busboys &amp; Poets, a six-restaurant chain in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, said he is always looking to hire more people.</p>
<p>“Immigrants are the ones who show up looking for work,” he said. “We’re not passing over people who are citizens.”</p>
<p>Shallal, who once ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Washington, D.C., emigrated from Iraq in 1966.</p>
<p>Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite, a company that makes recruiting software, also signed the business letter opposing Trump’s decision.</p>
<p>He agrees that the U.S. needs more workers and believes the information technology industry has benefited from greater immigration. But he was also moved by other concerns.</p>
<p>“It just struck me as immoral and un-American to send children who are not responsible for the decisions of their parents back to a nation, wherever they come from, that they don’t know,” he said.</p> | Trump’s harsh message to immigrants could drag on economy | false | https://abqjournal.com/1059227/trumps-harsh-message-to-immigrants-could-drag-on-economy.html | 2017-09-06 | 2least
| Trump’s harsh message to immigrants could drag on economy
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — James Harrison, the owner of a Phoenix-based specialty construction firm, employs three workers protected by an Obama-era immigration program that the Trump administration took steps Tuesday to eliminate .</p>
<p>Should those workers — who were brought to the United States illegally as children — be deported, Harrison doubts he would find other workers to replace them anytime soon.</p>
<p>“These are some of my top guys,” Harrison said. “They don’t drink, they don’t do drugs, they don’t do anything but work.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>His own grandfather, Harrison said, immigrated to the United States from England without any paperwork.</p>
<p>His on-the-ground viewpoint couldn’t be more different from that of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who made the questionable assertion Tuesday that the Obama administration’s measure “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.”</p>
<p>Nearly all economists and most business leaders reject Sessions’ view. Ending the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, won’t boost U.S. employment at a time when an aging workforce and a low jobless rate have left many employers struggling to find skilled workers. Eliminating the program might even cost jobs in the long run, they say.</p>
<p>The program allows immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay in the United States, attend school and find jobs. Those who benefit are sometimes called “Dreamers,” after early proposals in Congress that never passed. President Barack Obama implemented the program in 2012.</p>
<p>The administration said the measure will phase out over six months, giving Congress an opportunity to approve a replacement plan.</p>
<p>More broadly, economists warn that eliminating DACA, along with other steps the Trump administration has taken, such as banning travel from several Muslim nations and proposing cuts to legal immigration, could inflict long-term damage on the economy. The proposals could discourage potential immigrants, including those with advanced degrees and skills, from entering the United States. Some immigrants already in the U.S. might refrain from starting businesses, analysts say.</p>
<p>“It says to immigrants in the United States that you have no certainty in this country,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That will have economic impacts that will go well beyond the employment circumstances and prospects of the Dreamers themselves.”</p>
<p>Immigrants are generally more likely to start companies than are native-born Americans, Alden said. About 40 percent of Silicon Valley companies have had at least one immigrant founder.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Harrison’s company performs sand-blasting work that strips lead paint and mold. He was planning to leave for Houston to take part in recovery work from Hurricane Harvey.</p>
<p>Last week, Harrison signed a letter , along with about 400 other CEOs, urging the administration to preserve the DACA program. The letter says nearly three-quarters of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies employ some of the roughly 800,000 people protected by the measure.</p>
<p>Microsoft, which says it employs at least 39 beneficiaries of the program, urged Congress to approve legislation that would keep the policy before it takes up tax reform.</p>
<p>Studies have found that the economic damage caused by expelling those protected by the measure would be modest but noticeable. The libertarian Cato Institute estimated it would cost the U.S. economy $215 billion over 10 years, a small drop given that the nation’s output is roughly $17 trillion every year.</p>
<p>But most economists see immigration generally as an economic boon. That’s particularly true as the U.S. ages, which means more Americans are retiring. Those retirements have slowed the growth of the U.S. workforce — a trend that, in turn, limits the economy’s potential expansion.</p>
<p>The U.S. economy has expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate since the Great Recession ended in 2009. President Donald Trump has said he wants to raise that pace to at least 3 percent.</p>
<p>“If you want to raise the economy’s underlying growth rate, we should be increasing immigration, not reducing it,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.</p>
<p>The Cato study notes that beneficiaries of DACA are similar to the highly-skilled immigrants who are granted H-1B visas to work in the United States. The average beneficiary is 22, has a job, and earns about $34,000 a year, Cato says.</p>
<p>Nearly three-fifths reported finding work after the program was implemented, a 2014 survey found, and 45 percent said they received a pay increase.</p>
<p>Deporting DACA recipients would reduce Social Security and Medicare tax revenue by $24.6 billion over a decade, according to research by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.</p>
<p>Like Harrison, many business owners say they are struggling to fill open jobs. The unemployment rate is near a 16-year low, and the number of available jobs in June reached the highest level on records dating to 2001.</p>
<p>Andy Shallal, the owner of Busboys &amp; Poets, a six-restaurant chain in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, said he is always looking to hire more people.</p>
<p>“Immigrants are the ones who show up looking for work,” he said. “We’re not passing over people who are citizens.”</p>
<p>Shallal, who once ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Washington, D.C., emigrated from Iraq in 1966.</p>
<p>Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite, a company that makes recruiting software, also signed the business letter opposing Trump’s decision.</p>
<p>He agrees that the U.S. needs more workers and believes the information technology industry has benefited from greater immigration. But he was also moved by other concerns.</p>
<p>“It just struck me as immoral and un-American to send children who are not responsible for the decisions of their parents back to a nation, wherever they come from, that they don’t know,” he said.</p> | 4,219 |
<p>Shares of some top insurance companies were up at the close of trading:</p>
<p>ACE L rose $.06 or .1 percent, to $111.26.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Aflac Inc. rose $.39 or .6 percent, to $63.97.</p>
<p>American International Group rose $.28 or .5 percent, to $55.42.</p>
<p>MBIA rose $.03 or .3 percent, to $9.50.</p>
<p>MGIC Investments Corp. rose $.13 or 1.3 percent, to $9.86.</p>
<p>MetLife rose $.07 or .1 percent, to $51.17.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>XL Group PLC rose $.22 or .6 percent, to $37.30.</p> | Insurance companies shares up at the close of trading | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/02/05/insurance-companies-shares-up-at-close-trading.html | 2016-03-05 | 0right
| Insurance companies shares up at the close of trading
<p>Shares of some top insurance companies were up at the close of trading:</p>
<p>ACE L rose $.06 or .1 percent, to $111.26.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Aflac Inc. rose $.39 or .6 percent, to $63.97.</p>
<p>American International Group rose $.28 or .5 percent, to $55.42.</p>
<p>MBIA rose $.03 or .3 percent, to $9.50.</p>
<p>MGIC Investments Corp. rose $.13 or 1.3 percent, to $9.86.</p>
<p>MetLife rose $.07 or .1 percent, to $51.17.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>XL Group PLC rose $.22 or .6 percent, to $37.30.</p> | 4,220 |
<p />
<p>Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has quit President Donald Trump's council of business leaders, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Kalanick wrote to his employees that he'd spoken with Trump on Thursday to "let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that."</p>
<p>His departure came on the eve of the first meeting of the group at the White House, planned for Friday.</p>
<p>White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Led by Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and chief executive of the private equity group Blackstone, the council has about 15 members, including the leaders of Wal-Mart, Tesla, the Cleveland Clinic and Pepsi.</p>
<p>The council is "designed to provide direct input to the president from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic, and nonpartisan manner," according to a Blackstone press release in December announcing its formation.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yet public outcry about Trump — specifically his executive order suspending the country's refugee program and halting other aspects of immigration — has put some business leaders in an uncomfortable spot.</p>
<p>Uber, a ride-sharing company has been buffeted all week by boycott campaigns that began when people perceived it as trying to break a taxi strike to and from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport that was in response to the executive order on refugees.</p>
<p>Kalanick subsequently condemned the executive order and has contributed to relief groups, but calls for a boycott had continued. One woman urging boycotts for all companies tied to Trump said only total resignation from the Trump business forum would satisfy her.</p>
<p>"This is not a 'seat at the table' moment. This is a flip-the-table moment," said Shannon Coulter, one of the organizers of the anti-Trump social media campaign "Grab Your Wallet."</p>
<p>Other forum members said they'd keep their commitment.</p>
<p>General Motors Co. CEO Mary Barra remains a member of the advisory group and plans to attend the meeting on Friday, spokesman Patrick Morrissey said.</p>
<p>Tesla Inc. didn't immediately respond when asked whether CEO Elon Musk planned to remain on Trump's business and manufacturing councils. Earlier this week, Musk asked his Twitter followers to read the immigration order and send him specific amendments he could present to the president.</p>
<p>Musk has said that the refugee order "is not the best way to address the country's challenges."</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.</p> | Uber chief quits Trump business council amid boycott calls | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/02/uber-chief-quits-trump-business-council-amid-boycott-calls.html | 2017-02-03 | 0right
| Uber chief quits Trump business council amid boycott calls
<p />
<p>Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has quit President Donald Trump's council of business leaders, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Kalanick wrote to his employees that he'd spoken with Trump on Thursday to "let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that."</p>
<p>His departure came on the eve of the first meeting of the group at the White House, planned for Friday.</p>
<p>White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Led by Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and chief executive of the private equity group Blackstone, the council has about 15 members, including the leaders of Wal-Mart, Tesla, the Cleveland Clinic and Pepsi.</p>
<p>The council is "designed to provide direct input to the president from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic, and nonpartisan manner," according to a Blackstone press release in December announcing its formation.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yet public outcry about Trump — specifically his executive order suspending the country's refugee program and halting other aspects of immigration — has put some business leaders in an uncomfortable spot.</p>
<p>Uber, a ride-sharing company has been buffeted all week by boycott campaigns that began when people perceived it as trying to break a taxi strike to and from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport that was in response to the executive order on refugees.</p>
<p>Kalanick subsequently condemned the executive order and has contributed to relief groups, but calls for a boycott had continued. One woman urging boycotts for all companies tied to Trump said only total resignation from the Trump business forum would satisfy her.</p>
<p>"This is not a 'seat at the table' moment. This is a flip-the-table moment," said Shannon Coulter, one of the organizers of the anti-Trump social media campaign "Grab Your Wallet."</p>
<p>Other forum members said they'd keep their commitment.</p>
<p>General Motors Co. CEO Mary Barra remains a member of the advisory group and plans to attend the meeting on Friday, spokesman Patrick Morrissey said.</p>
<p>Tesla Inc. didn't immediately respond when asked whether CEO Elon Musk planned to remain on Trump's business and manufacturing councils. Earlier this week, Musk asked his Twitter followers to read the immigration order and send him specific amendments he could present to the president.</p>
<p>Musk has said that the refugee order "is not the best way to address the country's challenges."</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.</p> | 4,221 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Night" game were:</p>
<p>8-7-6, Sum It Up: 21</p>
<p>(eight, seven, six; Sum It Up: twenty-one)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Night" game were:</p>
<p>8-7-6, Sum It Up: 21</p>
<p>(eight, seven, six; Sum It Up: twenty-one)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 3 Night' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/34404ad5bedd40a9888c1d16511894d5 | 2018-01-19 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 3 Night' game
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Night" game were:</p>
<p>8-7-6, Sum It Up: 21</p>
<p>(eight, seven, six; Sum It Up: twenty-one)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Night" game were:</p>
<p>8-7-6, Sum It Up: 21</p>
<p>(eight, seven, six; Sum It Up: twenty-one)</p> | 4,222 |
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<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The city manager in Augusta, Maine, says the municipal office building had to be sprayed for bedbugs after a man threw a cup of the pests onto an office counter and about 100 of them scattered off.</p>
<p>City Manager William Bridgeo tells the Kennebec Journal ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2sySI9f" type="external">http://bit.ly/2sySI9f</a>) the man apparently complained Friday to the code enforcement office about bedbugs at his former apartment then left, but returned after he showed the cup of bugs to a manager at his new apartment and was told he couldn't live there.</p>
<p>Bridgeo says the man let the bugs loose in the General Assistance Office where he asked for a form to request assistance and apparently was told he didn't qualify.</p>
<p>Police didn't immediately release the man's name or say if any charges would be filed.</p>
<p><a href="#5feafed7-a00c-4d0d-875b-e265589c54e6" type="external">© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Disgruntled man releases bedbugs in Maine city office | false | https://abqjournal.com/1012559/disgruntled-man-releases-bedbugs-in-maine-city-office.html | 2017-06-03 | 2least
| Disgruntled man releases bedbugs in Maine city office
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The city manager in Augusta, Maine, says the municipal office building had to be sprayed for bedbugs after a man threw a cup of the pests onto an office counter and about 100 of them scattered off.</p>
<p>City Manager William Bridgeo tells the Kennebec Journal ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2sySI9f" type="external">http://bit.ly/2sySI9f</a>) the man apparently complained Friday to the code enforcement office about bedbugs at his former apartment then left, but returned after he showed the cup of bugs to a manager at his new apartment and was told he couldn't live there.</p>
<p>Bridgeo says the man let the bugs loose in the General Assistance Office where he asked for a form to request assistance and apparently was told he didn't qualify.</p>
<p>Police didn't immediately release the man's name or say if any charges would be filed.</p>
<p><a href="#5feafed7-a00c-4d0d-875b-e265589c54e6" type="external">© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 4,223 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The explosive revelation that the FBI is reopening its investigation into the private email server controversy of Hillary Clinton puts the Democratic nominee and her entire campaign practically in a no-win situation.</p>
<p>Such is the view put forward by Republican political consultant and policy advisor Karl Rove in an interview with On The Record of Fox News.</p>
<p>For one, Rove said that the reports going around that the reinvestigation is triggered by new emails discovered by the FBI from the seized devices of Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife and Clinton close aid Huma Abedin puts the latter in a sticky position. The new emails uncovered by the FBI originally in relation to an investigation into Weiner's alleged sexting with an underage girl could potentially prove that Abedin lied in her earlier sworn statement with the bureau.</p>
<p>If proven that Abedin willfully lied to the FBI during the first investigation, she can face charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. That leaves the question now- has she become a liability to the Clinton campaign as we fast approach the final week? And if yes, should she then just resign and leave the campaign?</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton appears desperate for the FBI to just get the whole thing over and done with. But an Abedin resignation has no assurance that the issue will just disappear as Hillary so wishes. On the other hand, stepping away now for Abedin could add more fuel to the already volatile situation, one that puts in the spotlight not just Abedin's guilt but more so that of Hillary, no less.</p>
<p>Senior elections analyst Sean Trende said that the last thing that the Hillary campaign would want is for the issue to dominate the headlines for the next 11 last days of the campaign. But that's nearly improbable given that it is a crucial and legitimate matter, that even the pro-Hillary mainstream media would be hard pressed to pick up the issue.</p>
<p>Rep. Trey Gowdy believes Hillary has no one to blame but herself for this mess, as the</p>
<p>"extraordinary" situation she now finds herself is the result of her " extraordinary email arrangement".</p>
<p>Gowdy said Hillary was the "author of her own destiny", and what's happening now is nothing but just the logical consequence of a risky and possibly illegal decision she made when she had that private server. Gowdy added that Hillary may be upset now and hate the timing of the fresh controversies, but she brought all these upon herself and she's all to blame.</p>
<p>Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway thinks being under FBI investigation for the second time in one year is a huge problem for Hillary as it presents both a corruption and ethics problem for her. Something which has been haunting Hillary all this time and will continue to do so until election day.</p> | Hillary In A No-Win Situation Over FBI's Reopening Her Email Server Scandal | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/321-Hillary-In-A-No-Win-Situation-Over-FBI-s-Reopening-Her-Email-Server-Scandal | 2016-10-30 | 0right
| Hillary In A No-Win Situation Over FBI's Reopening Her Email Server Scandal
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The explosive revelation that the FBI is reopening its investigation into the private email server controversy of Hillary Clinton puts the Democratic nominee and her entire campaign practically in a no-win situation.</p>
<p>Such is the view put forward by Republican political consultant and policy advisor Karl Rove in an interview with On The Record of Fox News.</p>
<p>For one, Rove said that the reports going around that the reinvestigation is triggered by new emails discovered by the FBI from the seized devices of Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife and Clinton close aid Huma Abedin puts the latter in a sticky position. The new emails uncovered by the FBI originally in relation to an investigation into Weiner's alleged sexting with an underage girl could potentially prove that Abedin lied in her earlier sworn statement with the bureau.</p>
<p>If proven that Abedin willfully lied to the FBI during the first investigation, she can face charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. That leaves the question now- has she become a liability to the Clinton campaign as we fast approach the final week? And if yes, should she then just resign and leave the campaign?</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton appears desperate for the FBI to just get the whole thing over and done with. But an Abedin resignation has no assurance that the issue will just disappear as Hillary so wishes. On the other hand, stepping away now for Abedin could add more fuel to the already volatile situation, one that puts in the spotlight not just Abedin's guilt but more so that of Hillary, no less.</p>
<p>Senior elections analyst Sean Trende said that the last thing that the Hillary campaign would want is for the issue to dominate the headlines for the next 11 last days of the campaign. But that's nearly improbable given that it is a crucial and legitimate matter, that even the pro-Hillary mainstream media would be hard pressed to pick up the issue.</p>
<p>Rep. Trey Gowdy believes Hillary has no one to blame but herself for this mess, as the</p>
<p>"extraordinary" situation she now finds herself is the result of her " extraordinary email arrangement".</p>
<p>Gowdy said Hillary was the "author of her own destiny", and what's happening now is nothing but just the logical consequence of a risky and possibly illegal decision she made when she had that private server. Gowdy added that Hillary may be upset now and hate the timing of the fresh controversies, but she brought all these upon herself and she's all to blame.</p>
<p>Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway thinks being under FBI investigation for the second time in one year is a huge problem for Hillary as it presents both a corruption and ethics problem for her. Something which has been haunting Hillary all this time and will continue to do so until election day.</p> | 4,224 |
<p>By Felipe Iturrieta</p>
<p>SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A mudslide tore through a small village near a popular national park in southern Chile on Saturday, leaving three people dead and 15 missing after a night of torrential downpours, authorities said.</p>
<p>A video taken by Chilean police from a helicopter showed a vast swath of the remote town of Villa Santa Lucia, near Chaiten in coastal Patagonia, buried beneath the mud as the landslide plowed its way down a flooded river valley.</p>
<p>Two Chilean women and a male tourist whose name and nationality have not been disclosed died in the accident, authorities said. Rescue workers were continuing to search through the debris for at least 15 other people.</p>
<p>The mudslide also destroyed a school and several homes and roadways as well as a voting center ahead of Chile´s presidential election on Sunday.</p>
<p>“I have ordered rescue workers to put all the resources necessary towards protecting the people of Villa Santa Lucia,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said on social media.</p>
<p>More than 4.5 inches (11.4 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours, the country´s Interior Ministry said, but weather conditions were expected to improve later in the day.</p>
<p>Villa Santa Lucia borders Chile´s Corcovado National Park, a popular tourist region of volcanoes, fjords and vast forests.</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> | Mudslide in southern Chile kills three; 15 others missing | false | https://newsline.com/mudslide-in-southern-chile-kills-three-15-others-missing/ | 2017-12-16 | 1right-center
| Mudslide in southern Chile kills three; 15 others missing
<p>By Felipe Iturrieta</p>
<p>SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A mudslide tore through a small village near a popular national park in southern Chile on Saturday, leaving three people dead and 15 missing after a night of torrential downpours, authorities said.</p>
<p>A video taken by Chilean police from a helicopter showed a vast swath of the remote town of Villa Santa Lucia, near Chaiten in coastal Patagonia, buried beneath the mud as the landslide plowed its way down a flooded river valley.</p>
<p>Two Chilean women and a male tourist whose name and nationality have not been disclosed died in the accident, authorities said. Rescue workers were continuing to search through the debris for at least 15 other people.</p>
<p>The mudslide also destroyed a school and several homes and roadways as well as a voting center ahead of Chile´s presidential election on Sunday.</p>
<p>“I have ordered rescue workers to put all the resources necessary towards protecting the people of Villa Santa Lucia,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said on social media.</p>
<p>More than 4.5 inches (11.4 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours, the country´s Interior Ministry said, but weather conditions were expected to improve later in the day.</p>
<p>Villa Santa Lucia borders Chile´s Corcovado National Park, a popular tourist region of volcanoes, fjords and vast forests.</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> | 4,225 |
<p>It was startling enough for the nation to hear that the US vegan population more than doubled in only two years. But when former President Bill Clinton began speaking out in praise of his vegan diet, it seemed a lot had changed in how many Americans were viewing diet, health and sustainability.</p>
<p>Clinton began his political career with&#160;frequent, even characteristic McDonald’s&#160;trips. But for some time now he has been eating a completely&#160;vegan diet after serious health problems. Since that time, he has lost 30 pounds and is in much better health. As a result, the former president speaks lauding praise about his vegan diet, and suggests that Americans and the world might want to consider a change for their health and the health of the planet.</p>
<p>An&#160; <a href="http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-08-2013/bill-clinton-vegan.1.html" type="external">AARP magazine profile</a>&#160;quotes Clinton saying&#160;“I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn’t want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival.”</p>
<p>Today, &#160;Ryan Rainey of the Huffington post explains,&#160;more than three years since adopting the vegan diet, “Clinton says he’s enjoying his diet free of dairy, meat and fish. But the transition was difficult,” according to the former president.</p>
<p>“The main thing that was hard for me actually – much harder than giving up meat, turkey, chicken and fish – was giving up yogurt and hard cheese,” Clinton said.</p>
<p>Clinton claims that diet-related problems are crippling the country’s health care system, and that this was not only what led him to the diet, but what keeps him on it.</p>
<p>Is he right? One thing is for certain, many health problems in the United States have been linked to over-consumption of animal products. As for the claims that Clinton’s vegan diet is better for the environment, he’s technically got us on this one too: for ever pound of meat we eat, it takes significantly higher amounts of plant food to feed those animals, and bulk them up for our consumption.</p>
<p>“You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, that of your family and your country,” the former president said.</p>
<p>One thing is for sure, more and more Americans are agreeing with the former president every year and adopting vegetarian and vegan lifestyles.</p> | Bill Clinton on his Vegan Diet, Says Healthy Eating Could Help the Country | true | http://politicalblindspot.com/bill-clinton-on-his-vegan-diet-says-healthy-eating-could-help-the-country/ | 2013-08-18 | 4left
| Bill Clinton on his Vegan Diet, Says Healthy Eating Could Help the Country
<p>It was startling enough for the nation to hear that the US vegan population more than doubled in only two years. But when former President Bill Clinton began speaking out in praise of his vegan diet, it seemed a lot had changed in how many Americans were viewing diet, health and sustainability.</p>
<p>Clinton began his political career with&#160;frequent, even characteristic McDonald’s&#160;trips. But for some time now he has been eating a completely&#160;vegan diet after serious health problems. Since that time, he has lost 30 pounds and is in much better health. As a result, the former president speaks lauding praise about his vegan diet, and suggests that Americans and the world might want to consider a change for their health and the health of the planet.</p>
<p>An&#160; <a href="http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-08-2013/bill-clinton-vegan.1.html" type="external">AARP magazine profile</a>&#160;quotes Clinton saying&#160;“I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn’t want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival.”</p>
<p>Today, &#160;Ryan Rainey of the Huffington post explains,&#160;more than three years since adopting the vegan diet, “Clinton says he’s enjoying his diet free of dairy, meat and fish. But the transition was difficult,” according to the former president.</p>
<p>“The main thing that was hard for me actually – much harder than giving up meat, turkey, chicken and fish – was giving up yogurt and hard cheese,” Clinton said.</p>
<p>Clinton claims that diet-related problems are crippling the country’s health care system, and that this was not only what led him to the diet, but what keeps him on it.</p>
<p>Is he right? One thing is for certain, many health problems in the United States have been linked to over-consumption of animal products. As for the claims that Clinton’s vegan diet is better for the environment, he’s technically got us on this one too: for ever pound of meat we eat, it takes significantly higher amounts of plant food to feed those animals, and bulk them up for our consumption.</p>
<p>“You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, that of your family and your country,” the former president said.</p>
<p>One thing is for sure, more and more Americans are agreeing with the former president every year and adopting vegetarian and vegan lifestyles.</p> | 4,226 |
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<p />
<p>NEW YORK – Public Advocate Bill de Blasio capped a surge from seemingly nowhere in New York City’s mayoral primary Tuesday with a commanding lead on his Democratic opponents Tuesday, hovering near the threshold needed to avoid a runoff.</p>
<p>Former Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman Joe Lhota easily won in the GOP nomination, capping a chaotic primary to succeed 12 years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The night also marked the unceremonious end to the political comeback of scandal-scarred candidate Anthony Weiner, who admitted to lewd online exchanges with women who were not his wife</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer won the Democratic primary for comptroller, ending disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s surprise bid to reclaim his political career after a scandal in which he acknowledged he’d paid an escort for sex.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Weiner, Spitzer out of New York races | false | https://abqjournal.com/260879/weiner-spitzer-out-of-new-york-races.html | 2013-09-11 | 2least
| Weiner, Spitzer out of New York races
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>NEW YORK – Public Advocate Bill de Blasio capped a surge from seemingly nowhere in New York City’s mayoral primary Tuesday with a commanding lead on his Democratic opponents Tuesday, hovering near the threshold needed to avoid a runoff.</p>
<p>Former Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman Joe Lhota easily won in the GOP nomination, capping a chaotic primary to succeed 12 years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The night also marked the unceremonious end to the political comeback of scandal-scarred candidate Anthony Weiner, who admitted to lewd online exchanges with women who were not his wife</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer won the Democratic primary for comptroller, ending disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s surprise bid to reclaim his political career after a scandal in which he acknowledged he’d paid an escort for sex.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 4,227 |
<p>The following is an excerpt from <a href="" type="internal">Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite</a>&#160;(Chelsea Green, 2011) by Bruce E. Levine. In this book, Levine describes how American institutions and culture have created a passive and defeated populace. But he also outlines how Americans can recover dignity, unity, and the energy to do battle, and provides specific strategies and tactics to wrest power away from the “corporatocracy” — the partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials.</p>
<p>When I first heard the term liberation theology (in opposition to a theol­ogy that fosters compliance with the status quo), I thought there should also be a liberation psychology—a psychology that doesn’t equate a lack of adjustment with mental illness, but instead promotes constructive rebel­lion against dehumanizing institutions, and which also provides strategies to build a genuinely democratic society.</p>
<p>It turned out that somebody else had thought of the same thing before I had. Ignacio Martin-Baró (1942–1989) was both a priest and a psychologist, and it is he who should be given credit for popularizing the term liberation psychology. Martin-Baró’s liberation theology, liberation psychology, and activism for the people of El Salvador cost him his life. In the middle of the night on November 16, 1989, Martin-Baró, together with five colleagues, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter, were forced out to a courtyard on the campus of Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, where they were murdered by the US-trained troops of the Salvadoran government’s elite Atlacatl Battalion.</p>
<p>As a Jesuit priest, Martin-Baró embraced liberation theology in opposi­tion to a theology that oppressed the poor, and as a social psychologist, he believed that imported North American psychology also oppresses marginalized people.</p>
<p>The Politics of Mainstream Psychology</p>
<p>Martin-Baró believed that the prevailing mainstream psychology had become infatuated with methods and measurements and thus was ignor­ing unquantifiable realities necessary for liberation. Such unquantifiable but powerful human dimensions include commitment, solidarity, hope, and courage. He saw a mainstream psychology that either ignored or only paid lip service to social and economic conditions that shape people’s lives.</p>
<p>In Writings for a Liberation Psychology, a compilation of Martin-Baró’s essays, editors Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne point out that libera­tion psychology is about looking at the world from the point of view of the dominated instead of the dominators. Martin-Baró drew heavily on the work of Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator, who recognized a certain “psychology of oppres­sion” in which the downtrodden become fatalistic, believing they are powerless to alter their circumstances, thus becoming resigned to their situation.</p>
<p>The prevailing organizational psychology that Martin-Baró criticizes is one that promotes an alienation of working people by serving the needs of industry. In his essay “Toward a Liberation Psychology,” Martin-Baró points out: What has happened to Latin American psychology is similar to North American psychology at the beginning of the twen­tieth century, when it ran so fast after scientific recognition and social status that it stumbled . . . In order to get social position and rank, it negotiated how it would contribute to the needs of the established power structure. Prevailing psychological theories are not politically neutral. Martin-Baró astutely observed that many mainstream psychological schools of thought—be they psychoanalytic, behavioral, or biochemical—accept the maximization of pleasure as the motivating force for human behavior, the same maximization of pleasure that is assumed by neoclassical economic theorists. This ignores the human need for fairness, social justice, freedom, and autonomy as well as other motivations that would transform society.</p>
<p>Martin-Baró pointed out that when knowledge is limited to verifi­able facts and events, we “become blind to the most important meanings of human existence.” Great scientists recognize this, as a sign hanging in Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton stated: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Much of what makes us fully human and capable of overcom­ing injustices—including our courage and solidarity—cannot be reduced to simplistic, verifiable, objective variables.</p>
<p>In American society, mental health treatment is a significant force that can work either for or against genuine democracy. There are approaching eight hundred thousand social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists working in the United States today (though not all provide mental health services), as well as many mental health counselors and paraprofession­als. The US Surgeon General reported in 1999 that 15 percent of adults and 21 percent of children and adolescents in the United States utilize mental health services each year, and it is likely that these percentages have increased.</p>
<p>Whether they realize it or not, mental health professionals who narrowly treat their clients in a way that encourages compliance with the status quo are acting politically. Similarly, validating a client’s challenging of these undemocratic hierarchical modes is also a political act. I believe that mental health professionals have an obligation to recognize the broader issues that form a context for their clients’ mental well-being, and to be honest with their clientele about which side of this issue they are on.</p>
<p>When Truths Do and Do Not Set People Free</p>
<p>Martin-Baró, tragically prescient, once quipped to a North American colleague, “In your country, it’s publish or perish. In ours, it’s publish and perish.” In contrast with Martin-Baró, US intellectual activists have a considerable degree of free speech, and it requires no great heroism for US citizens to acquire their books or hear them speak and to discover truths.</p>
<p>Truths do sometimes set people free, especially when people have a basis of strength to start with. And truths can be especially energizing when, as was the case with Martin-Baró, proclaiming them takes courage. Similarly, Tom Paine’s truths in Common Sense energized many colonials to take action against the British. Paine’s readers had not lost their self-respect, community, and sense of power. Paine’s audience also knew that Paine was risking his life to write and publish Common Sense. The power of truth to energize often lies in the risk that it takes to state it.</p>
<p>Generally in the United States, telling the truth about corporate-government tyranny and injustice requires little real risk, and so such truths provide little energy. It is not that there is no value in exposing more truths about the corporatocracy. However, many professional activ­ists and educators have become lazy, pursing only easy, risk-free truths that are not energizing.</p>
<p>I wish my declaring the truth of people’s personal abusive relation­ships or the truth of their systemic corporate-governmental abuse were enough to set them free. I wish that the people I know caught up in this state of helplessness could be spurred to action by lectures—that would be an easy fix. But more often, lectures are a turnoff. What these victims of abuse need is the strength to do something with the truth of their abuse—strength that comes from support, morale, healing, and self-respect, as well as practical strategies and tactics.</p>
<p>The oppression faced by the Salvadorans whom Martin-Baró worked with was different from the oppression we face in the United States today, yet oppression need not be physically brutalizing in order to damage the bonds of community and people’s sense of self-worth. We would do well to reject a mainstream psychology that tacitly fosters compliance to the status quo. In contrast, we need a liberation psychology that promotes constructive rebellion against dehumanizing institutions and, at the same time, aims at building a genuinely democratic society. In the United States, liberation psychology needs to focus on the specific ways Americans have been pacified and demoralized. And it must focus on how we can be made whole again, so as to regain strength to fight for ourselves and our communities.</p>
<p>Liberation Psychology in Practice</p>
<p>My form of practiced liberation psychology stems from my clinical expe­rience. It is decidedly in opposition to resentment-producing coercions; it is about helping individuals and families build respectful relationships.</p>
<p>I have counseled hundreds of young people and adults who had been previously labeled with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, substance abuse, depression, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric diagnoses. What strikes me is how many of these people are essentially anti-authoritarians. A major problem for these young anti-authoritarians is that most mental health professionals who had previ­ously diagnosed them have no familiarity with political ideologies that far better characterize these teenagers’ thinking and behaviors than does any mental disorder.</p>
<p>The word anarchism is routinely used by today’s mass media synony­mously with chaos, but for philosophers and political scientists, anarchism means people organizing themselves without authoritarian hierarchies. Practical anarchism is not a dogmatic system and actually does not oppose all authority. So, for example, practical anarchist parents will use their authority to grab their child who has begun to run out in traffic. However, practical anarchists strongly believe that all authorities have the burden of proof to justify control, and that most authorities in modern society cannot bear that burden and are thus illegitimate—and should be elimi­nated and replaced by noncoercive, freely participating relationships.</p>
<p>A minority of the anti-authoritarian kids I have worked with are aware of anarchism and identify themselves as anarchists, perhaps having T-shirts with a circle drawn around an A. However, even among those adolescents who know nothing of the political significance of the term anarchism, I cannot remember one who didn’t become excited to discover that there is an actual political ideology that encompasses their point of view. They immediately became more whole after they discovered that answering “yes” to the following questions does not mean that they suffer from a mental disorder but that they have a certain political philosophy: • Do you hate coercion? • Do you love freedom? • Are you willing to risk punishments to gain freedom? • Do you distrust large, impersonal, and distant authorities? • Do you reject centralized authority and believe in participa­tory democracy? • Do you hate powerful bigness of any kind? • Do you hate laws and rules that benefit the people at the top and make life miserable for people at the bottom? There are different varieties of anarchism and there are different varieties of disruptive people, and these varieties are worth examining. One group of freedom lovers hates money, inequality, and exploitation of any kind. They reject a capitalist economy and aim for a society based on cooperative, mutually owned enterprise. They are essen­tially leftist-anarchists—“anarcho-socialists,” “anarcho-syndicalists,” or “anarcho-communitarians.” If they discover what Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, and Emma Goldman have to say, they identify with them. They have a strong moral streak of egalitarianism and a desire for social and economic justice.</p>
<p>Another group of freedom lovers also hates the coercion of parents, schools, and the state but, unlike these left-anarchists, they view capitalist markets as ideal for organizing virtually all aspects of society, and they lack an egalitarian moral streak. A political ideology that they can connect with is called “anarcho-capitalism,” “libertarian anarchy,” or “market anar­chy,” and some become fans of Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand.</p>
<p>Anti-authoritarians also can be distinguished by their views on violence as a way of achieving their goals. While many freedom lovers adhere to nonviolence, others consider violence an acceptable tool and will physi­cally or psychologically victimize others to get what they want. Historically, the question of violence has sharply divided anti-authoritarians in their battle to eliminate unjust and illegitimate authority.</p>
<p>If a nonviolent anarcho-communitarian is dragged by parents into my office for failing to take school seriously but is otherwise pleasant and industrious, I tell parents that I do not believe that there is anything essentially “disordered” with their child. This sometimes gets me fired, but not all that often. It is my experience that most parents may think that believing a society can function without coercion is naive but they agree that it’s not a mental illness, and they’re open to suggestions that will create greater harmony and joy within their family.</p>
<p>I work hard with parents to have them understand that their attempt to coerce their anti-authoritarian child not only has failed—that’s why they’re in my office—but will likely continue to fail. And increasingly, the pain of their failed coercion will be compounded by the pain of their child’s resentment, which will destroy their relationship with their child and create even more family pain. Many parents acknowledge that this resentment has already begun to happen. I ask them if they would try to coerce their homosexual child into being heterosexual or vice versa, and most say, “Of course not!” And so they begin to see that temperamen­tally anti-authoritarian children cannot be similarly coerced without great resentment.</p>
<p>I work very differently with those anti-authoritarian kids who care only about freedom for themselves and have no problem victimizing others to get their way. These kids usually are initially receptive to me, especially when they hear my viewpoint on traditional schools. However, tension eventually enters our relationship when they hear my views on other matters, especially on the “soul.”</p>
<p>I may, for example, tell them that while I believe that they have not lost their soul, eventually people do lose their souls to the extent that they lie to others and to themselves, or to the extent that they act in ways to get the best deal for themselves without caring about the impact on others. Often these kids will ask, “What happens if we lose our souls?” I tell them that in our current economy, it is quite possible to be financially successful without a soul; but they will never have a friend whom they really care about, and so eventually nobody will care about them because human beings eventually stop caring about those who don’t care about them, and so they will have a friendless, loveless life. Sometimes this has an impact, sometimes not. Just like political activism, therapy may have an immediate effect, have a delayed one, or not work at all.</p>
<p>Activists and therapists need to have humility, especially with regard to their affection and respect—or lack of thereof—for those they are working with. If an activist or a therapist lacks such affection and respect, those whom they are working with will sense it and will likely be unre­ceptive. Humility also means accepting that one is not capable of being helpful to everyone, and having faith that somebody else, perhaps at some other point of time, may well be helpful.</p>
<p>Liberation psychology, in short, is about helping create self-respect, respectful relationships, and empowerment, and it is about helping people reject the role of either victim or victimizer.</p>
<p>Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of <a href="" type="internal">Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite</a>&#160;(Chelsea Green, April 2011). His Web site is <a href="http://www.brucelevine.net/" type="external">www.brucelevine.net</a></p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p /> | Toward a Liberation Psychology | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/04/29/toward-a-liberation-psychology-2/ | 2011-04-29 | 4left
| Toward a Liberation Psychology
<p>The following is an excerpt from <a href="" type="internal">Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite</a>&#160;(Chelsea Green, 2011) by Bruce E. Levine. In this book, Levine describes how American institutions and culture have created a passive and defeated populace. But he also outlines how Americans can recover dignity, unity, and the energy to do battle, and provides specific strategies and tactics to wrest power away from the “corporatocracy” — the partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials.</p>
<p>When I first heard the term liberation theology (in opposition to a theol­ogy that fosters compliance with the status quo), I thought there should also be a liberation psychology—a psychology that doesn’t equate a lack of adjustment with mental illness, but instead promotes constructive rebel­lion against dehumanizing institutions, and which also provides strategies to build a genuinely democratic society.</p>
<p>It turned out that somebody else had thought of the same thing before I had. Ignacio Martin-Baró (1942–1989) was both a priest and a psychologist, and it is he who should be given credit for popularizing the term liberation psychology. Martin-Baró’s liberation theology, liberation psychology, and activism for the people of El Salvador cost him his life. In the middle of the night on November 16, 1989, Martin-Baró, together with five colleagues, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter, were forced out to a courtyard on the campus of Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, where they were murdered by the US-trained troops of the Salvadoran government’s elite Atlacatl Battalion.</p>
<p>As a Jesuit priest, Martin-Baró embraced liberation theology in opposi­tion to a theology that oppressed the poor, and as a social psychologist, he believed that imported North American psychology also oppresses marginalized people.</p>
<p>The Politics of Mainstream Psychology</p>
<p>Martin-Baró believed that the prevailing mainstream psychology had become infatuated with methods and measurements and thus was ignor­ing unquantifiable realities necessary for liberation. Such unquantifiable but powerful human dimensions include commitment, solidarity, hope, and courage. He saw a mainstream psychology that either ignored or only paid lip service to social and economic conditions that shape people’s lives.</p>
<p>In Writings for a Liberation Psychology, a compilation of Martin-Baró’s essays, editors Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne point out that libera­tion psychology is about looking at the world from the point of view of the dominated instead of the dominators. Martin-Baró drew heavily on the work of Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator, who recognized a certain “psychology of oppres­sion” in which the downtrodden become fatalistic, believing they are powerless to alter their circumstances, thus becoming resigned to their situation.</p>
<p>The prevailing organizational psychology that Martin-Baró criticizes is one that promotes an alienation of working people by serving the needs of industry. In his essay “Toward a Liberation Psychology,” Martin-Baró points out: What has happened to Latin American psychology is similar to North American psychology at the beginning of the twen­tieth century, when it ran so fast after scientific recognition and social status that it stumbled . . . In order to get social position and rank, it negotiated how it would contribute to the needs of the established power structure. Prevailing psychological theories are not politically neutral. Martin-Baró astutely observed that many mainstream psychological schools of thought—be they psychoanalytic, behavioral, or biochemical—accept the maximization of pleasure as the motivating force for human behavior, the same maximization of pleasure that is assumed by neoclassical economic theorists. This ignores the human need for fairness, social justice, freedom, and autonomy as well as other motivations that would transform society.</p>
<p>Martin-Baró pointed out that when knowledge is limited to verifi­able facts and events, we “become blind to the most important meanings of human existence.” Great scientists recognize this, as a sign hanging in Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton stated: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Much of what makes us fully human and capable of overcom­ing injustices—including our courage and solidarity—cannot be reduced to simplistic, verifiable, objective variables.</p>
<p>In American society, mental health treatment is a significant force that can work either for or against genuine democracy. There are approaching eight hundred thousand social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists working in the United States today (though not all provide mental health services), as well as many mental health counselors and paraprofession­als. The US Surgeon General reported in 1999 that 15 percent of adults and 21 percent of children and adolescents in the United States utilize mental health services each year, and it is likely that these percentages have increased.</p>
<p>Whether they realize it or not, mental health professionals who narrowly treat their clients in a way that encourages compliance with the status quo are acting politically. Similarly, validating a client’s challenging of these undemocratic hierarchical modes is also a political act. I believe that mental health professionals have an obligation to recognize the broader issues that form a context for their clients’ mental well-being, and to be honest with their clientele about which side of this issue they are on.</p>
<p>When Truths Do and Do Not Set People Free</p>
<p>Martin-Baró, tragically prescient, once quipped to a North American colleague, “In your country, it’s publish or perish. In ours, it’s publish and perish.” In contrast with Martin-Baró, US intellectual activists have a considerable degree of free speech, and it requires no great heroism for US citizens to acquire their books or hear them speak and to discover truths.</p>
<p>Truths do sometimes set people free, especially when people have a basis of strength to start with. And truths can be especially energizing when, as was the case with Martin-Baró, proclaiming them takes courage. Similarly, Tom Paine’s truths in Common Sense energized many colonials to take action against the British. Paine’s readers had not lost their self-respect, community, and sense of power. Paine’s audience also knew that Paine was risking his life to write and publish Common Sense. The power of truth to energize often lies in the risk that it takes to state it.</p>
<p>Generally in the United States, telling the truth about corporate-government tyranny and injustice requires little real risk, and so such truths provide little energy. It is not that there is no value in exposing more truths about the corporatocracy. However, many professional activ­ists and educators have become lazy, pursing only easy, risk-free truths that are not energizing.</p>
<p>I wish my declaring the truth of people’s personal abusive relation­ships or the truth of their systemic corporate-governmental abuse were enough to set them free. I wish that the people I know caught up in this state of helplessness could be spurred to action by lectures—that would be an easy fix. But more often, lectures are a turnoff. What these victims of abuse need is the strength to do something with the truth of their abuse—strength that comes from support, morale, healing, and self-respect, as well as practical strategies and tactics.</p>
<p>The oppression faced by the Salvadorans whom Martin-Baró worked with was different from the oppression we face in the United States today, yet oppression need not be physically brutalizing in order to damage the bonds of community and people’s sense of self-worth. We would do well to reject a mainstream psychology that tacitly fosters compliance to the status quo. In contrast, we need a liberation psychology that promotes constructive rebellion against dehumanizing institutions and, at the same time, aims at building a genuinely democratic society. In the United States, liberation psychology needs to focus on the specific ways Americans have been pacified and demoralized. And it must focus on how we can be made whole again, so as to regain strength to fight for ourselves and our communities.</p>
<p>Liberation Psychology in Practice</p>
<p>My form of practiced liberation psychology stems from my clinical expe­rience. It is decidedly in opposition to resentment-producing coercions; it is about helping individuals and families build respectful relationships.</p>
<p>I have counseled hundreds of young people and adults who had been previously labeled with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, substance abuse, depression, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric diagnoses. What strikes me is how many of these people are essentially anti-authoritarians. A major problem for these young anti-authoritarians is that most mental health professionals who had previ­ously diagnosed them have no familiarity with political ideologies that far better characterize these teenagers’ thinking and behaviors than does any mental disorder.</p>
<p>The word anarchism is routinely used by today’s mass media synony­mously with chaos, but for philosophers and political scientists, anarchism means people organizing themselves without authoritarian hierarchies. Practical anarchism is not a dogmatic system and actually does not oppose all authority. So, for example, practical anarchist parents will use their authority to grab their child who has begun to run out in traffic. However, practical anarchists strongly believe that all authorities have the burden of proof to justify control, and that most authorities in modern society cannot bear that burden and are thus illegitimate—and should be elimi­nated and replaced by noncoercive, freely participating relationships.</p>
<p>A minority of the anti-authoritarian kids I have worked with are aware of anarchism and identify themselves as anarchists, perhaps having T-shirts with a circle drawn around an A. However, even among those adolescents who know nothing of the political significance of the term anarchism, I cannot remember one who didn’t become excited to discover that there is an actual political ideology that encompasses their point of view. They immediately became more whole after they discovered that answering “yes” to the following questions does not mean that they suffer from a mental disorder but that they have a certain political philosophy: • Do you hate coercion? • Do you love freedom? • Are you willing to risk punishments to gain freedom? • Do you distrust large, impersonal, and distant authorities? • Do you reject centralized authority and believe in participa­tory democracy? • Do you hate powerful bigness of any kind? • Do you hate laws and rules that benefit the people at the top and make life miserable for people at the bottom? There are different varieties of anarchism and there are different varieties of disruptive people, and these varieties are worth examining. One group of freedom lovers hates money, inequality, and exploitation of any kind. They reject a capitalist economy and aim for a society based on cooperative, mutually owned enterprise. They are essen­tially leftist-anarchists—“anarcho-socialists,” “anarcho-syndicalists,” or “anarcho-communitarians.” If they discover what Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, and Emma Goldman have to say, they identify with them. They have a strong moral streak of egalitarianism and a desire for social and economic justice.</p>
<p>Another group of freedom lovers also hates the coercion of parents, schools, and the state but, unlike these left-anarchists, they view capitalist markets as ideal for organizing virtually all aspects of society, and they lack an egalitarian moral streak. A political ideology that they can connect with is called “anarcho-capitalism,” “libertarian anarchy,” or “market anar­chy,” and some become fans of Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand.</p>
<p>Anti-authoritarians also can be distinguished by their views on violence as a way of achieving their goals. While many freedom lovers adhere to nonviolence, others consider violence an acceptable tool and will physi­cally or psychologically victimize others to get what they want. Historically, the question of violence has sharply divided anti-authoritarians in their battle to eliminate unjust and illegitimate authority.</p>
<p>If a nonviolent anarcho-communitarian is dragged by parents into my office for failing to take school seriously but is otherwise pleasant and industrious, I tell parents that I do not believe that there is anything essentially “disordered” with their child. This sometimes gets me fired, but not all that often. It is my experience that most parents may think that believing a society can function without coercion is naive but they agree that it’s not a mental illness, and they’re open to suggestions that will create greater harmony and joy within their family.</p>
<p>I work hard with parents to have them understand that their attempt to coerce their anti-authoritarian child not only has failed—that’s why they’re in my office—but will likely continue to fail. And increasingly, the pain of their failed coercion will be compounded by the pain of their child’s resentment, which will destroy their relationship with their child and create even more family pain. Many parents acknowledge that this resentment has already begun to happen. I ask them if they would try to coerce their homosexual child into being heterosexual or vice versa, and most say, “Of course not!” And so they begin to see that temperamen­tally anti-authoritarian children cannot be similarly coerced without great resentment.</p>
<p>I work very differently with those anti-authoritarian kids who care only about freedom for themselves and have no problem victimizing others to get their way. These kids usually are initially receptive to me, especially when they hear my viewpoint on traditional schools. However, tension eventually enters our relationship when they hear my views on other matters, especially on the “soul.”</p>
<p>I may, for example, tell them that while I believe that they have not lost their soul, eventually people do lose their souls to the extent that they lie to others and to themselves, or to the extent that they act in ways to get the best deal for themselves without caring about the impact on others. Often these kids will ask, “What happens if we lose our souls?” I tell them that in our current economy, it is quite possible to be financially successful without a soul; but they will never have a friend whom they really care about, and so eventually nobody will care about them because human beings eventually stop caring about those who don’t care about them, and so they will have a friendless, loveless life. Sometimes this has an impact, sometimes not. Just like political activism, therapy may have an immediate effect, have a delayed one, or not work at all.</p>
<p>Activists and therapists need to have humility, especially with regard to their affection and respect—or lack of thereof—for those they are working with. If an activist or a therapist lacks such affection and respect, those whom they are working with will sense it and will likely be unre­ceptive. Humility also means accepting that one is not capable of being helpful to everyone, and having faith that somebody else, perhaps at some other point of time, may well be helpful.</p>
<p>Liberation psychology, in short, is about helping create self-respect, respectful relationships, and empowerment, and it is about helping people reject the role of either victim or victimizer.</p>
<p>Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of <a href="" type="internal">Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite</a>&#160;(Chelsea Green, April 2011). His Web site is <a href="http://www.brucelevine.net/" type="external">www.brucelevine.net</a></p>
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<p>Today, Catalyst released their 2012 report detailing the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-12-10/business/sns-rt-us-usa-women-executivesbre8ba04z-20121210_1_women-on-corporate-boards-women-executive-officers-women-in-top-positions" type="external">gender gap in the leadership of the Fortune 500 companies</a>. Here are some facts:</p>
<p>And, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171701/progress-women-continues-flatlining-top-ranks-private-sector" type="external">as Bryce Covert notes</a>, things have barely gotten any better in recent years: “2012 was the&#160;seventh consecutive year&#160;in which we haven’t seen any growth in board seats and the third year of stagnation in the C-suite.” At a certain point, <a href="http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/11/women-executives-fortune-500/" type="external">“progress” is so slow</a> that it’s more appropriately spelled p-l-a-t-e-a-u.</p>
<p>Check out the report <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2012-catalyst-census-fortune-500-women-board-directors" type="external">here</a> and <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2012-catalyst-census-fortune-500-women-executive-officers-and-top-earners" type="external">here</a>, as well as&#160;Catalyst’s new&#160; <a href="http://catalyst.org/catalyst-corporate-board-resource" type="external">Corporate Board Resource</a>, a real “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/a-real-binder-full-of-women/2012/12/11/183585e2-43a5-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html" type="external">binder full of women.</a>”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Report: Women hold only 14.3 percent of executive positions at major companies | true | http://feministing.com/2012/12/11/report-women-hold-only-14-3-percent-of-executive-positions-at-major-companies/ | 4left
| Report: Women hold only 14.3 percent of executive positions at major companies
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<p>Today, Catalyst released their 2012 report detailing the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-12-10/business/sns-rt-us-usa-women-executivesbre8ba04z-20121210_1_women-on-corporate-boards-women-executive-officers-women-in-top-positions" type="external">gender gap in the leadership of the Fortune 500 companies</a>. Here are some facts:</p>
<p>And, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171701/progress-women-continues-flatlining-top-ranks-private-sector" type="external">as Bryce Covert notes</a>, things have barely gotten any better in recent years: “2012 was the&#160;seventh consecutive year&#160;in which we haven’t seen any growth in board seats and the third year of stagnation in the C-suite.” At a certain point, <a href="http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/11/women-executives-fortune-500/" type="external">“progress” is so slow</a> that it’s more appropriately spelled p-l-a-t-e-a-u.</p>
<p>Check out the report <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2012-catalyst-census-fortune-500-women-board-directors" type="external">here</a> and <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2012-catalyst-census-fortune-500-women-executive-officers-and-top-earners" type="external">here</a>, as well as&#160;Catalyst’s new&#160; <a href="http://catalyst.org/catalyst-corporate-board-resource" type="external">Corporate Board Resource</a>, a real “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/a-real-binder-full-of-women/2012/12/11/183585e2-43a5-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html" type="external">binder full of women.</a>”</p>
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<p>SWANWICK, England (BWA) — Baptists in Britain have apologized for the slave trade.</p>
<p>The Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain — widely known as BUGB— which met in Swanwick, England, on Nov. 12-14, passed a resolution saying, “We offer our apology to God and to our brothers and sisters for all that have created and still perpetuate the hurt which originated from the horror of slavery.”</p>
<p>The council, which had the transatlantic slave trade as the main focus of its meetings, further repented “of the hurt we have caused, the divisions we have created, our reluctance to face up to the sin of the past, our unwillingness to listen to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, and our silence in the face of racism and injustice today.”</p>
<p>British Baptists acknowledged “our share in and benefit from our nation's participation in the transatlantic slave trade” and “that we speak as those who have shared in and suffered from the legacy of slavery, and its appalling consequences for God's world.”</p>
<p>The apology was a response to the “the pain of hurting sisters and brothers,” and to “God speaking to us,” and stated an intention to “turn the words and feelings we have expressed today into concrete actions.”</p>
<p>The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade is being observed this year. The trade brought millions of kidnapped and captured Africans as slaves mainly to the Americas in exchange for money, guns, and other goods, and was officially abolished by the British in 1807. Slavery in the British colonies was itself abolished in 1838.</p>
<p>Baptist World Alliance general secretary Neville Callam said, “I must confess [a] deep feeling of relief.” The Jamaican, a descendant of African slaves, who was elected BWA general secretary in Accra, Ghana, in July, said, “By this single action, the BUGB has taken a giant step in restoring the special place it once enoyed in the affection of many Baptists around the world.”</p>
<p>Noting his disappointment that the British had not made an apology at the BWA Service of Memory and Reconciliation held at the Cape Coast Slave Castle in Ghana in July, the BWA leader hoped that “now that this has happened, some of us can bring closure to the experience of the service at the slave castle” and “are now better able to partner with our fellow Baptist Christians in the BUGB to deal with the issues of prejudice and racism which are our collective charge today.”</p>
<p>BUGB general secretary Jonathan Edwards declared that “God led us not to a simple conclusion about an agonizing part of our history, but to a new way of relating to one another as a gospel people within which we take full account of the people that we are today and the histories that have shaped us.”</p> | British Baptists apologize for slavery, acknowledge ‘appalling consequences’ | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/britishbaptistsapologizeforslaveryacknowledgeappallingconsequences/ | 3left-center
| British Baptists apologize for slavery, acknowledge ‘appalling consequences’
<p>SWANWICK, England (BWA) — Baptists in Britain have apologized for the slave trade.</p>
<p>The Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain — widely known as BUGB— which met in Swanwick, England, on Nov. 12-14, passed a resolution saying, “We offer our apology to God and to our brothers and sisters for all that have created and still perpetuate the hurt which originated from the horror of slavery.”</p>
<p>The council, which had the transatlantic slave trade as the main focus of its meetings, further repented “of the hurt we have caused, the divisions we have created, our reluctance to face up to the sin of the past, our unwillingness to listen to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, and our silence in the face of racism and injustice today.”</p>
<p>British Baptists acknowledged “our share in and benefit from our nation's participation in the transatlantic slave trade” and “that we speak as those who have shared in and suffered from the legacy of slavery, and its appalling consequences for God's world.”</p>
<p>The apology was a response to the “the pain of hurting sisters and brothers,” and to “God speaking to us,” and stated an intention to “turn the words and feelings we have expressed today into concrete actions.”</p>
<p>The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade is being observed this year. The trade brought millions of kidnapped and captured Africans as slaves mainly to the Americas in exchange for money, guns, and other goods, and was officially abolished by the British in 1807. Slavery in the British colonies was itself abolished in 1838.</p>
<p>Baptist World Alliance general secretary Neville Callam said, “I must confess [a] deep feeling of relief.” The Jamaican, a descendant of African slaves, who was elected BWA general secretary in Accra, Ghana, in July, said, “By this single action, the BUGB has taken a giant step in restoring the special place it once enoyed in the affection of many Baptists around the world.”</p>
<p>Noting his disappointment that the British had not made an apology at the BWA Service of Memory and Reconciliation held at the Cape Coast Slave Castle in Ghana in July, the BWA leader hoped that “now that this has happened, some of us can bring closure to the experience of the service at the slave castle” and “are now better able to partner with our fellow Baptist Christians in the BUGB to deal with the issues of prejudice and racism which are our collective charge today.”</p>
<p>BUGB general secretary Jonathan Edwards declared that “God led us not to a simple conclusion about an agonizing part of our history, but to a new way of relating to one another as a gospel people within which we take full account of the people that we are today and the histories that have shaped us.”</p> | 4,230 |
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<p>Someone does not like dolphins.&#160;Over the past several months, dolphins have washed ashore along the Gulf Coast with bullet wounds, missing jaws and hacked off fins, <a href="http://www.globalnews.ca/dolphins+mutilated+along+gulf+coast+a+mystery+for+experts/6442756814/story.html" type="external">the Associated Press reported</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>"There have been some obviously intentional cases," Erin Fougeres of&#160;The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20414973" type="external">told BBC News</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120601/when-the-brics-crumble" type="external">When the BRICs Crumble&#160;</a></p>
<p>In one particularly grotesque example, a dolphin was found with a screwdriver in his head, the AP reported.</p>
<p>Officials are disturbed by the discoveries, and the NOAA has appointed enforcement officer&#160;Richard Stifel&#160;to investigate the mutilations, <a href="http://www.sunherald.com/2012/11/20/4315408/noaa-appoints-investigator-to.html" type="external">the Sun Herald reported</a>.&#160;"He's collecting evidence," Moby Solangi, executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, told the Sun Herald. "NOAA is taking this very seriously."</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Mutilated dolphins found off the Gulf Coast | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-11-20/mutilated-dolphins-found-gulf-coast | 2012-11-20 | 3left-center
| Mutilated dolphins found off the Gulf Coast
<p>Someone does not like dolphins.&#160;Over the past several months, dolphins have washed ashore along the Gulf Coast with bullet wounds, missing jaws and hacked off fins, <a href="http://www.globalnews.ca/dolphins+mutilated+along+gulf+coast+a+mystery+for+experts/6442756814/story.html" type="external">the Associated Press reported</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>"There have been some obviously intentional cases," Erin Fougeres of&#160;The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20414973" type="external">told BBC News</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120601/when-the-brics-crumble" type="external">When the BRICs Crumble&#160;</a></p>
<p>In one particularly grotesque example, a dolphin was found with a screwdriver in his head, the AP reported.</p>
<p>Officials are disturbed by the discoveries, and the NOAA has appointed enforcement officer&#160;Richard Stifel&#160;to investigate the mutilations, <a href="http://www.sunherald.com/2012/11/20/4315408/noaa-appoints-investigator-to.html" type="external">the Sun Herald reported</a>.&#160;"He's collecting evidence," Moby Solangi, executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, told the Sun Herald. "NOAA is taking this very seriously."</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,231 |
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<p>Robots are coming <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/06/a-robot-is-coming-to-steal-your-job.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">to steal all of our jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I'm sorry. Does that sound a bit hyperbolic? Well, consider: Toyota Motors already uses thousands of robots on its car assembly lines and is perhaps only hours away from <a href="http://mockup.www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/03/will-toyota-buy-googles-boston-dynamics.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">buying a humanoid robots-producer</a> to do even more specialized work. At Amazon.com, one out of every four workers in the e-commerce giant's warehouses is a robot. And now, even China -- once home to some of the lowest wages for manual labor on the planet -- is beginning to switch out humans for robot workers.</p>
<p>Last week, we learned that Foxconn, the contract manufacturer responsible for building most of our Apple iPhones, has replaced 60,000 human workers with robots.</p>
<p>Foxconn isn't stopping there, either -- and it isn't alone.</p>
<p>In a statement supplied to Marketwatch lat week, Foxconn acknowledged that it is "applying robotics engineering and other innovative manufacturing technologies to replace repetitive tasks previously done by employees." The Apple contractor also says it has "plans to automate more of our manufacturing operations over the coming years." In fact, it plans to eventually put 1 million robotsto work, replacing 30% of its human workforce by 2020.</p>
<p>What's more, China's South China Morning Post reports that "roughly 600 companies in the Kunshan region," which Foxconn calls home, "are reportedly looking to reduce headcount with robots."</p>
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<p>Why all the fascination with robots? Well, there's the cost factor, for one thing. Industrial robots can cost as little as $25,000. For a $12.50 an hour a job here in the U.S., that means a robot capable of replacing one human's worth of work can pay for itself in a year. Raise wages to $15 an hour, and a robot will pay for itself even sooner ( <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/06/15-minimum-wage-you-can-change-the-wage-but-not-th.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">and be more likely to get hired</a>). Lower them to $4.20 an hour (the average manufacturing wage in China today), and you still recoup your investment in three years.</p>
<p>Here in the U.S., the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) reportsthat more than 260,000 robots are already on the job, and this number is growing. RIA says North American companies ordered 31,464 new robots in 2015, a 12% increase worth $1.8 billion.</p>
<p>It's important to keep those numbers in context. The U.S. added 38,000 jobs last month. So from one perspective, even anemic jobs growth in the U.S. still has humans landing new jobs more than 12 times faster than robots -- for now. But the percentage rate at which robot jobs are growing vastly exceeds percentage job growth for humans. Over time, it's not hard to predict <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/07/13/will-robots-lead-to-75-unemployment.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">how this trend plays out</a>.</p>
<p>So, what's a human to do? Well, one thing you might do is focus on finding a job that can't be done -- or can't be done economically -- by a robot. (Interior designer? Park ranger? I'm open to suggestions...)</p>
<p>In the meantime, it only makes sense for investors to begin buying stock in robotics companies that are supplying this trend. In Foxconn's case, unfortunately, Investors Business Dailyconfirms that Foxconn actually builds its robots in-house -- logical, for a high-tech electronics manufacturer. But elsewhere in China, the biggest suppliers of robots currently include <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/05/21/forget-abb-ltd-adr-and-check-out-this-german-robot.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">foreign names</a> such as Japan's Fanuc , Germany's Kuka , and Switzerland's ABB . Throw in Japan's smaller and less-famous Yaskawa Electric, and these four companies produce 60% of the robots currently in use in China.</p>
<p>According to data from <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence</a>, all four of these companies are profitable, with Fanuc leading the pack with $2 billion in trailing profits. Each of the four companies also generate positive free cash flow, with Kuka generating the least, and ABB throwing off the most cash -- $3.1 billion annually, or 68% more than its $1.9 billion in reported profit.</p>
<p>Despite being the strongest cash-generator, ABB stock sells for a very reasonable price -- less than 15 times free cash flow. Its projected growth rate exceeds 11%. Throw in a very respectable 3.6% dividend yield, an NYSE listing that makes the stock easy to trade, and a leading position in a growing segment of the market, and ABB looks like a great way to profit from the growing trend of robots in the workplace.</p>
<p>Manual labor at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen -- soon to become obsolete? Image source: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Foxconn_Technology_Group_in_China#/media/File:Electronics_factory_in_Shenzhen.jpg" type="external">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/08/apples-biggest-contractor-builds-a-robot-army.aspx" type="external">Apple's Biggest Contractor Builds a Robot Army</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>Fool contributor <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Rich Smith</a>does not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on <a href="http://caps.fool.com/?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Motley Fool CAPS</a>, publicly pontificating under the handle <a href="http://caps.fool.com/ViewPlayer.aspx?t=01002844399633209838&amp;source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFDitty</a>, where he's currently ranked No. 309 out of more than 75,000 rated members.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</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</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</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</a>.</p> | Apple's Biggest Contractor Builds a Robot Army | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/08/apple-biggest-contractor-builds-robot-army.html | 2016-06-08 | 0right
| Apple's Biggest Contractor Builds a Robot Army
<p />
<p>Robots are coming <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/06/a-robot-is-coming-to-steal-your-job.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">to steal all of our jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I'm sorry. Does that sound a bit hyperbolic? Well, consider: Toyota Motors already uses thousands of robots on its car assembly lines and is perhaps only hours away from <a href="http://mockup.www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/03/will-toyota-buy-googles-boston-dynamics.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">buying a humanoid robots-producer</a> to do even more specialized work. At Amazon.com, one out of every four workers in the e-commerce giant's warehouses is a robot. And now, even China -- once home to some of the lowest wages for manual labor on the planet -- is beginning to switch out humans for robot workers.</p>
<p>Last week, we learned that Foxconn, the contract manufacturer responsible for building most of our Apple iPhones, has replaced 60,000 human workers with robots.</p>
<p>Foxconn isn't stopping there, either -- and it isn't alone.</p>
<p>In a statement supplied to Marketwatch lat week, Foxconn acknowledged that it is "applying robotics engineering and other innovative manufacturing technologies to replace repetitive tasks previously done by employees." The Apple contractor also says it has "plans to automate more of our manufacturing operations over the coming years." In fact, it plans to eventually put 1 million robotsto work, replacing 30% of its human workforce by 2020.</p>
<p>What's more, China's South China Morning Post reports that "roughly 600 companies in the Kunshan region," which Foxconn calls home, "are reportedly looking to reduce headcount with robots."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Why all the fascination with robots? Well, there's the cost factor, for one thing. Industrial robots can cost as little as $25,000. For a $12.50 an hour a job here in the U.S., that means a robot capable of replacing one human's worth of work can pay for itself in a year. Raise wages to $15 an hour, and a robot will pay for itself even sooner ( <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/06/15-minimum-wage-you-can-change-the-wage-but-not-th.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">and be more likely to get hired</a>). Lower them to $4.20 an hour (the average manufacturing wage in China today), and you still recoup your investment in three years.</p>
<p>Here in the U.S., the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) reportsthat more than 260,000 robots are already on the job, and this number is growing. RIA says North American companies ordered 31,464 new robots in 2015, a 12% increase worth $1.8 billion.</p>
<p>It's important to keep those numbers in context. The U.S. added 38,000 jobs last month. So from one perspective, even anemic jobs growth in the U.S. still has humans landing new jobs more than 12 times faster than robots -- for now. But the percentage rate at which robot jobs are growing vastly exceeds percentage job growth for humans. Over time, it's not hard to predict <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/07/13/will-robots-lead-to-75-unemployment.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">how this trend plays out</a>.</p>
<p>So, what's a human to do? Well, one thing you might do is focus on finding a job that can't be done -- or can't be done economically -- by a robot. (Interior designer? Park ranger? I'm open to suggestions...)</p>
<p>In the meantime, it only makes sense for investors to begin buying stock in robotics companies that are supplying this trend. In Foxconn's case, unfortunately, Investors Business Dailyconfirms that Foxconn actually builds its robots in-house -- logical, for a high-tech electronics manufacturer. But elsewhere in China, the biggest suppliers of robots currently include <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/05/21/forget-abb-ltd-adr-and-check-out-this-german-robot.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">foreign names</a> such as Japan's Fanuc , Germany's Kuka , and Switzerland's ABB . Throw in Japan's smaller and less-famous Yaskawa Electric, and these four companies produce 60% of the robots currently in use in China.</p>
<p>According to data from <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence</a>, all four of these companies are profitable, with Fanuc leading the pack with $2 billion in trailing profits. Each of the four companies also generate positive free cash flow, with Kuka generating the least, and ABB throwing off the most cash -- $3.1 billion annually, or 68% more than its $1.9 billion in reported profit.</p>
<p>Despite being the strongest cash-generator, ABB stock sells for a very reasonable price -- less than 15 times free cash flow. Its projected growth rate exceeds 11%. Throw in a very respectable 3.6% dividend yield, an NYSE listing that makes the stock easy to trade, and a leading position in a growing segment of the market, and ABB looks like a great way to profit from the growing trend of robots in the workplace.</p>
<p>Manual labor at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen -- soon to become obsolete? Image source: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Foxconn_Technology_Group_in_China#/media/File:Electronics_factory_in_Shenzhen.jpg" type="external">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/08/apples-biggest-contractor-builds-a-robot-army.aspx" type="external">Apple's Biggest Contractor Builds a Robot Army</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>Fool contributor <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Rich Smith</a>does not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on <a href="http://caps.fool.com/?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Motley Fool CAPS</a>, publicly pontificating under the handle <a href="http://caps.fool.com/ViewPlayer.aspx?t=01002844399633209838&amp;source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFDitty</a>, where he's currently ranked No. 309 out of more than 75,000 rated members.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</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</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</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</a>.</p> | 4,232 |
<p />
<p>Despite having a down year in its film division,Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) scored impressive results through the first three quarters of 2016. The company pushed its revenue higher and even gained cable subscribers -- a feat nearly every other major pay-television provider failed to accomplish.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: <a href="https://ycharts.com/" type="external">YCharts.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Through three quarters of its fiscal 2016, Comcast posted an overall gain of 7.4%. It also grew its earnings per share (EPS) from $2.45 through three quarter in 2015 to $2.62 during the same period in 2016, a 6.9% increase. The company was able to do all of that despite following a year in which its film division achieved record results.</p>
<p>Those numbers were good enough to produce a steady increase throughout the year in the company's share price. After opening at $55.15, shares closed 2016 at $69.05, a 25% gain, according to data from <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/home.aspx" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Comcast has actually gained cable subscribers while most of its rivals are losing them. Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>In a difficult climate for its core cable business, Comcast was able to perform well. The company raised revenue for its cable communications division by 6.5% while its NBCUniversal group grew revenue by 5.8% (though only 0.1% when you exclude the Olympics).</p>
<p>Filmed entertainment, part of the NBCUniversal division, declined by nearly 8%. That was expected since the company was off-cycle for sequels to some of its biggest hits, including Jurassic World and Minions.</p>
<p>Comcast has bucked industry trends when it comes to subscriber losses in its cable business. That may not continue, but it's reasonable to think that any losses in pay television customers will be more than made up for by increases in broadband subscribers.</p>
<p>The company does face some negative headwinds in its cable division as the slowly shrinking home base for traditional pay television will cost it some carriage fees. That said, the company has a strong lineup of channels, many of which consumers will seek out even if they drop cable in favor of digital streaming or other options.</p>
<p>After its off year, the company's film division should bounce back strong in 2017 with a The Fast &amp; The Furious sequel as well as a second 50 Shades of Grey movie among its blockbuster-packed lineup. Going forward, as the company creates (or acquires, as it did buying DreamWorks Animation) more hit properties, it should be able to smooth out its film division to minimize these major fluctuations year over year (though some variance is simply the nature of the business).</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Comcast 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=b208d973-4d25-4fa6-8005-14685195e4b6&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 Comcast 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=b208d973-4d25-4fa6-8005-14685195e4b6&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 January 4, 2017.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/Dankline/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Kline Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Did Comcast Corporation Gain 25% in 2016? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/03/why-did-comcast-corporation-gain-25-in-2016.html | 2017-02-03 | 0right
| Why Did Comcast Corporation Gain 25% in 2016?
<p />
<p>Despite having a down year in its film division,Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) scored impressive results through the first three quarters of 2016. The company pushed its revenue higher and even gained cable subscribers -- a feat nearly every other major pay-television provider failed to accomplish.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: <a href="https://ycharts.com/" type="external">YCharts.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Through three quarters of its fiscal 2016, Comcast posted an overall gain of 7.4%. It also grew its earnings per share (EPS) from $2.45 through three quarter in 2015 to $2.62 during the same period in 2016, a 6.9% increase. The company was able to do all of that despite following a year in which its film division achieved record results.</p>
<p>Those numbers were good enough to produce a steady increase throughout the year in the company's share price. After opening at $55.15, shares closed 2016 at $69.05, a 25% gain, according to data from <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/home.aspx" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Comcast has actually gained cable subscribers while most of its rivals are losing them. Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>In a difficult climate for its core cable business, Comcast was able to perform well. The company raised revenue for its cable communications division by 6.5% while its NBCUniversal group grew revenue by 5.8% (though only 0.1% when you exclude the Olympics).</p>
<p>Filmed entertainment, part of the NBCUniversal division, declined by nearly 8%. That was expected since the company was off-cycle for sequels to some of its biggest hits, including Jurassic World and Minions.</p>
<p>Comcast has bucked industry trends when it comes to subscriber losses in its cable business. That may not continue, but it's reasonable to think that any losses in pay television customers will be more than made up for by increases in broadband subscribers.</p>
<p>The company does face some negative headwinds in its cable division as the slowly shrinking home base for traditional pay television will cost it some carriage fees. That said, the company has a strong lineup of channels, many of which consumers will seek out even if they drop cable in favor of digital streaming or other options.</p>
<p>After its off year, the company's film division should bounce back strong in 2017 with a The Fast &amp; The Furious sequel as well as a second 50 Shades of Grey movie among its blockbuster-packed lineup. Going forward, as the company creates (or acquires, as it did buying DreamWorks Animation) more hit properties, it should be able to smooth out its film division to minimize these major fluctuations year over year (though some variance is simply the nature of the business).</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Comcast 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=b208d973-4d25-4fa6-8005-14685195e4b6&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 Comcast 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=b208d973-4d25-4fa6-8005-14685195e4b6&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 January 4, 2017.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/Dankline/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Kline Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 4,233 |
<p>WASHINGTON — Top intelligence officials last week told President-elect Donald Trump about an unsubstantiated report that Russia had compromising personal and financial information about him, a U.S. official said Tuesday.</p>
<p>The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not allowed to publicly discuss the matter.</p>
<p>The briefing about the document was first reported by CNN. A summary of the allegations was separate from a classified assessment of Russia’s attempts to meddle in the U.S. presidential election. Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the intelligence community’s findings last week.</p>
<p>Shortly after news reports were published about the briefing, Trump tweeted: “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Trump was expected to hold a previously scheduled news conference Wednesday to discuss his future plans regarding his role with the Trump Organization.</p>
<p>The unsubstantiated dossier on Trump was compiled by a former Western intelligence operative as part of an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client who opposed Trump, and later funded by Democrats, according to Mother Jones, which published an article about the report in October and said the operative had turned over the report to the FBI. The New York Times reported the operative had previously worked for British intelligence. The Associated Press has not been able to substantiate the information in the dossier, which misspelled the name of Russia’s largest bank.</p>
<p>It’s unclear why the intelligence officials decided to brief the president and Trump on the uncorroborated information at this time, but lawmakers and others have repeatedly noted that Russia collects intelligence on both Democrats and Republicans.</p>
<p>“The Russians also hacked systems associated with the Republicans. They just chose not to release that material yet,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Tuesday. “There’s nothing that prevents them from doing so at a time of their choosing in the future.”</p>
<p>Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said in an interview Tuesday on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” that “nobody has sourced it. They’re all unnamed, unspoken sources in the story.” She said it may have originated with a Russian investigator or groups that wanted Hillary Clinton to win the White House.</p>
<p>The report had been circulating in Washington for months. In October, former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote the FBI asking the bureau to publicly disclose what it knew about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Reid was aware of the dossier before he wrote the letter, according to a person knowledgeable about the subject who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.</p>
<p>FBI Director James Comey refused earlier Tuesday to say whether the FBI was investigating any possible ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, citing policy not to comment on what the FBI might or might not be doing.</p>
<p>Comey was pressed by Democrats on the committee about whether the FBI was conducting an investigation. There was no mention during the hearing about the summary of the dossier, which was attached to the classified hacking assessment.</p>
<p>“I would never comment on investigations — whether we have one or not — in an open forum like this so I can’t answer one way or another,” Comey told the panel during his first public appearance before Congress since the election. In late October, Comey angered Democrats when he announced 11 days before the election that the FBI was looking at more emails as part of its investigation of Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said the American people had a right to know about whether there is an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.</p>
<p>An active FBI investigation of the next president for ties between his campaign and a nation accused of meddling in the presidential election could further stoke mistrust in the legitimacy of the democratic process. It could also put Trump’s own FBI in the awkward position of examining the conduct of those closest to the commander-in-chief.</p>
<p>The FBI was among three U.S. intelligence agencies that collaborated on last week’s report on Russia’s election activity. It tied Russian President Vladimir Putin to the hacking of email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. It said there was no evidence the Russians tampered with vote tallies; the agencies said they couldn’t assess if Russia succeeded in influencing Americans to vote for Trump.</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who opposed Trump in the GOP primary, said Russia’s activity wasn’t guided by its support for Trump, but rather “to influence and to potentially manipulate American public opinion for the purpose of discrediting individual political figures, sowing chaos and division in our politics, sowing doubts about the legitimacy of our elections.”</p>
<p>Democrats at the committee hearing focused their toughest questions on Comey, who was widely criticized for breaking FBI policy in his decision to notify Congress about additional information that came up related to Clinton. He is in the fourth year of a 10-year term, meaning he is expected to stay on in the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Comey set a new standard by discussing the bureau’s activity related to Clinton’s private email server. That standard, she said, is the FBI discusses ongoing investigations when there is a “unique public interest in the transparency of that issue.”</p>
<p>The intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian hacking fit that standard, she argued.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure I can think of an issue of more serious public interest than this one,” Harris said. “This committee needs to understand what the FBI does and does not know about campaign communications with Russia.”</p>
<p>Sitting beside Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, “Fair point.”</p> | Official says Trump was briefed on potentially compromising report | false | https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/official-says-trump-was-briefed-on-potentially-compromising-report/ | 2017-01-10 | 1right-center
| Official says Trump was briefed on potentially compromising report
<p>WASHINGTON — Top intelligence officials last week told President-elect Donald Trump about an unsubstantiated report that Russia had compromising personal and financial information about him, a U.S. official said Tuesday.</p>
<p>The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not allowed to publicly discuss the matter.</p>
<p>The briefing about the document was first reported by CNN. A summary of the allegations was separate from a classified assessment of Russia’s attempts to meddle in the U.S. presidential election. Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the intelligence community’s findings last week.</p>
<p>Shortly after news reports were published about the briefing, Trump tweeted: “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Trump was expected to hold a previously scheduled news conference Wednesday to discuss his future plans regarding his role with the Trump Organization.</p>
<p>The unsubstantiated dossier on Trump was compiled by a former Western intelligence operative as part of an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client who opposed Trump, and later funded by Democrats, according to Mother Jones, which published an article about the report in October and said the operative had turned over the report to the FBI. The New York Times reported the operative had previously worked for British intelligence. The Associated Press has not been able to substantiate the information in the dossier, which misspelled the name of Russia’s largest bank.</p>
<p>It’s unclear why the intelligence officials decided to brief the president and Trump on the uncorroborated information at this time, but lawmakers and others have repeatedly noted that Russia collects intelligence on both Democrats and Republicans.</p>
<p>“The Russians also hacked systems associated with the Republicans. They just chose not to release that material yet,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Tuesday. “There’s nothing that prevents them from doing so at a time of their choosing in the future.”</p>
<p>Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said in an interview Tuesday on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” that “nobody has sourced it. They’re all unnamed, unspoken sources in the story.” She said it may have originated with a Russian investigator or groups that wanted Hillary Clinton to win the White House.</p>
<p>The report had been circulating in Washington for months. In October, former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote the FBI asking the bureau to publicly disclose what it knew about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Reid was aware of the dossier before he wrote the letter, according to a person knowledgeable about the subject who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.</p>
<p>FBI Director James Comey refused earlier Tuesday to say whether the FBI was investigating any possible ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, citing policy not to comment on what the FBI might or might not be doing.</p>
<p>Comey was pressed by Democrats on the committee about whether the FBI was conducting an investigation. There was no mention during the hearing about the summary of the dossier, which was attached to the classified hacking assessment.</p>
<p>“I would never comment on investigations — whether we have one or not — in an open forum like this so I can’t answer one way or another,” Comey told the panel during his first public appearance before Congress since the election. In late October, Comey angered Democrats when he announced 11 days before the election that the FBI was looking at more emails as part of its investigation of Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said the American people had a right to know about whether there is an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.</p>
<p>An active FBI investigation of the next president for ties between his campaign and a nation accused of meddling in the presidential election could further stoke mistrust in the legitimacy of the democratic process. It could also put Trump’s own FBI in the awkward position of examining the conduct of those closest to the commander-in-chief.</p>
<p>The FBI was among three U.S. intelligence agencies that collaborated on last week’s report on Russia’s election activity. It tied Russian President Vladimir Putin to the hacking of email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. It said there was no evidence the Russians tampered with vote tallies; the agencies said they couldn’t assess if Russia succeeded in influencing Americans to vote for Trump.</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who opposed Trump in the GOP primary, said Russia’s activity wasn’t guided by its support for Trump, but rather “to influence and to potentially manipulate American public opinion for the purpose of discrediting individual political figures, sowing chaos and division in our politics, sowing doubts about the legitimacy of our elections.”</p>
<p>Democrats at the committee hearing focused their toughest questions on Comey, who was widely criticized for breaking FBI policy in his decision to notify Congress about additional information that came up related to Clinton. He is in the fourth year of a 10-year term, meaning he is expected to stay on in the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Comey set a new standard by discussing the bureau’s activity related to Clinton’s private email server. That standard, she said, is the FBI discusses ongoing investigations when there is a “unique public interest in the transparency of that issue.”</p>
<p>The intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian hacking fit that standard, she argued.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure I can think of an issue of more serious public interest than this one,” Harris said. “This committee needs to understand what the FBI does and does not know about campaign communications with Russia.”</p>
<p>Sitting beside Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, “Fair point.”</p> | 4,234 |
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has nominated Thomas J. Saadi, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, as Connecticut's Department of Veterans Affairs commissioner.</p>
<p>The 48-year-old Danbury resident has been the agency's acting commissioner since October. He took over for former Commissioner Sean Connolly, who is seeking the Democratic Party's endorsement for governor.</p>
<p>Malloy announced Tuesday he was nominating Saadi, who first joined the department in May 2015 as its general counsel. He later served as chief of staff. Saadi has also served as an assistant attorney general and special prosecutor.</p>
<p>Malloy says Saadi's experience as a reservist and in state government "will continue to be a benefit at the agency," which provides care for approximately 200,000 veterans living in the state and their dependents.</p>
<p>Saadi's appointment still requires legislative confirmation.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to change Saadi's age from 40 to 48.</p>
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has nominated Thomas J. Saadi, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, as Connecticut's Department of Veterans Affairs commissioner.</p>
<p>The 48-year-old Danbury resident has been the agency's acting commissioner since October. He took over for former Commissioner Sean Connolly, who is seeking the Democratic Party's endorsement for governor.</p>
<p>Malloy announced Tuesday he was nominating Saadi, who first joined the department in May 2015 as its general counsel. He later served as chief of staff. Saadi has also served as an assistant attorney general and special prosecutor.</p>
<p>Malloy says Saadi's experience as a reservist and in state government "will continue to be a benefit at the agency," which provides care for approximately 200,000 veterans living in the state and their dependents.</p>
<p>Saadi's appointment still requires legislative confirmation.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to change Saadi's age from 40 to 48.</p> | Malloy taps acting veterans affairs commissioner for top job | false | https://apnews.com/amp/f0830818a230447eaaec4ffa67933a76 | 2018-01-16 | 2least
| Malloy taps acting veterans affairs commissioner for top job
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has nominated Thomas J. Saadi, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, as Connecticut's Department of Veterans Affairs commissioner.</p>
<p>The 48-year-old Danbury resident has been the agency's acting commissioner since October. He took over for former Commissioner Sean Connolly, who is seeking the Democratic Party's endorsement for governor.</p>
<p>Malloy announced Tuesday he was nominating Saadi, who first joined the department in May 2015 as its general counsel. He later served as chief of staff. Saadi has also served as an assistant attorney general and special prosecutor.</p>
<p>Malloy says Saadi's experience as a reservist and in state government "will continue to be a benefit at the agency," which provides care for approximately 200,000 veterans living in the state and their dependents.</p>
<p>Saadi's appointment still requires legislative confirmation.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to change Saadi's age from 40 to 48.</p>
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has nominated Thomas J. Saadi, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, as Connecticut's Department of Veterans Affairs commissioner.</p>
<p>The 48-year-old Danbury resident has been the agency's acting commissioner since October. He took over for former Commissioner Sean Connolly, who is seeking the Democratic Party's endorsement for governor.</p>
<p>Malloy announced Tuesday he was nominating Saadi, who first joined the department in May 2015 as its general counsel. He later served as chief of staff. Saadi has also served as an assistant attorney general and special prosecutor.</p>
<p>Malloy says Saadi's experience as a reservist and in state government "will continue to be a benefit at the agency," which provides care for approximately 200,000 veterans living in the state and their dependents.</p>
<p>Saadi's appointment still requires legislative confirmation.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to change Saadi's age from 40 to 48.</p> | 4,235 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention’s top public-policy expert joined Princeton University professor Robert George and numerous other intellectuals in urging the use of military force against a militant group seeking to set up an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.</p>
<p>Russell Moore, president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, added his name to a statement posted by George on a website called <a href="http://iraqrescue.org/" type="external">IraqRescue.org</a> denouncing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria —&#160;ISIS for short —&#160;for “conducting a campaign of genocide against Christians, Yazidis and others in Iraq.”</p>
<p>ISIS has targeted Iraq’s minority Christian and members of the Yazidi sect, a Kurdish-speaking group combining Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous folk traditions, in its efforts to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader, in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Religious leaders <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/isis-persecution-iraqi-christians-genocide-asylum" type="external">termed</a> the recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/isis-offensive-iraq-christian-exodus" type="external">fall</a> of Iraq’s largest Christian town a turning point toward ethnic cleansing, with ISIS reportedly killing people in the name of Allah and proclaiming that anyone who kills a Christian will go straight to heaven.</p>
<p>The Iraq Rescue group said “no options that are consistent with the principles of just war doctrine should be off the table” in stemming the ISIS advance. They advocated more than a short-term solution, claiming that “nothing short of the destruction of ISIS/ISIL as a fighting force will provide long-term protection of victims.” (Another English translation of the <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/isis-or-isil-are-they-the-same-what-to-call-iraqs-islamic-militant-extremists-124561/" type="external">group’s name</a> is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, abbreviated ISIL.)</p>
<p>“None of us glorifies war or underestimates the risks entailed by the use of military force,” they said. “Where non-military means of resolving disputes and protecting human rights are available, we always and strongly favor those means.”</p>
<p>The signers said “the evidence is overwhelming” that non-military means cannot prevent further victimization of religious minorities in Iraq. They said President Obama was right to <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/07/statement-president" type="external">order</a> targeted air strikes Aug. 7, but much more needs to be done and “there is no time to waste.”</p>
<p>“We call upon President Obama and the Congress of the United States to expand airstrikes against ISIS/ISIL with a view to eroding its military power, and to provide full air support for Kurdish and other forces fighting against ISIS/ISIL,” they said.&#160;</p>
<p>“Further, we endorse the Washington Post’s call for the United States to provide arms, ammunition and equipment to Kurdish forces, Sunni tribesmen and others who are currently hampered in their ability to fight ISIS/ISIL by a lack of sophisticated weapons and other resources. The U.S. should also assist with intelligence. We are hopeful that local forces, with adequate support and assistance from the U.S. and the international community, can defeat ISIS/ISIL.”</p>
<p>They also called on the U.S. to take the lead in providing food, water, medicine and other essential supplies for the humanitarian crisis facing the displaced and fleeing.</p> | SBC leader joins call for military action in Iraq | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-leader-joins-call-for-military-action-in-iraq/ | 3left-center
| SBC leader joins call for military action in Iraq
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention’s top public-policy expert joined Princeton University professor Robert George and numerous other intellectuals in urging the use of military force against a militant group seeking to set up an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.</p>
<p>Russell Moore, president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, added his name to a statement posted by George on a website called <a href="http://iraqrescue.org/" type="external">IraqRescue.org</a> denouncing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria —&#160;ISIS for short —&#160;for “conducting a campaign of genocide against Christians, Yazidis and others in Iraq.”</p>
<p>ISIS has targeted Iraq’s minority Christian and members of the Yazidi sect, a Kurdish-speaking group combining Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous folk traditions, in its efforts to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader, in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Religious leaders <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/isis-persecution-iraqi-christians-genocide-asylum" type="external">termed</a> the recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/07/isis-offensive-iraq-christian-exodus" type="external">fall</a> of Iraq’s largest Christian town a turning point toward ethnic cleansing, with ISIS reportedly killing people in the name of Allah and proclaiming that anyone who kills a Christian will go straight to heaven.</p>
<p>The Iraq Rescue group said “no options that are consistent with the principles of just war doctrine should be off the table” in stemming the ISIS advance. They advocated more than a short-term solution, claiming that “nothing short of the destruction of ISIS/ISIL as a fighting force will provide long-term protection of victims.” (Another English translation of the <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/isis-or-isil-are-they-the-same-what-to-call-iraqs-islamic-militant-extremists-124561/" type="external">group’s name</a> is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, abbreviated ISIL.)</p>
<p>“None of us glorifies war or underestimates the risks entailed by the use of military force,” they said. “Where non-military means of resolving disputes and protecting human rights are available, we always and strongly favor those means.”</p>
<p>The signers said “the evidence is overwhelming” that non-military means cannot prevent further victimization of religious minorities in Iraq. They said President Obama was right to <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/07/statement-president" type="external">order</a> targeted air strikes Aug. 7, but much more needs to be done and “there is no time to waste.”</p>
<p>“We call upon President Obama and the Congress of the United States to expand airstrikes against ISIS/ISIL with a view to eroding its military power, and to provide full air support for Kurdish and other forces fighting against ISIS/ISIL,” they said.&#160;</p>
<p>“Further, we endorse the Washington Post’s call for the United States to provide arms, ammunition and equipment to Kurdish forces, Sunni tribesmen and others who are currently hampered in their ability to fight ISIS/ISIL by a lack of sophisticated weapons and other resources. The U.S. should also assist with intelligence. We are hopeful that local forces, with adequate support and assistance from the U.S. and the international community, can defeat ISIS/ISIL.”</p>
<p>They also called on the U.S. to take the lead in providing food, water, medicine and other essential supplies for the humanitarian crisis facing the displaced and fleeing.</p> | 4,236 |
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<p>In one of the latest examples of our information crisis, CNN took a story this week about how a friend of Donald Trump said after a meeting at the White House that he thought the president was considering firing Robert Mueller. Then the network sloppily repackaged the story so it could report that Trump was, in fact, thinking about terminating the special counsel. Then CNN got a whole bunch of people to comment – from pundits and reporters to elected officials – and used those quotes to serve as the new jumping off point for a day’s worth of stories.</p>
<p>And when House Speaker Paul Ryan objected and pointed out the whole story was manufactured by the media, CNN anchors tried to justify their boo-boo by saying that some conservative pundits like Ann Coulter have called for Mueller’s removal and insisting that the White House had yet to deny the story.</p>
<p>You know liberals are busted when they’re desperate enough to seek cover behind a rhetorical arsonist like Ann Coulter.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>What in the world has happened to my profession? It seems that many journalists – especially those in the New York-Washington echo chamber – are so personally offended by the idea of Trump being president, and so embarrassed that they missed the big story of how someone like Trump could get elected, that they’ve thrown out the rule book and forgotten everything we were ever taught by crusty old editors about double-sourcing and triple-checking.</p>
<p>Yet, certain truths still apply:</p>
<p>⋄&#160; The best-written columns, and the most credible newscasts, are the ones we most agree with.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; The best constructed and most persuasive arguments are the ones that share our position.</p>
<p>And finally – thanks to the opinion storm following James Comey’s testimony – we can add to the list:</p>
<p>⋄&#160; In any “he said, he said” situation, the more believable person is the one we support.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; And while it’s up to the criminal justice system to make the punishment fit the crime, you will find lawyers who – guided by partisanship – can find a crime to fit a president.</p>
<p>If you like Trump, you thought Comey lied from start to finish. If you dislike Trump, you believed the former FBI director told the truth from beginning to end.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>One exception to that rule – and a refreshing one at that – is retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who didn’t let his opposition to Trump (he claims to have voted for Hillary Clinton) stop him from offering straight legal analysis.</p>
<p>On CNN, Dershowitz argued that Comey’s testimony revealed no evidence of a crime. The president has the legal authority to stop an FBI investigation and thus there can be no obstruction of justice. The fact that there have been so many other lawyer-pundits trying to argue otherwise – while standing on shaky constitutional ground – shows just how far we’ve drifted off course.</p>
<p>Exhibit A: CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, a Harvard Law graduate himself who has insisted all along – before much of the facts are in – that this is a clear-cut case of obstruction of justice that may ultimately lead to impeachment.</p>
<p>This is where Trump’s critics go astray. They mix together – in one pot – the legal term “obstruction of justice” and the political concept of “impeachment.” The former has a much higher standard, and operates within much narrower parameters, than the latter. All you need for impeachment is 218 votes in the House of Representatives. Proving obstruction of justice, or even charging someone with that crime, is much more difficult.</p>
<p>So says Elizabeth Foley, a sharp-as-nails lawyer and law professor at Florida International University. During an appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Foley did to the host, and Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe – a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton and early Trump critic – what a sushi chef does to raw fish. Foley’s main point was that, under existing federal code, it is not clear that an FBI investigation is one of the procedures that an individual can be charged with obstructing.</p>
<p>Zakaria’s response was to meekly plead with Foley not to get “too technical.”</p>
<p>Not to get too technical, but the evidence shows that Trump’s persecutors – in the media, Congress and the nation’s law schools – have gone off the rails. They’re not thinking clearly. In some cases, they’re not thinking at all.</p>
<p /> | Trump’s persecutors have drifted way off course | false | https://abqjournal.com/1018548/trumps-persecutors-have-drifted-way-off-course.html | 2least
| Trump’s persecutors have drifted way off course
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>In one of the latest examples of our information crisis, CNN took a story this week about how a friend of Donald Trump said after a meeting at the White House that he thought the president was considering firing Robert Mueller. Then the network sloppily repackaged the story so it could report that Trump was, in fact, thinking about terminating the special counsel. Then CNN got a whole bunch of people to comment – from pundits and reporters to elected officials – and used those quotes to serve as the new jumping off point for a day’s worth of stories.</p>
<p>And when House Speaker Paul Ryan objected and pointed out the whole story was manufactured by the media, CNN anchors tried to justify their boo-boo by saying that some conservative pundits like Ann Coulter have called for Mueller’s removal and insisting that the White House had yet to deny the story.</p>
<p>You know liberals are busted when they’re desperate enough to seek cover behind a rhetorical arsonist like Ann Coulter.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>What in the world has happened to my profession? It seems that many journalists – especially those in the New York-Washington echo chamber – are so personally offended by the idea of Trump being president, and so embarrassed that they missed the big story of how someone like Trump could get elected, that they’ve thrown out the rule book and forgotten everything we were ever taught by crusty old editors about double-sourcing and triple-checking.</p>
<p>Yet, certain truths still apply:</p>
<p>⋄&#160; The best-written columns, and the most credible newscasts, are the ones we most agree with.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; The best constructed and most persuasive arguments are the ones that share our position.</p>
<p>And finally – thanks to the opinion storm following James Comey’s testimony – we can add to the list:</p>
<p>⋄&#160; In any “he said, he said” situation, the more believable person is the one we support.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; And while it’s up to the criminal justice system to make the punishment fit the crime, you will find lawyers who – guided by partisanship – can find a crime to fit a president.</p>
<p>If you like Trump, you thought Comey lied from start to finish. If you dislike Trump, you believed the former FBI director told the truth from beginning to end.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>One exception to that rule – and a refreshing one at that – is retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who didn’t let his opposition to Trump (he claims to have voted for Hillary Clinton) stop him from offering straight legal analysis.</p>
<p>On CNN, Dershowitz argued that Comey’s testimony revealed no evidence of a crime. The president has the legal authority to stop an FBI investigation and thus there can be no obstruction of justice. The fact that there have been so many other lawyer-pundits trying to argue otherwise – while standing on shaky constitutional ground – shows just how far we’ve drifted off course.</p>
<p>Exhibit A: CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, a Harvard Law graduate himself who has insisted all along – before much of the facts are in – that this is a clear-cut case of obstruction of justice that may ultimately lead to impeachment.</p>
<p>This is where Trump’s critics go astray. They mix together – in one pot – the legal term “obstruction of justice” and the political concept of “impeachment.” The former has a much higher standard, and operates within much narrower parameters, than the latter. All you need for impeachment is 218 votes in the House of Representatives. Proving obstruction of justice, or even charging someone with that crime, is much more difficult.</p>
<p>So says Elizabeth Foley, a sharp-as-nails lawyer and law professor at Florida International University. During an appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Foley did to the host, and Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe – a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton and early Trump critic – what a sushi chef does to raw fish. Foley’s main point was that, under existing federal code, it is not clear that an FBI investigation is one of the procedures that an individual can be charged with obstructing.</p>
<p>Zakaria’s response was to meekly plead with Foley not to get “too technical.”</p>
<p>Not to get too technical, but the evidence shows that Trump’s persecutors – in the media, Congress and the nation’s law schools – have gone off the rails. They’re not thinking clearly. In some cases, they’re not thinking at all.</p>
<p /> | 4,237 |
|
<p>Despite graduating from high school and entering the workforce at higher rates, Robert Taylor Homes residents in 2000 were less likely to escape poverty and unemployment than residents there in 1970. Chicago’s loss of manufacturing jobs also had an impact. In 1970, the manufacturing industry was the leading employer of Taylor residents.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Source: U.S. Census Bureau; analyzed by The Chicago Reporter.</p> | Development decline | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/development-decline/ | 2007-09-26 | 3left-center
| Development decline
<p>Despite graduating from high school and entering the workforce at higher rates, Robert Taylor Homes residents in 2000 were less likely to escape poverty and unemployment than residents there in 1970. Chicago’s loss of manufacturing jobs also had an impact. In 1970, the manufacturing industry was the leading employer of Taylor residents.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Source: U.S. Census Bureau; analyzed by The Chicago Reporter.</p> | 4,238 |
<p>LAUSANNE (Reuters) - North Korea will send 22 athletes to the Winter Games in the neighbouring South next month and compete in three sports and five disciplines, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Saturday.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach poses with the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the NOC of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>North Korea’s planned involvement in Pyeongchang is viewed as a sign of easing tensions over its nuclear and missile programme.</p>
<p>The North and South had agreed to march under a single flag at the opening ceremony and would field a united team in the women’s ice hockey, The IOC said in a statement that confirmed earlier reports. The North will send 24 officials and 21 media representatives.</p>
<p>It said the united Korean delegation would be led into the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony under the Korean Unification Flag which would be carried by two athletes, one from each country.</p> North Korea's International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Chang Ung speaks with a journalist before a meeting at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>Separately, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said North Korea would send a delegation to the country on Sunday to prepare for a trip by an art troupe during the Games, pushing the visit back a day after earlier cancelling it.</p>
<p>The North Korean athletes will be handed quota places, a rarely-used form of wild card, to allow them to compete in ice skating, skiing and ice hockey.</p>
<p>Until Saturday, a figure skating pair were the only North Koreans to have secured a spot at the Games through the conventional qualifying competition, although they lost their place after failing to register.</p>
<p>They were therefore handed one quota place while two male North Korean competitors were given places in the short track speed skating.</p>
<p>Three North Koreans will compete in the cross-country skiing and another three in the Alpine skiing slalom and giant slalom events.</p>
<p>Twelve players would be added to the existing South Korean women’s ice hockey squad of 23. At least three North Korean players would be selected for each match.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach welcomes Jong-Hwan Do, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea (ROK) at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>“Today marks the milestone on a long journey,” said IOC president Thomas Bach in a prepared declaration. “Since 2014, the IOC has addressed the special situation of having the Olympic Winter Games on the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>“Such an agreement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago,” he added. “The Olympic Winter Games are hopefully opening the door to a brighter future on the Korean peninsula.”</p>
<p>The IOC said it would provide any necessary equipment for the athletes.</p>
<p>North Korea’s participation in the Olympics has been seen as a win for South Korea president Moon Jae-in, who hopes to use the event to make a diplomatic breakthrough in the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme.</p>
<p>However, the decision to field a unified ice hockey team has sparked a sharp backlash in the South, including from younger South Koreans upset that an unchastened North Korea is taking the spotlight.</p>
<p>Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by John O'Brien and John Stonestreet</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A rematch between Kazakhstan’s world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez scheduled for May 5 has been canceled following the Mexican’s positive test for the banned substance Clenbuterol, fight promoters said on Tuesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Middleweight boxer Canelo Alvarez of Mexico and WBC/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin of Kazakhstan pose during a news conference at MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus/File Photo
<p>Alvarez, who blamed contaminated beef that he consumed in Mexico for the test result, withdrew from the fight after being temporarily suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission less than two weeks ago for failing the test.</p>
<p>The commission will hold a hearing on the case on April 18.</p>
<p>Clenbuterol is sometimes illicitly mixed into livestock feed to make meat leaner.</p>
<p>The boxers fought to a controversial draw in their middleweight world title bout in Las Vegas in September, with each getting the nod from one judge while the third declared it a tie, ramping up anticipation for a rematch.</p>
<p>Golovkin still intends to fight on May 5 in Las Vegas against a yet-to-be determined opponent, Tom Loeffler of GGG Promotions said.</p>
<p>Golovkin, who holds the WBA, WBC, IBF and IBO belts, is unbeaten with a 37-0-1 record, while Alvarez is 49-1-2, with his only loss coming against Floyd Mayweather in 2013.</p>
<p>Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Ken Ferris</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Seven cities, or joint-bidding cities have expressed interest in hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday.</p> The International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters is pictured on the day of an Executive Board meeting on sanctions for Russian athletes in Lausanne, Switzerland December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
<p>Canada’s Calgary, Austria’s Graz, Swedish capital Stockholm, Sion in Switzerland, Turkey’s Erzurum, Japan’s Sapporo and an Italian bid involving Cortina d’Ampezzo, Milan and Turin are all in the initial process.</p>
<p>There is considerable Olympic experience in the field with Calgary having hosted the 1988 Winter Games and Sapporo having staged the 1972 edition. Cortina is also a former host, having organized the 1956 Winter Olympics as is Turin in 2006.</p>
<p>Stockholm has hosted summer Games but despite repeated attempts, has failed to land the winter Olympics. It last bid briefly for 2022 but pulled out mid-race.</p>
<p>The cities will now enter a dialogue stage until October when the IOC will invite an unspecified number of them to take part in the one-year candidature phase.</p>
<p>The IOC has overhauled the bidding process for Games after a sharp slump in interest from potential hosts in recent years, cutting costs for bid cities and slashing the campaign time in half.</p>
<p>“I warmly welcome the National Olympic Committees’ and cities’ interest in hosting the Olympic Winter Games,” said IOC President Thomas Bach in a statement.</p>
<p>“The IOC has turned the page with regard to Olympic candidatures. Our goal is not just to have a record number of candidates, but ultimately it is to select the best city to stage the best Olympic Winter Games for the best athletes of the world.”</p>
<p>The IOC has also simplified the seven-year preparation for Games organizers, reducing costs, upping the IOC’s contribution and allowing host cities more flexibility in planning for the Olympics and the post-Games use of facilities.</p>
<p>It will elect the winning 2026 bid at its session in Milan in September, 2019 but some cities, including Sion, will need to hold referendums first.</p>
<p>“In a city where we have a referendum we welcome the public consultation,” Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi told reporters. “A project of this size has an impact, hopefully a positive one, on the life of cities for a long time.”</p>
<p>The IOC said there had already been interest for 2030, from the United States Olympic Committee among others.</p>
<p>The 2022 Winter Games will be held in Beijing after four other cities dropped out of the bid race for fear of soaring costs and size of the Olympics, leaving the Chinese capital and Kazakhstan’s Almaty as the only candidates.</p>
<p>More cities dropped out of the 2024 Summer Olympics race with the IOC opting to award them directly to Paris and in turn give Los Angeles, which had also bid for 2024, the 2028 Games.</p>
<p>Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond and Christian Radnedge</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>Tobias Harris had 31 points and nine rebounds, and Lou Williams scored 15 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as the Los Angeles Clippers erased a 19-point deficit to beat the visiting San Antonio Spurs 113-110 Tuesday night.</p>
<p>Austin Rivers added 18 points, Montrezl Harris 16 and DeAndre Jordan totaled 10 points and 17 rebounds for the Clippers, who snapped a two-game losing streak and won for the fourth time in six games to keep their playoff push alive.</p>
<p>“We’ve been a resilient group,” Williams told TNT after the game. “We know our backs (are) against the wall, we know we’ve got to win out to give ourselves an opportunity.”</p>
<p>Los Angeles moved within 1 1/2 games of the New Orleans Pelicans for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. San Antonio dropped into a tie for fourth with Utah after the loss, though the Jazz hold the tiebreaker. Both the Spurs and the Jazz have four games remaining.</p>
<p>LaMarcus Aldridge had a game-high 35 points and nine rebounds, and Patty Mills put up 17 points for the Spurs. San Antonio had won two straight, including a victory over Western Conference-leading Houston on Sunday.</p>
<p>Kawhi Leonard missed his 34th straight game for San Antonio due to a nagging quad injury. Danilo Gallinari, who sat 18 games from Feb. 23 to March 28 with a right hand fracture, was sidelined for Los Angeles because of hand soreness.</p>
<p>Williams’ pull-up jumper with 50 seconds remaining to go gave the Clippers their first lead at 106-105. The advantage was short-lived as Mills knocked down a 3-pointer with 37.8 left to restore the Spurs’ lead.</p>
<p>Rivers’ trey with 29 seconds remaining put Los Angeles back up by one. Mills missed a potential go-ahead jumper with nine seconds left, and a video review confirmed the ball went out of bounds off of Aldridge.</p>
<p>Williams was fouled with 4.6 ticks left and sank both free throws to make it 111-108. After a San Antonio timeout, Mills was fouled after catching the inbound pass with 3.9 seconds on the clock, and he hit both foul shots.</p>
<p>Harris was fouled one second later and sank both free throws. The Spurs got the ball in to Manu Ginobili for a corner 3-point attempt, but he stepped out of bounds.</p>
<p>San Antonio caps its two-game L.A. swing against the Lakers on Wednesday night. The Clippers visit Utah on Thursday.</p>
<p>—Field Level Media</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>Jamie Benn scored a hat trick, including the game-winner with 3:06 to play and an empty netter with 24 seconds left, as the Dallas Stars came from behind in the final six minutes to defeat the San Jose Sharks 4-2 on Tuesday at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif.</p>
<p>Benn picked the pocket of Tomas Hertl in the San Jose zone and skated into the slot before going to his backhand to beat San Jose goaltender Martin Jones with the deciding goal.</p>
<p>The Sharks, who clinched a playoff berth when Los Angeles defeated Colorado 3-1 on Monday, hold onto second-place spot in the Pacific Division by two points over the Kings and by three over Anaheim. San Jose, which has lost four straight matches, will garner home-ice advantage for the first round of the Western Conference playoffs if it holds onto its current position.</p>
<p>Dallas was eliminated from playoff contention Sunday. The Stars have missed the playoffs in eight of the last 10 seasons.</p>
<p>Logan Couture turned a pass from Brent Burns into a power-play goal on a viscous wrist shot at the 9:21 mark of the first period to hand the Sharks a 1-0 lead. Hertl also got an assist on the score.</p>
<p>Timo Meier expanded the lead to 2-0 as he chased down a loose puck and fired a shot from a tough angle past Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen with 4:44 to play in the opening period. Assists on the goal went to Burns and Joe Pavelski.</p>
<p>Dallas cut the lead in half with just 31 seconds to play in the second period on goal by Benn, who cut to the back door and redirected a pass from John Klingberg to register his 30th goal of the season. Tyler Seguin also assisted on the play.</p>
<p>Gemel Smith tied the match with 5:15 to play in regulation off an across-the-slot pass from Devin Shore.</p>
<p>Lehtonen made his eighth straight start for the Stars but was injured and replaced by Mike McKenna, who stopped all 17 shots he faced.</p>
<p>The Sharks host Colorado on Thursday before closing the season on Saturday at home against Minnesota. Dallas finishes its season with games in Anaheim on Friday and Los Angeles on Saturday.</p>
<p>—Field Level Media</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | North Korea to send 22 athletes to Pyeongchang Boxing: Mexican Alvarez withdraws from Golovkin rematch Seven cities confirm interest in 2026 Winter Games: IOC Clippers stop Spurs to buoy playoff hopes Stars rally past Sharks behind Benn's hat trick | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2018-northkorea-athletes/north-korea-to-send-22-athletes-to-pyeongchang-idUSKBN1F90IY | 2018-01-20 | 2least
| North Korea to send 22 athletes to Pyeongchang Boxing: Mexican Alvarez withdraws from Golovkin rematch Seven cities confirm interest in 2026 Winter Games: IOC Clippers stop Spurs to buoy playoff hopes Stars rally past Sharks behind Benn's hat trick
<p>LAUSANNE (Reuters) - North Korea will send 22 athletes to the Winter Games in the neighbouring South next month and compete in three sports and five disciplines, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Saturday.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach poses with the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the NOC of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>North Korea’s planned involvement in Pyeongchang is viewed as a sign of easing tensions over its nuclear and missile programme.</p>
<p>The North and South had agreed to march under a single flag at the opening ceremony and would field a united team in the women’s ice hockey, The IOC said in a statement that confirmed earlier reports. The North will send 24 officials and 21 media representatives.</p>
<p>It said the united Korean delegation would be led into the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony under the Korean Unification Flag which would be carried by two athletes, one from each country.</p> North Korea's International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Chang Ung speaks with a journalist before a meeting at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>Separately, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said North Korea would send a delegation to the country on Sunday to prepare for a trip by an art troupe during the Games, pushing the visit back a day after earlier cancelling it.</p>
<p>The North Korean athletes will be handed quota places, a rarely-used form of wild card, to allow them to compete in ice skating, skiing and ice hockey.</p>
<p>Until Saturday, a figure skating pair were the only North Koreans to have secured a spot at the Games through the conventional qualifying competition, although they lost their place after failing to register.</p>
<p>They were therefore handed one quota place while two male North Korean competitors were given places in the short track speed skating.</p>
<p>Three North Koreans will compete in the cross-country skiing and another three in the Alpine skiing slalom and giant slalom events.</p>
<p>Twelve players would be added to the existing South Korean women’s ice hockey squad of 23. At least three North Korean players would be selected for each match.</p> International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach welcomes Jong-Hwan Do, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea (ROK) at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, January 20, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
<p>“Today marks the milestone on a long journey,” said IOC president Thomas Bach in a prepared declaration. “Since 2014, the IOC has addressed the special situation of having the Olympic Winter Games on the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>“Such an agreement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago,” he added. “The Olympic Winter Games are hopefully opening the door to a brighter future on the Korean peninsula.”</p>
<p>The IOC said it would provide any necessary equipment for the athletes.</p>
<p>North Korea’s participation in the Olympics has been seen as a win for South Korea president Moon Jae-in, who hopes to use the event to make a diplomatic breakthrough in the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme.</p>
<p>However, the decision to field a unified ice hockey team has sparked a sharp backlash in the South, including from younger South Koreans upset that an unchastened North Korea is taking the spotlight.</p>
<p>Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by John O'Brien and John Stonestreet</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A rematch between Kazakhstan’s world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez scheduled for May 5 has been canceled following the Mexican’s positive test for the banned substance Clenbuterol, fight promoters said on Tuesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Middleweight boxer Canelo Alvarez of Mexico and WBC/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin of Kazakhstan pose during a news conference at MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus/File Photo
<p>Alvarez, who blamed contaminated beef that he consumed in Mexico for the test result, withdrew from the fight after being temporarily suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission less than two weeks ago for failing the test.</p>
<p>The commission will hold a hearing on the case on April 18.</p>
<p>Clenbuterol is sometimes illicitly mixed into livestock feed to make meat leaner.</p>
<p>The boxers fought to a controversial draw in their middleweight world title bout in Las Vegas in September, with each getting the nod from one judge while the third declared it a tie, ramping up anticipation for a rematch.</p>
<p>Golovkin still intends to fight on May 5 in Las Vegas against a yet-to-be determined opponent, Tom Loeffler of GGG Promotions said.</p>
<p>Golovkin, who holds the WBA, WBC, IBF and IBO belts, is unbeaten with a 37-0-1 record, while Alvarez is 49-1-2, with his only loss coming against Floyd Mayweather in 2013.</p>
<p>Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Ken Ferris</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Seven cities, or joint-bidding cities have expressed interest in hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday.</p> The International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters is pictured on the day of an Executive Board meeting on sanctions for Russian athletes in Lausanne, Switzerland December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
<p>Canada’s Calgary, Austria’s Graz, Swedish capital Stockholm, Sion in Switzerland, Turkey’s Erzurum, Japan’s Sapporo and an Italian bid involving Cortina d’Ampezzo, Milan and Turin are all in the initial process.</p>
<p>There is considerable Olympic experience in the field with Calgary having hosted the 1988 Winter Games and Sapporo having staged the 1972 edition. Cortina is also a former host, having organized the 1956 Winter Olympics as is Turin in 2006.</p>
<p>Stockholm has hosted summer Games but despite repeated attempts, has failed to land the winter Olympics. It last bid briefly for 2022 but pulled out mid-race.</p>
<p>The cities will now enter a dialogue stage until October when the IOC will invite an unspecified number of them to take part in the one-year candidature phase.</p>
<p>The IOC has overhauled the bidding process for Games after a sharp slump in interest from potential hosts in recent years, cutting costs for bid cities and slashing the campaign time in half.</p>
<p>“I warmly welcome the National Olympic Committees’ and cities’ interest in hosting the Olympic Winter Games,” said IOC President Thomas Bach in a statement.</p>
<p>“The IOC has turned the page with regard to Olympic candidatures. Our goal is not just to have a record number of candidates, but ultimately it is to select the best city to stage the best Olympic Winter Games for the best athletes of the world.”</p>
<p>The IOC has also simplified the seven-year preparation for Games organizers, reducing costs, upping the IOC’s contribution and allowing host cities more flexibility in planning for the Olympics and the post-Games use of facilities.</p>
<p>It will elect the winning 2026 bid at its session in Milan in September, 2019 but some cities, including Sion, will need to hold referendums first.</p>
<p>“In a city where we have a referendum we welcome the public consultation,” Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi told reporters. “A project of this size has an impact, hopefully a positive one, on the life of cities for a long time.”</p>
<p>The IOC said there had already been interest for 2030, from the United States Olympic Committee among others.</p>
<p>The 2022 Winter Games will be held in Beijing after four other cities dropped out of the bid race for fear of soaring costs and size of the Olympics, leaving the Chinese capital and Kazakhstan’s Almaty as the only candidates.</p>
<p>More cities dropped out of the 2024 Summer Olympics race with the IOC opting to award them directly to Paris and in turn give Los Angeles, which had also bid for 2024, the 2028 Games.</p>
<p>Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond and Christian Radnedge</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>Tobias Harris had 31 points and nine rebounds, and Lou Williams scored 15 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as the Los Angeles Clippers erased a 19-point deficit to beat the visiting San Antonio Spurs 113-110 Tuesday night.</p>
<p>Austin Rivers added 18 points, Montrezl Harris 16 and DeAndre Jordan totaled 10 points and 17 rebounds for the Clippers, who snapped a two-game losing streak and won for the fourth time in six games to keep their playoff push alive.</p>
<p>“We’ve been a resilient group,” Williams told TNT after the game. “We know our backs (are) against the wall, we know we’ve got to win out to give ourselves an opportunity.”</p>
<p>Los Angeles moved within 1 1/2 games of the New Orleans Pelicans for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. San Antonio dropped into a tie for fourth with Utah after the loss, though the Jazz hold the tiebreaker. Both the Spurs and the Jazz have four games remaining.</p>
<p>LaMarcus Aldridge had a game-high 35 points and nine rebounds, and Patty Mills put up 17 points for the Spurs. San Antonio had won two straight, including a victory over Western Conference-leading Houston on Sunday.</p>
<p>Kawhi Leonard missed his 34th straight game for San Antonio due to a nagging quad injury. Danilo Gallinari, who sat 18 games from Feb. 23 to March 28 with a right hand fracture, was sidelined for Los Angeles because of hand soreness.</p>
<p>Williams’ pull-up jumper with 50 seconds remaining to go gave the Clippers their first lead at 106-105. The advantage was short-lived as Mills knocked down a 3-pointer with 37.8 left to restore the Spurs’ lead.</p>
<p>Rivers’ trey with 29 seconds remaining put Los Angeles back up by one. Mills missed a potential go-ahead jumper with nine seconds left, and a video review confirmed the ball went out of bounds off of Aldridge.</p>
<p>Williams was fouled with 4.6 ticks left and sank both free throws to make it 111-108. After a San Antonio timeout, Mills was fouled after catching the inbound pass with 3.9 seconds on the clock, and he hit both foul shots.</p>
<p>Harris was fouled one second later and sank both free throws. The Spurs got the ball in to Manu Ginobili for a corner 3-point attempt, but he stepped out of bounds.</p>
<p>San Antonio caps its two-game L.A. swing against the Lakers on Wednesday night. The Clippers visit Utah on Thursday.</p>
<p>—Field Level Media</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>Jamie Benn scored a hat trick, including the game-winner with 3:06 to play and an empty netter with 24 seconds left, as the Dallas Stars came from behind in the final six minutes to defeat the San Jose Sharks 4-2 on Tuesday at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif.</p>
<p>Benn picked the pocket of Tomas Hertl in the San Jose zone and skated into the slot before going to his backhand to beat San Jose goaltender Martin Jones with the deciding goal.</p>
<p>The Sharks, who clinched a playoff berth when Los Angeles defeated Colorado 3-1 on Monday, hold onto second-place spot in the Pacific Division by two points over the Kings and by three over Anaheim. San Jose, which has lost four straight matches, will garner home-ice advantage for the first round of the Western Conference playoffs if it holds onto its current position.</p>
<p>Dallas was eliminated from playoff contention Sunday. The Stars have missed the playoffs in eight of the last 10 seasons.</p>
<p>Logan Couture turned a pass from Brent Burns into a power-play goal on a viscous wrist shot at the 9:21 mark of the first period to hand the Sharks a 1-0 lead. Hertl also got an assist on the score.</p>
<p>Timo Meier expanded the lead to 2-0 as he chased down a loose puck and fired a shot from a tough angle past Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen with 4:44 to play in the opening period. Assists on the goal went to Burns and Joe Pavelski.</p>
<p>Dallas cut the lead in half with just 31 seconds to play in the second period on goal by Benn, who cut to the back door and redirected a pass from John Klingberg to register his 30th goal of the season. Tyler Seguin also assisted on the play.</p>
<p>Gemel Smith tied the match with 5:15 to play in regulation off an across-the-slot pass from Devin Shore.</p>
<p>Lehtonen made his eighth straight start for the Stars but was injured and replaced by Mike McKenna, who stopped all 17 shots he faced.</p>
<p>The Sharks host Colorado on Thursday before closing the season on Saturday at home against Minnesota. Dallas finishes its season with games in Anaheim on Friday and Los Angeles on Saturday.</p>
<p>—Field Level Media</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | 4,239 |
<p>THE HAGUE – Pedaling up to the recent World Forum on my muddied fixed-gear Dutch bike, I passed a phalanx of polished German-made autos all bearing diplomatic plates. (By my count, BMW won out over Mercedes two-to-one.) We were all heading to the same venue in The Hague, where representatives from 122 countries gathered for the 12th annual Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC).</p>
<p>One of the mundane but critical agenda items concerns the court’s 2014 budget and whether member states will approve a 9.5 percent increase over last year's. To put the $15-million increase into perspective, that’s roughly equivalent to the cost of one BMW series 7 for each member state. Is it a good deal? You bet it is.</p>
<p>Following back-to-back genocides in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, the “never-again” optimism of the 1990s spawned the Hague-based permanent tribunal. Since 2002 the ICC has indicted 36 individuals (excluding currently sealed indictments) from eight countries.</p>
<p>As a court of last resort, the ICC only has jurisdiction over the most grave war crimes and crimes against humanity when the absence of rule of law prevents domestic courts from bringing perpetrators to justice. This crucial check on prosecutorial discretion was lost on the Bush administration of George W. Bush, which tried but failed to scuttle the creation of the court for fear that it could put US leaders behind bars for war crimes.</p>
<p>The new ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda from Gambia, faces seemingly insurmountable challenges to get the job done. Ironically, the main obstacle is the 28,000-word Rome Statute itself, the international treaty that established the court and which lays out — in cumbersome and at times conflicting detail — how, when and where the prosecutor can go about the business of locking up the Hitlers and Pol Pots of our day.</p>
<p>Only 63 percent of states, comprising a mere 33 percent of the world’s population, voluntarily accept the court’s jurisdiction. Unless the UN Security Council refers a situation to the ICC — as it did for Sudan and Libya — or a non-state party accepts the court’s jurisdiction on an ad-hoc basis, the prosecutor cannot even contemplate an investigation outside these countries.</p>
<p>Even when territorial jurisdiction is met, the state whose nationals committed barbarous acts can simply close its borders to ICC investigators.</p>
<p>Imagine a penal code that gave a serial killer the power to tell local police they don’t have the authority to visit the crime scene of his latest victim. That’s essentially what the Rome Statute allows a malevolent government to do after its leaders rape, pillage, and plunder.</p>
<p>Any time the prosecutor wishes to send one of her 46 investigators to a country where she has jurisdiction, they must first get permission (an official visa) from the government.</p>
<p>Then there’s the simple but effective delaying tactics some governments employ. Following the UN Security Council referral of the situation in Libya in February 2011, the new Libyan authorities have blocked access to ICC investigators.</p>
<p>How does such obfuscation impact an investigation?</p>
<p>One of the basic precepts in forensic science is the Locard exchange principle, which holds that a criminal will bring evidence into a crime scene and leave with something from it. Without immediately securing a crime scene, much of this physical evidence will erode or become contaminated rendering it inadmissible.</p>
<p>In international criminal justice, the whole country is a potential crime scene, and blocking access is just one wrench in a country’s sovereign toolbox it can use to thwart the prosecutor’s investigation.</p>
<p>Another significant handicap is the lack of any supranational law enforcement agency that the prosecutor may call on to arrest suspects and transfer them to The Hague. So, accused and at-large men like President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan and Joseph Kony of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army evade the Court because no government has the political will to effectuate their arrest.</p>
<p>Returning to the hypothetical serial killer, it’s like he’s got a get-out-of-jail-free card. But against all odds, progress is being made at the cash-strapped International Criminal Court. Five new arrest warrants were issued just last week. But more could and should be done.</p>
<p>The 2014 budget increase would allow the prosecutor to hire more investigators so that on-going atrocities in Libya, Mali, and the Central Africa Republic — all situations that are currently under her jurisdiction — could be further investigated.</p>
<p>It’s hard to fathom a good ROI for international justice, but surely it’s worth 122 new BMWs.</p>
<p>Richard Sollom is an international criminal investigator with expertise in the documentation of war crimes and crimes against humanity who currently works in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sollom has investigated human rights violations in more than 20 countries, including Albania, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chad, Congo, Egypt, Libya, Myanmar, Rwanda, Syria, and Zimbabwe.</p> | ICC is a good deal for the money — and for international justice | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-12-07/icc-good-deal-money-and-international-justice | 2013-12-07 | 3left-center
| ICC is a good deal for the money — and for international justice
<p>THE HAGUE – Pedaling up to the recent World Forum on my muddied fixed-gear Dutch bike, I passed a phalanx of polished German-made autos all bearing diplomatic plates. (By my count, BMW won out over Mercedes two-to-one.) We were all heading to the same venue in The Hague, where representatives from 122 countries gathered for the 12th annual Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC).</p>
<p>One of the mundane but critical agenda items concerns the court’s 2014 budget and whether member states will approve a 9.5 percent increase over last year's. To put the $15-million increase into perspective, that’s roughly equivalent to the cost of one BMW series 7 for each member state. Is it a good deal? You bet it is.</p>
<p>Following back-to-back genocides in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, the “never-again” optimism of the 1990s spawned the Hague-based permanent tribunal. Since 2002 the ICC has indicted 36 individuals (excluding currently sealed indictments) from eight countries.</p>
<p>As a court of last resort, the ICC only has jurisdiction over the most grave war crimes and crimes against humanity when the absence of rule of law prevents domestic courts from bringing perpetrators to justice. This crucial check on prosecutorial discretion was lost on the Bush administration of George W. Bush, which tried but failed to scuttle the creation of the court for fear that it could put US leaders behind bars for war crimes.</p>
<p>The new ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda from Gambia, faces seemingly insurmountable challenges to get the job done. Ironically, the main obstacle is the 28,000-word Rome Statute itself, the international treaty that established the court and which lays out — in cumbersome and at times conflicting detail — how, when and where the prosecutor can go about the business of locking up the Hitlers and Pol Pots of our day.</p>
<p>Only 63 percent of states, comprising a mere 33 percent of the world’s population, voluntarily accept the court’s jurisdiction. Unless the UN Security Council refers a situation to the ICC — as it did for Sudan and Libya — or a non-state party accepts the court’s jurisdiction on an ad-hoc basis, the prosecutor cannot even contemplate an investigation outside these countries.</p>
<p>Even when territorial jurisdiction is met, the state whose nationals committed barbarous acts can simply close its borders to ICC investigators.</p>
<p>Imagine a penal code that gave a serial killer the power to tell local police they don’t have the authority to visit the crime scene of his latest victim. That’s essentially what the Rome Statute allows a malevolent government to do after its leaders rape, pillage, and plunder.</p>
<p>Any time the prosecutor wishes to send one of her 46 investigators to a country where she has jurisdiction, they must first get permission (an official visa) from the government.</p>
<p>Then there’s the simple but effective delaying tactics some governments employ. Following the UN Security Council referral of the situation in Libya in February 2011, the new Libyan authorities have blocked access to ICC investigators.</p>
<p>How does such obfuscation impact an investigation?</p>
<p>One of the basic precepts in forensic science is the Locard exchange principle, which holds that a criminal will bring evidence into a crime scene and leave with something from it. Without immediately securing a crime scene, much of this physical evidence will erode or become contaminated rendering it inadmissible.</p>
<p>In international criminal justice, the whole country is a potential crime scene, and blocking access is just one wrench in a country’s sovereign toolbox it can use to thwart the prosecutor’s investigation.</p>
<p>Another significant handicap is the lack of any supranational law enforcement agency that the prosecutor may call on to arrest suspects and transfer them to The Hague. So, accused and at-large men like President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan and Joseph Kony of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army evade the Court because no government has the political will to effectuate their arrest.</p>
<p>Returning to the hypothetical serial killer, it’s like he’s got a get-out-of-jail-free card. But against all odds, progress is being made at the cash-strapped International Criminal Court. Five new arrest warrants were issued just last week. But more could and should be done.</p>
<p>The 2014 budget increase would allow the prosecutor to hire more investigators so that on-going atrocities in Libya, Mali, and the Central Africa Republic — all situations that are currently under her jurisdiction — could be further investigated.</p>
<p>It’s hard to fathom a good ROI for international justice, but surely it’s worth 122 new BMWs.</p>
<p>Richard Sollom is an international criminal investigator with expertise in the documentation of war crimes and crimes against humanity who currently works in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sollom has investigated human rights violations in more than 20 countries, including Albania, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chad, Congo, Egypt, Libya, Myanmar, Rwanda, Syria, and Zimbabwe.</p> | 4,240 |
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<p>Staff Sgt. Bill Cenna prepares to move a patient on a litter while an HH-60G Pavehawk lands during training Sept. 21, 2011, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. The training focused on quick-care under fire and also gave training to Baker Company, 3rd Platoon, 509th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) on how to react when pararescuemen arrive. Cena is a 212th Rescue Squadron pararescueman. (US Air Force <a href="http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/110921-F-NZ143-529w.jpg" type="external">photo</a>/Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf)</p>
<p /> | We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for October 6, 2011 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/were-still-war-photo-day-october-6-2011/ | 2011-10-06 | 4left
| We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for October 6, 2011
<p />
<p>Staff Sgt. Bill Cenna prepares to move a patient on a litter while an HH-60G Pavehawk lands during training Sept. 21, 2011, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. The training focused on quick-care under fire and also gave training to Baker Company, 3rd Platoon, 509th Infantry Regiment (Airborne) on how to react when pararescuemen arrive. Cena is a 212th Rescue Squadron pararescueman. (US Air Force <a href="http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/110921-F-NZ143-529w.jpg" type="external">photo</a>/Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf)</p>
<p /> | 4,241 |
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<p>Copyright © 2017 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>Three vocational high schools received unanimous support for charter authorization from an Albuquerque Public Schools board committee on Wednesday, despite the Public Education Department’s opposition.</p>
<p>Architecture Construction and Engineering Leadership High School, Health Leadership High School and Technology Leadership High School – all part of the Leadership Schools Network – each received backing for three-year charters.</p>
<p>The APS policy committee voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to back charter authorization for three low-performing vocational high schools. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Academy of Trades &amp; Technology was not approved for APS authorization in a 6-1 vote, with board member Peggy Muller-Aragón dissenting.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The four schools are all currently chartered by the state, but were seeking to switch to APS authorization.</p>
<p>Wednesday’s approvals by the Policy and Instruction Committee fell in line with the recommendations of the district’s charter school review team, which supported the Leadership Schools and opposed AT&amp;T.</p>
<p>PED Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski had urged the board to turn down all four schools.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to justify how charter schools earning multiple failing grades in a row and drawing significant taxpayer resources without getting tangible results for kids can go authorizer shopping,” he said in a statement earlier this week. “It’s even harder to justify how another authorizer would interpret that multi-year track record as a rationale for renewal for some schools, but not others. It’s now totally unclear where APS stands on the health of the charter school sector.”</p>
<p>Board member Barbara Petersen said she believes PED’s opposition to the Leadership Schools is a political attack motivated by the schools’ push for alternative types of testing.</p>
<p>“We’re in a funny position because everyone has read the newspapers – everyone knows what APS has been told if we accept these schools,” she said. “We as a board just have to go about what is best for students.”</p>
<p>Without the Leadership Schools, a group of roughly 900 students will lose an educational model that is benefiting them, Petersen said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Board President Dave Peercy advocated for APS to form a partnership with the Leadership Schools – a closer relationship than a standard charter that will allow the district to boost its vocational offerings.</p>
<p>“This is a powerful new idea,” he said. “We are on the edge of something we can call innovative.”</p>
<p>The Leadership Schools offer project-based vocational learning to kids who have struggled in traditional settings, including some older students who are working toward diplomas after years away from the classroom.</p>
<p>By traditional measures, the schools have not been successful: They have earned a string of D or F grades, and reading and math proficiency rates are in the single digits.</p>
<p>But school leaders told the board that they have re-engaged students who are at high risk of dropping out altogether and many have found successful careers after graduation.</p>
<p>“We do think we bring something different to the table,” said Blanca Lopez, executive director of Health Leadership High School.</p>
<p>Daniel Ivey-Soto, an attorney who represents the three Leadership Schools seeking APS approval, said he was offended that PED didn’t complete a full review of the schools before declaring that they aren’t worthy of renewal.</p>
<p>To Ivey-Soto, PED is so focused on test scores that numbers become “a proxy for children.”</p>
<p>PED also blindsided the schools, Ivey-Soto said, by suddenly advocating for closure without giving them an opportunity to correct problems.</p>
<p>He told the Journal that the schools are decamping for APS because PED has a “punitive” approach and does not communicate well.</p>
<p>“We are seeking relevant accountability,” he said.</p>
<p>The Leadership Schools’ charters do have some caveats: they must meet a number of goals, including improved participation in assessments.</p>
<p>Ivey-Soto told the Journal he felt the APS charter school review team came up with fair conditions after a thorough review – in contrast to PED.</p>
<p>Academy of Trades &amp; Technology did not find similar support from the APS board committee.</p>
<p>The school has struggled in a number of areas, including services for special education students and English Language Learners.</p>
<p>During the 2015-16 school year, the school’s habitual truancy rate was 81 percent. It failed to report any truancy data for 2016-17.</p>
<p>Enrollment has dropped steadily from 151 students in 2015-16 to about 90 currently, according to governing council Vice President Dick Winterbottom.</p>
<p>Board member Candy Patterson told Winterbottom that she was very concerned the school has not been tracking its students and can’t say with certainty how many are enrolled.</p>
<p>Winterbottom acknowledged that there have been issues, but said the current school administration has plans to solve them.</p>
<p>He also stressed that AT&amp;T serves struggling students: over 90 percent are economically disadvantaged and nearly 30 percent are English Language Learners.</p>
<p>“It’s a tough population,” he said.</p>
<p>Winterbottom worried that many AT&amp;T students will drop out altogether rather than switch to a new school.</p>
<p>Without the APS board’s backing, AT&amp;T’s charter will expire.</p>
<p>Muller-Aragón said she cast the lone “no” vote on the resolution to deny the charter because she is concerned about the students’ futures.</p>
<p>The state would be responsible for overseeing the school’s closure, though Petersen said APS will work to ensure that the students find good alternatives.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the APS committee also approved a five-year charter for Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, one of the top performers in the state. Cottonwood has been chartered by the PEC.</p>
<p>Five schools that were already under APS’ authority were renewed: Albuquerque Talent and Development Academy, Corrales International School, El Camino Real Academy, La Resolana Leadership Academy and Montessori of the Rio Grande.</p>
<p>The full APS board will cast final votes on all the schools Friday.</p>
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<p /> | APS backs charter authorization to three vocational high schools | false | https://abqjournal.com/1106534/aps-backs-charter-authorization-to-three-vocational-high-schools-ex-approval-was-withheld-for-academy-of-trades-amp-technology.html | 2least
| APS backs charter authorization to three vocational high schools
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<p>Copyright © 2017 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>Three vocational high schools received unanimous support for charter authorization from an Albuquerque Public Schools board committee on Wednesday, despite the Public Education Department’s opposition.</p>
<p>Architecture Construction and Engineering Leadership High School, Health Leadership High School and Technology Leadership High School – all part of the Leadership Schools Network – each received backing for three-year charters.</p>
<p>The APS policy committee voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to back charter authorization for three low-performing vocational high schools. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Academy of Trades &amp; Technology was not approved for APS authorization in a 6-1 vote, with board member Peggy Muller-Aragón dissenting.</p>
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<p>The four schools are all currently chartered by the state, but were seeking to switch to APS authorization.</p>
<p>Wednesday’s approvals by the Policy and Instruction Committee fell in line with the recommendations of the district’s charter school review team, which supported the Leadership Schools and opposed AT&amp;T.</p>
<p>PED Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski had urged the board to turn down all four schools.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to justify how charter schools earning multiple failing grades in a row and drawing significant taxpayer resources without getting tangible results for kids can go authorizer shopping,” he said in a statement earlier this week. “It’s even harder to justify how another authorizer would interpret that multi-year track record as a rationale for renewal for some schools, but not others. It’s now totally unclear where APS stands on the health of the charter school sector.”</p>
<p>Board member Barbara Petersen said she believes PED’s opposition to the Leadership Schools is a political attack motivated by the schools’ push for alternative types of testing.</p>
<p>“We’re in a funny position because everyone has read the newspapers – everyone knows what APS has been told if we accept these schools,” she said. “We as a board just have to go about what is best for students.”</p>
<p>Without the Leadership Schools, a group of roughly 900 students will lose an educational model that is benefiting them, Petersen said.</p>
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<p>Board President Dave Peercy advocated for APS to form a partnership with the Leadership Schools – a closer relationship than a standard charter that will allow the district to boost its vocational offerings.</p>
<p>“This is a powerful new idea,” he said. “We are on the edge of something we can call innovative.”</p>
<p>The Leadership Schools offer project-based vocational learning to kids who have struggled in traditional settings, including some older students who are working toward diplomas after years away from the classroom.</p>
<p>By traditional measures, the schools have not been successful: They have earned a string of D or F grades, and reading and math proficiency rates are in the single digits.</p>
<p>But school leaders told the board that they have re-engaged students who are at high risk of dropping out altogether and many have found successful careers after graduation.</p>
<p>“We do think we bring something different to the table,” said Blanca Lopez, executive director of Health Leadership High School.</p>
<p>Daniel Ivey-Soto, an attorney who represents the three Leadership Schools seeking APS approval, said he was offended that PED didn’t complete a full review of the schools before declaring that they aren’t worthy of renewal.</p>
<p>To Ivey-Soto, PED is so focused on test scores that numbers become “a proxy for children.”</p>
<p>PED also blindsided the schools, Ivey-Soto said, by suddenly advocating for closure without giving them an opportunity to correct problems.</p>
<p>He told the Journal that the schools are decamping for APS because PED has a “punitive” approach and does not communicate well.</p>
<p>“We are seeking relevant accountability,” he said.</p>
<p>The Leadership Schools’ charters do have some caveats: they must meet a number of goals, including improved participation in assessments.</p>
<p>Ivey-Soto told the Journal he felt the APS charter school review team came up with fair conditions after a thorough review – in contrast to PED.</p>
<p>Academy of Trades &amp; Technology did not find similar support from the APS board committee.</p>
<p>The school has struggled in a number of areas, including services for special education students and English Language Learners.</p>
<p>During the 2015-16 school year, the school’s habitual truancy rate was 81 percent. It failed to report any truancy data for 2016-17.</p>
<p>Enrollment has dropped steadily from 151 students in 2015-16 to about 90 currently, according to governing council Vice President Dick Winterbottom.</p>
<p>Board member Candy Patterson told Winterbottom that she was very concerned the school has not been tracking its students and can’t say with certainty how many are enrolled.</p>
<p>Winterbottom acknowledged that there have been issues, but said the current school administration has plans to solve them.</p>
<p>He also stressed that AT&amp;T serves struggling students: over 90 percent are economically disadvantaged and nearly 30 percent are English Language Learners.</p>
<p>“It’s a tough population,” he said.</p>
<p>Winterbottom worried that many AT&amp;T students will drop out altogether rather than switch to a new school.</p>
<p>Without the APS board’s backing, AT&amp;T’s charter will expire.</p>
<p>Muller-Aragón said she cast the lone “no” vote on the resolution to deny the charter because she is concerned about the students’ futures.</p>
<p>The state would be responsible for overseeing the school’s closure, though Petersen said APS will work to ensure that the students find good alternatives.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the APS committee also approved a five-year charter for Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, one of the top performers in the state. Cottonwood has been chartered by the PEC.</p>
<p>Five schools that were already under APS’ authority were renewed: Albuquerque Talent and Development Academy, Corrales International School, El Camino Real Academy, La Resolana Leadership Academy and Montessori of the Rio Grande.</p>
<p>The full APS board will cast final votes on all the schools Friday.</p>
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<p>By Joaquin Sapien / ProPublicaThis piece originally ran on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/report-says-prosecutors-rarely-pay-price-for-mistakes-and-misconduct" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project <a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/prosecutorial-oversight-report" type="external">released a report</a> Tuesday alleging that prosecutors across the country are almost never punished when they withhold evidence or commit other forms of misconduct that land innocent people in prison.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal group that represents people seeking exonerations, examined records in Arizona, California, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania, and interviewed a wide assortment of defense lawyers, prosecutors and legal experts.</p>
<p>In each state, researchers examined court rulings from 2004 through 2008 in which judges found that prosecutors had committed violations such as mischaracterizing evidence or suborning perjury. All told, the researchers discovered 660 findings of prosecutorial error or misconduct. In the overwhelming majority of cases, 527, judges upheld the convictions, finding that the prosecutorial lapse did not impact the fairness of the defendant’s original trial. In 133 cases, convictions were thrown out.</p>
<p />
<p>Only one prosecutor was disciplined by any oversight authorities, the report asserts.</p>
<p>The report was issued on the anniversary of a controversial Supreme Court ruling for those trying to achieve justice in the wake of wrongful convictions. In a 5–4 decision in the case known as Connick v. Thompson, the court tossed out a $14-million dollar award by a Louisiana jury to John Thompson, a New Orleans man who served 18 years in prison for a murder and robbery he did not commit.</p>
<p>The majority ruled that while the trial prosecutors had withheld critical evidence of Thompson’s likely innocence – blood samples from the crime scene – the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office could not be found civilly liable for what the justices essentially determined was the mistake of a handful of employees. The decision hinged on a critical finding: that the District Attorney’s office, and the legal profession in general, provides sufficient training and oversight for all prosecutors.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project study echoes a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/who-polices-prosecutors-who-abuse-their-authority-usually-nobody" type="external">2013 ProPublica examination</a> focused on New York City prosecutors. In 2013, ProPublica used a similar methodology to analyze more than a decade’s worth of state and federal court rulings. We found more than two dozen instances in which judges explicitly concluded that city prosecutors had committed harmful misconduct.</p>
<p>Several of the wrongfully convicted people in these cases successfully sued New York City. In recent years, New York City and state have doled out tens of million dollars in settlements stemming from such lawsuits. Former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-brooklyn-prosecutor-a-troubled-last-term-and-a-trail-of-lingering-quest" type="external">voted out of office, in part because of wrongful convictions</a> gained through misconduct on the part of his prosecutors or police detectives working with them.</p>
<p>But only one New York City prosecutor, ProPublica’s analysis found, was formally disciplined: Claude Stuart, a former low-level Queens Assistant District Attorney, lost his license. He was involved in three separate conviction reversals.</p>
<p>Just as we found in New York, the Innocence Project’s report found that appellate judges and others almost never report findings of misconduct to state panels and bar associations that are authorized to investigate them.</p>
<p>“In the handful of situations where an investigation is launched,” the report found, “The committees generally failed to properly discipline the prosecutor who committed the misconduct.”</p>
<p>The report concludes with several recommendations on how to improve accountability for prosecutors. It suggests, among other things, that judges ought to mandatorily report all findings of misconduct or error and that state legislatures pass laws requiring prosecutors to turn over all law enforcement material well before trial.</p>
<p>But perhaps most powerful is the report’s introduction, a 2011 letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder and two national prosecutor associations. It was written in response to the Connick ruling and signed by 19 people whose wrongful convictions were secured in part by prosecutorial misconduct.</p>
<p>“We, the undersigned and our families, have suffered profound harm at the hands of careless, overzealous and unethical prosecutors,” the letter said. “Now that the wrongfully convicted have virtually no meaningful access to the courts to hold prosecutors liable for their misdeeds, we demand to know what you intend to do to put a check on the otherwise unchecked and enormous power that prosecutors wield over the justice system.”</p>
<p>According to the Innocence Project, the Justice Department never responded to the letter.</p>
<p>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.</p>
<p /> | Prosecutors Rarely Pay Price for Mistakes and Misconduct, According to a New Report | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/prosecutors-rarely-pay-price-for-mistakes-and-misconduct-according-to-a-new-report/ | 2016-03-30 | 4left
| Prosecutors Rarely Pay Price for Mistakes and Misconduct, According to a New Report
<p>By Joaquin Sapien / ProPublicaThis piece originally ran on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/report-says-prosecutors-rarely-pay-price-for-mistakes-and-misconduct" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project <a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/prosecutorial-oversight-report" type="external">released a report</a> Tuesday alleging that prosecutors across the country are almost never punished when they withhold evidence or commit other forms of misconduct that land innocent people in prison.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal group that represents people seeking exonerations, examined records in Arizona, California, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania, and interviewed a wide assortment of defense lawyers, prosecutors and legal experts.</p>
<p>In each state, researchers examined court rulings from 2004 through 2008 in which judges found that prosecutors had committed violations such as mischaracterizing evidence or suborning perjury. All told, the researchers discovered 660 findings of prosecutorial error or misconduct. In the overwhelming majority of cases, 527, judges upheld the convictions, finding that the prosecutorial lapse did not impact the fairness of the defendant’s original trial. In 133 cases, convictions were thrown out.</p>
<p />
<p>Only one prosecutor was disciplined by any oversight authorities, the report asserts.</p>
<p>The report was issued on the anniversary of a controversial Supreme Court ruling for those trying to achieve justice in the wake of wrongful convictions. In a 5–4 decision in the case known as Connick v. Thompson, the court tossed out a $14-million dollar award by a Louisiana jury to John Thompson, a New Orleans man who served 18 years in prison for a murder and robbery he did not commit.</p>
<p>The majority ruled that while the trial prosecutors had withheld critical evidence of Thompson’s likely innocence – blood samples from the crime scene – the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office could not be found civilly liable for what the justices essentially determined was the mistake of a handful of employees. The decision hinged on a critical finding: that the District Attorney’s office, and the legal profession in general, provides sufficient training and oversight for all prosecutors.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project study echoes a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/who-polices-prosecutors-who-abuse-their-authority-usually-nobody" type="external">2013 ProPublica examination</a> focused on New York City prosecutors. In 2013, ProPublica used a similar methodology to analyze more than a decade’s worth of state and federal court rulings. We found more than two dozen instances in which judges explicitly concluded that city prosecutors had committed harmful misconduct.</p>
<p>Several of the wrongfully convicted people in these cases successfully sued New York City. In recent years, New York City and state have doled out tens of million dollars in settlements stemming from such lawsuits. Former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/for-brooklyn-prosecutor-a-troubled-last-term-and-a-trail-of-lingering-quest" type="external">voted out of office, in part because of wrongful convictions</a> gained through misconduct on the part of his prosecutors or police detectives working with them.</p>
<p>But only one New York City prosecutor, ProPublica’s analysis found, was formally disciplined: Claude Stuart, a former low-level Queens Assistant District Attorney, lost his license. He was involved in three separate conviction reversals.</p>
<p>Just as we found in New York, the Innocence Project’s report found that appellate judges and others almost never report findings of misconduct to state panels and bar associations that are authorized to investigate them.</p>
<p>“In the handful of situations where an investigation is launched,” the report found, “The committees generally failed to properly discipline the prosecutor who committed the misconduct.”</p>
<p>The report concludes with several recommendations on how to improve accountability for prosecutors. It suggests, among other things, that judges ought to mandatorily report all findings of misconduct or error and that state legislatures pass laws requiring prosecutors to turn over all law enforcement material well before trial.</p>
<p>But perhaps most powerful is the report’s introduction, a 2011 letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder and two national prosecutor associations. It was written in response to the Connick ruling and signed by 19 people whose wrongful convictions were secured in part by prosecutorial misconduct.</p>
<p>“We, the undersigned and our families, have suffered profound harm at the hands of careless, overzealous and unethical prosecutors,” the letter said. “Now that the wrongfully convicted have virtually no meaningful access to the courts to hold prosecutors liable for their misdeeds, we demand to know what you intend to do to put a check on the otherwise unchecked and enormous power that prosecutors wield over the justice system.”</p>
<p>According to the Innocence Project, the Justice Department never responded to the letter.</p>
<p>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.</p>
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<p>Connor, a water policy expert with a deep understanding of the land and water use issues affecting New Mexico, had been working as commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He attended New Mexico State University before earning a law degree in Colorado.</p>
<p>As deputy secretary, Connor is the second highest ranking official at Interior, with statutory responsibility as the chief operating officer to help lead a Department of more than 70,000 employees and an annual budget of about $18 billion. Connor replaces David J. Hayes, who concluded a four-year, successful tenure at the Department in&#160;June 2013, accepting a position as Senior Fellow at the Hewlett Foundation and professor at Stanford Law School.</p>
<p>Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, cheered the news.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"Mike is exactly the right person to help lead this Department - thoughtful, smart, organized and full of energy," said Jewell. "His wealth of knowledge, experience and collaborative approach to complex challenges will be of great benefit to me and to this Department. &#160;Mike is a true public servant, and this new role will tap all of his experiences for the benefit of the American people."</p>
<p>"Mike Connor is a dedicated public servant with the experience and background needed to help meet our nation's goals for energy independence and our environment," Heinrich said. "He is passionate about finding solutions on a range of issues important to New Mexico, including land and water conservation and addressing climate change. Mike is a staunch ally of Indian Country and has a strong record of working effectively and collaboratively with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Mike will make New Mexico and our nation proud in his new role as our next Deputy Secretary of Interior and I very much look forward to working with him."</p>
<p>"Mike Connor has proven himself to be a smart, thoughtful and effective public servant," Udall said. "As a native New Mexican with about two decades of experience in the public sector, he possesses a wealth of knowledge about matters that are important to New Mexico and that will be invaluable in his position as Deputy Secretary in the Interior Department. Mike has a deep understanding of issues ranging from land and water conservation, to the impacts of climate change, and the challenges facing Indian County. His work on water management and sustainable water use have particularly impressed me as he has responded to the ongoing drought. I am confident that Mike is a great partner for New Mexico and the West, and I look forward to working with him as he steps into this new role."</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | New Mexico's Michael Connor confirmed as deputy Interior secretary | false | https://abqjournal.com/360052/new-mexicos-michael-connor-confirmed-as-deputy-interior-secretary.html | 2least
| New Mexico's Michael Connor confirmed as deputy Interior secretary
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<p />
<p>Connor, a water policy expert with a deep understanding of the land and water use issues affecting New Mexico, had been working as commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He attended New Mexico State University before earning a law degree in Colorado.</p>
<p>As deputy secretary, Connor is the second highest ranking official at Interior, with statutory responsibility as the chief operating officer to help lead a Department of more than 70,000 employees and an annual budget of about $18 billion. Connor replaces David J. Hayes, who concluded a four-year, successful tenure at the Department in&#160;June 2013, accepting a position as Senior Fellow at the Hewlett Foundation and professor at Stanford Law School.</p>
<p>Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, cheered the news.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"Mike is exactly the right person to help lead this Department - thoughtful, smart, organized and full of energy," said Jewell. "His wealth of knowledge, experience and collaborative approach to complex challenges will be of great benefit to me and to this Department. &#160;Mike is a true public servant, and this new role will tap all of his experiences for the benefit of the American people."</p>
<p>"Mike Connor is a dedicated public servant with the experience and background needed to help meet our nation's goals for energy independence and our environment," Heinrich said. "He is passionate about finding solutions on a range of issues important to New Mexico, including land and water conservation and addressing climate change. Mike is a staunch ally of Indian Country and has a strong record of working effectively and collaboratively with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Mike will make New Mexico and our nation proud in his new role as our next Deputy Secretary of Interior and I very much look forward to working with him."</p>
<p>"Mike Connor has proven himself to be a smart, thoughtful and effective public servant," Udall said. "As a native New Mexican with about two decades of experience in the public sector, he possesses a wealth of knowledge about matters that are important to New Mexico and that will be invaluable in his position as Deputy Secretary in the Interior Department. Mike has a deep understanding of issues ranging from land and water conservation, to the impacts of climate change, and the challenges facing Indian County. His work on water management and sustainable water use have particularly impressed me as he has responded to the ongoing drought. I am confident that Mike is a great partner for New Mexico and the West, and I look forward to working with him as he steps into this new role."</p>
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<p>Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV.</p>
<p>Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, Marvel’s Hulu series “Runaways” premieres, as does the series adaptation of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It.”</p>
<p>“Runaways,” Hulu, Tuesday (CRITICS’ PICK)</p>
<p>In its opening episodes, “Marvel’s Runaways” sketches out its story cleanly and with slick energy. The other three episodes sent for review are more or less efficient as well. But it’s perhaps appropriate that a drama about teens displays something of an identity crisis.“Runaways” is based on a Marvel comic by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, and Vaughan in particular has an extraordinary ability to make you care about the characters in his graphic novels, even when the stories drag or when the people in them act like blockheads. And when “The O.C.” was firing on all cylinders in its early seasons, Josh Schwartz, who adapted “Runaways” with fellow executive producer Stephanie Savage, imbued the self-aware soap with emotional dilemmas and personal crises worth following, all while keeping the well-appointed proceedings moving at a brisk clip. “Runaways’” energy level isn’t a problem, at least in the opening installments. But as the season heads into its middle section, meaningful clues about what many of the core characters are actually doing are few and far between.</p>
<p>“ <a href="http://variety.com/t/godless/" type="external">Godless</a>,” Netflix, Wednesday</p>
<p>Steven Soderbergh executive produces this new period drama.&#160;Notorious criminal Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his gang of outlaws are on a mission of revenge against Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), a son-like protégé who betrayed the brotherhood. While on the run, Roy seeks refuge with hardened widower Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery), an outcast herself, in a worn-down, isolated mining town of La Belle, NM — governed mainly by women. When word reaches La Belle that Griffin is headed their way, the town bands together to defend against the murderous gang in a lawless western frontier.</p>
<p>“She’s Gotta Have It,” Netflix, Thursday</p>
<p>The 10-episode series is a contemporary update of Spike Lee’s debut independent film. It centers on Nola Darling (DeWanda Wise), a Brooklyn-based artist in her late twenties struggling to define herself and divide her time amongst her friends, her job, and her three lovers: the cultured model Greer Childs (Cleo Anthony); protective investment banker Jamie Overstreet (Lyriq Bent); and Da Original B-Boy Sneakerhead Mars Blackmon (Anthony Ramos). Lee directed all 10 episodes of the series, marking his first foray into series television.</p>
<p>“Miss Universe Pageant,” Fox, Sunday, 7 p.m.</p>
<p>Nearly 100 women from across the globe will travel to compete for the opportunity of becoming the next Miss Universe. Iris Mittenaere from France will crown her successor at the conclusion of the live three-hour event.&#160;Five-time Emmy Award winner Steve Harvey returns to the Miss Universe stage, marking the third time that he has hosted the international competition.</p> | Our Staff Picks: TV Shows to Watch the Week of Nov. 20, 2017 | false | https://newsline.com/our-staff-picks-tv-shows-to-watch-the-week-of-nov-20-2017/ | 2017-11-20 | 1right-center
| Our Staff Picks: TV Shows to Watch the Week of Nov. 20, 2017
<p>Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV.</p>
<p>Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, Marvel’s Hulu series “Runaways” premieres, as does the series adaptation of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It.”</p>
<p>“Runaways,” Hulu, Tuesday (CRITICS’ PICK)</p>
<p>In its opening episodes, “Marvel’s Runaways” sketches out its story cleanly and with slick energy. The other three episodes sent for review are more or less efficient as well. But it’s perhaps appropriate that a drama about teens displays something of an identity crisis.“Runaways” is based on a Marvel comic by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, and Vaughan in particular has an extraordinary ability to make you care about the characters in his graphic novels, even when the stories drag or when the people in them act like blockheads. And when “The O.C.” was firing on all cylinders in its early seasons, Josh Schwartz, who adapted “Runaways” with fellow executive producer Stephanie Savage, imbued the self-aware soap with emotional dilemmas and personal crises worth following, all while keeping the well-appointed proceedings moving at a brisk clip. “Runaways’” energy level isn’t a problem, at least in the opening installments. But as the season heads into its middle section, meaningful clues about what many of the core characters are actually doing are few and far between.</p>
<p>“ <a href="http://variety.com/t/godless/" type="external">Godless</a>,” Netflix, Wednesday</p>
<p>Steven Soderbergh executive produces this new period drama.&#160;Notorious criminal Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his gang of outlaws are on a mission of revenge against Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), a son-like protégé who betrayed the brotherhood. While on the run, Roy seeks refuge with hardened widower Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery), an outcast herself, in a worn-down, isolated mining town of La Belle, NM — governed mainly by women. When word reaches La Belle that Griffin is headed their way, the town bands together to defend against the murderous gang in a lawless western frontier.</p>
<p>“She’s Gotta Have It,” Netflix, Thursday</p>
<p>The 10-episode series is a contemporary update of Spike Lee’s debut independent film. It centers on Nola Darling (DeWanda Wise), a Brooklyn-based artist in her late twenties struggling to define herself and divide her time amongst her friends, her job, and her three lovers: the cultured model Greer Childs (Cleo Anthony); protective investment banker Jamie Overstreet (Lyriq Bent); and Da Original B-Boy Sneakerhead Mars Blackmon (Anthony Ramos). Lee directed all 10 episodes of the series, marking his first foray into series television.</p>
<p>“Miss Universe Pageant,” Fox, Sunday, 7 p.m.</p>
<p>Nearly 100 women from across the globe will travel to compete for the opportunity of becoming the next Miss Universe. Iris Mittenaere from France will crown her successor at the conclusion of the live three-hour event.&#160;Five-time Emmy Award winner Steve Harvey returns to the Miss Universe stage, marking the third time that he has hosted the international competition.</p> | 4,245 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeb Bush's recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now.</p>
<p>That group, Right to Rise, has burned through half of its $103 million — which still leaves it with about as much cash as John McCain spent during the entire 2008 GOP nominating contest.</p>
<p>In the 2016 race, money isn't buying love from voters. It is, however, buying some candidates more time.</p>
<p>Less than a month before voting begins, the Republican field is still thick with a dozen presidential hopefuls. Super PACs are one reason why.</p>
<p>Like Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are leaning heavily on these outside groups to communicate with voters. Nearly 96 percent of the money for Bush, Kasich and Christie commercials has come not from their official campaigns, but from their supportive super PACs, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG.</p>
<p>This is the second presidential campaign since super political action committees burst on the scene after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The 2010 case made it clear that donors can contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups supporting specific candidates, so long as the candidates don't directly control the spending.</p>
<p>That means that at any given time a wealthy admirer of a candidate can write a huge check to a super PAC to help keep that person in front of voters, through commercials and mailings. Some super PACs, including one for Carly Fiorina, even have campaign-like voter outreach efforts such as door-knocking and publicizing events that feature the candidate.</p>
<p>Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.</p>
<p>While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they've also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.</p>
<p>"The complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted," said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. "It's not a bad thing that's not the case anymore."</p>
<p>One of the first presidential hopefuls to take advantage of the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the 2012 GOP nomination.</p>
<p>Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson put up $20 million of his family's money to back his longtime friend Gingrich. That money paid for TV ads when the candidate couldn't afford his own, helping him stay afloat through third-to-vote South Carolina, which he won. Rick Santorum was in a similar position, benefiting from Wyoming investor Foster Friess's super PAC assistance until his candidacy took flight after a surprising Iowa win.</p>
<p>"There's no question that a super PAC gives you the ability to sustain the appearance of a campaign even if you can no longer raise money," Gingrich told AP.</p>
<p>Both eventually lost to Mitt Romney, who dominated traditional campaign fundraising and also had a big-money super PAC helping out.</p>
<p>Gingrich said the 2016 race differs from 2012 in several crucial ways. "That was one guy with a bunch of money versus the rest of us, and now it's a bunch of guys with a bunch of money," he said.</p>
<p>At the same time, a celebrity businessman and political newcomer has shown that "money may not matter as much," Gingrich said.</p>
<p>Donald Trump's campaign only recently made its first TV ad, putting up $2 million to air it this week in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has dominated the GOP contest without spending much campaign money, and without major help from super PACs — which he has decried as "disgusting."</p>
<p>Bush, a former Florida governor, is in roughly the opposite position: His super PAC Right to Rise has pumped more than $50 million into its advertising campaign, yet he remains in the single digits in most preference polls.</p>
<p>The group is pressing ahead. It has booked at least $24 million more in ads over the next nine weeks in 10 states, including early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, CMAG shows.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, Bush's official campaign cuts its South Carolina advertising plan by half and pulled its Iowa ad reservations altogether, an Associated Press analysis of the CMAG data found.</p>
<p>Kasich, governor of Ohio, just began airing his first television ad on Tuesday, according to the campaign.</p>
<p>But his super PACs have been busy for months. They've showered New Hampshire viewers with almost $10 million worth of commercials and this week told federal regulators they're buying more ad time and distributing pro-Kasich — and anti-Christie — literature to voters.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press data journalist Justin Myers in New York contributed to this report.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeb Bush's recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now.</p>
<p>That group, Right to Rise, has burned through half of its $103 million — which still leaves it with about as much cash as John McCain spent during the entire 2008 GOP nominating contest.</p>
<p>In the 2016 race, money isn't buying love from voters. It is, however, buying some candidates more time.</p>
<p>Less than a month before voting begins, the Republican field is still thick with a dozen presidential hopefuls. Super PACs are one reason why.</p>
<p>Like Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are leaning heavily on these outside groups to communicate with voters. Nearly 96 percent of the money for Bush, Kasich and Christie commercials has come not from their official campaigns, but from their supportive super PACs, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG.</p>
<p>This is the second presidential campaign since super political action committees burst on the scene after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The 2010 case made it clear that donors can contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups supporting specific candidates, so long as the candidates don't directly control the spending.</p>
<p>That means that at any given time a wealthy admirer of a candidate can write a huge check to a super PAC to help keep that person in front of voters, through commercials and mailings. Some super PACs, including one for Carly Fiorina, even have campaign-like voter outreach efforts such as door-knocking and publicizing events that feature the candidate.</p>
<p>Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.</p>
<p>While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they've also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.</p>
<p>"The complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted," said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. "It's not a bad thing that's not the case anymore."</p>
<p>One of the first presidential hopefuls to take advantage of the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the 2012 GOP nomination.</p>
<p>Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson put up $20 million of his family's money to back his longtime friend Gingrich. That money paid for TV ads when the candidate couldn't afford his own, helping him stay afloat through third-to-vote South Carolina, which he won. Rick Santorum was in a similar position, benefiting from Wyoming investor Foster Friess's super PAC assistance until his candidacy took flight after a surprising Iowa win.</p>
<p>"There's no question that a super PAC gives you the ability to sustain the appearance of a campaign even if you can no longer raise money," Gingrich told AP.</p>
<p>Both eventually lost to Mitt Romney, who dominated traditional campaign fundraising and also had a big-money super PAC helping out.</p>
<p>Gingrich said the 2016 race differs from 2012 in several crucial ways. "That was one guy with a bunch of money versus the rest of us, and now it's a bunch of guys with a bunch of money," he said.</p>
<p>At the same time, a celebrity businessman and political newcomer has shown that "money may not matter as much," Gingrich said.</p>
<p>Donald Trump's campaign only recently made its first TV ad, putting up $2 million to air it this week in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has dominated the GOP contest without spending much campaign money, and without major help from super PACs — which he has decried as "disgusting."</p>
<p>Bush, a former Florida governor, is in roughly the opposite position: His super PAC Right to Rise has pumped more than $50 million into its advertising campaign, yet he remains in the single digits in most preference polls.</p>
<p>The group is pressing ahead. It has booked at least $24 million more in ads over the next nine weeks in 10 states, including early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, CMAG shows.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, Bush's official campaign cuts its South Carolina advertising plan by half and pulled its Iowa ad reservations altogether, an Associated Press analysis of the CMAG data found.</p>
<p>Kasich, governor of Ohio, just began airing his first television ad on Tuesday, according to the campaign.</p>
<p>But his super PACs have been busy for months. They've showered New Hampshire viewers with almost $10 million worth of commercials and this week told federal regulators they're buying more ad time and distributing pro-Kasich — and anti-Christie — literature to voters.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press data journalist Justin Myers in New York contributed to this report.</p> | Cash-rich super PACs prolong flagging presidential campaigns | false | https://apnews.com/amp/58ffd537308648b9863844f06918e6fe | 2016-01-05 | 2least
| Cash-rich super PACs prolong flagging presidential campaigns
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeb Bush's recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now.</p>
<p>That group, Right to Rise, has burned through half of its $103 million — which still leaves it with about as much cash as John McCain spent during the entire 2008 GOP nominating contest.</p>
<p>In the 2016 race, money isn't buying love from voters. It is, however, buying some candidates more time.</p>
<p>Less than a month before voting begins, the Republican field is still thick with a dozen presidential hopefuls. Super PACs are one reason why.</p>
<p>Like Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are leaning heavily on these outside groups to communicate with voters. Nearly 96 percent of the money for Bush, Kasich and Christie commercials has come not from their official campaigns, but from their supportive super PACs, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG.</p>
<p>This is the second presidential campaign since super political action committees burst on the scene after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The 2010 case made it clear that donors can contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups supporting specific candidates, so long as the candidates don't directly control the spending.</p>
<p>That means that at any given time a wealthy admirer of a candidate can write a huge check to a super PAC to help keep that person in front of voters, through commercials and mailings. Some super PACs, including one for Carly Fiorina, even have campaign-like voter outreach efforts such as door-knocking and publicizing events that feature the candidate.</p>
<p>Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.</p>
<p>While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they've also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.</p>
<p>"The complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted," said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. "It's not a bad thing that's not the case anymore."</p>
<p>One of the first presidential hopefuls to take advantage of the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the 2012 GOP nomination.</p>
<p>Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson put up $20 million of his family's money to back his longtime friend Gingrich. That money paid for TV ads when the candidate couldn't afford his own, helping him stay afloat through third-to-vote South Carolina, which he won. Rick Santorum was in a similar position, benefiting from Wyoming investor Foster Friess's super PAC assistance until his candidacy took flight after a surprising Iowa win.</p>
<p>"There's no question that a super PAC gives you the ability to sustain the appearance of a campaign even if you can no longer raise money," Gingrich told AP.</p>
<p>Both eventually lost to Mitt Romney, who dominated traditional campaign fundraising and also had a big-money super PAC helping out.</p>
<p>Gingrich said the 2016 race differs from 2012 in several crucial ways. "That was one guy with a bunch of money versus the rest of us, and now it's a bunch of guys with a bunch of money," he said.</p>
<p>At the same time, a celebrity businessman and political newcomer has shown that "money may not matter as much," Gingrich said.</p>
<p>Donald Trump's campaign only recently made its first TV ad, putting up $2 million to air it this week in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has dominated the GOP contest without spending much campaign money, and without major help from super PACs — which he has decried as "disgusting."</p>
<p>Bush, a former Florida governor, is in roughly the opposite position: His super PAC Right to Rise has pumped more than $50 million into its advertising campaign, yet he remains in the single digits in most preference polls.</p>
<p>The group is pressing ahead. It has booked at least $24 million more in ads over the next nine weeks in 10 states, including early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, CMAG shows.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, Bush's official campaign cuts its South Carolina advertising plan by half and pulled its Iowa ad reservations altogether, an Associated Press analysis of the CMAG data found.</p>
<p>Kasich, governor of Ohio, just began airing his first television ad on Tuesday, according to the campaign.</p>
<p>But his super PACs have been busy for months. They've showered New Hampshire viewers with almost $10 million worth of commercials and this week told federal regulators they're buying more ad time and distributing pro-Kasich — and anti-Christie — literature to voters.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press data journalist Justin Myers in New York contributed to this report.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeb Bush's recent cancellation of advertising plans in Iowa and South Carolina was yet another cost-saving step for a down-in-the-polls presidential campaign that had already thinned its staff. If not for his flush super PAC, the Republican might be gone from the contest by now.</p>
<p>That group, Right to Rise, has burned through half of its $103 million — which still leaves it with about as much cash as John McCain spent during the entire 2008 GOP nominating contest.</p>
<p>In the 2016 race, money isn't buying love from voters. It is, however, buying some candidates more time.</p>
<p>Less than a month before voting begins, the Republican field is still thick with a dozen presidential hopefuls. Super PACs are one reason why.</p>
<p>Like Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are leaning heavily on these outside groups to communicate with voters. Nearly 96 percent of the money for Bush, Kasich and Christie commercials has come not from their official campaigns, but from their supportive super PACs, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG.</p>
<p>This is the second presidential campaign since super political action committees burst on the scene after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The 2010 case made it clear that donors can contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups supporting specific candidates, so long as the candidates don't directly control the spending.</p>
<p>That means that at any given time a wealthy admirer of a candidate can write a huge check to a super PAC to help keep that person in front of voters, through commercials and mailings. Some super PACs, including one for Carly Fiorina, even have campaign-like voter outreach efforts such as door-knocking and publicizing events that feature the candidate.</p>
<p>Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.</p>
<p>While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they've also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.</p>
<p>"The complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted," said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. "It's not a bad thing that's not the case anymore."</p>
<p>One of the first presidential hopefuls to take advantage of the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who sought the 2012 GOP nomination.</p>
<p>Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson put up $20 million of his family's money to back his longtime friend Gingrich. That money paid for TV ads when the candidate couldn't afford his own, helping him stay afloat through third-to-vote South Carolina, which he won. Rick Santorum was in a similar position, benefiting from Wyoming investor Foster Friess's super PAC assistance until his candidacy took flight after a surprising Iowa win.</p>
<p>"There's no question that a super PAC gives you the ability to sustain the appearance of a campaign even if you can no longer raise money," Gingrich told AP.</p>
<p>Both eventually lost to Mitt Romney, who dominated traditional campaign fundraising and also had a big-money super PAC helping out.</p>
<p>Gingrich said the 2016 race differs from 2012 in several crucial ways. "That was one guy with a bunch of money versus the rest of us, and now it's a bunch of guys with a bunch of money," he said.</p>
<p>At the same time, a celebrity businessman and political newcomer has shown that "money may not matter as much," Gingrich said.</p>
<p>Donald Trump's campaign only recently made its first TV ad, putting up $2 million to air it this week in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has dominated the GOP contest without spending much campaign money, and without major help from super PACs — which he has decried as "disgusting."</p>
<p>Bush, a former Florida governor, is in roughly the opposite position: His super PAC Right to Rise has pumped more than $50 million into its advertising campaign, yet he remains in the single digits in most preference polls.</p>
<p>The group is pressing ahead. It has booked at least $24 million more in ads over the next nine weeks in 10 states, including early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, CMAG shows.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, Bush's official campaign cuts its South Carolina advertising plan by half and pulled its Iowa ad reservations altogether, an Associated Press analysis of the CMAG data found.</p>
<p>Kasich, governor of Ohio, just began airing his first television ad on Tuesday, according to the campaign.</p>
<p>But his super PACs have been busy for months. They've showered New Hampshire viewers with almost $10 million worth of commercials and this week told federal regulators they're buying more ad time and distributing pro-Kasich — and anti-Christie — literature to voters.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press data journalist Justin Myers in New York contributed to this report.</p> | 4,246 |
<p>As of the end of February 2016 there were a total of 260 cases of dengue fever — in Hawaii. But despite headlines about the disease in places like Brazil,&#160;the Hawaii outbreak doesn’t seem to be making headlines on the mainland.</p>
<p>“A lot of folks here in Hawaii are a little disappointed that others don't know about the dengue outbreak that is going on right now,” says Molly Solomon, general assignment reporter for Hawaii Public Radio in Honolulu, Hawaii.&#160;</p>
<p>Solomon says 90 percent of those infected with the mosquito-borne virus are residents of the Big Island. Another 25 or so were visitors to the island.&#160;</p>
<p>“The outbreak that we're currently dealing with came from someone that was infected in another country,” Solomon says.&#160;“They came back to the islands, they probably didn't know that they had dengue fever. And then a local mosquito bit them, and that mosquito then became infected with dengue fever and went on to bite other people and [started] sort of passing on the disease from there. And this actually happened in September of last year and sort of snowballed throughout the later end of the year and it’s still going on right now.”</p>
<p>There is hope the outbreak is slowing down, but&#160;when Congress was recently briefed on the situation, most lawmakers had no idea the outbreak was happening.&#160;</p>
<p>“They didn't know anything about it,” says Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.&#160;“They didn't know that there was a dengue outbreak in Hawaii and I was saying to them, ‘Pay attention because the reason Hawaii has had three rounds of dengue is because of the introduction of Asian mosquitoes to the Hawaian islands.'”</p>
<p>Garrett says public health officials need to think about more than medicines and health training. A big focus of public health is infrastructure. And when it comes to stopping infectious diseases, it’s important to think about preventing&#160;mosquitoes from spreading and breeding.</p>
<p>“These are the folks that actually have the skillset to know how to not poison you, not put D.D.T. on your front lawn, but stop those mosquitoes,”&#160;Garrett says.</p>
<p>In Hawaii,&#160;the ranks of people with skills to rid the islands of mosquitoes has been decimated.&#160;</p>
<p>"Back in 2009," Solomon says,&#160;"they had cuts to their state's Vector Control Program and it actually got gutted practically in half. So there are only 25 people versus 56, which is what they used to have. I think that's had a pretty big effect in that the folks that are working to spray these areas, notify the public, they've been stretched pretty thin.”</p>
<p>Garrett says it’s important for politicians and others who make decisions about where to spend money on public health to focus on preventative measures.&#160;</p>
<p>“[There are] wild stories about how hard it's been to get politicians to focus on this,” Garrett says.&#160;“But here's these dangerous mosquitoes. All you need, as happened in Hawaii, is one person showing up at the right time, the right temperature, the right weather conditions, getting bit. That mosquito goes and bites 10 other people and boom, you start to have an outbreak. And so, you know, I was saying to the congressional staffers, we will have local transmission of Zika. It will happen."</p>
<p>This article is based on an&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/forecasting-the-future-of-pandemics-in-1994/" type="external">interview</a> <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/confessions-of-a-meteorite-hunter/" type="external">&#160;</a>that aired on PRI's&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/" type="external">Science Friday</a>.</p> | Did you know Hawaii has a dengue fever outbreak? Neither did Congress. | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-03-14/did-you-know-hawaii-has-dengue-fever-outbreak-neither-did-congress | 2016-03-14 | 3left-center
| Did you know Hawaii has a dengue fever outbreak? Neither did Congress.
<p>As of the end of February 2016 there were a total of 260 cases of dengue fever — in Hawaii. But despite headlines about the disease in places like Brazil,&#160;the Hawaii outbreak doesn’t seem to be making headlines on the mainland.</p>
<p>“A lot of folks here in Hawaii are a little disappointed that others don't know about the dengue outbreak that is going on right now,” says Molly Solomon, general assignment reporter for Hawaii Public Radio in Honolulu, Hawaii.&#160;</p>
<p>Solomon says 90 percent of those infected with the mosquito-borne virus are residents of the Big Island. Another 25 or so were visitors to the island.&#160;</p>
<p>“The outbreak that we're currently dealing with came from someone that was infected in another country,” Solomon says.&#160;“They came back to the islands, they probably didn't know that they had dengue fever. And then a local mosquito bit them, and that mosquito then became infected with dengue fever and went on to bite other people and [started] sort of passing on the disease from there. And this actually happened in September of last year and sort of snowballed throughout the later end of the year and it’s still going on right now.”</p>
<p>There is hope the outbreak is slowing down, but&#160;when Congress was recently briefed on the situation, most lawmakers had no idea the outbreak was happening.&#160;</p>
<p>“They didn't know anything about it,” says Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.&#160;“They didn't know that there was a dengue outbreak in Hawaii and I was saying to them, ‘Pay attention because the reason Hawaii has had three rounds of dengue is because of the introduction of Asian mosquitoes to the Hawaian islands.'”</p>
<p>Garrett says public health officials need to think about more than medicines and health training. A big focus of public health is infrastructure. And when it comes to stopping infectious diseases, it’s important to think about preventing&#160;mosquitoes from spreading and breeding.</p>
<p>“These are the folks that actually have the skillset to know how to not poison you, not put D.D.T. on your front lawn, but stop those mosquitoes,”&#160;Garrett says.</p>
<p>In Hawaii,&#160;the ranks of people with skills to rid the islands of mosquitoes has been decimated.&#160;</p>
<p>"Back in 2009," Solomon says,&#160;"they had cuts to their state's Vector Control Program and it actually got gutted practically in half. So there are only 25 people versus 56, which is what they used to have. I think that's had a pretty big effect in that the folks that are working to spray these areas, notify the public, they've been stretched pretty thin.”</p>
<p>Garrett says it’s important for politicians and others who make decisions about where to spend money on public health to focus on preventative measures.&#160;</p>
<p>“[There are] wild stories about how hard it's been to get politicians to focus on this,” Garrett says.&#160;“But here's these dangerous mosquitoes. All you need, as happened in Hawaii, is one person showing up at the right time, the right temperature, the right weather conditions, getting bit. That mosquito goes and bites 10 other people and boom, you start to have an outbreak. And so, you know, I was saying to the congressional staffers, we will have local transmission of Zika. It will happen."</p>
<p>This article is based on an&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/forecasting-the-future-of-pandemics-in-1994/" type="external">interview</a> <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/confessions-of-a-meteorite-hunter/" type="external">&#160;</a>that aired on PRI's&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/" type="external">Science Friday</a>.</p> | 4,247 |
<p>If you thought that all you had to worry about was the creeping encroachment of Common Core standards when you put your kids on the school bus with their sack lunches (where that’s still legal) and their shoebox dioramas, you would be mistaken. Your kids could be getting “shipped” as well.</p>
<p>I had to dig deep on this one, because most of the reliable information on this particular topic can be found only on Tumblr. As I am (relatively) old and therefore do not Tumbl myself, I had to search through public postings to find the answers.</p>
<p>What is “shipping”? Simply put, it is the act of encouraging or fostering relationships between specific students. And it is an act generally undertaken by their teachers. Sometimes it is geared toward busting cliques and pushing students to test their own boundaries. In these cases, teachers might assign group projects to teams or pairs that simply would not gravitate toward each other naturally. And in these cases, I absolutely agree that it is a good idea.</p>
<p>But sometimes the intent is to encourage dating relationships. Seats are rearranged and group projects assigned, but in these cases the teacher’s endgame is making a successful match. Toward that end, any students who are seen as threats to the “ship” might also be moved to keep them from interfering.</p>
<p>My first thought was to breathe a sigh of relief that my children are homeschooled. But then a couple of questions were raised in my mind:</p>
<p>Isn’t teaching students their lessons and helping prepare them for college and the real world enough work? Why undertake matchmaking as well?</p>
<p>What if any one of these teachers dared to mention – even in passing – their faith in Jesus Christ? Everyone would lose their minds. But playing with our kids as if they are puppets is supposed to be accepted?</p>
<p>In the interest of fairness, I sought the point of view of a few teachers who admit to having participated in shipping.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://teamteachers.tumblr.com/post/36060737301/theres-a-thing-going-around-about-shipping-your" type="external">Tumblr</a>:</p>
<p>What you are asking is for teachers to not act like normal human beings. You’ve never in your life looked at your friends and thought, ‘Those two should date,’ or, ‘Those two should break up’? Ever? EVER? We spend more time with students than we do with our own families sometimes. You’re asking us to not notice dynamics…</p>
<p>I interrupt here to point out what she isn’t saying: the students involved here are also spending more time with these teachers than they are with their own families as well.</p>
<p>But you also have to understand just how much some kids ask us to be involved in their lives. At the high school level, I have girls approach me all the time for relationship advice. When a girl says, ‘I have a crush on ____, and I want him to ask me out, what should I do?’ I’m going to give her some Dear Abby.</p>
<p>I also spoke to a friend who teaches both junior high and high school and has admitted to shipping in both senses of the word:</p>
<p>With my high schoolers, who were fairly open-minded about who their friends were, it was more like ‘They’re going to date and he’s going to ask her to Prom,’ and it worked. With my middle schoolers it was more to get them to meet new people and get out of their cliques.</p>
<p>And it occurred to me that teachers who ship students are not necessarily the problem. In regards to shipping students for the purpose of building relationships outside of established cliques, they are a benefit. But the teachers who are encouraging romantic relationships between specific students may not be the root of the problem either. Rather, they are a symptom of the real problem: a society that has been conditioned to believe that it is the responsibility of the public school system to raise our children for us.</p>
<p>And I would caution those teachers who do involve themselves in this activity to tread carefully. There is a large difference between giving advice to students who ask for it, and giving advice to students because you have decided that you know who might be best for them regardless of their feelings. Teenagers generally dislike feeling manipulated or controlled, and many come to teachers instead of parents for advice specifically because they feel like their parents are too controlling. Imagine the depth of the betrayal they might feel when confronted with the idea that the very teachers they trusted were involved in manipulating them on such a deeply personal level.</p> | Are Your Kids Being Shipped? Is That Bad? | true | http://danaloeschradio.com/are-your-kids-being-shipped-is-that-bad | 2015-04-19 | 0right
| Are Your Kids Being Shipped? Is That Bad?
<p>If you thought that all you had to worry about was the creeping encroachment of Common Core standards when you put your kids on the school bus with their sack lunches (where that’s still legal) and their shoebox dioramas, you would be mistaken. Your kids could be getting “shipped” as well.</p>
<p>I had to dig deep on this one, because most of the reliable information on this particular topic can be found only on Tumblr. As I am (relatively) old and therefore do not Tumbl myself, I had to search through public postings to find the answers.</p>
<p>What is “shipping”? Simply put, it is the act of encouraging or fostering relationships between specific students. And it is an act generally undertaken by their teachers. Sometimes it is geared toward busting cliques and pushing students to test their own boundaries. In these cases, teachers might assign group projects to teams or pairs that simply would not gravitate toward each other naturally. And in these cases, I absolutely agree that it is a good idea.</p>
<p>But sometimes the intent is to encourage dating relationships. Seats are rearranged and group projects assigned, but in these cases the teacher’s endgame is making a successful match. Toward that end, any students who are seen as threats to the “ship” might also be moved to keep them from interfering.</p>
<p>My first thought was to breathe a sigh of relief that my children are homeschooled. But then a couple of questions were raised in my mind:</p>
<p>Isn’t teaching students their lessons and helping prepare them for college and the real world enough work? Why undertake matchmaking as well?</p>
<p>What if any one of these teachers dared to mention – even in passing – their faith in Jesus Christ? Everyone would lose their minds. But playing with our kids as if they are puppets is supposed to be accepted?</p>
<p>In the interest of fairness, I sought the point of view of a few teachers who admit to having participated in shipping.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://teamteachers.tumblr.com/post/36060737301/theres-a-thing-going-around-about-shipping-your" type="external">Tumblr</a>:</p>
<p>What you are asking is for teachers to not act like normal human beings. You’ve never in your life looked at your friends and thought, ‘Those two should date,’ or, ‘Those two should break up’? Ever? EVER? We spend more time with students than we do with our own families sometimes. You’re asking us to not notice dynamics…</p>
<p>I interrupt here to point out what she isn’t saying: the students involved here are also spending more time with these teachers than they are with their own families as well.</p>
<p>But you also have to understand just how much some kids ask us to be involved in their lives. At the high school level, I have girls approach me all the time for relationship advice. When a girl says, ‘I have a crush on ____, and I want him to ask me out, what should I do?’ I’m going to give her some Dear Abby.</p>
<p>I also spoke to a friend who teaches both junior high and high school and has admitted to shipping in both senses of the word:</p>
<p>With my high schoolers, who were fairly open-minded about who their friends were, it was more like ‘They’re going to date and he’s going to ask her to Prom,’ and it worked. With my middle schoolers it was more to get them to meet new people and get out of their cliques.</p>
<p>And it occurred to me that teachers who ship students are not necessarily the problem. In regards to shipping students for the purpose of building relationships outside of established cliques, they are a benefit. But the teachers who are encouraging romantic relationships between specific students may not be the root of the problem either. Rather, they are a symptom of the real problem: a society that has been conditioned to believe that it is the responsibility of the public school system to raise our children for us.</p>
<p>And I would caution those teachers who do involve themselves in this activity to tread carefully. There is a large difference between giving advice to students who ask for it, and giving advice to students because you have decided that you know who might be best for them regardless of their feelings. Teenagers generally dislike feeling manipulated or controlled, and many come to teachers instead of parents for advice specifically because they feel like their parents are too controlling. Imagine the depth of the betrayal they might feel when confronted with the idea that the very teachers they trusted were involved in manipulating them on such a deeply personal level.</p> | 4,248 |
<p>Viola Davis was among a handful of Hollywood elite who were honored for their humanitarian efforts at a luncheon in Beverly Hills on Friday. Also honored were Jan Fonda, Jennifer Lopez and Reese Witherspoon.</p>
<p>At the Variety Power Of Women Luncheon, Davis made quite the impact with her emotionally charged speech which spoke of her time spent growing up in poverty. The actress admitted that she had to crawl through dumpsters to look for food.</p>
<p>It’s pretty amazing for Davis was able to open up about her horrible childhood and explain why she was so adamant to give back now that she has found success in Hollywood.</p>
<p>“I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame,” Davis said, according to the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/viola-davis-opens-power-women-luncheon-article-1.1970976" type="external">New York Daily News</a>. She went on to say that her work with the hunger campaign is helping her get over her own trauma as a child. Davis thanked her supporters for giving her the ability to&#160;“stand up in front of so many people, at the age of 49, and share my testimony and begin the process of healing.”</p>
<p>The speech Davis gave was sincere and goes to show that not every Hollywood star was plucked from a middle-class family and thrust into fame.</p>
<p>Witherspoon was honored for her work with the Malala Foundation. Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was herself honored on Friday with the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in standing up for children and women around the world.</p>
<p>Lopez’s work was also inspired by children and her goal is to help needy families receive high quality health care.</p>
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<p /> | Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez honored for humanitarian efforts | false | http://natmonitor.com/2014/10/11/viola-davis-jennifer-lopez-honored-for-humanitarian-efforts/ | 2014-10-11 | 3left-center
| Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez honored for humanitarian efforts
<p>Viola Davis was among a handful of Hollywood elite who were honored for their humanitarian efforts at a luncheon in Beverly Hills on Friday. Also honored were Jan Fonda, Jennifer Lopez and Reese Witherspoon.</p>
<p>At the Variety Power Of Women Luncheon, Davis made quite the impact with her emotionally charged speech which spoke of her time spent growing up in poverty. The actress admitted that she had to crawl through dumpsters to look for food.</p>
<p>It’s pretty amazing for Davis was able to open up about her horrible childhood and explain why she was so adamant to give back now that she has found success in Hollywood.</p>
<p>“I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame,” Davis said, according to the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/viola-davis-opens-power-women-luncheon-article-1.1970976" type="external">New York Daily News</a>. She went on to say that her work with the hunger campaign is helping her get over her own trauma as a child. Davis thanked her supporters for giving her the ability to&#160;“stand up in front of so many people, at the age of 49, and share my testimony and begin the process of healing.”</p>
<p>The speech Davis gave was sincere and goes to show that not every Hollywood star was plucked from a middle-class family and thrust into fame.</p>
<p>Witherspoon was honored for her work with the Malala Foundation. Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was herself honored on Friday with the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in standing up for children and women around the world.</p>
<p>Lopez’s work was also inspired by children and her goal is to help needy families receive high quality health care.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | 4,249 |
<p>An $11 million American-funded prison in Afghanistan has fallen apart before it even opens — and the U.S. State Department's plans to rebuild it call for shoddy construction, a government watchdog said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Photos of the lockup being constructed in Baghlan province for 495 inmates show serious structural damage: thick cracks that appeared in walls after the soil it was built on settled.</p>
<p>One building had to be demolished for safety reasons and the contractor intends to rebuild using the original materials and methods in violation of the international building code, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.</p>
<p>The use of improperly reinforced walls "could threaten employee and prisoner safety and the security of the facility," the inspector general, John Sopko, <a href="http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR-14-45-AL.pdf" type="external">wrote in a letter to the State Department</a>.</p>
<p>Sopko is set to testify Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on National Security about wasteful government spending in Afghanistan.</p> | Afghan Prison Built with U.S. Money Falling Down Before It Opens | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/afghan-prison-built-u-s-money-falling-down-it-opens-n69761 | 2014-04-02 | 3left-center
| Afghan Prison Built with U.S. Money Falling Down Before It Opens
<p>An $11 million American-funded prison in Afghanistan has fallen apart before it even opens — and the U.S. State Department's plans to rebuild it call for shoddy construction, a government watchdog said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Photos of the lockup being constructed in Baghlan province for 495 inmates show serious structural damage: thick cracks that appeared in walls after the soil it was built on settled.</p>
<p>One building had to be demolished for safety reasons and the contractor intends to rebuild using the original materials and methods in violation of the international building code, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.</p>
<p>The use of improperly reinforced walls "could threaten employee and prisoner safety and the security of the facility," the inspector general, John Sopko, <a href="http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR-14-45-AL.pdf" type="external">wrote in a letter to the State Department</a>.</p>
<p>Sopko is set to testify Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on National Security about wasteful government spending in Afghanistan.</p> | 4,250 |
<p>Some buy side analysts are also providing their Analysis on Honda Motor Co., Ltd., where 1 analysts have rated the stock as Strong buy, 0 analysts have given a Buy signal, 1 said it’s a HOLD, 0 reported it as Underperform and 0 analysts rated the stock as Sell. (These Recommendations are for the Current Month Only reported by Yahoo Finance.)</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Honda Motor Co., Ltd. might touch $43.69 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $33.06 and $28.43 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 4.6 and Average Volume (3 months) is 487.29 million. The company’s P/E (price to earnings) ratio is 10.28 and Forward P/E ratio of 10.47.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of 3.4%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at 8.7%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is 3.6%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. currently shows a Weekly Performance of -3.1%, where Monthly Performance is 6.84%, Quarterly performance is 17.21%, 6 Months performance is 18.23% and yearly performance percentage is 13.92%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is 11.31%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 1.15% and Monthly Volatility of 0.74%.</p>
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<p /> | What Are Analysts Opinions On Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC) | false | https://newsline.com/what-are-analysts-opinions-on-honda-motor-co-ltd-hmc/ | 2017-11-15 | 1right-center
| What Are Analysts Opinions On Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC)
<p>Some buy side analysts are also providing their Analysis on Honda Motor Co., Ltd., where 1 analysts have rated the stock as Strong buy, 0 analysts have given a Buy signal, 1 said it’s a HOLD, 0 reported it as Underperform and 0 analysts rated the stock as Sell. (These Recommendations are for the Current Month Only reported by Yahoo Finance.)</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Honda Motor Co., Ltd. might touch $43.69 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $33.06 and $28.43 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 4.6 and Average Volume (3 months) is 487.29 million. The company’s P/E (price to earnings) ratio is 10.28 and Forward P/E ratio of 10.47.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of 3.4%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at 8.7%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is 3.6%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. currently shows a Weekly Performance of -3.1%, where Monthly Performance is 6.84%, Quarterly performance is 17.21%, 6 Months performance is 18.23% and yearly performance percentage is 13.92%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is 11.31%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 1.15% and Monthly Volatility of 0.74%.</p>
<p />
<p>Facebook</p>
<p>Twitter</p>
<p /> | 4,251 |
<p>Tom Marsico played the late 1990s mutual fund bubble so perfectly, I counted him among the smartest money managers I'd ever interviewed.</p>
<p>He was a superstar at Denver-based Janus mutual funds -- not only handsome and well-spoken, as superstars ought to be, but reliably cranking out 20%-plus annualized returns for his shareholders.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Marsico left in late 1997 over what Janus termed "philosophical differences." But Marsico knew it was time to move on.</p>
<p>He immediately started Marsico Capital Management. He marketed his stellar growth stock- picking record and amassed billions from investors in six namesake mutual funds. He then sold the entire shop to Bank Of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) for $1.1 billion and continued his work there.</p>
<p>What most mutual-fund mavens needed decades to accomplish, Marsico pulled off in a couple years. And mind you, this was back in the day when $1.1 billion was a lot of money. More amazing: He did all this before the Internet bubble burst, sticking Bank of America with the top-of-the-market price.</p>
<p>It was full-throttle financial genius, and a wonder to behold. But then came 2007, and what did Marsico do before the next big crash? He bought back his namesake company from Bank of America for nearly $2.7 billion.</p>
<p>He put down $100 million of his own money. His associates put down another $50 million. And they borrowed the rest by issuing junk bonds. They had just made the biggest leveraged bets of their bold financial lives just before the Great Depression, Part II.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The assets Marsico's firm manages peaked at $110 billion in October 2007 and fell to $43.4 billion in August before recovering to $50.5 billion today. Mutual-fund companies generate revenue as a percentage of assets under management. So the firm's revenue couldn't support its junk-bond payments, and Marsico was headed for a big default.</p>
<p>So goes the story of just about every leveraged deal of 2007.</p>
<p>Marsico, however, succeeded in restructuring about $2.7 billion in debt on Nov. 10. The restructuring reduced the firm's debt to $1.6 billion as it gave a 49% equity stake to bondholders. But Marsico and his associates still call the shots with a combined 51% stake.</p>
<p>Nobody got laid off. Salaries weren't cut. And the investment team is riding a choppy market back to success. But analysts are justifiably taking shots now that the mighty Marsico has stumbled.</p>
<p>Standard &amp; Poor's Financial Services writes: "Marsico's ability to service its debt remains weak."</p>
<p>Then there's something financial types dub "reputational risk."</p>
<p>"They probably figured out pretty quickly it was the wrong time to buy back the firm," said <a href="" type="internal">Morningstar</a> analyst Karin Anderson. "It's probably going to make it harder for them to attract new money, and also maintain their current sub-advisory business, which makes up a big chunk of their business."</p>
<p>How could Marsico have been so right about selling to Bank of America just before the Internet bust, yet so wrong about buying it back before the mortgage bust?</p>
<p>Marsico, being the stand-up guy that he is, gave me his answer.</p>
<p>"The reasons why I have made certain changes in my career always have to do with the clients," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It always has to be for the clients first, then the employees, the stakeholders, and last the equity-holders.</p>
<p>"In December 2006, given what's happened to Bank of America and to other institutions, I really felt it was in the client's best interest for me to buy the firm back."</p>
<p>Without getting into details, Marsico said he was concerned about what he considered "policy errors" at Bank of America. "I didn't foresee the calamity that took place to the extent that it did," he said. "This was for the clients."</p>
<p>At 55, Marisco has been managing money for more than 30 years.</p>
<p>"This is my love. This is what I like to do," he said. "And frankly, I think it's a little too early to call what will be the success or the failure of the acquisition of the company back to us."</p>
<p>While growth in the U.S. remains slow, Marsico is shifting to stocks in <a href="" type="internal">China</a> and other growing economies.</p>
<p>"Everyone is running into bond funds like they used to run into Internet funds," he said. "We think now is the time to get into equities."</p>
<p>Marsico stands beside his shareholders as the largest investor in all of his funds. When they lose, he loses. He said he also owned some of the very bonds he was forced to restructure.</p>
<p>And if he hadn't bought his company back, he'd still be a part of Bank of America. Can you imagine being owned by this bailed-out nightmare of a bank?</p>
<p>"Reputational risk" from having to restructure $2.7 billion in junk bond debt may be nothing compared to that. I say Marsico is still one of the smartest guys I've ever interviewed.</p> | A 'Reputational Risk' Worth Taking | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2010/11/19/reputational-risk-worth-taking.html | 2016-03-17 | 0right
| A 'Reputational Risk' Worth Taking
<p>Tom Marsico played the late 1990s mutual fund bubble so perfectly, I counted him among the smartest money managers I'd ever interviewed.</p>
<p>He was a superstar at Denver-based Janus mutual funds -- not only handsome and well-spoken, as superstars ought to be, but reliably cranking out 20%-plus annualized returns for his shareholders.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Marsico left in late 1997 over what Janus termed "philosophical differences." But Marsico knew it was time to move on.</p>
<p>He immediately started Marsico Capital Management. He marketed his stellar growth stock- picking record and amassed billions from investors in six namesake mutual funds. He then sold the entire shop to Bank Of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) for $1.1 billion and continued his work there.</p>
<p>What most mutual-fund mavens needed decades to accomplish, Marsico pulled off in a couple years. And mind you, this was back in the day when $1.1 billion was a lot of money. More amazing: He did all this before the Internet bubble burst, sticking Bank of America with the top-of-the-market price.</p>
<p>It was full-throttle financial genius, and a wonder to behold. But then came 2007, and what did Marsico do before the next big crash? He bought back his namesake company from Bank of America for nearly $2.7 billion.</p>
<p>He put down $100 million of his own money. His associates put down another $50 million. And they borrowed the rest by issuing junk bonds. They had just made the biggest leveraged bets of their bold financial lives just before the Great Depression, Part II.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The assets Marsico's firm manages peaked at $110 billion in October 2007 and fell to $43.4 billion in August before recovering to $50.5 billion today. Mutual-fund companies generate revenue as a percentage of assets under management. So the firm's revenue couldn't support its junk-bond payments, and Marsico was headed for a big default.</p>
<p>So goes the story of just about every leveraged deal of 2007.</p>
<p>Marsico, however, succeeded in restructuring about $2.7 billion in debt on Nov. 10. The restructuring reduced the firm's debt to $1.6 billion as it gave a 49% equity stake to bondholders. But Marsico and his associates still call the shots with a combined 51% stake.</p>
<p>Nobody got laid off. Salaries weren't cut. And the investment team is riding a choppy market back to success. But analysts are justifiably taking shots now that the mighty Marsico has stumbled.</p>
<p>Standard &amp; Poor's Financial Services writes: "Marsico's ability to service its debt remains weak."</p>
<p>Then there's something financial types dub "reputational risk."</p>
<p>"They probably figured out pretty quickly it was the wrong time to buy back the firm," said <a href="" type="internal">Morningstar</a> analyst Karin Anderson. "It's probably going to make it harder for them to attract new money, and also maintain their current sub-advisory business, which makes up a big chunk of their business."</p>
<p>How could Marsico have been so right about selling to Bank of America just before the Internet bust, yet so wrong about buying it back before the mortgage bust?</p>
<p>Marsico, being the stand-up guy that he is, gave me his answer.</p>
<p>"The reasons why I have made certain changes in my career always have to do with the clients," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It always has to be for the clients first, then the employees, the stakeholders, and last the equity-holders.</p>
<p>"In December 2006, given what's happened to Bank of America and to other institutions, I really felt it was in the client's best interest for me to buy the firm back."</p>
<p>Without getting into details, Marsico said he was concerned about what he considered "policy errors" at Bank of America. "I didn't foresee the calamity that took place to the extent that it did," he said. "This was for the clients."</p>
<p>At 55, Marisco has been managing money for more than 30 years.</p>
<p>"This is my love. This is what I like to do," he said. "And frankly, I think it's a little too early to call what will be the success or the failure of the acquisition of the company back to us."</p>
<p>While growth in the U.S. remains slow, Marsico is shifting to stocks in <a href="" type="internal">China</a> and other growing economies.</p>
<p>"Everyone is running into bond funds like they used to run into Internet funds," he said. "We think now is the time to get into equities."</p>
<p>Marsico stands beside his shareholders as the largest investor in all of his funds. When they lose, he loses. He said he also owned some of the very bonds he was forced to restructure.</p>
<p>And if he hadn't bought his company back, he'd still be a part of Bank of America. Can you imagine being owned by this bailed-out nightmare of a bank?</p>
<p>"Reputational risk" from having to restructure $2.7 billion in junk bond debt may be nothing compared to that. I say Marsico is still one of the smartest guys I've ever interviewed.</p> | 4,252 |
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<p>Pro-Russian activists hold up Orthodox icons at a checkpoint outside a Black Sea port in the Crimea, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Andrew Lubimov/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine - Masked gunmen stormed parliament in Ukraine's strategic Crimea region Thursday as Russian fighter jets scrambled to patrol borders, while the newly formed government pledged to prevent a national breakup with strong backing from the West - the stirrings of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.</p>
<p>Moscow granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, state media said. He was said to be holed up in a luxury government retreat and to have scheduled a news conference today near the Ukrainian border.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading "Crimea is Russia" in the provincial capital, Ukraine's interim prime minister declared the Black Sea territory "has been and will be a part of Ukraine."</p>
<p>The escalating conflict sent Ukraine's finances plummeting further, prompting Western leaders to prepare an emergency financial package.</p>
<p>Yanukovych, whose abandonment of closer ties to Europe in favor of a bailout loan from Russia set off three months of protests, finally fled by helicopter last week as his allies deserted him. The humiliating exit was a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been celebrating his signature Olympics even as Ukraine's drama came to a head. The Russian leader has long dreamed of pulling Ukraine - a country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization - closer into Moscow's orbit.</p>
<p>For Ukraine's neighbors, the specter of Ukraine breaking up evoked memories of centuries of bloody conflict.</p>
<p>"Regional conflicts begin this way," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, calling the confrontation "a very dangerous game."</p>
<p>Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets Thursday to patrol borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian troops - almost the entirety of its force in the western part of the country - signaled strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.</p>
<p>Thursday's dramatic developments posed an immediate challenge to Ukraine's new authorities as they named an interim government for the country, whose population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.</p>
<p>It only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia - a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.</p>
<p>In the capital, Kiev, the new prime minister said Ukraine's future lies in the European Union, but with friendly relations with Russia.</p>
<p /> | Russian actions raise stakes in Ukraine conflict | false | https://abqjournal.com/360465/russian-actions-raise-stakes-in-ukraine-conflict.html | 2least
| Russian actions raise stakes in Ukraine conflict
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Pro-Russian activists hold up Orthodox icons at a checkpoint outside a Black Sea port in the Crimea, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Andrew Lubimov/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine - Masked gunmen stormed parliament in Ukraine's strategic Crimea region Thursday as Russian fighter jets scrambled to patrol borders, while the newly formed government pledged to prevent a national breakup with strong backing from the West - the stirrings of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.</p>
<p>Moscow granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, state media said. He was said to be holed up in a luxury government retreat and to have scheduled a news conference today near the Ukrainian border.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading "Crimea is Russia" in the provincial capital, Ukraine's interim prime minister declared the Black Sea territory "has been and will be a part of Ukraine."</p>
<p>The escalating conflict sent Ukraine's finances plummeting further, prompting Western leaders to prepare an emergency financial package.</p>
<p>Yanukovych, whose abandonment of closer ties to Europe in favor of a bailout loan from Russia set off three months of protests, finally fled by helicopter last week as his allies deserted him. The humiliating exit was a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been celebrating his signature Olympics even as Ukraine's drama came to a head. The Russian leader has long dreamed of pulling Ukraine - a country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization - closer into Moscow's orbit.</p>
<p>For Ukraine's neighbors, the specter of Ukraine breaking up evoked memories of centuries of bloody conflict.</p>
<p>"Regional conflicts begin this way," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, calling the confrontation "a very dangerous game."</p>
<p>Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets Thursday to patrol borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian troops - almost the entirety of its force in the western part of the country - signaled strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.</p>
<p>Thursday's dramatic developments posed an immediate challenge to Ukraine's new authorities as they named an interim government for the country, whose population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great, was once the crown jewel in Russian and then Soviet empires.</p>
<p>It only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia - a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.</p>
<p>In the capital, Kiev, the new prime minister said Ukraine's future lies in the European Union, but with friendly relations with Russia.</p>
<p /> | 4,253 |
|
<p><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-328825124/stock-photo-las-vegas-nv-october-l-r-democratic-presidential-debate-features-candidate-former.html?src=qAszvOIZZ2kDvcwSPXQJ7A-1-39" type="external">Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock</a></p>
<p>Today, this Bernie Sanders fan is voting for Hillary Clinton. The reasons are fairly simple. She’s not racist, sexist, anti-Muslim, anti-Latino, or anti-any-minority-group that Donald Trump has insulted. She has not “allegedly” raped or sexually abused anyone. (Yes, the bar is pretty low.)</p>
<p>Despite her manifold imperfections, let’s face it: Unlike her opponent, she has spent much of her life trying to make the world a better place for those Americans who are not in the 1 percent. She has often fallen short, but in truth, how many of us can say that we’ve worked with incarcerated teenagers and disabled children? Fought to bring health care to all Americans? Helped 9/11 first responders get the health care benefits they deserved? Fought to make women’s rights human rights? Stood up for LGBT rights?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, what has Trump done? He’s spent a lifetime trying to make his world a better place, even at the cost of other people’s welfare.</p>
<p />
<p>If Trump were a student at my sons’ elementary school, he’d have been suspended long ago for tantrums, bad sportsmanship, use of foul language, name-calling, bullying and, last but not least, “alleged” sexual harassment and sexual abuse of more than a dozen women.</p>
<p>If he were my kid, I’d have sent him to therapy to treat his narcissism, lack of impulse control and difficulty acknowledging the truth. Why have we tolerated in Trump, a would-be leader of our nation, the kind of behavior that no reasonable mother, father or school principal would tolerate in children? Do we want our children to see in our highest leader a man who mocks others and promotes violence? Are these the “family values” to which we want our sons and daughters to aspire?</p>
<p>As an overgrown boy who has offended and demeaned every minority group, entire countries and pretty much everyone who does not flatter him, he has trodden upon the ideals inscribed in our Constitution and in our hearts: truth, equality, liberty, justice, freedom.</p>
<p>If Trump were my kid, I would ground him and take away his phone privileges. I would insist that he take a walk, meditate, do some yoga, take a cold shower and engage in restorative justice—the kind our schools have embraced to teach children how to make amends after they harm people.</p>
<p>If he argued with and insulted me (which he no doubt would), I’d tell him that his Neanderthal impulses were being instilled in him by our reality-TV culture. I’d have him relearn those old-fashioned values that real patriots value: integrity, respect, tolerance. These are the kind of morals our vaunted institutions and schools have etched into their walls—the kind of high-minded values promoted by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>Trump is a product of the dumbing-down of our nation—a nation that has come to value television over books and insult-flinging reality-TV stars over people who work hard to advance themselves. We’ve come to promote fame and fortune over determination, kindness and generosity. How far have we fallen?</p>
<p>Perhaps it makes us feel better to see someone else get downtrodden. It makes us (within the confines of our own homes) feel safer and better about our own lives, as in: “Wow! My life is pretty great compared to that loser’s life.” But let’s face it—these reality shows are nothing but verbal gladiator games; they appeal to our lowest instincts.</p>
<p>Why is Trump famous? He’s famous for judging others, for deciding who to fire, who to destroy, who to debase. The thing he’s best at is name-calling. Do we want a leader who is a destroyer or a builder? A divider or a uniter?</p>
<p>Can you imagine saying this to your grandchildren? “Let’s overlook President Abraham Lincoln’s storied legacy of honesty. Instead, let me tell you the story about President Trump, who bragged about sexually abusing women. Who lied about his tax returns and successfully evaded paying taxes for years, even though he was a billionaire. He also refused to pay his workers—wasn’t that clever? And did you hear about how he polluted the drinking water of a 92-year-old woman when a pipe broke on his golf course near Aberdeen, Scotland? The woman had to cart her own drinking water from a stream, in a wheelbarrow—for four years.</p>
<p>“Yes darlings. Cheat the poor. Stomp on those who are different from you in skin color, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Make enemies wherever you go and brag, sneak and steal so you can get ahead. That’s what America is all about.”</p>
<p>Or will you tell the story of how you voted for Hillary, even though she was imperfect, just as our union is imperfect? Then you might add, how you continued to push her, after the election, to make sure that she stayed true to her promises to create a better world and a better country — one in which people of all races, colors and creeds were respected and offered the same rights, opportunities and protections.</p> | Why This Bernie Sanders Fan Is Voting for Hillary Clinton | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/why-this-bernie-sanders-fan-is-voting-for-hillary-clinton/ | 2016-11-06 | 4left
| Why This Bernie Sanders Fan Is Voting for Hillary Clinton
<p><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-328825124/stock-photo-las-vegas-nv-october-l-r-democratic-presidential-debate-features-candidate-former.html?src=qAszvOIZZ2kDvcwSPXQJ7A-1-39" type="external">Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock</a></p>
<p>Today, this Bernie Sanders fan is voting for Hillary Clinton. The reasons are fairly simple. She’s not racist, sexist, anti-Muslim, anti-Latino, or anti-any-minority-group that Donald Trump has insulted. She has not “allegedly” raped or sexually abused anyone. (Yes, the bar is pretty low.)</p>
<p>Despite her manifold imperfections, let’s face it: Unlike her opponent, she has spent much of her life trying to make the world a better place for those Americans who are not in the 1 percent. She has often fallen short, but in truth, how many of us can say that we’ve worked with incarcerated teenagers and disabled children? Fought to bring health care to all Americans? Helped 9/11 first responders get the health care benefits they deserved? Fought to make women’s rights human rights? Stood up for LGBT rights?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, what has Trump done? He’s spent a lifetime trying to make his world a better place, even at the cost of other people’s welfare.</p>
<p />
<p>If Trump were a student at my sons’ elementary school, he’d have been suspended long ago for tantrums, bad sportsmanship, use of foul language, name-calling, bullying and, last but not least, “alleged” sexual harassment and sexual abuse of more than a dozen women.</p>
<p>If he were my kid, I’d have sent him to therapy to treat his narcissism, lack of impulse control and difficulty acknowledging the truth. Why have we tolerated in Trump, a would-be leader of our nation, the kind of behavior that no reasonable mother, father or school principal would tolerate in children? Do we want our children to see in our highest leader a man who mocks others and promotes violence? Are these the “family values” to which we want our sons and daughters to aspire?</p>
<p>As an overgrown boy who has offended and demeaned every minority group, entire countries and pretty much everyone who does not flatter him, he has trodden upon the ideals inscribed in our Constitution and in our hearts: truth, equality, liberty, justice, freedom.</p>
<p>If Trump were my kid, I would ground him and take away his phone privileges. I would insist that he take a walk, meditate, do some yoga, take a cold shower and engage in restorative justice—the kind our schools have embraced to teach children how to make amends after they harm people.</p>
<p>If he argued with and insulted me (which he no doubt would), I’d tell him that his Neanderthal impulses were being instilled in him by our reality-TV culture. I’d have him relearn those old-fashioned values that real patriots value: integrity, respect, tolerance. These are the kind of morals our vaunted institutions and schools have etched into their walls—the kind of high-minded values promoted by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>Trump is a product of the dumbing-down of our nation—a nation that has come to value television over books and insult-flinging reality-TV stars over people who work hard to advance themselves. We’ve come to promote fame and fortune over determination, kindness and generosity. How far have we fallen?</p>
<p>Perhaps it makes us feel better to see someone else get downtrodden. It makes us (within the confines of our own homes) feel safer and better about our own lives, as in: “Wow! My life is pretty great compared to that loser’s life.” But let’s face it—these reality shows are nothing but verbal gladiator games; they appeal to our lowest instincts.</p>
<p>Why is Trump famous? He’s famous for judging others, for deciding who to fire, who to destroy, who to debase. The thing he’s best at is name-calling. Do we want a leader who is a destroyer or a builder? A divider or a uniter?</p>
<p>Can you imagine saying this to your grandchildren? “Let’s overlook President Abraham Lincoln’s storied legacy of honesty. Instead, let me tell you the story about President Trump, who bragged about sexually abusing women. Who lied about his tax returns and successfully evaded paying taxes for years, even though he was a billionaire. He also refused to pay his workers—wasn’t that clever? And did you hear about how he polluted the drinking water of a 92-year-old woman when a pipe broke on his golf course near Aberdeen, Scotland? The woman had to cart her own drinking water from a stream, in a wheelbarrow—for four years.</p>
<p>“Yes darlings. Cheat the poor. Stomp on those who are different from you in skin color, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Make enemies wherever you go and brag, sneak and steal so you can get ahead. That’s what America is all about.”</p>
<p>Or will you tell the story of how you voted for Hillary, even though she was imperfect, just as our union is imperfect? Then you might add, how you continued to push her, after the election, to make sure that she stayed true to her promises to create a better world and a better country — one in which people of all races, colors and creeds were respected and offered the same rights, opportunities and protections.</p> | 4,254 |
<p>Don’t Miss Robert Scheer’s New Book:</p>
<p>“Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton–and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush”</p>
<p>(With a foreword by Gore Vidal)</p>
<p>Scheer’s interviews with and profiles of U.S. presidents have shaped journalism history and had a tangible impact on national debate — such as the eminent 1976 Playboy interview in which Jimmy Carter, the then-presidential candidate, admitted to lusting in his heart; and the 1980 L.A. Times interview with Bush I, in which he confessed to Scheer his dream of a “winnable nuclear war.”</p>
<p />
<p>Scheer, whom Joan Didion called “one of the best reporters of our time,” offers with this book unparalleled insight into the presidential mind. Through both new writings and reprinted material, Scheer analyzes every administration from Nixon to George W. Bush, offering insights that will surprise the reader — particularly those with rigid preconceptions about the decision-making processes of our leaders.</p>
<p>In the pages that follow, Truthdig presents the full-text version of Scheer’s introduction, along with a foreword by celebrated man of letters Gore Vidal.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Click <a href="" type="internal">HERE</a> for ordering information</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Scheer covered presidential politics for the Los Angeles Times for thirty years. He is the author of six books, including With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War and America after Nixon: The Age of the Multinationals; and co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California. Scheer is a nationally syndicated columnist, editor of Truthdig.com, a contributing editor of the Nation, and cohost of NPR-affiliate KCRW’s Left, Right, and Center.“Playing President” is a joint Truthdig / Akashic Books publication.</p>
<p>by Gore Vidal</p>
<p>The twentieth century produced a great deal of writing about American politics, much of it bewildered when new notions like empire started to sneak into nervous texts whose authors were not quite certain if “empire” could ever be an applicable word for the last best hope of earth.</p>
<p>The bidding then changed dramatically after World War Two, when Harry Truman armed us with nuclear weapons and gave us an icy sort of permanent war against Godless Atheistic communism, as personified by Joseph Stalin, standing in for Hitler, whom we had got rid of with rather more help than we liked to admit from the new world demon Stalin. How, why did Truman lock us all into a national security state, armed to the teeth? The simple story was dread of communism everywhere on the march, but those of us who had served in World War Two knew as well as our political leaders that the Soviet Union, as of 1950, was not going anywhere very soon: They had lost twenty million people. They wanted, touchingly, to be like us, with consumer goods and all the rest of it.</p>
<p>What actually happened was tragic for the Russian people and their buffer states: Truman, guided by that brilliant lawyer Dean Acheson, was quite aware that by 1940 the world Depression of the early ’30s had returned. The New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt had largely failed. What was to be done? FDR took a crash course in Keynesian economics. As a result, he invested $8 billion into re-arming the United States, in order to hold our own against the Fascist axis of Germany, Japan, Italy. To the astonishment of Roosevelt’s conservative political enemies, the U.S. suddenly had full employment for the work force and a military machine of the first rank with which we were able to defeat Fascism, and just about anyone else who defied us.</p>
<p>Truman and friends learned and never forgot an important lesson: It was through war and a militarized economy that we became prosperous with full employment. After victory in Europe and the Pacific, Truman himself began to play the war drums. Stalin was menacing Turkey and Greece (Acheson threw in nearby Italy, and why not France?). We must stop the rising Red tide, while acquiring that era’s latest propaganda toy, a TV set. This wearisome background was well known to historians like William Appleman Williams, but hardly suspected by too many of the usual publicists of the American way of life.</p>
<p>Robert Scheer has had the good fortune to observe first-hand the last half-dozen Presidents, from Nixon to “W”. He has also had the perseverance as a journalist to insist that he be able to conduct one-on-one conversations with the odd sort of men who were playing (or trying to play) President. This makes for a fascinating immediacy in the book at hand, particularly when he is giving his protagonists a harder time than they had expected. Scheer has always suspected that he would be one of the last journalists able to use the print medium fully in the electronic age that had dawned around 1960.</p>
<p>Scheer makes a telling analysis of Nixon and his “frozen smile,” with the comment that “despite being unquestionably the best prepared of all modern Presidents before assuming office, it was his indelibly awkward and secretive style that did him in.” Scheer is impressed by this President’s mind despite himself, as was Walter Lippmann, whom I once teased for supporting Nixon. Walter was serene: “I only know,” he said, “if I had a difficult lawsuit on my hands, I would go to him as a lawyer. He presents you an entire case before your eyes: He is simply brilliant, unique in public life.”</p>
<p>Print journalism is a challenge to the writer’s intelligence, as well as to that of his subject. Of course, few journalists and player Presidents are up to Scheer and Nixon. Yes, Nixon did much that was evil along the way (Cambodia, Watergate), but he usually managed to harm himself most — a form of good manners. He was primarily interested in foreign affairs and the opening up to China; dtente with the Soviets; these were significant achievements, and he had no strong domestic policies, which should have been a great relief for Us the People. No wartime tax breaks for cronies is quite enough for us to applaud him in other roles.</p>
<p>Presidents are trapped in history as well as in their own DNA codes. After Watergate, Nixon starred as Coriolanus for a while, but when he saw that this got him nowhere, he realized he was so steeped in blood that he could not turn back, so he went on as Macbeth, to our benefit at times. Scheer is not the first of our journalists to recognize how like classical players the Presidents tend to be if they have the right war or disaster to contend with. Scheer is generally good-humored about them, though Bush I’s implacable self-love seems to rub him the wrong way; also, Reagan’s rambling does not get either of them very far, yet Scheer has grasped what few others have: Mrs. Reagan’s importance not only to her somewhat listless husband but to our country, where she seems to have understood before other politicians that the Cold War was getting us nowhere.</p>
<p>Scheer had problems with Jimmy Carter and, perhaps, with Southern politicians in general. He struggled with the man’s compulsive fibbing about himself and his place in an imaginary Plains, Georgia, which kept changing to fit his restless re-imagining of his career, recalling homely barbershop quartets as well as killer rabbits at large in catfish ponds. Scheer had an edgy time with Carter, but it was to Scheer that Carter confessed he had lusted in his heart for ladies, causing much of the nation to admire and smirk.</p>
<p>Scheer concedes Clinton’s brilliance as a player but frets over (as many of us did) “the end of welfare as we know it.” It is with this President that Scheer is most interesting, largely because Clinton is as intelligent as he, at least on the subjects they discuss. Clinton has dared occasionally to touch the third rail of American political discourse: the superiority of other nations’ economies to that of America the Beautiful and the Earmarked.</p>
<p>Scheer: Some now blame the Europeans and Japanese for our problems and call for protectionism. Are you sympathetic to such calls?</p>
<p>Clinton: But to be fair, the biggest problems we have in maintaining the manufacturing base are our failures to work together to achieve high levels of productivity, to control health care costs, to have a tax system which is pro-manufacturing. Our tax system now is anti-manufacturing. And it was during the Reagan/Bush years. I think, you know, it rewarded money making money and not production, not jobs, not goods, and not services.</p>
<p>Scheer: Well, that’s what we say now. But when the last tax-reform package was passed, many Democrats supported it. It was supposed to help production.</p>
<p>Clinton: I never thought it would . . . You know, the elemental principle of taxation should be [that] people should pay according to their abilities to pay. And you should have incentives that do specific things. Those ought to be the two driving, in my view, principles of the tax system.</p>
<p>This is very grown-up stuff.</p>
<p>The final chapter, perhaps in every sense, deals with George W. Bush. Scheer confesses he was ill-prepared for someone who seems to have no idea of, or interest in, playing President, as opposed to playing “Wartime President,” easily the trick of the week when Congress has modestly declined to declare war on anyone.</p>
<p>Certainly, with these observations on a section of our history, Scheer joins that small group of journalist-historians that includes Richard Rovere, Murray Kempton, and Walter Lippmann.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Next Page (from Scheer’s introduction):</a> “The problem is that in our system, as opposed to a parliamentary one, the presidential candidate’s performance is a solo act. The basic test is not that of a leader emerging from a pack made up of peers; instead, it revolves around a performer and a largely untutored electorate that is his jury and his audience. “</p>
<p>by Robert Scheer</p>
<p>Playing president is not a book title selected casually, but a distilled opinion gleaned over forty years of journalism, covering our most important democratic exercise. After decades spent interviewing dozens of leading presidential candidates, including those who ended up in the highest office, I came to the conclusion that the process endured in obtaining electoral power tends to be the controlling influence on the candidate’s behavior once in office.</p>
<p>As sailors like to say, the journey is the destination, and for politicians with presidential aspirations, the experience of running for one office after another until they obtain the final prize informs as well as deforms their conduct. The problem is that in our system, as opposed to a parliamentary one, the presidential candidate’s performance is a solo act. The basic test is not that of a leader emerging from a pack made up of peers; instead, it revolves around a performer and a largely untutored electorate that is his jury and his audience.</p>
<p>Whereas a parliamentary leader is pushed by the process of selection to grow in ways that are positive to governance, with policy substance stressed over rhetorical style, in the American presidential system, the electoral process stupefies rather than educates, undermining — indeed, assaulting — the capacity of the politician to consider public policy in ways that are truly thoughtful. In the uniquely grueling and essentially mindless process of our system, serious issues become little more than grist for the pollsters’ mills, and substantive alternatives are reduced to slogans to be bandied about for electoral convenience and television sound-bite advertising.</p>
<p>I’m certain that this last sentiment will elicit a stridently defensive response from those who celebrate what they perceive as the rough-and-tumble of the American system, a robust and healthy exercise compared with the alternatives in other representative governments. Surely, those other systems have their problems, and I am not advocating that we change our constitutionally enshrined procedures for some idealized alternative. I am merely warning of the pitfalls in our presidential electoral process as I have observed them over and over again. It is a process that is intellectually dishonest and inevitably deleterious to the best interests of the voters.</p>
<p>All of the leading presidential candidates that I have interviewed, from Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado to Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, have been honorable individuals who sacrificed a great deal in their attempts to succeed at what is an extremely challenging ordeal. Whether it was John Anderson, the Republican Congressman-turned-Independent, or civil rights activist Jessie Jackson turned perennial Democratic Party candidate, these men for the most part struck me as basically well-intentioned in their eagerness to serve the nation. The fundamental hazards are in the process itself: that numbing effect of a modern mass media-observed campaign that requires such an incredible high-wire act — balancing fundraising with integrity, superficial sloganeering with profound commitment, and homogenizing the entire unwieldy package into a marketable commodity — that in the end, the candidate is transformed into a caricature who has difficulty remembering from whence he came.</p>
<p>That, of course, is the opposite of what the founders of the American system had in mind when they rooted our representative democracy in accountability, with even the smallest local village subject to the scrutiny of a media that was everyman, as personified by the proprietor of the penny press and the town crier.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson extolled the central importance of the media, declaring, “I would rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press.” Journalists were by no means presumed virtuous; they were often considered vile, intemperate, and cursory in their observations. Yet what defined the media in the infancy of the nation was variety, made possible by a press that thrived in conditions of undercapitalization. Famed media critic A.J. Liebling once wrote, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,” and in the time of Jefferson, that group included much of the electorate.</p>
<p>Today, the opposite is obviously the case, with media ownership enormously costly and concentrated in a very few centers of capital. Perhaps the Internet will change that; already there are signs that the blogosphere, when it is not merely mischievous noise, is revitalizing the democratic process. After all, money is often less important than spunk as the key ingredient to the success of a website. But the contrary tendency in the period of time during which I interviewed the presidential candidates in this book was increasingly toward larger and more suffocating media conglomeration. For this reason, there is something anachronistic about the interviews I conducted, as they were produced for print outlets even while the electronic media was beginning to fully assert its dominance. It is now extremely rare for a print journalist, accompanied only by pen and paper and a tape recorder, to be granted adequate time to assess a candidate’s ability to reflect on the issues of the day.</p>
<p>In the introductions to each of the following sections, I attempt to provide some insight into how my exchanges with the men who served as President came to take place, and what was learned in the process. In the last section on President George W. Bush, I struggle to come to grips with the one recent President who was never subjected to such a test, from me or anyone else. While I did spend some time around him and the rest of the Bush family entourage while reporting on his father’s campaigns, he is the one President here who I never interviewed on the public record. No matter, George W. Bush is, for better or worse, the first truly electronically projected President.</p>
<p>Robert Scheer Los Angeles, California March 2006</p> | Playing President | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/playing-president/ | 2006-04-12 | 4left
| Playing President
<p>Don’t Miss Robert Scheer’s New Book:</p>
<p>“Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton–and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush”</p>
<p>(With a foreword by Gore Vidal)</p>
<p>Scheer’s interviews with and profiles of U.S. presidents have shaped journalism history and had a tangible impact on national debate — such as the eminent 1976 Playboy interview in which Jimmy Carter, the then-presidential candidate, admitted to lusting in his heart; and the 1980 L.A. Times interview with Bush I, in which he confessed to Scheer his dream of a “winnable nuclear war.”</p>
<p />
<p>Scheer, whom Joan Didion called “one of the best reporters of our time,” offers with this book unparalleled insight into the presidential mind. Through both new writings and reprinted material, Scheer analyzes every administration from Nixon to George W. Bush, offering insights that will surprise the reader — particularly those with rigid preconceptions about the decision-making processes of our leaders.</p>
<p>In the pages that follow, Truthdig presents the full-text version of Scheer’s introduction, along with a foreword by celebrated man of letters Gore Vidal.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Click <a href="" type="internal">HERE</a> for ordering information</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Scheer covered presidential politics for the Los Angeles Times for thirty years. He is the author of six books, including With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War and America after Nixon: The Age of the Multinationals; and co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California. Scheer is a nationally syndicated columnist, editor of Truthdig.com, a contributing editor of the Nation, and cohost of NPR-affiliate KCRW’s Left, Right, and Center.“Playing President” is a joint Truthdig / Akashic Books publication.</p>
<p>by Gore Vidal</p>
<p>The twentieth century produced a great deal of writing about American politics, much of it bewildered when new notions like empire started to sneak into nervous texts whose authors were not quite certain if “empire” could ever be an applicable word for the last best hope of earth.</p>
<p>The bidding then changed dramatically after World War Two, when Harry Truman armed us with nuclear weapons and gave us an icy sort of permanent war against Godless Atheistic communism, as personified by Joseph Stalin, standing in for Hitler, whom we had got rid of with rather more help than we liked to admit from the new world demon Stalin. How, why did Truman lock us all into a national security state, armed to the teeth? The simple story was dread of communism everywhere on the march, but those of us who had served in World War Two knew as well as our political leaders that the Soviet Union, as of 1950, was not going anywhere very soon: They had lost twenty million people. They wanted, touchingly, to be like us, with consumer goods and all the rest of it.</p>
<p>What actually happened was tragic for the Russian people and their buffer states: Truman, guided by that brilliant lawyer Dean Acheson, was quite aware that by 1940 the world Depression of the early ’30s had returned. The New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt had largely failed. What was to be done? FDR took a crash course in Keynesian economics. As a result, he invested $8 billion into re-arming the United States, in order to hold our own against the Fascist axis of Germany, Japan, Italy. To the astonishment of Roosevelt’s conservative political enemies, the U.S. suddenly had full employment for the work force and a military machine of the first rank with which we were able to defeat Fascism, and just about anyone else who defied us.</p>
<p>Truman and friends learned and never forgot an important lesson: It was through war and a militarized economy that we became prosperous with full employment. After victory in Europe and the Pacific, Truman himself began to play the war drums. Stalin was menacing Turkey and Greece (Acheson threw in nearby Italy, and why not France?). We must stop the rising Red tide, while acquiring that era’s latest propaganda toy, a TV set. This wearisome background was well known to historians like William Appleman Williams, but hardly suspected by too many of the usual publicists of the American way of life.</p>
<p>Robert Scheer has had the good fortune to observe first-hand the last half-dozen Presidents, from Nixon to “W”. He has also had the perseverance as a journalist to insist that he be able to conduct one-on-one conversations with the odd sort of men who were playing (or trying to play) President. This makes for a fascinating immediacy in the book at hand, particularly when he is giving his protagonists a harder time than they had expected. Scheer has always suspected that he would be one of the last journalists able to use the print medium fully in the electronic age that had dawned around 1960.</p>
<p>Scheer makes a telling analysis of Nixon and his “frozen smile,” with the comment that “despite being unquestionably the best prepared of all modern Presidents before assuming office, it was his indelibly awkward and secretive style that did him in.” Scheer is impressed by this President’s mind despite himself, as was Walter Lippmann, whom I once teased for supporting Nixon. Walter was serene: “I only know,” he said, “if I had a difficult lawsuit on my hands, I would go to him as a lawyer. He presents you an entire case before your eyes: He is simply brilliant, unique in public life.”</p>
<p>Print journalism is a challenge to the writer’s intelligence, as well as to that of his subject. Of course, few journalists and player Presidents are up to Scheer and Nixon. Yes, Nixon did much that was evil along the way (Cambodia, Watergate), but he usually managed to harm himself most — a form of good manners. He was primarily interested in foreign affairs and the opening up to China; dtente with the Soviets; these were significant achievements, and he had no strong domestic policies, which should have been a great relief for Us the People. No wartime tax breaks for cronies is quite enough for us to applaud him in other roles.</p>
<p>Presidents are trapped in history as well as in their own DNA codes. After Watergate, Nixon starred as Coriolanus for a while, but when he saw that this got him nowhere, he realized he was so steeped in blood that he could not turn back, so he went on as Macbeth, to our benefit at times. Scheer is not the first of our journalists to recognize how like classical players the Presidents tend to be if they have the right war or disaster to contend with. Scheer is generally good-humored about them, though Bush I’s implacable self-love seems to rub him the wrong way; also, Reagan’s rambling does not get either of them very far, yet Scheer has grasped what few others have: Mrs. Reagan’s importance not only to her somewhat listless husband but to our country, where she seems to have understood before other politicians that the Cold War was getting us nowhere.</p>
<p>Scheer had problems with Jimmy Carter and, perhaps, with Southern politicians in general. He struggled with the man’s compulsive fibbing about himself and his place in an imaginary Plains, Georgia, which kept changing to fit his restless re-imagining of his career, recalling homely barbershop quartets as well as killer rabbits at large in catfish ponds. Scheer had an edgy time with Carter, but it was to Scheer that Carter confessed he had lusted in his heart for ladies, causing much of the nation to admire and smirk.</p>
<p>Scheer concedes Clinton’s brilliance as a player but frets over (as many of us did) “the end of welfare as we know it.” It is with this President that Scheer is most interesting, largely because Clinton is as intelligent as he, at least on the subjects they discuss. Clinton has dared occasionally to touch the third rail of American political discourse: the superiority of other nations’ economies to that of America the Beautiful and the Earmarked.</p>
<p>Scheer: Some now blame the Europeans and Japanese for our problems and call for protectionism. Are you sympathetic to such calls?</p>
<p>Clinton: But to be fair, the biggest problems we have in maintaining the manufacturing base are our failures to work together to achieve high levels of productivity, to control health care costs, to have a tax system which is pro-manufacturing. Our tax system now is anti-manufacturing. And it was during the Reagan/Bush years. I think, you know, it rewarded money making money and not production, not jobs, not goods, and not services.</p>
<p>Scheer: Well, that’s what we say now. But when the last tax-reform package was passed, many Democrats supported it. It was supposed to help production.</p>
<p>Clinton: I never thought it would . . . You know, the elemental principle of taxation should be [that] people should pay according to their abilities to pay. And you should have incentives that do specific things. Those ought to be the two driving, in my view, principles of the tax system.</p>
<p>This is very grown-up stuff.</p>
<p>The final chapter, perhaps in every sense, deals with George W. Bush. Scheer confesses he was ill-prepared for someone who seems to have no idea of, or interest in, playing President, as opposed to playing “Wartime President,” easily the trick of the week when Congress has modestly declined to declare war on anyone.</p>
<p>Certainly, with these observations on a section of our history, Scheer joins that small group of journalist-historians that includes Richard Rovere, Murray Kempton, and Walter Lippmann.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Next Page (from Scheer’s introduction):</a> “The problem is that in our system, as opposed to a parliamentary one, the presidential candidate’s performance is a solo act. The basic test is not that of a leader emerging from a pack made up of peers; instead, it revolves around a performer and a largely untutored electorate that is his jury and his audience. “</p>
<p>by Robert Scheer</p>
<p>Playing president is not a book title selected casually, but a distilled opinion gleaned over forty years of journalism, covering our most important democratic exercise. After decades spent interviewing dozens of leading presidential candidates, including those who ended up in the highest office, I came to the conclusion that the process endured in obtaining electoral power tends to be the controlling influence on the candidate’s behavior once in office.</p>
<p>As sailors like to say, the journey is the destination, and for politicians with presidential aspirations, the experience of running for one office after another until they obtain the final prize informs as well as deforms their conduct. The problem is that in our system, as opposed to a parliamentary one, the presidential candidate’s performance is a solo act. The basic test is not that of a leader emerging from a pack made up of peers; instead, it revolves around a performer and a largely untutored electorate that is his jury and his audience.</p>
<p>Whereas a parliamentary leader is pushed by the process of selection to grow in ways that are positive to governance, with policy substance stressed over rhetorical style, in the American presidential system, the electoral process stupefies rather than educates, undermining — indeed, assaulting — the capacity of the politician to consider public policy in ways that are truly thoughtful. In the uniquely grueling and essentially mindless process of our system, serious issues become little more than grist for the pollsters’ mills, and substantive alternatives are reduced to slogans to be bandied about for electoral convenience and television sound-bite advertising.</p>
<p>I’m certain that this last sentiment will elicit a stridently defensive response from those who celebrate what they perceive as the rough-and-tumble of the American system, a robust and healthy exercise compared with the alternatives in other representative governments. Surely, those other systems have their problems, and I am not advocating that we change our constitutionally enshrined procedures for some idealized alternative. I am merely warning of the pitfalls in our presidential electoral process as I have observed them over and over again. It is a process that is intellectually dishonest and inevitably deleterious to the best interests of the voters.</p>
<p>All of the leading presidential candidates that I have interviewed, from Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado to Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, have been honorable individuals who sacrificed a great deal in their attempts to succeed at what is an extremely challenging ordeal. Whether it was John Anderson, the Republican Congressman-turned-Independent, or civil rights activist Jessie Jackson turned perennial Democratic Party candidate, these men for the most part struck me as basically well-intentioned in their eagerness to serve the nation. The fundamental hazards are in the process itself: that numbing effect of a modern mass media-observed campaign that requires such an incredible high-wire act — balancing fundraising with integrity, superficial sloganeering with profound commitment, and homogenizing the entire unwieldy package into a marketable commodity — that in the end, the candidate is transformed into a caricature who has difficulty remembering from whence he came.</p>
<p>That, of course, is the opposite of what the founders of the American system had in mind when they rooted our representative democracy in accountability, with even the smallest local village subject to the scrutiny of a media that was everyman, as personified by the proprietor of the penny press and the town crier.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson extolled the central importance of the media, declaring, “I would rather have free press and no government, than a government and no free press.” Journalists were by no means presumed virtuous; they were often considered vile, intemperate, and cursory in their observations. Yet what defined the media in the infancy of the nation was variety, made possible by a press that thrived in conditions of undercapitalization. Famed media critic A.J. Liebling once wrote, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,” and in the time of Jefferson, that group included much of the electorate.</p>
<p>Today, the opposite is obviously the case, with media ownership enormously costly and concentrated in a very few centers of capital. Perhaps the Internet will change that; already there are signs that the blogosphere, when it is not merely mischievous noise, is revitalizing the democratic process. After all, money is often less important than spunk as the key ingredient to the success of a website. But the contrary tendency in the period of time during which I interviewed the presidential candidates in this book was increasingly toward larger and more suffocating media conglomeration. For this reason, there is something anachronistic about the interviews I conducted, as they were produced for print outlets even while the electronic media was beginning to fully assert its dominance. It is now extremely rare for a print journalist, accompanied only by pen and paper and a tape recorder, to be granted adequate time to assess a candidate’s ability to reflect on the issues of the day.</p>
<p>In the introductions to each of the following sections, I attempt to provide some insight into how my exchanges with the men who served as President came to take place, and what was learned in the process. In the last section on President George W. Bush, I struggle to come to grips with the one recent President who was never subjected to such a test, from me or anyone else. While I did spend some time around him and the rest of the Bush family entourage while reporting on his father’s campaigns, he is the one President here who I never interviewed on the public record. No matter, George W. Bush is, for better or worse, the first truly electronically projected President.</p>
<p>Robert Scheer Los Angeles, California March 2006</p> | 4,255 |
<p>There are only two problems with the emerging Democratic plan to reform health care in the United States: the big picture, and the fine print.</p>
<p>From a macro perspective, the bills now moving through House and Senate committees call for a combination of employer and individual mandates to force more, though not all, Americans to purchase federally set levels of insurance coverage. Some Americans — mainly those without full-time jobs — would be eligible for a new entitlement to discounted premiums. The federal government would try to tell doctors and hospitals what constitutes appropriate medical practice.</p>
<p>The bills would pay for their insurance subsidies with significant new taxes, mainly on work and entrepreneurship, as well as some benefit cuts in Medicare. The bills would also create a new government-run insurance plan that would be available to many working-age people and would likely constitute the first step toward a single-payer system.</p>
<p>That’s the broad vision of Obamacare, which is bad enough because of what it will mean for the quality of American medical care over time. There are only two ways to allocate health-care resources: with a market or with government regulation. The Democratic vision firmly rejects consumer choice and a decentralized marketplace in favor of near-total federal-government control of health care. In time, that will mean cost control in the form of waiting lists, less innovation, and reduced quality.</p>
<p>But the fine print is likely to be just as alarming to Americans as this big picture is. The bills are chock-a-block with government intrusion into medical practice, limits on personal freedom, costly requirements that will stifle the private economy, massive and expensive government bureaucracy, taxes, fees, and fines.</p>
<p>It’s apparent that Democratic leaders in Congress and the Obama administration would like to keep these details out of the public spotlight, which is why there is an odd disconnect between the timeline for the legislation’s consideration in Congress and the timeline for its implementation.</p>
<p>President Obama has of late been spending much of his energy arguing that it is absolutely urgent that both chambers of Congress pass a bill this summer so that a final bill will get to his desk by October. Why? Why, because “the time is now.” And the status quo is unacceptable. And we’ve never been this close before.</p>
<p>Never mind that in the bills as now written, nothing would actually happen for more than three years. Indeed, no uninsured American would get health insurance under the Democratic bills until 2013 at the earliest. In fact, the CBO has estimated that the number of uninsured Americans will increase in 2011 and 2012, before the bills’ major provisions go into effect. And of course 2013 is safely after the next presidential election, just in case anyone’s keeping track.</p>
<p>This is about political momentum. The administration and Democratic leaders in Congress understand that the more people learn about what these bills would actually do to American health care, the less the public will like them. Consider just this small sampling of the bills’ details:</p>
<p>Severe limits on the purchase of private insurance. The House Democratic bill would make it illegal for Americans to buy health insurance from a company outside of the new structure. It’s the government-approved system or nothing.</p>
<p>Government-controlled market access. In the bill approved by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, states would have the authority to limit the number of insurance offerings provided to consumers in “exchanges,” which are the government-run agencies that oversee consumer enrollment in insurance plans. Qualified insurers seeking to offer coverage to “exchange” participants may or may not get to do so. It would be up to government bureaucrats, who could deny market entry to an insurer for apparently any reason. It’s entirely predictable that this broad authority will be abused to benefit politically connected providers — at the expense of consumers.</p>
<p>The “commissioner.” House Democrats would hand over vast powers to a new “Health Choices Commissioner,” the head of the new bureaucracy charged with regulating basically all health insurance offered in America. The commissioner would become the choke point for all major health-care-policy decisions, such as what constitutes qualified insurance or employer compliance with the federal mandate to offer coverage. States would even be required to enter into agreements with the commissioner regarding the operation of their Medicaid programs. Vast power and little accountability: It’s a recipe for unresponsive bureaucracy, arbitrary rulemaking, meddling, and even more paperwork.</p>
<p>Penalizing work. In both the House and the Senate HELP bills, full-time work is heavily penalized. For the most part, the unemployed and part-timers are entitled to subsidized insurance. But full-time workers get no such subsidy. Their employers must offer them coverage or face severe penalties, and the workers have no choice but to take it, because otherwise they would face severe penalties themselves. This burden will be especially hard on low- to middle-income Americans who don’t sign up for job-based insurance today because they can’t afford it.</p>
<p>Funding abortion and abortion providers. Both the Senate HELP and House Democratic bills fail to exclude abortion from the services that constitute “qualified” insurance — which means, as a practical matter, abortion would be a required “covered benefit.” Thus, federal taxpayers would be forced to pay for abortions, and everyone would be forbidden to get insurance that does not cover abortion, even if he is spending only his own money.</p>
<p>Raising premiums with taxes on health benefits. The House bill creates something called a Health Care Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (CERTF), which would be funded by fees on insurance providers. But insurers won’t pay these fees themselves; they will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. President Obama pilloried Senator McCain for proposing “for the first time in history . . . taxing people’s health-care benefits,” yet that is essentially what House Democrats are looking to do in their bill.</p>
<p>Deep Medicare cuts for beneficiaries living in low-cost areas. House Democrats are determined to force seniors out of the private-insurance program of Medicare, called Medicare Advantage (MA). According to the Congressional Budget Office, their bill is likely to work as planned: Some 5 million MA enrollees would get pushed back into the traditional government-run program, with its lower benefits and higher cost-sharing. This would happen because the House bill bases MA payment rates on the estimated regional cost of covering someone in the traditional program; those living in lower-cost areas would see their payment rates drop, making the traditional program look more attractive.</p>
<p>This approach worsens the unfair regional disparities that exist today. For instance, this year, the MA payment rate in Portland is only $819 per month, while Miami’s is $1,238 per month. The House bill would widen this gap by cutting Portland’s MA payments by 26 percent, since Portland is a low-cost region with a culture of judicious use of health services. Meanwhile, Miami, which is rife with Medicare fraud and abuse, would get only a 2 percent cut in its MA payment rate. Medicare beneficiaries in Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Albuquerque, and other low-cost cities would get hit almost as hard as Portland’s beneficiaries. This runs precisely counter to the notion, popularized by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker and heartily embraced by the Obama administration, that we should try to replicate, or at least reward, areas that provide mor e efficient health care.</p>
<p>Undermining entitlement reform. Section 1901 of the House bill would repeal a trigger intended to alert Congress and the broader public to the financing problems in the Medicare program. Under current law, the HHS secretary must propose Medicare program adjustments to eliminate projected funding shortfalls when the Medicare trustees forecast excessive program reliance on subsidies from the Treasury. Repealing this provision is one more indication that Democrats are not serious about addressing the explosion of entitlement spending, which will push U.S. fiscal policy off a cliff in relatively short order.</p>
<p>More government-run health care. So much attention has been focused on President Obama’s push for a new government-run insurance plan that many people do not realize that the Democrats are also seeking the largest expansion of Medicaid in the program’s history. Medicaid spending is already on track, along with Medicare, to push federal finances to the brink. Between 2009 and 2035, the CBO expects combined spending for these two programs to increase from 5.3 to 10 percent of GDP. But that’s apparently not enough: The House bill would add 11 million more enrollees to Medicaid, bringing total enrollment to about 71 million and adding more than $80 billion in new spending to the budget in 2019 — on top of the $426 billion that the program will already cost under current law.</p>
<p>These bills are a massive overreach by the Democrats, who see this year as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have something like a New Deal or Great Society moment. Most Democrats believe strongly in total governmental control of health care, and they are determined to try to achieve it now, regardless of the fiscal and political consequences. So they press on, even as every day brings new revelations of the incoherence, hubris, and excesses of their plan.</p>
<p>It might work; the legislation might pass. Then again, it might not, as a restless public is becoming increasingly alarmed at what is emerging from Washington. A government takeover of health care seems not to be what the public wants — meaning that the Democrats may find themselves advocating bad policy that is unpopular to boot.</p>
<p>— Mr. Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a health-policy consultant, was an associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004. Mr. Troy, a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a health-policy consultant, was deputy secretary of health and human services from 2007 to 2009.</p> | Wrong Big Picture, Dangerous Fine Print | false | https://eppc.org/publications/wrong-big-picture-dangerous-fine-print/ | 1right-center
| Wrong Big Picture, Dangerous Fine Print
<p>There are only two problems with the emerging Democratic plan to reform health care in the United States: the big picture, and the fine print.</p>
<p>From a macro perspective, the bills now moving through House and Senate committees call for a combination of employer and individual mandates to force more, though not all, Americans to purchase federally set levels of insurance coverage. Some Americans — mainly those without full-time jobs — would be eligible for a new entitlement to discounted premiums. The federal government would try to tell doctors and hospitals what constitutes appropriate medical practice.</p>
<p>The bills would pay for their insurance subsidies with significant new taxes, mainly on work and entrepreneurship, as well as some benefit cuts in Medicare. The bills would also create a new government-run insurance plan that would be available to many working-age people and would likely constitute the first step toward a single-payer system.</p>
<p>That’s the broad vision of Obamacare, which is bad enough because of what it will mean for the quality of American medical care over time. There are only two ways to allocate health-care resources: with a market or with government regulation. The Democratic vision firmly rejects consumer choice and a decentralized marketplace in favor of near-total federal-government control of health care. In time, that will mean cost control in the form of waiting lists, less innovation, and reduced quality.</p>
<p>But the fine print is likely to be just as alarming to Americans as this big picture is. The bills are chock-a-block with government intrusion into medical practice, limits on personal freedom, costly requirements that will stifle the private economy, massive and expensive government bureaucracy, taxes, fees, and fines.</p>
<p>It’s apparent that Democratic leaders in Congress and the Obama administration would like to keep these details out of the public spotlight, which is why there is an odd disconnect between the timeline for the legislation’s consideration in Congress and the timeline for its implementation.</p>
<p>President Obama has of late been spending much of his energy arguing that it is absolutely urgent that both chambers of Congress pass a bill this summer so that a final bill will get to his desk by October. Why? Why, because “the time is now.” And the status quo is unacceptable. And we’ve never been this close before.</p>
<p>Never mind that in the bills as now written, nothing would actually happen for more than three years. Indeed, no uninsured American would get health insurance under the Democratic bills until 2013 at the earliest. In fact, the CBO has estimated that the number of uninsured Americans will increase in 2011 and 2012, before the bills’ major provisions go into effect. And of course 2013 is safely after the next presidential election, just in case anyone’s keeping track.</p>
<p>This is about political momentum. The administration and Democratic leaders in Congress understand that the more people learn about what these bills would actually do to American health care, the less the public will like them. Consider just this small sampling of the bills’ details:</p>
<p>Severe limits on the purchase of private insurance. The House Democratic bill would make it illegal for Americans to buy health insurance from a company outside of the new structure. It’s the government-approved system or nothing.</p>
<p>Government-controlled market access. In the bill approved by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, states would have the authority to limit the number of insurance offerings provided to consumers in “exchanges,” which are the government-run agencies that oversee consumer enrollment in insurance plans. Qualified insurers seeking to offer coverage to “exchange” participants may or may not get to do so. It would be up to government bureaucrats, who could deny market entry to an insurer for apparently any reason. It’s entirely predictable that this broad authority will be abused to benefit politically connected providers — at the expense of consumers.</p>
<p>The “commissioner.” House Democrats would hand over vast powers to a new “Health Choices Commissioner,” the head of the new bureaucracy charged with regulating basically all health insurance offered in America. The commissioner would become the choke point for all major health-care-policy decisions, such as what constitutes qualified insurance or employer compliance with the federal mandate to offer coverage. States would even be required to enter into agreements with the commissioner regarding the operation of their Medicaid programs. Vast power and little accountability: It’s a recipe for unresponsive bureaucracy, arbitrary rulemaking, meddling, and even more paperwork.</p>
<p>Penalizing work. In both the House and the Senate HELP bills, full-time work is heavily penalized. For the most part, the unemployed and part-timers are entitled to subsidized insurance. But full-time workers get no such subsidy. Their employers must offer them coverage or face severe penalties, and the workers have no choice but to take it, because otherwise they would face severe penalties themselves. This burden will be especially hard on low- to middle-income Americans who don’t sign up for job-based insurance today because they can’t afford it.</p>
<p>Funding abortion and abortion providers. Both the Senate HELP and House Democratic bills fail to exclude abortion from the services that constitute “qualified” insurance — which means, as a practical matter, abortion would be a required “covered benefit.” Thus, federal taxpayers would be forced to pay for abortions, and everyone would be forbidden to get insurance that does not cover abortion, even if he is spending only his own money.</p>
<p>Raising premiums with taxes on health benefits. The House bill creates something called a Health Care Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (CERTF), which would be funded by fees on insurance providers. But insurers won’t pay these fees themselves; they will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. President Obama pilloried Senator McCain for proposing “for the first time in history . . . taxing people’s health-care benefits,” yet that is essentially what House Democrats are looking to do in their bill.</p>
<p>Deep Medicare cuts for beneficiaries living in low-cost areas. House Democrats are determined to force seniors out of the private-insurance program of Medicare, called Medicare Advantage (MA). According to the Congressional Budget Office, their bill is likely to work as planned: Some 5 million MA enrollees would get pushed back into the traditional government-run program, with its lower benefits and higher cost-sharing. This would happen because the House bill bases MA payment rates on the estimated regional cost of covering someone in the traditional program; those living in lower-cost areas would see their payment rates drop, making the traditional program look more attractive.</p>
<p>This approach worsens the unfair regional disparities that exist today. For instance, this year, the MA payment rate in Portland is only $819 per month, while Miami’s is $1,238 per month. The House bill would widen this gap by cutting Portland’s MA payments by 26 percent, since Portland is a low-cost region with a culture of judicious use of health services. Meanwhile, Miami, which is rife with Medicare fraud and abuse, would get only a 2 percent cut in its MA payment rate. Medicare beneficiaries in Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Albuquerque, and other low-cost cities would get hit almost as hard as Portland’s beneficiaries. This runs precisely counter to the notion, popularized by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker and heartily embraced by the Obama administration, that we should try to replicate, or at least reward, areas that provide mor e efficient health care.</p>
<p>Undermining entitlement reform. Section 1901 of the House bill would repeal a trigger intended to alert Congress and the broader public to the financing problems in the Medicare program. Under current law, the HHS secretary must propose Medicare program adjustments to eliminate projected funding shortfalls when the Medicare trustees forecast excessive program reliance on subsidies from the Treasury. Repealing this provision is one more indication that Democrats are not serious about addressing the explosion of entitlement spending, which will push U.S. fiscal policy off a cliff in relatively short order.</p>
<p>More government-run health care. So much attention has been focused on President Obama’s push for a new government-run insurance plan that many people do not realize that the Democrats are also seeking the largest expansion of Medicaid in the program’s history. Medicaid spending is already on track, along with Medicare, to push federal finances to the brink. Between 2009 and 2035, the CBO expects combined spending for these two programs to increase from 5.3 to 10 percent of GDP. But that’s apparently not enough: The House bill would add 11 million more enrollees to Medicaid, bringing total enrollment to about 71 million and adding more than $80 billion in new spending to the budget in 2019 — on top of the $426 billion that the program will already cost under current law.</p>
<p>These bills are a massive overreach by the Democrats, who see this year as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have something like a New Deal or Great Society moment. Most Democrats believe strongly in total governmental control of health care, and they are determined to try to achieve it now, regardless of the fiscal and political consequences. So they press on, even as every day brings new revelations of the incoherence, hubris, and excesses of their plan.</p>
<p>It might work; the legislation might pass. Then again, it might not, as a restless public is becoming increasingly alarmed at what is emerging from Washington. A government takeover of health care seems not to be what the public wants — meaning that the Democrats may find themselves advocating bad policy that is unpopular to boot.</p>
<p>— Mr. Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a health-policy consultant, was an associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004. Mr. Troy, a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a health-policy consultant, was deputy secretary of health and human services from 2007 to 2009.</p> | 4,256 |
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<p />
<p>The night friends and I visited, Terra Cotta was comfortably full. We were seated at a round table, which not only comfortably accommodated our party of six, it made conversation easier. However, next time, I might come with just one friend so we can sit outside on the beautiful front portal with its handful of tables for two overlooking the last hurrah of the front garden.</p>
<p>Terra Cotta occupies the space formerly filled by Trattoria Nostrani, and, far too briefly, by the wonderful Vivre. The restaurant has three dining areas: the front room with its wine bar, a center main dining room and a smaller, more private space behind that. Our party was welcomed outside the restaurant by one of the owners, who offered greetings and advice on parking. (The restaurant’s website, http://terracottawinebistro.com has a parking map.)</p>
<p>Inside we noticed a few folks at the wine bar, champagne glasses in hand, and a crowd gathered for dinner in the next room. While the popularity meant the noise level was high, it also speaks well —— or should I say gives a shout-out to —— the restaurant’s well-prepared food and the reasonable prices. The service was very good, too.</p>
<p />
<p>For a new establishment to succeed in this town, it has to offer something a bit different and do it well. Terra Cotta succeeds at “different” with its creative approach to starters. Diners can feast on choices specifically designed to be shared, including a charcuterie tray with a variety of smoked and cured meats. Sunday brunch includes fried chicken and green chile waffles. Many entrees come in either large or smaller sizes. The bistro also will feature a selection of boutique wines for $6 a glass before 6 p.m. Our group began with the “Mezze Plate” ($12). It included the best olive tapenade I’ve ever had, a spread that combined the salty rich flavor of black olives with a touch of pungency. The plate included white beans tossed with fresh basil, a spicy hummus, a fresh, mild tabbouleh salad and a beautiful and original carrot salad. The thin shreds of carrot were tossed with tiny sweet black currents and just the right proportion of feta cheese. These treats, each served in a small bowl, arrived on a wooden tray with a head of roasted garlic (yummy but hard to eat), crackers, whole peppers and more. It was a feast.</p>
<p>We also tried the bruschetta starter, triangles of good toasted bread topped with different spreads. The choices are original and awesome. The artichoke, spinach and ricotta was first-rate. I enjoyed the richness of the smoked salmon spread with a hint of lemon. The fresh mozzarella, roasted tomato and basil topping created a mini Margherita pizza clone, fresh and delicious. I’d have them all again, but my favorite was the local goat cheese with charred tomato and roasted garlic. The combination of creamy, tart and savory worked perfectly. And not only was it good, it was plentiful. Each bruschetta flavor came as a pair, so we had eight pieces to share. We cut them each in half so everyone in our party could at least taste all the options. This, plus the generous mezze, left us smiling.</p>
<p>In addition to the regular menu’s soup, salads, flat bread with toppings, sandwiches and a few entrees, the evening’s fare included three specials —— smoky mushroom soup, fried chicken and cod. I opted for the cod special. The serving was large and the fish itself was tender, but not memorable. It came with a lovely assortment of fingerling potatoes and fresh broccoli that was still crisp ($20). My friends tried the planked salmon ($18), a lovely preparation which included a slight smoky flavor and just a hint of brown sugar. The fish was fully cooked but not a bit dry. The assorted fresh vegetables that came with it, and with the tender grilled flank steak ($15 for the smaller portion), were excellent, fresh and, again, cooked to retain their integrity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The small portions were plenty for us. The single crab cake ($15) was ample, partly because it was so succulent. It arrived golden brown and nicely crisp on the outside, plated on a bed of purple slaw with a cup of crisp and flavorful sweet potato fries on the side. The fries get a gold star for their texture. I’m crazy about sweet potatoes, but often the fries are limp. Not these.</p>
<p>We finished with a pair of excellent desserts. I loved the fudgy, ultra chocolate richness of the flourless chocolate cake ($7). It gets a gold star. The carrot cake, a cupcake-style serving, was good, too. They make it with olive oil here, which might account for the lovely moistness without being too heavy. ($6.)Terra Cotta also offers espresso drinks.</p>
<p>Service was good. The staff hustled without making customers nervous. Our waitress knew the menu and shared her opinions freely. Her recommendations were spot-on. Owners Glenda Griswold and Catherine O’Brien, the women who created Peas’n’Pod catering, know their way around a kitchen. .</p>
<p />
<p /> | Terra Cotta carves its niche | false | https://abqjournal.com/266287/terra-cotta-carves-its-niche.html | 2013-09-20 | 2least
| Terra Cotta carves its niche
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<p />
<p>The night friends and I visited, Terra Cotta was comfortably full. We were seated at a round table, which not only comfortably accommodated our party of six, it made conversation easier. However, next time, I might come with just one friend so we can sit outside on the beautiful front portal with its handful of tables for two overlooking the last hurrah of the front garden.</p>
<p>Terra Cotta occupies the space formerly filled by Trattoria Nostrani, and, far too briefly, by the wonderful Vivre. The restaurant has three dining areas: the front room with its wine bar, a center main dining room and a smaller, more private space behind that. Our party was welcomed outside the restaurant by one of the owners, who offered greetings and advice on parking. (The restaurant’s website, http://terracottawinebistro.com has a parking map.)</p>
<p>Inside we noticed a few folks at the wine bar, champagne glasses in hand, and a crowd gathered for dinner in the next room. While the popularity meant the noise level was high, it also speaks well —— or should I say gives a shout-out to —— the restaurant’s well-prepared food and the reasonable prices. The service was very good, too.</p>
<p />
<p>For a new establishment to succeed in this town, it has to offer something a bit different and do it well. Terra Cotta succeeds at “different” with its creative approach to starters. Diners can feast on choices specifically designed to be shared, including a charcuterie tray with a variety of smoked and cured meats. Sunday brunch includes fried chicken and green chile waffles. Many entrees come in either large or smaller sizes. The bistro also will feature a selection of boutique wines for $6 a glass before 6 p.m. Our group began with the “Mezze Plate” ($12). It included the best olive tapenade I’ve ever had, a spread that combined the salty rich flavor of black olives with a touch of pungency. The plate included white beans tossed with fresh basil, a spicy hummus, a fresh, mild tabbouleh salad and a beautiful and original carrot salad. The thin shreds of carrot were tossed with tiny sweet black currents and just the right proportion of feta cheese. These treats, each served in a small bowl, arrived on a wooden tray with a head of roasted garlic (yummy but hard to eat), crackers, whole peppers and more. It was a feast.</p>
<p>We also tried the bruschetta starter, triangles of good toasted bread topped with different spreads. The choices are original and awesome. The artichoke, spinach and ricotta was first-rate. I enjoyed the richness of the smoked salmon spread with a hint of lemon. The fresh mozzarella, roasted tomato and basil topping created a mini Margherita pizza clone, fresh and delicious. I’d have them all again, but my favorite was the local goat cheese with charred tomato and roasted garlic. The combination of creamy, tart and savory worked perfectly. And not only was it good, it was plentiful. Each bruschetta flavor came as a pair, so we had eight pieces to share. We cut them each in half so everyone in our party could at least taste all the options. This, plus the generous mezze, left us smiling.</p>
<p>In addition to the regular menu’s soup, salads, flat bread with toppings, sandwiches and a few entrees, the evening’s fare included three specials —— smoky mushroom soup, fried chicken and cod. I opted for the cod special. The serving was large and the fish itself was tender, but not memorable. It came with a lovely assortment of fingerling potatoes and fresh broccoli that was still crisp ($20). My friends tried the planked salmon ($18), a lovely preparation which included a slight smoky flavor and just a hint of brown sugar. The fish was fully cooked but not a bit dry. The assorted fresh vegetables that came with it, and with the tender grilled flank steak ($15 for the smaller portion), were excellent, fresh and, again, cooked to retain their integrity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The small portions were plenty for us. The single crab cake ($15) was ample, partly because it was so succulent. It arrived golden brown and nicely crisp on the outside, plated on a bed of purple slaw with a cup of crisp and flavorful sweet potato fries on the side. The fries get a gold star for their texture. I’m crazy about sweet potatoes, but often the fries are limp. Not these.</p>
<p>We finished with a pair of excellent desserts. I loved the fudgy, ultra chocolate richness of the flourless chocolate cake ($7). It gets a gold star. The carrot cake, a cupcake-style serving, was good, too. They make it with olive oil here, which might account for the lovely moistness without being too heavy. ($6.)Terra Cotta also offers espresso drinks.</p>
<p>Service was good. The staff hustled without making customers nervous. Our waitress knew the menu and shared her opinions freely. Her recommendations were spot-on. Owners Glenda Griswold and Catherine O’Brien, the women who created Peas’n’Pod catering, know their way around a kitchen. .</p>
<p />
<p /> | 4,257 |
<p>Yesterday, <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/03/23/obama-laments-trayvon-martin-shooting.html" type="external">President Obama</a> announced his <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/03/23/obama-taps-new-world-bank-chief.html" type="external">nomination for the next president</a> of the World Bank, and the choice came as a surprise to almost everyone. Unlike recent heads of the bank—from Paul Wolfowitz, whose tenure was cut short by a minor scandal, to Robert Zoellick, who is now retiring, to the rather august James Wolfensohn— <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/business/global/dartmouth-president-is-obamas-pick-for-world-bank.html" type="external">Dr. Jim Yong Kim</a> is neither a power player in Washington nor a well-known political figure globally. Nor is he a banker of repute. He is instead a major figure in international aid circles, a founder of the health-care organization Partners in Health, a former leader of the World Health Organization’s initiatives to combat <a href="/content/newsweek/2012/03/04/talking-about-sex-is-the-only-way-to-stop-hiv.html" type="external">HIV/AIDS</a>, and most recently, the president of Dartmouth University.</p>
<p>Given the history of the bank, Dr. Kim is a startling and dramatic departure, likely for the better. As many have noted, the <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/01/17/world-bank-cuts-global-growth-forecast.html" type="external">World Bank</a> presidency has traditionally gone to an American, while the head of the other major international aid organization, the International Monetary Fund, has been a European. Kim is American, but he was born in South Korea, and he hardly fits the typical profile of past bank presidents.</p>
<p>The World Bank and the <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/03/10/christine-lagarde-on-europe-s-next-battle.html" type="external">IMF</a> were created from the ashes of World War II as part of the same Bretton Woods system that enshrined the American dollar as the primary global reserve currency. The World Bank Group is actually a collection of five organizations, all of which are focused on the goal of global poverty alleviation, trade promotion, and economic development, and all of which provide loans to countries and institutions throughout the world.</p>
<p>Noble goals, but in the latter decades of the 20th century, the bank was harshly criticized as being a handmaiden for U.S. control of the developing world and for imposing free-market templates that often caused sharp disruptions and social upheaval rather than growth and development in regions as far afield as Russia, Central America, and sub-Saharan Africa. For much of the 20th century, the bank was seen as imposing an economic orthodoxy as the price of its billions in aid, and there was undeniably a paternalistic quality of the wealthy nations granting aid to the poorer nations with multiple strings attached. You can have a loan, the bank seemed to say, as long as you do things our way.</p>
<p>While the image of the bank, as well as its actual practices, has shifted in recent years, until recently, it was as much an institution in tension with the likes of Dr. Kim as in harmony. It was in part a response to the controversial success—or depending on your perspective, manifest failures—of the bank and other international aid organizations, that Kim, then a medical student at Harvard, along with Paul Farmer and Roald Dahl’s daughter Ophelia and several others, created <a href="http://www.pih.org/" type="external">Partners in Health</a> in 1987. Its first mission was to provide quality health care in Haiti, which was then recovering from years of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Partners in Health was set up to focus on grassroots actors and empower people to meet their own needs, rather than looking to and depending on global aid organizations. Kim was a central part of the organization as Partners expanded its efforts in Latin America and Africa, especially Rwanda.</p>
<p>The grassroots approach was in sharp contrast to the top-down diktats of the World Bank in past years. It also was in contrast to the burgeoning and ballooning bureaucracy of the bank, which may not have rivaled the U.N. in its quantity of factotums, but still has swelled to more than 10,000 employees. That will be a challenge for Kim, who has not managed an organization of comparable size and complexity. Which may be a strength; Kim is beholden only to his vision of how best to solve the Rubik’s Cube of global development rather than to bureaucratic politics. But cumbersome institutions have a way of defeating the best intentions of energetic reformers, something which Kim surely knows, but will still have to overcome.</p>
<p>Obama has clearly made a bold, unorthodox choice. In Dr. Kim, he has embraced a vision of the bank as an agent of positive change in the world; as a source of funds and ideas, but with an eye toward enabling local communities to determine their own arc.</p>
<p>Dambisa Moyo, a noted critic of the paternalistic and corrupt nature of far too many international aid programs, sees Kim as an inspired pick. “Jim Kim has earned a solid reputation for balancing common sense and practical developing-country experience, with academic knowledge,” she told me. “I look to him to be well-reasoned and innovative in his approach; exactly what the emerging world needs.”</p>
<p>Assuming his appointment is approved by the World Bank, Kim will be a rare entrant into the ranks of global leadership, someone who built a career less by navigating the halls of power than by focusing on work that he believed needed doing. Obama, who may see himself in similar terms, obviously identified with those qualities. Yet like Obama, Kim will face a much more complicated task running the bank than he has in his professional life so far, and that lack of experience may undermine his ability to infuse the institution with a new vision for the connection between wealthier countries, aid, and sustainable global growth. For now, his appointment stands as a bright moment for Obama and for the world. Now comes the hard part.</p> | Jim Kim: Obama’s Bold Pick to Lead the World Bank | true | https://thedailybeast.com/jim-kim-obamas-bold-pick-to-lead-the-world-bank | 2018-10-02 | 4left
| Jim Kim: Obama’s Bold Pick to Lead the World Bank
<p>Yesterday, <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/03/23/obama-laments-trayvon-martin-shooting.html" type="external">President Obama</a> announced his <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/03/23/obama-taps-new-world-bank-chief.html" type="external">nomination for the next president</a> of the World Bank, and the choice came as a surprise to almost everyone. Unlike recent heads of the bank—from Paul Wolfowitz, whose tenure was cut short by a minor scandal, to Robert Zoellick, who is now retiring, to the rather august James Wolfensohn— <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/business/global/dartmouth-president-is-obamas-pick-for-world-bank.html" type="external">Dr. Jim Yong Kim</a> is neither a power player in Washington nor a well-known political figure globally. Nor is he a banker of repute. He is instead a major figure in international aid circles, a founder of the health-care organization Partners in Health, a former leader of the World Health Organization’s initiatives to combat <a href="/content/newsweek/2012/03/04/talking-about-sex-is-the-only-way-to-stop-hiv.html" type="external">HIV/AIDS</a>, and most recently, the president of Dartmouth University.</p>
<p>Given the history of the bank, Dr. Kim is a startling and dramatic departure, likely for the better. As many have noted, the <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/01/17/world-bank-cuts-global-growth-forecast.html" type="external">World Bank</a> presidency has traditionally gone to an American, while the head of the other major international aid organization, the International Monetary Fund, has been a European. Kim is American, but he was born in South Korea, and he hardly fits the typical profile of past bank presidents.</p>
<p>The World Bank and the <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/03/10/christine-lagarde-on-europe-s-next-battle.html" type="external">IMF</a> were created from the ashes of World War II as part of the same Bretton Woods system that enshrined the American dollar as the primary global reserve currency. The World Bank Group is actually a collection of five organizations, all of which are focused on the goal of global poverty alleviation, trade promotion, and economic development, and all of which provide loans to countries and institutions throughout the world.</p>
<p>Noble goals, but in the latter decades of the 20th century, the bank was harshly criticized as being a handmaiden for U.S. control of the developing world and for imposing free-market templates that often caused sharp disruptions and social upheaval rather than growth and development in regions as far afield as Russia, Central America, and sub-Saharan Africa. For much of the 20th century, the bank was seen as imposing an economic orthodoxy as the price of its billions in aid, and there was undeniably a paternalistic quality of the wealthy nations granting aid to the poorer nations with multiple strings attached. You can have a loan, the bank seemed to say, as long as you do things our way.</p>
<p>While the image of the bank, as well as its actual practices, has shifted in recent years, until recently, it was as much an institution in tension with the likes of Dr. Kim as in harmony. It was in part a response to the controversial success—or depending on your perspective, manifest failures—of the bank and other international aid organizations, that Kim, then a medical student at Harvard, along with Paul Farmer and Roald Dahl’s daughter Ophelia and several others, created <a href="http://www.pih.org/" type="external">Partners in Health</a> in 1987. Its first mission was to provide quality health care in Haiti, which was then recovering from years of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Partners in Health was set up to focus on grassroots actors and empower people to meet their own needs, rather than looking to and depending on global aid organizations. Kim was a central part of the organization as Partners expanded its efforts in Latin America and Africa, especially Rwanda.</p>
<p>The grassroots approach was in sharp contrast to the top-down diktats of the World Bank in past years. It also was in contrast to the burgeoning and ballooning bureaucracy of the bank, which may not have rivaled the U.N. in its quantity of factotums, but still has swelled to more than 10,000 employees. That will be a challenge for Kim, who has not managed an organization of comparable size and complexity. Which may be a strength; Kim is beholden only to his vision of how best to solve the Rubik’s Cube of global development rather than to bureaucratic politics. But cumbersome institutions have a way of defeating the best intentions of energetic reformers, something which Kim surely knows, but will still have to overcome.</p>
<p>Obama has clearly made a bold, unorthodox choice. In Dr. Kim, he has embraced a vision of the bank as an agent of positive change in the world; as a source of funds and ideas, but with an eye toward enabling local communities to determine their own arc.</p>
<p>Dambisa Moyo, a noted critic of the paternalistic and corrupt nature of far too many international aid programs, sees Kim as an inspired pick. “Jim Kim has earned a solid reputation for balancing common sense and practical developing-country experience, with academic knowledge,” she told me. “I look to him to be well-reasoned and innovative in his approach; exactly what the emerging world needs.”</p>
<p>Assuming his appointment is approved by the World Bank, Kim will be a rare entrant into the ranks of global leadership, someone who built a career less by navigating the halls of power than by focusing on work that he believed needed doing. Obama, who may see himself in similar terms, obviously identified with those qualities. Yet like Obama, Kim will face a much more complicated task running the bank than he has in his professional life so far, and that lack of experience may undermine his ability to infuse the institution with a new vision for the connection between wealthier countries, aid, and sustainable global growth. For now, his appointment stands as a bright moment for Obama and for the world. Now comes the hard part.</p> | 4,258 |
<p>New York Daily NewsRichard Huff knows his lack of appreciation for Jon Stewart and the "Daily Show" crew is sacrilege in TV circles, but "try as I might -- and trust me, I've tried -- I just don't get Stewart. I don't think he's all that funny and he's vastly overrated."</p> | Huff: My TV critic pals love Stewart, but I just don't get him | false | https://poynter.org/news/huff-my-tv-critic-pals-love-stewart-i-just-dont-get-him | 2006-01-31 | 2least
| Huff: My TV critic pals love Stewart, but I just don't get him
<p>New York Daily NewsRichard Huff knows his lack of appreciation for Jon Stewart and the "Daily Show" crew is sacrilege in TV circles, but "try as I might -- and trust me, I've tried -- I just don't get Stewart. I don't think he's all that funny and he's vastly overrated."</p> | 4,259 |
<p>• What is the most dominant theme you are seeing that will impact the market over the next year, and how do you use it?</p>
<p>Unfortunately we will probably still be talking about debt crisis in Europe because the political election will be done shortly, the fiscal cliff will happen/not happen in 1Q. A year from now we will know if Q3 was a troughing quarter. The theme a year from now will be what’s happening in Europe. The S&amp;P 500 is much more negatively correlated to US dollar, currently trading at minus 70. Reflecting investor’s concerns about global macro-events, so investors can respond by at least being aware of where the volatility is imminent. &#160; Might encourage investors to look at sectors such as consumer discretionary that have a reduced exposure to overseas markets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>• What is the most critical economic indicator that you are looking at over the next month/quarter?</p>
<p>The purchasing manager indexes for the major regions of the globe. Those would be the quickest and easiest way to see whether the global economy continues to head lower or is recovering from its recent dip into contractionary territory.</p>
<p>• What is the most important government/public policy issue/event that will impact the stock market over the next year?</p>
<p>It would be the fiscal cliff and whether we avoid the fall or interrupt the plunge. That is will the new Congress come to some sort of agreement early in the New Year and make it retroactive to the beginning of the year. The third scenario is we fall off the fiscal cliff and get dashed on the rocks due to Congress’s inability to compromise and it throws the U.S. economy into recession and changes the direction of the unemployment trends.</p>
<p>• What is the biggest issue outside the U.S. that could impact the U.S. stock market?</p>
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<p>European leaders’ willingness to embrace a fiscal union to support its existing monetary union.</p>
<p>• What are you NOT worried about?</p>
<p>I am not worried about the repeat of another 2008. A boxer is rarely knocked out by the punch he expects.</p>
<p>• What is the most important article you read in the past week? Why?</p>
<p>"Unhappy Anniversary Dow" in the WSJ. &#160;Mainly as a reminder of how quickly markets can respond to seemingly catastrophic events. Eighty three of the 86 market declines of 5% or more since World War II have gotten back to breakeven in an average of 14 months or fewer. The meltdown of 2008 took us four years to get back to breakeven. Compare that to 25 years following the crash of 1929. The article reminded me that stock market history can serve as virtual valium for nervous investors. Reminds me to buy rather than bail whenever the market declines.</p> | Money Talks: Sam Stovall | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/10/26/money-talks-sam-stovall.html | 2016-03-03 | 0right
| Money Talks: Sam Stovall
<p>• What is the most dominant theme you are seeing that will impact the market over the next year, and how do you use it?</p>
<p>Unfortunately we will probably still be talking about debt crisis in Europe because the political election will be done shortly, the fiscal cliff will happen/not happen in 1Q. A year from now we will know if Q3 was a troughing quarter. The theme a year from now will be what’s happening in Europe. The S&amp;P 500 is much more negatively correlated to US dollar, currently trading at minus 70. Reflecting investor’s concerns about global macro-events, so investors can respond by at least being aware of where the volatility is imminent. &#160; Might encourage investors to look at sectors such as consumer discretionary that have a reduced exposure to overseas markets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>• What is the most critical economic indicator that you are looking at over the next month/quarter?</p>
<p>The purchasing manager indexes for the major regions of the globe. Those would be the quickest and easiest way to see whether the global economy continues to head lower or is recovering from its recent dip into contractionary territory.</p>
<p>• What is the most important government/public policy issue/event that will impact the stock market over the next year?</p>
<p>It would be the fiscal cliff and whether we avoid the fall or interrupt the plunge. That is will the new Congress come to some sort of agreement early in the New Year and make it retroactive to the beginning of the year. The third scenario is we fall off the fiscal cliff and get dashed on the rocks due to Congress’s inability to compromise and it throws the U.S. economy into recession and changes the direction of the unemployment trends.</p>
<p>• What is the biggest issue outside the U.S. that could impact the U.S. stock market?</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>European leaders’ willingness to embrace a fiscal union to support its existing monetary union.</p>
<p>• What are you NOT worried about?</p>
<p>I am not worried about the repeat of another 2008. A boxer is rarely knocked out by the punch he expects.</p>
<p>• What is the most important article you read in the past week? Why?</p>
<p>"Unhappy Anniversary Dow" in the WSJ. &#160;Mainly as a reminder of how quickly markets can respond to seemingly catastrophic events. Eighty three of the 86 market declines of 5% or more since World War II have gotten back to breakeven in an average of 14 months or fewer. The meltdown of 2008 took us four years to get back to breakeven. Compare that to 25 years following the crash of 1929. The article reminded me that stock market history can serve as virtual valium for nervous investors. Reminds me to buy rather than bail whenever the market declines.</p> | 4,260 |
<p />
<p>Over at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2010/09/19/obamacare-promise-of-no-rationing-broken-by-fda/" type="external">RedState</a>, Brian Darling argues that the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke its approval of the drug Avastin for use in late-stage breast cancer patients amounts to dreaded health care “rationing” brought on by (what else?) “Obamacare.” Darling isn’t alone in his pro-Avastin crusade—the Wall Street Journal editorial board has been <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704271804575405203894857436.html" type="external">harping on this, too</a>. They’re both wrong. Avik Roy, a right-wing policy writer, did a good job of explaining why <a href="http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/carrolls-law-help-me-make-it-happen/" type="external">last month</a>:</p>
<p>The panel’s new recommendation came on the heels of new data showing that Avastin did not extend the survival of patients with advanced breast cancer. (In cancer trials, the length of a patient’s life on a given treatment is the accepted gold standard for measuring a treatment’s effectiveness.) In the Avastin trial, called AVADO, patients treated with placebo and Taxotere, another cancer drug, lived for 31.9 months on average; whereas patients treated with Avastin and Taxotere lived for 30.8 months at a low Avastin dose and 30.2 months at a high Avastin dose. Understandably, the FDA’s advisory committee saw this data as evidence that Avastin didn’t offer a real benefit to breast cancer patients.</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>[W]e can’t forget that one of Avastin’s principal side effects is financial: a year’s worth of the drug costs between $80,000 and $100,000.</p>
<p>The real problem is this: if the government is responsible for paying for our health care, the government is entitled, if not obligated, to decide how to spend its money most effectively. If we don’t want the government to be making these decisions for us, then we need to pay for our own medicines. We can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>I know RedStaters may not believe the “liberal media” when it reports that Avastin is an incredibly expensive drug that doesn’t work particularly well on late-stage breast cancer. But maybe they’ll believe Roy, who also writes for the National Review. Read <a href="http://www.avikroy.org/2010/08/in-defense-of-fda.html" type="external">the whole thing</a>.</p>
<p /> | The Avastin Conspiracy | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/avastin-conspiracy/ | 2010-09-20 | 4left
| The Avastin Conspiracy
<p />
<p>Over at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2010/09/19/obamacare-promise-of-no-rationing-broken-by-fda/" type="external">RedState</a>, Brian Darling argues that the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke its approval of the drug Avastin for use in late-stage breast cancer patients amounts to dreaded health care “rationing” brought on by (what else?) “Obamacare.” Darling isn’t alone in his pro-Avastin crusade—the Wall Street Journal editorial board has been <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704271804575405203894857436.html" type="external">harping on this, too</a>. They’re both wrong. Avik Roy, a right-wing policy writer, did a good job of explaining why <a href="http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/carrolls-law-help-me-make-it-happen/" type="external">last month</a>:</p>
<p>The panel’s new recommendation came on the heels of new data showing that Avastin did not extend the survival of patients with advanced breast cancer. (In cancer trials, the length of a patient’s life on a given treatment is the accepted gold standard for measuring a treatment’s effectiveness.) In the Avastin trial, called AVADO, patients treated with placebo and Taxotere, another cancer drug, lived for 31.9 months on average; whereas patients treated with Avastin and Taxotere lived for 30.8 months at a low Avastin dose and 30.2 months at a high Avastin dose. Understandably, the FDA’s advisory committee saw this data as evidence that Avastin didn’t offer a real benefit to breast cancer patients.</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>[W]e can’t forget that one of Avastin’s principal side effects is financial: a year’s worth of the drug costs between $80,000 and $100,000.</p>
<p>The real problem is this: if the government is responsible for paying for our health care, the government is entitled, if not obligated, to decide how to spend its money most effectively. If we don’t want the government to be making these decisions for us, then we need to pay for our own medicines. We can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>I know RedStaters may not believe the “liberal media” when it reports that Avastin is an incredibly expensive drug that doesn’t work particularly well on late-stage breast cancer. But maybe they’ll believe Roy, who also writes for the National Review. Read <a href="http://www.avikroy.org/2010/08/in-defense-of-fda.html" type="external">the whole thing</a>.</p>
<p /> | 4,261 |
<p>Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, leader of the Lithuanian haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community (also known as mitnagdim) in Israel, passed away yesterday at the age of 102. <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/18/3094481/obit-rabbi-yosef-shalom-elyashiv-dead-at?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter" type="external">JTA reports</a>:</p>
<p>The non-Chasidic haredi community went to Elyashiv as the final arbiter for any dilemma, not just in the field of religious practice, but also in matters of politics, business and even matchmaking. For the believers who turned to him, Elyashiv's rulings carried the weight of someone privy to God's will.</p>
<p>Elyashiv was primarily concerned with "safeguarding haredi Orthodoxy's parochialism." He successfully fought to keep secular subjects out of haredi schools, opposed "occupational training for haredi men" and disapproved of haredi women working outside the home. His political arm in the Knesset was the Degel HaTorah party, which currently has two mandates and followed his political direction.</p>
<p>Throughout his life, Elyashiv spent most of his time studying Talmud; Professor Brown of Hebrew University attributes "Elyashiv's extreme conservatism to his limited social contact with the outside world." The effects of his conservatism were felt beyond his own Litvak community:</p>
<p>In large part due to Elyashiv's opposition, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has not instituted the use of prenuptial agreements that could help reduce the agunah problem - women who are "chained" to husbands who refuse to grant them a religious writ of divorce, or "get" - by imposing hefty monthly fines on uncooperative husbands.</p>
<p>Elyashiv's impact was vast and he has left an immense power vacuum at a time when the haredi community is in desperate need of leadership. Though haredim like to portray the choosing of a leader as unanimous communal elevation of the most worthy man, the process is in fact very political. The struggle for succession among the haredi elite began a few weeks ago with fights over control of Yated Ne'eman, the Litvak haredi newspaper. Given the current debates in Israel over women's rights and haredi exemption from military service, we hope Elyashiv's successor will match him in Torah knowledge but surpass him in social engagement.</p> | The Passing of Rav Elyashiv | true | https://thedailybeast.com/the-passing-of-rav-elyashiv | 2018-10-02 | 4left
| The Passing of Rav Elyashiv
<p>Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, leader of the Lithuanian haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community (also known as mitnagdim) in Israel, passed away yesterday at the age of 102. <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/18/3094481/obit-rabbi-yosef-shalom-elyashiv-dead-at?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter" type="external">JTA reports</a>:</p>
<p>The non-Chasidic haredi community went to Elyashiv as the final arbiter for any dilemma, not just in the field of religious practice, but also in matters of politics, business and even matchmaking. For the believers who turned to him, Elyashiv's rulings carried the weight of someone privy to God's will.</p>
<p>Elyashiv was primarily concerned with "safeguarding haredi Orthodoxy's parochialism." He successfully fought to keep secular subjects out of haredi schools, opposed "occupational training for haredi men" and disapproved of haredi women working outside the home. His political arm in the Knesset was the Degel HaTorah party, which currently has two mandates and followed his political direction.</p>
<p>Throughout his life, Elyashiv spent most of his time studying Talmud; Professor Brown of Hebrew University attributes "Elyashiv's extreme conservatism to his limited social contact with the outside world." The effects of his conservatism were felt beyond his own Litvak community:</p>
<p>In large part due to Elyashiv's opposition, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has not instituted the use of prenuptial agreements that could help reduce the agunah problem - women who are "chained" to husbands who refuse to grant them a religious writ of divorce, or "get" - by imposing hefty monthly fines on uncooperative husbands.</p>
<p>Elyashiv's impact was vast and he has left an immense power vacuum at a time when the haredi community is in desperate need of leadership. Though haredim like to portray the choosing of a leader as unanimous communal elevation of the most worthy man, the process is in fact very political. The struggle for succession among the haredi elite began a few weeks ago with fights over control of Yated Ne'eman, the Litvak haredi newspaper. Given the current debates in Israel over women's rights and haredi exemption from military service, we hope Elyashiv's successor will match him in Torah knowledge but surpass him in social engagement.</p> | 4,262 |
<p>There is a growing movement in both the United States and around the world for taxing financial speculation. The logic is simple: even a very small tax on trades in stock, options, credit default swaps, and other derivative instruments can raise an enormous amount of revenue.</p>
<p>Even assuming large reductions in trading volume due to the tax, the country could still raise more than $100 billion a year in revenue or more than $1 trillion over the 10-year budget horizon. Trading costs have plummeted over the last three decades due to improvements in computer technology. Therefore, modest taxes on financial speculation, such as a 0.25 percent tax on the purchase or sale of a share of stock, would only raise trading costs back to the level of the 70s or 80s.</p>
<p>The United States already had a vibrant and well-developed capital market in these decades, so there is no reason to believe that raising trading costs back to earlier levels would prevent these markets from performing their economic function. Higher trading costs will just act to discourage speculation.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the bulk of the money raised through the tax would be coming out of the pockets of the Wall Street crew, the same folks whose greed brought us this economic disaster. What better holiday gift could we give Wall Street than the opportunity for make up for some of the damage that it has caused the country?</p>
<p>There is not much of an argument against a speculation tax on the merits, so most of the opponents focus on enforcement issues. The claim is that if we put a tax in place unilaterally in the United States, then all the trading would go overseas, therefore we would not collect any revenue.</p>
<p>There are three problems with this argument. First, we already have a model that disproves the basic claim. The United Kingdom has had a tax on stock trades for decades. Relative to the size of its economy, it raises the equivalent of more than $30 billion a year in the United States from just taxing stock trades. Obviously the trading has not simply fled overseas.</p>
<p>If reality is not a sufficient refutation of this argument, one can also turn to the basic logic of the claim. The leaders of most other wealthy countries have already indicated their support for imposing financial transactions taxes in the wake of the crisis. If the United States were to join with the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and other countries whose leadership has publicly called for financial transactions taxes, it is difficult to believe that they could not craft an international agreement. This is not a necessary condition for successfully imposing a speculation tax, as the example of the United Kingdom proves, but international coordination would nonetheless be desirable.</p>
<p>Then there is the question of places like Lichtenstein and Cayman Islands, which can ostensibly operate as tax havens, allowing for speculators to escape the tax. This argument also strains credulity. Can these tiny countries really act in ways that are harmful to the interests of the world’s largest and most powerful countries?</p>
<p>What would happen if instead of being tax havens, these countries allowed themselves to be used as arms conduits to Al Queda? Would President Obama and other world leaders just sit back and complain that there is nothing that could be done? The reality is that these tax havens can only exist with the willing cooperation of the wealthy nations. If they were cut off from access to the international banking system, their usefulness as tax havens would quickly vanish. The tax evaders of the world will not fill ships with gold to hide their income in the Cayman Islands.</p>
<p>We can also be a bit clever about cracking down on evaders. Suppose that we gave a reward of 10 percent of the tax collected to workers who turn in their bosses. There are few Wall Street billionaires that physically do the trading themselves. They have assistants for this task. And many of these assistants would be happy to make themselves rich by turning in their bosses.</p>
<p>In reality, the idea that a tax on speculation is unenforceable is laughable on its face. Compare the difficulties of enforcing a speculation tax with enforcing copyrights. In the case of a speculation tax, the issue is a relatively small number of very large transactions. No one cares if trades involving a few thousand dollars go untaxed. The real issue is a relatively small number of trades involving millions, or even billions, of dollars.</p>
<p>By contrast, copyright enforcement is all about billions of small transactions involving movies with a copyright-protected price of $15 or $20 or songs with a copyright-protected price of less than a dollar. The problem of enforcing copyrights is several orders of magnitudes greater than the problem of enforcing a financial transaction tax. Yet, none of those insisting on the impossibility of enforcing financial transactions taxes have said that copyrights are unenforceable. The issue is clearly what they want to enforce, not a question of what is enforceable.</p>
<p>The country does need to let itself be ripped off by the Wall Street crew indefinitely. We can make them pay a price for the damage they have caused. We just have to stop listening to the Wall Street apologists and get serious.</p>
<p>DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.</a></p>
<p>This column was originally published by <a href="http://www.wapost.com" type="external">The Guardian.</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Easy and Fun Money | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/12/15/easy-and-fun-money/ | 2009-12-15 | 4left
| Easy and Fun Money
<p>There is a growing movement in both the United States and around the world for taxing financial speculation. The logic is simple: even a very small tax on trades in stock, options, credit default swaps, and other derivative instruments can raise an enormous amount of revenue.</p>
<p>Even assuming large reductions in trading volume due to the tax, the country could still raise more than $100 billion a year in revenue or more than $1 trillion over the 10-year budget horizon. Trading costs have plummeted over the last three decades due to improvements in computer technology. Therefore, modest taxes on financial speculation, such as a 0.25 percent tax on the purchase or sale of a share of stock, would only raise trading costs back to the level of the 70s or 80s.</p>
<p>The United States already had a vibrant and well-developed capital market in these decades, so there is no reason to believe that raising trading costs back to earlier levels would prevent these markets from performing their economic function. Higher trading costs will just act to discourage speculation.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the bulk of the money raised through the tax would be coming out of the pockets of the Wall Street crew, the same folks whose greed brought us this economic disaster. What better holiday gift could we give Wall Street than the opportunity for make up for some of the damage that it has caused the country?</p>
<p>There is not much of an argument against a speculation tax on the merits, so most of the opponents focus on enforcement issues. The claim is that if we put a tax in place unilaterally in the United States, then all the trading would go overseas, therefore we would not collect any revenue.</p>
<p>There are three problems with this argument. First, we already have a model that disproves the basic claim. The United Kingdom has had a tax on stock trades for decades. Relative to the size of its economy, it raises the equivalent of more than $30 billion a year in the United States from just taxing stock trades. Obviously the trading has not simply fled overseas.</p>
<p>If reality is not a sufficient refutation of this argument, one can also turn to the basic logic of the claim. The leaders of most other wealthy countries have already indicated their support for imposing financial transactions taxes in the wake of the crisis. If the United States were to join with the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and other countries whose leadership has publicly called for financial transactions taxes, it is difficult to believe that they could not craft an international agreement. This is not a necessary condition for successfully imposing a speculation tax, as the example of the United Kingdom proves, but international coordination would nonetheless be desirable.</p>
<p>Then there is the question of places like Lichtenstein and Cayman Islands, which can ostensibly operate as tax havens, allowing for speculators to escape the tax. This argument also strains credulity. Can these tiny countries really act in ways that are harmful to the interests of the world’s largest and most powerful countries?</p>
<p>What would happen if instead of being tax havens, these countries allowed themselves to be used as arms conduits to Al Queda? Would President Obama and other world leaders just sit back and complain that there is nothing that could be done? The reality is that these tax havens can only exist with the willing cooperation of the wealthy nations. If they were cut off from access to the international banking system, their usefulness as tax havens would quickly vanish. The tax evaders of the world will not fill ships with gold to hide their income in the Cayman Islands.</p>
<p>We can also be a bit clever about cracking down on evaders. Suppose that we gave a reward of 10 percent of the tax collected to workers who turn in their bosses. There are few Wall Street billionaires that physically do the trading themselves. They have assistants for this task. And many of these assistants would be happy to make themselves rich by turning in their bosses.</p>
<p>In reality, the idea that a tax on speculation is unenforceable is laughable on its face. Compare the difficulties of enforcing a speculation tax with enforcing copyrights. In the case of a speculation tax, the issue is a relatively small number of very large transactions. No one cares if trades involving a few thousand dollars go untaxed. The real issue is a relatively small number of trades involving millions, or even billions, of dollars.</p>
<p>By contrast, copyright enforcement is all about billions of small transactions involving movies with a copyright-protected price of $15 or $20 or songs with a copyright-protected price of less than a dollar. The problem of enforcing copyrights is several orders of magnitudes greater than the problem of enforcing a financial transaction tax. Yet, none of those insisting on the impossibility of enforcing financial transactions taxes have said that copyrights are unenforceable. The issue is clearly what they want to enforce, not a question of what is enforceable.</p>
<p>The country does need to let itself be ripped off by the Wall Street crew indefinitely. We can make them pay a price for the damage they have caused. We just have to stop listening to the Wall Street apologists and get serious.</p>
<p>DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.</a></p>
<p>This column was originally published by <a href="http://www.wapost.com" type="external">The Guardian.</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | 4,263 |
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<p>US Army soldiers participate in a 2.35-mile run to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 235th birthday on Forward Operating Base Farah, Afghanistan, on June 14, 2010. The Soldiers are assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/4711686704/" type="external">Photo via</a> the US Army by Senior Airman Rylan Albright.</p> | We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for June 22, 2010 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/were-still-war-photo-day-june-22-2010/ | 2010-06-22 | 4left
| We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for June 22, 2010
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>US Army soldiers participate in a 2.35-mile run to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 235th birthday on Forward Operating Base Farah, Afghanistan, on June 14, 2010. The Soldiers are assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/4711686704/" type="external">Photo via</a> the US Army by Senior Airman Rylan Albright.</p> | 4,264 |
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<p>“We’re not going to be restricted by borders,” said Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser.</p>
<p>Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, speaking from Martha’s Vineyard on Friday, said the U.S. would take whatever action is necessary to protect national security. (Steven Senne/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>The White House said the president has received no military options beyond those he authorized earlier this month for limited airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and military aid to Iraqi and Kurdish forces.</p>
<p>Thus far, the United States has avoided military involvement in Syria’s three-year civil war. But faced with the Islamic State making gains across the region and the beheading an American journalist, the administration’s resistance may be weakening.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Rhodes spoke a day after Obama’s top military adviser warned the extremists cannot be defeated without “addressing” their sanctuary in Syria.</p>
<p>Many prominent Republicans and some Democrats have called on Obama to hit back harder at the Islamic State militants.</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a prospective 2016 presidential candidate, said in an interview Friday that attacking their supply lines, command and control centers and economic assets inside Syria “is at the crux of the decision” for Obama. The risk of “getting sucked into a new war” is outweighed, he said, by the risk of inaction.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama has stressed military assistance to Iraq. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)</p>
<p>To hit back at the group, Obama’s has stressed military assistance to Iraq and efforts to create a new, inclusive government in Baghdad that can persuade Sunnis to leave the insurgency. He also has sought to frame the Islamic State threat in terms that convince other countries – not just in the Mideast but also in Europe – of the need to create a broad coalition against the extremists.</p>
<p>Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to Washington, said in an interview this week that Baghdad’s new leadership has been told to expect additional military help once the new government is seated, possibly in early September.</p>
<p>But an Iraqi counteroffensive may yield only temporary gains if the Islamic State retreats to areas of Syria beyond the government’s control.</p>
<p>“The U.S. can’t defeat the Islamic State terrorist army in Iraq if it does not strike its leadership and core base in Syria simultaneously,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a Washington-based senior strategist for the Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition group. “A real strategy requires linkage of the military effort in Iraq with Syria,” he said.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Wider attack on Islamic State being considered | false | https://abqjournal.com/450796/wider-attack-on-islamic-state-being-considered.html | 2least
| Wider attack on Islamic State being considered
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<p />
<p>“We’re not going to be restricted by borders,” said Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser.</p>
<p>Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, speaking from Martha’s Vineyard on Friday, said the U.S. would take whatever action is necessary to protect national security. (Steven Senne/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>The White House said the president has received no military options beyond those he authorized earlier this month for limited airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and military aid to Iraqi and Kurdish forces.</p>
<p>Thus far, the United States has avoided military involvement in Syria’s three-year civil war. But faced with the Islamic State making gains across the region and the beheading an American journalist, the administration’s resistance may be weakening.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Rhodes spoke a day after Obama’s top military adviser warned the extremists cannot be defeated without “addressing” their sanctuary in Syria.</p>
<p>Many prominent Republicans and some Democrats have called on Obama to hit back harder at the Islamic State militants.</p>
<p>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a prospective 2016 presidential candidate, said in an interview Friday that attacking their supply lines, command and control centers and economic assets inside Syria “is at the crux of the decision” for Obama. The risk of “getting sucked into a new war” is outweighed, he said, by the risk of inaction.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama has stressed military assistance to Iraq. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)</p>
<p>To hit back at the group, Obama’s has stressed military assistance to Iraq and efforts to create a new, inclusive government in Baghdad that can persuade Sunnis to leave the insurgency. He also has sought to frame the Islamic State threat in terms that convince other countries – not just in the Mideast but also in Europe – of the need to create a broad coalition against the extremists.</p>
<p>Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to Washington, said in an interview this week that Baghdad’s new leadership has been told to expect additional military help once the new government is seated, possibly in early September.</p>
<p>But an Iraqi counteroffensive may yield only temporary gains if the Islamic State retreats to areas of Syria beyond the government’s control.</p>
<p>“The U.S. can’t defeat the Islamic State terrorist army in Iraq if it does not strike its leadership and core base in Syria simultaneously,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a Washington-based senior strategist for the Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition group. “A real strategy requires linkage of the military effort in Iraq with Syria,” he said.</p>
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<p>Transferred from Tennessee and is in her second season at UNM. Had bronchitis and didn’t compete at last Friday’s Mountain Regional at UNM North Golf Course. Will probably run Saturday in the NCAA Championships at Terre Haute, Ind. She finished fifth on the team in the MWC championships at the end of October. Also scored at the Lobo Invitational, finishing third on the team in 18:07.64 Year: Senior Age: 22 Major: Graduated, getting second degree in psychology Hometown: Knoxville, Tenn. Favorites Movie: Funny ones, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” TV show: Cartoons. Everyone makes fun of me, but I love “SpongeBob” Music: Reggae, which surprises a lot of people. You wouldn’t pick me as a Southerner Saturday: NCAA Championships at Terre Haute, Ind. What are your expectations at nationals? I think our team is a lot better this year. We were very competitive last year as well, but we have been in the top 10 so long. This could a huge year – we want top 4. That’s being on the podium, that’s what I think we’re shooting for. If we have everyone tight-packed, that’s how it was at conference, it will be a very good sign at nationals.</p>
<p>What’s it like during a race? Do you actually say things to each other? Sometimes we do. I like to talk during races, because I think it kind of calms me down a little bit and gets things going. At conference, I ran along with Nicole Roberts every step of the way. It was like we were connected at the hip and that definitely helps a lot. It definitely helps to run with Nicole and Tamara (Armoush), that’s usually the group, and it helps to go with them. And I know the girls in front, Calli (Thackery) and Charlotte (Arter) and Alice (Wright), always run together. And it helps having your teammates there to hold you accountable, too.</p>
<p>You also run track. What sport do you like better? I definitely like track better. Cross-country is fun because you’re not just running around in circles and stuff like that and the courses are more fun. But in track, the environment is more fun; the crowd, it’s exciting, it’s fast and over quickly.</p>
<p>Did you play other sports when you were younger? A lot of them. Basketball, I swam, played volleyball, rode horses – pretty much everything. My brother was big into running so I just kind of followed his footsteps.</p>
<p>What brought you here from Tennessee? I was injured a lot at Tennessee. I had stress fractures the whole time I was there. I never really ran without stress fractures. My last year there got stressful, overwhelming, and doctors and coaches told me not to run again. I contacted several other coaches and (UNM coach) Joe (Franklin) was the first one who got back to me and seemed eager to have me out here. – Mark Smith</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Face to face with Lobo runner Amber Zimmerman | false | https://abqjournal.com/497636/face-to-face-with-lobo-runner-amber-zimmerman.html | 2least
| Face to face with Lobo runner Amber Zimmerman
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<p>Transferred from Tennessee and is in her second season at UNM. Had bronchitis and didn’t compete at last Friday’s Mountain Regional at UNM North Golf Course. Will probably run Saturday in the NCAA Championships at Terre Haute, Ind. She finished fifth on the team in the MWC championships at the end of October. Also scored at the Lobo Invitational, finishing third on the team in 18:07.64 Year: Senior Age: 22 Major: Graduated, getting second degree in psychology Hometown: Knoxville, Tenn. Favorites Movie: Funny ones, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” TV show: Cartoons. Everyone makes fun of me, but I love “SpongeBob” Music: Reggae, which surprises a lot of people. You wouldn’t pick me as a Southerner Saturday: NCAA Championships at Terre Haute, Ind. What are your expectations at nationals? I think our team is a lot better this year. We were very competitive last year as well, but we have been in the top 10 so long. This could a huge year – we want top 4. That’s being on the podium, that’s what I think we’re shooting for. If we have everyone tight-packed, that’s how it was at conference, it will be a very good sign at nationals.</p>
<p>What’s it like during a race? Do you actually say things to each other? Sometimes we do. I like to talk during races, because I think it kind of calms me down a little bit and gets things going. At conference, I ran along with Nicole Roberts every step of the way. It was like we were connected at the hip and that definitely helps a lot. It definitely helps to run with Nicole and Tamara (Armoush), that’s usually the group, and it helps to go with them. And I know the girls in front, Calli (Thackery) and Charlotte (Arter) and Alice (Wright), always run together. And it helps having your teammates there to hold you accountable, too.</p>
<p>You also run track. What sport do you like better? I definitely like track better. Cross-country is fun because you’re not just running around in circles and stuff like that and the courses are more fun. But in track, the environment is more fun; the crowd, it’s exciting, it’s fast and over quickly.</p>
<p>Did you play other sports when you were younger? A lot of them. Basketball, I swam, played volleyball, rode horses – pretty much everything. My brother was big into running so I just kind of followed his footsteps.</p>
<p>What brought you here from Tennessee? I was injured a lot at Tennessee. I had stress fractures the whole time I was there. I never really ran without stress fractures. My last year there got stressful, overwhelming, and doctors and coaches told me not to run again. I contacted several other coaches and (UNM coach) Joe (Franklin) was the first one who got back to me and seemed eager to have me out here. – Mark Smith</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 4,266 |
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<p>For those inclined to ask "who cares?" every time a celebrity-and-politics news item makes the rounds, consider it asked already. For everyone else, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by actress Angelina Jolie on Thursday about the problem of Iraqi refugees fleeing to Syria, Jordan and "a vast and very dangerous no-man's land" within their own borders. Now, Jolie says, is the time for Americans to "do some of the good we always stated we intended to do."</p>
<p>Angelina Jolie in The Washington Post:</p>
<p>Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq - and the potential consequences for our national security - are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of [the] Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?</p>
<p>What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money - but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217_pf.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Angelina Jolie: Now's the Time to Help Iraqis | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/angelina-jolie-nows-the-time-to-help-iraqis/ | 2008-02-29 | 4left
| Angelina Jolie: Now's the Time to Help Iraqis
<p>For those inclined to ask "who cares?" every time a celebrity-and-politics news item makes the rounds, consider it asked already. For everyone else, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by actress Angelina Jolie on Thursday about the problem of Iraqi refugees fleeing to Syria, Jordan and "a vast and very dangerous no-man's land" within their own borders. Now, Jolie says, is the time for Americans to "do some of the good we always stated we intended to do."</p>
<p>Angelina Jolie in The Washington Post:</p>
<p>Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq - and the potential consequences for our national security - are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of [the] Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?</p>
<p>What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money - but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217_pf.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 4,267 |
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<p>SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Scottsdale’s Museum of the West is now the home of what is considered one of the largest collections of posters from film Westerns.</p>
<p>Museum officials said Thursday that the 5,000 posters and lobby cards dating back to the early 1900s were acquired through a joint partnership with Arizona State University.</p>
<p>The posters were amassed by Rennard Strickland, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma who specializes in Native American law.</p>
<p>Among the items is one of few original posters of the classic John Ford-directed movie “Stagecoach.”</p>
<p>Other posters include “Nanook of the North,” “The Searchers” and “Dances with Wolves.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Scottsdale museum to get thousands of Western movie posters | false | https://abqjournal.com/882207/scottsdale-museum-to-get-thousands-of-western-movie-posters.html | 2least
| Scottsdale museum to get thousands of Western movie posters
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<p>SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Scottsdale’s Museum of the West is now the home of what is considered one of the largest collections of posters from film Westerns.</p>
<p>Museum officials said Thursday that the 5,000 posters and lobby cards dating back to the early 1900s were acquired through a joint partnership with Arizona State University.</p>
<p>The posters were amassed by Rennard Strickland, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma who specializes in Native American law.</p>
<p>Among the items is one of few original posters of the classic John Ford-directed movie “Stagecoach.”</p>
<p>Other posters include “Nanook of the North,” “The Searchers” and “Dances with Wolves.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 4,268 |
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<p>The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local):</p>
<p>4 p.m.</p>
<p>Losses by industrial and technology companies pulled stocks lower, erasing an early gain that sent the Dow Jones industrial average past 26,000 points for the first time.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>General Electric slumped 3 percent Tuesday after reporting a $6.2 billion write-down.</p>
<p>Media company Viacom dropped 7 percent following reports that it’s not in talks to merge with CBS.</p>
<p>Energizer surged 14.5 percent after saying it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell 9 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,776.</p>
<p>The Dow fell 10 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 25,792. It was up as much as 282 points earlier.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq composite lost 37 points, or 0.5 percent, to 7,223.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.54 percent.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>11:45 a.m.</p>
<p>Stocks are trading higher on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average trading above 26,000 for the first time.</p>
<p>Health care and technology companies posted some of the biggest gains in midday trading Tuesday.</p>
<p>Merck jumped 7 percent and chipmaker Qualcomm gained 3.3 percent.</p>
<p>Energizer Holdings surged 15 percent after the company said it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index climbed 6 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,793.</p>
<p>The Dow industrials gained 159 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,958. It was up as much as 282 points earlier.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq composite rose 22 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,281.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.53 percent.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>9:45 a.m.</p>
<p>Stocks are opening higher on Wall Street as investors return from a long holiday weekend, sending the Dow Jones industrial average above 26,000 for the first time.</p>
<p>Apple and Microsoft each rose 1 percent in early trading Tuesday.</p>
<p>Energizer Holdings surged 16.5 percent after the company said it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index climbed 15 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,801.</p>
<p>The Dow gained 214 points, or 0.8 percent, to 26,017. The Nasdaq rose 53 points, or 0.7 percent, to 7,315.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.53 percent.</p> | Markets Right Now: Dow Jones industrials recede from 26,000 | false | https://abqjournal.com/1119898/markets-right-now-banks-retailers-lead-stock-gains.html | 2018-01-16 | 2least
| Markets Right Now: Dow Jones industrials recede from 26,000
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<p>The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local):</p>
<p>4 p.m.</p>
<p>Losses by industrial and technology companies pulled stocks lower, erasing an early gain that sent the Dow Jones industrial average past 26,000 points for the first time.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>General Electric slumped 3 percent Tuesday after reporting a $6.2 billion write-down.</p>
<p>Media company Viacom dropped 7 percent following reports that it’s not in talks to merge with CBS.</p>
<p>Energizer surged 14.5 percent after saying it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell 9 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,776.</p>
<p>The Dow fell 10 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 25,792. It was up as much as 282 points earlier.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq composite lost 37 points, or 0.5 percent, to 7,223.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.54 percent.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>11:45 a.m.</p>
<p>Stocks are trading higher on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average trading above 26,000 for the first time.</p>
<p>Health care and technology companies posted some of the biggest gains in midday trading Tuesday.</p>
<p>Merck jumped 7 percent and chipmaker Qualcomm gained 3.3 percent.</p>
<p>Energizer Holdings surged 15 percent after the company said it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index climbed 6 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,793.</p>
<p>The Dow industrials gained 159 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,958. It was up as much as 282 points earlier.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq composite rose 22 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,281.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.53 percent.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>9:45 a.m.</p>
<p>Stocks are opening higher on Wall Street as investors return from a long holiday weekend, sending the Dow Jones industrial average above 26,000 for the first time.</p>
<p>Apple and Microsoft each rose 1 percent in early trading Tuesday.</p>
<p>Energizer Holdings surged 16.5 percent after the company said it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index climbed 15 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,801.</p>
<p>The Dow gained 214 points, or 0.8 percent, to 26,017. The Nasdaq rose 53 points, or 0.7 percent, to 7,315.</p>
<p>Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.53 percent.</p> | 4,269 |
<p>Whether it's in sports, in business, or in comic books, the world loves a good rivalry -- and few can match the longtime crosstown competition between General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F). Despite their decades-long duel for prestige and market share, the two largest Detroit automakers also have much in common, including incredible outlandish price tags in November.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Everybody knows Detroit's bread-and-butter products are SUVs and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/24/these-are-the-5-best-selling-trucks-of-2017.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">full-size pickup trucks Opens a New Window.</a>. Those vehicles command juicy margins and keep the carmakers' lights on. Better yet, as the manufacturers have&#160;crammed more and more technology and features into them, they've been able to push average transaction prices higher, driving incremental revenue at a time when U.S. sales are plateauing.</p>
<p>In fact, General Motors' strong SUV sales drove its companywide average transaction prices (ATPs) above $37,000 for the first time ever. Price tags were up more than $650 from October, and more than $1,400 compared to the prior year's November. That well outpaced its competitors: GM's ATPs were an impressive $4,500 above the industry average, and almost $2,000 higher than any domestic automaker.</p>
<p>What's of equal importance to investors is the level of incentive spending. In November,&#160;GM's incentives were estimated at 12.9% of ATP, according to information from J.D. Power PIN. That's roughly the industry average. However, it was down 30 basis points from October and 80 basis points year over year. And it's good news for investors when ATPs rise while incentives remain flat, or better yet, fall.</p>
<p>While Ford's ATPs might have lagged those of GM, the highly profitable F-Series pickup line posted some incredible numbers, with its best November sales result in 16 years. The popular Super Duty and the new 2018 F-150 helped push truck ATPs $3,800 higher to a staggering $47,100 -- essentially entering luxury pricing territory. The F-Series&#160; is on track for a tremendous year: Sales are up more than 10% with one month remaining on the calendar.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In addition to the F-Series, Ford's SUV segment thrived last month with a 13.3% sales gain over the prior year. That increase, which almost doubled Ford's 6.7%&#160;companywide gain, was driven by retail rather than fleet sales, which is even better news for the bottom line. In fact, Ford brand SUVs recorded a 11.6% gain at retail for November.</p>
<p>"2017 has been the year of the SUV," said Jeremy Acevedo, manager of industry analysis at Edmunds, said in an email. "Consumers have proven time and time again this year that they're not afraid of the bigger price tags, higher APRs and longer loan terms."</p>
<p>Despite U.S. sales volumes plateauing, Detroit's two largest automakers are still moving large numbers of highly profitable SUVs and full-size trucks. Unless matters take a surprising shift in December, investors should see <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/19/10-reasons-to-buy-general-motors-stock.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">solid fourth-quarter results from both General Motors Opens a New Window.</a> and Ford.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than FordWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=53bcaac4-2382-40a6-b783-82ce9b517a60&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Ford wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=53bcaac4-2382-40a6-b783-82ce9b517a60&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 1 Thing General Motors and Ford Motor Co. Had in Common Last Month | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/02/1-thing-general-motors-and-ford-motor-co-had-in-common-last-month.html | 2017-12-02 | 0right
| 1 Thing General Motors and Ford Motor Co. Had in Common Last Month
<p>Whether it's in sports, in business, or in comic books, the world loves a good rivalry -- and few can match the longtime crosstown competition between General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F). Despite their decades-long duel for prestige and market share, the two largest Detroit automakers also have much in common, including incredible outlandish price tags in November.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Everybody knows Detroit's bread-and-butter products are SUVs and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/24/these-are-the-5-best-selling-trucks-of-2017.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">full-size pickup trucks Opens a New Window.</a>. Those vehicles command juicy margins and keep the carmakers' lights on. Better yet, as the manufacturers have&#160;crammed more and more technology and features into them, they've been able to push average transaction prices higher, driving incremental revenue at a time when U.S. sales are plateauing.</p>
<p>In fact, General Motors' strong SUV sales drove its companywide average transaction prices (ATPs) above $37,000 for the first time ever. Price tags were up more than $650 from October, and more than $1,400 compared to the prior year's November. That well outpaced its competitors: GM's ATPs were an impressive $4,500 above the industry average, and almost $2,000 higher than any domestic automaker.</p>
<p>What's of equal importance to investors is the level of incentive spending. In November,&#160;GM's incentives were estimated at 12.9% of ATP, according to information from J.D. Power PIN. That's roughly the industry average. However, it was down 30 basis points from October and 80 basis points year over year. And it's good news for investors when ATPs rise while incentives remain flat, or better yet, fall.</p>
<p>While Ford's ATPs might have lagged those of GM, the highly profitable F-Series pickup line posted some incredible numbers, with its best November sales result in 16 years. The popular Super Duty and the new 2018 F-150 helped push truck ATPs $3,800 higher to a staggering $47,100 -- essentially entering luxury pricing territory. The F-Series&#160; is on track for a tremendous year: Sales are up more than 10% with one month remaining on the calendar.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In addition to the F-Series, Ford's SUV segment thrived last month with a 13.3% sales gain over the prior year. That increase, which almost doubled Ford's 6.7%&#160;companywide gain, was driven by retail rather than fleet sales, which is even better news for the bottom line. In fact, Ford brand SUVs recorded a 11.6% gain at retail for November.</p>
<p>"2017 has been the year of the SUV," said Jeremy Acevedo, manager of industry analysis at Edmunds, said in an email. "Consumers have proven time and time again this year that they're not afraid of the bigger price tags, higher APRs and longer loan terms."</p>
<p>Despite U.S. sales volumes plateauing, Detroit's two largest automakers are still moving large numbers of highly profitable SUVs and full-size trucks. Unless matters take a surprising shift in December, investors should see <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/19/10-reasons-to-buy-general-motors-stock.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">solid fourth-quarter results from both General Motors Opens a New Window.</a> and Ford.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than FordWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=53bcaac4-2382-40a6-b783-82ce9b517a60&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Ford wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=53bcaac4-2382-40a6-b783-82ce9b517a60&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=a0739036-d6d3-11e7-8d37-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 4,270 |
<p>Pacific Drilling’s (NYSE:PACD) new ultra-deepwater drillship has been awarded a five-year contract by Chevron (NYSE:CVX) for operations in the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
<p>Construction on the rig, known as Pacific Sharav, started in March 2012 and delivery to the Gulf is expected in the fourth quarter of 2013 upon completion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Luxembourg offshore drilling company said maximum contract revenue is forecast to be about $1.07 billion, bringing Pacific Drilling’s total contract backlog as of June 22 to about $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>The drillship, which be the third Pacific Drilling ship used by Chevron, will be capable of operating in water depths of up to 12,000 feet and drilling wells up to 40,000 feet deep.</p>
<p>The move comes as oil companies ramp up deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as regulations ease two years after the BP (NYSE:BP) rig exploded in 2010, causing the worst spill ever in U.S. waters.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Chevron Awards Pacific Drilling 5-Year Contract for Gulf Operations | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/06/22/chevron-awards-pacific-drilling-5-year-contract-for-gulf-operations.html | 2016-01-26 | 0right
| Chevron Awards Pacific Drilling 5-Year Contract for Gulf Operations
<p>Pacific Drilling’s (NYSE:PACD) new ultra-deepwater drillship has been awarded a five-year contract by Chevron (NYSE:CVX) for operations in the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
<p>Construction on the rig, known as Pacific Sharav, started in March 2012 and delivery to the Gulf is expected in the fourth quarter of 2013 upon completion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Luxembourg offshore drilling company said maximum contract revenue is forecast to be about $1.07 billion, bringing Pacific Drilling’s total contract backlog as of June 22 to about $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>The drillship, which be the third Pacific Drilling ship used by Chevron, will be capable of operating in water depths of up to 12,000 feet and drilling wells up to 40,000 feet deep.</p>
<p>The move comes as oil companies ramp up deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as regulations ease two years after the BP (NYSE:BP) rig exploded in 2010, causing the worst spill ever in U.S. waters.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | 4,271 |
<p>Mississippi Tea Partiers want the state’s Republican Party chairman to resign for calling on state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-MS) to clarify whether he <a href="" type="internal">planned</a> to be the keynote speaker at a pro-Second Amendment event and tea party rally that featured a segregationist vendor.</p>
<p>The call for state party chairman Joe Nosef (pictured) to resign comes in response to Nosef telling <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/white-pride-gop-challenger-faces-questions-n71086" type="external">MSNBC</a> that McDaniel needed to clarify whether he had planned to attend the event or not. Nosef, on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytnAouQQCao&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">Paul Gallo Show</a>, also suggested that McDaniel could cost Republicans a Senate seat. McDaniel is running to unseat Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS).</p>
<p />
<p>“It is inappropriate for Nosef to make such claims given his role as Chairman of the MS GOP. Accordingly, Joe Nosef should resign from his position as Chairman of the MS GOP effective immediately,” the Mississippi Tea Party said in a statement.</p>
<p>Nosef, in a <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/politicalledger/2014/04/15/mississippi-tea-party-gop-joe-nosef-resign/7735571/" type="external">statement</a> to the Clarion Ledger of Mississippi, said he would not resign:</p>
<p>Anyone who has paid close attention to our US senate primary knows that I’ve not only stayed neutral with regard to the candidates but also worked relentlessly against efforts to divide our party. I continue to receive encouragement in this effort to promote unity from our GOP elected officials, voters across the state, members of both campaigns, as well as very active, long-term tea party members. I also appreciate the good people across our state who make up the lifeblood of the tea party and have enjoyed working with them for years. I am grateful for their support. I have a great working relationship with them in all corners of our state and look forward to working together in this year’s campaigns and into the future.</p>
<p>As <a href="" type="internal">TPM previously reported</a>, McDaniel had been slated to be the keynote speaker at a combined Firearm Freedom Day/ Tea Party Music Festival in Guntown, Mississippi. That event featured a vendor who sold Confederate memorabilia and founded the Council of White Patriot Voters and the Confederate Patriot Voters United, which the Southern Poverty Law Center listed as an active white nationalist group. Organizers said McDaniel had been the confirmed speaker since February.</p>
<p>When TPM reached McDaniel campaign officials they denied that he was scheduled to speak and pushed the organizers to remove McDaniel’s name from posters advertising him as the keynote speaker.</p>
<p>McDaniel’s association to neo-Confederates has been called into question before. Last year he <a href="" type="internal">attended</a> at least one neo-Confederate event in Mississippi.</p>
<p>(Photo credit: Facebook)</p> | Tea Partiers Livid State GOP Wants Clarification On White Supremacy Ties | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mississippi-tea-party-chris-mcdaniel-joe-nosef | 4left
| Tea Partiers Livid State GOP Wants Clarification On White Supremacy Ties
<p>Mississippi Tea Partiers want the state’s Republican Party chairman to resign for calling on state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-MS) to clarify whether he <a href="" type="internal">planned</a> to be the keynote speaker at a pro-Second Amendment event and tea party rally that featured a segregationist vendor.</p>
<p>The call for state party chairman Joe Nosef (pictured) to resign comes in response to Nosef telling <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/white-pride-gop-challenger-faces-questions-n71086" type="external">MSNBC</a> that McDaniel needed to clarify whether he had planned to attend the event or not. Nosef, on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytnAouQQCao&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">Paul Gallo Show</a>, also suggested that McDaniel could cost Republicans a Senate seat. McDaniel is running to unseat Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS).</p>
<p />
<p>“It is inappropriate for Nosef to make such claims given his role as Chairman of the MS GOP. Accordingly, Joe Nosef should resign from his position as Chairman of the MS GOP effective immediately,” the Mississippi Tea Party said in a statement.</p>
<p>Nosef, in a <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/politicalledger/2014/04/15/mississippi-tea-party-gop-joe-nosef-resign/7735571/" type="external">statement</a> to the Clarion Ledger of Mississippi, said he would not resign:</p>
<p>Anyone who has paid close attention to our US senate primary knows that I’ve not only stayed neutral with regard to the candidates but also worked relentlessly against efforts to divide our party. I continue to receive encouragement in this effort to promote unity from our GOP elected officials, voters across the state, members of both campaigns, as well as very active, long-term tea party members. I also appreciate the good people across our state who make up the lifeblood of the tea party and have enjoyed working with them for years. I am grateful for their support. I have a great working relationship with them in all corners of our state and look forward to working together in this year’s campaigns and into the future.</p>
<p>As <a href="" type="internal">TPM previously reported</a>, McDaniel had been slated to be the keynote speaker at a combined Firearm Freedom Day/ Tea Party Music Festival in Guntown, Mississippi. That event featured a vendor who sold Confederate memorabilia and founded the Council of White Patriot Voters and the Confederate Patriot Voters United, which the Southern Poverty Law Center listed as an active white nationalist group. Organizers said McDaniel had been the confirmed speaker since February.</p>
<p>When TPM reached McDaniel campaign officials they denied that he was scheduled to speak and pushed the organizers to remove McDaniel’s name from posters advertising him as the keynote speaker.</p>
<p>McDaniel’s association to neo-Confederates has been called into question before. Last year he <a href="" type="internal">attended</a> at least one neo-Confederate event in Mississippi.</p>
<p>(Photo credit: Facebook)</p> | 4,272 |
|
<p />
<p>Before the communications revolution du jour, back in the last century, back when e-mail and chat rooms were killing off the handwritten letter, I went online looking for the new frontier of race relations. It made sense to me: Mix a volatile but irresistible subject with the promise of uncensored anonymity, and you get authentic discourse.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>So I dove into the chat rooms of America Online. I waded through the thick alphabet soup of a segmented, loquacious and profoundly lonely populace in search of conversations that delved deeply into race relations. I figured that journalists, who have a hard enough time talking about race themselves, might find their way to insights, sources and even stories if they could just get past that first level of fear that makes everything else so difficult.</p>
<p>People were talking, I found. But the conversation would usually take one of two roads that always seemed to meet the same end. I imagine the first scenario&#160;might go something like this: Someone I'll call&#160;Un4GetABullMe has a promising exchange with someone else,&#160;call him NotherRomeoDude, about the difficulty of speaking honestly about race. Then&#160;EveryDayNazi enters the room and throws down some bigoted bait. Romeo can't resist, and name-calling commences until the room empties.</p>
<p>The equally common Scenario Two&#160;might look like this: Un4GetABullMe: I was thinking that it would be a lot easier to talk about race if people would just let down their guard sometimes and trust one another.NotherRomeoDude: Yeah. We do tend to hide behind our computers. LOL.Un4GetABullMe: Trudat, but I wanna talk straight about it right now.OverCompenSater: HEY … ANY FINE HONEYS HERE GOT PICS AND WANT TO CYBER?????</p>
<p>And away they would go.</p>
<p>Now comes blogging&#160;-- the next communications revolution&#160;-- and, with it, a new round of optimism. Cautious, tempered, guarded optimism, to be sure. With millions of people out there pulling down online stories and essays, slapping commentary upon them and inviting the world to append an opinion, journalists can tap into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere" type="external">blogosphere</a>&#160;in search of a timely, cutting edge look at race relations.</p>
<p>Blogs, like the disappointing chat rooms, hold the strong, attractive promise of offering low-risk insight and, with a few more key strokes, low-risk interaction for journalists interested in telling the stories of race relations.</p>
<p>For many of us, fear and ignorance related to race are locked in a self-perpetuating cycle, each growing stronger as it feeds off the other. What the blogs offer is a chance to break away, to find in one place vast assemblages of information and perspective from the mainstream media, offbeat Web sites and the myriad commentators who provide everything from one-line zingers to provocative racial critiques like <a href="http://racerelations.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/bw20040216blogging.asp" type="external">this</a>, opinions once hidden away in your local alt weekly.</p>
<p>From the privacy of your computer, you can tap into opinions across race otherwise reserved for those places&#160;-- the barber shop, the bar stool, the backyard fence&#160;-- off-limits to all but the most adventurous among us. I've spent a few days lost in cyberspace looking with the eye of a journalist for places to go, learn, grow.</p>
<p>Here's one thing I learned right away: We are a ways away from mainstream journalism being able to print URLs or link online directly to many blogs. The inhibition-lifting quality of unfettered e-journaling seems to also summon from the masses the crudest of obscenities. I link henceforth with that warning.</p>
<p>I spent no time slogging through the race-hate mainstream. Those folks aren't shy. They&#160; don't require much unearthing. The blogosphere doesn't seem to have created anything of theirs that you can't already find online or on talk radio. Start in the relative safety of the <a href="http://www.adl.org/" type="external">Anti-Defamation League</a>&#160;or the <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/" type="external">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, follow the links to the sites they monitor, and choose your poison.</p>
<p>If there is another end of that spectrum, where people of color express their bigotry, it's often nuanced or so intertwined in less virulent discourse that it's hard to tell where reactive anger ends and racism begins. So the blogs provide a chance to see thought evolve in complete, unedited sentences over days, weeks, months. Because of the inward-looking nature of many blogs, the cost of insight is often measured in the time it takes to scroll past the mundane and titillating accounts of daily life that wrap themselves around these forays into racial discourse.</p>
<p>The blogosphere pulls together an array of thought among people of color that white America has always seen of itself. Surf through such sites as <a href="http://www.negrophile.com/phile/articles/almost_by_default_the_semiofficial_chronicler_of_africanamerican_media_images.html" type="external">Negrophiles</a>, <a href="http://hispanicon.blogspot.com/" type="external">Hispanicon</a>, <a href="http://www.latinopundit.com/" type="external">Latinopundit</a>, <a href="http://chocolatecoveredbanana.blogspot.com/" type="external">Chocolate covered banana</a>&#160;or <a href="http://blacklogs.com/#null" type="external">blacklogs</a>&#160;and watch as the political currents shift with every click. For journalists stuck in the rut of common racial dichotomies, this journey into the complex can be startling.</p>
<p>When the controversy over <a href="http://fatherhood.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view%5Farticle.html%3Farticle%5Fid=c3a1cf5b268909dfee0db53722131aee" type="external">Bill Cosby's racial pronouncements</a>&#160;kicked up last spring, much of the media treated his treatise as a rare burst of contrary thought from black America. A quick trip across the blogosphere immediately puts to rout the notion that Cosby's thoughts were either new or simply one half of a liberal/conservative schism.</p>
<p>Kim Pearson, a professor at The College of New Jersey, <a href="http://professorkim.blogspot.com/2004/05/cosby-controversy-and-its-precedents.html" type="external">blogs on the issue</a>, as does <a href="http://www.negrophile.com/phile/articles/welcome_cosby_contrarianism_neath_the_gateway_arch.html" type="external">George Kelly, editor of Negrophiles</a>. What they have in common is this: As they weave in and out of opinion, they bring together different perspectives; they connect readers to other sites and other voices, and they offer themselves up as new, willing sources for talking about this untouchable topic. That's the promise of the new frontier.</p>
<p>The blogosphere is no substitute for face-to-face conversations. It's just another journalistic tool limited by, if nothing else, the amount of time you're willing to spend reading and clicking. I like the way folks like "Professor Kim" and George Kelly feed me quick glimpses at a wide range of thought from mainstream journalism and blogs. I'm also acutely aware that the same dialogic dysfunction that leapt from the solid world to the virtual one, from living room chats to chat rooms, infects the blogosphere.</p>
<p>Following links to plug into the Cosby conversation, I arrived at AOL's <a href="http://bv.channel.aol.com/" type="external">Black Voices</a>, the Web site dedicated to black commentary that was once run by the Orlando Sentinel. The first posts, from liberal black people agreeing and disagreeing with Cosby, was a layer deeper than what I'd read in mainstream papers. Then, "Haffman Haffamazing" got into a scrape with "QueenG1." The first casualty was civility. Candor was a close second. Finally, the conversation withered under the heat of breathless obscenities.</p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
<p>Even in the no-holds-barred blogosphere, authentic communication can be rough when the matter is race.</p> | Trolling the Blogosphere for Real Conversation | false | https://poynter.org/news/trolling-blogosphere-real-conversation | 2005-02-15 | 2least
| Trolling the Blogosphere for Real Conversation
<p />
<p>Before the communications revolution du jour, back in the last century, back when e-mail and chat rooms were killing off the handwritten letter, I went online looking for the new frontier of race relations. It made sense to me: Mix a volatile but irresistible subject with the promise of uncensored anonymity, and you get authentic discourse.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>So I dove into the chat rooms of America Online. I waded through the thick alphabet soup of a segmented, loquacious and profoundly lonely populace in search of conversations that delved deeply into race relations. I figured that journalists, who have a hard enough time talking about race themselves, might find their way to insights, sources and even stories if they could just get past that first level of fear that makes everything else so difficult.</p>
<p>People were talking, I found. But the conversation would usually take one of two roads that always seemed to meet the same end. I imagine the first scenario&#160;might go something like this: Someone I'll call&#160;Un4GetABullMe has a promising exchange with someone else,&#160;call him NotherRomeoDude, about the difficulty of speaking honestly about race. Then&#160;EveryDayNazi enters the room and throws down some bigoted bait. Romeo can't resist, and name-calling commences until the room empties.</p>
<p>The equally common Scenario Two&#160;might look like this: Un4GetABullMe: I was thinking that it would be a lot easier to talk about race if people would just let down their guard sometimes and trust one another.NotherRomeoDude: Yeah. We do tend to hide behind our computers. LOL.Un4GetABullMe: Trudat, but I wanna talk straight about it right now.OverCompenSater: HEY … ANY FINE HONEYS HERE GOT PICS AND WANT TO CYBER?????</p>
<p>And away they would go.</p>
<p>Now comes blogging&#160;-- the next communications revolution&#160;-- and, with it, a new round of optimism. Cautious, tempered, guarded optimism, to be sure. With millions of people out there pulling down online stories and essays, slapping commentary upon them and inviting the world to append an opinion, journalists can tap into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere" type="external">blogosphere</a>&#160;in search of a timely, cutting edge look at race relations.</p>
<p>Blogs, like the disappointing chat rooms, hold the strong, attractive promise of offering low-risk insight and, with a few more key strokes, low-risk interaction for journalists interested in telling the stories of race relations.</p>
<p>For many of us, fear and ignorance related to race are locked in a self-perpetuating cycle, each growing stronger as it feeds off the other. What the blogs offer is a chance to break away, to find in one place vast assemblages of information and perspective from the mainstream media, offbeat Web sites and the myriad commentators who provide everything from one-line zingers to provocative racial critiques like <a href="http://racerelations.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/bw20040216blogging.asp" type="external">this</a>, opinions once hidden away in your local alt weekly.</p>
<p>From the privacy of your computer, you can tap into opinions across race otherwise reserved for those places&#160;-- the barber shop, the bar stool, the backyard fence&#160;-- off-limits to all but the most adventurous among us. I've spent a few days lost in cyberspace looking with the eye of a journalist for places to go, learn, grow.</p>
<p>Here's one thing I learned right away: We are a ways away from mainstream journalism being able to print URLs or link online directly to many blogs. The inhibition-lifting quality of unfettered e-journaling seems to also summon from the masses the crudest of obscenities. I link henceforth with that warning.</p>
<p>I spent no time slogging through the race-hate mainstream. Those folks aren't shy. They&#160; don't require much unearthing. The blogosphere doesn't seem to have created anything of theirs that you can't already find online or on talk radio. Start in the relative safety of the <a href="http://www.adl.org/" type="external">Anti-Defamation League</a>&#160;or the <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/" type="external">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, follow the links to the sites they monitor, and choose your poison.</p>
<p>If there is another end of that spectrum, where people of color express their bigotry, it's often nuanced or so intertwined in less virulent discourse that it's hard to tell where reactive anger ends and racism begins. So the blogs provide a chance to see thought evolve in complete, unedited sentences over days, weeks, months. Because of the inward-looking nature of many blogs, the cost of insight is often measured in the time it takes to scroll past the mundane and titillating accounts of daily life that wrap themselves around these forays into racial discourse.</p>
<p>The blogosphere pulls together an array of thought among people of color that white America has always seen of itself. Surf through such sites as <a href="http://www.negrophile.com/phile/articles/almost_by_default_the_semiofficial_chronicler_of_africanamerican_media_images.html" type="external">Negrophiles</a>, <a href="http://hispanicon.blogspot.com/" type="external">Hispanicon</a>, <a href="http://www.latinopundit.com/" type="external">Latinopundit</a>, <a href="http://chocolatecoveredbanana.blogspot.com/" type="external">Chocolate covered banana</a>&#160;or <a href="http://blacklogs.com/#null" type="external">blacklogs</a>&#160;and watch as the political currents shift with every click. For journalists stuck in the rut of common racial dichotomies, this journey into the complex can be startling.</p>
<p>When the controversy over <a href="http://fatherhood.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view%5Farticle.html%3Farticle%5Fid=c3a1cf5b268909dfee0db53722131aee" type="external">Bill Cosby's racial pronouncements</a>&#160;kicked up last spring, much of the media treated his treatise as a rare burst of contrary thought from black America. A quick trip across the blogosphere immediately puts to rout the notion that Cosby's thoughts were either new or simply one half of a liberal/conservative schism.</p>
<p>Kim Pearson, a professor at The College of New Jersey, <a href="http://professorkim.blogspot.com/2004/05/cosby-controversy-and-its-precedents.html" type="external">blogs on the issue</a>, as does <a href="http://www.negrophile.com/phile/articles/welcome_cosby_contrarianism_neath_the_gateway_arch.html" type="external">George Kelly, editor of Negrophiles</a>. What they have in common is this: As they weave in and out of opinion, they bring together different perspectives; they connect readers to other sites and other voices, and they offer themselves up as new, willing sources for talking about this untouchable topic. That's the promise of the new frontier.</p>
<p>The blogosphere is no substitute for face-to-face conversations. It's just another journalistic tool limited by, if nothing else, the amount of time you're willing to spend reading and clicking. I like the way folks like "Professor Kim" and George Kelly feed me quick glimpses at a wide range of thought from mainstream journalism and blogs. I'm also acutely aware that the same dialogic dysfunction that leapt from the solid world to the virtual one, from living room chats to chat rooms, infects the blogosphere.</p>
<p>Following links to plug into the Cosby conversation, I arrived at AOL's <a href="http://bv.channel.aol.com/" type="external">Black Voices</a>, the Web site dedicated to black commentary that was once run by the Orlando Sentinel. The first posts, from liberal black people agreeing and disagreeing with Cosby, was a layer deeper than what I'd read in mainstream papers. Then, "Haffman Haffamazing" got into a scrape with "QueenG1." The first casualty was civility. Candor was a close second. Finally, the conversation withered under the heat of breathless obscenities.</p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
<p>Even in the no-holds-barred blogosphere, authentic communication can be rough when the matter is race.</p> | 4,273 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
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<p>On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s penultimate day in session before the Aug. 28 semi-centenary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the court’s conservative majority announced a 5-to-4 ruling that guts one of King’s greatest triumphs, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (The Roberts court weakened another of King’s triumphs, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in a pair of 5-to-4 rulings on Monday.)</p>
<p>Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote Tuesday’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, was 10 years old in 1965, when police officers beat and gassed citizens in Selma, Ala., who were demonstrating for the right to vote; that assault, and King’s subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery, spurred passage of the very law Roberts and his colleagues undid on Tuesday by declaring a key provision outdated.</p>
<p>But if Roberts was ready to move on from that bit of civil rights history, 80-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a young law professor during the civil rights era, was not going to let Roberts and his colleagues in the majority ignore that they were invalidating years of bipartisan efforts in Congress toward “achieving what was once the subject of a dream: The equal citizenship stature of all in our polity, a voice to every voter in our democracy undiluted by race.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In her quietly spoken but powerfully worded dissent read from the bench, Ginsburg invoked “the great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery, and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act … ‘The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said, but ‘it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion. That commitment has been disserved by today’s decision.”</p>
<p>It was difficult to hear the tiny and frail Ginsburg in the chamber. But her dissent, joined by the other three liberal justices, was a sharp rebuke of the conservatives for the yawning gap between their frequent vows of judicial modesty and the “hubris” apparent in their “demolition” of the Voting Rights Act. “What has become of the court’s usual restraint?” she asked the judicial activists of the right.</p>
<p>The 15th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote, expressly gives Congress the “power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Congress used that power as recently as 2006, renewing the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate; then-President George W. Bush signed the legislation.</p>
<p>That renewal continued what had been the law’s most important provision: Subjecting states with histories of discrimination to extra scrutiny before they can change voting laws. Lawmakers concluded that “serious and widespread intentional discrimination persists” in the mostly Southern states covered by these “preclearance” requirements.</p>
<p>But Roberts said he had “no choice” but to invalidate that provision because he disagreed with the lawmakers’ policy conclusions. “Today’s statistics tell a decidedly different story,” the legislator-jurist said from the bench.</p>
<p>The case had been brought by an Alabama county and Roberts, in his oral summary, referenced Bloody Sunday. The chief justice justified his intervention by citing improved voter-registration percentages and by pointing out that Selma and Montgomery now “are governed by African-American mayors.”</p>
<p>That was little comfort to the civil rights activists on the sidewalk in front of the court, who were stung not just by the ruling but also by its timing.</p>
<p>“This is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington,” protested Wade Henderson of the The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Civil rights lawyer Gerald Hebert quoted King before tossing in a bit of “we shall overcome.”</p>
<p>Inside the chamber, the justices had a late-session listlessness that seemed at odds with the significance of the moment. Stephen Breyer yawned. Anthony Kennedy stared at the ceiling. Sonia Sotomayor sipped a drink and Antonin Scalia rocked in his chair.</p>
<p>Ginsburg, though, was steely as she scolded the majority for their conservative activism. “It was the judgment of Congress (in 2006) that ’40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th Amendment,'” she said from the bench. In Alabama, she said, Congress found that “there were many” barriers to minority voting rights. “They were shocking and they were recent.”</p>
<p>History may not be as ancient as Roberts supposes.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p /> | A cynical celebration of civil rights | false | https://abqjournal.com/215461/a-cynical-celebration-of-civil-rights.html | 2013-06-28 | 2least
| A cynical celebration of civil rights
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s penultimate day in session before the Aug. 28 semi-centenary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the court’s conservative majority announced a 5-to-4 ruling that guts one of King’s greatest triumphs, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (The Roberts court weakened another of King’s triumphs, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in a pair of 5-to-4 rulings on Monday.)</p>
<p>Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote Tuesday’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, was 10 years old in 1965, when police officers beat and gassed citizens in Selma, Ala., who were demonstrating for the right to vote; that assault, and King’s subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery, spurred passage of the very law Roberts and his colleagues undid on Tuesday by declaring a key provision outdated.</p>
<p>But if Roberts was ready to move on from that bit of civil rights history, 80-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a young law professor during the civil rights era, was not going to let Roberts and his colleagues in the majority ignore that they were invalidating years of bipartisan efforts in Congress toward “achieving what was once the subject of a dream: The equal citizenship stature of all in our polity, a voice to every voter in our democracy undiluted by race.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In her quietly spoken but powerfully worded dissent read from the bench, Ginsburg invoked “the great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery, and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act … ‘The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said, but ‘it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion. That commitment has been disserved by today’s decision.”</p>
<p>It was difficult to hear the tiny and frail Ginsburg in the chamber. But her dissent, joined by the other three liberal justices, was a sharp rebuke of the conservatives for the yawning gap between their frequent vows of judicial modesty and the “hubris” apparent in their “demolition” of the Voting Rights Act. “What has become of the court’s usual restraint?” she asked the judicial activists of the right.</p>
<p>The 15th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote, expressly gives Congress the “power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Congress used that power as recently as 2006, renewing the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate; then-President George W. Bush signed the legislation.</p>
<p>That renewal continued what had been the law’s most important provision: Subjecting states with histories of discrimination to extra scrutiny before they can change voting laws. Lawmakers concluded that “serious and widespread intentional discrimination persists” in the mostly Southern states covered by these “preclearance” requirements.</p>
<p>But Roberts said he had “no choice” but to invalidate that provision because he disagreed with the lawmakers’ policy conclusions. “Today’s statistics tell a decidedly different story,” the legislator-jurist said from the bench.</p>
<p>The case had been brought by an Alabama county and Roberts, in his oral summary, referenced Bloody Sunday. The chief justice justified his intervention by citing improved voter-registration percentages and by pointing out that Selma and Montgomery now “are governed by African-American mayors.”</p>
<p>That was little comfort to the civil rights activists on the sidewalk in front of the court, who were stung not just by the ruling but also by its timing.</p>
<p>“This is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington,” protested Wade Henderson of the The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Civil rights lawyer Gerald Hebert quoted King before tossing in a bit of “we shall overcome.”</p>
<p>Inside the chamber, the justices had a late-session listlessness that seemed at odds with the significance of the moment. Stephen Breyer yawned. Anthony Kennedy stared at the ceiling. Sonia Sotomayor sipped a drink and Antonin Scalia rocked in his chair.</p>
<p>Ginsburg, though, was steely as she scolded the majority for their conservative activism. “It was the judgment of Congress (in 2006) that ’40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th Amendment,'” she said from the bench. In Alabama, she said, Congress found that “there were many” barriers to minority voting rights. “They were shocking and they were recent.”</p>
<p>History may not be as ancient as Roberts supposes.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p /> | 4,274 |
<p />
<p>Boeing sees sales of its business jets rebounding over the next two years after a "tough" 2016, Boeing Business Jet President David Longridge said at a press conference in Dubai on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Boeing Business Jets (BBJ), which sells variants of Boeing aircraft for the corporate jet market, blames a more than halving of sales this year on the uncertainty created by Britain's Brexit vote and U.S. Presidential election.</p>
<p>In 2016, Boeing has booked sales for three business jets, all narrow body aircraft, compared to 10 in 2015, including four wide-bodies, and 14 jets in 2014, BBJ Vice President Jeff Dunn told Reuters.</p>
<p>"Now the elections are over and Brexit is decided we're starting to see things pick up," Longridge said. "I think over the next two years we'll go back to the kind of six to eight airplanes that we saw more regularly in the past four years," he said.</p>
<p>Boeing has campaigns open for three to four business jets though is unlikely to close those deals before Dec. 31, Longridge said. He later told Reuters 2016 was likely to be the low point for BBJ in terms of sales since the 2009 global financial crisis.</p>
<p>Boeing's business jet division, which competes with Airbus Corporate Jets , makes up a fraction of the company's total aircraft sales and deliveries. It delivered four dedicated models of narrow-body BBJ jets plus an unspecified number of wide-body jets for private customers in 2015, out of 762 total jetliner deliveries that year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Longridge on Tuesday announced Asia-Pacific-based Orient Global Aviation as the first customer of the recently announced BBJ 737 MAX 7 aircraft.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher. Editing by Jane Merriman)</p> | Boeing expects business jet sales to recover in next two years | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/06/boeing-expects-business-jet-sales-to-recover-in-next-two-years.html | 2016-12-06 | 0right
| Boeing expects business jet sales to recover in next two years
<p />
<p>Boeing sees sales of its business jets rebounding over the next two years after a "tough" 2016, Boeing Business Jet President David Longridge said at a press conference in Dubai on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Boeing Business Jets (BBJ), which sells variants of Boeing aircraft for the corporate jet market, blames a more than halving of sales this year on the uncertainty created by Britain's Brexit vote and U.S. Presidential election.</p>
<p>In 2016, Boeing has booked sales for three business jets, all narrow body aircraft, compared to 10 in 2015, including four wide-bodies, and 14 jets in 2014, BBJ Vice President Jeff Dunn told Reuters.</p>
<p>"Now the elections are over and Brexit is decided we're starting to see things pick up," Longridge said. "I think over the next two years we'll go back to the kind of six to eight airplanes that we saw more regularly in the past four years," he said.</p>
<p>Boeing has campaigns open for three to four business jets though is unlikely to close those deals before Dec. 31, Longridge said. He later told Reuters 2016 was likely to be the low point for BBJ in terms of sales since the 2009 global financial crisis.</p>
<p>Boeing's business jet division, which competes with Airbus Corporate Jets , makes up a fraction of the company's total aircraft sales and deliveries. It delivered four dedicated models of narrow-body BBJ jets plus an unspecified number of wide-body jets for private customers in 2015, out of 762 total jetliner deliveries that year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Longridge on Tuesday announced Asia-Pacific-based Orient Global Aviation as the first customer of the recently announced BBJ 737 MAX 7 aircraft.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher. Editing by Jane Merriman)</p> | 4,275 |
<p>Organic milk brings to mind images of tree-hugging dairy farmers, but a more accurate image might be ruthless businessmen and lawyers. Horizon Organics, the biggest supplier of organic milk in the US, has sued Organic Valley, a dairy farmer cooperative that is the second-biggest supplier,&#160; <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-25/organic-milk-rivals-in-a-tussle-over-trade-secrets?cmpid=linkedin" type="external">Bloomberg News reported</a>.</p>
<p>Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, questions Horizon's motives.&#160;"Maybe one reason Horizon is being so aggressive is that organic milk is in short supply right now," Kastel told Bloomberg. "Market share will be determined by who has the milk. Is this just a way for Horizon to intimidate the smaller company?"&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120601/when-the-brics-crumble" type="external">When the BRICs crumble</a></p>
<p>Horizon Organics, owned by $13-billion dairy giant Dean Foods, has previously been accused of forcing many of its Horizon farmers out-of-business, while Organic Valley is known for treating its dairy farmers better,&#160; <a href="http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/07/nations-largest-corporate-dairy-sues-organic-farmer-owned-cooperative/" type="external">according to the Cornucopia Institute</a>.</p>
<p>Horizon says it is suing Organic Valley to protect its trade secrets, after a former Horizon employee ditched the company to work for Organic Valley instead. Larry Hansen, responsible for milk procurement with Horizon Organics, quit his job in May 2012 and took a similar position with Organic Valley less than two weeks later. Horizon Organizes alleges a breach of contract and misuse of trade secrets in the lawsuit, the Cornucopia Institute said.</p>
<p>Its not the first time that Horizon has come under scrutiny. In 2006, an <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-08-20/news/0608200391_1_organic-milk-aurora-organic-horizon-organic" type="external">investigation by the Chicago Tribune</a> found that Horizon may have kept its cows in a barn, which would violate a requirement that cows on organic farms have access to pasture.&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Organic milk companies battle in court | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-25/organic-milk-companies-battle-court | 2012-07-25 | 3left-center
| Organic milk companies battle in court
<p>Organic milk brings to mind images of tree-hugging dairy farmers, but a more accurate image might be ruthless businessmen and lawyers. Horizon Organics, the biggest supplier of organic milk in the US, has sued Organic Valley, a dairy farmer cooperative that is the second-biggest supplier,&#160; <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-25/organic-milk-rivals-in-a-tussle-over-trade-secrets?cmpid=linkedin" type="external">Bloomberg News reported</a>.</p>
<p>Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, questions Horizon's motives.&#160;"Maybe one reason Horizon is being so aggressive is that organic milk is in short supply right now," Kastel told Bloomberg. "Market share will be determined by who has the milk. Is this just a way for Horizon to intimidate the smaller company?"&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120601/when-the-brics-crumble" type="external">When the BRICs crumble</a></p>
<p>Horizon Organics, owned by $13-billion dairy giant Dean Foods, has previously been accused of forcing many of its Horizon farmers out-of-business, while Organic Valley is known for treating its dairy farmers better,&#160; <a href="http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/07/nations-largest-corporate-dairy-sues-organic-farmer-owned-cooperative/" type="external">according to the Cornucopia Institute</a>.</p>
<p>Horizon says it is suing Organic Valley to protect its trade secrets, after a former Horizon employee ditched the company to work for Organic Valley instead. Larry Hansen, responsible for milk procurement with Horizon Organics, quit his job in May 2012 and took a similar position with Organic Valley less than two weeks later. Horizon Organizes alleges a breach of contract and misuse of trade secrets in the lawsuit, the Cornucopia Institute said.</p>
<p>Its not the first time that Horizon has come under scrutiny. In 2006, an <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-08-20/news/0608200391_1_organic-milk-aurora-organic-horizon-organic" type="external">investigation by the Chicago Tribune</a> found that Horizon may have kept its cows in a barn, which would violate a requirement that cows on organic farms have access to pasture.&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,276 |
<p>Russia on Friday inserted itself in the diplomatic row over the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/series/in-depth-julian-assange-wikilocked" type="external">fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange</a>.</p>
<p>Russia's foreign ministry issued a warning to Britain for suggesting that it might arrest Assange within the grounds of Ecuador's London embassy, <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120817-russia-issues-warning-britain-over-assange" type="external">AFP reported</a>.</p>
<p>"What is happening gives grounds to contemplate the observance of the spirit and the letter of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and in particular the Article 22 spelling out the inviolability of diplomatic premises," <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120817-russia-issues-warning-britain-over-assange" type="external">AFP reported</a> the Russian foreign ministry to have said.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/120816/assange-asylum-legal-redux-what-are-we-really-talking-about-he" type="external">Assange asylum legal redux: what are we really talking about, here?</a></p>
<p>Ecuador and the UK have engaged in an increasingly public battle over the fate of Assange, whom Ecuador offered diplomatic asylum on Thursday. Meanwhile, Britain is legally obligated to extradite Assange to Sweden for questioning over sexual assault allegations, but has been denied access to him since he sought refuge in Ecuador's London embassy two months ago.</p>
<p>Asylum and extradition issues are a sore subject between Russia and the UK, according to AFP, who reports that Russia has "for years sought the extradition of top Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky as well as several other figures."</p>
<p>Also on Friday, the state-funded news outlet Russia Today was hit by a cyber attack for which an anti-Wikileaks group claimed responsibility, according to <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/russia-today-hit-by-ddos-as-anti-wikileaks-group-claims-responsibility-7000002794/" type="external">CBS' ZDNet</a>.</p>
<p>AntiLeaks implied on Twitter that it launched the denial-of-service attack against the Russian news outlet in connection with the impending imprisonment of members of Pussy Riot, punk performers who were sentenced Friday to two years in prison for an act of protest against President Vladimir Putin inside a church.</p>
<p>Last week, <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120814/wikileaks-back-online-after-antileaks-ddos-attac" type="external">AntiLeaks claimed responsibility</a> for the same kind of attack against WikiLeaks' website.</p> | Russia to UK over Assange: respect international law | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-08-17/russia-uk-over-assange-respect-international-law | 2012-08-17 | 3left-center
| Russia to UK over Assange: respect international law
<p>Russia on Friday inserted itself in the diplomatic row over the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/series/in-depth-julian-assange-wikilocked" type="external">fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange</a>.</p>
<p>Russia's foreign ministry issued a warning to Britain for suggesting that it might arrest Assange within the grounds of Ecuador's London embassy, <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120817-russia-issues-warning-britain-over-assange" type="external">AFP reported</a>.</p>
<p>"What is happening gives grounds to contemplate the observance of the spirit and the letter of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and in particular the Article 22 spelling out the inviolability of diplomatic premises," <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20120817-russia-issues-warning-britain-over-assange" type="external">AFP reported</a> the Russian foreign ministry to have said.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/120816/assange-asylum-legal-redux-what-are-we-really-talking-about-he" type="external">Assange asylum legal redux: what are we really talking about, here?</a></p>
<p>Ecuador and the UK have engaged in an increasingly public battle over the fate of Assange, whom Ecuador offered diplomatic asylum on Thursday. Meanwhile, Britain is legally obligated to extradite Assange to Sweden for questioning over sexual assault allegations, but has been denied access to him since he sought refuge in Ecuador's London embassy two months ago.</p>
<p>Asylum and extradition issues are a sore subject between Russia and the UK, according to AFP, who reports that Russia has "for years sought the extradition of top Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky as well as several other figures."</p>
<p>Also on Friday, the state-funded news outlet Russia Today was hit by a cyber attack for which an anti-Wikileaks group claimed responsibility, according to <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/russia-today-hit-by-ddos-as-anti-wikileaks-group-claims-responsibility-7000002794/" type="external">CBS' ZDNet</a>.</p>
<p>AntiLeaks implied on Twitter that it launched the denial-of-service attack against the Russian news outlet in connection with the impending imprisonment of members of Pussy Riot, punk performers who were sentenced Friday to two years in prison for an act of protest against President Vladimir Putin inside a church.</p>
<p>Last week, <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120814/wikileaks-back-online-after-antileaks-ddos-attac" type="external">AntiLeaks claimed responsibility</a> for the same kind of attack against WikiLeaks' website.</p> | 4,277 |
<p />
<p>For the past several years, social media engagement and recruiting have been gaining steam with agency recruiters.&#160;Recruiters and head hunters have learned that,&#160;to get the best possible candidates for their clients, they need to get creative. On the flip side, they also know that in order to gain new business, build their companies' brands (and their own personal brands), they need to find unique ways to penetrate very competitive markets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>This is why it's important to incorporate some form of social media engagement into your recruiting and business development efforts.</p>
<p>Social Media: A Massive Source of Clients and Candidates</p>
<p>In the United States alone, there are 65 million Twitter users,&#160;162.9 million&#160;Facebook users, and 122&#160;million LinkedIn users.&#160;That's huge! Those numbers represent a massive&#160;pipeline of potential candidates&#160;you can&#160;recruit.</p>
<p>Similarly,&#160;these places are also fantastic for sourcing new clients. Most companies in the U.S. and around the world are on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Attached to those companies are contacts that you may be able to turn into clients of your recruiting business.</p>
<p>Social media provides you with a direct line to individuals on a personal basis. Sure, you can make phone calls to potential clients – and I encourage that – but how many times have you, as a recruiter, had to call five different people just to find that one contact who will actually be useful? Exactly.&#160;Networking through social media outlets, on the other hand, will connect&#160;you with important contacts directly.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The same is true on the candidate side of things.&#160;Throughout, my career I've done my fair share of cold-calling directly to&#160;get to a candidate I need&#160;to speak with. Done right, this method can pay off – but not always. Many candidates are not keen on cold calls. Finding them on LinkedIn or Twitter can be much more effective.</p>
<p>To be clear, I'm not saying you should never pick up the phone when it comes to sourcing candidates or new clients. If you're a recruiter and rarely pick up the phone, then you're probably in the wrong line of work. It's just that social media can often be a critical first step&#160;before you make the call.</p>
<p>How to&#160;Engage With Clients and Candidates</p>
<p>So, how do you engage with potential clients or candidates on social media? It's simple, really.</p>
<p>First, make sure you have a fully developed LinkedIn profile. This is where many candidates and potential clients will turn to learn more about you when you reach out. Your LinkedIn profile should tell candidates and clients about&#160;the job functions you cover, the&#160;roles you have filled, and your past experiences.&#160;Remember: You're representing both your personal&#160;brand and your company's brand here.</p>
<p>I also recommend utilizing the publishing feature on LinkedIn to publish interesting content.&#160;This content will come up when candidates and clients search for you – and&#160;it will also gain you more followers, who can be great sources for leads.&#160;The more you publish,&#160;the more potential candidates and clients will view you as someone they want to&#160;partner with. Your activity will prove you have your finger on the pulse of the market.</p>
<p>It's also a good idea to publish jobs you are working on, adding hashtags such as #jobs, #marketingjobs, #accountant, etc. These hashtags make it easy for people to search for and find your open jobs.</p>
<p>The same principles apply to&#160;Twitter and Facebook, too. Both platforms are great when it comes to hashtagging – especially&#160;Twitter.</p>
<p>You should also use social media to research the companies, candidates, and clients you want to target. Reach out to them via InMail or direct message to introduce yourself and what you do. You can reference similar jobs you are working on that match openings a potential client has or a position a candidate holds, send a link to your publications, and more. It's all about demonstrating how you can be a source of value.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>The more you interact with people on social media, the more engagement you are going to have with candidates and clients alike. So get out there and get social!</p> | Social Media Engagement and Recruiting: Find Better Talent and Build Your Business | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/04/24/social-media-engagement-and-recruiting-find-better-talent-and-build-your.html | 2016-04-28 | 0right
| Social Media Engagement and Recruiting: Find Better Talent and Build Your Business
<p />
<p>For the past several years, social media engagement and recruiting have been gaining steam with agency recruiters.&#160;Recruiters and head hunters have learned that,&#160;to get the best possible candidates for their clients, they need to get creative. On the flip side, they also know that in order to gain new business, build their companies' brands (and their own personal brands), they need to find unique ways to penetrate very competitive markets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>This is why it's important to incorporate some form of social media engagement into your recruiting and business development efforts.</p>
<p>Social Media: A Massive Source of Clients and Candidates</p>
<p>In the United States alone, there are 65 million Twitter users,&#160;162.9 million&#160;Facebook users, and 122&#160;million LinkedIn users.&#160;That's huge! Those numbers represent a massive&#160;pipeline of potential candidates&#160;you can&#160;recruit.</p>
<p>Similarly,&#160;these places are also fantastic for sourcing new clients. Most companies in the U.S. and around the world are on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Attached to those companies are contacts that you may be able to turn into clients of your recruiting business.</p>
<p>Social media provides you with a direct line to individuals on a personal basis. Sure, you can make phone calls to potential clients – and I encourage that – but how many times have you, as a recruiter, had to call five different people just to find that one contact who will actually be useful? Exactly.&#160;Networking through social media outlets, on the other hand, will connect&#160;you with important contacts directly.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The same is true on the candidate side of things.&#160;Throughout, my career I've done my fair share of cold-calling directly to&#160;get to a candidate I need&#160;to speak with. Done right, this method can pay off – but not always. Many candidates are not keen on cold calls. Finding them on LinkedIn or Twitter can be much more effective.</p>
<p>To be clear, I'm not saying you should never pick up the phone when it comes to sourcing candidates or new clients. If you're a recruiter and rarely pick up the phone, then you're probably in the wrong line of work. It's just that social media can often be a critical first step&#160;before you make the call.</p>
<p>How to&#160;Engage With Clients and Candidates</p>
<p>So, how do you engage with potential clients or candidates on social media? It's simple, really.</p>
<p>First, make sure you have a fully developed LinkedIn profile. This is where many candidates and potential clients will turn to learn more about you when you reach out. Your LinkedIn profile should tell candidates and clients about&#160;the job functions you cover, the&#160;roles you have filled, and your past experiences.&#160;Remember: You're representing both your personal&#160;brand and your company's brand here.</p>
<p>I also recommend utilizing the publishing feature on LinkedIn to publish interesting content.&#160;This content will come up when candidates and clients search for you – and&#160;it will also gain you more followers, who can be great sources for leads.&#160;The more you publish,&#160;the more potential candidates and clients will view you as someone they want to&#160;partner with. Your activity will prove you have your finger on the pulse of the market.</p>
<p>It's also a good idea to publish jobs you are working on, adding hashtags such as #jobs, #marketingjobs, #accountant, etc. These hashtags make it easy for people to search for and find your open jobs.</p>
<p>The same principles apply to&#160;Twitter and Facebook, too. Both platforms are great when it comes to hashtagging – especially&#160;Twitter.</p>
<p>You should also use social media to research the companies, candidates, and clients you want to target. Reach out to them via InMail or direct message to introduce yourself and what you do. You can reference similar jobs you are working on that match openings a potential client has or a position a candidate holds, send a link to your publications, and more. It's all about demonstrating how you can be a source of value.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>The more you interact with people on social media, the more engagement you are going to have with candidates and clients alike. So get out there and get social!</p> | 4,278 |
<p>Reality Winner, the 25-year-old Air Force veteran and NSA contractor charged with mailing classified material to a news outlet, is a classic whistleblower. She hasn’t claimed that mantle, which is understandable given America’s love-hate relationship with whistleblowers. They are alternately celebrated and denounced, depending on who has the microphone and who has the power.</p>
<p>A whistleblower is a current or former employee who reveals what she reasonably believes evidences fraud, waste, abuse, illegality, or a danger to public health and safety. The individual can disclose their concerns to their superiors, Congress, an interest group representative, or the media. Unfortunately, often nothing gets fixed when employees report internally; in fact, they often become the target of any investigation that ensues. This is especially true in the Intelligence Community, where whistleblowers lack strong protection from retaliation. It is easier to shoot the messenger than listen to the message. And the message here is one that has been contested by the President of the United States: that Russia tried – strenuously – to hack our presidential election.</p>
<p>When you can’t shoot the messenger—many whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake had unassailable personal and professional records—those in power will then go after a subsidiary issue: how the leak occurred. In the case of Reality Winner, she has been criticized for mailing the information from her hometown post office in Augusta, Georgia. She has been criticized for using snail-mail, instead of a whistleblower submission system like SecureDrop. (Here it is worth noting that whistleblowers who have blown the whistle over encrypted channels have sometimes faced added charges for obstruction of justice.) She has been criticized for her choice of the media outlet to which to leak.</p>
<p>Her undoing, however, was not because of her choices. Whistleblowers face a panoply of hard choices—whether to complain internally or go public, whether to report anonymously or identify themselves, whether to protect their colleagues from their life-altering decision or put them in the position of being witnesses. There is no right answer. As a general matter, whistleblowers try to call out wrongdoing while sustaining the least damage to themselves, their families, and their colleagues.</p>
<p>The most successful whistleblowers—from Daniel Ellsberg to Edward Snowden—have gone to the media, which brings the benefits of speed, objectivity and investigative resources. When Reality Winner picked this and true path that I and so many other whistleblowers have taken, I doubt she was thinking about how it could land her in jail. I am quite confident she was more concerned about correcting the public and historical record, and giving the truth a fighting chance in a political landscape increasingly overrun with lies.</p>
<p>Many whistleblowers pay a very high price. Chelsea Manning was tortured and imprisoned. Thomas Drake faced life in prison and was left bankrupt and blacklisted. What the government has never managed to take away, however, is their integrity or their voices. And despite their ordeals, the whistleblowers who have suffered the most have often amplified their voices once it was safe to do so. They have continued to advocate for the causes they believe and against the injustices they faced: surveillance reform, ending torture, accountability for war crimes. The least we can do is protect them.</p> | Reality Winner is a Whistleblower | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/06/12/reality-winner-is-a-whistleblower/ | 2017-06-12 | 4left
| Reality Winner is a Whistleblower
<p>Reality Winner, the 25-year-old Air Force veteran and NSA contractor charged with mailing classified material to a news outlet, is a classic whistleblower. She hasn’t claimed that mantle, which is understandable given America’s love-hate relationship with whistleblowers. They are alternately celebrated and denounced, depending on who has the microphone and who has the power.</p>
<p>A whistleblower is a current or former employee who reveals what she reasonably believes evidences fraud, waste, abuse, illegality, or a danger to public health and safety. The individual can disclose their concerns to their superiors, Congress, an interest group representative, or the media. Unfortunately, often nothing gets fixed when employees report internally; in fact, they often become the target of any investigation that ensues. This is especially true in the Intelligence Community, where whistleblowers lack strong protection from retaliation. It is easier to shoot the messenger than listen to the message. And the message here is one that has been contested by the President of the United States: that Russia tried – strenuously – to hack our presidential election.</p>
<p>When you can’t shoot the messenger—many whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake had unassailable personal and professional records—those in power will then go after a subsidiary issue: how the leak occurred. In the case of Reality Winner, she has been criticized for mailing the information from her hometown post office in Augusta, Georgia. She has been criticized for using snail-mail, instead of a whistleblower submission system like SecureDrop. (Here it is worth noting that whistleblowers who have blown the whistle over encrypted channels have sometimes faced added charges for obstruction of justice.) She has been criticized for her choice of the media outlet to which to leak.</p>
<p>Her undoing, however, was not because of her choices. Whistleblowers face a panoply of hard choices—whether to complain internally or go public, whether to report anonymously or identify themselves, whether to protect their colleagues from their life-altering decision or put them in the position of being witnesses. There is no right answer. As a general matter, whistleblowers try to call out wrongdoing while sustaining the least damage to themselves, their families, and their colleagues.</p>
<p>The most successful whistleblowers—from Daniel Ellsberg to Edward Snowden—have gone to the media, which brings the benefits of speed, objectivity and investigative resources. When Reality Winner picked this and true path that I and so many other whistleblowers have taken, I doubt she was thinking about how it could land her in jail. I am quite confident she was more concerned about correcting the public and historical record, and giving the truth a fighting chance in a political landscape increasingly overrun with lies.</p>
<p>Many whistleblowers pay a very high price. Chelsea Manning was tortured and imprisoned. Thomas Drake faced life in prison and was left bankrupt and blacklisted. What the government has never managed to take away, however, is their integrity or their voices. And despite their ordeals, the whistleblowers who have suffered the most have often amplified their voices once it was safe to do so. They have continued to advocate for the causes they believe and against the injustices they faced: surveillance reform, ending torture, accountability for war crimes. The least we can do is protect them.</p> | 4,279 |
<p>By Sarah Lazare / <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/us-vulnerable-war-crimes-charge-supporting-saudi-bombing-innocents-yemen" type="external">AlterNet</a></p>
<p>A few days ago, White House National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price released a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/08/statement-nsc-spokesperson-ned-price-yemen" type="external">statement</a> claiming that the Obama administration is “deeply disturbed” by reports that a recent Saudi coalition airstrike on a funeral procession in Yemen killed at least 140 people. “U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check,” he proclaimed.</p>
<p>Yet, internal government documents exposed Monday by Reuters journalists Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay cast doubt on such claims, revealing that the Obama administration has long known that the 18-month military campaign is killing thousands of civilians in Yemen and could implicate the United States in war crimes.</p>
<p>“The Obama administration went ahead with a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings from some officials that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for supporting a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians,” write Strobel and Landay. The journalists cite “the accounts of current and former officials, as well as government documents from mid-May 2015 to February 2016 that were obtained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act Request (see <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50E/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC1.pdf" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50F/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC2.pdf" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50G/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC3.pdf" type="external">here</a> and <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50H/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC4.pdf" type="external">here</a>).</p>
<p />
<p>Notably, the Reuters report reveals that “State Department officials also were privately skeptical of the Saudi military’s ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying ‘critical infrastructure’ needed for Yemen to recover.” One particularly damning passage reads:</p>
<p>State Department lawyers “had their hair on fire” as reports of civilian casualties in Yemen multiplied in 2015, and prominent human rights groups charged that Washington could be complicit in war crimes, one U.S. official said. That official and the others requested anonymity.</p>
<p>During an October 2015 meeting with private human rights groups, a State Department specialist on protecting civilians in conflict acknowledged Saudi strikes were going awry.</p>
<p>“The strikes are not intentionally indiscriminate but rather result from a lack of Saudi experience with dropping munitions and firing missiles,” the specialist said, according to a department account of the meeting.</p>
<p>According to Reuters, Obama administration lawyers were ultimately undecided about whether the role of the U.S. government as a “co-belligerent” would put it at risk of war crimes charges. Strobel and Landay note that “one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.”</p>
<p>Human rights rights organizations say there is a compelling case for war crimes charges to be filed against the United States, which is one of at least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.</p>
<p>Amnesty International <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/" type="external">says</a> it has documented “more than 30 air strikes across six different governorates (Sana’a, Sa’da, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ta’iz and Lahj) by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition that appear to have violated international humanitarian law (the rules that apply during a conflict which are sometimes known as the “laws of war”), resulting in 366 civilian deaths (more than half of whom were women and children) and 272 civilian injuries. These have included attacks that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals, schools, markets and mosques, which may amount to war crimes.”</p>
<p>Since March 2015, Washington approved more than $22.2 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, not all of which has arrived. The Obama administration has deployed troops, assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting intelligence and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at least <a href="http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefire/" type="external">21 million people</a> in desperate need of food.</p>
<p>Throughout the campaign, coalition bombs have consistently struck civilians, including <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civilians-0" type="external">factories</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-wedding-party-killing-dozens.html" type="external">weddings</a> and even a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for-the-blind-in-yemen/" type="external">center for the blind</a>. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708" type="external">majority</a> of the thousands of civilians killed and wounded.</p> | Is the U.S. Vulnerable to War Crimes Charge for Supporting Saudi Bombing of Innocents in Yemen? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/is-the-u-s-vulnerable-to-war-crimes-charge-for-supporting-saudi-bombing-of-innocents-in-yemen/ | 2016-10-11 | 4left
| Is the U.S. Vulnerable to War Crimes Charge for Supporting Saudi Bombing of Innocents in Yemen?
<p>By Sarah Lazare / <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/us-vulnerable-war-crimes-charge-supporting-saudi-bombing-innocents-yemen" type="external">AlterNet</a></p>
<p>A few days ago, White House National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price released a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/08/statement-nsc-spokesperson-ned-price-yemen" type="external">statement</a> claiming that the Obama administration is “deeply disturbed” by reports that a recent Saudi coalition airstrike on a funeral procession in Yemen killed at least 140 people. “U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check,” he proclaimed.</p>
<p>Yet, internal government documents exposed Monday by Reuters journalists Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay cast doubt on such claims, revealing that the Obama administration has long known that the 18-month military campaign is killing thousands of civilians in Yemen and could implicate the United States in war crimes.</p>
<p>“The Obama administration went ahead with a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings from some officials that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for supporting a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians,” write Strobel and Landay. The journalists cite “the accounts of current and former officials, as well as government documents from mid-May 2015 to February 2016 that were obtained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act Request (see <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50E/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC1.pdf" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50F/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC2.pdf" type="external">here</a>, <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50G/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC3.pdf" type="external">here</a> and <a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN/0100220E50H/USA-SAUDI-YEMEN%20DOC4.pdf" type="external">here</a>).</p>
<p />
<p>Notably, the Reuters report reveals that “State Department officials also were privately skeptical of the Saudi military’s ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying ‘critical infrastructure’ needed for Yemen to recover.” One particularly damning passage reads:</p>
<p>State Department lawyers “had their hair on fire” as reports of civilian casualties in Yemen multiplied in 2015, and prominent human rights groups charged that Washington could be complicit in war crimes, one U.S. official said. That official and the others requested anonymity.</p>
<p>During an October 2015 meeting with private human rights groups, a State Department specialist on protecting civilians in conflict acknowledged Saudi strikes were going awry.</p>
<p>“The strikes are not intentionally indiscriminate but rather result from a lack of Saudi experience with dropping munitions and firing missiles,” the specialist said, according to a department account of the meeting.</p>
<p>According to Reuters, Obama administration lawyers were ultimately undecided about whether the role of the U.S. government as a “co-belligerent” would put it at risk of war crimes charges. Strobel and Landay note that “one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.”</p>
<p>Human rights rights organizations say there is a compelling case for war crimes charges to be filed against the United States, which is one of at least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.</p>
<p>Amnesty International <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/" type="external">says</a> it has documented “more than 30 air strikes across six different governorates (Sana’a, Sa’da, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ta’iz and Lahj) by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition that appear to have violated international humanitarian law (the rules that apply during a conflict which are sometimes known as the “laws of war”), resulting in 366 civilian deaths (more than half of whom were women and children) and 272 civilian injuries. These have included attacks that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals, schools, markets and mosques, which may amount to war crimes.”</p>
<p>Since March 2015, Washington approved more than $22.2 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, not all of which has arrived. The Obama administration has deployed troops, assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting intelligence and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at least <a href="http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefire/" type="external">21 million people</a> in desperate need of food.</p>
<p>Throughout the campaign, coalition bombs have consistently struck civilians, including <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civilians-0" type="external">factories</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-wedding-party-killing-dozens.html" type="external">weddings</a> and even a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for-the-blind-in-yemen/" type="external">center for the blind</a>. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708" type="external">majority</a> of the thousands of civilians killed and wounded.</p> | 4,280 |
<p>It’s almost enough to give socialism a bad name.</p>
<p>We don’t know whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn — who heads the International Monetary Fund and, until a few days ago, was likely to be the Socialist Party candidate for president of France — is guilty of the alleged sexual assault for which he was arrested. Like anyone, he is presumed innocent until court proceedings prove otherwise.</p>
<p>We do know, however, that at the time of the reported incident on Saturday, Strauss-Kahn was resident in a $3,000-a-night luxury suite at a posh Midtown Manhattan hotel. We also know that when he was taken into police custody hours later, aboard a Paris-bound jetliner that was moments from takeoff at John F. Kennedy International Airport, police found him comfortably ensconced in the first-class cabin.</p>
<p>I didn’t think this was how socialists were supposed to roll.</p>
<p />
<p>The tinge of opulent decadence that colors the whole episode would seem, at first impression, to cast a dishonorable light upon powerful, unaccountable, jet-setting international bureaucrats in general, with perhaps a special spotlight of shame for the French-intellectual variety. But Strauss-Kahn, who is based at IMF headquarters in Washington, was apparently in New York on private business. It is conceivable that he and his peers, while carrying out their official duties on behalf of humanity, make do with hotel rooms costing less per night than most workers of the world earn in a year.</p>
<p>Then again, had it been an IMF trip, Strauss-Kahn would have been covered by diplomatic immunity — and thus, perhaps, might have avoided the indignity of being held overnight in the Special Victims Unit lockup while detectives searched his person for potential DNA evidence. He almost certainly would have been spared the handcuffed “perp walk” before a frenzied scrum of photographers as he was transferred to court for arraignment.</p>
<p>It’s hard to look at Strauss-Kahn’s predicament without a sense of irony and perhaps a touch of schadenfreude. There is nothing remotely amusing, however, about the alleged assault — which, I should note, his attorney categorically denies.</p>
<p>Whatever happened took place at the Sofitel, one of the sleeker of New York’s upper-echelon hotels. A 32-year-old female housekeeper — according to published reports, an African immigrant — entered Strauss-Kahn’s suite to clean up, believing the guest had already departed. In her account, Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom. She apologized and tried to leave, but Strauss-Kahn allegedly blocked her way, accosted her in the suite’s bedroom, and then sexually assaulted her in the bathroom.</p>
<p>The housekeeper reported the alleged attack to her supervisors, but by time police were called, Strauss-Kahn had checked out. He later called the hotel to say that he believed he had left his cellphone behind, however, and, according to published reports, a fast-thinking hotel employee told him — falsely — that the phone had been found and asked where it could be delivered. This is apparently how authorities learned he was at JFK, waiting to board an Air France flight to Paris. Airport police swooped in and made the arrest as the jet prepared to push back from the gate.</p>
<p>Strauss-Kahn’s arrest had immediate and far-reaching impact. The most definitive seemed to be the extinction of his political career — and with it, perhaps, the best chance the Socialist Party might have had of defeating President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election. A perp-walk photo is the kind of thing no politician recovers from. Well, no politician except former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.</p>
<p>And the arrest came amid delicate, complicated and urgent negotiations to rescue the European Union’s most threatened economies. Strauss-Kahn was a key figure in the ongoing talks, and while others can pick up where he leaves off, the financial markets could be unnerved by his sudden absence.</p>
<p>Commentators in France expressed shock, outrage and embarrassment. Even if the New York allegations turn out not to be true, the incident revived memories of an admittedly improper affair that Strauss-Kahn had with a subordinate. French newspapers quickly produced stories recounting what they described as Strauss-Kahn’s long history of aggressive, obnoxious, even predatory behavior toward women.</p>
<p>It’s useful to be reminded that there was a time when powerful men could expect such incidents to be dismissed as misunderstandings or indiscretions or peccadilloes, not prosecuted as criminal assaults. Yes, this sounds like the age of the dinosaurs. Dominique Strauss-Kahn gives every evidence of being one.</p>
<p>Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Mr. Big Takes a Perp Walk | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/mr-big-takes-a-perp-walk/ | 2011-05-17 | 4left
| Mr. Big Takes a Perp Walk
<p>It’s almost enough to give socialism a bad name.</p>
<p>We don’t know whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn — who heads the International Monetary Fund and, until a few days ago, was likely to be the Socialist Party candidate for president of France — is guilty of the alleged sexual assault for which he was arrested. Like anyone, he is presumed innocent until court proceedings prove otherwise.</p>
<p>We do know, however, that at the time of the reported incident on Saturday, Strauss-Kahn was resident in a $3,000-a-night luxury suite at a posh Midtown Manhattan hotel. We also know that when he was taken into police custody hours later, aboard a Paris-bound jetliner that was moments from takeoff at John F. Kennedy International Airport, police found him comfortably ensconced in the first-class cabin.</p>
<p>I didn’t think this was how socialists were supposed to roll.</p>
<p />
<p>The tinge of opulent decadence that colors the whole episode would seem, at first impression, to cast a dishonorable light upon powerful, unaccountable, jet-setting international bureaucrats in general, with perhaps a special spotlight of shame for the French-intellectual variety. But Strauss-Kahn, who is based at IMF headquarters in Washington, was apparently in New York on private business. It is conceivable that he and his peers, while carrying out their official duties on behalf of humanity, make do with hotel rooms costing less per night than most workers of the world earn in a year.</p>
<p>Then again, had it been an IMF trip, Strauss-Kahn would have been covered by diplomatic immunity — and thus, perhaps, might have avoided the indignity of being held overnight in the Special Victims Unit lockup while detectives searched his person for potential DNA evidence. He almost certainly would have been spared the handcuffed “perp walk” before a frenzied scrum of photographers as he was transferred to court for arraignment.</p>
<p>It’s hard to look at Strauss-Kahn’s predicament without a sense of irony and perhaps a touch of schadenfreude. There is nothing remotely amusing, however, about the alleged assault — which, I should note, his attorney categorically denies.</p>
<p>Whatever happened took place at the Sofitel, one of the sleeker of New York’s upper-echelon hotels. A 32-year-old female housekeeper — according to published reports, an African immigrant — entered Strauss-Kahn’s suite to clean up, believing the guest had already departed. In her account, Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom. She apologized and tried to leave, but Strauss-Kahn allegedly blocked her way, accosted her in the suite’s bedroom, and then sexually assaulted her in the bathroom.</p>
<p>The housekeeper reported the alleged attack to her supervisors, but by time police were called, Strauss-Kahn had checked out. He later called the hotel to say that he believed he had left his cellphone behind, however, and, according to published reports, a fast-thinking hotel employee told him — falsely — that the phone had been found and asked where it could be delivered. This is apparently how authorities learned he was at JFK, waiting to board an Air France flight to Paris. Airport police swooped in and made the arrest as the jet prepared to push back from the gate.</p>
<p>Strauss-Kahn’s arrest had immediate and far-reaching impact. The most definitive seemed to be the extinction of his political career — and with it, perhaps, the best chance the Socialist Party might have had of defeating President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election. A perp-walk photo is the kind of thing no politician recovers from. Well, no politician except former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.</p>
<p>And the arrest came amid delicate, complicated and urgent negotiations to rescue the European Union’s most threatened economies. Strauss-Kahn was a key figure in the ongoing talks, and while others can pick up where he leaves off, the financial markets could be unnerved by his sudden absence.</p>
<p>Commentators in France expressed shock, outrage and embarrassment. Even if the New York allegations turn out not to be true, the incident revived memories of an admittedly improper affair that Strauss-Kahn had with a subordinate. French newspapers quickly produced stories recounting what they described as Strauss-Kahn’s long history of aggressive, obnoxious, even predatory behavior toward women.</p>
<p>It’s useful to be reminded that there was a time when powerful men could expect such incidents to be dismissed as misunderstandings or indiscretions or peccadilloes, not prosecuted as criminal assaults. Yes, this sounds like the age of the dinosaurs. Dominique Strauss-Kahn gives every evidence of being one.</p>
<p>Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | 4,281 |
<p>Chris Hayes interviewed Hillary Clinton last night, and they talked about Donald Trump's knowing manipulation of public debate.</p>
<p>"This is really interesting to me, because thing is a central analytical question about how this individual operates. because there is these kind of two theories of him," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"One is there is this kind of -- he is this kind of accidental maelstrom that the sort of variety of factors in broader American life have put him in this position. And the other is that he is quite a canny manipulator."</p>
<p>"I'm with the second," Clinton said. "Sometimes his canny manipulation gets out of control. Even he goes too far. But he was a canny manipulator when he became a birther. That was not accidental.</p>
<p>"That was deliberate. He was a canny manipulator when he started his campaign, basically insulting immigrants and calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. And you can go on and on. it was designed to really attach himself to enough of a core of Republican voters and then he would go from there. And along the way he would say things like 'we're not going to touch Medicare, we're not going to touch Medicaid,' all of which he had no real allegiance to.</p>
<p>She said she thinks he was being manipulative and plugging into the "dark underbelly in American politics."</p>
<p>"It's been there forever. It's not a new phenomenon. but what we have done over time is to try to contain it and prevent it from being too big a voice in our politics."</p>
<p>"It's funny you say that. There was this quote today that perfectly buttons this up," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"This is someone talking to White House reporter Jim Acosta. Trump adviser tells me POTUS is winning the cultural war. This is after this weekend in which he is fighting the athletes. "Just made millionaire sports athletes his new Hillary Rodham Clinton."</p>
<p>The tactics worked well enough "to get him the nomination with the help of James Comey and the Russians. It worked well enough to get him elected as I write in my book, because, yeah, I think that the way he positioned himself and his really outrageous language, his insults and attacks, all of that, you could not take your eyes off of him," she said.</p>
<p>"I mean, nobody could figure out what he would do next, which by definition kind of controlled the audience, right? And so he was able to keep slamming. everything bad that was said about him. Everything anything bad said about him, whether it was bankruptcy or defrauding students or elders, the whole nine yards.</p>
<p>Clinton noted Trump is "playing these 40/60 politics. Meaning 40% of the public is with him, 60% is against him."</p>
<p>"Which shouldn't work in a majority democracy and yet it is somehow working," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"Think about this, Chris. His first goal is to try to control the Republicans as much as he can," Clinton said.</p>
<p>"And so what he is doing with that 40%, which still remains a supermajority of Republicans, is to control the party, control his chance going forward, try to discipline or jettison Republicans who don't agree with him by threatening to get them primary opponents or threatening to support the most radical Trump loyalists in a race, so he's trying to maintain that republican core."</p> | Clinton Calls Out Trump As 'A Canny Manipulator' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/09/clinton-calls-out-trump-canny-manipulator | 2017-09-26 | 4left
| Clinton Calls Out Trump As 'A Canny Manipulator'
<p>Chris Hayes interviewed Hillary Clinton last night, and they talked about Donald Trump's knowing manipulation of public debate.</p>
<p>"This is really interesting to me, because thing is a central analytical question about how this individual operates. because there is these kind of two theories of him," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"One is there is this kind of -- he is this kind of accidental maelstrom that the sort of variety of factors in broader American life have put him in this position. And the other is that he is quite a canny manipulator."</p>
<p>"I'm with the second," Clinton said. "Sometimes his canny manipulation gets out of control. Even he goes too far. But he was a canny manipulator when he became a birther. That was not accidental.</p>
<p>"That was deliberate. He was a canny manipulator when he started his campaign, basically insulting immigrants and calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. And you can go on and on. it was designed to really attach himself to enough of a core of Republican voters and then he would go from there. And along the way he would say things like 'we're not going to touch Medicare, we're not going to touch Medicaid,' all of which he had no real allegiance to.</p>
<p>She said she thinks he was being manipulative and plugging into the "dark underbelly in American politics."</p>
<p>"It's been there forever. It's not a new phenomenon. but what we have done over time is to try to contain it and prevent it from being too big a voice in our politics."</p>
<p>"It's funny you say that. There was this quote today that perfectly buttons this up," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"This is someone talking to White House reporter Jim Acosta. Trump adviser tells me POTUS is winning the cultural war. This is after this weekend in which he is fighting the athletes. "Just made millionaire sports athletes his new Hillary Rodham Clinton."</p>
<p>The tactics worked well enough "to get him the nomination with the help of James Comey and the Russians. It worked well enough to get him elected as I write in my book, because, yeah, I think that the way he positioned himself and his really outrageous language, his insults and attacks, all of that, you could not take your eyes off of him," she said.</p>
<p>"I mean, nobody could figure out what he would do next, which by definition kind of controlled the audience, right? And so he was able to keep slamming. everything bad that was said about him. Everything anything bad said about him, whether it was bankruptcy or defrauding students or elders, the whole nine yards.</p>
<p>Clinton noted Trump is "playing these 40/60 politics. Meaning 40% of the public is with him, 60% is against him."</p>
<p>"Which shouldn't work in a majority democracy and yet it is somehow working," Hayes said.</p>
<p>"Think about this, Chris. His first goal is to try to control the Republicans as much as he can," Clinton said.</p>
<p>"And so what he is doing with that 40%, which still remains a supermajority of Republicans, is to control the party, control his chance going forward, try to discipline or jettison Republicans who don't agree with him by threatening to get them primary opponents or threatening to support the most radical Trump loyalists in a race, so he's trying to maintain that republican core."</p> | 4,282 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Both Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS) and Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) have seen better days. While both stocks soared over the past several years, 2016 hasn't been so hot. Shares of Ionis are down around 50% so far this year, and Celgene's stock has dropped by 16% year to date.</p>
<p>Ionis and Celgene have a lot going for them, though. Which biotech stock is the better pick for investors right now? Let's see how they compare.</p>
<p>Although Ionis does have a couple of products on the market, none present a compelling reason to buy the biotech's stock right now. The company terminated Sanofi's license for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH) drugKynamro in January, then licensed the drug out to Kastle Therapeutics a few months later. Kynamro should have pretty good commercial potential, but that potential has yet to be realized.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Ionis developed anti-inflammatory drug alicaforsen and licensed it to Atlantic Pharmaceuticals in 2007. The drug is technically available for sale in Europe, but only under named-patient supply regulations that allow physicians to access medications that haven't yet been approved.</p>
<p>The biotech took a big hit in May when GlaxoSmithKline chose to hold off on moving forward with a planned late-stage study of IONIS-TTRRXin treating TTR amyloid cardiomyopathy.The FDA had placed a clinical hold on another study of the drug, which led to Glaxo's jitters.</p>
<p>So what's the investing case for Ionis in light of all of this bad news? The company's pipeline should still produce plenty of winners. First of all, the story isn't over forIONIS-TTRRX. Ionis has its own phase 3 study under way for the drug as a treatment for familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP)and expects to report data from the study in 2017. Glaxo and Ionis intend to submit for regulatory approval pending positive results from the study.</p>
<p>Ionis also has 29 other clinical studies in progress, most of them in collaboration with partners. I particularly like the prospects for nusinersen. Biogen, which licensed marketing rights to the drug, recently completed its submission of nusinersen to the FDA as a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy. The big biotech is also working to secure regulatory approval in Europe.Evercore ISI analystMark Schoenebaum thinks nusinersen can hit peak annual sales of $1.7 billion.</p>
<p>A lot seems to be going right for Celgene these days -- although the biotech's stock doesn't show it. Celgene topped Wall Street's revenue and earnings expectations so far this year. The company has announced positive results from several clinical studies.</p>
<p>There was one fly in the ointment, though. Interim results announced in July from a phase 3 study of Revlimid in treatingdiffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) were disappointing. While the results showed significant improvement for patients taking Revlimid in progression-free survival, no benefit was seen in overall survival. Celgene ended up abandoning plans to seek approval for the DLBCL indication.</p>
<p>Is this setback significant enough to seriously hurt the investing case for Celgene? Not in my view. Revlimid's sales are growing at a solid rate (18% year-over-year in the second quarter). The drug still has potential in treating other types of cancers.</p>
<p>More importantly, Celgene doesn't depend solely on Revlimid. Sure, the drug accounts for over 60% of total revenue. However, the biotech is seeing sizzling growth with multiple myeoloma drug Pomalyst, as well as Otezla, which treats plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.</p>
<p>Don't overlook Celgene's pipeline, either. The biotech is looking to win approval for additional indications for several of its current drugs. Several new drugs also look promising. Ozanimod is in a couple of late-stage studies, one targeting multiple sclerosis and the other focusing on ulcerative colitis. Mongersen is in a phase 3 study for treatment of Crohn's disease. I also like the potential forsotatercept, which is in a phase 2 study targeting chronic kidney disease.</p>
<p>Celgene believes that it can increase sales at an 18% compounded annual growth rate and earnings per share by 23% annually through 2020. Based on Celgene's past performance, strong product lineup, and solid pipeline, as well as its knack for innovative partnerships, I think the company will achieve those goals.</p>
<p>You've probably already figured out which one of these two biotechs I think is the better buy. Ionis has plenty of potential, but Celgene is the clear winner in my view.</p>
<p>Celgene provides investors strong growth prospects with relatively low risk compared to most biotechs. Expect Celgene to use its $6.4 billion cash stockpile (including cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities) in ways that reward shareholders. Celgene's stock might be down so far in 2016, but I like the odds that shares return to their winning ways soon.</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=2518&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/TMFFishBiz/info.aspx" type="external">Keith Speights Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Celgene. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Biogen, Celgene, and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool has the following options: short October 2016 $95 puts on Celgene. 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> | Better Buy: Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. vs. Celgene | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/17/better-buy-ionis-pharmaceuticals-inc-vs-celgene.html | 2016-10-17 | 0right
| Better Buy: Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. vs. Celgene
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Both Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS) and Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) have seen better days. While both stocks soared over the past several years, 2016 hasn't been so hot. Shares of Ionis are down around 50% so far this year, and Celgene's stock has dropped by 16% year to date.</p>
<p>Ionis and Celgene have a lot going for them, though. Which biotech stock is the better pick for investors right now? Let's see how they compare.</p>
<p>Although Ionis does have a couple of products on the market, none present a compelling reason to buy the biotech's stock right now. The company terminated Sanofi's license for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH) drugKynamro in January, then licensed the drug out to Kastle Therapeutics a few months later. Kynamro should have pretty good commercial potential, but that potential has yet to be realized.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Ionis developed anti-inflammatory drug alicaforsen and licensed it to Atlantic Pharmaceuticals in 2007. The drug is technically available for sale in Europe, but only under named-patient supply regulations that allow physicians to access medications that haven't yet been approved.</p>
<p>The biotech took a big hit in May when GlaxoSmithKline chose to hold off on moving forward with a planned late-stage study of IONIS-TTRRXin treating TTR amyloid cardiomyopathy.The FDA had placed a clinical hold on another study of the drug, which led to Glaxo's jitters.</p>
<p>So what's the investing case for Ionis in light of all of this bad news? The company's pipeline should still produce plenty of winners. First of all, the story isn't over forIONIS-TTRRX. Ionis has its own phase 3 study under way for the drug as a treatment for familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP)and expects to report data from the study in 2017. Glaxo and Ionis intend to submit for regulatory approval pending positive results from the study.</p>
<p>Ionis also has 29 other clinical studies in progress, most of them in collaboration with partners. I particularly like the prospects for nusinersen. Biogen, which licensed marketing rights to the drug, recently completed its submission of nusinersen to the FDA as a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy. The big biotech is also working to secure regulatory approval in Europe.Evercore ISI analystMark Schoenebaum thinks nusinersen can hit peak annual sales of $1.7 billion.</p>
<p>A lot seems to be going right for Celgene these days -- although the biotech's stock doesn't show it. Celgene topped Wall Street's revenue and earnings expectations so far this year. The company has announced positive results from several clinical studies.</p>
<p>There was one fly in the ointment, though. Interim results announced in July from a phase 3 study of Revlimid in treatingdiffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) were disappointing. While the results showed significant improvement for patients taking Revlimid in progression-free survival, no benefit was seen in overall survival. Celgene ended up abandoning plans to seek approval for the DLBCL indication.</p>
<p>Is this setback significant enough to seriously hurt the investing case for Celgene? Not in my view. Revlimid's sales are growing at a solid rate (18% year-over-year in the second quarter). The drug still has potential in treating other types of cancers.</p>
<p>More importantly, Celgene doesn't depend solely on Revlimid. Sure, the drug accounts for over 60% of total revenue. However, the biotech is seeing sizzling growth with multiple myeoloma drug Pomalyst, as well as Otezla, which treats plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.</p>
<p>Don't overlook Celgene's pipeline, either. The biotech is looking to win approval for additional indications for several of its current drugs. Several new drugs also look promising. Ozanimod is in a couple of late-stage studies, one targeting multiple sclerosis and the other focusing on ulcerative colitis. Mongersen is in a phase 3 study for treatment of Crohn's disease. I also like the potential forsotatercept, which is in a phase 2 study targeting chronic kidney disease.</p>
<p>Celgene believes that it can increase sales at an 18% compounded annual growth rate and earnings per share by 23% annually through 2020. Based on Celgene's past performance, strong product lineup, and solid pipeline, as well as its knack for innovative partnerships, I think the company will achieve those goals.</p>
<p>You've probably already figured out which one of these two biotechs I think is the better buy. Ionis has plenty of potential, but Celgene is the clear winner in my view.</p>
<p>Celgene provides investors strong growth prospects with relatively low risk compared to most biotechs. Expect Celgene to use its $6.4 billion cash stockpile (including cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities) in ways that reward shareholders. Celgene's stock might be down so far in 2016, but I like the odds that shares return to their winning ways soon.</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=2518&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/TMFFishBiz/info.aspx" type="external">Keith Speights Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Celgene. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Biogen, Celgene, and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool has the following options: short October 2016 $95 puts on Celgene. 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> | 4,283 |
<p>Somewhere near the beginning of Heist, Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), one of those immensely clever thieves with which the cinematic underworld seems to abound, is seen explaining how he did something that he insists he was not smart enough to do. “I just thought of a guy who was smarter than I was and then imagined what he would do.” That turns out to have been more or less exactly what David Mamet did in thinking up Joe Moore, who — stop reading now if you plan to see the film and want to savor such surprise (not much) as its ending may have to offer you — is always way ahead not only of the cops but of his gangland rivals and his own accomplices. This line, then, is his little post-modern joke. He knows that we know that he knows that these are nothing like real people — let alone real criminals, who are generally quite stupid. Instead, they are counters in a game of greed and treachery which we are meant to be happy to let Mamet play with his hypothetically smarter self.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I like the people in movies to be, like people in real life, capable of being surprised. It is when life sneaks up behind us and smacks us with the wet fish of love or tragedy or joy or bitterness that we are at our most human. And it is in how we respond to life’s little surprises that we define ourselves in the eyes of others. But Joe Moore is a man whom nothing can surprise. “You know me, baby,” he says to his much younger wife, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon): “I don’t tie my shoes without a back-up plan.” Already, by this time, it has been made clear to us that Joe will always have a back-up plan, so the only thrill the movie has to offer is in waiting to see how, each time his enemies seem to get the upper hand, Joe’s back-up plan, or Joe’s master plan, will put Joe back on top.</p>
<p>Even when Fran betrays him — and all the way through we are meant not to be sure whether she has betrayed him or only pretended to have done so as part of Joe’s plan — the smile on Joe’s face tells us that, yeah, he’d already planned on this too. In other words, it’s not the betrayal that matters, as it would in real life. It’s that Joe knows. In fact, Joe always knew. He was just waiting for the audience to catch up with him. Meanwhile, we really have no idea why his enemies are his enemies, or why Fran would betray him with a younger but much less prepossessing thief, Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), when there is no obvious attraction between them. Danny DeVito plays a sort of fence who, for reasons that are never clearly spelled out for us (Mamet obviously has no interest in the subject), has the power to make Joe, against his will, pull one last job. The job to end all jobs. Where have I heard something like this before?</p>
<p>It’s the Swiss job. But, as Mametian budgets don’t run to shooting on foreign locations, the Swiss job is actually pulled off in Boston, which is where, fortunately, Joe happens to be anyway. At least, he’s there until he gets his share of the Swiss gold, hides it with characteristic cleverness, and sails off to the Carribean on his handsome sailing yacht with the shiny brass fittings. Actually, the camera’s lingering on the shiny brass fittings is just another one of the deutero-Mamet’s sleights of hand. Don’t be silly! Would the mastermind do anything as obvious as that? But then it’s not as if the gold turns out to be disguised decking, or masts or cutlery or fish-hooks either. Since nothing cleverer than hiding the gold in plain sight occurs to Mamet’s smarter self, he just puts it, well, somewhere else. The point is that Joe knows and nobody else guesses, so the illusion of Joe’s ever-superior cleverness is preserved.</p>
<p>This game has no charm for me. And I find Mamet’s patented weird-clever dialogue more weird than clever. Occasionally he gets off a good line or two, as when someone at a bar tells Fran that the whisky she is drinking will rot her stomach. “Yeah,” she says, “but I get to drink it first.” Once Joe’s sidekick Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo) tells Jimmy, who claims (with considerable understatement, I should say) not to be a religious man, of a guy he knew in the army who was always a-praying and who kept his Bible close to his heart. And what do you think? One day that Bible stopped a bullet “that woulda just tore up his heart.” Bobby pauses and then says: “Yeah, and if he’d-a had another Bible to put in front of his face he’d-a been alive today.” Jimmy doesn’t laugh much. Nobody in a Mamet movie laughs much, unless it is bitter, ironic laughter. If his people laughed more they would be more like people, and his movies would be the better for it.</p>
<p>But of course they don’t laugh because they are deadpanning the author’s jokes for him, not making them, or listening to them, themselves. Most of the weird-clever stuff consists of what are meant to be snappy comebacks to conventional conversational banalities. Thus: “Nobody lives forever/ Frank Sinatra gave it a shot.” Or “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” Huh? Even when the Baroque metaphors sort of come off, we are more conscious of the fact that this is not something that anyone but David Mamet would ever actually have said. “I’ll be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton,” says Jimmy Silk to Joe. “I don’t want you to be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton,” says Joe fiercely. “I want you to be as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton.” Yeah, old Mamet can think up some pretty good lines. But I wish he’d use them in a stand-up routine instead of going to all the trouble of making a movie just to put them in.</p> | Heist | false | https://eppc.org/publications/heist/ | 1right-center
| Heist
<p>Somewhere near the beginning of Heist, Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), one of those immensely clever thieves with which the cinematic underworld seems to abound, is seen explaining how he did something that he insists he was not smart enough to do. “I just thought of a guy who was smarter than I was and then imagined what he would do.” That turns out to have been more or less exactly what David Mamet did in thinking up Joe Moore, who — stop reading now if you plan to see the film and want to savor such surprise (not much) as its ending may have to offer you — is always way ahead not only of the cops but of his gangland rivals and his own accomplices. This line, then, is his little post-modern joke. He knows that we know that he knows that these are nothing like real people — let alone real criminals, who are generally quite stupid. Instead, they are counters in a game of greed and treachery which we are meant to be happy to let Mamet play with his hypothetically smarter self.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I like the people in movies to be, like people in real life, capable of being surprised. It is when life sneaks up behind us and smacks us with the wet fish of love or tragedy or joy or bitterness that we are at our most human. And it is in how we respond to life’s little surprises that we define ourselves in the eyes of others. But Joe Moore is a man whom nothing can surprise. “You know me, baby,” he says to his much younger wife, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon): “I don’t tie my shoes without a back-up plan.” Already, by this time, it has been made clear to us that Joe will always have a back-up plan, so the only thrill the movie has to offer is in waiting to see how, each time his enemies seem to get the upper hand, Joe’s back-up plan, or Joe’s master plan, will put Joe back on top.</p>
<p>Even when Fran betrays him — and all the way through we are meant not to be sure whether she has betrayed him or only pretended to have done so as part of Joe’s plan — the smile on Joe’s face tells us that, yeah, he’d already planned on this too. In other words, it’s not the betrayal that matters, as it would in real life. It’s that Joe knows. In fact, Joe always knew. He was just waiting for the audience to catch up with him. Meanwhile, we really have no idea why his enemies are his enemies, or why Fran would betray him with a younger but much less prepossessing thief, Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), when there is no obvious attraction between them. Danny DeVito plays a sort of fence who, for reasons that are never clearly spelled out for us (Mamet obviously has no interest in the subject), has the power to make Joe, against his will, pull one last job. The job to end all jobs. Where have I heard something like this before?</p>
<p>It’s the Swiss job. But, as Mametian budgets don’t run to shooting on foreign locations, the Swiss job is actually pulled off in Boston, which is where, fortunately, Joe happens to be anyway. At least, he’s there until he gets his share of the Swiss gold, hides it with characteristic cleverness, and sails off to the Carribean on his handsome sailing yacht with the shiny brass fittings. Actually, the camera’s lingering on the shiny brass fittings is just another one of the deutero-Mamet’s sleights of hand. Don’t be silly! Would the mastermind do anything as obvious as that? But then it’s not as if the gold turns out to be disguised decking, or masts or cutlery or fish-hooks either. Since nothing cleverer than hiding the gold in plain sight occurs to Mamet’s smarter self, he just puts it, well, somewhere else. The point is that Joe knows and nobody else guesses, so the illusion of Joe’s ever-superior cleverness is preserved.</p>
<p>This game has no charm for me. And I find Mamet’s patented weird-clever dialogue more weird than clever. Occasionally he gets off a good line or two, as when someone at a bar tells Fran that the whisky she is drinking will rot her stomach. “Yeah,” she says, “but I get to drink it first.” Once Joe’s sidekick Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo) tells Jimmy, who claims (with considerable understatement, I should say) not to be a religious man, of a guy he knew in the army who was always a-praying and who kept his Bible close to his heart. And what do you think? One day that Bible stopped a bullet “that woulda just tore up his heart.” Bobby pauses and then says: “Yeah, and if he’d-a had another Bible to put in front of his face he’d-a been alive today.” Jimmy doesn’t laugh much. Nobody in a Mamet movie laughs much, unless it is bitter, ironic laughter. If his people laughed more they would be more like people, and his movies would be the better for it.</p>
<p>But of course they don’t laugh because they are deadpanning the author’s jokes for him, not making them, or listening to them, themselves. Most of the weird-clever stuff consists of what are meant to be snappy comebacks to conventional conversational banalities. Thus: “Nobody lives forever/ Frank Sinatra gave it a shot.” Or “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” Huh? Even when the Baroque metaphors sort of come off, we are more conscious of the fact that this is not something that anyone but David Mamet would ever actually have said. “I’ll be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton,” says Jimmy Silk to Joe. “I don’t want you to be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton,” says Joe fiercely. “I want you to be as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton.” Yeah, old Mamet can think up some pretty good lines. But I wish he’d use them in a stand-up routine instead of going to all the trouble of making a movie just to put them in.</p> | 4,284 |
|
<p />
<p>Here's a fun fact if you haven't heard it before: 88% of Fortune 500 companies from 1955 were gone, merged, or contracted by the time the book was closed on 2015. Think about that. Only a meager 12% of companies survived those six decades because of mergers as well as pressure from innovative companies disrupting industries and markets. While your portfolio can succeed with only a few big winners over a long period of time, it's just as important to pick as few big losers as possible.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>With that said, two stocks to absolutely avoid, in my opinion, are Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and Office Depot.</p>
<p>Dr. Pepper Snapple has a few things investors love to see, including some widely recognized brands such as 7UP, A&amp;W Root Beer, Sunkist and, of course, Dr. Pepper and Snapple. The company has also focused on improving its operations, and it very efficiently manages its inventory turns, which have helped improve its profitability despite a stagnant top line. Consider that Dr. Pepper Snapple's revenue has increased a meager 10% over the past eight years since its spinoff. That's not a compound annual growth rate you'll see investors leaping over one another to get their hands on. That stagnant revenue is a signal that the company finds itself battling changing consumer preferences.</p>
<p>Image source: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.</p>
<p>As more and more consumers become health conscious, it's putting companies like Dr. Pepper Snapple on the wrong side of a trend that doesn't appear to be slowing down. Because of a more health-conscious U.S. consumer, soda consumption per capita has consistently declined over the past decade in the U.S. market. That's a bad thing when you consider that Dr. Pepper generates more than 80% of its revenue in the U.S., and its noncarbonated portfolio of drinks make up roughly 18% of the company's volume, according to Morningstar.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Even worse, 12% of the company's 2015 sales were to one customer: Wal-Mart. Investors who deal with Wal-Mart, or have ever shopped there, understand the retail giant's pricing power, which limits Dr. Pepper Snapple's leverage and ability to increase prices and margins.</p>
<p>Ultimately, while Dr. Pepper Snapple's operations are excellent, it faces so many headwinds that it's hard to imagine the company beating the market going forward -- despite having done so over the past decade. Consider that its growth is limited thanks to its No. 3 rank in the carbonated beverage industry -- behindPepsi Co. and Coca-Cola -- in a U.S. market that continues to drink less of said beverages, to boot.</p>
<p>It hasn't been an enjoyable couple of weeks for Office Depot after a U.S. federal judge ordered the deal between the company and competitor Staples be temporarily halted because of antitrust concerns -- forcing the two companies to abandon the merger.</p>
<p>That leaves Office Depot, fresh with $250 million from Staples thanks to the failed merger, working with Bain &amp; Co. to conduct a strategic review of its business -- which is a fancy way of saying "please help -- save us." Office Depot was able to extend its asset-based credit line for five more years with the $1.2 billion line maturing in 2021.</p>
<p>But none of that covers up how badly Office Depot needed this merger, and after the ruling hit the news feeds, the company's stock price abruptly plunged 40%. Office Depot's revenue declined by 10% in 2015, dropping from $16.1 billion to $14.5 billion, and that revenue figure is expected to sink by nearly another $1 billion in 2016 down to $13.6 billion. That pressure was felt on the bottom line last quarter as well, with the company's adjusted operating income dropping 15% compared to the prior year.</p>
<p>Even worse for investors is that Office Depot carries more debt than rival Staples, despite being the smaller of the two companies, which will make it increasingly difficult to fund its turnaround ambitions. Not only that, but the fact is, demand for its office goods are simply in decline, and there's competition from not only Staples -- now that the merger has failed -- but online retailers such asAmazon.</p>
<p>There's a fine line between being a value investor and catching a falling knife. That's how Office Depot appears to me: a falling knife to avoid as demand for its products remains weak and it maintains no clear strategy to take on its competition. Dr. Pepper Snapple, on the other hand, has continued to warrant a fair multiple for its stock price, but with growth stagnant and a business on the wrong side of the health-conscious movement, it doesn't seem like a future winner for investors.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/22/2-stocks-to-avoid-like-the-plague.aspx" type="external">2 Stocks to Avoid Like the Plague Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. 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> | 2 Stocks to Avoid Like the Plague | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/22/2-stocks-to-avoid-like-plague.html | 2016-05-22 | 0right
| 2 Stocks to Avoid Like the Plague
<p />
<p>Here's a fun fact if you haven't heard it before: 88% of Fortune 500 companies from 1955 were gone, merged, or contracted by the time the book was closed on 2015. Think about that. Only a meager 12% of companies survived those six decades because of mergers as well as pressure from innovative companies disrupting industries and markets. While your portfolio can succeed with only a few big winners over a long period of time, it's just as important to pick as few big losers as possible.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>With that said, two stocks to absolutely avoid, in my opinion, are Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and Office Depot.</p>
<p>Dr. Pepper Snapple has a few things investors love to see, including some widely recognized brands such as 7UP, A&amp;W Root Beer, Sunkist and, of course, Dr. Pepper and Snapple. The company has also focused on improving its operations, and it very efficiently manages its inventory turns, which have helped improve its profitability despite a stagnant top line. Consider that Dr. Pepper Snapple's revenue has increased a meager 10% over the past eight years since its spinoff. That's not a compound annual growth rate you'll see investors leaping over one another to get their hands on. That stagnant revenue is a signal that the company finds itself battling changing consumer preferences.</p>
<p>Image source: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.</p>
<p>As more and more consumers become health conscious, it's putting companies like Dr. Pepper Snapple on the wrong side of a trend that doesn't appear to be slowing down. Because of a more health-conscious U.S. consumer, soda consumption per capita has consistently declined over the past decade in the U.S. market. That's a bad thing when you consider that Dr. Pepper generates more than 80% of its revenue in the U.S., and its noncarbonated portfolio of drinks make up roughly 18% of the company's volume, according to Morningstar.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Even worse, 12% of the company's 2015 sales were to one customer: Wal-Mart. Investors who deal with Wal-Mart, or have ever shopped there, understand the retail giant's pricing power, which limits Dr. Pepper Snapple's leverage and ability to increase prices and margins.</p>
<p>Ultimately, while Dr. Pepper Snapple's operations are excellent, it faces so many headwinds that it's hard to imagine the company beating the market going forward -- despite having done so over the past decade. Consider that its growth is limited thanks to its No. 3 rank in the carbonated beverage industry -- behindPepsi Co. and Coca-Cola -- in a U.S. market that continues to drink less of said beverages, to boot.</p>
<p>It hasn't been an enjoyable couple of weeks for Office Depot after a U.S. federal judge ordered the deal between the company and competitor Staples be temporarily halted because of antitrust concerns -- forcing the two companies to abandon the merger.</p>
<p>That leaves Office Depot, fresh with $250 million from Staples thanks to the failed merger, working with Bain &amp; Co. to conduct a strategic review of its business -- which is a fancy way of saying "please help -- save us." Office Depot was able to extend its asset-based credit line for five more years with the $1.2 billion line maturing in 2021.</p>
<p>But none of that covers up how badly Office Depot needed this merger, and after the ruling hit the news feeds, the company's stock price abruptly plunged 40%. Office Depot's revenue declined by 10% in 2015, dropping from $16.1 billion to $14.5 billion, and that revenue figure is expected to sink by nearly another $1 billion in 2016 down to $13.6 billion. That pressure was felt on the bottom line last quarter as well, with the company's adjusted operating income dropping 15% compared to the prior year.</p>
<p>Even worse for investors is that Office Depot carries more debt than rival Staples, despite being the smaller of the two companies, which will make it increasingly difficult to fund its turnaround ambitions. Not only that, but the fact is, demand for its office goods are simply in decline, and there's competition from not only Staples -- now that the merger has failed -- but online retailers such asAmazon.</p>
<p>There's a fine line between being a value investor and catching a falling knife. That's how Office Depot appears to me: a falling knife to avoid as demand for its products remains weak and it maintains no clear strategy to take on its competition. Dr. Pepper Snapple, on the other hand, has continued to warrant a fair multiple for its stock price, but with growth stagnant and a business on the wrong side of the health-conscious movement, it doesn't seem like a future winner for investors.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/22/2-stocks-to-avoid-like-the-plague.aspx" type="external">2 Stocks to Avoid Like the Plague Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. 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> | 4,285 |
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>3-1-7, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(three, one, seven; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>3-1-7, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(three, one, seven; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Cash 3 Midday' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7506e3246082429fa7c267cf93e3c9ad | 2018-01-09 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'Cash 3 Midday' game
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>3-1-7, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(three, one, seven; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>3-1-7, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(three, one, seven; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p> | 4,286 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Joc Pederson is the first Isotope to produce 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in a season. He hit a grand slam in the eighth inning Thursday. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>A day after making Isotopes history, Joc Pederson starred in an Isotopes victory.</p>
<p>The multitalented Los Angeles Dodgers outfield prospect blasted an eighth-inning grand slam Thursday to help Albuquerque pull out an 8-7 comeback win over Fresno at Isotopes Park.</p>
<p>Pederson’s blast – his 21st of the season – capped a five-run rally in which all the runs scored with two outs. Pederson had been 0-for-4 prior to the homer, stranding three runners in scoring position, and admitted he had a little redemption in mind.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I definitely missed some opportunities early to help the team,” Pederson said. “Honestly, I just wanted to get a pitch I could handle and find a way to keep that rally going. Fortunately I got extended and got one on the barrel.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t a classic power swing for Pederson, who Wednesday night became the first Isotopes player to record 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season.</p>
<p>Thursday’s game-turning homer was more of a golf shot as he lined a low off-speed pitch by Fresno closer Heath Hembree over the right-field fence.</p>
<p>“That was a huge at-bat from Joc,” Isotopes manager Damon Berryhill said. “It was a change-up about shin high and he really leaned into it.”</p>
<p>The impressive numbers continue to pile up for Pederson, who is hitting .323 with 53 RBIs and 25 stolen bases in 87 games with the Isotopes this season. He was not aware that no Isotopes player had managed a 20-20 season previously, nor that he was the first Pacific Coast League player to do so since 2009.</p>
<p>“It’s a nice feeling and humbling to be the first (Isotope) to get there,” Pederson said. “But I don’t want to reach that standard and quit. Hopefully, we can keep rolling, get some more Ws and make a playoff push.”</p>
<p>Albuquerque has a long way to go if it is to push Las Vegas in the PCL’s Pacific Southern Division. The 51s came into Thursday with a 9½-game lead over the third-place Isotopes.</p>
<p>Still, there is some reason for optimism. Albuquerque finished its eight-game homestand 6-2 and has won eight of 10 overall, coming from behind in seven of those victories.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We have a lot better lineup right now, and our hitters are starting to believe in each other,” Berryhill said.</p>
<p>The recent addition of Brock Peterson, along with the return of Clint Robinson and Jamie Romak from stints in Los Angeles, has provided significant punch to the Isotopes lineup. Throw in Pederson, who returned from a shoulder injury just prior to the Triple-A All-Star Game, and suddenly the ‘Topes lineup is difficult for opposing pitchers to handle.</p>
<p>That includes Hembree, who came into Thursday’s game with a 3.46 earned-run average and 18 saves in 20 chances.</p>
<p>“Our lineup’s awesome right now,” Pederson said. “One through nine, you have to pitch carefully.”</p>
<p>Hembree may have pitched a bit too carefully prior to facing Pederson, however. He entered the game with two outs, the bases loaded and the Grizzlies leading 7-3 in the eighth.</p>
<p>He walked Isotopes leadoff batter Delvis Morales on five pitches to force in a run and bring Pederson to the plate.</p>
<p>“Delvis put together a quality at-bat and did his job,” Pederson said. “I wanted to hit, so I’m glad he gave me a chance.”</p>
<p>Reliever Yimi Garcia made the one-run lead stand up with a 1-2-3 ninth inning, earning his second save. Rob Carson (2-2) pitched a scoreless eighth to pick up the win.</p>
<p>The Isotopes begin an eight-game road trip tonight that includes series in Reno and Sacramento. They’ll return home to face Tacoma on Aug. 2.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Pederson’s 8th inning grand slam lifts Isotopes | false | https://abqjournal.com/434989/pedersons-slam-the-winner.html | 2least
| Pederson’s 8th inning grand slam lifts Isotopes
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Joc Pederson is the first Isotope to produce 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in a season. He hit a grand slam in the eighth inning Thursday. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>A day after making Isotopes history, Joc Pederson starred in an Isotopes victory.</p>
<p>The multitalented Los Angeles Dodgers outfield prospect blasted an eighth-inning grand slam Thursday to help Albuquerque pull out an 8-7 comeback win over Fresno at Isotopes Park.</p>
<p>Pederson’s blast – his 21st of the season – capped a five-run rally in which all the runs scored with two outs. Pederson had been 0-for-4 prior to the homer, stranding three runners in scoring position, and admitted he had a little redemption in mind.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I definitely missed some opportunities early to help the team,” Pederson said. “Honestly, I just wanted to get a pitch I could handle and find a way to keep that rally going. Fortunately I got extended and got one on the barrel.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t a classic power swing for Pederson, who Wednesday night became the first Isotopes player to record 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season.</p>
<p>Thursday’s game-turning homer was more of a golf shot as he lined a low off-speed pitch by Fresno closer Heath Hembree over the right-field fence.</p>
<p>“That was a huge at-bat from Joc,” Isotopes manager Damon Berryhill said. “It was a change-up about shin high and he really leaned into it.”</p>
<p>The impressive numbers continue to pile up for Pederson, who is hitting .323 with 53 RBIs and 25 stolen bases in 87 games with the Isotopes this season. He was not aware that no Isotopes player had managed a 20-20 season previously, nor that he was the first Pacific Coast League player to do so since 2009.</p>
<p>“It’s a nice feeling and humbling to be the first (Isotope) to get there,” Pederson said. “But I don’t want to reach that standard and quit. Hopefully, we can keep rolling, get some more Ws and make a playoff push.”</p>
<p>Albuquerque has a long way to go if it is to push Las Vegas in the PCL’s Pacific Southern Division. The 51s came into Thursday with a 9½-game lead over the third-place Isotopes.</p>
<p>Still, there is some reason for optimism. Albuquerque finished its eight-game homestand 6-2 and has won eight of 10 overall, coming from behind in seven of those victories.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We have a lot better lineup right now, and our hitters are starting to believe in each other,” Berryhill said.</p>
<p>The recent addition of Brock Peterson, along with the return of Clint Robinson and Jamie Romak from stints in Los Angeles, has provided significant punch to the Isotopes lineup. Throw in Pederson, who returned from a shoulder injury just prior to the Triple-A All-Star Game, and suddenly the ‘Topes lineup is difficult for opposing pitchers to handle.</p>
<p>That includes Hembree, who came into Thursday’s game with a 3.46 earned-run average and 18 saves in 20 chances.</p>
<p>“Our lineup’s awesome right now,” Pederson said. “One through nine, you have to pitch carefully.”</p>
<p>Hembree may have pitched a bit too carefully prior to facing Pederson, however. He entered the game with two outs, the bases loaded and the Grizzlies leading 7-3 in the eighth.</p>
<p>He walked Isotopes leadoff batter Delvis Morales on five pitches to force in a run and bring Pederson to the plate.</p>
<p>“Delvis put together a quality at-bat and did his job,” Pederson said. “I wanted to hit, so I’m glad he gave me a chance.”</p>
<p>Reliever Yimi Garcia made the one-run lead stand up with a 1-2-3 ninth inning, earning his second save. Rob Carson (2-2) pitched a scoreless eighth to pick up the win.</p>
<p>The Isotopes begin an eight-game road trip tonight that includes series in Reno and Sacramento. They’ll return home to face Tacoma on Aug. 2.</p>
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<p /> | 4,287 |
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<p />
<p>3:30 p.m.</p>
<p>The Washington state epidemiologist says more people are being tested for E. coli in Washington state as health officials work to track down the source of an outbreak linked to Chipolte restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.</p>
<p>The official count of people sickened remained at 22 on Monday afternoon, but Dr. Scott Lindquist says about a dozen more people are being tested for the illness in Washington.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Lindquist says he does not expect the number of sick people to increase dramatically, but he said they are not positive yet that the outbreak is limited to people who ate at Chipotle restaurants over the past few weeks. Two people among the 22 cases have told health officials they do not believe they ate at a Chipotle restaurant.</p>
<p>Health officials are aggressively searching for more cases and are trying to find out what the restaurants connected with the outbreak have in common.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1 p.m.</p>
<p>Analysts say the E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in the Northwest could make consumers wary.</p>
<p>Allen Adamson of New York marketing consultancy BrandSimple says people have many fast food options and if they are worried about the safety of food they will avoid a chain until they're certain the problem has been resolved.</p>
<p>Chipotle's stock fell as much as 5 percent early Monday, but recovered slightly, and was down about 3 percent by Monday afternoon.</p>
<p>Although the shutdown restaurants represent just 2 percent of the company's total locations of 1,931, Chipotle says each restaurant brings in about $2.5 million in revenue a year on average.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Laura Ries, president of Atlanta marketing strategy firm Ries &amp; Ries, said the decision to immediately close the 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon will help the brand in the long term. She says the chain "went above and beyond what they needed to do."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>9:45 a.m.</p>
<p>A food safety lawyer who is involved in other lawsuits against Chipotle restaurants says people should not assume a company that focuses on local and fresh ingredients is going to be immune from food safety issues.</p>
<p>An E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Washington state and Oregon has sickened nearly two dozen people in the third outbreak of foodborne illness at the popular chain this year. Chipotle said they would try to say more about the E. coli outbreak later Monday.</p>
<p>Although E. coli cases have only been connected to six restaurants so far, the company has closed 43 restaurants in the two states. Attorney Bill Marler of Seattle law firm Marler Clark says the company should be commended for that action.</p>
<p>But he says three cases of foodborne illness in a few months shows Chipotle is not paying attention to food safety like it should.</p>
<p>Health officials who are investigating the cause of the outbreak believe it is likely connected with a fresh food product. Marler agrees.</p> | The Latest: Chipotle's E. coli scare may make customers wary | false | https://abqjournal.com/669561/the-latest-chipotles-e-coli-scare-may-make-customers-wary.html | 2least
| The Latest: Chipotle's E. coli scare may make customers wary
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>3:30 p.m.</p>
<p>The Washington state epidemiologist says more people are being tested for E. coli in Washington state as health officials work to track down the source of an outbreak linked to Chipolte restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.</p>
<p>The official count of people sickened remained at 22 on Monday afternoon, but Dr. Scott Lindquist says about a dozen more people are being tested for the illness in Washington.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Lindquist says he does not expect the number of sick people to increase dramatically, but he said they are not positive yet that the outbreak is limited to people who ate at Chipotle restaurants over the past few weeks. Two people among the 22 cases have told health officials they do not believe they ate at a Chipotle restaurant.</p>
<p>Health officials are aggressively searching for more cases and are trying to find out what the restaurants connected with the outbreak have in common.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1 p.m.</p>
<p>Analysts say the E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in the Northwest could make consumers wary.</p>
<p>Allen Adamson of New York marketing consultancy BrandSimple says people have many fast food options and if they are worried about the safety of food they will avoid a chain until they're certain the problem has been resolved.</p>
<p>Chipotle's stock fell as much as 5 percent early Monday, but recovered slightly, and was down about 3 percent by Monday afternoon.</p>
<p>Although the shutdown restaurants represent just 2 percent of the company's total locations of 1,931, Chipotle says each restaurant brings in about $2.5 million in revenue a year on average.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Laura Ries, president of Atlanta marketing strategy firm Ries &amp; Ries, said the decision to immediately close the 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon will help the brand in the long term. She says the chain "went above and beyond what they needed to do."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>9:45 a.m.</p>
<p>A food safety lawyer who is involved in other lawsuits against Chipotle restaurants says people should not assume a company that focuses on local and fresh ingredients is going to be immune from food safety issues.</p>
<p>An E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Washington state and Oregon has sickened nearly two dozen people in the third outbreak of foodborne illness at the popular chain this year. Chipotle said they would try to say more about the E. coli outbreak later Monday.</p>
<p>Although E. coli cases have only been connected to six restaurants so far, the company has closed 43 restaurants in the two states. Attorney Bill Marler of Seattle law firm Marler Clark says the company should be commended for that action.</p>
<p>But he says three cases of foodborne illness in a few months shows Chipotle is not paying attention to food safety like it should.</p>
<p>Health officials who are investigating the cause of the outbreak believe it is likely connected with a fresh food product. Marler agrees.</p> | 4,288 |
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<p>Council member David Grosso introduced a bill that would require the city to include LGBT questions in an annual health survey.(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At-Large) introduced a bill on June 28 that would require the city’s Department of Health to include questions pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity in its annual public health survey.</p>
<p>“That survey, called the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, is a cross-sectional telephone survey conducted by state health departments in all 50 states and D.C., with technical and methodological assistance provided by the [U.S.] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” Grosso said in a statement.</p>
<p>Grosso said he contacted DOH Director LaQuandra Nesbitt earlier this year after community activists informed him that LGBT-related questions were included in the D.C. survey. He said he asked her why.</p>
<p>“I was surprised that her answer was that the questions would be too expensive to add, some $3,000 each, out of a departmental budget that is over $200 million,” Grosso said.</p>
<p>“Yet without good data, we cannot know what kinds of programs to design, what interventions to fund, or if our efforts are effective or not in promoting the health of our city in all its diversity,” he said.</p>
<p>“This is a very simple bill,” he added. “It requires the Department of Health to gather demographic data on sexual orientation and gender identity as part of its annual public health survey of adults in D.C.”</p>
<p>Eleven of Grosso’s 12 Council colleagues signed on to the bill either as co-introducers or co-sponsors, indicating that the bill will pass when it comes before the full Council for a vote.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Behavioral Risk Factor Survey</a> <a href="" type="internal">CDC</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Council</a> <a href="" type="internal">David Grosso</a> <a href="" type="internal">Department of Health</a> <a href="" type="internal">DOH</a> <a href="" type="internal">LaQuandra Nesbitt</a> <a href="" type="internal">United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a></p> | Grosso introduces LGBT ‘health data’ bill | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/07/06/grosso-introduces-lgbt-health-data-bill/ | 3left-center
| Grosso introduces LGBT ‘health data’ bill
<p>Council member David Grosso introduced a bill that would require the city to include LGBT questions in an annual health survey.(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At-Large) introduced a bill on June 28 that would require the city’s Department of Health to include questions pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity in its annual public health survey.</p>
<p>“That survey, called the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, is a cross-sectional telephone survey conducted by state health departments in all 50 states and D.C., with technical and methodological assistance provided by the [U.S.] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” Grosso said in a statement.</p>
<p>Grosso said he contacted DOH Director LaQuandra Nesbitt earlier this year after community activists informed him that LGBT-related questions were included in the D.C. survey. He said he asked her why.</p>
<p>“I was surprised that her answer was that the questions would be too expensive to add, some $3,000 each, out of a departmental budget that is over $200 million,” Grosso said.</p>
<p>“Yet without good data, we cannot know what kinds of programs to design, what interventions to fund, or if our efforts are effective or not in promoting the health of our city in all its diversity,” he said.</p>
<p>“This is a very simple bill,” he added. “It requires the Department of Health to gather demographic data on sexual orientation and gender identity as part of its annual public health survey of adults in D.C.”</p>
<p>Eleven of Grosso’s 12 Council colleagues signed on to the bill either as co-introducers or co-sponsors, indicating that the bill will pass when it comes before the full Council for a vote.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Behavioral Risk Factor Survey</a> <a href="" type="internal">CDC</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Council</a> <a href="" type="internal">David Grosso</a> <a href="" type="internal">Department of Health</a> <a href="" type="internal">DOH</a> <a href="" type="internal">LaQuandra Nesbitt</a> <a href="" type="internal">United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a></p> | 4,289 |
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<p>On Thursday night, Paul Ryan showed up to debate&#160;Joe. Smiley Joe. Laughing Joe.&#160;Subdued Joe. Heartfelt Joe - and many others.</p>
<p>For the most part, though, a smug Vice President Joe Biden, using a contemptuous tone and a smirk, attempted to deflect Ryan's attacks on the administration's economic record as "malarkey." &#160;Ryan, conceding that Barack Obama had inherited a deep recession, argued that the administration had given us the weakest economic bounce-back in American history.</p>
<p>"This is not what a real recovery looks like," Ryan said.</p>
<p />
<p>Since Ryan's strength is fiscal policy, however, a debate concentrated on foreign policy put him at somewhat of a disadvantage. And moderator Martha Raddatz, ABC's chief international correspondent, <a href="" type="internal">did little to&#160;blunt</a> Biden's most effective debate weapon: incessantly interrupting Ryan.</p>
<p>Stylistically speaking, the vice president - between dismissive laughter and head shaking - made broad emotional and sometimes personal appeals to the middle class. A senator since 1973, Biden played the man of the people, attempted to portray Mitt Romney as an uncaring plutocrat, out of touch with the average American.</p>
<p>The vice president was less effective on facts, however. He continually swatted away claims that small business would be hit by President Obama's tax hikes, even though an Internal Revenue Service <a href="" type="internal">recently found</a> that&#160;Bush-era tax rates would mean around 1 million companies would be hit with new taxes.</p>
<p>"There aren't enough rich people and small businesses to tax to pay for all their spending," Mr. Ryan said, attacking the central promise of a second term - tax hikes. "Watch out middle class, the tax bill is coming to you."</p>
<p>Biden also claimed falsely asserted that the Obama Administration had not raised taxes on the middle class, when in fact there are <a href="http://www.atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-a6996" type="external">over a dozen</a> middle class hike in Obamacare alone.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Relying on a single left-wing study</a>, Biden continued to make the Obama campaign's case that Romney's tax&#160;reform plan was mathematically impossible, despite the fact that other <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/ceps/workingpapers/228rosen.pdf" type="external">studies</a> find that it's feasible. And Ryan laid out the job numbers in proper perspective - as stagnant.</p>
<p>The Wisconsin Republican was most effective when stringing together the impressively long list of the administration's broken promises on the economy - the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrlMr0Bedo" type="external">failure</a> to cut the deficit in half and the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/329696/pretense-knowledge-september-2012-job-numbers-edition-veronique-de-rugy" type="external">failure</a> to bring unemployment to under 6 percent were the most notable. &#160;Ryan pointed out that 15 percent of Americans live in poverty and&#160;23 million Americans struggling for jobs. Biden argued that the Obama Administration would continue focus on&#160;leveling the playing field.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely that a vice presidential debate will move the needle in either direction, but it's a good preview of what's in store down the stretch - emotion vs. reason.</p>
<p>Bonus video: Smirky Joe:</p>
<p /> | Joe Biden: Mr. Malarkey | true | http://humanevents.com/2012/10/12/biden-mr-malarkey-on-the-economy/ | 2012-10-12 | 0right
| Joe Biden: Mr. Malarkey
<p>On Thursday night, Paul Ryan showed up to debate&#160;Joe. Smiley Joe. Laughing Joe.&#160;Subdued Joe. Heartfelt Joe - and many others.</p>
<p>For the most part, though, a smug Vice President Joe Biden, using a contemptuous tone and a smirk, attempted to deflect Ryan's attacks on the administration's economic record as "malarkey." &#160;Ryan, conceding that Barack Obama had inherited a deep recession, argued that the administration had given us the weakest economic bounce-back in American history.</p>
<p>"This is not what a real recovery looks like," Ryan said.</p>
<p />
<p>Since Ryan's strength is fiscal policy, however, a debate concentrated on foreign policy put him at somewhat of a disadvantage. And moderator Martha Raddatz, ABC's chief international correspondent, <a href="" type="internal">did little to&#160;blunt</a> Biden's most effective debate weapon: incessantly interrupting Ryan.</p>
<p>Stylistically speaking, the vice president - between dismissive laughter and head shaking - made broad emotional and sometimes personal appeals to the middle class. A senator since 1973, Biden played the man of the people, attempted to portray Mitt Romney as an uncaring plutocrat, out of touch with the average American.</p>
<p>The vice president was less effective on facts, however. He continually swatted away claims that small business would be hit by President Obama's tax hikes, even though an Internal Revenue Service <a href="" type="internal">recently found</a> that&#160;Bush-era tax rates would mean around 1 million companies would be hit with new taxes.</p>
<p>"There aren't enough rich people and small businesses to tax to pay for all their spending," Mr. Ryan said, attacking the central promise of a second term - tax hikes. "Watch out middle class, the tax bill is coming to you."</p>
<p>Biden also claimed falsely asserted that the Obama Administration had not raised taxes on the middle class, when in fact there are <a href="http://www.atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-a6996" type="external">over a dozen</a> middle class hike in Obamacare alone.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Relying on a single left-wing study</a>, Biden continued to make the Obama campaign's case that Romney's tax&#160;reform plan was mathematically impossible, despite the fact that other <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/ceps/workingpapers/228rosen.pdf" type="external">studies</a> find that it's feasible. And Ryan laid out the job numbers in proper perspective - as stagnant.</p>
<p>The Wisconsin Republican was most effective when stringing together the impressively long list of the administration's broken promises on the economy - the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrlMr0Bedo" type="external">failure</a> to cut the deficit in half and the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/329696/pretense-knowledge-september-2012-job-numbers-edition-veronique-de-rugy" type="external">failure</a> to bring unemployment to under 6 percent were the most notable. &#160;Ryan pointed out that 15 percent of Americans live in poverty and&#160;23 million Americans struggling for jobs. Biden argued that the Obama Administration would continue focus on&#160;leveling the playing field.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely that a vice presidential debate will move the needle in either direction, but it's a good preview of what's in store down the stretch - emotion vs. reason.</p>
<p>Bonus video: Smirky Joe:</p>
<p /> | 4,290 |
<p>AMES, Iowa (AP) — An Ames company where a worker was fatally injured says a safety device fell on him.</p>
<p>Danfoss Power Solutions said in a news release Sunday that a preliminary investigation determined that a safety hood on a motor testing operation struck 45-year-old John Lavery. The Ames resident died about 4 p.m. Thursday at the hydraulic motors plant.</p>
<p>The company says it is replacing all the other safety hoods with a new design that the company says will prevent similar accidents.</p>
<p>Federal officials have joined the accident investigation.</p>
<p>AMES, Iowa (AP) — An Ames company where a worker was fatally injured says a safety device fell on him.</p>
<p>Danfoss Power Solutions said in a news release Sunday that a preliminary investigation determined that a safety hood on a motor testing operation struck 45-year-old John Lavery. The Ames resident died about 4 p.m. Thursday at the hydraulic motors plant.</p>
<p>The company says it is replacing all the other safety hoods with a new design that the company says will prevent similar accidents.</p>
<p>Federal officials have joined the accident investigation.</p> | Company says safety shield fatally injured worker | false | https://apnews.com/b9ebff1206ca4f3d92917738360fb1a5 | 2018-01-22 | 2least
| Company says safety shield fatally injured worker
<p>AMES, Iowa (AP) — An Ames company where a worker was fatally injured says a safety device fell on him.</p>
<p>Danfoss Power Solutions said in a news release Sunday that a preliminary investigation determined that a safety hood on a motor testing operation struck 45-year-old John Lavery. The Ames resident died about 4 p.m. Thursday at the hydraulic motors plant.</p>
<p>The company says it is replacing all the other safety hoods with a new design that the company says will prevent similar accidents.</p>
<p>Federal officials have joined the accident investigation.</p>
<p>AMES, Iowa (AP) — An Ames company where a worker was fatally injured says a safety device fell on him.</p>
<p>Danfoss Power Solutions said in a news release Sunday that a preliminary investigation determined that a safety hood on a motor testing operation struck 45-year-old John Lavery. The Ames resident died about 4 p.m. Thursday at the hydraulic motors plant.</p>
<p>The company says it is replacing all the other safety hoods with a new design that the company says will prevent similar accidents.</p>
<p>Federal officials have joined the accident investigation.</p> | 4,291 |
<p>Out in the high desert of Nevada’s basin and range country, down roads with names like the Extraterrestrial Highway that run off into the sky, and where the hardscrabble rancher and the miner still call the shots, a full-scale insurrection was born.</p>
<p>You drive through this sagebrush landscape for miles and never see another car. Then, suddenly, you come across a man sitting by the side of the road, staring off into the distance of a bombing test range, watching for the latest incarnation of the Stealth bomber or maybe a UFO. This is Edward Abbey country, home to loners and drifters, people on the lam, desert anarchists.</p>
<p>In the corner of a Tonopah coffee shop, called the Station, next door to the incessant cacophony of a casino, where old ladies play the slots and men gather in clouds of ambient smoke around the roulette wheels, sat Wayne Hage, a top icon of the Sagebrush Rebels. Three years after his death in 2006, Hage remains a heroic figure for Western traditionalists in their fight against the evil doers in Washington and the environmentalist menace.</p>
<p>Here at the Station House, Hage sat, day after day, drinking bottomless cups of bitter cowboy coffee and looking out the window at the rusting remnants of mining derricks strewn across the town. Trucks thundered past, and in the sky, the odd Japanese tourist teetered precariously with his camera from a hot air balloon that carried him past the wonders of the old mining world, being celebrated at the annual Jim Baker Days, a weeklong drunkfest in honor of the miner who, the story goes, discovered Tonopah’s silver load when his mule kicked at him and dislodged some rocks that glistened in the sun.</p>
<p>Wayne Hage was the man to see if you really wanted to know what motivated the Wise Use Movement’s battle against environmentalists and the federal government. Hage was reluctant to meet on this blistering day in early June. He said he’d been hammered by the press too often, especially by the liberal press with an ax to grind against the Wise Users.</p>
<p>The Wise Use Movement consists of more than a thousand local organizations across the country, representing roughly three million people—people who fear the infringement of their property rights, mostly by what they see as oppressive federal government regulations. These are Palin people– rural, gun-packing Christians.</p>
<p>Some of these groups are simply out for money: they want the federal government to pay them considerable sums in exchange for changing traditional uses of their property that have run afoul of federal laws or even in exchange for cutbacks in the commercial use of public lands or resources. Custom and culture, they call it.</p>
<p>Other Wise Use groups have congealed as a political force to demand unrestricted access to federal lands, whether it be to log, run cattle, or for less than environmentally friendly recreational pursuits, such as off-road motorcycling or snowmobiling.</p>
<p>Corporate America has also invested heavily in certain factions of the Wise Use movement, using them as a grassroots stalking horse in their efforts to the preserve the archaic system of laws and regulations that allow them heavily subsidized entry to the natural wealth of the public domain. With the active help of Republicans in congress and a weak, conflict-averse executive branch , the big transnationals are intensifying their efforts to exploit the land, notably through the revival of gold mining and wide-spread oil and gas drilling.</p>
<p>The federal lands are at the center of a growing political struggle over the concept of property rights. Making up one-third of the nation, the public domain is by federal agencies, such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, and encompasses what remains of the nation’s valuable minerals, old growth forests, native grasslands and the extremely valuable oil and gas reserves—from the Rocky Mountain Front to the outer continental shelf.</p>
<p>Although shown as a lush green on road maps, much of this territory has been grotesquely transformed over the last half century by big companies into kind of industrial wasteland, consisting of atomic and other bombing ranges, ammo dumps, military and energy facilities, strip mines, clearcuts, dammed, dredged and scoured rivers, and leaching mounds of cyanide. Still, though victim to decades of abuse and neglect, the public lands also hold the last remnants of wild America, its salmon and trout, elk, grizzlies, spotted owls and wolves, its ancient forests, deserts and mountains—the American wilderness.</p>
<p>The Wise Use movement has created a profile of its enemy. They see themselves as being engaged in a high-stakes chess game with the elite legions of the environmental movement, who are covertly carrying out a sinister master plan, a vast socialist experiment to depopulate the rural West. As evidence they point to the Wildlands Project and to quotes from various greens calling for a 50 percent reduction in North America’s population by the year 2100. The Wise Use movement often suggests that the real goal of the environmental movement is to clear rural Westerners off the land, so the West can be turned into an “eco-theme park” for the pleasures of vacationing suburbanites.</p>
<p>In order to advance their socialist agenda, the Wise Users argue, environmental infiltrated the federal government. Under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the thinking goes, embedded key leaders into powerful positions inside the EPA, Interior and Agriculture Departments, and then, acting through their positions on government regulatory bodies, the environmentalists have set out to first reduce and then eliminate all grazing and logging on public lands and sharly curtail mining by driving up the cost of doing business.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Wayne Hage argued, through the Endangered Species Act, environmentalists have covertly turned fights over such seemingly innocent creatures as the coho salmon, northern spotted owl and gray wolf into national symbols of a broad land use planning instrument, a kind of bureaucratic club wielded against rural landowners.</p>
<p>Occupying a ranking position on the Wise Use movement’s enemies list is former Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who initiated the National Biological Survey in 1993—known in the ominous parlance of the Wise Use movement as the NBS. “The NBS is fascist, man, it’s socialist,” proclaimed Chuck Cushman, head of the American Land Rights Association, based in Battle Ground, Washington. “These guys map your property with infrared satellite photos, looking for plants, you know, then they can actually come on your property without your permission. If they find one of those plants, you know you’re screwed worse than if they found dope.”</p>
<p>But, of course, in the minds of many of these Sagebrush populists, the real menace lies not with the environmentalists, but with the political and financial powers that prop them up. It is the big East Coast foundations who now provide the principle financing of the big green organizations that are pulling the strings. And who is behind these foundations? The Rockefellers, the Pews, the Mellons and other titanic American families made rich through the Standard Oil trust and the like. Through their securities portfolios, naturally, these foundations are interlocked with the multinational corporations that run the world, and who eye the public estate as a source of cheap wealth when times get hard. And thus it is, according to Hage and his followers, that the small rancher in the Interior West is driven off the land by Forest Service and BLM rangers who are nothing more or less than federal agents of the Rockefellers.</p>
<p>“It’s not some deep dark conspiracy,” Hage told us in 1994. “The information is out there for anyone to see. Most people don’t pay attention to economics. And when they do, they say, ‘My god, it’s one of those conspiracy theories.’ No, it isn’t. It’s just the record. So you have the environmental movement as a stalking-horse, used to carry out the transfer of property rights of individuals over to the hands of government and multinational corporations, which serve the interest of the old nobility under the monarchists. And look at who owns these damn gold mines out here in Nevada … foreign corporations.”</p>
<p>In 1991, Hage’s cattle were impounded and sold off by Forest Service agents after the rancher blatantly overgrazed his allotment on the Toiyabe National Forest in central Nevada. Hage promptly closed down his cattle operation and filed a $24 million suit against the Forest Service in federal claims court The suit, which became a cause celebre for the property rights movement, alleged that the seizure amounted to a “taking” of his property rights.</p>
<p>Hage wrote a manifesto titled Storm Over Rangelands, which presented his historical overview of the political economic of the western United States. Hage and his book have become part of a carefully crafted legend that occupies center stage in the Wise Use movement.</p>
<p>According to Hage’s interpretation of western history, the public lands were always meant to be sold off to private ownership—and even though they never were, the actual ownership at the end of the 20th century has become a mélange of various tangled interests, both public and private: the so-called split estate. In fact, Hage argued, there’s no such thing as “public” lands. Of course, that didn’t stope the government from expropriating them, nationalizing the lands over and over again.</p>
<p>As an example of this kind of thought lurking in the shadows of American history, Hage pointed to the career of Carl Schurz, Interior Secretary under President Rutherford B. Hayes. Hage wrote in Storm Over Rangelands that “Schurz’s efforts to prevent the establishment of private property rights on the public lands may have sprung from his socialist background. Schurz was a controversial German immigrant who had fought along with Karl Marx in the Revolution of 1848, came to America, was elected senator from Missouri and supported the radical Republican’s reconstruction plans.”</p>
<p>So, argued Hage, with the nation deeply in debt after the Civil War, the European banking houses, led by the Rothschilds, conspired with the federal government to use the western lands as collateral against repayment of the war debt. The government reneged on the Spanish land grants and sent the cavalry out to kill off the Indians, who had real and justifiable land claims, to clear away any obstacles to this loan repayment scheme. The European financial interests joined forces with the big East Coast families to build the railroads, control the new towns and farms and, through the American Cattle Trust, turn the livestock business into a huge monopoly.</p>
<p>It was, after all, that great hero of environmentalism, geologist Clarence King, explorer of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the father of the Smithsonian Institution and Geological Survey, the very father of federal science, who secretly sent his geology students from Ivy League schools to rustle cattle for his own profit on the western plains during summer vacation, abetting his huge cattle operation.</p>
<p>As time went on, according to Hage’s history, western lands were set aside through the conservation movement, starting with Yellowstone National Park, then Yosemite. These shrines to conservation were, according to Hageian theory, part of a vast project of “nationalization,” the equivalent, Hage wrote, of the “crown lands” in England.</p>
<p>Hage also contemptuously cites how the Taylor Grazing Act, which organized and regulated public land grazing during the 1930s, “created the collateral base for funding of Roosevelt’s New Deal.” According to Hage similar expansions of federal authority over western lands coincided with the Vietnam War (Wilderness Act).</p>
<p>Hage was one of the leaders of a group called Stewards of the Range, headquartered in Boise, Idaho, and founded by Hage’s attorney Mark Pollot, a former assistant secretary of the Interior under James Watt during the early Reagan years. During his tenure at Interior, Pollot authored Executive Order 12630, which required the federal government to attest that all federal agencies compensated landowners if federal regulations or actions infringed on property rights. Pollot’s group, Stewards of the Range, became a legal battering ram in the ranchers’ running resistance against federal authority, backing, for example, Cliff Gardner’s willful trespass of his cattle on lands of the Humboldt National Forest in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>A thousand miles north in the posh Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Washington, are the officesof the group that published Hage’s manifesto: the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. The group is run by Ron Arnold, the man who coined the term “eco-terrorism,” and his business partner Alan Gottlieb. Together they served as the field managers and media packagers for the property rights movement.</p>
<p>Arnold was a former draftsman for Boeing, a public relations man for different companies, a writer and film-maker, while Gottlieb made his money (lots of it, too) from direct mail operations for Republican candidates, and most significantly, from gun groups, including the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Bear Arms. Gottlieb also published a magazine called Women and Guns.</p>
<p>The Wise Use movement is a significant popular grouping. “There are 1200 to 1500 groups we can identify,” said Arnold. “Few of these groups ever got any real money from big corporations. Neither are they especially aligned with small business. In fact, probably a third of our members are housewives.” Altogether, Arnold and Gottlieb estimated that there are as many as three million people on their mailing list.</p>
<p>Much of the Wise Use movement has a strong, though peculiar, libertarian bent. “There’s a strain that runs through it that is upset with government interfering in their lives,” said Gottlieb. “Not just libertarian or conservative, but an awful lot of people who are to the left of center and they are very upset with the government telling them what to do.”</p>
<p>These people are the proto-tea-baggers, a strange mix of populists, anarchists and libertarians. “It’s a diverse collective,” Arnold said. “For example, I’m pro-abortion and Alan is not. I’m for legalization of marijuana. We never got into immigration. We did try to see if there was a bridge between the Wise Use groups and the gun movement. But, no. Wise Use people pretty much support gun right. But it doesn’t work the other way around. Gun rights people don’t do much for the property rights movement. And that’s the part that pisses me off.”</p>
<p>Even though the Wise Use movement may attract people form diverse political and ideological heritages, it was also lustily embraced (and some might say co-opted) by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey’s anti-government revolution of the 1990s. Today the Wise Use movement nestles among the rightwing organizations and tendencies of the post-Bush Republican party on Capitol Hill and in statehouses across the south and the mountain West. But it can be an uneasy alliance.</p>
<p>It is a world that Ron Arnold knows very well. During the early 1980s, Arnold was brought in by Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation to write a glowing authorized biography of James Watt, then viewed by the media and most of America as a kind of neo-fascist, born again lunatic from Wyoming.</p>
<p>Watt, of course, was the messiah of the Sagebrush Rebellion, the precursor of the Wise Use movement, which helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House. Once installed Reagan began talking about privatization of public lands and Watt soon had people thinking he would sell them off to the highest bidder.</p>
<p>But, according to Arnold, shortly after Watt took over at Interior, he told the more radical factions of the Sagebrush Rebels (folks like Wayne Hage) to knock it off. Privatization was scrapped,” Arnold recalled, “because Watt and the others discovered that you can’t sell off what you don’t own. If you try to auction off pieces of ‘public’ property, you can’t do it because the ownership is split. There are so many stratifications you could never figure out who really owned what. So notions of ownership looked more and more like a commons than a capital asset.”</p>
<p>Among many in the Wise Use movement, however, there is a deeper feeling of betrayal associated with Watt’s abbreviated tenure, a belief that Watt came to be entranced by the corridors of power, that he was seduced by the sense of control he had over the public lands. As an example of this, hard core rebels like Hage pointed to the “good neighbor policy,” developed by Watt, which allowed the governors of the western states to work with the Interior Department in developing policy for federal lands, a gutless retreat from the core principles of private property rights.</p>
<p>The administration of George W. Bush also proved to be a disappointment to the aspirations of the Wise Use ultras. While giving lip service to the Wise Users, his Interior Department, headed by Watt protegé Gale Norton, rapidly began cutting one sweatheart deal after another with the big oil and gas companies and mining operations and the property rights agenda stalled once again on the doorstep of power.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Wise Use movement was building a great deal of political momentum. Then suddenly it had to backpedal furiously to get away from both the militia and county supremacy movements, which threatened to drag them onto the dangerous edges of the anarchist right.</p>
<p>Political investigators, such as Tarso Ramos and David Helvarg, linked some elements of the Wise Use movement to both the racist Posse Commitatus and the militias. Ramos and Helvarg highlighted the role some of the Wise User leaders have played in the National Federal Lands Conference, headquartered in Bountiful, Utah. Ron Arnold, for example, once served on the board of advisors of the Conference and Wayne Hage served as its former president. The Conference was a leading force behind the county supremacy movement in the West.</p>
<p>More to the point, the Conference enthusiastically endorsed the creation of the militia movement in its October 1994 newsletter, urging interested individuals to get in touch with, among others, MOM, the Militia of Montana. The article argued that militias are needed to defend states from an overbearing federal government poised to enforce “seizure orders which can be enacted with the stroke of a bureaucratic pen,” plunging the nation into “an absolute, marital law mode of repression.”</p>
<p>Arnold bristled at questions about the Conference, saying he cut all association with it years ago. He had a right to be concerned. With this one article, investigators, journalists and opponents of the Wise Use movement have been able to tar them as little more than a collection of pistol-packing whackos, aligned with the most paranoid and dangerous elements of the far right.</p>
<p>To be continued….</p>
<p>JEFFREY ST. CLAIR is the author of <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Grand Theft Pentagon</a>. His newest book, <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Born Under a Bad Sky</a>, is published by AK Press / CounterPunch books. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>(This article is excerpted from Green Scare: the New War on Environmentalism by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and Joshua Frank, forthcoming from Haymarket Books. It is based largely on reporting done in 1995 by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and Jim Ridgeway for the Village Voice.)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Disquiet on the Western Front | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/01/01/disquiet-on-the-western-front/ | 2010-01-01 | 4left
| Disquiet on the Western Front
<p>Out in the high desert of Nevada’s basin and range country, down roads with names like the Extraterrestrial Highway that run off into the sky, and where the hardscrabble rancher and the miner still call the shots, a full-scale insurrection was born.</p>
<p>You drive through this sagebrush landscape for miles and never see another car. Then, suddenly, you come across a man sitting by the side of the road, staring off into the distance of a bombing test range, watching for the latest incarnation of the Stealth bomber or maybe a UFO. This is Edward Abbey country, home to loners and drifters, people on the lam, desert anarchists.</p>
<p>In the corner of a Tonopah coffee shop, called the Station, next door to the incessant cacophony of a casino, where old ladies play the slots and men gather in clouds of ambient smoke around the roulette wheels, sat Wayne Hage, a top icon of the Sagebrush Rebels. Three years after his death in 2006, Hage remains a heroic figure for Western traditionalists in their fight against the evil doers in Washington and the environmentalist menace.</p>
<p>Here at the Station House, Hage sat, day after day, drinking bottomless cups of bitter cowboy coffee and looking out the window at the rusting remnants of mining derricks strewn across the town. Trucks thundered past, and in the sky, the odd Japanese tourist teetered precariously with his camera from a hot air balloon that carried him past the wonders of the old mining world, being celebrated at the annual Jim Baker Days, a weeklong drunkfest in honor of the miner who, the story goes, discovered Tonopah’s silver load when his mule kicked at him and dislodged some rocks that glistened in the sun.</p>
<p>Wayne Hage was the man to see if you really wanted to know what motivated the Wise Use Movement’s battle against environmentalists and the federal government. Hage was reluctant to meet on this blistering day in early June. He said he’d been hammered by the press too often, especially by the liberal press with an ax to grind against the Wise Users.</p>
<p>The Wise Use Movement consists of more than a thousand local organizations across the country, representing roughly three million people—people who fear the infringement of their property rights, mostly by what they see as oppressive federal government regulations. These are Palin people– rural, gun-packing Christians.</p>
<p>Some of these groups are simply out for money: they want the federal government to pay them considerable sums in exchange for changing traditional uses of their property that have run afoul of federal laws or even in exchange for cutbacks in the commercial use of public lands or resources. Custom and culture, they call it.</p>
<p>Other Wise Use groups have congealed as a political force to demand unrestricted access to federal lands, whether it be to log, run cattle, or for less than environmentally friendly recreational pursuits, such as off-road motorcycling or snowmobiling.</p>
<p>Corporate America has also invested heavily in certain factions of the Wise Use movement, using them as a grassroots stalking horse in their efforts to the preserve the archaic system of laws and regulations that allow them heavily subsidized entry to the natural wealth of the public domain. With the active help of Republicans in congress and a weak, conflict-averse executive branch , the big transnationals are intensifying their efforts to exploit the land, notably through the revival of gold mining and wide-spread oil and gas drilling.</p>
<p>The federal lands are at the center of a growing political struggle over the concept of property rights. Making up one-third of the nation, the public domain is by federal agencies, such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, and encompasses what remains of the nation’s valuable minerals, old growth forests, native grasslands and the extremely valuable oil and gas reserves—from the Rocky Mountain Front to the outer continental shelf.</p>
<p>Although shown as a lush green on road maps, much of this territory has been grotesquely transformed over the last half century by big companies into kind of industrial wasteland, consisting of atomic and other bombing ranges, ammo dumps, military and energy facilities, strip mines, clearcuts, dammed, dredged and scoured rivers, and leaching mounds of cyanide. Still, though victim to decades of abuse and neglect, the public lands also hold the last remnants of wild America, its salmon and trout, elk, grizzlies, spotted owls and wolves, its ancient forests, deserts and mountains—the American wilderness.</p>
<p>The Wise Use movement has created a profile of its enemy. They see themselves as being engaged in a high-stakes chess game with the elite legions of the environmental movement, who are covertly carrying out a sinister master plan, a vast socialist experiment to depopulate the rural West. As evidence they point to the Wildlands Project and to quotes from various greens calling for a 50 percent reduction in North America’s population by the year 2100. The Wise Use movement often suggests that the real goal of the environmental movement is to clear rural Westerners off the land, so the West can be turned into an “eco-theme park” for the pleasures of vacationing suburbanites.</p>
<p>In order to advance their socialist agenda, the Wise Users argue, environmental infiltrated the federal government. Under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the thinking goes, embedded key leaders into powerful positions inside the EPA, Interior and Agriculture Departments, and then, acting through their positions on government regulatory bodies, the environmentalists have set out to first reduce and then eliminate all grazing and logging on public lands and sharly curtail mining by driving up the cost of doing business.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Wayne Hage argued, through the Endangered Species Act, environmentalists have covertly turned fights over such seemingly innocent creatures as the coho salmon, northern spotted owl and gray wolf into national symbols of a broad land use planning instrument, a kind of bureaucratic club wielded against rural landowners.</p>
<p>Occupying a ranking position on the Wise Use movement’s enemies list is former Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who initiated the National Biological Survey in 1993—known in the ominous parlance of the Wise Use movement as the NBS. “The NBS is fascist, man, it’s socialist,” proclaimed Chuck Cushman, head of the American Land Rights Association, based in Battle Ground, Washington. “These guys map your property with infrared satellite photos, looking for plants, you know, then they can actually come on your property without your permission. If they find one of those plants, you know you’re screwed worse than if they found dope.”</p>
<p>But, of course, in the minds of many of these Sagebrush populists, the real menace lies not with the environmentalists, but with the political and financial powers that prop them up. It is the big East Coast foundations who now provide the principle financing of the big green organizations that are pulling the strings. And who is behind these foundations? The Rockefellers, the Pews, the Mellons and other titanic American families made rich through the Standard Oil trust and the like. Through their securities portfolios, naturally, these foundations are interlocked with the multinational corporations that run the world, and who eye the public estate as a source of cheap wealth when times get hard. And thus it is, according to Hage and his followers, that the small rancher in the Interior West is driven off the land by Forest Service and BLM rangers who are nothing more or less than federal agents of the Rockefellers.</p>
<p>“It’s not some deep dark conspiracy,” Hage told us in 1994. “The information is out there for anyone to see. Most people don’t pay attention to economics. And when they do, they say, ‘My god, it’s one of those conspiracy theories.’ No, it isn’t. It’s just the record. So you have the environmental movement as a stalking-horse, used to carry out the transfer of property rights of individuals over to the hands of government and multinational corporations, which serve the interest of the old nobility under the monarchists. And look at who owns these damn gold mines out here in Nevada … foreign corporations.”</p>
<p>In 1991, Hage’s cattle were impounded and sold off by Forest Service agents after the rancher blatantly overgrazed his allotment on the Toiyabe National Forest in central Nevada. Hage promptly closed down his cattle operation and filed a $24 million suit against the Forest Service in federal claims court The suit, which became a cause celebre for the property rights movement, alleged that the seizure amounted to a “taking” of his property rights.</p>
<p>Hage wrote a manifesto titled Storm Over Rangelands, which presented his historical overview of the political economic of the western United States. Hage and his book have become part of a carefully crafted legend that occupies center stage in the Wise Use movement.</p>
<p>According to Hage’s interpretation of western history, the public lands were always meant to be sold off to private ownership—and even though they never were, the actual ownership at the end of the 20th century has become a mélange of various tangled interests, both public and private: the so-called split estate. In fact, Hage argued, there’s no such thing as “public” lands. Of course, that didn’t stope the government from expropriating them, nationalizing the lands over and over again.</p>
<p>As an example of this kind of thought lurking in the shadows of American history, Hage pointed to the career of Carl Schurz, Interior Secretary under President Rutherford B. Hayes. Hage wrote in Storm Over Rangelands that “Schurz’s efforts to prevent the establishment of private property rights on the public lands may have sprung from his socialist background. Schurz was a controversial German immigrant who had fought along with Karl Marx in the Revolution of 1848, came to America, was elected senator from Missouri and supported the radical Republican’s reconstruction plans.”</p>
<p>So, argued Hage, with the nation deeply in debt after the Civil War, the European banking houses, led by the Rothschilds, conspired with the federal government to use the western lands as collateral against repayment of the war debt. The government reneged on the Spanish land grants and sent the cavalry out to kill off the Indians, who had real and justifiable land claims, to clear away any obstacles to this loan repayment scheme. The European financial interests joined forces with the big East Coast families to build the railroads, control the new towns and farms and, through the American Cattle Trust, turn the livestock business into a huge monopoly.</p>
<p>It was, after all, that great hero of environmentalism, geologist Clarence King, explorer of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the father of the Smithsonian Institution and Geological Survey, the very father of federal science, who secretly sent his geology students from Ivy League schools to rustle cattle for his own profit on the western plains during summer vacation, abetting his huge cattle operation.</p>
<p>As time went on, according to Hage’s history, western lands were set aside through the conservation movement, starting with Yellowstone National Park, then Yosemite. These shrines to conservation were, according to Hageian theory, part of a vast project of “nationalization,” the equivalent, Hage wrote, of the “crown lands” in England.</p>
<p>Hage also contemptuously cites how the Taylor Grazing Act, which organized and regulated public land grazing during the 1930s, “created the collateral base for funding of Roosevelt’s New Deal.” According to Hage similar expansions of federal authority over western lands coincided with the Vietnam War (Wilderness Act).</p>
<p>Hage was one of the leaders of a group called Stewards of the Range, headquartered in Boise, Idaho, and founded by Hage’s attorney Mark Pollot, a former assistant secretary of the Interior under James Watt during the early Reagan years. During his tenure at Interior, Pollot authored Executive Order 12630, which required the federal government to attest that all federal agencies compensated landowners if federal regulations or actions infringed on property rights. Pollot’s group, Stewards of the Range, became a legal battering ram in the ranchers’ running resistance against federal authority, backing, for example, Cliff Gardner’s willful trespass of his cattle on lands of the Humboldt National Forest in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>A thousand miles north in the posh Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Washington, are the officesof the group that published Hage’s manifesto: the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. The group is run by Ron Arnold, the man who coined the term “eco-terrorism,” and his business partner Alan Gottlieb. Together they served as the field managers and media packagers for the property rights movement.</p>
<p>Arnold was a former draftsman for Boeing, a public relations man for different companies, a writer and film-maker, while Gottlieb made his money (lots of it, too) from direct mail operations for Republican candidates, and most significantly, from gun groups, including the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Bear Arms. Gottlieb also published a magazine called Women and Guns.</p>
<p>The Wise Use movement is a significant popular grouping. “There are 1200 to 1500 groups we can identify,” said Arnold. “Few of these groups ever got any real money from big corporations. Neither are they especially aligned with small business. In fact, probably a third of our members are housewives.” Altogether, Arnold and Gottlieb estimated that there are as many as three million people on their mailing list.</p>
<p>Much of the Wise Use movement has a strong, though peculiar, libertarian bent. “There’s a strain that runs through it that is upset with government interfering in their lives,” said Gottlieb. “Not just libertarian or conservative, but an awful lot of people who are to the left of center and they are very upset with the government telling them what to do.”</p>
<p>These people are the proto-tea-baggers, a strange mix of populists, anarchists and libertarians. “It’s a diverse collective,” Arnold said. “For example, I’m pro-abortion and Alan is not. I’m for legalization of marijuana. We never got into immigration. We did try to see if there was a bridge between the Wise Use groups and the gun movement. But, no. Wise Use people pretty much support gun right. But it doesn’t work the other way around. Gun rights people don’t do much for the property rights movement. And that’s the part that pisses me off.”</p>
<p>Even though the Wise Use movement may attract people form diverse political and ideological heritages, it was also lustily embraced (and some might say co-opted) by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey’s anti-government revolution of the 1990s. Today the Wise Use movement nestles among the rightwing organizations and tendencies of the post-Bush Republican party on Capitol Hill and in statehouses across the south and the mountain West. But it can be an uneasy alliance.</p>
<p>It is a world that Ron Arnold knows very well. During the early 1980s, Arnold was brought in by Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation to write a glowing authorized biography of James Watt, then viewed by the media and most of America as a kind of neo-fascist, born again lunatic from Wyoming.</p>
<p>Watt, of course, was the messiah of the Sagebrush Rebellion, the precursor of the Wise Use movement, which helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House. Once installed Reagan began talking about privatization of public lands and Watt soon had people thinking he would sell them off to the highest bidder.</p>
<p>But, according to Arnold, shortly after Watt took over at Interior, he told the more radical factions of the Sagebrush Rebels (folks like Wayne Hage) to knock it off. Privatization was scrapped,” Arnold recalled, “because Watt and the others discovered that you can’t sell off what you don’t own. If you try to auction off pieces of ‘public’ property, you can’t do it because the ownership is split. There are so many stratifications you could never figure out who really owned what. So notions of ownership looked more and more like a commons than a capital asset.”</p>
<p>Among many in the Wise Use movement, however, there is a deeper feeling of betrayal associated with Watt’s abbreviated tenure, a belief that Watt came to be entranced by the corridors of power, that he was seduced by the sense of control he had over the public lands. As an example of this, hard core rebels like Hage pointed to the “good neighbor policy,” developed by Watt, which allowed the governors of the western states to work with the Interior Department in developing policy for federal lands, a gutless retreat from the core principles of private property rights.</p>
<p>The administration of George W. Bush also proved to be a disappointment to the aspirations of the Wise Use ultras. While giving lip service to the Wise Users, his Interior Department, headed by Watt protegé Gale Norton, rapidly began cutting one sweatheart deal after another with the big oil and gas companies and mining operations and the property rights agenda stalled once again on the doorstep of power.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Wise Use movement was building a great deal of political momentum. Then suddenly it had to backpedal furiously to get away from both the militia and county supremacy movements, which threatened to drag them onto the dangerous edges of the anarchist right.</p>
<p>Political investigators, such as Tarso Ramos and David Helvarg, linked some elements of the Wise Use movement to both the racist Posse Commitatus and the militias. Ramos and Helvarg highlighted the role some of the Wise User leaders have played in the National Federal Lands Conference, headquartered in Bountiful, Utah. Ron Arnold, for example, once served on the board of advisors of the Conference and Wayne Hage served as its former president. The Conference was a leading force behind the county supremacy movement in the West.</p>
<p>More to the point, the Conference enthusiastically endorsed the creation of the militia movement in its October 1994 newsletter, urging interested individuals to get in touch with, among others, MOM, the Militia of Montana. The article argued that militias are needed to defend states from an overbearing federal government poised to enforce “seizure orders which can be enacted with the stroke of a bureaucratic pen,” plunging the nation into “an absolute, marital law mode of repression.”</p>
<p>Arnold bristled at questions about the Conference, saying he cut all association with it years ago. He had a right to be concerned. With this one article, investigators, journalists and opponents of the Wise Use movement have been able to tar them as little more than a collection of pistol-packing whackos, aligned with the most paranoid and dangerous elements of the far right.</p>
<p>To be continued….</p>
<p>JEFFREY ST. CLAIR is the author of <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Grand Theft Pentagon</a>. His newest book, <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Born Under a Bad Sky</a>, is published by AK Press / CounterPunch books. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>(This article is excerpted from Green Scare: the New War on Environmentalism by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and Joshua Frank, forthcoming from Haymarket Books. It is based largely on reporting done in 1995 by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and Jim Ridgeway for the Village Voice.)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,292 |
<p>The Eagle Creek Fire was 5 percent contained Wednesday night, according to our affiliate <a href="http://kcby.com/news/local/firefighters-make-progress-eagle-creek-fire-is-5-percent-contained" type="external">KCBY-TV.</a></p>
<p>Thursday morning, Eagle Creek Joint Information Center said the fire is 33,382 acres. The organization said the acreage increase is partly due to the burnouts they did Wednesday. They hope Thursday's cooler temperature and higher humidity will help firefighting efforts. But, they're concerned about west winds and a red flag warning expected Thursday afternoon.</p>
<p>Crews worked to build fire lines near Cascade Locks and Bridal Veil on Wednesday. More than 900 people are involved in fighting the fire. Firefighters are taking extra precautions to protect homes and other structures near the fire. Fire officials said some roads are opening for access and potential future breaks southeast of the fire.</p>
<p>Union Pacific said the rails in the gorge reopened to train traffic early Tuesday morning. The U.S. Coast Guard was also plans to allow commercial vessels to travel down the Columbia River at night. I-84 remains closed.</p>
<p>Level 3 GO! evacuations remain for Cascade Locks, Warrendale, Dodson, Larch Mountain, Latourell, Bridal Veil and Corbett (east of 38700 block of Columbia River Highway). Approximately 220 people have sought shelter assistance.</p>
<p>Fire officials will hold a community meeting at Bowe Theater in Hood River Valley High School on Thursday at 6 p.m. They are in the process of planning another public meeting for Friday or Saturday in the Troutdale area.</p>
<p>Related stories <a href="" type="internal">Forest fires are forcing evacuations in Oregon and Washington</a></p> | Oregon firefighters contain 5 percent of the Eagle Creek Fire | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/09/07/nation/cascade-locks-firefighters-contain-5-percent-of-eagle-creek-fire | 2017-09-08 | 1right-center
| Oregon firefighters contain 5 percent of the Eagle Creek Fire
<p>The Eagle Creek Fire was 5 percent contained Wednesday night, according to our affiliate <a href="http://kcby.com/news/local/firefighters-make-progress-eagle-creek-fire-is-5-percent-contained" type="external">KCBY-TV.</a></p>
<p>Thursday morning, Eagle Creek Joint Information Center said the fire is 33,382 acres. The organization said the acreage increase is partly due to the burnouts they did Wednesday. They hope Thursday's cooler temperature and higher humidity will help firefighting efforts. But, they're concerned about west winds and a red flag warning expected Thursday afternoon.</p>
<p>Crews worked to build fire lines near Cascade Locks and Bridal Veil on Wednesday. More than 900 people are involved in fighting the fire. Firefighters are taking extra precautions to protect homes and other structures near the fire. Fire officials said some roads are opening for access and potential future breaks southeast of the fire.</p>
<p>Union Pacific said the rails in the gorge reopened to train traffic early Tuesday morning. The U.S. Coast Guard was also plans to allow commercial vessels to travel down the Columbia River at night. I-84 remains closed.</p>
<p>Level 3 GO! evacuations remain for Cascade Locks, Warrendale, Dodson, Larch Mountain, Latourell, Bridal Veil and Corbett (east of 38700 block of Columbia River Highway). Approximately 220 people have sought shelter assistance.</p>
<p>Fire officials will hold a community meeting at Bowe Theater in Hood River Valley High School on Thursday at 6 p.m. They are in the process of planning another public meeting for Friday or Saturday in the Troutdale area.</p>
<p>Related stories <a href="" type="internal">Forest fires are forcing evacuations in Oregon and Washington</a></p> | 4,293 |
<p />
<p>U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in January but rose over the past year at the fastest clip since October 2014, a sign inflation may be firming despite a strong dollar and continued slide in energy prices.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The consumer-price index, which measures what Americans pay for everything from cereal to car insurance, was flat in January after falling 0.1% the previous month, the Labor Department said Friday. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices rose 0.3%, the biggest monthly increase since August 2011.</p>
<p>Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices to fall 0.1% and core prices to rise 0.2%.</p>
<p>Friday's report showed the price gains were primarily driven by higher shelter and medical costs, which have risen steadily over the past year. Prices for apparel, new cars and food at restaurants and bars also increased, while prices for energy and groceries continued to fall.</p>
<p>The overall price gauge has weakened since the summer of 2014, reflecting a steep drop-off in oil prices. The stronger dollar has also kept inflation in check, in part because it makes foreign goods relatively cheap for American consumers.</p>
<p>From a year earlier, overall prices rose 1.4%, the largest annual increase since October 2014. Core prices have risen 2.2% over the past year, the most since June 2012.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Friday's report showed the index for energy prices fell 2.8% in January from December, matching the previous month's decline. From a year earlier, energy prices were down just 6.5%, the smallest annual decline since November 2014.</p>
<p>Federal Reserve officials are carefully monitoring inflation as they weigh whether the economy is healthy enough to raise short-term interest rates again, after lifting their rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade.</p>
<p>Officials held off on raising rates last month and seem reluctant to raise them at their next meeting in March, in part because of concerns about low inflation, according to minutes from the Jan. 26-27 meeting. Inflation has already been running below the Fed's 2% goal for nearly four years, and further declines may suggest investors are losing confidence in the central bank's ability to drive it back up to target.</p>
<p>"Inflation is not likely to pick up substantially until the second half of the year," Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said at the University of Delaware on Tuesday. "It might prove prudent to wait until the inflation data are stronger before we undertake a second rate hike."</p>
<p>The Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the index for personal consumption expenditures, fell 0.1% in December and was up just 0.6% from a year earlier, the Commerce Department said earlier this month. The January figures are due next week, giving Fed officials one more look at the measure before the March meeting.</p>
<p>A separate Labor Department report released Friday showed real average weekly earnings rose 0.7% in January, reflecting higher hourly earnings and a longer workweek.</p>
<p>Write to Kate Davidson at [email protected] and Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected].</p> | Consumer Prices Unchanged in January | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/19/consumer-prices-unchanged-in-january.html | 2016-07-06 | 0right
| Consumer Prices Unchanged in January
<p />
<p>U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in January but rose over the past year at the fastest clip since October 2014, a sign inflation may be firming despite a strong dollar and continued slide in energy prices.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The consumer-price index, which measures what Americans pay for everything from cereal to car insurance, was flat in January after falling 0.1% the previous month, the Labor Department said Friday. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices rose 0.3%, the biggest monthly increase since August 2011.</p>
<p>Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices to fall 0.1% and core prices to rise 0.2%.</p>
<p>Friday's report showed the price gains were primarily driven by higher shelter and medical costs, which have risen steadily over the past year. Prices for apparel, new cars and food at restaurants and bars also increased, while prices for energy and groceries continued to fall.</p>
<p>The overall price gauge has weakened since the summer of 2014, reflecting a steep drop-off in oil prices. The stronger dollar has also kept inflation in check, in part because it makes foreign goods relatively cheap for American consumers.</p>
<p>From a year earlier, overall prices rose 1.4%, the largest annual increase since October 2014. Core prices have risen 2.2% over the past year, the most since June 2012.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Friday's report showed the index for energy prices fell 2.8% in January from December, matching the previous month's decline. From a year earlier, energy prices were down just 6.5%, the smallest annual decline since November 2014.</p>
<p>Federal Reserve officials are carefully monitoring inflation as they weigh whether the economy is healthy enough to raise short-term interest rates again, after lifting their rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade.</p>
<p>Officials held off on raising rates last month and seem reluctant to raise them at their next meeting in March, in part because of concerns about low inflation, according to minutes from the Jan. 26-27 meeting. Inflation has already been running below the Fed's 2% goal for nearly four years, and further declines may suggest investors are losing confidence in the central bank's ability to drive it back up to target.</p>
<p>"Inflation is not likely to pick up substantially until the second half of the year," Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said at the University of Delaware on Tuesday. "It might prove prudent to wait until the inflation data are stronger before we undertake a second rate hike."</p>
<p>The Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the index for personal consumption expenditures, fell 0.1% in December and was up just 0.6% from a year earlier, the Commerce Department said earlier this month. The January figures are due next week, giving Fed officials one more look at the measure before the March meeting.</p>
<p>A separate Labor Department report released Friday showed real average weekly earnings rose 0.7% in January, reflecting higher hourly earnings and a longer workweek.</p>
<p>Write to Kate Davidson at [email protected] and Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected].</p> | 4,294 |
<p />
<p>Kevin <a href="/kevin-drum/2008/09/brooks_on_the_gop.html" type="external">urges</a> readers to call members of Congress and tell them to vote for the $700 billion bailout bill. In an earlier <a href="/kevin-drum/2008/09/my_take_on_the_paulson_plan.html" type="external">posting</a>, he explained why he favors the plan. But before readers pick up the phone, they might want to read what Mother Jones contributor Nomi Prims <a href="/commentary/columns/2008/09/paulson-mortgage-bailout-bill-wont-work.html" type="external">says</a> about the bailout. Or what Mother Jones contributor James Galbraith has to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403033.html" type="external">say</a>. Or what economist Dean Baker has to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-bailout-round-ii-adul_b_130418.html" type="external">say</a>.</p>
<p>Baker notes,</p>
<p>Almost every economist I know rejects the Paulson approach and argues instead for directly injecting capital into the banks. The taxpayers give them the money and then we own some, or all, of the bank. (That’s what Warren Buffet did with Goldman Sachs.)</p>
<p>This isn’t about begging for a sliver of equity as a concession for a $700 billion bailout, this is about constructing a bank rescue the way that business people would do it. We have an interest in a well-operating financial system. There is zero public interest in giving away taxpayer dollars to the Wall Street banks and their executives.</p>
<p>If Secretary Paulson constructed a package that was centered around buying direct equity stakes in the banks, he could quickly garner large majority support in both houses. Better yet, Congress could just construct its own package centered on buying equity stakes and send it to President Bush. If he balks, we can just threaten him with stories about the Great Depression.</p>
<p>Or these would-be angry callers could ponder <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/marketturmoil.wallstreet" type="external">Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s view</a>:</p>
<p>To be sure, the rescue plan that was just defeated was far better than what the Bush administration originally proposed. But its basic approach remained critically flawed. First, it relied – once again – on trickle-down economics: somehow, throwing enough money at Wall Street would trickle down to Main Street, helping ordinary workers and homeowners. Trickle-down economics almost never works, and it is no more likely to work this time.</p>
<p>Moreover, the plan assumed that the fundamental problem was one of confidence. That is no doubt part of the problem; but the underlying problem is that financial markets made some very bad loans. There was a housing bubble, and loans were made on the basis of inflated prices….</p>
<p>We could do more with less money. The holes in financial institutions’ balance sheets should be filled in a transparent way. The Scandinavian countries showed the way two decades ago. Warren Buffet showed another way, in providing equity to Goldman Sachs. By issuing preferred shares with warrants (options), one reduces the public’s downside risk and ensures that they participate in some of the upside potential.</p>
<p>This approach is not only proven, but it also provides both the incentives and wherewithal needed for lending to resume. It avoids the hopeless task of trying to value millions of complex mortgages and the even more complex financial products in which they are embedded, and it deals with the “lemons” problem – the government gets stuck with the worst or most overpriced assets. Finally, it can be done far more quickly.</p>
<p>By the way, a <a href="http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm" type="external">letter</a> signed by 400 economists says, “We ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action.”</p>
<p>Everyone should read Kevin and consider his argument. But before anyone dials a member of Congress to complain about the bailout bill’s failure, he or she should also think about other options and not join the rush to judgment.</p>
<p /> | Kevin Drum Wants You for the Bailout, But Consider This First | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/09/kevin-drum-wants-you-bailout-consider-first/ | 2008-09-30 | 4left
| Kevin Drum Wants You for the Bailout, But Consider This First
<p />
<p>Kevin <a href="/kevin-drum/2008/09/brooks_on_the_gop.html" type="external">urges</a> readers to call members of Congress and tell them to vote for the $700 billion bailout bill. In an earlier <a href="/kevin-drum/2008/09/my_take_on_the_paulson_plan.html" type="external">posting</a>, he explained why he favors the plan. But before readers pick up the phone, they might want to read what Mother Jones contributor Nomi Prims <a href="/commentary/columns/2008/09/paulson-mortgage-bailout-bill-wont-work.html" type="external">says</a> about the bailout. Or what Mother Jones contributor James Galbraith has to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403033.html" type="external">say</a>. Or what economist Dean Baker has to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-bailout-round-ii-adul_b_130418.html" type="external">say</a>.</p>
<p>Baker notes,</p>
<p>Almost every economist I know rejects the Paulson approach and argues instead for directly injecting capital into the banks. The taxpayers give them the money and then we own some, or all, of the bank. (That’s what Warren Buffet did with Goldman Sachs.)</p>
<p>This isn’t about begging for a sliver of equity as a concession for a $700 billion bailout, this is about constructing a bank rescue the way that business people would do it. We have an interest in a well-operating financial system. There is zero public interest in giving away taxpayer dollars to the Wall Street banks and their executives.</p>
<p>If Secretary Paulson constructed a package that was centered around buying direct equity stakes in the banks, he could quickly garner large majority support in both houses. Better yet, Congress could just construct its own package centered on buying equity stakes and send it to President Bush. If he balks, we can just threaten him with stories about the Great Depression.</p>
<p>Or these would-be angry callers could ponder <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/marketturmoil.wallstreet" type="external">Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s view</a>:</p>
<p>To be sure, the rescue plan that was just defeated was far better than what the Bush administration originally proposed. But its basic approach remained critically flawed. First, it relied – once again – on trickle-down economics: somehow, throwing enough money at Wall Street would trickle down to Main Street, helping ordinary workers and homeowners. Trickle-down economics almost never works, and it is no more likely to work this time.</p>
<p>Moreover, the plan assumed that the fundamental problem was one of confidence. That is no doubt part of the problem; but the underlying problem is that financial markets made some very bad loans. There was a housing bubble, and loans were made on the basis of inflated prices….</p>
<p>We could do more with less money. The holes in financial institutions’ balance sheets should be filled in a transparent way. The Scandinavian countries showed the way two decades ago. Warren Buffet showed another way, in providing equity to Goldman Sachs. By issuing preferred shares with warrants (options), one reduces the public’s downside risk and ensures that they participate in some of the upside potential.</p>
<p>This approach is not only proven, but it also provides both the incentives and wherewithal needed for lending to resume. It avoids the hopeless task of trying to value millions of complex mortgages and the even more complex financial products in which they are embedded, and it deals with the “lemons” problem – the government gets stuck with the worst or most overpriced assets. Finally, it can be done far more quickly.</p>
<p>By the way, a <a href="http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm" type="external">letter</a> signed by 400 economists says, “We ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action.”</p>
<p>Everyone should read Kevin and consider his argument. But before anyone dials a member of Congress to complain about the bailout bill’s failure, he or she should also think about other options and not join the rush to judgment.</p>
<p /> | 4,295 |
<p />
<p>The S&amp;P 500 edged up to another record close on Monday, but the Dow industrials snapped a seven-session winning streak.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Utilities, the best-performing S&amp;P sector this year, showed the biggest gain among the 10 main sectors on Monday.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 (SPX) edged up by 1.80 points, or 0.1%, to close at 2,090.57, leaving the benchmark up 13.1% for 2014, with two trading sessions left in the year. Monday's mark also was the index's 53rd record close of the year, or an average of one a week.</p>
<p>Also read: This is what the S&amp;P never did this year</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) dipped 15.48 points, or 0.1%, to end at 18,038.23. The blue-chip gauge, up 8.8% so far in 2014, pulled back from a record close achieved Friday.</p>
<p>The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) inched up by 0.05 point to finish at 4,806.91, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (RUT) tacked on 3.90 points, or 0.3%, to 1,219.11.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Composite volumes for both the NYSE and Nasdaq were at roughly two-thirds of their 30-day average, according to FactSet. Trading is expected to be light throughout this holiday-shortened week.</p>
<p>Also read: When do markets close on New Year's Eve?</p>
<p>Looking ahead to 2015, Wall Street strategists on average predict further gains for the U.S. stock market, as an improving economy and lower energy prices offset rate hikes and increased volatility.</p>
<p>Movers and shakers: Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) closed up 3.7% for the S&amp;P 500's best performance as Morgan Stanley upgraded it to overweight and Barron's picked the stock as one of its 10 favorites for 2015.</p>
<p>Energy-related stocks such as Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) were also among the S&amp;P's big winners, although they gave back some gains as crude oil prices (CLG5) fell again and settled at the lowest level since May 2009.</p>
<p>The energy SPDR (XLE), an ETF that tracks the S&amp;P 500's energy stocks, remains down 9.2% for the year, but it established at least a short-term bottom in mid-December.</p>
<p>Check out: Carl Icahn predicts more pain for energy firms, but eventually "tremendous opportunity"</p>
<p>Greek drama: The global trading mood on Monday was dented by renewed uncertainty about the political landscape in Greece. The country's parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's candidate in a third and final presidential vote on Monday, meaning parliament will now have to be dissolved and a snap election held.</p>
<p>Greece's ATHEX Composite index tumbled after the failed vote. But the pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index closed higher, shaking off early losses.</p>
<p>Also read: 5 things to know about the crucial Greek election</p>
<p>Other markets: Gold futures finished lower, while the dollar gained ground on the euro in the wake of Greece's election news.</p> | Wall Street Ends Session Flat in Thinned Trading | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/12/29/us-equity-futures-lower-as-indexes-hold-near-records.html | 2016-03-06 | 0right
| Wall Street Ends Session Flat in Thinned Trading
<p />
<p>The S&amp;P 500 edged up to another record close on Monday, but the Dow industrials snapped a seven-session winning streak.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Utilities, the best-performing S&amp;P sector this year, showed the biggest gain among the 10 main sectors on Monday.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 (SPX) edged up by 1.80 points, or 0.1%, to close at 2,090.57, leaving the benchmark up 13.1% for 2014, with two trading sessions left in the year. Monday's mark also was the index's 53rd record close of the year, or an average of one a week.</p>
<p>Also read: This is what the S&amp;P never did this year</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) dipped 15.48 points, or 0.1%, to end at 18,038.23. The blue-chip gauge, up 8.8% so far in 2014, pulled back from a record close achieved Friday.</p>
<p>The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) inched up by 0.05 point to finish at 4,806.91, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (RUT) tacked on 3.90 points, or 0.3%, to 1,219.11.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Composite volumes for both the NYSE and Nasdaq were at roughly two-thirds of their 30-day average, according to FactSet. Trading is expected to be light throughout this holiday-shortened week.</p>
<p>Also read: When do markets close on New Year's Eve?</p>
<p>Looking ahead to 2015, Wall Street strategists on average predict further gains for the U.S. stock market, as an improving economy and lower energy prices offset rate hikes and increased volatility.</p>
<p>Movers and shakers: Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) closed up 3.7% for the S&amp;P 500's best performance as Morgan Stanley upgraded it to overweight and Barron's picked the stock as one of its 10 favorites for 2015.</p>
<p>Energy-related stocks such as Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) were also among the S&amp;P's big winners, although they gave back some gains as crude oil prices (CLG5) fell again and settled at the lowest level since May 2009.</p>
<p>The energy SPDR (XLE), an ETF that tracks the S&amp;P 500's energy stocks, remains down 9.2% for the year, but it established at least a short-term bottom in mid-December.</p>
<p>Check out: Carl Icahn predicts more pain for energy firms, but eventually "tremendous opportunity"</p>
<p>Greek drama: The global trading mood on Monday was dented by renewed uncertainty about the political landscape in Greece. The country's parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's candidate in a third and final presidential vote on Monday, meaning parliament will now have to be dissolved and a snap election held.</p>
<p>Greece's ATHEX Composite index tumbled after the failed vote. But the pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index closed higher, shaking off early losses.</p>
<p>Also read: 5 things to know about the crucial Greek election</p>
<p>Other markets: Gold futures finished lower, while the dollar gained ground on the euro in the wake of Greece's election news.</p> | 4,296 |
<p>Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul lashed out at Donald Trump on Thursday. He said front-runner Donald Trump might be better off trying to join the Democrats in a debate.</p>
<p>As reported by CNN, Paul told Alisyn Camerota on “New Day”:</p>
<p>He has brought the debate, the presidential debate, the tenor of the debate to a historical low. Maybe (he’s) afraid of the fact that he’s never voted in a Republican presidential primary. For 70 years, he’s been a progressive Democrat. I was wondering if maybe he’s going to show up for the Democratic primary debate next time.</p>
<p>Paul said Trump wants to avoid discussing his business bankruptcies and desire to expand the power of the presidency.</p>
<p>I think he does want to avoid difficult questions. And I think he’s used to getting his way.</p>
<p>He also pointed out Trump’s decision to boycott the debate was different from his own decision to not participate in a recent GOP debate.</p>
<p>It’s kind of the opposite actually. I was lobbying to get in the debate and he’s running away from the debate. I was never lobbying to avoid questions from a tough questioner.</p>
<p>Paul boycotted the last Republican debate earlier this month because Fox Business Network assigned him to the undercard stage due to his position in the polls.</p>
<p>He continued to say Trump’s personal attacks against Megyn Kelly were “inappropriate.”</p> | Paul: Trump Might Fit In Better At Democratic Debate | true | http://shark-tank.com/2016/01/29/paul-trump-might-fit-in-better-at-democratic-debate/ | 0right
| Paul: Trump Might Fit In Better At Democratic Debate
<p>Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul lashed out at Donald Trump on Thursday. He said front-runner Donald Trump might be better off trying to join the Democrats in a debate.</p>
<p>As reported by CNN, Paul told Alisyn Camerota on “New Day”:</p>
<p>He has brought the debate, the presidential debate, the tenor of the debate to a historical low. Maybe (he’s) afraid of the fact that he’s never voted in a Republican presidential primary. For 70 years, he’s been a progressive Democrat. I was wondering if maybe he’s going to show up for the Democratic primary debate next time.</p>
<p>Paul said Trump wants to avoid discussing his business bankruptcies and desire to expand the power of the presidency.</p>
<p>I think he does want to avoid difficult questions. And I think he’s used to getting his way.</p>
<p>He also pointed out Trump’s decision to boycott the debate was different from his own decision to not participate in a recent GOP debate.</p>
<p>It’s kind of the opposite actually. I was lobbying to get in the debate and he’s running away from the debate. I was never lobbying to avoid questions from a tough questioner.</p>
<p>Paul boycotted the last Republican debate earlier this month because Fox Business Network assigned him to the undercard stage due to his position in the polls.</p>
<p>He continued to say Trump’s personal attacks against Megyn Kelly were “inappropriate.”</p> | 4,297 |
|
<p>CounterPunch Vindicated!</p>
<p>We reported Friday on this site the exile of vice president Dick Cheney to Camp David. The White House line is that the threat of further terrorist assaults demand that the President and Vice President never been in same building. We cited a different interpretation: that the White House decided that Cheney’s commanding presence was undercutting Bush’s already frail stature as the Commander in Chief. Confirmation of our view came on Saturday with official White House pictures of Bush and Cheney sitting on the same couch in Camp. Or is the assumption of the Secret Service that Muslim kamikaze terrorists take the weekend off?</p>
<p>Alone of Either Sex!</p>
<p>CounterPunch Salutes US Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat from Berkeley, the only one from any party in the House or Senate who voted against the resolution authorizing all necessary and appropriate military force.</p>
<p>Russian Colonel Remembers Afghanistan: “Don’t Try It!”</p>
<p>The White House huddles with the Pentagon, reviewing options and scenarios to requite the attacks of September 11. Top of the publicized options, an attack on Afghanistan, sanctuary of the supposed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a seasoned blowhard of the right, has said that the US response would include “ending” states that support terrorism. If the US government persists in identifying bin Laden as the perp, this presumably heralds an attempt to overthrow the Taliban.</p>
<p>There’s a considerably irony here, since previous US governments did much to install the Taliban, just as the CIA underwrote bin Laden’s first trip to Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia. It was the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence organization, ISI, which nourished the Taliban’s growth, seeking to ensure that there would never be a modern-minded, reforming government in Afghanistan. Though the Taliban has a flouted a pledge to cut back the opium production that has made Afghanistan the world’s leading supplier of heroin and morphine, the present Bush administration recently sent the Taliban many millions in the name of the War on Drugs.</p>
<p>Now, it’s one thing to lob cruise missiles from a safe distance, or to attack water systems. Such tactics end up mostly killing innocent civilians, just as the dreadful assaults of September 11 ended up slaughtering thousands of blameless ordinary people and their would-be rescuers. It’s entirely a different matter to mount a full-scale invasion, particularly of a remote and geographically forbidding country like Afghanistan. Across the past 150 years powers such as Great Britain and the Soviet Union have seen agony and humiliation as the fruit of invasions in force.</p>
<p>The British disasters came in the nineteenth century, the Soviet ones in the 1980s. A Russian who remembers the campaigns vividly is Col. Yuri Shamanov, who spent five years as a regiment commander in the war again the CIA-financed Mujahiddeen. “If the Americans go to war,” he told a Reuters reporter last week, “I pity these boys and their mothers and sisters and brothers. It will be ten times worse than Vietnam. Vietnam will be a picnic by comparison. Here they will get it in the teeth. Oh. They will get it good. Rockets won’t save you: there’s nothing out there to shoot at. Blast away years’ worth of ammo. The mountains will survive anything. The Afghans will be ready to fight, no worse than they fought against us, and they fought very well against us. What will the US do there? Unless a narrow mission is set to destroy the camps and the most odious figures - if they do only that then God bless them. Paratroopers can take the camps. But if you don’t send infantry, there is nothing for tanks and planes to do. If you don’t actually march through the territory, it will come back to life again. And there will be camps and the same bandits. You can get rid of bin Laden, then another will grow. You have to dig out this whole system by its roots.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden as Capitalist?</p>
<p>In the four trading days before the attack on September 11, the stocks of three of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, AXA in France, Swiss Re and Munich Re, all lost between 13 and 15 per cent of their value. At the time, these drops bewildered market analysts who said that the reinsurance business was booming and that premium payments were trending upwards. On many a desk on Tuesday morning would undoubtedly have been copies of that morning’s London Financial Times, giving a glowing assessment of the reinsurance business. The following morning, amid the ruins of the World Trade Center, an executive for Swiss Re said that the exposure of the reinsurance business, which spreads the possible risks in any insurance sector, were “completely inestimable”.</p>
<p>So how to account for the mysterious drop in value of the reinsurance companies before the planes struck on Tuesday? One answer is reported in the Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s biggest newspapers. The paper says that investigators believe that associates of bin Laden may have been short- selling their shares in these reinsurance companies, making a bundle off the knowledge that even if one of the hijacked planes hit the Trade Center, values of the reinsurance companies would plummet. CP</p>
<p><a href="wtcarchive.html" type="external">CounterPunch’s Complete Coverage of the Attacks on the World Trade Center/Pentagon</a></p> | More Aftershocks | true | https://counterpunch.org/2001/09/15/more-aftershocks/ | 2001-09-15 | 4left
| More Aftershocks
<p>CounterPunch Vindicated!</p>
<p>We reported Friday on this site the exile of vice president Dick Cheney to Camp David. The White House line is that the threat of further terrorist assaults demand that the President and Vice President never been in same building. We cited a different interpretation: that the White House decided that Cheney’s commanding presence was undercutting Bush’s already frail stature as the Commander in Chief. Confirmation of our view came on Saturday with official White House pictures of Bush and Cheney sitting on the same couch in Camp. Or is the assumption of the Secret Service that Muslim kamikaze terrorists take the weekend off?</p>
<p>Alone of Either Sex!</p>
<p>CounterPunch Salutes US Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat from Berkeley, the only one from any party in the House or Senate who voted against the resolution authorizing all necessary and appropriate military force.</p>
<p>Russian Colonel Remembers Afghanistan: “Don’t Try It!”</p>
<p>The White House huddles with the Pentagon, reviewing options and scenarios to requite the attacks of September 11. Top of the publicized options, an attack on Afghanistan, sanctuary of the supposed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a seasoned blowhard of the right, has said that the US response would include “ending” states that support terrorism. If the US government persists in identifying bin Laden as the perp, this presumably heralds an attempt to overthrow the Taliban.</p>
<p>There’s a considerably irony here, since previous US governments did much to install the Taliban, just as the CIA underwrote bin Laden’s first trip to Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia. It was the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence organization, ISI, which nourished the Taliban’s growth, seeking to ensure that there would never be a modern-minded, reforming government in Afghanistan. Though the Taliban has a flouted a pledge to cut back the opium production that has made Afghanistan the world’s leading supplier of heroin and morphine, the present Bush administration recently sent the Taliban many millions in the name of the War on Drugs.</p>
<p>Now, it’s one thing to lob cruise missiles from a safe distance, or to attack water systems. Such tactics end up mostly killing innocent civilians, just as the dreadful assaults of September 11 ended up slaughtering thousands of blameless ordinary people and their would-be rescuers. It’s entirely a different matter to mount a full-scale invasion, particularly of a remote and geographically forbidding country like Afghanistan. Across the past 150 years powers such as Great Britain and the Soviet Union have seen agony and humiliation as the fruit of invasions in force.</p>
<p>The British disasters came in the nineteenth century, the Soviet ones in the 1980s. A Russian who remembers the campaigns vividly is Col. Yuri Shamanov, who spent five years as a regiment commander in the war again the CIA-financed Mujahiddeen. “If the Americans go to war,” he told a Reuters reporter last week, “I pity these boys and their mothers and sisters and brothers. It will be ten times worse than Vietnam. Vietnam will be a picnic by comparison. Here they will get it in the teeth. Oh. They will get it good. Rockets won’t save you: there’s nothing out there to shoot at. Blast away years’ worth of ammo. The mountains will survive anything. The Afghans will be ready to fight, no worse than they fought against us, and they fought very well against us. What will the US do there? Unless a narrow mission is set to destroy the camps and the most odious figures - if they do only that then God bless them. Paratroopers can take the camps. But if you don’t send infantry, there is nothing for tanks and planes to do. If you don’t actually march through the territory, it will come back to life again. And there will be camps and the same bandits. You can get rid of bin Laden, then another will grow. You have to dig out this whole system by its roots.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden as Capitalist?</p>
<p>In the four trading days before the attack on September 11, the stocks of three of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, AXA in France, Swiss Re and Munich Re, all lost between 13 and 15 per cent of their value. At the time, these drops bewildered market analysts who said that the reinsurance business was booming and that premium payments were trending upwards. On many a desk on Tuesday morning would undoubtedly have been copies of that morning’s London Financial Times, giving a glowing assessment of the reinsurance business. The following morning, amid the ruins of the World Trade Center, an executive for Swiss Re said that the exposure of the reinsurance business, which spreads the possible risks in any insurance sector, were “completely inestimable”.</p>
<p>So how to account for the mysterious drop in value of the reinsurance companies before the planes struck on Tuesday? One answer is reported in the Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s biggest newspapers. The paper says that investigators believe that associates of bin Laden may have been short- selling their shares in these reinsurance companies, making a bundle off the knowledge that even if one of the hijacked planes hit the Trade Center, values of the reinsurance companies would plummet. CP</p>
<p><a href="wtcarchive.html" type="external">CounterPunch’s Complete Coverage of the Attacks on the World Trade Center/Pentagon</a></p> | 4,298 |
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<p>Starting April 5, 2011, American Eagle will begin nonstop regional jet service with three daily flights between the Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), according to an American Airlines news release.</p>
<p>American Airlines and its sister carrier American Eagle announced Wednesday it will add flights between Shanghai, China, and nine U.S. destinations — including Albuquerque — and LAX, according to The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Parent company AMR Corp. said Wednesday it will add 33 new round-trip trips at LAX beginning April 5, and by spring 2011, American and American Eagle will offer 153 daily departures at LAX — a 28 percent increase from the current schedule, the AP said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Besides Albuquerque, the new U.S. destinations include Boise, Idaho; El Paso; Houston; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; Salt Lake City; Sacramento, Calif.; and Tucson, according to the AP.</p>
<p>American also is adding more daily flights between Los Angeles and Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., the AP said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 8:15am — American To Add Three Daily Flights Between ABQ and LAX | false | https://abqjournal.com/9885/815am-american-to-add-three-daily-flights-between-abq-and-lax.html | 2least
| 8:15am — American To Add Three Daily Flights Between ABQ and LAX
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Starting April 5, 2011, American Eagle will begin nonstop regional jet service with three daily flights between the Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), according to an American Airlines news release.</p>
<p>American Airlines and its sister carrier American Eagle announced Wednesday it will add flights between Shanghai, China, and nine U.S. destinations — including Albuquerque — and LAX, according to The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Parent company AMR Corp. said Wednesday it will add 33 new round-trip trips at LAX beginning April 5, and by spring 2011, American and American Eagle will offer 153 daily departures at LAX — a 28 percent increase from the current schedule, the AP said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Besides Albuquerque, the new U.S. destinations include Boise, Idaho; El Paso; Houston; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; Salt Lake City; Sacramento, Calif.; and Tucson, according to the AP.</p>
<p>American also is adding more daily flights between Los Angeles and Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., the AP said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 4,299 |
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