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<p>Today I am going to come out of the closet as a Bi-Coastal pot consumer.</p>
<p>I lead two lives; one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, I own a townhouse where I have resided for over a quarter of a century. In this community, I am a lawyer and a spokesman for NORML, very active in drug law reform. But I cannot practice what I preach. That would be illegal.</p>
<p>In California, however, I found a small town near Berkley, east of San Francisco Bay, where I may retire. It is Walnut Creek, a hamlet, I understand, that has more open public spaces than any other village in America. &#160;There, I may eventually choose to grow my own pot. I am allowed to do so.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I practice law, and get people out of trouble for growing pot, I have to defend people who do what I am entitled to do in California legally. You see, the rules are different here. Life can thus be a bit conflicted.</p>
<p>In early 2006, my Florida roommate, after learning he was HIV positive, decided to move back to his hometown of San Francisco. As a pot consumer, he realized he could now get a medicinal recommendation for marijuana and grow pot legally under California law. The Florida laws are not so kind or generous. Cultivation of any amount is a second degree felony.</p>
<p>We went to San Francisco together, to a community I have visited and loved since the early 1970’s, from my first spectacular drive up the Pacific Coast highway. We found and rented a small apartment in the Haight.</p>
<p>It has been thirteen years since California voters enacted Proposition 215, which allowed citizens to utilize marijuana for medical purposes if a person had a legitimate need. As a recovering cancer patient, I more than qualified for a medical marijuana recommendation.</p>
<p>I sought out a legitimate physician, not one running a medical marijuana mill. &#160;I came with a full set of medical records tracking my unenviable medical past, including recent spinal surgery. The doctor thoughtfully reviewed with me the medical risks associated with the use of cannabis. Not that I did not have a little experience. I mean, I am 60 years old this year. My friends’ kids go to Bonnaroo. I lived through Woodstock.</p>
<p>After the screening, my physician then appropriately certified me as an individual who could benefit from the medical use of cannabis. Just like that, I became patient number 380206011. I then proceeded to a medical dispensary, proudly armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana Identification Card.</p>
<p>As a California patient, I am empowered to acquire cannabis lawfully at medical dispensaries. Under the California Health and Safety Code, I am also entitled to grow up to six plants of my own in my little apartment on the bay. I do not have to hide them from the authorities.</p>
<p>I joined the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, and was issued a Growers Certificate. It affirms that any herbs I cultivate at home would be grown for my personal medical use. I was now at liberty to grow my own medicine. It is still called pot in Florida. We call it medicine in California.</p>
<p>Today, therefore, the same medicine I can consume lawfully in California I have to prevent people from going to jail for in Florida. It makes no sense. Fourteen states and scores of communities across our country have either decriminalized or ‘medicalized’ marijuana. It is not good enough. Americans still face one very large federal stumbling block.</p>
<p>A state may pass its own laws, but so too may the federal government pass laws which preempt those state laws. In the case of marijuana, that is what Washington has done. Our federal government claims marijuana is not medicine. As such, it criminalizes all marijuana possession, use, or cultivation, regardless of what the states do.</p>
<p>At first, patients were lucky. In 2003, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government had no right to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana patients- as long as what they possessed was for personal use. The United States Supreme Court reversed that ruling in 2005. Thus, as we sit here today, in 2009, federal law enforcement officials can prosecute medical marijuana patients, even if state authorities will not; even if they reside in a state where medical marijuana use is protected by state law.</p>
<p>Under our Constitution, the police power of the state is to be exercised by the state. California authorities are not disobeying federal laws by not enforcing them. They are not legally obligated to do so. Nor is Florida obligated to follow California laws. Just because you have a medical right to possess cannabis in California does not give you a legal right to grow or possess it in Florida. Though some clients of mine have tried, you can’t get stopped for smoking in Miami Beach and pull out a medical marijuana card from Santa Monica. It won’t fly. Tell it to your bondsman.</p>
<p>Welcome then to my conflicted life. I am permitted to grow my own medicine lawfully in my California apartment. &#160;If I were to do that in Florida, police could raid my house and the Florida Bar could seize my card. Instead of representing a grower, I would need a lawyer to represent me. Florida would not care that I am patient number 380206011 in California. What is wrong with that picture?</p>
<p>The cannabis I purchase in a dispensary in Berkeley I can carry in my car and consume in my living room. If I am flying back to Florida though, I cannot carry it with me. That would be a federal crime. But if I am relaxing at an airport bar in either San Francisco or Fort Lauderdale, I can order and consume Crown Royal and Coke. What I can’t get on both coasts is justice. That is far more elusive, and does not come in a bottle.</p>
<p>One national reform group has spent 40 years trying to stem the tide of repression and advance the rights of marijuana consumers. They say it is normal to smoke pot. Their name is NORML, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws. If there was ever a time to be part of their effort, it is now, as the new administration in Washington has said they are going to put an end to the drug war madness. They have said they will end the raids on medical dispensaries.</p>
<p>We need to see that deed and action follows words and promises.</p>
<p>We need to send a message to our legislators that the silent majority of Americans support vast and overriding changes to repressive drug laws which have incarcerated too many for too long. Join NORML in that cause</p>
<p>We need to show that moral authority is on our side.</p>
<p>Spread the word and it will spread the seed.</p>
<p>NORM KENT, a criminal defense attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, publishes The Broward Law Blog, <a href="http://www.browardlawblog.com/" type="external">www.browardlawblog.com</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
I am Patient Number 380206011
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2009/03/11/i-am-patient-number-380206011/
|
2009-03-11
| 4left
|
I am Patient Number 380206011
<p>Today I am going to come out of the closet as a Bi-Coastal pot consumer.</p>
<p>I lead two lives; one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, I own a townhouse where I have resided for over a quarter of a century. In this community, I am a lawyer and a spokesman for NORML, very active in drug law reform. But I cannot practice what I preach. That would be illegal.</p>
<p>In California, however, I found a small town near Berkley, east of San Francisco Bay, where I may retire. It is Walnut Creek, a hamlet, I understand, that has more open public spaces than any other village in America. &#160;There, I may eventually choose to grow my own pot. I am allowed to do so.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I practice law, and get people out of trouble for growing pot, I have to defend people who do what I am entitled to do in California legally. You see, the rules are different here. Life can thus be a bit conflicted.</p>
<p>In early 2006, my Florida roommate, after learning he was HIV positive, decided to move back to his hometown of San Francisco. As a pot consumer, he realized he could now get a medicinal recommendation for marijuana and grow pot legally under California law. The Florida laws are not so kind or generous. Cultivation of any amount is a second degree felony.</p>
<p>We went to San Francisco together, to a community I have visited and loved since the early 1970’s, from my first spectacular drive up the Pacific Coast highway. We found and rented a small apartment in the Haight.</p>
<p>It has been thirteen years since California voters enacted Proposition 215, which allowed citizens to utilize marijuana for medical purposes if a person had a legitimate need. As a recovering cancer patient, I more than qualified for a medical marijuana recommendation.</p>
<p>I sought out a legitimate physician, not one running a medical marijuana mill. &#160;I came with a full set of medical records tracking my unenviable medical past, including recent spinal surgery. The doctor thoughtfully reviewed with me the medical risks associated with the use of cannabis. Not that I did not have a little experience. I mean, I am 60 years old this year. My friends’ kids go to Bonnaroo. I lived through Woodstock.</p>
<p>After the screening, my physician then appropriately certified me as an individual who could benefit from the medical use of cannabis. Just like that, I became patient number 380206011. I then proceeded to a medical dispensary, proudly armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana Identification Card.</p>
<p>As a California patient, I am empowered to acquire cannabis lawfully at medical dispensaries. Under the California Health and Safety Code, I am also entitled to grow up to six plants of my own in my little apartment on the bay. I do not have to hide them from the authorities.</p>
<p>I joined the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, and was issued a Growers Certificate. It affirms that any herbs I cultivate at home would be grown for my personal medical use. I was now at liberty to grow my own medicine. It is still called pot in Florida. We call it medicine in California.</p>
<p>Today, therefore, the same medicine I can consume lawfully in California I have to prevent people from going to jail for in Florida. It makes no sense. Fourteen states and scores of communities across our country have either decriminalized or ‘medicalized’ marijuana. It is not good enough. Americans still face one very large federal stumbling block.</p>
<p>A state may pass its own laws, but so too may the federal government pass laws which preempt those state laws. In the case of marijuana, that is what Washington has done. Our federal government claims marijuana is not medicine. As such, it criminalizes all marijuana possession, use, or cultivation, regardless of what the states do.</p>
<p>At first, patients were lucky. In 2003, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government had no right to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana patients- as long as what they possessed was for personal use. The United States Supreme Court reversed that ruling in 2005. Thus, as we sit here today, in 2009, federal law enforcement officials can prosecute medical marijuana patients, even if state authorities will not; even if they reside in a state where medical marijuana use is protected by state law.</p>
<p>Under our Constitution, the police power of the state is to be exercised by the state. California authorities are not disobeying federal laws by not enforcing them. They are not legally obligated to do so. Nor is Florida obligated to follow California laws. Just because you have a medical right to possess cannabis in California does not give you a legal right to grow or possess it in Florida. Though some clients of mine have tried, you can’t get stopped for smoking in Miami Beach and pull out a medical marijuana card from Santa Monica. It won’t fly. Tell it to your bondsman.</p>
<p>Welcome then to my conflicted life. I am permitted to grow my own medicine lawfully in my California apartment. &#160;If I were to do that in Florida, police could raid my house and the Florida Bar could seize my card. Instead of representing a grower, I would need a lawyer to represent me. Florida would not care that I am patient number 380206011 in California. What is wrong with that picture?</p>
<p>The cannabis I purchase in a dispensary in Berkeley I can carry in my car and consume in my living room. If I am flying back to Florida though, I cannot carry it with me. That would be a federal crime. But if I am relaxing at an airport bar in either San Francisco or Fort Lauderdale, I can order and consume Crown Royal and Coke. What I can’t get on both coasts is justice. That is far more elusive, and does not come in a bottle.</p>
<p>One national reform group has spent 40 years trying to stem the tide of repression and advance the rights of marijuana consumers. They say it is normal to smoke pot. Their name is NORML, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws. If there was ever a time to be part of their effort, it is now, as the new administration in Washington has said they are going to put an end to the drug war madness. They have said they will end the raids on medical dispensaries.</p>
<p>We need to see that deed and action follows words and promises.</p>
<p>We need to send a message to our legislators that the silent majority of Americans support vast and overriding changes to repressive drug laws which have incarcerated too many for too long. Join NORML in that cause</p>
<p>We need to show that moral authority is on our side.</p>
<p>Spread the word and it will spread the seed.</p>
<p>NORM KENT, a criminal defense attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, publishes The Broward Law Blog, <a href="http://www.browardlawblog.com/" type="external">www.browardlawblog.com</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 5,400 |
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "The Pick" game were:</p>
<p>12-14-24-30-32-33</p>
<p>(twelve, fourteen, twenty-four, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1 million</p>
<p>¶ Players need to match all of the six numbers drawn to win the first-place jackpot. If other players also match all six numbers, the prize pool will be shared in equal amounts. ¶ Players win smaller prizes if they have three, four or five of the first six numbers drawn.</p>
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "The Pick" game were:</p>
<p>12-14-24-30-32-33</p>
<p>(twelve, fourteen, twenty-four, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1 million</p>
<p>¶ Players need to match all of the six numbers drawn to win the first-place jackpot. If other players also match all six numbers, the prize pool will be shared in equal amounts. ¶ Players win smaller prizes if they have three, four or five of the first six numbers drawn.</p>
|
Winning numbers drawn in 'The Pick' game
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/392683b428d84b599a4916845ed5a782
|
2018-01-18
| 2least
|
Winning numbers drawn in 'The Pick' game
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "The Pick" game were:</p>
<p>12-14-24-30-32-33</p>
<p>(twelve, fourteen, twenty-four, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1 million</p>
<p>¶ Players need to match all of the six numbers drawn to win the first-place jackpot. If other players also match all six numbers, the prize pool will be shared in equal amounts. ¶ Players win smaller prizes if they have three, four or five of the first six numbers drawn.</p>
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "The Pick" game were:</p>
<p>12-14-24-30-32-33</p>
<p>(twelve, fourteen, twenty-four, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1 million</p>
<p>¶ Players need to match all of the six numbers drawn to win the first-place jackpot. If other players also match all six numbers, the prize pool will be shared in equal amounts. ¶ Players win smaller prizes if they have three, four or five of the first six numbers drawn.</p>
| 5,401 |
<p>We're doing a theme week on <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Industry Focus Opens a New Window.</a> over the next five days on times we were wrong in the past. To kick the week off, we look back on a show in November 2015, when we postulated that rumors about aggressive sales practices at Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) wouldn't change the investment thesis in the bank. Listen in to hear us talk about how and why we were so, so wrong.</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Wells FargoWhen 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=953611bb-0bfd-4879-8e04-dbbe41613885&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Wells Fargo 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=953611bb-0bfd-4879-8e04-dbbe41613885&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&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 August 1, 2017</p>
<p>This video was recorded on Aug. 21, 2017.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Gaby Lapera: But I wanted everyone to know that it's a theme week here on Industry Focus. The official title of the theme week is "We Said What?"&#160;This week, all hosts will talk about mistakes that we've made, mostly on the show, but maybe also in real life, depending on the host. Let's go ahead and dive right in. Austin, I dug through the archives and found this gem from November of 2015. Can you hit that for us, please?</p>
<p>John Maxfield: This is where Wells Fargo has been caught up. But it's important still, particularly at this early stage in this whole process, that we keep in mind that these are stories that could be coming -- and I don't doubt that Wells Fargo has a very aggressive sales culture. They're known for cross-selling. You have to push your employees to sell if you want to cross-sell. That's just how it works. But whether or not it actually crossed the line, and whether this is going to change the investment theory on Wells Fargo, that's something I really doubt. I would be surprised if this thing costs tens of billions of dollars for Wells Fargo.</p>
<p>Lapera: Right, and that is one place that Wells Fargo is ahead of a lot of the other big banks. They didn't have any large settlements that they had to pay post-2008 financial crisis.</p>
<p>Maxfield: Yeah, and it made a huge difference. I think Bank of America's&#160;tally -- and this is from Bank of America itself -- was $195 billion from the crisis; $195 billion is what the crisis cost them. So the fact that Wells Fargo has largely avoided all that -- yeah, they could have a few hundred million here and there, and it shouldn't be doing things that, if they really are pressuring, I think we can all agree with that, they shouldn't be doing those things. But as an investment, this is still an incredibly solid bank.</p>
<p>Lapera: Yeah. I figure we should probably close with a quote from Wells Fargo, which is from Mary Eshet, their spokeswoman. "Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interest of its customers and creating a supportive, caring, and ethical environment for our team members," which, that's what she's paid to say, so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Maxfield: Yeah, you don't think she wanted to come out and say, "We tell our employees to make sure that customers buy things whether they like it or not?" [laughs]</p>
<p>Lapera: Oh my god, why? [laughs] So, listeners, for a little bit of background on that, we were talking about a Wall Street Journal article that had come out on Nov. 30 of 2015, so that was quite a while ago now, about how Wells Fargo had been accused of aggressively pushing their salespeople to make these quotas, and we were like, "Oh, no, it's totally fine, guys!" Maxfield, do you want to chime in on how that turned out for us?</p>
<p>Maxfield: [laughs] First of all, when you guys came out with this theme week, and Gaby, when you mentioned this episode, I mean, I just thought it was the perfect episode for us to talk about, and a great episode to start out the theme week on, because it's such a clear case of being wrong --</p>
<p>Lapera: So wrong.</p>
<p>Maxfield: So wrong. And, it's really relevant right now. In September of last year, Wells Fargo was caught opening up something like 2 million fake accounts for customers in order to push their cross-sell ratio. To make things worse, after this came out, we learned that there were thousands of employees that were fired, and potentially many of them were fired because they tried to bring this scandal to light inside of Wells Fargo.</p>
<p>And then, after all of this -- you think that's all pretty bad, you're taking advantage of your customers, and you're then punishing your whistleblowers who are trying to do the right thing for your company -- but just recently it's come out that Wells Fargo also sold something like 500,000 of its customers, I've even read as many as 750,000 of its customers, this type of insurance that's called collateral protection insurance, which goes along with when you get an auto loan. If you have an auto loan with Wells Fargo and you don't have insurance on the car, Wells Fargo will charge you for this insurance to protect the collateral value of it. Well, 500,000 to 750,000 people had insurance but were nevertheless charged for it by Wells Fargo, which goes along with this whole cross-selling scandal. Then, on top of that, and I'm laughing not because I think it's funny but because it's so horrendous, something like 20,000 of those people had their loans go into default because of those additional payments, and their cars were repossessed. So yeah, I think it's pretty clear that we were wrong on all that.</p>
<p>Lapera: We were so wrong.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCaffeine/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Gaby Lapera Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/JohnMaxfield37/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">John Maxfield Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
|
We Were Wrong on Wells Fargo
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/30/were-wrong-on-wells-fargo.html
|
2017-08-30
| 0right
|
We Were Wrong on Wells Fargo
<p>We're doing a theme week on <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Industry Focus Opens a New Window.</a> over the next five days on times we were wrong in the past. To kick the week off, we look back on a show in November 2015, when we postulated that rumors about aggressive sales practices at Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) wouldn't change the investment thesis in the bank. Listen in to hear us talk about how and why we were so, so wrong.</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Wells FargoWhen 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=953611bb-0bfd-4879-8e04-dbbe41613885&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Wells Fargo 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=953611bb-0bfd-4879-8e04-dbbe41613885&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&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 August 1, 2017</p>
<p>This video was recorded on Aug. 21, 2017.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Gaby Lapera: But I wanted everyone to know that it's a theme week here on Industry Focus. The official title of the theme week is "We Said What?"&#160;This week, all hosts will talk about mistakes that we've made, mostly on the show, but maybe also in real life, depending on the host. Let's go ahead and dive right in. Austin, I dug through the archives and found this gem from November of 2015. Can you hit that for us, please?</p>
<p>John Maxfield: This is where Wells Fargo has been caught up. But it's important still, particularly at this early stage in this whole process, that we keep in mind that these are stories that could be coming -- and I don't doubt that Wells Fargo has a very aggressive sales culture. They're known for cross-selling. You have to push your employees to sell if you want to cross-sell. That's just how it works. But whether or not it actually crossed the line, and whether this is going to change the investment theory on Wells Fargo, that's something I really doubt. I would be surprised if this thing costs tens of billions of dollars for Wells Fargo.</p>
<p>Lapera: Right, and that is one place that Wells Fargo is ahead of a lot of the other big banks. They didn't have any large settlements that they had to pay post-2008 financial crisis.</p>
<p>Maxfield: Yeah, and it made a huge difference. I think Bank of America's&#160;tally -- and this is from Bank of America itself -- was $195 billion from the crisis; $195 billion is what the crisis cost them. So the fact that Wells Fargo has largely avoided all that -- yeah, they could have a few hundred million here and there, and it shouldn't be doing things that, if they really are pressuring, I think we can all agree with that, they shouldn't be doing those things. But as an investment, this is still an incredibly solid bank.</p>
<p>Lapera: Yeah. I figure we should probably close with a quote from Wells Fargo, which is from Mary Eshet, their spokeswoman. "Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interest of its customers and creating a supportive, caring, and ethical environment for our team members," which, that's what she's paid to say, so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Maxfield: Yeah, you don't think she wanted to come out and say, "We tell our employees to make sure that customers buy things whether they like it or not?" [laughs]</p>
<p>Lapera: Oh my god, why? [laughs] So, listeners, for a little bit of background on that, we were talking about a Wall Street Journal article that had come out on Nov. 30 of 2015, so that was quite a while ago now, about how Wells Fargo had been accused of aggressively pushing their salespeople to make these quotas, and we were like, "Oh, no, it's totally fine, guys!" Maxfield, do you want to chime in on how that turned out for us?</p>
<p>Maxfield: [laughs] First of all, when you guys came out with this theme week, and Gaby, when you mentioned this episode, I mean, I just thought it was the perfect episode for us to talk about, and a great episode to start out the theme week on, because it's such a clear case of being wrong --</p>
<p>Lapera: So wrong.</p>
<p>Maxfield: So wrong. And, it's really relevant right now. In September of last year, Wells Fargo was caught opening up something like 2 million fake accounts for customers in order to push their cross-sell ratio. To make things worse, after this came out, we learned that there were thousands of employees that were fired, and potentially many of them were fired because they tried to bring this scandal to light inside of Wells Fargo.</p>
<p>And then, after all of this -- you think that's all pretty bad, you're taking advantage of your customers, and you're then punishing your whistleblowers who are trying to do the right thing for your company -- but just recently it's come out that Wells Fargo also sold something like 500,000 of its customers, I've even read as many as 750,000 of its customers, this type of insurance that's called collateral protection insurance, which goes along with when you get an auto loan. If you have an auto loan with Wells Fargo and you don't have insurance on the car, Wells Fargo will charge you for this insurance to protect the collateral value of it. Well, 500,000 to 750,000 people had insurance but were nevertheless charged for it by Wells Fargo, which goes along with this whole cross-selling scandal. Then, on top of that, and I'm laughing not because I think it's funny but because it's so horrendous, something like 20,000 of those people had their loans go into default because of those additional payments, and their cars were repossessed. So yeah, I think it's pretty clear that we were wrong on all that.</p>
<p>Lapera: We were so wrong.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCaffeine/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Gaby Lapera Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/JohnMaxfield37/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">John Maxfield Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=c4499ff6-8c8b-11e7-9cba-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
| 5,402 |
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention may be closer to a name change after an online poll indicated that&#160;44 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of&#160;the nation's largest Protestant denomination.</p>
<p>Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright said a change would help the denomination of about 16 million plant new churches at a time of declining membership, <a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/df5721a137d549b8a7ebc29570c06ed6/TN--Southern-Baptists-Name/" type="external">according to The Republic</a>.</p>
<p>Southern Baptist figures have indicated that baptisms are down almost 5 percent in 2010 over 2009, while membership have declined for the fourth-straight year, the paper reported.</p>
<p>"The big question for us is 'Would [a name change] enhance our mission of starting churches across North America?'" Wright reportedly said.</p>
<p>Wright, the senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., said in September that the church's name might be too "regional," <a href="http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/07/9282920-new-poll-fuels-southern-baptists-concern-over-their-own-name" type="external">NBC News reported</a>.</p>
<p>But he also said that "the name might be limiting the church's ability to 'maximize our effectiveness in reaching North America for Jesus Christ in the 21st century.'"</p>
<p>Wright had formed a task force, which in turn commissioned the denomination's <a href="http://www.lifeway.com/LifeWay-Research/c/N-1z13wgl" type="external">LifeWay Research</a> to seek public opinion about the name.</p>
<p>Forty-four percent of respondents to the online poll of 2,000 Americans said that knowing a church was Southern Baptist would negatively impact their decision to visit or join the church, while only&#160;10 percent of those polled said it would positively impact their decision.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lifeway.com/Article/LifeWay-Research-Study-Americans-have-mixed-impressions-of-Southern-Baptists-indentity" type="external">The survey found</a>, meantime, that 62 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Methodists compared to 59 percent for Catholics, 53 percent for Southern Baptists, 37 percent for Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), and 28 percent for Muslims.</p>
<p>Worryingly for Southern Baptists, 35 percent "strongly assume" the church isn't for them.</p>
<p>And, NBC reported:</p>
<p>Negativity ratings were highest among the so-called unchurched - a serious problem for a denomination that places a premium on renewing its membership through proselytization (that is, recruiting new members) and missionary work.</p>
<p>However, LifeWay President Ed Stetzer reportedly said Wednesday that a majority of Americans (53 percent) still viewed the Southern Baptists favorably.</p>
|
Southern Baptists considering name change after poll finds lack of support
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2011-12-08/southern-baptists-considering-name-change-after-poll-finds-lack-support
|
2011-12-08
| 3left-center
|
Southern Baptists considering name change after poll finds lack of support
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention may be closer to a name change after an online poll indicated that&#160;44 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of&#160;the nation's largest Protestant denomination.</p>
<p>Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright said a change would help the denomination of about 16 million plant new churches at a time of declining membership, <a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/df5721a137d549b8a7ebc29570c06ed6/TN--Southern-Baptists-Name/" type="external">according to The Republic</a>.</p>
<p>Southern Baptist figures have indicated that baptisms are down almost 5 percent in 2010 over 2009, while membership have declined for the fourth-straight year, the paper reported.</p>
<p>"The big question for us is 'Would [a name change] enhance our mission of starting churches across North America?'" Wright reportedly said.</p>
<p>Wright, the senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., said in September that the church's name might be too "regional," <a href="http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/07/9282920-new-poll-fuels-southern-baptists-concern-over-their-own-name" type="external">NBC News reported</a>.</p>
<p>But he also said that "the name might be limiting the church's ability to 'maximize our effectiveness in reaching North America for Jesus Christ in the 21st century.'"</p>
<p>Wright had formed a task force, which in turn commissioned the denomination's <a href="http://www.lifeway.com/LifeWay-Research/c/N-1z13wgl" type="external">LifeWay Research</a> to seek public opinion about the name.</p>
<p>Forty-four percent of respondents to the online poll of 2,000 Americans said that knowing a church was Southern Baptist would negatively impact their decision to visit or join the church, while only&#160;10 percent of those polled said it would positively impact their decision.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lifeway.com/Article/LifeWay-Research-Study-Americans-have-mixed-impressions-of-Southern-Baptists-indentity" type="external">The survey found</a>, meantime, that 62 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Methodists compared to 59 percent for Catholics, 53 percent for Southern Baptists, 37 percent for Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), and 28 percent for Muslims.</p>
<p>Worryingly for Southern Baptists, 35 percent "strongly assume" the church isn't for them.</p>
<p>And, NBC reported:</p>
<p>Negativity ratings were highest among the so-called unchurched - a serious problem for a denomination that places a premium on renewing its membership through proselytization (that is, recruiting new members) and missionary work.</p>
<p>However, LifeWay President Ed Stetzer reportedly said Wednesday that a majority of Americans (53 percent) still viewed the Southern Baptists favorably.</p>
| 5,403 |
<p />
<p>You ask: “Who do you work for?”The caller says: A group beginning with “Citizens for…,” “Consumers Against…,” or “Americans who…”</p>
<p>You ask: “Where are you located?”The caller says: “I can’t reveal that information.”</p>
<p>You say: “I’m in the middle of dinner. Can I call you back?”The caller says: “Sure” and gives you a toll-free number.</p>
<p>You call the toll-free number. An operater says: “Legislative hotline!” and offers to route you to the appropriate staffer.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>You ask: “How does this issue affect me?”The caller says: “This will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>You ask: “When I call my senator, what do I say?”The caller says: “Say that this will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>You ask: “What else can I do?”The caller says: “Write your senator a letter saying that this will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>Not every grassroots call is necessarily fake. Just demand details. And remember: The Princeton Dental Resource Center was once sponsored by M&amp;M/Mars to convince the public that candy is good for your teeth. For more information on identifying phony campaigns, consult Mask of Deception: Corporate Front Groups in America, which is available for $15 through Essential Information (a Ralph Nader front group); call (202) 387-8030 or go to <a href="http://www.essential.org" type="external">www.essential.org</a></p>
<p />
|
How to Tell-a-Phone-y
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/1997/11/how-tell-phone-y/
|
2018-11-01
| 4left
|
How to Tell-a-Phone-y
<p />
<p>You ask: “Who do you work for?”The caller says: A group beginning with “Citizens for…,” “Consumers Against…,” or “Americans who…”</p>
<p>You ask: “Where are you located?”The caller says: “I can’t reveal that information.”</p>
<p>You say: “I’m in the middle of dinner. Can I call you back?”The caller says: “Sure” and gives you a toll-free number.</p>
<p>You call the toll-free number. An operater says: “Legislative hotline!” and offers to route you to the appropriate staffer.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>You ask: “How does this issue affect me?”The caller says: “This will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>You ask: “When I call my senator, what do I say?”The caller says: “Say that this will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>You ask: “What else can I do?”The caller says: “Write your senator a letter saying that this will hurt all consumers in your state!”</p>
<p>Not every grassroots call is necessarily fake. Just demand details. And remember: The Princeton Dental Resource Center was once sponsored by M&amp;M/Mars to convince the public that candy is good for your teeth. For more information on identifying phony campaigns, consult Mask of Deception: Corporate Front Groups in America, which is available for $15 through Essential Information (a Ralph Nader front group); call (202) 387-8030 or go to <a href="http://www.essential.org" type="external">www.essential.org</a></p>
<p />
| 5,404 |
<p />
<p>It wasn't just music fans pumping up the volume on Pandora Media recently. Shares of the leading streaming music provider soared 10% higher last week after insider buying and buyout buzz continued to resonate.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Pandora board memberTimothy Leiweke snapped up 10,000 shares on Wednesday, increasing his stake by nearly a third. That follows several weeks of insiders building up their positions. A week earlier it was Crosslink Capital -- a fund where PandoraChairman Jim Feuille is a partner -- snapped up 250,000 shares.</p>
<p>Insiders accumulating more stock comes at a time when the speculation is swirling about an outsider doing even more buying. There's been plenty of <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/18/3-companies-that-should-buy-pandora.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">buyout chatter Opens a New Window.</a>when it comes to Pandora. Whether it's one of the many tech giants hoping to make up for lost time in the realm of streaming music or private equity firms looking to clean Pandora up in the shadows before taking it public at even higher price levels, the stock's been the belle of the buyout ball these days.</p>
<p>Pandora continues to be the undisputed champ of streaming music in terms of the size of its user base.Pandora was servicing an active listener base of 79.4 million as of the end of March. That's essentially flat growth to the 79.2 million pairs of eardrums it was servicing a year earlier. Spotify has more paying subscribers. More than 95% of Pandora's audience tune in for free, putting up with ad blocks in exchange for free tunes. However, most of the consumer tech giants trying to make a splash in digital music would love to have a piece of Pandora's audience of nearly 80 million music buffs.</p>
<p>Usage may be flat, but revenue is still growing nicely at Pandora. Its top line has climbed 29% over the past year, fueled by advertisers willing to spend more, an uptick in subscribers opting to pay for commercial-free access, and a new ticketing platform.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Pandora continues to try to get its story out. Chief Product Officer Chris Phillips will present at the Stifel 2016 Technology, Internet &amp; Media Conference on Tuesday. Pandora has been facing concerns of competitive threats and rising programming costs, but with double-digit percentage growth in advertising -- and even headier growth at the more lucrative local level -- it's a model that should be able to handle the operating climate shifts.</p>
<p>The pioneer of music streaming and radio discovery is still trying to raise the bar. This morning it announced a partnership with a leading rights administration platform to help track the mechanical licensing and royalty administration of an upcoming interactive streaming service. Yes, Pandora's drawing a lot of interest from all over these days -- and like any budding music festival or attention-craving pop star -- that isn't a bad thing.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/06/06/can-pandora-keep-it-going-after-last-weeks-10-pop.aspx" type="external">Can Pandora Keep It Going After Last Week's 10% Pop? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Pandora Media. 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>
|
Can Pandora Keep It Going After Last Week's 10% Pop?
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/06/06/can-pandora-keep-it-going-after-last-week-10-pop.html
|
2016-06-06
| 0right
|
Can Pandora Keep It Going After Last Week's 10% Pop?
<p />
<p>It wasn't just music fans pumping up the volume on Pandora Media recently. Shares of the leading streaming music provider soared 10% higher last week after insider buying and buyout buzz continued to resonate.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Pandora board memberTimothy Leiweke snapped up 10,000 shares on Wednesday, increasing his stake by nearly a third. That follows several weeks of insiders building up their positions. A week earlier it was Crosslink Capital -- a fund where PandoraChairman Jim Feuille is a partner -- snapped up 250,000 shares.</p>
<p>Insiders accumulating more stock comes at a time when the speculation is swirling about an outsider doing even more buying. There's been plenty of <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/18/3-companies-that-should-buy-pandora.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">buyout chatter Opens a New Window.</a>when it comes to Pandora. Whether it's one of the many tech giants hoping to make up for lost time in the realm of streaming music or private equity firms looking to clean Pandora up in the shadows before taking it public at even higher price levels, the stock's been the belle of the buyout ball these days.</p>
<p>Pandora continues to be the undisputed champ of streaming music in terms of the size of its user base.Pandora was servicing an active listener base of 79.4 million as of the end of March. That's essentially flat growth to the 79.2 million pairs of eardrums it was servicing a year earlier. Spotify has more paying subscribers. More than 95% of Pandora's audience tune in for free, putting up with ad blocks in exchange for free tunes. However, most of the consumer tech giants trying to make a splash in digital music would love to have a piece of Pandora's audience of nearly 80 million music buffs.</p>
<p>Usage may be flat, but revenue is still growing nicely at Pandora. Its top line has climbed 29% over the past year, fueled by advertisers willing to spend more, an uptick in subscribers opting to pay for commercial-free access, and a new ticketing platform.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Pandora continues to try to get its story out. Chief Product Officer Chris Phillips will present at the Stifel 2016 Technology, Internet &amp; Media Conference on Tuesday. Pandora has been facing concerns of competitive threats and rising programming costs, but with double-digit percentage growth in advertising -- and even headier growth at the more lucrative local level -- it's a model that should be able to handle the operating climate shifts.</p>
<p>The pioneer of music streaming and radio discovery is still trying to raise the bar. This morning it announced a partnership with a leading rights administration platform to help track the mechanical licensing and royalty administration of an upcoming interactive streaming service. Yes, Pandora's drawing a lot of interest from all over these days -- and like any budding music festival or attention-craving pop star -- that isn't a bad thing.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/06/06/can-pandora-keep-it-going-after-last-weeks-10-pop.aspx" type="external">Can Pandora Keep It Going After Last Week's 10% Pop? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Pandora Media. 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>
| 5,405 |
<p>President Donald Trump on Friday pledged that the Republican tax proposal would spur "the rebirth of American industry" and supercharge the U.S. economy amid debate over how much growth the plan will generate and its impact on the federal deficit.</p>
<p>"This huge tax cut will be rocket fuel for our economy," said Mr. Trump in a speech at the National Association of Manufacturers. Under his administration, he said, "the era of economic surrender is over."</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mr. Trump and Republican leaders this week unveiled a proposal that would sharply reduce tax rates on businesses and many individuals, kicking off a major legislative push to overhaul the nation's tax code this year.</p>
<p>"At the center of that plan is a giant, beautiful, massive, the biggest ever in our country, tax cut," Mr. Trump said.</p>
<p>Analysts and economists have disagreed over how much economic growth the tax cuts would likely generate, with many saying there is no clear evidence that cuts typically generate enough growth to offset the drop in revenue from the lower rates.</p>
<p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the tax overhaul would generate more than enough economic growth to offset the cost. Mr. Mnuchin said he expects the plan would boost gross domestic product growth to an annual rate of 2.9% over the next 10 years, generating an additional $2 trillion of revenue.</p>
<p>The ambitious framework released Wednesday sketched out a range of tax changes -- including lower taxes on corporate profits, incentives for business investment, fewer and lower individual income tax brackets and the end of estate taxes -- that Republicans said will boost economic growth and benefit middle-income families.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the tax framework represents a net tax-cut of $2.2 trillion over a decade.</p>
<p>However, Republicans are now debating scaling back one of their largest proposals to pay for lower tax rates: repeal of the individual deduction for state and local taxes. The fight over the deduction, with more than $1 trillion at stake over a decade, is an early signal of the bruising battle ahead for Republicans trying to pass a tax bill that hasn't garnered Democratic support and that faces narrow GOP margins in the House and Senate.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have promoted the tax proposal -- passage of which would mark the administration's first major legislative victory -- in multiple states in recent days. Mr. Trump traveled to Indiana on Wednesday to outline the tax changes, and Mr. Pence visited Michigan and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump also touted his administration's effort to reduce regulations, saying he was "cutting regulations at a pace that has never even been thought of before." He said too many regulations hamstring companies' "ability to compete," though he acknowledged some regulations are necessary.</p>
<p>"We want beautiful, fast, efficient regulation that works," he said.</p>
<p>Richard Rubin and Kate Davidson contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 29, 2017 12:58 ET (16:58 GMT)</p>
|
Trump Says Tax Cuts Will Supercharge Economic Growth
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/29/trump-says-tax-cuts-will-supercharge-economic-growth.html
|
2017-09-29
| 0right
|
Trump Says Tax Cuts Will Supercharge Economic Growth
<p>President Donald Trump on Friday pledged that the Republican tax proposal would spur "the rebirth of American industry" and supercharge the U.S. economy amid debate over how much growth the plan will generate and its impact on the federal deficit.</p>
<p>"This huge tax cut will be rocket fuel for our economy," said Mr. Trump in a speech at the National Association of Manufacturers. Under his administration, he said, "the era of economic surrender is over."</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mr. Trump and Republican leaders this week unveiled a proposal that would sharply reduce tax rates on businesses and many individuals, kicking off a major legislative push to overhaul the nation's tax code this year.</p>
<p>"At the center of that plan is a giant, beautiful, massive, the biggest ever in our country, tax cut," Mr. Trump said.</p>
<p>Analysts and economists have disagreed over how much economic growth the tax cuts would likely generate, with many saying there is no clear evidence that cuts typically generate enough growth to offset the drop in revenue from the lower rates.</p>
<p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the tax overhaul would generate more than enough economic growth to offset the cost. Mr. Mnuchin said he expects the plan would boost gross domestic product growth to an annual rate of 2.9% over the next 10 years, generating an additional $2 trillion of revenue.</p>
<p>The ambitious framework released Wednesday sketched out a range of tax changes -- including lower taxes on corporate profits, incentives for business investment, fewer and lower individual income tax brackets and the end of estate taxes -- that Republicans said will boost economic growth and benefit middle-income families.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the tax framework represents a net tax-cut of $2.2 trillion over a decade.</p>
<p>However, Republicans are now debating scaling back one of their largest proposals to pay for lower tax rates: repeal of the individual deduction for state and local taxes. The fight over the deduction, with more than $1 trillion at stake over a decade, is an early signal of the bruising battle ahead for Republicans trying to pass a tax bill that hasn't garnered Democratic support and that faces narrow GOP margins in the House and Senate.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have promoted the tax proposal -- passage of which would mark the administration's first major legislative victory -- in multiple states in recent days. Mr. Trump traveled to Indiana on Wednesday to outline the tax changes, and Mr. Pence visited Michigan and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump also touted his administration's effort to reduce regulations, saying he was "cutting regulations at a pace that has never even been thought of before." He said too many regulations hamstring companies' "ability to compete," though he acknowledged some regulations are necessary.</p>
<p>"We want beautiful, fast, efficient regulation that works," he said.</p>
<p>Richard Rubin and Kate Davidson contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 29, 2017 12:58 ET (16:58 GMT)</p>
| 5,406 |
<p>Where Twin Town is determinedly cutting edge, Brassed Off by Mark Herman is quaintly old-fashioned. It is so both in being a straightforward, Rocky type story of a Yorkshire village’s brass band making it to the finals of the national band competition and in being the crudest sort of left wing propaganda—the sort of propaganda that the left wing itself has mostly given up on and which now survives only in universities and the movie industry.</p>
<p>Pete Postlethwaite plays Danny, the director of the Grimley Colliery Band. The wicked Tories are about to close the local coal mine, and when it goes the band will too. Danny professes all the way through to care only for music. “I know that there’s something going on at t’pit,” he says in his earthy Yorkshire accent. “But that’s separate. This is music. This is more important.”</p>
<p>They are playing “The Floral Dance” when a girl (Tara Fitzgerald) comes in and asks if this is the band rehearsal. Harry (Jim Carter) says: “No, band practice is on Tuesday; this is origami.” Yorkshire humor. She is a player of the fluglehorn and wants to join in. At first Danny says they don’t allow [pause] “outsiders” to play with them, where the pause is meant to suggest that he really means “women,” but she assures him that she is a local girl. “What’s your name, lass?” asks Danny.</p>
<p>“Gloria,” she says</p>
<p>“Gloria what?”</p>
<p>Then one of the lads pipes up: “Gloria Stitz.”</p>
<p>Ha ha. More Yorkshire humor.</p>
<p>She tells them she is the granddaughter of Arthur Mullins, Danny’s best friend down t’pit, the bravest miner and the best bandsman Grimley had ever seen, who died of pneumoconiosis. Danny invites her to sit in and they play a brass band version of Roderigo’s “Concerto de Aranjuez” which the bluff Yorkshiremen call the “Concerto de Orangejuice.” Of course she is brilliant in the solo part.</p>
<p>Some of the lads are thinking about packing it in. They assume that the pit will close and can’t afford to continue their subscriptions. But the arrival of the sexy Gloria makes them change their minds. Also, Danny gives them a lecture on how the band “symbolizes pride” in the town. “The only reminder of a hundred bloody years of hard graft is this bloody band.” Danny’s son Phil (Stephen Tompkinson), who went to jail during the miners’ strike of 1984, borrowed some money to support his family, which consists of a harried wife, Sandra (Melanie Hill) and four or five kids, and has ever since been dunned by loan sharks, tries to give the old man a bit of perspective. “There’s more important things in life,” he tells him, than the band.</p>
<p>“Not in my life there’s not,” says Danny.</p>
<p>Also in the band is young Andy (Ewan McGregor) who had had a sort of a teenage fling ( “top half only” ) with Gloria when they were both only 14 and before, presumably, she moved away. He is more than ever smitten with her now. They re-establish a romantic relationship. But, lo and behold, Gloria turns out to be an employee of the hated British Coal Board and thus in league with Tories and scabs. Andy, who is so stupid that he gambles away all his money playing snooker with a hustler, is the most militant of the miners and is devastated. She tries to tell him that she is on their side and is writing a report that she hopes will save t’pit. But here, at least, he proves to be smarter since he already knows that her report is meaningless. The decision to close the mine has been made.</p>
<p>Sure enough, when Gloria angrily confronts her boss, he blandly tells her that reports like hers “have to be seen to be written, but they’re not written to be seen.”</p>
<p>She accuses him of having made his decision weeks ago. “Wrong,” he tells her. “Two years ago. Coal’s history, lass.”</p>
<p>And so it is. Even the new British Labour government doesn’t propose to bring back these Yorkshire mines with all their hazards (Danny, too, has pneumoconiosis) to produce coal the world doesn’t need anymore. But the romance of the mining “communities” lives on among leftie intellectuals like Herman who wouldn’t dream of going down a mine themselves. For them, one cannot help thinking, the miners’ once politically potent desire not to be put to the trouble of seeking other employment is merely a means to the end of bashing the hated Tories.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most memorable bit of Tory-bashing comes in a scene where Phil, who supplements his income by playing “Chuckles” the clown at children’s parties, suddenly loses his composure at a party which, for some reason, is taking place in a church. He suddenly starts abusing God, who “took John Lennon, and those three lads down t’Ainsley pit, and looks as if he’ll be takin’ my dad. And Margaret Bloody Thatcher lives? What is he playin’ at?”</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s the Concerto de Orangejuice. At any rate, the band’s survival and even triumph become a defiant gesture in the face of unsentimental taxpayers on behalf of outmoded technology. They love that kind of thing in Britain. Fortunately for America’s power and prosperity, outside of Hollywood not many people love it here.</p>
|
Brassed Off
| false |
https://eppc.org/publications/brassed-off/
| 1right-center
|
Brassed Off
<p>Where Twin Town is determinedly cutting edge, Brassed Off by Mark Herman is quaintly old-fashioned. It is so both in being a straightforward, Rocky type story of a Yorkshire village’s brass band making it to the finals of the national band competition and in being the crudest sort of left wing propaganda—the sort of propaganda that the left wing itself has mostly given up on and which now survives only in universities and the movie industry.</p>
<p>Pete Postlethwaite plays Danny, the director of the Grimley Colliery Band. The wicked Tories are about to close the local coal mine, and when it goes the band will too. Danny professes all the way through to care only for music. “I know that there’s something going on at t’pit,” he says in his earthy Yorkshire accent. “But that’s separate. This is music. This is more important.”</p>
<p>They are playing “The Floral Dance” when a girl (Tara Fitzgerald) comes in and asks if this is the band rehearsal. Harry (Jim Carter) says: “No, band practice is on Tuesday; this is origami.” Yorkshire humor. She is a player of the fluglehorn and wants to join in. At first Danny says they don’t allow [pause] “outsiders” to play with them, where the pause is meant to suggest that he really means “women,” but she assures him that she is a local girl. “What’s your name, lass?” asks Danny.</p>
<p>“Gloria,” she says</p>
<p>“Gloria what?”</p>
<p>Then one of the lads pipes up: “Gloria Stitz.”</p>
<p>Ha ha. More Yorkshire humor.</p>
<p>She tells them she is the granddaughter of Arthur Mullins, Danny’s best friend down t’pit, the bravest miner and the best bandsman Grimley had ever seen, who died of pneumoconiosis. Danny invites her to sit in and they play a brass band version of Roderigo’s “Concerto de Aranjuez” which the bluff Yorkshiremen call the “Concerto de Orangejuice.” Of course she is brilliant in the solo part.</p>
<p>Some of the lads are thinking about packing it in. They assume that the pit will close and can’t afford to continue their subscriptions. But the arrival of the sexy Gloria makes them change their minds. Also, Danny gives them a lecture on how the band “symbolizes pride” in the town. “The only reminder of a hundred bloody years of hard graft is this bloody band.” Danny’s son Phil (Stephen Tompkinson), who went to jail during the miners’ strike of 1984, borrowed some money to support his family, which consists of a harried wife, Sandra (Melanie Hill) and four or five kids, and has ever since been dunned by loan sharks, tries to give the old man a bit of perspective. “There’s more important things in life,” he tells him, than the band.</p>
<p>“Not in my life there’s not,” says Danny.</p>
<p>Also in the band is young Andy (Ewan McGregor) who had had a sort of a teenage fling ( “top half only” ) with Gloria when they were both only 14 and before, presumably, she moved away. He is more than ever smitten with her now. They re-establish a romantic relationship. But, lo and behold, Gloria turns out to be an employee of the hated British Coal Board and thus in league with Tories and scabs. Andy, who is so stupid that he gambles away all his money playing snooker with a hustler, is the most militant of the miners and is devastated. She tries to tell him that she is on their side and is writing a report that she hopes will save t’pit. But here, at least, he proves to be smarter since he already knows that her report is meaningless. The decision to close the mine has been made.</p>
<p>Sure enough, when Gloria angrily confronts her boss, he blandly tells her that reports like hers “have to be seen to be written, but they’re not written to be seen.”</p>
<p>She accuses him of having made his decision weeks ago. “Wrong,” he tells her. “Two years ago. Coal’s history, lass.”</p>
<p>And so it is. Even the new British Labour government doesn’t propose to bring back these Yorkshire mines with all their hazards (Danny, too, has pneumoconiosis) to produce coal the world doesn’t need anymore. But the romance of the mining “communities” lives on among leftie intellectuals like Herman who wouldn’t dream of going down a mine themselves. For them, one cannot help thinking, the miners’ once politically potent desire not to be put to the trouble of seeking other employment is merely a means to the end of bashing the hated Tories.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most memorable bit of Tory-bashing comes in a scene where Phil, who supplements his income by playing “Chuckles” the clown at children’s parties, suddenly loses his composure at a party which, for some reason, is taking place in a church. He suddenly starts abusing God, who “took John Lennon, and those three lads down t’Ainsley pit, and looks as if he’ll be takin’ my dad. And Margaret Bloody Thatcher lives? What is he playin’ at?”</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s the Concerto de Orangejuice. At any rate, the band’s survival and even triumph become a defiant gesture in the face of unsentimental taxpayers on behalf of outmoded technology. They love that kind of thing in Britain. Fortunately for America’s power and prosperity, outside of Hollywood not many people love it here.</p>
| 5,407 |
|
<p>Washington Post Live Online He's a French photographer, says the Washington Post's Jackie Spinner. "He was detained by US forces yesterday as he fled his embed," she says in a online chat. Spinner, who is in Fallujah, is asked: "How dangerous is it for journalists in Iraq in general and Fallujah in particular? I haven't heard about any reporters getting hurt but can't believe that is true." HER REPLY: "I talked to a lot of veteran war correspondents before this battle started and most of them were quite rattled. There has been at least one journalist seriously injured -- a photographer hurt when an IED blew up near the armored vehicle where she was riding. When we go out into the city with the troops, we, as journalists, face the same dangers they do... But there is a real sense of responsibility among many of the journalists here that we must be here to report what's happening. Someone has to do it."</p>
|
Only one journalist accepted insurgents' embed offer
| false |
https://poynter.org/news/only-one-journalist-accepted-insurgents-embed-offer
|
2004-11-11
| 2least
|
Only one journalist accepted insurgents' embed offer
<p>Washington Post Live Online He's a French photographer, says the Washington Post's Jackie Spinner. "He was detained by US forces yesterday as he fled his embed," she says in a online chat. Spinner, who is in Fallujah, is asked: "How dangerous is it for journalists in Iraq in general and Fallujah in particular? I haven't heard about any reporters getting hurt but can't believe that is true." HER REPLY: "I talked to a lot of veteran war correspondents before this battle started and most of them were quite rattled. There has been at least one journalist seriously injured -- a photographer hurt when an IED blew up near the armored vehicle where she was riding. When we go out into the city with the troops, we, as journalists, face the same dangers they do... But there is a real sense of responsibility among many of the journalists here that we must be here to report what's happening. Someone has to do it."</p>
| 5,408 |
<p>Two new shows will grace viewer screens this weekend: “Battle Creek” on CBS, helmed by seasoned TV hit makers&#160;Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”) and David Shore (“House”) and “Last Man on Earth” on Fox. <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/02/27/4400955/new-tv-shows-battle-creek-last.html" type="external">Both programs have a common thread</a> – protagonists&#160;who find themselves in fish-out-of-water&#160;circumstances.</p>
<p>Josh Duhamel stars as handsome, charismatic&#160;Special Agent Milton Chamberlain in “Battle Creek,” who establishes an FBI field office at the police station in Battle Creek, Mich. Chamberlain employs a cutting-edge approach to solving crime, at stark odds&#160;with&#160;a police department unable to afford basic necessities to arm its officers. The show derives its tension from Chamberlain’s clashes with hard-bitten veteran detective&#160;(Dean Winters, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit).</p>
<p>Duhamel — who appeared on the series&#160;“Las Vegas” and the “Transformers” movies — intimates that&#160;a cop series set in a small town can be equally as complex and compelling as one set in NYC, LA or Miami.</p>
<p>“A lot of really interesting stories could come out of a place that doesn’t necessarily have all these big glamorous crimes. It’s a lot of stuff. It’s the minutiae of the people and the situations that the people get in,” says Duhamel.</p>
<p>Elsewhere on the dial, SNL alum Will Forte has to navigate&#160;a world emptied due to an apocalyptic virus in the Fox’s comedy&#160;series “Last Man on Earth.”</p>
<p>“It’s such a great area for comedy because I love comedy where there’s a lot of tension and there’s this idea seems to be even though it’s very far-fetched, it seems very relatable, because I think everybody has thought, ‘What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?’ So even though it’s a situation you know, it’s oddly relatable in that way. It’s such a wonderful, tense situation just inherent to the idea,” says Forte.</p>
<p>Although Forte is mostly on the high wire alone in the series, he will have as much opportunity to play comic situations as if he were opposite other actors.&#160;There actually will be a few other actors on the show, but producers are keeping mum on what roles they will play. Those looking for zombies will <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/02/28/last_man_on_earth_a_fitting_existential_comedy_showcase_for_will_fortes_oddball_charm/" type="external">unfortunately be disappointed.&#160;</a></p>
<p />
|
New TV series launching this weekend: ‘Battle Creek,’ ‘Last Man on Earth’
| false |
http://natmonitor.com/2015/02/27/new-tv-series-launching-this-weekend-battle-creek-last-man-on-earth/
|
2015-02-27
| 3left-center
|
New TV series launching this weekend: ‘Battle Creek,’ ‘Last Man on Earth’
<p>Two new shows will grace viewer screens this weekend: “Battle Creek” on CBS, helmed by seasoned TV hit makers&#160;Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”) and David Shore (“House”) and “Last Man on Earth” on Fox. <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/02/27/4400955/new-tv-shows-battle-creek-last.html" type="external">Both programs have a common thread</a> – protagonists&#160;who find themselves in fish-out-of-water&#160;circumstances.</p>
<p>Josh Duhamel stars as handsome, charismatic&#160;Special Agent Milton Chamberlain in “Battle Creek,” who establishes an FBI field office at the police station in Battle Creek, Mich. Chamberlain employs a cutting-edge approach to solving crime, at stark odds&#160;with&#160;a police department unable to afford basic necessities to arm its officers. The show derives its tension from Chamberlain’s clashes with hard-bitten veteran detective&#160;(Dean Winters, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit).</p>
<p>Duhamel — who appeared on the series&#160;“Las Vegas” and the “Transformers” movies — intimates that&#160;a cop series set in a small town can be equally as complex and compelling as one set in NYC, LA or Miami.</p>
<p>“A lot of really interesting stories could come out of a place that doesn’t necessarily have all these big glamorous crimes. It’s a lot of stuff. It’s the minutiae of the people and the situations that the people get in,” says Duhamel.</p>
<p>Elsewhere on the dial, SNL alum Will Forte has to navigate&#160;a world emptied due to an apocalyptic virus in the Fox’s comedy&#160;series “Last Man on Earth.”</p>
<p>“It’s such a great area for comedy because I love comedy where there’s a lot of tension and there’s this idea seems to be even though it’s very far-fetched, it seems very relatable, because I think everybody has thought, ‘What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?’ So even though it’s a situation you know, it’s oddly relatable in that way. It’s such a wonderful, tense situation just inherent to the idea,” says Forte.</p>
<p>Although Forte is mostly on the high wire alone in the series, he will have as much opportunity to play comic situations as if he were opposite other actors.&#160;There actually will be a few other actors on the show, but producers are keeping mum on what roles they will play. Those looking for zombies will <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/02/28/last_man_on_earth_a_fitting_existential_comedy_showcase_for_will_fortes_oddball_charm/" type="external">unfortunately be disappointed.&#160;</a></p>
<p />
| 5,409 |
<p>Truthdig salutes Rocky Anderson, the Salt Lake City mayor who spoke out against the war and reminded the world that “blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.” Anderson welcomed Bush to his city with a fiery protest speech and these searing lines: “A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.”</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v06/n987/a02.html" type="external">Salt Lake Tribune</a>, the two-term mayor has been outspoken on a wide range of topics, including genocide in Sudan, nuclear-waste storage, marijuana laws, the Iraq war, President Bush, HIV testing, healthcare, abstinence-only education, gay marriage, living wages and sprawl. He has also been an outspoken gay rights advocate and has signed executive orders on behalf of the gay community.</p>
<p>Anderson recently announced that he will not seek a third term as mayor of Salt Lake City. Rather, he will pursue grass-roots organizing on human rights issues and climate change.</p>
<p>Address by Mayor Rocky Anderson Washington Square Salt Lake City, Utah August 30, 2006 <a href="http://kutv.com/video/[email protected]" type="external">Watch the video here</a></p>
<p />
|
Truthdigger of the Week: Mayor Ross 'Rocky' Anderson
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/truthdigger-of-the-week-mayor-ross-rocky-anderson/
|
2006-09-01
| 4left
|
Truthdigger of the Week: Mayor Ross 'Rocky' Anderson
<p>Truthdig salutes Rocky Anderson, the Salt Lake City mayor who spoke out against the war and reminded the world that “blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.” Anderson welcomed Bush to his city with a fiery protest speech and these searing lines: “A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.”</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v06/n987/a02.html" type="external">Salt Lake Tribune</a>, the two-term mayor has been outspoken on a wide range of topics, including genocide in Sudan, nuclear-waste storage, marijuana laws, the Iraq war, President Bush, HIV testing, healthcare, abstinence-only education, gay marriage, living wages and sprawl. He has also been an outspoken gay rights advocate and has signed executive orders on behalf of the gay community.</p>
<p>Anderson recently announced that he will not seek a third term as mayor of Salt Lake City. Rather, he will pursue grass-roots organizing on human rights issues and climate change.</p>
<p>Address by Mayor Rocky Anderson Washington Square Salt Lake City, Utah August 30, 2006 <a href="http://kutv.com/video/[email protected]" type="external">Watch the video here</a></p>
<p />
| 5,410 |
<p>For Portugal the analogies were almost always wrong. It was not Czechoslovakia in 1948. Throughout 1974 and into mid-1975, the Communists held many of the key positions of power: in the government, the local administration, the unions, the press, and they also seemed to have the support of key elements in the army. Yet, during that critical period, Cunhal was sweet reasonableness. After all the PCP, not the PCI, was the first West European Communist Party, in October 1974, to repudiate the phrase "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Cunhal's critics to the left at the time called him a "social fascist"; he talked like a reformer, he behaved like an authoritarian.</p>
<p />
|
Portugal: Problems Old & New
| true |
https://dissentmagazine.org/article/portugal-problems-old-new
|
2018-10-03
| 4left
|
Portugal: Problems Old & New
<p>For Portugal the analogies were almost always wrong. It was not Czechoslovakia in 1948. Throughout 1974 and into mid-1975, the Communists held many of the key positions of power: in the government, the local administration, the unions, the press, and they also seemed to have the support of key elements in the army. Yet, during that critical period, Cunhal was sweet reasonableness. After all the PCP, not the PCI, was the first West European Communist Party, in October 1974, to repudiate the phrase "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Cunhal's critics to the left at the time called him a "social fascist"; he talked like a reformer, he behaved like an authoritarian.</p>
<p />
| 5,411 |
<p>It’s become a visual meme in our culture, but some World War II veterans don’t believe that Joe Rosenthal’s seminal image of Americans hoisting the flag on Mount Suribachi should be appropriated or altered in any way. In fact, some vets, like Donald Mates, believe repurposing the photo, as Time magazine has just done for an issue about global warming, is tantamount to blasphemy.</p>
<p>Business &amp; Media Institute:</p>
<p>The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree. The cover story by Bryan Walsh calls green “the new red, white and blue.”</p>
<p>Donald Mates, an Iwo Jima veteran, told the Business &amp; Media Institute on April 17 that using that photograph for that cause was a “disgrace.”</p>
<p />
<p>“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates said. “Whoever did it is going to hell. That’s a mortal sin. God forbid he runs into a Marine that was an Iwo Jima survivor.”</p>
<p>Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was erroneous and disrespectful.</p>
<p>“The second world war we knew was there,” Mates said. “There’s a big discussion. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080417171532.aspx" type="external">Read more</a></p>
|
Iwo Jima Vet: Time Magazine Cover 'a Disgrace'
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/iwo-jima-vet-time-magazine-cover-a-disgrace/
|
2008-04-18
| 4left
|
Iwo Jima Vet: Time Magazine Cover 'a Disgrace'
<p>It’s become a visual meme in our culture, but some World War II veterans don’t believe that Joe Rosenthal’s seminal image of Americans hoisting the flag on Mount Suribachi should be appropriated or altered in any way. In fact, some vets, like Donald Mates, believe repurposing the photo, as Time magazine has just done for an issue about global warming, is tantamount to blasphemy.</p>
<p>Business &amp; Media Institute:</p>
<p>The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree. The cover story by Bryan Walsh calls green “the new red, white and blue.”</p>
<p>Donald Mates, an Iwo Jima veteran, told the Business &amp; Media Institute on April 17 that using that photograph for that cause was a “disgrace.”</p>
<p />
<p>“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates said. “Whoever did it is going to hell. That’s a mortal sin. God forbid he runs into a Marine that was an Iwo Jima survivor.”</p>
<p>Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was erroneous and disrespectful.</p>
<p>“The second world war we knew was there,” Mates said. “There’s a big discussion. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080417171532.aspx" type="external">Read more</a></p>
| 5,412 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>NAME: Daniel J. Tallon</p>
<p>OCCUPATION: Attorney</p>
<p>CITY/TOWN OF RESIDENCE: Placitas</p>
<p>PARTY: Democratic</p>
<p>RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: Twenty-eight years as a prosecutor and private attorney in New Mexico. Six years as a family court law clerk, prosecutor and assistant city attorney in New York.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>EDUCATION: Juris Doctor, Albany Law School (1980); Bachelor's Degree; State University of New York (1976); graduate coursework; University of New Mexico (1991 - 1994).</p>
<p>CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: <a href="http://www.TallonforMagistrate.com" type="external">TallonforMagistrate.com</a></p>
<p>CANDIDATE STATEMENT: Why you are running for this office: All citizens of the community will be heard and their grievances fairly and impartially decided according to the law and aided by my lengthy and diverse legal experience.</p>
<p>What you would hope to do if elected: Promote the prompt and fair settlement of claims between citizens, using certified mediators where appropriate, and under court supervision. Manage the criminal case docket to avoid procedural dismissals. Emphasize clarity, transparency and consistency for the benefit of all citizens, law enforcement personnel and prosecuting and defense attorneys.</p>
<p />
|
Sandoval County Magistrate Judge, Division 1 (D) - Daniel J. Tallon
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/400623/sandoval-county-magistrate-judge-division-1-d-daniel-j-tallon.html
|
2014-05-15
| 2least
|
Sandoval County Magistrate Judge, Division 1 (D) - Daniel J. Tallon
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>NAME: Daniel J. Tallon</p>
<p>OCCUPATION: Attorney</p>
<p>CITY/TOWN OF RESIDENCE: Placitas</p>
<p>PARTY: Democratic</p>
<p>RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: Twenty-eight years as a prosecutor and private attorney in New Mexico. Six years as a family court law clerk, prosecutor and assistant city attorney in New York.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>EDUCATION: Juris Doctor, Albany Law School (1980); Bachelor's Degree; State University of New York (1976); graduate coursework; University of New Mexico (1991 - 1994).</p>
<p>CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: <a href="http://www.TallonforMagistrate.com" type="external">TallonforMagistrate.com</a></p>
<p>CANDIDATE STATEMENT: Why you are running for this office: All citizens of the community will be heard and their grievances fairly and impartially decided according to the law and aided by my lengthy and diverse legal experience.</p>
<p>What you would hope to do if elected: Promote the prompt and fair settlement of claims between citizens, using certified mediators where appropriate, and under court supervision. Manage the criminal case docket to avoid procedural dismissals. Emphasize clarity, transparency and consistency for the benefit of all citizens, law enforcement personnel and prosecuting and defense attorneys.</p>
<p />
| 5,413 |
<p>The federal government just threatened to suspend the flood insurance of homeowners right in the path of Hurricane Irma, <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/09/06/with-irma-bearing-down-homeowners-face-loss-of-federal-flood-insurance/" type="external">according to DCReport.</a></p>
<p>The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) quietly posted today that some communities - including Daytona Beach, FL - are scheduled to lose their flood insurance by the end of the month for being in noncompliance with&#160;the floodplain management requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).</p>
<p>Homeowners must now hope their counties can comply with the policy requirements by Sept. 29, or else risk losing the federal flood insurance that most private insurance providers do not offer, perhaps permanently. (Once an area's federal flood insurance is suspended, it can't be renewed.) These communities would also lose vital federal financial aid allotted for construction projects in flood-damaged communities.</p>
<p>Should this happen, homebuyers can expect more mortgage delays and higher home prices after losing this safety net. FEMA has sent a six-month, 90-day, and now one-month notification letter informing the communities of their imminent suspension.</p>
<p>These demands largely stem from money troubles in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP is still struggling with a $25 billion debt to the U.S. Treasury after the massively expensive Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. FEMA itself was slated to run out of money before Irma hits the U.S. mainland <a href="http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2017/09/06/house-hurricane-fema-money/" type="external">until Congress approved a plan today</a>&#160;to send $7.4 billion to its disaster relief fund, and $450 million to the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program.</p>
<p>Exacerbating matters, President Trump <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccasazza/2017/03/28/trump-slashing-funding-to-the-national-flood-insurance-program-can-cause-rates-to-go-up/#7a4618274473" type="external">has proposed massive cuts to the NFIP's budget</a>, - potentially as much as $190 million a year - and may defund the program completely.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, hurricane season won't even hit its peak for another four days, and the U.S. has already grappled with two of the most powerful hurricanes in its history, with Tropical Storm Jose expected to become a hurricane later today. Hurricane season doesn't end completely until November 30.</p>
|
As Irma Approaches, Congress Moves to Cancel Federal Flood Insurance For Homeowners
| true |
http://resistancereport.com/news/irma-approaches-congress-moves-cancel-federal-flood-insurance-homeowners/
|
2017-09-06
| 4left
|
As Irma Approaches, Congress Moves to Cancel Federal Flood Insurance For Homeowners
<p>The federal government just threatened to suspend the flood insurance of homeowners right in the path of Hurricane Irma, <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/09/06/with-irma-bearing-down-homeowners-face-loss-of-federal-flood-insurance/" type="external">according to DCReport.</a></p>
<p>The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) quietly posted today that some communities - including Daytona Beach, FL - are scheduled to lose their flood insurance by the end of the month for being in noncompliance with&#160;the floodplain management requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).</p>
<p>Homeowners must now hope their counties can comply with the policy requirements by Sept. 29, or else risk losing the federal flood insurance that most private insurance providers do not offer, perhaps permanently. (Once an area's federal flood insurance is suspended, it can't be renewed.) These communities would also lose vital federal financial aid allotted for construction projects in flood-damaged communities.</p>
<p>Should this happen, homebuyers can expect more mortgage delays and higher home prices after losing this safety net. FEMA has sent a six-month, 90-day, and now one-month notification letter informing the communities of their imminent suspension.</p>
<p>These demands largely stem from money troubles in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP is still struggling with a $25 billion debt to the U.S. Treasury after the massively expensive Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. FEMA itself was slated to run out of money before Irma hits the U.S. mainland <a href="http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2017/09/06/house-hurricane-fema-money/" type="external">until Congress approved a plan today</a>&#160;to send $7.4 billion to its disaster relief fund, and $450 million to the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program.</p>
<p>Exacerbating matters, President Trump <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccasazza/2017/03/28/trump-slashing-funding-to-the-national-flood-insurance-program-can-cause-rates-to-go-up/#7a4618274473" type="external">has proposed massive cuts to the NFIP's budget</a>, - potentially as much as $190 million a year - and may defund the program completely.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, hurricane season won't even hit its peak for another four days, and the U.S. has already grappled with two of the most powerful hurricanes in its history, with Tropical Storm Jose expected to become a hurricane later today. Hurricane season doesn't end completely until November 30.</p>
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<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Senate committee has rejected legislation aimed at increasing low-income students at one of the country's top-ranked public high schools.</p>
<p>The panel overwhelmingly voted against a bill by Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell to require Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County to admit a certain number of students who receive free or reduced-price meals. The bill would also require a quota from each middle school that's eligible to send students to the elite magnet high school.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson is frequently ranked as one of the best public high schools in the country but has long drawn criticism for not having many Hispanic and black students. Admission to the school is fiercely competitive, with some students starting to prepare as early as the third grade.</p>
<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Senate committee has rejected legislation aimed at increasing low-income students at one of the country's top-ranked public high schools.</p>
<p>The panel overwhelmingly voted against a bill by Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell to require Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County to admit a certain number of students who receive free or reduced-price meals. The bill would also require a quota from each middle school that's eligible to send students to the elite magnet high school.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson is frequently ranked as one of the best public high schools in the country but has long drawn criticism for not having many Hispanic and black students. Admission to the school is fiercely competitive, with some students starting to prepare as early as the third grade.</p>
|
Panel rejects bid to alter elite high school's admissions
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/aa38ea3e6b114ee090e2da1b45fe9618
|
2018-01-25
| 2least
|
Panel rejects bid to alter elite high school's admissions
<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Senate committee has rejected legislation aimed at increasing low-income students at one of the country's top-ranked public high schools.</p>
<p>The panel overwhelmingly voted against a bill by Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell to require Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County to admit a certain number of students who receive free or reduced-price meals. The bill would also require a quota from each middle school that's eligible to send students to the elite magnet high school.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson is frequently ranked as one of the best public high schools in the country but has long drawn criticism for not having many Hispanic and black students. Admission to the school is fiercely competitive, with some students starting to prepare as early as the third grade.</p>
<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Senate committee has rejected legislation aimed at increasing low-income students at one of the country's top-ranked public high schools.</p>
<p>The panel overwhelmingly voted against a bill by Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell to require Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County to admit a certain number of students who receive free or reduced-price meals. The bill would also require a quota from each middle school that's eligible to send students to the elite magnet high school.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson is frequently ranked as one of the best public high schools in the country but has long drawn criticism for not having many Hispanic and black students. Admission to the school is fiercely competitive, with some students starting to prepare as early as the third grade.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.bluecastleproject.com/" type="external">Blue Castle Holdings</a>, an ambitious Utah company, wants to build the 3 gigawatt (GW) <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120417/nuclear-power-plant-utah-blue-castle-green-river-colorado-river-water-war-sec-climate-change-drought" type="external">Green River nuclear plant</a>&#160;in Utah. This would be enough power for about 2 million homes and would increase Utah’s electricity production by a substantial 50%. But nuclear plants are always controversial, even more so when being planned in areas with perpetual conflicts over water.</p>
<p>Nuclear power requires substantial amounts of water for cooling. The plant would use about 53,000 acre feet of water per year, all of from the Green River, which is a major tributary of the Colorado River. Blue Castle CEO Aaron Tilton says “This is Utah’s water to use as it sees fit,” that the water is currently unused, and would only amount to 1% of Utah’s water allotment. Plus, he adds, nuclear power uses less water than coal. Well, that may be true, but solar photovoltaic and wind turbines use practically no water, so why not do that instead?</p>
<p>Under the ever-arcane and complicated water laws of the Southwest and Utah, this particular allotment of water is already held by various water agencies that haven’t used it. Utah water laws are “use it or lose it.” Thus the agencies would be able to retain these water rights by leasing the water to Blue Castle.</p>
<p>The problem is that the currently unused 53,000 acre feet a year is going into the Green River now. If the plant becomes operational, then the Green River and the Colorado River have that much less water available. Brad Udall, director of a NOAA laboratory says the Colorado is already at its limits and less water could have serious impacts. This could also affect the seven states that use its water.</p>
<p>As you might expect, numerous lawsuits have been filed trying to stop the plant. And since this is in the Intermountain West, the chief concern is not the possibility of a nuclear meltdown or where to store the nuclear waste, but on the environmental impact of using that water and on what happens if there is a drought.</p>
<p>Blue Castle has put much time and thought into their website and have tried to answer every possible objection to the plant. Their attempts are deeply marred by an auto-play video on the home page. Guys, if you don’t want to make those researching your site crazy, then turn off that annoying video that starts playing every time you return to the home page. Sheesh.</p>
<p>The Nuclear Regulatory Commission still needs to ok the plan. Given the opposition to it, even if it is approved, construction could be years away.</p>
|
Water Wars: Green River Nuclear Power Plant
| false |
https://ivn.us/2012/05/04/take-me-back-down-to-green-river-nuclear-plant-water-war/
|
2012-05-04
| 2least
|
Water Wars: Green River Nuclear Power Plant
<p><a href="http://www.bluecastleproject.com/" type="external">Blue Castle Holdings</a>, an ambitious Utah company, wants to build the 3 gigawatt (GW) <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120417/nuclear-power-plant-utah-blue-castle-green-river-colorado-river-water-war-sec-climate-change-drought" type="external">Green River nuclear plant</a>&#160;in Utah. This would be enough power for about 2 million homes and would increase Utah’s electricity production by a substantial 50%. But nuclear plants are always controversial, even more so when being planned in areas with perpetual conflicts over water.</p>
<p>Nuclear power requires substantial amounts of water for cooling. The plant would use about 53,000 acre feet of water per year, all of from the Green River, which is a major tributary of the Colorado River. Blue Castle CEO Aaron Tilton says “This is Utah’s water to use as it sees fit,” that the water is currently unused, and would only amount to 1% of Utah’s water allotment. Plus, he adds, nuclear power uses less water than coal. Well, that may be true, but solar photovoltaic and wind turbines use practically no water, so why not do that instead?</p>
<p>Under the ever-arcane and complicated water laws of the Southwest and Utah, this particular allotment of water is already held by various water agencies that haven’t used it. Utah water laws are “use it or lose it.” Thus the agencies would be able to retain these water rights by leasing the water to Blue Castle.</p>
<p>The problem is that the currently unused 53,000 acre feet a year is going into the Green River now. If the plant becomes operational, then the Green River and the Colorado River have that much less water available. Brad Udall, director of a NOAA laboratory says the Colorado is already at its limits and less water could have serious impacts. This could also affect the seven states that use its water.</p>
<p>As you might expect, numerous lawsuits have been filed trying to stop the plant. And since this is in the Intermountain West, the chief concern is not the possibility of a nuclear meltdown or where to store the nuclear waste, but on the environmental impact of using that water and on what happens if there is a drought.</p>
<p>Blue Castle has put much time and thought into their website and have tried to answer every possible objection to the plant. Their attempts are deeply marred by an auto-play video on the home page. Guys, if you don’t want to make those researching your site crazy, then turn off that annoying video that starts playing every time you return to the home page. Sheesh.</p>
<p>The Nuclear Regulatory Commission still needs to ok the plan. Given the opposition to it, even if it is approved, construction could be years away.</p>
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<p>On Tuesday afternoon, a SWAT team shot and killed a suspect who took hostages at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas; the suspect was reportedly a Somali, according to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/14/report-active-shooter-possible-hostages-at-amarillo-texas-walmart.html" type="external">Fox News</a>.</p>
<p>The City of Amarillo Twitter site reported:</p>
<p>The City's Office of Emergency Mgt., <a href="https://twitter.com/AmarilloPD" type="external">@AmarilloPD</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AmarilloFire" type="external">@AmarilloFire</a> are on the scene of an active shooter incident, Walmart, I-27 &amp; Georgia.</p>
<p>The Randall County Sheriff's Office announced:</p>
<p>Suspect has been shot by APD SWAT and is apparently dead. Hostages inside are safe <a href="https://t.co/gY8nVkbTml" type="external">https://t.co/gY8nVkbTml</a></p>
<p>Reports started surfacing that the suspect was a Somali:</p>
<p>**BREAKING** Shots fired, SOMALI employee at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Amarillo?src=hash" type="external">#Amarillo</a> Texas <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Walmart?src=hash" type="external">#Walmart</a>, holding manager hostage, shouting in Arabic <a href="https://t.co/EgESgqyyvp" type="external">https://t.co/EgESgqyyvp</a></p>
<p>U/D: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Amarillo?src=hash" type="external">#Amarillo</a> Walmart shooter, reportedly a Somalian migrant in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/US?src=hash" type="external">#US</a>, has been shot dead &amp; poses no more threat <a href="https://t.co/0rpPPHA2Dh" type="external">pic.twitter.com/0rpPPHA2Dh</a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Breaking?src=hash" type="external">#Breaking</a> : Gunmen has taken multiple hostages in Amarillo,Texas. The hostage taker is a Somali man, emp of Walmart. <a href="https://t.co/SJ4L3dpQnm" type="external">pic.twitter.com/SJ4L3dpQnm</a></p>
<p>The sheriff’s office added, “We do consider this a work-place violence situation at this point.”</p>
<p>A store employee <a href="http://www.newschannel10.com/story/32218405/police-situation-at-amarillo-walmart-on-canyon-drive" type="external">told KFDA</a> the suspect had released a hostage and the store manager; other witnesses attested that a hostage was still being held. Police acknowledged they were searching for a Somali man wearing khaki pants, KFDA added. The president of a bank near the store, Jeff Nunn, <a href="http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-06-14/amarillo-police-responding-active-shooter-walmart" type="external">told the Amarillo Globe-News</a> that helicopters, police and emergency vehicles were all involved in the rescue effort.</p>
<p>There were reports that the suspect left a note in his car written in Arabic:</p>
<p>Active shooter in Amarillo Walmart ended when SWAT team shot the suspect. Cops outside report letter in suspect's car written in "Arabic."</p>
|
Breaking: Amarillo Suspect Holding Hostages Shot Dead; Gunman Reportedly A Somali
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/6573/breaking-amarillo-suspect-holding-hostages-shot-hank-berrien
|
2016-06-14
| 0right
|
Breaking: Amarillo Suspect Holding Hostages Shot Dead; Gunman Reportedly A Somali
<p>On Tuesday afternoon, a SWAT team shot and killed a suspect who took hostages at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas; the suspect was reportedly a Somali, according to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/14/report-active-shooter-possible-hostages-at-amarillo-texas-walmart.html" type="external">Fox News</a>.</p>
<p>The City of Amarillo Twitter site reported:</p>
<p>The City's Office of Emergency Mgt., <a href="https://twitter.com/AmarilloPD" type="external">@AmarilloPD</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AmarilloFire" type="external">@AmarilloFire</a> are on the scene of an active shooter incident, Walmart, I-27 &amp; Georgia.</p>
<p>The Randall County Sheriff's Office announced:</p>
<p>Suspect has been shot by APD SWAT and is apparently dead. Hostages inside are safe <a href="https://t.co/gY8nVkbTml" type="external">https://t.co/gY8nVkbTml</a></p>
<p>Reports started surfacing that the suspect was a Somali:</p>
<p>**BREAKING** Shots fired, SOMALI employee at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Amarillo?src=hash" type="external">#Amarillo</a> Texas <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Walmart?src=hash" type="external">#Walmart</a>, holding manager hostage, shouting in Arabic <a href="https://t.co/EgESgqyyvp" type="external">https://t.co/EgESgqyyvp</a></p>
<p>U/D: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Amarillo?src=hash" type="external">#Amarillo</a> Walmart shooter, reportedly a Somalian migrant in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/US?src=hash" type="external">#US</a>, has been shot dead &amp; poses no more threat <a href="https://t.co/0rpPPHA2Dh" type="external">pic.twitter.com/0rpPPHA2Dh</a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Breaking?src=hash" type="external">#Breaking</a> : Gunmen has taken multiple hostages in Amarillo,Texas. The hostage taker is a Somali man, emp of Walmart. <a href="https://t.co/SJ4L3dpQnm" type="external">pic.twitter.com/SJ4L3dpQnm</a></p>
<p>The sheriff’s office added, “We do consider this a work-place violence situation at this point.”</p>
<p>A store employee <a href="http://www.newschannel10.com/story/32218405/police-situation-at-amarillo-walmart-on-canyon-drive" type="external">told KFDA</a> the suspect had released a hostage and the store manager; other witnesses attested that a hostage was still being held. Police acknowledged they were searching for a Somali man wearing khaki pants, KFDA added. The president of a bank near the store, Jeff Nunn, <a href="http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-06-14/amarillo-police-responding-active-shooter-walmart" type="external">told the Amarillo Globe-News</a> that helicopters, police and emergency vehicles were all involved in the rescue effort.</p>
<p>There were reports that the suspect left a note in his car written in Arabic:</p>
<p>Active shooter in Amarillo Walmart ended when SWAT team shot the suspect. Cops outside report letter in suspect's car written in "Arabic."</p>
| 5,417 |
<p />
<p>A Canadian oil giant wants to expand an already-massive pipeline to bring oil from the tar sands of Canada all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The US has <a href="http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open" type="external">yet to even approve</a> the 1,980-mile TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, but the company is already sending threatening letters to landowners in their pathway.</p>
<p>In a letter sent last month to a landowner in Nebraska provided to Mother Jones, the company warns that the landowner could be forced to surrender his or her property if the landowner doesn’t consent to the pipeline construction on their property. The company invokes a Nebraska state statute to threaten eminent domain should homeowners turn down their offer of financial compensation for agreeing to let the pipeline cross their land:</p>
<p>In order to construct the pipeline, Keystone must acquire a permanent and temporary easement over your property. It is Keystone’s strong preference to negotiate a voluntary transfer with each property owner. However, in the event we cannot come to an agreement, Keystone will use eminent domain to acquire the easement, which is authorized pursuant to Nebraska Revised Statute 57-1101 et. Seq.</p>
<p>The letter goes on to offer a price to the landowners, which has been blacked out. It warns that this is the final letter, and gives the landowner just one month to respond. The company also offers to “provide compensation for any damages that occur during the course of construction including crop loss and any damages to fences, trees, or other improvements.”</p>
<p>In case the landowner didn’t get the threat the first time, the threat is repeated:</p>
<p>While we hope to acquire this property through negotiation, if we are unable to do so, we will be forced to invoke the power of eminent domain and will initiate condemnation proceedings against this property promptly after the expiration of this one month period.</p>
<p>This letter comes despite the fact that the project <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gzSnzwHkpnjiMcKCV12ddZST49CQD9HDK5KO2" type="external">isn’t even approved yet</a>; in July, the State Department extended the review period for the pipeline by 90 days to give federal agencies additional time for comment. People who live in the region are <a href="http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_63be5588-af06-11df-a4d6-001cc4c03286.html" type="external">justifiably outraged</a> by the bullying from TransCanada before the oil giant even has the green light on the project.</p>
<p>The pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Houston would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It has been the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/19/oil.pipelines/?hpt=Sbin" type="external">subject of plenty of debate</a> already, and even more so in the wake of the giant oil disaster in the Gulf. Then there was yet another <a href="" type="internal">oil spill in Michigan last month</a>, one that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude from the tar sands into the Talmadge Creek. That pipeline belongs to TransCanada rival Enbridge Energy, and certainly hasn’t helped the public feel much better about the Keystone XL project ( <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-16-why-it-matters-that-spilled-michigan-oil-came-from-tar-sands" type="external">more on that here</a>).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Climate-and-Energy/Dirty-Fuels/Tar-Sands.aspx" type="external">Environmental groups</a> and the US EPA have raised concerns about the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/27/epa-approval-canada-texas-oil-pipleine" type="external">large amount of emissions</a> from tar sands oil as compared to conventional sources. But there’s a growing concern about the safety of the pipeline, which would cross 71 rivers and streams and the Ogalalla aquifer if it is completed.</p>
<p>The full letter, which was obtained by the National Wildlife Federation, <a href="" type="internal">is here</a>.</p>
<p />
|
TransCanada Already Bullying Landowners in Nebraska
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/transcanada-already-bullying-landowners-nebraska/
|
2010-08-27
| 4left
|
TransCanada Already Bullying Landowners in Nebraska
<p />
<p>A Canadian oil giant wants to expand an already-massive pipeline to bring oil from the tar sands of Canada all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The US has <a href="http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open" type="external">yet to even approve</a> the 1,980-mile TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, but the company is already sending threatening letters to landowners in their pathway.</p>
<p>In a letter sent last month to a landowner in Nebraska provided to Mother Jones, the company warns that the landowner could be forced to surrender his or her property if the landowner doesn’t consent to the pipeline construction on their property. The company invokes a Nebraska state statute to threaten eminent domain should homeowners turn down their offer of financial compensation for agreeing to let the pipeline cross their land:</p>
<p>In order to construct the pipeline, Keystone must acquire a permanent and temporary easement over your property. It is Keystone’s strong preference to negotiate a voluntary transfer with each property owner. However, in the event we cannot come to an agreement, Keystone will use eminent domain to acquire the easement, which is authorized pursuant to Nebraska Revised Statute 57-1101 et. Seq.</p>
<p>The letter goes on to offer a price to the landowners, which has been blacked out. It warns that this is the final letter, and gives the landowner just one month to respond. The company also offers to “provide compensation for any damages that occur during the course of construction including crop loss and any damages to fences, trees, or other improvements.”</p>
<p>In case the landowner didn’t get the threat the first time, the threat is repeated:</p>
<p>While we hope to acquire this property through negotiation, if we are unable to do so, we will be forced to invoke the power of eminent domain and will initiate condemnation proceedings against this property promptly after the expiration of this one month period.</p>
<p>This letter comes despite the fact that the project <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gzSnzwHkpnjiMcKCV12ddZST49CQD9HDK5KO2" type="external">isn’t even approved yet</a>; in July, the State Department extended the review period for the pipeline by 90 days to give federal agencies additional time for comment. People who live in the region are <a href="http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_63be5588-af06-11df-a4d6-001cc4c03286.html" type="external">justifiably outraged</a> by the bullying from TransCanada before the oil giant even has the green light on the project.</p>
<p>The pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Houston would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It has been the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/19/oil.pipelines/?hpt=Sbin" type="external">subject of plenty of debate</a> already, and even more so in the wake of the giant oil disaster in the Gulf. Then there was yet another <a href="" type="internal">oil spill in Michigan last month</a>, one that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude from the tar sands into the Talmadge Creek. That pipeline belongs to TransCanada rival Enbridge Energy, and certainly hasn’t helped the public feel much better about the Keystone XL project ( <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-16-why-it-matters-that-spilled-michigan-oil-came-from-tar-sands" type="external">more on that here</a>).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Climate-and-Energy/Dirty-Fuels/Tar-Sands.aspx" type="external">Environmental groups</a> and the US EPA have raised concerns about the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/27/epa-approval-canada-texas-oil-pipleine" type="external">large amount of emissions</a> from tar sands oil as compared to conventional sources. But there’s a growing concern about the safety of the pipeline, which would cross 71 rivers and streams and the Ogalalla aquifer if it is completed.</p>
<p>The full letter, which was obtained by the National Wildlife Federation, <a href="" type="internal">is here</a>.</p>
<p />
| 5,418 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Last year marked the emergence of the Permian Basin as one of America's leading oil growth plays. Producers <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/27/eog-resources-inc-might-have-made-the-ma-deal-of-t.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">spent billions of dollars Opens a New Window.</a>locking up acreage in the region to gain access to its hydrocarbon-soaked rocks. That spending spree, along with rising oil prices, fueled big rallies in the stock prices of Permian Basin drillers, including Laredo Petroleum (NYSE: LPI):</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/LPI" type="external">LPI</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Given the continued interest in the basin and what the company sees for 2017, its stock could still have plenty left in the tank to keep flying high in 2017.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Like most oil companies, Laredo Petroleum initially took a cautious approach in 2016, setting its capital budget 39% below 2015's level at $345 million, with $280 million of that amount earmarked toward drilling more wells. While that spending level projected to be 20% to 25% above anticipated cash flow, Laredo expected its production to decline. However, thanks to a combination of rising oil prices, falling costs, increased well productivity, and asset sales, Laredo increased its budget up to $420 million, which would enable it to boost output by 10%.</p>
<p>Laredo Petroleum also took advantage of its strong balance sheet and stock price to lock up some additional acreage within its current footprint in the Midland Basin. The company spent $125 million to add 9,200 net acres, which works out to roughly $13,500 per acre. That price was very reasonable compared to what rivals paid for acreage in the region last year.</p>
<p>For example, Parsley Energy (NYSE: PE) spent $215 million for 8,711 acres, or $25,000 apiece, for land in the Midland in April and $400 million for 9,140 acres, or a gaudy $44,000 apiece, for more properties in August. Meanwhile, SM Energy (NYSE: SM) paid $980 million for roughly 25,000 acres in August, or $39,500 an acre. SM Energy then ponied up $1.6 billion for 37,500 acres in October, which worked out to an astounding $45,000 per acre. These prices suggest that Laredo got a steal when it bought acreage right next door to its own, enabling it to drill longer wells, which is one of the keys to higher drilling returns.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>With oil prices stabilizing and a sizable resource position, Laredo Petroleum plans to accelerate its production growth rate in 2017. The company recently announced plans to spend $530 million in capex, including $450 million on drilling and completion activities. This capital should enable it to drill enough wells to grow output by more than 15% year over year. The company plans to primarily fund that capital through internally generated cash flow, though it does have a virtually untouched $815 million credit facility to bridge any gaps between cash flow and capex.</p>
<p>While that is a healthy growth rate, Laredo Petroleum does trail many of its similarly sized peers in the region. For example, Parsley Energy expects output to grow a remarkable 60% next year. That is off a base of roughly 38,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d), which isn't that far off from Laredo's third-quarter output of 51,276 BOE/d. Parsley Energy, though, anticipates outspending cash flow to achieve this growth as it remains committed to "pulling value forward" on its legacy and newly acquired acreage. Meanwhile, the larger PDC Energy (NASDAQ: PDCE) expects output to grow 40% this year to between 82,200 to 90,400 BOE/d. Furthermore, PDC Energy only plans to outspend cash flow through the first half of the year, before becoming cash flow neutral by the second half at current prices.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>One reason Laredo Petroleum is growing slower than its rivals is that it has been unwilling to pay big bucks for needle-moving acquisitions. PDC Energy, for example, spent $1.5 billion to enter the Permian Basin last year by acquiring 57,000 acres in the Delaware Basin and then another $118 million earlier this year for 4,500 bolt-on acres. Meanwhile, Parsley Energy has been an acquisition machine, and just announced two more acquisitions totaling $607 million for another 23,000 net acres.</p>
<p>Laredo, meanwhile, has chosen to focus on improving its drilling returns, which could make it an attractive acquisition target, especially considering how hot the Permian is right now. We have already seen one publicly trade Permian producer, Clayton Williams Energy (NYSE: CWEI), snag a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/17/clayton-williams-energy-inc-skyrockets-on-merger-a.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">multibillion-dollar payday Opens a New Window.</a> by selling out to the highest bidder. In addition, Laredo's founder and CEO has already successfully sold several oil companies over his 30-year career, so it would not be a surprise to see him join Clayton Williams and cash in on a hot market.</p>
<p>Laredo Petroleum is in the right place at the right time. It currently controls a prime position in America's hottest oil play, which will allow it to deliver double-digit production growth this year while living close to cash flow. That growth alone could push Laredo's stock price even higher. Meanwhile, there's potentially even more upside potential if its management team decides that now's the time to cash out.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Laredo Petroleum 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=abeb24f6-507a-44dc-babb-54cef5a4a226&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 Laredo Petroleum 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=abeb24f6-507a-44dc-babb-54cef5a4a226&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/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo 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>
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Laredo Petroleum Inc. Jumped 66% in 2016. Is There Any Fuel Left for 2017?
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/18/laredo-petroleum-inc-jumped-66-in-2016-is-there-any-fuel-left-for-2017.html
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2017-01-18
| 0right
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Laredo Petroleum Inc. Jumped 66% in 2016. Is There Any Fuel Left for 2017?
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Last year marked the emergence of the Permian Basin as one of America's leading oil growth plays. Producers <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/27/eog-resources-inc-might-have-made-the-ma-deal-of-t.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">spent billions of dollars Opens a New Window.</a>locking up acreage in the region to gain access to its hydrocarbon-soaked rocks. That spending spree, along with rising oil prices, fueled big rallies in the stock prices of Permian Basin drillers, including Laredo Petroleum (NYSE: LPI):</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/LPI" type="external">LPI</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Given the continued interest in the basin and what the company sees for 2017, its stock could still have plenty left in the tank to keep flying high in 2017.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Like most oil companies, Laredo Petroleum initially took a cautious approach in 2016, setting its capital budget 39% below 2015's level at $345 million, with $280 million of that amount earmarked toward drilling more wells. While that spending level projected to be 20% to 25% above anticipated cash flow, Laredo expected its production to decline. However, thanks to a combination of rising oil prices, falling costs, increased well productivity, and asset sales, Laredo increased its budget up to $420 million, which would enable it to boost output by 10%.</p>
<p>Laredo Petroleum also took advantage of its strong balance sheet and stock price to lock up some additional acreage within its current footprint in the Midland Basin. The company spent $125 million to add 9,200 net acres, which works out to roughly $13,500 per acre. That price was very reasonable compared to what rivals paid for acreage in the region last year.</p>
<p>For example, Parsley Energy (NYSE: PE) spent $215 million for 8,711 acres, or $25,000 apiece, for land in the Midland in April and $400 million for 9,140 acres, or a gaudy $44,000 apiece, for more properties in August. Meanwhile, SM Energy (NYSE: SM) paid $980 million for roughly 25,000 acres in August, or $39,500 an acre. SM Energy then ponied up $1.6 billion for 37,500 acres in October, which worked out to an astounding $45,000 per acre. These prices suggest that Laredo got a steal when it bought acreage right next door to its own, enabling it to drill longer wells, which is one of the keys to higher drilling returns.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>With oil prices stabilizing and a sizable resource position, Laredo Petroleum plans to accelerate its production growth rate in 2017. The company recently announced plans to spend $530 million in capex, including $450 million on drilling and completion activities. This capital should enable it to drill enough wells to grow output by more than 15% year over year. The company plans to primarily fund that capital through internally generated cash flow, though it does have a virtually untouched $815 million credit facility to bridge any gaps between cash flow and capex.</p>
<p>While that is a healthy growth rate, Laredo Petroleum does trail many of its similarly sized peers in the region. For example, Parsley Energy expects output to grow a remarkable 60% next year. That is off a base of roughly 38,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d), which isn't that far off from Laredo's third-quarter output of 51,276 BOE/d. Parsley Energy, though, anticipates outspending cash flow to achieve this growth as it remains committed to "pulling value forward" on its legacy and newly acquired acreage. Meanwhile, the larger PDC Energy (NASDAQ: PDCE) expects output to grow 40% this year to between 82,200 to 90,400 BOE/d. Furthermore, PDC Energy only plans to outspend cash flow through the first half of the year, before becoming cash flow neutral by the second half at current prices.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>One reason Laredo Petroleum is growing slower than its rivals is that it has been unwilling to pay big bucks for needle-moving acquisitions. PDC Energy, for example, spent $1.5 billion to enter the Permian Basin last year by acquiring 57,000 acres in the Delaware Basin and then another $118 million earlier this year for 4,500 bolt-on acres. Meanwhile, Parsley Energy has been an acquisition machine, and just announced two more acquisitions totaling $607 million for another 23,000 net acres.</p>
<p>Laredo, meanwhile, has chosen to focus on improving its drilling returns, which could make it an attractive acquisition target, especially considering how hot the Permian is right now. We have already seen one publicly trade Permian producer, Clayton Williams Energy (NYSE: CWEI), snag a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/17/clayton-williams-energy-inc-skyrockets-on-merger-a.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">multibillion-dollar payday Opens a New Window.</a> by selling out to the highest bidder. In addition, Laredo's founder and CEO has already successfully sold several oil companies over his 30-year career, so it would not be a surprise to see him join Clayton Williams and cash in on a hot market.</p>
<p>Laredo Petroleum is in the right place at the right time. It currently controls a prime position in America's hottest oil play, which will allow it to deliver double-digit production growth this year while living close to cash flow. That growth alone could push Laredo's stock price even higher. Meanwhile, there's potentially even more upside potential if its management team decides that now's the time to cash out.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Laredo Petroleum 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=abeb24f6-507a-44dc-babb-54cef5a4a226&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 Laredo Petroleum 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=abeb24f6-507a-44dc-babb-54cef5a4a226&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/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo 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>
| 5,419 |
<p>DETROIT (AP) — A 28-year-old man has been shot to death inside a marijuana dispensary on Detroit's west side during an apparent robbery.</p>
<p>The man's body was found Wednesday evening behind a counter. Investigators say the cash register was open and contained no money.</p>
<p>Police tell WDIV-TV that a license for the dispensary could not be found. WWJ-AM reports that the building doesn't have exterior signs that say a marijuana dispensary is inside.</p>
<p>No arrests have been made.</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) — A 28-year-old man has been shot to death inside a marijuana dispensary on Detroit's west side during an apparent robbery.</p>
<p>The man's body was found Wednesday evening behind a counter. Investigators say the cash register was open and contained no money.</p>
<p>Police tell WDIV-TV that a license for the dispensary could not be found. WWJ-AM reports that the building doesn't have exterior signs that say a marijuana dispensary is inside.</p>
<p>No arrests have been made.</p>
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Police: Man found shot to death in marijuana dispensary
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https://apnews.com/amp/7525ac2643b0458db92dce5219b9d75e
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2017-12-28
| 2least
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Police: Man found shot to death in marijuana dispensary
<p>DETROIT (AP) — A 28-year-old man has been shot to death inside a marijuana dispensary on Detroit's west side during an apparent robbery.</p>
<p>The man's body was found Wednesday evening behind a counter. Investigators say the cash register was open and contained no money.</p>
<p>Police tell WDIV-TV that a license for the dispensary could not be found. WWJ-AM reports that the building doesn't have exterior signs that say a marijuana dispensary is inside.</p>
<p>No arrests have been made.</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) — A 28-year-old man has been shot to death inside a marijuana dispensary on Detroit's west side during an apparent robbery.</p>
<p>The man's body was found Wednesday evening behind a counter. Investigators say the cash register was open and contained no money.</p>
<p>Police tell WDIV-TV that a license for the dispensary could not be found. WWJ-AM reports that the building doesn't have exterior signs that say a marijuana dispensary is inside.</p>
<p>No arrests have been made.</p>
| 5,420 |
<p>The Portland Police Bureau put hoods over the faces and headphones on the ears of a group of activists linked together before they arrested them. The activists had been blocking the gate to the ICE building in SW Portland yesterday afternoon, protesting deportations under the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Police used hoods and headphones on the protesters, the bureau says, so the activists wouldn’t get hit with sparks or get ear damage from the loud noises emanating from the power tools used to remove them from the “sleeping dragon” device connecting the five people.</p>
<p>But the police never used any power tools. There were no sparks that could have hit their faces. There were no loud noises that could have damaged their ears. The so-called “sleeping dragon” in this case—per police, it was made of a plastic pipe, yarn, fabric, chicken wire, bolts, and chains—only required the use of small, non-electric cutters. In short: the hoods and headphones were for “protection” from tools that the PPB did not once use.</p>
<p>In a statement this morning, as they said to us last night, the bureau says it was for their protection. They also say now the hoods and headphones strategy “also prevents the protestors (sic) from intentionally causing themselves injury during the removal and/or falsely claiming injury to halt the cutting.” If they can’t see or hear what’s going on, the theory goes, they can’t stop the cutting or try to hurt themselves.</p>
<p>There were five protesters linked together blocking the gate to the ICE building, with four “sleeping dragon” devices linking them together. As police worked on separating and arresting them, they put the hoods and headphones on two protesters at a time—the ones on either side of of the device. When they were freed from the device and cuffed, the cops took the hoods and headphones off and hauled them to the back of the van. The federal cops didn’t arrest the final two people in the chain because ICE employees and a GEO prison transportation bus were able to leave using the driveway once the first three were gone.</p>
<p>Three others not in the link were arrested before the cops worked on removing the “sleeping dragon.” They refused to get out of the driveway.</p>
|
Portland Police Put Hoods, Headphones On Activists for “Protection” From Power Tools. There Were No Power Tools.
| false |
https://studionewsnetwork.com/news/portland-police-put-hoods-headphones-activists-protection-power-tools-no-power-tools/
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2017-10-14
| 3left-center
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Portland Police Put Hoods, Headphones On Activists for “Protection” From Power Tools. There Were No Power Tools.
<p>The Portland Police Bureau put hoods over the faces and headphones on the ears of a group of activists linked together before they arrested them. The activists had been blocking the gate to the ICE building in SW Portland yesterday afternoon, protesting deportations under the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Police used hoods and headphones on the protesters, the bureau says, so the activists wouldn’t get hit with sparks or get ear damage from the loud noises emanating from the power tools used to remove them from the “sleeping dragon” device connecting the five people.</p>
<p>But the police never used any power tools. There were no sparks that could have hit their faces. There were no loud noises that could have damaged their ears. The so-called “sleeping dragon” in this case—per police, it was made of a plastic pipe, yarn, fabric, chicken wire, bolts, and chains—only required the use of small, non-electric cutters. In short: the hoods and headphones were for “protection” from tools that the PPB did not once use.</p>
<p>In a statement this morning, as they said to us last night, the bureau says it was for their protection. They also say now the hoods and headphones strategy “also prevents the protestors (sic) from intentionally causing themselves injury during the removal and/or falsely claiming injury to halt the cutting.” If they can’t see or hear what’s going on, the theory goes, they can’t stop the cutting or try to hurt themselves.</p>
<p>There were five protesters linked together blocking the gate to the ICE building, with four “sleeping dragon” devices linking them together. As police worked on separating and arresting them, they put the hoods and headphones on two protesters at a time—the ones on either side of of the device. When they were freed from the device and cuffed, the cops took the hoods and headphones off and hauled them to the back of the van. The federal cops didn’t arrest the final two people in the chain because ICE employees and a GEO prison transportation bus were able to leave using the driveway once the first three were gone.</p>
<p>Three others not in the link were arrested before the cops worked on removing the “sleeping dragon.” They refused to get out of the driveway.</p>
| 5,421 |
<p />
<p>Dan Froomkin notes at <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/05/30/BL2007053001194.html" type="external">White House Watch</a> that George Bush was recently asked why he cares so much about the issue of immigration.</p>
<p>“I’m deeply concerned about America losing its soul,” Bush said. “Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country’s history.” He added: “If we don’t solve the problem it’s going to affect America. It will affect our economy and it will affect our soul.”</p>
<p>He was not concerned about our soul when he mislead a country into war and questioned the patriotism of anyone who objected, nor when he failed to provide health care for the wounded of that war, nor when he suspended habeas corpus, nor when he fought Congress to keep it from passing an anti-torture bill. He was not concerned when he authorized the government to spy on American citizens, nor when the Abu Ghraib photos were released, nor when he underfunded the very education reform bill he touts as his greatest domestic achievement. He was not concerned when federal agencies left a city to drown, nor when Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and Duke Cunningham turned Congress into a cash register, nor when a congressman was exposed preying on little boys. He was not concerned when he rang up the biggest budget deficits of all time, nor when he appointed a man who had just attempted an end-run around the Justice Department to run the Justice Department, nor when his vice president invited energy companies to help make energy policy, nor when his administration ignored global climate change, the greatest threat to our nation and the world in his lifetime. He wasn’t concerned when he pushed to enshrine bigotry against homosexuals into the Constitution, nor when his Administration paid American journalists to support its policies, nor when it was revealed that the military was planting stories in the Iraqi media while simultaneously teaching Iraqis about the freedom of the press.</p>
<p>No. After six and a half years of turning this country into a banana republic that is hated by most of the world, our president is finally concerned. Well, thanks George. We’re glad to see you’re paying attention.</p>
<p />
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George Bush is Concerned About America Losing its Soul
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/05/george-bush-concerned-about-america-losing-its-soul/
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2007-05-31
| 4left
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George Bush is Concerned About America Losing its Soul
<p />
<p>Dan Froomkin notes at <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/05/30/BL2007053001194.html" type="external">White House Watch</a> that George Bush was recently asked why he cares so much about the issue of immigration.</p>
<p>“I’m deeply concerned about America losing its soul,” Bush said. “Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country’s history.” He added: “If we don’t solve the problem it’s going to affect America. It will affect our economy and it will affect our soul.”</p>
<p>He was not concerned about our soul when he mislead a country into war and questioned the patriotism of anyone who objected, nor when he failed to provide health care for the wounded of that war, nor when he suspended habeas corpus, nor when he fought Congress to keep it from passing an anti-torture bill. He was not concerned when he authorized the government to spy on American citizens, nor when the Abu Ghraib photos were released, nor when he underfunded the very education reform bill he touts as his greatest domestic achievement. He was not concerned when federal agencies left a city to drown, nor when Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and Duke Cunningham turned Congress into a cash register, nor when a congressman was exposed preying on little boys. He was not concerned when he rang up the biggest budget deficits of all time, nor when he appointed a man who had just attempted an end-run around the Justice Department to run the Justice Department, nor when his vice president invited energy companies to help make energy policy, nor when his administration ignored global climate change, the greatest threat to our nation and the world in his lifetime. He wasn’t concerned when he pushed to enshrine bigotry against homosexuals into the Constitution, nor when his Administration paid American journalists to support its policies, nor when it was revealed that the military was planting stories in the Iraqi media while simultaneously teaching Iraqis about the freedom of the press.</p>
<p>No. After six and a half years of turning this country into a banana republic that is hated by most of the world, our president is finally concerned. Well, thanks George. We’re glad to see you’re paying attention.</p>
<p />
| 5,422 |
<p>​According to a friend of the recently fired FBI director, James Comey once tried to camouflage himself among the blue White House drapes in the vain hope of not to being noticed by President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The story comes via Comey's friend, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/experts/benjamin-wittes/" type="external">Benjamin Wittes</a>, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and strong critic of Trump, who provided some details about the ways the former FBI director attempted to maintain proper space between himself and the president because of the ongoing Russia investigation. At one point, Comey's efforts to keep his distance were particularly hilarious.</p>
<p>Two days after Trump was sworn in, Comey was invited to a ceremony at the White House to honor law enforcement officials who had provided security at the new president's inauguration. Though Wittes says Comey did not want to attend because he did not want to give the false impression that he was too close with Trump, he reluctantly made an appearance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/us/politics/james-comey-memo-fbi-trump.html?_r=1" type="external">The New York Times</a> reports:</p>
<p>The ceremony occurred in the Blue Room of the White House, where many senior law enforcement officials — including the Secret Service director — had gathered. Mr. Comey — who is 6 feet 8 inches tall and was wearing a dark blue suit that day — told Mr. Wittes that he tried to blend in with the blue curtains in the back of the room, in the hopes that Mr. Trump would not spot him and call him out.</p>
<p>"He thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction," said Wittes. But, alas, Comey's effort to hide in the curtains failed.</p>
<p>"Oh, and there’s Jim," said Trump. "He’s become more famous than me."</p>
<p>Then things got even more awkward/hysterical.</p>
<p>"Comey said that as he was walking across the room he was determined that there wasn’t going to be a hug," said Wittes. "It was bad enough there was going to be a handshake. And Comey has long arms so Comey said he pre-emptively reached out for a handshake and grabbed the president’s hand. But Trump pulled him into an embrace and Comey didn’t reciprocate. If you look at the video, it’s one person shaking hands and another hugging."</p>
<p>WATCH ("Comey in the curtains" at around the 27" mark):</p>
<p>In its write-up of the story, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-comey-trump-curtains_us_591e4abde4b094cdba52b95d" type="external">The Huffington Post</a>found a tweet worth re-posting:</p>
<p>The New York Times also notes that Wittes said he did not intend on airing what Comey had told him about his discomfort with Trump, but the reports about the president's alleged "loyalty pledge" request from Comey made him see Trump in a "more menacing light."</p>
<p>However, Wittes also said that after a two months of training the White House in the appropriate way to interact with the FBI, Comey said they had finally established the proper distance, which reinforces what many defenders of Trump have maintained: his potentially inappropriate interractions with Comey were a product of ignorance of the proper etiquette rather than insidious intent. Here's the passage:</p>
<p>... Mr. Comey told him he had spent the first two months of Mr. Trump’s administration trying to preserve distance between the F.B.I. and the White House and educating it on the proper way to interact with the bureau. ...</p>
<p>Mr. Wittes said Mr. Comey told him that despite Mr. Trump’s attempts to build a personal relationship, he did not want to be friendly with the president and thought any conversation with him or personal contact was inappropriate.</p>
<p>Their conversation took place after Mr. Comey’s phone call with the president, Mr. Wittes said, and Mr. Comey told him that his relationship with the president and the White House staff was now in the right place.</p>
<p>“‘I think we’ve kind of got them trained,’” Mr. Wittes said, paraphrasing what Mr. Comey told him.</p>
<p>Thus, Wittes makes clear that Comey did not feel like Trump and his administration was inappropriately trying to influence him; the issue was one of decorum, and after the first two months, Comey felt that issue had been resolved. From his personal conversations with his friend, Wittes did not feel it necessary to speak out. Only an unconfirmed report about Trump asking Comey for a "loyalty pledge" made Wittes retroactively interpret the interactions in a "menacing" light. This aligns with <a href="" type="internal">Comey's sworn testimony</a> that the administration had not obstructed the FBI probe.</p>
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HAHAHA: Comey Hid In White House Drapes To Avoid Trump
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/16642/hahaha-comey-hid-white-house-drapes-avoid-trump-james-barrett
|
2017-05-19
| 0right
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HAHAHA: Comey Hid In White House Drapes To Avoid Trump
<p>​According to a friend of the recently fired FBI director, James Comey once tried to camouflage himself among the blue White House drapes in the vain hope of not to being noticed by President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The story comes via Comey's friend, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/experts/benjamin-wittes/" type="external">Benjamin Wittes</a>, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and strong critic of Trump, who provided some details about the ways the former FBI director attempted to maintain proper space between himself and the president because of the ongoing Russia investigation. At one point, Comey's efforts to keep his distance were particularly hilarious.</p>
<p>Two days after Trump was sworn in, Comey was invited to a ceremony at the White House to honor law enforcement officials who had provided security at the new president's inauguration. Though Wittes says Comey did not want to attend because he did not want to give the false impression that he was too close with Trump, he reluctantly made an appearance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/us/politics/james-comey-memo-fbi-trump.html?_r=1" type="external">The New York Times</a> reports:</p>
<p>The ceremony occurred in the Blue Room of the White House, where many senior law enforcement officials — including the Secret Service director — had gathered. Mr. Comey — who is 6 feet 8 inches tall and was wearing a dark blue suit that day — told Mr. Wittes that he tried to blend in with the blue curtains in the back of the room, in the hopes that Mr. Trump would not spot him and call him out.</p>
<p>"He thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction," said Wittes. But, alas, Comey's effort to hide in the curtains failed.</p>
<p>"Oh, and there’s Jim," said Trump. "He’s become more famous than me."</p>
<p>Then things got even more awkward/hysterical.</p>
<p>"Comey said that as he was walking across the room he was determined that there wasn’t going to be a hug," said Wittes. "It was bad enough there was going to be a handshake. And Comey has long arms so Comey said he pre-emptively reached out for a handshake and grabbed the president’s hand. But Trump pulled him into an embrace and Comey didn’t reciprocate. If you look at the video, it’s one person shaking hands and another hugging."</p>
<p>WATCH ("Comey in the curtains" at around the 27" mark):</p>
<p>In its write-up of the story, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-comey-trump-curtains_us_591e4abde4b094cdba52b95d" type="external">The Huffington Post</a>found a tweet worth re-posting:</p>
<p>The New York Times also notes that Wittes said he did not intend on airing what Comey had told him about his discomfort with Trump, but the reports about the president's alleged "loyalty pledge" request from Comey made him see Trump in a "more menacing light."</p>
<p>However, Wittes also said that after a two months of training the White House in the appropriate way to interact with the FBI, Comey said they had finally established the proper distance, which reinforces what many defenders of Trump have maintained: his potentially inappropriate interractions with Comey were a product of ignorance of the proper etiquette rather than insidious intent. Here's the passage:</p>
<p>... Mr. Comey told him he had spent the first two months of Mr. Trump’s administration trying to preserve distance between the F.B.I. and the White House and educating it on the proper way to interact with the bureau. ...</p>
<p>Mr. Wittes said Mr. Comey told him that despite Mr. Trump’s attempts to build a personal relationship, he did not want to be friendly with the president and thought any conversation with him or personal contact was inappropriate.</p>
<p>Their conversation took place after Mr. Comey’s phone call with the president, Mr. Wittes said, and Mr. Comey told him that his relationship with the president and the White House staff was now in the right place.</p>
<p>“‘I think we’ve kind of got them trained,’” Mr. Wittes said, paraphrasing what Mr. Comey told him.</p>
<p>Thus, Wittes makes clear that Comey did not feel like Trump and his administration was inappropriately trying to influence him; the issue was one of decorum, and after the first two months, Comey felt that issue had been resolved. From his personal conversations with his friend, Wittes did not feel it necessary to speak out. Only an unconfirmed report about Trump asking Comey for a "loyalty pledge" made Wittes retroactively interpret the interactions in a "menacing" light. This aligns with <a href="" type="internal">Comey's sworn testimony</a> that the administration had not obstructed the FBI probe.</p>
| 5,423 |
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<p />
<p>The government said Friday that employers added 252,000 jobs last month and 50,000 more in October and November combined than it had previously estimated. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent in November. The rate is now at its lowest point since 2008.</p>
<p>Still, wage growth remains weak. Average hourly pay slipped 5 cents in December. And the unemployment rate fell partly because many of the jobless gave up looking for work and so were no longer counted as unemployed.</p>
<p>Even so, nearly 3 million more people are earning paychecks than at the start of 2014 — the largest annual job gain since 1999. Gas prices have also plunged, which will give consumers — the main driver of the U.S. economy — a further boost in coming months.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We are in a recovery that is accelerating,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.</p>
<p>The unemployment rate is now near the 5.2 percent to 5.5 percent range that the Federal Reserve considers consistent with a healthy economy — one reason the Fed is expected to raise interest rates from record lows by midyear.</p>
<p>Yet for now, the plummeting oil prices and weak pay growth are helping keep inflation even lower than the Fed’s 2 percent target rate. Many economists think inflation may fail to reach even 1 percent this year. A result is that the Fed could feel pressure to avoid raising rates anytime soon.</p>
<p>“There is still room for stimulus without having to worry about inflation taking off,” Strain said.</p>
<p>Most economists forecast that the U.S. economy will expand more than 3 percent this year. If it does, 2015 would mark the first time in a decade that growth has reached that level for a full calendar year.</p>
<p>American businesses have been largely shrugging off signs of economic weakness overseas and continuing to hire at solid rates. The U.S. economy’s steady improvement is especially striking compared with the weakness in much of the world.</p>
<p>Europe is barely growing, and its unemployment rate is nearly double the U.S. level. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is in recession. Russia’s economy is cratering as oil prices plummet. China is straining to manage a slowdown. Brazil and others in Latin America are struggling.</p>
<p>Fears about significantly cheaper oil spooked investors earlier this week before financial markets recovered. But most economists remain optimistic that lower energy prices will benefit U.S. consumers and many businesses.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The drop in average hourly pay last month to $24.57 followed a downward revision to November’s average pay gain. Hourly pay over the past two months has now risen just a penny.</p>
<p>During 2014, average wages rose just 1.7 percent, not much above the inflation rate, which was 1.3 percent. As hiring ramps up and the unemployment rate falls, those pressures should, at least in theory, compel employers to raise pay to attract workers. But that trend has yet to emerge.</p>
<p>The fall in average pay may actually reflect economic strength, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo. Silvia suggested that the healthy hiring of recent months means that “many of these new hires are entry-level workers and would be paid less” than experienced employees.</p>
<p>Last month, the number of unemployed fell 383,000 to 8.7 million. Fewer than one-third of people out of work found jobs. The rest stopped looking. The percentage of Americans who are either working or looking for work fell back to a 37-year low last touched in September.</p>
<p>The brightening jobs picture has healed some of the deep scars left by the Great Recession. The number of people who have been unemployed for more than six months fell 27 percent last year. And the number working part time who would prefer full-time work dropped 12 percent.</p>
<p>Still, to keep up with population growth since the recession began, the economy would need to create 4.9 million additional jobs, according to the Brookings Institution.</p>
<p>Economists expect more healing this year. Goldman Sachs estimates that additional spending on restaurants, auto dealers and other goods and services resulting from lower energy prices will lead to 300,000 more jobs this year than if oil prices had remained at their levels of six months ago.</p>
<p>Spending at retail stores and restaurants rose in November by the most in eight months, an early sign that Americans are spending some of the savings they are enjoying on gas-pump prices.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>AP Economics Writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.</p>
|
US gains 252K jobs; unemployment falls to 5.6 pct.
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/523655/us-gains-252k-jobs-unemployment-falls-to-5-6-pct.html
| 2least
|
US gains 252K jobs; unemployment falls to 5.6 pct.
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The government said Friday that employers added 252,000 jobs last month and 50,000 more in October and November combined than it had previously estimated. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent in November. The rate is now at its lowest point since 2008.</p>
<p>Still, wage growth remains weak. Average hourly pay slipped 5 cents in December. And the unemployment rate fell partly because many of the jobless gave up looking for work and so were no longer counted as unemployed.</p>
<p>Even so, nearly 3 million more people are earning paychecks than at the start of 2014 — the largest annual job gain since 1999. Gas prices have also plunged, which will give consumers — the main driver of the U.S. economy — a further boost in coming months.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We are in a recovery that is accelerating,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.</p>
<p>The unemployment rate is now near the 5.2 percent to 5.5 percent range that the Federal Reserve considers consistent with a healthy economy — one reason the Fed is expected to raise interest rates from record lows by midyear.</p>
<p>Yet for now, the plummeting oil prices and weak pay growth are helping keep inflation even lower than the Fed’s 2 percent target rate. Many economists think inflation may fail to reach even 1 percent this year. A result is that the Fed could feel pressure to avoid raising rates anytime soon.</p>
<p>“There is still room for stimulus without having to worry about inflation taking off,” Strain said.</p>
<p>Most economists forecast that the U.S. economy will expand more than 3 percent this year. If it does, 2015 would mark the first time in a decade that growth has reached that level for a full calendar year.</p>
<p>American businesses have been largely shrugging off signs of economic weakness overseas and continuing to hire at solid rates. The U.S. economy’s steady improvement is especially striking compared with the weakness in much of the world.</p>
<p>Europe is barely growing, and its unemployment rate is nearly double the U.S. level. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is in recession. Russia’s economy is cratering as oil prices plummet. China is straining to manage a slowdown. Brazil and others in Latin America are struggling.</p>
<p>Fears about significantly cheaper oil spooked investors earlier this week before financial markets recovered. But most economists remain optimistic that lower energy prices will benefit U.S. consumers and many businesses.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The drop in average hourly pay last month to $24.57 followed a downward revision to November’s average pay gain. Hourly pay over the past two months has now risen just a penny.</p>
<p>During 2014, average wages rose just 1.7 percent, not much above the inflation rate, which was 1.3 percent. As hiring ramps up and the unemployment rate falls, those pressures should, at least in theory, compel employers to raise pay to attract workers. But that trend has yet to emerge.</p>
<p>The fall in average pay may actually reflect economic strength, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo. Silvia suggested that the healthy hiring of recent months means that “many of these new hires are entry-level workers and would be paid less” than experienced employees.</p>
<p>Last month, the number of unemployed fell 383,000 to 8.7 million. Fewer than one-third of people out of work found jobs. The rest stopped looking. The percentage of Americans who are either working or looking for work fell back to a 37-year low last touched in September.</p>
<p>The brightening jobs picture has healed some of the deep scars left by the Great Recession. The number of people who have been unemployed for more than six months fell 27 percent last year. And the number working part time who would prefer full-time work dropped 12 percent.</p>
<p>Still, to keep up with population growth since the recession began, the economy would need to create 4.9 million additional jobs, according to the Brookings Institution.</p>
<p>Economists expect more healing this year. Goldman Sachs estimates that additional spending on restaurants, auto dealers and other goods and services resulting from lower energy prices will lead to 300,000 more jobs this year than if oil prices had remained at their levels of six months ago.</p>
<p>Spending at retail stores and restaurants rose in November by the most in eight months, an early sign that Americans are spending some of the savings they are enjoying on gas-pump prices.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>AP Economics Writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.</p>
| 5,424 |
|
<p>Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych have come to loggerheads once again, each threatening to undermine the other’s political power and calling for supporters to protest in the streets of Kiev.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>Ukraine’s PM Viktor Yanukovych has called the president’s decision to dissolve parliament a “fatal mistake.”</p>
<p>Mr. Yanukovych spoke to members of parliament before addressing thousands of his supporters in central Kiev.</p>
<p />
<p>Members of parliament are also refusing to obey President Viktor Yushchenko’s order to prepare for a snap election.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6520925.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p>
|
Showdown in Kiev
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/showdown-in-kiev/
|
2007-04-03
| 4left
|
Showdown in Kiev
<p>Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych have come to loggerheads once again, each threatening to undermine the other’s political power and calling for supporters to protest in the streets of Kiev.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>Ukraine’s PM Viktor Yanukovych has called the president’s decision to dissolve parliament a “fatal mistake.”</p>
<p>Mr. Yanukovych spoke to members of parliament before addressing thousands of his supporters in central Kiev.</p>
<p />
<p>Members of parliament are also refusing to obey President Viktor Yushchenko’s order to prepare for a snap election.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6520925.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p>
| 5,425 |
<p />
<p>Full Tilt Poker owner Pocket Kings is being purchased by a group of European investors for an undisclosed amount that may cover a large part of the $150 million owed to U.S. players, according to The <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> Journal, citing two sources close to the matter.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>One of the most popular online poker sites in the world, Full Tilt was thrown into the heart of a U.S. government crackdown earlier this year against the gambling game along with rivals PokerStars and Absolute Poker.</p>
<p>The domain names of those Web sites were snatched by regulators after unsealing an indictment that charged their founders, as well as other defendants, with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offenses.</p>
<p>The move shut thousands of online accounts and made million of dollars inaccessible. Full Tilt has reportedly not yet returned money to those players.</p>
<p>Full Tilt executives say the deal should generate enough funds to cover a possible settlement with the U.S. <a href="" type="internal">Department of Justice</a> for a civil lawsuit that could carry a bill in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Journal.</p>
<p>The deal is still tentative and isnt expected to close for at least three weeks, the sources, who are associated with Full Tilt, said. The investors in Europe want to make sure a deal with the U.S. government is feasible first.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Despite some predictions, casino brick and mortar giants such as MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM), <a href="" type="internal">Las Vegas Sands</a> (NYSE:LVS) and <a href="" type="internal">Wynn Resorts</a> (NASDAQ:WYNN) have felt little affect from the online shutdown.</p>
|
Full Tilt Poker Owner in Deal With European Investors: Report
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/07/01/full-tilt-poker-owner-pocket-kings-in-deal-with-european-investors-report.html
|
2016-03-07
| 0right
|
Full Tilt Poker Owner in Deal With European Investors: Report
<p />
<p>Full Tilt Poker owner Pocket Kings is being purchased by a group of European investors for an undisclosed amount that may cover a large part of the $150 million owed to U.S. players, according to The <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> Journal, citing two sources close to the matter.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>One of the most popular online poker sites in the world, Full Tilt was thrown into the heart of a U.S. government crackdown earlier this year against the gambling game along with rivals PokerStars and Absolute Poker.</p>
<p>The domain names of those Web sites were snatched by regulators after unsealing an indictment that charged their founders, as well as other defendants, with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offenses.</p>
<p>The move shut thousands of online accounts and made million of dollars inaccessible. Full Tilt has reportedly not yet returned money to those players.</p>
<p>Full Tilt executives say the deal should generate enough funds to cover a possible settlement with the U.S. <a href="" type="internal">Department of Justice</a> for a civil lawsuit that could carry a bill in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Journal.</p>
<p>The deal is still tentative and isnt expected to close for at least three weeks, the sources, who are associated with Full Tilt, said. The investors in Europe want to make sure a deal with the U.S. government is feasible first.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Despite some predictions, casino brick and mortar giants such as MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM), <a href="" type="internal">Las Vegas Sands</a> (NYSE:LVS) and <a href="" type="internal">Wynn Resorts</a> (NASDAQ:WYNN) have felt little affect from the online shutdown.</p>
| 5,426 |
<p>President Donald Trump's revamped migration and refugee order&#160;is facing its first major legal setback:&#160;A federal judge halted enforcement of the directive that would deny US entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum.</p>
<p>In a preliminary restraining order issued Friday that applies only to the Syrian man and his family, US District Judge William Conley in Wisconsin said the plaintiff "is at great risk of suffering irreparable harm" if the directive is carried out.</p>
<p>The man chose to remain anonymous because his wife and child are still living in war-wracked Aleppo.</p>
<p>The order marked the first ruling against the revised directive, which temporarily closes US borders to citizens from six mainly Muslim countries.&#160;</p>
<p>It denies US entry to all refugees for 120 days and halts for 90 days the granting of visas to nationals from Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Follow our immigration coverage here</a></p>
<p>The new order, unveiled last Monday, is due to go into effect March 16. It replaces a previous iteration issued in late January that also temporarily barred the world's refugees from US entry but specified&#160;Syrian refugees would be banned indefinitely. The earlier version also included Iraqis among the nationals blacklisted from traveling&#160;to the US. The bulk of the January order was blocked in federal court.</p>
<p>"The court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original executive order and the revised executive order issued on March 6, 2017," Conley wrote.</p>
<p>"As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other courts."</p>
<p>He set a hearing for March 21.</p>
<p>In another legal challenge, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on behalf of several refugee assistance groups over the controversial executive order.</p>
<p>"Putting a new coat of paint on the Muslim ban doesn't solve its fundamental problem, which is that the Constitution and our laws prohibit religious discrimination," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's immigrant rights project.</p>
<p>"The further President Trump goes down this path, the clearer it is that he is violating that basic rule."</p>
<p>The ACLU, the pre-eminent US civil liberties group, and the National Immigration Law Center brought the suit on behalf of the International Refugee Assistance Project and the refugee resettlement group HIAS, as well as several individuals.</p>
<p>The suit alleges that the new executive order violates the constitutional protection of freedom of religion in that it is "intended and designed to target and discriminate against Muslims, and it does just that in operation."</p>
<p>"Rarely in American history has governmental intent to discriminate against a particular faith and its adherents been so plain," the complaint says, alleging the new order will cause "irreparable harm" and asking for an injunction.</p>
<p>A federal judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, has scheduled a hearing in the case for March 15 -- the day before the measure is due to take effect.</p>
<p>Separately, a federal judge in Seattle who issued a nationwide halt to Trump's original travel restrictions denied a motion to have the same ruling apply to the modified measures, saying at least one of the parties must first file additional court papers.</p>
<p>The state of Maryland said it would join Monday the suit filed by the attorney general from Washington state, which also has the support of Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Oregon.</p>
<p>"President Trump's second executive order is still a Muslim ban," Maryland Attorney General <a href="http://www.wbaltv.com/article/ag-maryland-will-join-lawsuit-opposing-new-immigration-ban/9118122" type="external">Brian Frosh said</a> in a statement.&#160;</p>
<p>"The administration persists in an effort to implement a policy that is inhumane and unconstitutional, but also makes us less safe, not more safe."</p>
<p>The state of Hawaii has filed a separate complaint, and a hearing in that case on whether to impose a national restraining order is set for March 15 as well.</p>
<p>The White House cites national security in justifying the ban, arguing that it needs time to implement "extreme vetting" procedures to keep radical Islamic militants from entering the country.</p>
<p>Polls show American public opinion is deeply divided on the issue. Most indicate a slight majority of voters opposed, with strong support among Trump's political base.</p>
<p>By AFP's&#160;Olivia Hampton in Washington.</p>
|
Trump's revised immigration order just hit its first legal setback
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2017-03-11/trumps-revised-immigration-order-just-got-its-first-legal-setback
|
2017-03-11
| 3left-center
|
Trump's revised immigration order just hit its first legal setback
<p>President Donald Trump's revamped migration and refugee order&#160;is facing its first major legal setback:&#160;A federal judge halted enforcement of the directive that would deny US entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum.</p>
<p>In a preliminary restraining order issued Friday that applies only to the Syrian man and his family, US District Judge William Conley in Wisconsin said the plaintiff "is at great risk of suffering irreparable harm" if the directive is carried out.</p>
<p>The man chose to remain anonymous because his wife and child are still living in war-wracked Aleppo.</p>
<p>The order marked the first ruling against the revised directive, which temporarily closes US borders to citizens from six mainly Muslim countries.&#160;</p>
<p>It denies US entry to all refugees for 120 days and halts for 90 days the granting of visas to nationals from Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Follow our immigration coverage here</a></p>
<p>The new order, unveiled last Monday, is due to go into effect March 16. It replaces a previous iteration issued in late January that also temporarily barred the world's refugees from US entry but specified&#160;Syrian refugees would be banned indefinitely. The earlier version also included Iraqis among the nationals blacklisted from traveling&#160;to the US. The bulk of the January order was blocked in federal court.</p>
<p>"The court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original executive order and the revised executive order issued on March 6, 2017," Conley wrote.</p>
<p>"As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other courts."</p>
<p>He set a hearing for March 21.</p>
<p>In another legal challenge, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on behalf of several refugee assistance groups over the controversial executive order.</p>
<p>"Putting a new coat of paint on the Muslim ban doesn't solve its fundamental problem, which is that the Constitution and our laws prohibit religious discrimination," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's immigrant rights project.</p>
<p>"The further President Trump goes down this path, the clearer it is that he is violating that basic rule."</p>
<p>The ACLU, the pre-eminent US civil liberties group, and the National Immigration Law Center brought the suit on behalf of the International Refugee Assistance Project and the refugee resettlement group HIAS, as well as several individuals.</p>
<p>The suit alleges that the new executive order violates the constitutional protection of freedom of religion in that it is "intended and designed to target and discriminate against Muslims, and it does just that in operation."</p>
<p>"Rarely in American history has governmental intent to discriminate against a particular faith and its adherents been so plain," the complaint says, alleging the new order will cause "irreparable harm" and asking for an injunction.</p>
<p>A federal judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, has scheduled a hearing in the case for March 15 -- the day before the measure is due to take effect.</p>
<p>Separately, a federal judge in Seattle who issued a nationwide halt to Trump's original travel restrictions denied a motion to have the same ruling apply to the modified measures, saying at least one of the parties must first file additional court papers.</p>
<p>The state of Maryland said it would join Monday the suit filed by the attorney general from Washington state, which also has the support of Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Oregon.</p>
<p>"President Trump's second executive order is still a Muslim ban," Maryland Attorney General <a href="http://www.wbaltv.com/article/ag-maryland-will-join-lawsuit-opposing-new-immigration-ban/9118122" type="external">Brian Frosh said</a> in a statement.&#160;</p>
<p>"The administration persists in an effort to implement a policy that is inhumane and unconstitutional, but also makes us less safe, not more safe."</p>
<p>The state of Hawaii has filed a separate complaint, and a hearing in that case on whether to impose a national restraining order is set for March 15 as well.</p>
<p>The White House cites national security in justifying the ban, arguing that it needs time to implement "extreme vetting" procedures to keep radical Islamic militants from entering the country.</p>
<p>Polls show American public opinion is deeply divided on the issue. Most indicate a slight majority of voters opposed, with strong support among Trump's political base.</p>
<p>By AFP's&#160;Olivia Hampton in Washington.</p>
| 5,427 |
<p>My father Robert Klonsky was born in 1918 in a house off of Eastern Parkway where Brownsville meets East New York in Brooklyn. His parents, my grandfather and grandmother, were Russian immigrants, religious Jews, and poor.</p>
<p>My grandfather was either a rabbi or a cantor, depending on who in the family tells the story. Dad had four brothers and a sister. The boys all sang in my grandfather’s synagogue. My father had a beautiful, deep, rich voice that sounded to me like the Paul Robeson records I heard around the house as a child.</p>
<p>The brothers ended up going in very different directions.</p>
<p>My uncle Ben, for example, did not follow in my father’s radical footsteps. Instead his beautiful voice led him to become the chief cantor of Reading, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>Like many of the poor, uneducated (Dad never got past the eighth grade) Jews in Brooklyn, my father and his brother Mac became communists. My father always said it was either be a Red or do what the others in the neighborhood did, the “Jews without money” as the proletarian writer Michael Gold called them: become gangsters (Uncle Ben, notwithstanding). My father chose to be a Red.</p>
<p>In February 1937, answering the international call to defend the Spanish Republic from the fascist rebellion led by General Francisco Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini, my father left New York, his Brownsville neighborhood, and his family.</p>
<p>My father set sail for France aboard a freighter using the passport that belonged to Uncle Mac. He followed the well-worn path over the Pyrenees to Bilbao and enlisted in the International Brigades. From there, he wrote of us his travels and travails.</p>
|
My Father Chose to Be a Red
| true |
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/08/spainish-civil-war-international-brigades-communist-party
|
2018-10-05
| 4left
|
My Father Chose to Be a Red
<p>My father Robert Klonsky was born in 1918 in a house off of Eastern Parkway where Brownsville meets East New York in Brooklyn. His parents, my grandfather and grandmother, were Russian immigrants, religious Jews, and poor.</p>
<p>My grandfather was either a rabbi or a cantor, depending on who in the family tells the story. Dad had four brothers and a sister. The boys all sang in my grandfather’s synagogue. My father had a beautiful, deep, rich voice that sounded to me like the Paul Robeson records I heard around the house as a child.</p>
<p>The brothers ended up going in very different directions.</p>
<p>My uncle Ben, for example, did not follow in my father’s radical footsteps. Instead his beautiful voice led him to become the chief cantor of Reading, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>Like many of the poor, uneducated (Dad never got past the eighth grade) Jews in Brooklyn, my father and his brother Mac became communists. My father always said it was either be a Red or do what the others in the neighborhood did, the “Jews without money” as the proletarian writer Michael Gold called them: become gangsters (Uncle Ben, notwithstanding). My father chose to be a Red.</p>
<p>In February 1937, answering the international call to defend the Spanish Republic from the fascist rebellion led by General Francisco Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini, my father left New York, his Brownsville neighborhood, and his family.</p>
<p>My father set sail for France aboard a freighter using the passport that belonged to Uncle Mac. He followed the well-worn path over the Pyrenees to Bilbao and enlisted in the International Brigades. From there, he wrote of us his travels and travails.</p>
| 5,428 |
<p />
<p>Small Business Spotlight: VivoPools @VivoPools</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Who: Willan Johnson</p>
<p>What: A pool care company spanning five states</p>
<p>When: 2009</p>
<p>Where: Monrovia, CA</p>
<p>How: With a background in management consultant, Willan Johnson says he looked at the companies providing pool care and service and thought to himself that there must be a better solution.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>So, he set out to create one himself in VivoPools, which provides pool owners a variety of services, from weekly pool cleaning to repairs and upgrades. “We provide services to both residential homeowners and commercial clients,” says Johnson, “in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and New Jersey.”</p>
<p>In the first full year of business, Johnson says VivoPools made $1.5 million. By the third year, the company had $6 million in sales. Today, VivoPools employs more than 100 workers across five states.</p>
<p>Biggest challenge: Johnson says managing a business across five states has proved challenging.</p>
<p>“We want to insure consistency across a wide area,” says Johnson.</p>
<p>One moment in time: “I’m proud of creating a brand and a level of service that helps people enjoy their backyards, and brings friends and family together. The pool is a great place to meet, barbecue and have a good time,” says Johnson.</p>
<p>Best business advice: “Keep things as simple as possible! It’s easy to try to a number of strategies, but keep it simple,” advises Johnson.</p>
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Growing Pool Franchise’s Strategy: Keep it Simple
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/07/09/growing-pool-franchises-strategy-keep-it-simple.html
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2016-03-04
| 0right
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Growing Pool Franchise’s Strategy: Keep it Simple
<p />
<p>Small Business Spotlight: VivoPools @VivoPools</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Who: Willan Johnson</p>
<p>What: A pool care company spanning five states</p>
<p>When: 2009</p>
<p>Where: Monrovia, CA</p>
<p>How: With a background in management consultant, Willan Johnson says he looked at the companies providing pool care and service and thought to himself that there must be a better solution.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>So, he set out to create one himself in VivoPools, which provides pool owners a variety of services, from weekly pool cleaning to repairs and upgrades. “We provide services to both residential homeowners and commercial clients,” says Johnson, “in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and New Jersey.”</p>
<p>In the first full year of business, Johnson says VivoPools made $1.5 million. By the third year, the company had $6 million in sales. Today, VivoPools employs more than 100 workers across five states.</p>
<p>Biggest challenge: Johnson says managing a business across five states has proved challenging.</p>
<p>“We want to insure consistency across a wide area,” says Johnson.</p>
<p>One moment in time: “I’m proud of creating a brand and a level of service that helps people enjoy their backyards, and brings friends and family together. The pool is a great place to meet, barbecue and have a good time,” says Johnson.</p>
<p>Best business advice: “Keep things as simple as possible! It’s easy to try to a number of strategies, but keep it simple,” advises Johnson.</p>
| 5,429 |
<p>Police say they arrested two women after they took off their tops in protest at the Manhattan polling place used by Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The disruption occurred Tuesday morning at a grade school gym about two hours before Trump arrived.</p>
<p>The women began shouting and took off their tops to reveal anti-Trump slogans painted across their bare chests before police escorted then away.</p>
<p>They were released after being given summonses for electioneering, a violation of rules outlawing political activity at polls.</p>
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Women arrested after topless protest at Trump’s polling place, police say
| false |
https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/women-arrested-after-topless-protest-at-trumps-polling-place-police-say/
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2016-11-08
| 1right-center
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Women arrested after topless protest at Trump’s polling place, police say
<p>Police say they arrested two women after they took off their tops in protest at the Manhattan polling place used by Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The disruption occurred Tuesday morning at a grade school gym about two hours before Trump arrived.</p>
<p>The women began shouting and took off their tops to reveal anti-Trump slogans painted across their bare chests before police escorted then away.</p>
<p>They were released after being given summonses for electioneering, a violation of rules outlawing political activity at polls.</p>
| 5,430 |
<p />
<p>Oil&#160;prices slipped on Thursday, as support from a weaker dollar was offset by U.S. crude inventories near record high levels that again raised concerns whether OPEC-led output cuts were starting to drain a global glut.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC producers cut production from Jan. 1 to reduce record stocks of crude. But an&#160;oil&#160;price rally after the deal has been hobbled by data showing persistently rising U.S. stockpiles.</p>
<p>Latest data from market intelligence firm Genscape showed a build of more than 2 million barrels in the week to March 14 at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude futures, traders said.</p>
<p>Data on Wednesday showing a modest slide in crude stockpiles in the United States, the world's biggest&#160;oil&#160;consumer, had helped lift&#160;oil&#160;prices after a week-long rout spurred by record U.S. inventories pushed them to three-month lows.</p>
<p>The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that crude inventories fell last week, the first decline after nine weeks of increases, but only by a dip of 237,000 barrels from a record high. It also reported Cushing stocks jumped 2.1 million barrels in the week to March 10.</p>
<p>Brent crude ended the session 7 cents lower at $51.74 a barrel, recovering from Tuesday's drop to $50.25, its lowest since Nov. 30 when OPEC announced its supply accord. The price is still nearly $7 below January's post-deal peak of $58.37.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>U.S. light crude settled 11 cents lower at $48.75 a barrel, but still above the three-month low hit on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Prices also got a brief lift after Bloomberg reported Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih as saying the cuts could be extended if inventories remain above average.</p>
<p>"Market focus remains centered on escalating U.S. production growth and elevated domestic inventory levels, but this is not representative of the rest of the world. Inventories are drawing in several other key regions," RBC Capital Markets analysts said in a note.</p>
<p>"Despite the broad-based headlines of a holistic global&#160;oil&#160;surplus, we contend that certain markets such as Asia remain in a deficit, while regions like the Atlantic Basin and the U.S. remain in surplus."</p>
<p>Some support came from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday after it signaled it would not accelerate plans to raise interest rates, depressing the dollar against a basket of currencies and lifting the greenback-denominated&#160;oil&#160;price.</p>
<p>"I don't think that's going to be a massive influence at this point in time and the main reason being that it is a small move and the risk trade is still on at this point," said Mark Watkins, regional investment strategist at the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank in Park City, Utah.</p>
<p>"Unless there is a global disruption where money needs to move to a safe haven, the interest rate movement isn't going to have a long term material impact at this point in time."</p>
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Oil Edges Lower Despite Weak Dollar as U.S. Stockpiles Remain High
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/16/oil-extends-gains-as-dollar-and-u-s-stocks-fall.html
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2017-03-16
| 0right
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Oil Edges Lower Despite Weak Dollar as U.S. Stockpiles Remain High
<p />
<p>Oil&#160;prices slipped on Thursday, as support from a weaker dollar was offset by U.S. crude inventories near record high levels that again raised concerns whether OPEC-led output cuts were starting to drain a global glut.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC producers cut production from Jan. 1 to reduce record stocks of crude. But an&#160;oil&#160;price rally after the deal has been hobbled by data showing persistently rising U.S. stockpiles.</p>
<p>Latest data from market intelligence firm Genscape showed a build of more than 2 million barrels in the week to March 14 at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude futures, traders said.</p>
<p>Data on Wednesday showing a modest slide in crude stockpiles in the United States, the world's biggest&#160;oil&#160;consumer, had helped lift&#160;oil&#160;prices after a week-long rout spurred by record U.S. inventories pushed them to three-month lows.</p>
<p>The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that crude inventories fell last week, the first decline after nine weeks of increases, but only by a dip of 237,000 barrels from a record high. It also reported Cushing stocks jumped 2.1 million barrels in the week to March 10.</p>
<p>Brent crude ended the session 7 cents lower at $51.74 a barrel, recovering from Tuesday's drop to $50.25, its lowest since Nov. 30 when OPEC announced its supply accord. The price is still nearly $7 below January's post-deal peak of $58.37.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>U.S. light crude settled 11 cents lower at $48.75 a barrel, but still above the three-month low hit on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Prices also got a brief lift after Bloomberg reported Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih as saying the cuts could be extended if inventories remain above average.</p>
<p>"Market focus remains centered on escalating U.S. production growth and elevated domestic inventory levels, but this is not representative of the rest of the world. Inventories are drawing in several other key regions," RBC Capital Markets analysts said in a note.</p>
<p>"Despite the broad-based headlines of a holistic global&#160;oil&#160;surplus, we contend that certain markets such as Asia remain in a deficit, while regions like the Atlantic Basin and the U.S. remain in surplus."</p>
<p>Some support came from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday after it signaled it would not accelerate plans to raise interest rates, depressing the dollar against a basket of currencies and lifting the greenback-denominated&#160;oil&#160;price.</p>
<p>"I don't think that's going to be a massive influence at this point in time and the main reason being that it is a small move and the risk trade is still on at this point," said Mark Watkins, regional investment strategist at the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank in Park City, Utah.</p>
<p>"Unless there is a global disruption where money needs to move to a safe haven, the interest rate movement isn't going to have a long term material impact at this point in time."</p>
| 5,431 |
<p />
<p>Elon Musk has an action item for you to add to your to-do list: Read President Donald Trumps' executive order on immigration and provide (constructive) feedback.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who is a member of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, on Sunday asked his 6.9 million Twitter followers to read the order and then offer up advice on specific amendments that would make it better. Musk said he will "seek advisory council consensus" and then "present to President."</p>
<p>Musk sits on Trump's panel alongside tech execs like Uber's Travis Kalanick, IBM CEO Ginni Rommety, and GM CEO Mary Barra. The group was formed in December to advise the president on job creation.</p>
<p>Musk was one of many Silicon Valley executives over the weekend to <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article/351399/heres-what-silicon-valley-is-saying-about-trumps-immigrati" type="external">speak out against the executive order Opens a New Window.</a>— which limits immigration from seven countries for 90 days: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—though not as forcefully as others.</p>
<p>Musk argued on Twitter that "the blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country's challenges." Early on Monday morning, however, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/825936326264360961" type="external">retweeted Opens a New Window.</a> a message from someone who said that "after reading the language of the order, it looks far less bad than portrayed by left." Musk added that: "Reading the source material is better than reading other people's opinions about the source material."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Uber's Kalanick on Sunday said his company will create a <a href="https://newsroom.uber.com/standing-up-for-the-driver-community/" type="external">$3 million legal defense fund Opens a New Window.</a> to help affected employees with immigration and translation service. The company came under fire over the weekend for failing to participate in a taxi strike at New York's JFK Airport protesting Trump's order. By crossing the picket line, the company incurred a flurry of wrath online: The # <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/351416/immigration-ban-protesters-urge-others-to-deleteuber" type="external">DeleteUber hashtag Opens a New Window.</a> began trending on Twitter, encouraging folks to quit the pickup service.</p>
<p>This article <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/351422/elon-musk-tell-me-how-to-fix-trumps-immigration-order" type="external">originally appeared Opens a New Window.</a> on <a href="http://www.pcmag.com" type="external">PCMag.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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Elon Musk: Tell Me How to Fix Trump's Immigration Order
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/01/30/elon-musk-tell-me-how-to-fix-trump-immigration-order.html
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2017-01-30
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Elon Musk: Tell Me How to Fix Trump's Immigration Order
<p />
<p>Elon Musk has an action item for you to add to your to-do list: Read President Donald Trumps' executive order on immigration and provide (constructive) feedback.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who is a member of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, on Sunday asked his 6.9 million Twitter followers to read the order and then offer up advice on specific amendments that would make it better. Musk said he will "seek advisory council consensus" and then "present to President."</p>
<p>Musk sits on Trump's panel alongside tech execs like Uber's Travis Kalanick, IBM CEO Ginni Rommety, and GM CEO Mary Barra. The group was formed in December to advise the president on job creation.</p>
<p>Musk was one of many Silicon Valley executives over the weekend to <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article/351399/heres-what-silicon-valley-is-saying-about-trumps-immigrati" type="external">speak out against the executive order Opens a New Window.</a>— which limits immigration from seven countries for 90 days: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—though not as forcefully as others.</p>
<p>Musk argued on Twitter that "the blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country's challenges." Early on Monday morning, however, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/825936326264360961" type="external">retweeted Opens a New Window.</a> a message from someone who said that "after reading the language of the order, it looks far less bad than portrayed by left." Musk added that: "Reading the source material is better than reading other people's opinions about the source material."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Uber's Kalanick on Sunday said his company will create a <a href="https://newsroom.uber.com/standing-up-for-the-driver-community/" type="external">$3 million legal defense fund Opens a New Window.</a> to help affected employees with immigration and translation service. The company came under fire over the weekend for failing to participate in a taxi strike at New York's JFK Airport protesting Trump's order. By crossing the picket line, the company incurred a flurry of wrath online: The # <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/351416/immigration-ban-protesters-urge-others-to-deleteuber" type="external">DeleteUber hashtag Opens a New Window.</a> began trending on Twitter, encouraging folks to quit the pickup service.</p>
<p>This article <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/news/351422/elon-musk-tell-me-how-to-fix-trumps-immigration-order" type="external">originally appeared Opens a New Window.</a> on <a href="http://www.pcmag.com" type="external">PCMag.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
| 5,432 |
<p>Investing.com – Portugal stocks were lower after the close on Monday, as losses in the , and sectors led shares lower.</p>
<p>At the close in Lisbon, the fell 0.82% to hit a new 1-month low.</p>
<p>The best performers of the session on the were Novabase SGPS (LS:), which rose 4.75% or 0.147 points to trade at 3.239 at the close. Meanwhile, Banco Comercial Portugues (LS:) added 1.12% or 0.0028 points to end at 0.2523 and Galp Energia Nom (LS:) was up 0.37% or 0.0600 points to 16.2800 in late trade.</p>
<p>The worst performers of the session were Pharol SGPS SA (LS:), which fell 7.12% or 0.0280 points to trade at 0.3650 at the close. Corticeira Amorim (LS:) declined 3.28% or 0.380 points to end at 11.205 and REN (LS:) was down 3.01% or 0.0800 points to 2.5800.</p>
<p>Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Lisbon Stock Exchange by 28 to 4 and 8 ended unchanged.</p>
<p>Brent oil for January delivery was down 0.41% or 0.26 to $63.26 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in December rose 0.26% or 0.15 to hit $56.89 a barrel, while the December Gold Futures contract rose 0.40% or 5.15 to trade at $1279.35 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>EUR/USD was down 0.06% to 1.1660, while EUR/GBP rose 0.61% to 0.8896.</p>
<p>The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 94.44.</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>
|
Portugal stocks lower at close of trade; PSI 20 down 0.82%
| false |
https://newsline.com/portugal-stocks-lower-at-close-of-trade-psi-20-down-0-82/
|
2017-11-13
| 1right-center
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Portugal stocks lower at close of trade; PSI 20 down 0.82%
<p>Investing.com – Portugal stocks were lower after the close on Monday, as losses in the , and sectors led shares lower.</p>
<p>At the close in Lisbon, the fell 0.82% to hit a new 1-month low.</p>
<p>The best performers of the session on the were Novabase SGPS (LS:), which rose 4.75% or 0.147 points to trade at 3.239 at the close. Meanwhile, Banco Comercial Portugues (LS:) added 1.12% or 0.0028 points to end at 0.2523 and Galp Energia Nom (LS:) was up 0.37% or 0.0600 points to 16.2800 in late trade.</p>
<p>The worst performers of the session were Pharol SGPS SA (LS:), which fell 7.12% or 0.0280 points to trade at 0.3650 at the close. Corticeira Amorim (LS:) declined 3.28% or 0.380 points to end at 11.205 and REN (LS:) was down 3.01% or 0.0800 points to 2.5800.</p>
<p>Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Lisbon Stock Exchange by 28 to 4 and 8 ended unchanged.</p>
<p>Brent oil for January delivery was down 0.41% or 0.26 to $63.26 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in December rose 0.26% or 0.15 to hit $56.89 a barrel, while the December Gold Futures contract rose 0.40% or 5.15 to trade at $1279.35 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>EUR/USD was down 0.06% to 1.1660, while EUR/GBP rose 0.61% to 0.8896.</p>
<p>The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 94.44.</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>
| 5,433 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>FILE - This file photo provided by Arizona Department of Corrections shows Fernandes Masters. An indictment obtained by The Associated Press is revealing new details about Masters assault on a female corrections officer in Yuma, but state correction officials still refuse to release their investigation report. The indictment against Masters alleges he fondled and kissed her and tried to have intercourse with her. Prison officials have said the officer was rescued by co-workers after calling for help during the April 13, 2015 attack. (Arizona Department of Corrections via AP, File)</p>
<p>PHOENIX - An indictment obtained by The Associated Press reveals new details about an Arizona prison inmate's alleged assault on a female corrections officer in Yuma, but state correction officials still refuse to release a report on their investigation.</p>
<p>The indictment against inmate Fernandes Masters alleges he kissed and fondled the guard's breasts and tried to have intercourse with her.</p>
<p>Prison officials have said co-workers rescued the officer after she called for help. Officials have provided no further details of the April 13 attack.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The AP sent a public records request to the Department of Corrections in May seeking investigation reports and any conclusion the state reached on prison security, among other issues. But officials have refused to release the information, citing an ongoing investigation and concern for the victim.</p>
<p>"The Department will not jeopardize the confidentiality and integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation by producing documents at this time," corrections spokesman Andrew Wilder said in a statement. "In addition, the victim of this violent sexual assault remains at home, still traumatized by the attack. The Department will not facilitate the further traumatization of the victim by producing documents that either reveal the victim's identity or that can lead to such a revelation."</p>
<p>The reports are apparently complete, however. Assistant Yuma County Attorney Roger Nelson confirmed he used a corrections investigation report to obtain an indictment against Masters.</p>
<p>In addition, the indictment identified the officer. It is AP policy not to name victims of sexual assault unless they come forward and voluntarily identify themselves.</p>
<p>The woman, a senior corrections officer, was meeting with Master in an office when the alleged assault occurred. Wilder previously said an initial review found no prison policies or procedures were violated.</p>
<p>A prison guard union official told the AP in May that the inmate choked the female guard and was removing her clothes when other officers intervened.</p>
<p>Masters was indicted June 4 on charges of sexual abuse, aggravated assault of a corrections employee, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault. His attorney, Robert Billar, did not return several calls seeking comment on the case.</p>
<p>Media attorney Dan Barr said Monday there is no legal reason for corrections officials to withhold the documents. First, the state Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that public records law has no exemptions for ongoing investigations. In addition, allowing an exemption for potential trauma would allow virtually any report to be withheld.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"They could say that with any police report," Barr said. "They're just making up stuff."</p>
<p>The attack was the second sexual assault on a female prisons employee in Arizona in the past two years. A teacher at a prison in Florence was raped last year and is suing the state for failing to protect her.</p>
<p>The state's workplace safety agency fined the corrections agency for failing to ensure the teacher's safety, but that fine is being appealed. The department opened an investigation into the sexual assault in Yuma after it was reported by the AP.</p>
<p>Masters, 31, has a history of assaults, including at least one on staff members.</p>
<p>He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2007 in a plea agreement that came after prosecutors dropped the death penalty, Maricopa County Superior Court records show. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for killing his stepfather in 2004 while robbing him to get money for drugs.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Bob Christie at <a href="http://twitter.com/APChristie" type="external">http://twitter.com/APChristie</a></p>
|
Indictment shows details of Arizona guard's alleged assault
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/623029/indictment-shows-details-of-arizona-guards-alleged-assault.html
| 2least
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Indictment shows details of Arizona guard's alleged assault
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>FILE - This file photo provided by Arizona Department of Corrections shows Fernandes Masters. An indictment obtained by The Associated Press is revealing new details about Masters assault on a female corrections officer in Yuma, but state correction officials still refuse to release their investigation report. The indictment against Masters alleges he fondled and kissed her and tried to have intercourse with her. Prison officials have said the officer was rescued by co-workers after calling for help during the April 13, 2015 attack. (Arizona Department of Corrections via AP, File)</p>
<p>PHOENIX - An indictment obtained by The Associated Press reveals new details about an Arizona prison inmate's alleged assault on a female corrections officer in Yuma, but state correction officials still refuse to release a report on their investigation.</p>
<p>The indictment against inmate Fernandes Masters alleges he kissed and fondled the guard's breasts and tried to have intercourse with her.</p>
<p>Prison officials have said co-workers rescued the officer after she called for help. Officials have provided no further details of the April 13 attack.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The AP sent a public records request to the Department of Corrections in May seeking investigation reports and any conclusion the state reached on prison security, among other issues. But officials have refused to release the information, citing an ongoing investigation and concern for the victim.</p>
<p>"The Department will not jeopardize the confidentiality and integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation by producing documents at this time," corrections spokesman Andrew Wilder said in a statement. "In addition, the victim of this violent sexual assault remains at home, still traumatized by the attack. The Department will not facilitate the further traumatization of the victim by producing documents that either reveal the victim's identity or that can lead to such a revelation."</p>
<p>The reports are apparently complete, however. Assistant Yuma County Attorney Roger Nelson confirmed he used a corrections investigation report to obtain an indictment against Masters.</p>
<p>In addition, the indictment identified the officer. It is AP policy not to name victims of sexual assault unless they come forward and voluntarily identify themselves.</p>
<p>The woman, a senior corrections officer, was meeting with Master in an office when the alleged assault occurred. Wilder previously said an initial review found no prison policies or procedures were violated.</p>
<p>A prison guard union official told the AP in May that the inmate choked the female guard and was removing her clothes when other officers intervened.</p>
<p>Masters was indicted June 4 on charges of sexual abuse, aggravated assault of a corrections employee, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault. His attorney, Robert Billar, did not return several calls seeking comment on the case.</p>
<p>Media attorney Dan Barr said Monday there is no legal reason for corrections officials to withhold the documents. First, the state Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that public records law has no exemptions for ongoing investigations. In addition, allowing an exemption for potential trauma would allow virtually any report to be withheld.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"They could say that with any police report," Barr said. "They're just making up stuff."</p>
<p>The attack was the second sexual assault on a female prisons employee in Arizona in the past two years. A teacher at a prison in Florence was raped last year and is suing the state for failing to protect her.</p>
<p>The state's workplace safety agency fined the corrections agency for failing to ensure the teacher's safety, but that fine is being appealed. The department opened an investigation into the sexual assault in Yuma after it was reported by the AP.</p>
<p>Masters, 31, has a history of assaults, including at least one on staff members.</p>
<p>He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2007 in a plea agreement that came after prosecutors dropped the death penalty, Maricopa County Superior Court records show. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for killing his stepfather in 2004 while robbing him to get money for drugs.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Bob Christie at <a href="http://twitter.com/APChristie" type="external">http://twitter.com/APChristie</a></p>
| 5,434 |
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<p>In 2018, you may resolve to <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/" type="external">save more</a> , spend less or <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/" type="external">budget better</a> . Whatever your money goal, the one common key to your success is shopping smart. That means knowing the best time to buy just about anything.</p>
<p>To help you out, we've created a purchase calendar to help you plan your shopping for the year.</p>
<p>JANUARY</p>
<p>With a fresh page on the calendar comes a fresh start for sales. These products are discounted in <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/" type="external">January</a> :</p>
<p>—BEDDING AND LINENS. Department stores hold bedding and linen "white sales" in January with deep discounts on sheets and towels.</p>
<p>—FITNESS EQUIPMENT. Retailers know you want to get in shape. Expect fitness equipment and apparel sales to abound at sporting goods stores.</p>
<p>—TVS AND ELECTRONICS. Just before the Super Bowl, retailers normally discount their selections of HDTVs and other home-theater essentials.</p>
<p>FEBRUARY</p>
<p>It's the month of love and gift-giving, but February might be a better time to buy major items for yourself than trinkets for your loved one. Options include:</p>
<p>—TVS. TV sales spill over from January into February. Aside from Black Friday, this is one of the prime times to buy a new TV.</p>
<p>—WINTER PRODUCTS. With winter winding down, stores will be looking to unload their inventories of cold-weather products. Look for sales on apparel and winter sporting accessories.</p>
<p>—HOME GOODS. Presidents Day is Feb. 19 this year. Expect retailers to have home and apparel sales on that Monday and the weekend preceding the holiday.</p>
<p>MARCH</p>
<p>There aren't any major shopping holidays in March, but that doesn't mean sales are lacking. Look for sales on these products:</p>
<p>—GOLF CLUBS. Expect to find discounts on golf clubs in preparation for summer. Whenever consumer demand is down, prices usually are, too.</p>
<p>—GRILLS. Buy your summer grilling necessities in March to avoid the spike in prices that will come when summer arrives.</p>
<p>—ST. PATRICK'S DAY ESSENTIALS. St. Patrick's Day is March 17. Around that time, online retailers and department stores usually discount their selection of green-themed clothing, party supplies and jewelry.</p>
<p>APRIL</p>
<p>April has its fair share of spring deals and discounts, including:</p>
<p>—VACUUMS. Buying a vacuum isn't the most exciting purchase, but it'll be less painful if you take advantage of a spring cleaning sale. Look for these at department stores as well as manufacturers like Dyson.</p>
<p>—JEWELRY. The general rule is to avoid buying jewelry close to major holidays. Try to get a good deal when jewelers have a slower period and may be more motivated to make sales.</p>
<p>—FREEBIES. Year after year, retailers and restaurants try to lighten the burden of tax day with discounts and freebies. Keep an eye out for these around mid-April. Tax day this year is April 17.</p>
<p>MAY</p>
<p>April showers bring May flowers — and sales blossom then, too. Here's a look at some products to consider buying this month:</p>
<p>—SPRING CLEANING NECESSITIES. Before summer arrives, act on spring cleaning discounts on vacuums and mops.</p>
<p>—SMALL KITCHEN APPLIANCES. Use May discounts as a perfect opportunity to buy small kitchen appliances, such as coffee makers and blenders. These products normally are included in Memorial Day sales.</p>
<p>—FURNITURE. Three of the biggest blowout shopping days are Black Friday, Labor Day and Memorial Day. This year, Memorial Day is May 28. Look for plenty of furniture and home-decor discounts from big-box stores.</p>
<p>JUNE</p>
<p>June may be one of the shorter months of the year, but its supply of shopping events isn't lacking. Smart purchases include these products:</p>
<p>—LINGERIE. Stock up on undergarments in June. That's when Victoria's Secret has been known to host its famed Semi-Annual Sale. The sale usually occurs in December also.</p>
<p>—GYM MEMBERSHIPS. Consider buying a gym membership during the summer, and don't forget to negotiate to get the best possible deal. Gyms may be more eager for sign-ups at this time.</p>
<p>—GIFTS FOR DAD. You don't have to buy dad's gift at full price. Expect Father's Day deals this month, especially the closer you get to the holiday on June 17.</p>
<p>JULY</p>
<p>The temperature usually rises in July, but the prices of certain products drop. Consider buying these items this month:</p>
<p>—APPAREL. If you don't want to wait for end-of-summer sales, buy clothes in midsummer. You'll likely find a better price than you would at the start of the season.</p>
<p>—PATRIOTIC ITEMS. Retailers like a reason to celebrate. In the days leading up to the Fourth of July, there is usually an abundance of sales on red, white and blue products (and products that are all three colors), as well as on sporting goods, jewelry and furniture.</p>
<p>—PERSONAL ELECTRONICS. Black Friday is a big deal day that falls in November, but many retailers have begun hosting Black Friday in July sales, including Best Buy and Amazon. Expect discounts in nearly every product category.</p>
<p>AUGUST</p>
<p>Close out summer by buying summer products? That's right. Look for end-of-season clearance sales in August:</p>
<p>—BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLIES. The start of school marks the need to buy small items such as pencils and expensive ones like laptops. Generally, the closer to the start of the school year you buy, the better your chances of getting a good price.</p>
<p>—LAWN MOWERS. Ride out the end of summer with a big deal on lawn mowers and other seasonal outdoor equipment.</p>
<p>—SWIMSUITS. There may not be many swimming days left by the time August rolls around, but that's exactly why swimsuit clearance sales will crest. Buy your swimsuits now to stock up for next year.</p>
<p>SEPTEMBER</p>
<p>With deals on items as varied as electronics and back-to-school supplies, September is a surprising month for good buys. Pick up reasonable prices in these departments:</p>
<p>—MATTRESSES. Year after year, September is the time for mattress sales. Expect these from department stores and mattress centers, usually as a part of Labor Day deals.</p>
<p>—IPHONES. Apple has been known to announce its new iPhone installments at the company's annual keynote in September. Usually, the unveiling is followed by a drop in prices on the current phones in anticipation of the new models.</p>
<p>—APPLIANCES. This year, Labor Day falls on Sept. 3. Expect a series of blowout deals in the week leading up to the holiday, including promotions on appliances big and small.</p>
<p>OCTOBER</p>
<p>Don't let the cost of shopping spook you during the Halloween season. There will be plenty of deals on these product categories in October:</p>
<p>—OUTDOOR FURNITURE. People generally spend less time outdoors when the temperature drops. Expect deals on patio furniture and outdoor living products when summer ends.</p>
<p>—JEANS. Fall inventory arrives in stores in August and September, but you'll pay top dollar unless you wait a few weeks. October is a great time to buy a new pair of jeans.</p>
<p>—CANDY. The closer you get to Oct. 31, the better your chance at snagging a discounted bag of candy for your trick-or-treaters.</p>
<p>NOVEMBER</p>
<p>November is the month for Black Friday sales, which means some of the most popular tech products fall to their lowest prices:</p>
<p>—TABLETS AND LAPTOPS. Electronics take center stage during Black Friday sales. Look for discounts on smartphones and activity trackers, too.</p>
<p>—GAMING SYSTEMS. Black Friday is the best time to buy a discounted gaming console or gaming system bundle like Xbox or PlayStation.</p>
<p>—HOME APPLIANCES. Reserve your major home appliance purchase — refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc. — for Black Friday deals. Often, sales on these can be found throughout the month.</p>
<p>DECEMBER</p>
<p>The end of the year is just the beginning for discounts in some product categories. Look for sale prices on these products in December:</p>
<p>—TOYS. Since toys are a popular Christmas gift, stores generally host big toy sales as the holiday season draws to a close.</p>
<p>—CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. Beginning the day after Christmas, shop sales for deep discounts — often upward of 50 percent — on decorations, wrapping paper, ornaments, artificial trees and similar seasonal fixings.</p>
<p>—CARS. The end of December is an ideal time to buy a car. That's when dealerships are looking to meet end-of-year sales quotas.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on the personal finance website <a href="https://nerd.me/homehttps:/nerd.me/home" type="external">NerdWallet</a> . Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: <a href="[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a> . Twitter: @courtneynerd.</p>
<p>RELATED LINKS:</p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to save money: Daily, monthly and long term</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to create a budget</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: What to buy (and skip) in January</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>In 2018, you may resolve to <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/" type="external">save more</a> , spend less or <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/" type="external">budget better</a> . Whatever your money goal, the one common key to your success is shopping smart. That means knowing the best time to buy just about anything.</p>
<p>To help you out, we've created a purchase calendar to help you plan your shopping for the year.</p>
<p>JANUARY</p>
<p>With a fresh page on the calendar comes a fresh start for sales. These products are discounted in <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/" type="external">January</a> :</p>
<p>—BEDDING AND LINENS. Department stores hold bedding and linen "white sales" in January with deep discounts on sheets and towels.</p>
<p>—FITNESS EQUIPMENT. Retailers know you want to get in shape. Expect fitness equipment and apparel sales to abound at sporting goods stores.</p>
<p>—TVS AND ELECTRONICS. Just before the Super Bowl, retailers normally discount their selections of HDTVs and other home-theater essentials.</p>
<p>FEBRUARY</p>
<p>It's the month of love and gift-giving, but February might be a better time to buy major items for yourself than trinkets for your loved one. Options include:</p>
<p>—TVS. TV sales spill over from January into February. Aside from Black Friday, this is one of the prime times to buy a new TV.</p>
<p>—WINTER PRODUCTS. With winter winding down, stores will be looking to unload their inventories of cold-weather products. Look for sales on apparel and winter sporting accessories.</p>
<p>—HOME GOODS. Presidents Day is Feb. 19 this year. Expect retailers to have home and apparel sales on that Monday and the weekend preceding the holiday.</p>
<p>MARCH</p>
<p>There aren't any major shopping holidays in March, but that doesn't mean sales are lacking. Look for sales on these products:</p>
<p>—GOLF CLUBS. Expect to find discounts on golf clubs in preparation for summer. Whenever consumer demand is down, prices usually are, too.</p>
<p>—GRILLS. Buy your summer grilling necessities in March to avoid the spike in prices that will come when summer arrives.</p>
<p>—ST. PATRICK'S DAY ESSENTIALS. St. Patrick's Day is March 17. Around that time, online retailers and department stores usually discount their selection of green-themed clothing, party supplies and jewelry.</p>
<p>APRIL</p>
<p>April has its fair share of spring deals and discounts, including:</p>
<p>—VACUUMS. Buying a vacuum isn't the most exciting purchase, but it'll be less painful if you take advantage of a spring cleaning sale. Look for these at department stores as well as manufacturers like Dyson.</p>
<p>—JEWELRY. The general rule is to avoid buying jewelry close to major holidays. Try to get a good deal when jewelers have a slower period and may be more motivated to make sales.</p>
<p>—FREEBIES. Year after year, retailers and restaurants try to lighten the burden of tax day with discounts and freebies. Keep an eye out for these around mid-April. Tax day this year is April 17.</p>
<p>MAY</p>
<p>April showers bring May flowers — and sales blossom then, too. Here's a look at some products to consider buying this month:</p>
<p>—SPRING CLEANING NECESSITIES. Before summer arrives, act on spring cleaning discounts on vacuums and mops.</p>
<p>—SMALL KITCHEN APPLIANCES. Use May discounts as a perfect opportunity to buy small kitchen appliances, such as coffee makers and blenders. These products normally are included in Memorial Day sales.</p>
<p>—FURNITURE. Three of the biggest blowout shopping days are Black Friday, Labor Day and Memorial Day. This year, Memorial Day is May 28. Look for plenty of furniture and home-decor discounts from big-box stores.</p>
<p>JUNE</p>
<p>June may be one of the shorter months of the year, but its supply of shopping events isn't lacking. Smart purchases include these products:</p>
<p>—LINGERIE. Stock up on undergarments in June. That's when Victoria's Secret has been known to host its famed Semi-Annual Sale. The sale usually occurs in December also.</p>
<p>—GYM MEMBERSHIPS. Consider buying a gym membership during the summer, and don't forget to negotiate to get the best possible deal. Gyms may be more eager for sign-ups at this time.</p>
<p>—GIFTS FOR DAD. You don't have to buy dad's gift at full price. Expect Father's Day deals this month, especially the closer you get to the holiday on June 17.</p>
<p>JULY</p>
<p>The temperature usually rises in July, but the prices of certain products drop. Consider buying these items this month:</p>
<p>—APPAREL. If you don't want to wait for end-of-summer sales, buy clothes in midsummer. You'll likely find a better price than you would at the start of the season.</p>
<p>—PATRIOTIC ITEMS. Retailers like a reason to celebrate. In the days leading up to the Fourth of July, there is usually an abundance of sales on red, white and blue products (and products that are all three colors), as well as on sporting goods, jewelry and furniture.</p>
<p>—PERSONAL ELECTRONICS. Black Friday is a big deal day that falls in November, but many retailers have begun hosting Black Friday in July sales, including Best Buy and Amazon. Expect discounts in nearly every product category.</p>
<p>AUGUST</p>
<p>Close out summer by buying summer products? That's right. Look for end-of-season clearance sales in August:</p>
<p>—BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLIES. The start of school marks the need to buy small items such as pencils and expensive ones like laptops. Generally, the closer to the start of the school year you buy, the better your chances of getting a good price.</p>
<p>—LAWN MOWERS. Ride out the end of summer with a big deal on lawn mowers and other seasonal outdoor equipment.</p>
<p>—SWIMSUITS. There may not be many swimming days left by the time August rolls around, but that's exactly why swimsuit clearance sales will crest. Buy your swimsuits now to stock up for next year.</p>
<p>SEPTEMBER</p>
<p>With deals on items as varied as electronics and back-to-school supplies, September is a surprising month for good buys. Pick up reasonable prices in these departments:</p>
<p>—MATTRESSES. Year after year, September is the time for mattress sales. Expect these from department stores and mattress centers, usually as a part of Labor Day deals.</p>
<p>—IPHONES. Apple has been known to announce its new iPhone installments at the company's annual keynote in September. Usually, the unveiling is followed by a drop in prices on the current phones in anticipation of the new models.</p>
<p>—APPLIANCES. This year, Labor Day falls on Sept. 3. Expect a series of blowout deals in the week leading up to the holiday, including promotions on appliances big and small.</p>
<p>OCTOBER</p>
<p>Don't let the cost of shopping spook you during the Halloween season. There will be plenty of deals on these product categories in October:</p>
<p>—OUTDOOR FURNITURE. People generally spend less time outdoors when the temperature drops. Expect deals on patio furniture and outdoor living products when summer ends.</p>
<p>—JEANS. Fall inventory arrives in stores in August and September, but you'll pay top dollar unless you wait a few weeks. October is a great time to buy a new pair of jeans.</p>
<p>—CANDY. The closer you get to Oct. 31, the better your chance at snagging a discounted bag of candy for your trick-or-treaters.</p>
<p>NOVEMBER</p>
<p>November is the month for Black Friday sales, which means some of the most popular tech products fall to their lowest prices:</p>
<p>—TABLETS AND LAPTOPS. Electronics take center stage during Black Friday sales. Look for discounts on smartphones and activity trackers, too.</p>
<p>—GAMING SYSTEMS. Black Friday is the best time to buy a discounted gaming console or gaming system bundle like Xbox or PlayStation.</p>
<p>—HOME APPLIANCES. Reserve your major home appliance purchase — refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc. — for Black Friday deals. Often, sales on these can be found throughout the month.</p>
<p>DECEMBER</p>
<p>The end of the year is just the beginning for discounts in some product categories. Look for sale prices on these products in December:</p>
<p>—TOYS. Since toys are a popular Christmas gift, stores generally host big toy sales as the holiday season draws to a close.</p>
<p>—CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. Beginning the day after Christmas, shop sales for deep discounts — often upward of 50 percent — on decorations, wrapping paper, ornaments, artificial trees and similar seasonal fixings.</p>
<p>—CARS. The end of December is an ideal time to buy a car. That's when dealerships are looking to meet end-of-year sales quotas.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on the personal finance website <a href="https://nerd.me/homehttps:/nerd.me/home" type="external">NerdWallet</a> . Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: <a href="[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a> . Twitter: @courtneynerd.</p>
<p>RELATED LINKS:</p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to save money: Daily, monthly and long term</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to create a budget</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: What to buy (and skip) in January</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
|
What to buy every month of the year in 2018
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/8fa3c5a0b17b4f939ecfbc50a05bc573
|
2017-12-29
| 2least
|
What to buy every month of the year in 2018
<p>In 2018, you may resolve to <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/" type="external">save more</a> , spend less or <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/" type="external">budget better</a> . Whatever your money goal, the one common key to your success is shopping smart. That means knowing the best time to buy just about anything.</p>
<p>To help you out, we've created a purchase calendar to help you plan your shopping for the year.</p>
<p>JANUARY</p>
<p>With a fresh page on the calendar comes a fresh start for sales. These products are discounted in <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/" type="external">January</a> :</p>
<p>—BEDDING AND LINENS. Department stores hold bedding and linen "white sales" in January with deep discounts on sheets and towels.</p>
<p>—FITNESS EQUIPMENT. Retailers know you want to get in shape. Expect fitness equipment and apparel sales to abound at sporting goods stores.</p>
<p>—TVS AND ELECTRONICS. Just before the Super Bowl, retailers normally discount their selections of HDTVs and other home-theater essentials.</p>
<p>FEBRUARY</p>
<p>It's the month of love and gift-giving, but February might be a better time to buy major items for yourself than trinkets for your loved one. Options include:</p>
<p>—TVS. TV sales spill over from January into February. Aside from Black Friday, this is one of the prime times to buy a new TV.</p>
<p>—WINTER PRODUCTS. With winter winding down, stores will be looking to unload their inventories of cold-weather products. Look for sales on apparel and winter sporting accessories.</p>
<p>—HOME GOODS. Presidents Day is Feb. 19 this year. Expect retailers to have home and apparel sales on that Monday and the weekend preceding the holiday.</p>
<p>MARCH</p>
<p>There aren't any major shopping holidays in March, but that doesn't mean sales are lacking. Look for sales on these products:</p>
<p>—GOLF CLUBS. Expect to find discounts on golf clubs in preparation for summer. Whenever consumer demand is down, prices usually are, too.</p>
<p>—GRILLS. Buy your summer grilling necessities in March to avoid the spike in prices that will come when summer arrives.</p>
<p>—ST. PATRICK'S DAY ESSENTIALS. St. Patrick's Day is March 17. Around that time, online retailers and department stores usually discount their selection of green-themed clothing, party supplies and jewelry.</p>
<p>APRIL</p>
<p>April has its fair share of spring deals and discounts, including:</p>
<p>—VACUUMS. Buying a vacuum isn't the most exciting purchase, but it'll be less painful if you take advantage of a spring cleaning sale. Look for these at department stores as well as manufacturers like Dyson.</p>
<p>—JEWELRY. The general rule is to avoid buying jewelry close to major holidays. Try to get a good deal when jewelers have a slower period and may be more motivated to make sales.</p>
<p>—FREEBIES. Year after year, retailers and restaurants try to lighten the burden of tax day with discounts and freebies. Keep an eye out for these around mid-April. Tax day this year is April 17.</p>
<p>MAY</p>
<p>April showers bring May flowers — and sales blossom then, too. Here's a look at some products to consider buying this month:</p>
<p>—SPRING CLEANING NECESSITIES. Before summer arrives, act on spring cleaning discounts on vacuums and mops.</p>
<p>—SMALL KITCHEN APPLIANCES. Use May discounts as a perfect opportunity to buy small kitchen appliances, such as coffee makers and blenders. These products normally are included in Memorial Day sales.</p>
<p>—FURNITURE. Three of the biggest blowout shopping days are Black Friday, Labor Day and Memorial Day. This year, Memorial Day is May 28. Look for plenty of furniture and home-decor discounts from big-box stores.</p>
<p>JUNE</p>
<p>June may be one of the shorter months of the year, but its supply of shopping events isn't lacking. Smart purchases include these products:</p>
<p>—LINGERIE. Stock up on undergarments in June. That's when Victoria's Secret has been known to host its famed Semi-Annual Sale. The sale usually occurs in December also.</p>
<p>—GYM MEMBERSHIPS. Consider buying a gym membership during the summer, and don't forget to negotiate to get the best possible deal. Gyms may be more eager for sign-ups at this time.</p>
<p>—GIFTS FOR DAD. You don't have to buy dad's gift at full price. Expect Father's Day deals this month, especially the closer you get to the holiday on June 17.</p>
<p>JULY</p>
<p>The temperature usually rises in July, but the prices of certain products drop. Consider buying these items this month:</p>
<p>—APPAREL. If you don't want to wait for end-of-summer sales, buy clothes in midsummer. You'll likely find a better price than you would at the start of the season.</p>
<p>—PATRIOTIC ITEMS. Retailers like a reason to celebrate. In the days leading up to the Fourth of July, there is usually an abundance of sales on red, white and blue products (and products that are all three colors), as well as on sporting goods, jewelry and furniture.</p>
<p>—PERSONAL ELECTRONICS. Black Friday is a big deal day that falls in November, but many retailers have begun hosting Black Friday in July sales, including Best Buy and Amazon. Expect discounts in nearly every product category.</p>
<p>AUGUST</p>
<p>Close out summer by buying summer products? That's right. Look for end-of-season clearance sales in August:</p>
<p>—BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLIES. The start of school marks the need to buy small items such as pencils and expensive ones like laptops. Generally, the closer to the start of the school year you buy, the better your chances of getting a good price.</p>
<p>—LAWN MOWERS. Ride out the end of summer with a big deal on lawn mowers and other seasonal outdoor equipment.</p>
<p>—SWIMSUITS. There may not be many swimming days left by the time August rolls around, but that's exactly why swimsuit clearance sales will crest. Buy your swimsuits now to stock up for next year.</p>
<p>SEPTEMBER</p>
<p>With deals on items as varied as electronics and back-to-school supplies, September is a surprising month for good buys. Pick up reasonable prices in these departments:</p>
<p>—MATTRESSES. Year after year, September is the time for mattress sales. Expect these from department stores and mattress centers, usually as a part of Labor Day deals.</p>
<p>—IPHONES. Apple has been known to announce its new iPhone installments at the company's annual keynote in September. Usually, the unveiling is followed by a drop in prices on the current phones in anticipation of the new models.</p>
<p>—APPLIANCES. This year, Labor Day falls on Sept. 3. Expect a series of blowout deals in the week leading up to the holiday, including promotions on appliances big and small.</p>
<p>OCTOBER</p>
<p>Don't let the cost of shopping spook you during the Halloween season. There will be plenty of deals on these product categories in October:</p>
<p>—OUTDOOR FURNITURE. People generally spend less time outdoors when the temperature drops. Expect deals on patio furniture and outdoor living products when summer ends.</p>
<p>—JEANS. Fall inventory arrives in stores in August and September, but you'll pay top dollar unless you wait a few weeks. October is a great time to buy a new pair of jeans.</p>
<p>—CANDY. The closer you get to Oct. 31, the better your chance at snagging a discounted bag of candy for your trick-or-treaters.</p>
<p>NOVEMBER</p>
<p>November is the month for Black Friday sales, which means some of the most popular tech products fall to their lowest prices:</p>
<p>—TABLETS AND LAPTOPS. Electronics take center stage during Black Friday sales. Look for discounts on smartphones and activity trackers, too.</p>
<p>—GAMING SYSTEMS. Black Friday is the best time to buy a discounted gaming console or gaming system bundle like Xbox or PlayStation.</p>
<p>—HOME APPLIANCES. Reserve your major home appliance purchase — refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc. — for Black Friday deals. Often, sales on these can be found throughout the month.</p>
<p>DECEMBER</p>
<p>The end of the year is just the beginning for discounts in some product categories. Look for sale prices on these products in December:</p>
<p>—TOYS. Since toys are a popular Christmas gift, stores generally host big toy sales as the holiday season draws to a close.</p>
<p>—CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. Beginning the day after Christmas, shop sales for deep discounts — often upward of 50 percent — on decorations, wrapping paper, ornaments, artificial trees and similar seasonal fixings.</p>
<p>—CARS. The end of December is an ideal time to buy a car. That's when dealerships are looking to meet end-of-year sales quotas.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on the personal finance website <a href="https://nerd.me/homehttps:/nerd.me/home" type="external">NerdWallet</a> . Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: <a href="[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a> . Twitter: @courtneynerd.</p>
<p>RELATED LINKS:</p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to save money: Daily, monthly and long term</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to create a budget</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: What to buy (and skip) in January</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>In 2018, you may resolve to <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/" type="external">save more</a> , spend less or <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/" type="external">budget better</a> . Whatever your money goal, the one common key to your success is shopping smart. That means knowing the best time to buy just about anything.</p>
<p>To help you out, we've created a purchase calendar to help you plan your shopping for the year.</p>
<p>JANUARY</p>
<p>With a fresh page on the calendar comes a fresh start for sales. These products are discounted in <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/" type="external">January</a> :</p>
<p>—BEDDING AND LINENS. Department stores hold bedding and linen "white sales" in January with deep discounts on sheets and towels.</p>
<p>—FITNESS EQUIPMENT. Retailers know you want to get in shape. Expect fitness equipment and apparel sales to abound at sporting goods stores.</p>
<p>—TVS AND ELECTRONICS. Just before the Super Bowl, retailers normally discount their selections of HDTVs and other home-theater essentials.</p>
<p>FEBRUARY</p>
<p>It's the month of love and gift-giving, but February might be a better time to buy major items for yourself than trinkets for your loved one. Options include:</p>
<p>—TVS. TV sales spill over from January into February. Aside from Black Friday, this is one of the prime times to buy a new TV.</p>
<p>—WINTER PRODUCTS. With winter winding down, stores will be looking to unload their inventories of cold-weather products. Look for sales on apparel and winter sporting accessories.</p>
<p>—HOME GOODS. Presidents Day is Feb. 19 this year. Expect retailers to have home and apparel sales on that Monday and the weekend preceding the holiday.</p>
<p>MARCH</p>
<p>There aren't any major shopping holidays in March, but that doesn't mean sales are lacking. Look for sales on these products:</p>
<p>—GOLF CLUBS. Expect to find discounts on golf clubs in preparation for summer. Whenever consumer demand is down, prices usually are, too.</p>
<p>—GRILLS. Buy your summer grilling necessities in March to avoid the spike in prices that will come when summer arrives.</p>
<p>—ST. PATRICK'S DAY ESSENTIALS. St. Patrick's Day is March 17. Around that time, online retailers and department stores usually discount their selection of green-themed clothing, party supplies and jewelry.</p>
<p>APRIL</p>
<p>April has its fair share of spring deals and discounts, including:</p>
<p>—VACUUMS. Buying a vacuum isn't the most exciting purchase, but it'll be less painful if you take advantage of a spring cleaning sale. Look for these at department stores as well as manufacturers like Dyson.</p>
<p>—JEWELRY. The general rule is to avoid buying jewelry close to major holidays. Try to get a good deal when jewelers have a slower period and may be more motivated to make sales.</p>
<p>—FREEBIES. Year after year, retailers and restaurants try to lighten the burden of tax day with discounts and freebies. Keep an eye out for these around mid-April. Tax day this year is April 17.</p>
<p>MAY</p>
<p>April showers bring May flowers — and sales blossom then, too. Here's a look at some products to consider buying this month:</p>
<p>—SPRING CLEANING NECESSITIES. Before summer arrives, act on spring cleaning discounts on vacuums and mops.</p>
<p>—SMALL KITCHEN APPLIANCES. Use May discounts as a perfect opportunity to buy small kitchen appliances, such as coffee makers and blenders. These products normally are included in Memorial Day sales.</p>
<p>—FURNITURE. Three of the biggest blowout shopping days are Black Friday, Labor Day and Memorial Day. This year, Memorial Day is May 28. Look for plenty of furniture and home-decor discounts from big-box stores.</p>
<p>JUNE</p>
<p>June may be one of the shorter months of the year, but its supply of shopping events isn't lacking. Smart purchases include these products:</p>
<p>—LINGERIE. Stock up on undergarments in June. That's when Victoria's Secret has been known to host its famed Semi-Annual Sale. The sale usually occurs in December also.</p>
<p>—GYM MEMBERSHIPS. Consider buying a gym membership during the summer, and don't forget to negotiate to get the best possible deal. Gyms may be more eager for sign-ups at this time.</p>
<p>—GIFTS FOR DAD. You don't have to buy dad's gift at full price. Expect Father's Day deals this month, especially the closer you get to the holiday on June 17.</p>
<p>JULY</p>
<p>The temperature usually rises in July, but the prices of certain products drop. Consider buying these items this month:</p>
<p>—APPAREL. If you don't want to wait for end-of-summer sales, buy clothes in midsummer. You'll likely find a better price than you would at the start of the season.</p>
<p>—PATRIOTIC ITEMS. Retailers like a reason to celebrate. In the days leading up to the Fourth of July, there is usually an abundance of sales on red, white and blue products (and products that are all three colors), as well as on sporting goods, jewelry and furniture.</p>
<p>—PERSONAL ELECTRONICS. Black Friday is a big deal day that falls in November, but many retailers have begun hosting Black Friday in July sales, including Best Buy and Amazon. Expect discounts in nearly every product category.</p>
<p>AUGUST</p>
<p>Close out summer by buying summer products? That's right. Look for end-of-season clearance sales in August:</p>
<p>—BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLIES. The start of school marks the need to buy small items such as pencils and expensive ones like laptops. Generally, the closer to the start of the school year you buy, the better your chances of getting a good price.</p>
<p>—LAWN MOWERS. Ride out the end of summer with a big deal on lawn mowers and other seasonal outdoor equipment.</p>
<p>—SWIMSUITS. There may not be many swimming days left by the time August rolls around, but that's exactly why swimsuit clearance sales will crest. Buy your swimsuits now to stock up for next year.</p>
<p>SEPTEMBER</p>
<p>With deals on items as varied as electronics and back-to-school supplies, September is a surprising month for good buys. Pick up reasonable prices in these departments:</p>
<p>—MATTRESSES. Year after year, September is the time for mattress sales. Expect these from department stores and mattress centers, usually as a part of Labor Day deals.</p>
<p>—IPHONES. Apple has been known to announce its new iPhone installments at the company's annual keynote in September. Usually, the unveiling is followed by a drop in prices on the current phones in anticipation of the new models.</p>
<p>—APPLIANCES. This year, Labor Day falls on Sept. 3. Expect a series of blowout deals in the week leading up to the holiday, including promotions on appliances big and small.</p>
<p>OCTOBER</p>
<p>Don't let the cost of shopping spook you during the Halloween season. There will be plenty of deals on these product categories in October:</p>
<p>—OUTDOOR FURNITURE. People generally spend less time outdoors when the temperature drops. Expect deals on patio furniture and outdoor living products when summer ends.</p>
<p>—JEANS. Fall inventory arrives in stores in August and September, but you'll pay top dollar unless you wait a few weeks. October is a great time to buy a new pair of jeans.</p>
<p>—CANDY. The closer you get to Oct. 31, the better your chance at snagging a discounted bag of candy for your trick-or-treaters.</p>
<p>NOVEMBER</p>
<p>November is the month for Black Friday sales, which means some of the most popular tech products fall to their lowest prices:</p>
<p>—TABLETS AND LAPTOPS. Electronics take center stage during Black Friday sales. Look for discounts on smartphones and activity trackers, too.</p>
<p>—GAMING SYSTEMS. Black Friday is the best time to buy a discounted gaming console or gaming system bundle like Xbox or PlayStation.</p>
<p>—HOME APPLIANCES. Reserve your major home appliance purchase — refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc. — for Black Friday deals. Often, sales on these can be found throughout the month.</p>
<p>DECEMBER</p>
<p>The end of the year is just the beginning for discounts in some product categories. Look for sale prices on these products in December:</p>
<p>—TOYS. Since toys are a popular Christmas gift, stores generally host big toy sales as the holiday season draws to a close.</p>
<p>—CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. Beginning the day after Christmas, shop sales for deep discounts — often upward of 50 percent — on decorations, wrapping paper, ornaments, artificial trees and similar seasonal fixings.</p>
<p>—CARS. The end of December is an ideal time to buy a car. That's when dealerships are looking to meet end-of-year sales quotas.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on the personal finance website <a href="https://nerd.me/homehttps:/nerd.me/home" type="external">NerdWallet</a> . Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: <a href="[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a> . Twitter: @courtneynerd.</p>
<p>RELATED LINKS:</p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to save money: Daily, monthly and long term</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/how-to-save-money/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: How to create a budget</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-build-a-budget/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
<p>NerdWallet: What to buy (and skip) in January</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn" type="external">https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/shopping/buy-skip-january/?utm_campaign=ct_prod&amp;utm_source=ap&amp;utm_medium=mpsyn</a></p>
| 5,435 |
<p>President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.”</p>
<p>Kroft’s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-18560_162-57341024.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody" type="external">interview with Obama</a> took place on Dec. 9 and aired on CBS on Dec. 11.</p>
<p>‘McCain’s Economist’ Touts Stimulus?</p>
<p>Obama disagreed with Kroft that there was a “general perception that the stimulus was not enough” or “didn’t work.”</p>
<p>Kroft: I’m not saying this as fact, and hindsight is always 20-20. But there’s [a] general perception that the stimulus was not enough. That it really didn’t work. That…</p>
<p>Obama: Let me stop you there, Steve. First of all, there’s not general perception that the stimulus didn’t work. You’ve got John McCain’s former economist and a whole series of prominent economists, who say that it created or saved 3 millions jobs and prevented us from going into a great depression. That works.</p>
<p>Some economists do believe that the stimulus was effective in creating or saving thousands and even millions of jobs. That includes Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who estimated in a <a href="http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf" type="external">July 2010 report</a> that the stimulus added “almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls.” But Zandi was not “John McCain’s former economist,” as <a href="" type="internal">we’ve written before</a> when others have labeled him as such.</p>
<p>It’s true that Zandi was one of those who offered advice to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, as we reported back in 2010. But he was just one of many. McCain’s chief economic adviser was Douglas Holtz-Eakin. And as we’ve <a href="" type="internal">reported before</a>, Zandi says that he is a registered Democrat.</p>
<p>Obama was also using a high-end estimate for jobs created or saved by the stimulus. In a <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/125xx/doc12564/11-22-ARRA.pdf" type="external">November report</a>, for example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the stimulus — compared with what would have occurred otherwise — “increased the number of people employed by between 0.4 million and 2.4 million” in the third quarter of 2011. At its peak of effectiveness in the third quarter of 2010, the stimulus was responsible for increasing the number of persons employed by a maximum of 3.6 million, and it could have been less than half that, CBO said.</p>
<p>Most Republicans Favor Tax Increases?</p>
<p>Obama also claimed that most Republicans favor raising taxes on the wealthy in order to help bring down the deficit.</p>
<p>Obama: I mean, the interesting thing is the majority of Republicans actually think we should have a balanced approach to deficit reduction, including tax increases for the wealthy.</p>
<p>We found three recent polls on the subject: One supported the president’s claim, and the others didn’t.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2011/NYT_CBS_ObamaEconomy0916.pdf" type="external">CBS News/New York Times poll</a> conducted back in September asked, “Do you think any plan to reduce the federal budget deficit should include only tax increases, or only spending cuts, or a combination of both tax increases and spending cuts?” According to the results, 57 percent of Republicans believed that a deficit-reduction plan should include both spending cuts and tax increases. The survey’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points for Republicans.</p>
<p>But a recent <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1675" type="external">Quinnipiac University poll</a> conducted in November found something completely different. The poll asked, “From what you know so far, do you think the deficit-reduction proposal should include some increases in tax revenue or should it include only cuts in government spending?” The results showed that 73 percent of Republicans believed that a deficit-reduction plan should include spending cuts only.</p>
<p>And a <a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/11/21/rel19a.pdf" type="external">CNN/ORC International poll</a> also conducted in November asked if “increases in taxes on businesses and higher-income Americans” should be included in a deficit-reduction proposal. Only 39 percent of Republicans said that those tax increases should be included, while 59 percent said that they should not. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.</p>
<p>Payroll Tax Cut Extension Necessary?</p>
<p>Obama also claimed that “every economist ” says it is necessary to extend the payroll tax cut, as he would like to.</p>
<p>Obama: I would love nothing more than to have the Republicans say, “We’re gonna be focused on trying to solve problems and not score political points.” And the best example is the debate we’re having right now around the payroll tax cut extension. This is a deal that we cut last year that every economist says we need to help sustain the recovery.</p>
<p>It’s true that many economists believe that continuing the payroll tax cut would provide a boost to the economy. As <a href="" type="internal">we’ve written previously</a>, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12437/11-15-Outlook_Stimulus_Testimony.pdf" type="external">told a Senate committee</a> in November that “the increase in take-home pay would spur additional spending by the households receiving the higher income, and that higher spending would, in turn, increase production and employment.” And both <a href="http://macroadvisers.blogspot.com/2011/08/jobs-bill-not-so-great-expectations.html" type="external">Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisers</a> and <a href="http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Final-Senate-Budget-Committee-091511.pdf" type="external">Zandi of Moody’s Analytics</a> believe that further reducing, or even just extending the current payroll tax cut, would increase both gross domestic product and employment.</p>
<p>However, not every economist necessarily sees it that way.</p>
<p>ABC News <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/economists-split-on-job-creating-power-of-payroll-tax-cut/" type="external">recently reported</a> that David Kautter, managing director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University, favors extending the tax cut, because without it “you’d end up reducing money in consumer’s pockets and that would end up reducing demand.” But he also said — based on what he has read and talking with other economists — that “there is a clear division in the economic community among economists as to the impact of the payroll tax reduction for this year.”</p>
<p>One who doesn’t believe that extending the payroll tax cut will do much good is Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, who was also quoted in the ABC News report. Biggs told FactCheck.org that while he wasn’t sure he would “go to the mat to get rid of the payroll tax cut,” he doubted it “will do a heck of a lot to get the economy going.”</p>
<p>— D’Angelo Gore</p>
|
Suspect Claims from Obama’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview
| false |
https://factcheck.org/2011/12/suspect-claims-from-obamas-60-minutes-interview/
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2011-12-12
| 2least
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Suspect Claims from Obama’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview
<p>President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.”</p>
<p>Kroft’s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-18560_162-57341024.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody" type="external">interview with Obama</a> took place on Dec. 9 and aired on CBS on Dec. 11.</p>
<p>‘McCain’s Economist’ Touts Stimulus?</p>
<p>Obama disagreed with Kroft that there was a “general perception that the stimulus was not enough” or “didn’t work.”</p>
<p>Kroft: I’m not saying this as fact, and hindsight is always 20-20. But there’s [a] general perception that the stimulus was not enough. That it really didn’t work. That…</p>
<p>Obama: Let me stop you there, Steve. First of all, there’s not general perception that the stimulus didn’t work. You’ve got John McCain’s former economist and a whole series of prominent economists, who say that it created or saved 3 millions jobs and prevented us from going into a great depression. That works.</p>
<p>Some economists do believe that the stimulus was effective in creating or saving thousands and even millions of jobs. That includes Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who estimated in a <a href="http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf" type="external">July 2010 report</a> that the stimulus added “almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls.” But Zandi was not “John McCain’s former economist,” as <a href="" type="internal">we’ve written before</a> when others have labeled him as such.</p>
<p>It’s true that Zandi was one of those who offered advice to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, as we reported back in 2010. But he was just one of many. McCain’s chief economic adviser was Douglas Holtz-Eakin. And as we’ve <a href="" type="internal">reported before</a>, Zandi says that he is a registered Democrat.</p>
<p>Obama was also using a high-end estimate for jobs created or saved by the stimulus. In a <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/125xx/doc12564/11-22-ARRA.pdf" type="external">November report</a>, for example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the stimulus — compared with what would have occurred otherwise — “increased the number of people employed by between 0.4 million and 2.4 million” in the third quarter of 2011. At its peak of effectiveness in the third quarter of 2010, the stimulus was responsible for increasing the number of persons employed by a maximum of 3.6 million, and it could have been less than half that, CBO said.</p>
<p>Most Republicans Favor Tax Increases?</p>
<p>Obama also claimed that most Republicans favor raising taxes on the wealthy in order to help bring down the deficit.</p>
<p>Obama: I mean, the interesting thing is the majority of Republicans actually think we should have a balanced approach to deficit reduction, including tax increases for the wealthy.</p>
<p>We found three recent polls on the subject: One supported the president’s claim, and the others didn’t.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2011/NYT_CBS_ObamaEconomy0916.pdf" type="external">CBS News/New York Times poll</a> conducted back in September asked, “Do you think any plan to reduce the federal budget deficit should include only tax increases, or only spending cuts, or a combination of both tax increases and spending cuts?” According to the results, 57 percent of Republicans believed that a deficit-reduction plan should include both spending cuts and tax increases. The survey’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points for Republicans.</p>
<p>But a recent <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1675" type="external">Quinnipiac University poll</a> conducted in November found something completely different. The poll asked, “From what you know so far, do you think the deficit-reduction proposal should include some increases in tax revenue or should it include only cuts in government spending?” The results showed that 73 percent of Republicans believed that a deficit-reduction plan should include spending cuts only.</p>
<p>And a <a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/11/21/rel19a.pdf" type="external">CNN/ORC International poll</a> also conducted in November asked if “increases in taxes on businesses and higher-income Americans” should be included in a deficit-reduction proposal. Only 39 percent of Republicans said that those tax increases should be included, while 59 percent said that they should not. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.</p>
<p>Payroll Tax Cut Extension Necessary?</p>
<p>Obama also claimed that “every economist ” says it is necessary to extend the payroll tax cut, as he would like to.</p>
<p>Obama: I would love nothing more than to have the Republicans say, “We’re gonna be focused on trying to solve problems and not score political points.” And the best example is the debate we’re having right now around the payroll tax cut extension. This is a deal that we cut last year that every economist says we need to help sustain the recovery.</p>
<p>It’s true that many economists believe that continuing the payroll tax cut would provide a boost to the economy. As <a href="" type="internal">we’ve written previously</a>, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12437/11-15-Outlook_Stimulus_Testimony.pdf" type="external">told a Senate committee</a> in November that “the increase in take-home pay would spur additional spending by the households receiving the higher income, and that higher spending would, in turn, increase production and employment.” And both <a href="http://macroadvisers.blogspot.com/2011/08/jobs-bill-not-so-great-expectations.html" type="external">Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisers</a> and <a href="http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Final-Senate-Budget-Committee-091511.pdf" type="external">Zandi of Moody’s Analytics</a> believe that further reducing, or even just extending the current payroll tax cut, would increase both gross domestic product and employment.</p>
<p>However, not every economist necessarily sees it that way.</p>
<p>ABC News <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/economists-split-on-job-creating-power-of-payroll-tax-cut/" type="external">recently reported</a> that David Kautter, managing director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University, favors extending the tax cut, because without it “you’d end up reducing money in consumer’s pockets and that would end up reducing demand.” But he also said — based on what he has read and talking with other economists — that “there is a clear division in the economic community among economists as to the impact of the payroll tax reduction for this year.”</p>
<p>One who doesn’t believe that extending the payroll tax cut will do much good is Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, who was also quoted in the ABC News report. Biggs told FactCheck.org that while he wasn’t sure he would “go to the mat to get rid of the payroll tax cut,” he doubted it “will do a heck of a lot to get the economy going.”</p>
<p>— D’Angelo Gore</p>
| 5,436 |
<p />
<p>Queen’s Freddie Mercury obviously wasn’t referencing the Nissan Pathfinder in the band’s 1980 worldwide hit song, but it sure fits.</p>
<p>After 28 years of its off-road-worthy sport utility, Nissan decided that for 2014 the Pathfinder was overdue for a new direction. In a nod to the explosive growth of models and sales of car-based, crossover utility wagons, the Japanese company joined the stampede.</p>
<p>It’s just the latest to admit the shrinkage in sales of a once-vast market for hard-core off-roaders. Besides, Nissan still offers the truck-based Xterra for those types of outdoorsy adventurers.</p>
<p>For some time the trend has been toward vehicles that offer elevated seating and above-the-traffic visibility, family-friendly cargo space and utility, and (usually optional) all-wheel drive for occasional forest-road forays and added confidence on snow-coated or rain-slicked roadways.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>So manufacturers have met the challenge with tall, wagonesque vehicles that offer the look of SUVs but deliver the driving ease and highway comfort of a car.</p>
<p>The new Pathfinder, built on a chassis shared with Nissan’s front-drive midsize Altima family sedan, is just such a vehicle. And it could prove to be one of the most successful.</p>
<p>The exterior is sleek and attractive, bearing all the hallmarks of Nissan’s current design ethos.</p>
<p><a href="https://d3el53au0d7w62.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PATHFINDER_3057.jpg" type="external" />Inside our midlevel SL model is leather-swathed seating for seven. Seats are generously sized and adult-friendly, even in the third row.</p>
<p>The dash’s design is a study in hard plastics, the only letdown in an otherwise upscale and logically laid-out cabin.</p>
<p>Powering the Pathfinder is a 3.6-liter, twin-cam V-6 churning out a healthy 260 horsepower. Nissan’s latest continuously variable automatic transmission delivers smooth performance with virtually none of the sensation of slippage that plagued earlier versions of CVTs.</p>
<p>The Pathfinder’s carlike handling and stable highway ride would make it a fine choice for a cross-country family holiday or the weekly trip to Target.</p>
<p>Fuel economy is a respectable 19 mpg in town and 25 mph on the open road – and that’s with all-wheel drive.</p>
<p>Pathfinder’s metamorphosis should prove to be a profitable move for Nissan.</p>
<p />
|
New attitude: With 2014 makeover, Nissan Pathfinder joins the crossover crowd
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https://abqjournal.com/266456/new-attitude-with-2014-makeover-nissan-pathfinder-joins-the-crossover-crowd.html
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2013-09-21
| 2least
|
New attitude: With 2014 makeover, Nissan Pathfinder joins the crossover crowd
<p />
<p>Queen’s Freddie Mercury obviously wasn’t referencing the Nissan Pathfinder in the band’s 1980 worldwide hit song, but it sure fits.</p>
<p>After 28 years of its off-road-worthy sport utility, Nissan decided that for 2014 the Pathfinder was overdue for a new direction. In a nod to the explosive growth of models and sales of car-based, crossover utility wagons, the Japanese company joined the stampede.</p>
<p>It’s just the latest to admit the shrinkage in sales of a once-vast market for hard-core off-roaders. Besides, Nissan still offers the truck-based Xterra for those types of outdoorsy adventurers.</p>
<p>For some time the trend has been toward vehicles that offer elevated seating and above-the-traffic visibility, family-friendly cargo space and utility, and (usually optional) all-wheel drive for occasional forest-road forays and added confidence on snow-coated or rain-slicked roadways.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>So manufacturers have met the challenge with tall, wagonesque vehicles that offer the look of SUVs but deliver the driving ease and highway comfort of a car.</p>
<p>The new Pathfinder, built on a chassis shared with Nissan’s front-drive midsize Altima family sedan, is just such a vehicle. And it could prove to be one of the most successful.</p>
<p>The exterior is sleek and attractive, bearing all the hallmarks of Nissan’s current design ethos.</p>
<p><a href="https://d3el53au0d7w62.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PATHFINDER_3057.jpg" type="external" />Inside our midlevel SL model is leather-swathed seating for seven. Seats are generously sized and adult-friendly, even in the third row.</p>
<p>The dash’s design is a study in hard plastics, the only letdown in an otherwise upscale and logically laid-out cabin.</p>
<p>Powering the Pathfinder is a 3.6-liter, twin-cam V-6 churning out a healthy 260 horsepower. Nissan’s latest continuously variable automatic transmission delivers smooth performance with virtually none of the sensation of slippage that plagued earlier versions of CVTs.</p>
<p>The Pathfinder’s carlike handling and stable highway ride would make it a fine choice for a cross-country family holiday or the weekly trip to Target.</p>
<p>Fuel economy is a respectable 19 mpg in town and 25 mph on the open road – and that’s with all-wheel drive.</p>
<p>Pathfinder’s metamorphosis should prove to be a profitable move for Nissan.</p>
<p />
| 5,437 |
<p>On July 24 we ran Vietnam vet MARC LEVY’s powerful piece on PTSD. A faulty email link made it hard for readers who wanted to contact Levy. So here’s the piece again with the correct address for Marc. AC/JSC</p>
<p>VA Shrink: Were you in Vietnam?</p>
<p>Vietnam Vet: Yes.</p>
<p>VA Shrink: When were you there?</p>
<p>Vietnam vet: Last night.</p>
<p>I’m kneeling. Tears streak my face, drip down, fall to earth. It’s only my second time in combat. Soon I’ll be different. Soon revenge for our dead and wounded will meld with fear, and I will help with the killing and the killing will help me. We’re just regular grunts: We make too much noise, we have no special skills, we’re not elite. But after a time we get the hang of this war, the rhythm of it. Wait. Engage. Disengage. We call it contact, or movement. We psych ourselves up. “Time to kick ass and take names,” we say. And between contact and kicking ass or having our asses kicked there is tension that starts small, then builds and builds until we secretly pray it will happen. That we walk into them or them into us, or we mortar them or they rocket us, then the tension explodes like perfect sex, and afterwards… we’re spent. There are days, weeks nothing happens, then terror, instant and deep, then relief, like paradise, since the killing is done and we have buried away the wounded and dead. Until it starts all over again.</p>
<p>That was thirty-seven years ago. Or was it last night? A day, a year, twenty years home from war you may begin to act strange. The shrinks, social workers, group therapists, clinical researchers, each has a different take on what causes PTSD. “It’s neurolinguistic . It’s cognitive. It’s biochemical”, they chime and chatter. Who cares? Just stop the pain. Just stop it. But where does that pain come from? What’s going down? Here is what I know: what you learn in combat you do not easily forget. You drop at the first hint of an ambush falling so fast your helmet still spins in the air. You shoot first and ask questions later. The enemy is an unfeeling slippery bug to be stomped out. You live like an animal. You learn to like killing. Learn to fear and hate the enemy. Hate civilians. Can’t trust the bastards. You hate taking prisoners. You’d rather kill them. Why? Because the enemy wants to fuck you up. Kill you, your pals, some new guy doesn’t know jack shit, wants to waste your Lieutenant, the whole damn platoon.</p>
<p>After a time you learn what war is: the fish like iridescent gleam inside a brainless head; the sleek white caterpillar of pulsing human gut; the grotesque tableau of charred bodies frozen stiff; the impossible music made by voices howling beyond human form; pure white bones piercing ruby ripped flesh; the strange oily feel of blood; the sudden slump of the man next to you. The business of flies on the mouths of the dead.</p>
<p>After a time, to a supernatural degree you learn to live with terror, rage, struck down sorrow, blocked out guilt or dumb-struck grief. Yes, the supernatural threat of catastrophe and the ways to survive it become preternaturally normal, second nature, a fully formed part of you.</p>
<p>Then one day you get shot, or if you are lucky, complete the tour, return home intact. But for those who have seen their share the equation might go like this: Johnny got his gun + Johnny marches home = HEEEREE’S JOHNNNNY!!!!</p>
<p>And the good soldier John or the good troop Jane, who under fire never once thought of your civil rights, your silly flag, your doofus politics, Good Johnny or Jane, I say, feel and act a tad differently when the locked down feelings, bottled up memories, instinctive behaviors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder fervently, unexpectedly kick in. The symptoms of PTSD, in plain bloody English, are as follows:</p>
<p>Flashbacks: seeing and feeling a combat event as if it were happening right now.</p>
<p>Hyper vigilance: being always on guard, always looking for where the next shot, next grenade, next rocket, ambush or IED will come next.</p>
<p>Survivor guilt: feeling bad, feeling real shitty for having survived, where others in the platoon or squad didn’t.</p>
<p>Moral Guilt: wrestling with actions one did or did not take on one or more than one occasions.</p>
<p>Startle Reflex: dropping, flinching, turning fast at a sudden noise or unexpected touch.</p>
<p>Suicidal Ideation: thinking of killing oneself.</p>
<p>Homicidal Ideation: thinking of killing people. Friends or complete strangers.</p>
<p>Homicidal Rage: anger way out of proportion to an everyday event. It comes quick, down and dirty.</p>
<p>Sadness, depression, anxiety, crying spells. Staring into space, saying nothing.</p>
<p>Nightmares: violent dreams related to combat. Sometimes it’s the same dream. Some vets make strange noises. Thrash in bed. Wake up scared, or sweaty.</p>
<p>Ritual Behavior: at night checking the lights, locking the doors, maybe keeping a weapon at hand.</p>
<p>Alienation: a vet feels as if no one understands him, doesn’t fit in, feels as if he or she should have never returned.</p>
<p>Panic Attacks: for a short time the combat vet becomes suddenly and intensely afraid. He or she sweats breathe hard, has a pounding heart, might get dizzy, choke.</p>
<p>Social Isolation: staying alone for long periods of time. Or in public saying very little. To the point of being noticeably very quiet.</p>
<p>Drug and alcohol abuse: whatever works to dull the pain glowing inside one’s head.</p>
<p>Fear of Emotional Intimacy: combats often won’t let anyone get close to them. If someone gets too close, the vet backs off or pushes them away.</p>
<p>Employment: a lot of vets can’t keep a job. Every couple of months quit or get fired.</p>
<p>Psychic Numbing: not have the ability to feel emotions. Vets talk about feeling hollow, blank, empty.</p>
<p>Denial: Problems? What problem? I don’t have a fuckin’ problem.</p>
<p>High Risk Behavior: doing daredevil stuff to re-live the rush of combat.</p>
<p>These symptoms are normal responses to extraordinary events outside the range of normal human experience. Most civilians are clueless about combat and its aftermath.</p>
<p>Some types of treatment.</p>
<p>The talking cure: a vet talks to a therapist who is skilled in treating war stress and is not a paid bullshitter. Group therapy: seven to ten vets meet once a week for an hour or two. A good group leader is essential. That person knows when to talk, when to listen, how to keep the vets focused. Otherwise group therapy can get lame fast. EMDR: a form of hypnosis in which the vet is fully awake. Exercise. Meditation. Meds. A friend who will just listen. An artistic endeavor. One other thing. This is real important: a lot of vets fear talking about war. They fear losing control. Breaking down. Crying. My advice to those who have seen combat: face yourself. Chances are good you will learn to live less in the past, more in the present, but you will never be the same. WW II, Korea, Panama, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America, wherever you were, whatever you did in war will always be with you. Always.</p>
<p>MARC LEVY served with Delta Company 1/7 First Cavalry as an infantry medic in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970. His decorations include the Combat Medic Badge, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars for Valor, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal. He was courtmartialed twice and received a General Discharge. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Whatever You Did in War Will Always Be With You
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2006/08/01/whatever-you-did-in-war-will-always-be-with-you-2/
|
2006-08-01
| 4left
|
Whatever You Did in War Will Always Be With You
<p>On July 24 we ran Vietnam vet MARC LEVY’s powerful piece on PTSD. A faulty email link made it hard for readers who wanted to contact Levy. So here’s the piece again with the correct address for Marc. AC/JSC</p>
<p>VA Shrink: Were you in Vietnam?</p>
<p>Vietnam Vet: Yes.</p>
<p>VA Shrink: When were you there?</p>
<p>Vietnam vet: Last night.</p>
<p>I’m kneeling. Tears streak my face, drip down, fall to earth. It’s only my second time in combat. Soon I’ll be different. Soon revenge for our dead and wounded will meld with fear, and I will help with the killing and the killing will help me. We’re just regular grunts: We make too much noise, we have no special skills, we’re not elite. But after a time we get the hang of this war, the rhythm of it. Wait. Engage. Disengage. We call it contact, or movement. We psych ourselves up. “Time to kick ass and take names,” we say. And between contact and kicking ass or having our asses kicked there is tension that starts small, then builds and builds until we secretly pray it will happen. That we walk into them or them into us, or we mortar them or they rocket us, then the tension explodes like perfect sex, and afterwards… we’re spent. There are days, weeks nothing happens, then terror, instant and deep, then relief, like paradise, since the killing is done and we have buried away the wounded and dead. Until it starts all over again.</p>
<p>That was thirty-seven years ago. Or was it last night? A day, a year, twenty years home from war you may begin to act strange. The shrinks, social workers, group therapists, clinical researchers, each has a different take on what causes PTSD. “It’s neurolinguistic . It’s cognitive. It’s biochemical”, they chime and chatter. Who cares? Just stop the pain. Just stop it. But where does that pain come from? What’s going down? Here is what I know: what you learn in combat you do not easily forget. You drop at the first hint of an ambush falling so fast your helmet still spins in the air. You shoot first and ask questions later. The enemy is an unfeeling slippery bug to be stomped out. You live like an animal. You learn to like killing. Learn to fear and hate the enemy. Hate civilians. Can’t trust the bastards. You hate taking prisoners. You’d rather kill them. Why? Because the enemy wants to fuck you up. Kill you, your pals, some new guy doesn’t know jack shit, wants to waste your Lieutenant, the whole damn platoon.</p>
<p>After a time you learn what war is: the fish like iridescent gleam inside a brainless head; the sleek white caterpillar of pulsing human gut; the grotesque tableau of charred bodies frozen stiff; the impossible music made by voices howling beyond human form; pure white bones piercing ruby ripped flesh; the strange oily feel of blood; the sudden slump of the man next to you. The business of flies on the mouths of the dead.</p>
<p>After a time, to a supernatural degree you learn to live with terror, rage, struck down sorrow, blocked out guilt or dumb-struck grief. Yes, the supernatural threat of catastrophe and the ways to survive it become preternaturally normal, second nature, a fully formed part of you.</p>
<p>Then one day you get shot, or if you are lucky, complete the tour, return home intact. But for those who have seen their share the equation might go like this: Johnny got his gun + Johnny marches home = HEEEREE’S JOHNNNNY!!!!</p>
<p>And the good soldier John or the good troop Jane, who under fire never once thought of your civil rights, your silly flag, your doofus politics, Good Johnny or Jane, I say, feel and act a tad differently when the locked down feelings, bottled up memories, instinctive behaviors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder fervently, unexpectedly kick in. The symptoms of PTSD, in plain bloody English, are as follows:</p>
<p>Flashbacks: seeing and feeling a combat event as if it were happening right now.</p>
<p>Hyper vigilance: being always on guard, always looking for where the next shot, next grenade, next rocket, ambush or IED will come next.</p>
<p>Survivor guilt: feeling bad, feeling real shitty for having survived, where others in the platoon or squad didn’t.</p>
<p>Moral Guilt: wrestling with actions one did or did not take on one or more than one occasions.</p>
<p>Startle Reflex: dropping, flinching, turning fast at a sudden noise or unexpected touch.</p>
<p>Suicidal Ideation: thinking of killing oneself.</p>
<p>Homicidal Ideation: thinking of killing people. Friends or complete strangers.</p>
<p>Homicidal Rage: anger way out of proportion to an everyday event. It comes quick, down and dirty.</p>
<p>Sadness, depression, anxiety, crying spells. Staring into space, saying nothing.</p>
<p>Nightmares: violent dreams related to combat. Sometimes it’s the same dream. Some vets make strange noises. Thrash in bed. Wake up scared, or sweaty.</p>
<p>Ritual Behavior: at night checking the lights, locking the doors, maybe keeping a weapon at hand.</p>
<p>Alienation: a vet feels as if no one understands him, doesn’t fit in, feels as if he or she should have never returned.</p>
<p>Panic Attacks: for a short time the combat vet becomes suddenly and intensely afraid. He or she sweats breathe hard, has a pounding heart, might get dizzy, choke.</p>
<p>Social Isolation: staying alone for long periods of time. Or in public saying very little. To the point of being noticeably very quiet.</p>
<p>Drug and alcohol abuse: whatever works to dull the pain glowing inside one’s head.</p>
<p>Fear of Emotional Intimacy: combats often won’t let anyone get close to them. If someone gets too close, the vet backs off or pushes them away.</p>
<p>Employment: a lot of vets can’t keep a job. Every couple of months quit or get fired.</p>
<p>Psychic Numbing: not have the ability to feel emotions. Vets talk about feeling hollow, blank, empty.</p>
<p>Denial: Problems? What problem? I don’t have a fuckin’ problem.</p>
<p>High Risk Behavior: doing daredevil stuff to re-live the rush of combat.</p>
<p>These symptoms are normal responses to extraordinary events outside the range of normal human experience. Most civilians are clueless about combat and its aftermath.</p>
<p>Some types of treatment.</p>
<p>The talking cure: a vet talks to a therapist who is skilled in treating war stress and is not a paid bullshitter. Group therapy: seven to ten vets meet once a week for an hour or two. A good group leader is essential. That person knows when to talk, when to listen, how to keep the vets focused. Otherwise group therapy can get lame fast. EMDR: a form of hypnosis in which the vet is fully awake. Exercise. Meditation. Meds. A friend who will just listen. An artistic endeavor. One other thing. This is real important: a lot of vets fear talking about war. They fear losing control. Breaking down. Crying. My advice to those who have seen combat: face yourself. Chances are good you will learn to live less in the past, more in the present, but you will never be the same. WW II, Korea, Panama, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America, wherever you were, whatever you did in war will always be with you. Always.</p>
<p>MARC LEVY served with Delta Company 1/7 First Cavalry as an infantry medic in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970. His decorations include the Combat Medic Badge, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars for Valor, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal. He was courtmartialed twice and received a General Discharge. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 5,438 |
<p>Consumer confidence in Germany, Europe's largest economy, is set to improve further in September, reaching its highest level in almost 16 years, market research group GfK's monthly survey showed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>GfK's forward-looking consumer sentiment index is set to rise to 10.9 points in September, from 10.8 points in August, GfK said. Economists in The Wall Street Journal's survey expected a 10.8 point reading.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The index has increased for the fifth consecutive month and the level is the highest since October 2001, and "with it, the consumer mood in Germany remains on a stable course for growth," GfK said. It added that the "very positive" employment situation in Germany is and remains the most important factor for the good consumer mood which allows Germans to be "somewhat riskier" in financial dealings and make larger purchases which could also involve credit.</p>
<p>GfK uses three sub-indexes for the current month to derive a sentiment figure for the coming month. One of the three has, however, fallen in August.</p>
<p>The economic expectation sub-index fell to 30.4 points in August, from 44.6 points in July, but GfK emphasized that the indicator maintained a good level overall. GfK attributed the drop to citizens' possible worries whether the exporter country can show as dynamic development as up to now given diesel automobile and several other crisis flash points.</p>
<p>Income expectations, meanwhile, increased to 61.4 points in August from 60.9 points in July, reaching a new post-reunification high.</p>
<p>Consumers' propensity to buy, which shows their willingness to spend on big-ticket items, rose to 58.1 points in August, from 54.8 points in July, GfK said.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Despite the positive signals for consumption in Germany, GfK noted that possible risks to consumption are more likely to be of international origin rather than coming from the domestic market.</p>
<p>Write to Emese Bartha at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 29, 2017 02:14 ET (06:14 GMT)</p>
|
German Consumer Confidence Set to Reach Near 16-Year High in September
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/29/german-consumer-confidence-set-to-reach-near-16-year-high-in-september.html
|
2017-08-29
| 0right
|
German Consumer Confidence Set to Reach Near 16-Year High in September
<p>Consumer confidence in Germany, Europe's largest economy, is set to improve further in September, reaching its highest level in almost 16 years, market research group GfK's monthly survey showed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>GfK's forward-looking consumer sentiment index is set to rise to 10.9 points in September, from 10.8 points in August, GfK said. Economists in The Wall Street Journal's survey expected a 10.8 point reading.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The index has increased for the fifth consecutive month and the level is the highest since October 2001, and "with it, the consumer mood in Germany remains on a stable course for growth," GfK said. It added that the "very positive" employment situation in Germany is and remains the most important factor for the good consumer mood which allows Germans to be "somewhat riskier" in financial dealings and make larger purchases which could also involve credit.</p>
<p>GfK uses three sub-indexes for the current month to derive a sentiment figure for the coming month. One of the three has, however, fallen in August.</p>
<p>The economic expectation sub-index fell to 30.4 points in August, from 44.6 points in July, but GfK emphasized that the indicator maintained a good level overall. GfK attributed the drop to citizens' possible worries whether the exporter country can show as dynamic development as up to now given diesel automobile and several other crisis flash points.</p>
<p>Income expectations, meanwhile, increased to 61.4 points in August from 60.9 points in July, reaching a new post-reunification high.</p>
<p>Consumers' propensity to buy, which shows their willingness to spend on big-ticket items, rose to 58.1 points in August, from 54.8 points in July, GfK said.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Despite the positive signals for consumption in Germany, GfK noted that possible risks to consumption are more likely to be of international origin rather than coming from the domestic market.</p>
<p>Write to Emese Bartha at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 29, 2017 02:14 ET (06:14 GMT)</p>
| 5,439 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />While he was a relatively well-known correspondent on Jon Stewart’s&#160;The Daily Show, it wasn’t until John Oliver’s&#160;Last Week Tonight&#160;debuted last year that he truly became a star. His show quickly carved out its own niche as one that covered <a href="" type="internal">many of the stories largely ignored by the mainstream media</a>. As a host, Oliver often <a href="" type="internal">said many of the things</a> that most within the media were either too afraid – or weren’t allowed – to say. My only real complaint about the show thus far is that it’s only on once a week for 30 minutes.</p>
<p>Well, just a few days away from the start of the second season of&#160;Last Week Tonight,&#160;Oliver had a few choice words for members of the media who continue to speculate on the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>When asked about 2016 by reporters at an event promoting the upcoming season of his show,&#160; <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/last-week-tonight-john-oliver-769817" type="external">Oliver said</a>, “I couldn’t care less right now.”</p>
<p>“I truly believe that the 2016 election is what the news likes to think about when it doesn’t want to think about anything,” he continued. “There’s no merit in it. Unless you’re in the same year as the thing you’re describing, it’s a complete waste of breath.”</p>
<p>And he’s partially right. <a href="" type="internal">Lazy journalism is an epidemic</a> in all forms of media right now. Nowadays it’s often more about trying to fabricate drama than simply reporting relevant news. And even as someone who devotes a large part of my life to following politics, I often get tired of hearing endless speculation about who may or may not run in 2016 months (and even years) before the actual election.</p>
<p>“It’s like a subject screensaver for the news,” Oliver quipped. “You know that if they’re saying ‘Oh, look, Jeb Bush is running,’ you know that’s the equivalent of just, nothing is happening in the newsroom, or we were tired! I have no interest whatsoever in the 2016 election at the start of 2015. There’s a time and a place for that, and it’s in 2016.”</p>
<p>He also took a shot at the tactics often used by many within the media to dumb-down how they cover stories.</p>
<p>“You have to have a pretty intense level of contempt for the American people if you think people will only watch something if it’s only two minutes long and you have someone getting smashed in the nuts at some point,” he said. “And I’m not saying I don’t enjoy two-minute-long, nut-smashing videos, but there has to be more. There has to be protein along with dessert.”</p>
<p>That’s something on which I wholeheartedly agree with him. News networks will bring on several people to discuss an array of very important issue going on in this country and they’ll end up limiting the interview to no more than 5 to 10 minutes that’s usually just each guest trying to talk over one another. But that’s generally the point. For these networks, it’s not about using their time to present quality information about which the American people desperately need to know, it’s about creating the “perfect storm” of guests bickering at one another, often unchallenged by the host, because it makes for “great television.”</p>
<p>Hopefully as Oliver’s star continues to rise more media entities will try to copy his style, because in this country we desperately need more members of our media <a href="" type="internal">caring about the quality of the news</a> instead of the quantity of the news.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver's Blistering Takedown Of Donald Trump Is Absolutely Amazing (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver Absolutely Destroys Trump's 'Stupid F*cking' Wall in Brilliant Segment (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver Hammered Dr. Oz's Unethical Pushing of Supplements, Inspiring Debate We Need to Have</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p>
|
John Oliver Bashes Mainstream Media for Lazy 2016 Coverage: ‘It’s a Complete Waste of Breath’
| true |
http://forwardprogressives.com/john-oliver-bashes-mainstream-media-lazy-2016-coverage-complete-waste-breath/
|
2015-02-04
| 4left
|
John Oliver Bashes Mainstream Media for Lazy 2016 Coverage: ‘It’s a Complete Waste of Breath’
<p><a href="" type="internal" />While he was a relatively well-known correspondent on Jon Stewart’s&#160;The Daily Show, it wasn’t until John Oliver’s&#160;Last Week Tonight&#160;debuted last year that he truly became a star. His show quickly carved out its own niche as one that covered <a href="" type="internal">many of the stories largely ignored by the mainstream media</a>. As a host, Oliver often <a href="" type="internal">said many of the things</a> that most within the media were either too afraid – or weren’t allowed – to say. My only real complaint about the show thus far is that it’s only on once a week for 30 minutes.</p>
<p>Well, just a few days away from the start of the second season of&#160;Last Week Tonight,&#160;Oliver had a few choice words for members of the media who continue to speculate on the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>When asked about 2016 by reporters at an event promoting the upcoming season of his show,&#160; <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/last-week-tonight-john-oliver-769817" type="external">Oliver said</a>, “I couldn’t care less right now.”</p>
<p>“I truly believe that the 2016 election is what the news likes to think about when it doesn’t want to think about anything,” he continued. “There’s no merit in it. Unless you’re in the same year as the thing you’re describing, it’s a complete waste of breath.”</p>
<p>And he’s partially right. <a href="" type="internal">Lazy journalism is an epidemic</a> in all forms of media right now. Nowadays it’s often more about trying to fabricate drama than simply reporting relevant news. And even as someone who devotes a large part of my life to following politics, I often get tired of hearing endless speculation about who may or may not run in 2016 months (and even years) before the actual election.</p>
<p>“It’s like a subject screensaver for the news,” Oliver quipped. “You know that if they’re saying ‘Oh, look, Jeb Bush is running,’ you know that’s the equivalent of just, nothing is happening in the newsroom, or we were tired! I have no interest whatsoever in the 2016 election at the start of 2015. There’s a time and a place for that, and it’s in 2016.”</p>
<p>He also took a shot at the tactics often used by many within the media to dumb-down how they cover stories.</p>
<p>“You have to have a pretty intense level of contempt for the American people if you think people will only watch something if it’s only two minutes long and you have someone getting smashed in the nuts at some point,” he said. “And I’m not saying I don’t enjoy two-minute-long, nut-smashing videos, but there has to be more. There has to be protein along with dessert.”</p>
<p>That’s something on which I wholeheartedly agree with him. News networks will bring on several people to discuss an array of very important issue going on in this country and they’ll end up limiting the interview to no more than 5 to 10 minutes that’s usually just each guest trying to talk over one another. But that’s generally the point. For these networks, it’s not about using their time to present quality information about which the American people desperately need to know, it’s about creating the “perfect storm” of guests bickering at one another, often unchallenged by the host, because it makes for “great television.”</p>
<p>Hopefully as Oliver’s star continues to rise more media entities will try to copy his style, because in this country we desperately need more members of our media <a href="" type="internal">caring about the quality of the news</a> instead of the quantity of the news.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver's Blistering Takedown Of Donald Trump Is Absolutely Amazing (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver Absolutely Destroys Trump's 'Stupid F*cking' Wall in Brilliant Segment (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">John Oliver Hammered Dr. Oz's Unethical Pushing of Supplements, Inspiring Debate We Need to Have</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p>
| 5,440 |
<p />
<p>NASA’s Antares rocket was supposed to resupply the International Space Station but it exploded shortly after liftoff tonight.The rocket was unmanned, thank God.</p>
<p>BREAKING: NASA’s unmanned Antares rocket blows up on liftoff <a href="http://t.co/ONwkblwDnB" type="external">pic.twitter.com/ONwkblwDnB</a></p>
<p>— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/527224575546114048" type="external">October 28, 2014</a></p>
<p>Here’s video from the live stream:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The rocket was owned by Orbital Sciences but was contracted by NASA to stock the space station. The company told the <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SPACE_STATION?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" type="external">Associated Press</a> that no one was believed to be hurt and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities.”</p>
<p />
|
An Unmanned NASA Rocket Just Exploded After Liftoff
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/nasa-antares-rocket-explode-video/
|
2014-10-28
| 4left
|
An Unmanned NASA Rocket Just Exploded After Liftoff
<p />
<p>NASA’s Antares rocket was supposed to resupply the International Space Station but it exploded shortly after liftoff tonight.The rocket was unmanned, thank God.</p>
<p>BREAKING: NASA’s unmanned Antares rocket blows up on liftoff <a href="http://t.co/ONwkblwDnB" type="external">pic.twitter.com/ONwkblwDnB</a></p>
<p>— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/527224575546114048" type="external">October 28, 2014</a></p>
<p>Here’s video from the live stream:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The rocket was owned by Orbital Sciences but was contracted by NASA to stock the space station. The company told the <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SPACE_STATION?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" type="external">Associated Press</a> that no one was believed to be hurt and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities.”</p>
<p />
| 5,441 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>US Army Spc. Michael Rockwell, a combat infantryman with 1st Platoon, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe, scans the surrounding mountains for threats during a patrol outside Forward Operating Base Baylough in Zabul province, Afghanistan, on June 12, 2010. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/4706252772/" type="external">Photo via</a> the US Army by Spc. Eric Cabral.</p>
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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for June 17, 2010
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/were-still-war-photo-day-june-17-2010/
|
2010-06-17
| 4left
|
We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for June 17, 2010
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>US Army Spc. Michael Rockwell, a combat infantryman with 1st Platoon, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe, scans the surrounding mountains for threats during a patrol outside Forward Operating Base Baylough in Zabul province, Afghanistan, on June 12, 2010. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/4706252772/" type="external">Photo via</a> the US Army by Spc. Eric Cabral.</p>
| 5,442 |
<p>With a little more than two weeks until the opening ceremonies, the Brits are hard at work putting the finishing touches on preparations for the Olympics. London won the 2012 summer games with a promise of diversity, and The London Organizing Committee (LOCOG), is trying its best to live up to that promise. LOCOG has recruited gay, lesbian and transgender staff, who in turn have hired gay, lesbian and transgender volunteers, all of whom underwent training on how to handle problems from intolerant fans. Expect to see some rainbow flags in the parade of nations. And with pin trading always a big Olympic pastime, there will be an official rainbow pin this year.</p>
<p>Although London has striven for LGBT inclusiveness, members of the LOCOG have been openly critical of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on that account. In the past, the IOC has been vocal about human rights abuses, even banning South Africa due to its Apartheid government’s discrimination against blacks, but the current IOC has been almost silent on the plight of many gay athletes. One gay right’s activist called them “hopeless.” Some LOCOG members think the 78 countries where homosexual acts are considered illegal should be barred from participating. Others think at a minimum the five countries who execute their gay citizens, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, and Mauritania, should be banned. One LOGOC member, former NBA basketball player, John Amaechi, who came out after he retired said of their silence, “It’s absolute cowardice on the part of the IOC.”</p>
<p>In the wake of the IOC’s head-in-the-sand approach, gay rights activists are urging athletes still in the closet to come out at the games. Some, like Mark Stevens, the high profile British lawyer who represented Wikileak’s Julian Assange, are going even further. Stevens has been telling gay and lesbians athletes from countries where homosexuality can get you arrested to come out , and then to demand asylum in England on the grounds they will be targeted for their sexuality if they return home.</p>
<p>In 2010 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that anyone seeking refuge from persecution due to sexual orientation in their own country was entitled to asylum. In an op/ed he wrote in The Guardian, Stevens told gay athletes considering asylum, “The British government will have to hear your application and in doing so they will have to engage with the human rights abuses perpetrated against the LGBT communities across the world.” He is hoping a large number of LGBT athletes requesting asylum during the games will focus the world’s attention on the human right abuses suffered by LGBT members every day. “People talk about legacy in terms of the regeneration of a few acres of London” Stevens said, “when in reality, the legacy should be a human legacy.”</p>
<p>The Olympics begin July 27th. It remains to be seen what its LGBT legacy will be</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">Jean Ann Esselink</a>&#160;is a straight&#160;friend to the gay community. Proud and loud Liberal. Closet writer of political fiction. Black sheep agnostic Democrat&#160;&#160;from a conservative Catholic family. Living in Northern Oakland County Michigan with Puck the Wonder Beagle. Find me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter at @uncucumbered.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">asylum</a>, <a href="" type="internal">athletes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gay athletes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">IOC</a>, <a href="" type="internal">john amaechi</a>, <a href="" type="internal">LOCOG</a>, <a href="" type="internal">london</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Mark Stevens</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Olympics</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p>
|
LGBT Athletes Urged To Come Out And Seek Asylum During The Olympics
| true |
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/3-lgbt-athletes-urged-to-come-out-during-the-olympics/news/2012/07/09/43153
|
2012-07-09
| 4left
|
LGBT Athletes Urged To Come Out And Seek Asylum During The Olympics
<p>With a little more than two weeks until the opening ceremonies, the Brits are hard at work putting the finishing touches on preparations for the Olympics. London won the 2012 summer games with a promise of diversity, and The London Organizing Committee (LOCOG), is trying its best to live up to that promise. LOCOG has recruited gay, lesbian and transgender staff, who in turn have hired gay, lesbian and transgender volunteers, all of whom underwent training on how to handle problems from intolerant fans. Expect to see some rainbow flags in the parade of nations. And with pin trading always a big Olympic pastime, there will be an official rainbow pin this year.</p>
<p>Although London has striven for LGBT inclusiveness, members of the LOCOG have been openly critical of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on that account. In the past, the IOC has been vocal about human rights abuses, even banning South Africa due to its Apartheid government’s discrimination against blacks, but the current IOC has been almost silent on the plight of many gay athletes. One gay right’s activist called them “hopeless.” Some LOCOG members think the 78 countries where homosexual acts are considered illegal should be barred from participating. Others think at a minimum the five countries who execute their gay citizens, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, and Mauritania, should be banned. One LOGOC member, former NBA basketball player, John Amaechi, who came out after he retired said of their silence, “It’s absolute cowardice on the part of the IOC.”</p>
<p>In the wake of the IOC’s head-in-the-sand approach, gay rights activists are urging athletes still in the closet to come out at the games. Some, like Mark Stevens, the high profile British lawyer who represented Wikileak’s Julian Assange, are going even further. Stevens has been telling gay and lesbians athletes from countries where homosexuality can get you arrested to come out , and then to demand asylum in England on the grounds they will be targeted for their sexuality if they return home.</p>
<p>In 2010 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that anyone seeking refuge from persecution due to sexual orientation in their own country was entitled to asylum. In an op/ed he wrote in The Guardian, Stevens told gay athletes considering asylum, “The British government will have to hear your application and in doing so they will have to engage with the human rights abuses perpetrated against the LGBT communities across the world.” He is hoping a large number of LGBT athletes requesting asylum during the games will focus the world’s attention on the human right abuses suffered by LGBT members every day. “People talk about legacy in terms of the regeneration of a few acres of London” Stevens said, “when in reality, the legacy should be a human legacy.”</p>
<p>The Olympics begin July 27th. It remains to be seen what its LGBT legacy will be</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">Jean Ann Esselink</a>&#160;is a straight&#160;friend to the gay community. Proud and loud Liberal. Closet writer of political fiction. Black sheep agnostic Democrat&#160;&#160;from a conservative Catholic family. Living in Northern Oakland County Michigan with Puck the Wonder Beagle. Find me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter at @uncucumbered.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">asylum</a>, <a href="" type="internal">athletes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gay athletes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">IOC</a>, <a href="" type="internal">john amaechi</a>, <a href="" type="internal">LOCOG</a>, <a href="" type="internal">london</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Mark Stevens</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Olympics</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p>
| 5,443 |
<p>We discussed the controversy of the UFC’s Yoel Romero having the audacity to say the word “Jesus” live on television. <a href="" type="internal">Leftists accused him of hate-speech against the gays and called for his job.</a> UFC President Dana White has weighed in on the matter.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>America doesn’t want to hear your thoughts on Jesus. Keep that stuff at home – religion, politics, all the stuff. When you’re fighting and being interviewed, they want to hear about the fight. It’s awesome you love Jesus. Love Jesus all you want. You just don’t have to do it publicly.</p>
<p>In Dana White’s defense, there was a time where he once caved to political correctness far less than the&#160;the heads of most other sports/entertainment organizations. As of late though, he’s been incredibly inconsistent. Both he and Ariel Helwani (the interviewer) agree that it’s was blown out of proportion, and Dana even said “I know for a fact that’s not what [Yoel] meant.” Still, he wants fighters to stop thanking Jesus.</p>
<p>Here’s my view.&#160;The fighter earned his speech, he just went through hell and back in a cage-fight and won. He deserves his time on the mic, and as long as he isn’t inciting any kind of violence, the guy should be able to thank whomever he wants.</p>
<p>Here’s a question: let’s say a fighter said something in support of gay marriage and/or Allah, and instead pissed off the other half of the country that wasn’t pissed off last Saturday. Would he feel the same way? Or would he have to cater more to the outrage brigade. Oh that’s right… I don’t quite think Conservatives would be so offended from somebody’s personal opinion.</p>
<p>Because you know… tolerance.</p>
<p>Send your tolerant hate-tweets to <a href="http://twitter.com/scrowder" type="external">@Scrowder</a>.</p>
<p />
|
UFC President Asks Athletes to Stop Thanking Jesus: “Keep It At Home…”
| true |
http://louderwithcrowder.com/dana-whites-shocking-comments-jesus/
|
2015-07-01
| 0right
|
UFC President Asks Athletes to Stop Thanking Jesus: “Keep It At Home…”
<p>We discussed the controversy of the UFC’s Yoel Romero having the audacity to say the word “Jesus” live on television. <a href="" type="internal">Leftists accused him of hate-speech against the gays and called for his job.</a> UFC President Dana White has weighed in on the matter.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>America doesn’t want to hear your thoughts on Jesus. Keep that stuff at home – religion, politics, all the stuff. When you’re fighting and being interviewed, they want to hear about the fight. It’s awesome you love Jesus. Love Jesus all you want. You just don’t have to do it publicly.</p>
<p>In Dana White’s defense, there was a time where he once caved to political correctness far less than the&#160;the heads of most other sports/entertainment organizations. As of late though, he’s been incredibly inconsistent. Both he and Ariel Helwani (the interviewer) agree that it’s was blown out of proportion, and Dana even said “I know for a fact that’s not what [Yoel] meant.” Still, he wants fighters to stop thanking Jesus.</p>
<p>Here’s my view.&#160;The fighter earned his speech, he just went through hell and back in a cage-fight and won. He deserves his time on the mic, and as long as he isn’t inciting any kind of violence, the guy should be able to thank whomever he wants.</p>
<p>Here’s a question: let’s say a fighter said something in support of gay marriage and/or Allah, and instead pissed off the other half of the country that wasn’t pissed off last Saturday. Would he feel the same way? Or would he have to cater more to the outrage brigade. Oh that’s right… I don’t quite think Conservatives would be so offended from somebody’s personal opinion.</p>
<p>Because you know… tolerance.</p>
<p>Send your tolerant hate-tweets to <a href="http://twitter.com/scrowder" type="external">@Scrowder</a>.</p>
<p />
| 5,444 |
<p />
<p>The numbers out of Indiana show a narrowing race — the difference between the candidates is roughly 33,000 votes out of just under a million cast. That’s a four percent lead for Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>The response from the TV pundits: Is a two-point or three-point victory for Clinton effectively a loss? Does Clinton’s massive loss in North Carolina and her tiny victory in Indiana mean that she needs to exit the race? Will superdelegates take her seriously after those results?</p>
<p>What’s so interesting about this is that a week or two ago, a lot of polling showed Obama winning Indiana by one to five percent. Almost all of it showed him winning North Carolina by double digits. But Obama had such a miserable two weeks going into today’s vote that the expectations shifted. Ironically, the beating Obama has taken recently may have helped him.</p>
<p>Update: Just want to add something quickly. The Clinton campaign surrogates on TV tonight are latching onto Michigan and Florida as their lifeline. If only Obama hadn’t blocked a revote in Michigan and Floriday, they say, this would be an even race. I’m not sure that’s true. If you assume Clinton nets 50-70 delegates in those two states (and that’s being very generous), Clinton is still losing the pledged delegate count. That’s how large Obama’s lead is at the moment.</p>
<p />
|
The Effect of Shifting Expectations
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/effect-shifting-expectations/
|
2008-05-07
| 4left
|
The Effect of Shifting Expectations
<p />
<p>The numbers out of Indiana show a narrowing race — the difference between the candidates is roughly 33,000 votes out of just under a million cast. That’s a four percent lead for Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>The response from the TV pundits: Is a two-point or three-point victory for Clinton effectively a loss? Does Clinton’s massive loss in North Carolina and her tiny victory in Indiana mean that she needs to exit the race? Will superdelegates take her seriously after those results?</p>
<p>What’s so interesting about this is that a week or two ago, a lot of polling showed Obama winning Indiana by one to five percent. Almost all of it showed him winning North Carolina by double digits. But Obama had such a miserable two weeks going into today’s vote that the expectations shifted. Ironically, the beating Obama has taken recently may have helped him.</p>
<p>Update: Just want to add something quickly. The Clinton campaign surrogates on TV tonight are latching onto Michigan and Florida as their lifeline. If only Obama hadn’t blocked a revote in Michigan and Floriday, they say, this would be an even race. I’m not sure that’s true. If you assume Clinton nets 50-70 delegates in those two states (and that’s being very generous), Clinton is still losing the pledged delegate count. That’s how large Obama’s lead is at the moment.</p>
<p />
| 5,445 |
<p>Sept. 17</p>
<p>By Chris Reed</p>
<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger was such a disappointment as governor that it’s somewhat of a disappointment that the reason the media have turned on him has to do with his personal misconduct, not the bait-and-switch he pulled on California voters. His decision to switch from a libertarian-lite, pro-business governor to the champion of AB 32 and his version of Obamacare was an utter betrayal. But if you want 21st-century Benedict Arnold to take some deserved abuse, even if it is for other sins, then you’ll enjoy the cattiness and bile of this Newsweek article by Lawrence Leamer, who wrote a highly favorable biography of Arnold after his election as governor:</p>
<p>I hadn’t seen Schwarzenegger since 2004, when I was researching a biography about him, Fantastic. As I greeted him at Caffé Roma in Beverly Hills, I saw a man who appears a diminutive, action-toy version of the movie and bodybuilding Arnold. He is devoid of his once-bulging muscles, and his face looks as if a master taxidermist has been at work. In the ’80s, you would often find Schwarzenegger at his special table in the back of the restaurant, schmoozing with his bodybuilding buddies, smoking a stogie and commenting authoritatively on the breasts and buttocks of women who walked by. Schwarzenegger is still a fixture at Caffé Roma, dropping in after having his hair tinted at a salon behind it. But times have changed. When the scandal broke, a woman shouted “pig” as he walked to his favorite table, says a longtime friend of his. Schwarzenegger has said that he did not hear the remark. But he has heard of the widespread public disgust, especially among women, at the betrayal of his wife in such a spectacularly sordid fashion.</p>
<p>More <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/schwarzenegger-gives-his-side-of-story-in-total-recall.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Arnold’s biographer beats up on his old buddy. Good!
| false |
https://calwatchdog.com/2012/09/17/arnolds-biographer-beats-up-on-his-old-buddy-good/
|
2018-09-20
| 3left-center
|
Arnold’s biographer beats up on his old buddy. Good!
<p>Sept. 17</p>
<p>By Chris Reed</p>
<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger was such a disappointment as governor that it’s somewhat of a disappointment that the reason the media have turned on him has to do with his personal misconduct, not the bait-and-switch he pulled on California voters. His decision to switch from a libertarian-lite, pro-business governor to the champion of AB 32 and his version of Obamacare was an utter betrayal. But if you want 21st-century Benedict Arnold to take some deserved abuse, even if it is for other sins, then you’ll enjoy the cattiness and bile of this Newsweek article by Lawrence Leamer, who wrote a highly favorable biography of Arnold after his election as governor:</p>
<p>I hadn’t seen Schwarzenegger since 2004, when I was researching a biography about him, Fantastic. As I greeted him at Caffé Roma in Beverly Hills, I saw a man who appears a diminutive, action-toy version of the movie and bodybuilding Arnold. He is devoid of his once-bulging muscles, and his face looks as if a master taxidermist has been at work. In the ’80s, you would often find Schwarzenegger at his special table in the back of the restaurant, schmoozing with his bodybuilding buddies, smoking a stogie and commenting authoritatively on the breasts and buttocks of women who walked by. Schwarzenegger is still a fixture at Caffé Roma, dropping in after having his hair tinted at a salon behind it. But times have changed. When the scandal broke, a woman shouted “pig” as he walked to his favorite table, says a longtime friend of his. Schwarzenegger has said that he did not hear the remark. But he has heard of the widespread public disgust, especially among women, at the betrayal of his wife in such a spectacularly sordid fashion.</p>
<p>More <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/schwarzenegger-gives-his-side-of-story-in-total-recall.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 5,446 |
<p>Steven Levy was among the handful of people to test the first-ever iPhone and spent a week with the iPhone X. "Apple Limits Lengthy Testing for Most iPhone X Reviewers," published at 12:17 p.m. ET, misspelled Mr. Levy's first name as Stephen in the fifth paragraph.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>October 31, 2017 19:55 ET (23:55 GMT)</p>
|
Correction to iPhone X Reviewers Story
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/31/correction-to-iphone-x-reviewers-story.html
|
2017-10-31
| 0right
|
Correction to iPhone X Reviewers Story
<p>Steven Levy was among the handful of people to test the first-ever iPhone and spent a week with the iPhone X. "Apple Limits Lengthy Testing for Most iPhone X Reviewers," published at 12:17 p.m. ET, misspelled Mr. Levy's first name as Stephen in the fifth paragraph.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>October 31, 2017 19:55 ET (23:55 GMT)</p>
| 5,447 |
<p>A Syrian-American from New Jersey up and moved to Damascus to help defend the government of President Bashar al-Assad.</p>
<p>The World's Carol Hills speaks with The New York Times Reporter Anne Barnard about the Rafiq Lotof's return.</p>
<p>She recently profiled the expat for the paper, walking through the streets of Damascus with him.</p>
|
Syrian-American from New Jersey Returns Home to Support Bashar al-Assad
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2013-07-22/syrian-american-new-jersey-returns-home-support-bashar-al-assad
|
2013-07-22
| 3left-center
|
Syrian-American from New Jersey Returns Home to Support Bashar al-Assad
<p>A Syrian-American from New Jersey up and moved to Damascus to help defend the government of President Bashar al-Assad.</p>
<p>The World's Carol Hills speaks with The New York Times Reporter Anne Barnard about the Rafiq Lotof's return.</p>
<p>She recently profiled the expat for the paper, walking through the streets of Damascus with him.</p>
| 5,448 |
<p>BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Prosecutors say a Massachusetts woman embezzled more than $1.8 million from a now-bankrupt time-share resort.</p>
<p>The Cape Cod Times <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180110/former-provincetown-time-share-manager-denies-larceny-charge" type="external">reports</a> 61-year-old Donna Zoppi, of Eastham, pleaded not guilty to a charge of larceny during her arraignment Wednesday.</p>
<p>Zoppi worked as the former office manager at Harbor Hill at Provincetown, and prosecutors say she was the only employee who could access the resort's bank accounts.</p>
<p>Authorities say Zoppi wrote herself checks, used the resort debit card and wired money from the resort into her personal account from 2008 to 2015.</p>
<p>Court records show by the time owners realized her actions, the resort owed more than $900,000 in back taxes, employees were going without paychecks and the telephone service was close to being cut off.</p>
<p>Zoppi's attorney has declined comment.</p>
<p>BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Prosecutors say a Massachusetts woman embezzled more than $1.8 million from a now-bankrupt time-share resort.</p>
<p>The Cape Cod Times <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180110/former-provincetown-time-share-manager-denies-larceny-charge" type="external">reports</a> 61-year-old Donna Zoppi, of Eastham, pleaded not guilty to a charge of larceny during her arraignment Wednesday.</p>
<p>Zoppi worked as the former office manager at Harbor Hill at Provincetown, and prosecutors say she was the only employee who could access the resort's bank accounts.</p>
<p>Authorities say Zoppi wrote herself checks, used the resort debit card and wired money from the resort into her personal account from 2008 to 2015.</p>
<p>Court records show by the time owners realized her actions, the resort owed more than $900,000 in back taxes, employees were going without paychecks and the telephone service was close to being cut off.</p>
<p>Zoppi's attorney has declined comment.</p>
|
Woman accused of embezzling $1.8 million from resort
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/bb7607172be44e85b5357ee3e53d1d34
|
2018-01-11
| 2least
|
Woman accused of embezzling $1.8 million from resort
<p>BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Prosecutors say a Massachusetts woman embezzled more than $1.8 million from a now-bankrupt time-share resort.</p>
<p>The Cape Cod Times <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180110/former-provincetown-time-share-manager-denies-larceny-charge" type="external">reports</a> 61-year-old Donna Zoppi, of Eastham, pleaded not guilty to a charge of larceny during her arraignment Wednesday.</p>
<p>Zoppi worked as the former office manager at Harbor Hill at Provincetown, and prosecutors say she was the only employee who could access the resort's bank accounts.</p>
<p>Authorities say Zoppi wrote herself checks, used the resort debit card and wired money from the resort into her personal account from 2008 to 2015.</p>
<p>Court records show by the time owners realized her actions, the resort owed more than $900,000 in back taxes, employees were going without paychecks and the telephone service was close to being cut off.</p>
<p>Zoppi's attorney has declined comment.</p>
<p>BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Prosecutors say a Massachusetts woman embezzled more than $1.8 million from a now-bankrupt time-share resort.</p>
<p>The Cape Cod Times <a href="http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180110/former-provincetown-time-share-manager-denies-larceny-charge" type="external">reports</a> 61-year-old Donna Zoppi, of Eastham, pleaded not guilty to a charge of larceny during her arraignment Wednesday.</p>
<p>Zoppi worked as the former office manager at Harbor Hill at Provincetown, and prosecutors say she was the only employee who could access the resort's bank accounts.</p>
<p>Authorities say Zoppi wrote herself checks, used the resort debit card and wired money from the resort into her personal account from 2008 to 2015.</p>
<p>Court records show by the time owners realized her actions, the resort owed more than $900,000 in back taxes, employees were going without paychecks and the telephone service was close to being cut off.</p>
<p>Zoppi's attorney has declined comment.</p>
| 5,449 |
<p />
<p>Mother Jones: You are in tune to the issue of the gap between men and women in the blogosphere. Fill me in on some of the issues.</p>
<p>Morra Aarons: It’s interesting. I think that what has happened with political bloggers is that there is an elite class of political bloggers who are on par with the pundits on the Sunday-morning talk shows. On the Democratic side, they seem to be largely male. When people think of political bloggers, they think of this group of people-the main political bloggers that we all know. You have Firedoglake and Taylor Marsh and there are some other women, but by and large it is, similar to how men get quoted in the press more than women, bloggers who are male get quoted more than female bloggers.</p>
<p>But then underneath it all you have this massive groundswell of women online who are blogging. They may not be classified as political bloggers. When people think of women blogging, they think of mommy bloggers, right? Every company wants to reach mommy bloggers because they influence other mommies as to what products to buy. But these women also talk and care about politics. I think it is the smart campaign that mobilizes these people and I haven’t really seen that happening yet.</p>
<p>MJ: You’re a contributing editor to BlogHer.com. Can you tell me more about it?</p>
<p>MA: It is a big collective of women bloggers. I’m a contributing editor for politics and news. It’s an online group blog. Anyone who has a blog is allowed to list her blog on it. There are thousands of blogs on it and they have a bunch of editors covering topic areas and we highlight what is best from all these women’s blogs. It’s a great online community. I really see it taking the place of the original women’s online communities like iVillage.com.</p>
<p>MJ: Why do you think male bloggers have dominated in the blogosphere as far as their high profile?</p>
<p>MA: People say it’s because men are more confident in expressing an opinion. I’ve actually heard women who I’ve talked to in BlogHer say, “We’re not sure we want to be outspoken in politics because we’re not sure we know enough.” Maybe men feel that less. I hate to feel that’s true though. I think that original political bloggers were people who were activists and they were confident. They weren’t scared to bang down doors, ruffle feathers, and piss people off. And for whatever reason I think that women have carved out their own niche in the blogs, but it hasn’t been in political activism.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think that men dominate in the blogosphere more than they dominate in traditional media?</p>
<p>MA: It’s about on par. I recall a Ms. magazine study that said two-thirds or even three-quarters of all quotes in the media are from men.</p>
<p>MJ: What about the people who run blogs compared to journalists or editors?</p>
<p>MA: You mean people who are the pundits, who aren’t quoted?</p>
<p>MJ: Yes.</p>
<p>MA: I think it’s probably about even. In terms of personalities, a lot of the political bloggers are on par with people who you see on roundtables on cable news shows Sunday morning. I think what’s inspiring though is that the campaigns have hired a lot of women to work on their blogs. I hope that this signals a change. Edwards has hired a woman named Tracy Russo who’s really good. Hillary has a woman blogger on staff, so I think that the campaigns are hiring more women bloggers. Maybe that will signal a shift.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think Web 2.0 technologies are going to benefit women, bring a larger percentage of women in?</p>
<p>MA: I think so. Women have been the online majority for years now. They have not been the majority that is writing on blogs. I really hope that they start mouthing off about politics because they are the women who are going to count when it comes down to crunch time in August of 2008. All the campaigns are going to be trying to reach female swing voters. These are these women-mommy bloggers are these women. They have a lot of power. I hope that the campaigns mobilize them.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think this is an issue that is recognized by the blogosphere?</p>
<p>MA: I don’t think that the small cadre of elite political bloggers are thinking about why there aren’t more women in their ranks. I don’t blame them. I think it’s up to some women bloggers to take the lead and show their power.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="/interview/2007/07/index.html" type="external">More Interviews</a> &lt;&lt; &gt;&gt; <a href="/news/feature/2007/07/fight_different.html" type="external">Politics 2.0 Index</a></p>
<p />
|
Inverview with Morra Aarons: Contributing Editor of BlogHer.com
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/06/inverview-morra-aarons-contributing-editor-bloghercom/
|
2007-06-29
| 4left
|
Inverview with Morra Aarons: Contributing Editor of BlogHer.com
<p />
<p>Mother Jones: You are in tune to the issue of the gap between men and women in the blogosphere. Fill me in on some of the issues.</p>
<p>Morra Aarons: It’s interesting. I think that what has happened with political bloggers is that there is an elite class of political bloggers who are on par with the pundits on the Sunday-morning talk shows. On the Democratic side, they seem to be largely male. When people think of political bloggers, they think of this group of people-the main political bloggers that we all know. You have Firedoglake and Taylor Marsh and there are some other women, but by and large it is, similar to how men get quoted in the press more than women, bloggers who are male get quoted more than female bloggers.</p>
<p>But then underneath it all you have this massive groundswell of women online who are blogging. They may not be classified as political bloggers. When people think of women blogging, they think of mommy bloggers, right? Every company wants to reach mommy bloggers because they influence other mommies as to what products to buy. But these women also talk and care about politics. I think it is the smart campaign that mobilizes these people and I haven’t really seen that happening yet.</p>
<p>MJ: You’re a contributing editor to BlogHer.com. Can you tell me more about it?</p>
<p>MA: It is a big collective of women bloggers. I’m a contributing editor for politics and news. It’s an online group blog. Anyone who has a blog is allowed to list her blog on it. There are thousands of blogs on it and they have a bunch of editors covering topic areas and we highlight what is best from all these women’s blogs. It’s a great online community. I really see it taking the place of the original women’s online communities like iVillage.com.</p>
<p>MJ: Why do you think male bloggers have dominated in the blogosphere as far as their high profile?</p>
<p>MA: People say it’s because men are more confident in expressing an opinion. I’ve actually heard women who I’ve talked to in BlogHer say, “We’re not sure we want to be outspoken in politics because we’re not sure we know enough.” Maybe men feel that less. I hate to feel that’s true though. I think that original political bloggers were people who were activists and they were confident. They weren’t scared to bang down doors, ruffle feathers, and piss people off. And for whatever reason I think that women have carved out their own niche in the blogs, but it hasn’t been in political activism.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think that men dominate in the blogosphere more than they dominate in traditional media?</p>
<p>MA: It’s about on par. I recall a Ms. magazine study that said two-thirds or even three-quarters of all quotes in the media are from men.</p>
<p>MJ: What about the people who run blogs compared to journalists or editors?</p>
<p>MA: You mean people who are the pundits, who aren’t quoted?</p>
<p>MJ: Yes.</p>
<p>MA: I think it’s probably about even. In terms of personalities, a lot of the political bloggers are on par with people who you see on roundtables on cable news shows Sunday morning. I think what’s inspiring though is that the campaigns have hired a lot of women to work on their blogs. I hope that this signals a change. Edwards has hired a woman named Tracy Russo who’s really good. Hillary has a woman blogger on staff, so I think that the campaigns are hiring more women bloggers. Maybe that will signal a shift.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think Web 2.0 technologies are going to benefit women, bring a larger percentage of women in?</p>
<p>MA: I think so. Women have been the online majority for years now. They have not been the majority that is writing on blogs. I really hope that they start mouthing off about politics because they are the women who are going to count when it comes down to crunch time in August of 2008. All the campaigns are going to be trying to reach female swing voters. These are these women-mommy bloggers are these women. They have a lot of power. I hope that the campaigns mobilize them.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you think this is an issue that is recognized by the blogosphere?</p>
<p>MA: I don’t think that the small cadre of elite political bloggers are thinking about why there aren’t more women in their ranks. I don’t blame them. I think it’s up to some women bloggers to take the lead and show their power.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="/interview/2007/07/index.html" type="external">More Interviews</a> &lt;&lt; &gt;&gt; <a href="/news/feature/2007/07/fight_different.html" type="external">Politics 2.0 Index</a></p>
<p />
| 5,450 |
<p>A U.S. Marine <a href="http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20130529/NEWS/305290040" type="external">accused of sexually assaulting</a> one woman and carrying on a relationship with another in violation of Marine protocol maintains his innocence, with his defense lawyer calling him “the victim” in the case.</p>
<p>Maj. Mark Thompson, a former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, is accused of <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/naval-academy-teacher-sex-assault-charges.php" type="external">engaging in sexual encounters</a> with two enrolled students at the Academy in 2011. Maj. Joseph Grimm, Thompson’s defense attorney, told the court that Thompson was the “victim of fabrication,” denying his client having fraternized with either midshipmen. One, Ensign Sarah Stadler, testified that she and Thompson had a relationship of repeated and consensual sexual encounters over the course of her senior year at the Academy.</p>
<p>The other, whose name has not been released but is now a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, accuses Thompson of taking advantage of her after a day of drinking. “I’m not really sure if I struggled” the alleged victim said during her time on the stand describing the events. “I don’t think I did because I was so shocked and confused, like some out-of-body experience.” According to both Stadler and the alleged victim, the two were present at Thompson’s house on April 30, 2011 for a day that the <a href="http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20130529/NEWS/305290040" type="external">Marine Corps Times says</a> “allegedly ended with strip poker, sex, and assault.”</p>
<p>Grimm denied that the day proceeded as described, saying that the two midshipmen did enter Thompson’s house to use the bathroom but left quickly after. Thompson allegedly spend the night with his girlfriend at the time, who is expected to testify later in the court-martial. The Marine faces one count of <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com/documents/pdf/20120705060050_large.pdf" type="external">aggravated sexual assault</a> and indecent acts, for which he faces a potential thirty-year sentence, and three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer.</p>
<p>If the allegations prove to be true, Thompson’s case would be another example of the ongoing trend of sexual assault in the military that has finally reached the attention of the general public. In just the last month, the Air Force’s top official in charge of preventing assaults was <a href="" type="internal">charged with sexual battery</a> and a sergeant with a similar position at the battalion was <a href="" type="internal">placed under investigation</a> for allegedly forcing a subordinate into prostitution.</p>
<p>The first of these reports came just one day before the Pentagon revealed that an estimated <a href="" type="internal">26,000 instances</a> of sexual assault occurred in 2012, according to its latest report. The military’s sexual assault problem has been kicked up to the <a href="" type="internal">highest levels already</a>&#160;, with the Pentagon and White House working alongside Congress to help solve the crisis.</p>
<p>President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/24/remarks-president-united-states-naval-academy-commencement" type="external">addressed the issue</a> when speaking at the Naval Academy’s commencement last week, saying sexual assault has “no place in the greatest military on Earth.” Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made <a href="http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1782" type="external">similar statements</a> the next day at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal of sacred oaths and sacred trusts,” Hagel said, adding, “This scourge must be stamped out. We are all accountable and responsible for ensuring that this happens. We cannot fail the Army or America.”</p>
|
Defense Attorney Calls Marine Accused Of Sexual Assault ‘The Victim’
| true |
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/30/2078311/marine-assault-victim/
|
2013-05-30
| 4left
|
Defense Attorney Calls Marine Accused Of Sexual Assault ‘The Victim’
<p>A U.S. Marine <a href="http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20130529/NEWS/305290040" type="external">accused of sexually assaulting</a> one woman and carrying on a relationship with another in violation of Marine protocol maintains his innocence, with his defense lawyer calling him “the victim” in the case.</p>
<p>Maj. Mark Thompson, a former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, is accused of <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/naval-academy-teacher-sex-assault-charges.php" type="external">engaging in sexual encounters</a> with two enrolled students at the Academy in 2011. Maj. Joseph Grimm, Thompson’s defense attorney, told the court that Thompson was the “victim of fabrication,” denying his client having fraternized with either midshipmen. One, Ensign Sarah Stadler, testified that she and Thompson had a relationship of repeated and consensual sexual encounters over the course of her senior year at the Academy.</p>
<p>The other, whose name has not been released but is now a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, accuses Thompson of taking advantage of her after a day of drinking. “I’m not really sure if I struggled” the alleged victim said during her time on the stand describing the events. “I don’t think I did because I was so shocked and confused, like some out-of-body experience.” According to both Stadler and the alleged victim, the two were present at Thompson’s house on April 30, 2011 for a day that the <a href="http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20130529/NEWS/305290040" type="external">Marine Corps Times says</a> “allegedly ended with strip poker, sex, and assault.”</p>
<p>Grimm denied that the day proceeded as described, saying that the two midshipmen did enter Thompson’s house to use the bathroom but left quickly after. Thompson allegedly spend the night with his girlfriend at the time, who is expected to testify later in the court-martial. The Marine faces one count of <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com/documents/pdf/20120705060050_large.pdf" type="external">aggravated sexual assault</a> and indecent acts, for which he faces a potential thirty-year sentence, and three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer.</p>
<p>If the allegations prove to be true, Thompson’s case would be another example of the ongoing trend of sexual assault in the military that has finally reached the attention of the general public. In just the last month, the Air Force’s top official in charge of preventing assaults was <a href="" type="internal">charged with sexual battery</a> and a sergeant with a similar position at the battalion was <a href="" type="internal">placed under investigation</a> for allegedly forcing a subordinate into prostitution.</p>
<p>The first of these reports came just one day before the Pentagon revealed that an estimated <a href="" type="internal">26,000 instances</a> of sexual assault occurred in 2012, according to its latest report. The military’s sexual assault problem has been kicked up to the <a href="" type="internal">highest levels already</a>&#160;, with the Pentagon and White House working alongside Congress to help solve the crisis.</p>
<p>President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/24/remarks-president-united-states-naval-academy-commencement" type="external">addressed the issue</a> when speaking at the Naval Academy’s commencement last week, saying sexual assault has “no place in the greatest military on Earth.” Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made <a href="http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1782" type="external">similar statements</a> the next day at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal of sacred oaths and sacred trusts,” Hagel said, adding, “This scourge must be stamped out. We are all accountable and responsible for ensuring that this happens. We cannot fail the Army or America.”</p>
| 5,451 |
<p />
<p>Giant auto-industry supplier Delphi Automotive (NYSE: DLPH) is gearing up to launch an automated ride-hailing service in at least two cities, one in the U.S. and one in Europe.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Automotive News <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20161212/OEM10/312129971/delphi-to-expand-driverless-ride-hailing-test-to-u.s.-europe" type="external">reports Opens a New Window.</a> that the company has previously identified Boston, Pittsburgh, London, and Luxembourg as possible sites for its service, and that it expects to announce its decision sometime this month.</p>
<p>In addition to the two cities it will select this month, Delphi is currently gearing up to launch a limited self-driving shuttle service in Singapore.</p>
<p>Delphi has been using modified Audi SUVs to test itsself-driving technology. One drove itself acrossthecountry in 2014. Image source: Delphi Automotive.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yes. Delphi, which supplies parts and systems to many major automakers, has been working on self-driving technology for years. Two years ago, it showed off its work with a (mostly) self-driving Audi that (mostly) drove itself across the United States.</p>
<p>Delphi's technology has advanced considerably since then. The company is working with Israeli driver-assistance specialist Mobileye (NYSE: MBLY) and <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/29/why-intel-is-teaming-with-delphi-and-mobileye-on-s.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">chip giant Opens a New Window.</a> Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) on a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/14/self-driving-tech-might-be-available-as-early-as-2.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">complete self-driving system Opens a New Window.</a> that it expects to <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/23/game-changer-how-the-auto-industry-just-disrupted.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">begin offering to its automaker clients in 2019 Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies began running a pilot program in Pittsburgh in which a small number of vehicles equipped with Uber's prototype self-driving technology began <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/18/uber-is-rolling-out-a-self-driving-fleet-what-it-m.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">offering rides to Uber customers Opens a New Window.</a>. The goal of Uber's program is to use the real-world experience to help refine its technology -- and also to showcase it.</p>
<p>Delphi appears to be thinking along similar lines, perhaps with a little more emphasis on the showcase aspect. Tech-oriented observers and analysts have tended to dismiss Delphi's self-driving efforts out of hand because the company is an old Detroit player, not a Silicon Valley darling.</p>
<p>I think in addition to racking up real-world miles and experience, Delphi wants to show that it can be a leader in the emerging self-driving space. And if its decision to enter the ride-hailing arena gives Uber (and those analysts) something to think about, so much the better.</p>
<p>Incidentally, speaking of showcasing, Delphi and Mobileye are planning to demonstrate the current iteration of their system at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month.</p>
<p>On technology? We'll see. But if Delphi can develop and perfect more or less competitive technology, it has something very big going for it that the Silicon Valley entrants don't: It's already an established and trusted auto-industry supplier. It knows how to meet automakers' durability needs and navigate the complex web of regulatory requirements. As with manufacturing, these aren't core Silicon Valley strengths.</p>
<p>Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Self-Driving Car Project has been visibly racking up miles and real-world experience for years. The project's current leader, John Krafcik, is an auto-industry veteran who understands what automakers need. But the company doesn't seem to be rushing its system to market -- it's not clear when (or whether) it will -- and it's not clear whether Google will insist on ownership of the data collected, which could be a deal breaker for the big automakers. (Delphi and Mobileye plan to pool and share the data collected by their system.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Uber doesn't seem to be developing its system with the idea of selling it to automakers. Uber's goal appears to be to create a system that can be retrofitted to regular cars, with the goal of eventually automating its ride-hailing operation.</p>
<p>I don't think that Delphi is planning to launch a major global ride-hailing business to compete directly with Uber. But it might use the experience to help an automaker client launch one.</p>
<p>We'll know more when Delphi officially announces its pilot ride-hailing programs, likely within the next couple of weeks. And we'll learn a lot more about the system, and the company's plans to test it and bring it to market, after Delphi's demonstrations at CES next month.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Delphi Automotive 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=4370858e-1ff2-4663-a3f9-666a981d7a51&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 Delphi Automotive 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=4370858e-1ff2-4663-a3f9-666a981d7a51&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFMarlowe/info.aspx" type="external">John Rosevear Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool recommends Intel. 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>
|
Is Delphi Automotive About to Take On Uber Technologies?
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/13/is-delphi-automotive-about-to-take-on-uber-technologies.html
|
2016-12-13
| 0right
|
Is Delphi Automotive About to Take On Uber Technologies?
<p />
<p>Giant auto-industry supplier Delphi Automotive (NYSE: DLPH) is gearing up to launch an automated ride-hailing service in at least two cities, one in the U.S. and one in Europe.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Automotive News <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20161212/OEM10/312129971/delphi-to-expand-driverless-ride-hailing-test-to-u.s.-europe" type="external">reports Opens a New Window.</a> that the company has previously identified Boston, Pittsburgh, London, and Luxembourg as possible sites for its service, and that it expects to announce its decision sometime this month.</p>
<p>In addition to the two cities it will select this month, Delphi is currently gearing up to launch a limited self-driving shuttle service in Singapore.</p>
<p>Delphi has been using modified Audi SUVs to test itsself-driving technology. One drove itself acrossthecountry in 2014. Image source: Delphi Automotive.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Yes. Delphi, which supplies parts and systems to many major automakers, has been working on self-driving technology for years. Two years ago, it showed off its work with a (mostly) self-driving Audi that (mostly) drove itself across the United States.</p>
<p>Delphi's technology has advanced considerably since then. The company is working with Israeli driver-assistance specialist Mobileye (NYSE: MBLY) and <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/29/why-intel-is-teaming-with-delphi-and-mobileye-on-s.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">chip giant Opens a New Window.</a> Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) on a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/14/self-driving-tech-might-be-available-as-early-as-2.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">complete self-driving system Opens a New Window.</a> that it expects to <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/23/game-changer-how-the-auto-industry-just-disrupted.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">begin offering to its automaker clients in 2019 Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies began running a pilot program in Pittsburgh in which a small number of vehicles equipped with Uber's prototype self-driving technology began <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/18/uber-is-rolling-out-a-self-driving-fleet-what-it-m.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">offering rides to Uber customers Opens a New Window.</a>. The goal of Uber's program is to use the real-world experience to help refine its technology -- and also to showcase it.</p>
<p>Delphi appears to be thinking along similar lines, perhaps with a little more emphasis on the showcase aspect. Tech-oriented observers and analysts have tended to dismiss Delphi's self-driving efforts out of hand because the company is an old Detroit player, not a Silicon Valley darling.</p>
<p>I think in addition to racking up real-world miles and experience, Delphi wants to show that it can be a leader in the emerging self-driving space. And if its decision to enter the ride-hailing arena gives Uber (and those analysts) something to think about, so much the better.</p>
<p>Incidentally, speaking of showcasing, Delphi and Mobileye are planning to demonstrate the current iteration of their system at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month.</p>
<p>On technology? We'll see. But if Delphi can develop and perfect more or less competitive technology, it has something very big going for it that the Silicon Valley entrants don't: It's already an established and trusted auto-industry supplier. It knows how to meet automakers' durability needs and navigate the complex web of regulatory requirements. As with manufacturing, these aren't core Silicon Valley strengths.</p>
<p>Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Self-Driving Car Project has been visibly racking up miles and real-world experience for years. The project's current leader, John Krafcik, is an auto-industry veteran who understands what automakers need. But the company doesn't seem to be rushing its system to market -- it's not clear when (or whether) it will -- and it's not clear whether Google will insist on ownership of the data collected, which could be a deal breaker for the big automakers. (Delphi and Mobileye plan to pool and share the data collected by their system.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Uber doesn't seem to be developing its system with the idea of selling it to automakers. Uber's goal appears to be to create a system that can be retrofitted to regular cars, with the goal of eventually automating its ride-hailing operation.</p>
<p>I don't think that Delphi is planning to launch a major global ride-hailing business to compete directly with Uber. But it might use the experience to help an automaker client launch one.</p>
<p>We'll know more when Delphi officially announces its pilot ride-hailing programs, likely within the next couple of weeks. And we'll learn a lot more about the system, and the company's plans to test it and bring it to market, after Delphi's demonstrations at CES next month.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Delphi Automotive 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=4370858e-1ff2-4663-a3f9-666a981d7a51&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 Delphi Automotive 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=4370858e-1ff2-4663-a3f9-666a981d7a51&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFMarlowe/info.aspx" type="external">John Rosevear Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool recommends Intel. 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>
| 5,452 |
<p>Hillary Clinton will be in Iowa on Sunday, and the national press is dispensing with the formalities: She is running for president. No if’s, and’s or deeply personal decisions about it.</p>
<p>“Let’s just get this out of the way now: She’s running,” BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/this-is-how-the-clinton-campaign-begins#2np3it6" type="external">wrote</a> Friday in a preview of sorts for Clinton’s appearance Sunday at Sen. Tom Harkin’s 37th steak fry in Indianola, Iowa.</p>
<p>Amy Chozick of the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/us/clinton-silent-on-2016-bid-as-campaign-style-actions-begin-to-speak-volumes.html?rref=politics&amp;module=Ribbon&amp;version=origin&amp;region=Header&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=Politics&amp;pgtype=article" type="external">wrote</a> a detailed piece on Friday, a thorough reading of the proverbial tea leaves. Some were superficial — Hillary is taking yoga (to prepare for the physical rigors of a campaign) — while others were substantive. She has been asking Wall Street types what they think of President Obama’s fiscal policies and inquiring about the best people to know in Iowa.</p>
<p>“It’s very obvious what’s she going to do,” Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, told Chozick. “Clearly she’s going to run.”</p>
<p />
<p>MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell was on the same page.</p>
<p />
<p>That, of course, has been everyone’s operating assumption for the last year or more. And with good reason: TPM has yet to find one person within the Clinton sphere who doesn’t think that Clinton will ultimately decide to run for president.</p>
<p>But, as Republican operatives like America Rising’s Tim Miller have been <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/opinion/miller-hillary-clinton-candidate/" type="external">pleading</a> for them to do for quite a while, the media look like they’re finally done with caveating and couching Clinton’s not-yet-confirmed candidacy. It is simply a fact of the political landscape.</p>
<p>Much like the kickoff of her book tour earlier this summer, this trip to Iowa, the state where her 2008 presidential bid stumbled so badly, is being framed as the official unofficial start to the Hillary 2016 campaign. And now those euphemisms that have littered Clinton coverage so far — the potential’s and presumed’s — are starting to be discarded.</p>
<p>The proto-campaign infrastructure is in place. Ready for Hillary, the grassroots organizers, will be out in full force in Iowa this weekend. Correct The Record is a constant presence in reporter inboxes whenever there is a headline about Hillary. Priorities USA is quietly courting donors, ready to spring into action once the fall midterms come and go, according to the Times’s Chozick.</p>
<p>Now the (expected?) candidate herself — who has set a post-Jan. 1 deadline for making the official announcement that nobody else is waiting for — is visiting the first caucus state. Everything is in its proper place.</p>
<p>And Clinton’s people are, at the least, taking it all with a sense of humor.</p>
<p>“You caught us,” Nick Merrill, her personal spokesman, told Chozick.</p>
|
REPORTERS: Hillary Clinton Is Running For President
| true |
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hillary-clinton-is-running-for-president-obviously
| 4left
|
REPORTERS: Hillary Clinton Is Running For President
<p>Hillary Clinton will be in Iowa on Sunday, and the national press is dispensing with the formalities: She is running for president. No if’s, and’s or deeply personal decisions about it.</p>
<p>“Let’s just get this out of the way now: She’s running,” BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/this-is-how-the-clinton-campaign-begins#2np3it6" type="external">wrote</a> Friday in a preview of sorts for Clinton’s appearance Sunday at Sen. Tom Harkin’s 37th steak fry in Indianola, Iowa.</p>
<p>Amy Chozick of the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/us/clinton-silent-on-2016-bid-as-campaign-style-actions-begin-to-speak-volumes.html?rref=politics&amp;module=Ribbon&amp;version=origin&amp;region=Header&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=Politics&amp;pgtype=article" type="external">wrote</a> a detailed piece on Friday, a thorough reading of the proverbial tea leaves. Some were superficial — Hillary is taking yoga (to prepare for the physical rigors of a campaign) — while others were substantive. She has been asking Wall Street types what they think of President Obama’s fiscal policies and inquiring about the best people to know in Iowa.</p>
<p>“It’s very obvious what’s she going to do,” Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, told Chozick. “Clearly she’s going to run.”</p>
<p />
<p>MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell was on the same page.</p>
<p />
<p>That, of course, has been everyone’s operating assumption for the last year or more. And with good reason: TPM has yet to find one person within the Clinton sphere who doesn’t think that Clinton will ultimately decide to run for president.</p>
<p>But, as Republican operatives like America Rising’s Tim Miller have been <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/opinion/miller-hillary-clinton-candidate/" type="external">pleading</a> for them to do for quite a while, the media look like they’re finally done with caveating and couching Clinton’s not-yet-confirmed candidacy. It is simply a fact of the political landscape.</p>
<p>Much like the kickoff of her book tour earlier this summer, this trip to Iowa, the state where her 2008 presidential bid stumbled so badly, is being framed as the official unofficial start to the Hillary 2016 campaign. And now those euphemisms that have littered Clinton coverage so far — the potential’s and presumed’s — are starting to be discarded.</p>
<p>The proto-campaign infrastructure is in place. Ready for Hillary, the grassroots organizers, will be out in full force in Iowa this weekend. Correct The Record is a constant presence in reporter inboxes whenever there is a headline about Hillary. Priorities USA is quietly courting donors, ready to spring into action once the fall midterms come and go, according to the Times’s Chozick.</p>
<p>Now the (expected?) candidate herself — who has set a post-Jan. 1 deadline for making the official announcement that nobody else is waiting for — is visiting the first caucus state. Everything is in its proper place.</p>
<p>And Clinton’s people are, at the least, taking it all with a sense of humor.</p>
<p>“You caught us,” Nick Merrill, her personal spokesman, told Chozick.</p>
| 5,453 |
|
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a constitutional case dealing with what is broadcast on television when children are likely to be watching.</p>
<p>In a filing at the high court, we're defending a ban on television indecency. Our amicus brief defends the ability of government authorities to outlaw public indecency, whether in person or on broadcast TV.</p>
<p>It may be that TV stations would prefer to cross the lines of decency in a misguided effort to boost ratings and bolster their profits. But to do so in prime time means sacrificing the protection of children – and adults – from gratuitous assaults on their sensibilities. The First Amendment right to free speech does not include indecent exposure in public settings like this.</p>
<p>“Just as a state could prohibit someone from strutting around naked in public,” our friend-of-the-court brief contends, “a state may forbid companies from broadcasting into people’s homes programs depicting someone strutting around naked.” The ability of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prohibit broadcast indecency on TV is at stake in the case of FCC v. Fox TV (No. 10-1293).</p>
<p>The FCC case involves a constitutional challenge by the Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC television networks to the FCC’s enforcement of a rule forbidding obscene language – so-called “fleeting expletives” -- during hours when children are normally part of the audience. A federal appeals court in New York City ruled in July of 2010 that the FCC’s policy on foul language was unconstitutionally vague and would risk chilling protected speech. The FCC then asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Court granted the petition at the end of June and the parties are now submitting written arguments to the Court.</p>
<p>Our amicus brief, <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/FCC-v%20Fox-TV-ACLJ-Supreme-Court-Amicus-Brief.pdf" type="external">posted here</a>, is focused on calling the Court’s attention to the problem of indecent nudity in broadcast programs. “An indecent television broadcast is essentially an indecent public display,” the brief argues. Restricting the public exposure of a person’s private parts is a proper way of protecting children, an interest the Court has recognized as “compelling,” the brief notes. Moreover, our brief continues, this concern applies in full force to broadcast media like TV, given its pervasiveness and accessibility to children, “who need navigate no passcodes or lockboxes to turn on a TV set.” As Justice Kennedy wrote in a 1996 decision about cable TV, “The householder should not have to risk that offensive material come into the hands of his children before it can be stopped.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the Supreme Court will be focusing on obscene language, not nudity, in this case. The purpose of our brief is to remind the Court that there is another whole area of indecency – indecent exposure – that the Court needs to keep in mind. It would be a terrible thing if the Court, while thinking about an occasional expletive dropping from the lips of a celebrity, inadvertently rendered a decision that undermined the important existing protections of children against public indecency, whether on the streets or on TV.</p>
<p>While our brief supports neither party in this case, it's request to the high court is clear: “This Court should decide this case in a way that reaffirms, rather than inadvertently undercuts, either directly or by logical implication, the constitutionality of the laws of all fifty states and the District of Columbia (set forth in the Appendix) forbidding indecent exposure.”</p>
<p>The Supreme Court will likely hear oral argument in the case in the winter and issue a decision sometime in the spring of 2012.</p>
|
Defending the Ban on TV Indecency
| true |
http://aclj.org/us-constitution/defending-the-ban-on-tv-indecency
|
2011-09-14
| 0right
|
Defending the Ban on TV Indecency
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a constitutional case dealing with what is broadcast on television when children are likely to be watching.</p>
<p>In a filing at the high court, we're defending a ban on television indecency. Our amicus brief defends the ability of government authorities to outlaw public indecency, whether in person or on broadcast TV.</p>
<p>It may be that TV stations would prefer to cross the lines of decency in a misguided effort to boost ratings and bolster their profits. But to do so in prime time means sacrificing the protection of children – and adults – from gratuitous assaults on their sensibilities. The First Amendment right to free speech does not include indecent exposure in public settings like this.</p>
<p>“Just as a state could prohibit someone from strutting around naked in public,” our friend-of-the-court brief contends, “a state may forbid companies from broadcasting into people’s homes programs depicting someone strutting around naked.” The ability of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prohibit broadcast indecency on TV is at stake in the case of FCC v. Fox TV (No. 10-1293).</p>
<p>The FCC case involves a constitutional challenge by the Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC television networks to the FCC’s enforcement of a rule forbidding obscene language – so-called “fleeting expletives” -- during hours when children are normally part of the audience. A federal appeals court in New York City ruled in July of 2010 that the FCC’s policy on foul language was unconstitutionally vague and would risk chilling protected speech. The FCC then asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Court granted the petition at the end of June and the parties are now submitting written arguments to the Court.</p>
<p>Our amicus brief, <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/FCC-v%20Fox-TV-ACLJ-Supreme-Court-Amicus-Brief.pdf" type="external">posted here</a>, is focused on calling the Court’s attention to the problem of indecent nudity in broadcast programs. “An indecent television broadcast is essentially an indecent public display,” the brief argues. Restricting the public exposure of a person’s private parts is a proper way of protecting children, an interest the Court has recognized as “compelling,” the brief notes. Moreover, our brief continues, this concern applies in full force to broadcast media like TV, given its pervasiveness and accessibility to children, “who need navigate no passcodes or lockboxes to turn on a TV set.” As Justice Kennedy wrote in a 1996 decision about cable TV, “The householder should not have to risk that offensive material come into the hands of his children before it can be stopped.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the Supreme Court will be focusing on obscene language, not nudity, in this case. The purpose of our brief is to remind the Court that there is another whole area of indecency – indecent exposure – that the Court needs to keep in mind. It would be a terrible thing if the Court, while thinking about an occasional expletive dropping from the lips of a celebrity, inadvertently rendered a decision that undermined the important existing protections of children against public indecency, whether on the streets or on TV.</p>
<p>While our brief supports neither party in this case, it's request to the high court is clear: “This Court should decide this case in a way that reaffirms, rather than inadvertently undercuts, either directly or by logical implication, the constitutionality of the laws of all fifty states and the District of Columbia (set forth in the Appendix) forbidding indecent exposure.”</p>
<p>The Supreme Court will likely hear oral argument in the case in the winter and issue a decision sometime in the spring of 2012.</p>
| 5,454 |
<p>Gold prices swung between small gains and losses Tuesday, with many investors awaiting the next Federal Reserve policy statement for clues about future interest-rate increases.</p>
<p>Gold for December delivery closed down less than 0.1% at $1,310.60 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen in six of the last seven sessions after hitting their highest level in more than a year earlier this month, weighed down by easing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and a stronger dollar.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Many investors and analysts are waiting to see how the Fed discusses inflation and the prospects for future rate rises at its two-day meeting starting Tuesday. The U.S. central bank's policy statement and Chairwoman Janet Yellen's press conference are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.</p>
<p>Division among Fed officials about when to raise interest rates amid weaker-than-expected inflation has boosted gold prices in recent weeks because the precious metal struggles to compete with yield-bearing assets like Treasurys when borrowing costs rise. However, the latest core inflation reading last week was the strongest in months, which could push the Fed to raise interest rates for a third time in 2017, investors and analysts have said.</p>
<p>Although that decision is widely expected to come in December, the Fed's discussion this week about economic data and how quickly it wants to start shrinking its balance sheet could sway gold prices.</p>
<p>"If the language does provide further illumination to the Fed's intentions in December, I definitely think that will move gold prices," said Rory Johnston, a commodity economist at Scotiabank. Mr. Johnston said he expects the Fed to raise rates in December, which along with a stronger dollar, could push gold back down toward $1,250 a pound.</p>
<p>Investors were also keeping an eye on the United Nations General Assembly meeting Tuesday to see how world leaders discuss recent geopolitical turbulence. Many investors favor haven assets like gold amid political uncertainty.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Gold prices were little changed after President Donald Trump threatened to annihilate North Korea if the country fails to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Investors and analysts have said that it would likely take a more provocative action not yet seen to inject fear back into the markets and support gold prices.</p>
<p>"The market has become somewhat insensitive and immune to all the heightened rhetoric," said Jason Mayer, senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management.</p>
<p>A weaker dollar was supporting prices slightly Tuesday by making gold, a dollar-denominated metal, cheaper for foreign buyers. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 16 others, was recently down 0.2%. The dollar bouncing higher off multiyear lows hit earlier this month has hurt gold prices in the past week.</p>
<p>Among base metals, copper for December delivery closed little changed, up less than 0.1% at $2.9695 a pound. The industrial metal has fallen more than 5% from nearly three-year highs hit earlier this month after weak import and industrial production data out of China, which is responsible for nearly half the world's copper consumption. Many investors and analysts are waiting to see how a key Communist party leadership transition plays out next month.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 19, 2017 15:13 ET (19:13 GMT)</p>
|
Metals: Gold Prices Inch Lower Ahead of Fed Meeting
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/19/metals-gold-prices-inch-lower-ahead-fed-meeting.html
|
2017-09-19
| 0right
|
Metals: Gold Prices Inch Lower Ahead of Fed Meeting
<p>Gold prices swung between small gains and losses Tuesday, with many investors awaiting the next Federal Reserve policy statement for clues about future interest-rate increases.</p>
<p>Gold for December delivery closed down less than 0.1% at $1,310.60 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen in six of the last seven sessions after hitting their highest level in more than a year earlier this month, weighed down by easing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and a stronger dollar.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Many investors and analysts are waiting to see how the Fed discusses inflation and the prospects for future rate rises at its two-day meeting starting Tuesday. The U.S. central bank's policy statement and Chairwoman Janet Yellen's press conference are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.</p>
<p>Division among Fed officials about when to raise interest rates amid weaker-than-expected inflation has boosted gold prices in recent weeks because the precious metal struggles to compete with yield-bearing assets like Treasurys when borrowing costs rise. However, the latest core inflation reading last week was the strongest in months, which could push the Fed to raise interest rates for a third time in 2017, investors and analysts have said.</p>
<p>Although that decision is widely expected to come in December, the Fed's discussion this week about economic data and how quickly it wants to start shrinking its balance sheet could sway gold prices.</p>
<p>"If the language does provide further illumination to the Fed's intentions in December, I definitely think that will move gold prices," said Rory Johnston, a commodity economist at Scotiabank. Mr. Johnston said he expects the Fed to raise rates in December, which along with a stronger dollar, could push gold back down toward $1,250 a pound.</p>
<p>Investors were also keeping an eye on the United Nations General Assembly meeting Tuesday to see how world leaders discuss recent geopolitical turbulence. Many investors favor haven assets like gold amid political uncertainty.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Gold prices were little changed after President Donald Trump threatened to annihilate North Korea if the country fails to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Investors and analysts have said that it would likely take a more provocative action not yet seen to inject fear back into the markets and support gold prices.</p>
<p>"The market has become somewhat insensitive and immune to all the heightened rhetoric," said Jason Mayer, senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management.</p>
<p>A weaker dollar was supporting prices slightly Tuesday by making gold, a dollar-denominated metal, cheaper for foreign buyers. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 16 others, was recently down 0.2%. The dollar bouncing higher off multiyear lows hit earlier this month has hurt gold prices in the past week.</p>
<p>Among base metals, copper for December delivery closed little changed, up less than 0.1% at $2.9695 a pound. The industrial metal has fallen more than 5% from nearly three-year highs hit earlier this month after weak import and industrial production data out of China, which is responsible for nearly half the world's copper consumption. Many investors and analysts are waiting to see how a key Communist party leadership transition plays out next month.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 19, 2017 15:13 ET (19:13 GMT)</p>
| 5,455 |
<p />
<p>Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) closed its Silicon Valley campus on Wednesday after a man suspected in an earlier shooting that left three people dead apparently shot an H-P contract worker during an attempted car-jacking.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>An H-P spokesman confirmed that the Cupertino, Calif.,-based technology giant’s campus was closed following the incident.</p>
<p>The spokesman said H-P’s actions were a “small part” of a broad law enforcement effort that began early in the day at a nearby quarry where a disgruntled employee allegedly opened fire on co-workers, killing three and injuring five.</p>
<p>The woman shot in the attempted car-jacking, whose name was not released, was reportedly in fair condition at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.</p>
<p>The San Jose Mercury News identified the suspect, who had not been caught Wednesday afternoon, as 45-year-old Shareef Allman, a heavy equipment operator at the quarry.</p>
<p>Santa Clara County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza told Reuters that detectives were looking for a man matching Allman’s description who ran from the second shooting.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>“We believe him to still be in the area. Several tactical teams are conducting yard-to-yard searches,” he told the news agency.</p>
<p>Witnesses told police that Allman had arrived at a safety meeting at the Lehigh Southwest Cement Permanente Plant in Cupertino at about 4:30 a.m. armed with a handgun and rifle, and opened fire on his co-workers, Cardoza said.</p>
<p>Witnesses and victims said Allman shot eight people within two minutes before fleeing in a dark colored vehicle, Cardoza said.</p>
<p>“He was unhappy and disgruntled, according to witnesses and victims,” he said. “We don't know if it was work or family issues.”</p>
<p>The cement plant is part of Germany’s HeidelbergCement AG , the world's No. 3 construction materials group, according to Reuters.</p>
|
H-P Shuts Down Campus Amid California Shooting
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/10/05/h-p-shuts-down-campus-amid-california-shooting.html
|
2016-03-04
| 0right
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H-P Shuts Down Campus Amid California Shooting
<p />
<p>Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) closed its Silicon Valley campus on Wednesday after a man suspected in an earlier shooting that left three people dead apparently shot an H-P contract worker during an attempted car-jacking.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>An H-P spokesman confirmed that the Cupertino, Calif.,-based technology giant’s campus was closed following the incident.</p>
<p>The spokesman said H-P’s actions were a “small part” of a broad law enforcement effort that began early in the day at a nearby quarry where a disgruntled employee allegedly opened fire on co-workers, killing three and injuring five.</p>
<p>The woman shot in the attempted car-jacking, whose name was not released, was reportedly in fair condition at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.</p>
<p>The San Jose Mercury News identified the suspect, who had not been caught Wednesday afternoon, as 45-year-old Shareef Allman, a heavy equipment operator at the quarry.</p>
<p>Santa Clara County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza told Reuters that detectives were looking for a man matching Allman’s description who ran from the second shooting.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>“We believe him to still be in the area. Several tactical teams are conducting yard-to-yard searches,” he told the news agency.</p>
<p>Witnesses told police that Allman had arrived at a safety meeting at the Lehigh Southwest Cement Permanente Plant in Cupertino at about 4:30 a.m. armed with a handgun and rifle, and opened fire on his co-workers, Cardoza said.</p>
<p>Witnesses and victims said Allman shot eight people within two minutes before fleeing in a dark colored vehicle, Cardoza said.</p>
<p>“He was unhappy and disgruntled, according to witnesses and victims,” he said. “We don't know if it was work or family issues.”</p>
<p>The cement plant is part of Germany’s HeidelbergCement AG , the world's No. 3 construction materials group, according to Reuters.</p>
| 5,456 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The Foreign Affairs Ministry said that Jokowi’s trip scheduled from Sunday to Tuesday will be rescheduled because “current development has required the president to stay in Indonesia.”</p>
<p>Jokowi addressed the nation late Friday after clashes broke out between police and hard-liners who refused to disperse and demanded the arrest of Jakarta’s minority-Christian governor for alleged blasphemy.</p>
<p>National police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told a news conference Saturday that one elderly man died from asthma attack after being exposed to tear gas, and more than 90 police and soldiers were injured, eight of them seriously. He said that about 160 protesters were hurt from tear gas effects, including four who were hospitalized.</p>
<p>Jokowi blamed “political actors” for taking advantage of the rally. He didn’t elaborate, but his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had backed plans for the protest, drew tens of thousands of people.</p>
<p>The accusation of blasphemy against Jakarta Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese and minority Christian who is an ally of Jokowi, has galvanized Jokowi’s political opponents in the Muslim-majority nation of 250 million, and given a notorious group of hard-liners a national stage.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Islamic Defenders Front, a vigilante group that wants to impose Shariah law, is demanding Ahok’s arrest after a video circulated online in which he joked to an audience about a passage in the Quran that could be interpreted as prohibiting Muslims from accepting non-Muslims as leaders. The governor has apologized for the comment and met with police.</p>
<p>Amar said the situation became uncontrollable when protesters broke through police barricades and security barriers in an attempt to enter the presidential palace before they were stopped by police firing tear gas. Three police and military trucks were burnt down and 18 vehicles damaged in the violence.</p>
<p>He said police are still investigating who was behind the violence and whether any political elements were involved with the aim of creating unrest.</p>
<p>Ten people were arrested for allegedly provoking riots near the presidential palace and 15 others for vandalism in northern Jakarta.</p>
<p>Jakarta police spokesman Awi Setiyono said rioting in north Jakarta involved the looting of a convenience store and damage to police vehicles.</p>
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Indonesia president cancels trip abroad after deadly protest
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https://abqjournal.com/883622/indonesia-president-cancels-trip-abroad-after-deadly-protest.html
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2016-11-07
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Indonesia president cancels trip abroad after deadly protest
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<p>The Foreign Affairs Ministry said that Jokowi’s trip scheduled from Sunday to Tuesday will be rescheduled because “current development has required the president to stay in Indonesia.”</p>
<p>Jokowi addressed the nation late Friday after clashes broke out between police and hard-liners who refused to disperse and demanded the arrest of Jakarta’s minority-Christian governor for alleged blasphemy.</p>
<p>National police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told a news conference Saturday that one elderly man died from asthma attack after being exposed to tear gas, and more than 90 police and soldiers were injured, eight of them seriously. He said that about 160 protesters were hurt from tear gas effects, including four who were hospitalized.</p>
<p>Jokowi blamed “political actors” for taking advantage of the rally. He didn’t elaborate, but his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had backed plans for the protest, drew tens of thousands of people.</p>
<p>The accusation of blasphemy against Jakarta Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese and minority Christian who is an ally of Jokowi, has galvanized Jokowi’s political opponents in the Muslim-majority nation of 250 million, and given a notorious group of hard-liners a national stage.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Islamic Defenders Front, a vigilante group that wants to impose Shariah law, is demanding Ahok’s arrest after a video circulated online in which he joked to an audience about a passage in the Quran that could be interpreted as prohibiting Muslims from accepting non-Muslims as leaders. The governor has apologized for the comment and met with police.</p>
<p>Amar said the situation became uncontrollable when protesters broke through police barricades and security barriers in an attempt to enter the presidential palace before they were stopped by police firing tear gas. Three police and military trucks were burnt down and 18 vehicles damaged in the violence.</p>
<p>He said police are still investigating who was behind the violence and whether any political elements were involved with the aim of creating unrest.</p>
<p>Ten people were arrested for allegedly provoking riots near the presidential palace and 15 others for vandalism in northern Jakarta.</p>
<p>Jakarta police spokesman Awi Setiyono said rioting in north Jakarta involved the looting of a convenience store and damage to police vehicles.</p>
| 5,457 |
<p>Good morning. Here are some of the stories we’re following today:</p>
<p>A 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal on Tuesday, killing at least 36 people and triggering renewed panic on the devastated streets of Kathmandu. The temblor came less than three weeks after 8,000 people died when a 7.8-magnitude quake rocked the Himalayan country on April 25. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>The football world and the general public had mixed feelings Monday after the NFL announced that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady would be suspended for four games in the wake of the "Deflate-Gate" investigation. Brady's lawyer said his client would appeal the punishment. The Patriots organization was also handed a $1 million fine and loss of a first round and a fourth round draft pick. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a "walk in" asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding — and these two sources, plus a third, say that the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was hiding all along. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>John Kerry touched down in Russia Tuesday for a rare direct meeting with President Vladimir Putin, with everything from Iran and Yemen to Ukraine and ISIS on the agenda. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>The White House sought to quash concerns that the withdrawal of four of the six top leaders of Gulf nations from a planned summit later this week at Camp David signals strained relations between the administration and countries in that region. Of the six Arab states invited, only two of the those countries — Kuwait and Qatar — plan on sending their top leaders. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>George Zimmerman was injured in a shooting on Monday in Florida, police said. The shooting in Lake Mary involved Zimmerman and a man identified as Matthew Apperson, police spokeswoman Bianca Gillett said. Zimmerman did not fire any shots, according to police. Neither man has been arrested, and investigators are working to determine whether charges will be brought, Gillett said. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Dane County, Wisconsin, District Attorney Ismael R. Ozanne will release findings Tuesday from the investigation of the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Tony Robinson, 19, by a police officer, Matthew Kenny. The shooting sparked peaceful but passionate protests in the city. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Coloring books made specifically for adults are soaring in popularity. Many versions are completely sold out. Proponents say people are drawn, so to speak, to the hobby because it reduces stress and provides a way to disconnect from cellphones and email.</p>
<p />
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KNOW IT ALL: Tuesday’s Top 7 Stories at NBC News
| false |
http://nbcnews.com/news/know-it-all/know-it-all-tuesday-s-top-7-stories-nbc-news-n357526
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2015-05-12
| 3left-center
|
KNOW IT ALL: Tuesday’s Top 7 Stories at NBC News
<p>Good morning. Here are some of the stories we’re following today:</p>
<p>A 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal on Tuesday, killing at least 36 people and triggering renewed panic on the devastated streets of Kathmandu. The temblor came less than three weeks after 8,000 people died when a 7.8-magnitude quake rocked the Himalayan country on April 25. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>The football world and the general public had mixed feelings Monday after the NFL announced that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady would be suspended for four games in the wake of the "Deflate-Gate" investigation. Brady's lawyer said his client would appeal the punishment. The Patriots organization was also handed a $1 million fine and loss of a first round and a fourth round draft pick. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a "walk in" asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding — and these two sources, plus a third, say that the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was hiding all along. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>John Kerry touched down in Russia Tuesday for a rare direct meeting with President Vladimir Putin, with everything from Iran and Yemen to Ukraine and ISIS on the agenda. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>The White House sought to quash concerns that the withdrawal of four of the six top leaders of Gulf nations from a planned summit later this week at Camp David signals strained relations between the administration and countries in that region. Of the six Arab states invited, only two of the those countries — Kuwait and Qatar — plan on sending their top leaders. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>George Zimmerman was injured in a shooting on Monday in Florida, police said. The shooting in Lake Mary involved Zimmerman and a man identified as Matthew Apperson, police spokeswoman Bianca Gillett said. Zimmerman did not fire any shots, according to police. Neither man has been arrested, and investigators are working to determine whether charges will be brought, Gillett said. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Dane County, Wisconsin, District Attorney Ismael R. Ozanne will release findings Tuesday from the investigation of the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Tony Robinson, 19, by a police officer, Matthew Kenny. The shooting sparked peaceful but passionate protests in the city. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS.</a></p>
<p>Coloring books made specifically for adults are soaring in popularity. Many versions are completely sold out. Proponents say people are drawn, so to speak, to the hobby because it reduces stress and provides a way to disconnect from cellphones and email.</p>
<p />
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<p>Building permits were issued for 357 new detached, single-family homes during the first three months of the year, down 3 percent from 369 for the same period in 2013 and 4 percent from 371 in 2012. Since hitting bottom in 2011, the local home construction sector has struggled to gain traction.</p>
<p>The lethargy likely stems in part from the lack of both job and population growth in recent years that can serve as a catalyst for home construction. The construction sector alone shrunk by 1,000 jobs or 5.2 percent year over year as of March, the state Department of Workforce Solutions reported recently.</p>
<p>A spring edition of the Parade of Homes, begun in 2011 to supplement the long-running fall parade, is currently underway to promote new homes and to a lesser extent remodels, said John Garcia of the HBA, the metro's home builder group.</p>
<p>"That combined with Del Webb coming on board should positively impact growth in home-building activity in the next few months," he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The New Mexico division of PulteGroup Inc. is getting ready to launch a more than 500-home Del Webb community, a well-known, age-restricted housing brand for those 55 and older, on the West Side.</p>
<p>The new-home market isn't the only housing type languishing in the metro. The local apartment market saw its lowest occupancy rate in more than a decade during the first quarter. On the other hand, existing home sales showed modest improvement in the quarter.</p>
<p>New-home construction continued a recent migration out of Albuquerque, whose share of all permits for new homes in the metro dropped to 51 percent in the first quarter from 59 percent in 2013. Rio Rancho is the beneficiary of the shift with its market share growing to 40 percent from 33 percent in 2013.</p>
<p>The "plan check value" on building permits issued during March showed a small decline from a year earlier, according to DataTraq. Permits valued at $200,000 and higher dropped from 42 percent of all permits in March 2013 to 38 percent in March of this year.</p>
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ABQ new home building is struggling
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/391118/abq-new-home-building-is-struggling.html
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ABQ new home building is struggling
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<p />
<p>Building permits were issued for 357 new detached, single-family homes during the first three months of the year, down 3 percent from 369 for the same period in 2013 and 4 percent from 371 in 2012. Since hitting bottom in 2011, the local home construction sector has struggled to gain traction.</p>
<p>The lethargy likely stems in part from the lack of both job and population growth in recent years that can serve as a catalyst for home construction. The construction sector alone shrunk by 1,000 jobs or 5.2 percent year over year as of March, the state Department of Workforce Solutions reported recently.</p>
<p>A spring edition of the Parade of Homes, begun in 2011 to supplement the long-running fall parade, is currently underway to promote new homes and to a lesser extent remodels, said John Garcia of the HBA, the metro's home builder group.</p>
<p>"That combined with Del Webb coming on board should positively impact growth in home-building activity in the next few months," he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The New Mexico division of PulteGroup Inc. is getting ready to launch a more than 500-home Del Webb community, a well-known, age-restricted housing brand for those 55 and older, on the West Side.</p>
<p>The new-home market isn't the only housing type languishing in the metro. The local apartment market saw its lowest occupancy rate in more than a decade during the first quarter. On the other hand, existing home sales showed modest improvement in the quarter.</p>
<p>New-home construction continued a recent migration out of Albuquerque, whose share of all permits for new homes in the metro dropped to 51 percent in the first quarter from 59 percent in 2013. Rio Rancho is the beneficiary of the shift with its market share growing to 40 percent from 33 percent in 2013.</p>
<p>The "plan check value" on building permits issued during March showed a small decline from a year earlier, according to DataTraq. Permits valued at $200,000 and higher dropped from 42 percent of all permits in March 2013 to 38 percent in March of this year.</p>
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<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>About 30,000 New Mexicans are about to see their individual health insurance plans go away – part of a statewide push to ensure all coverage sold here meets minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico last week issued a letter to members currently covered by individual insurance plans that don’t meet the standards set by the health care law. That includes about 13,000 customers whose plans had been grandfathered because they were in place before ACA was enacted in 2010.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The notice alerts members that their plans will be discontinued effective Jan. 1, 2015, and that they need to select a new plan that complies with ACA, according to Janice Torrez, vice president of external affairs and chief of staff at Blue Cross.</p>
<p>Another 10,000 Blue Cross members also will see their individual plans discontinued. Torrez said those people have known for the past year the change was coming.</p>
<p>We’re “moving our (affected) members toward selecting other plans,” Torrez said. “There are so many plans available that I believe that members are going to find something that’s going to fit their needs.”</p>
<p>Presbyterian Health Plan currently has 6,800 members on individual plans that don’t meet ACA standards. The company will in the next two weeks send letters to those members to let them know their plans are going away and alert them to their options for the future, a representative said.</p>
<p>The change follows a May order by New Mexico Insurance Superintendent John Franchini that all plans sold in New Mexico after Dec. 31 must comply with ACA standards. Franchini on Monday said he made that decision after discussions with executives from Blue Cross and Presbyterian. He called ACA-compliant plans more “robust” – especially for those facing catastrophic injury or illness – and said there are plenty of options available for New Mexicans whose plans will cease to exist as of January.</p>
<p>“We got together and said, ‘This would be the right time to make sure all the citizens in the state who had a plan that wasn’t ACA-compliant would have the opportunity to convert to one,’ ” he said. “I look at this as a positive thing, not as a negative.”</p>
<p>The federal government wouldn’t have required the discontinuation of grandfathered, non-compliant plans for another two years, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.</p>
<p>HHS “gave insurance commissioners and insurance companies the choice to renew pre-Affordable Care Act health plans until October 2016,” HHS spokesman Ben Wakana said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Some customers have objected to losing plans they say fit their needs and budget and being required to buy plans that have coverage they don’t believe they need at a sometimes higher cost.</p>
<p>Blue Cross and Presbyterian representatives could not say what their affected members are currently paying for their individual plans, as premiums depend on a variety of factors.</p>
<p>Those losing their individual plans have the option to shop for coverage on the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, a marketplace of plans offered by five different insurance companies, including Blue Cross and Presbyterian. Open enrollment for 2015 begins on Nov. 15.</p>
<p>Premiums for plans on the exchange vary widely, but some buyers can qualify for subsidies. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 83 percent of exchange enrollees in 2014 qualified for some form of federal subsidy.</p>
<p>“I think there are many opportunities for people to save money and increase their benefits,” Franchini said.</p>
<p>Exchange plans come in four categories – platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Higher premiums generally mean lower deductibles, copayments and other out-of-pocket expenses.</p>
<p>About 32,000 New Mexicans signed up on the exchange for coverage in 2014.</p>
<p>For more information, visit the exchange website at <a href="http://www.bewellnm.com" type="external">www.bewellnm.com</a></p>
<p />
<p />
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Health insurance cancellations coming for about 30,000 in NM
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https://abqjournal.com/470688/30k-health-plans-in-nm-to-be-canceled.html
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2014-09-30
| 2least
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Health insurance cancellations coming for about 30,000 in NM
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<p />
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>About 30,000 New Mexicans are about to see their individual health insurance plans go away – part of a statewide push to ensure all coverage sold here meets minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico last week issued a letter to members currently covered by individual insurance plans that don’t meet the standards set by the health care law. That includes about 13,000 customers whose plans had been grandfathered because they were in place before ACA was enacted in 2010.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The notice alerts members that their plans will be discontinued effective Jan. 1, 2015, and that they need to select a new plan that complies with ACA, according to Janice Torrez, vice president of external affairs and chief of staff at Blue Cross.</p>
<p>Another 10,000 Blue Cross members also will see their individual plans discontinued. Torrez said those people have known for the past year the change was coming.</p>
<p>We’re “moving our (affected) members toward selecting other plans,” Torrez said. “There are so many plans available that I believe that members are going to find something that’s going to fit their needs.”</p>
<p>Presbyterian Health Plan currently has 6,800 members on individual plans that don’t meet ACA standards. The company will in the next two weeks send letters to those members to let them know their plans are going away and alert them to their options for the future, a representative said.</p>
<p>The change follows a May order by New Mexico Insurance Superintendent John Franchini that all plans sold in New Mexico after Dec. 31 must comply with ACA standards. Franchini on Monday said he made that decision after discussions with executives from Blue Cross and Presbyterian. He called ACA-compliant plans more “robust” – especially for those facing catastrophic injury or illness – and said there are plenty of options available for New Mexicans whose plans will cease to exist as of January.</p>
<p>“We got together and said, ‘This would be the right time to make sure all the citizens in the state who had a plan that wasn’t ACA-compliant would have the opportunity to convert to one,’ ” he said. “I look at this as a positive thing, not as a negative.”</p>
<p>The federal government wouldn’t have required the discontinuation of grandfathered, non-compliant plans for another two years, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.</p>
<p>HHS “gave insurance commissioners and insurance companies the choice to renew pre-Affordable Care Act health plans until October 2016,” HHS spokesman Ben Wakana said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Some customers have objected to losing plans they say fit their needs and budget and being required to buy plans that have coverage they don’t believe they need at a sometimes higher cost.</p>
<p>Blue Cross and Presbyterian representatives could not say what their affected members are currently paying for their individual plans, as premiums depend on a variety of factors.</p>
<p>Those losing their individual plans have the option to shop for coverage on the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, a marketplace of plans offered by five different insurance companies, including Blue Cross and Presbyterian. Open enrollment for 2015 begins on Nov. 15.</p>
<p>Premiums for plans on the exchange vary widely, but some buyers can qualify for subsidies. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 83 percent of exchange enrollees in 2014 qualified for some form of federal subsidy.</p>
<p>“I think there are many opportunities for people to save money and increase their benefits,” Franchini said.</p>
<p>Exchange plans come in four categories – platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Higher premiums generally mean lower deductibles, copayments and other out-of-pocket expenses.</p>
<p>About 32,000 New Mexicans signed up on the exchange for coverage in 2014.</p>
<p>For more information, visit the exchange website at <a href="http://www.bewellnm.com" type="external">www.bewellnm.com</a></p>
<p />
<p />
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<p>49 couples get permits after court order to county</p>
<p>SANTA FE – An historic week for same-sex marriage in New Mexico culminated Friday with the Santa Fe County clerk issuing marriage licenses to dozens of couples under a court order.</p>
<p>State District Judge Sarah Singleton’s order is the first in New Mexico directing a county clerk to give marriage licenses allowing same-sex couples to wed. However, more legal arguments are expected.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p><a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p>Santa Fe County Commissioner Liz Stefanics, a former state senator, and her partner Linda Siegle, a lobbyist and member of the Santa Fe Community College board, were the first couple to get a license Friday. Stefanics and Siegle, who have been together for 22 years, were married shortly afterward in the Santa Fe County Commission chambers.</p>
<p>Yon Hudson and Alex Hanna, whose court petition provoked the court order under which County Clerk Geraldine Salazar issued the marriage licenses, were a close second in line.</p>
<p>The scene at the Santa Fe County building on Grant Street was celebratory and joyous. Several couples got hitched right away, including Stefanics and Siegle, as well as nine other couples who were married at one time by the Rev. Talitha Arnold of the United Church of Santa Fe.</p>
<p>Salazar ended up extending office hours by two hours to accommodate the demand. Forty-nine licenses had been issued by 7 p.m.</p>
<p>“Now is the time to right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression against the gay community,” Salazar declared.</p>
<p>John Day, an attorney handling Hudson and Hanna’s case, called the court order by Singleton “monumental.”</p>
<p>“The dominoes are falling,” he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>However, the question of whether same-sex marriage is legal under New Mexico law remains unanswered despite Singleton’s directive. Singleton has scheduled a court hearing Sept. 26 to hear lawyers’ arguments on that score.</p>
<p>Singleton, responding to a court petition for Hudson and Hanna, issued an order late Thursday telling Salazar to “comply with your mandatory, nondiscretionary duty to issue marriage licenses on an equitable, nondiscriminatory basis, without regard to sex or sexual orientation” or to come to court to explain why she won’t.</p>
<p>Santa Fe County Commissioner Liz Stefanics, left, and Linda Siegle, a lobbyist and member of the Santa Fe Community College board, hold hands after they were married Friday. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>However, Singleton – in a statement provided by her staff – said that her order, or “alternative writ of mandamus,” does not represent “a decision on the merits” and merely provided a way for Salazar to “show cause” why she shouldn’t grant a marriage license to the gay couple.</p>
<p>“No decision has been made,” the judge said.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court, which previously directed state district courts to review same-sex marriage cases before it weighs in, would likely not take the case for a final opinion until after Singleton or another district judge rules on the issue, said state Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, another attorney representing Hudson and Hanna. That would apparently come after the September hearing that Singleton has scheduled.</p>
<p>Salazar said in a statement, “Now that Judge Singleton has ordered me to issue a license to Messrs. Hanna and Hudson on constitutional grounds, I intend to do so and to issue a license to any same-sex couple who desires one and are otherwise qualified.</p>
<p>“By complying with the judge’s order, we will be issuing licenses legally and will not continue to use limited county resources on further litigation,” she said.</p>
<p>Siegle, shortly after receiving her license, described herself as being in a whirlwind. Siegle said she and Stefanics decided Friday morning to get married after Stefanics talked with Salazar and learned that Salazar would really be issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.</p>
<p>“We’ve been together for 22 years and it seemed like it was time,” Siegle said.</p>
<p>“It means being sanctioned by the state of New Mexico,” Siegle said. “With being married comes a lot of benefits and responsibilities. So now we get to share those with all of our straight friends who are married.”</p>
<p>Several Santa Fe city officials made an appearance at the county building as the licenses were being handed out. Santa Fe Mayor David Coss served as a witness for two couples.</p>
<p>Santa Fe City Councilor and mayoral candidate Patti Bushee, who is gay, said she was elated by Friday’s events.</p>
<p>“I’m grateful to the clerk and the county for taking this position,” Bushee said. “This is going to move along. Before you know it, it will be sanctioned by the New Mexico Supreme Court. It’s a long time coming and I’m really pleased.”</p>
<p>Carolyn Dechaine of Santa Fe made her way to the clerk’s office Friday afternoon with her partner of three years, Kristina McKeown, and the couple got a license.</p>
<p>“We probably won’t be married for another year, but when we heard this was happening, it was so exciting and historic we wanted to be a part of it,” Dechaine said.</p>
<p>Yon Hudson, left, and Alex Hanna — whose court petition led to the issuance of marriage licenses for same-sex couples Friday at the Santa Fe County Clerk’s office — fill out forms for their license amid a crowd of reporters and others early in the afternoon. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Salazar told the Journal that other New Mexico county clerks are discussing whether they might follow suit.</p>
<p>The Doña Ana County clerk began issuing marriage licenses in Las Cruces this week to same-sex couples, saying he was tired of waiting for the courts to rule on pending lawsuits. A handful of lawsuits have been filed in Santa Fe and Bernalillo counties.</p>
<p>Attorney General Gary King, a Democrat, has said his office will not intervene but 29 Republican legislators have said they plan to ask the state Supreme Court to stop Doña Ana County from continuing to issue the licenses.</p>
<p>Singleton herself has lived with retired Court of Appeals Judge Lynn Pickard for around three decades. She told the Santa Fe New Mexican during an election campaign in 2010 that the two women never sought to marry.</p>
<p>“This is the way I feel about it: Everyone knows that I have lived with Lynn Pickard for a long time,” Singleton told the newspaper. “Anything else that goes on is nobody’s business.”</p>
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Santa Fe County clerk opens license floodgate
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https://abqjournal.com/252448/santa-fe-county-clerk-issues-licenses.html
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2013-08-24
| 2least
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Santa Fe County clerk opens license floodgate
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<p />
<p>49 couples get permits after court order to county</p>
<p>SANTA FE – An historic week for same-sex marriage in New Mexico culminated Friday with the Santa Fe County clerk issuing marriage licenses to dozens of couples under a court order.</p>
<p>State District Judge Sarah Singleton’s order is the first in New Mexico directing a county clerk to give marriage licenses allowing same-sex couples to wed. However, more legal arguments are expected.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p><a type="external" href="" /></p>
<p>Santa Fe County Commissioner Liz Stefanics, a former state senator, and her partner Linda Siegle, a lobbyist and member of the Santa Fe Community College board, were the first couple to get a license Friday. Stefanics and Siegle, who have been together for 22 years, were married shortly afterward in the Santa Fe County Commission chambers.</p>
<p>Yon Hudson and Alex Hanna, whose court petition provoked the court order under which County Clerk Geraldine Salazar issued the marriage licenses, were a close second in line.</p>
<p>The scene at the Santa Fe County building on Grant Street was celebratory and joyous. Several couples got hitched right away, including Stefanics and Siegle, as well as nine other couples who were married at one time by the Rev. Talitha Arnold of the United Church of Santa Fe.</p>
<p>Salazar ended up extending office hours by two hours to accommodate the demand. Forty-nine licenses had been issued by 7 p.m.</p>
<p>“Now is the time to right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression against the gay community,” Salazar declared.</p>
<p>John Day, an attorney handling Hudson and Hanna’s case, called the court order by Singleton “monumental.”</p>
<p>“The dominoes are falling,” he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>However, the question of whether same-sex marriage is legal under New Mexico law remains unanswered despite Singleton’s directive. Singleton has scheduled a court hearing Sept. 26 to hear lawyers’ arguments on that score.</p>
<p>Singleton, responding to a court petition for Hudson and Hanna, issued an order late Thursday telling Salazar to “comply with your mandatory, nondiscretionary duty to issue marriage licenses on an equitable, nondiscriminatory basis, without regard to sex or sexual orientation” or to come to court to explain why she won’t.</p>
<p>Santa Fe County Commissioner Liz Stefanics, left, and Linda Siegle, a lobbyist and member of the Santa Fe Community College board, hold hands after they were married Friday. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>However, Singleton – in a statement provided by her staff – said that her order, or “alternative writ of mandamus,” does not represent “a decision on the merits” and merely provided a way for Salazar to “show cause” why she shouldn’t grant a marriage license to the gay couple.</p>
<p>“No decision has been made,” the judge said.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court, which previously directed state district courts to review same-sex marriage cases before it weighs in, would likely not take the case for a final opinion until after Singleton or another district judge rules on the issue, said state Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, another attorney representing Hudson and Hanna. That would apparently come after the September hearing that Singleton has scheduled.</p>
<p>Salazar said in a statement, “Now that Judge Singleton has ordered me to issue a license to Messrs. Hanna and Hudson on constitutional grounds, I intend to do so and to issue a license to any same-sex couple who desires one and are otherwise qualified.</p>
<p>“By complying with the judge’s order, we will be issuing licenses legally and will not continue to use limited county resources on further litigation,” she said.</p>
<p>Siegle, shortly after receiving her license, described herself as being in a whirlwind. Siegle said she and Stefanics decided Friday morning to get married after Stefanics talked with Salazar and learned that Salazar would really be issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.</p>
<p>“We’ve been together for 22 years and it seemed like it was time,” Siegle said.</p>
<p>“It means being sanctioned by the state of New Mexico,” Siegle said. “With being married comes a lot of benefits and responsibilities. So now we get to share those with all of our straight friends who are married.”</p>
<p>Several Santa Fe city officials made an appearance at the county building as the licenses were being handed out. Santa Fe Mayor David Coss served as a witness for two couples.</p>
<p>Santa Fe City Councilor and mayoral candidate Patti Bushee, who is gay, said she was elated by Friday’s events.</p>
<p>“I’m grateful to the clerk and the county for taking this position,” Bushee said. “This is going to move along. Before you know it, it will be sanctioned by the New Mexico Supreme Court. It’s a long time coming and I’m really pleased.”</p>
<p>Carolyn Dechaine of Santa Fe made her way to the clerk’s office Friday afternoon with her partner of three years, Kristina McKeown, and the couple got a license.</p>
<p>“We probably won’t be married for another year, but when we heard this was happening, it was so exciting and historic we wanted to be a part of it,” Dechaine said.</p>
<p>Yon Hudson, left, and Alex Hanna — whose court petition led to the issuance of marriage licenses for same-sex couples Friday at the Santa Fe County Clerk’s office — fill out forms for their license amid a crowd of reporters and others early in the afternoon. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Salazar told the Journal that other New Mexico county clerks are discussing whether they might follow suit.</p>
<p>The Doña Ana County clerk began issuing marriage licenses in Las Cruces this week to same-sex couples, saying he was tired of waiting for the courts to rule on pending lawsuits. A handful of lawsuits have been filed in Santa Fe and Bernalillo counties.</p>
<p>Attorney General Gary King, a Democrat, has said his office will not intervene but 29 Republican legislators have said they plan to ask the state Supreme Court to stop Doña Ana County from continuing to issue the licenses.</p>
<p>Singleton herself has lived with retired Court of Appeals Judge Lynn Pickard for around three decades. She told the Santa Fe New Mexican during an election campaign in 2010 that the two women never sought to marry.</p>
<p>“This is the way I feel about it: Everyone knows that I have lived with Lynn Pickard for a long time,” Singleton told the newspaper. “Anything else that goes on is nobody’s business.”</p>
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| 5,461 |
<p>Brazil’s first female president has finally been sworn into office. Dilma Rousseff, a protégé of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, promised to protect the most vulnerable of Brazilian society in her inaugural speech Saturday. –JCL</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>Brazil’s first woman President, Dilma Rousseff, has been sworn into office.</p>
<p>She took over from her mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who stepped down after two terms as the most popular president in the country’s history.</p>
<p />
<p>After taking the oath of office, Ms Rousseff promised in a speech to protect the most vulnerable in Brazilian society and govern for all.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12103312" type="external">Read more</a></p>
|
Meet Brazil’s New President
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/meet-brazils-new-president/
|
2011-01-02
| 4left
|
Meet Brazil’s New President
<p>Brazil’s first female president has finally been sworn into office. Dilma Rousseff, a protégé of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, promised to protect the most vulnerable of Brazilian society in her inaugural speech Saturday. –JCL</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>Brazil’s first woman President, Dilma Rousseff, has been sworn into office.</p>
<p>She took over from her mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who stepped down after two terms as the most popular president in the country’s history.</p>
<p />
<p>After taking the oath of office, Ms Rousseff promised in a speech to protect the most vulnerable in Brazilian society and govern for all.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12103312" type="external">Read more</a></p>
| 5,462 |
<p />
<p>As Britain awoke on Friday to the news that it had voted in favor of <a href="" type="internal">withdrawing from the European Union</a>, voters were introduced to their new reality with a stunning admission from Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit advocate who leads the U.K. Independence Party. Farage said that the Vote Leave campaign’s signature pledge—that leaving the European Union would allow for&#160;£350 million to be spent on the U.K.’s National Health Service—was a “mistake.”</p>
<p>Farage’s mea culpa was made during an appearance on Good Morning Britain, where he was asked if he could continue supporting that promise after the campaign to extract the United Kingdom from the European Union had succeeded.</p>
<p>“No I can’t, and I would have never made that claim,” Farage said. “It was one of the mistakes I think the ‘leave’ campaign made”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>When pressed by Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid, who said that 17 million people had voted to leave the EU partly on that bold promise, Farage repeatedly stalled, as he attempted to disavow the campaign pledge.</p>
<p>“Do you think there are other things that people will wake up this morning and find out aren’t going to happen?” Reid asked.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-36606184" type="external">Your move, America.</a></p>
<p />
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UK Independence Party Leader Admits His Bold Brexit Claim Was a “Mistake”
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/nigel-farage-admits-his-bold-brexit-claim-was-mistake/
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2016-06-24
| 4left
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UK Independence Party Leader Admits His Bold Brexit Claim Was a “Mistake”
<p />
<p>As Britain awoke on Friday to the news that it had voted in favor of <a href="" type="internal">withdrawing from the European Union</a>, voters were introduced to their new reality with a stunning admission from Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit advocate who leads the U.K. Independence Party. Farage said that the Vote Leave campaign’s signature pledge—that leaving the European Union would allow for&#160;£350 million to be spent on the U.K.’s National Health Service—was a “mistake.”</p>
<p>Farage’s mea culpa was made during an appearance on Good Morning Britain, where he was asked if he could continue supporting that promise after the campaign to extract the United Kingdom from the European Union had succeeded.</p>
<p>“No I can’t, and I would have never made that claim,” Farage said. “It was one of the mistakes I think the ‘leave’ campaign made”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>When pressed by Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid, who said that 17 million people had voted to leave the EU partly on that bold promise, Farage repeatedly stalled, as he attempted to disavow the campaign pledge.</p>
<p>“Do you think there are other things that people will wake up this morning and find out aren’t going to happen?” Reid asked.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-36606184" type="external">Your move, America.</a></p>
<p />
| 5,463 |
<p>So a <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140510/us-airliner-nearly-hit-drone" type="external">US Airways plane almost smacked into a drone</a> earlier this year.&#160;</p>
<p>Wait. What?!</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304655304579552021777668690-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwOTEwNDkyWj" type="external">Wall Street Journal</a>, a US Airways pilot was approaching an airport in Tallahassee, Fla., on March 22, when he came so close to a "small remotely piloted aircraft" that he was "sure he had collided with it," said Jim Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).</p>
<p>Williams, head of the FAA's unmanned-aircraft office, made the incident public for the first time at a conference in San Francisco on Thursday.</p>
<p>There did not appear to have been a collision upon inspection, he said, but "the risk for a small [drone] to be ingested into a passenger airline engine is very real."</p>
<p>Ingested.&#160;</p>
<p>More: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/technology-news/110824/drone-wars-technology-uavs-mit-surveillance" type="external">Drone Wars: the humans behind the technology</a></p>
<p>The near-miss occurred about 5 miles from the airport at an altitude of roughly 2,300 feet.</p>
<p>The drone was said to have been painted in camouflage, which would be unusual choice for the many commercial enterprises that now use drones as well as the military, at least according to the Defense Department.</p>
<p>Word in the skies is that unmanned aerial vehicle, aka drone, most likely belongs to a hobbyist. The FAA hasn't been able to locate the owner, however.</p>
<p>The FAA currently bans the commercial use of drones in the United States. Hobby and many law-enforcement uses are permitted, though hobbyists are required to notify an airport when they're that close. Whoops.</p>
<p>The incident has sparked lots of talk about the lack of clear rules around drones. Without a better set of rules, near misses like this one and, worse, actual collisions are increasingly likely.</p>
<p>Because it turns out sometimes things get sucked into airplane engines. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike#Incidents" type="external">birds</a>. And <a href="http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/flying-pests-locust-threat-to-aircraft/1953572.aspx" type="external">bugs</a>. Imagine that.</p>
<p>Now, imagine "a metal-and-plastic object, especially that big lithium battery, going into a high-speed turbine engine," Williams said.</p>
<p>"The results could be catastrophic."</p>
|
That time a US Airways plane almost collided with a drone
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2014-05-10/time-us-airways-plane-almost-collided-drone
|
2014-05-10
| 3left-center
|
That time a US Airways plane almost collided with a drone
<p>So a <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140510/us-airliner-nearly-hit-drone" type="external">US Airways plane almost smacked into a drone</a> earlier this year.&#160;</p>
<p>Wait. What?!</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304655304579552021777668690-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwOTEwNDkyWj" type="external">Wall Street Journal</a>, a US Airways pilot was approaching an airport in Tallahassee, Fla., on March 22, when he came so close to a "small remotely piloted aircraft" that he was "sure he had collided with it," said Jim Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).</p>
<p>Williams, head of the FAA's unmanned-aircraft office, made the incident public for the first time at a conference in San Francisco on Thursday.</p>
<p>There did not appear to have been a collision upon inspection, he said, but "the risk for a small [drone] to be ingested into a passenger airline engine is very real."</p>
<p>Ingested.&#160;</p>
<p>More: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/technology-news/110824/drone-wars-technology-uavs-mit-surveillance" type="external">Drone Wars: the humans behind the technology</a></p>
<p>The near-miss occurred about 5 miles from the airport at an altitude of roughly 2,300 feet.</p>
<p>The drone was said to have been painted in camouflage, which would be unusual choice for the many commercial enterprises that now use drones as well as the military, at least according to the Defense Department.</p>
<p>Word in the skies is that unmanned aerial vehicle, aka drone, most likely belongs to a hobbyist. The FAA hasn't been able to locate the owner, however.</p>
<p>The FAA currently bans the commercial use of drones in the United States. Hobby and many law-enforcement uses are permitted, though hobbyists are required to notify an airport when they're that close. Whoops.</p>
<p>The incident has sparked lots of talk about the lack of clear rules around drones. Without a better set of rules, near misses like this one and, worse, actual collisions are increasingly likely.</p>
<p>Because it turns out sometimes things get sucked into airplane engines. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike#Incidents" type="external">birds</a>. And <a href="http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/flying-pests-locust-threat-to-aircraft/1953572.aspx" type="external">bugs</a>. Imagine that.</p>
<p>Now, imagine "a metal-and-plastic object, especially that big lithium battery, going into a high-speed turbine engine," Williams said.</p>
<p>"The results could be catastrophic."</p>
| 5,464 |
<p>In falsely bragging about the alleged benefits to the middle class from the tax law enacted by the Republicans last month, the Trumpsters neglected to give high visibility to the state regulators who must require utility and insurance companies to pass savings from the tax cuts on to their consumers.</p>
<p>While some regulated utility companies (gas, electric and telephone) did announce that they would be reducing rates for consumers, others seem to be waiting for state regulators to push them. The insurance companies in particular seem to be in need of a nudge.</p>
<p>The indefatigable actuary and consumer advocate for the Consumer Federation of America, J. Robert Hunter is pleased to provide the necessary push. In his usual tightly argued style, he has sent letters to every state insurance commissioner, as well as those officials representing the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Hunter calculates that insurance rates that you, the consumer, are paying, should be reduced by about 5%, “without including the impact of investment income due to lower taxes on that income. So it could be more than 5%.”</p>
<p>Hunter continues: “On a property-casualty industry wide basis, the windfall to insurers from the tax changes are massive. 5% of the $ 539 billion in premiums collected is over $25 billion. For longer-tailed lines, like medical professional liability, the increase in investment income on reserves and surplus will be much greater than average because of the reduction in tax rates.”</p>
<p>Taking no chances, Hunter asks the mostly passive state insurance regulators two questions that resolve any possible ambiguities about what you the policyholder-consumers are owed:</p>
<p>1. “What is your evaluation of the recent changes in tax laws on insurer profitability by line and what is the basis for your conclusions? “</p>
<p>2. “What actions are you taking in the next month to cause insurers to reduce rates to reflect the windfall from tax changes and to ensure rates return to not excessive levels?” Over $25 billion in savings coming back to consumers’ proverbial pocketbooks is not chump change. You can surely use it, and it belongs to you under existing law.</p>
<p>If you call or email your state insurance commissioner and ask “where’s my money?”, you’ll get a pretty good idea of how fast and decisive your commissioner is likely to be. California’s elected Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has already acted to assure these reductions in rates.</p>
<p>Further questions may be directed to Mr. Hunter’s organization here. He’ll want to hear about any responses, or lack of responses, from your commissioner’s office. These commissioners, and every insurance company, know Bob Hunter very well. This consumer champion has been a leading consumer watchdog for over forty years. He has saved consumers billions of dollars in auto, homeowner and other property-casualty policies with his testimony before legislatures, especially defending the civil justice system from erosion, his expert witness role in successful litigation, and his many public reports revealing insurance industry abuses.</p>
<p>In the pantheon of ‘one person making a difference,’ J. Robert Hunter deserves top billing. He exposes the intricacies of this often needlessly complex business and the maneuvers that the companies use, , to evade, avoid and obscure their shenanigans. Bob has also successfully challenged insurance industry legislative proposals, greased by campaign contributions.</p>
<p>In 1988 during our regulatory victory over the resistant property-casualty insurance industry, with the enactment of Prop 103 by California voters, we received regular pro-bono advice from Bob Hunter. Since then, California has moved from being one of the highest auto insurance priced states to one of the lowest ones. Actuary Hunter estimates savings to California Motorists of over $100 billion.</p>
<p>He’s done all this work with a marvelous sense of humor, a pleasant personality in acrimonious venues, and he manages, as a vocation, to be a peace mediator of African tribal conflicts.</p>
|
Look for Rate Cuts in Your Auto/Homeowner’s Insurance Coming Soon
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2018/01/26/look-for-rate-cuts-in-your-auto-homeowners-insurance-coming-soon/
|
2018-01-26
| 4left
|
Look for Rate Cuts in Your Auto/Homeowner’s Insurance Coming Soon
<p>In falsely bragging about the alleged benefits to the middle class from the tax law enacted by the Republicans last month, the Trumpsters neglected to give high visibility to the state regulators who must require utility and insurance companies to pass savings from the tax cuts on to their consumers.</p>
<p>While some regulated utility companies (gas, electric and telephone) did announce that they would be reducing rates for consumers, others seem to be waiting for state regulators to push them. The insurance companies in particular seem to be in need of a nudge.</p>
<p>The indefatigable actuary and consumer advocate for the Consumer Federation of America, J. Robert Hunter is pleased to provide the necessary push. In his usual tightly argued style, he has sent letters to every state insurance commissioner, as well as those officials representing the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Hunter calculates that insurance rates that you, the consumer, are paying, should be reduced by about 5%, “without including the impact of investment income due to lower taxes on that income. So it could be more than 5%.”</p>
<p>Hunter continues: “On a property-casualty industry wide basis, the windfall to insurers from the tax changes are massive. 5% of the $ 539 billion in premiums collected is over $25 billion. For longer-tailed lines, like medical professional liability, the increase in investment income on reserves and surplus will be much greater than average because of the reduction in tax rates.”</p>
<p>Taking no chances, Hunter asks the mostly passive state insurance regulators two questions that resolve any possible ambiguities about what you the policyholder-consumers are owed:</p>
<p>1. “What is your evaluation of the recent changes in tax laws on insurer profitability by line and what is the basis for your conclusions? “</p>
<p>2. “What actions are you taking in the next month to cause insurers to reduce rates to reflect the windfall from tax changes and to ensure rates return to not excessive levels?” Over $25 billion in savings coming back to consumers’ proverbial pocketbooks is not chump change. You can surely use it, and it belongs to you under existing law.</p>
<p>If you call or email your state insurance commissioner and ask “where’s my money?”, you’ll get a pretty good idea of how fast and decisive your commissioner is likely to be. California’s elected Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has already acted to assure these reductions in rates.</p>
<p>Further questions may be directed to Mr. Hunter’s organization here. He’ll want to hear about any responses, or lack of responses, from your commissioner’s office. These commissioners, and every insurance company, know Bob Hunter very well. This consumer champion has been a leading consumer watchdog for over forty years. He has saved consumers billions of dollars in auto, homeowner and other property-casualty policies with his testimony before legislatures, especially defending the civil justice system from erosion, his expert witness role in successful litigation, and his many public reports revealing insurance industry abuses.</p>
<p>In the pantheon of ‘one person making a difference,’ J. Robert Hunter deserves top billing. He exposes the intricacies of this often needlessly complex business and the maneuvers that the companies use, , to evade, avoid and obscure their shenanigans. Bob has also successfully challenged insurance industry legislative proposals, greased by campaign contributions.</p>
<p>In 1988 during our regulatory victory over the resistant property-casualty insurance industry, with the enactment of Prop 103 by California voters, we received regular pro-bono advice from Bob Hunter. Since then, California has moved from being one of the highest auto insurance priced states to one of the lowest ones. Actuary Hunter estimates savings to California Motorists of over $100 billion.</p>
<p>He’s done all this work with a marvelous sense of humor, a pleasant personality in acrimonious venues, and he manages, as a vocation, to be a peace mediator of African tribal conflicts.</p>
| 5,465 |
<p>On Monday, Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, <a href="" type="internal">testified before Congress</a> <a href="" type="internal">about Russian interference in the U.S. election.</a></p>
<p>Yates is a seasoned attorney who served as the U.S. Deputy Attorney General <a href="" type="internal">appointed by President Obama.</a> After the inauguration of President Trump, she filled in as Acting Attorney General? <a href="" type="internal">a position she held until she was dismissed</a> following her instruction to the Department of Justice to <a href="" type="internal">not defend the president's refugee ban.</a></p>
<p>During Yates' hearing, John Neely Kennedy, <a href="" type="internal">a Republican junior senator from Louisiana</a>, questioned her about her handling of the executive order, interrupting at one point to say, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/861682730320273408" type="external">"I don't mean any disrespect, but who appointed you to the United States Supreme Court?"</a></p>
<p>And THIS, my friends, is exactly <a href="" type="internal">how mansplaining looks:</a></p>
|
Sally Yates Testified Today. This Is Her Getting Mansplained In One GIF.
| true |
https://thedailybeast.com/sally-yates-testified-today-this-is-her-getting-mansplained-in-one-gif
|
2018-10-02
| 4left
|
Sally Yates Testified Today. This Is Her Getting Mansplained In One GIF.
<p>On Monday, Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, <a href="" type="internal">testified before Congress</a> <a href="" type="internal">about Russian interference in the U.S. election.</a></p>
<p>Yates is a seasoned attorney who served as the U.S. Deputy Attorney General <a href="" type="internal">appointed by President Obama.</a> After the inauguration of President Trump, she filled in as Acting Attorney General? <a href="" type="internal">a position she held until she was dismissed</a> following her instruction to the Department of Justice to <a href="" type="internal">not defend the president's refugee ban.</a></p>
<p>During Yates' hearing, John Neely Kennedy, <a href="" type="internal">a Republican junior senator from Louisiana</a>, questioned her about her handling of the executive order, interrupting at one point to say, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/861682730320273408" type="external">"I don't mean any disrespect, but who appointed you to the United States Supreme Court?"</a></p>
<p>And THIS, my friends, is exactly <a href="" type="internal">how mansplaining looks:</a></p>
| 5,466 |
<p>(Image by Darwinek with modification; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES — A new report on the health of transgender Californians provides further evidence of the challenges trans people face, including their extremely high risk of suicide, the <a href="https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2017/11/01/trans-people-and-suicidal-ideation" type="external">Advocate reports</a>.</p>
<p>Twenty-two percent of transgender adults in California have ever attempted suicide, compare with 4 percent of cisgender (nontrans) adult Californians, according to the <a href="http://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/publications/Documents/PDF/2017/transgender-policybrief-oct2017.pdf" type="external">policy brief</a> from the Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The report, released this week, uses data from the 2015-2016 California Health Interview Survey, the Advocate reports.</p>
<p>The data indicates there are 92,000 transgender people between the ages of 18-70 in California, representing 0.35 percent of the state’s adult noninstitutionalized population. Their general health status, insurance, and health access, are similar to that of cisgender adults, but there are significant disparities.</p>
<p>In addition to having a rate of suicide attempts that is six times that of cisgender people, “transgender adults are about three times more likely to have had lifetime suicidal thoughts, 34 percent to 10 percent, and nearly four times more likely to have experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, 33 percent compared to 9 percent,” according to the brief.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">California</a> <a href="" type="internal">suicide</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">UCLA Center for Health Policy Research</a> <a href="" type="internal">Williams Institute</a></p>
|
Suicide rates higher for trans Californians
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2017/11/03/suicide-rates-higher-trans-californians/
| 3left-center
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Suicide rates higher for trans Californians
<p>(Image by Darwinek with modification; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES — A new report on the health of transgender Californians provides further evidence of the challenges trans people face, including their extremely high risk of suicide, the <a href="https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2017/11/01/trans-people-and-suicidal-ideation" type="external">Advocate reports</a>.</p>
<p>Twenty-two percent of transgender adults in California have ever attempted suicide, compare with 4 percent of cisgender (nontrans) adult Californians, according to the <a href="http://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/publications/Documents/PDF/2017/transgender-policybrief-oct2017.pdf" type="external">policy brief</a> from the Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The report, released this week, uses data from the 2015-2016 California Health Interview Survey, the Advocate reports.</p>
<p>The data indicates there are 92,000 transgender people between the ages of 18-70 in California, representing 0.35 percent of the state’s adult noninstitutionalized population. Their general health status, insurance, and health access, are similar to that of cisgender adults, but there are significant disparities.</p>
<p>In addition to having a rate of suicide attempts that is six times that of cisgender people, “transgender adults are about three times more likely to have had lifetime suicidal thoughts, 34 percent to 10 percent, and nearly four times more likely to have experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, 33 percent compared to 9 percent,” according to the brief.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">California</a> <a href="" type="internal">suicide</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">UCLA Center for Health Policy Research</a> <a href="" type="internal">Williams Institute</a></p>
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<p>Former CIA Director David Petraeus' <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121111/jill-kelley-david-petraeus" type="external">confession of having an affair</a> may be making the headlines, but the former four-star general and one of America's most influential political leaders has left an indelible mark in the US miltary and foreign policy efforts.</p>
<p>John Moore/Getty Images.</p>
<p>1. Crafted the US counter-insurgency strategy for the post 9/11 world</p>
<p>In the 1990s, it was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine" type="external">Powell Doctrine</a>. In the mid-2000s, it was the Petraeus doctrine. The military theory was less about force (the biggest gun wins) and more about protecting the lives of civilians (winning hearts and minds). This strategy has been largely credited for stabilizing Iraq in 2007, though critics argue <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/12/exit-petraeus-and-his-famous-military-doctrine/" type="external">other factors</a> may have been just as important.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>John Cantlie/Getty Images.</p>
<p>2. Created the military framework for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq</p>
<p>As the face of America's military, he was the key strategist in the 2007 troop surge in Iraq as well as what has been viewed as its failed replication&#160; <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html" type="external">in Afghanistan</a> three years later. Petraeus was also given the arduous task of training a new Iraqi army.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Rob Jensen/Getty Images.</p>
<p>3. Blurred the lines between the CIA and military</p>
<p>The CIA's long-standing and institutional suspicion of the military didn't stop Petraeus from putting his mark on the agency. CIA veteran Bruce Riedel called Petraeus' 14-months with the CIA swift but transformative: "He was beginning the transformation of the CIA. from counterterrorism only to counterterrorism plus China, plus the euro zone, plus what the world will look like in 15 years.?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Spencer Platt/Getty Images.</p>
<p>4. Built a cult of personality in military, government and mainstream media circles</p>
<p>From his meteoric rise during his 38 years of service in the military to his unanimously confirmed 94-0 vote to be director of the CIA, Petraeus has built up a generally favorable cult of personality. The media treatment has been no different. As <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/opinion/kurtz-petraeus-media/index.html" type="external">CNN's Howard Kurtz put it</a>, Petraeus had another love affair long before the most recent one that forced his resignation: the press.</p>
|
How David Petraeus changed the world
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2012-11-12/how-david-petraeus-changed-world
|
2012-11-12
| 3left-center
|
How David Petraeus changed the world
<p>Former CIA Director David Petraeus' <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121111/jill-kelley-david-petraeus" type="external">confession of having an affair</a> may be making the headlines, but the former four-star general and one of America's most influential political leaders has left an indelible mark in the US miltary and foreign policy efforts.</p>
<p>John Moore/Getty Images.</p>
<p>1. Crafted the US counter-insurgency strategy for the post 9/11 world</p>
<p>In the 1990s, it was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine" type="external">Powell Doctrine</a>. In the mid-2000s, it was the Petraeus doctrine. The military theory was less about force (the biggest gun wins) and more about protecting the lives of civilians (winning hearts and minds). This strategy has been largely credited for stabilizing Iraq in 2007, though critics argue <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/12/exit-petraeus-and-his-famous-military-doctrine/" type="external">other factors</a> may have been just as important.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>John Cantlie/Getty Images.</p>
<p>2. Created the military framework for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq</p>
<p>As the face of America's military, he was the key strategist in the 2007 troop surge in Iraq as well as what has been viewed as its failed replication&#160; <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html" type="external">in Afghanistan</a> three years later. Petraeus was also given the arduous task of training a new Iraqi army.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Rob Jensen/Getty Images.</p>
<p>3. Blurred the lines between the CIA and military</p>
<p>The CIA's long-standing and institutional suspicion of the military didn't stop Petraeus from putting his mark on the agency. CIA veteran Bruce Riedel called Petraeus' 14-months with the CIA swift but transformative: "He was beginning the transformation of the CIA. from counterterrorism only to counterterrorism plus China, plus the euro zone, plus what the world will look like in 15 years.?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Spencer Platt/Getty Images.</p>
<p>4. Built a cult of personality in military, government and mainstream media circles</p>
<p>From his meteoric rise during his 38 years of service in the military to his unanimously confirmed 94-0 vote to be director of the CIA, Petraeus has built up a generally favorable cult of personality. The media treatment has been no different. As <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/opinion/kurtz-petraeus-media/index.html" type="external">CNN's Howard Kurtz put it</a>, Petraeus had another love affair long before the most recent one that forced his resignation: the press.</p>
| 5,468 |
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<p>Gabe, a transgender teen, shows off a keychain on his backpack. (Josh Bachman/Las Cruces Sun-News)</p>
<p>LAS CRUCES – Growing up, Dan Johnson, now 14 and a student at a local high school, tried his best to fit the typical girl mold. But something about it didn’t feel right.</p>
<p>“Since I was the only girl in the family, there was a lot of pressure to just be … the little princess and all that stuff,” said Johnson, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. “But it just got to a point where I got really depressed and I just didn’t want to live.”</p>
<p>Instead, Johnson decided to take control of his happiness by exploring where he fit on the gender spectrum.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>At first, Johnson thought he might be gender-fluid, so he experimented going between male and female identities. After about two years of experimentation, Johnson found he felt most comfortable identifying as male, and came out to his parents as transgender in eighth grade.</p>
<p>“If I identify myself as a female, it just feels like I’m lying to everybody and that’s just not something I was about, because you only have a certain amount of time living here,” Johnson said. “You don’t know when you’re going to die. So, I was going to try to live my life to where I was happy and not try to please others so much.”</p>
<p>Still, he refrained from coming out at his middle school, where he faced ridicule and bullying from students for his masculine appearance. Today, Johnson said he is fortunate to go to a school where he is accepted for who he is and has the support of friends and parents. Johnson has also taken the next step in his transition from female to male with hormone therapy, which he began about six months ago.</p>
<p>Johnson’s confidence and strength make it hard to believe he once contemplated suicide, but those feelings aren’t uncommon among transgender people. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 40 percent of respondents said they had attempted suicide in their lifetime, nearly nine times the U.S. rate of 4.6 percent.</p>
<p>Thirty-nine percent of the survey’s respondents also said they “experienced serious psychological distress in the month before completing the survey, compared with only 5 percent of the U.S. population.”</p>
<p>Help available for those who need support</p>
<p>Some of the most common mental health issues transgender people face are depression and anxiety, said Andrea Dresser, a licensed marriage and family therapist who works with several transgender clients.</p>
<p>Anxiety in transgender people can often be caused by the trepidation of coming out to family members, deciding which bathroom to use, workplace situations that may arise and how to deal with being misgendered, Dresser said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It creates a lot of discomfort and anxiety for the person,” she said. “Should I correct my boss? Should I not correct my boss? It’s an educational process for everybody.”</p>
<p>Dresser said while seeing a therapist can help transgender individuals cope with depression, anxiety or other issues, it’s critical that they also connect with others who may be going through similar life changes – such as through a support group.</p>
<p>Meeting other people who have successfully transitioned and are living the life they want can give hope to those who feel like it’s impossible. Attending a support group can also help lift people out of depression, Dresser said.</p>
<p>“If someone is depressed, they tend to isolate themselves and it’s that isolation, where you’re stuck in your own thoughts and it kind of spirals down and you want to get people out of that isolation,” she said.</p>
<p>Gabe, 15, a local transgender teen who asked to keep his last name anonymous, said he’s had to deal with depression caused by both society’s expectations and the expectations he has for himself, his body and how he feels in it.</p>
<p>“I can deal with society more than how I feel about myself because I know that society has a bad mind, but I’m trying to get more loving toward myself,” Gabe said.</p>
<p>Dresser said while many parents may be quick to assume a child who comes out as transgender is just going through a phase, that is usually not the case.</p>
<p>“I think teens go through a phase of maybe questioning their sexuality or experimenting, but for a transgender child, it’s a little different; it’s not a phase,” she said. “They know from the time they’re young that something’s not right.”</p>
<p>Dresser said parents who have a transgender child should educate themselves on the subject as much as possible to provide them with the support they need.</p>
<p>Both Gabe and Johnson said they could see themselves getting surgery in the future to transition to the sex they identify with.</p>
<p>“Surgery is one of those things that I need ASAP for my own emotional well-being and mental well-being,” Johnson said.</p>
<p />
<p />
|
Transgender teens working hard to achieve happiness
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1003928/transgender-teens-working-hard-to-achieve-happiness.html
| 2least
|
Transgender teens working hard to achieve happiness
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Gabe, a transgender teen, shows off a keychain on his backpack. (Josh Bachman/Las Cruces Sun-News)</p>
<p>LAS CRUCES – Growing up, Dan Johnson, now 14 and a student at a local high school, tried his best to fit the typical girl mold. But something about it didn’t feel right.</p>
<p>“Since I was the only girl in the family, there was a lot of pressure to just be … the little princess and all that stuff,” said Johnson, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. “But it just got to a point where I got really depressed and I just didn’t want to live.”</p>
<p>Instead, Johnson decided to take control of his happiness by exploring where he fit on the gender spectrum.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>At first, Johnson thought he might be gender-fluid, so he experimented going between male and female identities. After about two years of experimentation, Johnson found he felt most comfortable identifying as male, and came out to his parents as transgender in eighth grade.</p>
<p>“If I identify myself as a female, it just feels like I’m lying to everybody and that’s just not something I was about, because you only have a certain amount of time living here,” Johnson said. “You don’t know when you’re going to die. So, I was going to try to live my life to where I was happy and not try to please others so much.”</p>
<p>Still, he refrained from coming out at his middle school, where he faced ridicule and bullying from students for his masculine appearance. Today, Johnson said he is fortunate to go to a school where he is accepted for who he is and has the support of friends and parents. Johnson has also taken the next step in his transition from female to male with hormone therapy, which he began about six months ago.</p>
<p>Johnson’s confidence and strength make it hard to believe he once contemplated suicide, but those feelings aren’t uncommon among transgender people. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 40 percent of respondents said they had attempted suicide in their lifetime, nearly nine times the U.S. rate of 4.6 percent.</p>
<p>Thirty-nine percent of the survey’s respondents also said they “experienced serious psychological distress in the month before completing the survey, compared with only 5 percent of the U.S. population.”</p>
<p>Help available for those who need support</p>
<p>Some of the most common mental health issues transgender people face are depression and anxiety, said Andrea Dresser, a licensed marriage and family therapist who works with several transgender clients.</p>
<p>Anxiety in transgender people can often be caused by the trepidation of coming out to family members, deciding which bathroom to use, workplace situations that may arise and how to deal with being misgendered, Dresser said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It creates a lot of discomfort and anxiety for the person,” she said. “Should I correct my boss? Should I not correct my boss? It’s an educational process for everybody.”</p>
<p>Dresser said while seeing a therapist can help transgender individuals cope with depression, anxiety or other issues, it’s critical that they also connect with others who may be going through similar life changes – such as through a support group.</p>
<p>Meeting other people who have successfully transitioned and are living the life they want can give hope to those who feel like it’s impossible. Attending a support group can also help lift people out of depression, Dresser said.</p>
<p>“If someone is depressed, they tend to isolate themselves and it’s that isolation, where you’re stuck in your own thoughts and it kind of spirals down and you want to get people out of that isolation,” she said.</p>
<p>Gabe, 15, a local transgender teen who asked to keep his last name anonymous, said he’s had to deal with depression caused by both society’s expectations and the expectations he has for himself, his body and how he feels in it.</p>
<p>“I can deal with society more than how I feel about myself because I know that society has a bad mind, but I’m trying to get more loving toward myself,” Gabe said.</p>
<p>Dresser said while many parents may be quick to assume a child who comes out as transgender is just going through a phase, that is usually not the case.</p>
<p>“I think teens go through a phase of maybe questioning their sexuality or experimenting, but for a transgender child, it’s a little different; it’s not a phase,” she said. “They know from the time they’re young that something’s not right.”</p>
<p>Dresser said parents who have a transgender child should educate themselves on the subject as much as possible to provide them with the support they need.</p>
<p>Both Gabe and Johnson said they could see themselves getting surgery in the future to transition to the sex they identify with.</p>
<p>“Surgery is one of those things that I need ASAP for my own emotional well-being and mental well-being,” Johnson said.</p>
<p />
<p />
| 5,469 |
|
<p>CAIRO (AP) — With Yemen’s president swept out of power by Shiite rebels, neighboring Saudi Arabia and allies such as Egypt are considering whether and how to intervene to stop a takeover of the country by rebels they believe are backed by Shiite Iran.</p>
<p>President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked Gulf countries for military intervention and asked the United Nations to set up a no-fly zone to shut down rebel-held airports that he claims are being used to fly in Iranian weapons. The question is how Arab nations might act: Experts say a ground operation would be a likely impossibly daunting task, but that airstrikes are an option.</p>
<p>Gulf intervention would have been hard enough when Hadi was clinging to his authority after fleeing from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden. But it became an even tougher issue Wednesday, when Hadi was forced to flee Yemen by boat as rebel fighters — known as Houthis — and their allies advanced into Aden. The Houthis now control much of the north and a few southern provinces, backed by military forces loyal to Hadi’s predecessor, longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was removed in 2011 after a popular uprising.</p>
<p>There does remain resistance to the Houthis and Saleh — chiefly Sunni tribesmen in the north and center of the country, local militias and some units of the military and police remain loyal to Hadi, though they are profoundly weakened by his departure. The scattered nature of the opposition raises the question of whom would any foreign intervention being aiming to help. Also battling the Houthis are militants from al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has attracted some Sunni tribesmen as allies.</p>
<p>A summit of Arab leaders being held this weekend in Egypt is due to address a proposal to create a joint Arab defense force, an idea promoted by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to intervene in regional crises. Hadi is to attend the summit, being held in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit is also likely to address the crisis in Yemen and how to deal with it — opening the door for a possible Arab League stamp of approval for action.</p>
<p>Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdellaty said that he and his Arab counterparts would discuss the idea of establishing a joint force on Thursday, to prepare for national leaders to decide on Saturday.</p>
<p>Gulf nations also have cited their own pretext for intervention. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, warned earlier this year that they would act to protect the Arabian Peninsula’s security and described the Houthi takeover of parts of Yemen as a “terrorist” act. The Gulf’s emergency military force, known as Peninsula Shield, intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to help the Sunni monarchy crush protests backed by the Shiite majority.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies fear that the Shiite advance in Yemen is putting that strategic country on the southern Saudi borders into the control of Iran. The Houthis and Iran both deny Tehran is arming the rebels. Still, a direct air route recently opened from Tehran to Sanaa, which has been held by the Houthis since September, officially to being aid and medical supplies. Hadi and his allies say the heavy air traffic along the route is delivering Iranian weapons.</p>
<p>This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”</p>
<p>On Sunday night, Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman visited troops in the south near the Yemen border. According to the state news agency he ordered the rapid completion of plans on building a naval base and new military camps in the area, apparently part of plans to build up the army presence in the area.</p>
<p>Egypt has said for months that it would act if the Houthis threaten vital shipping lanes that lead to its Suez Canal through the Gulf of Aden, an area the Houthis have already approached. Much of the Gulf region’s oil exports destined for the West sail through the area.</p>
<p>But what would a military intervention look like? Not a ground invasion, says Sir John Jenkins, Middle East Executive Director for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.</p>
<p>“I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very low,” he said. “The Houthis are on home terrain, supported by Ali Abdullah Saleh, and have proved themselves effective fighters. They also have heavy weaponry and political support from Iran.”</p>
<p>A ground invasion now would face the tough terrain between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and a fierce enemy that for years beat back Yemeni government forces from its northern highland redoubts. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen against the Houthis once before, in late 2009 to early 2010, when the rebels’ battle at the time with Saleh’s regime spilled over across the border into the kingdom. Saudi Arabia retaliated with airstrikes against the Houthis and a ground incursion. The campaign left more than 130 Saudi troops killed.</p>
<p>More likely now would be airstrikes by some combination of Saudi Arabia, UAE or Bahrain, all of which have advanced versions of American F-16s, or Egypt, which has large numbers of older versions. Egypt would have to send its planes to air bases in Saudi for the raids, and other countries would likely opt to do the same.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia could also step up its arming of Sunni tribesmen against the Houthis. The kingdom already funds and arms Sunnis in Yemen’s Marib province, which borders the kingdom.</p>
<p>But with Hadi driven out, there isn’t a clear front line for international intervention to support. Any intervention would likely be in the name of restoring Hadi — but doing so with airstrikes alone would be a difficult task.</p>
<p>“Air strikes are a possibility, against military targets, particularly Houthi air assets, artillery and tanks, but that brings its own risks,” Jenkins said. “At the moment preserving the integrity of the land border with Saudi Arabia and the key passages in the Red Sea seems to me the priority.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Brian Rohan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brian_rohan</p>
<p>CAIRO (AP) — With Yemen’s president swept out of power by Shiite rebels, neighboring Saudi Arabia and allies such as Egypt are considering whether and how to intervene to stop a takeover of the country by rebels they believe are backed by Shiite Iran.</p>
<p>President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked Gulf countries for military intervention and asked the United Nations to set up a no-fly zone to shut down rebel-held airports that he claims are being used to fly in Iranian weapons. The question is how Arab nations might act: Experts say a ground operation would be a likely impossibly daunting task, but that airstrikes are an option.</p>
<p>Gulf intervention would have been hard enough when Hadi was clinging to his authority after fleeing from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden. But it became an even tougher issue Wednesday, when Hadi was forced to flee Yemen by boat as rebel fighters — known as Houthis — and their allies advanced into Aden. The Houthis now control much of the north and a few southern provinces, backed by military forces loyal to Hadi’s predecessor, longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was removed in 2011 after a popular uprising.</p>
<p>There does remain resistance to the Houthis and Saleh — chiefly Sunni tribesmen in the north and center of the country, local militias and some units of the military and police remain loyal to Hadi, though they are profoundly weakened by his departure. The scattered nature of the opposition raises the question of whom would any foreign intervention being aiming to help. Also battling the Houthis are militants from al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has attracted some Sunni tribesmen as allies.</p>
<p>A summit of Arab leaders being held this weekend in Egypt is due to address a proposal to create a joint Arab defense force, an idea promoted by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to intervene in regional crises. Hadi is to attend the summit, being held in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit is also likely to address the crisis in Yemen and how to deal with it — opening the door for a possible Arab League stamp of approval for action.</p>
<p>Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdellaty said that he and his Arab counterparts would discuss the idea of establishing a joint force on Thursday, to prepare for national leaders to decide on Saturday.</p>
<p>Gulf nations also have cited their own pretext for intervention. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, warned earlier this year that they would act to protect the Arabian Peninsula’s security and described the Houthi takeover of parts of Yemen as a “terrorist” act. The Gulf’s emergency military force, known as Peninsula Shield, intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to help the Sunni monarchy crush protests backed by the Shiite majority.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies fear that the Shiite advance in Yemen is putting that strategic country on the southern Saudi borders into the control of Iran. The Houthis and Iran both deny Tehran is arming the rebels. Still, a direct air route recently opened from Tehran to Sanaa, which has been held by the Houthis since September, officially to being aid and medical supplies. Hadi and his allies say the heavy air traffic along the route is delivering Iranian weapons.</p>
<p>This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”</p>
<p>On Sunday night, Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman visited troops in the south near the Yemen border. According to the state news agency he ordered the rapid completion of plans on building a naval base and new military camps in the area, apparently part of plans to build up the army presence in the area.</p>
<p>Egypt has said for months that it would act if the Houthis threaten vital shipping lanes that lead to its Suez Canal through the Gulf of Aden, an area the Houthis have already approached. Much of the Gulf region’s oil exports destined for the West sail through the area.</p>
<p>But what would a military intervention look like? Not a ground invasion, says Sir John Jenkins, Middle East Executive Director for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.</p>
<p>“I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very low,” he said. “The Houthis are on home terrain, supported by Ali Abdullah Saleh, and have proved themselves effective fighters. They also have heavy weaponry and political support from Iran.”</p>
<p>A ground invasion now would face the tough terrain between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and a fierce enemy that for years beat back Yemeni government forces from its northern highland redoubts. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen against the Houthis once before, in late 2009 to early 2010, when the rebels’ battle at the time with Saleh’s regime spilled over across the border into the kingdom. Saudi Arabia retaliated with airstrikes against the Houthis and a ground incursion. The campaign left more than 130 Saudi troops killed.</p>
<p>More likely now would be airstrikes by some combination of Saudi Arabia, UAE or Bahrain, all of which have advanced versions of American F-16s, or Egypt, which has large numbers of older versions. Egypt would have to send its planes to air bases in Saudi for the raids, and other countries would likely opt to do the same.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia could also step up its arming of Sunni tribesmen against the Houthis. The kingdom already funds and arms Sunnis in Yemen’s Marib province, which borders the kingdom.</p>
<p>But with Hadi driven out, there isn’t a clear front line for international intervention to support. Any intervention would likely be in the name of restoring Hadi — but doing so with airstrikes alone would be a difficult task.</p>
<p>“Air strikes are a possibility, against military targets, particularly Houthi air assets, artillery and tanks, but that brings its own risks,” Jenkins said. “At the moment preserving the integrity of the land border with Saudi Arabia and the key passages in the Red Sea seems to me the priority.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Brian Rohan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brian_rohan</p>
|
Saudis, Egypt consider intervention in Yemen, likely by air
| false |
https://apnews.com/85626c33a375470bb88525ac24562b26
|
2015-03-25
| 2least
|
Saudis, Egypt consider intervention in Yemen, likely by air
<p>CAIRO (AP) — With Yemen’s president swept out of power by Shiite rebels, neighboring Saudi Arabia and allies such as Egypt are considering whether and how to intervene to stop a takeover of the country by rebels they believe are backed by Shiite Iran.</p>
<p>President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked Gulf countries for military intervention and asked the United Nations to set up a no-fly zone to shut down rebel-held airports that he claims are being used to fly in Iranian weapons. The question is how Arab nations might act: Experts say a ground operation would be a likely impossibly daunting task, but that airstrikes are an option.</p>
<p>Gulf intervention would have been hard enough when Hadi was clinging to his authority after fleeing from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden. But it became an even tougher issue Wednesday, when Hadi was forced to flee Yemen by boat as rebel fighters — known as Houthis — and their allies advanced into Aden. The Houthis now control much of the north and a few southern provinces, backed by military forces loyal to Hadi’s predecessor, longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was removed in 2011 after a popular uprising.</p>
<p>There does remain resistance to the Houthis and Saleh — chiefly Sunni tribesmen in the north and center of the country, local militias and some units of the military and police remain loyal to Hadi, though they are profoundly weakened by his departure. The scattered nature of the opposition raises the question of whom would any foreign intervention being aiming to help. Also battling the Houthis are militants from al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has attracted some Sunni tribesmen as allies.</p>
<p>A summit of Arab leaders being held this weekend in Egypt is due to address a proposal to create a joint Arab defense force, an idea promoted by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to intervene in regional crises. Hadi is to attend the summit, being held in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit is also likely to address the crisis in Yemen and how to deal with it — opening the door for a possible Arab League stamp of approval for action.</p>
<p>Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdellaty said that he and his Arab counterparts would discuss the idea of establishing a joint force on Thursday, to prepare for national leaders to decide on Saturday.</p>
<p>Gulf nations also have cited their own pretext for intervention. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, warned earlier this year that they would act to protect the Arabian Peninsula’s security and described the Houthi takeover of parts of Yemen as a “terrorist” act. The Gulf’s emergency military force, known as Peninsula Shield, intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to help the Sunni monarchy crush protests backed by the Shiite majority.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies fear that the Shiite advance in Yemen is putting that strategic country on the southern Saudi borders into the control of Iran. The Houthis and Iran both deny Tehran is arming the rebels. Still, a direct air route recently opened from Tehran to Sanaa, which has been held by the Houthis since September, officially to being aid and medical supplies. Hadi and his allies say the heavy air traffic along the route is delivering Iranian weapons.</p>
<p>This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”</p>
<p>On Sunday night, Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman visited troops in the south near the Yemen border. According to the state news agency he ordered the rapid completion of plans on building a naval base and new military camps in the area, apparently part of plans to build up the army presence in the area.</p>
<p>Egypt has said for months that it would act if the Houthis threaten vital shipping lanes that lead to its Suez Canal through the Gulf of Aden, an area the Houthis have already approached. Much of the Gulf region’s oil exports destined for the West sail through the area.</p>
<p>But what would a military intervention look like? Not a ground invasion, says Sir John Jenkins, Middle East Executive Director for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.</p>
<p>“I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very low,” he said. “The Houthis are on home terrain, supported by Ali Abdullah Saleh, and have proved themselves effective fighters. They also have heavy weaponry and political support from Iran.”</p>
<p>A ground invasion now would face the tough terrain between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and a fierce enemy that for years beat back Yemeni government forces from its northern highland redoubts. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen against the Houthis once before, in late 2009 to early 2010, when the rebels’ battle at the time with Saleh’s regime spilled over across the border into the kingdom. Saudi Arabia retaliated with airstrikes against the Houthis and a ground incursion. The campaign left more than 130 Saudi troops killed.</p>
<p>More likely now would be airstrikes by some combination of Saudi Arabia, UAE or Bahrain, all of which have advanced versions of American F-16s, or Egypt, which has large numbers of older versions. Egypt would have to send its planes to air bases in Saudi for the raids, and other countries would likely opt to do the same.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia could also step up its arming of Sunni tribesmen against the Houthis. The kingdom already funds and arms Sunnis in Yemen’s Marib province, which borders the kingdom.</p>
<p>But with Hadi driven out, there isn’t a clear front line for international intervention to support. Any intervention would likely be in the name of restoring Hadi — but doing so with airstrikes alone would be a difficult task.</p>
<p>“Air strikes are a possibility, against military targets, particularly Houthi air assets, artillery and tanks, but that brings its own risks,” Jenkins said. “At the moment preserving the integrity of the land border with Saudi Arabia and the key passages in the Red Sea seems to me the priority.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Brian Rohan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brian_rohan</p>
<p>CAIRO (AP) — With Yemen’s president swept out of power by Shiite rebels, neighboring Saudi Arabia and allies such as Egypt are considering whether and how to intervene to stop a takeover of the country by rebels they believe are backed by Shiite Iran.</p>
<p>President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked Gulf countries for military intervention and asked the United Nations to set up a no-fly zone to shut down rebel-held airports that he claims are being used to fly in Iranian weapons. The question is how Arab nations might act: Experts say a ground operation would be a likely impossibly daunting task, but that airstrikes are an option.</p>
<p>Gulf intervention would have been hard enough when Hadi was clinging to his authority after fleeing from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden. But it became an even tougher issue Wednesday, when Hadi was forced to flee Yemen by boat as rebel fighters — known as Houthis — and their allies advanced into Aden. The Houthis now control much of the north and a few southern provinces, backed by military forces loyal to Hadi’s predecessor, longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was removed in 2011 after a popular uprising.</p>
<p>There does remain resistance to the Houthis and Saleh — chiefly Sunni tribesmen in the north and center of the country, local militias and some units of the military and police remain loyal to Hadi, though they are profoundly weakened by his departure. The scattered nature of the opposition raises the question of whom would any foreign intervention being aiming to help. Also battling the Houthis are militants from al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has attracted some Sunni tribesmen as allies.</p>
<p>A summit of Arab leaders being held this weekend in Egypt is due to address a proposal to create a joint Arab defense force, an idea promoted by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to intervene in regional crises. Hadi is to attend the summit, being held in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The summit is also likely to address the crisis in Yemen and how to deal with it — opening the door for a possible Arab League stamp of approval for action.</p>
<p>Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdellaty said that he and his Arab counterparts would discuss the idea of establishing a joint force on Thursday, to prepare for national leaders to decide on Saturday.</p>
<p>Gulf nations also have cited their own pretext for intervention. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, warned earlier this year that they would act to protect the Arabian Peninsula’s security and described the Houthi takeover of parts of Yemen as a “terrorist” act. The Gulf’s emergency military force, known as Peninsula Shield, intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to help the Sunni monarchy crush protests backed by the Shiite majority.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies fear that the Shiite advance in Yemen is putting that strategic country on the southern Saudi borders into the control of Iran. The Houthis and Iran both deny Tehran is arming the rebels. Still, a direct air route recently opened from Tehran to Sanaa, which has been held by the Houthis since September, officially to being aid and medical supplies. Hadi and his allies say the heavy air traffic along the route is delivering Iranian weapons.</p>
<p>This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”</p>
<p>On Sunday night, Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman visited troops in the south near the Yemen border. According to the state news agency he ordered the rapid completion of plans on building a naval base and new military camps in the area, apparently part of plans to build up the army presence in the area.</p>
<p>Egypt has said for months that it would act if the Houthis threaten vital shipping lanes that lead to its Suez Canal through the Gulf of Aden, an area the Houthis have already approached. Much of the Gulf region’s oil exports destined for the West sail through the area.</p>
<p>But what would a military intervention look like? Not a ground invasion, says Sir John Jenkins, Middle East Executive Director for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.</p>
<p>“I think the likelihood of boots on the ground is very low,” he said. “The Houthis are on home terrain, supported by Ali Abdullah Saleh, and have proved themselves effective fighters. They also have heavy weaponry and political support from Iran.”</p>
<p>A ground invasion now would face the tough terrain between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and a fierce enemy that for years beat back Yemeni government forces from its northern highland redoubts. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen against the Houthis once before, in late 2009 to early 2010, when the rebels’ battle at the time with Saleh’s regime spilled over across the border into the kingdom. Saudi Arabia retaliated with airstrikes against the Houthis and a ground incursion. The campaign left more than 130 Saudi troops killed.</p>
<p>More likely now would be airstrikes by some combination of Saudi Arabia, UAE or Bahrain, all of which have advanced versions of American F-16s, or Egypt, which has large numbers of older versions. Egypt would have to send its planes to air bases in Saudi for the raids, and other countries would likely opt to do the same.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia could also step up its arming of Sunni tribesmen against the Houthis. The kingdom already funds and arms Sunnis in Yemen’s Marib province, which borders the kingdom.</p>
<p>But with Hadi driven out, there isn’t a clear front line for international intervention to support. Any intervention would likely be in the name of restoring Hadi — but doing so with airstrikes alone would be a difficult task.</p>
<p>“Air strikes are a possibility, against military targets, particularly Houthi air assets, artillery and tanks, but that brings its own risks,” Jenkins said. “At the moment preserving the integrity of the land border with Saudi Arabia and the key passages in the Red Sea seems to me the priority.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Brian Rohan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brian_rohan</p>
| 5,470 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“Next year Lord we’d love to give thanks for everybody’s freedom and equality, but in the meantime please accept our appreciation for the fact that after you adjust for race and class, some of our kids seem not too pulled down by impossible situations.”</p>
<p>Such was the blessing spoken by the Texas Supreme Court this week as justices released a long-awaited school funding decision just in time for the American Winter Holiday Season.</p>
<p>To the wealthier school districts of Texas (known as the West Orange Cove plaintiffs) the court granted permission to raise local tax rates in behalf of educational excellence, in all the right neighborhoods.</p>
<p>To the rest of us, the court explained how the structure of funding in Texas does not make it impossible for poor districts to keep themselves accredited, and therefore the urgent pleadings from the poor districts for more support cannot be expected to rise to the level of constitutional concern.</p>
<p>In one sense it was a crisp and clear ruling, cutting through the panic arguments filed by the state in an attempt to steer the case away from the godawful facts that had impressed the trial judge. Panic arguments such as the court has no jurisdiction nor the districts proper standing were one by one dismissed. After all, the court had already issued a decade or more of school funding rulings all named Edgewood, after a famous San Antonio school system.</p>
<p>After cutting through the panic arguments, the court took the facts boldly in hand and said things like, sure, the buildings look like crap in these pictures, but what does that have to do with education? The kids seem to be passing, don’t they? It’s a bad situation, but it’s not that bad. One fourth of all school districts in Texas have not yet levied special taxes to support their own school buildings, so the question of the state’s obligation is beside the point.</p>
<p>This Thanksgiving, we can give thanks to a few attorneys and school districts who jumped into the lawsuit because they wanted to make sure the rich districts didn’t run away with the all the money. In that struggle, our longstanding heroes from Edgewood and Alvarado seem to have maintained a very costly line in the form of a warning from the Supreme Court that if things get much worse, well there has to be some limit to the amount of hypocrisy the court will publicly tolerate.</p>
<p>MALDEF was quick to denounce the decision as justice delayed for the children of Texas. With richer districts now able to enhance, their schools through higher local taxes than previously allowed, and with the legislature under no real court pressure to make things more equal (just don’t let them get much more unequal) the timeline for justice is matching up a little closer to that previously scheduled cold day in hell.</p>
<p>“In 2003, said the court, “Texas ranked last among the states in the percentage of high school graduates at least 25 years old in the population. Fully half the Hispanic students and nearly half the African-American students drop out during high school. In Texas, Black and Hispanic students are the majority. By the year 2040, these minorities, will constitute two-thirds of the population. But the cost of a just education is difficult to quantify said the court. Glaring challenges of high school literacy the court could not quite translate into a single legal reason for constitutional urgency.</p>
<p>There was a dissenting opinion: a heartfelt manifesto for justice through competition, duly applied to suggestions for competition between districts and more tax money for private schools.</p>
<p>BTW, all those anti-affirmative action voices who say we should really start equalizing education at the elementary level? There were so many of them hollering when the Hopwood case was news. Today they seem quite happy to note with the Texas Supreme Court that democracy is still good enough for constitutional purposes so long as you know how to properly adjust your expectations for differences of race and class.</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s the news from Texas. Dog bites kid. Pass the turkey please.</p>
<p>GREG MOSES is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of <a href="" type="internal">Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence</a>. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and Bush appears in <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">Dime’s Worth of Difference</a>, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Thanksgiving Delayed
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2005/11/24/thanksgiving-delayed/
|
2005-11-24
| 4left
|
Thanksgiving Delayed
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“Next year Lord we’d love to give thanks for everybody’s freedom and equality, but in the meantime please accept our appreciation for the fact that after you adjust for race and class, some of our kids seem not too pulled down by impossible situations.”</p>
<p>Such was the blessing spoken by the Texas Supreme Court this week as justices released a long-awaited school funding decision just in time for the American Winter Holiday Season.</p>
<p>To the wealthier school districts of Texas (known as the West Orange Cove plaintiffs) the court granted permission to raise local tax rates in behalf of educational excellence, in all the right neighborhoods.</p>
<p>To the rest of us, the court explained how the structure of funding in Texas does not make it impossible for poor districts to keep themselves accredited, and therefore the urgent pleadings from the poor districts for more support cannot be expected to rise to the level of constitutional concern.</p>
<p>In one sense it was a crisp and clear ruling, cutting through the panic arguments filed by the state in an attempt to steer the case away from the godawful facts that had impressed the trial judge. Panic arguments such as the court has no jurisdiction nor the districts proper standing were one by one dismissed. After all, the court had already issued a decade or more of school funding rulings all named Edgewood, after a famous San Antonio school system.</p>
<p>After cutting through the panic arguments, the court took the facts boldly in hand and said things like, sure, the buildings look like crap in these pictures, but what does that have to do with education? The kids seem to be passing, don’t they? It’s a bad situation, but it’s not that bad. One fourth of all school districts in Texas have not yet levied special taxes to support their own school buildings, so the question of the state’s obligation is beside the point.</p>
<p>This Thanksgiving, we can give thanks to a few attorneys and school districts who jumped into the lawsuit because they wanted to make sure the rich districts didn’t run away with the all the money. In that struggle, our longstanding heroes from Edgewood and Alvarado seem to have maintained a very costly line in the form of a warning from the Supreme Court that if things get much worse, well there has to be some limit to the amount of hypocrisy the court will publicly tolerate.</p>
<p>MALDEF was quick to denounce the decision as justice delayed for the children of Texas. With richer districts now able to enhance, their schools through higher local taxes than previously allowed, and with the legislature under no real court pressure to make things more equal (just don’t let them get much more unequal) the timeline for justice is matching up a little closer to that previously scheduled cold day in hell.</p>
<p>“In 2003, said the court, “Texas ranked last among the states in the percentage of high school graduates at least 25 years old in the population. Fully half the Hispanic students and nearly half the African-American students drop out during high school. In Texas, Black and Hispanic students are the majority. By the year 2040, these minorities, will constitute two-thirds of the population. But the cost of a just education is difficult to quantify said the court. Glaring challenges of high school literacy the court could not quite translate into a single legal reason for constitutional urgency.</p>
<p>There was a dissenting opinion: a heartfelt manifesto for justice through competition, duly applied to suggestions for competition between districts and more tax money for private schools.</p>
<p>BTW, all those anti-affirmative action voices who say we should really start equalizing education at the elementary level? There were so many of them hollering when the Hopwood case was news. Today they seem quite happy to note with the Texas Supreme Court that democracy is still good enough for constitutional purposes so long as you know how to properly adjust your expectations for differences of race and class.</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s the news from Texas. Dog bites kid. Pass the turkey please.</p>
<p>GREG MOSES is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of <a href="" type="internal">Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence</a>. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and Bush appears in <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">Dime’s Worth of Difference</a>, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 5,471 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Dean Falk, a senior scholar at Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research, spent the last year immersed in what might be the next best thing. Using long-lost photos of the famous physicist’s brain, she mapped its ridges and furrows to help science seek some clues to the terrain of genius.</p>
<p>Her paper on the findings, published with two co-authors Thursday in the journal Brain, found some exceptional patterns and set out a road map to help guide future research.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>That road map came from discovering and publishing the original diagram, made in 1955 by pathologist Dr. Thomas S. Harvey, who meticulously labeled portions of Einstein’s brain, which were cut into 240 blocks, with thin portions, then sliced off for microscopic study.</p>
<p>“Histologists will know which slides came from (which) area,” Falk said of the diagrams published Thursday. “That was the big goal, so future scientists can study the internal organization” of Einstein’s brain.</p>
<p>Falk also fixed labels to diagrams she traced from the brain photos, identifying the individual sulci (furrows) and gyri (ridges) in Einstein’s brain.</p>
<p>“They all have names,” she said, a little grimly, adding later that she was so consumed by her work that, lying in bed at night, she saw mental images of the brain on her ceiling.</p>
<p>Falk also discovered an “oops” moment in science. Exploring a view toward the bottom of the brain, Falk determined that a slip of the scalpel probably caused a couple of unintended cuts during removal.</p>
<p>“That was pretty juicy,” she said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Falk worked on the paper while at SAR, where she came as a resident scholar in 2008-09, then wrangled a post as senior scholar. A paleoanthropologist, she is also a professor at Florida State University.</p>
<p>The work in this paper stems from a recent donation of Einstein material from Harvey’s descendants. Falk explained how that came about.</p>
<p>“In 2009, I saw a few public pictures of his brain from 1955, and I noticed something unusual that hadn’t been described,” she said.</p>
<p>Discovering that a number of other photos existed, she wanted to see them. Falk contacted Dr. Frederick Lepore, professor of neurology and ophthalmology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who is the second-named author of the Brain paper.</p>
<p>“He did some detective work and located a treasure trove of materials,” including photos and slides of Einstein’s brain, related correspondence and more, in the pathologist’s estate, she said. With Lepore’s encouragement, Harvey’s relatives in 2010 “quietly donated” the materials to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Md.</p>
<p>Museum Director Adrianne Noe then helped make those materials available for Falk’s work.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Unusual angles</p>
<p>Some of the photos show unusual angles of Einstein’s brain, and the 14 she used in her study led Falk to conclude that the brain was not spherical, as some studies have said, and was not unusual in size or shape.</p>
<p>But the organization of certain sections of the brain are, indeed, unusual, she said. “The brain itself turned out to be quite extraordinary in a bunch of places,” Falk said, compared to 85 normal brains that have been described in published research.</p>
<p>“Usually, there are three big convolutions on each side on the frontal lobes,” Falk said. The right side of Einstein’s brain shows four folds in that area.</p>
<p>“That’s very dramatic,” Falk said. “That may be the most highly evolved part of the human brain.” It is involved in planning, daydreaming, analyzing problems and finding solutions, she said. It is also the area that might have been used in Einstein’s famous thought experiments, such as what it would be like to travel alongside a beam of light.</p>
<p>There is also “a huge rectangular patch” in the sensory and motor brain surface that normally corresponds to use of the face and tongue. While not definitively offering this as an explanation, Falk wrote in the paper, “… it is interesting that Einstein famously wrote that thinking entailed an association of images and ‘feelings,’ and that, for him, the elements of thought were, not only visual, but also ‘muscular.’ ”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>There were some asymmetries in the parietal lobes, which are associated with visual-spatial understanding useful in math, and the sense of your body moving through space, she said.</p>
<p>And, as noted in previous analyses, there’s a noticeable bump in the upper right part of the brain, often seen in right-handed violin players who took lessons as children and continued playing through their lives, as Einstein did, she said. That would show greater muscular control developed in the usually weaker left hand, which had to learn the intricate fingering required in playing a violin.</p>
<p>So was Einstein a genetic freak, whose brain was destined from birth to dream up the theory of relativity and the famous e=mc² equation?</p>
<p>Falk said genius may come from a combination of nature and nurture.</p>
<p>“Certainly, a lot of this is genetic,” she said. “But he had parents who allowed him to pursue his own curiosity. His dad and uncle were mechanically inclined … his mom gave him piano and violin lessons.”</p>
<p>That kind of combination helped Einstein fulfill his potential, Falk said. “You have to be born at the right time, in the right place, with the right brain.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Some portions missing</p>
<p>It’s suspected that Einstein himself would not be very pleased about having his brain scattered around the world. He instructed that his body be cremated and no shrines or museums be established at his former home or grave, Falk said. As a matter of fact, it’s not known where his ashes are, according to the paper.</p>
<p>His eyes were also removed from his body and are in private hands, Falk said, adding that his family agreed only after the fact to have his brain removed and studied.</p>
<p>Most of the brain blocks created – 180 out of 240 – are at the University Medical Center in Princeton, according to the paper, and 567 of the microscope slides are at the Maryland museum. A few other blocks of tissue are in Ontario, California, Alabama, Argentina, Japan, Hawaii and Philadelphia, according to the paper.</p>
<p>“The locations of the remaining portions of Einstein’s brain are unknown. Similarly, the majority of the microscope slides are unaccounted for,” it adds.</p>
|
Einstein’s Brain May Give Clues to Genius
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/146738/einsteins-brain-may-give-clues-to-genius.html
|
2012-11-16
| 2least
|
Einstein’s Brain May Give Clues to Genius
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Dean Falk, a senior scholar at Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research, spent the last year immersed in what might be the next best thing. Using long-lost photos of the famous physicist’s brain, she mapped its ridges and furrows to help science seek some clues to the terrain of genius.</p>
<p>Her paper on the findings, published with two co-authors Thursday in the journal Brain, found some exceptional patterns and set out a road map to help guide future research.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>That road map came from discovering and publishing the original diagram, made in 1955 by pathologist Dr. Thomas S. Harvey, who meticulously labeled portions of Einstein’s brain, which were cut into 240 blocks, with thin portions, then sliced off for microscopic study.</p>
<p>“Histologists will know which slides came from (which) area,” Falk said of the diagrams published Thursday. “That was the big goal, so future scientists can study the internal organization” of Einstein’s brain.</p>
<p>Falk also fixed labels to diagrams she traced from the brain photos, identifying the individual sulci (furrows) and gyri (ridges) in Einstein’s brain.</p>
<p>“They all have names,” she said, a little grimly, adding later that she was so consumed by her work that, lying in bed at night, she saw mental images of the brain on her ceiling.</p>
<p>Falk also discovered an “oops” moment in science. Exploring a view toward the bottom of the brain, Falk determined that a slip of the scalpel probably caused a couple of unintended cuts during removal.</p>
<p>“That was pretty juicy,” she said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Falk worked on the paper while at SAR, where she came as a resident scholar in 2008-09, then wrangled a post as senior scholar. A paleoanthropologist, she is also a professor at Florida State University.</p>
<p>The work in this paper stems from a recent donation of Einstein material from Harvey’s descendants. Falk explained how that came about.</p>
<p>“In 2009, I saw a few public pictures of his brain from 1955, and I noticed something unusual that hadn’t been described,” she said.</p>
<p>Discovering that a number of other photos existed, she wanted to see them. Falk contacted Dr. Frederick Lepore, professor of neurology and ophthalmology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who is the second-named author of the Brain paper.</p>
<p>“He did some detective work and located a treasure trove of materials,” including photos and slides of Einstein’s brain, related correspondence and more, in the pathologist’s estate, she said. With Lepore’s encouragement, Harvey’s relatives in 2010 “quietly donated” the materials to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Md.</p>
<p>Museum Director Adrianne Noe then helped make those materials available for Falk’s work.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Unusual angles</p>
<p>Some of the photos show unusual angles of Einstein’s brain, and the 14 she used in her study led Falk to conclude that the brain was not spherical, as some studies have said, and was not unusual in size or shape.</p>
<p>But the organization of certain sections of the brain are, indeed, unusual, she said. “The brain itself turned out to be quite extraordinary in a bunch of places,” Falk said, compared to 85 normal brains that have been described in published research.</p>
<p>“Usually, there are three big convolutions on each side on the frontal lobes,” Falk said. The right side of Einstein’s brain shows four folds in that area.</p>
<p>“That’s very dramatic,” Falk said. “That may be the most highly evolved part of the human brain.” It is involved in planning, daydreaming, analyzing problems and finding solutions, she said. It is also the area that might have been used in Einstein’s famous thought experiments, such as what it would be like to travel alongside a beam of light.</p>
<p>There is also “a huge rectangular patch” in the sensory and motor brain surface that normally corresponds to use of the face and tongue. While not definitively offering this as an explanation, Falk wrote in the paper, “… it is interesting that Einstein famously wrote that thinking entailed an association of images and ‘feelings,’ and that, for him, the elements of thought were, not only visual, but also ‘muscular.’ ”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>There were some asymmetries in the parietal lobes, which are associated with visual-spatial understanding useful in math, and the sense of your body moving through space, she said.</p>
<p>And, as noted in previous analyses, there’s a noticeable bump in the upper right part of the brain, often seen in right-handed violin players who took lessons as children and continued playing through their lives, as Einstein did, she said. That would show greater muscular control developed in the usually weaker left hand, which had to learn the intricate fingering required in playing a violin.</p>
<p>So was Einstein a genetic freak, whose brain was destined from birth to dream up the theory of relativity and the famous e=mc² equation?</p>
<p>Falk said genius may come from a combination of nature and nurture.</p>
<p>“Certainly, a lot of this is genetic,” she said. “But he had parents who allowed him to pursue his own curiosity. His dad and uncle were mechanically inclined … his mom gave him piano and violin lessons.”</p>
<p>That kind of combination helped Einstein fulfill his potential, Falk said. “You have to be born at the right time, in the right place, with the right brain.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Some portions missing</p>
<p>It’s suspected that Einstein himself would not be very pleased about having his brain scattered around the world. He instructed that his body be cremated and no shrines or museums be established at his former home or grave, Falk said. As a matter of fact, it’s not known where his ashes are, according to the paper.</p>
<p>His eyes were also removed from his body and are in private hands, Falk said, adding that his family agreed only after the fact to have his brain removed and studied.</p>
<p>Most of the brain blocks created – 180 out of 240 – are at the University Medical Center in Princeton, according to the paper, and 567 of the microscope slides are at the Maryland museum. A few other blocks of tissue are in Ontario, California, Alabama, Argentina, Japan, Hawaii and Philadelphia, according to the paper.</p>
<p>“The locations of the remaining portions of Einstein’s brain are unknown. Similarly, the majority of the microscope slides are unaccounted for,” it adds.</p>
| 5,472 |
<p>(Screenshot courtesy of YouTube)</p>
<p>Sherry Vine launches&#160;gaySVTVworld, an online television network featuring original programming from “top queer talent,” on Feb. 14, the Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sherry-vine-tv-network_us_56b27851e4b01d80b244ff3b" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Vine will work in collaboration with former&#160;Here-TV executive Josh Rosenzweig to bring eight programs to Vine’s official <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/misssherryvine/featured" type="external">YouTube</a> page. The shows will be a combination of music videos and short films such as “Sherry and the Greek,” a talk show featuring Vine and YouTuber Chris Semers.</p>
<p>Another show, “Fashion Puhleez,” will be “The Rachel Zoe Show-meets-Project Runway” according to the press release. There will also be “EduGAYtion,” a roundtable discussion of the best moments in pop culture. One night a week, a short LGBT film will be uploaded to the channel. Running throughout the week will be “What’s in Your Purse?,” a two-minute segment where unsuspecting people must show the contents of their purse.</p>
<p>The segments all have a short format with a run time of under seven minutes.</p>
<p>“We’re offering short content so people can view several episodes in the same amount of time as one traditional TV show,” Vine says in a press release. “Maybe you only have five free minutes on your way to work or during a lunch break. That’s enough time to catch a hilarious episode of ‘Fashion Puhleez’ on your smart phone!”</p>
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chris Semers</a> <a href="" type="internal">gaySVTVworld</a> <a href="" type="internal">Huffington Post</a> <a href="" type="internal">Josh Rosenzweig</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sherry Vine</a> <a href="" type="internal">youtube</a></p>
|
Drag queen Sherry Vine launches queer network
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2016/02/05/drag-queen-sherry-vine-launches-queer-network/
| 3left-center
|
Drag queen Sherry Vine launches queer network
<p>(Screenshot courtesy of YouTube)</p>
<p>Sherry Vine launches&#160;gaySVTVworld, an online television network featuring original programming from “top queer talent,” on Feb. 14, the Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sherry-vine-tv-network_us_56b27851e4b01d80b244ff3b" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Vine will work in collaboration with former&#160;Here-TV executive Josh Rosenzweig to bring eight programs to Vine’s official <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/misssherryvine/featured" type="external">YouTube</a> page. The shows will be a combination of music videos and short films such as “Sherry and the Greek,” a talk show featuring Vine and YouTuber Chris Semers.</p>
<p>Another show, “Fashion Puhleez,” will be “The Rachel Zoe Show-meets-Project Runway” according to the press release. There will also be “EduGAYtion,” a roundtable discussion of the best moments in pop culture. One night a week, a short LGBT film will be uploaded to the channel. Running throughout the week will be “What’s in Your Purse?,” a two-minute segment where unsuspecting people must show the contents of their purse.</p>
<p>The segments all have a short format with a run time of under seven minutes.</p>
<p>“We’re offering short content so people can view several episodes in the same amount of time as one traditional TV show,” Vine says in a press release. “Maybe you only have five free minutes on your way to work or during a lunch break. That’s enough time to catch a hilarious episode of ‘Fashion Puhleez’ on your smart phone!”</p>
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chris Semers</a> <a href="" type="internal">gaySVTVworld</a> <a href="" type="internal">Huffington Post</a> <a href="" type="internal">Josh Rosenzweig</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sherry Vine</a> <a href="" type="internal">youtube</a></p>
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<p>House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks during a weekly press conference in October.Andrew Harnik/AP</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress finally released their tax cut plan on Thursday.&#160;The details of the <a href="https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text.pdf" type="external">429-page bill</a>&#160;will take days to decipher. But the overall aim remains clear: President Donald Trump and Republicans are prioritizing a massive corporate tax cut that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. Those cuts will be paid for by $1.5 trillion of deficit-spending over the next 10 years.</p>
<p>The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act&#160;released on Thursday mostly sticks to the <a href="" type="internal">framework</a>&#160;that Republicans released in September.&#160;The corporate tax rate would fall from 35 percent to 20 percent, while almost all individuals&#160;would now be grouped into to three tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent. Households that make more than $1 million would pay the top rate of 39.6 percent.&#160;</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center <a href="" type="internal">estimates</a> that about 80 percent of the benefits under the initial framework would go to the top 1 percent of Americans. The TPC estimated that the GOP framework would cut middle-class families’&#160;tax bills by $660 next year, compared with $722,000 for the top 0.1 percent of Americans.&#160;Republicans claim that the average family would get a $1,182 tax cut.</p>
<p>Republicans’ September proposal was vague about which loopholes would be closed to offset their tax cuts. On Thursday, House Republicans made clear that they plan to eliminate many popular deductions. Among those changes&#160;are deductions for medical expenses and student-loan interest, as well as a tax credit for adoption, the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/tax-bill-2017" type="external">reports</a>. For new home purchases, the deduction for mortgage interest would be limited to loans under $500,000, down from $1 million today.</p>
<p>Republicans hope to discourage people from itemizing deductions in the first place by increasing the standard deduction. The TPC <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/mortgage-interest-deduction-would-be-worth-much-less-under-unified-framework" type="external">estimates</a> that about 5 percent of families would itemize their deductions under Trump’s framework, compared with 26 percent today. As Mother Jones has <a href="" type="internal">reported</a>, Republicans claim that they are doubling the standard deduction,&#160;but that&#160;is highly misleading because their plan eliminates personal exemptions that are worth $4,050 per household member.</p>
<p>Some of the changes that Republicans had considered did not end up in the final bill. As Trump demanded, there will be no major changes to 401(k) plans. After a backlash from blue-state Republicans, the bill includes a deduction for up to $10,000 of property taxes, while still getting rid of deduction for income and sales taxes. That compromise is less significant than it sounds. Only <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/salt-compromise-similar-harm-to-states-as-full-repeal" type="external">2 percent</a> of state tax revenues come from property taxes, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Completely repealing the state and local deduction would lead to taxes going up for <a href="" type="internal">1 in&#160;six</a> Americans, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In&#160;a high-tax state like Maryland, nearly 1 in 3 households would see their taxes increase.&#160;</p>
<p>For individuals, there would be four tax brackets instead of the current seven brackets. The lowest tax rate would climb from 10 percent to 12 percent, while the top rate would remain at 39.6 percent. The increase in the bottom rate would be offset by a larger share of income being taxed at 12 percent, rather than 15 percent, along with a $600 increase to the Child Tax Credit.&#160;The top bracket would only apply to households that make more than $1 million per year, compared with $470,000 today.</p>
<p>The biggest gifts to the wealthiest Americans on the individual side come from eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax, which helps ensures that wealthy people don’t use loopholes to reduce their tax liability to next to nothing. In 2005, the AMT increased Trump’s effective tax rate from 4 percent to 24 percent, a $31 million difference. The estate tax only impacts the wealthiest <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax" type="external">0.2 percent</a> of Americans, because the share of inheritances below $11 million for couples is exempted. The Republican bill would immediately double that threshold and by 2024 it would be entirely repealed. Getting rid of the estate tax would be a massive gift to Trump’s children and other heirs.</p>
<p>As expected, most of the cuts are on the corporate side of the tax code. The corporate tax rate would fall from 35 to 20 percent, while business owners whose profits are taxed as individual income—known as pass-through companies—would see their top tax rate drop from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. Those two provisions alone would cost about <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/preliminary-analysis-unified-framework/full" type="external">$2.7 trillion</a> over the next decade, according to the TPC.</p>
<p>The Republican bill attempts to stop top-earners,&#160;such as lawyers,&#160;from reclassifying themselves as pass-through companies by implementing “guardrails,” such as excluding professional service companies. In doing so, the bill adds significant complexity to the tax code, despite Republicans’ stated aim of making it simpler to pay taxes. In September, Seth Hanlon, a tax expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, <a href="" type="internal">told</a> Mother Jones that stopping wealthy Americans from abusing the expanded pass-through loophole would be impossible to achieve in practice.</p>
<p>The budget resolution <a href="" type="internal">passed</a> by the House last week allows Congress to increase deficit-spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. The TPC has estimated that Republicans initial cuts would cost $900 billion more than that. Republicans are using what nonpartisan groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget <a href="http://www.crfb.org/papers/five-gimmicks-may-hide-true-costs-tax-reform" type="external">considers</a> gimmicky and deceptive accounting to mask tax cuts that are likely to cost more than their $1.5 trillion limit.</p>
<p>The bill, for example, proposes a new $300 tax credit for adult dependents, such as college students. But the credit would expire after five years. When that deadline approaches, there will be pressure to extend it again or make it permanent—further increasing the cost of the cuts. The corporate tax cut, on the other hand, would not expire.&#160;</p>
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Republicans Unveil Huge Corporate Tax Cuts Paid For by Deficit-Spending
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https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/republicans-unveil-huge-corporate-tax-cuts-paid-for-by-deficit-spending/
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2017-11-02
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Republicans Unveil Huge Corporate Tax Cuts Paid For by Deficit-Spending
<p>House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks during a weekly press conference in October.Andrew Harnik/AP</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress finally released their tax cut plan on Thursday.&#160;The details of the <a href="https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text.pdf" type="external">429-page bill</a>&#160;will take days to decipher. But the overall aim remains clear: President Donald Trump and Republicans are prioritizing a massive corporate tax cut that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. Those cuts will be paid for by $1.5 trillion of deficit-spending over the next 10 years.</p>
<p>The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act&#160;released on Thursday mostly sticks to the <a href="" type="internal">framework</a>&#160;that Republicans released in September.&#160;The corporate tax rate would fall from 35 percent to 20 percent, while almost all individuals&#160;would now be grouped into to three tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent. Households that make more than $1 million would pay the top rate of 39.6 percent.&#160;</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center <a href="" type="internal">estimates</a> that about 80 percent of the benefits under the initial framework would go to the top 1 percent of Americans. The TPC estimated that the GOP framework would cut middle-class families’&#160;tax bills by $660 next year, compared with $722,000 for the top 0.1 percent of Americans.&#160;Republicans claim that the average family would get a $1,182 tax cut.</p>
<p>Republicans’ September proposal was vague about which loopholes would be closed to offset their tax cuts. On Thursday, House Republicans made clear that they plan to eliminate many popular deductions. Among those changes&#160;are deductions for medical expenses and student-loan interest, as well as a tax credit for adoption, the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/tax-bill-2017" type="external">reports</a>. For new home purchases, the deduction for mortgage interest would be limited to loans under $500,000, down from $1 million today.</p>
<p>Republicans hope to discourage people from itemizing deductions in the first place by increasing the standard deduction. The TPC <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/mortgage-interest-deduction-would-be-worth-much-less-under-unified-framework" type="external">estimates</a> that about 5 percent of families would itemize their deductions under Trump’s framework, compared with 26 percent today. As Mother Jones has <a href="" type="internal">reported</a>, Republicans claim that they are doubling the standard deduction,&#160;but that&#160;is highly misleading because their plan eliminates personal exemptions that are worth $4,050 per household member.</p>
<p>Some of the changes that Republicans had considered did not end up in the final bill. As Trump demanded, there will be no major changes to 401(k) plans. After a backlash from blue-state Republicans, the bill includes a deduction for up to $10,000 of property taxes, while still getting rid of deduction for income and sales taxes. That compromise is less significant than it sounds. Only <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/salt-compromise-similar-harm-to-states-as-full-repeal" type="external">2 percent</a> of state tax revenues come from property taxes, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Completely repealing the state and local deduction would lead to taxes going up for <a href="" type="internal">1 in&#160;six</a> Americans, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In&#160;a high-tax state like Maryland, nearly 1 in 3 households would see their taxes increase.&#160;</p>
<p>For individuals, there would be four tax brackets instead of the current seven brackets. The lowest tax rate would climb from 10 percent to 12 percent, while the top rate would remain at 39.6 percent. The increase in the bottom rate would be offset by a larger share of income being taxed at 12 percent, rather than 15 percent, along with a $600 increase to the Child Tax Credit.&#160;The top bracket would only apply to households that make more than $1 million per year, compared with $470,000 today.</p>
<p>The biggest gifts to the wealthiest Americans on the individual side come from eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax, which helps ensures that wealthy people don’t use loopholes to reduce their tax liability to next to nothing. In 2005, the AMT increased Trump’s effective tax rate from 4 percent to 24 percent, a $31 million difference. The estate tax only impacts the wealthiest <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax" type="external">0.2 percent</a> of Americans, because the share of inheritances below $11 million for couples is exempted. The Republican bill would immediately double that threshold and by 2024 it would be entirely repealed. Getting rid of the estate tax would be a massive gift to Trump’s children and other heirs.</p>
<p>As expected, most of the cuts are on the corporate side of the tax code. The corporate tax rate would fall from 35 to 20 percent, while business owners whose profits are taxed as individual income—known as pass-through companies—would see their top tax rate drop from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. Those two provisions alone would cost about <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/preliminary-analysis-unified-framework/full" type="external">$2.7 trillion</a> over the next decade, according to the TPC.</p>
<p>The Republican bill attempts to stop top-earners,&#160;such as lawyers,&#160;from reclassifying themselves as pass-through companies by implementing “guardrails,” such as excluding professional service companies. In doing so, the bill adds significant complexity to the tax code, despite Republicans’ stated aim of making it simpler to pay taxes. In September, Seth Hanlon, a tax expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, <a href="" type="internal">told</a> Mother Jones that stopping wealthy Americans from abusing the expanded pass-through loophole would be impossible to achieve in practice.</p>
<p>The budget resolution <a href="" type="internal">passed</a> by the House last week allows Congress to increase deficit-spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. The TPC has estimated that Republicans initial cuts would cost $900 billion more than that. Republicans are using what nonpartisan groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget <a href="http://www.crfb.org/papers/five-gimmicks-may-hide-true-costs-tax-reform" type="external">considers</a> gimmicky and deceptive accounting to mask tax cuts that are likely to cost more than their $1.5 trillion limit.</p>
<p>The bill, for example, proposes a new $300 tax credit for adult dependents, such as college students. But the credit would expire after five years. When that deadline approaches, there will be pressure to extend it again or make it permanent—further increasing the cost of the cuts. The corporate tax cut, on the other hand, would not expire.&#160;</p>
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<p>“The Estate of Zion is pitiful because of sin and iniquity.”</p>
<p>“The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.”</p>
<p>(Lamentations of Jeremiah 4:11)</p>
<p>The Prophet Jeremiah (626-586 B.C.) lamented the pitiful state of Zion as it “shed the blood of the just in the midst of her” and as the “sons of Zion” “wandered as blind men in the streets, they (have) polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments” (Lam. 4: 13-14). And he prophesied that Zion would become “a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends.” As we witness Ariel Sharon slide ineluctably into that great dark night, the words of Jeremiah come back to haunt Israel. This man, like no other in recent Israeli politics, has left his indelible mark on Palestine carved like a searing branding iron on the landscape, the mark created by his Wall of Fear, which marks the Israel he strove to create out of stolen Palestinian land even as he herded three million people into walled corrals like cattle. This man, who wielded euphemistic words to kill truth as skillfully as he thrust his sword to kill the innocent, created a new party, the National Responsibility Party, to retain power that he might finish his job of cleansing Israel of Palestinians. Who better to create a stillborn party of such a name than the man who severed the national spirit of the Jews by wielding a sword that cut in two the very fabric of Jewish morality.</p>
<p>Let’s view this man as he stumbles off the political stage in Israel, when but a week ago he hoped to grasp the olive branch of the Labor Party to swing back into power. As America’s main stream press prepares to eulogize this man for his many accomplishments following the lead of USA TODAY ­ “Ariel Sharon first came to prominence as an army officer in the 1950s. After leaving the military he entered politics, forging the hardline Likud Party. In 1982, Sharon was forced to step down as the party’s defense minister, but re-emerged as prime minister in 2001” ­ and other non-descript passages that overlook the truth of what the man did. In 1982, Sharon was forced to leave his post because he oversaw and permitted the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, an event, together with his mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank some 20 years later, for which he faces prosecution for war crimes in Belgium. These details the American people are not to know nor are they to know that the UNSC passed Resolution 521 condemning those massacres. So as Sharon awaits the inevitable, let us view him against a moral mirror that will reflect his most grievous crimes. Let’s view what Sharon’s IDF has done and continues to do in light of a resolution adopted by the UN unanimously and without abstentions, a document that Israel signed at a later date, the Genocide Convention of the United Nations.</p>
<p>In 1944 the term “genocide” appeared in Raphael Lemkin’s Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. This passage by Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn summarizes Lemkin’s understanding:</p>
<p>Under Lemkin’s definition, genocide was the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group. Lemkin conceived of genocide as ‘a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction.’ His definition included attacks on political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of the group. Even nonlethal acts that undermined the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of a group constituted genocide if they contributed to weakening the viability of the group. Under Lemkin’s definition, acts of ethnocide ­ a term coined by the French after the war to cover the destruction of a culture without the killing of its bearers ­ also qualified for genocide. (The History and Sociology of Genocide, 1990)</p>
<p>It was Lemkin’s work that paved the way for the Convention passed by the United Nations in 1948. Lemkin’s “composite of different acts of persecution or destruction” includes attacks on a people’s political institutions, its culture, its national feelings, its religion, and its economic existence. It also includes non-lethal acts that undermine the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of the group as they result in weakening the viability of the group. It would appear that many of the actions perpetrated by Sharon and his government and carried out by the IDF fit Lemkin’s definition. Let’s consider the UN wording as we review Sharon’s tenure in office.</p>
<p>These are the criteria that determine genocide under the UN Convention.</p>
<p>Article II:</p>
<p>“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: a. Killing members of the group; b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”</p>
<p>Article III:</p>
<p>“The following acts shall be punishable: a. Genocide; b. Conspiracy to commit genocide; c. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; d. Attempt to commit genocide; e. Complicity in genocide.”</p>
<p>Let’s focus on “a” and “b” only from Article II leaving “c” for another article since space is at a premium. But let’s note in passing that the acts described in the UN Convention are not restricted to a nation state and its people, but to groups, groups like the Palestinians who have no recognized state but do represent an ethnical, racial, and religious group. The UN in recognizing Israel as a state for Jews in 1947 also recognized a state for the indigenous population of Palestine though that group failed to acquiesce to the UNGA resolution at that time. The UN has consistently maintained that recognition since 1947 through approximately 169 resolutions that identify the Palestinian group as aggrieved by the Israelis. Thus it is appropriate that we consider the acts perpetrated on the Palestinians by the Sharon government to determine if in fact they constitute a breach of the UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.</p>
<p>a. KILLING MEMBERS OF THE GROUP:</p>
<p>Following Ariel Sharon’s blatant desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque with his entourage of 1000 IDF soldiers, the start of the current Intifada in 2000, an act intended to force the Palestinians to anger and rioting, the most recent count of Israeli inflicted death on Palestinians stands at 4,140 (AAP reports on 10/15/05 that 4,845 Palestinians have been killed), 887 of these children, 117 caused by medical prevention by IDF forces and another 31 still born births resulting from IDF checkpoints that did not allow the mothers access to hospitals (MIFTAH Report on deaths to 10/5/05). By contrast, during this same time period, 1113 Israelis were killed. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society counts 29,198 injuries with 3530 of these permanently disabled (PRCS web site 10/23/05). In short, Israeli soldiers kill in excess of 1,000 Palestinians each year and permanently maim a similar number. Let us note that the Hague Court has determined that the killing of 7000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 by General Radislav Krsyic constituted genocide rejecting his argument that the numbers were too insignificant to be called genocide.</p>
<p>Since these killings result not only from rifle fire but from tanks, bombs, missiles, and F-16 fighter jets, and since approximately 1,300 were women and children or those killed by prevention of medical care, they constitute crimes against Article 33 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, an article that states explicitly “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited … Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.” This means that IDF force that can produce death and/or injury to non-combatants must not be used nor can collective punishment be inflicted, yet that is the modus operandi of the IDF in its acts against Palestinians.</p>
<p>Perhaps a recent and all too familiar vignette might make the above statistics come alive. “Three Palestinian teenagers were shot by Israeli troops patrolling the southern section of Israel’s border with Gaza” The bodies were discovered by medics next to the security fence near the Kissufim crossing; none were armed though they carried bags with food and clothing. An Israeli army spokesman said troops had opened fire towards three “suspicious figures” crawling close to the Palestinian side of the fence. No attempt had been made to intercept the youngsters nor to determine where they were going (Justice Freedom, 10/17/05). Such acts of indifferent brutality are contrary to the laws that govern occupation armies even as they proclaim the intent of the IDF to kill wantonly Palestinians.</p>
<p>Furthermore, since almost all of the above killings occurred on Palestinian land, occupied by the invading Israeli military, they constitute breaches of International Law that requires explicit behavior of the occupying forces, behavior that respects and protects the rights and individuality of the population suffering the occupation (See 75 U.N.T.S. 287 [1949] and Protocol I 1125 U.N.T.S. 3 [1979]). In addition, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1544 (2004) “cites Israel’s obligations as an ‘occupying power’ under international law and references the Territories ‘occupied’ since 1967,” (PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, October 2004).</p>
<p>As we moved through month after month of 2005, Sharon’s forces have continued their illegal “targeted killing” of Hamas militants, a short hand way of saying Israel has disbanded the basis of law in the West to reintroduce the law of the ancient barbarian states that granted license to the tribal chief or local tyrant absolute authority to determine guilt without arrest, without issuance of a charge, without counsel, without a plea, and without a court resulting in illegal assassination that goes unnoticed and unpunished in Israel and the United States, the self-extolled bulwarks of Democracy in the world. What hypocrisy. Thus have we come full circle in the mid-east as a new barbarian horde inflicts its merciless power on the innocent as well as the condemned for it inevitably happens, as it did this week, that innocent bystanders suffer the same fate as the object of the extrajudicial execution. The IDF record as reported by the Palestine Center for Human Rights as of January 2004 shows 309 civilians killed as a result of 157 executions. Rule without law, an action approved by the US government and supported by the American tax dollar. Yet no one objects.</p>
<p>The above litany of Sharon’s brutality constitutes what is countable in the way of deaths attributable to the illegal actions of the IDF. But there are other consequences to this occupation that are lost to the non-observant eye. Were it not for the international community, the strangulation imposed on the Palestinians would result in many more deaths by malnutrition and starvation. Since close to three quarters of the Palestinian population is unemployed, the population depends on outside sources for survival. This cloaks the real savagery of the Israeli occupation since it requires the international community to maintain a level of food and medical supplies that keeps many alive that would have died without such aid. This also removes the expense of this aid from the government of Sharon that should, under international law, have to carry the cost of the occupation. There is a terrible irony in this since Americans pay for the settlers to live on stolen Palestinian land while Sharon saves his government’s money to further the theft of more and more land.</p>
<p>b. CAUSING SERIOUS BODILY OR MENTAL HARM TO MEMBERS OF THE GROUP:</p>
<p>Where does one begin to describe the bodily or mental harm inflicted on the Palestinians by the Israeli IOF and its pit bulls, the squatters? Since we are focusing here on the efforts of Sharon to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land, we will say nothing of early voices like Ben-Gurion’s that claimed “we will abolish the partition of the country, and we will expand to the whole land of Israel,” a statement guaranteed to create mental anguish in the population that would, of necessity, result in bodily harm, and itemize a few of the thousands of acts that constitute genocide under the definition as stated in the UN Convention, acts done while Sharon governed and continues to govern the country.</p>
<p>Let’s begin with the 2004 Human Rights Watch report that observes IOF activity in Gaza: “IDF positions fire with large caliber machine guns and tanks at civilian areas [shooting which] appears to be largely indiscriminate and in some cases unprovoked.” The report continues, “Violence against Palestinians has by no means been confined to the soldiers of the IDF. Settlers too have weighed in with their own abuses, actions that have increased sharply since 2000. These include blocking roads in order to disrupt the lives of Palestinians, shooting solar panels on roofs of buildings, torching cars, smashing windowpanes and windshields, destroying crops, uprooting trees and generally abusing the population.” According to the Israel B’tselem human rights organization, ” the intent was often to force Palestinians to leave their homes and farmland, and thereby enable the settlers to gain control of them.” These are dispassionate words, merely descriptions of acts that if witnessed would cause revulsion.</p>
<p>Consider this account reported by B’tselem: “Raja’a Taysir Muhammad Abu ‘Ayesha, age 17, a high school student and resident of Hebron in the west Bank. She describes the experience of growing up under Israeli occupation. ‘I have no social life. Our house is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the entrance. My grandfather set it up that way in 1996 to protect us, after settlers broke all of our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of soldiers, settlers and a violent atmosphere. The settlers have also attacked my school. Almost every day, the settlers’ children block the path for me and my sister, Fida’a, age 14. They throw stones, water and leftover food at us. The settlers throw stones and leftover food at the house while we are inside, and sometimes at night while we are sleeping. My brothers and I wake up frightened, worried, and scaredthere is not one family member that hasn’t been attacked by settlers.'” I’ve walked the streets of Hebron, hunched my shoulders instinctively as I moved beneath the chicken wire strung above to catch the stones and garbage thrown at the Palestinians who must pass through this gauntlet to get to the market, and felt the humiliation that falls like a wet, heavy blanket over the soul beneath the taunting slurs cast from above. This is intentional, calculated, heinous psychological torture — genocidal “mental harm” as described in the UN Convention.</p>
<p>“The decline in the well-being and quality of life of Palestinian children,” reports Human Rights Watch, “[in the occupied territories] over the past two years has been rapid and profound according to CARE, 17.5% of children in Gaza are malnourished.” Thirteen percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years “have moderate to severe acute malnutrition.” Nearly half of Palestinians live below the poverty line. Hospitals are in dire need of basic supplies including water and electricity. Almost 90% of the Rafah population depends on food aid. And while malnutrition and poverty imposed by the Israeli oppressors seems hideous enough, it pales in comparison to the reality facing the children as they grow up in the occupation. “90% of children two years old or more have experienced ­ some many, many times ­ the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many have been beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had things happen to siblings and neighbors.” (Dr. Shamir Quota, Director of Research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programs).</p>
<p>Contemplate that statistic, 90% of two year olds growing up have witnessed soldiers bursting through the door of their home, rifles pointed at their mother or father, pushed against walls, beaten perhaps, shouted at certainly, cursed we might assume, and left in fear knowing another raid is imminent. What torture is here? This is intentional, calculated, psychological torture ­ genocidal “mental harm” as described in the UN Convention.</p>
<p>But there’s more. I left Palestine shortly after the “disengagement” from Gaza, a word that masks the reality of that “peace” move by Sharon. There is no disengagement: Sharon government owns the sky above Gaza; it owns the fence around Gaza; it owns access and exit from Gaza; it owns sea passage and use of the sea that borders Gaza; and it owns the missiles that it hurls from F-16s into the cities and refugee camps inside of Gaza indifferent to the innocent incinerated by its savagery. The only real disengagement that Sharon authorized in Gaza is disengagement from responsibility under the Geneva Conventions for occupying powers to provide adequately and humanely for the people so occupied. That means Israel does not have to pay for the care of the people who are locked into their prison in this most heinous apartheid on the face of the planet.</p>
<p>Consider how this mental torture is inflicted. Three months ago, Israeli warplanes dropped thousands of leaflets on Gaza directed to the residents of the strip. This is the text:</p>
<p>The terrorist actions originating from your areas are forcing the Israel Defense Forces to respond harshly to those who are subjecting the citizens of the State of Israel to danger. We call on the Palestinian Authority to shoulder its responsibility to prevent these criminal acts.</p>
<p>We warn you of the danger of remaining in the areas which are being used to launch terrorist actions and we advise you to leave your homes.</p>
<p>We are not responsible for the consequences if you ignore our warning.</p>
<p>(Al-Watan Newspaper, 10/1/05)</p>
<p>Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions states, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited” This action by the Israeli forces is calculated fear. It attempts to coerce the residents to leave their homes. But where can they go? The Israelis control the exits from Gaza; they alone determine who can go and who can come. The people are left to find safety in the maze of alleys that constitute the cities and the refugee camps; left in fear that the missiles can fall anywhere; left in the conflicted horror of their minds and emotions that long for the security of their children uncertain that they may be carrying them to an unknown death flung from the sky. This is intentional psychological fear imposed by a government and against every moral sense that rests on the recognition that innocent humans cannot be collectively punished when they are in no position to prevent the demands made upon them.</p>
<p>Move now to the West Bank. Chris McGreal reports on October 20, 2005, that the Israeli military “blocked Palestinians from driving on the main artery through the West Bank in a first step towards what Israeli human rights groups say is total ‘road apartheid’ being enforced throughout the occupied territory.” He further explains that the military has been authorized to bar all Palestinians from roads used by Israelis in the West Bank. This action results in forcing Palestinians to use secondary roads, “many little more than dirt tracks or roads which have yet to be built.” Anyone who has taken these “secondary” roads understands that they are generally scraped gravel passages between buildings or tracks carved into the hilly landscape lacking finished surfaces or protective guardrails. They wander over the mogul hills designed originally for farmers to access distant fields, not for today’s traffic and ready access to cities and towns. This insidious action creates a silent anger that seeps inside the soul and festers there, a mental torment against those who would inflict such wanton harm collectively on a group simply because they are Palestinian. This blatant racism is not lost on the children who must endure both the humiliation and the swelling hatred that arises visibly in the adults who curse the conditions imposed by the occupiers.</p>
<p>The West Bank we must remember belongs to the Palestinians. The Israeli roads are built on confiscated land. The action approved by Sharon prevents the indigenous people from using their own land or roads built on their land; it prevents not only personal and community interaction, it prevents commercial activity as well. It is nothing more than a calculated attempt to destroy the viability of a people to provide for themselves, an attempt to cause deep and continuing mental harm, actions contrary to the UN Genocide Convention.</p>
<p>Again in October, Israeli troops invaded the town of Bil’in, going house to house to arrest peaceful demonstrators who had participated in public pacifist actions against the erection of the Sharon Wall of Fear. The IOF distributed leaflets in Arabic warning people not to take part in direct action against the wall; this in a purported democratic country. Never forget that this wall is being built on Palestinian land against their expressed desires. “For the last ten months, Bil’in has launched an ongoing non-violent campaign against the annexation barrier supported by hundreds of Israeli and international activists. It has been met with brutally violent Israeli repression. Israel designed the current route of the barrier to annex 60% of Bil’in’s agricultural land to Israel, and expand the settlement of Modi’in Elite.” (World View, Oct. 6, 05).</p>
<p>None of this activity, the peaceful demonstrations or the brutality of the Israeli forces has been reported in America’s mainstream press or shown on the major channels. Why? Why haven’t Dobbs, Brown, Cooper, and Olberman let the cameras roll so that Americans can witness the use of their tax dollars that support the racism that is at the heart of Sharon’s bestial behavior against the Palestinians? Let them compare the treatment our government provides for the 35.9% that live in poverty in New Orleans and the suburban life style we provide for Jewish immigrants to a foreign state, the state of Israel. Why?</p>
<p>Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote of the Jews currently residing in Israel who lived through 1948 that they know what happened, it is not a distant memory; they know and have experienced the attempted genocide, but they “succeed in erasing it totally from their own memory while struggling rigorously against anyone trying to present the other, unpleasant, story of 1948.” These same individuals witness Sharon’s new set of atrocities and do nothing. Perhaps they too, like most Americans can do nothing to change their government’s actions, can do nothing to force their representatives to investigate the genocide they support with American tax dollars, and can do nothing to make those who accept torture as an American practice flinch at genocide.</p>
<p>If the above is not enough to stamp indelibly in a compassionate mind the intolerable actions perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Sharon militaristic government, then I advise the doubters to travel to Palestine, to witness first hand what bodily and mental harm means in fact to those who must endure it day after day. A true accounting is long overdue of these barbaric acts done on behalf of Jews and Americans, acts that demean and destroy the morality inherent in Judaism and Christianity.</p>
<p>It’s time for the United Nations to stand against America’s bought regime that fosters this genocide, to call upon the peoples’ representatives to acknowledge the atrocities they have permitted and continue to permit, to assert the relevance of the UN as the voice of humanity by prohibiting the voice of this administration to veto even the resolution that accepted the judicial ruling of the International Court of Justice condemning Sharon’s Wall of Fear as not just illegal but inhumane, and, finally, to take control of the conflict in Palestine by stating plainly, forcefully and with absolute determination the need for Israel to remove its people from Palestinian land, to accept the internationally recognized right of the Palestinian people to return to their homes (Article 12.4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), and to tear down the icon that now characterizes Judaism around the world, a wall that incarcerates a people isolating them from the community of nations, a new ghetto wall erected on behalf of the one people in the world who have experience with this kind of racism and know the mental suffering and bodily harm it imposes on generation upon generation, singed on the soul like the tattoos that marked the imprisoned Jew in Europe.</p>
<p>Jews in the thousands around the world decry Sharon’s attempt to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland by acts that cause bodily harm and mental anguish. “Traditional Jews are much troubled by the increasing frequency of references to Jewry and their supposed connection to Israel in political and media rhetoric such as was heard at the recent political conventions Focusing on this issue only serves to inflame anti-Semitism, an historically essential component to the advancement of Zionism, while endangering traditional Jews who are wrongly and unfairly blamed for the deplorable actions of the secular state of Israel.” (Justice Freedom, 10/21/04). Indeed, many Jews living in Israel actively work on behalf of Palestinians, rebuilding demolished homes, teaching the truth of the Nakba, participating in peaceful demonstrations with Palestinians, as at Bil’in, working in the Israeli courts to seek some sort of justice for those wrongfully detained or imprisoned, working hand in hand with Palestinian organizations to bring about reconciliation, and serve as witnesses to the acts of Sharon’s government through B’tselem Human Rights Watch. Sharon has created an anti-Semitic state by destroying the very foundation of Judaism as it survived over the centuries, a foundation built on tolerance for all peoples and their beliefs, a tolerance that gave them license to retain and practice their own.</p>
<p>The existence of the state of Israel attests to the world’s recognition that lack of such tolerance will not be accepted, that when another state imprisons and attempts to destroy another people, the world will not stand by, but act to protect those subject to such racial outrage. That is the purpose of the Genocide Convention. When a demagogue like Sharon takes control of the state, when his policies erode, nay destroy hope in a people, when he denies justice to that people, when he lets his hordes humiliate, abuse, and kill a people disregarding international law and all the conventions the people of the world have designed to care for each other, and when a President of the United States condones and supports those acts, then it is the responsibility of the Jewish people and the American people who have supported this racist government to renounce allegiance to that government and call upon the international body to investigate the actions taken by Sharon as he attempts to commit genocide against the Palestinians. Should this ravishment of the Palestinians go unattended, this rape of Palestine, then the words of Jeremiah will ring again across the hills and valleys of Palestine, the land where the ancient prophets admonished the Jews of old, where Christ called upon the people to love one another, to, indeed, love thy enemy, and the Prophet’s words will once again warn of impending doom, “Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends.”</p>
<p>William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of <a href="" type="internal">Tracking Depception: Bush’s Mideast Policy</a>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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The Rape of Palestine
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https://counterpunch.org/2006/01/07/the-rape-of-palestine/
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2006-01-07
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The Rape of Palestine
<p>“The Estate of Zion is pitiful because of sin and iniquity.”</p>
<p>“The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.”</p>
<p>(Lamentations of Jeremiah 4:11)</p>
<p>The Prophet Jeremiah (626-586 B.C.) lamented the pitiful state of Zion as it “shed the blood of the just in the midst of her” and as the “sons of Zion” “wandered as blind men in the streets, they (have) polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments” (Lam. 4: 13-14). And he prophesied that Zion would become “a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends.” As we witness Ariel Sharon slide ineluctably into that great dark night, the words of Jeremiah come back to haunt Israel. This man, like no other in recent Israeli politics, has left his indelible mark on Palestine carved like a searing branding iron on the landscape, the mark created by his Wall of Fear, which marks the Israel he strove to create out of stolen Palestinian land even as he herded three million people into walled corrals like cattle. This man, who wielded euphemistic words to kill truth as skillfully as he thrust his sword to kill the innocent, created a new party, the National Responsibility Party, to retain power that he might finish his job of cleansing Israel of Palestinians. Who better to create a stillborn party of such a name than the man who severed the national spirit of the Jews by wielding a sword that cut in two the very fabric of Jewish morality.</p>
<p>Let’s view this man as he stumbles off the political stage in Israel, when but a week ago he hoped to grasp the olive branch of the Labor Party to swing back into power. As America’s main stream press prepares to eulogize this man for his many accomplishments following the lead of USA TODAY ­ “Ariel Sharon first came to prominence as an army officer in the 1950s. After leaving the military he entered politics, forging the hardline Likud Party. In 1982, Sharon was forced to step down as the party’s defense minister, but re-emerged as prime minister in 2001” ­ and other non-descript passages that overlook the truth of what the man did. In 1982, Sharon was forced to leave his post because he oversaw and permitted the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, an event, together with his mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank some 20 years later, for which he faces prosecution for war crimes in Belgium. These details the American people are not to know nor are they to know that the UNSC passed Resolution 521 condemning those massacres. So as Sharon awaits the inevitable, let us view him against a moral mirror that will reflect his most grievous crimes. Let’s view what Sharon’s IDF has done and continues to do in light of a resolution adopted by the UN unanimously and without abstentions, a document that Israel signed at a later date, the Genocide Convention of the United Nations.</p>
<p>In 1944 the term “genocide” appeared in Raphael Lemkin’s Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. This passage by Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn summarizes Lemkin’s understanding:</p>
<p>Under Lemkin’s definition, genocide was the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group. Lemkin conceived of genocide as ‘a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction.’ His definition included attacks on political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of the group. Even nonlethal acts that undermined the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of a group constituted genocide if they contributed to weakening the viability of the group. Under Lemkin’s definition, acts of ethnocide ­ a term coined by the French after the war to cover the destruction of a culture without the killing of its bearers ­ also qualified for genocide. (The History and Sociology of Genocide, 1990)</p>
<p>It was Lemkin’s work that paved the way for the Convention passed by the United Nations in 1948. Lemkin’s “composite of different acts of persecution or destruction” includes attacks on a people’s political institutions, its culture, its national feelings, its religion, and its economic existence. It also includes non-lethal acts that undermine the liberty, dignity, and personal security of members of the group as they result in weakening the viability of the group. It would appear that many of the actions perpetrated by Sharon and his government and carried out by the IDF fit Lemkin’s definition. Let’s consider the UN wording as we review Sharon’s tenure in office.</p>
<p>These are the criteria that determine genocide under the UN Convention.</p>
<p>Article II:</p>
<p>“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: a. Killing members of the group; b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”</p>
<p>Article III:</p>
<p>“The following acts shall be punishable: a. Genocide; b. Conspiracy to commit genocide; c. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; d. Attempt to commit genocide; e. Complicity in genocide.”</p>
<p>Let’s focus on “a” and “b” only from Article II leaving “c” for another article since space is at a premium. But let’s note in passing that the acts described in the UN Convention are not restricted to a nation state and its people, but to groups, groups like the Palestinians who have no recognized state but do represent an ethnical, racial, and religious group. The UN in recognizing Israel as a state for Jews in 1947 also recognized a state for the indigenous population of Palestine though that group failed to acquiesce to the UNGA resolution at that time. The UN has consistently maintained that recognition since 1947 through approximately 169 resolutions that identify the Palestinian group as aggrieved by the Israelis. Thus it is appropriate that we consider the acts perpetrated on the Palestinians by the Sharon government to determine if in fact they constitute a breach of the UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.</p>
<p>a. KILLING MEMBERS OF THE GROUP:</p>
<p>Following Ariel Sharon’s blatant desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque with his entourage of 1000 IDF soldiers, the start of the current Intifada in 2000, an act intended to force the Palestinians to anger and rioting, the most recent count of Israeli inflicted death on Palestinians stands at 4,140 (AAP reports on 10/15/05 that 4,845 Palestinians have been killed), 887 of these children, 117 caused by medical prevention by IDF forces and another 31 still born births resulting from IDF checkpoints that did not allow the mothers access to hospitals (MIFTAH Report on deaths to 10/5/05). By contrast, during this same time period, 1113 Israelis were killed. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society counts 29,198 injuries with 3530 of these permanently disabled (PRCS web site 10/23/05). In short, Israeli soldiers kill in excess of 1,000 Palestinians each year and permanently maim a similar number. Let us note that the Hague Court has determined that the killing of 7000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 by General Radislav Krsyic constituted genocide rejecting his argument that the numbers were too insignificant to be called genocide.</p>
<p>Since these killings result not only from rifle fire but from tanks, bombs, missiles, and F-16 fighter jets, and since approximately 1,300 were women and children or those killed by prevention of medical care, they constitute crimes against Article 33 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, an article that states explicitly “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited … Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.” This means that IDF force that can produce death and/or injury to non-combatants must not be used nor can collective punishment be inflicted, yet that is the modus operandi of the IDF in its acts against Palestinians.</p>
<p>Perhaps a recent and all too familiar vignette might make the above statistics come alive. “Three Palestinian teenagers were shot by Israeli troops patrolling the southern section of Israel’s border with Gaza” The bodies were discovered by medics next to the security fence near the Kissufim crossing; none were armed though they carried bags with food and clothing. An Israeli army spokesman said troops had opened fire towards three “suspicious figures” crawling close to the Palestinian side of the fence. No attempt had been made to intercept the youngsters nor to determine where they were going (Justice Freedom, 10/17/05). Such acts of indifferent brutality are contrary to the laws that govern occupation armies even as they proclaim the intent of the IDF to kill wantonly Palestinians.</p>
<p>Furthermore, since almost all of the above killings occurred on Palestinian land, occupied by the invading Israeli military, they constitute breaches of International Law that requires explicit behavior of the occupying forces, behavior that respects and protects the rights and individuality of the population suffering the occupation (See 75 U.N.T.S. 287 [1949] and Protocol I 1125 U.N.T.S. 3 [1979]). In addition, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1544 (2004) “cites Israel’s obligations as an ‘occupying power’ under international law and references the Territories ‘occupied’ since 1967,” (PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, October 2004).</p>
<p>As we moved through month after month of 2005, Sharon’s forces have continued their illegal “targeted killing” of Hamas militants, a short hand way of saying Israel has disbanded the basis of law in the West to reintroduce the law of the ancient barbarian states that granted license to the tribal chief or local tyrant absolute authority to determine guilt without arrest, without issuance of a charge, without counsel, without a plea, and without a court resulting in illegal assassination that goes unnoticed and unpunished in Israel and the United States, the self-extolled bulwarks of Democracy in the world. What hypocrisy. Thus have we come full circle in the mid-east as a new barbarian horde inflicts its merciless power on the innocent as well as the condemned for it inevitably happens, as it did this week, that innocent bystanders suffer the same fate as the object of the extrajudicial execution. The IDF record as reported by the Palestine Center for Human Rights as of January 2004 shows 309 civilians killed as a result of 157 executions. Rule without law, an action approved by the US government and supported by the American tax dollar. Yet no one objects.</p>
<p>The above litany of Sharon’s brutality constitutes what is countable in the way of deaths attributable to the illegal actions of the IDF. But there are other consequences to this occupation that are lost to the non-observant eye. Were it not for the international community, the strangulation imposed on the Palestinians would result in many more deaths by malnutrition and starvation. Since close to three quarters of the Palestinian population is unemployed, the population depends on outside sources for survival. This cloaks the real savagery of the Israeli occupation since it requires the international community to maintain a level of food and medical supplies that keeps many alive that would have died without such aid. This also removes the expense of this aid from the government of Sharon that should, under international law, have to carry the cost of the occupation. There is a terrible irony in this since Americans pay for the settlers to live on stolen Palestinian land while Sharon saves his government’s money to further the theft of more and more land.</p>
<p>b. CAUSING SERIOUS BODILY OR MENTAL HARM TO MEMBERS OF THE GROUP:</p>
<p>Where does one begin to describe the bodily or mental harm inflicted on the Palestinians by the Israeli IOF and its pit bulls, the squatters? Since we are focusing here on the efforts of Sharon to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land, we will say nothing of early voices like Ben-Gurion’s that claimed “we will abolish the partition of the country, and we will expand to the whole land of Israel,” a statement guaranteed to create mental anguish in the population that would, of necessity, result in bodily harm, and itemize a few of the thousands of acts that constitute genocide under the definition as stated in the UN Convention, acts done while Sharon governed and continues to govern the country.</p>
<p>Let’s begin with the 2004 Human Rights Watch report that observes IOF activity in Gaza: “IDF positions fire with large caliber machine guns and tanks at civilian areas [shooting which] appears to be largely indiscriminate and in some cases unprovoked.” The report continues, “Violence against Palestinians has by no means been confined to the soldiers of the IDF. Settlers too have weighed in with their own abuses, actions that have increased sharply since 2000. These include blocking roads in order to disrupt the lives of Palestinians, shooting solar panels on roofs of buildings, torching cars, smashing windowpanes and windshields, destroying crops, uprooting trees and generally abusing the population.” According to the Israel B’tselem human rights organization, ” the intent was often to force Palestinians to leave their homes and farmland, and thereby enable the settlers to gain control of them.” These are dispassionate words, merely descriptions of acts that if witnessed would cause revulsion.</p>
<p>Consider this account reported by B’tselem: “Raja’a Taysir Muhammad Abu ‘Ayesha, age 17, a high school student and resident of Hebron in the west Bank. She describes the experience of growing up under Israeli occupation. ‘I have no social life. Our house is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the entrance. My grandfather set it up that way in 1996 to protect us, after settlers broke all of our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of soldiers, settlers and a violent atmosphere. The settlers have also attacked my school. Almost every day, the settlers’ children block the path for me and my sister, Fida’a, age 14. They throw stones, water and leftover food at us. The settlers throw stones and leftover food at the house while we are inside, and sometimes at night while we are sleeping. My brothers and I wake up frightened, worried, and scaredthere is not one family member that hasn’t been attacked by settlers.'” I’ve walked the streets of Hebron, hunched my shoulders instinctively as I moved beneath the chicken wire strung above to catch the stones and garbage thrown at the Palestinians who must pass through this gauntlet to get to the market, and felt the humiliation that falls like a wet, heavy blanket over the soul beneath the taunting slurs cast from above. This is intentional, calculated, heinous psychological torture — genocidal “mental harm” as described in the UN Convention.</p>
<p>“The decline in the well-being and quality of life of Palestinian children,” reports Human Rights Watch, “[in the occupied territories] over the past two years has been rapid and profound according to CARE, 17.5% of children in Gaza are malnourished.” Thirteen percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years “have moderate to severe acute malnutrition.” Nearly half of Palestinians live below the poverty line. Hospitals are in dire need of basic supplies including water and electricity. Almost 90% of the Rafah population depends on food aid. And while malnutrition and poverty imposed by the Israeli oppressors seems hideous enough, it pales in comparison to the reality facing the children as they grow up in the occupation. “90% of children two years old or more have experienced ­ some many, many times ­ the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many have been beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had things happen to siblings and neighbors.” (Dr. Shamir Quota, Director of Research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programs).</p>
<p>Contemplate that statistic, 90% of two year olds growing up have witnessed soldiers bursting through the door of their home, rifles pointed at their mother or father, pushed against walls, beaten perhaps, shouted at certainly, cursed we might assume, and left in fear knowing another raid is imminent. What torture is here? This is intentional, calculated, psychological torture ­ genocidal “mental harm” as described in the UN Convention.</p>
<p>But there’s more. I left Palestine shortly after the “disengagement” from Gaza, a word that masks the reality of that “peace” move by Sharon. There is no disengagement: Sharon government owns the sky above Gaza; it owns the fence around Gaza; it owns access and exit from Gaza; it owns sea passage and use of the sea that borders Gaza; and it owns the missiles that it hurls from F-16s into the cities and refugee camps inside of Gaza indifferent to the innocent incinerated by its savagery. The only real disengagement that Sharon authorized in Gaza is disengagement from responsibility under the Geneva Conventions for occupying powers to provide adequately and humanely for the people so occupied. That means Israel does not have to pay for the care of the people who are locked into their prison in this most heinous apartheid on the face of the planet.</p>
<p>Consider how this mental torture is inflicted. Three months ago, Israeli warplanes dropped thousands of leaflets on Gaza directed to the residents of the strip. This is the text:</p>
<p>The terrorist actions originating from your areas are forcing the Israel Defense Forces to respond harshly to those who are subjecting the citizens of the State of Israel to danger. We call on the Palestinian Authority to shoulder its responsibility to prevent these criminal acts.</p>
<p>We warn you of the danger of remaining in the areas which are being used to launch terrorist actions and we advise you to leave your homes.</p>
<p>We are not responsible for the consequences if you ignore our warning.</p>
<p>(Al-Watan Newspaper, 10/1/05)</p>
<p>Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions states, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited” This action by the Israeli forces is calculated fear. It attempts to coerce the residents to leave their homes. But where can they go? The Israelis control the exits from Gaza; they alone determine who can go and who can come. The people are left to find safety in the maze of alleys that constitute the cities and the refugee camps; left in fear that the missiles can fall anywhere; left in the conflicted horror of their minds and emotions that long for the security of their children uncertain that they may be carrying them to an unknown death flung from the sky. This is intentional psychological fear imposed by a government and against every moral sense that rests on the recognition that innocent humans cannot be collectively punished when they are in no position to prevent the demands made upon them.</p>
<p>Move now to the West Bank. Chris McGreal reports on October 20, 2005, that the Israeli military “blocked Palestinians from driving on the main artery through the West Bank in a first step towards what Israeli human rights groups say is total ‘road apartheid’ being enforced throughout the occupied territory.” He further explains that the military has been authorized to bar all Palestinians from roads used by Israelis in the West Bank. This action results in forcing Palestinians to use secondary roads, “many little more than dirt tracks or roads which have yet to be built.” Anyone who has taken these “secondary” roads understands that they are generally scraped gravel passages between buildings or tracks carved into the hilly landscape lacking finished surfaces or protective guardrails. They wander over the mogul hills designed originally for farmers to access distant fields, not for today’s traffic and ready access to cities and towns. This insidious action creates a silent anger that seeps inside the soul and festers there, a mental torment against those who would inflict such wanton harm collectively on a group simply because they are Palestinian. This blatant racism is not lost on the children who must endure both the humiliation and the swelling hatred that arises visibly in the adults who curse the conditions imposed by the occupiers.</p>
<p>The West Bank we must remember belongs to the Palestinians. The Israeli roads are built on confiscated land. The action approved by Sharon prevents the indigenous people from using their own land or roads built on their land; it prevents not only personal and community interaction, it prevents commercial activity as well. It is nothing more than a calculated attempt to destroy the viability of a people to provide for themselves, an attempt to cause deep and continuing mental harm, actions contrary to the UN Genocide Convention.</p>
<p>Again in October, Israeli troops invaded the town of Bil’in, going house to house to arrest peaceful demonstrators who had participated in public pacifist actions against the erection of the Sharon Wall of Fear. The IOF distributed leaflets in Arabic warning people not to take part in direct action against the wall; this in a purported democratic country. Never forget that this wall is being built on Palestinian land against their expressed desires. “For the last ten months, Bil’in has launched an ongoing non-violent campaign against the annexation barrier supported by hundreds of Israeli and international activists. It has been met with brutally violent Israeli repression. Israel designed the current route of the barrier to annex 60% of Bil’in’s agricultural land to Israel, and expand the settlement of Modi’in Elite.” (World View, Oct. 6, 05).</p>
<p>None of this activity, the peaceful demonstrations or the brutality of the Israeli forces has been reported in America’s mainstream press or shown on the major channels. Why? Why haven’t Dobbs, Brown, Cooper, and Olberman let the cameras roll so that Americans can witness the use of their tax dollars that support the racism that is at the heart of Sharon’s bestial behavior against the Palestinians? Let them compare the treatment our government provides for the 35.9% that live in poverty in New Orleans and the suburban life style we provide for Jewish immigrants to a foreign state, the state of Israel. Why?</p>
<p>Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote of the Jews currently residing in Israel who lived through 1948 that they know what happened, it is not a distant memory; they know and have experienced the attempted genocide, but they “succeed in erasing it totally from their own memory while struggling rigorously against anyone trying to present the other, unpleasant, story of 1948.” These same individuals witness Sharon’s new set of atrocities and do nothing. Perhaps they too, like most Americans can do nothing to change their government’s actions, can do nothing to force their representatives to investigate the genocide they support with American tax dollars, and can do nothing to make those who accept torture as an American practice flinch at genocide.</p>
<p>If the above is not enough to stamp indelibly in a compassionate mind the intolerable actions perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Sharon militaristic government, then I advise the doubters to travel to Palestine, to witness first hand what bodily and mental harm means in fact to those who must endure it day after day. A true accounting is long overdue of these barbaric acts done on behalf of Jews and Americans, acts that demean and destroy the morality inherent in Judaism and Christianity.</p>
<p>It’s time for the United Nations to stand against America’s bought regime that fosters this genocide, to call upon the peoples’ representatives to acknowledge the atrocities they have permitted and continue to permit, to assert the relevance of the UN as the voice of humanity by prohibiting the voice of this administration to veto even the resolution that accepted the judicial ruling of the International Court of Justice condemning Sharon’s Wall of Fear as not just illegal but inhumane, and, finally, to take control of the conflict in Palestine by stating plainly, forcefully and with absolute determination the need for Israel to remove its people from Palestinian land, to accept the internationally recognized right of the Palestinian people to return to their homes (Article 12.4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), and to tear down the icon that now characterizes Judaism around the world, a wall that incarcerates a people isolating them from the community of nations, a new ghetto wall erected on behalf of the one people in the world who have experience with this kind of racism and know the mental suffering and bodily harm it imposes on generation upon generation, singed on the soul like the tattoos that marked the imprisoned Jew in Europe.</p>
<p>Jews in the thousands around the world decry Sharon’s attempt to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland by acts that cause bodily harm and mental anguish. “Traditional Jews are much troubled by the increasing frequency of references to Jewry and their supposed connection to Israel in political and media rhetoric such as was heard at the recent political conventions Focusing on this issue only serves to inflame anti-Semitism, an historically essential component to the advancement of Zionism, while endangering traditional Jews who are wrongly and unfairly blamed for the deplorable actions of the secular state of Israel.” (Justice Freedom, 10/21/04). Indeed, many Jews living in Israel actively work on behalf of Palestinians, rebuilding demolished homes, teaching the truth of the Nakba, participating in peaceful demonstrations with Palestinians, as at Bil’in, working in the Israeli courts to seek some sort of justice for those wrongfully detained or imprisoned, working hand in hand with Palestinian organizations to bring about reconciliation, and serve as witnesses to the acts of Sharon’s government through B’tselem Human Rights Watch. Sharon has created an anti-Semitic state by destroying the very foundation of Judaism as it survived over the centuries, a foundation built on tolerance for all peoples and their beliefs, a tolerance that gave them license to retain and practice their own.</p>
<p>The existence of the state of Israel attests to the world’s recognition that lack of such tolerance will not be accepted, that when another state imprisons and attempts to destroy another people, the world will not stand by, but act to protect those subject to such racial outrage. That is the purpose of the Genocide Convention. When a demagogue like Sharon takes control of the state, when his policies erode, nay destroy hope in a people, when he denies justice to that people, when he lets his hordes humiliate, abuse, and kill a people disregarding international law and all the conventions the people of the world have designed to care for each other, and when a President of the United States condones and supports those acts, then it is the responsibility of the Jewish people and the American people who have supported this racist government to renounce allegiance to that government and call upon the international body to investigate the actions taken by Sharon as he attempts to commit genocide against the Palestinians. Should this ravishment of the Palestinians go unattended, this rape of Palestine, then the words of Jeremiah will ring again across the hills and valleys of Palestine, the land where the ancient prophets admonished the Jews of old, where Christ called upon the people to love one another, to, indeed, love thy enemy, and the Prophet’s words will once again warn of impending doom, “Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends.”</p>
<p>William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of <a href="" type="internal">Tracking Depception: Bush’s Mideast Policy</a>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>On Thursday, Nov. 20, officials at Perspectives Charter Schools received a letter alleging that special education students at one of its campuses are not receiving adequate services, and that another letter was on its way to the Illinois State Board of Education.&#160;</p>
<p>The same day, one of the five teachers who signed off on that letter says she was fired and escorted out of the school. Chantelle Allen says special needs juniors, among other issues at the Perspectives Calumet Tech high school, have not been receiving services that are stipulated in their individual education plans.</p>
<p>“That’s what charter schools can get away with,” contends Allen, a mid-career special education teacher who has worked at Calumet Tech since it opened in 2006.</p>
<p>Allen notes that previously, special education students were adequately provided for, but this fall, the population jumped from 50 to more than 100. Yet, she says the school did not hire enough special education staff, which led to service shortages.</p>
<p>According to spokesman Matt Vanover, the Illinois Board of Education received the formal complaint submitted on Nov. 21 by Allen and the other teachers, and officials will conduct an on-site visit soon. The state has 60 days to conduct an investigation. &#160; Other allegations in the teachers’ letter ( <a href="" type="internal">PDF</a>) suggest:</p>
<p>•&#160;Sophomores receive special education services in core subjects, but not in Spanish and technology.&#160; •&#160;Some regular classes exceed the enrollment limit for special education students. •&#160;Teachers do not have copies of students’ individualized education plans, which are used to appropriately modify coursework.</p>
<p>In a&#160;letter to Catalyst, Perspectives President and Co-founder Diana Shulla-Cose and Chief Operations Officer John Hayner cast light on the larger issue of “unfunded mandates” to provide services on special education.</p>
<p>“We pride ourselves on excellent education and service to students, whatever their particular needs,” they wrote in the letter. “Like all schools, public and private, Perspectives is always challenged to find the funds to ensure a sufficient level of staffing and services—needs that change routinely.”</p>
<p>Longtime reformer Don Moore, executive director for Designs for Change, says problems with special education services are rampant throughout the entire system, charters and traditional schools alike. Moore recalls news reports in recent years that highlighted staffing cuts among special education aides and alleged that the district capped special education referrals at schools.</p>
<p>Shulla-Cose and Hayner declined to comment on the timing and rationale behind Allen’s dismissal. “It is disturbing to have a former employee use the educational challenges that exceptional needs students face, and conflate it with her dismissal.”</p>
<p>Parents chime in</p>
<p>Two parents have joined Allen in the letter writing campaign and are seeking better services for their sons.</p>
<p>Velda Myles and Tanya Brown say their special needs children were well served at Perspectives Calumet Tech as freshmen and sophomores, but this year was noticeably different, when a new special education instructional leader took charge.</p>
<p>“[My son] doesn’t have any help in the classroom at all,” says Brown, despite his attention deficits and problems with organization, reading and writing. He is failing nearly all of his classes, she notes, except two:&#160; a reading class where he was getting extra help from Allen and a history class that is based largely on classroom participation.</p>
<p>His education plan, which technically expired in November, calls for him to get extra help in math—including the use of a calculator and clear verbal instructions—and other subjects.</p>
<p>Brown says she was told by phone that her son’s individualized education plan called for no extra classroom attention. “I don’t understand,” Brown says. “Last year, he got everything that he needed.”</p>
<p>Myles says she faces similar circumstances with her son, who has a learning disability. She says last year, one of his teachers routinely called home to discuss his progress and special needs.</p>
<p>“I don’t get those calls this year,” says Myles, who notes her extended family has five children enrolled in Perspectives charters. “I love the school’s philosophy. I agree with everything [Perspectives] stands for, except for this.”</p>
<p>Perspectives’ Hayner points to the charter network’s high percentage of special needs students (between 18 and 19 percent) compared to other charters, and says this year’s population increased proportionally when Calumet Tech added its third freshmen class.</p>
<p>Yet charters tend to enroll fewer special needs students who face severe learning and behavioral problems, says Moore of Designs for Change.</p>
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Dismissed teacher raises questions about special ed at charter school
| false |
http://chicagoreporter.com/dismissed-teacher-raises-questions-about-special-ed-charter-school/
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2008-12-09
| 3left-center
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Dismissed teacher raises questions about special ed at charter school
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>On Thursday, Nov. 20, officials at Perspectives Charter Schools received a letter alleging that special education students at one of its campuses are not receiving adequate services, and that another letter was on its way to the Illinois State Board of Education.&#160;</p>
<p>The same day, one of the five teachers who signed off on that letter says she was fired and escorted out of the school. Chantelle Allen says special needs juniors, among other issues at the Perspectives Calumet Tech high school, have not been receiving services that are stipulated in their individual education plans.</p>
<p>“That’s what charter schools can get away with,” contends Allen, a mid-career special education teacher who has worked at Calumet Tech since it opened in 2006.</p>
<p>Allen notes that previously, special education students were adequately provided for, but this fall, the population jumped from 50 to more than 100. Yet, she says the school did not hire enough special education staff, which led to service shortages.</p>
<p>According to spokesman Matt Vanover, the Illinois Board of Education received the formal complaint submitted on Nov. 21 by Allen and the other teachers, and officials will conduct an on-site visit soon. The state has 60 days to conduct an investigation. &#160; Other allegations in the teachers’ letter ( <a href="" type="internal">PDF</a>) suggest:</p>
<p>•&#160;Sophomores receive special education services in core subjects, but not in Spanish and technology.&#160; •&#160;Some regular classes exceed the enrollment limit for special education students. •&#160;Teachers do not have copies of students’ individualized education plans, which are used to appropriately modify coursework.</p>
<p>In a&#160;letter to Catalyst, Perspectives President and Co-founder Diana Shulla-Cose and Chief Operations Officer John Hayner cast light on the larger issue of “unfunded mandates” to provide services on special education.</p>
<p>“We pride ourselves on excellent education and service to students, whatever their particular needs,” they wrote in the letter. “Like all schools, public and private, Perspectives is always challenged to find the funds to ensure a sufficient level of staffing and services—needs that change routinely.”</p>
<p>Longtime reformer Don Moore, executive director for Designs for Change, says problems with special education services are rampant throughout the entire system, charters and traditional schools alike. Moore recalls news reports in recent years that highlighted staffing cuts among special education aides and alleged that the district capped special education referrals at schools.</p>
<p>Shulla-Cose and Hayner declined to comment on the timing and rationale behind Allen’s dismissal. “It is disturbing to have a former employee use the educational challenges that exceptional needs students face, and conflate it with her dismissal.”</p>
<p>Parents chime in</p>
<p>Two parents have joined Allen in the letter writing campaign and are seeking better services for their sons.</p>
<p>Velda Myles and Tanya Brown say their special needs children were well served at Perspectives Calumet Tech as freshmen and sophomores, but this year was noticeably different, when a new special education instructional leader took charge.</p>
<p>“[My son] doesn’t have any help in the classroom at all,” says Brown, despite his attention deficits and problems with organization, reading and writing. He is failing nearly all of his classes, she notes, except two:&#160; a reading class where he was getting extra help from Allen and a history class that is based largely on classroom participation.</p>
<p>His education plan, which technically expired in November, calls for him to get extra help in math—including the use of a calculator and clear verbal instructions—and other subjects.</p>
<p>Brown says she was told by phone that her son’s individualized education plan called for no extra classroom attention. “I don’t understand,” Brown says. “Last year, he got everything that he needed.”</p>
<p>Myles says she faces similar circumstances with her son, who has a learning disability. She says last year, one of his teachers routinely called home to discuss his progress and special needs.</p>
<p>“I don’t get those calls this year,” says Myles, who notes her extended family has five children enrolled in Perspectives charters. “I love the school’s philosophy. I agree with everything [Perspectives] stands for, except for this.”</p>
<p>Perspectives’ Hayner points to the charter network’s high percentage of special needs students (between 18 and 19 percent) compared to other charters, and says this year’s population increased proportionally when Calumet Tech added its third freshmen class.</p>
<p>Yet charters tend to enroll fewer special needs students who face severe learning and behavioral problems, says Moore of Designs for Change.</p>
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<p>Please, John Tierney, say it isn’t so. In your New York Times blog <a href="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/lonesome-george-isnt-looking-so-lonesome/" type="external">Lonesome George Isn’t Looking So Lonesome</a> you bring us the truly welcome news that Lonesome George, the Pinta Island tortoise from the Galapagos, may not be the last of his kind after all.</p>
<p />
<p>After analyzing the genes of 27 tortoises on another Galapagos island, Isabela, biologists discovered that one tortoise’s father was a Pinta tortoise — perhaps one who was removed from Pinta by some of the sailors who contributed to the decline of the species. Since there are between 2,000 and 7,000 tortoises on Isabela whose genes haven’t yet been analyzed, it seems likely that one or more will turn out to be purebred Pinta tortoises, according to Michael Russello of the University of British Columbia.</p>
<p>But then you tell us you’re worried about George’s celebrity, his ability to raise money for efforts to slow down the <a href="/news/feature/2007/05/gone.html" type="external">sixth great extinction underway</a>. Crikey, mate. I can’t think of a better fundraiser. Let’s rename him Hopeful George and watch the pesos roll in. <a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/home" type="external">–JULIA WHITTY</a></p>
<p />
|
Hopeful George: Tortoise Might Not Be Lonesome Anymore
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/05/hopeful-george-tortoise-might-not-be-lonesome-anymore/
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2007-05-03
| 4left
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Hopeful George: Tortoise Might Not Be Lonesome Anymore
<p />
<p>Please, John Tierney, say it isn’t so. In your New York Times blog <a href="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/lonesome-george-isnt-looking-so-lonesome/" type="external">Lonesome George Isn’t Looking So Lonesome</a> you bring us the truly welcome news that Lonesome George, the Pinta Island tortoise from the Galapagos, may not be the last of his kind after all.</p>
<p />
<p>After analyzing the genes of 27 tortoises on another Galapagos island, Isabela, biologists discovered that one tortoise’s father was a Pinta tortoise — perhaps one who was removed from Pinta by some of the sailors who contributed to the decline of the species. Since there are between 2,000 and 7,000 tortoises on Isabela whose genes haven’t yet been analyzed, it seems likely that one or more will turn out to be purebred Pinta tortoises, according to Michael Russello of the University of British Columbia.</p>
<p>But then you tell us you’re worried about George’s celebrity, his ability to raise money for efforts to slow down the <a href="/news/feature/2007/05/gone.html" type="external">sixth great extinction underway</a>. Crikey, mate. I can’t think of a better fundraiser. Let’s rename him Hopeful George and watch the pesos roll in. <a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/home" type="external">–JULIA WHITTY</a></p>
<p />
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<p>Kimsey Barboan (Source: NM State Police)</p>
<p>New Mexico State Police say they’ve filed a murder charge against a Sandoval County man who they say beat another man to death with a baseball bat.</p>
<p>Dispatched to do a welfare check on someone in a pickup truck, State Police officers encountered 33-year-old Kimsey Barboan at the Circle K convenience store in Cuba last Saturday and he appeared intoxicated and injured, according to a news release issued Tuesday by the agency.</p>
<p>Barboan, who had a cut across his forehead, told officers he was assaulted by unknown men.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Officers found a rifle and a bloody baseball bat in his pickup. After being taken to a Sandoval County hospital for treatment to his cut, he was arrested and booked into the county jail on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, DWI, driving on a revoked license and having an open container, the news release states.</p>
<p>Two days later, around 11 a.m., friends of 61-year-old Anthony Martinez found him dead at his home near Cuba and called 911, police said.</p>
<p>“Sandoval County deputies responded and found Mr. Martinez deceased on the floor of his residence,” according to the news release. “It appeared that Mr. Martinez had suffered blunt force trauma. Deputies noticed that a struggle appeared to have taken place inside the home.”</p>
<p>The State Police Investigations Bureau was then called in to the investigate.</p>
<p>Investigators found out Barboan had been staying with Martinez.</p>
<p>Barboan reportedly told investigators Martinez hit him with the bat and he took it away and began striking Martinez.</p>
<p>“Mr. Barboan continued to say when he left the residence, Mr. Martinez was on the ground making groaning noises,” according to State Police. “Mr. Barboan then took the bat and left the residence.”</p>
<p>State Police said Barboan is additionally charged with tampering with evidence.</p>
<p>It’s unclear if Barboan has an attorney.</p>
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Police: Suspect killed Cuba man with bat
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1110428/police-man-killed-roommate-with-bat.html
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Police: Suspect killed Cuba man with bat
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<p>Kimsey Barboan (Source: NM State Police)</p>
<p>New Mexico State Police say they’ve filed a murder charge against a Sandoval County man who they say beat another man to death with a baseball bat.</p>
<p>Dispatched to do a welfare check on someone in a pickup truck, State Police officers encountered 33-year-old Kimsey Barboan at the Circle K convenience store in Cuba last Saturday and he appeared intoxicated and injured, according to a news release issued Tuesday by the agency.</p>
<p>Barboan, who had a cut across his forehead, told officers he was assaulted by unknown men.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Officers found a rifle and a bloody baseball bat in his pickup. After being taken to a Sandoval County hospital for treatment to his cut, he was arrested and booked into the county jail on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, DWI, driving on a revoked license and having an open container, the news release states.</p>
<p>Two days later, around 11 a.m., friends of 61-year-old Anthony Martinez found him dead at his home near Cuba and called 911, police said.</p>
<p>“Sandoval County deputies responded and found Mr. Martinez deceased on the floor of his residence,” according to the news release. “It appeared that Mr. Martinez had suffered blunt force trauma. Deputies noticed that a struggle appeared to have taken place inside the home.”</p>
<p>The State Police Investigations Bureau was then called in to the investigate.</p>
<p>Investigators found out Barboan had been staying with Martinez.</p>
<p>Barboan reportedly told investigators Martinez hit him with the bat and he took it away and began striking Martinez.</p>
<p>“Mr. Barboan continued to say when he left the residence, Mr. Martinez was on the ground making groaning noises,” according to State Police. “Mr. Barboan then took the bat and left the residence.”</p>
<p>State Police said Barboan is additionally charged with tampering with evidence.</p>
<p>It’s unclear if Barboan has an attorney.</p>
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<p />
<p>"Operation Lilly" is targeting aggressive drivers, and hundreds of citations have already been issued as part of the multiagency effort, which involves state and Albuquerque police officers and Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and law-enforcement leaders announced the project Friday as they stood with Lilly's family - who wept during the news conference at Civic Plaza.</p>
<p>Martinez urged drivers to "just breathe," not overreact to slights on the roadway.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"One moment - that's all it would take for cooler heads to prevail," the governor said.</p>
<p>Lilly was killed in a road-rage shooting Oct. 20 on Interstate 40, near Coors. She was in the back seat with her 7-year-old brother when another driver fired into the vehicle, striking her in the head.</p>
<p>Police later arrested Tony Torrez, 31, who has a criminal history.</p>
<p>Lilly's father told police at the time that he was trying to exit the freeway at Coors when another car cut across traffic forcing him out of his lane. When the two drivers "exchanged words," Torrez pulled out a gun and fired, police say.</p>
<p>No one at Friday's news conference suggested that the Garcia family was at all to blame for the incident, but officials said Lilly's death is an example of what can happen when drivers lose perspective on the roadway.</p>
<p>"If you think your time is more valuable than your friends' and neighbors?," Berry said, "and you think it's OK to be an aggressive driver - why don't you come with me to the living room of a family that's picking out the funeral dress for their 4-year-old daughter, and then tell me how important you are and how important it is that you get somewhere fast."</p>
<p>Officers are handing out "Operation Lilly" placards to people they pull over, urging them to avoid making gestures or eye contact with angry drivers.</p>
<p>In general, Police Chief Gorden Eden said, people shouldn't engage with aggressive drivers. Instead, he said, try to be a good witness by calling 911 with descriptions of the driver and vehicle.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Martinez addressed reporters as she stood with Lilly's parents, Veronica and Alan Garcia, and grandmother Maria Cruz. The family didn't speak at the news conference.</p>
<p>Operation Lilly began Nov. 19 and is expected to continue for three months. The state is paying officers overtime to step up patrols focused on aggressive driving in the Albuquerque area.</p>
<p>"We're trying to intervene before it gets out of control," State Police Chief Pete Kassetas said.</p>
<p>In particular, officers are watching for speeding, unsafe lane changes, following too closely, drag racing, failure to maintain a lane and texting while driving.</p>
<p>The state is also launching an advertising campaign.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez on Friday announced "Operation Lilly" - a multi-agency effort to target aggressive drivers. Standing beside her is the family of Lilly Garcia, a 4-year-old killed in a road-rage shooting this fall. Pictured, from left, are grandmother Maria Cruz and parents Veronica and Alan Garcia.</p>
<p />
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Cracking down on road rage
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/690029/police-to-target-aggressive-drivers-in-operation-lilly.html
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2015-12-11
| 2least
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Cracking down on road rage
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>"Operation Lilly" is targeting aggressive drivers, and hundreds of citations have already been issued as part of the multiagency effort, which involves state and Albuquerque police officers and Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and law-enforcement leaders announced the project Friday as they stood with Lilly's family - who wept during the news conference at Civic Plaza.</p>
<p>Martinez urged drivers to "just breathe," not overreact to slights on the roadway.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"One moment - that's all it would take for cooler heads to prevail," the governor said.</p>
<p>Lilly was killed in a road-rage shooting Oct. 20 on Interstate 40, near Coors. She was in the back seat with her 7-year-old brother when another driver fired into the vehicle, striking her in the head.</p>
<p>Police later arrested Tony Torrez, 31, who has a criminal history.</p>
<p>Lilly's father told police at the time that he was trying to exit the freeway at Coors when another car cut across traffic forcing him out of his lane. When the two drivers "exchanged words," Torrez pulled out a gun and fired, police say.</p>
<p>No one at Friday's news conference suggested that the Garcia family was at all to blame for the incident, but officials said Lilly's death is an example of what can happen when drivers lose perspective on the roadway.</p>
<p>"If you think your time is more valuable than your friends' and neighbors?," Berry said, "and you think it's OK to be an aggressive driver - why don't you come with me to the living room of a family that's picking out the funeral dress for their 4-year-old daughter, and then tell me how important you are and how important it is that you get somewhere fast."</p>
<p>Officers are handing out "Operation Lilly" placards to people they pull over, urging them to avoid making gestures or eye contact with angry drivers.</p>
<p>In general, Police Chief Gorden Eden said, people shouldn't engage with aggressive drivers. Instead, he said, try to be a good witness by calling 911 with descriptions of the driver and vehicle.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Martinez addressed reporters as she stood with Lilly's parents, Veronica and Alan Garcia, and grandmother Maria Cruz. The family didn't speak at the news conference.</p>
<p>Operation Lilly began Nov. 19 and is expected to continue for three months. The state is paying officers overtime to step up patrols focused on aggressive driving in the Albuquerque area.</p>
<p>"We're trying to intervene before it gets out of control," State Police Chief Pete Kassetas said.</p>
<p>In particular, officers are watching for speeding, unsafe lane changes, following too closely, drag racing, failure to maintain a lane and texting while driving.</p>
<p>The state is also launching an advertising campaign.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez on Friday announced "Operation Lilly" - a multi-agency effort to target aggressive drivers. Standing beside her is the family of Lilly Garcia, a 4-year-old killed in a road-rage shooting this fall. Pictured, from left, are grandmother Maria Cruz and parents Veronica and Alan Garcia.</p>
<p />
<p />
| 5,479 |
<p />
<p>Let’s face it: Vacations can be expensive.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>From costly flights to overpriced hotel rooms, those travel memories can often be far from priceless. But just how expensive are we talking?</p>
<p>A survey conducted by American Express found that the average person planned to spend $1,180 on a summer vacation … that’s $1,180 per person. By that estimate, a family of four budgeted a staggering $4,720 for a getaway.</p>
<p>But you certainly don’t have to do the same. As the founder of travel site Trekity.com (and the wife of a former travel agent), I’ve learned about budget-friendly airline booking tricks that can shave hundreds of dollars off your next flight.</p>
<p>1. Use Airline Consolidators</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>These airline ticket resellers work with major travel companies to sell tickets at reduced prices. Think of it this way: Consolidators are wholesalers (much like Costco) who buy in bulk. Due to existing relationships, travel agents can purchase tickets from consolidators and then sell them to consumers. It’s a win/win: Consolidators offload their tickets without dealing directly with clients, and travel agents gain access to rock-bottom fares.</p>
<p>But there’s a catch. Just because a travel agent could pass on these discounts to clients doesn’t mean that they will. When my husband was a travel agent, he couldn’t believe some of the markups on fares by the time they reached an actual traveler—in many cases, it was over $200!</p>
<p>Fortunately, you can bypass the travel agent and book directly with a consolidator to get the reduced rate. Just be aware that the best rates are usually found for international travel, as well as U.S. domestic business and first class flights.</p>
<p>Here are some of my favorite consolidators:</p>
<p>2. Book in Advance</p>
<p>When it comes to finding inexpensive flights, the general rule is the more available seats, the cheaper the airline ticket. So booking well in advance is usually your best bet—it’s a good idea to make your arrangements a minimum of 21 weeks prior to your departure date. After that, airlines increase fares incrementally up until the departure date. So the closer your departure date, the higher the price.</p>
<p>However, if your 21 weeks have come and gone, some airlines (full list here) do offer discounts at 14 days, seven days and even three days before a departure date. These discounts are “last-minute” rates that can be an excellent bargain, but also keep in mind that it’s risky to wait until just a few days before your departure to book tickets, especially if you’re flying during peak season.</p>
<p>3. Clear Your Web Browsing History</p>
<p>It happens all of the time. You find a cheap flight online, search for it again later that day … and the price has skyrocketed. Why? All booking sites record your web browsing data and some (e.g. Travelocity) use this information to raise prices when you’re interested in a flight. If you clear your web browsing data (known as a cache), there’s a chance that you’ll find the original price.</p>
<p>4. Be Flexible About Dates</p>
<p>This is the number one way to save when it comes to booking flights–we’re talking hundreds of dollars. The cheapest days to fly are generally Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. And now that booking agents offer a “flexible date” search, finding the cheapest flight is easy. These companies offer such searches:</p>
<p>Hotwire.com Orbitz.com Travelocity.com Cheapflightsfinder.com</p>
<p>5. Research Airline Hubs</p>
<p>Every airline has a “hub”—sometimes more than one—where the majority of their flights arrive and depart. For example, British Airways uses London Heathrow Airport and JetBlue Airways uses John F. Kennedy International Airport (there’s a full list of hubs here).</p>
<p>What does this mean for you? Generally, flights to and from these hubs are inexpensive because there are more flights to choose from. So if your final destination isn’t a major hub, check prices to the hub first, and then look for an additional flight from the hub to your final destination. Yes, you’ll have a layover, but you could save a lot of money in the process.</p>
<p>6. Book on the Right Day</p>
<p>There are countless opinions on the best day to book flights for the best price. But a study by FareCompare.com claims that the top fare deals are found early in the week—specifically Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when airlines post discount prices. (There are some exceptions—consult our guide to buying airline tickets for more details).</p>
<p>A simple trick that travel agents use is to search for flights three days before and after an intended departure. This can easily slice a few hundred dollars off international flights! Just remember: If you’re checking throughout the week, clear your browsing history for accurate search results.</p>
<p>Darcie Connell is the CEO of Trekity.com and co-founder of TravelBloggerAcademy.com. You can follow her on Twitter.</p>
<p>Read More From LearnVest:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/01/take-your-dream-trip-5-surprisingly-affordable-luxury-destinations-for-2013/" type="external">5 Surprisingly Affordable Luxury Destinations Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2012/11/39-tips-to-save-on-travel/" type="external">39 Tricks to Save on Travel Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/02/money-saving-travel-tips-debunked-123/" type="external">6 Money-Saving Travel Tips … Debunked Opens a New Window.</a></p>
|
6 Insider Tips to Save Money on Summer Airfare
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/04/09/6-insider-tips-to-save-money-on-summer-airfare.html
|
2016-03-06
| 0right
|
6 Insider Tips to Save Money on Summer Airfare
<p />
<p>Let’s face it: Vacations can be expensive.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>From costly flights to overpriced hotel rooms, those travel memories can often be far from priceless. But just how expensive are we talking?</p>
<p>A survey conducted by American Express found that the average person planned to spend $1,180 on a summer vacation … that’s $1,180 per person. By that estimate, a family of four budgeted a staggering $4,720 for a getaway.</p>
<p>But you certainly don’t have to do the same. As the founder of travel site Trekity.com (and the wife of a former travel agent), I’ve learned about budget-friendly airline booking tricks that can shave hundreds of dollars off your next flight.</p>
<p>1. Use Airline Consolidators</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>These airline ticket resellers work with major travel companies to sell tickets at reduced prices. Think of it this way: Consolidators are wholesalers (much like Costco) who buy in bulk. Due to existing relationships, travel agents can purchase tickets from consolidators and then sell them to consumers. It’s a win/win: Consolidators offload their tickets without dealing directly with clients, and travel agents gain access to rock-bottom fares.</p>
<p>But there’s a catch. Just because a travel agent could pass on these discounts to clients doesn’t mean that they will. When my husband was a travel agent, he couldn’t believe some of the markups on fares by the time they reached an actual traveler—in many cases, it was over $200!</p>
<p>Fortunately, you can bypass the travel agent and book directly with a consolidator to get the reduced rate. Just be aware that the best rates are usually found for international travel, as well as U.S. domestic business and first class flights.</p>
<p>Here are some of my favorite consolidators:</p>
<p>2. Book in Advance</p>
<p>When it comes to finding inexpensive flights, the general rule is the more available seats, the cheaper the airline ticket. So booking well in advance is usually your best bet—it’s a good idea to make your arrangements a minimum of 21 weeks prior to your departure date. After that, airlines increase fares incrementally up until the departure date. So the closer your departure date, the higher the price.</p>
<p>However, if your 21 weeks have come and gone, some airlines (full list here) do offer discounts at 14 days, seven days and even three days before a departure date. These discounts are “last-minute” rates that can be an excellent bargain, but also keep in mind that it’s risky to wait until just a few days before your departure to book tickets, especially if you’re flying during peak season.</p>
<p>3. Clear Your Web Browsing History</p>
<p>It happens all of the time. You find a cheap flight online, search for it again later that day … and the price has skyrocketed. Why? All booking sites record your web browsing data and some (e.g. Travelocity) use this information to raise prices when you’re interested in a flight. If you clear your web browsing data (known as a cache), there’s a chance that you’ll find the original price.</p>
<p>4. Be Flexible About Dates</p>
<p>This is the number one way to save when it comes to booking flights–we’re talking hundreds of dollars. The cheapest days to fly are generally Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. And now that booking agents offer a “flexible date” search, finding the cheapest flight is easy. These companies offer such searches:</p>
<p>Hotwire.com Orbitz.com Travelocity.com Cheapflightsfinder.com</p>
<p>5. Research Airline Hubs</p>
<p>Every airline has a “hub”—sometimes more than one—where the majority of their flights arrive and depart. For example, British Airways uses London Heathrow Airport and JetBlue Airways uses John F. Kennedy International Airport (there’s a full list of hubs here).</p>
<p>What does this mean for you? Generally, flights to and from these hubs are inexpensive because there are more flights to choose from. So if your final destination isn’t a major hub, check prices to the hub first, and then look for an additional flight from the hub to your final destination. Yes, you’ll have a layover, but you could save a lot of money in the process.</p>
<p>6. Book on the Right Day</p>
<p>There are countless opinions on the best day to book flights for the best price. But a study by FareCompare.com claims that the top fare deals are found early in the week—specifically Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when airlines post discount prices. (There are some exceptions—consult our guide to buying airline tickets for more details).</p>
<p>A simple trick that travel agents use is to search for flights three days before and after an intended departure. This can easily slice a few hundred dollars off international flights! Just remember: If you’re checking throughout the week, clear your browsing history for accurate search results.</p>
<p>Darcie Connell is the CEO of Trekity.com and co-founder of TravelBloggerAcademy.com. You can follow her on Twitter.</p>
<p>Read More From LearnVest:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/01/take-your-dream-trip-5-surprisingly-affordable-luxury-destinations-for-2013/" type="external">5 Surprisingly Affordable Luxury Destinations Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2012/11/39-tips-to-save-on-travel/" type="external">39 Tricks to Save on Travel Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/02/money-saving-travel-tips-debunked-123/" type="external">6 Money-Saving Travel Tips … Debunked Opens a New Window.</a></p>
| 5,480 |
<p>The demonstrations that have vexed Bangkok for the last few days took an ugly turn Monday as the Thai army fired at a crowd of protesters and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called for revolution. Current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, the object of the protesters’ ire, has promised to restore order, though he himself rose to power on the back of public unrest.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>“The soldiers fired hundreds of rounds from their M-16 automatic rifles as they advanced, though it was unclear whether they were firing at, or over, the protesters,” the agency says.</p>
<p>A Bangkok hospital doctor told the BBC News website that 74 people had been brought into hospital, most of them suffering abrasions but some with gunshot wounds.</p>
<p />
<p>An army spokesman, Col Sunsern Kaewkumnerd, said about 400 soldiers had moved against some 300 protesters.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7996241.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p>
|
Land of Coups
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/land-of-coups/
|
2009-04-13
| 4left
|
Land of Coups
<p>The demonstrations that have vexed Bangkok for the last few days took an ugly turn Monday as the Thai army fired at a crowd of protesters and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called for revolution. Current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, the object of the protesters’ ire, has promised to restore order, though he himself rose to power on the back of public unrest.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>“The soldiers fired hundreds of rounds from their M-16 automatic rifles as they advanced, though it was unclear whether they were firing at, or over, the protesters,” the agency says.</p>
<p>A Bangkok hospital doctor told the BBC News website that 74 people had been brought into hospital, most of them suffering abrasions but some with gunshot wounds.</p>
<p />
<p>An army spokesman, Col Sunsern Kaewkumnerd, said about 400 soldiers had moved against some 300 protesters.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7996241.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p>
| 5,481 |
<p>Highlights of this day in history: Thomas Edison demonstrates light bulb; The United States winds down the Marshall Plan; Actor Anthony Hopkins, composer Jule Styne and musician Donna Summer are born. (Dec. 31)</p>
<p>Highlights of this day in history: Thomas Edison demonstrates light bulb; The United States winds down the Marshall Plan; Actor Anthony Hopkins, composer Jule Styne and musician Donna Summer are born. (Dec. 31)</p>
|
Today in History for December 31st
| false |
https://apnews.com/28d6892980e24e1fbb0b52a249a6e574
|
2018-01-01
| 2least
|
Today in History for December 31st
<p>Highlights of this day in history: Thomas Edison demonstrates light bulb; The United States winds down the Marshall Plan; Actor Anthony Hopkins, composer Jule Styne and musician Donna Summer are born. (Dec. 31)</p>
<p>Highlights of this day in history: Thomas Edison demonstrates light bulb; The United States winds down the Marshall Plan; Actor Anthony Hopkins, composer Jule Styne and musician Donna Summer are born. (Dec. 31)</p>
| 5,482 |
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>Clean Bandit’s music video for their latest single “Symphony” tells the touching story of a gay couple who encounter tragic circumstances.</p>
<p>The video, which features vocals from Zara Larsson, shows a man who is in a bike accident. As the video continues its shown he was in a loving relationship with another man. Throughout the video, Larsson is shown singing in front of a symphony. At the end it’s revealed that the conductor is the one who lost his partner and the song is for his memory.</p>
<p>“Through music, he finds strength going through heartbreak and loss. We always direct and make our own music videos, but this is the first time we have attempted such a linear narrative,” Grace Chatto, member of Clean Bandit and co-director of the video, told <a href="http://www.mtv.rs/vesti/clean-bandit-i-zara-larsson-izveli-uzivo-symphony1" type="external">MTV.</a></p>
<p>Watch below.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Clean Bandit</a> <a href="" type="internal">Grace Chatto</a> <a href="" type="internal">Symphony</a></p>
|
Clean Bandit’s ‘Symphony’ music video features tragic gay love story
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/20/clean-bandits-symphony-music-video-features-tragic-gay-love-story/
| 3left-center
|
Clean Bandit’s ‘Symphony’ music video features tragic gay love story
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>Clean Bandit’s music video for their latest single “Symphony” tells the touching story of a gay couple who encounter tragic circumstances.</p>
<p>The video, which features vocals from Zara Larsson, shows a man who is in a bike accident. As the video continues its shown he was in a loving relationship with another man. Throughout the video, Larsson is shown singing in front of a symphony. At the end it’s revealed that the conductor is the one who lost his partner and the song is for his memory.</p>
<p>“Through music, he finds strength going through heartbreak and loss. We always direct and make our own music videos, but this is the first time we have attempted such a linear narrative,” Grace Chatto, member of Clean Bandit and co-director of the video, told <a href="http://www.mtv.rs/vesti/clean-bandit-i-zara-larsson-izveli-uzivo-symphony1" type="external">MTV.</a></p>
<p>Watch below.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Clean Bandit</a> <a href="" type="internal">Grace Chatto</a> <a href="" type="internal">Symphony</a></p>
| 5,483 |
|
<p>Photo Credit: DIGILUX PHOTOGRAPHY / Shutterstock</p>
<p>Coffee is unique among artisanal beverages in that the brewer plays a significant role in its quality at the point of consumption. In contrast, drinkers buy draft beer and wine as finished products; their only consumer-controlled variable is the temperature at which you drink them.</p>
<p />
<p>Why is it that coffee produced by a barista at a cafe always tastes different than the same beans brewed at home?</p>
<p>It may be down to their years of training, but more likely it’s their ability to harness the principles of chemistry and physics. I am a materials chemist by day, and many of the physical considerations I apply to other solids apply here. The variables of temperature, water chemistry, particle size distribution, ratio of water to coffee, time and, perhaps most importantly, the quality of the green coffee all play crucial roles in producing a tasty cup. It’s how we control these variables that allows for that cup to be reproducible.</p>
<p>How strong a cup of joe?</p>
<p>Besides the psychological and environmental contributions to why a barista-prepared cup of coffee tastes so good in the cafe, we need to consider the brew method itself.</p>
<p>We humans seem to like drinks that contain coffee constituents (organic acids, Maillard products, esters and heterocycles, to name a few) at 1.2 to 1.5 percent by mass (as in filter coffee), and also favor drinks containing 8 to 10 percent by mass (as in espresso). <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/espresso-coffee/illy/978-0-12-370371-2" type="external">Concentrations outside of these ranges</a> are challenging to execute. There are a limited number of technologies that achieve 8 to 10 percent concentrations, the espresso machine being the most familiar.</p>
<p>There are many ways, though, to achieve a drink containing 1.2 to 1.5 percent coffee. A pour-over, Turkish, Arabic, Aeropress, French press, siphon or batch brew (that is, regular drip) apparatus – each produces coffee that tastes good around these concentrations. These brew methods also boast an advantage over their espresso counterpart: They are cheap. An espresso machine can produce a beverage of this concentration: the Americano, which is just an espresso shot diluted with water to the concentration of filter coffee.</p>
<p>All of these methods result in roughly the same amount of coffee in the cup. So why can they taste so different?</p>
<p>When coffee meets water</p>
<p>There are two families of brewing device within the low-concentration methods – those that fully immerse the coffee in the brew water and those that flow the water through the coffee bed.</p>
<p>From a physical perspective, the major difference is that the temperature of the coffee particulates is higher in the full immersion system. The slowest part of coffee extraction is not the rate at which compounds dissolve from the particulate surface. Rather, it’s the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.2740460313" type="external">speed at which coffee flavor moves through the solid particle</a> to the water-coffee interface, and this speed is increased with temperature.</p>
<p>A higher particulate temperature means that more of the tasty compounds trapped within the coffee particulates will be extracted. But higher temperature also lets more of the unwanted compounds dissolve in the water, too. The Specialty Coffee Association presents a <a href="//onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.13555/full" type="external">flavor wheel</a> to help us talk about these flavors – from green/vegetative or papery/musty through to brown sugar or dried fruit.</p>
<p>Pour-overs and other flow-through systems are more complex. Unlike full immersion methods where time is controlled, flow-through brew times depend on the grind size since the grounds control the flow rate.</p>
<p>The water-to-coffee ratio matters, too, in the brew time. Simply grinding more fine to increase extraction invariably changes the brew time, as the water seeps more slowly through finer grounds. One can increase the water-to-coffee ratio by using less coffee, but as the mass of coffee is reduced, the brew time also decreases. Optimization of filter coffee brewing is hence multidimensional and more tricky than full immersion methods.</p>
<p>Other variables to try to control</p>
<p>Even if you can optimize your brew method and apparatus to precisely mimic your favorite barista, there is still a near-certain chance that your home brew will taste different from the cafe’s. There are three subtleties that have tremendous impact on the coffee quality: water chemistry, particle size distribution produced by the grinder and coffee freshness.</p>
<p>First, water chemistry: Given coffee is an acidic beverage, the acidity of your brew water can have a big effect. Brew water containing low levels of both calcium ions and bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) – that is, soft water – will result in a highly acidic cup, sometimes described as sour. Brew water containing high levels of HCO₃⁻ – typically, hard water – will produce a chalky cup, as the bicarbonate has neutralized most of the flavorsome acids in the coffee.</p>
<p>Ideally we want to <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/the-craft-and-science-of-coffee/folmer/978-0-12-803520-7" type="external">brew coffee with water</a> <a href="https://waterforcoffeebook.com" type="external">containing chemistry somewhere in the middle</a>. But there’s a good chance you don’t know the bicarbonate concentration in your own tap water, and a small change makes a big difference. To taste the impact, try brewing coffee with Evian – one of the highest bicarbonate concentration bottled waters, at 360 mg/L.</p>
<p>The particle size distribution your grinder produces is critical, too.</p>
<p>Every coffee enthusiast will rightly tell you that blade grinders are disfavored because they produce a seemingly random particle size distribution; there can be both powder and essentially whole coffee beans coexisting. The alternative, a burr grinder, features two pieces of metal with teeth that cut the coffee into progressively smaller pieces. They allow ground particulates through an aperture only once they are small enough.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24483" type="external">contention over how to optimize grind settings</a> when using a burr grinder, though. One school of thought supports grinding the coffee as fine as possible to maximize the surface area, which lets you extract the most delicious flavors in higher concentrations. The rival school advocates grinding as coarse as possible to minimize the production of fine particles that impart negative flavors. Perhaps the most useful advice here is to determine what you like best based on your taste preference.</p>
<p>Finally, the freshness of the coffee itself is crucial. Roasted coffee contains a significant amount of CO₂ and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4557.2006.00093.x" type="external">volatiles trapped within the solid coffee matrix</a>: Over time these gaseous organic molecules will escape the bean. Fewer volatiles means a less flavorful cup of coffee. Most cafes will not serve coffee more than four weeks out from the roast date, emphasizing the importance of using freshly roasted beans.</p>
<p>One can mitigate the rate of staling by cooling the coffee (as described by <a href="https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Kinetics/Modeling_Reaction_Kinetics/Temperature_Dependence_of_Reaction_Rates/The_Arrhenius_Law/Arrhenius_Equation" type="external">the Arrhenius equation</a>). While you shouldn’t chill your coffee in an open vessel (unless you want fish finger brews), storing coffee in an airtight container in the freezer will significantly prolong freshness.</p>
<p>So don’t feel bad that your carefully brewed cup of coffee at home never stacks up to what you buy at the café. There are a lot of variables – scientific and otherwise – that must be wrangled to produce a single superlative cup. Take comfort that most of these variables are not optimized by some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1137/15M1036658" type="external">mathematical</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13362-016-0024-6" type="external">algorithm</a>, but rather by somebody’s tongue. What’s most important is that your coffee tastes good to you… brew after brew.</p>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="//theconversation.com" type="external">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brewing-a-great-cup-of-coffee-depends-on-chemistry-and-physics-84473" type="external">original article</a>.</p>
<p>Christopher H. Hendon,&#160;Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Chemistry,&#160; <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oregon-811" type="external">University of Oregon</a>.</p>
|
Brewing a Great Cup of Coffee Depends on Chemistry and Physics
| true |
https://alternet.org/food/brewing-great-cup-coffee-depends-chemistry-and-physics
|
2017-09-29
| 4left
|
Brewing a Great Cup of Coffee Depends on Chemistry and Physics
<p>Photo Credit: DIGILUX PHOTOGRAPHY / Shutterstock</p>
<p>Coffee is unique among artisanal beverages in that the brewer plays a significant role in its quality at the point of consumption. In contrast, drinkers buy draft beer and wine as finished products; their only consumer-controlled variable is the temperature at which you drink them.</p>
<p />
<p>Why is it that coffee produced by a barista at a cafe always tastes different than the same beans brewed at home?</p>
<p>It may be down to their years of training, but more likely it’s their ability to harness the principles of chemistry and physics. I am a materials chemist by day, and many of the physical considerations I apply to other solids apply here. The variables of temperature, water chemistry, particle size distribution, ratio of water to coffee, time and, perhaps most importantly, the quality of the green coffee all play crucial roles in producing a tasty cup. It’s how we control these variables that allows for that cup to be reproducible.</p>
<p>How strong a cup of joe?</p>
<p>Besides the psychological and environmental contributions to why a barista-prepared cup of coffee tastes so good in the cafe, we need to consider the brew method itself.</p>
<p>We humans seem to like drinks that contain coffee constituents (organic acids, Maillard products, esters and heterocycles, to name a few) at 1.2 to 1.5 percent by mass (as in filter coffee), and also favor drinks containing 8 to 10 percent by mass (as in espresso). <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/espresso-coffee/illy/978-0-12-370371-2" type="external">Concentrations outside of these ranges</a> are challenging to execute. There are a limited number of technologies that achieve 8 to 10 percent concentrations, the espresso machine being the most familiar.</p>
<p>There are many ways, though, to achieve a drink containing 1.2 to 1.5 percent coffee. A pour-over, Turkish, Arabic, Aeropress, French press, siphon or batch brew (that is, regular drip) apparatus – each produces coffee that tastes good around these concentrations. These brew methods also boast an advantage over their espresso counterpart: They are cheap. An espresso machine can produce a beverage of this concentration: the Americano, which is just an espresso shot diluted with water to the concentration of filter coffee.</p>
<p>All of these methods result in roughly the same amount of coffee in the cup. So why can they taste so different?</p>
<p>When coffee meets water</p>
<p>There are two families of brewing device within the low-concentration methods – those that fully immerse the coffee in the brew water and those that flow the water through the coffee bed.</p>
<p>From a physical perspective, the major difference is that the temperature of the coffee particulates is higher in the full immersion system. The slowest part of coffee extraction is not the rate at which compounds dissolve from the particulate surface. Rather, it’s the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.2740460313" type="external">speed at which coffee flavor moves through the solid particle</a> to the water-coffee interface, and this speed is increased with temperature.</p>
<p>A higher particulate temperature means that more of the tasty compounds trapped within the coffee particulates will be extracted. But higher temperature also lets more of the unwanted compounds dissolve in the water, too. The Specialty Coffee Association presents a <a href="//onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.13555/full" type="external">flavor wheel</a> to help us talk about these flavors – from green/vegetative or papery/musty through to brown sugar or dried fruit.</p>
<p>Pour-overs and other flow-through systems are more complex. Unlike full immersion methods where time is controlled, flow-through brew times depend on the grind size since the grounds control the flow rate.</p>
<p>The water-to-coffee ratio matters, too, in the brew time. Simply grinding more fine to increase extraction invariably changes the brew time, as the water seeps more slowly through finer grounds. One can increase the water-to-coffee ratio by using less coffee, but as the mass of coffee is reduced, the brew time also decreases. Optimization of filter coffee brewing is hence multidimensional and more tricky than full immersion methods.</p>
<p>Other variables to try to control</p>
<p>Even if you can optimize your brew method and apparatus to precisely mimic your favorite barista, there is still a near-certain chance that your home brew will taste different from the cafe’s. There are three subtleties that have tremendous impact on the coffee quality: water chemistry, particle size distribution produced by the grinder and coffee freshness.</p>
<p>First, water chemistry: Given coffee is an acidic beverage, the acidity of your brew water can have a big effect. Brew water containing low levels of both calcium ions and bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) – that is, soft water – will result in a highly acidic cup, sometimes described as sour. Brew water containing high levels of HCO₃⁻ – typically, hard water – will produce a chalky cup, as the bicarbonate has neutralized most of the flavorsome acids in the coffee.</p>
<p>Ideally we want to <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/the-craft-and-science-of-coffee/folmer/978-0-12-803520-7" type="external">brew coffee with water</a> <a href="https://waterforcoffeebook.com" type="external">containing chemistry somewhere in the middle</a>. But there’s a good chance you don’t know the bicarbonate concentration in your own tap water, and a small change makes a big difference. To taste the impact, try brewing coffee with Evian – one of the highest bicarbonate concentration bottled waters, at 360 mg/L.</p>
<p>The particle size distribution your grinder produces is critical, too.</p>
<p>Every coffee enthusiast will rightly tell you that blade grinders are disfavored because they produce a seemingly random particle size distribution; there can be both powder and essentially whole coffee beans coexisting. The alternative, a burr grinder, features two pieces of metal with teeth that cut the coffee into progressively smaller pieces. They allow ground particulates through an aperture only once they are small enough.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24483" type="external">contention over how to optimize grind settings</a> when using a burr grinder, though. One school of thought supports grinding the coffee as fine as possible to maximize the surface area, which lets you extract the most delicious flavors in higher concentrations. The rival school advocates grinding as coarse as possible to minimize the production of fine particles that impart negative flavors. Perhaps the most useful advice here is to determine what you like best based on your taste preference.</p>
<p>Finally, the freshness of the coffee itself is crucial. Roasted coffee contains a significant amount of CO₂ and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4557.2006.00093.x" type="external">volatiles trapped within the solid coffee matrix</a>: Over time these gaseous organic molecules will escape the bean. Fewer volatiles means a less flavorful cup of coffee. Most cafes will not serve coffee more than four weeks out from the roast date, emphasizing the importance of using freshly roasted beans.</p>
<p>One can mitigate the rate of staling by cooling the coffee (as described by <a href="https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Kinetics/Modeling_Reaction_Kinetics/Temperature_Dependence_of_Reaction_Rates/The_Arrhenius_Law/Arrhenius_Equation" type="external">the Arrhenius equation</a>). While you shouldn’t chill your coffee in an open vessel (unless you want fish finger brews), storing coffee in an airtight container in the freezer will significantly prolong freshness.</p>
<p>So don’t feel bad that your carefully brewed cup of coffee at home never stacks up to what you buy at the café. There are a lot of variables – scientific and otherwise – that must be wrangled to produce a single superlative cup. Take comfort that most of these variables are not optimized by some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1137/15M1036658" type="external">mathematical</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13362-016-0024-6" type="external">algorithm</a>, but rather by somebody’s tongue. What’s most important is that your coffee tastes good to you… brew after brew.</p>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="//theconversation.com" type="external">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brewing-a-great-cup-of-coffee-depends-on-chemistry-and-physics-84473" type="external">original article</a>.</p>
<p>Christopher H. Hendon,&#160;Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Chemistry,&#160; <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oregon-811" type="external">University of Oregon</a>.</p>
| 5,484 |
<p>In the Six-Day War, hundreds of Israeli soldiers were murdered while storming the Sinai desert, the West Bank and the Golan heights.</p>
<p>In the Yom-Kippur War, more than 2000 Israeli soldiers were murdered in the defense of the conquered territories.</p>
<p>In the 18 year long Lebanon War, more than a thousand Israeli soldiers were murdered while conquering and occupying South Lebanon.</p>
<p>They would have been surprised to learn that they were “murdered”. Perhaps they would have been insulted. After all, they were not helpless Jews in the ghetto who were killed during a pogrom by drunken Cossacks. They fell as soldiers in war.</p>
<p>Now we are back in the ghetto. Again we are poor, fearful Jews. Even when we are in uniform. Even when we are armed to the teeth. Even when we have tanks, airplanes, missiles and the nuclear option. Alas, we are murdered.</p>
<p>The application of the verb “murder” to combat soldiers who fall in action is a semantic novelty of the present intifada in the Sharon era. It was very conspicuous last week, in the wake of two military incidents.</p>
<p>In the Palestinian village of Ein Yabroud, three soldiers were ambushed and killed. Their job was to safeguard the road to the nearby settlement Ofra, north of Ramallah. They were patrolling the main street of the village on foot, following their regular route. On the way back, three Palestinian fighters lay in wait for them, killing three and wounding one. The attackers got away.</p>
<p>A classic guerilla engagement. Not terrorism. Not an attack on civilians. The action of guerilla fighters against armed soldiers in an occupied area. If it had involved German soldiers in France or French soldiers in Algeria, nobody would have dreamed of saying that they were “murdered”. But on our television, military correspondents talked of the three being “murdered” by “terrorists”.</p>
<p>A few days later, an even more shocking event took place. One single Palestinian fighter cut through the fence of Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip, entered a military camp and killed three soldiers–one male, two female. He was pursued and killed.</p>
<p>In connection with this event, too, the military correspondents said on TV, without blinking, that the three were “murdered” by “terrorists” in a “terrorist” action.</p>
<p>Murder? Terrorism? Against soldiers in uniform? Inside a fortified settlement?</p>
<p>It is worth analysing this incident in order to understand the current military campaign as a whole.</p>
<p>Netzarim is a small, isolated settlement on the sea shore, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, far from any other settlement. It was implanted in the middle of a Palestinian population of a million and a quarter, half of them refugees, in the most densely inhabited place on earth. A whole battalion of the IDF defends it, and that is not enough. To reach it from Israel, one has to cross the entire width of the Gaza strip. All traffic is by armored vehicles. Up to now, more than twenty soldiers have been killed in the defense of the settlement and the road leading to it.</p>
<p>Crazy? The settlers themselves maintain that it was the army that had demanded to set up the settlement as a base for observation and control. The fanatical nationalist-religious founders have since disappeared, their place taken by adventurers who risk their own lives and the lives of their children–not to mention the soldiers, male and female, who have no choice. The government sacrifices them on the altar of the settlement.</p>
<p>The Palestinians, of course, suffer more than anyone else. Any who come near the settlement are shot. Anything that was standing or growing nearby, or along the road, has been destroyed or uprooted long ago. This week, the army demolished two Palestinian high-rise apartment blocks, each 12 floors high, some hundreds of meters from the settlement, because from there the goings on in the settlement could be “observed”. This is typical: like a cancer in the body that gradually extends its malign influence, every settlement slowly destroys its surroundings in an ever-widening circle.</p>
<p>The process can be outlined as follows:</p>
<p>(1) On a hilltop, an “outpost” consisting of one or two mobile homes is set up without government permission.</p>
<p>(2) The government declares that it will not tolerate such illegal actions and talks about removing it.</p>
<p>(3) The army sends soldiers to defend the outpost, saying that it cannot leave Jews in a hostile region without protection as long as they are there, even illegally.</p>
<p>(4) For the same reason, the outpost is connected to the water, electricity and telephone networks.</p>
<p>(5) The discussion in the cabinet is postponed, and in the meantime the settlement expands.</p>
<p>(6) The cabinet decides to accept the accomplished fact and the outpost becomes a legal settlement.</p>
<p>(7) The Military Governor expropriates large stretches of cultivated land for the development of the settlement.</p>
<p>(8) A bypass road is build to allow for the safe movement of the settlers and soldiers. For this purpose, the army expropriates more stretches of cultivated land from the neighboring Palestinian villages. The road with its “security area” is 60-80 meters wide.</p>
<p>(9) Palestinians try to attack the settlement that stands on their land.</p>
<p>(10) To prevent attacks on the settlement, an area 400 meters wide around the settlement is declared a “security zone” closed to Palestinians. The olive groves and fields in this area are lost to their owners.</p>
<p>(11) This provides the motivation for more attacks.</p>
<p>(12) For security reasons, the army uproots all trees that might afford cover for an attack on the settlement or the road leading to it. The army has even invented a new Hebrew word for it, something like “exposuring”.</p>
<p>(13) The army destroys all buildings from which the settlement or the road could be attacked.</p>
<p>(14) For good measure, all buildings from which the settlement can be observed are demolished, too.</p>
<p>(15) Anyone who comes near the settlement is shot, on suspicion that he has come to spy or attack.</p>
<p>This way the settlement sows death and destruction in a ever-widening circle. The life of the Palestinian villages in the neighborhood becomes hellish. They lose the sources of their livelihood. Hundreds of such villages find themselves trapped between two or more settlements, which close in on all sides, sometimes right up to their courtyards. Their lives and their property are at the mercy of gangs of settlers.</p>
<p>This process has already been going on for decades all over the occupied territories. It is a slow, continuous, day-to-day offensive, unseen by Israeli eyes. Last year, the “separation fence” was added, a monster that snakes its way deep into the West Bank in order to “defend” the settlements. It makes the life of hundreds of thousand of Palestinians well-nigh impossible.</p>
<p>The fence is supposed to cost 10 billion shekels (more than two billion dollars). It is impossible to calculate the cost of the settlements themselves, which certainly runs into many billions of shekels every year.</p>
<p>It is much easier to calculate the price in human lives. The killing of the three soldiers in Netzarim has caused a shock. Many Israelis are beginning to ask–perhaps for the first time–Why? What for?</p>
<p>The father of one of the soldiers killed in Ein Yabroud has called this “Israeli roulette”. The mother of a female soldier killed in Hebron gave vent to her anger on TV: “She died because of the settlers!” There are many signs of a general sobering-up, even in the army command.</p>
<p>Is this the beginning of a change in public opinion? That could be.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584789X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book <a href="" type="internal">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Israeli Roulette
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2003/11/07/israeli-roulette/
|
2003-11-07
| 4left
|
Israeli Roulette
<p>In the Six-Day War, hundreds of Israeli soldiers were murdered while storming the Sinai desert, the West Bank and the Golan heights.</p>
<p>In the Yom-Kippur War, more than 2000 Israeli soldiers were murdered in the defense of the conquered territories.</p>
<p>In the 18 year long Lebanon War, more than a thousand Israeli soldiers were murdered while conquering and occupying South Lebanon.</p>
<p>They would have been surprised to learn that they were “murdered”. Perhaps they would have been insulted. After all, they were not helpless Jews in the ghetto who were killed during a pogrom by drunken Cossacks. They fell as soldiers in war.</p>
<p>Now we are back in the ghetto. Again we are poor, fearful Jews. Even when we are in uniform. Even when we are armed to the teeth. Even when we have tanks, airplanes, missiles and the nuclear option. Alas, we are murdered.</p>
<p>The application of the verb “murder” to combat soldiers who fall in action is a semantic novelty of the present intifada in the Sharon era. It was very conspicuous last week, in the wake of two military incidents.</p>
<p>In the Palestinian village of Ein Yabroud, three soldiers were ambushed and killed. Their job was to safeguard the road to the nearby settlement Ofra, north of Ramallah. They were patrolling the main street of the village on foot, following their regular route. On the way back, three Palestinian fighters lay in wait for them, killing three and wounding one. The attackers got away.</p>
<p>A classic guerilla engagement. Not terrorism. Not an attack on civilians. The action of guerilla fighters against armed soldiers in an occupied area. If it had involved German soldiers in France or French soldiers in Algeria, nobody would have dreamed of saying that they were “murdered”. But on our television, military correspondents talked of the three being “murdered” by “terrorists”.</p>
<p>A few days later, an even more shocking event took place. One single Palestinian fighter cut through the fence of Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip, entered a military camp and killed three soldiers–one male, two female. He was pursued and killed.</p>
<p>In connection with this event, too, the military correspondents said on TV, without blinking, that the three were “murdered” by “terrorists” in a “terrorist” action.</p>
<p>Murder? Terrorism? Against soldiers in uniform? Inside a fortified settlement?</p>
<p>It is worth analysing this incident in order to understand the current military campaign as a whole.</p>
<p>Netzarim is a small, isolated settlement on the sea shore, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, far from any other settlement. It was implanted in the middle of a Palestinian population of a million and a quarter, half of them refugees, in the most densely inhabited place on earth. A whole battalion of the IDF defends it, and that is not enough. To reach it from Israel, one has to cross the entire width of the Gaza strip. All traffic is by armored vehicles. Up to now, more than twenty soldiers have been killed in the defense of the settlement and the road leading to it.</p>
<p>Crazy? The settlers themselves maintain that it was the army that had demanded to set up the settlement as a base for observation and control. The fanatical nationalist-religious founders have since disappeared, their place taken by adventurers who risk their own lives and the lives of their children–not to mention the soldiers, male and female, who have no choice. The government sacrifices them on the altar of the settlement.</p>
<p>The Palestinians, of course, suffer more than anyone else. Any who come near the settlement are shot. Anything that was standing or growing nearby, or along the road, has been destroyed or uprooted long ago. This week, the army demolished two Palestinian high-rise apartment blocks, each 12 floors high, some hundreds of meters from the settlement, because from there the goings on in the settlement could be “observed”. This is typical: like a cancer in the body that gradually extends its malign influence, every settlement slowly destroys its surroundings in an ever-widening circle.</p>
<p>The process can be outlined as follows:</p>
<p>(1) On a hilltop, an “outpost” consisting of one or two mobile homes is set up without government permission.</p>
<p>(2) The government declares that it will not tolerate such illegal actions and talks about removing it.</p>
<p>(3) The army sends soldiers to defend the outpost, saying that it cannot leave Jews in a hostile region without protection as long as they are there, even illegally.</p>
<p>(4) For the same reason, the outpost is connected to the water, electricity and telephone networks.</p>
<p>(5) The discussion in the cabinet is postponed, and in the meantime the settlement expands.</p>
<p>(6) The cabinet decides to accept the accomplished fact and the outpost becomes a legal settlement.</p>
<p>(7) The Military Governor expropriates large stretches of cultivated land for the development of the settlement.</p>
<p>(8) A bypass road is build to allow for the safe movement of the settlers and soldiers. For this purpose, the army expropriates more stretches of cultivated land from the neighboring Palestinian villages. The road with its “security area” is 60-80 meters wide.</p>
<p>(9) Palestinians try to attack the settlement that stands on their land.</p>
<p>(10) To prevent attacks on the settlement, an area 400 meters wide around the settlement is declared a “security zone” closed to Palestinians. The olive groves and fields in this area are lost to their owners.</p>
<p>(11) This provides the motivation for more attacks.</p>
<p>(12) For security reasons, the army uproots all trees that might afford cover for an attack on the settlement or the road leading to it. The army has even invented a new Hebrew word for it, something like “exposuring”.</p>
<p>(13) The army destroys all buildings from which the settlement or the road could be attacked.</p>
<p>(14) For good measure, all buildings from which the settlement can be observed are demolished, too.</p>
<p>(15) Anyone who comes near the settlement is shot, on suspicion that he has come to spy or attack.</p>
<p>This way the settlement sows death and destruction in a ever-widening circle. The life of the Palestinian villages in the neighborhood becomes hellish. They lose the sources of their livelihood. Hundreds of such villages find themselves trapped between two or more settlements, which close in on all sides, sometimes right up to their courtyards. Their lives and their property are at the mercy of gangs of settlers.</p>
<p>This process has already been going on for decades all over the occupied territories. It is a slow, continuous, day-to-day offensive, unseen by Israeli eyes. Last year, the “separation fence” was added, a monster that snakes its way deep into the West Bank in order to “defend” the settlements. It makes the life of hundreds of thousand of Palestinians well-nigh impossible.</p>
<p>The fence is supposed to cost 10 billion shekels (more than two billion dollars). It is impossible to calculate the cost of the settlements themselves, which certainly runs into many billions of shekels every year.</p>
<p>It is much easier to calculate the price in human lives. The killing of the three soldiers in Netzarim has caused a shock. Many Israelis are beginning to ask–perhaps for the first time–Why? What for?</p>
<p>The father of one of the soldiers killed in Ein Yabroud has called this “Israeli roulette”. The mother of a female soldier killed in Hebron gave vent to her anger on TV: “She died because of the settlers!” There are many signs of a general sobering-up, even in the army command.</p>
<p>Is this the beginning of a change in public opinion? That could be.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584789X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book <a href="" type="internal">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 5,485 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry presented the plan Tuesday to a group of business leaders from around the state. A written version of the list circulated at the event described the air quality strategy as “the elimination of the state Total Suspended Particulate (TSP) standard and re-drafting of the state air quality regulations consistent with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, to make New Mexico competitive with other jurisdictions and alleviate unnecessary compliance costs.”</p>
<p>ACI President Jason Espinoza has written that the standards are an outdated and unnecessary burden on industry.</p>
<p>Louis W. Rose, an attorney with Montgomery &amp; Andrews and a member of a committee that prepared the legislative priorities, said the state’s current TSP standard is a vestige of the 1970s and does not reflect federal air quality standards.</p>
<p>“From our perspective, it’s a regulation that’s not necessary to protect health, and it’s an impediment to growth in some areas,” said Rose.</p>
<p>The written version of ACI’s legislative priority list noted that Dona Ana County has a pending “non-attainment designation” related to ozone emissions in the area. According to the document, ACI believes the county should be evaluated for “potential relief measures” because the county’s proximity to Mexico “negatively affects its attainment designation due to Mexico’s lack of enforcement and lax environment air quality regulations.”</p>
<p>Among the other items on the ACI’s legislative priority list:</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>— Increasing investment in economic development programs like the Job Training Incentive Program, Local Economic Development Act and Rapid Workforce Development fund.</p>
<p>— Overhauling the state’s tax code, in particular reducing the corporate tax rate</p>
<p>— Incentivizing the national laboratories to create and continue community programs, particularly those focused on technology transfer</p>
<p>—&#160;Securing full funding for the state’s Medicaid system</p>
<p>— Making New Mexico a so-called right-to-work state, meaning private sector employees would not be required to join unions or pay union fees as a condition of their employment</p>
|
NM business group wants air standard relaxed
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1102329/nm-business-group-wants-air-standard-relaxed.html
| 2least
|
NM business group wants air standard relaxed
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry presented the plan Tuesday to a group of business leaders from around the state. A written version of the list circulated at the event described the air quality strategy as “the elimination of the state Total Suspended Particulate (TSP) standard and re-drafting of the state air quality regulations consistent with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, to make New Mexico competitive with other jurisdictions and alleviate unnecessary compliance costs.”</p>
<p>ACI President Jason Espinoza has written that the standards are an outdated and unnecessary burden on industry.</p>
<p>Louis W. Rose, an attorney with Montgomery &amp; Andrews and a member of a committee that prepared the legislative priorities, said the state’s current TSP standard is a vestige of the 1970s and does not reflect federal air quality standards.</p>
<p>“From our perspective, it’s a regulation that’s not necessary to protect health, and it’s an impediment to growth in some areas,” said Rose.</p>
<p>The written version of ACI’s legislative priority list noted that Dona Ana County has a pending “non-attainment designation” related to ozone emissions in the area. According to the document, ACI believes the county should be evaluated for “potential relief measures” because the county’s proximity to Mexico “negatively affects its attainment designation due to Mexico’s lack of enforcement and lax environment air quality regulations.”</p>
<p>Among the other items on the ACI’s legislative priority list:</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>— Increasing investment in economic development programs like the Job Training Incentive Program, Local Economic Development Act and Rapid Workforce Development fund.</p>
<p>— Overhauling the state’s tax code, in particular reducing the corporate tax rate</p>
<p>— Incentivizing the national laboratories to create and continue community programs, particularly those focused on technology transfer</p>
<p>—&#160;Securing full funding for the state’s Medicaid system</p>
<p>— Making New Mexico a so-called right-to-work state, meaning private sector employees would not be required to join unions or pay union fees as a condition of their employment</p>
| 5,486 |
|
<p><a href="" type="internal" />SAN FRANCISCO — A new health clinic for transgender youth has opened in St. Louis, Mo., the Seeker, a science and tech digital media publisher that targets Millennials, <a href="https://www.seeker.com/health/health-care-for-transgender-youth-is-taking-root-in-the-us" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>The Transgender Center of Excellence, a joint effort of the Washington University and St. Louis Children’s Hospital is part of a growing network of about 40 clinics nationwide serving trans youth and their families, the Seeker reports.</p>
<p>Diane Ehrensaft, clinical psychologist and mental health director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco, said that when they first opened their facility five years ago, she could count on one hand the number of clinics providing services to the transgender community, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p>At both the San Francisco and St. Louis clinics, adolescents have access to physicians, as well as psychologists, dermatologists, voice therapists and plastic surgeons. Housing all of these services&#160;under one&#160;roof makes the provision of care easier and more comprehensive, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p>As much as transgender youth face many of the same health issues as any adolescent, they are are at much higher risk of depression suicidal thoughts, substance use, and homelessness compared to their non-transgender peers. Almost half of transgender or gender non-conforming youth aged 18-24 attempted suicide, according to the 2014 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which is why doctors emphasize access to mental health services.</p>
<p>From January to May of 2017, founder Chris Lewis and his colleagues have seen about 70 patients through their individual practices. They estimate that by the end of the year, they will see hundreds more through the newly opened clinic. Despite opening only one week&#160;ago, the facility is booked through September, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chris Lewis</a> <a href="" type="internal">Diane Ehrensaft</a> <a href="" type="internal">San Francisco</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Louis</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Louis Children's Hospital</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">Transgender Center of Excellence</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender health</a> <a href="" type="internal">University of California San Francisco</a> <a href="" type="internal">Washington University</a></p>
|
St. Louis trans youth clinic opens
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2017/08/11/transgender-center-of-excellence/
| 3left-center
|
St. Louis trans youth clinic opens
<p><a href="" type="internal" />SAN FRANCISCO — A new health clinic for transgender youth has opened in St. Louis, Mo., the Seeker, a science and tech digital media publisher that targets Millennials, <a href="https://www.seeker.com/health/health-care-for-transgender-youth-is-taking-root-in-the-us" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>The Transgender Center of Excellence, a joint effort of the Washington University and St. Louis Children’s Hospital is part of a growing network of about 40 clinics nationwide serving trans youth and their families, the Seeker reports.</p>
<p>Diane Ehrensaft, clinical psychologist and mental health director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco, said that when they first opened their facility five years ago, she could count on one hand the number of clinics providing services to the transgender community, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p>At both the San Francisco and St. Louis clinics, adolescents have access to physicians, as well as psychologists, dermatologists, voice therapists and plastic surgeons. Housing all of these services&#160;under one&#160;roof makes the provision of care easier and more comprehensive, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p>As much as transgender youth face many of the same health issues as any adolescent, they are are at much higher risk of depression suicidal thoughts, substance use, and homelessness compared to their non-transgender peers. Almost half of transgender or gender non-conforming youth aged 18-24 attempted suicide, according to the 2014 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which is why doctors emphasize access to mental health services.</p>
<p>From January to May of 2017, founder Chris Lewis and his colleagues have seen about 70 patients through their individual practices. They estimate that by the end of the year, they will see hundreds more through the newly opened clinic. Despite opening only one week&#160;ago, the facility is booked through September, the Seeker reports.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chris Lewis</a> <a href="" type="internal">Diane Ehrensaft</a> <a href="" type="internal">San Francisco</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Louis</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Louis Children's Hospital</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">Transgender Center of Excellence</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender health</a> <a href="" type="internal">University of California San Francisco</a> <a href="" type="internal">Washington University</a></p>
| 5,487 |
|
<p>By Tim Radford, Climate News Network</p>
<p />
<p>&#160; &#160; Rising water levels and dwindling silt leave mangroves doubly vulnerable. (Philg88 via Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>This Creative Commons-licensed piece first appeared at <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/mangroves-face-struggle-to-survive-in-rising-seas/" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>LONDON — In less than one human lifetime, some of the planet’s richest and most vital coastal habitats could disappear. <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uoq-rsw101315.php" type="external">Sea-level rise is expected to flood and drown the mangrove forests</a> of much of the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p>These subtropical and tropical intertidal forests — home to huge varieties of fish, birds and insects, and natural buffers that protect coasts and estuaries during tropical cyclones — are at risk even if sea level rise is at the bottom of the predicted range, according to <a href="http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1430" type="external">Catherine Lovelock</a>, an ecologist at the University of Queensland.</p>
<p>She and colleagues report in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15538.html" type="external">Nature</a> that they considered not just rates of sea level rise at a network of 27 sites, but changes in what scientists call “surface elevation” in the mangrove forests of the region: that is, the rate at which estuary silt is being deposited around the mangrove roots.</p>
<p>In the Chao Praya River delta in Thailand, for instance, sediment delivery has been cut by 80% and the coastal mangroves are in retreat.</p>
<p>The scientists found that, in 69% of their examples, the supply of sediment would not keep pace with changes in sea level: that is, by 2070, many forests would be submerged. These would include ecosystems in Thailand, Sumatra, Java, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.</p>
<p>Adaptation impossible</p>
<p>“Our modelling shows mangroves are likely to persist in east Africa, the Bay of Bengal, eastern Borneo and north-western Australia — areas where there are relatively large tidal ranges and/or higher sediment supply,” Professor Lovelock said.</p>
<p>Although sea levels are projected to rise by a metre or possibly more by the end of the century, under natural conditions the forests could adapt: estuaries would deliver enough mud and silt to enable the mangrove trees to keep, so to speak, their heads above water, and the forests would anyway begin to colonise the higher ground as the tides rose.</p>
<p>But since humans started damming rivers to build hydro-electric plants or to supply cities with water or farmland with irrigation channels, the annual delivery of river silt has steadily fallen.</p>
<p>Many estuaries, and the cities built on them, are subsiding even as tide levels steadily increase because of global warming, thermal expansion (the way that warmer water expands), and the steady melting almost everywhere of glaciers and icecaps to deliver more water to the seas.</p>
<p>Providing protection</p>
<p>By 2100, researchers have calculated, <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/coastal-flooding-may-cost-100000-bn-a-year-by-2100-2/" type="external">coastal flooding could be costing the world US$100,000 billion a year</a> as a consequence of higher sea levels, higher temperatures and greater extremes of wind and rain, all driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Mangrove forests, like coral reefs, serve as natural barriers against floods, freak tides and storm surges. The forests also soak up significant quantities of atmospheric carbon and could play <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/mangroves-hold-key-to-indonesias-emissions-cuts/" type="external">an important role in containing climate change</a>. Altogether the Indo-Pacific region is home to most of the world’s mangrove forests. It is also expected to have high rates of sea level rise.</p>
<p>The Nature team believes that city, national and regional authorities should be thinking about conservation, restoration and better management of the forests upstream, and about the rivers that carry the decaying organic material that nourishes the coastal mangrove forests.</p>
<p>“Intertidal mangrove forests occur on tropical and subtropical shorelines, and provide a wide range of ecosystem services — to fisheries, in coastal protection and carbon sequestration — with an estimated value of $194,000 per hectare per year,” Professor Lovelock said.</p>
<p />
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Mangroves Face Struggle to Survive Rising Seas
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/mangroves-face-struggle-to-survive-rising-seas/
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2015-10-19
| 4left
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Mangroves Face Struggle to Survive Rising Seas
<p>By Tim Radford, Climate News Network</p>
<p />
<p>&#160; &#160; Rising water levels and dwindling silt leave mangroves doubly vulnerable. (Philg88 via Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>This Creative Commons-licensed piece first appeared at <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/mangroves-face-struggle-to-survive-in-rising-seas/" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>LONDON — In less than one human lifetime, some of the planet’s richest and most vital coastal habitats could disappear. <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uoq-rsw101315.php" type="external">Sea-level rise is expected to flood and drown the mangrove forests</a> of much of the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p>These subtropical and tropical intertidal forests — home to huge varieties of fish, birds and insects, and natural buffers that protect coasts and estuaries during tropical cyclones — are at risk even if sea level rise is at the bottom of the predicted range, according to <a href="http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1430" type="external">Catherine Lovelock</a>, an ecologist at the University of Queensland.</p>
<p>She and colleagues report in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15538.html" type="external">Nature</a> that they considered not just rates of sea level rise at a network of 27 sites, but changes in what scientists call “surface elevation” in the mangrove forests of the region: that is, the rate at which estuary silt is being deposited around the mangrove roots.</p>
<p>In the Chao Praya River delta in Thailand, for instance, sediment delivery has been cut by 80% and the coastal mangroves are in retreat.</p>
<p>The scientists found that, in 69% of their examples, the supply of sediment would not keep pace with changes in sea level: that is, by 2070, many forests would be submerged. These would include ecosystems in Thailand, Sumatra, Java, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.</p>
<p>Adaptation impossible</p>
<p>“Our modelling shows mangroves are likely to persist in east Africa, the Bay of Bengal, eastern Borneo and north-western Australia — areas where there are relatively large tidal ranges and/or higher sediment supply,” Professor Lovelock said.</p>
<p>Although sea levels are projected to rise by a metre or possibly more by the end of the century, under natural conditions the forests could adapt: estuaries would deliver enough mud and silt to enable the mangrove trees to keep, so to speak, their heads above water, and the forests would anyway begin to colonise the higher ground as the tides rose.</p>
<p>But since humans started damming rivers to build hydro-electric plants or to supply cities with water or farmland with irrigation channels, the annual delivery of river silt has steadily fallen.</p>
<p>Many estuaries, and the cities built on them, are subsiding even as tide levels steadily increase because of global warming, thermal expansion (the way that warmer water expands), and the steady melting almost everywhere of glaciers and icecaps to deliver more water to the seas.</p>
<p>Providing protection</p>
<p>By 2100, researchers have calculated, <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/coastal-flooding-may-cost-100000-bn-a-year-by-2100-2/" type="external">coastal flooding could be costing the world US$100,000 billion a year</a> as a consequence of higher sea levels, higher temperatures and greater extremes of wind and rain, all driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Mangrove forests, like coral reefs, serve as natural barriers against floods, freak tides and storm surges. The forests also soak up significant quantities of atmospheric carbon and could play <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/mangroves-hold-key-to-indonesias-emissions-cuts/" type="external">an important role in containing climate change</a>. Altogether the Indo-Pacific region is home to most of the world’s mangrove forests. It is also expected to have high rates of sea level rise.</p>
<p>The Nature team believes that city, national and regional authorities should be thinking about conservation, restoration and better management of the forests upstream, and about the rivers that carry the decaying organic material that nourishes the coastal mangrove forests.</p>
<p>“Intertidal mangrove forests occur on tropical and subtropical shorelines, and provide a wide range of ecosystem services — to fisheries, in coastal protection and carbon sequestration — with an estimated value of $194,000 per hectare per year,” Professor Lovelock said.</p>
<p />
| 5,488 |
<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers had a first down at the New Orleans 21 with 41 seconds left and a chance for a winning touchdown that seemed improbable when they trailed by more than two touchdowns late in the first half.</p>
<p>That was as close as they got, prolonging a painful trend in an excruciating 31-26 loss Sunday night in the NFC wild-card round.</p>
<p>With the Panthers in position for their first lead, Newton was called for intentional grounding, which cost 13 yards, a loss of down and a 10-second runoff. Saints safety Von Bell then sacked Newton near midfield on fourth down two plays later, assuring Carolina's third loss to New Orleans this season.</p>
<p>It was the fifth time the Panthers failed to reach the end zone after getting past the Saints' 25-yard line.</p>
<p>"I'm frustrated," Newton said. "We didn't come here just to get a shot. ... We came here to win. That's what we didn't do."</p>
<p>Newton threw for 349 yards, his second highest total of the year, including a 56-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey that brought the Panthers within five with 4:09 to go. Newton then drove them 48 yards after safety Mike Adams intercepted Drew Brees' pass at the Carolina 31 when the Saints gambled on fourth down just across midfield.</p>
<p>Then the comeback bid unraveled.</p>
<p>Newton was flagged when he avoided defensive end Cam Jordan's rush by throwing the ball out of bounds, turning what would have been a second-and-10 into a third-and-23. The call left Panthers coach Ron Rivera upset.</p>
<p>"Our quarterback was out of the pocket," he said. "I thought there was a receiver (Devin Funchess) in the vicinity. I thought the ball was past the line of scrimmage."</p>
<p>Newton was more diplomatic.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter what I think, but that game didn't come down to that" call, he said. "We could have played better as a team. It was a (close) call either way."</p>
<p>Carolina had first downs at the New Orleans 15, 13, 27 and 10 in a span of five possessions and settled for four field goal attempts. Kicker Graham Gano missed the first one - a 25-yarder - and Newton went 2-for-6 with a sack in that stretch.</p>
<p>"I just have to be better," he said. "I'm not going to take the cowardly way and point somebody else out. I feel like plenty of times this year it was up to me. I do believe I am the leader of this team and the team goes as I go."</p>
<p>The defense did not give Newton much help for long stretches. Drew Brees threw for 376 yards, and New Orleans scored touchdowns on three consecutive series in the first half, starting its run with an 80-yard touchdown strike from Brees to Ted Ginn.</p>
<p>"There are a couple of plays I personally would like to take back," Panthers safety Kurt Coleman said. "It's frustrating. We beat the Patriots. We went toe to toe with Philadelphia. We beat Minnesota. We just didn't go out and do what we were supposed to do."</p>
<p>The Panthers almost made enough plays despite falling behind 31-19 with 5:08 left.</p>
<p>The touchdown occurred shortly after Newton had sat out a failed third-and-long play while undergoing concussion protocol. Newton took a hard hit on a sack by David Onyemata, started walking slowly off the field and then went back down in what Rivera said was an attempt to give backup Derek Anderson some extra warm-up throws.</p>
<p>Cleared to return for the next series, Newton completed his next five passes after the injury.</p>
<p>"It wasn't my head," he said. "It was my eye. My helmet came down low enough over my eyelid and got pressed by the player's stomach I believe. I thought maybe somebody stuck their finger in my eye, but I have a visor, so that can't happen."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers had a first down at the New Orleans 21 with 41 seconds left and a chance for a winning touchdown that seemed improbable when they trailed by more than two touchdowns late in the first half.</p>
<p>That was as close as they got, prolonging a painful trend in an excruciating 31-26 loss Sunday night in the NFC wild-card round.</p>
<p>With the Panthers in position for their first lead, Newton was called for intentional grounding, which cost 13 yards, a loss of down and a 10-second runoff. Saints safety Von Bell then sacked Newton near midfield on fourth down two plays later, assuring Carolina's third loss to New Orleans this season.</p>
<p>It was the fifth time the Panthers failed to reach the end zone after getting past the Saints' 25-yard line.</p>
<p>"I'm frustrated," Newton said. "We didn't come here just to get a shot. ... We came here to win. That's what we didn't do."</p>
<p>Newton threw for 349 yards, his second highest total of the year, including a 56-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey that brought the Panthers within five with 4:09 to go. Newton then drove them 48 yards after safety Mike Adams intercepted Drew Brees' pass at the Carolina 31 when the Saints gambled on fourth down just across midfield.</p>
<p>Then the comeback bid unraveled.</p>
<p>Newton was flagged when he avoided defensive end Cam Jordan's rush by throwing the ball out of bounds, turning what would have been a second-and-10 into a third-and-23. The call left Panthers coach Ron Rivera upset.</p>
<p>"Our quarterback was out of the pocket," he said. "I thought there was a receiver (Devin Funchess) in the vicinity. I thought the ball was past the line of scrimmage."</p>
<p>Newton was more diplomatic.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter what I think, but that game didn't come down to that" call, he said. "We could have played better as a team. It was a (close) call either way."</p>
<p>Carolina had first downs at the New Orleans 15, 13, 27 and 10 in a span of five possessions and settled for four field goal attempts. Kicker Graham Gano missed the first one - a 25-yarder - and Newton went 2-for-6 with a sack in that stretch.</p>
<p>"I just have to be better," he said. "I'm not going to take the cowardly way and point somebody else out. I feel like plenty of times this year it was up to me. I do believe I am the leader of this team and the team goes as I go."</p>
<p>The defense did not give Newton much help for long stretches. Drew Brees threw for 376 yards, and New Orleans scored touchdowns on three consecutive series in the first half, starting its run with an 80-yard touchdown strike from Brees to Ted Ginn.</p>
<p>"There are a couple of plays I personally would like to take back," Panthers safety Kurt Coleman said. "It's frustrating. We beat the Patriots. We went toe to toe with Philadelphia. We beat Minnesota. We just didn't go out and do what we were supposed to do."</p>
<p>The Panthers almost made enough plays despite falling behind 31-19 with 5:08 left.</p>
<p>The touchdown occurred shortly after Newton had sat out a failed third-and-long play while undergoing concussion protocol. Newton took a hard hit on a sack by David Onyemata, started walking slowly off the field and then went back down in what Rivera said was an attempt to give backup Derek Anderson some extra warm-up throws.</p>
<p>Cleared to return for the next series, Newton completed his next five passes after the injury.</p>
<p>"It wasn't my head," he said. "It was my eye. My helmet came down low enough over my eyelid and got pressed by the player's stomach I believe. I thought maybe somebody stuck their finger in my eye, but I have a visor, so that can't happen."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
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Panthers unable to convert pivotal plays in playoff loss
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/c5366d72df1f413391ca798f9f4f5799
|
2018-01-08
| 2least
|
Panthers unable to convert pivotal plays in playoff loss
<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers had a first down at the New Orleans 21 with 41 seconds left and a chance for a winning touchdown that seemed improbable when they trailed by more than two touchdowns late in the first half.</p>
<p>That was as close as they got, prolonging a painful trend in an excruciating 31-26 loss Sunday night in the NFC wild-card round.</p>
<p>With the Panthers in position for their first lead, Newton was called for intentional grounding, which cost 13 yards, a loss of down and a 10-second runoff. Saints safety Von Bell then sacked Newton near midfield on fourth down two plays later, assuring Carolina's third loss to New Orleans this season.</p>
<p>It was the fifth time the Panthers failed to reach the end zone after getting past the Saints' 25-yard line.</p>
<p>"I'm frustrated," Newton said. "We didn't come here just to get a shot. ... We came here to win. That's what we didn't do."</p>
<p>Newton threw for 349 yards, his second highest total of the year, including a 56-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey that brought the Panthers within five with 4:09 to go. Newton then drove them 48 yards after safety Mike Adams intercepted Drew Brees' pass at the Carolina 31 when the Saints gambled on fourth down just across midfield.</p>
<p>Then the comeback bid unraveled.</p>
<p>Newton was flagged when he avoided defensive end Cam Jordan's rush by throwing the ball out of bounds, turning what would have been a second-and-10 into a third-and-23. The call left Panthers coach Ron Rivera upset.</p>
<p>"Our quarterback was out of the pocket," he said. "I thought there was a receiver (Devin Funchess) in the vicinity. I thought the ball was past the line of scrimmage."</p>
<p>Newton was more diplomatic.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter what I think, but that game didn't come down to that" call, he said. "We could have played better as a team. It was a (close) call either way."</p>
<p>Carolina had first downs at the New Orleans 15, 13, 27 and 10 in a span of five possessions and settled for four field goal attempts. Kicker Graham Gano missed the first one - a 25-yarder - and Newton went 2-for-6 with a sack in that stretch.</p>
<p>"I just have to be better," he said. "I'm not going to take the cowardly way and point somebody else out. I feel like plenty of times this year it was up to me. I do believe I am the leader of this team and the team goes as I go."</p>
<p>The defense did not give Newton much help for long stretches. Drew Brees threw for 376 yards, and New Orleans scored touchdowns on three consecutive series in the first half, starting its run with an 80-yard touchdown strike from Brees to Ted Ginn.</p>
<p>"There are a couple of plays I personally would like to take back," Panthers safety Kurt Coleman said. "It's frustrating. We beat the Patriots. We went toe to toe with Philadelphia. We beat Minnesota. We just didn't go out and do what we were supposed to do."</p>
<p>The Panthers almost made enough plays despite falling behind 31-19 with 5:08 left.</p>
<p>The touchdown occurred shortly after Newton had sat out a failed third-and-long play while undergoing concussion protocol. Newton took a hard hit on a sack by David Onyemata, started walking slowly off the field and then went back down in what Rivera said was an attempt to give backup Derek Anderson some extra warm-up throws.</p>
<p>Cleared to return for the next series, Newton completed his next five passes after the injury.</p>
<p>"It wasn't my head," he said. "It was my eye. My helmet came down low enough over my eyelid and got pressed by the player's stomach I believe. I thought maybe somebody stuck their finger in my eye, but I have a visor, so that can't happen."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers had a first down at the New Orleans 21 with 41 seconds left and a chance for a winning touchdown that seemed improbable when they trailed by more than two touchdowns late in the first half.</p>
<p>That was as close as they got, prolonging a painful trend in an excruciating 31-26 loss Sunday night in the NFC wild-card round.</p>
<p>With the Panthers in position for their first lead, Newton was called for intentional grounding, which cost 13 yards, a loss of down and a 10-second runoff. Saints safety Von Bell then sacked Newton near midfield on fourth down two plays later, assuring Carolina's third loss to New Orleans this season.</p>
<p>It was the fifth time the Panthers failed to reach the end zone after getting past the Saints' 25-yard line.</p>
<p>"I'm frustrated," Newton said. "We didn't come here just to get a shot. ... We came here to win. That's what we didn't do."</p>
<p>Newton threw for 349 yards, his second highest total of the year, including a 56-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey that brought the Panthers within five with 4:09 to go. Newton then drove them 48 yards after safety Mike Adams intercepted Drew Brees' pass at the Carolina 31 when the Saints gambled on fourth down just across midfield.</p>
<p>Then the comeback bid unraveled.</p>
<p>Newton was flagged when he avoided defensive end Cam Jordan's rush by throwing the ball out of bounds, turning what would have been a second-and-10 into a third-and-23. The call left Panthers coach Ron Rivera upset.</p>
<p>"Our quarterback was out of the pocket," he said. "I thought there was a receiver (Devin Funchess) in the vicinity. I thought the ball was past the line of scrimmage."</p>
<p>Newton was more diplomatic.</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter what I think, but that game didn't come down to that" call, he said. "We could have played better as a team. It was a (close) call either way."</p>
<p>Carolina had first downs at the New Orleans 15, 13, 27 and 10 in a span of five possessions and settled for four field goal attempts. Kicker Graham Gano missed the first one - a 25-yarder - and Newton went 2-for-6 with a sack in that stretch.</p>
<p>"I just have to be better," he said. "I'm not going to take the cowardly way and point somebody else out. I feel like plenty of times this year it was up to me. I do believe I am the leader of this team and the team goes as I go."</p>
<p>The defense did not give Newton much help for long stretches. Drew Brees threw for 376 yards, and New Orleans scored touchdowns on three consecutive series in the first half, starting its run with an 80-yard touchdown strike from Brees to Ted Ginn.</p>
<p>"There are a couple of plays I personally would like to take back," Panthers safety Kurt Coleman said. "It's frustrating. We beat the Patriots. We went toe to toe with Philadelphia. We beat Minnesota. We just didn't go out and do what we were supposed to do."</p>
<p>The Panthers almost made enough plays despite falling behind 31-19 with 5:08 left.</p>
<p>The touchdown occurred shortly after Newton had sat out a failed third-and-long play while undergoing concussion protocol. Newton took a hard hit on a sack by David Onyemata, started walking slowly off the field and then went back down in what Rivera said was an attempt to give backup Derek Anderson some extra warm-up throws.</p>
<p>Cleared to return for the next series, Newton completed his next five passes after the injury.</p>
<p>"It wasn't my head," he said. "It was my eye. My helmet came down low enough over my eyelid and got pressed by the player's stomach I believe. I thought maybe somebody stuck their finger in my eye, but I have a visor, so that can't happen."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
| 5,489 |
<p>What:Shares ofAcxiom Corp. took a spill Wednesday after the software-as-a-services provider gave weak guidance in its fiscal fourth-quarter report. The stock closed the trading day down 12.1%.</p>
<p>So what:Acxiom actually beat analysts' estimates for the quarter that ended March 31, posting an adjusted profit of $0.18 against expectations of $0.09. Revenue improved 9% to $225 million, also beating estimates. CEO Scott Howe said the performance capped a strong year, and said the company extended its leadership in data connectivity with "the launch of LiveRamp Customer Link" and expansion of data onboarding in the U.K. and France.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Now what: The issue that seemed to sink the stock was its guidance for the current year; management expects revenue will improve in fiscal 2017 by just 2.5% to 5% to between $870 million and $890 million, and foresees earnings per share of around $0.55, down from $0.59 in fiscal 2016. Analysts had been forecasting EPS of $0.65 and revenue of $893.5 million.</p>
<p>The reasons for the downbeat guidance were not immediately clear. However, the company has a strong track record of easily beating estimates, so it may just be playing it conservative as it enters the new fiscal year. I wouldn't change my investing thesis based on Wednesday's news.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/18/why-acxiom-corp-shares-sank-on-wednesday.aspx" type="external">Why Acxiom Corp. Shares Sank on Wednesday</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jeremy Bowman</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</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>
|
Why Acxiom Corp. Shares Sank on Wednesday
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/18/why-acxiom-corp-shares-sank-on-wednesday.html
|
2016-05-18
| 0right
|
Why Acxiom Corp. Shares Sank on Wednesday
<p>What:Shares ofAcxiom Corp. took a spill Wednesday after the software-as-a-services provider gave weak guidance in its fiscal fourth-quarter report. The stock closed the trading day down 12.1%.</p>
<p>So what:Acxiom actually beat analysts' estimates for the quarter that ended March 31, posting an adjusted profit of $0.18 against expectations of $0.09. Revenue improved 9% to $225 million, also beating estimates. CEO Scott Howe said the performance capped a strong year, and said the company extended its leadership in data connectivity with "the launch of LiveRamp Customer Link" and expansion of data onboarding in the U.K. and France.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Now what: The issue that seemed to sink the stock was its guidance for the current year; management expects revenue will improve in fiscal 2017 by just 2.5% to 5% to between $870 million and $890 million, and foresees earnings per share of around $0.55, down from $0.59 in fiscal 2016. Analysts had been forecasting EPS of $0.65 and revenue of $893.5 million.</p>
<p>The reasons for the downbeat guidance were not immediately clear. However, the company has a strong track record of easily beating estimates, so it may just be playing it conservative as it enters the new fiscal year. I wouldn't change my investing thesis based on Wednesday's news.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/18/why-acxiom-corp-shares-sank-on-wednesday.aspx" type="external">Why Acxiom Corp. Shares Sank on Wednesday</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jeremy Bowman</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</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>
| 5,490 |
<p>A 103-year-old Georgia woman was kicked out of her lifelong church following a disagreement with her pastor over his preaching style.</p>
<p>Genora Ham Biggs said she and the current pastor of Union Grove <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a> in Elberton, the Rev. Tim Mattox, have disagreed in the past over his preaching style, which she considers a "Holiness style," but recently Mr. Mattox took action against Ms. Biggs, barring her from attending Sunday service.</p>
<p>"At one point, he had a crew in here, and they were hollering and falling out in the middle of the floor. We don't do that in the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a>," Ms. Biggs said, Fox 5 News reported.</p>
<p>Then in early August, Ms. Biggs received a letter from Mr. Mattox stating that she could no longer attend church there "for any reason whatsoever" and that her 92-year membership had been revoked.</p>
<p>"This letter is to inform you that according to the By-Laws of the Union Grove <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a>, and by vote of the active members, any membership or associations that you have had with this church are now officially revoked," the letter read, Fox reported.</p>
<p>She said the police were called on her when she attended the church this past Sunday. Police said there was nothing they could do as this was a civil dispute between Ms. Biggs and the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a>.</p>
<p>The dispute has caused a rift in the congregation.</p>
<p>Ezell Land, another member of the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a> who has been attending for 50 years, said he left the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a> over the issue. He said about 20 other members of the congregation have also left over the past year because of the pastor's controversial preaching style.</p>
<p>"You can't do that to somebody. She has been part of this church her whole life. She was even the church secretary for 40 years. That's just not good pastoring to do that," Mr. Land said, Fox reported.</p>
<p>Copyright - 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2015/sep/16/genora-ham-biggs-103-year-old-georgia-woman-banned/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
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Pastor bans 103-year-old Georgia woman from her lifelong church
| true |
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/16/genora-ham-biggs-103-year-old-georgia-woman-banned/
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2015-09-16
| 0right
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Pastor bans 103-year-old Georgia woman from her lifelong church
<p>A 103-year-old Georgia woman was kicked out of her lifelong church following a disagreement with her pastor over his preaching style.</p>
<p>Genora Ham Biggs said she and the current pastor of Union Grove <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a> in Elberton, the Rev. Tim Mattox, have disagreed in the past over his preaching style, which she considers a "Holiness style," but recently Mr. Mattox took action against Ms. Biggs, barring her from attending Sunday service.</p>
<p>"At one point, he had a crew in here, and they were hollering and falling out in the middle of the floor. We don't do that in the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a>," Ms. Biggs said, Fox 5 News reported.</p>
<p>Then in early August, Ms. Biggs received a letter from Mr. Mattox stating that she could no longer attend church there "for any reason whatsoever" and that her 92-year membership had been revoked.</p>
<p>"This letter is to inform you that according to the By-Laws of the Union Grove <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">Baptist Church</a>, and by vote of the active members, any membership or associations that you have had with this church are now officially revoked," the letter read, Fox reported.</p>
<p>She said the police were called on her when she attended the church this past Sunday. Police said there was nothing they could do as this was a civil dispute between Ms. Biggs and the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a>.</p>
<p>The dispute has caused a rift in the congregation.</p>
<p>Ezell Land, another member of the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a> who has been attending for 50 years, said he left the <a href="/topics/baptist/" type="external">church</a> over the issue. He said about 20 other members of the congregation have also left over the past year because of the pastor's controversial preaching style.</p>
<p>"You can't do that to somebody. She has been part of this church her whole life. She was even the church secretary for 40 years. That's just not good pastoring to do that," Mr. Land said, Fox reported.</p>
<p>Copyright - 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2015/sep/16/genora-ham-biggs-103-year-old-georgia-woman-banned/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Click to Read More</p>
<p>Click to Hide</p>
| 5,491 |
<p>I'm calling foul on all the leftists rushing to protect the NFL's protest crusaders from President Donald Trump's criticism of their national anthem antics.</p>
<p>Their shabby line of defense? The NFL is a "private enterprise" whose "rights" are being violated by those who dare to challenge the league's political radicalization. The anti-Trump Democratic Coalition has even filed an ethics complaint alleging that the president's comments constitute a criminal violation against using government offices "to influence the employment decisions and practices" of a private entity.</p>
<p>Funny. These fair-weather friends of corporate free speech and the First Amendment were nowhere to be found when Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were vowing to shut down Chick-Fil-A in their towns as government retaliation against the founders' private religious beliefs.</p>
<p>As for the NFL's status as a "private" enterprise? That's some Super Bowl-sized audacity right there. I first started tracking publicly subsidized sports boondoggles with my very first watchdog website, Porkwatch, back in 1999. Since then, taxpayers at all levels of government have foot the bill for football stadiums to the tune of an estimated $1 billion every year.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, new tax-supported NFL stadiums rose up for the Indianapolis Colts (the $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium), the Dallas Cowboys (the $1.15 billion AT&amp;T Stadium) the New York Jets and Giants (the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings (the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium), the Atlanta Falcons (the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium), and the San Francisco 49ers (the $1.3 billion Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara).</p>
<p>Next in the works: a whopping $2.6 billion stadium for the Los Angeles Chargers and Rams and a $1.9 billion stadium for the Oakland Raiders when they move to Las Vegas. Left behind? An $83 million taxpayer debt on two-decade-old renovations to the Alameda County Coliseum that the Raiders are abandoning.</p>
<p>Both political parties have supported massive redistribution of taxes from working people to the gridiron's spoiled 1-percenters. Public-private sports palace boosters employ the same bogus economic development math as the federal government's infamous Solyndra green energy loans, stimulus rip-offs and jobs programs. Citizens are promised an enormous multiplier of jobs and benefits in return for their "investments." But instead they've been saddled with a field of schemes.</p>
<p>Sports economists have concluded repeatedly that the effects of stadium subsidies on employment and economic activity are negligible -- or even negative. Scott Wolla of the St. Louis Federal Reserve reported earlier this year, "In a 2017 poll, 83 percent of the economists surveyed agreed that 'Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.'"</p>
<p>Yet, the NFL, its teams and its sponsors continue to benefit from a bonanza of tax-free loans, municipal bonds, rent waivers and property tax exemptions. Congress provided the league with an antitrust exemption that protects its monopoly broadcasting rights. Localities have raided "emergency" funds to help pay for stadium construction. And corporate benefactors write off their expenses for luxury boxes, tickets and naming-rights purchases.</p>
<p>As long as the NFL has its hog noses buried in the taxpayer trough, I'll keep speaking up about all the football militants who backed former 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick and his disgusting cops-as-pigs socks.</p>
<p>You wanna raise your fists on the field? Get your grubby hands out of our pockets first.</p>
<p>Michelle Malkin is host of "Michelle Malkin Investigates" on CRTV.com. Her email address is [email protected]. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.</p>
<p>COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM</p>
|
MALKIN: NFL Pigskins At The Public Trough
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/21640/malkin-nfl-pigskins-public-trough-michelle-malkin
|
2017-09-28
| 0right
|
MALKIN: NFL Pigskins At The Public Trough
<p>I'm calling foul on all the leftists rushing to protect the NFL's protest crusaders from President Donald Trump's criticism of their national anthem antics.</p>
<p>Their shabby line of defense? The NFL is a "private enterprise" whose "rights" are being violated by those who dare to challenge the league's political radicalization. The anti-Trump Democratic Coalition has even filed an ethics complaint alleging that the president's comments constitute a criminal violation against using government offices "to influence the employment decisions and practices" of a private entity.</p>
<p>Funny. These fair-weather friends of corporate free speech and the First Amendment were nowhere to be found when Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were vowing to shut down Chick-Fil-A in their towns as government retaliation against the founders' private religious beliefs.</p>
<p>As for the NFL's status as a "private" enterprise? That's some Super Bowl-sized audacity right there. I first started tracking publicly subsidized sports boondoggles with my very first watchdog website, Porkwatch, back in 1999. Since then, taxpayers at all levels of government have foot the bill for football stadiums to the tune of an estimated $1 billion every year.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, new tax-supported NFL stadiums rose up for the Indianapolis Colts (the $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium), the Dallas Cowboys (the $1.15 billion AT&amp;T Stadium) the New York Jets and Giants (the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings (the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium), the Atlanta Falcons (the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium), and the San Francisco 49ers (the $1.3 billion Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara).</p>
<p>Next in the works: a whopping $2.6 billion stadium for the Los Angeles Chargers and Rams and a $1.9 billion stadium for the Oakland Raiders when they move to Las Vegas. Left behind? An $83 million taxpayer debt on two-decade-old renovations to the Alameda County Coliseum that the Raiders are abandoning.</p>
<p>Both political parties have supported massive redistribution of taxes from working people to the gridiron's spoiled 1-percenters. Public-private sports palace boosters employ the same bogus economic development math as the federal government's infamous Solyndra green energy loans, stimulus rip-offs and jobs programs. Citizens are promised an enormous multiplier of jobs and benefits in return for their "investments." But instead they've been saddled with a field of schemes.</p>
<p>Sports economists have concluded repeatedly that the effects of stadium subsidies on employment and economic activity are negligible -- or even negative. Scott Wolla of the St. Louis Federal Reserve reported earlier this year, "In a 2017 poll, 83 percent of the economists surveyed agreed that 'Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.'"</p>
<p>Yet, the NFL, its teams and its sponsors continue to benefit from a bonanza of tax-free loans, municipal bonds, rent waivers and property tax exemptions. Congress provided the league with an antitrust exemption that protects its monopoly broadcasting rights. Localities have raided "emergency" funds to help pay for stadium construction. And corporate benefactors write off their expenses for luxury boxes, tickets and naming-rights purchases.</p>
<p>As long as the NFL has its hog noses buried in the taxpayer trough, I'll keep speaking up about all the football militants who backed former 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick and his disgusting cops-as-pigs socks.</p>
<p>You wanna raise your fists on the field? Get your grubby hands out of our pockets first.</p>
<p>Michelle Malkin is host of "Michelle Malkin Investigates" on CRTV.com. Her email address is [email protected]. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.</p>
<p>COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM</p>
| 5,492 |
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<p />
<p>The newspaper unapologetically skewered other religions as well, and bragged that Sunday's turnout of a million people at a march in Paris to condemn terrorism was larger “than for Mass.”</p>
<p>“For the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has achieved more miracles than all the saints and prophets combined,” it said in the edition's lead editorial. “The one we are most proud of is that you have in your hands the newspaper that we always made.”</p>
<p>Working out of borrowed offices, surviving staff published an unprecedented print run of 3 million copies – more than 50 times the usual circulation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It was to appear on newsstands Wednesday, one week to the day after the assault by two masked gunmen that killed 12 people, including much of the weekly's editorial staff and two police officers. It was the beginning of three days of terror that saw 17 people killed before the three Islamic extremist attackers were gunned down by security forces.</p>
<p>Before the new edition was even released, one of Egypt's top Islamic authorities had warned Charlie Hebdo against publishing more cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Dar al-Ifta, which is in charge of issuing religious edicts, called the planned cover an “unjustified provocation” for millions of Muslims who respect and love their prophet and warned the cartoon would likely spark a new wave of hatred.</p>
<p>Indeed, criticism and threats immediately appeared on militant websites, with calls for more strikes against the newspaper and anonymous threats from radicals, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based terrorism monitor.</p>
<p>The latest cover shows a weeping Muhammad, holding a sign reading “I am Charlie” with the words “All is forgiven” above him. Zineb El Rhazoui, a journalist with the weekly, said the cover meant the journalists are forgiving the extremists for the attack.</p>
<p>Renald Luzier, the cartoonist who drew the cover image under the pen name “Luz,” said it represents “just a little guy who's crying.”</p>
<p>Then he added, unapologetically: “Yes, it is Muhammad.”</p>
<p>Speaking at a news conference in which he repeatedly broke down crying, Luzier described weeping after he drew the picture.</p>
<p>“I wrote `everything is pardoned', and I cried,” he said, adding that at that moment the staff understood the drawing would be the cover.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It is not the cover that the world wanted us to do,” he said, tearfully putting his head down on the table at one point as colleagues embraced him in a group hug.</p>
<p>Charlie Hebdo had faced repeated threats and a firebombing for depictions of the prophet, and its editor and his police bodyguard were the first to die. Many Muslims believe all images of the prophet are blasphemous.</p>
<p>The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo maintained the intentionally offensive tone that made the newspaper famous in France. The first two pages included drawings by the slain cartoonists: One showed a well-known late French nun talking about oral sex; another showed Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders dividing up the world.</p>
<p>The lead editorial laid out a vigorous defense of secularism, and of the newspaper's right to lampoon religions and hold their leaders accountable – and ended with a critique of the pope.</p>
<p>But most of the controversy centered on the cover and its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.</p>
<p>Around the world, news organizations took different approaches to illustrating stories about the Charlie Hebdo cover. In the United States, CBS programs and The New York Post ran images of the cover, while the ABC network didn't. The New York Times also didn't publish it, but included a link to it. CNN didn't show the cover online or on the air. The Associated Press had not run previous Charlie Hebdo cartoons showing Muhammad, and declined to run the latest one as well, based on its policy to avoid images designed to provoke on the basis of religion.</p>
<p>In Europe, Spain's leading daily newspapers published the image online and the state broadcaster showed it on news bulletins. In Britain, The Times of London, the Guardian and the Independent went with the image, while The Daily Telegraph didn't. The BBC showed the new cover on news programs. Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung all used it on their websites.</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Thomas Adamson and Elaine Ganley in Paris; David Bauder in Pasadena, California, Jorge Sainz in Madrid, Jill Lawless in London, and Frank Jordans in Berlin, contributed to this report.</p>
<p><a href="#a66b0293-565a-4b46-8265-f8bd43d87b74" type="external">© 2015 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>
|
Defiant Charlie Hebdo fronts Muhammad, drawing more threats
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/525608/defiant-charlie-hebdo-fronts-muhammad-drawing-more-threats.html
|
2015-01-13
| 2least
|
Defiant Charlie Hebdo fronts Muhammad, drawing more threats
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The newspaper unapologetically skewered other religions as well, and bragged that Sunday's turnout of a million people at a march in Paris to condemn terrorism was larger “than for Mass.”</p>
<p>“For the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has achieved more miracles than all the saints and prophets combined,” it said in the edition's lead editorial. “The one we are most proud of is that you have in your hands the newspaper that we always made.”</p>
<p>Working out of borrowed offices, surviving staff published an unprecedented print run of 3 million copies – more than 50 times the usual circulation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It was to appear on newsstands Wednesday, one week to the day after the assault by two masked gunmen that killed 12 people, including much of the weekly's editorial staff and two police officers. It was the beginning of three days of terror that saw 17 people killed before the three Islamic extremist attackers were gunned down by security forces.</p>
<p>Before the new edition was even released, one of Egypt's top Islamic authorities had warned Charlie Hebdo against publishing more cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Dar al-Ifta, which is in charge of issuing religious edicts, called the planned cover an “unjustified provocation” for millions of Muslims who respect and love their prophet and warned the cartoon would likely spark a new wave of hatred.</p>
<p>Indeed, criticism and threats immediately appeared on militant websites, with calls for more strikes against the newspaper and anonymous threats from radicals, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based terrorism monitor.</p>
<p>The latest cover shows a weeping Muhammad, holding a sign reading “I am Charlie” with the words “All is forgiven” above him. Zineb El Rhazoui, a journalist with the weekly, said the cover meant the journalists are forgiving the extremists for the attack.</p>
<p>Renald Luzier, the cartoonist who drew the cover image under the pen name “Luz,” said it represents “just a little guy who's crying.”</p>
<p>Then he added, unapologetically: “Yes, it is Muhammad.”</p>
<p>Speaking at a news conference in which he repeatedly broke down crying, Luzier described weeping after he drew the picture.</p>
<p>“I wrote `everything is pardoned', and I cried,” he said, adding that at that moment the staff understood the drawing would be the cover.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It is not the cover that the world wanted us to do,” he said, tearfully putting his head down on the table at one point as colleagues embraced him in a group hug.</p>
<p>Charlie Hebdo had faced repeated threats and a firebombing for depictions of the prophet, and its editor and his police bodyguard were the first to die. Many Muslims believe all images of the prophet are blasphemous.</p>
<p>The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo maintained the intentionally offensive tone that made the newspaper famous in France. The first two pages included drawings by the slain cartoonists: One showed a well-known late French nun talking about oral sex; another showed Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders dividing up the world.</p>
<p>The lead editorial laid out a vigorous defense of secularism, and of the newspaper's right to lampoon religions and hold their leaders accountable – and ended with a critique of the pope.</p>
<p>But most of the controversy centered on the cover and its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.</p>
<p>Around the world, news organizations took different approaches to illustrating stories about the Charlie Hebdo cover. In the United States, CBS programs and The New York Post ran images of the cover, while the ABC network didn't. The New York Times also didn't publish it, but included a link to it. CNN didn't show the cover online or on the air. The Associated Press had not run previous Charlie Hebdo cartoons showing Muhammad, and declined to run the latest one as well, based on its policy to avoid images designed to provoke on the basis of religion.</p>
<p>In Europe, Spain's leading daily newspapers published the image online and the state broadcaster showed it on news bulletins. In Britain, The Times of London, the Guardian and the Independent went with the image, while The Daily Telegraph didn't. The BBC showed the new cover on news programs. Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung all used it on their websites.</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Thomas Adamson and Elaine Ganley in Paris; David Bauder in Pasadena, California, Jorge Sainz in Madrid, Jill Lawless in London, and Frank Jordans in Berlin, contributed to this report.</p>
<p><a href="#a66b0293-565a-4b46-8265-f8bd43d87b74" type="external">© 2015 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>
| 5,493 |
<p>BRUSSELS, Belgium — It should have been a good day for Belgium.</p>
<p>The national soccer team rolled over the USA 4-2 in Cleveland last week, but while sportswriters were tipping the "Red Devils" as potential World Cup contenders, Belgians were seeing scarlet over some less flattering media coverage.</p>
<p>"Poor Belgium, we're ridiculed by The Wall Street Journal," lamented the news weekly Le Vif.</p>
<p>"Belgium gunned down from abroad: why so much hatred?" asked state broadcaster RTBF.</p>
<p>The WSJ blog that inspired the media storm — and a torrent of expletive-laden comments on the paper's website — was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek take on European Union criticism of the Belgian economy, its author Frances Robinson explained in a follow-up article.</p>
<p>But her piece caught Belgians at a sensitive time.</p>
<p>Days earlier, the French daily Liberation had carried a two-page article by its longtime Brussels correspondent titled " <a href="http://bruxelles.blogs.liberation.fr/coulisses/2013/05/bruxelles-pas-belle-.html#more" type="external">Bruxelles, pas Belle</a>" ("Brussels, not Pretty").</p>
<p>"Belgium's capital is so ugly and so dirty that the shock of arriving risks knocking people off their feet," wrote Jean Quatremer, who is widely read in Belgium.</p>
<p>Furious local politicians who likened the article to tract by far-right extremists invited Quatremer to go home. The Belgium newspaper DH struck back with a front-page article of its own called "Rotten Paris," illustrated with photographs showing piles of trash and graffiti-strewn walls.</p>
<p>"Sure Brussels has its issues," says Rudi Vervoort, the new president of the Brussels regional government. "We know we have to clean it up, work on urban problems, but he only talked about the negative things and this can be a great place to live and it has world class tourist attractions."</p>
<p>There are undeniably some strange things about the city that likes to call itself the capital of Europe.</p>
<p>It’s the third-richest region in the European Union — behind London and Luxembourg — according to <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-21032013-AP/EN/1-21032013-AP-EN.PDF" type="external">data released in March</a> by the EU's statistics office. At 17.4 percent, however, its <a href="http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfst_r_lfu3rt&amp;lang=en" type="external">unemployment rate</a> is among the highest in Europe outside crisis-wracked Spain and Greece.</p>
<p>A large part of Brussels' wealth comes from the presence of the European Union and NATO headquarters, which have brought thousands of well-paid expat officials to the city and attracted legions of lobbyists, journalists and business executives.</p>
<p>The high unemployment can be put down largely to the complex and contentious relations between Belgium's divided linguistic communities.</p>
<p>Although the city’s population of 1 million is overwhelmingly French-speaking, it is surrounded by the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders and is officially bilingual. Most jobs in the capital require candidates to be fluent in both French and Dutch. Many also demand English.</p>
<p>That shuts out thousands without those language skills. The problem is particularly acute in immigrant communities, where many speak French and Arabic, but few can get by in Dutch and English.</p>
<p>Meanwhile an estimated 300,000 people commute into the city to work every day, mostly from Flanders where language teaching is a traditional strong point.</p>
<p>The commuters’ taxes go to regional governments in Flanders or French-speaking Wallonia to the south. That leaves the capital starved of revenues and forced to rely on the generosity of its reluctant neighbors.</p>
<p>"All those commuters are a cost burden for us in terms of things like public transport, policing, but that's the Belgian system. They pay taxes where they live, not where they work," Vervoort told GlobalPost.</p>
<p>Under an agreement last year, the other regions are scheduled to transfer around $660 million a year to Brussels. But that’s about $400 million short of what's needed, says Vervoort, a Socialist politician who took on the capital's top job last month.</p>
<p>About a third of Brussels' population is made up of foreigners. But there’s little interaction between the well-heeled Eurocrats and Parisian tax-exiles from the leafy suburbs in the south and east, and the mostly Moroccan immigrant communities living in the tightly packed neighborhoods around the inner city.</p>
<p>Shoppers browsing the trendy boutiques along the rue Antoine Dansaert rarely cross the canal to experience the souk-like atmosphere in the Molenbeek district where over half the population is Muslim and youth unemployment runs at 40 percent.</p>
<p>EU officials seldom stroll down the hill from their steel and glass office blocks to the nearby St. Josse neighborhood, Brussels's poorest — a square kilometer housing 25,000 people from 140 nationalities.</p>
<p>The divisions between the high-powered Brussels that aspires to be Europe's federal capital and the city's struggling poor neighborhoods often draw comparisons with Washington, DC. But the jumble of nondescript late 20th-century architecture that makes up Brussels' European Quarter is a sorry reflection of other capitals' elegance.</p>
<p>In the post-World War II decades, "Brusselization" entered dictionaries as a byword for bad urban planning following rampant property speculation that razed historic neighborhoods to make way for urban highways and monolithic office blocks.</p>
<p>Despite such destruction, Brussels does have its attractions.</p>
<p>Its central square, the Grand Place, with its towering Gothic town hall and 17th-century guild houses is one of Europe's most beautiful urban spaces. There are islands of charm scattered throughout the city with elegant homes, cool bars, quirky stores and architectural gems. The food is terrific and the beer arguably the world’s best.</p>
<p>However, complaining about the city is a favorite pastime among the expats who chill after work in the Irish pubs, Greek cafes and tapas bars that ring the EU’s headquarters.</p>
<p>They now have a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ThingsPeopleInBrusselsDontSay?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook page</a> dedicated to griping about everything from the rain to the traditional requirement for restaurant, cinema and bar customers to pay extra to use the restrooms, or the traffic — which was recently judged to be the <a href="http://www.inrix.com/scorecard/" type="external">worst in Europe and North America</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/world-religion/130602/europe-church-mosque-christianity-islam-religious-crisis" type="external">Religion in Europe, also in crisis</a></p>
<p>With serious urban problems and a limited budget to handle them, the city that hosts one of the world's largest concentration of international journalists can expect Brussels-bashing to continue.</p>
<p>Still, Vervoort says there is one fact that belies the bad press.</p>
<p>"Thirty percent of the foreigners working at the EU end up staying here when they retire," he said. "The majority who are happy here don't spend all their time complaining on Facebook. They vote with their feet."&#160;</p>
|
Brussels against the world
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2013-06-11/brussels-against-world
|
2013-06-11
| 3left-center
|
Brussels against the world
<p>BRUSSELS, Belgium — It should have been a good day for Belgium.</p>
<p>The national soccer team rolled over the USA 4-2 in Cleveland last week, but while sportswriters were tipping the "Red Devils" as potential World Cup contenders, Belgians were seeing scarlet over some less flattering media coverage.</p>
<p>"Poor Belgium, we're ridiculed by The Wall Street Journal," lamented the news weekly Le Vif.</p>
<p>"Belgium gunned down from abroad: why so much hatred?" asked state broadcaster RTBF.</p>
<p>The WSJ blog that inspired the media storm — and a torrent of expletive-laden comments on the paper's website — was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek take on European Union criticism of the Belgian economy, its author Frances Robinson explained in a follow-up article.</p>
<p>But her piece caught Belgians at a sensitive time.</p>
<p>Days earlier, the French daily Liberation had carried a two-page article by its longtime Brussels correspondent titled " <a href="http://bruxelles.blogs.liberation.fr/coulisses/2013/05/bruxelles-pas-belle-.html#more" type="external">Bruxelles, pas Belle</a>" ("Brussels, not Pretty").</p>
<p>"Belgium's capital is so ugly and so dirty that the shock of arriving risks knocking people off their feet," wrote Jean Quatremer, who is widely read in Belgium.</p>
<p>Furious local politicians who likened the article to tract by far-right extremists invited Quatremer to go home. The Belgium newspaper DH struck back with a front-page article of its own called "Rotten Paris," illustrated with photographs showing piles of trash and graffiti-strewn walls.</p>
<p>"Sure Brussels has its issues," says Rudi Vervoort, the new president of the Brussels regional government. "We know we have to clean it up, work on urban problems, but he only talked about the negative things and this can be a great place to live and it has world class tourist attractions."</p>
<p>There are undeniably some strange things about the city that likes to call itself the capital of Europe.</p>
<p>It’s the third-richest region in the European Union — behind London and Luxembourg — according to <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-21032013-AP/EN/1-21032013-AP-EN.PDF" type="external">data released in March</a> by the EU's statistics office. At 17.4 percent, however, its <a href="http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfst_r_lfu3rt&amp;lang=en" type="external">unemployment rate</a> is among the highest in Europe outside crisis-wracked Spain and Greece.</p>
<p>A large part of Brussels' wealth comes from the presence of the European Union and NATO headquarters, which have brought thousands of well-paid expat officials to the city and attracted legions of lobbyists, journalists and business executives.</p>
<p>The high unemployment can be put down largely to the complex and contentious relations between Belgium's divided linguistic communities.</p>
<p>Although the city’s population of 1 million is overwhelmingly French-speaking, it is surrounded by the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders and is officially bilingual. Most jobs in the capital require candidates to be fluent in both French and Dutch. Many also demand English.</p>
<p>That shuts out thousands without those language skills. The problem is particularly acute in immigrant communities, where many speak French and Arabic, but few can get by in Dutch and English.</p>
<p>Meanwhile an estimated 300,000 people commute into the city to work every day, mostly from Flanders where language teaching is a traditional strong point.</p>
<p>The commuters’ taxes go to regional governments in Flanders or French-speaking Wallonia to the south. That leaves the capital starved of revenues and forced to rely on the generosity of its reluctant neighbors.</p>
<p>"All those commuters are a cost burden for us in terms of things like public transport, policing, but that's the Belgian system. They pay taxes where they live, not where they work," Vervoort told GlobalPost.</p>
<p>Under an agreement last year, the other regions are scheduled to transfer around $660 million a year to Brussels. But that’s about $400 million short of what's needed, says Vervoort, a Socialist politician who took on the capital's top job last month.</p>
<p>About a third of Brussels' population is made up of foreigners. But there’s little interaction between the well-heeled Eurocrats and Parisian tax-exiles from the leafy suburbs in the south and east, and the mostly Moroccan immigrant communities living in the tightly packed neighborhoods around the inner city.</p>
<p>Shoppers browsing the trendy boutiques along the rue Antoine Dansaert rarely cross the canal to experience the souk-like atmosphere in the Molenbeek district where over half the population is Muslim and youth unemployment runs at 40 percent.</p>
<p>EU officials seldom stroll down the hill from their steel and glass office blocks to the nearby St. Josse neighborhood, Brussels's poorest — a square kilometer housing 25,000 people from 140 nationalities.</p>
<p>The divisions between the high-powered Brussels that aspires to be Europe's federal capital and the city's struggling poor neighborhoods often draw comparisons with Washington, DC. But the jumble of nondescript late 20th-century architecture that makes up Brussels' European Quarter is a sorry reflection of other capitals' elegance.</p>
<p>In the post-World War II decades, "Brusselization" entered dictionaries as a byword for bad urban planning following rampant property speculation that razed historic neighborhoods to make way for urban highways and monolithic office blocks.</p>
<p>Despite such destruction, Brussels does have its attractions.</p>
<p>Its central square, the Grand Place, with its towering Gothic town hall and 17th-century guild houses is one of Europe's most beautiful urban spaces. There are islands of charm scattered throughout the city with elegant homes, cool bars, quirky stores and architectural gems. The food is terrific and the beer arguably the world’s best.</p>
<p>However, complaining about the city is a favorite pastime among the expats who chill after work in the Irish pubs, Greek cafes and tapas bars that ring the EU’s headquarters.</p>
<p>They now have a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ThingsPeopleInBrusselsDontSay?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook page</a> dedicated to griping about everything from the rain to the traditional requirement for restaurant, cinema and bar customers to pay extra to use the restrooms, or the traffic — which was recently judged to be the <a href="http://www.inrix.com/scorecard/" type="external">worst in Europe and North America</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/world-religion/130602/europe-church-mosque-christianity-islam-religious-crisis" type="external">Religion in Europe, also in crisis</a></p>
<p>With serious urban problems and a limited budget to handle them, the city that hosts one of the world's largest concentration of international journalists can expect Brussels-bashing to continue.</p>
<p>Still, Vervoort says there is one fact that belies the bad press.</p>
<p>"Thirty percent of the foreigners working at the EU end up staying here when they retire," he said. "The majority who are happy here don't spend all their time complaining on Facebook. They vote with their feet."&#160;</p>
| 5,494 |
<p>Last Tuesday morning, the wife of a 27-year-old skydiver got a video with a <a href="http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170714/deland-sky-diver-sent-wife-video-foretelling-suicidal-plunge" type="external">chilling message</a> moments before he made his jump from a plane over 13,000 feet above the ground: he wasn’t going to <a href="http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170712/details-emerge-about-deland-sky-diving-death" type="external">pull the cord</a> to open his parachute.</p>
<p>Vitantonio Capotorto, an Italian national, said in the message to his wife that “he was going somewhere wonderful.” Then he jumped to his death. His body was found face down on the southeast runway in an open field at DeLand Municipal Airport.</p>
<p>An employee of Skydive DeLand, Tara Richards, told police she had seen Capotorto before the flight and he was acting normal.</p>
<p>Mike Johnston, a general manager at the facility, said Capotorto’s wife, Costanza Zitellini, 27, hastened to the facility to stop her husband, but arrived “moments too late.”</p>
<p>Capotorto had made 600 jumps; he and his wife both worked at United Parachute Technologies, which makes containers for parachutes.</p>
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Skydiver Sends Chilling Message To Wife Before His Jump
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/18681/skydiver-sends-chilling-message-wife-his-jump-hank-berrien
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2017-07-17
| 0right
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Skydiver Sends Chilling Message To Wife Before His Jump
<p>Last Tuesday morning, the wife of a 27-year-old skydiver got a video with a <a href="http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170714/deland-sky-diver-sent-wife-video-foretelling-suicidal-plunge" type="external">chilling message</a> moments before he made his jump from a plane over 13,000 feet above the ground: he wasn’t going to <a href="http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170712/details-emerge-about-deland-sky-diving-death" type="external">pull the cord</a> to open his parachute.</p>
<p>Vitantonio Capotorto, an Italian national, said in the message to his wife that “he was going somewhere wonderful.” Then he jumped to his death. His body was found face down on the southeast runway in an open field at DeLand Municipal Airport.</p>
<p>An employee of Skydive DeLand, Tara Richards, told police she had seen Capotorto before the flight and he was acting normal.</p>
<p>Mike Johnston, a general manager at the facility, said Capotorto’s wife, Costanza Zitellini, 27, hastened to the facility to stop her husband, but arrived “moments too late.”</p>
<p>Capotorto had made 600 jumps; he and his wife both worked at United Parachute Technologies, which makes containers for parachutes.</p>
| 5,495 |
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">David Rutz</a> October 12, 2017 12:04 pm</p>
<p>Democratic National Committee vice chair Keith Ellison would not say Wednesday whether the DNC would return all of its contributions from Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul facing decades of sexual harassment and assault allegations.</p>
<p>Weinstein is a longtime Democratic donor who has bundled and donated millions of dollars to prominent Democratic candidates, and he's given $300,000 to the DNC. However, the DNC <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/10/hillary-clintons-and-the-dncs-puzzling-half-measures-on-harvey-weinstein/?utm_term=.10376c222ba7" type="external">announced last week</a> it was only donating $30,000 of that money. Furthermore, <a href="" type="internal">the groups getting</a> the money were pro-Democratic organizations Higher Heights, Emily's List, and Emerge America.</p>
<p>Ellison was asked about the contributions after a press conference on Wednesday.</p>
<p>"Will the DNC return all its contributions from Harvey Weinstein?" he was asked.</p>
<p>"I don't have any comments for you right now. I don't know you, and I don't take questions like this," Ellison said sharply.</p>
<p>Under new chair Tom Perez, the DNC has struggled in fundraising and was&#160;more than&#160; <a href="" type="internal">$4 million in debt</a> as of an August fundraising report.</p>
<p>Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were beneficiaries of Weinstein's prolific fundraising, were criticized for staying silent on the controversy until Tuesday, when they both <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/354838-after-delay-clinton-and-obamas-rip-weinstein" type="external">released statements</a> condemning his behavior.</p>
<p>Unlike the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/where-the-dnc-failed-the-dccc-donated-all-of-harvey-weinsteins-contributions-to-charity/article/2637175" type="external">donated all</a> of his $23,225 worth of contributions to a San Francisco-based women's charity.</p>
<p>Other Democrats have stated they are donating Weinstein's contributions. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) <a href="" type="internal">said anyone</a> who received donations from Weinstein should give it to groups helping victims of sexual assault.</p>
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Ellison Refuses to Say Whether DNC Will Return Its Contributions From Harvey Weinstein
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http://freebeacon.com/politics/ellison-refuses-to-say-if-dnc-will-return-its-contributions-from-harvey-weinstein/
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2017-10-12
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Ellison Refuses to Say Whether DNC Will Return Its Contributions From Harvey Weinstein
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">David Rutz</a> October 12, 2017 12:04 pm</p>
<p>Democratic National Committee vice chair Keith Ellison would not say Wednesday whether the DNC would return all of its contributions from Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul facing decades of sexual harassment and assault allegations.</p>
<p>Weinstein is a longtime Democratic donor who has bundled and donated millions of dollars to prominent Democratic candidates, and he's given $300,000 to the DNC. However, the DNC <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/10/hillary-clintons-and-the-dncs-puzzling-half-measures-on-harvey-weinstein/?utm_term=.10376c222ba7" type="external">announced last week</a> it was only donating $30,000 of that money. Furthermore, <a href="" type="internal">the groups getting</a> the money were pro-Democratic organizations Higher Heights, Emily's List, and Emerge America.</p>
<p>Ellison was asked about the contributions after a press conference on Wednesday.</p>
<p>"Will the DNC return all its contributions from Harvey Weinstein?" he was asked.</p>
<p>"I don't have any comments for you right now. I don't know you, and I don't take questions like this," Ellison said sharply.</p>
<p>Under new chair Tom Perez, the DNC has struggled in fundraising and was&#160;more than&#160; <a href="" type="internal">$4 million in debt</a> as of an August fundraising report.</p>
<p>Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were beneficiaries of Weinstein's prolific fundraising, were criticized for staying silent on the controversy until Tuesday, when they both <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/354838-after-delay-clinton-and-obamas-rip-weinstein" type="external">released statements</a> condemning his behavior.</p>
<p>Unlike the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/where-the-dnc-failed-the-dccc-donated-all-of-harvey-weinsteins-contributions-to-charity/article/2637175" type="external">donated all</a> of his $23,225 worth of contributions to a San Francisco-based women's charity.</p>
<p>Other Democrats have stated they are donating Weinstein's contributions. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) <a href="" type="internal">said anyone</a> who received donations from Weinstein should give it to groups helping victims of sexual assault.</p>
| 5,496 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>In both the United States and abroad, these agreements are dogged by widespread concerns over the nontransparent manner in which trade deals are negotiated. Critics argue that bargaining behind closed doors unfairly shuts out the voices of organized labor, advocacy groups and nonmember countries. But defenders argue that private negotiations are the only way to reach a deal.</p>
<p>In a recent study in the British Journal of Political Science, we looked at the consequences of private bargaining during World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes. The WTO encourages states to consult with one another privately before initiating formal litigation.</p>
<p>We investigated who gains the most from private bargaining</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>We use new data on trade in disputed products and on third-party participation. Our analysis contains two parts. First, we investigate whether complainant countries enjoy greater trade gains after early (private) settlements. The WTO requires that any individual state’s market concessions are extended to all members. So if complainant countries enjoy greater market access than nonparticipants, we regard this as evidence of trade discrimination.</p>
<p>Second, we test whether third parties – countries that participate as observers in disputes – prevent this discrimination. Having more observers in the room should reduce litigants’ opportunities to strike deals that disadvantage other members.</p>
<p>Our evidence suggests privacy is a mixed blessing. Shielding negotiators from public view does significantly increase the likelihood that the parties can reach an early settlement, precluding the need for costly litigation.</p>
<p>But these settlements come at a price. Private bargaining creates opportunities for states to strike deals that exclude other members. We show that, conditional on a settlement being reached, complainant countries gain relatively more than others do when negotiations are conducted in private. Specifically, complainants conducted 60 percent more trade with respondents than do other members. This disparity cannot be attributed merely to complainants having a larger stake in the dispute ahead of time.</p>
<p>This is a problem for the WTO</p>
<p>This finding is worrying since the WTO specifically states that any concession made to one country is extended to all others. But, under private settlement, countries appear able to tailor deals that exclude those who are not in the room.</p>
<p>The good news is that the participation of third parties appears to prevent discrimination. Having more eyes in the room reduces the odds that countries strike deals that disadvantage other members. In practice, the trade gains from disputes are more even in the presence of third parties. But third parties also reduce the odds of an agreement being reached.</p>
<p>The results highlight a difficult trade-off. It’s true that privacy during trade negotiations promotes agreement. However, private settlement also generates uneven trade gains.</p>
<p>Our findings suggest that a review mechanism is required to scrutinize the outcome of trade negotiations. This is why ratification of trade treaties is such a harried process. Widespread opposition to TTIP, TPP and the Canada-E.U. Trade Agreement in the past year illustrates that countries wishing to retain the benefits of private negotiations must be prepared for the eventual pushback once deals are made public.</p>
<p>Being aware of potential pushback should encourage negotiators to reach deals that will satisfy a majority of their domestic constituents. In this light, the current controversy around trade agreements is thus not entirely a sign of failure. Rather, it’s a necessary counterpart to the privacy required to reach an agreement in the first place.</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Kucik is an assistant professor in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York. Pelc is a William Dawson Scholar and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. For other commentary from The Monkey Cage, an independent blog anchored by a group of political scientists from universities around the country, see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage." type="external">www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage.</a></p>
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Secret negotiations at the World Trade Organization create a big problem
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/922181/secret-negotiations-at-the-world-trade-organization-create-a-big-problem.html
| 2least
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Secret negotiations at the World Trade Organization create a big problem
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>In both the United States and abroad, these agreements are dogged by widespread concerns over the nontransparent manner in which trade deals are negotiated. Critics argue that bargaining behind closed doors unfairly shuts out the voices of organized labor, advocacy groups and nonmember countries. But defenders argue that private negotiations are the only way to reach a deal.</p>
<p>In a recent study in the British Journal of Political Science, we looked at the consequences of private bargaining during World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes. The WTO encourages states to consult with one another privately before initiating formal litigation.</p>
<p>We investigated who gains the most from private bargaining</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>We use new data on trade in disputed products and on third-party participation. Our analysis contains two parts. First, we investigate whether complainant countries enjoy greater trade gains after early (private) settlements. The WTO requires that any individual state’s market concessions are extended to all members. So if complainant countries enjoy greater market access than nonparticipants, we regard this as evidence of trade discrimination.</p>
<p>Second, we test whether third parties – countries that participate as observers in disputes – prevent this discrimination. Having more observers in the room should reduce litigants’ opportunities to strike deals that disadvantage other members.</p>
<p>Our evidence suggests privacy is a mixed blessing. Shielding negotiators from public view does significantly increase the likelihood that the parties can reach an early settlement, precluding the need for costly litigation.</p>
<p>But these settlements come at a price. Private bargaining creates opportunities for states to strike deals that exclude other members. We show that, conditional on a settlement being reached, complainant countries gain relatively more than others do when negotiations are conducted in private. Specifically, complainants conducted 60 percent more trade with respondents than do other members. This disparity cannot be attributed merely to complainants having a larger stake in the dispute ahead of time.</p>
<p>This is a problem for the WTO</p>
<p>This finding is worrying since the WTO specifically states that any concession made to one country is extended to all others. But, under private settlement, countries appear able to tailor deals that exclude those who are not in the room.</p>
<p>The good news is that the participation of third parties appears to prevent discrimination. Having more eyes in the room reduces the odds that countries strike deals that disadvantage other members. In practice, the trade gains from disputes are more even in the presence of third parties. But third parties also reduce the odds of an agreement being reached.</p>
<p>The results highlight a difficult trade-off. It’s true that privacy during trade negotiations promotes agreement. However, private settlement also generates uneven trade gains.</p>
<p>Our findings suggest that a review mechanism is required to scrutinize the outcome of trade negotiations. This is why ratification of trade treaties is such a harried process. Widespread opposition to TTIP, TPP and the Canada-E.U. Trade Agreement in the past year illustrates that countries wishing to retain the benefits of private negotiations must be prepared for the eventual pushback once deals are made public.</p>
<p>Being aware of potential pushback should encourage negotiators to reach deals that will satisfy a majority of their domestic constituents. In this light, the current controversy around trade agreements is thus not entirely a sign of failure. Rather, it’s a necessary counterpart to the privacy required to reach an agreement in the first place.</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Kucik is an assistant professor in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York. Pelc is a William Dawson Scholar and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. For other commentary from The Monkey Cage, an independent blog anchored by a group of political scientists from universities around the country, see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage." type="external">www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage.</a></p>
| 5,497 |
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<p>with Reflections by Toni Solo</p>
<p>The arguments against bilateral US free trade-in-your-sovereignty agreements with other countries that make it into mainstream anglophone media tend not to come from industrialists or business people. But in Latin America many people in private enterprise are alarmed and disturbed at US attempts to impose its imperialist plans on their countries. A recent article by Colombian industrialist EMILIO SARDI gives the view of one of Colombia’s leading businessmen. It’s worth noting.</p>
<p>US–Colombia “free trade” talks</p>
<p>The US trade representative Robert Zoellick began moves to open talks on a bilateral trade deal with Colombia in August 2003. Then after the failure of last year’s Cancun world trade summit last year, he had to face resistance from participant countries at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami in November. At that time the US announced plans to start bilateral trade talks with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama.1</p>
<p>The US government portrays this as a natural development of the Andean Trade Preferences Act which expires in 2006. They plan to have bilateral deals in place by then so as to greatly enhance US power in the region. As EMILIO SARDI notes in his article, these “free trade” deals cut at the roots of national sovereignty and self determination.</p>
<p>Moving on after Cancun and Miami</p>
<p>After bagging the five Central American countries with the CAFTA trade deal, Zoellick now seeks to take out the rest of Latin America systematically, country by country. The US trade representative gets his imperial way by behind-closed-doors arm-twisting and public doublespeak. He can depend on his colleagues in the State Department and the CIA to intimidate waverers by destabilising uncooperative potential partners, as they are currently doing in Venezuela.</p>
<p>In February this year, the State Department’s Bureau of Information added Dominican Republic to the list of countries on the US shopping list.2 The relevant statement deployed this fine specimen of Bush administration mendacity from the latest White House budget, “These agreements combine intellectual property and investment protections for U.S. companies with commitments for strong environmental and labor protections by our partners..” But it is precisely those environmental and labor protections, among other social protections, that Zoellick’s secretly negotiated trade deals consign to virtual oblivion.</p>
<p>The view from Colombia</p>
<p>Like many well-informed adn thoughtful business people throughout Latin America, EMILIO SARDI sees this with absolute clarity. His article was published in Colombia’s Portafolio magazine earlier this year in response to an article by a Colombian government adviser attacking his views.3 Sardi writes:</p>
<p>“I should stress I am no enemy of trade agreements. They can be dreadful if badly negotiated or fine if negotiated well. But I am opposed to the imposition of a treaty on Colombia that could be extremely damaging, as studies on the issue by the National Planning office and Fedesarrollo have shown. And I am opposed to signing the treaty in a hurry to a timetable imposed by a few government trade officials without debate and without the due intervention of public bodies.</p>
<p>Not long ago I wrote, “Colombia has named a small team made up of people with academic qualifications but with no experience of serious negotiation. Although the lead negotiator is capable, this team bears no comparison with the North American team. There is no hope of this negotiation working out in our favour. The worst feature is that this team from within the Trade Ministry will decide the positions of Colombia in the negotiation. It’s stupid that the people who define our position should be the ones who also defend it. The conflict of interest is obvious. The tendency is and has been to seek to make the job easy, defining positions to please the other side but which damage the country.”</p>
<p>All that remains true. And it’s not my two degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology or 40 years of business experience that qualify me to assert that, rather it’s that I am a Colombian who loves my country and also it’s my concern at the way people want to slip in by the back door a treaty that will cause huge damage to many national interests.</p>
<p>If it were just international trade that were at stake, it’s possible that only the government might deal with it. In that case, the position to negotiate–which should be sought after and agreed–ought to be formulated by the Ministries of Social Protection and Agriculture, responsible for the health and employment of people in Colombia, not by the Ministry of Trade. The role of the Ministry of Trade should be just to negotiate.</p>
<p>But this is not a treaty only on trade matters. This treaty will impose legislation on all Colombia’s economic life. Measures on matters like foreign investment, public sector procurement, health and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property, competition and legal arbitration could cause great damage to the country. In these areas, an attempt is being made to impose rules far beyond what the World Trade Organization has established and which Colombia fully abides by.</p>
<p>What’s being attempted is a legal framework to restrict local competition and not just reduce our competitive export ability but also to affect our internal markets by means of restrictive practices that will massively increase the cost of living. Behind the screen of a hypothetical liberation of external trade lurks this attempt to tie up internal markets to the detriment of domestic consumers.</p>
<p>These rules could finish off the nation’s food security and put at risk access to health for the majority of Colombians. If they are accepted they will have a supra-constitutional character–coercive and irreversible–and they will prevent Colombia from changing or influencing its future development strategies, which will remain limited by the parameters of the agreement. This treaty will seriously limit our sovereignty and so Congress, as well as the controlling bodies have, beyond the right, the obligation to take part in the whole process, beneath the watchful gaze of public opinion.</p>
<p>Mexico’s former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, the lead negotiator of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the private business representative in that negotiation, Juan Gallardo, have advised Colombia to negotiate without haste, with a great deal of preparation and with all those affected taking part. In the United States, the rules demand that its Congress approve negotiating positions before negotitations start, along with continual approvals throughout the process.</p>
<p>We cannot remain silent. Nor will it be possble to prevent Congress and the controlling bodies playing their due part to protect the common good and defend our national autonomy. What’s at stake is our national sovereignty.”</p>
<p>Some reflections</p>
<p>This article puts eloquently and concisely the fundamental objections to these so called “free trade” deals. In particular, Sardi reminds us that the US position is monitored and subject to approval by the US Congress. In stark contrast, Zoellick’s team insist on negotiating in secret beyond the reach of scrutiny by the legislatures of the affected countries. That was a fundamental reason behind the huge but unsuccessful resistance in Costa Rica to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.</p>
<p>More profoundly, Sardi reminds us that our societies are seamless entities whose social, political and economic needs and interests interact indivisibly. He is well aware of the deeply cynical political sleight of hand that Robert Zoellick and his team are trying to pull. When they talk about “free trade” in countries like Colombia, they seek to conceal their real intent, which is to dominate that country’s energy and other resources to serve the needs of the United States. The same is true for every country they sit down to negotiate with.</p>
<p>In the current state of international affairs with one superpower ready to use all its political, economic and miltary might to get what it wants, talk of “free trade” is deeply misleading and disingenuous. Right now, nothing approaching anything like “free trade” prevails, nor will do any time soon. Monopolistic multinational corporations dominate the international economy across the globe. “Free trade” doesn’t exist. It is a cant term taken over for contemporary purposes from 19th Century British imperialist propaganda.</p>
<p>It may make sense to talk about more or less regulated trade. But who makes and enforces the rules? The failure of the World Trade Organization summit at Cancun last year indicates what the United States, Japan and Europe and their fellow travellers really mean by “free trade” : a global deal to guarantee their interests and dominance according to rules they impose. Robert Zoellick and his team know that most people in the majority world are aware of this. That is why they insist on negotiating their bilateral treaties in secret. Sardi’s article confirms that prominent business people in Latin America understand US intentions all too well.</p>
<p>Toni Solo is an activist based in Central America. Contact: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Notes</p>
<p>1. The US trade representative’s <a href="" type="internal">letter to Congress on an Andean FTA</a> . For Panama at: <a href="" type="internal">http://www.ustr.gov/</a></p>
<p>2. U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs Information briefing 03-February-2004</p>
<p>3. EMILIO SARDI is Vice-President of Tecnoquimicas.</p>
<p>Original Spanish verison published by Colombian publication Portafolio 17th February 2004 and subsequently distributed by MOIR 19th February 2004. For more information try <a href="http://www.deslinde.org.co/" type="external">www.deslinde.org.co</a> or <a href="http://www.moir.org.co/" type="external">www.moir.org.co</a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external" /></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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The Colombia-US Free Trade Treaty
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2004/03/03/the-colombia-us-free-trade-treaty/
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2004-03-03
| 4left
|
The Colombia-US Free Trade Treaty
<p>with Reflections by Toni Solo</p>
<p>The arguments against bilateral US free trade-in-your-sovereignty agreements with other countries that make it into mainstream anglophone media tend not to come from industrialists or business people. But in Latin America many people in private enterprise are alarmed and disturbed at US attempts to impose its imperialist plans on their countries. A recent article by Colombian industrialist EMILIO SARDI gives the view of one of Colombia’s leading businessmen. It’s worth noting.</p>
<p>US–Colombia “free trade” talks</p>
<p>The US trade representative Robert Zoellick began moves to open talks on a bilateral trade deal with Colombia in August 2003. Then after the failure of last year’s Cancun world trade summit last year, he had to face resistance from participant countries at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami in November. At that time the US announced plans to start bilateral trade talks with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama.1</p>
<p>The US government portrays this as a natural development of the Andean Trade Preferences Act which expires in 2006. They plan to have bilateral deals in place by then so as to greatly enhance US power in the region. As EMILIO SARDI notes in his article, these “free trade” deals cut at the roots of national sovereignty and self determination.</p>
<p>Moving on after Cancun and Miami</p>
<p>After bagging the five Central American countries with the CAFTA trade deal, Zoellick now seeks to take out the rest of Latin America systematically, country by country. The US trade representative gets his imperial way by behind-closed-doors arm-twisting and public doublespeak. He can depend on his colleagues in the State Department and the CIA to intimidate waverers by destabilising uncooperative potential partners, as they are currently doing in Venezuela.</p>
<p>In February this year, the State Department’s Bureau of Information added Dominican Republic to the list of countries on the US shopping list.2 The relevant statement deployed this fine specimen of Bush administration mendacity from the latest White House budget, “These agreements combine intellectual property and investment protections for U.S. companies with commitments for strong environmental and labor protections by our partners..” But it is precisely those environmental and labor protections, among other social protections, that Zoellick’s secretly negotiated trade deals consign to virtual oblivion.</p>
<p>The view from Colombia</p>
<p>Like many well-informed adn thoughtful business people throughout Latin America, EMILIO SARDI sees this with absolute clarity. His article was published in Colombia’s Portafolio magazine earlier this year in response to an article by a Colombian government adviser attacking his views.3 Sardi writes:</p>
<p>“I should stress I am no enemy of trade agreements. They can be dreadful if badly negotiated or fine if negotiated well. But I am opposed to the imposition of a treaty on Colombia that could be extremely damaging, as studies on the issue by the National Planning office and Fedesarrollo have shown. And I am opposed to signing the treaty in a hurry to a timetable imposed by a few government trade officials without debate and without the due intervention of public bodies.</p>
<p>Not long ago I wrote, “Colombia has named a small team made up of people with academic qualifications but with no experience of serious negotiation. Although the lead negotiator is capable, this team bears no comparison with the North American team. There is no hope of this negotiation working out in our favour. The worst feature is that this team from within the Trade Ministry will decide the positions of Colombia in the negotiation. It’s stupid that the people who define our position should be the ones who also defend it. The conflict of interest is obvious. The tendency is and has been to seek to make the job easy, defining positions to please the other side but which damage the country.”</p>
<p>All that remains true. And it’s not my two degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology or 40 years of business experience that qualify me to assert that, rather it’s that I am a Colombian who loves my country and also it’s my concern at the way people want to slip in by the back door a treaty that will cause huge damage to many national interests.</p>
<p>If it were just international trade that were at stake, it’s possible that only the government might deal with it. In that case, the position to negotiate–which should be sought after and agreed–ought to be formulated by the Ministries of Social Protection and Agriculture, responsible for the health and employment of people in Colombia, not by the Ministry of Trade. The role of the Ministry of Trade should be just to negotiate.</p>
<p>But this is not a treaty only on trade matters. This treaty will impose legislation on all Colombia’s economic life. Measures on matters like foreign investment, public sector procurement, health and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property, competition and legal arbitration could cause great damage to the country. In these areas, an attempt is being made to impose rules far beyond what the World Trade Organization has established and which Colombia fully abides by.</p>
<p>What’s being attempted is a legal framework to restrict local competition and not just reduce our competitive export ability but also to affect our internal markets by means of restrictive practices that will massively increase the cost of living. Behind the screen of a hypothetical liberation of external trade lurks this attempt to tie up internal markets to the detriment of domestic consumers.</p>
<p>These rules could finish off the nation’s food security and put at risk access to health for the majority of Colombians. If they are accepted they will have a supra-constitutional character–coercive and irreversible–and they will prevent Colombia from changing or influencing its future development strategies, which will remain limited by the parameters of the agreement. This treaty will seriously limit our sovereignty and so Congress, as well as the controlling bodies have, beyond the right, the obligation to take part in the whole process, beneath the watchful gaze of public opinion.</p>
<p>Mexico’s former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, the lead negotiator of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the private business representative in that negotiation, Juan Gallardo, have advised Colombia to negotiate without haste, with a great deal of preparation and with all those affected taking part. In the United States, the rules demand that its Congress approve negotiating positions before negotitations start, along with continual approvals throughout the process.</p>
<p>We cannot remain silent. Nor will it be possble to prevent Congress and the controlling bodies playing their due part to protect the common good and defend our national autonomy. What’s at stake is our national sovereignty.”</p>
<p>Some reflections</p>
<p>This article puts eloquently and concisely the fundamental objections to these so called “free trade” deals. In particular, Sardi reminds us that the US position is monitored and subject to approval by the US Congress. In stark contrast, Zoellick’s team insist on negotiating in secret beyond the reach of scrutiny by the legislatures of the affected countries. That was a fundamental reason behind the huge but unsuccessful resistance in Costa Rica to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.</p>
<p>More profoundly, Sardi reminds us that our societies are seamless entities whose social, political and economic needs and interests interact indivisibly. He is well aware of the deeply cynical political sleight of hand that Robert Zoellick and his team are trying to pull. When they talk about “free trade” in countries like Colombia, they seek to conceal their real intent, which is to dominate that country’s energy and other resources to serve the needs of the United States. The same is true for every country they sit down to negotiate with.</p>
<p>In the current state of international affairs with one superpower ready to use all its political, economic and miltary might to get what it wants, talk of “free trade” is deeply misleading and disingenuous. Right now, nothing approaching anything like “free trade” prevails, nor will do any time soon. Monopolistic multinational corporations dominate the international economy across the globe. “Free trade” doesn’t exist. It is a cant term taken over for contemporary purposes from 19th Century British imperialist propaganda.</p>
<p>It may make sense to talk about more or less regulated trade. But who makes and enforces the rules? The failure of the World Trade Organization summit at Cancun last year indicates what the United States, Japan and Europe and their fellow travellers really mean by “free trade” : a global deal to guarantee their interests and dominance according to rules they impose. Robert Zoellick and his team know that most people in the majority world are aware of this. That is why they insist on negotiating their bilateral treaties in secret. Sardi’s article confirms that prominent business people in Latin America understand US intentions all too well.</p>
<p>Toni Solo is an activist based in Central America. Contact: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>Notes</p>
<p>1. The US trade representative’s <a href="" type="internal">letter to Congress on an Andean FTA</a> . For Panama at: <a href="" type="internal">http://www.ustr.gov/</a></p>
<p>2. U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs Information briefing 03-February-2004</p>
<p>3. EMILIO SARDI is Vice-President of Tecnoquimicas.</p>
<p>Original Spanish verison published by Colombian publication Portafolio 17th February 2004 and subsequently distributed by MOIR 19th February 2004. For more information try <a href="http://www.deslinde.org.co/" type="external">www.deslinde.org.co</a> or <a href="http://www.moir.org.co/" type="external">www.moir.org.co</a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external" /></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>The Albuquerque-area’s underground aquifer is beginning to rebound.</p>
<p>To some degree that is due to conservation efforts that have reduced our per-person use from 252 gallons a day in 1994 to 148 gallons last year.</p>
<p>But much of the benefit to the aquifer is attributable to the $400 million San Juan-Chama project, which diverts water from the San Juan River basin to the Rio Grande. A pumping station south of the Alameda bridge takes water out of the Rio Grande and transports it via pipelines to a surface water treatment plant in north Albuquerque where it is processed to drinking water standards. About 30 million gallons daily now goes through the project’s 4-year-old plant.</p>
<p>Operated by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the project set out very ambitious goals — that so far are not being met.</p>
<p>As the project was about to go operational in 2008, the authority’s annual budget said river water would supply “up to 70 percent of the metropolitan area’s future water.” A 2009 fact sheet predicted it should provide 90 percent of area’s annual water needs by 2011. John Stomp, the authority’s chief operating officer, has said that in its first year of operation the project would generate 25 percent of the metro area’s water needs, then 50 percent the second year and 75 percent after that.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>However, the reality is that in 2009, its first full year of operation, the project produced 21 percent of Albuquerque’s water, 42 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2011 and 43 percent in 2012.</p>
<p>Some reasons Stomp gave are the drought (can’t change that), a chemistry process that is still being tweaked and perhaps being too conservative in balancing surface water use with groundwater pumping.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the authority board of elected county and city officials and chaired by County Commissioner Art De La Cruz requested a report on the situation and Stomp says one will be prepared for the board’s’ next meeting.</p>
<p>The project’s contribution to the big water picture is nothing to dismiss, but it is time for some answers about why these goals aren’t being met and for the setting of new, realistic goals, if needed.</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>
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Editorial: Realistic Goals Needed For San Juan Water
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https://abqjournal.com/161313/realistic-goals-needed-for-san-juan-water.html
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2013-01-18
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Editorial: Realistic Goals Needed For San Juan Water
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The Albuquerque-area’s underground aquifer is beginning to rebound.</p>
<p>To some degree that is due to conservation efforts that have reduced our per-person use from 252 gallons a day in 1994 to 148 gallons last year.</p>
<p>But much of the benefit to the aquifer is attributable to the $400 million San Juan-Chama project, which diverts water from the San Juan River basin to the Rio Grande. A pumping station south of the Alameda bridge takes water out of the Rio Grande and transports it via pipelines to a surface water treatment plant in north Albuquerque where it is processed to drinking water standards. About 30 million gallons daily now goes through the project’s 4-year-old plant.</p>
<p>Operated by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the project set out very ambitious goals — that so far are not being met.</p>
<p>As the project was about to go operational in 2008, the authority’s annual budget said river water would supply “up to 70 percent of the metropolitan area’s future water.” A 2009 fact sheet predicted it should provide 90 percent of area’s annual water needs by 2011. John Stomp, the authority’s chief operating officer, has said that in its first year of operation the project would generate 25 percent of the metro area’s water needs, then 50 percent the second year and 75 percent after that.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>However, the reality is that in 2009, its first full year of operation, the project produced 21 percent of Albuquerque’s water, 42 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2011 and 43 percent in 2012.</p>
<p>Some reasons Stomp gave are the drought (can’t change that), a chemistry process that is still being tweaked and perhaps being too conservative in balancing surface water use with groundwater pumping.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the authority board of elected county and city officials and chaired by County Commissioner Art De La Cruz requested a report on the situation and Stomp says one will be prepared for the board’s’ next meeting.</p>
<p>The project’s contribution to the big water picture is nothing to dismiss, but it is time for some answers about why these goals aren’t being met and for the setting of new, realistic goals, if needed.</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>
| 5,499 |
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