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<p>Not content with collectively demonizing all white men over the Las Vegas massacre, Newsweek is now blaming Christians for the slaughter.</p>
<p>With the motive of gunman Stephen Paddock still unknown, Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan decided to impugn Christianity, headlining his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-wont-accept-las-vegas-killer-was-christian-white-male-677969" type="external">article</a>, “THE FAR RIGHT WON’T ACCEPT LAS VEGAS KILLER WAS A CHRISTIAN WHITE MALE.”</p>
<p />
<p>He did so despite there being no evidence whatsoever that Paddock, a hardcore gambler, whose family said he was not religious at all, had any strong Christian beliefs.</p>
<p>Paddock’s brother <a href="https://www.axios.com/suspects-brother-he-had-no-religious-or-political-affiliation-just-hung-out-2492022978.html" type="external">literally said</a> the gunman had “no religious affiliation”.</p>
<p>Nazaryan even admits this in his own article, writing that Paddock was “a Christian by birth if not belief.”</p>
<p>In other words, Paddock wasn’t a practicing Christian and Nazaryan knows this but decided to lie and claim he was anyway to get a few outrage clicks.</p>
<p>His smear is made all the more egregious by the fact that the target of his ire – white Christian males – made up a significant portion of the victims of the massacre.</p>
<p>In an alternate headline for the article, Nazaryan claims that “the right” including Infowars “insisted” the shooter was radicalized.</p>
<p />
<p>In reality, we <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> on what Sheriff Lombardo literally said during a press conference – that the shooter may have been radicalized and investigators are trying to uncover the source of that radicalization.</p>
<p>Nazaryan also takes time to tie his Trump Derangement Syndrome into the rant, asserting that Trump is fueling “paranoia” about the attack, despite the president having said literally nothing about the perpetrator’s potential motive.</p>
<p>The Newsweek writer began to catch heat from YouTube commentator Mark Dice over the piece. His only response was to call Dice a “snowflake”.</p>
<p />
<p>This follows on from yesterday’s CNN headline, “How America has silently accepted the rage of white men.”</p>
<p />
<p>I await CNN’s response to the next Islamic terror attack in Europe (we won’t have to wait long), which presumably will be, “How Europe has silently accepted the rage of Muslim men.” Or not. Most likely not.</p>
<p>“One undeniable factor in gun violence: men,” blasted a Time Magazine headline, failing to take account a myriad of other categories that almost exclusively feature men, including combat deaths, police officer rescues, firefighter rescues, suicides and workplace deaths.</p>
<p />
<p>The Independent also claimed that the massacre proves “masculinity is toxic,” another shameful charge when placed alongside images of men exercising their “toxic masculinity” to physically protect women during the shooting.</p>
<p />
<p>SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:</p>
<p>Follow on Twitter:</p>
<p>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71" type="external">https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71</a></p>
<p>*********************</p>
<p>Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of <a href="" type="internal">Infowars.com</a> and <a href="http://prisonplanet.com/" type="external">Prison Planet.com</a>.</p>
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Newsweek Demonizes Christians For Las Vegas Massacre
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https://infowars.com/newsweek-demonizes-christians-for-las-vegas-massacre/
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2017-10-05
| 0right
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Newsweek Demonizes Christians For Las Vegas Massacre
<p>Not content with collectively demonizing all white men over the Las Vegas massacre, Newsweek is now blaming Christians for the slaughter.</p>
<p>With the motive of gunman Stephen Paddock still unknown, Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan decided to impugn Christianity, headlining his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-wont-accept-las-vegas-killer-was-christian-white-male-677969" type="external">article</a>, “THE FAR RIGHT WON’T ACCEPT LAS VEGAS KILLER WAS A CHRISTIAN WHITE MALE.”</p>
<p />
<p>He did so despite there being no evidence whatsoever that Paddock, a hardcore gambler, whose family said he was not religious at all, had any strong Christian beliefs.</p>
<p>Paddock’s brother <a href="https://www.axios.com/suspects-brother-he-had-no-religious-or-political-affiliation-just-hung-out-2492022978.html" type="external">literally said</a> the gunman had “no religious affiliation”.</p>
<p>Nazaryan even admits this in his own article, writing that Paddock was “a Christian by birth if not belief.”</p>
<p>In other words, Paddock wasn’t a practicing Christian and Nazaryan knows this but decided to lie and claim he was anyway to get a few outrage clicks.</p>
<p>His smear is made all the more egregious by the fact that the target of his ire – white Christian males – made up a significant portion of the victims of the massacre.</p>
<p>In an alternate headline for the article, Nazaryan claims that “the right” including Infowars “insisted” the shooter was radicalized.</p>
<p />
<p>In reality, we <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> on what Sheriff Lombardo literally said during a press conference – that the shooter may have been radicalized and investigators are trying to uncover the source of that radicalization.</p>
<p>Nazaryan also takes time to tie his Trump Derangement Syndrome into the rant, asserting that Trump is fueling “paranoia” about the attack, despite the president having said literally nothing about the perpetrator’s potential motive.</p>
<p>The Newsweek writer began to catch heat from YouTube commentator Mark Dice over the piece. His only response was to call Dice a “snowflake”.</p>
<p />
<p>This follows on from yesterday’s CNN headline, “How America has silently accepted the rage of white men.”</p>
<p />
<p>I await CNN’s response to the next Islamic terror attack in Europe (we won’t have to wait long), which presumably will be, “How Europe has silently accepted the rage of Muslim men.” Or not. Most likely not.</p>
<p>“One undeniable factor in gun violence: men,” blasted a Time Magazine headline, failing to take account a myriad of other categories that almost exclusively feature men, including combat deaths, police officer rescues, firefighter rescues, suicides and workplace deaths.</p>
<p />
<p>The Independent also claimed that the massacre proves “masculinity is toxic,” another shameful charge when placed alongside images of men exercising their “toxic masculinity” to physically protect women during the shooting.</p>
<p />
<p>SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:</p>
<p>Follow on Twitter:</p>
<p>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71" type="external">https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71</a></p>
<p>*********************</p>
<p>Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of <a href="" type="internal">Infowars.com</a> and <a href="http://prisonplanet.com/" type="external">Prison Planet.com</a>.</p>
| 6,300 |
<p />
<p>Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc will sell billions of dollars of non-core assets and could accept offers for its main businesses, its chief executive said on Tuesday, as the drugmaker worked to restore investor trust after a year of bad news.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Valeant's U.S. shares rose more than 25 percent, touching a two-month high, after the company outlined its reorganization and sell-off plan, and also confirmed full-year forecasts. Even so, the stock is down nearly 90 percent from a year ago.</p>
<p>Last fall, political concerns about Valeant's sharp drug price increases and investor scrutiny of its dealings with pharmacy Philidor RX dragged down Valeant's shares. Congress and several U.S. government agencies also opened investigations and the company restated earnings earlier this year.</p>
<p>Since then, its largest investor and board member, activist Bill Ackman, has been leading a drive to try to stabilize the company. New Chief Executive Joe Papa joined in May, replacing longtime CEO Mike Pearson.</p>
<p>Papa announced a few small sales on Tuesday, and said Valeant was eyeing $8 billion worth of sales for non-core assets. He added in an interview that he may go further, after receiving unsolicited interest in core businesses as well.</p>
<p>Valeant's Bausch &amp; Lomb eyecare, dermatology, Salix gastrointestinal and consumer over-the-counter businesses are core, Papa said. He would not say if Valeant received interest in Bausch.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"We have to think about any alternative in front of us as we look to improve shareholder value," Papa said in the interview. "We're going to take anything that we get, from an offer or unsolicited bid, very seriously."</p>
<p>The Laval, Quebec-based company still has $30.77 billion in long-term debt, a legacy of Pearson's strategy of expanding through serial mergers and acquisitions.</p>
<p>SECOND QUARTER FALLS SHORT</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Valeant reported adjusted second-quarter earnings and revenue that fell short of analyst expectations, but stuck by full-year forecasts.</p>
<p>"I don't want to suggest for an instant that there (aren't) challenges, but we like our position for 2016," Papa said during a during a conference call.</p>
<p>Valeant has previously missed deadlines for filing financial reports due to the sales and earnings restatements, triggering default notices. It has repaid $1.29 billion in debt this year and wants to renegotiate lender agreements to give itself a larger "cushion," Papa said.</p>
<p>That action on debt lifted shares, according to Oliver Marti, a portfolio manager at Columbus Circle Investors.</p>
<p>"The stock is really driven by cash flow and covenants with the focus on stabilizing the business, and making progress on paying down debt. That is what they showed this quarter," Marti said.</p>
<p>Valeant said it will break into three business segments around its Bausch &amp; Lomb eyecare business; branded products including gastrointestinal drug Xifaxan and toenail treatment Jublia; and certain products including Obagi skin care treatments. It said its core geographies are the United States and Canada.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, a long-time critic, questioned on the call whether the plan was just "new paint on the same old shed."</p>
<p>Valeant is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the U.S. Attorney's offices in Massachusetts and New York. The government is looking at its pricing practices and its patient assistance programs.</p>
<p>Valeant said it still expected full-year revenue of $9.9 billion-$10.1 billion and adjusted earnings of $6.60-$7.00 per share.</p>
<p>Second-quarter revenue fell to $2.42 billion from $2.73 billion a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $2.46 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Excluding items, Valeant earned $1.40 per share, missing analysts' average estimate of $1.48. (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Jeffrey Hodgson)</p>
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Can Valeant Save Itself?
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/09/can-valeant-save-itself.html
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2016-08-09
| 0right
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Can Valeant Save Itself?
<p />
<p>Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc will sell billions of dollars of non-core assets and could accept offers for its main businesses, its chief executive said on Tuesday, as the drugmaker worked to restore investor trust after a year of bad news.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Valeant's U.S. shares rose more than 25 percent, touching a two-month high, after the company outlined its reorganization and sell-off plan, and also confirmed full-year forecasts. Even so, the stock is down nearly 90 percent from a year ago.</p>
<p>Last fall, political concerns about Valeant's sharp drug price increases and investor scrutiny of its dealings with pharmacy Philidor RX dragged down Valeant's shares. Congress and several U.S. government agencies also opened investigations and the company restated earnings earlier this year.</p>
<p>Since then, its largest investor and board member, activist Bill Ackman, has been leading a drive to try to stabilize the company. New Chief Executive Joe Papa joined in May, replacing longtime CEO Mike Pearson.</p>
<p>Papa announced a few small sales on Tuesday, and said Valeant was eyeing $8 billion worth of sales for non-core assets. He added in an interview that he may go further, after receiving unsolicited interest in core businesses as well.</p>
<p>Valeant's Bausch &amp; Lomb eyecare, dermatology, Salix gastrointestinal and consumer over-the-counter businesses are core, Papa said. He would not say if Valeant received interest in Bausch.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"We have to think about any alternative in front of us as we look to improve shareholder value," Papa said in the interview. "We're going to take anything that we get, from an offer or unsolicited bid, very seriously."</p>
<p>The Laval, Quebec-based company still has $30.77 billion in long-term debt, a legacy of Pearson's strategy of expanding through serial mergers and acquisitions.</p>
<p>SECOND QUARTER FALLS SHORT</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Valeant reported adjusted second-quarter earnings and revenue that fell short of analyst expectations, but stuck by full-year forecasts.</p>
<p>"I don't want to suggest for an instant that there (aren't) challenges, but we like our position for 2016," Papa said during a during a conference call.</p>
<p>Valeant has previously missed deadlines for filing financial reports due to the sales and earnings restatements, triggering default notices. It has repaid $1.29 billion in debt this year and wants to renegotiate lender agreements to give itself a larger "cushion," Papa said.</p>
<p>That action on debt lifted shares, according to Oliver Marti, a portfolio manager at Columbus Circle Investors.</p>
<p>"The stock is really driven by cash flow and covenants with the focus on stabilizing the business, and making progress on paying down debt. That is what they showed this quarter," Marti said.</p>
<p>Valeant said it will break into three business segments around its Bausch &amp; Lomb eyecare business; branded products including gastrointestinal drug Xifaxan and toenail treatment Jublia; and certain products including Obagi skin care treatments. It said its core geographies are the United States and Canada.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, a long-time critic, questioned on the call whether the plan was just "new paint on the same old shed."</p>
<p>Valeant is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the U.S. Attorney's offices in Massachusetts and New York. The government is looking at its pricing practices and its patient assistance programs.</p>
<p>Valeant said it still expected full-year revenue of $9.9 billion-$10.1 billion and adjusted earnings of $6.60-$7.00 per share.</p>
<p>Second-quarter revenue fell to $2.42 billion from $2.73 billion a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $2.46 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Excluding items, Valeant earned $1.40 per share, missing analysts' average estimate of $1.48. (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Jeffrey Hodgson)</p>
| 6,301 |
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) said on Friday it took a $4.24 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share, figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards.</p> FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
<p>The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the after-tax, non-cash impact would be about $4.2 billion, plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share.</p>
<p>The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard, and those will be reflected when GE reports first-quarter results on April 20.</p>
<p>The value of GE’s contract assets are being written down, but that does not change the value of the long-term contracts GE has, nor does it affect GE’s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018, GE said.</p>
<p>The adjustments appear within expectations, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said. “Now the focus moves to next Friday’s earnings.”</p>
<p>The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises, including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter, analysts said.</p>
<p>GE shares were down 1 percent at $13.35 in aftermarket trading after rising 2.4 percent on Friday.</p>
<p>The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from long-term contracts, and is designed to make a company’s cash flow more closely match its income, accounting experts and analysts said.</p>
<p>The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly. The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration, analysts said.</p>
<p>Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts, but the process can lead to over- or under-estimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet, experts say.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N
<p>GE’s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to $28.8 billion in 2017, from $16.9 billion in 2014, most of it in its power and aviation units. The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers, which creates the gap between profit and cash flow, according to GE’s regulatory filings.</p>
<p>GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions, cash flow and taxes on Friday.</p>
<p>GE’s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between $1.00 and $1.07 a share.</p>
<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE’s accounting for contract assets, raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation.</p>
<p>GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts.</p>
<p>GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings, a more exacting standard under the new rules, because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Two U.S. regulators have proposed Wells Fargo &amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>) pay $1 billion in penalties to resolve probes into auto insurance and mortgage lending abuses at the third largest U.S. bank, overshadowing its first quarter results.</p>
<p>The San Francisco-based lender, which reported a quarterly profit, said it may have to restate results to reflect the final settlement. The proposed penalties were reported earlier this week by Reuters.</p>
<p>Analysts said that while the $1 billion penalty would not make a significant dent to its balance sheet, it may take the bank some time to repair the damage to its reputation.</p>
<p>Shares of the bank fell 3.4 percent to $50.89.</p>
<p>“Operationally, Wells Fargo can recover, but reputationally and how a billion dollars will weigh on them - only time can tell,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley in Boston.</p>
<p>“Companies have come back from worse than this but right now they’re still in the eye of the storm,” he added.</p>
<p>The bank, still smarting from a prolonged sales scandal in its retail banking business, found inconsistencies at its auto lending and mortgage in the summer of 2017 - leading to further probes by regulators.</p>
<p>To appease investors and regulators, the bank overhauled its operational structure, shook up its board and hired a new compliance officer.</p>
<p>But this failed to impress the U.S. Federal Reserve, which imposed restrictions in February on the bank’s growth, forbidding it to expand its balance sheet beyond 2017 levels until it makes internal changes that addressed risk management.</p>
<p>“A bank’s balance sheet is the engine for profit growth,” said Kyle Sanders, analyst at Edward Jones. “The constraints on Well’s ability to take on deposits and make new loans will likely result in lagging earnings growth for Wells relative to peers in the near-term.”</p>
<p>Wells estimates restrictions on balance sheet growth will cut annual profit by $300 million to $400 million this year.</p>
<p>Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan repeatedly sought to reassure investors that the bank was stable despite the regulatory restrictions.</p>
<p>“I’m confident that our outstanding team will continue to transform Wells Fargo into a better, stronger company; however, we recognise that it will take time to put all of our challenges behind us,” Sloan said in the bank’s first-quarter results statement on Friday.</p>
<p>But as recently as last month, the bank also said it was examining its wealth and investment management business for possible customer abuse, including overcharging and inappropriate referrals, after inquiries from government agencies.</p> PROFIT RISES, REVENUE DIPS
<p>Despite its ongoing woes, the bank reported a 6 percent jump in profit, saying net income applicable to common stock rose to $5.53 billion, or $1.12 per share in the quarter ended March 31, from $5.23 billion, or $1.03 per share a year ago. ( <a href="https://reut.rs/2HgHNMt" type="external">reut.rs/2HgHNMt</a>)</p> A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photo
<p>Analysts on average expected $1.06 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo has been struggling to reduce expenses, but failed to keep a leash on costs in the quarter despite Sloan’s vow to slash $4 billion in costs by 2019 by closing hundreds of branches and taking other measures.</p>
<p>Total noninterest expenses for the first quarter rose 3.3 percent to $14.24 billion.</p>
<p>Sloan reiterated his 2019 cost savings target, and said his non-interest expense dollar target range for full-year 2018 remains unchanged.</p>
<p>In January, the company had said it remained committed to reducing its expenses by $2 billion by the end of 2018.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">Wells Fargo &amp; Co</a> 50.89 WFC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.81 (-3.43%) WFC.N
<p>Total revenue in the quarter fell 1.4 percent to $21.93 billion. Total loans slipped 1.2 percent to $947.3 billion, hurt most by a decline in average loans in its community banking unit, which includes consumer banking.</p>
<p>Non-interest income from mortgage banking, an area where the bank supersedes its peers, fell 23.9 percent due to rising interest rates.</p>
<p>Income tax expenses fell 36 percent to $1.37 billion following President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul last year.</p>
<p>Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham, Bernard Orr</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) quarterly profit fell short of Wall Street expectations on Friday as lower revenue from investment banking ate into gains from stock trading and higher interest rates.</p> FILE PHOTO: People walk inside JP Morgan headquarters in New York, U.S., October 25, 2013. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
<p>Investment banking revenue fell 7 percent as it underwrote fewer debt and equity offerings, a dark spot in an otherwise strong quarterly report.</p>
<p>Shares of the largest U.S. bank by assets were down nearly 1 percent, paring early gains. The stock has risen 33 percent in the past 12 months.</p>
<p>JPMorgan gained from a strengthening economy and higher interest rates that lifted lending revenue more than the its cost of money. Its equity markets business had a robust quarter, driven by a surge in volatility in global markets.</p>
<p>Overall, profit rose 35 percent to an all-time high, while revenue was up 10 percent.</p>
<p>“We are pleased with the firm’s performance this quarter, with all of our businesses showing continued and broad strength and an overall environment that remains supportive,” Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said on a call.</p>
<p>She expects tax cuts and higher interest rates to provide even more of a “tailwind” to profits going forward.</p>
<p>JPMorgan, like its rivals, had indicated that President Donald Trump’s sweeping changes to the U.S. tax law would kick-start economic growth and help lenders boost their revenue as corporations borrow more to expand their businesses.</p>
<p>Income tax expense was down 8.6 percent at $2.56 billion as the corporate tax rate fell.</p>
<p>Markets revenue rose 7 percent, excluding special items, on a 26 percent jump in equity trading.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co</a> 110.3 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange -3.07 (-2.71%) JPM.N
<p>Global markets have been in churn since February due to worries over inflation, rising bond yields and heightened trade tensions between the United States and China.</p>
<p>Net interest income rose 9 percent to $13.5 billion as the rates it received for loans rose faster than its costs of funds.</p>
<p>The bank’s net income rose 35 percent to $8.71 billion in the quarter.</p>
<p>Excluding items, it earned $2.26 per share, missing average estimate of $2.28, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Net revenue was $28.52 billion, beating the average estimate of $27.68 billion.</p>
<p>Return on tangible common equity, a performance measure, was 19 percent, compared with 13 percent a year earlier. JPMorgan in February raised its return target for three years out to 17 percent, largely because of lower tax rates.</p>
<p>Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bengaluru and David Henry in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 20 percent in the first quarter, with some analysts speculating exporters were rushing out shipments to get ahead of threatened tariffs that are spurring fears of a full-blown trade war.</p>
<p>The latest readings on the health of China’s trade sector are unlikely to ease tensions following weeks of tit-for-tat tariff threats by Washington and Beijing, though they suggest China’s economy is still in relatively solid shape.</p>
<p>Even as China’s trade surplus narrowed overall in the first three months of the year, its surplus with the U.S. surged 19.4 percent to $58.25 billion from a year earlier, customs data showed on Friday.</p>
<p>While China was busy selling more to the U.S., it was buying more from other countries, and ran a $9.86 billion deficit with the rest of the world in the quarter.</p>
<p>China’s overall exports and imports both grew at a strong double-digit clip early in the year, and while exports unexpectedly fell in March — resulting in a rare trade deficit — most analysts chalked it up to seasonal factors and said it was too early to call a trend.</p>
<p>Still, while no hard timeline has been set by either Washington or Beijing for the actual imposition of tariffs, analysts said China’s exporters may already be adapting their strategies as punitive trade measures loom.</p>
<p>China’s first-quarter exports to the U.S. rose 14.8 percent from a year earlier, despite a 5.6 percent drop in March. Its imports from the U.S. rose 8.9 percent in the quarter and 3.2 percent in March.</p>
<p>That helped narrow its surplus with the U.S. in March alone to $15.43 billion from $20.96 billion in February, but that was still nearly 18 percent higher than March 2017.</p>
<p>“The sharp decline in March export growth after very solid performance in January and February suggests some exporters may have front-loaded exports (early) this year due to concern over the possibility of a Sino-U.S. trade war after the U.S. hiked tariffs on global imports on solar panels and washing machines,” said Lisheng Wang, an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>“We believe export growth will slow due to yuan appreciation and rising trade tensions...China’s imports could be more resilient than exports in our view as China has pledged to increase imports,” Wang said.</p>
<p>China’s total aluminum exports in March rose to their highest since June, just as the United States imposed tariffs on imports of the metal and steel on March 23.</p> SEASONAL EXPORT DIP IN MARCH
<p>For the first quarter as a whole, China’s exports grew a hearty 14.1 percent from a year earlier.</p>
<p>March shipments fell 2.7 percent, however, lagging analysts’ forecasts for a 10.0 percent increase, and down from a sharper-than-expected 44.5 percent jump in February, which economists believe was heavily distorted by seasonal factors.</p>
<p>“Most of (the March) drop is seasonal – Chinese New Year was later than usual this year, meaning more of the holiday disruptions will have dragged into March than in 2017,” Capital Economics Senior China Economist Julian Evans-Pritchard wrote in a note.</p>
<p>March import growth of 14.4 percent beat expectations, however, suggesting China’s domestic demand may still be solid enough to cushion the blow from any trade shocks.</p>
<p>Analysts had expected imports to grow 10.0 percent in March, picking up from 6.3 percent growth in February.</p>
<p>That produced an unexpected trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, but such shortfalls are not uncommon for China early in the year, again likely due to holiday distortions.</p>
<p>For Jan-March, imports rose a strong 18.9 percent on-year.</p> Shipping containers are seen piled up at a port in Qingdao, Shandong province, China April 13, 2018. China Daily via REUTERS
<p>Imports of commodities continued to lead the way in March as manufacturers replenished inventories ahead of a seasonal pick-up in demand. Shipments of copper, crude oil, iron ore and soybeans all rose from the previous month.</p>
<p>Analysts are still expecting China’s economic growth to slow later in the year, however, as a cooling property market weighs on demand for building materials from cement to steel.</p> OUTLOOK CLOUDY
<p>China’s exports rode a global trade boom last year, expanding at the fastest pace since 2013 and serving as one of the key drivers behind the economy’s forecast-beating 6.9 percent expansion.</p>
<p>But the sudden spike in trade tensions with the United States is clouding the outlook for both China’s “old economy” heavy industries and “new economy” tech firms alike.</p>
<p>Washington says China’s $375 billion trade surplus with the United States is unacceptable, and has demanded Beijing reduce it by $100 billion immediately.</p>
<p>In a move to further force China to lower the billions of goods trade surplus running with the U.S., Trump unveiled tariff representing about $50 billion of technology, transport and medical products early this month, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>China’s tech sector, which is key part of Beijing’s longer-term “Made in China 2025” strategy to move from cheap goods to higher-value manufacturing, may be particularly vulnerable.</p>
<p>Hi-tech products have been among its fastest growing export segments. China exported $137.8 billion worth of high-tech products in the first quarter, up 20.5 percent on-year.</p>
<p>Reporting by Elias Glenn, Lusha Zhang and Stella Qiu; Editing by Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
|
LIVE MARKETS-Be selective on European banks GE books $4.2 billion charge, restates earnings as expected Wells Fargo faces $1 billion fine from loan abuses JPMorgan profit just below estimates on weak investment banking China's trade surplus with U.S. soars in first quarter but March exports falter
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https://reuters.com/article/europe-stocks/live-markets-be-selective-on-european-banks-idUSL8N1PD4Z2
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2018-01-18
| 2least
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LIVE MARKETS-Be selective on European banks GE books $4.2 billion charge, restates earnings as expected Wells Fargo faces $1 billion fine from loan abuses JPMorgan profit just below estimates on weak investment banking China's trade surplus with U.S. soars in first quarter but March exports falter
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">GE.N</a>) said on Friday it took a $4.24 billion equity charge and reduced earnings for the last two years by 30 cents a share, figures in line with expectations the company set earlier this year when it said it would comply with new accounting standards.</p> FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
<p>The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial goods had estimated the after-tax, non-cash impact would be about $4.2 billion, plus reduced earnings for 2016 and 2017 of about 29 cents a share.</p>
<p>The accounting change prompted GE to recast two years of past financial statements to reflect lower income and asset values under the new standard, and those will be reflected when GE reports first-quarter results on April 20.</p>
<p>The value of GE’s contract assets are being written down, but that does not change the value of the long-term contracts GE has, nor does it affect GE’s cash flow or earnings estimates for 2018, GE said.</p>
<p>The adjustments appear within expectations, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said. “Now the focus moves to next Friday’s earnings.”</p>
<p>The figures suggest GE executives have gotten to the bottom of some accounting issues and bolster confidence in Chief Executive Officer John Flannery after a series of financial surprises, including underestimating the impact of insurance policies that prompted a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter, analysts said.</p>
<p>GE shares were down 1 percent at $13.35 in aftermarket trading after rising 2.4 percent on Friday.</p>
<p>The new accounting standard governs how companies estimate and recognize revenue from long-term contracts, and is designed to make a company’s cash flow more closely match its income, accounting experts and analysts said.</p>
<p>The prior standard allowed companies to recognize future revenue from such agreements more quickly. The new standard shifts revenue to later in the contract duration, analysts said.</p>
<p>Companies typically use the cost of providing services as a basis for estimating future revenue from the contracts, but the process can lead to over- or under-estimating the value of the contracts as assets on the balance sheet, experts say.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N" type="external">General Electric Co</a> 13.5 GE.N New York Stock Exchange +0.32 (+2.43%) GE.N
<p>GE’s contract asset tally has soared 70 percent to $28.8 billion in 2017, from $16.9 billion in 2014, most of it in its power and aviation units. The majority of the total reflects revenue GE has already booked but for which it has not billed customers, which creates the gap between profit and cash flow, according to GE’s regulatory filings.</p>
<p>GE also made adjustments for new accounting standards for pensions, cash flow and taxes on Friday.</p>
<p>GE’s accounting is under scrutiny after earnings swung to a loss last year and GE said its 2018 results would be at the low end of its forecasted range of between $1.00 and $1.07 a share.</p>
<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GE’s accounting for contract assets, raising investor concern but GE has said it is not overly concerned about the investigation.</p>
<p>GE said in February that it expects to make the adjustments as it switches to the new accounting standards for contracts.</p>
<p>GE said it chose to restate 2016 and 2017 earnings, a more exacting standard under the new rules, because it will allow investors to compare 2018 results with the prior years.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Rigby and Clive McKeef</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Two U.S. regulators have proposed Wells Fargo &amp; Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">WFC.N</a>) pay $1 billion in penalties to resolve probes into auto insurance and mortgage lending abuses at the third largest U.S. bank, overshadowing its first quarter results.</p>
<p>The San Francisco-based lender, which reported a quarterly profit, said it may have to restate results to reflect the final settlement. The proposed penalties were reported earlier this week by Reuters.</p>
<p>Analysts said that while the $1 billion penalty would not make a significant dent to its balance sheet, it may take the bank some time to repair the damage to its reputation.</p>
<p>Shares of the bank fell 3.4 percent to $50.89.</p>
<p>“Operationally, Wells Fargo can recover, but reputationally and how a billion dollars will weigh on them - only time can tell,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley in Boston.</p>
<p>“Companies have come back from worse than this but right now they’re still in the eye of the storm,” he added.</p>
<p>The bank, still smarting from a prolonged sales scandal in its retail banking business, found inconsistencies at its auto lending and mortgage in the summer of 2017 - leading to further probes by regulators.</p>
<p>To appease investors and regulators, the bank overhauled its operational structure, shook up its board and hired a new compliance officer.</p>
<p>But this failed to impress the U.S. Federal Reserve, which imposed restrictions in February on the bank’s growth, forbidding it to expand its balance sheet beyond 2017 levels until it makes internal changes that addressed risk management.</p>
<p>“A bank’s balance sheet is the engine for profit growth,” said Kyle Sanders, analyst at Edward Jones. “The constraints on Well’s ability to take on deposits and make new loans will likely result in lagging earnings growth for Wells relative to peers in the near-term.”</p>
<p>Wells estimates restrictions on balance sheet growth will cut annual profit by $300 million to $400 million this year.</p>
<p>Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan repeatedly sought to reassure investors that the bank was stable despite the regulatory restrictions.</p>
<p>“I’m confident that our outstanding team will continue to transform Wells Fargo into a better, stronger company; however, we recognise that it will take time to put all of our challenges behind us,” Sloan said in the bank’s first-quarter results statement on Friday.</p>
<p>But as recently as last month, the bank also said it was examining its wealth and investment management business for possible customer abuse, including overcharging and inappropriate referrals, after inquiries from government agencies.</p> PROFIT RISES, REVENUE DIPS
<p>Despite its ongoing woes, the bank reported a 6 percent jump in profit, saying net income applicable to common stock rose to $5.53 billion, or $1.12 per share in the quarter ended March 31, from $5.23 billion, or $1.03 per share a year ago. ( <a href="https://reut.rs/2HgHNMt" type="external">reut.rs/2HgHNMt</a>)</p> A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photo
<p>Analysts on average expected $1.06 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo has been struggling to reduce expenses, but failed to keep a leash on costs in the quarter despite Sloan’s vow to slash $4 billion in costs by 2019 by closing hundreds of branches and taking other measures.</p>
<p>Total noninterest expenses for the first quarter rose 3.3 percent to $14.24 billion.</p>
<p>Sloan reiterated his 2019 cost savings target, and said his non-interest expense dollar target range for full-year 2018 remains unchanged.</p>
<p>In January, the company had said it remained committed to reducing its expenses by $2 billion by the end of 2018.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WFC.N" type="external">Wells Fargo &amp; Co</a> 50.89 WFC.N New York Stock Exchange -1.81 (-3.43%) WFC.N
<p>Total revenue in the quarter fell 1.4 percent to $21.93 billion. Total loans slipped 1.2 percent to $947.3 billion, hurt most by a decline in average loans in its community banking unit, which includes consumer banking.</p>
<p>Non-interest income from mortgage banking, an area where the bank supersedes its peers, fell 23.9 percent due to rising interest rates.</p>
<p>Income tax expenses fell 36 percent to $1.37 billion following President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul last year.</p>
<p>Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham, Bernard Orr</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPM.N</a>) quarterly profit fell short of Wall Street expectations on Friday as lower revenue from investment banking ate into gains from stock trading and higher interest rates.</p> FILE PHOTO: People walk inside JP Morgan headquarters in New York, U.S., October 25, 2013. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
<p>Investment banking revenue fell 7 percent as it underwrote fewer debt and equity offerings, a dark spot in an otherwise strong quarterly report.</p>
<p>Shares of the largest U.S. bank by assets were down nearly 1 percent, paring early gains. The stock has risen 33 percent in the past 12 months.</p>
<p>JPMorgan gained from a strengthening economy and higher interest rates that lifted lending revenue more than the its cost of money. Its equity markets business had a robust quarter, driven by a surge in volatility in global markets.</p>
<p>Overall, profit rose 35 percent to an all-time high, while revenue was up 10 percent.</p>
<p>“We are pleased with the firm’s performance this quarter, with all of our businesses showing continued and broad strength and an overall environment that remains supportive,” Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said on a call.</p>
<p>She expects tax cuts and higher interest rates to provide even more of a “tailwind” to profits going forward.</p>
<p>JPMorgan, like its rivals, had indicated that President Donald Trump’s sweeping changes to the U.S. tax law would kick-start economic growth and help lenders boost their revenue as corporations borrow more to expand their businesses.</p>
<p>Income tax expense was down 8.6 percent at $2.56 billion as the corporate tax rate fell.</p>
<p>Markets revenue rose 7 percent, excluding special items, on a 26 percent jump in equity trading.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=JPM.N" type="external">JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co</a> 110.3 JPM.N New York Stock Exchange -3.07 (-2.71%) JPM.N
<p>Global markets have been in churn since February due to worries over inflation, rising bond yields and heightened trade tensions between the United States and China.</p>
<p>Net interest income rose 9 percent to $13.5 billion as the rates it received for loans rose faster than its costs of funds.</p>
<p>The bank’s net income rose 35 percent to $8.71 billion in the quarter.</p>
<p>Excluding items, it earned $2.26 per share, missing average estimate of $2.28, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Net revenue was $28.52 billion, beating the average estimate of $27.68 billion.</p>
<p>Return on tangible common equity, a performance measure, was 19 percent, compared with 13 percent a year earlier. JPMorgan in February raised its return target for three years out to 17 percent, largely because of lower tax rates.</p>
<p>Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bengaluru and David Henry in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 20 percent in the first quarter, with some analysts speculating exporters were rushing out shipments to get ahead of threatened tariffs that are spurring fears of a full-blown trade war.</p>
<p>The latest readings on the health of China’s trade sector are unlikely to ease tensions following weeks of tit-for-tat tariff threats by Washington and Beijing, though they suggest China’s economy is still in relatively solid shape.</p>
<p>Even as China’s trade surplus narrowed overall in the first three months of the year, its surplus with the U.S. surged 19.4 percent to $58.25 billion from a year earlier, customs data showed on Friday.</p>
<p>While China was busy selling more to the U.S., it was buying more from other countries, and ran a $9.86 billion deficit with the rest of the world in the quarter.</p>
<p>China’s overall exports and imports both grew at a strong double-digit clip early in the year, and while exports unexpectedly fell in March — resulting in a rare trade deficit — most analysts chalked it up to seasonal factors and said it was too early to call a trend.</p>
<p>Still, while no hard timeline has been set by either Washington or Beijing for the actual imposition of tariffs, analysts said China’s exporters may already be adapting their strategies as punitive trade measures loom.</p>
<p>China’s first-quarter exports to the U.S. rose 14.8 percent from a year earlier, despite a 5.6 percent drop in March. Its imports from the U.S. rose 8.9 percent in the quarter and 3.2 percent in March.</p>
<p>That helped narrow its surplus with the U.S. in March alone to $15.43 billion from $20.96 billion in February, but that was still nearly 18 percent higher than March 2017.</p>
<p>“The sharp decline in March export growth after very solid performance in January and February suggests some exporters may have front-loaded exports (early) this year due to concern over the possibility of a Sino-U.S. trade war after the U.S. hiked tariffs on global imports on solar panels and washing machines,” said Lisheng Wang, an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>“We believe export growth will slow due to yuan appreciation and rising trade tensions...China’s imports could be more resilient than exports in our view as China has pledged to increase imports,” Wang said.</p>
<p>China’s total aluminum exports in March rose to their highest since June, just as the United States imposed tariffs on imports of the metal and steel on March 23.</p> SEASONAL EXPORT DIP IN MARCH
<p>For the first quarter as a whole, China’s exports grew a hearty 14.1 percent from a year earlier.</p>
<p>March shipments fell 2.7 percent, however, lagging analysts’ forecasts for a 10.0 percent increase, and down from a sharper-than-expected 44.5 percent jump in February, which economists believe was heavily distorted by seasonal factors.</p>
<p>“Most of (the March) drop is seasonal – Chinese New Year was later than usual this year, meaning more of the holiday disruptions will have dragged into March than in 2017,” Capital Economics Senior China Economist Julian Evans-Pritchard wrote in a note.</p>
<p>March import growth of 14.4 percent beat expectations, however, suggesting China’s domestic demand may still be solid enough to cushion the blow from any trade shocks.</p>
<p>Analysts had expected imports to grow 10.0 percent in March, picking up from 6.3 percent growth in February.</p>
<p>That produced an unexpected trade deficit of $4.98 billion for the month, but such shortfalls are not uncommon for China early in the year, again likely due to holiday distortions.</p>
<p>For Jan-March, imports rose a strong 18.9 percent on-year.</p> Shipping containers are seen piled up at a port in Qingdao, Shandong province, China April 13, 2018. China Daily via REUTERS
<p>Imports of commodities continued to lead the way in March as manufacturers replenished inventories ahead of a seasonal pick-up in demand. Shipments of copper, crude oil, iron ore and soybeans all rose from the previous month.</p>
<p>Analysts are still expecting China’s economic growth to slow later in the year, however, as a cooling property market weighs on demand for building materials from cement to steel.</p> OUTLOOK CLOUDY
<p>China’s exports rode a global trade boom last year, expanding at the fastest pace since 2013 and serving as one of the key drivers behind the economy’s forecast-beating 6.9 percent expansion.</p>
<p>But the sudden spike in trade tensions with the United States is clouding the outlook for both China’s “old economy” heavy industries and “new economy” tech firms alike.</p>
<p>Washington says China’s $375 billion trade surplus with the United States is unacceptable, and has demanded Beijing reduce it by $100 billion immediately.</p>
<p>In a move to further force China to lower the billions of goods trade surplus running with the U.S., Trump unveiled tariff representing about $50 billion of technology, transport and medical products early this month, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>China’s tech sector, which is key part of Beijing’s longer-term “Made in China 2025” strategy to move from cheap goods to higher-value manufacturing, may be particularly vulnerable.</p>
<p>Hi-tech products have been among its fastest growing export segments. China exported $137.8 billion worth of high-tech products in the first quarter, up 20.5 percent on-year.</p>
<p>Reporting by Elias Glenn, Lusha Zhang and Stella Qiu; Editing by Kim Coghill</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
| 6,302 |
<p>The Washington Independent a smallish liberal online news site has run out of money and will cease producing original content on December 1.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://washingtonindependent.com/103701/the-washington-independent-signing-off" type="external">The Washington Independent</a></p>
<p>Nearly three years ago, The Washington Independent was launched as a bold experiment in online journalism. The idea was to combine hard-nosed investigative reporting with all the web had to offer: the nimbleness of real-time coverage, the interactivity made possible by this new thing called blogging, and the ability to create a narrative that was bigger than the sum of its parts.</p>
<p>The results were spectacular. We won awards for our reporting and recognition for our pioneering efforts. We sent reporters to Alaska, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. We graced numerous TV shows and were cited by every leading newspaper in the country. Most important, our reporting made a difference, whether by bringing flawed legislation and programs to the attention of people in power or by bringing critical overlooked issues to the attention of a broader public.</p>
<p>But TWI was not just a journalistic experiment; it was also a financial one, and ultimately, the successes of the former couldn’t sustain the strains of the latter. Our first year was marked by a kind of exceptionalism, the feeling that we were expanding as other newsrooms were contracting, that this new model of journalism would survive as our dead-tree colleagues struggled. But in the end, we fell prey to the recession just like everyone else.</p>
<p>TWI has always relied on donations, primarily from foundations seeking to promote journalism in the public interest. Those donations began drying up long ago. I’m grateful to the American Independent News Network for keeping TWI alive long past the point when its expenses began exceeding its receipts. But it wasn’t sustainable, and today the bosses informed us they’re pulling the plug. On Dec. 1, TWI will begin mirroring the content of our network’s other national site, The American Independent. TWI’s reporters and I will look elsewhere for work.</p>
<p>I have seen a great many changes in my more than two years at TWI. I’ve worked under three inspiring editors with three very different styles — Allison Silver, Laura McGann and Mary Kane — before being given the privilege to lead the team myself in July. But through it all, there’s been a deep conviction that good, solid reporting is more important than capitalizing on the latest scandal to drive traffic. I’ve had the tremendous honor of working with some of the best young reporters in the country: Spencer Ackerman, whose tenacity as a national security reporter is completely unrivaled; Dave Weigel, who defined the modern conservative movement and understood it like no one else; Mike Lillis, whose tireless coverage of Congress was underscored by a desire to root out stories of injustice; Annie Lowrey, who showed us that an economy reporter is more valuable when writing about the underprivileged than when covering Wall Street; and many more. It’s no surprise that these TWI alums are all making waves at top national publications.</p>
<p>But I’ll miss the current TWI team most of all. We’ve only been together a few months, and it feels like we were just getting started. Andrew Restuccia is a scoop machine on the environmental beat, but he grounds his coverage in the news that truly matters, sexy or not. Jesse Zwick is a masterful storyteller who has managed to distill an enormously broad beat into important and meaningful narratives. And Elise Foley has quickly transformed herself into one of the best immigration reporters in the country, and in the process, she’s proved just how critical and undercovered a topic immigration is. (Note to any editors out there: You’re in luck — these guys are now employable. Don’t pass up this tremendous opportunity.)</p>
<p>Finally, let me thank our readers around the world. Together, you have come to our site nearly 20 million times since January 2008, and for that we’re eternally grateful. We hope we’ve given you something valuable over the years. Please continue to read our reporters’ work, whoever ends up publishing it. It’ll be worth your while.</p>
<p>The crisis in the world of journalism today isn’t really about journalism — it’s about the bottom line. Reporters and editors everywhere are trying to find a way to keep their very good work alive. We thought our model had a chance. It put up a good fight.</p>
<p>Now it’s time to say goodbye.</p>
<p>The Independent can always take credit though for giving us Dave Weigel whose posts on the liberal list serve JournoList created such a ruckus that it was later shut down was never as independent as it was liberal in it’s viewpoints.</p>
<p>But it is rather surprising in this era of George Soros funded liberal news sites that the Independent couldn’t find some wealthy left wing sugar daddy to keep it going especially for one based on D.C. and with the Republicans about to take control of Congress in January.</p>
<p>I guess even the liberals have their limits when it comes to funding money losing enterprises.</p>
|
Liberal Online News Site Shutting Down
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http://aim.org/don-irvine-blog/liberal-online-news-site-shutting-down/
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2010-11-19
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Liberal Online News Site Shutting Down
<p>The Washington Independent a smallish liberal online news site has run out of money and will cease producing original content on December 1.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://washingtonindependent.com/103701/the-washington-independent-signing-off" type="external">The Washington Independent</a></p>
<p>Nearly three years ago, The Washington Independent was launched as a bold experiment in online journalism. The idea was to combine hard-nosed investigative reporting with all the web had to offer: the nimbleness of real-time coverage, the interactivity made possible by this new thing called blogging, and the ability to create a narrative that was bigger than the sum of its parts.</p>
<p>The results were spectacular. We won awards for our reporting and recognition for our pioneering efforts. We sent reporters to Alaska, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. We graced numerous TV shows and were cited by every leading newspaper in the country. Most important, our reporting made a difference, whether by bringing flawed legislation and programs to the attention of people in power or by bringing critical overlooked issues to the attention of a broader public.</p>
<p>But TWI was not just a journalistic experiment; it was also a financial one, and ultimately, the successes of the former couldn’t sustain the strains of the latter. Our first year was marked by a kind of exceptionalism, the feeling that we were expanding as other newsrooms were contracting, that this new model of journalism would survive as our dead-tree colleagues struggled. But in the end, we fell prey to the recession just like everyone else.</p>
<p>TWI has always relied on donations, primarily from foundations seeking to promote journalism in the public interest. Those donations began drying up long ago. I’m grateful to the American Independent News Network for keeping TWI alive long past the point when its expenses began exceeding its receipts. But it wasn’t sustainable, and today the bosses informed us they’re pulling the plug. On Dec. 1, TWI will begin mirroring the content of our network’s other national site, The American Independent. TWI’s reporters and I will look elsewhere for work.</p>
<p>I have seen a great many changes in my more than two years at TWI. I’ve worked under three inspiring editors with three very different styles — Allison Silver, Laura McGann and Mary Kane — before being given the privilege to lead the team myself in July. But through it all, there’s been a deep conviction that good, solid reporting is more important than capitalizing on the latest scandal to drive traffic. I’ve had the tremendous honor of working with some of the best young reporters in the country: Spencer Ackerman, whose tenacity as a national security reporter is completely unrivaled; Dave Weigel, who defined the modern conservative movement and understood it like no one else; Mike Lillis, whose tireless coverage of Congress was underscored by a desire to root out stories of injustice; Annie Lowrey, who showed us that an economy reporter is more valuable when writing about the underprivileged than when covering Wall Street; and many more. It’s no surprise that these TWI alums are all making waves at top national publications.</p>
<p>But I’ll miss the current TWI team most of all. We’ve only been together a few months, and it feels like we were just getting started. Andrew Restuccia is a scoop machine on the environmental beat, but he grounds his coverage in the news that truly matters, sexy or not. Jesse Zwick is a masterful storyteller who has managed to distill an enormously broad beat into important and meaningful narratives. And Elise Foley has quickly transformed herself into one of the best immigration reporters in the country, and in the process, she’s proved just how critical and undercovered a topic immigration is. (Note to any editors out there: You’re in luck — these guys are now employable. Don’t pass up this tremendous opportunity.)</p>
<p>Finally, let me thank our readers around the world. Together, you have come to our site nearly 20 million times since January 2008, and for that we’re eternally grateful. We hope we’ve given you something valuable over the years. Please continue to read our reporters’ work, whoever ends up publishing it. It’ll be worth your while.</p>
<p>The crisis in the world of journalism today isn’t really about journalism — it’s about the bottom line. Reporters and editors everywhere are trying to find a way to keep their very good work alive. We thought our model had a chance. It put up a good fight.</p>
<p>Now it’s time to say goodbye.</p>
<p>The Independent can always take credit though for giving us Dave Weigel whose posts on the liberal list serve JournoList created such a ruckus that it was later shut down was never as independent as it was liberal in it’s viewpoints.</p>
<p>But it is rather surprising in this era of George Soros funded liberal news sites that the Independent couldn’t find some wealthy left wing sugar daddy to keep it going especially for one based on D.C. and with the Republicans about to take control of Congress in January.</p>
<p>I guess even the liberals have their limits when it comes to funding money losing enterprises.</p>
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After just six hours of deliberation, a local jury convicted an Albuquerque man Thursday in the death of his wife.</p>
<p>According to the District Attorney’s Office, Carlos Perez strangled Vanessa Delgado and tied a plastic bag around her head on June 6, 2016. Police were called to Perez’s home at 11100 Gibson SE early that morning after Perez contacted a relative and said he’d hurt his wife badly and was going to El Paso.</p>
<p>According to police, Perez was found later headed south on Interstate 25 close to Las Cruces. The couple’s four children, all under age 10, were with him in his Honda sedan.</p>
<p>After a two-day trial, jurors found Perez guilty of second-degree murder and battery on a household member, according to the DA’s Office.</p>
<p>Perez will be sentenced in early November and faces up to 16 years in prison.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Albuquerque man convicted in wife’s killing
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https://abqjournal.com/1049612/albuquerque-man-convicted-in-wifes-killing.html
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Albuquerque man convicted in wife’s killing
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After just six hours of deliberation, a local jury convicted an Albuquerque man Thursday in the death of his wife.</p>
<p>According to the District Attorney’s Office, Carlos Perez strangled Vanessa Delgado and tied a plastic bag around her head on June 6, 2016. Police were called to Perez’s home at 11100 Gibson SE early that morning after Perez contacted a relative and said he’d hurt his wife badly and was going to El Paso.</p>
<p>According to police, Perez was found later headed south on Interstate 25 close to Las Cruces. The couple’s four children, all under age 10, were with him in his Honda sedan.</p>
<p>After a two-day trial, jurors found Perez guilty of second-degree murder and battery on a household member, according to the DA’s Office.</p>
<p>Perez will be sentenced in early November and faces up to 16 years in prison.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
| 6,304 |
|
<p>In June, the Chicago Public Schools eliminated some 900 special education positions—about 200 teachers and 700 aides—to help plug a gaping budget hole and account for a projected decline in special education enrollment.</p>
<p>Overall, 355 schools saw their special education staffs decline, but 64 saw them increase, the outcome of a district effort to bring more equity to the assignment of special education staff.</p>
<p>For example, McAuliffe Elementary in Logan Square got an additional teacher and an additional aide to accommodate a growing special ed population. Last year, the school had two grades in one classroom, says Assistant Principal Serene Peterson, adding, “We should have had a teacher last January.”</p>
<p>Mahalia Jackson Elementary in Auburn Gresham got another aide and a teacher. Last year, the school had 10 to 11 autistic children in one class—”way more than should be,” says Principal Kimberly McNeal. “But this year, we will make two classes of five to seven students.”</p>
<p>About a mile and a half away, Cook Elementary lost two aides but received two more teachers, which will make it possible for special education students to spend more time in regular classes. “The extra teachers mean we can do more ‘inclusion’ classes, and this helps the students,” says Principal Rebecca McDaniel. “We found that children who are included do better on tests like the ISAT and Learning First.”</p>
<p>The losers included Montefiore Elementary, which serves close to 100 children with severe and profound emotional disabilities. “We are suffering devastating cuts, and no one is listening,” says Principal Mary Ann Pollett. Montefiore lost six of 25 special education teachers but got two more aides, bringing the total to 18.</p>
<p>“To lose this many positions is going to tear the heart out of Montefiore,” says Pollett. Previously, the school offered students woodshop and other special classes. “Our young men don’t learn in traditional ways,” she says. “You have to have the right motivational hook. But these cuts will force us into more traditional classrooms.”</p>
<p>Hanson Park Elementary in Belmont Cragin, where almost 200 of its 1,300 students are in special education, lost five of its 34 special education teachers and six of its 50 aides.</p>
<p>“I have a largely physically disabled population,” says Principal Susan Stoll. Some students cannot use their hands and need aides to get out their books and point to information. “Some of them are severely disabled. It will be a problem.”</p>
<p>These gains and losses were the outcome of an effort by CPS to bring more equity to the assignment of special education staff. Some schools were using special education aides for other purposes but “were not willing to give the positions back because they’d had them for years,” says Gretchen Brumley, the CPS director of finance in specialized services.</p>
<p>This prompted the offices of specialized services and budget to create a new staffing formula for special education teachers and aides that every school would be required to follow. Schools were given a tentative staff allotment based on the formula and then allowed to appeal based on their particular circumstances, such as an expected increase in enrollment.</p>
<p>The appeals saved some 1,500 out of the 2,200 aides and more than 300 of the 500 teachers who would have been cut under the tentative allocation.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, opinions vary on whether the process was fair. “The appeals process was a sham,” says Pollett of Montefiore. But Peterson, of McAuliffe, applauds the process. “I think the audit was good to make sure everyone got what they needed. Now we have enough staff to provide full services to our special education children.”</p>
<p>Special education advocates say the district should be more concerned about serving students’ needs.</p>
<p>Donald Moore, executive director of the school reform group Designs for Change, acknowledges that some schools may not have used their staff well. “However, we know of many situations where staff was taken away from kids who desperately needed them,” he says.</p>
<p>Moore cites Clemente High School, which received many of Spalding High School’s severely disabled students when that school was shuttered two years ago. Clemente lost five of its 13 aides.</p>
<p>“The whole philosophy behind the federal [special education] law is to provide the services to help children be successful in school,” says Moore. “It is not based on equality among the schools.”</p>
<p>Like total enrollment, the number of special education students has declined in recent years, dropping by about 400 between 2004 and 2005 and another 1,500 between 2005 and 2006.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Chicago Teachers Union officials say they will be on the lookout to make sure that the cuts have not generated work for remaining staff that is outside their job descriptions. They also urge parents to be vigilant, making sure their children receive required services.</p>
<p>“Parents need to stand up and insist that their children receive the services they are entitled to,” says Mary McGuire, CTU recording secretary. “It is critical that they attend every [Individualized Education Plan] meeting, and that the IEP is driven by the needs of the student.”</p>
<p>To contact Debra Williams, call (312) 673-3873 or send an e-mail to [email protected].</p>
|
Amid big cuts, some schools gain
| false |
http://chicagoreporter.com/amid-big-cuts-some-schools-gain/
|
2006-10-02
| 3left-center
|
Amid big cuts, some schools gain
<p>In June, the Chicago Public Schools eliminated some 900 special education positions—about 200 teachers and 700 aides—to help plug a gaping budget hole and account for a projected decline in special education enrollment.</p>
<p>Overall, 355 schools saw their special education staffs decline, but 64 saw them increase, the outcome of a district effort to bring more equity to the assignment of special education staff.</p>
<p>For example, McAuliffe Elementary in Logan Square got an additional teacher and an additional aide to accommodate a growing special ed population. Last year, the school had two grades in one classroom, says Assistant Principal Serene Peterson, adding, “We should have had a teacher last January.”</p>
<p>Mahalia Jackson Elementary in Auburn Gresham got another aide and a teacher. Last year, the school had 10 to 11 autistic children in one class—”way more than should be,” says Principal Kimberly McNeal. “But this year, we will make two classes of five to seven students.”</p>
<p>About a mile and a half away, Cook Elementary lost two aides but received two more teachers, which will make it possible for special education students to spend more time in regular classes. “The extra teachers mean we can do more ‘inclusion’ classes, and this helps the students,” says Principal Rebecca McDaniel. “We found that children who are included do better on tests like the ISAT and Learning First.”</p>
<p>The losers included Montefiore Elementary, which serves close to 100 children with severe and profound emotional disabilities. “We are suffering devastating cuts, and no one is listening,” says Principal Mary Ann Pollett. Montefiore lost six of 25 special education teachers but got two more aides, bringing the total to 18.</p>
<p>“To lose this many positions is going to tear the heart out of Montefiore,” says Pollett. Previously, the school offered students woodshop and other special classes. “Our young men don’t learn in traditional ways,” she says. “You have to have the right motivational hook. But these cuts will force us into more traditional classrooms.”</p>
<p>Hanson Park Elementary in Belmont Cragin, where almost 200 of its 1,300 students are in special education, lost five of its 34 special education teachers and six of its 50 aides.</p>
<p>“I have a largely physically disabled population,” says Principal Susan Stoll. Some students cannot use their hands and need aides to get out their books and point to information. “Some of them are severely disabled. It will be a problem.”</p>
<p>These gains and losses were the outcome of an effort by CPS to bring more equity to the assignment of special education staff. Some schools were using special education aides for other purposes but “were not willing to give the positions back because they’d had them for years,” says Gretchen Brumley, the CPS director of finance in specialized services.</p>
<p>This prompted the offices of specialized services and budget to create a new staffing formula for special education teachers and aides that every school would be required to follow. Schools were given a tentative staff allotment based on the formula and then allowed to appeal based on their particular circumstances, such as an expected increase in enrollment.</p>
<p>The appeals saved some 1,500 out of the 2,200 aides and more than 300 of the 500 teachers who would have been cut under the tentative allocation.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, opinions vary on whether the process was fair. “The appeals process was a sham,” says Pollett of Montefiore. But Peterson, of McAuliffe, applauds the process. “I think the audit was good to make sure everyone got what they needed. Now we have enough staff to provide full services to our special education children.”</p>
<p>Special education advocates say the district should be more concerned about serving students’ needs.</p>
<p>Donald Moore, executive director of the school reform group Designs for Change, acknowledges that some schools may not have used their staff well. “However, we know of many situations where staff was taken away from kids who desperately needed them,” he says.</p>
<p>Moore cites Clemente High School, which received many of Spalding High School’s severely disabled students when that school was shuttered two years ago. Clemente lost five of its 13 aides.</p>
<p>“The whole philosophy behind the federal [special education] law is to provide the services to help children be successful in school,” says Moore. “It is not based on equality among the schools.”</p>
<p>Like total enrollment, the number of special education students has declined in recent years, dropping by about 400 between 2004 and 2005 and another 1,500 between 2005 and 2006.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Chicago Teachers Union officials say they will be on the lookout to make sure that the cuts have not generated work for remaining staff that is outside their job descriptions. They also urge parents to be vigilant, making sure their children receive required services.</p>
<p>“Parents need to stand up and insist that their children receive the services they are entitled to,” says Mary McGuire, CTU recording secretary. “It is critical that they attend every [Individualized Education Plan] meeting, and that the IEP is driven by the needs of the student.”</p>
<p>To contact Debra Williams, call (312) 673-3873 or send an e-mail to [email protected].</p>
| 6,305 |
<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two women accused of attacking a pregnant woman and shooting her boyfriend has been arrested in Louisiana.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge Police <a href="http://www.wbrz.com/news/two-women-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-attack-on-pregnant-woman-boyfriend" type="external">told</a> WBRZ-TV that 29-year-old Audrey Delone and 31-year-old Ashley Allen were arrested Tuesday in the Dec. 6 incident. Police say Delone and Allen followed the victim and his girlfriend from a store after an altercation in the parking lot.</p>
<p>During the pursuit, a police report states that Delone pointed a black firearm in the direction of the victim and his girlfriend, who was 6-months pregnant.</p>
<p>Police say a fight ensued at the residence. Delone began shooting at him as he was next to his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Delone is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal use of weapons. Allen is charged with attempted murder and simple battery.</p>
<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two women accused of attacking a pregnant woman and shooting her boyfriend has been arrested in Louisiana.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge Police <a href="http://www.wbrz.com/news/two-women-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-attack-on-pregnant-woman-boyfriend" type="external">told</a> WBRZ-TV that 29-year-old Audrey Delone and 31-year-old Ashley Allen were arrested Tuesday in the Dec. 6 incident. Police say Delone and Allen followed the victim and his girlfriend from a store after an altercation in the parking lot.</p>
<p>During the pursuit, a police report states that Delone pointed a black firearm in the direction of the victim and his girlfriend, who was 6-months pregnant.</p>
<p>Police say a fight ensued at the residence. Delone began shooting at him as he was next to his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Delone is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal use of weapons. Allen is charged with attempted murder and simple battery.</p>
|
2 women arrested after attacking pregnant woman, shoots man
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/7834f212bb634c7fbdc2fc69a8bf2e11
|
2017-12-27
| 2least
|
2 women arrested after attacking pregnant woman, shoots man
<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two women accused of attacking a pregnant woman and shooting her boyfriend has been arrested in Louisiana.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge Police <a href="http://www.wbrz.com/news/two-women-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-attack-on-pregnant-woman-boyfriend" type="external">told</a> WBRZ-TV that 29-year-old Audrey Delone and 31-year-old Ashley Allen were arrested Tuesday in the Dec. 6 incident. Police say Delone and Allen followed the victim and his girlfriend from a store after an altercation in the parking lot.</p>
<p>During the pursuit, a police report states that Delone pointed a black firearm in the direction of the victim and his girlfriend, who was 6-months pregnant.</p>
<p>Police say a fight ensued at the residence. Delone began shooting at him as he was next to his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Delone is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal use of weapons. Allen is charged with attempted murder and simple battery.</p>
<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two women accused of attacking a pregnant woman and shooting her boyfriend has been arrested in Louisiana.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge Police <a href="http://www.wbrz.com/news/two-women-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-attack-on-pregnant-woman-boyfriend" type="external">told</a> WBRZ-TV that 29-year-old Audrey Delone and 31-year-old Ashley Allen were arrested Tuesday in the Dec. 6 incident. Police say Delone and Allen followed the victim and his girlfriend from a store after an altercation in the parking lot.</p>
<p>During the pursuit, a police report states that Delone pointed a black firearm in the direction of the victim and his girlfriend, who was 6-months pregnant.</p>
<p>Police say a fight ensued at the residence. Delone began shooting at him as he was next to his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Delone is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal use of weapons. Allen is charged with attempted murder and simple battery.</p>
| 6,306 |
<p>Oct 24 (Reuters) - Puerto Rico and Whitefish Energy Holdings on Tuesday defended their $300 million contract for the small Montana company to repair the U.S. territory's hurricane-ravaged power grid after the deal was criticized by U.S. lawmakers.</p>
<p>The back-and-forth comes as Puerto Rico struggles to restore power to more than 80 percent of the island a month after Hurricane Maria made landfall.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Whitefish last month signed a deal with Puerto Rico's quasi-public power utility, PREPA, to help fix a grid that was nearly destroyed by Maria, the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in 90 years.</p>
<p>Whitefish was awarded the deal without a competitive bidding process, and despite the facts that it had just two full-time employees and was established only two years ago. That drew criticism from legislators who suggested cheaper options might have been available.</p>
<p>In a statement on Tuesday, Governor Ricardo Rossello said his administration would review PREPA's contracting practices and forward findings to the island's comptroller.</p>
<p>Rossello defended the deal, saying it was necessary to ensure Puerto Rico would have workers in place quickly.</p>
<p>"Of those (contractors) who met the requirements and aggressive schedules to bring brigades, one was asking for a substantial amount of money - which PREPA had no liquidity for - and another did not require it," Rossello said. "That other one is Whitefish."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Already in bankruptcy to shed $72 billion of debt, Puerto Rico was in financial straits even before the storm. As the island grapples to get back on its feet, power restoration is a key challenge - and one of keen interest to contractors and lawmakers alike.</p>
<p>Maria cut power to all of Puerto Rico when it made landfall on Sept. 20. As of Monday, only 18 percent had been restored, according to U.S. Department of Energy data.</p>
<p>Rossello's comments followed criticism from lawmakers like Democrat Raul Grijalva, the ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, who said in a statement on Tuesday that "Congress needs to understand why the Whitefish contract was awarded and whether other, more cost-effective options were available."</p>
<p>In a telephone interview Tuesday evening, Whitefish spokesman Ken Luce called the criticism unfounded, saying "Washington's got it backwards."</p>
<p>U.S. lawmakers should be admiring Whitefish for getting up and running quickly, "while the U.S. government was still assessing what to do," Luce said in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>The firm has been working in Puerto Rico since Oct. 2, Luce added.</p>
<p>Whitefish, named for its hometown of Whitefish, Montana, has hired dozens of workers, largely through subcontracts, as it ramps up operations in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>FLUOR ENTERS THE MIX</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Department of Defense said on Tuesday the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a similar power grid repair contract to a subsidiary of Fluor Corp.</p>
<p>Greenville, South Carolina-based Fluor Enterprises Inc beat out another undisclosed bidder for a $240 million construction contract set to run through next April, the DOD said in a statement.</p>
<p>Others working on power restoration include JEA, a Jacksonville, Florida-based utility, and representatives from the New York Power Authority.</p>
<p>Fixing Puerto Rico's power grid is an enormous task. Maria would have seriously damaged a healthy grid, but Puerto Rico's was hanging by a thread after years without maintenance. PREPA has struggled with heavy management turnover and a $9 billion debt load, which landed it in bankruptcy in July.</p>
<p>PREPA has set aggressive goals for fixes, saying it wants 95 percent of power back by mid-December, a schedule viewed as ambitious. (Reporting by Nick Brown; additional reporting by David Gaffen)</p>
|
Puerto Rico, Whitefish defend controversial power contract
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/25/puerto-rico-whitefish-defend-controversial-power-contract.html
|
2017-10-30
| 0right
|
Puerto Rico, Whitefish defend controversial power contract
<p>Oct 24 (Reuters) - Puerto Rico and Whitefish Energy Holdings on Tuesday defended their $300 million contract for the small Montana company to repair the U.S. territory's hurricane-ravaged power grid after the deal was criticized by U.S. lawmakers.</p>
<p>The back-and-forth comes as Puerto Rico struggles to restore power to more than 80 percent of the island a month after Hurricane Maria made landfall.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Whitefish last month signed a deal with Puerto Rico's quasi-public power utility, PREPA, to help fix a grid that was nearly destroyed by Maria, the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in 90 years.</p>
<p>Whitefish was awarded the deal without a competitive bidding process, and despite the facts that it had just two full-time employees and was established only two years ago. That drew criticism from legislators who suggested cheaper options might have been available.</p>
<p>In a statement on Tuesday, Governor Ricardo Rossello said his administration would review PREPA's contracting practices and forward findings to the island's comptroller.</p>
<p>Rossello defended the deal, saying it was necessary to ensure Puerto Rico would have workers in place quickly.</p>
<p>"Of those (contractors) who met the requirements and aggressive schedules to bring brigades, one was asking for a substantial amount of money - which PREPA had no liquidity for - and another did not require it," Rossello said. "That other one is Whitefish."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Already in bankruptcy to shed $72 billion of debt, Puerto Rico was in financial straits even before the storm. As the island grapples to get back on its feet, power restoration is a key challenge - and one of keen interest to contractors and lawmakers alike.</p>
<p>Maria cut power to all of Puerto Rico when it made landfall on Sept. 20. As of Monday, only 18 percent had been restored, according to U.S. Department of Energy data.</p>
<p>Rossello's comments followed criticism from lawmakers like Democrat Raul Grijalva, the ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, who said in a statement on Tuesday that "Congress needs to understand why the Whitefish contract was awarded and whether other, more cost-effective options were available."</p>
<p>In a telephone interview Tuesday evening, Whitefish spokesman Ken Luce called the criticism unfounded, saying "Washington's got it backwards."</p>
<p>U.S. lawmakers should be admiring Whitefish for getting up and running quickly, "while the U.S. government was still assessing what to do," Luce said in a telephone interview.</p>
<p>The firm has been working in Puerto Rico since Oct. 2, Luce added.</p>
<p>Whitefish, named for its hometown of Whitefish, Montana, has hired dozens of workers, largely through subcontracts, as it ramps up operations in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>FLUOR ENTERS THE MIX</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Department of Defense said on Tuesday the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a similar power grid repair contract to a subsidiary of Fluor Corp.</p>
<p>Greenville, South Carolina-based Fluor Enterprises Inc beat out another undisclosed bidder for a $240 million construction contract set to run through next April, the DOD said in a statement.</p>
<p>Others working on power restoration include JEA, a Jacksonville, Florida-based utility, and representatives from the New York Power Authority.</p>
<p>Fixing Puerto Rico's power grid is an enormous task. Maria would have seriously damaged a healthy grid, but Puerto Rico's was hanging by a thread after years without maintenance. PREPA has struggled with heavy management turnover and a $9 billion debt load, which landed it in bankruptcy in July.</p>
<p>PREPA has set aggressive goals for fixes, saying it wants 95 percent of power back by mid-December, a schedule viewed as ambitious. (Reporting by Nick Brown; additional reporting by David Gaffen)</p>
| 6,307 |
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis is the northernmost city to host a Super Bowl. Tourism officials are making the most of that as they prepare to welcome visitors to the “Bold North.” Many activities surrounding Super Bowl will take advantage of Minnesota’s wintry weather, including outdoor concerts, ice sculptures and opportunities for winter sports.</p>
<p>Super Bowl events will be held around the metro area during the week leading up to the Feb. 4 game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The city’s unique skyway system of enclosed footbridges will let visitors get from place to place without going outside. A trip to the Mall of America is also a must-do for those needing retail therapy to escape the cold.</p>
<p>A look at some things to do:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SUPER FUN</p>
<p>At Super Bowl Experience, the NFL’s interactive theme park, fans can get NFL players’ autographs, play games, take photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and more. Super Bowl Experience will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center Jan. 27-Feb. 3. <a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/super-bowl-experience-driven-by-genisis/5da4f0da-418a-4da8-8654-8f6c43118344" type="external">Tickets</a> are $35 ($25, children 12 and under).</p>
<p>The party continues down the street at <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/super-bowl-live-presented-by-verizon" type="external">Super Bowl Live</a> , a 10-day, free outdoor festival and concert series on Nicollet Mall, a five-minute walk from Super Bowl Experience. The concerts, presented by Minnesota music legends Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, will have a distinctly Minnesotan flavor, featuring a Prince tribute and local bands like Soul Asylum, Mint Condition, the Suburbs and others.</p>
<p>A free <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/PolarisUpsideDowntown" type="external">snowmobile stunt show</a> takes place Feb. 3. The American Birkebeiner International Bridge, a bridge that’s part of a Wisconsin ski race, is being rebuilt over Nicollet Mall to showcase events like skijoring (cross-country skiers pulled by dogs) and fat-tire bike racing. Nearby, adventure seekers will soar across the Mississippi River on the <a href="http://www.boldnorthzipline.com/" type="external">Bold North Zip Line</a> .</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/Super-Bowl-Opening-Night-Fueled-by-Gatorade/7d2cf418-64e0-4f7e-9a8a-f74642749212" type="external">Super Bowl Opening Night</a> will be held in St. Paul, a 15-minute drive from Minneapolis, on Jan. 29 at the Xcel Energy Center. The sold-out event gives fans a chance to see players and coaches. Also starting Jan. 29, fans can see players and celebrities in media interviews on Radio Row, at the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PLENTY OF PARTIES</p>
<p>Nomadic Entertainment Group is bringing a VIP experience called Nomadic Live! to the refurbished Minneapolis Armory building just blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium. Headliners there include Imagine Dragons, Pink and Jennifer Lopez. Tickets are <a href="http://www.nomadicentertainment.com/" type="external">here</a> . While a traveling venue called Club Nomadic has been cancelled, most of the acts initially scheduled for that venue— including The Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line and Gwen Stefani — will now perform inside Mystic Lake Casino Hotel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EMBRACE THE BOLD NORTH</p>
<p>Can you try cross-country skiing, ice fishing or even dog sledding? You betcha!</p>
<p>Many state and local parks have <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/travel-ideas/7-snow-filled-minnesota-adventures/" type="external">cross-country ski rentals</a> , snowshoe rentals or fat-tire biking on winter trails. Local rinks offer ice skating.</p>
<p>Adventurous tourists can head a couple hours out of town to find snowmobile rentals. Snow tubing or downhill skiing and snowboarding are also available within a 90-minute drive. And those who need to cross dog sledding or ice fishing off their bucket lists can find <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/things-to-do/snow-sports/?keywords=&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;radius=0&amp;mapTab=false&amp;sortOrder=asc&amp;sort=randomdaily&amp;locationid=&amp;region_id=&amp;attrFieldsAtLeast=&amp;attrFieldsAtMost=&amp;startDate=false&amp;class_id=38,66&amp;lat=&amp;lon=&amp;city=&amp;pageSize=20&amp;type=reitlistings&amp;attrFieldsOr=&amp;attrFields=region_id" type="external">outfitters and fishing guides</a> in northern Minnesota.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s annual <a href="https://www.wintercarnival.com/" type="external">Winter Carnival</a> coincides with Super Bowl. The carnival features a 70-foot (21-meter) Ice Palace, live music, ice carvings and more. The <a href="http://www.loppet.org/luminary-loppet/how-it-works/" type="external">Luminary Loppet</a> on Feb. 3 includes an ice pyramid and fire dancers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MINNESOTA MUST-DOS</p>
<p>Even hearty Minnesotans need a break from cold weather. One must-do includes a trip to the <a href="https://www.mallofamerica.com/home" type="external">Mall of America</a> , the nation’s largest entertainment and shopping complex. The mall has roller coasters, restaurants, a sea exhibit and other attractions — and is always 70 degrees F (21 C) inside. The mall is just 11 miles (18 km) from Minneapolis and an easy <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">train</a> ride from downtown or the airport.</p>
<p>Minneapolis and St. Paul have a vibrant art and theater scene. The metro area has more than 50 museums. The <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/" type="external">Minneapolis Institute of Art</a> , always free, will have an outdoor ice maze from Feb. 1 through Feb. 4. The <a href="https://www.smm.org/" type="external">Science Museum of Minnesota</a> , in St. Paul, is a hit with all ages. Its interactive Sportsology exhibit lets visitors analyze their movements and race against professional athletes.</p>
<p>Fans of the late singer Prince can tour his famed <a href="https://officialpaisleypark.com/pages/paisley-park-tours" type="external">Paisley Park</a> studio, or stop by to see his star, and others, painted outside <a href="http://first-avenue.com/" type="external">First Avenue</a> , the Minneapolis nightclub made famous in “Purple Rain.” Fans can also take a <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/things-to-do/music-nightlife/princes-minneapolis/visit-princes-hometown-of-minneapolis/" type="external">self-guided tour</a> of Prince’s Minneapolis haunts, including his childhood home and high school.</p>
<p>Minnesota’s craft brewery scene is booming, and several <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/52-must-sees/16-breweries/" type="external">breweries</a> in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can be visited in one afternoon. The Juicy Lucy (or Jucy Lucy) — a hamburger with molten hot cheese oozing out of the middle — is a unique Minnesota specialty worth trying.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GETTING AROUND</p>
<p>While events surrounding Super Bowl are spread across several cities, the area is relatively compact and easy to navigate by <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">bus, train</a> , taxi or ride services like Uber. One note: The light rail will be open only to Super Bowl ticket holders on game day, as those attending the game will be screened for security off-site en route to U.S. Bank Stadium. Other riders can take free buses along the route. Metro Transit recommends that visitors download its app for real time information or call 612-373-3333 with questions.</p>
<p>Volunteers will be stationed throughout the city, and in the skyway system, to help direct visitors.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external">http://superbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external">https://www.mnsuperbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external">https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Listen to the <a href="http://apple.co/2s2ruHY" type="external">AP Travel “Get Outta Here!” podcast</a> about Minneapolis hosting Super Bowl: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/afs:Content:1730910008</a></p>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis is the northernmost city to host a Super Bowl. Tourism officials are making the most of that as they prepare to welcome visitors to the “Bold North.” Many activities surrounding Super Bowl will take advantage of Minnesota’s wintry weather, including outdoor concerts, ice sculptures and opportunities for winter sports.</p>
<p>Super Bowl events will be held around the metro area during the week leading up to the Feb. 4 game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The city’s unique skyway system of enclosed footbridges will let visitors get from place to place without going outside. A trip to the Mall of America is also a must-do for those needing retail therapy to escape the cold.</p>
<p>A look at some things to do:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SUPER FUN</p>
<p>At Super Bowl Experience, the NFL’s interactive theme park, fans can get NFL players’ autographs, play games, take photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and more. Super Bowl Experience will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center Jan. 27-Feb. 3. <a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/super-bowl-experience-driven-by-genisis/5da4f0da-418a-4da8-8654-8f6c43118344" type="external">Tickets</a> are $35 ($25, children 12 and under).</p>
<p>The party continues down the street at <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/super-bowl-live-presented-by-verizon" type="external">Super Bowl Live</a> , a 10-day, free outdoor festival and concert series on Nicollet Mall, a five-minute walk from Super Bowl Experience. The concerts, presented by Minnesota music legends Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, will have a distinctly Minnesotan flavor, featuring a Prince tribute and local bands like Soul Asylum, Mint Condition, the Suburbs and others.</p>
<p>A free <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/PolarisUpsideDowntown" type="external">snowmobile stunt show</a> takes place Feb. 3. The American Birkebeiner International Bridge, a bridge that’s part of a Wisconsin ski race, is being rebuilt over Nicollet Mall to showcase events like skijoring (cross-country skiers pulled by dogs) and fat-tire bike racing. Nearby, adventure seekers will soar across the Mississippi River on the <a href="http://www.boldnorthzipline.com/" type="external">Bold North Zip Line</a> .</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/Super-Bowl-Opening-Night-Fueled-by-Gatorade/7d2cf418-64e0-4f7e-9a8a-f74642749212" type="external">Super Bowl Opening Night</a> will be held in St. Paul, a 15-minute drive from Minneapolis, on Jan. 29 at the Xcel Energy Center. The sold-out event gives fans a chance to see players and coaches. Also starting Jan. 29, fans can see players and celebrities in media interviews on Radio Row, at the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PLENTY OF PARTIES</p>
<p>Nomadic Entertainment Group is bringing a VIP experience called Nomadic Live! to the refurbished Minneapolis Armory building just blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium. Headliners there include Imagine Dragons, Pink and Jennifer Lopez. Tickets are <a href="http://www.nomadicentertainment.com/" type="external">here</a> . While a traveling venue called Club Nomadic has been cancelled, most of the acts initially scheduled for that venue— including The Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line and Gwen Stefani — will now perform inside Mystic Lake Casino Hotel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EMBRACE THE BOLD NORTH</p>
<p>Can you try cross-country skiing, ice fishing or even dog sledding? You betcha!</p>
<p>Many state and local parks have <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/travel-ideas/7-snow-filled-minnesota-adventures/" type="external">cross-country ski rentals</a> , snowshoe rentals or fat-tire biking on winter trails. Local rinks offer ice skating.</p>
<p>Adventurous tourists can head a couple hours out of town to find snowmobile rentals. Snow tubing or downhill skiing and snowboarding are also available within a 90-minute drive. And those who need to cross dog sledding or ice fishing off their bucket lists can find <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/things-to-do/snow-sports/?keywords=&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;radius=0&amp;mapTab=false&amp;sortOrder=asc&amp;sort=randomdaily&amp;locationid=&amp;region_id=&amp;attrFieldsAtLeast=&amp;attrFieldsAtMost=&amp;startDate=false&amp;class_id=38,66&amp;lat=&amp;lon=&amp;city=&amp;pageSize=20&amp;type=reitlistings&amp;attrFieldsOr=&amp;attrFields=region_id" type="external">outfitters and fishing guides</a> in northern Minnesota.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s annual <a href="https://www.wintercarnival.com/" type="external">Winter Carnival</a> coincides with Super Bowl. The carnival features a 70-foot (21-meter) Ice Palace, live music, ice carvings and more. The <a href="http://www.loppet.org/luminary-loppet/how-it-works/" type="external">Luminary Loppet</a> on Feb. 3 includes an ice pyramid and fire dancers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MINNESOTA MUST-DOS</p>
<p>Even hearty Minnesotans need a break from cold weather. One must-do includes a trip to the <a href="https://www.mallofamerica.com/home" type="external">Mall of America</a> , the nation’s largest entertainment and shopping complex. The mall has roller coasters, restaurants, a sea exhibit and other attractions — and is always 70 degrees F (21 C) inside. The mall is just 11 miles (18 km) from Minneapolis and an easy <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">train</a> ride from downtown or the airport.</p>
<p>Minneapolis and St. Paul have a vibrant art and theater scene. The metro area has more than 50 museums. The <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/" type="external">Minneapolis Institute of Art</a> , always free, will have an outdoor ice maze from Feb. 1 through Feb. 4. The <a href="https://www.smm.org/" type="external">Science Museum of Minnesota</a> , in St. Paul, is a hit with all ages. Its interactive Sportsology exhibit lets visitors analyze their movements and race against professional athletes.</p>
<p>Fans of the late singer Prince can tour his famed <a href="https://officialpaisleypark.com/pages/paisley-park-tours" type="external">Paisley Park</a> studio, or stop by to see his star, and others, painted outside <a href="http://first-avenue.com/" type="external">First Avenue</a> , the Minneapolis nightclub made famous in “Purple Rain.” Fans can also take a <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/things-to-do/music-nightlife/princes-minneapolis/visit-princes-hometown-of-minneapolis/" type="external">self-guided tour</a> of Prince’s Minneapolis haunts, including his childhood home and high school.</p>
<p>Minnesota’s craft brewery scene is booming, and several <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/52-must-sees/16-breweries/" type="external">breweries</a> in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can be visited in one afternoon. The Juicy Lucy (or Jucy Lucy) — a hamburger with molten hot cheese oozing out of the middle — is a unique Minnesota specialty worth trying.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GETTING AROUND</p>
<p>While events surrounding Super Bowl are spread across several cities, the area is relatively compact and easy to navigate by <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">bus, train</a> , taxi or ride services like Uber. One note: The light rail will be open only to Super Bowl ticket holders on game day, as those attending the game will be screened for security off-site en route to U.S. Bank Stadium. Other riders can take free buses along the route. Metro Transit recommends that visitors download its app for real time information or call 612-373-3333 with questions.</p>
<p>Volunteers will be stationed throughout the city, and in the skyway system, to help direct visitors.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external">http://superbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external">https://www.mnsuperbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external">https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Listen to the <a href="http://apple.co/2s2ruHY" type="external">AP Travel “Get Outta Here!” podcast</a> about Minneapolis hosting Super Bowl: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/afs:Content:1730910008</a></p>
|
Embrace the Bold North in Minneapolis for Super Bowl
| false |
https://apnews.com/5ddc01f147644c79820a62b065eb5efb
|
2018-01-17
| 2least
|
Embrace the Bold North in Minneapolis for Super Bowl
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis is the northernmost city to host a Super Bowl. Tourism officials are making the most of that as they prepare to welcome visitors to the “Bold North.” Many activities surrounding Super Bowl will take advantage of Minnesota’s wintry weather, including outdoor concerts, ice sculptures and opportunities for winter sports.</p>
<p>Super Bowl events will be held around the metro area during the week leading up to the Feb. 4 game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The city’s unique skyway system of enclosed footbridges will let visitors get from place to place without going outside. A trip to the Mall of America is also a must-do for those needing retail therapy to escape the cold.</p>
<p>A look at some things to do:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SUPER FUN</p>
<p>At Super Bowl Experience, the NFL’s interactive theme park, fans can get NFL players’ autographs, play games, take photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and more. Super Bowl Experience will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center Jan. 27-Feb. 3. <a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/super-bowl-experience-driven-by-genisis/5da4f0da-418a-4da8-8654-8f6c43118344" type="external">Tickets</a> are $35 ($25, children 12 and under).</p>
<p>The party continues down the street at <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/super-bowl-live-presented-by-verizon" type="external">Super Bowl Live</a> , a 10-day, free outdoor festival and concert series on Nicollet Mall, a five-minute walk from Super Bowl Experience. The concerts, presented by Minnesota music legends Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, will have a distinctly Minnesotan flavor, featuring a Prince tribute and local bands like Soul Asylum, Mint Condition, the Suburbs and others.</p>
<p>A free <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/PolarisUpsideDowntown" type="external">snowmobile stunt show</a> takes place Feb. 3. The American Birkebeiner International Bridge, a bridge that’s part of a Wisconsin ski race, is being rebuilt over Nicollet Mall to showcase events like skijoring (cross-country skiers pulled by dogs) and fat-tire bike racing. Nearby, adventure seekers will soar across the Mississippi River on the <a href="http://www.boldnorthzipline.com/" type="external">Bold North Zip Line</a> .</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/Super-Bowl-Opening-Night-Fueled-by-Gatorade/7d2cf418-64e0-4f7e-9a8a-f74642749212" type="external">Super Bowl Opening Night</a> will be held in St. Paul, a 15-minute drive from Minneapolis, on Jan. 29 at the Xcel Energy Center. The sold-out event gives fans a chance to see players and coaches. Also starting Jan. 29, fans can see players and celebrities in media interviews on Radio Row, at the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PLENTY OF PARTIES</p>
<p>Nomadic Entertainment Group is bringing a VIP experience called Nomadic Live! to the refurbished Minneapolis Armory building just blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium. Headliners there include Imagine Dragons, Pink and Jennifer Lopez. Tickets are <a href="http://www.nomadicentertainment.com/" type="external">here</a> . While a traveling venue called Club Nomadic has been cancelled, most of the acts initially scheduled for that venue— including The Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line and Gwen Stefani — will now perform inside Mystic Lake Casino Hotel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EMBRACE THE BOLD NORTH</p>
<p>Can you try cross-country skiing, ice fishing or even dog sledding? You betcha!</p>
<p>Many state and local parks have <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/travel-ideas/7-snow-filled-minnesota-adventures/" type="external">cross-country ski rentals</a> , snowshoe rentals or fat-tire biking on winter trails. Local rinks offer ice skating.</p>
<p>Adventurous tourists can head a couple hours out of town to find snowmobile rentals. Snow tubing or downhill skiing and snowboarding are also available within a 90-minute drive. And those who need to cross dog sledding or ice fishing off their bucket lists can find <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/things-to-do/snow-sports/?keywords=&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;radius=0&amp;mapTab=false&amp;sortOrder=asc&amp;sort=randomdaily&amp;locationid=&amp;region_id=&amp;attrFieldsAtLeast=&amp;attrFieldsAtMost=&amp;startDate=false&amp;class_id=38,66&amp;lat=&amp;lon=&amp;city=&amp;pageSize=20&amp;type=reitlistings&amp;attrFieldsOr=&amp;attrFields=region_id" type="external">outfitters and fishing guides</a> in northern Minnesota.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s annual <a href="https://www.wintercarnival.com/" type="external">Winter Carnival</a> coincides with Super Bowl. The carnival features a 70-foot (21-meter) Ice Palace, live music, ice carvings and more. The <a href="http://www.loppet.org/luminary-loppet/how-it-works/" type="external">Luminary Loppet</a> on Feb. 3 includes an ice pyramid and fire dancers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MINNESOTA MUST-DOS</p>
<p>Even hearty Minnesotans need a break from cold weather. One must-do includes a trip to the <a href="https://www.mallofamerica.com/home" type="external">Mall of America</a> , the nation’s largest entertainment and shopping complex. The mall has roller coasters, restaurants, a sea exhibit and other attractions — and is always 70 degrees F (21 C) inside. The mall is just 11 miles (18 km) from Minneapolis and an easy <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">train</a> ride from downtown or the airport.</p>
<p>Minneapolis and St. Paul have a vibrant art and theater scene. The metro area has more than 50 museums. The <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/" type="external">Minneapolis Institute of Art</a> , always free, will have an outdoor ice maze from Feb. 1 through Feb. 4. The <a href="https://www.smm.org/" type="external">Science Museum of Minnesota</a> , in St. Paul, is a hit with all ages. Its interactive Sportsology exhibit lets visitors analyze their movements and race against professional athletes.</p>
<p>Fans of the late singer Prince can tour his famed <a href="https://officialpaisleypark.com/pages/paisley-park-tours" type="external">Paisley Park</a> studio, or stop by to see his star, and others, painted outside <a href="http://first-avenue.com/" type="external">First Avenue</a> , the Minneapolis nightclub made famous in “Purple Rain.” Fans can also take a <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/things-to-do/music-nightlife/princes-minneapolis/visit-princes-hometown-of-minneapolis/" type="external">self-guided tour</a> of Prince’s Minneapolis haunts, including his childhood home and high school.</p>
<p>Minnesota’s craft brewery scene is booming, and several <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/52-must-sees/16-breweries/" type="external">breweries</a> in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can be visited in one afternoon. The Juicy Lucy (or Jucy Lucy) — a hamburger with molten hot cheese oozing out of the middle — is a unique Minnesota specialty worth trying.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GETTING AROUND</p>
<p>While events surrounding Super Bowl are spread across several cities, the area is relatively compact and easy to navigate by <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">bus, train</a> , taxi or ride services like Uber. One note: The light rail will be open only to Super Bowl ticket holders on game day, as those attending the game will be screened for security off-site en route to U.S. Bank Stadium. Other riders can take free buses along the route. Metro Transit recommends that visitors download its app for real time information or call 612-373-3333 with questions.</p>
<p>Volunteers will be stationed throughout the city, and in the skyway system, to help direct visitors.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external">http://superbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external">https://www.mnsuperbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external">https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Listen to the <a href="http://apple.co/2s2ruHY" type="external">AP Travel “Get Outta Here!” podcast</a> about Minneapolis hosting Super Bowl: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/afs:Content:1730910008</a></p>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis is the northernmost city to host a Super Bowl. Tourism officials are making the most of that as they prepare to welcome visitors to the “Bold North.” Many activities surrounding Super Bowl will take advantage of Minnesota’s wintry weather, including outdoor concerts, ice sculptures and opportunities for winter sports.</p>
<p>Super Bowl events will be held around the metro area during the week leading up to the Feb. 4 game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The city’s unique skyway system of enclosed footbridges will let visitors get from place to place without going outside. A trip to the Mall of America is also a must-do for those needing retail therapy to escape the cold.</p>
<p>A look at some things to do:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SUPER FUN</p>
<p>At Super Bowl Experience, the NFL’s interactive theme park, fans can get NFL players’ autographs, play games, take photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and more. Super Bowl Experience will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center Jan. 27-Feb. 3. <a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/super-bowl-experience-driven-by-genisis/5da4f0da-418a-4da8-8654-8f6c43118344" type="external">Tickets</a> are $35 ($25, children 12 and under).</p>
<p>The party continues down the street at <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/super-bowl-live-presented-by-verizon" type="external">Super Bowl Live</a> , a 10-day, free outdoor festival and concert series on Nicollet Mall, a five-minute walk from Super Bowl Experience. The concerts, presented by Minnesota music legends Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, will have a distinctly Minnesotan flavor, featuring a Prince tribute and local bands like Soul Asylum, Mint Condition, the Suburbs and others.</p>
<p>A free <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/PolarisUpsideDowntown" type="external">snowmobile stunt show</a> takes place Feb. 3. The American Birkebeiner International Bridge, a bridge that’s part of a Wisconsin ski race, is being rebuilt over Nicollet Mall to showcase events like skijoring (cross-country skiers pulled by dogs) and fat-tire bike racing. Nearby, adventure seekers will soar across the Mississippi River on the <a href="http://www.boldnorthzipline.com/" type="external">Bold North Zip Line</a> .</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/event-info/details/overview/Super-Bowl-Opening-Night-Fueled-by-Gatorade/7d2cf418-64e0-4f7e-9a8a-f74642749212" type="external">Super Bowl Opening Night</a> will be held in St. Paul, a 15-minute drive from Minneapolis, on Jan. 29 at the Xcel Energy Center. The sold-out event gives fans a chance to see players and coaches. Also starting Jan. 29, fans can see players and celebrities in media interviews on Radio Row, at the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>PLENTY OF PARTIES</p>
<p>Nomadic Entertainment Group is bringing a VIP experience called Nomadic Live! to the refurbished Minneapolis Armory building just blocks from U.S. Bank Stadium. Headliners there include Imagine Dragons, Pink and Jennifer Lopez. Tickets are <a href="http://www.nomadicentertainment.com/" type="external">here</a> . While a traveling venue called Club Nomadic has been cancelled, most of the acts initially scheduled for that venue— including The Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line and Gwen Stefani — will now perform inside Mystic Lake Casino Hotel.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>EMBRACE THE BOLD NORTH</p>
<p>Can you try cross-country skiing, ice fishing or even dog sledding? You betcha!</p>
<p>Many state and local parks have <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/travel-ideas/7-snow-filled-minnesota-adventures/" type="external">cross-country ski rentals</a> , snowshoe rentals or fat-tire biking on winter trails. Local rinks offer ice skating.</p>
<p>Adventurous tourists can head a couple hours out of town to find snowmobile rentals. Snow tubing or downhill skiing and snowboarding are also available within a 90-minute drive. And those who need to cross dog sledding or ice fishing off their bucket lists can find <a href="http://www.exploreminnesota.com/things-to-do/snow-sports/?keywords=&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;radius=0&amp;mapTab=false&amp;sortOrder=asc&amp;sort=randomdaily&amp;locationid=&amp;region_id=&amp;attrFieldsAtLeast=&amp;attrFieldsAtMost=&amp;startDate=false&amp;class_id=38,66&amp;lat=&amp;lon=&amp;city=&amp;pageSize=20&amp;type=reitlistings&amp;attrFieldsOr=&amp;attrFields=region_id" type="external">outfitters and fishing guides</a> in northern Minnesota.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s annual <a href="https://www.wintercarnival.com/" type="external">Winter Carnival</a> coincides with Super Bowl. The carnival features a 70-foot (21-meter) Ice Palace, live music, ice carvings and more. The <a href="http://www.loppet.org/luminary-loppet/how-it-works/" type="external">Luminary Loppet</a> on Feb. 3 includes an ice pyramid and fire dancers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MINNESOTA MUST-DOS</p>
<p>Even hearty Minnesotans need a break from cold weather. One must-do includes a trip to the <a href="https://www.mallofamerica.com/home" type="external">Mall of America</a> , the nation’s largest entertainment and shopping complex. The mall has roller coasters, restaurants, a sea exhibit and other attractions — and is always 70 degrees F (21 C) inside. The mall is just 11 miles (18 km) from Minneapolis and an easy <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">train</a> ride from downtown or the airport.</p>
<p>Minneapolis and St. Paul have a vibrant art and theater scene. The metro area has more than 50 museums. The <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/" type="external">Minneapolis Institute of Art</a> , always free, will have an outdoor ice maze from Feb. 1 through Feb. 4. The <a href="https://www.smm.org/" type="external">Science Museum of Minnesota</a> , in St. Paul, is a hit with all ages. Its interactive Sportsology exhibit lets visitors analyze their movements and race against professional athletes.</p>
<p>Fans of the late singer Prince can tour his famed <a href="https://officialpaisleypark.com/pages/paisley-park-tours" type="external">Paisley Park</a> studio, or stop by to see his star, and others, painted outside <a href="http://first-avenue.com/" type="external">First Avenue</a> , the Minneapolis nightclub made famous in “Purple Rain.” Fans can also take a <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/things-to-do/music-nightlife/princes-minneapolis/visit-princes-hometown-of-minneapolis/" type="external">self-guided tour</a> of Prince’s Minneapolis haunts, including his childhood home and high school.</p>
<p>Minnesota’s craft brewery scene is booming, and several <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/52-must-sees/16-breweries/" type="external">breweries</a> in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can be visited in one afternoon. The Juicy Lucy (or Jucy Lucy) — a hamburger with molten hot cheese oozing out of the middle — is a unique Minnesota specialty worth trying.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>GETTING AROUND</p>
<p>While events surrounding Super Bowl are spread across several cities, the area is relatively compact and easy to navigate by <a href="https://www.metrotransit.org/" type="external">bus, train</a> , taxi or ride services like Uber. One note: The light rail will be open only to Super Bowl ticket holders on game day, as those attending the game will be screened for security off-site en route to U.S. Bank Stadium. Other riders can take free buses along the route. Metro Transit recommends that visitors download its app for real time information or call 612-373-3333 with questions.</p>
<p>Volunteers will be stationed throughout the city, and in the skyway system, to help direct visitors.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://superbowl.com" type="external">http://superbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.mnsuperbowl.com" type="external">https://www.mnsuperbowl.com</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/" type="external">https://www.minneapolis.org/superbowl/</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Listen to the <a href="http://apple.co/2s2ruHY" type="external">AP Travel “Get Outta Here!” podcast</a> about Minneapolis hosting Super Bowl: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/afs:Content:1730910008</a></p>
| 6,308 |
<p />
<p>The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its word of the year: <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/hypermiling/" type="external">hypermiling</a>. Hypermiling, of course, is maximizing your car’s mileage by any means necessary, from simple solutions like driving barefoot (to lighten your lead foot) to putting MPG before mortality and tailgating big rigs (to minimize drag). And when you look up hypermiling in the dictionary, the guy whose picture should be there is Wayne Gerdes, the mileage master who <a href="http://www.cleanmpg.com/cmps_index.php?page=hypermiling" type="external">coined the term</a> and whom MJ <a href="/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html" type="external">entertainingly profiled</a> nearly two years ago—way before the lexicographers caught on. And way before the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers discovered hypermiling and tried to rebrand it as <a href="http://www.ecodrivingusa.com/" type="external">“EcoDriving.”</a> Ugh. Hopefully the Oxford word mavens will scrape the bottom of this year’s short list (staycation, tweet, hockey mom) before they immortalize that term.</p>
<p />
|
Word of the Year: Hypermiling
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/11/word-year-hypermiling/
|
2008-11-11
| 4left
|
Word of the Year: Hypermiling
<p />
<p>The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its word of the year: <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/hypermiling/" type="external">hypermiling</a>. Hypermiling, of course, is maximizing your car’s mileage by any means necessary, from simple solutions like driving barefoot (to lighten your lead foot) to putting MPG before mortality and tailgating big rigs (to minimize drag). And when you look up hypermiling in the dictionary, the guy whose picture should be there is Wayne Gerdes, the mileage master who <a href="http://www.cleanmpg.com/cmps_index.php?page=hypermiling" type="external">coined the term</a> and whom MJ <a href="/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html" type="external">entertainingly profiled</a> nearly two years ago—way before the lexicographers caught on. And way before the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers discovered hypermiling and tried to rebrand it as <a href="http://www.ecodrivingusa.com/" type="external">“EcoDriving.”</a> Ugh. Hopefully the Oxford word mavens will scrape the bottom of this year’s short list (staycation, tweet, hockey mom) before they immortalize that term.</p>
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<p>As a civil judge, he deals with disputes: landlord-tenant disputes, relationship disputes, disputes between businesses and customers.</p>
<p>“Whatever can happen in life where conflict can arise,” he said, “oftentimes those types of cases find their way here.”</p>
<p>But all of that changes on Valentine’s Day, when happy couples flood into the courthouse, ready to say, “I do.” This year around 150 weddings took place before six judges as part of the court’s annual Wedding Central event, court officials said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“How many times have you seen roughly 250 people in the same place, at the same time, smiling, in love, happy, and it’s not a sporting event?” he said.</p>
<p>As couples milled around, surrounded by their closest friends and family members. Sedillo said he could feel a kind of electricity in the air.</p>
<p>“The emotion is infectious,” Sedillo said.</p>
<p>Jon and Candace Rosas celebrate as they leave Metropolitan Court on Tuesday morning after their wedding ceremony.</p>
<p>Candace Hopkins, who is Candace Rosas as of Tuesday, noticed that atmosphere last year when she covered the Metro Court Valentine’s Day event as a reporter for KRQE.</p>
<p>“I thought it was really sweet and it kind of changed my opinion of court weddings,” she said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that could be nice.'”</p>
<p>And so when she and KRQE photographer Jon Rosas started talking about getting married, Rosas immediately mentioned a Valentine’s Day ceremony at the courthouse for consideration.</p>
<p>“It took some convincing for me,” Candace said. “But ultimately, I’m really happy we did it.”</p>
<p>The two have a big wedding planned for next year, but they didn’t want to wait that long.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We just were excited about getting married and committing to each other,” said Candace, dressed in an elegant white lace dress and holding a delicate bouquet of pink and white roses.</p>
<p>Accompanied by two photographers and with an aunt watching via FaceTime, the couple promised to love, honor and cherish each other in a brief ceremony before Judge Sedillo.</p>
<p>Jon said they’re looking forward to celebrating with all of their loved ones next year with a “grandiose wedding.”</p>
<p>“We want to share this moment with our family,” Jon said. “But we also wanted a moment that was all for us.”</p>
<p />
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Metro Court marries 150 couples on Valentine’s Day
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https://abqjournal.com/950247/metro-court-marries-150-couples-on-valentines-day.html
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Metro Court marries 150 couples on Valentine’s Day
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<p />
<p>As a civil judge, he deals with disputes: landlord-tenant disputes, relationship disputes, disputes between businesses and customers.</p>
<p>“Whatever can happen in life where conflict can arise,” he said, “oftentimes those types of cases find their way here.”</p>
<p>But all of that changes on Valentine’s Day, when happy couples flood into the courthouse, ready to say, “I do.” This year around 150 weddings took place before six judges as part of the court’s annual Wedding Central event, court officials said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“How many times have you seen roughly 250 people in the same place, at the same time, smiling, in love, happy, and it’s not a sporting event?” he said.</p>
<p>As couples milled around, surrounded by their closest friends and family members. Sedillo said he could feel a kind of electricity in the air.</p>
<p>“The emotion is infectious,” Sedillo said.</p>
<p>Jon and Candace Rosas celebrate as they leave Metropolitan Court on Tuesday morning after their wedding ceremony.</p>
<p>Candace Hopkins, who is Candace Rosas as of Tuesday, noticed that atmosphere last year when she covered the Metro Court Valentine’s Day event as a reporter for KRQE.</p>
<p>“I thought it was really sweet and it kind of changed my opinion of court weddings,” she said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that could be nice.'”</p>
<p>And so when she and KRQE photographer Jon Rosas started talking about getting married, Rosas immediately mentioned a Valentine’s Day ceremony at the courthouse for consideration.</p>
<p>“It took some convincing for me,” Candace said. “But ultimately, I’m really happy we did it.”</p>
<p>The two have a big wedding planned for next year, but they didn’t want to wait that long.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We just were excited about getting married and committing to each other,” said Candace, dressed in an elegant white lace dress and holding a delicate bouquet of pink and white roses.</p>
<p>Accompanied by two photographers and with an aunt watching via FaceTime, the couple promised to love, honor and cherish each other in a brief ceremony before Judge Sedillo.</p>
<p>Jon said they’re looking forward to celebrating with all of their loved ones next year with a “grandiose wedding.”</p>
<p>“We want to share this moment with our family,” Jon said. “But we also wanted a moment that was all for us.”</p>
<p />
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />NEW YORK — United Airlines will be the first U.S. carrier to resume flights to Israel after a two-day hiatus caused by combat in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The Chicago-based airline says it will resume service to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv with a 4:45 p.m. eastern flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.</p>
<p>A second United flight will leave Newark at 10:50 p.m. eastern.</p>
<p>The decision comes hours after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on U.S. flights in and out of Israel, which the agency had imposed out of concern for the risk of planes being hit by Hamas rockets.</p>
<p>Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, the two other U.S. carriers that fly to Israel, have said they are still evaluating their plans.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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United 1st US airline to resume flights to Israel
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United 1st US airline to resume flights to Israel
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />NEW YORK — United Airlines will be the first U.S. carrier to resume flights to Israel after a two-day hiatus caused by combat in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The Chicago-based airline says it will resume service to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv with a 4:45 p.m. eastern flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.</p>
<p>A second United flight will leave Newark at 10:50 p.m. eastern.</p>
<p>The decision comes hours after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on U.S. flights in and out of Israel, which the agency had imposed out of concern for the risk of planes being hit by Hamas rockets.</p>
<p>Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, the two other U.S. carriers that fly to Israel, have said they are still evaluating their plans.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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<p />
<p>Apple Inc fans from Sydney to Tokyo, the first to snap the new iPhone 7 off the shelves, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>But underneath the usual fanfare, and despite complaints that the larger size of the new phone and the new jet black color were sold out, crowds were smaller than in past years.</p>
<p>Some 200 people were gathered in Sydney light drizzle for the privilege of being the first worldwide to hold an iPhone 7. Apple will launch in its key Asian market China later on Friday.</p>
<p>"It feels great to be the first in the world to have the iPhone 7. It was 100 percent worth it," said Marcus Barsoum, a 16-year-old "diehard Apple fan" who spent two nights camped outside the Sydney store.</p>
<p>Weary but elated, Barsoum charged in to the store at 8 a.m. to the cheers of Apple staff. He emerged with a matte black iPhone 7 although he had wanted a 7 plus in jet black.</p>
<p>Dale Adams, who works at J.P. Morgan in Sydney, arrived only 15 minutes before the store opened and was able to buy a 7 Plus, having ordered it online more than a week ago.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"I'm certainly not one of the hard core Apple fans but I think the bigger capacity, better battery, better camera, that's enough to make the jump," he said.</p>
<p>Chatter about the launch on Chinese microblog Weibo has been far more muted than when the iPhone 6 debuted in 2014. An index of searches on Baidu Inc, China's equivalent of Google, shows the new phone lagging both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5.</p>
<p>Sales in China will be the acid test for Apple's year ahead: the mega success of the iPhone 6 in China drove sales last year, while the slower-burn 6S contributed to Apple's first global revenue drop in over a decade earlier this year.</p>
<p>Stores open in China later on Friday, a holiday.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Sijia Jiang in HONG KONG and Adam Jourdan in SHANGHAI; Editing by Stephen Coates)</p>
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Asian fans snap up new iPhone but crowds smaller despite sell-out
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http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/09/15/asian-fans-snap-up-new-iphone-but-crowds-smaller-despite-sell-out.html
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2016-09-16
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Asian fans snap up new iPhone but crowds smaller despite sell-out
<p />
<p>Apple Inc fans from Sydney to Tokyo, the first to snap the new iPhone 7 off the shelves, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>But underneath the usual fanfare, and despite complaints that the larger size of the new phone and the new jet black color were sold out, crowds were smaller than in past years.</p>
<p>Some 200 people were gathered in Sydney light drizzle for the privilege of being the first worldwide to hold an iPhone 7. Apple will launch in its key Asian market China later on Friday.</p>
<p>"It feels great to be the first in the world to have the iPhone 7. It was 100 percent worth it," said Marcus Barsoum, a 16-year-old "diehard Apple fan" who spent two nights camped outside the Sydney store.</p>
<p>Weary but elated, Barsoum charged in to the store at 8 a.m. to the cheers of Apple staff. He emerged with a matte black iPhone 7 although he had wanted a 7 plus in jet black.</p>
<p>Dale Adams, who works at J.P. Morgan in Sydney, arrived only 15 minutes before the store opened and was able to buy a 7 Plus, having ordered it online more than a week ago.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"I'm certainly not one of the hard core Apple fans but I think the bigger capacity, better battery, better camera, that's enough to make the jump," he said.</p>
<p>Chatter about the launch on Chinese microblog Weibo has been far more muted than when the iPhone 6 debuted in 2014. An index of searches on Baidu Inc, China's equivalent of Google, shows the new phone lagging both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5.</p>
<p>Sales in China will be the acid test for Apple's year ahead: the mega success of the iPhone 6 in China drove sales last year, while the slower-burn 6S contributed to Apple's first global revenue drop in over a decade earlier this year.</p>
<p>Stores open in China later on Friday, a holiday.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Sijia Jiang in HONG KONG and Adam Jourdan in SHANGHAI; Editing by Stephen Coates)</p>
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers late Tuesday night seized a half-ton of marijuana at El Paso’s Zaragoza Bridge and arrested a 32-year-old Socorro, N.M., mother on drug charges, the <a href="http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_22633365/brief-mother-arrested-marijuana-seizure" type="external">El Paso Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>Palma Lyon was with her two children&#160; in a pickup truck in which 1,061 pounds of marijuana was discovered in the panels, gas tank, floor and spare tires, the Times said.</p>
<p>CBP officers used a drug-sniffing dog to locate the marijuana, according to the paper.</p>
<p>Lyon was taken into custody and her two children were handed over to a relative, the Times said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Socorro mom busted with half-ton of pot
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers late Tuesday night seized a half-ton of marijuana at El Paso’s Zaragoza Bridge and arrested a 32-year-old Socorro, N.M., mother on drug charges, the <a href="http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_22633365/brief-mother-arrested-marijuana-seizure" type="external">El Paso Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>Palma Lyon was with her two children&#160; in a pickup truck in which 1,061 pounds of marijuana was discovered in the panels, gas tank, floor and spare tires, the Times said.</p>
<p>CBP officers used a drug-sniffing dog to locate the marijuana, according to the paper.</p>
<p>Lyon was taken into custody and her two children were handed over to a relative, the Times said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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<p />
<p>Wall Street declined on Thursday after lawmakers delayed a vote on a healthcare bill seen as President Donald Trump's first policy test.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Failure to pass the American Health Care Act would cast doubt on Trump's ability to deliver other parts of his agenda that need the cooperation of the Republican-controlled Congress, including ambitious plans to overhaul the tax code and invest in infrastructure.</p>
<p>The U.S. House of Representatives had been scheduled to vote on the bill on Thursday, but leaders put off the vote after failing to find enough support among Republicans to pass it.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 has surged 10 percent since the election, mainly due to optimism about Trump's campaign promises to enact legislation seen as pro-business.</p>
<p>Not passing the healthcare bill would be seen by many investors as pushing back the agenda of corporate tax cuts.</p>
<p>"If this thing gets materially delayed or if we get a 'no' vote, we're going to see a horrific market reaction," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa. "But if they vote in the morning and it passes, we'll have a hell of a rally."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Jitters about the healthcare bill on Tuesday led investors to sell stocks in what was the S&amp;P 500's worst day since before Trump's election. Wall Street's reaction to the vote's delay, late in Thursday's session, was relatively mild.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.02 percent at 20,656.58 points, while the S&amp;P 500 lost 0.11 percent to 2,345.96.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.07 percent to 5,817.69.</p>
<p>Seven of the 11 major S&amp;P indexes declined, with the energy index down 0.36 percent.</p>
<p>Google-parent Alphabet fell 1.19 percent as more firms pull YouTube ads on fears they may appear alongside offensive videos. The stock was the biggest drag on the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq.</p>
<p>Five Below surged 10.80 percent after the retailer's quarterly earnings beat estimates.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.86-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.79-to-1 ratio favored advancers.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted 14 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 50 new highs and 48 new lows.</p>
<p>About 6.4 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, below the 7.1 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.</p>
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Wall Street Down as Health Bill Vote is Delayed
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http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/23/wall-st-set-to-open-higher-health-care-vote-in-focus.html
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2017-03-23
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Wall Street Down as Health Bill Vote is Delayed
<p />
<p>Wall Street declined on Thursday after lawmakers delayed a vote on a healthcare bill seen as President Donald Trump's first policy test.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Failure to pass the American Health Care Act would cast doubt on Trump's ability to deliver other parts of his agenda that need the cooperation of the Republican-controlled Congress, including ambitious plans to overhaul the tax code and invest in infrastructure.</p>
<p>The U.S. House of Representatives had been scheduled to vote on the bill on Thursday, but leaders put off the vote after failing to find enough support among Republicans to pass it.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 has surged 10 percent since the election, mainly due to optimism about Trump's campaign promises to enact legislation seen as pro-business.</p>
<p>Not passing the healthcare bill would be seen by many investors as pushing back the agenda of corporate tax cuts.</p>
<p>"If this thing gets materially delayed or if we get a 'no' vote, we're going to see a horrific market reaction," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa. "But if they vote in the morning and it passes, we'll have a hell of a rally."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Jitters about the healthcare bill on Tuesday led investors to sell stocks in what was the S&amp;P 500's worst day since before Trump's election. Wall Street's reaction to the vote's delay, late in Thursday's session, was relatively mild.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.02 percent at 20,656.58 points, while the S&amp;P 500 lost 0.11 percent to 2,345.96.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.07 percent to 5,817.69.</p>
<p>Seven of the 11 major S&amp;P indexes declined, with the energy index down 0.36 percent.</p>
<p>Google-parent Alphabet fell 1.19 percent as more firms pull YouTube ads on fears they may appear alongside offensive videos. The stock was the biggest drag on the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq.</p>
<p>Five Below surged 10.80 percent after the retailer's quarterly earnings beat estimates.</p>
<p>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.86-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.79-to-1 ratio favored advancers.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted 14 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 50 new highs and 48 new lows.</p>
<p>About 6.4 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, below the 7.1 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>This Bush Administration just keeps on topping itself when it comes to outrages.</p>
<p>Now, after the press exposed a couple of cases of civilian massacres by U.S. forces–massacres the military tried to cover up–they’re calling for “ethics training” for the troops in Iraq.</p>
<p>Note that we are now more than three years into the slaughter, with our own forces responsible for the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children (the president himself has casually acknowledged “30,000 civilians dead, give or take”).</p>
<p>Note that the administration–including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Commander-in-Chief Bush himself–are responsible for the “rules of engagement” that have led to most of those deaths–the aerial “shock and awe” bombardment of populated cities, the leveling of cities like Samarah and especially Fallujah, the use of prohibited incendiary weapons like napalm and white phosphorus, the use of fixed-wing and helicopter gunships that saturate wide areas with lethal machine-gun fire, and not least the deadly tactics of “spray and pray” response to attack, and to shoot-to-kill orders at military roadblocks.</p>
<p>This administration’s talking about teaching ethics to soldiers is something akin to having the Israeli military or Hamas teach non-violent conflict resolution tactics, or having Attorney General Alberto Gonzales teach a course on civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to redefine torture to permit waterboarding and the use of 24-hour stress positions.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to round up legal alien residents in the U.S., including people who were given asylum because of persecution in their home country, and to deport them back to those countries without a legal hearing.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to take the most vile symbol of repression in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Abu Ghraib Prison, and to convert it into a torture center for U.S. forces to use on captured Iraqis.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to kidnap people, both here in the U.S., and overseas, and to “render” them in secret to dank, dark gulags in former totalitarian states of Eastern Europe, and at Guantanamo Bay, there to torture them and even kill them at will, while hiding them and their fate from even the International Red Cross.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to kidnap, render and torture people, and eventually release them when it is finally demonstrated that they have a case of mistaken identity, and then to refuse to admit the mistake or even offer compensation.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to lie to its own people in order to be able to start a war against a nation that posed no threat, for purely domestic political advantage.</p>
<p>The point is, we’re talking about an administration of war criminals–people who should be indicted and put on trial, or, in Bush’s case, impeached and then indicted and put on trial, for crimes against humanity. And these guys have the gall to call for the teaching of ethics to the poor troops it has thrown into a pointless and hopeless war and occupation in Iraq?</p>
<p>Are we supposed to take this seriously?</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512984/counterpunchmaga" type="external">This Can’t be Happening!</a>” is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff’s new book, “ <a href="" type="internal">The Case for Impeachment</a>“, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is due out May 1.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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Bush and Rumsfeld as Ethics Advisers
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https://counterpunch.org/2006/06/02/bush-and-rumsfeld-as-ethics-advisers/
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2006-06-02
| 4left
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Bush and Rumsfeld as Ethics Advisers
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>This Bush Administration just keeps on topping itself when it comes to outrages.</p>
<p>Now, after the press exposed a couple of cases of civilian massacres by U.S. forces–massacres the military tried to cover up–they’re calling for “ethics training” for the troops in Iraq.</p>
<p>Note that we are now more than three years into the slaughter, with our own forces responsible for the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children (the president himself has casually acknowledged “30,000 civilians dead, give or take”).</p>
<p>Note that the administration–including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Commander-in-Chief Bush himself–are responsible for the “rules of engagement” that have led to most of those deaths–the aerial “shock and awe” bombardment of populated cities, the leveling of cities like Samarah and especially Fallujah, the use of prohibited incendiary weapons like napalm and white phosphorus, the use of fixed-wing and helicopter gunships that saturate wide areas with lethal machine-gun fire, and not least the deadly tactics of “spray and pray” response to attack, and to shoot-to-kill orders at military roadblocks.</p>
<p>This administration’s talking about teaching ethics to soldiers is something akin to having the Israeli military or Hamas teach non-violent conflict resolution tactics, or having Attorney General Alberto Gonzales teach a course on civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to redefine torture to permit waterboarding and the use of 24-hour stress positions.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to round up legal alien residents in the U.S., including people who were given asylum because of persecution in their home country, and to deport them back to those countries without a legal hearing.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to take the most vile symbol of repression in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Abu Ghraib Prison, and to convert it into a torture center for U.S. forces to use on captured Iraqis.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to kidnap people, both here in the U.S., and overseas, and to “render” them in secret to dank, dark gulags in former totalitarian states of Eastern Europe, and at Guantanamo Bay, there to torture them and even kill them at will, while hiding them and their fate from even the International Red Cross.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to kidnap, render and torture people, and eventually release them when it is finally demonstrated that they have a case of mistaken identity, and then to refuse to admit the mistake or even offer compensation.</p>
<p>This administration’s idea of ethics is to lie to its own people in order to be able to start a war against a nation that posed no threat, for purely domestic political advantage.</p>
<p>The point is, we’re talking about an administration of war criminals–people who should be indicted and put on trial, or, in Bush’s case, impeached and then indicted and put on trial, for crimes against humanity. And these guys have the gall to call for the teaching of ethics to the poor troops it has thrown into a pointless and hopeless war and occupation in Iraq?</p>
<p>Are we supposed to take this seriously?</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512984/counterpunchmaga" type="external">This Can’t be Happening!</a>” is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff’s new book, “ <a href="" type="internal">The Case for Impeachment</a>“, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is due out May 1.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 6,315 |
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Hornets coach Steve Clifford has battled headaches for the past two years.</p>
<p>But when the pain became so intense before a Charlotte home game last December it frightened him, and he couldn't ignore the problem any longer.</p>
<p>The 56-year-old Clifford walked away from the Hornets that day to undergo medical testing on his brain and get his life in order. Results revealed no internal problems, but the doctor's diagnosis was one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGu4fR0T3o" type="external">other workaholic professional and college coaches</a> may want to pay attention to: Clifford was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. And, if he didn't do something about it, the condition was only going to get worse.</p>
<p>Clifford returned to practice Tuesday after six weeks off, feeling refreshed.</p>
<p>He'll be back on the sideline Wednesday night following a 21-game absence when the Hornets host the Washington Wizards, the start of a five-game home stand.</p>
<p>"It was a scary thing," Clifford told The Associated Press of the ordeal.</p>
<p>Doctors determined that more than 18 years of working as a NBA coach had worn him down to the point where his brain was telling him he needed sleep. With the league's brutal travel schedule that includes 82 games — including 41 on the road — Clifford had grown used to nights where he would regularly sleep four or five hours then get up and begin working again.</p>
<p>"It becomes a vicious cycle," Clifford said. "It was a lack of sleep that leads to headaches, and then the headaches are why I'm not sleeping."</p>
<p>The headaches began in 2016 and Clifford initially handled them with over-the-counter medication. But over the past two years the headaches grew more severe, and he received stronger prescriptions to deal with the pain.</p>
<p>That helped mask the problem for a while.</p>
<p>But when he walked in the team's downtown Charlotte arena the morning of Dec. 4, 2017 for shoot around, Clifford could no longer take the pain.</p>
<p>The Hornets had just returned from a road trip to Toronto and Miami where they played two games in three nights, a common NBA occurrence.</p>
<p>"I hadn't been able to sleep much on that road trip," Clifford said. "And that is when the doctors told me we're going to have to stop right here and do some testing."</p>
<p>This wasn't Clifford's first health scare as Charlotte's coach.</p>
<p>In 2013, Clifford had two stents inserted into his heart. However, he returned to the sideline three days later to coach a game and finished out the season.</p>
<p>But he said the issue with the headaches were different — and more worrisome to him.</p>
<p>"The doctor basically told me it's your long-term health versus your career," Clifford said. "And he told me the medication doesn't cure the headaches. The medication for a headache is a Band-Aid. You have to take care of the issue. (The headaches) will keep getting worse until you stop what is causing them. And my problem was my job, my lifestyle."</p>
<p>In the end, Clifford said it was "a pretty easy decision" to take a leave of absence.</p>
<p>While away, he monitored Hornets games on television but also took naps during the day and started to train his body to sleep more at night.</p>
<p>Clifford was greeted by smiles, jokes and some hugs from players on Tuesday. And it didn't take long for him to begin harping on some of his old messages, as he preached defense on the first day back.</p>
<p>The Hornets were 9-12 under associate coach Stephen Silas with Clifford out.</p>
<p>"It felt good to have him back," Hornets All-Star point guard Kemba Walker said. "Almost an immediate impact. We have been missing him. He's our leader."</p>
<p>Moving forward, Clifford said he plans to delegate more to his assistant coaches and his goal is to get seven or eight hours of sleep every night, even on the road.</p>
<p>Whether or not he's able to do that given the inherent stress and travel schedule that accompanies the NBA coaching profession — particularly when it comes to leading a struggling team that is eight games under .500 and five games out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference — remains to be seen.</p>
<p>But Clifford said he's making it priority.</p>
<p>"I'm going to live differently," Clifford said. "And it doesn't have to be a significant change. ... As the doctors both told me, you don't have to work differently, you have live differently. So as much as anything I have to sleep more. That's it. I have to train my body to sleep more."</p>
<p>Then, Clifford quickly added with a big smile, "Once I do that our defense will get better, our offense will take off and we will be good to go."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</p>
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Hornets coach Steve Clifford has battled headaches for the past two years.</p>
<p>But when the pain became so intense before a Charlotte home game last December it frightened him, and he couldn't ignore the problem any longer.</p>
<p>The 56-year-old Clifford walked away from the Hornets that day to undergo medical testing on his brain and get his life in order. Results revealed no internal problems, but the doctor's diagnosis was one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGu4fR0T3o" type="external">other workaholic professional and college coaches</a> may want to pay attention to: Clifford was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. And, if he didn't do something about it, the condition was only going to get worse.</p>
<p>Clifford returned to practice Tuesday after six weeks off, feeling refreshed.</p>
<p>He'll be back on the sideline Wednesday night following a 21-game absence when the Hornets host the Washington Wizards, the start of a five-game home stand.</p>
<p>"It was a scary thing," Clifford told The Associated Press of the ordeal.</p>
<p>Doctors determined that more than 18 years of working as a NBA coach had worn him down to the point where his brain was telling him he needed sleep. With the league's brutal travel schedule that includes 82 games — including 41 on the road — Clifford had grown used to nights where he would regularly sleep four or five hours then get up and begin working again.</p>
<p>"It becomes a vicious cycle," Clifford said. "It was a lack of sleep that leads to headaches, and then the headaches are why I'm not sleeping."</p>
<p>The headaches began in 2016 and Clifford initially handled them with over-the-counter medication. But over the past two years the headaches grew more severe, and he received stronger prescriptions to deal with the pain.</p>
<p>That helped mask the problem for a while.</p>
<p>But when he walked in the team's downtown Charlotte arena the morning of Dec. 4, 2017 for shoot around, Clifford could no longer take the pain.</p>
<p>The Hornets had just returned from a road trip to Toronto and Miami where they played two games in three nights, a common NBA occurrence.</p>
<p>"I hadn't been able to sleep much on that road trip," Clifford said. "And that is when the doctors told me we're going to have to stop right here and do some testing."</p>
<p>This wasn't Clifford's first health scare as Charlotte's coach.</p>
<p>In 2013, Clifford had two stents inserted into his heart. However, he returned to the sideline three days later to coach a game and finished out the season.</p>
<p>But he said the issue with the headaches were different — and more worrisome to him.</p>
<p>"The doctor basically told me it's your long-term health versus your career," Clifford said. "And he told me the medication doesn't cure the headaches. The medication for a headache is a Band-Aid. You have to take care of the issue. (The headaches) will keep getting worse until you stop what is causing them. And my problem was my job, my lifestyle."</p>
<p>In the end, Clifford said it was "a pretty easy decision" to take a leave of absence.</p>
<p>While away, he monitored Hornets games on television but also took naps during the day and started to train his body to sleep more at night.</p>
<p>Clifford was greeted by smiles, jokes and some hugs from players on Tuesday. And it didn't take long for him to begin harping on some of his old messages, as he preached defense on the first day back.</p>
<p>The Hornets were 9-12 under associate coach Stephen Silas with Clifford out.</p>
<p>"It felt good to have him back," Hornets All-Star point guard Kemba Walker said. "Almost an immediate impact. We have been missing him. He's our leader."</p>
<p>Moving forward, Clifford said he plans to delegate more to his assistant coaches and his goal is to get seven or eight hours of sleep every night, even on the road.</p>
<p>Whether or not he's able to do that given the inherent stress and travel schedule that accompanies the NBA coaching profession — particularly when it comes to leading a struggling team that is eight games under .500 and five games out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference — remains to be seen.</p>
<p>But Clifford said he's making it priority.</p>
<p>"I'm going to live differently," Clifford said. "And it doesn't have to be a significant change. ... As the doctors both told me, you don't have to work differently, you have live differently. So as much as anything I have to sleep more. That's it. I have to train my body to sleep more."</p>
<p>Then, Clifford quickly added with a big smile, "Once I do that our defense will get better, our offense will take off and we will be good to go."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</p>
|
Hornets coach Clifford back to work after sleep deprivation
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https://apnews.com/amp/1ce7dfb07e074ba385ec17fbf68d3e77
|
2018-01-16
| 2least
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Hornets coach Clifford back to work after sleep deprivation
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Hornets coach Steve Clifford has battled headaches for the past two years.</p>
<p>But when the pain became so intense before a Charlotte home game last December it frightened him, and he couldn't ignore the problem any longer.</p>
<p>The 56-year-old Clifford walked away from the Hornets that day to undergo medical testing on his brain and get his life in order. Results revealed no internal problems, but the doctor's diagnosis was one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGu4fR0T3o" type="external">other workaholic professional and college coaches</a> may want to pay attention to: Clifford was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. And, if he didn't do something about it, the condition was only going to get worse.</p>
<p>Clifford returned to practice Tuesday after six weeks off, feeling refreshed.</p>
<p>He'll be back on the sideline Wednesday night following a 21-game absence when the Hornets host the Washington Wizards, the start of a five-game home stand.</p>
<p>"It was a scary thing," Clifford told The Associated Press of the ordeal.</p>
<p>Doctors determined that more than 18 years of working as a NBA coach had worn him down to the point where his brain was telling him he needed sleep. With the league's brutal travel schedule that includes 82 games — including 41 on the road — Clifford had grown used to nights where he would regularly sleep four or five hours then get up and begin working again.</p>
<p>"It becomes a vicious cycle," Clifford said. "It was a lack of sleep that leads to headaches, and then the headaches are why I'm not sleeping."</p>
<p>The headaches began in 2016 and Clifford initially handled them with over-the-counter medication. But over the past two years the headaches grew more severe, and he received stronger prescriptions to deal with the pain.</p>
<p>That helped mask the problem for a while.</p>
<p>But when he walked in the team's downtown Charlotte arena the morning of Dec. 4, 2017 for shoot around, Clifford could no longer take the pain.</p>
<p>The Hornets had just returned from a road trip to Toronto and Miami where they played two games in three nights, a common NBA occurrence.</p>
<p>"I hadn't been able to sleep much on that road trip," Clifford said. "And that is when the doctors told me we're going to have to stop right here and do some testing."</p>
<p>This wasn't Clifford's first health scare as Charlotte's coach.</p>
<p>In 2013, Clifford had two stents inserted into his heart. However, he returned to the sideline three days later to coach a game and finished out the season.</p>
<p>But he said the issue with the headaches were different — and more worrisome to him.</p>
<p>"The doctor basically told me it's your long-term health versus your career," Clifford said. "And he told me the medication doesn't cure the headaches. The medication for a headache is a Band-Aid. You have to take care of the issue. (The headaches) will keep getting worse until you stop what is causing them. And my problem was my job, my lifestyle."</p>
<p>In the end, Clifford said it was "a pretty easy decision" to take a leave of absence.</p>
<p>While away, he monitored Hornets games on television but also took naps during the day and started to train his body to sleep more at night.</p>
<p>Clifford was greeted by smiles, jokes and some hugs from players on Tuesday. And it didn't take long for him to begin harping on some of his old messages, as he preached defense on the first day back.</p>
<p>The Hornets were 9-12 under associate coach Stephen Silas with Clifford out.</p>
<p>"It felt good to have him back," Hornets All-Star point guard Kemba Walker said. "Almost an immediate impact. We have been missing him. He's our leader."</p>
<p>Moving forward, Clifford said he plans to delegate more to his assistant coaches and his goal is to get seven or eight hours of sleep every night, even on the road.</p>
<p>Whether or not he's able to do that given the inherent stress and travel schedule that accompanies the NBA coaching profession — particularly when it comes to leading a struggling team that is eight games under .500 and five games out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference — remains to be seen.</p>
<p>But Clifford said he's making it priority.</p>
<p>"I'm going to live differently," Clifford said. "And it doesn't have to be a significant change. ... As the doctors both told me, you don't have to work differently, you have live differently. So as much as anything I have to sleep more. That's it. I have to train my body to sleep more."</p>
<p>Then, Clifford quickly added with a big smile, "Once I do that our defense will get better, our offense will take off and we will be good to go."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</p>
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Hornets coach Steve Clifford has battled headaches for the past two years.</p>
<p>But when the pain became so intense before a Charlotte home game last December it frightened him, and he couldn't ignore the problem any longer.</p>
<p>The 56-year-old Clifford walked away from the Hornets that day to undergo medical testing on his brain and get his life in order. Results revealed no internal problems, but the doctor's diagnosis was one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGu4fR0T3o" type="external">other workaholic professional and college coaches</a> may want to pay attention to: Clifford was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. And, if he didn't do something about it, the condition was only going to get worse.</p>
<p>Clifford returned to practice Tuesday after six weeks off, feeling refreshed.</p>
<p>He'll be back on the sideline Wednesday night following a 21-game absence when the Hornets host the Washington Wizards, the start of a five-game home stand.</p>
<p>"It was a scary thing," Clifford told The Associated Press of the ordeal.</p>
<p>Doctors determined that more than 18 years of working as a NBA coach had worn him down to the point where his brain was telling him he needed sleep. With the league's brutal travel schedule that includes 82 games — including 41 on the road — Clifford had grown used to nights where he would regularly sleep four or five hours then get up and begin working again.</p>
<p>"It becomes a vicious cycle," Clifford said. "It was a lack of sleep that leads to headaches, and then the headaches are why I'm not sleeping."</p>
<p>The headaches began in 2016 and Clifford initially handled them with over-the-counter medication. But over the past two years the headaches grew more severe, and he received stronger prescriptions to deal with the pain.</p>
<p>That helped mask the problem for a while.</p>
<p>But when he walked in the team's downtown Charlotte arena the morning of Dec. 4, 2017 for shoot around, Clifford could no longer take the pain.</p>
<p>The Hornets had just returned from a road trip to Toronto and Miami where they played two games in three nights, a common NBA occurrence.</p>
<p>"I hadn't been able to sleep much on that road trip," Clifford said. "And that is when the doctors told me we're going to have to stop right here and do some testing."</p>
<p>This wasn't Clifford's first health scare as Charlotte's coach.</p>
<p>In 2013, Clifford had two stents inserted into his heart. However, he returned to the sideline three days later to coach a game and finished out the season.</p>
<p>But he said the issue with the headaches were different — and more worrisome to him.</p>
<p>"The doctor basically told me it's your long-term health versus your career," Clifford said. "And he told me the medication doesn't cure the headaches. The medication for a headache is a Band-Aid. You have to take care of the issue. (The headaches) will keep getting worse until you stop what is causing them. And my problem was my job, my lifestyle."</p>
<p>In the end, Clifford said it was "a pretty easy decision" to take a leave of absence.</p>
<p>While away, he monitored Hornets games on television but also took naps during the day and started to train his body to sleep more at night.</p>
<p>Clifford was greeted by smiles, jokes and some hugs from players on Tuesday. And it didn't take long for him to begin harping on some of his old messages, as he preached defense on the first day back.</p>
<p>The Hornets were 9-12 under associate coach Stephen Silas with Clifford out.</p>
<p>"It felt good to have him back," Hornets All-Star point guard Kemba Walker said. "Almost an immediate impact. We have been missing him. He's our leader."</p>
<p>Moving forward, Clifford said he plans to delegate more to his assistant coaches and his goal is to get seven or eight hours of sleep every night, even on the road.</p>
<p>Whether or not he's able to do that given the inherent stress and travel schedule that accompanies the NBA coaching profession — particularly when it comes to leading a struggling team that is eight games under .500 and five games out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference — remains to be seen.</p>
<p>But Clifford said he's making it priority.</p>
<p>"I'm going to live differently," Clifford said. "And it doesn't have to be a significant change. ... As the doctors both told me, you don't have to work differently, you have live differently. So as much as anything I have to sleep more. That's it. I have to train my body to sleep more."</p>
<p>Then, Clifford quickly added with a big smile, "Once I do that our defense will get better, our offense will take off and we will be good to go."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</p>
| 6,316 |
<p>JERUSALEM/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - In a fresh display of Western discord over Middle East peace efforts, the United States said on Monday its Israel embassy would move to Jerusalem by the end of 2019, while its European Union allies voiced support for East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.</p> U.S. Vice President Mike Pence shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Ariel Schalit/Pool
<p>Vice-President Mike Pence, visiting Jerusalem, announced the timing of the move in a speech to Israel’s parliament, earning applause from Israeli legislators but also stirring a brief protest by Israeli Arab lawmakers, who held signs reading “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”.</p>
<p>In Brussels, the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting that the EU supported his ambition to have East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump suddenly reversed decades of U.S. policy in December when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, generating fury from Palestinians and the Arab world and concern among Washington’s western allies.</p>
<p>Trump’s move delighted Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally, but stirred disquiet from world powers including Russia and China who worry it would stoke regional tensions and further drive a wedge between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Many countries believe Jerusalem should ultimately be shared between Israel and a future Palestinian state and so are unwilling to make decisions about recognition of its status before a comprehensive peace settlement is agreed.</p>
<p>“In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the United States Embassy in Jerusalem – and that United States Embassy will open before the end of next year,” Pence, part-way through a Middle East tour, said.</p> Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (C) attend a meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Olivier Hoslet/Pool FAULTLINES
<p>“Jerusalem is Israel’s capital – and, as such, President Trump has directed the State Department to immediately begin preparations to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”</p>
<p>Reaction to Pence locally split along Israeli-Palestinian faultlines.</p>
<p>Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Twitter that Pence’s speech showed the U.S. administration was part of the problem rather than the solution.</p>
<p>“The messianic discourse of Pence is a gift to extremists”, he wrote. “His message to the rest of the world is clear: violate international law and resolutions and the U.S. will reward you.”</p>
<p>Israeli analyst Amotz Asa-El told Reuters that Pence’s speech was important in a practical sense because it set a deadline for the move.</p>
<p>He added: “I think that he (Trump) is making it plain to the Palestinians that their policy of protestation - which was visible in the plenum with the Arab lawmakers, but even more importantly in Abbas’s absence and his journey to Brussels - that none of this is going to make America budge.”</p>
<p>In Gaza, Essam Abu Ibrahim, 28, a store owner, said: “It will not change the fact that Jerusalem is an occupied city and it will continue to be an occupied city after this decision.”</p>
<p>In Brussels, Abbas repeated his call for East Jerusalem as capital as he urged the EU member nations to recognize a state of Palestine immediately, arguing that this would not disrupt negotiations with Israel on a peace settlement for the region.</p>
<p>While Abbas made no reference to Trump’s move on Jerusalem or Pence’s visit to the city, his presence at the EU headquarters in Brussels was seized on by European officials as a chance to restate opposition to Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.</p> European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Brussels, Belgium, January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman SHARED CAPITAL
<p>Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City with its holy sites, as the capital of their own future state. Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it in 1967 in a move not internationally recognized, regards all of the city as its “eternal and indivisible capital”.</p>
<p>Mogherini, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, called on those involved in the process to speak and act “wisely”, with a sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>“I want to reassure President Abbas of the firm commitment of the European Union to the two-state solution with Jerusalem as the shared capital of the two states,” Mogherini said.</p>
<p>Before Abbas’ arrival, she was more outspoken, saying: “Clearly there is a problem with Jerusalem. That is a very diplomatic euphemism,” in reference to Trump’s position.</p>
<p>But Mogherini said she still wanted to work with the United States on Middle East peace talks and had discussed ways to restart them late last year with Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.</p>
<p>Pence, who visited Egypt and Jordan before traveling to Israel, said that with its policy shift on Jerusalem, “the United States has chosen fact over fiction - and fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace”.</p>
<p>Pence, an evangelical Christian, drew parallels between Jewish history dating back to biblical times and the European pilgrims who founded the United States.</p>
<p>Welcoming Pence to the parliament, Netanyahu said he was the first U.S. vice president to have been accorded the honor.</p>
<p>Israel and the United States “are striving together to achieve a true peace, lasting peace, peace with all our neighbors, including the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta; Editing by William Maclean</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - France’s president on Thursday assured the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of Paris’ support to stabilise northeastern Syria against Islamic State, and Kurdish officials said he had committed to sending troops to the region.</p>
<p>Emmanuel Macron has been criticized at home over his response to a Turkish military operation against YPG militants. The group makes up a large portion of the SDF, which have been at the forefront of the U.S.-led coalition’s strategy to defeat the hard-line militants.</p>
<p>Macron met earlier for the first time with a delegation that included the YPG, which Turkey is trying to sweep away from its border, its political arm the PYD, and Christian and Arab officials.</p>
<p>“The president ... paid tribute to the sacrifices and the determining role of the SDF in the fight against Daesh,” Macron’s office said in a statement.</p>
<p>“He assured the SDF of France’s support for the stabilization of the security zone in the north-east of Syria, within the framework of an inclusive and balanced governance, to prevent any resurgence of Islamic State.”</p>
<p>Former president Francois Hollande, who originally approved French support for the Kurds, bemoaned on March 23 Macron’s Syria policy, in particular his attitude to the YPG, accusing him of abandoning them.</p>
<p>Ankara considers the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the state within Turkey.</p>
<p>France, like the United States, has extended arms and training to the YPG-led militia in the fight against Islamic State, and has dozens of special forces based in the region, which has infuriated Turkey.</p>
<p>Turkey stormed the northern Syrian town of Afrin last week, and has repeatedly threatened to push its operations further east to Manbij where U.S. troops are stationed.</p>
<p>Speaking to Reuters after the meeting with Macron, Khaled Eissa, a PYD member who represents the northern Syria region in Paris, said Macron had promised to send more troops to the area, provide humanitarian assistance and push a diplomatic solution.</p>
<p>“There will be reinforcements to help secure from attacks by Islamic State and stop a foreign aggression,” he said, referring to Turkey. “It’s message that this irresponsible action from the Islamists in Ankara stops.”</p>
<p>The French presidency declined to comment on whether Paris was sending troops. However, it said in the statement that Macron was offering to mediate between the two sides given that the SDF had distanced itself from the PKK.</p>
<p>“Acknowledging the commitment of the SDF to have no operational link with this terrorist group ... he (Macron) hopes that a dialogue could be established between the FDS and Turkey with France and the international community’s help,” it said.</p>
<p>Macron spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday about the situation in northern Syria.</p>
<p>Reporting by John Irish and Marine Pennetier; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Toni Reinhold</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade on April 27, South Korean officials said on Thursday, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged his commitment to denuclearization as tensions ease between the old foes.</p>
<p>South Korean officials, who announced the date after high-level talks with North Korean counterparts, said the agenda would largely be denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and improving inter-Korean relations.</p>
<p>The two Koreas had agreed to hold the summit at the border truce village of Panmunjom when South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent a delegation to Pyongyang this month to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.</p>
<p>Thursday’s meeting was the first high-level dialogue between the two Koreas since the delegation returned from the North.</p>
<p>The two sides said in a joint statement they would hold a working-level meeting on April 4 to discuss details of the summit, such as staffing support, security and news releases.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-southkorea/beijing-envoy-says-kim-jong-uns-china-visit-will-help-toward-denuclearization-idUSKBN1H50YM" type="external">Beijing envoy says Kim Jong Un's China visit will help toward denuclearization</a>
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-ioc/ioc-chief-bach-arrives-to-north-korea-to-stay-until-saturday-idUSKBN1H50VC" type="external">IOC chief Bach arrives to North Korea, to stay until Saturday</a>
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-russia-meeting/russia-foreign-ministry-working-on-north-korea-meetings-in-moscow-idUSKBN1H51T5" type="external">Russia foreign ministry working on North Korea meetings in Moscow</a>
<p>“We still have a fair number of issues to resolve on a working level for preparations over the next month,” said Ri Son Gwon, the chairman of North Korea’s committee for the peaceful reunification of the country in closing remarks to the South Korean delegation.</p>
<p>“But if the two sides deeply understand the historic significance and meaning of this summit and give their all, we will be able to solve all problems swiftly and amicably,” Ri added.</p>
<p>Tension over North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile surged last year and raised fears of U.S. military action in response to North Korea’s threat to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States.</p>
<p>But tension has eased significantly since North Korea decided to send athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. The neighbours are technically still at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire, not a truce.</p>
<p>China commended both sides for their efforts to improve ties.</p>
<p>“We hope the momentum of dialogue can continue and that the peaceful situation also can last,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing.</p>
<p>United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was encouraged by the recent developments with North Korea.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;“I believe that in this world where unfortunately so many problems seem not to have a solution, I think there is here an opportunity for a peaceful solution to something that a few months ago was haunting us as the biggest danger we were facing,” Guterres told reporters on Thursday.</p> ‘RESOLVE PROBLEMS’
<p>Kim is scheduled to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in May to discuss denuclearization, although a time and place have not been set.</p>
<p>Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping in a surprise visit to Beijing this week, his first trip outside the isolated North since he came to power in 2011.</p>
<p>Even more surprising was Kim’s pledge to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. That commitment was reported by Chinese state media, although North Korea’s official media made no mention of it, or Kim’s anticipated meeting with Trump.</p>
<p>A senior Chinese official visiting Seoul on Thursday to brief South Korea on Kim’s visit to Beijing said it should help ease tension and lead to the denuclearization of the peninsula.</p> South Korean delegation led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon cross the concrete border as they leave after their meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom, North Korea March 29, 2018. Korea Pool/Yonhap via REUTERS
<p>“We believe his visit will help the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, ensure peace and security of the Korean peninsula and resolve problems regarding the peninsula through political negotiations and discussions,” Yang Jiechi said in opening remarks during a meeting with South Korea’s National Security Office head, Chung Eui-yong.</p>
<p>Yang, a top Chinese diplomat, is scheduled to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday.</p>
<p>South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myong-gyon told reporters Kim’s visit to China was not discussed with North Korean officials in their Thursday talks.</p>
<p>Trump and Kim had exchanged insults and veiled threats of war in recent months but the U.S. leader made the surprising announcement this month that he was prepared to meet Kim to discuss the crisis over the North’s development of weapons.</p>
<p>The North Korean leader’s engagement with the international community has sparked speculation that he may try to meet other leaders. Japan’s Asahi newspaper said Japan had sounded out the North Korean government about a summit.</p> Slideshow (4 Images)
<p>Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono left open the possibility that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might meet Kim at some point. Kono said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that Japan was closely watching preparations for the North-South Korean summit and the Trump-Kim meeting.</p>
<p>Xi promised that Beijing would uphold its friendship with North Korea after his meeting with Kim.</p>
<p>Trump wrote on Twitter he had received a message from Xi late on Tuesday that his meeting with Kim “went very well” and that Kim looked forward to meeting the U.S. president.</p>
<p>Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS; Editing by Robert Birsel and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>HANOI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dozens of Chinese naval vessels are exercising this week with an aircraft carrier in a large show of force off Hainan island in the South China Sea, satellite images obtained by Reuters show.</p>
<p>The images, provided by Planet Labs Inc, confirm a Chinese carrier group has entered the vital trade waterway as part of what the Chinese navy earlier described as combat drills that were part of routine annual exercises.</p>
<p>The Liaoning carrier group last week traversed the Taiwan Strait, according to the Taiwanese defense ministry.</p>
<p>The photos, taken on Monday, show what appear to be at least 40 ships and submarines flanking the carrier Liaoning in what some analysts described as an unusually large display of the Chinese military’s growing naval might.</p>
<p>Sailing in a line formation more suited to visual propaganda than hard military maneuvers, the flotilla was headed by what appeared to be submarines, with aircraft above.</p>
<p>Jeffrey Lewis, a security expert at the California-based based Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies, said the images showed the first confirmation that the carrier was joining the drills.</p>
<p>“It’s an incredible picture,” he said. “That’s the big news to me. Confirmation that, yes, the carrier participated in the exercise.”</p>
<p>While the Liaoning has previously entered the South China Sea as part of drills in uncontested training grounds south of Hainan, its annual exercises are closely watched by regional and international powers eyeing Beijing’s growing military might.</p>
<p>It is unclear where the flotilla was headed, or how long operations will last. China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.</p>
<p>Collin Koh, a security expert at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the deployment as unusual for its size and scope.</p> Satellite photo dated March 26, 2018 shows Chinese ships south of Hainan, China. Planet Labs/Handout via REUTERS
<p>“Judging by the images, it does seem they are keen to show that elements of the South Sea Fleet are able to routinely join up with the carrier strike group from Dalian in the north,” he said.</p>
<p>“It does seem they want to show inter-fleet interoperability - something the (Chinese) navy has been quietly working on for some time.”</p>
<p>Chinese naval and coast guard forces have expanded rapidly in recent years and now patrol the vast swathes of the South China Sea, but little is known about their combat readiness and co-ordination.</p>
<p>Koh said as well as the destroyers, frigates and submarines that would ordinarily support a carrier, the flotilla appeared to include a large oiler for re-supply as well as smaller corvettes and possibly fast attack catamarans.</p> Satellite photo dated March 26, 2018 shows Chinese ships south of Hainan, China. Planet Labs/Handout via REUTERS
<p>“While it highlights an extensive ability to deploy, we are still left to guess at the PLAN’s combat readiness,” Koh said.</p>
<p>As well as Vietnam, China’s claims in the South China Sea are disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei while Taiwan also has claims.</p>
<p>The exercises come amid fresh signs of tension in the resource-rich waterway, with Vietnam recently halting oil exploration off its coast by Spanish firm Repsol under pressure from Beijing.</p>
<p>Beijing also objected to a so-called freedom of navigation patrol by a U.S. warship last week close to one of its artificial islands in the Spratlys archipelago further south.</p>
<p>Reporting By Greg Torode and James Pearson, additional reporting by Ben Blanchard. Editing by Lincoln Feast.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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U.S., EU discordant notes on Jerusalem underline Mideast policy rift France's Macron vows support for northern Syrians, Kurdish militia North, South Korea fix April date for first summit in years Exclusive: Satellite images reveal show of force by Chinese navy in South China Sea
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https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-palestinians/us-eu-discordant-notes-on-jerusalem-underline-mideast-policy-rift-idUSKBN1FB2DB
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2018-01-22
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U.S., EU discordant notes on Jerusalem underline Mideast policy rift France's Macron vows support for northern Syrians, Kurdish militia North, South Korea fix April date for first summit in years Exclusive: Satellite images reveal show of force by Chinese navy in South China Sea
<p>JERUSALEM/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - In a fresh display of Western discord over Middle East peace efforts, the United States said on Monday its Israel embassy would move to Jerusalem by the end of 2019, while its European Union allies voiced support for East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.</p> U.S. Vice President Mike Pence shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Ariel Schalit/Pool
<p>Vice-President Mike Pence, visiting Jerusalem, announced the timing of the move in a speech to Israel’s parliament, earning applause from Israeli legislators but also stirring a brief protest by Israeli Arab lawmakers, who held signs reading “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”.</p>
<p>In Brussels, the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting that the EU supported his ambition to have East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump suddenly reversed decades of U.S. policy in December when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, generating fury from Palestinians and the Arab world and concern among Washington’s western allies.</p>
<p>Trump’s move delighted Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally, but stirred disquiet from world powers including Russia and China who worry it would stoke regional tensions and further drive a wedge between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Many countries believe Jerusalem should ultimately be shared between Israel and a future Palestinian state and so are unwilling to make decisions about recognition of its status before a comprehensive peace settlement is agreed.</p>
<p>“In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the United States Embassy in Jerusalem – and that United States Embassy will open before the end of next year,” Pence, part-way through a Middle East tour, said.</p> Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (C) attend a meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Olivier Hoslet/Pool FAULTLINES
<p>“Jerusalem is Israel’s capital – and, as such, President Trump has directed the State Department to immediately begin preparations to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”</p>
<p>Reaction to Pence locally split along Israeli-Palestinian faultlines.</p>
<p>Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Twitter that Pence’s speech showed the U.S. administration was part of the problem rather than the solution.</p>
<p>“The messianic discourse of Pence is a gift to extremists”, he wrote. “His message to the rest of the world is clear: violate international law and resolutions and the U.S. will reward you.”</p>
<p>Israeli analyst Amotz Asa-El told Reuters that Pence’s speech was important in a practical sense because it set a deadline for the move.</p>
<p>He added: “I think that he (Trump) is making it plain to the Palestinians that their policy of protestation - which was visible in the plenum with the Arab lawmakers, but even more importantly in Abbas’s absence and his journey to Brussels - that none of this is going to make America budge.”</p>
<p>In Gaza, Essam Abu Ibrahim, 28, a store owner, said: “It will not change the fact that Jerusalem is an occupied city and it will continue to be an occupied city after this decision.”</p>
<p>In Brussels, Abbas repeated his call for East Jerusalem as capital as he urged the EU member nations to recognize a state of Palestine immediately, arguing that this would not disrupt negotiations with Israel on a peace settlement for the region.</p>
<p>While Abbas made no reference to Trump’s move on Jerusalem or Pence’s visit to the city, his presence at the EU headquarters in Brussels was seized on by European officials as a chance to restate opposition to Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.</p> European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Brussels, Belgium, January 22, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman SHARED CAPITAL
<p>Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City with its holy sites, as the capital of their own future state. Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it in 1967 in a move not internationally recognized, regards all of the city as its “eternal and indivisible capital”.</p>
<p>Mogherini, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, called on those involved in the process to speak and act “wisely”, with a sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>“I want to reassure President Abbas of the firm commitment of the European Union to the two-state solution with Jerusalem as the shared capital of the two states,” Mogherini said.</p>
<p>Before Abbas’ arrival, she was more outspoken, saying: “Clearly there is a problem with Jerusalem. That is a very diplomatic euphemism,” in reference to Trump’s position.</p>
<p>But Mogherini said she still wanted to work with the United States on Middle East peace talks and had discussed ways to restart them late last year with Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.</p>
<p>Pence, who visited Egypt and Jordan before traveling to Israel, said that with its policy shift on Jerusalem, “the United States has chosen fact over fiction - and fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace”.</p>
<p>Pence, an evangelical Christian, drew parallels between Jewish history dating back to biblical times and the European pilgrims who founded the United States.</p>
<p>Welcoming Pence to the parliament, Netanyahu said he was the first U.S. vice president to have been accorded the honor.</p>
<p>Israel and the United States “are striving together to achieve a true peace, lasting peace, peace with all our neighbors, including the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta; Editing by William Maclean</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - France’s president on Thursday assured the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of Paris’ support to stabilise northeastern Syria against Islamic State, and Kurdish officials said he had committed to sending troops to the region.</p>
<p>Emmanuel Macron has been criticized at home over his response to a Turkish military operation against YPG militants. The group makes up a large portion of the SDF, which have been at the forefront of the U.S.-led coalition’s strategy to defeat the hard-line militants.</p>
<p>Macron met earlier for the first time with a delegation that included the YPG, which Turkey is trying to sweep away from its border, its political arm the PYD, and Christian and Arab officials.</p>
<p>“The president ... paid tribute to the sacrifices and the determining role of the SDF in the fight against Daesh,” Macron’s office said in a statement.</p>
<p>“He assured the SDF of France’s support for the stabilization of the security zone in the north-east of Syria, within the framework of an inclusive and balanced governance, to prevent any resurgence of Islamic State.”</p>
<p>Former president Francois Hollande, who originally approved French support for the Kurds, bemoaned on March 23 Macron’s Syria policy, in particular his attitude to the YPG, accusing him of abandoning them.</p>
<p>Ankara considers the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the state within Turkey.</p>
<p>France, like the United States, has extended arms and training to the YPG-led militia in the fight against Islamic State, and has dozens of special forces based in the region, which has infuriated Turkey.</p>
<p>Turkey stormed the northern Syrian town of Afrin last week, and has repeatedly threatened to push its operations further east to Manbij where U.S. troops are stationed.</p>
<p>Speaking to Reuters after the meeting with Macron, Khaled Eissa, a PYD member who represents the northern Syria region in Paris, said Macron had promised to send more troops to the area, provide humanitarian assistance and push a diplomatic solution.</p>
<p>“There will be reinforcements to help secure from attacks by Islamic State and stop a foreign aggression,” he said, referring to Turkey. “It’s message that this irresponsible action from the Islamists in Ankara stops.”</p>
<p>The French presidency declined to comment on whether Paris was sending troops. However, it said in the statement that Macron was offering to mediate between the two sides given that the SDF had distanced itself from the PKK.</p>
<p>“Acknowledging the commitment of the SDF to have no operational link with this terrorist group ... he (Macron) hopes that a dialogue could be established between the FDS and Turkey with France and the international community’s help,” it said.</p>
<p>Macron spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday about the situation in northern Syria.</p>
<p>Reporting by John Irish and Marine Pennetier; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Toni Reinhold</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade on April 27, South Korean officials said on Thursday, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged his commitment to denuclearization as tensions ease between the old foes.</p>
<p>South Korean officials, who announced the date after high-level talks with North Korean counterparts, said the agenda would largely be denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and improving inter-Korean relations.</p>
<p>The two Koreas had agreed to hold the summit at the border truce village of Panmunjom when South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent a delegation to Pyongyang this month to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.</p>
<p>Thursday’s meeting was the first high-level dialogue between the two Koreas since the delegation returned from the North.</p>
<p>The two sides said in a joint statement they would hold a working-level meeting on April 4 to discuss details of the summit, such as staffing support, security and news releases.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-southkorea/beijing-envoy-says-kim-jong-uns-china-visit-will-help-toward-denuclearization-idUSKBN1H50YM" type="external">Beijing envoy says Kim Jong Un's China visit will help toward denuclearization</a>
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-ioc/ioc-chief-bach-arrives-to-north-korea-to-stay-until-saturday-idUSKBN1H50VC" type="external">IOC chief Bach arrives to North Korea, to stay until Saturday</a>
<a href="/article/us-northkorea-missiles-russia-meeting/russia-foreign-ministry-working-on-north-korea-meetings-in-moscow-idUSKBN1H51T5" type="external">Russia foreign ministry working on North Korea meetings in Moscow</a>
<p>“We still have a fair number of issues to resolve on a working level for preparations over the next month,” said Ri Son Gwon, the chairman of North Korea’s committee for the peaceful reunification of the country in closing remarks to the South Korean delegation.</p>
<p>“But if the two sides deeply understand the historic significance and meaning of this summit and give their all, we will be able to solve all problems swiftly and amicably,” Ri added.</p>
<p>Tension over North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile surged last year and raised fears of U.S. military action in response to North Korea’s threat to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States.</p>
<p>But tension has eased significantly since North Korea decided to send athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. The neighbours are technically still at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire, not a truce.</p>
<p>China commended both sides for their efforts to improve ties.</p>
<p>“We hope the momentum of dialogue can continue and that the peaceful situation also can last,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing.</p>
<p>United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was encouraged by the recent developments with North Korea.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;“I believe that in this world where unfortunately so many problems seem not to have a solution, I think there is here an opportunity for a peaceful solution to something that a few months ago was haunting us as the biggest danger we were facing,” Guterres told reporters on Thursday.</p> ‘RESOLVE PROBLEMS’
<p>Kim is scheduled to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in May to discuss denuclearization, although a time and place have not been set.</p>
<p>Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping in a surprise visit to Beijing this week, his first trip outside the isolated North since he came to power in 2011.</p>
<p>Even more surprising was Kim’s pledge to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. That commitment was reported by Chinese state media, although North Korea’s official media made no mention of it, or Kim’s anticipated meeting with Trump.</p>
<p>A senior Chinese official visiting Seoul on Thursday to brief South Korea on Kim’s visit to Beijing said it should help ease tension and lead to the denuclearization of the peninsula.</p> South Korean delegation led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon cross the concrete border as they leave after their meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom, North Korea March 29, 2018. Korea Pool/Yonhap via REUTERS
<p>“We believe his visit will help the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, ensure peace and security of the Korean peninsula and resolve problems regarding the peninsula through political negotiations and discussions,” Yang Jiechi said in opening remarks during a meeting with South Korea’s National Security Office head, Chung Eui-yong.</p>
<p>Yang, a top Chinese diplomat, is scheduled to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday.</p>
<p>South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myong-gyon told reporters Kim’s visit to China was not discussed with North Korean officials in their Thursday talks.</p>
<p>Trump and Kim had exchanged insults and veiled threats of war in recent months but the U.S. leader made the surprising announcement this month that he was prepared to meet Kim to discuss the crisis over the North’s development of weapons.</p>
<p>The North Korean leader’s engagement with the international community has sparked speculation that he may try to meet other leaders. Japan’s Asahi newspaper said Japan had sounded out the North Korean government about a summit.</p> Slideshow (4 Images)
<p>Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono left open the possibility that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might meet Kim at some point. Kono said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that Japan was closely watching preparations for the North-South Korean summit and the Trump-Kim meeting.</p>
<p>Xi promised that Beijing would uphold its friendship with North Korea after his meeting with Kim.</p>
<p>Trump wrote on Twitter he had received a message from Xi late on Tuesday that his meeting with Kim “went very well” and that Kim looked forward to meeting the U.S. president.</p>
<p>Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS; Editing by Robert Birsel and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>HANOI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dozens of Chinese naval vessels are exercising this week with an aircraft carrier in a large show of force off Hainan island in the South China Sea, satellite images obtained by Reuters show.</p>
<p>The images, provided by Planet Labs Inc, confirm a Chinese carrier group has entered the vital trade waterway as part of what the Chinese navy earlier described as combat drills that were part of routine annual exercises.</p>
<p>The Liaoning carrier group last week traversed the Taiwan Strait, according to the Taiwanese defense ministry.</p>
<p>The photos, taken on Monday, show what appear to be at least 40 ships and submarines flanking the carrier Liaoning in what some analysts described as an unusually large display of the Chinese military’s growing naval might.</p>
<p>Sailing in a line formation more suited to visual propaganda than hard military maneuvers, the flotilla was headed by what appeared to be submarines, with aircraft above.</p>
<p>Jeffrey Lewis, a security expert at the California-based based Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies, said the images showed the first confirmation that the carrier was joining the drills.</p>
<p>“It’s an incredible picture,” he said. “That’s the big news to me. Confirmation that, yes, the carrier participated in the exercise.”</p>
<p>While the Liaoning has previously entered the South China Sea as part of drills in uncontested training grounds south of Hainan, its annual exercises are closely watched by regional and international powers eyeing Beijing’s growing military might.</p>
<p>It is unclear where the flotilla was headed, or how long operations will last. China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.</p>
<p>Collin Koh, a security expert at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the deployment as unusual for its size and scope.</p> Satellite photo dated March 26, 2018 shows Chinese ships south of Hainan, China. Planet Labs/Handout via REUTERS
<p>“Judging by the images, it does seem they are keen to show that elements of the South Sea Fleet are able to routinely join up with the carrier strike group from Dalian in the north,” he said.</p>
<p>“It does seem they want to show inter-fleet interoperability - something the (Chinese) navy has been quietly working on for some time.”</p>
<p>Chinese naval and coast guard forces have expanded rapidly in recent years and now patrol the vast swathes of the South China Sea, but little is known about their combat readiness and co-ordination.</p>
<p>Koh said as well as the destroyers, frigates and submarines that would ordinarily support a carrier, the flotilla appeared to include a large oiler for re-supply as well as smaller corvettes and possibly fast attack catamarans.</p> Satellite photo dated March 26, 2018 shows Chinese ships south of Hainan, China. Planet Labs/Handout via REUTERS
<p>“While it highlights an extensive ability to deploy, we are still left to guess at the PLAN’s combat readiness,” Koh said.</p>
<p>As well as Vietnam, China’s claims in the South China Sea are disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei while Taiwan also has claims.</p>
<p>The exercises come amid fresh signs of tension in the resource-rich waterway, with Vietnam recently halting oil exploration off its coast by Spanish firm Repsol under pressure from Beijing.</p>
<p>Beijing also objected to a so-called freedom of navigation patrol by a U.S. warship last week close to one of its artificial islands in the Spratlys archipelago further south.</p>
<p>Reporting By Greg Torode and James Pearson, additional reporting by Ben Blanchard. Editing by Lincoln Feast.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
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<p>LANSING, Mich. — The judge overseeing the sentencing of disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar said Monday that more than 120 girls and women who had given statements so far at the five-day hearing were “sister survivor warriors.”</p>
<p>“I want you to know that your face and the face of all of the sister survivor warriors — the whole army of you — I’ve heard your words,” Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said after a woman spoke in her Michigan courtroom. “Your sister survivors and you are going through incomprehensible lengths, emotions and soul-searching to put your words together, to publicly stop (the) defendant, to publicly stop predators, to make people listen.”</p>
<p>Nassar, 54, has admitted molesting athletes during medical treatment when he was employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians. Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics on Monday announced the resignations of three key leaders — chairman Paul Parilla, vice chairman Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley — days after former gold medalists Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber said in court that Nassar had sexually assaulted them. CEO Steve Penny was forced out last year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>On Monday, USA Gymnastics also said it has suspended former U.S. women’s national team coach John Geddert, the owner of the Twistars gymnastics club near Lansing, Michigan. It did not disclose its reasons for suspending Geddert.</p>
<p>Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography crimes. Under a plea deal, he faces a minimum prison sentence of 25 to 40 years in the molestation case. The maximum term could be much higher.</p>
<p>“Larry, how many of us are there? Do you even know?” asked Clasina Syrboby, as she fought back tears while speaking for more than 20 minutes Monday. “You preyed on me, on us. You saw a way to take advantage of your position — the almighty and trusted gymnastics doctor. Shame on you Larry. Shame on you.”</p>
<p>She and other victims also continued their criticism of Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee for not doing enough to stop Nassar when initial complaints were made years ago. The sentencing hearing will resume Tuesday.</p>
<p>Emma Ann Miller, 15, said the school was still billing her mother for medical appointments in which Nassar molested Miller as recently as August 2016 — a week before he was fired.</p>
<p>University spokesman Jason Cody told The Associated Press that Miller’s allegation was being addressed. “I can tell you that patients of former MSU physician Larry Nassar will not be billed,” Cody said.</p>
<p>Michigan State’s gymnastics coach — who is accused of downplaying complaints made by two teens in 1997 — and another university sports doctor quit under pressure last year. But the governing board has stood behind university President Lou Anna Simon, despite calls from legislative leaders and others that she resign or be fired.</p>
<p>In her statement to the court, Miller directly addressed Michigan State.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I, like all those that have spoken, didn’t choose this circumstance to have the right to be standing in front of this podium today,” she said. “Nassar made that choice for us — your 20-year child-molesting employee.”</p>
<p>A Title IX probe conducted by the university cleared Nassar of sexual assault allegations in 2014. At least 12 reported assaults occurred after the investigation ended, according to a university police report that was provided to the FBI for review by the U.S. attorney.</p>
<p>The school let Nassar see patients for 16 months while the campus police also conducted a criminal investigation into the allegations. The local prosecutor declined to charge Nassar.</p>
<p>One of the eight members of Michigan State’s governing board said over the weekend that Simon should quit, saying he did not think she could survive the “public outcry.” Board chairman Brian Breslin, however, said all of the other trustees support her.</p>
<p>“We look forward to a prompt and thorough investigation by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to help reassure the public that the university and its leadership have nothing to hide,” he said in a written statement Saturday. “As our outside counsel, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, has written to the Attorney General, we believe ‘the evidence will show that no official believed that Nassar committed sexual abuse prior to newspaper reports in the summer of 2016.'”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert .</p>
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Judge: Victims of sports doc are ‘sister survivor warriors’
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Judge: Victims of sports doc are ‘sister survivor warriors’
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<p>LANSING, Mich. — The judge overseeing the sentencing of disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar said Monday that more than 120 girls and women who had given statements so far at the five-day hearing were “sister survivor warriors.”</p>
<p>“I want you to know that your face and the face of all of the sister survivor warriors — the whole army of you — I’ve heard your words,” Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said after a woman spoke in her Michigan courtroom. “Your sister survivors and you are going through incomprehensible lengths, emotions and soul-searching to put your words together, to publicly stop (the) defendant, to publicly stop predators, to make people listen.”</p>
<p>Nassar, 54, has admitted molesting athletes during medical treatment when he was employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians. Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics on Monday announced the resignations of three key leaders — chairman Paul Parilla, vice chairman Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley — days after former gold medalists Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber said in court that Nassar had sexually assaulted them. CEO Steve Penny was forced out last year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>On Monday, USA Gymnastics also said it has suspended former U.S. women’s national team coach John Geddert, the owner of the Twistars gymnastics club near Lansing, Michigan. It did not disclose its reasons for suspending Geddert.</p>
<p>Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography crimes. Under a plea deal, he faces a minimum prison sentence of 25 to 40 years in the molestation case. The maximum term could be much higher.</p>
<p>“Larry, how many of us are there? Do you even know?” asked Clasina Syrboby, as she fought back tears while speaking for more than 20 minutes Monday. “You preyed on me, on us. You saw a way to take advantage of your position — the almighty and trusted gymnastics doctor. Shame on you Larry. Shame on you.”</p>
<p>She and other victims also continued their criticism of Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee for not doing enough to stop Nassar when initial complaints were made years ago. The sentencing hearing will resume Tuesday.</p>
<p>Emma Ann Miller, 15, said the school was still billing her mother for medical appointments in which Nassar molested Miller as recently as August 2016 — a week before he was fired.</p>
<p>University spokesman Jason Cody told The Associated Press that Miller’s allegation was being addressed. “I can tell you that patients of former MSU physician Larry Nassar will not be billed,” Cody said.</p>
<p>Michigan State’s gymnastics coach — who is accused of downplaying complaints made by two teens in 1997 — and another university sports doctor quit under pressure last year. But the governing board has stood behind university President Lou Anna Simon, despite calls from legislative leaders and others that she resign or be fired.</p>
<p>In her statement to the court, Miller directly addressed Michigan State.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I, like all those that have spoken, didn’t choose this circumstance to have the right to be standing in front of this podium today,” she said. “Nassar made that choice for us — your 20-year child-molesting employee.”</p>
<p>A Title IX probe conducted by the university cleared Nassar of sexual assault allegations in 2014. At least 12 reported assaults occurred after the investigation ended, according to a university police report that was provided to the FBI for review by the U.S. attorney.</p>
<p>The school let Nassar see patients for 16 months while the campus police also conducted a criminal investigation into the allegations. The local prosecutor declined to charge Nassar.</p>
<p>One of the eight members of Michigan State’s governing board said over the weekend that Simon should quit, saying he did not think she could survive the “public outcry.” Board chairman Brian Breslin, however, said all of the other trustees support her.</p>
<p>“We look forward to a prompt and thorough investigation by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to help reassure the public that the university and its leadership have nothing to hide,” he said in a written statement Saturday. “As our outside counsel, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, has written to the Attorney General, we believe ‘the evidence will show that no official believed that Nassar committed sexual abuse prior to newspaper reports in the summer of 2016.'”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert .</p>
| 6,318 |
<p>AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) — A U.S. Air Force Academy cadet has pleaded guilty to taking improper photographs of women without their consent.</p>
<p>The school said freshman cadet Sammy Tawakkol entered the plea Thursday and will be expelled from the academy. Officials say he will likely receive an other-than-honorable discharge from the Air Force.</p>
<p>After consulting with the victims, the military court didn't sentence Tawakkol to additional jail time. He has already spent 3 ½ months in jail and another six months in mental health treatment.</p>
<p>Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria praised the victims for speaking up.</p>
<p>The academy said Tawakkol was accused of photographing the "private parts" of women in an area where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He was also accused of indecent viewing and failure to obey an order.</p>
<p>AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) — A U.S. Air Force Academy cadet has pleaded guilty to taking improper photographs of women without their consent.</p>
<p>The school said freshman cadet Sammy Tawakkol entered the plea Thursday and will be expelled from the academy. Officials say he will likely receive an other-than-honorable discharge from the Air Force.</p>
<p>After consulting with the victims, the military court didn't sentence Tawakkol to additional jail time. He has already spent 3 ½ months in jail and another six months in mental health treatment.</p>
<p>Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria praised the victims for speaking up.</p>
<p>The academy said Tawakkol was accused of photographing the "private parts" of women in an area where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He was also accused of indecent viewing and failure to obey an order.</p>
|
Air Force cadet pleads guilty to improper photos of women
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/87e7905830c74f59937ba2a365becfc9
|
2018-01-12
| 2least
|
Air Force cadet pleads guilty to improper photos of women
<p>AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) — A U.S. Air Force Academy cadet has pleaded guilty to taking improper photographs of women without their consent.</p>
<p>The school said freshman cadet Sammy Tawakkol entered the plea Thursday and will be expelled from the academy. Officials say he will likely receive an other-than-honorable discharge from the Air Force.</p>
<p>After consulting with the victims, the military court didn't sentence Tawakkol to additional jail time. He has already spent 3 ½ months in jail and another six months in mental health treatment.</p>
<p>Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria praised the victims for speaking up.</p>
<p>The academy said Tawakkol was accused of photographing the "private parts" of women in an area where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He was also accused of indecent viewing and failure to obey an order.</p>
<p>AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) — A U.S. Air Force Academy cadet has pleaded guilty to taking improper photographs of women without their consent.</p>
<p>The school said freshman cadet Sammy Tawakkol entered the plea Thursday and will be expelled from the academy. Officials say he will likely receive an other-than-honorable discharge from the Air Force.</p>
<p>After consulting with the victims, the military court didn't sentence Tawakkol to additional jail time. He has already spent 3 ½ months in jail and another six months in mental health treatment.</p>
<p>Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria praised the victims for speaking up.</p>
<p>The academy said Tawakkol was accused of photographing the "private parts" of women in an area where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He was also accused of indecent viewing and failure to obey an order.</p>
| 6,319 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — 2 Prescribed Pile Burns This Month</p>
<p>This month, as conditions are favorable, fire managers on the Santa Fe National Forest plan to conduct two prescribed pile burns to reduce hazardous fuels.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Piles consist of the slash left over from forest thinning projects, which include small logs and branches. Pile burns require more moisture in nearby vegetation and are usually conducted when snow is on the ground.</p>
<p>One burn is scheduled to begin today and end Thursday northeast of Gallina and eight miles north of the Coyote Ranger Station. Smoke will be visible from Gallina, Coyote, Youngsville, Regina, Llaves, Cañones, Ghost Ranch, Christ in the Desert Monastery, Abiquiu and possibly Canjilon.</p>
<p>The second burn will begin Monday, with 100 to 200 acres treated per day. The burn area is located about 12 miles southeast of Pecos, and smoke will be visible from Ilfeld, San Juan, San Jose, Ribera, Villanueva, Rowe, Pecos, Las Vegas and along I-25.</p>
<p>Forty percent of the 500-acre block consists of thinned slash and the remaining 60 percent consists of grass.</p>
<p>To receive fire information, residents can sign up for a fire notification list by calling 505-438-5321 or emailing <a href="mailto:[email protected]." type="external">[email protected].</a> Information also is available at 877-971-FIRE (3473), on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com" type="external">www.twitter.com</a>/santafenf, or at <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov" type="external">www.fs.usda.gov</a>/santafe or <a href="http://www.nmfireinfo.com" type="external">www.nmfireinfo.com</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Woman Arrested In Dairy Queen Case</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The third suspect in a robbery at a Dairy Queen in Pojoaque earlier this month was arrested by Santa Fe sheriff’s deputies.</p>
<p>Gisselle Rodriguez, 21, was arrested Friday on a bench warrant for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to a statement.</p>
<p>Rodriguez is allegedly the getaway driver during the robbery, which took place Nov. 3. She is being held at the Santa Fe County jail on $50,000 cash-only bond.</p>
<p>Deputies arrested Rodriguez after spotting her vehicle in the Cottonwood Mobile Home Park. She was stopped for expired registration tags.</p>
<p>The other two suspects in the robbery, Stephan Bustamante, 21, and Saul Rodriguez, 17, were arrested Thursday following a car pursuit with deputies.</p>
<p>The two were suspects in the Dairy Queen robbery in which a shot was fired and $333 was stolen. No one was injured. The two were also suspects in a robbery and shooting of an Española man Nov. 7. The man was shot in the abdomen and was last reported to be in stable condition.</p>
<p>All three suspects are in custody, according to the statement.</p>
|
Around Northern New Mexico
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/146113/around-northern-new-mexico-265.html
|
2012-11-14
| 2least
|
Around Northern New Mexico
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — 2 Prescribed Pile Burns This Month</p>
<p>This month, as conditions are favorable, fire managers on the Santa Fe National Forest plan to conduct two prescribed pile burns to reduce hazardous fuels.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Piles consist of the slash left over from forest thinning projects, which include small logs and branches. Pile burns require more moisture in nearby vegetation and are usually conducted when snow is on the ground.</p>
<p>One burn is scheduled to begin today and end Thursday northeast of Gallina and eight miles north of the Coyote Ranger Station. Smoke will be visible from Gallina, Coyote, Youngsville, Regina, Llaves, Cañones, Ghost Ranch, Christ in the Desert Monastery, Abiquiu and possibly Canjilon.</p>
<p>The second burn will begin Monday, with 100 to 200 acres treated per day. The burn area is located about 12 miles southeast of Pecos, and smoke will be visible from Ilfeld, San Juan, San Jose, Ribera, Villanueva, Rowe, Pecos, Las Vegas and along I-25.</p>
<p>Forty percent of the 500-acre block consists of thinned slash and the remaining 60 percent consists of grass.</p>
<p>To receive fire information, residents can sign up for a fire notification list by calling 505-438-5321 or emailing <a href="mailto:[email protected]." type="external">[email protected].</a> Information also is available at 877-971-FIRE (3473), on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com" type="external">www.twitter.com</a>/santafenf, or at <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov" type="external">www.fs.usda.gov</a>/santafe or <a href="http://www.nmfireinfo.com" type="external">www.nmfireinfo.com</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Woman Arrested In Dairy Queen Case</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The third suspect in a robbery at a Dairy Queen in Pojoaque earlier this month was arrested by Santa Fe sheriff’s deputies.</p>
<p>Gisselle Rodriguez, 21, was arrested Friday on a bench warrant for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to a statement.</p>
<p>Rodriguez is allegedly the getaway driver during the robbery, which took place Nov. 3. She is being held at the Santa Fe County jail on $50,000 cash-only bond.</p>
<p>Deputies arrested Rodriguez after spotting her vehicle in the Cottonwood Mobile Home Park. She was stopped for expired registration tags.</p>
<p>The other two suspects in the robbery, Stephan Bustamante, 21, and Saul Rodriguez, 17, were arrested Thursday following a car pursuit with deputies.</p>
<p>The two were suspects in the Dairy Queen robbery in which a shot was fired and $333 was stolen. No one was injured. The two were also suspects in a robbery and shooting of an Española man Nov. 7. The man was shot in the abdomen and was last reported to be in stable condition.</p>
<p>All three suspects are in custody, according to the statement.</p>
| 6,320 |
<p>Everybody is talking about the first 100 days of Barack Obama. And there’s a lot to talk about.</p>
<p>Like a young bull he stormed into the arena. A deluge of new ideas in every direction, a tsunami of practical initiatives, some of which have already begun to be implemented. Clearly he had been thinking about them for a long time and intended to put them into practice from his first moment in office. He put his team together long ago, and his people started to act even before his triumphal entrance to the White House. During the first days he appointed the ministers, most of whom he had designated long before – this seems to be an effective cabinet, whose members are up to their tasks.</p>
<p>Everything according to a rule that was laid down long ago: what a new president does not initiate in his first 100 days, he will not accomplish later on. In the beginning everything is easier, because the public is ready for change.</p>
<p>An Israeli cannot, of course, resist comparing Obama to Binyamin Netanyahu, our old-new Prime Minister, who did not exactly storm into the arena. He crawled into it.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>ONE COULD have expected that Netanyahu would trump even Obama in this respect.</p>
<p>After all, he has already been there. Ten years ago he was sitting in the Prime Minister’s chair, gathering experience. And from experience – especially bad experience – one can and should learn.</p>
<p>Moreover, Netanyahu’s victory was no great surprise. The only unexpected part of the election results was that his opponent, Tzipi Livni, won slightly more votes than he, but not enough to prevent him from attaining – together with his partners – a majority.</p>
<p>He had, therefore, a lot of time to prepare for his ascent to power, consult experts, perfect plans in every field, choose his team, think about the appointment of ministers from his own and allied parties.</p>
<p>Yet, incredibly, it appears that nothing, really nothing, of all this happened. No plans, no assistants, no team, no nothing.</p>
<p>To this very minute, Netanyahu has not succeeded in putting together his personal team – a fundamental precondition for any effective action. He does not have a chief of staff, a most important position. In his office, chaos reigns supreme.</p>
<p>The choice of ministers threw up one scandal after another. Not only did he put together a hideously bloated cabinet (39 ministers and deputy ministers, most of them flaunting fictitious titles) but almost all the important ministries are stuck with totally unsuited persons.</p>
<p>At a time of world-wide economic crisis he appointed to the Treasury a Minister who has no idea about economics, apparently thinking that he himself would manage the treasury – quite impossible for a man who is responsible for the state as a whole. The Ministry of Health got an orthodox rabbi as Deputy Minister. In the middle of a world-wide epidemic, we have no Minister of Health, and according to law the Prime Minister has to exercise this function, too. In almost all the other ministries – from Transportation to Tourism – there are incumbents who know nothing about their fields of responsibility and don’t even pretend to be interested in them – they are just waiting for an opportunity to move on to higher and better things.</p>
<p>No need to waste many words on the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman to the Foreign Ministry. This professional scandalmonger provokes a daily scandal in this most sensitive area of government. The bull in the china shop has already succeeded into turning all the diplomats into small bullocks, each of which is running about and smashing the dishes in his vicinity. At the moment, they are busy messing up Israel’s relations with the EU.</p>
<p>All these appointments look like the desperate efforts of a cynical politician who does not care about anything other than returning to power, and then quickly putting together a cabinet, whatever its composition, paying any price to any party prepared to join him, sacrificing even the most vital interests of the state.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>AS FAR as plans are concerned, Netanyahu does not resemble Obama either. He has come to power without any plans in any field. One gets the impression that he has spent his years in opposition with his head in hibernation</p>
<p>A week ago he presented a grandiose “economic plan” for saving our economy from the ravages of the world economic crisis. Economists raised their eyebrows. The “plan” consists of little more than a collection of tired old slogans and a tax on cigarettes. His embarrassed assistants stuttered that it was only a “general outline”, not yet a plan, and that now they would start working on a real plan.</p>
<p>The public did not really worry about the lack of an economic plan. They have faith in improvisation, the wondrous Israeli talent that makes up for the inability to plan anything.</p>
<p>But in the political field, the situation is even worse. Because there the unpreparedness of Netanyahu meets the overpreparedness of Obama.</p>
<p>Obama has a plan for the restructuring of the Middle East, and one of its elements is an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “Two States for Two Peoples”. Netanyahu argues that he is not in a position to respond, because he has no plan of his own yet. After all, he is quite new in office. Now he is working on such a plan. Very soon, in a week, or a month, or a year, he will have a plan, a real plan, and he will present it to Obama.</p>
<p>Or course, Netanyahu has a plan. It consists of one word, which he learned from his mentor, Yitzhak Shamir: “NO”. Or, more precisely, NO NO NO – the three no’s of the Israeli Khartoum: No peace, No withdrawal, No negotiations. (It will be remembered that the 1967 Arab summit conference in Khartoum, right after the Six-day War, adopted a similar resolution.)</p>
<p>The “plan” which he is working on does not really concern the essence of this policy, but only the packaging. How to present to Obama something that will not sound like “no”, but rather like “yes, but”. Something that all the serfs of the Israeli lobby in Congress and the media can swallow painlessly.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>AS A taster for the “plan”, Netanyahu has already presented one of its ingredients: the demand that the Palestinians and other Arabs must recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People”.</p>
<p>Most of the media in Israel and abroad have distorted this demand and reported that Netanyahu requires the recognition of Israel as a “Jewish State”.&#160; Either from ignorance or laziness, they obliterated the important difference between the two formulas.</p>
<p>This difference is immense. A “Jewish State” is one thing, a “State of the Jewish People” is something radically different.</p>
<p>A “Jewish State” can mean a state with a majority of citizens who define themselves as Jews and/or a state whose main language is Hebrew, whose main culture is Jewish, whose weekly rest day is Saturday, which serves only Kosher food in the Knesset cafeteria etc.</p>
<p>A “State of the Jewish People” is a completely different story. It means that the state belongs not only to its citizens, but to something that is called “the Jewish People” – something that exists both inside and outside of the country. That can have wide-ranging implications. For instance: the abrogation of the citizenship of non-Jews, as proposed by Lieberman. Or the conferring of Israeli citizenship on all the Jews in the world, whether they want it or not.</p>
<p>The first question that arises is: what does “the Jewish People” mean? The term “people” – “am” in Hebrew, Volk in German – has no accepted precise definition. Generally it is taken to mean a group of human beings who live in a specific territory and speak a specific language. The “Jewish People” is not like that.</p>
<p>Two hundred years ago it was clear that the Jews were a religious community dispersed throughout the world and united by religious beliefs and myths (including the belief in a common ancestry). The Zionists were determined to change this self-perception. “We are a people, one people”, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote in German, using the word Volk.</p>
<p>The idea of “the State of the Jewish People” is decidedly anti-Zionist. Herzl did not dream of a situation in which a Jewish State and a Jewish Diaspora would coexist. According to his plan, all the Jews who wish to remain Jews would immigrate to their state. The Jews who prefer to live outside the state would stop being Jews and be absorbed into their host nations, finally becoming real Germans, Britons and Frenchmen. The vision of the “Visionary of the State” (as he is officially designated in Israel) was supposed, when put into practice, to bring about the disappearance of the Jewish Diaspora – the Jewish people outside the “Judenstaat”.</p>
<p>David Ben-Gurion was a partner to this vision. He stated that a Jew who does not immigrate to Israel is not a Zionist and should not enjoy any rights in Israel, except the right to immigrate there. He demanded the dismantling of the Zionist organization, seeing in it only the “scaffolding” for building the state. Once the state has been set up, he thought quite rightly, the scaffolding should be discarded.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>NETANYAHU’S DEMAND that the Palestinians recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People” is ridiculous, even as a tactic for preventing peace.</p>
<p>A state recognizes a state, not its ideology or political regime. Nobody recognizes Saudi Arabia, the homeland of the Hajj, as “the State of the Muslim Umma” (the community of believers.)</p>
<p>Moreover, the demand puts the Jews all over the world in an impossible position. If the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People”, then all the governments in the world must do the same. The United States, for example. That means that the Jewish US citizens Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s closest advisors, are officially represented by the government of Israel. The same goes for the Jews in Russia, the UK and France.</p>
<p>Even if Mahmoud Abbas were persuaded to accept this demand – and thereby indirectly put in doubt the citizenship of a million and a half Arabs in Israel – I would oppose this strenuously. More than that, I would consider it an unfriendly act.</p>
<p>The character of the State of Israel must be decided by the citizens of Israel (who hold a wide range of opinions about this matter). Pending before the Israeli courts is an application by dozens of Israeli patriots, including myself, who demand that the state recognize the “Israeli nation”. We request the court to instruct the government to register us in the official Population Registration, under the heading “nation”, as Israelis. The government refuses adamantly and insists that our nation is Jewish.</p>
<p>I ask Mahmoud Abbas, Obama and everyone else who is not an Israeli citizen not to interfere in this domestic debate.</p>
<p>Netanyahu knows, of course, that nobody will take his demand seriously. It is quite obviously just another device to avoid serious peace negotiations. If he is compelled to drop it, it will not be long before he comes up with another.</p>
<p>To paraphrase Groucho Marx: “This is my pretext. If you don’t like it, well, I have a lot of others.”</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Netanyahu’s Plan
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2009/05/05/netanyahu-s-plan/
|
2009-05-05
| 4left
|
Netanyahu’s Plan
<p>Everybody is talking about the first 100 days of Barack Obama. And there’s a lot to talk about.</p>
<p>Like a young bull he stormed into the arena. A deluge of new ideas in every direction, a tsunami of practical initiatives, some of which have already begun to be implemented. Clearly he had been thinking about them for a long time and intended to put them into practice from his first moment in office. He put his team together long ago, and his people started to act even before his triumphal entrance to the White House. During the first days he appointed the ministers, most of whom he had designated long before – this seems to be an effective cabinet, whose members are up to their tasks.</p>
<p>Everything according to a rule that was laid down long ago: what a new president does not initiate in his first 100 days, he will not accomplish later on. In the beginning everything is easier, because the public is ready for change.</p>
<p>An Israeli cannot, of course, resist comparing Obama to Binyamin Netanyahu, our old-new Prime Minister, who did not exactly storm into the arena. He crawled into it.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>ONE COULD have expected that Netanyahu would trump even Obama in this respect.</p>
<p>After all, he has already been there. Ten years ago he was sitting in the Prime Minister’s chair, gathering experience. And from experience – especially bad experience – one can and should learn.</p>
<p>Moreover, Netanyahu’s victory was no great surprise. The only unexpected part of the election results was that his opponent, Tzipi Livni, won slightly more votes than he, but not enough to prevent him from attaining – together with his partners – a majority.</p>
<p>He had, therefore, a lot of time to prepare for his ascent to power, consult experts, perfect plans in every field, choose his team, think about the appointment of ministers from his own and allied parties.</p>
<p>Yet, incredibly, it appears that nothing, really nothing, of all this happened. No plans, no assistants, no team, no nothing.</p>
<p>To this very minute, Netanyahu has not succeeded in putting together his personal team – a fundamental precondition for any effective action. He does not have a chief of staff, a most important position. In his office, chaos reigns supreme.</p>
<p>The choice of ministers threw up one scandal after another. Not only did he put together a hideously bloated cabinet (39 ministers and deputy ministers, most of them flaunting fictitious titles) but almost all the important ministries are stuck with totally unsuited persons.</p>
<p>At a time of world-wide economic crisis he appointed to the Treasury a Minister who has no idea about economics, apparently thinking that he himself would manage the treasury – quite impossible for a man who is responsible for the state as a whole. The Ministry of Health got an orthodox rabbi as Deputy Minister. In the middle of a world-wide epidemic, we have no Minister of Health, and according to law the Prime Minister has to exercise this function, too. In almost all the other ministries – from Transportation to Tourism – there are incumbents who know nothing about their fields of responsibility and don’t even pretend to be interested in them – they are just waiting for an opportunity to move on to higher and better things.</p>
<p>No need to waste many words on the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman to the Foreign Ministry. This professional scandalmonger provokes a daily scandal in this most sensitive area of government. The bull in the china shop has already succeeded into turning all the diplomats into small bullocks, each of which is running about and smashing the dishes in his vicinity. At the moment, they are busy messing up Israel’s relations with the EU.</p>
<p>All these appointments look like the desperate efforts of a cynical politician who does not care about anything other than returning to power, and then quickly putting together a cabinet, whatever its composition, paying any price to any party prepared to join him, sacrificing even the most vital interests of the state.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>AS FAR as plans are concerned, Netanyahu does not resemble Obama either. He has come to power without any plans in any field. One gets the impression that he has spent his years in opposition with his head in hibernation</p>
<p>A week ago he presented a grandiose “economic plan” for saving our economy from the ravages of the world economic crisis. Economists raised their eyebrows. The “plan” consists of little more than a collection of tired old slogans and a tax on cigarettes. His embarrassed assistants stuttered that it was only a “general outline”, not yet a plan, and that now they would start working on a real plan.</p>
<p>The public did not really worry about the lack of an economic plan. They have faith in improvisation, the wondrous Israeli talent that makes up for the inability to plan anything.</p>
<p>But in the political field, the situation is even worse. Because there the unpreparedness of Netanyahu meets the overpreparedness of Obama.</p>
<p>Obama has a plan for the restructuring of the Middle East, and one of its elements is an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “Two States for Two Peoples”. Netanyahu argues that he is not in a position to respond, because he has no plan of his own yet. After all, he is quite new in office. Now he is working on such a plan. Very soon, in a week, or a month, or a year, he will have a plan, a real plan, and he will present it to Obama.</p>
<p>Or course, Netanyahu has a plan. It consists of one word, which he learned from his mentor, Yitzhak Shamir: “NO”. Or, more precisely, NO NO NO – the three no’s of the Israeli Khartoum: No peace, No withdrawal, No negotiations. (It will be remembered that the 1967 Arab summit conference in Khartoum, right after the Six-day War, adopted a similar resolution.)</p>
<p>The “plan” which he is working on does not really concern the essence of this policy, but only the packaging. How to present to Obama something that will not sound like “no”, but rather like “yes, but”. Something that all the serfs of the Israeli lobby in Congress and the media can swallow painlessly.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>AS A taster for the “plan”, Netanyahu has already presented one of its ingredients: the demand that the Palestinians and other Arabs must recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People”.</p>
<p>Most of the media in Israel and abroad have distorted this demand and reported that Netanyahu requires the recognition of Israel as a “Jewish State”.&#160; Either from ignorance or laziness, they obliterated the important difference between the two formulas.</p>
<p>This difference is immense. A “Jewish State” is one thing, a “State of the Jewish People” is something radically different.</p>
<p>A “Jewish State” can mean a state with a majority of citizens who define themselves as Jews and/or a state whose main language is Hebrew, whose main culture is Jewish, whose weekly rest day is Saturday, which serves only Kosher food in the Knesset cafeteria etc.</p>
<p>A “State of the Jewish People” is a completely different story. It means that the state belongs not only to its citizens, but to something that is called “the Jewish People” – something that exists both inside and outside of the country. That can have wide-ranging implications. For instance: the abrogation of the citizenship of non-Jews, as proposed by Lieberman. Or the conferring of Israeli citizenship on all the Jews in the world, whether they want it or not.</p>
<p>The first question that arises is: what does “the Jewish People” mean? The term “people” – “am” in Hebrew, Volk in German – has no accepted precise definition. Generally it is taken to mean a group of human beings who live in a specific territory and speak a specific language. The “Jewish People” is not like that.</p>
<p>Two hundred years ago it was clear that the Jews were a religious community dispersed throughout the world and united by religious beliefs and myths (including the belief in a common ancestry). The Zionists were determined to change this self-perception. “We are a people, one people”, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote in German, using the word Volk.</p>
<p>The idea of “the State of the Jewish People” is decidedly anti-Zionist. Herzl did not dream of a situation in which a Jewish State and a Jewish Diaspora would coexist. According to his plan, all the Jews who wish to remain Jews would immigrate to their state. The Jews who prefer to live outside the state would stop being Jews and be absorbed into their host nations, finally becoming real Germans, Britons and Frenchmen. The vision of the “Visionary of the State” (as he is officially designated in Israel) was supposed, when put into practice, to bring about the disappearance of the Jewish Diaspora – the Jewish people outside the “Judenstaat”.</p>
<p>David Ben-Gurion was a partner to this vision. He stated that a Jew who does not immigrate to Israel is not a Zionist and should not enjoy any rights in Israel, except the right to immigrate there. He demanded the dismantling of the Zionist organization, seeing in it only the “scaffolding” for building the state. Once the state has been set up, he thought quite rightly, the scaffolding should be discarded.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>NETANYAHU’S DEMAND that the Palestinians recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People” is ridiculous, even as a tactic for preventing peace.</p>
<p>A state recognizes a state, not its ideology or political regime. Nobody recognizes Saudi Arabia, the homeland of the Hajj, as “the State of the Muslim Umma” (the community of believers.)</p>
<p>Moreover, the demand puts the Jews all over the world in an impossible position. If the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People”, then all the governments in the world must do the same. The United States, for example. That means that the Jewish US citizens Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s closest advisors, are officially represented by the government of Israel. The same goes for the Jews in Russia, the UK and France.</p>
<p>Even if Mahmoud Abbas were persuaded to accept this demand – and thereby indirectly put in doubt the citizenship of a million and a half Arabs in Israel – I would oppose this strenuously. More than that, I would consider it an unfriendly act.</p>
<p>The character of the State of Israel must be decided by the citizens of Israel (who hold a wide range of opinions about this matter). Pending before the Israeli courts is an application by dozens of Israeli patriots, including myself, who demand that the state recognize the “Israeli nation”. We request the court to instruct the government to register us in the official Population Registration, under the heading “nation”, as Israelis. The government refuses adamantly and insists that our nation is Jewish.</p>
<p>I ask Mahmoud Abbas, Obama and everyone else who is not an Israeli citizen not to interfere in this domestic debate.</p>
<p>Netanyahu knows, of course, that nobody will take his demand seriously. It is quite obviously just another device to avoid serious peace negotiations. If he is compelled to drop it, it will not be long before he comes up with another.</p>
<p>To paraphrase Groucho Marx: “This is my pretext. If you don’t like it, well, I have a lot of others.”</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 6,321 |
<p>U.S. wholesale inventories rose at their fastest pace in more than a year in January as construction companies and computer merchants built up their stocks, though sales fell for the first time in three months.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said on Friday wholesale inventories increased 1.2% to $504.4 billion after a revised 0.1 percent rise in December. This was the fastest pace of growth since December 2011.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Economists polled by Reuters expected stocks of unsold goods at U.S. wholesalers to rise 0.3%.</p>
<p>Inventories are a key component of gross domestic product, and weakness in the category in the fourth quarter subtracted 1.6 percentage points from the economy's annual growth pace at that time.</p>
<p>Economists expect the drawdown on inventories to reverse in the first quarter.</p>
<p>The value of lumber stocks grew 3.4% in January, while computer equipment inventories rose 3.2%. A rise in drugs inventories of 6.2% also contributed to the overall increase.</p>
<p>Automotive stocks rose 0.4% after dropping 3.9% in December.</p>
<p>But sales at wholesalers fell 0.8%, driven by falling sales of nondurable goods like farm products and a 4.5% drop in petroleum sales. Economists had expected sales to nudge up 0.1%.</p>
<p>At January's sales pace it would take 1.21 months to clear shelves, slower than December's pace of 1.19 months.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
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Wholesale Inventories Rise at Fastest Pace in Over Year
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/03/08/wholesale-inventories-rise-at-fastest-pace-in-over-year.html
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2016-03-02
| 0right
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Wholesale Inventories Rise at Fastest Pace in Over Year
<p>U.S. wholesale inventories rose at their fastest pace in more than a year in January as construction companies and computer merchants built up their stocks, though sales fell for the first time in three months.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said on Friday wholesale inventories increased 1.2% to $504.4 billion after a revised 0.1 percent rise in December. This was the fastest pace of growth since December 2011.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Economists polled by Reuters expected stocks of unsold goods at U.S. wholesalers to rise 0.3%.</p>
<p>Inventories are a key component of gross domestic product, and weakness in the category in the fourth quarter subtracted 1.6 percentage points from the economy's annual growth pace at that time.</p>
<p>Economists expect the drawdown on inventories to reverse in the first quarter.</p>
<p>The value of lumber stocks grew 3.4% in January, while computer equipment inventories rose 3.2%. A rise in drugs inventories of 6.2% also contributed to the overall increase.</p>
<p>Automotive stocks rose 0.4% after dropping 3.9% in December.</p>
<p>But sales at wholesalers fell 0.8%, driven by falling sales of nondurable goods like farm products and a 4.5% drop in petroleum sales. Economists had expected sales to nudge up 0.1%.</p>
<p>At January's sales pace it would take 1.21 months to clear shelves, slower than December's pace of 1.19 months.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
| 6,322 |
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/www.thedailysheeple.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/airplane.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Something fishy is going on.</p>
<p>As posted on <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2015-09-01/tcas-ads-b-unreliable-east-coast-during-september" type="external">Aviation International News</a> and the <a href="https://www.nbaa.org/ops/airspace/regional/20150901-tcas-adsb-unreliable-in-southeast-united-states-beginning-september-2.php" type="external">National Business Aviation Association</a>, the Department of Defense suddenly informed the Federal Aviation Administration that a military exercise will make the TCAS and ADS-B surveillance systems unreliable on the East Coast (and up to 200 nautical miles offshore) for the whole month of September from one am EDT September 2nd until midnight EDT on October 1st.</p>
<p>The TCAS is otherwise known as the&#160;traffic collision avoidance system. It does exactly what it sounds like it does: it helps pilots avoid mid-air collisions.&#160;ADS-B stands for&#160;Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast, which Wikipedia describes as “a cooperative surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked.”</p>
<p>For these things to suddenly be unreliable sounds like a very bad thing, although the FAA has said this poses no safety risk.</p>
<p>The smart ass over at <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/airlines/faa-anti-collision-systems-used-by-aircraft-unreliable-due-to-military/2244054" type="external">The Tampa Bay Times</a> reported that this gives pilots a chance to use their own “fail-safe tool” to detect aircraft, namely their eyeballs:</p>
<p>The FAA’s notice Tuesday reminded pilots of a fail-safe tool they can always use to detect other aircraft — their eyeballs.</p>
<p>“Pilots are advised to maintain an increased visual awareness,” the FAA said.</p>
<p>Oh really? Their eyeballs, huh? Cool. I’m no pilot, but let’s see how well that works with so many planes in the sky out in stormy weather with low visibility or on a cloudy night. Sounds just great.</p>
<p>Three plane crashes, all small aircraft and all with causes still under investigation, have already happened on the East Coast in the last few days: one in <a href="http://wncn.com/2015/09/06/injuries-reported-in-plane-crash-in-franklin-county/" type="external">North Carolina</a>, one in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/nyregion/plane-crashes-in-new-jersey-injuring-2-pilots.html?_r=0" type="external">New Jersey</a>, and one in <a href="http://www.wcvb.com/news/pilot-dies-after-ultralight-plane-crashes-near-laconia/35139598" type="external">New Hampshire</a>. They could all be entirely unrelated to this, but if that’s the case the point is that flying is already a risky business without the military declaring <a href="" type="internal">their drills</a> are more important than reliable&#160;aircraft&#160;surveillance systems.</p>
<p>Here’s the full warning explained via NBAA:</p>
<p>Pilots are advised that the traffic alert and TCAS may fail to establish tracks on nearby aircraft and may fail to receive traffic alerts (TA) or resolution advisories (RA). Operators should be aware that tracks may first appear within close proximity to their aircraft, and may immediately go into TA/RA status.</p>
<p>Pilots are advised to maintain an increased visual awareness in this area. If operators believe that an aircraft should have triggered an alert, the incident should be reported to air traffic control as soon as possible.</p>
<p>This is due to a late notice Department of Defense exercise, and NBAA has voiced its concern to the FAA that these sort of significant impact tests need much more notice to operators in the NAS.</p>
<p>The Tampa Bay Times reported this will be a Navy exercise in coastal waters. Interesting, considering that as <a href="" type="internal">Intellihub reported</a> only a few days ago, a former Navy special warfare&#160;vet who now works for a government contractor just put out a <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/solicitation-for-role-players-confirms-dod-training-in-boston-on-heels-of-jade-helm-15_092015" type="external">call for crisis actors on Craigslist</a> for work in the Boston area on multiple dates throughout September.</p>
<p>The official warning to pilots for this new drill is as follows:</p>
<p>NOTAM numbers:</p>
<p>Text from the ZNY NOTAM:</p>
<p>FDC 5/2817 (KZNY A0369/15) ZNY VA..SPECIAL NOTICE…DUE TO MILITARY ACTIVITIES ON 1030/1090 MHZ, THE TRAFFIC ALERT AND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM (TCAS) AND AUTOMATIC DEPENDENT SYSTEM BROADCAST (ADS-B) SURVEILLANCE MAY BE UNRELIABLE IN THE AIRSPACE OVER THE STATES OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, AND EXTENDING APPROXIMATELY 200NM OFFSHORE. PILOTS ARE ADVISED THAT THE TRAFFIC ALERT AND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM (TCAS) MAY FAIL TO ESTABLISH TRACKS ON NEARBY AIRCRAFT AND MAY FAIL TO RECEIVE TRAFFIC ALERTS (TA) AND/OR RESOLUTION ADVISORIES (RA). FURTHER, PILOTS ARE ADVISED THAT TRACKS MAY FIRST APPEAR WITHIN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THEIR AIRCRAFT AND MAY IMMEDIATELY GO INTO TA/RA STATUS. FALSE ALERTS ARE NOT EXPECTED TO BE GENERATED BY THIS MILITARY ACTIVITY AND ANY ALERTS SHALL BE TREATED AS REAL. PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO MAINTAIN AN INCREASED VISUAL AWARENESS IN THIS AREA. IF THE PILOT BELIEVES THAT AN AIRCRAFT SHOULD HAVE TRIGGERED AN ALERT, THE INCIDENCE SHOULD BE REPORTED TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNE MOMENT. SFC-FL500 1509020500-1510010459</p>
<p>Others have wondered if this drill and warning has something to do with the huge energy pulse seen over the Atlantic ocean on the same day the warning was issued:</p>
<p />
<p>Could something like that be responsible for knocking out these surveillance systems?</p>
<p>Even&#160;with all the concern over <a href="" type="internal">Jade Helm</a>, at least we were given a heads up. This drill&#160;is not only expansive and last minute, there’s hardly any info out there on it. No one really seems to know the specifics on what exactly the Navy is doing out in the Atlantic this month.</p>
<p>With so many other things already happening in <a href="" type="internal">September</a>, what are we to make of this new development?</p>
<p>Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/" type="external">The Daily Sheeple</a>&#160;and a co-creator of <a href="http://truthstreammedia.com/" type="external">Truthstream Media</a> with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded <a href="http://www.nutritionalanarchy.com/" type="external">Nutritional Anarchy</a> with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!</p>
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<p />
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Last Minute Warning: Anticollision Systems Unreliable off East Coast for Entire Month of September Due to Navy Drill
| true |
http://dcclothesline.com/2015/09/08/last-minute-warning-anticollision-systems-unreliable-off-east-coast-for-entire-month-of-september-due-to-navy-drill/
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2015-09-08
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Last Minute Warning: Anticollision Systems Unreliable off East Coast for Entire Month of September Due to Navy Drill
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/www.thedailysheeple.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/airplane.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Something fishy is going on.</p>
<p>As posted on <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2015-09-01/tcas-ads-b-unreliable-east-coast-during-september" type="external">Aviation International News</a> and the <a href="https://www.nbaa.org/ops/airspace/regional/20150901-tcas-adsb-unreliable-in-southeast-united-states-beginning-september-2.php" type="external">National Business Aviation Association</a>, the Department of Defense suddenly informed the Federal Aviation Administration that a military exercise will make the TCAS and ADS-B surveillance systems unreliable on the East Coast (and up to 200 nautical miles offshore) for the whole month of September from one am EDT September 2nd until midnight EDT on October 1st.</p>
<p>The TCAS is otherwise known as the&#160;traffic collision avoidance system. It does exactly what it sounds like it does: it helps pilots avoid mid-air collisions.&#160;ADS-B stands for&#160;Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast, which Wikipedia describes as “a cooperative surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked.”</p>
<p>For these things to suddenly be unreliable sounds like a very bad thing, although the FAA has said this poses no safety risk.</p>
<p>The smart ass over at <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/airlines/faa-anti-collision-systems-used-by-aircraft-unreliable-due-to-military/2244054" type="external">The Tampa Bay Times</a> reported that this gives pilots a chance to use their own “fail-safe tool” to detect aircraft, namely their eyeballs:</p>
<p>The FAA’s notice Tuesday reminded pilots of a fail-safe tool they can always use to detect other aircraft — their eyeballs.</p>
<p>“Pilots are advised to maintain an increased visual awareness,” the FAA said.</p>
<p>Oh really? Their eyeballs, huh? Cool. I’m no pilot, but let’s see how well that works with so many planes in the sky out in stormy weather with low visibility or on a cloudy night. Sounds just great.</p>
<p>Three plane crashes, all small aircraft and all with causes still under investigation, have already happened on the East Coast in the last few days: one in <a href="http://wncn.com/2015/09/06/injuries-reported-in-plane-crash-in-franklin-county/" type="external">North Carolina</a>, one in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/nyregion/plane-crashes-in-new-jersey-injuring-2-pilots.html?_r=0" type="external">New Jersey</a>, and one in <a href="http://www.wcvb.com/news/pilot-dies-after-ultralight-plane-crashes-near-laconia/35139598" type="external">New Hampshire</a>. They could all be entirely unrelated to this, but if that’s the case the point is that flying is already a risky business without the military declaring <a href="" type="internal">their drills</a> are more important than reliable&#160;aircraft&#160;surveillance systems.</p>
<p>Here’s the full warning explained via NBAA:</p>
<p>Pilots are advised that the traffic alert and TCAS may fail to establish tracks on nearby aircraft and may fail to receive traffic alerts (TA) or resolution advisories (RA). Operators should be aware that tracks may first appear within close proximity to their aircraft, and may immediately go into TA/RA status.</p>
<p>Pilots are advised to maintain an increased visual awareness in this area. If operators believe that an aircraft should have triggered an alert, the incident should be reported to air traffic control as soon as possible.</p>
<p>This is due to a late notice Department of Defense exercise, and NBAA has voiced its concern to the FAA that these sort of significant impact tests need much more notice to operators in the NAS.</p>
<p>The Tampa Bay Times reported this will be a Navy exercise in coastal waters. Interesting, considering that as <a href="" type="internal">Intellihub reported</a> only a few days ago, a former Navy special warfare&#160;vet who now works for a government contractor just put out a <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/solicitation-for-role-players-confirms-dod-training-in-boston-on-heels-of-jade-helm-15_092015" type="external">call for crisis actors on Craigslist</a> for work in the Boston area on multiple dates throughout September.</p>
<p>The official warning to pilots for this new drill is as follows:</p>
<p>NOTAM numbers:</p>
<p>Text from the ZNY NOTAM:</p>
<p>FDC 5/2817 (KZNY A0369/15) ZNY VA..SPECIAL NOTICE…DUE TO MILITARY ACTIVITIES ON 1030/1090 MHZ, THE TRAFFIC ALERT AND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM (TCAS) AND AUTOMATIC DEPENDENT SYSTEM BROADCAST (ADS-B) SURVEILLANCE MAY BE UNRELIABLE IN THE AIRSPACE OVER THE STATES OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, AND EXTENDING APPROXIMATELY 200NM OFFSHORE. PILOTS ARE ADVISED THAT THE TRAFFIC ALERT AND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM (TCAS) MAY FAIL TO ESTABLISH TRACKS ON NEARBY AIRCRAFT AND MAY FAIL TO RECEIVE TRAFFIC ALERTS (TA) AND/OR RESOLUTION ADVISORIES (RA). FURTHER, PILOTS ARE ADVISED THAT TRACKS MAY FIRST APPEAR WITHIN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THEIR AIRCRAFT AND MAY IMMEDIATELY GO INTO TA/RA STATUS. FALSE ALERTS ARE NOT EXPECTED TO BE GENERATED BY THIS MILITARY ACTIVITY AND ANY ALERTS SHALL BE TREATED AS REAL. PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO MAINTAIN AN INCREASED VISUAL AWARENESS IN THIS AREA. IF THE PILOT BELIEVES THAT AN AIRCRAFT SHOULD HAVE TRIGGERED AN ALERT, THE INCIDENCE SHOULD BE REPORTED TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNE MOMENT. SFC-FL500 1509020500-1510010459</p>
<p>Others have wondered if this drill and warning has something to do with the huge energy pulse seen over the Atlantic ocean on the same day the warning was issued:</p>
<p />
<p>Could something like that be responsible for knocking out these surveillance systems?</p>
<p>Even&#160;with all the concern over <a href="" type="internal">Jade Helm</a>, at least we were given a heads up. This drill&#160;is not only expansive and last minute, there’s hardly any info out there on it. No one really seems to know the specifics on what exactly the Navy is doing out in the Atlantic this month.</p>
<p>With so many other things already happening in <a href="" type="internal">September</a>, what are we to make of this new development?</p>
<p>Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/" type="external">The Daily Sheeple</a>&#160;and a co-creator of <a href="http://truthstreammedia.com/" type="external">Truthstream Media</a> with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded <a href="http://www.nutritionalanarchy.com/" type="external">Nutritional Anarchy</a> with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!</p>
<p />
<p />
| 6,323 |
<p>Attorney Monique Pressley, who is representing accused serial rapist Bill Cosby, decided to go&#160;full on victim blaming in an interview with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cosby-lawyer-im-not-victim-blaming-but-women-have-responsibility_55bb88c6e4b0d4f33a0267ec" type="external">HuffPost Live</a>, while insisting that she wasn’t doing anything of the sort.</p>
<p>Within the first 15 seconds of the video she mocks the term “victim blaming” before getting extremely defensive about the suggestion that she might be doing just that.</p>
<p>Host Marc Lamont Hill of HuffPost Live points out that people are saying the tone of Cosby’s public opinion defense feels like victim blaming. Pressley mocks:</p>
<p>Because apparently if words are spoken often or even used as a hashtag, it makes them what? Meaningless?</p>
<p>Apparently in this lawyer’s world, that’s the case. She says:</p>
<p>“I’m not speculating, I’m not thinking, I’m not opining, I’m not waxing poetic, but what I’m saying is women have responsibility. We have responsibility for our bodies, we have responsibility for our decisions, we have responsibility for the way we conduct ourselves.”</p>
<p>Pressley is upholding an archaic idea that still places blame on the victim. Her “women have a responsibility for how we conduct ourselves” mantra is really just more of the same. Granted, I’m quite sure Cosby is paying her a large retainer, but nonetheless, as a fellow woman, I can’t help but wonder how she sleeps at night.</p>
<p>She says about delayed reporting of crimes:</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter if the thing was done, or not. The issue is if they timely reported and put the government on notice that there would be a suit.”</p>
<p>In other words, these women should have just kept their mouths shut because it was too late to legally do anything and poor Cosby shouldn’t have to deal with public scrutiny. Basically, this is a witch hunt and needless public persecution – according to the Cosby camp – because timing.</p>
<p>The website <a href="http://www.liberateyourself.co.uk/survivors/why-i-didnt-and-wont-report-my-rape/" type="external">Liberate yourself</a> has an entry written by a rape survivor. The writer&#160;introduces the list by saying, in part:</p>
<p>“I [was] recently told that I had a responsibility to report my rape for the sake of future victims. This is a list of the reasons why I didn’t and won’t report the rape.”</p>
<p>Because at 17 I didn’t know it was rape.</p>
<p>Because I was taught that sex is never much fun for women.</p>
<p>Because I was taught that sex is dirty and not something nice girls talk about.</p>
<p>Because I was in a relationship with my rapist.</p>
<p>Because we did have consensual sex, see below.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me have sex with him.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me turn up at his house naked under my coat.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me wear ‘sexy’ clothes.</p>
<p>Because the above would be used against me in public and in court.</p>
<p>Because it was a generally abusive relationship.</p>
<p>Because I went to my rapist’s house willingly, even after the rape and multiple other sexual assaults.</p>
<p>Because his house was safer than home.</p>
<p>Because he knows where my mother lives.</p>
<p>Because he knows my friends and other people that know me.</p>
<p>Because he is well respected in my mother’s church and the local community.</p>
<p>Because he is a ‘good’ man and so unable (in the eyes of society) to have committed rape and assault.</p>
<p>Because I will lose my right to anonymity and confidentially by the right of the accused to know who their accuser is.</p>
<p>Because I will be slut shammed very, very publically.</p>
<p>Because I will be victim blamed very, very publically.</p>
<p>Because my family will be harassed.</p>
<p>Because my family will slut shame and victim blame me.</p>
<p>Because the above will be done by ‘good’ people, whose righteousness is founded on their ‘goodness’ making them above criticism.</p>
<p>Because it might become potentially dangerous for me to go out in my home town. Anywhere and at anytime.</p>
<p>Because other people were complicit in the maintenance of the relationship, even when they expressed concern about his treatment of me.</p>
<p>Because I have since had sex with other people and this will be used against me.</p>
<p>Because I have a medical condition that makes sex painful and this might be used against me to justify rape as consensual sex that hurt because of my nerve damaged vulva.</p>
<p>Because I am a little bit kinky.</p>
<p>Because I didn’t fight back so it can’t be rape.</p>
<p>Because I wore skirts to his house.</p>
<p>Because he ignored me when I said no, but I didn’t scream or cry.</p>
<p>Because consent must be actively withdrawn, silence and non-responsiveness is not always understood as a withdrawal of consent by the courts.</p>
<p>Because I am already victim blamed by faux feminists who say that a woman has the right to fight back and imply that if you don’t it is your fault.</p>
<p>Because I am already victim blamed by ‘left’ activists who see it as an activist’s responsibility to always call out their attackers and if you don’t you are a bad leftie.</p>
<p>Because my rape is historic so there is no physical evidence.</p>
<p>Because I would have to prove that I withdrew consent making it my word against his.</p>
<p>Because the conviction rate is so low.</p>
<p>Because it is not my responsibility to protect future victims.</p>
<p>Obviously, every survivor’s list is different, but they likely all would share&#160;a similar theme. And that theme, and those reasons, are only perpetuated by the idea that victims have some kind of responsibility in what has happened them.</p>
<p>There is a guilt that many victims experience. It’s the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” that keeps one up at night. One can be&#160;plagued with the “if I had only NOT gone here, or done this, or worn that” which is only reinforced when those same statements are made to victims by their friends and family, or medical professionals and law enforcement.</p>
<p>Those that have survived sexual assault and rape often don’t feel comfortable telling anyone –&#160;it is said that <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/19/study-sexual-assaults-greatly-underreported-/3648197/" type="external">80 percent of sexual assaults go unreported</a>.</p>
<p>Many victims attempt to just forget the incident ever happened and try to act like it never did. Some will go years without telling anyone, or reporting it to anyone of authority. Some go a lifetime.</p>
<p>Some can find themselves remembering the events 25 years later, with less pain – the emotional rawness gone&#160;– but still hold feelings of anger.</p>
<p>Yes, obviously women should report these assaults. And perhaps our society will eventually move into a realm where women can feel comfortable and confident in doing so. But, we certainly weren’t there when the Cosby crimes were allegedly taking place and sadly, it seems we aren’t there yet.</p>
<p>Watch the video via <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cosby-lawyer-im-not-victim-blaming-but-women-have-responsibility_55bb88c6e4b0d4f33a0267ec" type="external">HuffPost Live</a> here:</p>
<p>&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;em&amp;amp;gt;Featured image via video screen capture&amp;amp;lt;/em&amp;amp;gt;</p>
|
37 Reasons Why Women Don’t Report Rape – A List For Bill Cosby’s Attorney (VIDEO)
| true |
http://addictinginfo.org/2015/08/02/37-reasons-why-women-dont-report-rape-a-list-for-bill-cosbys-attorney-video/
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2015-08-02
| 4left
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37 Reasons Why Women Don’t Report Rape – A List For Bill Cosby’s Attorney (VIDEO)
<p>Attorney Monique Pressley, who is representing accused serial rapist Bill Cosby, decided to go&#160;full on victim blaming in an interview with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cosby-lawyer-im-not-victim-blaming-but-women-have-responsibility_55bb88c6e4b0d4f33a0267ec" type="external">HuffPost Live</a>, while insisting that she wasn’t doing anything of the sort.</p>
<p>Within the first 15 seconds of the video she mocks the term “victim blaming” before getting extremely defensive about the suggestion that she might be doing just that.</p>
<p>Host Marc Lamont Hill of HuffPost Live points out that people are saying the tone of Cosby’s public opinion defense feels like victim blaming. Pressley mocks:</p>
<p>Because apparently if words are spoken often or even used as a hashtag, it makes them what? Meaningless?</p>
<p>Apparently in this lawyer’s world, that’s the case. She says:</p>
<p>“I’m not speculating, I’m not thinking, I’m not opining, I’m not waxing poetic, but what I’m saying is women have responsibility. We have responsibility for our bodies, we have responsibility for our decisions, we have responsibility for the way we conduct ourselves.”</p>
<p>Pressley is upholding an archaic idea that still places blame on the victim. Her “women have a responsibility for how we conduct ourselves” mantra is really just more of the same. Granted, I’m quite sure Cosby is paying her a large retainer, but nonetheless, as a fellow woman, I can’t help but wonder how she sleeps at night.</p>
<p>She says about delayed reporting of crimes:</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter if the thing was done, or not. The issue is if they timely reported and put the government on notice that there would be a suit.”</p>
<p>In other words, these women should have just kept their mouths shut because it was too late to legally do anything and poor Cosby shouldn’t have to deal with public scrutiny. Basically, this is a witch hunt and needless public persecution – according to the Cosby camp – because timing.</p>
<p>The website <a href="http://www.liberateyourself.co.uk/survivors/why-i-didnt-and-wont-report-my-rape/" type="external">Liberate yourself</a> has an entry written by a rape survivor. The writer&#160;introduces the list by saying, in part:</p>
<p>“I [was] recently told that I had a responsibility to report my rape for the sake of future victims. This is a list of the reasons why I didn’t and won’t report the rape.”</p>
<p>Because at 17 I didn’t know it was rape.</p>
<p>Because I was taught that sex is never much fun for women.</p>
<p>Because I was taught that sex is dirty and not something nice girls talk about.</p>
<p>Because I was in a relationship with my rapist.</p>
<p>Because we did have consensual sex, see below.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me have sex with him.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me turn up at his house naked under my coat.</p>
<p>Because my rapist used coercive methods to make me wear ‘sexy’ clothes.</p>
<p>Because the above would be used against me in public and in court.</p>
<p>Because it was a generally abusive relationship.</p>
<p>Because I went to my rapist’s house willingly, even after the rape and multiple other sexual assaults.</p>
<p>Because his house was safer than home.</p>
<p>Because he knows where my mother lives.</p>
<p>Because he knows my friends and other people that know me.</p>
<p>Because he is well respected in my mother’s church and the local community.</p>
<p>Because he is a ‘good’ man and so unable (in the eyes of society) to have committed rape and assault.</p>
<p>Because I will lose my right to anonymity and confidentially by the right of the accused to know who their accuser is.</p>
<p>Because I will be slut shammed very, very publically.</p>
<p>Because I will be victim blamed very, very publically.</p>
<p>Because my family will be harassed.</p>
<p>Because my family will slut shame and victim blame me.</p>
<p>Because the above will be done by ‘good’ people, whose righteousness is founded on their ‘goodness’ making them above criticism.</p>
<p>Because it might become potentially dangerous for me to go out in my home town. Anywhere and at anytime.</p>
<p>Because other people were complicit in the maintenance of the relationship, even when they expressed concern about his treatment of me.</p>
<p>Because I have since had sex with other people and this will be used against me.</p>
<p>Because I have a medical condition that makes sex painful and this might be used against me to justify rape as consensual sex that hurt because of my nerve damaged vulva.</p>
<p>Because I am a little bit kinky.</p>
<p>Because I didn’t fight back so it can’t be rape.</p>
<p>Because I wore skirts to his house.</p>
<p>Because he ignored me when I said no, but I didn’t scream or cry.</p>
<p>Because consent must be actively withdrawn, silence and non-responsiveness is not always understood as a withdrawal of consent by the courts.</p>
<p>Because I am already victim blamed by faux feminists who say that a woman has the right to fight back and imply that if you don’t it is your fault.</p>
<p>Because I am already victim blamed by ‘left’ activists who see it as an activist’s responsibility to always call out their attackers and if you don’t you are a bad leftie.</p>
<p>Because my rape is historic so there is no physical evidence.</p>
<p>Because I would have to prove that I withdrew consent making it my word against his.</p>
<p>Because the conviction rate is so low.</p>
<p>Because it is not my responsibility to protect future victims.</p>
<p>Obviously, every survivor’s list is different, but they likely all would share&#160;a similar theme. And that theme, and those reasons, are only perpetuated by the idea that victims have some kind of responsibility in what has happened them.</p>
<p>There is a guilt that many victims experience. It’s the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” that keeps one up at night. One can be&#160;plagued with the “if I had only NOT gone here, or done this, or worn that” which is only reinforced when those same statements are made to victims by their friends and family, or medical professionals and law enforcement.</p>
<p>Those that have survived sexual assault and rape often don’t feel comfortable telling anyone –&#160;it is said that <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/19/study-sexual-assaults-greatly-underreported-/3648197/" type="external">80 percent of sexual assaults go unreported</a>.</p>
<p>Many victims attempt to just forget the incident ever happened and try to act like it never did. Some will go years without telling anyone, or reporting it to anyone of authority. Some go a lifetime.</p>
<p>Some can find themselves remembering the events 25 years later, with less pain – the emotional rawness gone&#160;– but still hold feelings of anger.</p>
<p>Yes, obviously women should report these assaults. And perhaps our society will eventually move into a realm where women can feel comfortable and confident in doing so. But, we certainly weren’t there when the Cosby crimes were allegedly taking place and sadly, it seems we aren’t there yet.</p>
<p>Watch the video via <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cosby-lawyer-im-not-victim-blaming-but-women-have-responsibility_55bb88c6e4b0d4f33a0267ec" type="external">HuffPost Live</a> here:</p>
<p>&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;em&amp;amp;gt;Featured image via video screen capture&amp;amp;lt;/em&amp;amp;gt;</p>
| 6,324 |
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<p />
<p>And the company has&#160; an eighth under construction in Artesia that is expected to open by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Having sold a Hampton Inn and Suites in Littleton, Colo., earlier this year, TMS President and CEO Prakash Sundaram said, "We wanted to bring our dollars back to New Mexico and grow our management side. We saw an upside in these two properties."</p>
<p>The 118-room Fairfield Inn &amp; Suites, built in 1996, and the 107-room TownePlace Suites, built in 2002, were purchased in a deal valued at $14 million from Brea, Calif.-based Campbell Hotel Properties. Both hotels are on Centre Avenue, northeast of Gibson and Yale NE.</p>
<p>"These properties are not only located in an upward-trending market, but are also expected to gain substantial market share post renovation," said Danny Givertz of Hunter Hotel Advisors, the brokerage firm representing the Campbell firm in the sale.</p>
<p>A combined $2.5 million will be spent to renovate the two hotels in phases, allowing them to remain open, Sundaram said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"New Mexico's reputation is you can't get the (room) rates you can get elsewhere," he said about investing in the renovations. "If you provide a great product and great service, people will pay for it."</p>
<p>Sundaram is part of the investment team that completed construction of a six-story hotel at 1660 University NE, which had sat unused for six years during the downturn, into an extended-stay 121-room Home 2 Suites, a Hilton Worldwide brand.</p>
<p>Opened for business in April, the Home 2 Suites will hold a formal ribbon cutting today beginning at 5 p.m. with tours, refreshments and drawings. The public is invited.</p>
<p>Total Management traces its roots to 1980 when T.M. (Tom) and Radha Sundaram bought their first motel in Gallup. Prakash Sundaram and sister Malini Perumal are the second generation of the family to be involved in the business.</p>
<p>The company's portfolio includes five hotels in Albuquerque and two in Gallup. The eighth hotel, an 82-room Hampton Inn &amp; Suites, is currently under construction in Artesia.</p>
|
ABQ company buys 2 Marriott properties
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/613004/abq-company-buys-2-marriott-properties.html
| 2least
|
ABQ company buys 2 Marriott properties
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>And the company has&#160; an eighth under construction in Artesia that is expected to open by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Having sold a Hampton Inn and Suites in Littleton, Colo., earlier this year, TMS President and CEO Prakash Sundaram said, "We wanted to bring our dollars back to New Mexico and grow our management side. We saw an upside in these two properties."</p>
<p>The 118-room Fairfield Inn &amp; Suites, built in 1996, and the 107-room TownePlace Suites, built in 2002, were purchased in a deal valued at $14 million from Brea, Calif.-based Campbell Hotel Properties. Both hotels are on Centre Avenue, northeast of Gibson and Yale NE.</p>
<p>"These properties are not only located in an upward-trending market, but are also expected to gain substantial market share post renovation," said Danny Givertz of Hunter Hotel Advisors, the brokerage firm representing the Campbell firm in the sale.</p>
<p>A combined $2.5 million will be spent to renovate the two hotels in phases, allowing them to remain open, Sundaram said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"New Mexico's reputation is you can't get the (room) rates you can get elsewhere," he said about investing in the renovations. "If you provide a great product and great service, people will pay for it."</p>
<p>Sundaram is part of the investment team that completed construction of a six-story hotel at 1660 University NE, which had sat unused for six years during the downturn, into an extended-stay 121-room Home 2 Suites, a Hilton Worldwide brand.</p>
<p>Opened for business in April, the Home 2 Suites will hold a formal ribbon cutting today beginning at 5 p.m. with tours, refreshments and drawings. The public is invited.</p>
<p>Total Management traces its roots to 1980 when T.M. (Tom) and Radha Sundaram bought their first motel in Gallup. Prakash Sundaram and sister Malini Perumal are the second generation of the family to be involved in the business.</p>
<p>The company's portfolio includes five hotels in Albuquerque and two in Gallup. The eighth hotel, an 82-room Hampton Inn &amp; Suites, is currently under construction in Artesia.</p>
| 6,325 |
|
<p />
<p>Alaskan telecommunications company General Communication (NASDAQ: GNCMA) reported its fourth-quarter results after the market closed on March 1. Revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and net income all declined due to changes in backhaul and roaming agreements, but the company expects adjusted EBITDA to return to growth in 2017. Here's what investors need to know about General Communication's fourth-quarter report.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Data source: General Communication.</p>
<p>Image source: General Communication.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The company's roaming and backhaul agreements created a headwind in 2016.</p>
<p>General Communication provided a few pieces of guidance for 2017:</p>
<p>Management discussed the benefits of the now-complete consolidation of the company's billing systems:</p>
<p>The company also discussed its strategy of growing free cash flow in 2017:</p>
<p>The roaming and backhaul agreements continued to drive year-over-year declines in revenue, and one-time costs associated with the billing system transition and inventory write-offs contributed to the weakness in adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow in 2017, but it will still be lower than 2015 levels.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than General CommunicationWhen 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=d0873003-43ee-4a0b-8809-22f89823d725&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 General Communication 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=d0873003-43ee-4a0b-8809-22f89823d725&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 February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends General Communication. 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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General Communication Expects Adjusted EBITDA Growth in 2017
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/02/general-communication-expects-adjusted-ebitda-growth-in-2017.html
|
2017-03-16
| 0right
|
General Communication Expects Adjusted EBITDA Growth in 2017
<p />
<p>Alaskan telecommunications company General Communication (NASDAQ: GNCMA) reported its fourth-quarter results after the market closed on March 1. Revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and net income all declined due to changes in backhaul and roaming agreements, but the company expects adjusted EBITDA to return to growth in 2017. Here's what investors need to know about General Communication's fourth-quarter report.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Data source: General Communication.</p>
<p>Image source: General Communication.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The company's roaming and backhaul agreements created a headwind in 2016.</p>
<p>General Communication provided a few pieces of guidance for 2017:</p>
<p>Management discussed the benefits of the now-complete consolidation of the company's billing systems:</p>
<p>The company also discussed its strategy of growing free cash flow in 2017:</p>
<p>The roaming and backhaul agreements continued to drive year-over-year declines in revenue, and one-time costs associated with the billing system transition and inventory write-offs contributed to the weakness in adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow in 2017, but it will still be lower than 2015 levels.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than General CommunicationWhen 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=d0873003-43ee-4a0b-8809-22f89823d725&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 General Communication 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=d0873003-43ee-4a0b-8809-22f89823d725&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 February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends General Communication. 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>
| 6,326 |
<p>Peter MontgomeryOriginally posted on <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/12/romney_pulling.html" type="external">Right Wing Watch</a>.</p>
<p>After months of dithering about whether to make a major speech about his Mormon faith, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney is scheduled to address “Faith in America” at the George H. W. Bush presidential library Thursday night. John F. Kennedy’s famous speech ( <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkhoustonministers.html" type="external">video</a> | <a href="http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/JFK+Pre-Pres/Address+of+Senator+John+F.+Kennedy+to+the+Greater+Houston+Ministerial+Association.htm" type="external">transcript</a>) to Protestant ministers in Houston is often cited as the precedent. But Romney’s no JFK and this will have to be a much different speech.</p>
<p>Kennedy was the Democratic nominee pledging to Americans his support for “absolute” separation of church and state, promising that his Catholicism would not dictate his policy positions, and urging Americans to rise above religious intolerance and promote an ideal of brotherhood.</p>
<p>Romney is in a dramatically different situation. He’s in a heated primary race, losing conservative evangelical Christian voters to Mike Huckabee, and walking a tightrope. He can’t make JFK’s appeal to church-state separation, because he’s trying to get support from people who think church-state separation is, in Pat Robertson’s phrase, a “lie of the left.” Ditto for an appeal to religious tolerance, not a high priority for the “Christian nation” crowd.</p>
<p />
<p>So Romney’s more likely to try to convince Religious Right voters that they should care less about the theology of Mormonism and more about his pledge to support Religious Right policy priorities down the line: criminalization of abortion, opposition to equality for gay people, a dismantling of the wall separating church and state — and judges who agree. That’s been enough to win the support of some high-profile Religious Right leaders, including Paul Weyrich, Lou Sheldon and Jay Sekulow.</p>
<p>But as Huckabee surges, Romney finds himself in a bit of a box, partly of his own making. Given the power of Religious Right voters in the GOP primary, and the de facto religious test many of them apply to the presidency, Romney has stressed the importance of electing a person of faith. But when he has tried to assure Religious Right voters that he is a follower of Christ, he has drawn stern warnings from people like the Southern Baptists’ <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&amp;sid=aU_vOirVlXhY&amp;refer=home" type="external">Richard Land</a>, because many evangelicals view Mormonism as a cult. According to <a href="http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=267" type="external">Pew polls</a>, more than a third of white evangelicals, and more than 4 in 10 of evangelicals who attend church weekly, say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon. Says Land, “When he goes around and says Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior, he ticks off at least half the evangelicals.”</p>
<p>Mike Huckabee, in many ways the dream candidate for Religious Right voters, isn’t trying to make things any easier for Romney. While deflecting opportunities to comment directly on whether or not Mormons are Christians, Huckabee has encouraged others to ask Romney. “If we’re going to ask me about my faith, let’s ask all the candidates about theirs,” he <a href="http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/12/huckabee_romney_should_be_quer.php" type="external">suggests</a>. “Now as you noticed, I’m not hesitant or reluctant to talk about mine.”</p>
<p>Of course, the whole conversation tells us how far the Religious Right and its GOP allies are from the vision espoused by John F. Kennedy. In October, a prominent Dallas minister, Robert Jeffress, speaking of Romney, said, “It’s a little hypocritical for the last eight years to be talking about how important it is for us to elect a Christian president and then turn around and endorse a non-Christian,” he said. “Christian conservatives are going to have to decide whether having a Christian president is really important or not.”</p>
<p>The Religious Right’s long public war on church-state separation and religious pluralism has been cheered on by Republican officials as long as it has been a weapon against Democratic candidates. But it’s not as much fun for them when the target is one of the GOP’s top contenders.</p>
<p>Check out Montgomery’s follow-up about Romney’s speech <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/12/the_speech_romn.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p />
|
Romney's Walk on a Tightrope
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/romneys-walk-on-a-tightrope/
|
2007-12-07
| 4left
|
Romney's Walk on a Tightrope
<p>Peter MontgomeryOriginally posted on <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/12/romney_pulling.html" type="external">Right Wing Watch</a>.</p>
<p>After months of dithering about whether to make a major speech about his Mormon faith, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney is scheduled to address “Faith in America” at the George H. W. Bush presidential library Thursday night. John F. Kennedy’s famous speech ( <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkhoustonministers.html" type="external">video</a> | <a href="http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/JFK+Pre-Pres/Address+of+Senator+John+F.+Kennedy+to+the+Greater+Houston+Ministerial+Association.htm" type="external">transcript</a>) to Protestant ministers in Houston is often cited as the precedent. But Romney’s no JFK and this will have to be a much different speech.</p>
<p>Kennedy was the Democratic nominee pledging to Americans his support for “absolute” separation of church and state, promising that his Catholicism would not dictate his policy positions, and urging Americans to rise above religious intolerance and promote an ideal of brotherhood.</p>
<p>Romney is in a dramatically different situation. He’s in a heated primary race, losing conservative evangelical Christian voters to Mike Huckabee, and walking a tightrope. He can’t make JFK’s appeal to church-state separation, because he’s trying to get support from people who think church-state separation is, in Pat Robertson’s phrase, a “lie of the left.” Ditto for an appeal to religious tolerance, not a high priority for the “Christian nation” crowd.</p>
<p />
<p>So Romney’s more likely to try to convince Religious Right voters that they should care less about the theology of Mormonism and more about his pledge to support Religious Right policy priorities down the line: criminalization of abortion, opposition to equality for gay people, a dismantling of the wall separating church and state — and judges who agree. That’s been enough to win the support of some high-profile Religious Right leaders, including Paul Weyrich, Lou Sheldon and Jay Sekulow.</p>
<p>But as Huckabee surges, Romney finds himself in a bit of a box, partly of his own making. Given the power of Religious Right voters in the GOP primary, and the de facto religious test many of them apply to the presidency, Romney has stressed the importance of electing a person of faith. But when he has tried to assure Religious Right voters that he is a follower of Christ, he has drawn stern warnings from people like the Southern Baptists’ <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&amp;sid=aU_vOirVlXhY&amp;refer=home" type="external">Richard Land</a>, because many evangelicals view Mormonism as a cult. According to <a href="http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=267" type="external">Pew polls</a>, more than a third of white evangelicals, and more than 4 in 10 of evangelicals who attend church weekly, say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon. Says Land, “When he goes around and says Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior, he ticks off at least half the evangelicals.”</p>
<p>Mike Huckabee, in many ways the dream candidate for Religious Right voters, isn’t trying to make things any easier for Romney. While deflecting opportunities to comment directly on whether or not Mormons are Christians, Huckabee has encouraged others to ask Romney. “If we’re going to ask me about my faith, let’s ask all the candidates about theirs,” he <a href="http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/12/huckabee_romney_should_be_quer.php" type="external">suggests</a>. “Now as you noticed, I’m not hesitant or reluctant to talk about mine.”</p>
<p>Of course, the whole conversation tells us how far the Religious Right and its GOP allies are from the vision espoused by John F. Kennedy. In October, a prominent Dallas minister, Robert Jeffress, speaking of Romney, said, “It’s a little hypocritical for the last eight years to be talking about how important it is for us to elect a Christian president and then turn around and endorse a non-Christian,” he said. “Christian conservatives are going to have to decide whether having a Christian president is really important or not.”</p>
<p>The Religious Right’s long public war on church-state separation and religious pluralism has been cheered on by Republican officials as long as it has been a weapon against Democratic candidates. But it’s not as much fun for them when the target is one of the GOP’s top contenders.</p>
<p>Check out Montgomery’s follow-up about Romney’s speech <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/12/the_speech_romn.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p />
| 6,327 |
<p>Illustration: Jed Morfit</p>
<p />
<p>“I’ve been here before,” announced Glenn Palmer as he eased his bloodred Harley Sportster into the parking lot of the Salas Brothers funeral home in Modesto, California. The lot was awash in black leather and cigarette smoke as he dismounted and circled up with the several dozen other riders who’d come out to escort a soldier killed in Iraq to her final resting place. The war has taken a heavy toll on California’s Central Valley, and Palmer had already visited this funeral home twice this year.</p>
<p>“Welcome home, brother,” the chain-smoking, ponytailed, 55-year-old Vietnam vet said, throwing an arm around a grizzled buddy. In the downtime before the hearse departed for the church, the bikers swapped stories about the reactions they’ve gotten when people see an American-flag-flying honor guard composed almost entirely of burly dudes on motorcycles. Passers-by have thanked them and wept openly, an antiwar funeral attendee once chewed them out, and then there are the “uglies”—the uninvited guests who inspired the creation of this unconventional biker gang in the first place.</p>
<p>The Patriot Guard Riders formed last November to confront fundamentalist pastor Fred Phelps’ Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church, whose parishioners have been picketing soldiers’ funerals with signs reading “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and claiming that dead GIs are divine punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. The Patriot Guard Riders started accompanying the families of dead soldiers (with their consent) from wake to church to cemetery, riding in a proud parade of chrome and gasoline fumes, sometimes blocking the protesters from view with flags and gunning their engines to drown out renditions of “God Hates America.” More than 30 states have passed or are now considering legislation limiting protests at funerals. “I understand their right to freedom of speech, but they have to understand the right of a family to grieve,” said ride captain David “Scooter” Bolton.</p>
<p>The riders now claim more than 33,000 members, compared to Phelps’ dozens. About three-quarters of the riders are military vets. “You’ll find some of the older fellows here like myself who are Vietnam veterans that came home to a really indignant situation,” said Palmer, who served two tours of duty in the Army. “I was spat on at the airport and called a baby killer when I came home, by a little old lady about 70 years old.”</p>
<p>The group’s civilian membership is growing, too. People have started showing up on Vespas, and even in “cages”—biker slang for cars. “There is something bigger going on here,” spokesman Kurt Mayer said, “this raw underlying patriot nerve we’ve hit in America, where people are saying, ‘I’m having trouble identifying with this war and this conflict, but I recognize that there are soldiers who are young men and women who are committed to this country. How do I support these soldiers?’” The Modesto riders insisted they are neither counterprotesters nor activists. “Our mission statement is strictly in support of the troops and their families,” said Palmer. “That’s all we do,” agreed California state captain Cheryl Egan, a platinum-haired wisp of a woman on the back of Scooter’s Indian Chief. “Political beliefs don’t come into it.”</p>
<p>On this day, the riders were paying their last respects to Lance Corporal Juana Navarro Arellano, a 24-year-old Marine killed by small-arms fire in Iraq’s Al Anbar province on April 8. Holding flags, they lined up and saluted her casket as it was carried inside the church, then waited politely outside in their sweltering leathers for the length of a Catholic Mass. There was much sniffling and eye-dabbing as the coffin passed by on the way back to the hearse, something the audibly choked-up Bolton gruffly blamed on the pollen count.</p>
<p>Then the bikes roared to life and joined in a thunderous procession to the cemetery, where Navarro was honored with a 21-gun salute, and her mother was presented with the Purple Heart. After hours of stifling heat and sadness, the ear-rattling chorus of motorcycle engines seemed life affirming, even defiant. As the Patriot Guard Riders peeled away from the cemetery, another mission accomplished, a little old lady in a sedan pulled up alongside Palmer. She took in his leather jacket, studded with military pins, and the American flag bungeed to the back of his seat, and then, solemnly, nodded her head and started to applaud.</p>
<p />
|
The Hogs of War
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/07/hogs-war/
|
2018-07-01
| 4left
|
The Hogs of War
<p>Illustration: Jed Morfit</p>
<p />
<p>“I’ve been here before,” announced Glenn Palmer as he eased his bloodred Harley Sportster into the parking lot of the Salas Brothers funeral home in Modesto, California. The lot was awash in black leather and cigarette smoke as he dismounted and circled up with the several dozen other riders who’d come out to escort a soldier killed in Iraq to her final resting place. The war has taken a heavy toll on California’s Central Valley, and Palmer had already visited this funeral home twice this year.</p>
<p>“Welcome home, brother,” the chain-smoking, ponytailed, 55-year-old Vietnam vet said, throwing an arm around a grizzled buddy. In the downtime before the hearse departed for the church, the bikers swapped stories about the reactions they’ve gotten when people see an American-flag-flying honor guard composed almost entirely of burly dudes on motorcycles. Passers-by have thanked them and wept openly, an antiwar funeral attendee once chewed them out, and then there are the “uglies”—the uninvited guests who inspired the creation of this unconventional biker gang in the first place.</p>
<p>The Patriot Guard Riders formed last November to confront fundamentalist pastor Fred Phelps’ Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church, whose parishioners have been picketing soldiers’ funerals with signs reading “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and claiming that dead GIs are divine punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. The Patriot Guard Riders started accompanying the families of dead soldiers (with their consent) from wake to church to cemetery, riding in a proud parade of chrome and gasoline fumes, sometimes blocking the protesters from view with flags and gunning their engines to drown out renditions of “God Hates America.” More than 30 states have passed or are now considering legislation limiting protests at funerals. “I understand their right to freedom of speech, but they have to understand the right of a family to grieve,” said ride captain David “Scooter” Bolton.</p>
<p>The riders now claim more than 33,000 members, compared to Phelps’ dozens. About three-quarters of the riders are military vets. “You’ll find some of the older fellows here like myself who are Vietnam veterans that came home to a really indignant situation,” said Palmer, who served two tours of duty in the Army. “I was spat on at the airport and called a baby killer when I came home, by a little old lady about 70 years old.”</p>
<p>The group’s civilian membership is growing, too. People have started showing up on Vespas, and even in “cages”—biker slang for cars. “There is something bigger going on here,” spokesman Kurt Mayer said, “this raw underlying patriot nerve we’ve hit in America, where people are saying, ‘I’m having trouble identifying with this war and this conflict, but I recognize that there are soldiers who are young men and women who are committed to this country. How do I support these soldiers?’” The Modesto riders insisted they are neither counterprotesters nor activists. “Our mission statement is strictly in support of the troops and their families,” said Palmer. “That’s all we do,” agreed California state captain Cheryl Egan, a platinum-haired wisp of a woman on the back of Scooter’s Indian Chief. “Political beliefs don’t come into it.”</p>
<p>On this day, the riders were paying their last respects to Lance Corporal Juana Navarro Arellano, a 24-year-old Marine killed by small-arms fire in Iraq’s Al Anbar province on April 8. Holding flags, they lined up and saluted her casket as it was carried inside the church, then waited politely outside in their sweltering leathers for the length of a Catholic Mass. There was much sniffling and eye-dabbing as the coffin passed by on the way back to the hearse, something the audibly choked-up Bolton gruffly blamed on the pollen count.</p>
<p>Then the bikes roared to life and joined in a thunderous procession to the cemetery, where Navarro was honored with a 21-gun salute, and her mother was presented with the Purple Heart. After hours of stifling heat and sadness, the ear-rattling chorus of motorcycle engines seemed life affirming, even defiant. As the Patriot Guard Riders peeled away from the cemetery, another mission accomplished, a little old lady in a sedan pulled up alongside Palmer. She took in his leather jacket, studded with military pins, and the American flag bungeed to the back of his seat, and then, solemnly, nodded her head and started to applaud.</p>
<p />
| 6,328 |
<p>Skin cancer could have driven the evolution of dark skin in humans, a study of people with albinism in modern Africa suggests.</p>
<p>Albinism is an inherited disorder that prevents people from making melanin, a black or brown pigment. Albino people in sub-Saharan Africa almost universally die of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34796-skin-cancer-signs-prevention-melanoma.html" type="external">skin cancer</a> — and at young ages, according to a paper published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.</p>
<p>These modern tragedies point to a potential reason early humans <a href="http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html" type="external">evolved</a> to possess dark skin, said Mel Greaves, a cell biologist at the Institute of Cancer Research in the United Kingdom. [ <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34410-blue-skin-argyria-methemoglobinemia.html" type="external">Can People Have Blue Skin?</a>]</p>
<p>When human ancestors began hunting and gathering on the open savannah, they lost their body hair, probably because that kept them cooler amid the strenuous exercise of their lifestyle. These early humans probably had pale skin — much like humans' closest living relative, the chimpanzee, which is white under its fur.</p>
<p>Scientists say early Homo sapiens evolved dark skin around 1.2 million to 1.8 million years ago. But why?</p>
<p>"Cancer has been dismissed by effectively all scientists in the past" as the reason for the evolution of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34410-blue-skin-argyria-methemoglobinemia.html" type="external">dark skin</a>, Greaves told Live Science. "They did so believing that skin cancer cannot be a selective force acting on survival and reproductive success, because in present-day white-skinned people, it is usually benign or impacts too late in life."</p>
<p>Greaves, however, reviewed published cases on albinism in Africa and found that almost all <a href="http://www.livescience.com/15595-albino-animals-photo-gallery.html" type="external">albino individuals</a> developed skin cancer in their 20s due to sun exposure. These <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34783-uv-rays-increase-melanoma-skin-cancer-risk.html" type="external">early cancers</a> could have been a fact of life for pale humans living in sub-Saharan Africa without the benefit of medical knowledge or sunscreen. As a result, paler people would have died more frequently at younger ages, leaving mostly darker-skinned individuals to pass on their genes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.livescience.com/41040-skin-color-genes-identified-india.html" type="external">Lighter skin became prevalent again</a> among humans who moved out of Africa to higher latitudes, where sun-caused skin cancer was less of a factor.</p>
<p>This is a condensed version of a report from LiveScience. <a href="http://www.livescience.com/43674-cancer-skin-color-evolution.html" type="external">Read the full report</a>. Follow Stephanie Pappas on <a href="https://twitter.com/sipappas" type="external">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/101831066787121148004/posts" type="external">Google+</a>. Follow LiveScience on <a href="https://twitter.com/LiveScience" type="external">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/livescience" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/101164570444913213957/posts" type="external">Google+</a>.</p>
|
Scientist Suggests Cancer Drove Skin Color Evolution
| false |
http://nbcnews.com/science/science-news/scientist-suggests-cancer-drove-skin-color-evolution-n38786
|
2014-02-26
| 3left-center
|
Scientist Suggests Cancer Drove Skin Color Evolution
<p>Skin cancer could have driven the evolution of dark skin in humans, a study of people with albinism in modern Africa suggests.</p>
<p>Albinism is an inherited disorder that prevents people from making melanin, a black or brown pigment. Albino people in sub-Saharan Africa almost universally die of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34796-skin-cancer-signs-prevention-melanoma.html" type="external">skin cancer</a> — and at young ages, according to a paper published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.</p>
<p>These modern tragedies point to a potential reason early humans <a href="http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html" type="external">evolved</a> to possess dark skin, said Mel Greaves, a cell biologist at the Institute of Cancer Research in the United Kingdom. [ <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34410-blue-skin-argyria-methemoglobinemia.html" type="external">Can People Have Blue Skin?</a>]</p>
<p>When human ancestors began hunting and gathering on the open savannah, they lost their body hair, probably because that kept them cooler amid the strenuous exercise of their lifestyle. These early humans probably had pale skin — much like humans' closest living relative, the chimpanzee, which is white under its fur.</p>
<p>Scientists say early Homo sapiens evolved dark skin around 1.2 million to 1.8 million years ago. But why?</p>
<p>"Cancer has been dismissed by effectively all scientists in the past" as the reason for the evolution of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34410-blue-skin-argyria-methemoglobinemia.html" type="external">dark skin</a>, Greaves told Live Science. "They did so believing that skin cancer cannot be a selective force acting on survival and reproductive success, because in present-day white-skinned people, it is usually benign or impacts too late in life."</p>
<p>Greaves, however, reviewed published cases on albinism in Africa and found that almost all <a href="http://www.livescience.com/15595-albino-animals-photo-gallery.html" type="external">albino individuals</a> developed skin cancer in their 20s due to sun exposure. These <a href="http://www.livescience.com/34783-uv-rays-increase-melanoma-skin-cancer-risk.html" type="external">early cancers</a> could have been a fact of life for pale humans living in sub-Saharan Africa without the benefit of medical knowledge or sunscreen. As a result, paler people would have died more frequently at younger ages, leaving mostly darker-skinned individuals to pass on their genes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.livescience.com/41040-skin-color-genes-identified-india.html" type="external">Lighter skin became prevalent again</a> among humans who moved out of Africa to higher latitudes, where sun-caused skin cancer was less of a factor.</p>
<p>This is a condensed version of a report from LiveScience. <a href="http://www.livescience.com/43674-cancer-skin-color-evolution.html" type="external">Read the full report</a>. Follow Stephanie Pappas on <a href="https://twitter.com/sipappas" type="external">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/101831066787121148004/posts" type="external">Google+</a>. Follow LiveScience on <a href="https://twitter.com/LiveScience" type="external">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/livescience" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/101164570444913213957/posts" type="external">Google+</a>.</p>
| 6,329 |
<p>OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has promoted linebackers coach Don Martindale to defensive coordinator, assuring a seamless transition in the wake of Dean Pees’ retirement.</p>
<p>Martindale has been coaching Baltimore linebackers since 2012. The 54-year-old was the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos in 2010.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/ravens-defensive-coordinator-dean-pees-retires" type="external">Pees ended his six-year run</a> as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator on Jan. 1, Harbaugh said he wanted to maintain continuity with his new hire.</p>
<p>“I’m a believer in this system,” Harbaugh said last week. “This system has been something that’s been developed for a long period of time, and we have worked really hard every single year to make it better.”</p>
<p>Martindale has been part of that process. He coached the Ravens inside linebackers from 2012-15 and spent the past two seasons as the team’s linebackers coach.</p>
<p>In announcing the move Tuesday, Harbaugh said Martindale’s “aggressive mentality will serve to take our defense to new levels.”</p>
<p>Harbaugh said Martindale “knows the ins and outs of what we have been about on defense and has been an important contributor to our success on that side of the ball.”</p>
<p>Also on Tuesday, Harbaugh promoted Mike Macdonald to linebackers coach and Sterling Lucas to quality control defense.</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Macdonald joined the Ravens in 2014 as a coaching intern on defense. He served as a defensive assistant in 2015 and 2016, and this season was the defensive backs coach. Baltimore led the NFL this season with 22 interceptions and forced a league-best 34 turnovers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external" /> <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" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has promoted linebackers coach Don Martindale to defensive coordinator, assuring a seamless transition in the wake of Dean Pees’ retirement.</p>
<p>Martindale has been coaching Baltimore linebackers since 2012. The 54-year-old was the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos in 2010.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/ravens-defensive-coordinator-dean-pees-retires" type="external">Pees ended his six-year run</a> as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator on Jan. 1, Harbaugh said he wanted to maintain continuity with his new hire.</p>
<p>“I’m a believer in this system,” Harbaugh said last week. “This system has been something that’s been developed for a long period of time, and we have worked really hard every single year to make it better.”</p>
<p>Martindale has been part of that process. He coached the Ravens inside linebackers from 2012-15 and spent the past two seasons as the team’s linebackers coach.</p>
<p>In announcing the move Tuesday, Harbaugh said Martindale’s “aggressive mentality will serve to take our defense to new levels.”</p>
<p>Harbaugh said Martindale “knows the ins and outs of what we have been about on defense and has been an important contributor to our success on that side of the ball.”</p>
<p>Also on Tuesday, Harbaugh promoted Mike Macdonald to linebackers coach and Sterling Lucas to quality control defense.</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Macdonald joined the Ravens in 2014 as a coaching intern on defense. He served as a defensive assistant in 2015 and 2016, and this season was the defensive backs coach. Baltimore led the NFL this season with 22 interceptions and forced a league-best 34 turnovers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external" /> <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" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
|
Martindale promoted to Ravens defensive coordinator
| false |
https://apnews.com/17c986e94f0e4957b687bcdb88b4d638
|
2018-01-09
| 2least
|
Martindale promoted to Ravens defensive coordinator
<p>OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has promoted linebackers coach Don Martindale to defensive coordinator, assuring a seamless transition in the wake of Dean Pees’ retirement.</p>
<p>Martindale has been coaching Baltimore linebackers since 2012. The 54-year-old was the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos in 2010.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/ravens-defensive-coordinator-dean-pees-retires" type="external">Pees ended his six-year run</a> as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator on Jan. 1, Harbaugh said he wanted to maintain continuity with his new hire.</p>
<p>“I’m a believer in this system,” Harbaugh said last week. “This system has been something that’s been developed for a long period of time, and we have worked really hard every single year to make it better.”</p>
<p>Martindale has been part of that process. He coached the Ravens inside linebackers from 2012-15 and spent the past two seasons as the team’s linebackers coach.</p>
<p>In announcing the move Tuesday, Harbaugh said Martindale’s “aggressive mentality will serve to take our defense to new levels.”</p>
<p>Harbaugh said Martindale “knows the ins and outs of what we have been about on defense and has been an important contributor to our success on that side of the ball.”</p>
<p>Also on Tuesday, Harbaugh promoted Mike Macdonald to linebackers coach and Sterling Lucas to quality control defense.</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Macdonald joined the Ravens in 2014 as a coaching intern on defense. He served as a defensive assistant in 2015 and 2016, and this season was the defensive backs coach. Baltimore led the NFL this season with 22 interceptions and forced a league-best 34 turnovers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external" /> <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" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has promoted linebackers coach Don Martindale to defensive coordinator, assuring a seamless transition in the wake of Dean Pees’ retirement.</p>
<p>Martindale has been coaching Baltimore linebackers since 2012. The 54-year-old was the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos in 2010.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/ravens-defensive-coordinator-dean-pees-retires" type="external">Pees ended his six-year run</a> as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator on Jan. 1, Harbaugh said he wanted to maintain continuity with his new hire.</p>
<p>“I’m a believer in this system,” Harbaugh said last week. “This system has been something that’s been developed for a long period of time, and we have worked really hard every single year to make it better.”</p>
<p>Martindale has been part of that process. He coached the Ravens inside linebackers from 2012-15 and spent the past two seasons as the team’s linebackers coach.</p>
<p>In announcing the move Tuesday, Harbaugh said Martindale’s “aggressive mentality will serve to take our defense to new levels.”</p>
<p>Harbaugh said Martindale “knows the ins and outs of what we have been about on defense and has been an important contributor to our success on that side of the ball.”</p>
<p>Also on Tuesday, Harbaugh promoted Mike Macdonald to linebackers coach and Sterling Lucas to quality control defense.</p>
<p>The 30-year-old Macdonald joined the Ravens in 2014 as a coaching intern on defense. He served as a defensive assistant in 2015 and 2016, and this season was the defensive backs coach. Baltimore led the NFL this season with 22 interceptions and forced a league-best 34 turnovers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external" /> <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" /> <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
| 6,330 |
<p>DIAMOND, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri park that tells the life story of George Washington Carver is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the agriculture pioneer's death with a weekend of activities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/monument-commemorating-th-anniversary-of-george-washington-carver-s-death/article_dd55eee9-ed0c-504d-9144-7c1fd8423a67.html" type="external">The Joplin Globe</a> reports that activities began Friday and will continue through the weekend, wrapping up Sunday at the George Washington Carver National Monument, a 210-acre park near the tiny southwest Missouri town of Diamond where Carver was raised.</p>
<p>Born into slavery near the end of the Civil War, Carver went on to become a world-renowned scientist and educator. He is credited with teaching people how to make peanut butter and rotate crops. He was 79 when he died Jan. 5, 1943, in Tuskegee, Alabama.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external">http://www.joplinglobe.com</a></p>
<p>DIAMOND, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri park that tells the life story of George Washington Carver is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the agriculture pioneer's death with a weekend of activities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/monument-commemorating-th-anniversary-of-george-washington-carver-s-death/article_dd55eee9-ed0c-504d-9144-7c1fd8423a67.html" type="external">The Joplin Globe</a> reports that activities began Friday and will continue through the weekend, wrapping up Sunday at the George Washington Carver National Monument, a 210-acre park near the tiny southwest Missouri town of Diamond where Carver was raised.</p>
<p>Born into slavery near the end of the Civil War, Carver went on to become a world-renowned scientist and educator. He is credited with teaching people how to make peanut butter and rotate crops. He was 79 when he died Jan. 5, 1943, in Tuskegee, Alabama.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external">http://www.joplinglobe.com</a></p>
|
Monument commemorating 75th anniversary of ag giant's death
| false |
https://apnews.com/7163d0c1136547818c4cf18973da5637
|
2018-01-06
| 2least
|
Monument commemorating 75th anniversary of ag giant's death
<p>DIAMOND, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri park that tells the life story of George Washington Carver is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the agriculture pioneer's death with a weekend of activities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/monument-commemorating-th-anniversary-of-george-washington-carver-s-death/article_dd55eee9-ed0c-504d-9144-7c1fd8423a67.html" type="external">The Joplin Globe</a> reports that activities began Friday and will continue through the weekend, wrapping up Sunday at the George Washington Carver National Monument, a 210-acre park near the tiny southwest Missouri town of Diamond where Carver was raised.</p>
<p>Born into slavery near the end of the Civil War, Carver went on to become a world-renowned scientist and educator. He is credited with teaching people how to make peanut butter and rotate crops. He was 79 when he died Jan. 5, 1943, in Tuskegee, Alabama.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external">http://www.joplinglobe.com</a></p>
<p>DIAMOND, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri park that tells the life story of George Washington Carver is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the agriculture pioneer's death with a weekend of activities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/monument-commemorating-th-anniversary-of-george-washington-carver-s-death/article_dd55eee9-ed0c-504d-9144-7c1fd8423a67.html" type="external">The Joplin Globe</a> reports that activities began Friday and will continue through the weekend, wrapping up Sunday at the George Washington Carver National Monument, a 210-acre park near the tiny southwest Missouri town of Diamond where Carver was raised.</p>
<p>Born into slavery near the end of the Civil War, Carver went on to become a world-renowned scientist and educator. He is credited with teaching people how to make peanut butter and rotate crops. He was 79 when he died Jan. 5, 1943, in Tuskegee, Alabama.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.joplinglobe.com" type="external">http://www.joplinglobe.com</a></p>
| 6,331 |
<p>Ending LGBT conversion therapy used to seem a long way off.</p>
<p>After the suicide of transgender teenager <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/01/01/dear-leelah-we-will-fight-on-for-you-a-letter-to-a-dead-trans-teen.html" type="external">Leelah Alcorn</a>, President Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/politics/obama-to-call-for-end-to-conversion-therapies-for-gay-and-transgender-youth.html" type="external">came out</a> against it—but with Republicans in control of Congress, his power is limited.</p>
<p>Four states and the District of Columbia have banned attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of minors, but similar bans in states like Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, and Virginia have recently <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/where-the-states-stand-on-gay-conversion-therapy.html" type="external">failed</a>.</p>
<p>But following a <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/06/25/new-jersey-jury-kneecaps-conversion-therapy-practitioners.html" type="external">legal victory</a> in New Jersey last year, LGBT advocacy groups may have just found the silver bullet to put a stop to the practice: consumer fraud law.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) jointly filed <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/FTC-ConversionTherapy-Complaint-Final.pdf" type="external">a federal consumer fraud complaint</a> with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They argue that conversion therapy isn’t just harmful; it’s a clear case of false advertising.</p>
<p>The consumer fraud complaint specifically addresses the claims of the Virginia-based nonprofit <a href="http://www.peoplecanchange.com/about/mission.php" type="external">People Can Change Inc.</a> (PCC), which hosts “Journey Into Manhood” weekends for gay men seeking to change their sexual orientation. The PCC website boasts that there are “more than 3,000 [published] cases of change from homosexual to heterosexual attraction, identity, and functioning.”“Is change really possible?” one <a href="http://www.peoplecanchange.com/change/possible.php" type="external">PCC page</a> asks. “Absolutely!” was the response until the day after the consumer fraud complaint, when it was quietly changed to a less enthusiastic “Yes.” (An <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151021223734/http://peoplecanchange.com/change/possible.php" type="external">archived version</a> of the original claim can still be accessed online.)</p>
<p>If you trust the combined wisdom of the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, “absolutely” was a flat-out lie. These medical associations have made it clear that conversion or “reparative” therapy is <a href="http://www.psychiatry.org/file%20library/about-apa/organization-documents-policies/policies/position-2000-therapies-change-sexual-orientation.pdf" type="external">scientifically unproven</a>, discriminatory, and often politically motivated.The American Psychological Association, for instance, noted in <a href="http://www.apa.org/about/policy/sexual-orientation.pdf" type="external">2010</a> that many practitioners of conversion therapy are “embedded within the larger context of conservative religious political movements that have supported the stigmatization of homosexuality on political or religious grounds.”</p>
<p>But this medical consensus has not yet made its way into federal law. And that’s where the FTC could come into play.</p>
<p>According to the HRC, NCLR, and SPLC, conversion therapy should be considered illegal under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.”</p>
<p>The FTC considers an act to be “ <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/410531/831014deceptionstmt.pdf" type="external">deceptive</a>” if it involves a material “representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer,” so long as it would affect “a consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances.”</p>
<p>The HRC, NCLR, and SPLC argue that PCC should be considered “deceptive” because it represents conversion therapy as being effective when it is not.</p>
<p>The deception, they note, begins with the group’s name: People Can Change. It continues throughout their website and marketing materials. There are claims that 75 percent of the men who go on a Journey into Manhood retreat have a “decrease in homosexual feelings,” brochures that claim 4 out of 5 participants have a “reduction in [same-sex attraction],” and pseudoscientific claims that sexual orientation can be “change[d]” or “shift[ed].”</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>Importantly, the FTC determines whether or not a practice is deceptive from the perspective of the particular group to whom it is advertised.</p>
<p>In this case, as the LGBT advocacy organizations note in <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/FTC-ConversionTherapy-Complaint-Final.pdf" type="external">their complaint</a>, the target demographic for conversion therapy is “more vulnerable than the average consumer.” These therapies are often directed at children, young adults, and others who may be under social, familial, or religious pressure to deny an LGBT identity. And as an American Psychological Association Task Force noted, conversion therapy can lead to “loss of sexual feeling, depression, suicidality, and anxiety.” LGBT people, <a href="http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/facts-about-suicide" type="external">especially youth</a>, are already at an increased risk of suicide.</p>
<p>If the FTC agrees with this reasoning it could theoretically stop PCC’s business in its tracks and, at the urging of the LGBT advocacy groups, “investigate all [other] practitioners making similar claims.”There are 24 organizations in the Positive Approaches to Healthy Sexuality ( <a href="http://www.pathinfo.org/#!coalition/lwu7l" type="external">PATH</a>) conversion therapy coalition, which as recently as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150918212123/http://www.pathinfo.org/" type="external">2015</a> was still called Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality. Many of them are religiously affiliated and all of them would be on notice if the FTC decides to act on the complaint against PCC.</p>
<p>The SPLC has already had success with this legal reasoning. In a landmark New Jersey court case last June, it successfully represented young gay men who were told that the organization Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) had a “two-thirds success rate” in suppressing “unwanted same-sex sexual attractions.”</p>
<p>What those men experienced was bizarre and by no means scientific. For example, one of the plaintiffs <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/can-sexuality-be-changed/394490/" type="external">claimed</a> that the “life coach” he found through JONAH asked him to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket, as <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/can-sexuality-be-changed/394490/" type="external">The Atlantic</a> reported.</p>
<p>The SPLC argued that this was a clear case of consumer fraud, and in a first-ever court decision on the practice of conversion therapy, the New Jersey jury agreed. They ruled that JONAH had “engaged in unconscionable commercial practices” and ordered the group to pay out over $70,000 in refunds. It has since shut down entirely.</p>
<p>With this ruling in hand, the consumer fraud angle has become the weapon of choice for LGBT advocates.</p>
<p>Last May, California Rep. Ted Lieu (D) introduced <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2450/text/ih" type="external">a bill</a> proposing a nationwide ban on conversion therapy “as an unfair and deceptive act or practice,” citing the FTC Act.</p>
<p>This month, members of Congress, led by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Patty Murray (D-WA), also <a href="https://www.booker.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=364" type="external">sent a letter</a> to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, urging her “to take all actions possible to stop the unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent practice of conversion therapy under the authority provided to your agency.”</p>
<p>It’s a brilliant strategy that just might work: If federal and state governments won’t protect LGBT people as people, perhaps they can protect them as consumers.</p>
|
Can the Feds End LGBT Conversion Therapy?
| true |
https://thedailybeast.com/can-the-feds-end-lgbt-conversion-therapy
|
2018-10-03
| 4left
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Can the Feds End LGBT Conversion Therapy?
<p>Ending LGBT conversion therapy used to seem a long way off.</p>
<p>After the suicide of transgender teenager <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/01/01/dear-leelah-we-will-fight-on-for-you-a-letter-to-a-dead-trans-teen.html" type="external">Leelah Alcorn</a>, President Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/politics/obama-to-call-for-end-to-conversion-therapies-for-gay-and-transgender-youth.html" type="external">came out</a> against it—but with Republicans in control of Congress, his power is limited.</p>
<p>Four states and the District of Columbia have banned attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of minors, but similar bans in states like Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, and Virginia have recently <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/where-the-states-stand-on-gay-conversion-therapy.html" type="external">failed</a>.</p>
<p>But following a <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/06/25/new-jersey-jury-kneecaps-conversion-therapy-practitioners.html" type="external">legal victory</a> in New Jersey last year, LGBT advocacy groups may have just found the silver bullet to put a stop to the practice: consumer fraud law.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) jointly filed <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/FTC-ConversionTherapy-Complaint-Final.pdf" type="external">a federal consumer fraud complaint</a> with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They argue that conversion therapy isn’t just harmful; it’s a clear case of false advertising.</p>
<p>The consumer fraud complaint specifically addresses the claims of the Virginia-based nonprofit <a href="http://www.peoplecanchange.com/about/mission.php" type="external">People Can Change Inc.</a> (PCC), which hosts “Journey Into Manhood” weekends for gay men seeking to change their sexual orientation. The PCC website boasts that there are “more than 3,000 [published] cases of change from homosexual to heterosexual attraction, identity, and functioning.”“Is change really possible?” one <a href="http://www.peoplecanchange.com/change/possible.php" type="external">PCC page</a> asks. “Absolutely!” was the response until the day after the consumer fraud complaint, when it was quietly changed to a less enthusiastic “Yes.” (An <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151021223734/http://peoplecanchange.com/change/possible.php" type="external">archived version</a> of the original claim can still be accessed online.)</p>
<p>If you trust the combined wisdom of the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, “absolutely” was a flat-out lie. These medical associations have made it clear that conversion or “reparative” therapy is <a href="http://www.psychiatry.org/file%20library/about-apa/organization-documents-policies/policies/position-2000-therapies-change-sexual-orientation.pdf" type="external">scientifically unproven</a>, discriminatory, and often politically motivated.The American Psychological Association, for instance, noted in <a href="http://www.apa.org/about/policy/sexual-orientation.pdf" type="external">2010</a> that many practitioners of conversion therapy are “embedded within the larger context of conservative religious political movements that have supported the stigmatization of homosexuality on political or religious grounds.”</p>
<p>But this medical consensus has not yet made its way into federal law. And that’s where the FTC could come into play.</p>
<p>According to the HRC, NCLR, and SPLC, conversion therapy should be considered illegal under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.”</p>
<p>The FTC considers an act to be “ <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/410531/831014deceptionstmt.pdf" type="external">deceptive</a>” if it involves a material “representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer,” so long as it would affect “a consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances.”</p>
<p>The HRC, NCLR, and SPLC argue that PCC should be considered “deceptive” because it represents conversion therapy as being effective when it is not.</p>
<p>The deception, they note, begins with the group’s name: People Can Change. It continues throughout their website and marketing materials. There are claims that 75 percent of the men who go on a Journey into Manhood retreat have a “decrease in homosexual feelings,” brochures that claim 4 out of 5 participants have a “reduction in [same-sex attraction],” and pseudoscientific claims that sexual orientation can be “change[d]” or “shift[ed].”</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>Importantly, the FTC determines whether or not a practice is deceptive from the perspective of the particular group to whom it is advertised.</p>
<p>In this case, as the LGBT advocacy organizations note in <a href="http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/FTC-ConversionTherapy-Complaint-Final.pdf" type="external">their complaint</a>, the target demographic for conversion therapy is “more vulnerable than the average consumer.” These therapies are often directed at children, young adults, and others who may be under social, familial, or religious pressure to deny an LGBT identity. And as an American Psychological Association Task Force noted, conversion therapy can lead to “loss of sexual feeling, depression, suicidality, and anxiety.” LGBT people, <a href="http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/facts-about-suicide" type="external">especially youth</a>, are already at an increased risk of suicide.</p>
<p>If the FTC agrees with this reasoning it could theoretically stop PCC’s business in its tracks and, at the urging of the LGBT advocacy groups, “investigate all [other] practitioners making similar claims.”There are 24 organizations in the Positive Approaches to Healthy Sexuality ( <a href="http://www.pathinfo.org/#!coalition/lwu7l" type="external">PATH</a>) conversion therapy coalition, which as recently as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150918212123/http://www.pathinfo.org/" type="external">2015</a> was still called Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality. Many of them are religiously affiliated and all of them would be on notice if the FTC decides to act on the complaint against PCC.</p>
<p>The SPLC has already had success with this legal reasoning. In a landmark New Jersey court case last June, it successfully represented young gay men who were told that the organization Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) had a “two-thirds success rate” in suppressing “unwanted same-sex sexual attractions.”</p>
<p>What those men experienced was bizarre and by no means scientific. For example, one of the plaintiffs <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/can-sexuality-be-changed/394490/" type="external">claimed</a> that the “life coach” he found through JONAH asked him to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket, as <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/can-sexuality-be-changed/394490/" type="external">The Atlantic</a> reported.</p>
<p>The SPLC argued that this was a clear case of consumer fraud, and in a first-ever court decision on the practice of conversion therapy, the New Jersey jury agreed. They ruled that JONAH had “engaged in unconscionable commercial practices” and ordered the group to pay out over $70,000 in refunds. It has since shut down entirely.</p>
<p>With this ruling in hand, the consumer fraud angle has become the weapon of choice for LGBT advocates.</p>
<p>Last May, California Rep. Ted Lieu (D) introduced <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2450/text/ih" type="external">a bill</a> proposing a nationwide ban on conversion therapy “as an unfair and deceptive act or practice,” citing the FTC Act.</p>
<p>This month, members of Congress, led by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Patty Murray (D-WA), also <a href="https://www.booker.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=364" type="external">sent a letter</a> to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, urging her “to take all actions possible to stop the unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent practice of conversion therapy under the authority provided to your agency.”</p>
<p>It’s a brilliant strategy that just might work: If federal and state governments won’t protect LGBT people as people, perhaps they can protect them as consumers.</p>
| 6,332 |
<p>Let me never tell you Things you cannot know Let me never tell you Things that won’t let go.</p>
<p>Tommy</p>
<p>Soldiers do strange things in war.&#160; After a month on patrols we sit beneath triple canopy waiting for the choppy tune we love.&#160; When three North Vietnamese troops walk down a well-used trail every American opens fire.</p>
<p>“Where’s the goddamn RTO?” shouts Tommy between lobbing hand grenades. “Where is that cocksucker?”</p>
<p>But Miller the radio-telephone man trembles behind a large tree.&#160; Standing up, the Captain and Sgt. Burke leisurely kill the foe one by one.&#160; The last to fall tumbles into a tangle of vines.&#160; Running forward, we gather round Crazy Frank who kicks the corpse, pokes it with a branch. “Fuckers don’t bleed much,” he says, giving the body one last kick.</p>
<p>When Miller, who is tall and muscular, saunters up, short thin Tommy shouts, “You pussy. You fuckin coward.”&#160; His small hands pound Miller’s broad chest. “I oughta waste you, man,” he says. “Coward. I oughta waste your fuckin ass.”</p>
<p>Miller is silent and still as the harmless blows hit their target.&#160; Then Tommy hurls a fistful of dirt into the RTO’s reddening face. “Coward,” he says. “You’re a goddam coward.”</p>
<p>Tommy will continue shouting abuse, then abruptly stop, fascinated by the trail of tears which fall like rain down the tall man’s crimson cheeks.</p>
<p>Flare Up</p>
<p>We hold a Mad Minute on a remote firebase near the Cambodian border.&#160; The intent is to frighten the enemy with a random display of firepower. We set our M16s on full automatic and pepper the wood line. We unleash spectacular bursts from machine guns and launch shoulder fired anti-tank shells.&#160; We hurl deadly baseball grenades, shoot basketball-like tracers from hand jarring .45 cal pistols.&#160; We spatter trees and clouds and sky with fifty cal machine guns.&#160; Gleefully, we smack the bottoms of hand held illumination flares that ignite the darkness to further frighten our invisible foe as we flex our prowess.</p>
<p>Mortar crews jump to the fire brigade beat of passing and launching high explosive shells that arc up at metric angles then plummet down in search of prey.&#160; Quickly, quickly, regimented heavy gun crews swivel monstrous steel cannons, energetically hoist man sized rounds, slam them into the womb-like breach, lock the submarine-like hatch, brace themselves at the recoil, watch the illegal firecracker shells burst and sparkle and pop-pop-pop.&#160; Every grunt and clerk and non infantry officer will instantly crouch as the gun crew shoot a red flare, yell, “Fire in the hole!” just before the cannon fires the deadly beehive shell whose swarming ten thousand steel darts impale men to trees.</p>
<p>As the furious minutes unfolds, even the cooks and mechanics join in. Small arms, machine guns, heavy artillery and mortars: In this willful pandemonium of roaring lead and swirling smoke and whizzing steel a man will casually walk up behind another man and shoot him in the base of his skull.&#160; The mastoid process, it’s called.</p>
<p>The next morning, policing up the million spent casings, empty ammo clips, unboxed grenades, Ray accidentally kicks a dud hand flare. The small rocket slams into his face, then soars up, leaving a faint white path.&#160; The miniature parachute deploys, the rolled magnesium strip ignites, the descending silk parasol methodically sways until the hissing flare burns itself out.</p>
<p>In his lazy Southern drawl Ray screams, “Medic!” I twist white gauze around his broken face, guide him to the tarmac, comfort him, wait for the chopper.</p>
<p>“It’s a million dollar wound. You’ll be all right. You’re going back to the World.”</p>
<p>“I sure hope so, Doc,” he says.</p>
<p>A month later, a long neat scar scoring the length of his nose, Ray continues as our machine gunner.&#160; Continues to keep the green nylon cross tucked in his helmet band to ward off death.&#160; He will survive Cambodia.&#160; Others will not.</p>
<p>Handsome Glenn</p>
<p>Midnight monsoon and the order has not yet arrived to sleep like dogs on the cold wet ground. Crack-Bang! go our claymore mines in the booby-trapped ravine. At daylight third squad slinks out to reconnoiter.&#160; From ten meters the surviving enemy open up and Bill Williams is shot.&#160; Falling, he shoots Handsome Glenn.&#160; Pinned down, we toss frags to Tommy and the work is done.&#160; Bill will die but Glenn is screaming.&#160; He is shot in both arms.&#160; He is shot in one leg. I spike Glenn with morphine. “Give me a joint, Doc.&#160; For Christ sake gimme a fuckin joint,” he yells. Someone lights the paper stick, puts it to Handsome Glenn’s quivering mouth; he takes long shaky drags until the morphine kicks in.</p>
<p>The day before, I show Glenn photographs. You mail the film to Hawaii, you get back pictures.</p>
<p>“Gimme a copy,” he says, smiling.&#160; “Doc, gimme one so’s I can send it to my girl.”</p>
<p>“Sure, man. Sure.”</p>
<p>These days, when students marvel at Glenn’s finely rippled physique, his broad voluptuous mouth, his piercing amorous eyes, they ask, “Who is that?”</p>
<p>“A good soldier,” I say.</p>
<p>A very good soldier. Who would not write back twenty-five years after the event.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Night, August</p>
<p>After three months we come in from patrols.&#160; I visit Lieutenant Nile, the officer in charge of medics.&#160; We love this fine and confident and born leader of frightened young men.</p>
<p>“Sir, I don’t know if I can take it much longer.”</p>
<p>“I’ll bring you in as soon as possible,” he says.</p>
<p>“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”</p>
<p>The evening is spent with combat medics who’ve done their time and earned safe jobs.&#160; We grill blood red steaks on a make shift stoves.&#160; Play cards, swig beer, smoke good Thai weed.&#160; On this large rear base ringed by no-man’s-land and earthworks and bunkers and guard towers and coils and coils of concertina wire, we have no fear.&#160; But someone shouts, “Incoming!” and like frightened dogs we rush to the bunker; the last man slamming its heavy door shut.&#160; Outside, the barrage of enemy shells crump and boom; skittering shrapnel pings off perforated steel plating.&#160; A rocket’s near hit seems to raise our shelter into the air.&#160; Inside, some men talk loudly, others pray or cry or huddle beneath empty canvass stretchers. When the attack is over we stumble out into the starlit night.&#160; The thrown down wounded lie everywhere.&#160; Others kick and caterwaul in the strange calligraphy of dying.&#160; A dreadful chorus lifts from this army of broken men.&#160; “Medic…Medic,” they cry out as we bind their wounds and carry them off.&#160; Lt. Nile is dead.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Killers In Action</p>
<p>It’s a strange looking dog.&#160; Half Shepherd, half Saint Bernard says the K-9 Scout.</p>
<p>The body of the beast is sleek and large and powerful, its curly hair brindled white and black. We&#160; have never used dogs but the order has been sent and we must obey.&#160; The animal heaves a great animal sigh, then hunkers next to its master.&#160; We grunts draw match sticks for guard. Two shifts, two hours each.</p>
<p>At dawn, as first squad sets out on patrol, the excited dog bounds ahead.&#160; Every thirty meters it looks back to its master.&#160; At the sound or scent of Viet Cong the well-trained animal will alert, the Americans will drop, open fire, advance.&#160; When M16s do erupt there is no enemy reply.&#160; An hour later the squad returns but something is not right. Then we see it: the dog handler covered in blood, two grunts carrying the upside down canine trussed by its feet to a bamboo pole. The limp body hit nearly one hundred times.</p>
<p>On the chopper back to base a cool wind buffets the grieving Scout’s stained pants, turning the wet cloth stiff.&#160; But the K9 handler does not move.&#160; Does not speak.&#160; Does not hear the awful swish of blood filled lungs, does not see the bullet flecked fur, or the long pink strip dangling from the slack-jawed mouth.&#160; The moment the chopper lands he sobs without mercy.</p>
<p>No Medal Jacket</p>
<p>Very early one morning, on a well used trail, five claymores, set to explode by trip wire, blow up.&#160; With the blinding flash and deafening roar the agony howls begin.&#160; Then a wild stampede and rifle shots to draw us out but we do not return fire. Over the hours the wounded die slowly; their unbearable screams yielding to child-like moans, to puppy-like yelps, guttural bird calls, then nothing.</p>
<p>Two platoons march out to recon.&#160; A dead man, eyes still open, sits on a tree stump.&#160; A rusty timber saw girds his waist.&#160; Seven others lie sprawled where they fell.&#160; Each is punctured head-to-toe by 1/8 inch steel balls, hurled with the force of dynamite.&#160; Lieutenant Gill walks up to the lone survivor, who is badly wounded. “Chieu Hoi!” he shouts.&#160; But the brave man will not give up and lifts his AK in a last bid for life.&#160; Point blank the lieutenant wastes him; BBBRRRRAAAPPP.&#160; Next the machine-gunner and two platoons open up.&#160; When the smoke clears the brave man is decapitated.&#160; His brains spattered over the girl next to him.</p>
<p>We sit down. Lt. Gill grips his jaw, shows me his cracked tooth.&#160; “Purple Heart?” he asks. “Doc, you gonna put me in for a Purple Heart?”</p>
<p>“Are you shitting me, sir? Are you shitting me?&#160; It’s just skull fragments from the dead dink. You didn’t get shot. You didn’t get hit.&#160; No way I’m putting you in for a medal, sir. No fuckin way.”</p>
<p>&#160; *&#160;&#160; *&#160;&#160; *</p>
<p>Cheers</p>
<p>Men do strange things&#160; after war.&#160; At the posh restaurant the young maitre d’ guides us to our&#160; table.&#160; Amidst the clink of polished silverware, the plush skid of porcelain on white linen, the ambient chatter of fellow gourmands, Merrick, whose once black hair is now ghost white, tells the story.&#160; On patrol, a new lieutenant orders him thirty meters past the right flank.&#160; Concealed enemy soldiers cut Merrick down.&#160; As the Viet Cong rush forward to finish him off he screams for help.&#160; Afterward, waiting for the medivac, Merrick delves into his ruck with his good hand.&#160; “Here,” he says. “Don’t want to get caught with this shit.” Someone takes the half key of dope; the chopper arrives and Merrick is gone.</p>
<p>“Cheers,” he says,&#160; raising aloft a glass of fifty-dollar wine. Then he curses the officer.&#160; Loudly&#160; curses the whole damn war.&#160; Nearby well dressed diners too politely clear their throats; they glare at us as if we have trespassed on sacred ground or spit on foreign land.</p>
<p>“The hell you looking at?” scowls Merrick, turning his head from side to side. “Yeah, you, asshole. The hell you looking at?” Our smiling waitress brings the check.</p>
<p>We drive to Merrick’s black-painted, two-storey custom built home and sit cross-legged on the comforting porch.&#160; Merrick has just read aloud his VA service-connected-disability letter.</p>
<p>“Can you believe those scum bags?” he scowls.&#160; Because Merrick is ever anxious, depressed, annoyingly vigilant, eternally angry, the softer emotions in short supply.&#160; “Purple Heart, Bronze Star, a shit load of PTSD and this is what I get?”&#160; He tears the letter in half.&#160; “The hell with their bullshit ten percent rating.&#160; C’mon, Doc. Got something to show you,” he says.</p>
<p>In the center of the immaculate garage stands a blazing red Harley Chopper, the perfect simulacrum for the demons which drive him.</p>
<p>“Hop on,” says Merrick.&#160; “Let’s go for a ride.”</p>
<p>We cruise fifty miles an hour down long back roads, lean and dip into wide, sweeping turns.&#160; “Yeah, baby! Yeah!” shouts Merrick, as he guns the engine. The greater the risk, the greater the rush.</p>
<p>Later, while Merrick tunes the engine, I sit with his lovely wife and quarterback son in a living room filled with costly furniture, tranquil paintings, tropical plants, plush carpets.&#160; We are overly pleasant. We counterfeit small talk. In this unblemished house with nary a speck of dust or drop of blood the war is nowhere and everywhere and the three of us know it and avoid any hint of an ambush.</p>
<p>At night; a light rain falls over the high school playing field.&#160; Merrick’s son does well.&#160; At half time his father constantly spits, as if trying to rid a permanent bad taste lodged deep in his mouth.&#160; From his coat pocket Merrick plucks a matchbox taken from the restaurant, and strikes a match across the flint.&#160; Its small blue tip releases a bantam fury, which spools a thin gray mist when he tosses it high into the air. The empty look on his face is the same in the war photo I gave to his wife. “What happened to him?” she asks.&#160; “Why is he like that?” And I tell her things knowing I should not tell her what she will never understand.</p>
<p>Love</p>
<p>Joseph says Sylvie is the best screw he’s ever had and Joseph has made love to five hundred women.&#160; She likes it this way, she likes it that like that, she likes toys and talking dirty too.&#160; Joseph says Sylvie has no shame.&#160; She loves sex, she’ll do anything, anytime, anywhere.&#160; Just do it. Do it. Do it.</p>
<p>One night, after a raging bout of love Sylvie asks Joseph, “Can you take care of yourself?”&#160; “I think so, says Joseph.&#160; “What’s up?”&#160; Sylvie says, “My ex-boyfriend.&#160; He’s jealous.&#160; Can you fight if you need to?”</p>
<p>Joseph, a two tour Ranger who walked point and crawled tunnels tells Sylvie things he did in Vietnam. He mimics bare handed killing techniques, mimes the art of stuffing rags down unsuspecting throats, recalls the science of drowning desperate men ever so slowly.&#160; Then tells her of years spent in prison after the war.&#160; Describes the crime of Lewisburg. The hell of solitary. The ever present sadistic guards, cell blocks populated with psychos and punks, the culture of gangs, the need for self-preservation.&#160; The merciless lead pipe beating he gave two inmates who tried to rip him off.&#160; He says Sylvie freaked out.&#160; Really freaked out.&#160; “Who…who are you?” she stuttered.&#160; “Is there anything you haven’t done?”&#160; Until he calms her down, tells her he made it all up, Sylvie, who loves good sex, will do it, do it, do it, anytime, anywhere, shakes uncontrollably with fear.</p>
<p>One day Joseph asks, “What was that about?”&#160; When I tell him he’s done things beyond the range of normal human experience, things Sylvie couldn’t imagine, things that would terrify tough New York city cops, hardened medical examiners, even hardcore Viet Cong, Joseph, an extremely bright, honest and compassionate man says with complete sang froid, “You know, I never thought of that.”</p>
<p>Seeing Red</p>
<p>After the ambush Michael is lifted onto the chopper. Twenty-seven years later we hunt ground hogs, holding our twenty-two caliber rifles at the hip. Michael walks first through the muddy meadow.&#160; It’s bone cold wet and there’s nothing to kill because Michael has killed them all. In the distance, two large chimneys belch thick smoke.&#160; With a branch I scratch a portrait in the mud, Michael takes the photo: a man with a rifle flanked by two nuclear smoke stacks on the horizon.</p>
<p>“It’s the perfect holiday card.&#160; ‘Merry Christmas, Motherfuckers!’ ”</p>
<p>“You’d never send that out!” says Michael.</p>
<p>“Wanna bet?”</p>
<p>We laugh, then return to his truck.</p>
<p>Late at night I ask about Red, the transfer from another division. “Your squad had patrol. We heard the shooting. Red was shot in the arms, the legs, the belly.&#160; No one else hit. You remember?”</p>
<p>Michael is not the silent type. Not one to brood or hold a grudge.&#160; But the seconds tick past and he gives me a look that is not pleasant.</p>
<p>“Don’t want to talk about it,” he growls.&#160; “Let’s change the subject.”</p>
<p>Clarity arrives when you least expect it.</p>
<p>“Who shot him, Michael?&#160; Who really shot him?” The tone in my voice tells him the secret is safe. Tells him, ‘Get the monkey off your back, bro. You talk, I’ll listen. C’mon, I was the medic.&#160; I cared for my men.&#160; Always did.&#160; Always will.’</p>
<p>Michael leans back in his Lay-Z-Boy recliner.&#160; He shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, locks both hands behind his head. A moment later he sits straight up; his voice is low, methodical, murderous.</p>
<p>“Twice we told that boy, ‘We are not your shit ass old unit. We get hit, we don’t hang back; you move your ass up. There is no next time, bud. You move up. You got that? You move up.”</p>
<p>There is absolute rage in Michael’s eyes.&#160; And behind that guilt and sorrow.&#160; “So we get hit, he don’t move and…”</p>
<p>No need to hunt for words.&#160; They come quick and easy.</p>
<p>“You did the right thing, Michael.&#160; I would have done the same.&#160; He deserved it. He really did.”</p>
<p>Ted and Sarah</p>
<p>Grenade. Harvard. Princeton.&#160; A lucrative career in finance.&#160; Fit and spry at six-foot-three, Ted is affable, jocular, his understated self-assurance a mark of highly intelligent people. The first wife of Asian descent.&#160; The second a local girl, perhaps five-two, a bit on the plump side. Ted and Sarah have three grown children each doing well. It is a happy home.&#160; It is a good marriage. They work hard.&#160; Play hard. Travel the world at their leisure. Though Ted is heavy combat and king of the hill, Sarah wears the pants in their seven figure castle.</p>
<p>“Ted, I want you to put those dishes on the third shelf,” she commands, wagging a school marm’s sassy finger.</p>
<p>“Of course, Sarah,” he replies with cloying deference. “I would love to put those dishes&#160; away.”</p>
<p>Minutes later, “And turn the heat on, Ted. It’s cold in here. You know that. Turn the heat up, now.”&#160; She speaks with the authority of one who knows but does not know.</p>
<p>Ted replies in a light-hearted abject voice, “Yes, dear, I would love to turn the heat on. There is nothing more in the world I would rather do.”&#160; But his jestful manner cloaks unseeable wounds and slaughterous feelings.</p>
<p>Mental health professionals who work with married combat vets see this behavior all too often.&#160; By ceding to nearly every spousal demand, the veteran feels he is avoiding potential conflict.&#160; Feels it is the right way to keep the relationship intact. In reality, disguising fearsome past rage most often fails. Sooner or later the conceit will collapse, the veteran’s pent up fury is revealed, the couple may split up or find themselves treading very hot water.</p>
<p>Out of Eden</p>
<p>An email from Ralph marked Urgent begins, “Had a very disturbing experience.”&#160; He tells of talking politics with Daniel.&#160; One man can hold his liquor.&#160; The other cannot.&#160; In the crowded bar, Daniel says, “Terrible mistake sending more troops to Afghanistan. Terrible…Terrible.”&#160; Nearby, two young women, beauties, says Ralph, chime in, “We were just discussing that.”&#160; The two old vets cozy up to the sweet young things to bestow their hard earned wisdom.&#160; But after a time, Daniel ignites in a burst of gin-fed slaughter. “You ever kill a teenager you didn’t even know?&#160; I mean just waste her. Grease her good. You ever do that?&#160; Forget politics, ladies! It’s all about killing!”&#160; Daniel gets loud, louder, begins to cry, patrons steal looks, the girls recoil, scramble, disappear.</p>
<p>Ralph leads Daniel outside to quiet him down but Dan is stoked. “How many confirmed kills you got?&#160; How many? You didn’t kill, you ain’t shit, my man. Ain’t shit.”</p>
<p>Ralph, a Quaker, takes the abuse, the threat of fists, then counter attacks. “You want to fight, brother? You win. Here’s a&#160; medal. How’s that?&#160; Now go fuck yourself, Dan. Got it? Go fuck yourself.”&#160; Dan calms down. The pair re-enter the bar, Dan drains his drink, then leaves.</p>
<p>“It was horrible,” says Ralph.&#160; “Was I right getting him out of there or should I have kept my mouth shut?”</p>
<p>I tell Ralph he’s a man. I tell Ralph he did the right thing at the right time in the right way.&#160; Ralph says thanks.&#160; He hopes Daniel does not do something crazy.</p>
<p>Curt Remarks</p>
<p>So it goes, as a sage once said of a certain silly pilgrim.&#160; Now a new generation has learned the language of war: every other word a carnal act, the obscenity for incest quite popular.&#160; Now a new generation steps forth to meet what is to come: spectacular car bombs, exploding humans, cheap fearsome booby traps, relentless well sprung ambushes, an endless parade of catastrophic casualties inflicted in scorching or freezing or brutal terrain. Then months or years recovering in military hospitals, or strained or broken marriages, or, killing and survival skills no longer needed, years of&#160; struggle to fit back in.&#160; A Veterans Administration rocked by scandals and occasional good news.</p>
<p>Until the stakes are too high, until the dread hits home, until the machine breaks down, until we lose our way out, say hello, then, dear America, to the long road back for the ardent upended volunteers of Obama’s Folly.</p>
<p>MARC LEVY served as an infantry medic in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970.&#160; His prose and poetry have been published in various online and print journals.Epigram taken from “He Would Tell You” first published by VVAW in The Veteran, Spring 2006 ( <a href="http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=624" type="external">http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=624</a>).An excellent news source on the Veterans Administration is VAwatchdog.org.</p>
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No Medal Jacket
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2010/02/03/no-medal-jacket/
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2010-02-03
| 4left
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No Medal Jacket
<p>Let me never tell you Things you cannot know Let me never tell you Things that won’t let go.</p>
<p>Tommy</p>
<p>Soldiers do strange things in war.&#160; After a month on patrols we sit beneath triple canopy waiting for the choppy tune we love.&#160; When three North Vietnamese troops walk down a well-used trail every American opens fire.</p>
<p>“Where’s the goddamn RTO?” shouts Tommy between lobbing hand grenades. “Where is that cocksucker?”</p>
<p>But Miller the radio-telephone man trembles behind a large tree.&#160; Standing up, the Captain and Sgt. Burke leisurely kill the foe one by one.&#160; The last to fall tumbles into a tangle of vines.&#160; Running forward, we gather round Crazy Frank who kicks the corpse, pokes it with a branch. “Fuckers don’t bleed much,” he says, giving the body one last kick.</p>
<p>When Miller, who is tall and muscular, saunters up, short thin Tommy shouts, “You pussy. You fuckin coward.”&#160; His small hands pound Miller’s broad chest. “I oughta waste you, man,” he says. “Coward. I oughta waste your fuckin ass.”</p>
<p>Miller is silent and still as the harmless blows hit their target.&#160; Then Tommy hurls a fistful of dirt into the RTO’s reddening face. “Coward,” he says. “You’re a goddam coward.”</p>
<p>Tommy will continue shouting abuse, then abruptly stop, fascinated by the trail of tears which fall like rain down the tall man’s crimson cheeks.</p>
<p>Flare Up</p>
<p>We hold a Mad Minute on a remote firebase near the Cambodian border.&#160; The intent is to frighten the enemy with a random display of firepower. We set our M16s on full automatic and pepper the wood line. We unleash spectacular bursts from machine guns and launch shoulder fired anti-tank shells.&#160; We hurl deadly baseball grenades, shoot basketball-like tracers from hand jarring .45 cal pistols.&#160; We spatter trees and clouds and sky with fifty cal machine guns.&#160; Gleefully, we smack the bottoms of hand held illumination flares that ignite the darkness to further frighten our invisible foe as we flex our prowess.</p>
<p>Mortar crews jump to the fire brigade beat of passing and launching high explosive shells that arc up at metric angles then plummet down in search of prey.&#160; Quickly, quickly, regimented heavy gun crews swivel monstrous steel cannons, energetically hoist man sized rounds, slam them into the womb-like breach, lock the submarine-like hatch, brace themselves at the recoil, watch the illegal firecracker shells burst and sparkle and pop-pop-pop.&#160; Every grunt and clerk and non infantry officer will instantly crouch as the gun crew shoot a red flare, yell, “Fire in the hole!” just before the cannon fires the deadly beehive shell whose swarming ten thousand steel darts impale men to trees.</p>
<p>As the furious minutes unfolds, even the cooks and mechanics join in. Small arms, machine guns, heavy artillery and mortars: In this willful pandemonium of roaring lead and swirling smoke and whizzing steel a man will casually walk up behind another man and shoot him in the base of his skull.&#160; The mastoid process, it’s called.</p>
<p>The next morning, policing up the million spent casings, empty ammo clips, unboxed grenades, Ray accidentally kicks a dud hand flare. The small rocket slams into his face, then soars up, leaving a faint white path.&#160; The miniature parachute deploys, the rolled magnesium strip ignites, the descending silk parasol methodically sways until the hissing flare burns itself out.</p>
<p>In his lazy Southern drawl Ray screams, “Medic!” I twist white gauze around his broken face, guide him to the tarmac, comfort him, wait for the chopper.</p>
<p>“It’s a million dollar wound. You’ll be all right. You’re going back to the World.”</p>
<p>“I sure hope so, Doc,” he says.</p>
<p>A month later, a long neat scar scoring the length of his nose, Ray continues as our machine gunner.&#160; Continues to keep the green nylon cross tucked in his helmet band to ward off death.&#160; He will survive Cambodia.&#160; Others will not.</p>
<p>Handsome Glenn</p>
<p>Midnight monsoon and the order has not yet arrived to sleep like dogs on the cold wet ground. Crack-Bang! go our claymore mines in the booby-trapped ravine. At daylight third squad slinks out to reconnoiter.&#160; From ten meters the surviving enemy open up and Bill Williams is shot.&#160; Falling, he shoots Handsome Glenn.&#160; Pinned down, we toss frags to Tommy and the work is done.&#160; Bill will die but Glenn is screaming.&#160; He is shot in both arms.&#160; He is shot in one leg. I spike Glenn with morphine. “Give me a joint, Doc.&#160; For Christ sake gimme a fuckin joint,” he yells. Someone lights the paper stick, puts it to Handsome Glenn’s quivering mouth; he takes long shaky drags until the morphine kicks in.</p>
<p>The day before, I show Glenn photographs. You mail the film to Hawaii, you get back pictures.</p>
<p>“Gimme a copy,” he says, smiling.&#160; “Doc, gimme one so’s I can send it to my girl.”</p>
<p>“Sure, man. Sure.”</p>
<p>These days, when students marvel at Glenn’s finely rippled physique, his broad voluptuous mouth, his piercing amorous eyes, they ask, “Who is that?”</p>
<p>“A good soldier,” I say.</p>
<p>A very good soldier. Who would not write back twenty-five years after the event.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Night, August</p>
<p>After three months we come in from patrols.&#160; I visit Lieutenant Nile, the officer in charge of medics.&#160; We love this fine and confident and born leader of frightened young men.</p>
<p>“Sir, I don’t know if I can take it much longer.”</p>
<p>“I’ll bring you in as soon as possible,” he says.</p>
<p>“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”</p>
<p>The evening is spent with combat medics who’ve done their time and earned safe jobs.&#160; We grill blood red steaks on a make shift stoves.&#160; Play cards, swig beer, smoke good Thai weed.&#160; On this large rear base ringed by no-man’s-land and earthworks and bunkers and guard towers and coils and coils of concertina wire, we have no fear.&#160; But someone shouts, “Incoming!” and like frightened dogs we rush to the bunker; the last man slamming its heavy door shut.&#160; Outside, the barrage of enemy shells crump and boom; skittering shrapnel pings off perforated steel plating.&#160; A rocket’s near hit seems to raise our shelter into the air.&#160; Inside, some men talk loudly, others pray or cry or huddle beneath empty canvass stretchers. When the attack is over we stumble out into the starlit night.&#160; The thrown down wounded lie everywhere.&#160; Others kick and caterwaul in the strange calligraphy of dying.&#160; A dreadful chorus lifts from this army of broken men.&#160; “Medic…Medic,” they cry out as we bind their wounds and carry them off.&#160; Lt. Nile is dead.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Killers In Action</p>
<p>It’s a strange looking dog.&#160; Half Shepherd, half Saint Bernard says the K-9 Scout.</p>
<p>The body of the beast is sleek and large and powerful, its curly hair brindled white and black. We&#160; have never used dogs but the order has been sent and we must obey.&#160; The animal heaves a great animal sigh, then hunkers next to its master.&#160; We grunts draw match sticks for guard. Two shifts, two hours each.</p>
<p>At dawn, as first squad sets out on patrol, the excited dog bounds ahead.&#160; Every thirty meters it looks back to its master.&#160; At the sound or scent of Viet Cong the well-trained animal will alert, the Americans will drop, open fire, advance.&#160; When M16s do erupt there is no enemy reply.&#160; An hour later the squad returns but something is not right. Then we see it: the dog handler covered in blood, two grunts carrying the upside down canine trussed by its feet to a bamboo pole. The limp body hit nearly one hundred times.</p>
<p>On the chopper back to base a cool wind buffets the grieving Scout’s stained pants, turning the wet cloth stiff.&#160; But the K9 handler does not move.&#160; Does not speak.&#160; Does not hear the awful swish of blood filled lungs, does not see the bullet flecked fur, or the long pink strip dangling from the slack-jawed mouth.&#160; The moment the chopper lands he sobs without mercy.</p>
<p>No Medal Jacket</p>
<p>Very early one morning, on a well used trail, five claymores, set to explode by trip wire, blow up.&#160; With the blinding flash and deafening roar the agony howls begin.&#160; Then a wild stampede and rifle shots to draw us out but we do not return fire. Over the hours the wounded die slowly; their unbearable screams yielding to child-like moans, to puppy-like yelps, guttural bird calls, then nothing.</p>
<p>Two platoons march out to recon.&#160; A dead man, eyes still open, sits on a tree stump.&#160; A rusty timber saw girds his waist.&#160; Seven others lie sprawled where they fell.&#160; Each is punctured head-to-toe by 1/8 inch steel balls, hurled with the force of dynamite.&#160; Lieutenant Gill walks up to the lone survivor, who is badly wounded. “Chieu Hoi!” he shouts.&#160; But the brave man will not give up and lifts his AK in a last bid for life.&#160; Point blank the lieutenant wastes him; BBBRRRRAAAPPP.&#160; Next the machine-gunner and two platoons open up.&#160; When the smoke clears the brave man is decapitated.&#160; His brains spattered over the girl next to him.</p>
<p>We sit down. Lt. Gill grips his jaw, shows me his cracked tooth.&#160; “Purple Heart?” he asks. “Doc, you gonna put me in for a Purple Heart?”</p>
<p>“Are you shitting me, sir? Are you shitting me?&#160; It’s just skull fragments from the dead dink. You didn’t get shot. You didn’t get hit.&#160; No way I’m putting you in for a medal, sir. No fuckin way.”</p>
<p>&#160; *&#160;&#160; *&#160;&#160; *</p>
<p>Cheers</p>
<p>Men do strange things&#160; after war.&#160; At the posh restaurant the young maitre d’ guides us to our&#160; table.&#160; Amidst the clink of polished silverware, the plush skid of porcelain on white linen, the ambient chatter of fellow gourmands, Merrick, whose once black hair is now ghost white, tells the story.&#160; On patrol, a new lieutenant orders him thirty meters past the right flank.&#160; Concealed enemy soldiers cut Merrick down.&#160; As the Viet Cong rush forward to finish him off he screams for help.&#160; Afterward, waiting for the medivac, Merrick delves into his ruck with his good hand.&#160; “Here,” he says. “Don’t want to get caught with this shit.” Someone takes the half key of dope; the chopper arrives and Merrick is gone.</p>
<p>“Cheers,” he says,&#160; raising aloft a glass of fifty-dollar wine. Then he curses the officer.&#160; Loudly&#160; curses the whole damn war.&#160; Nearby well dressed diners too politely clear their throats; they glare at us as if we have trespassed on sacred ground or spit on foreign land.</p>
<p>“The hell you looking at?” scowls Merrick, turning his head from side to side. “Yeah, you, asshole. The hell you looking at?” Our smiling waitress brings the check.</p>
<p>We drive to Merrick’s black-painted, two-storey custom built home and sit cross-legged on the comforting porch.&#160; Merrick has just read aloud his VA service-connected-disability letter.</p>
<p>“Can you believe those scum bags?” he scowls.&#160; Because Merrick is ever anxious, depressed, annoyingly vigilant, eternally angry, the softer emotions in short supply.&#160; “Purple Heart, Bronze Star, a shit load of PTSD and this is what I get?”&#160; He tears the letter in half.&#160; “The hell with their bullshit ten percent rating.&#160; C’mon, Doc. Got something to show you,” he says.</p>
<p>In the center of the immaculate garage stands a blazing red Harley Chopper, the perfect simulacrum for the demons which drive him.</p>
<p>“Hop on,” says Merrick.&#160; “Let’s go for a ride.”</p>
<p>We cruise fifty miles an hour down long back roads, lean and dip into wide, sweeping turns.&#160; “Yeah, baby! Yeah!” shouts Merrick, as he guns the engine. The greater the risk, the greater the rush.</p>
<p>Later, while Merrick tunes the engine, I sit with his lovely wife and quarterback son in a living room filled with costly furniture, tranquil paintings, tropical plants, plush carpets.&#160; We are overly pleasant. We counterfeit small talk. In this unblemished house with nary a speck of dust or drop of blood the war is nowhere and everywhere and the three of us know it and avoid any hint of an ambush.</p>
<p>At night; a light rain falls over the high school playing field.&#160; Merrick’s son does well.&#160; At half time his father constantly spits, as if trying to rid a permanent bad taste lodged deep in his mouth.&#160; From his coat pocket Merrick plucks a matchbox taken from the restaurant, and strikes a match across the flint.&#160; Its small blue tip releases a bantam fury, which spools a thin gray mist when he tosses it high into the air. The empty look on his face is the same in the war photo I gave to his wife. “What happened to him?” she asks.&#160; “Why is he like that?” And I tell her things knowing I should not tell her what she will never understand.</p>
<p>Love</p>
<p>Joseph says Sylvie is the best screw he’s ever had and Joseph has made love to five hundred women.&#160; She likes it this way, she likes it that like that, she likes toys and talking dirty too.&#160; Joseph says Sylvie has no shame.&#160; She loves sex, she’ll do anything, anytime, anywhere.&#160; Just do it. Do it. Do it.</p>
<p>One night, after a raging bout of love Sylvie asks Joseph, “Can you take care of yourself?”&#160; “I think so, says Joseph.&#160; “What’s up?”&#160; Sylvie says, “My ex-boyfriend.&#160; He’s jealous.&#160; Can you fight if you need to?”</p>
<p>Joseph, a two tour Ranger who walked point and crawled tunnels tells Sylvie things he did in Vietnam. He mimics bare handed killing techniques, mimes the art of stuffing rags down unsuspecting throats, recalls the science of drowning desperate men ever so slowly.&#160; Then tells her of years spent in prison after the war.&#160; Describes the crime of Lewisburg. The hell of solitary. The ever present sadistic guards, cell blocks populated with psychos and punks, the culture of gangs, the need for self-preservation.&#160; The merciless lead pipe beating he gave two inmates who tried to rip him off.&#160; He says Sylvie freaked out.&#160; Really freaked out.&#160; “Who…who are you?” she stuttered.&#160; “Is there anything you haven’t done?”&#160; Until he calms her down, tells her he made it all up, Sylvie, who loves good sex, will do it, do it, do it, anytime, anywhere, shakes uncontrollably with fear.</p>
<p>One day Joseph asks, “What was that about?”&#160; When I tell him he’s done things beyond the range of normal human experience, things Sylvie couldn’t imagine, things that would terrify tough New York city cops, hardened medical examiners, even hardcore Viet Cong, Joseph, an extremely bright, honest and compassionate man says with complete sang froid, “You know, I never thought of that.”</p>
<p>Seeing Red</p>
<p>After the ambush Michael is lifted onto the chopper. Twenty-seven years later we hunt ground hogs, holding our twenty-two caliber rifles at the hip. Michael walks first through the muddy meadow.&#160; It’s bone cold wet and there’s nothing to kill because Michael has killed them all. In the distance, two large chimneys belch thick smoke.&#160; With a branch I scratch a portrait in the mud, Michael takes the photo: a man with a rifle flanked by two nuclear smoke stacks on the horizon.</p>
<p>“It’s the perfect holiday card.&#160; ‘Merry Christmas, Motherfuckers!’ ”</p>
<p>“You’d never send that out!” says Michael.</p>
<p>“Wanna bet?”</p>
<p>We laugh, then return to his truck.</p>
<p>Late at night I ask about Red, the transfer from another division. “Your squad had patrol. We heard the shooting. Red was shot in the arms, the legs, the belly.&#160; No one else hit. You remember?”</p>
<p>Michael is not the silent type. Not one to brood or hold a grudge.&#160; But the seconds tick past and he gives me a look that is not pleasant.</p>
<p>“Don’t want to talk about it,” he growls.&#160; “Let’s change the subject.”</p>
<p>Clarity arrives when you least expect it.</p>
<p>“Who shot him, Michael?&#160; Who really shot him?” The tone in my voice tells him the secret is safe. Tells him, ‘Get the monkey off your back, bro. You talk, I’ll listen. C’mon, I was the medic.&#160; I cared for my men.&#160; Always did.&#160; Always will.’</p>
<p>Michael leans back in his Lay-Z-Boy recliner.&#160; He shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, locks both hands behind his head. A moment later he sits straight up; his voice is low, methodical, murderous.</p>
<p>“Twice we told that boy, ‘We are not your shit ass old unit. We get hit, we don’t hang back; you move your ass up. There is no next time, bud. You move up. You got that? You move up.”</p>
<p>There is absolute rage in Michael’s eyes.&#160; And behind that guilt and sorrow.&#160; “So we get hit, he don’t move and…”</p>
<p>No need to hunt for words.&#160; They come quick and easy.</p>
<p>“You did the right thing, Michael.&#160; I would have done the same.&#160; He deserved it. He really did.”</p>
<p>Ted and Sarah</p>
<p>Grenade. Harvard. Princeton.&#160; A lucrative career in finance.&#160; Fit and spry at six-foot-three, Ted is affable, jocular, his understated self-assurance a mark of highly intelligent people. The first wife of Asian descent.&#160; The second a local girl, perhaps five-two, a bit on the plump side. Ted and Sarah have three grown children each doing well. It is a happy home.&#160; It is a good marriage. They work hard.&#160; Play hard. Travel the world at their leisure. Though Ted is heavy combat and king of the hill, Sarah wears the pants in their seven figure castle.</p>
<p>“Ted, I want you to put those dishes on the third shelf,” she commands, wagging a school marm’s sassy finger.</p>
<p>“Of course, Sarah,” he replies with cloying deference. “I would love to put those dishes&#160; away.”</p>
<p>Minutes later, “And turn the heat on, Ted. It’s cold in here. You know that. Turn the heat up, now.”&#160; She speaks with the authority of one who knows but does not know.</p>
<p>Ted replies in a light-hearted abject voice, “Yes, dear, I would love to turn the heat on. There is nothing more in the world I would rather do.”&#160; But his jestful manner cloaks unseeable wounds and slaughterous feelings.</p>
<p>Mental health professionals who work with married combat vets see this behavior all too often.&#160; By ceding to nearly every spousal demand, the veteran feels he is avoiding potential conflict.&#160; Feels it is the right way to keep the relationship intact. In reality, disguising fearsome past rage most often fails. Sooner or later the conceit will collapse, the veteran’s pent up fury is revealed, the couple may split up or find themselves treading very hot water.</p>
<p>Out of Eden</p>
<p>An email from Ralph marked Urgent begins, “Had a very disturbing experience.”&#160; He tells of talking politics with Daniel.&#160; One man can hold his liquor.&#160; The other cannot.&#160; In the crowded bar, Daniel says, “Terrible mistake sending more troops to Afghanistan. Terrible…Terrible.”&#160; Nearby, two young women, beauties, says Ralph, chime in, “We were just discussing that.”&#160; The two old vets cozy up to the sweet young things to bestow their hard earned wisdom.&#160; But after a time, Daniel ignites in a burst of gin-fed slaughter. “You ever kill a teenager you didn’t even know?&#160; I mean just waste her. Grease her good. You ever do that?&#160; Forget politics, ladies! It’s all about killing!”&#160; Daniel gets loud, louder, begins to cry, patrons steal looks, the girls recoil, scramble, disappear.</p>
<p>Ralph leads Daniel outside to quiet him down but Dan is stoked. “How many confirmed kills you got?&#160; How many? You didn’t kill, you ain’t shit, my man. Ain’t shit.”</p>
<p>Ralph, a Quaker, takes the abuse, the threat of fists, then counter attacks. “You want to fight, brother? You win. Here’s a&#160; medal. How’s that?&#160; Now go fuck yourself, Dan. Got it? Go fuck yourself.”&#160; Dan calms down. The pair re-enter the bar, Dan drains his drink, then leaves.</p>
<p>“It was horrible,” says Ralph.&#160; “Was I right getting him out of there or should I have kept my mouth shut?”</p>
<p>I tell Ralph he’s a man. I tell Ralph he did the right thing at the right time in the right way.&#160; Ralph says thanks.&#160; He hopes Daniel does not do something crazy.</p>
<p>Curt Remarks</p>
<p>So it goes, as a sage once said of a certain silly pilgrim.&#160; Now a new generation has learned the language of war: every other word a carnal act, the obscenity for incest quite popular.&#160; Now a new generation steps forth to meet what is to come: spectacular car bombs, exploding humans, cheap fearsome booby traps, relentless well sprung ambushes, an endless parade of catastrophic casualties inflicted in scorching or freezing or brutal terrain. Then months or years recovering in military hospitals, or strained or broken marriages, or, killing and survival skills no longer needed, years of&#160; struggle to fit back in.&#160; A Veterans Administration rocked by scandals and occasional good news.</p>
<p>Until the stakes are too high, until the dread hits home, until the machine breaks down, until we lose our way out, say hello, then, dear America, to the long road back for the ardent upended volunteers of Obama’s Folly.</p>
<p>MARC LEVY served as an infantry medic in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970.&#160; His prose and poetry have been published in various online and print journals.Epigram taken from “He Would Tell You” first published by VVAW in The Veteran, Spring 2006 ( <a href="http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=624" type="external">http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=624</a>).An excellent news source on the Veterans Administration is VAwatchdog.org.</p>
| 6,333 |
<p>As frequent contributors of articles related to the Bush Administration’s war on liberty and sanity, you, our readers, often ask us, “But what can we do about it?” Indeed, after all the hand wringing and dire prognostications, we cannot let history repeat itself and sit idly by while Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft hijack our country. Make no mistake–the hijacking has already occurred. They have co-opted patriotism for themselves, daring those who oppose them–on any count–to speak up and be branded a traitor. They have convinced 75 percent of the American people (although I personally don’t know one of them) that the invasion of Iraq and was necessary and proper. They have convinced almost all of Congress that endless erosions of civil liberties and respect for privacy must all be sacrificed in the name of national security. They have convinced most federal judges that we are “at war,” and in a time of war, the judiciary cedes power to the executive branch.</p>
<p>This is a “rhetoric of exclusion,” wherein anyone who disagrees with the Bush line is branded, as we said earlier, as a traitor, so the majority of our nation is afraid to speak out–so that task, of preserving our First Amendment rights and our democracy falls to all of us who have the vision to see what must be done to preserve our nation.</p>
<p>All this began, not with September 11, but with the hijacking of the 2000 presidential election. But September 11 provided the spark the Bush needed to take his presidency from mediocrity to mendacity. By now, everyone, even the right-wing admits this, that the behavior of the Bush administration is based on a document published years earlier, THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY (you will find copies on various web sites). Every day new “threats,” morphed from half-truths and lies give rise to new terrors. The treat from Iraq of weapons of mass destruction was but the most recent foray into fiction. Phony or misinterpreted intelligence reports lie in the wake of the U.S. giving up on finding those threats to our safety that supposedly led us to invade Iraq in the first place.</p>
<p>How do you fight lies? How do you take back patriotism? What can you do to save yourself and this country?</p>
<p>Here are several ideas.</p>
<p>Becoming Informed</p>
<p>1. Don’t rely on the national newspapers or National Public Radio or Public Broadcasting Service for your news. You can pay attention to these sources, but seek verification and alternative viewpoints. The British Broadcasting Company, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, as well as Arab world sources like Al Ahram and Al Jazeera are sources of differing perspectives on international news. If you listened to the BBC or CBC as well as CNN and CBS you would have wondered if they were talking about the same war. Online versions of UK’s The Guardian, The Independent, and Times Online are excellent sources of news. The U.S. magazine, The Progressive, has an excellent web site that includes action alerts (see below).</p>
<p>2. Sign up for news services related to issues pertaining Bush’s war against America. For instance, the New York Times allows you to pick topics , such as “civil liberties,” “John Ashcroft,” and the “war in Iraq.” When these topics are the focus of articles, you will receive a link to the article in your email. Box.</p>
<p>3. When you read something you find useful, pass it on. If possible, make copies and put them in public places where others may pick them up and pass them further on.</p>
<p>4. Read history. We are finding it useful to read books on the Third Reich and fascism. Others have suggested books on Andrew Jackson, whom Bush seems to be emulating. Read about the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Read and weep how the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned their internment in prison camps and would do so again today, without question.</p>
<p>Effecting the Political Process</p>
<p>1. First, remember that all politics is local. Your most forceful contribution will be at the level of your local town council or board of supervisors. Run for office. Attend meetings. Introduce resolutions condemning things like the USA Patriot Act and the war on Iraq. Dozens of localities have done just that.</p>
<p>2. At the state level, watch what your legislators are doing. Most are ignorant that many states are passing laws that mirror provisions of the Patriot Act, to allow state officials to conduct what were once unlawful searches of homes and computers. You would be amazed at how many people don’t know what the Patriot Act is, let alone what it does. And most people are clueless about the laws their state legislatures are passing.</p>
<p>3. At the federal level, don’t miss any opportunity to meet with your congressional representatives when they are in their home district. Let them know that you won’t vote for them if they don’t vote for America.</p>
<p>4. Don’t wait to be told by someone else what laws are pending. Read a national newspaper or check in at <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/" type="external">www.thomas.gov</a> at least weekly to find out what pending laws are. You probably know by now that some of the more outrageous laws are hidden in appropriation bills. There is no substitute for reading the legislation. It may be tedious, but not half a tedious as having Ashcroft read your email.</p>
<p>5. Sign up for alerts from organizations that target congress when important bills are pending. The ACLU, People for the American Way, and &lt;moveon.org&gt; have places where you can sign up. You will receive emails instructing you how to fax and email your congressional delegates. These may not get the results you want, but you will hear from them. And don’t be frightened just because the USA Patriot Act suggests that lobbying to effect legislation may itself be an act of terror (we told you to read the Patriot Act!).</p>
<p>6. Run for local, state, or federal office.</p>
<p>Community Level Action</p>
<p>1. Join, be active, and speak out in community and professional organizations. Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Clubs, are just a few of the opportunities to be involved. These and other types of organizations are always on the look out for speakers. You might be a speaker or you might get someone who is knowledgeable about the topic, even a sympathetic congressperson, to speak to your group.</p>
<p>2. Be active in your professional organizations–doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals all have local and state professional organizations that have political clout. Help move your organization toward activism in the name of liberty.</p>
<p>3. Write concise, impassioned letters to the editor of your local paper that is responsive to articles (it goes without saying that you can do very little to reclaim the country if you do not know what is going on). It may take a few times to get a letter in, but you will eventually succeed. Carefully follow the paper’s protocol for submission of articles. Missing one step will end your letter in the trash can or “deleted” file. If this doesn’t work, organize your group and make an appointment to see the Letters to the Editor section of your local and/or regional newspapers so that you may have an interactive learning and response situation that may lead to more of your group’s letters being published (your numbers will tell them that you are a serious force in the community–and if your numbers are small, just inflate them a bit, the way political organizations and pollsters do all the time!)</p>
<p>4. Call in local and national talk shows. NPR’s talk shows at least are amenable to some type of dissenting viewpoint. If not, organize your group and let them write and/or call in and say that if they don’t balance things out, you’ll either picket and/or stop sending them funds and ask your friends to do the same (some people are doing this in the San Diego area at this time because of what they perceive to be a Republican bias in their interviews on talk shows).</p>
<p>5. Attend marches and political rallies, and organize some of your own if necessary; you’ll find all kinds of anti-war, anti-fascism groups alive and well in America in this time, the largest number since the Viet Nam war, both in the cities and on the college campus’.</p>
<p>6. Respond to television, website, and radio stations that are taking polls on issues; if necessary, call in or email in more than once so that you compensate for the right-wing groups that are doing this regularly.</p>
<p>7. If you are good at writing, and recognized locally, write and submit op-eds to the local newspapers. These need to be short (500-700 words), factually accurate, precisely written, and devoid of diatribe. You can be passionate with propriety.</p>
<p>These are just a few suggestions to get you going. We are sure you can think of more, and as you do, please send email to us and we will compile your suggestions and update the roadmap for resistance.</p>
<p>Sam Hamod is an expert on world affairs, especially the Arab and Muslim worlds, former editor of THIRD WORLD NEWS (in Wash, DC), a former professor at Princeton University, former Director of The National Islamic Center of Washington, DC, an advisor to the US State Department and author of ISLAM IN THE WORLD TODAY. He is the editor of <a href="http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/" type="external">www.todaysalternativenews.com</a>, and may be reached at <a href="maiilto:/[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>He is also a poet, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 and the author of 10 books of poems.</p>
<p>Elaine Cassel teaches law and psychology and practices law in the District of Columbia and Virginia. She is a contributor to CounterPunch and &lt;Findlaw.com&gt;’s Writ, and keeps a watch on the Bush Administration’s rewriting of the Bill of Rights on her <a href="" type="internal">Civil Liberties Watch site hosted by Minneapolis, Minnesota’s City Pages</a>. Cassel can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Resisting the Bush Administration’s War on Liberty
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2003/05/10/resisting-the-bush-administration-s-war-on-liberty/
|
2003-05-10
| 4left
|
Resisting the Bush Administration’s War on Liberty
<p>As frequent contributors of articles related to the Bush Administration’s war on liberty and sanity, you, our readers, often ask us, “But what can we do about it?” Indeed, after all the hand wringing and dire prognostications, we cannot let history repeat itself and sit idly by while Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft hijack our country. Make no mistake–the hijacking has already occurred. They have co-opted patriotism for themselves, daring those who oppose them–on any count–to speak up and be branded a traitor. They have convinced 75 percent of the American people (although I personally don’t know one of them) that the invasion of Iraq and was necessary and proper. They have convinced almost all of Congress that endless erosions of civil liberties and respect for privacy must all be sacrificed in the name of national security. They have convinced most federal judges that we are “at war,” and in a time of war, the judiciary cedes power to the executive branch.</p>
<p>This is a “rhetoric of exclusion,” wherein anyone who disagrees with the Bush line is branded, as we said earlier, as a traitor, so the majority of our nation is afraid to speak out–so that task, of preserving our First Amendment rights and our democracy falls to all of us who have the vision to see what must be done to preserve our nation.</p>
<p>All this began, not with September 11, but with the hijacking of the 2000 presidential election. But September 11 provided the spark the Bush needed to take his presidency from mediocrity to mendacity. By now, everyone, even the right-wing admits this, that the behavior of the Bush administration is based on a document published years earlier, THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY (you will find copies on various web sites). Every day new “threats,” morphed from half-truths and lies give rise to new terrors. The treat from Iraq of weapons of mass destruction was but the most recent foray into fiction. Phony or misinterpreted intelligence reports lie in the wake of the U.S. giving up on finding those threats to our safety that supposedly led us to invade Iraq in the first place.</p>
<p>How do you fight lies? How do you take back patriotism? What can you do to save yourself and this country?</p>
<p>Here are several ideas.</p>
<p>Becoming Informed</p>
<p>1. Don’t rely on the national newspapers or National Public Radio or Public Broadcasting Service for your news. You can pay attention to these sources, but seek verification and alternative viewpoints. The British Broadcasting Company, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, as well as Arab world sources like Al Ahram and Al Jazeera are sources of differing perspectives on international news. If you listened to the BBC or CBC as well as CNN and CBS you would have wondered if they were talking about the same war. Online versions of UK’s The Guardian, The Independent, and Times Online are excellent sources of news. The U.S. magazine, The Progressive, has an excellent web site that includes action alerts (see below).</p>
<p>2. Sign up for news services related to issues pertaining Bush’s war against America. For instance, the New York Times allows you to pick topics , such as “civil liberties,” “John Ashcroft,” and the “war in Iraq.” When these topics are the focus of articles, you will receive a link to the article in your email. Box.</p>
<p>3. When you read something you find useful, pass it on. If possible, make copies and put them in public places where others may pick them up and pass them further on.</p>
<p>4. Read history. We are finding it useful to read books on the Third Reich and fascism. Others have suggested books on Andrew Jackson, whom Bush seems to be emulating. Read about the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Read and weep how the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned their internment in prison camps and would do so again today, without question.</p>
<p>Effecting the Political Process</p>
<p>1. First, remember that all politics is local. Your most forceful contribution will be at the level of your local town council or board of supervisors. Run for office. Attend meetings. Introduce resolutions condemning things like the USA Patriot Act and the war on Iraq. Dozens of localities have done just that.</p>
<p>2. At the state level, watch what your legislators are doing. Most are ignorant that many states are passing laws that mirror provisions of the Patriot Act, to allow state officials to conduct what were once unlawful searches of homes and computers. You would be amazed at how many people don’t know what the Patriot Act is, let alone what it does. And most people are clueless about the laws their state legislatures are passing.</p>
<p>3. At the federal level, don’t miss any opportunity to meet with your congressional representatives when they are in their home district. Let them know that you won’t vote for them if they don’t vote for America.</p>
<p>4. Don’t wait to be told by someone else what laws are pending. Read a national newspaper or check in at <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/" type="external">www.thomas.gov</a> at least weekly to find out what pending laws are. You probably know by now that some of the more outrageous laws are hidden in appropriation bills. There is no substitute for reading the legislation. It may be tedious, but not half a tedious as having Ashcroft read your email.</p>
<p>5. Sign up for alerts from organizations that target congress when important bills are pending. The ACLU, People for the American Way, and &lt;moveon.org&gt; have places where you can sign up. You will receive emails instructing you how to fax and email your congressional delegates. These may not get the results you want, but you will hear from them. And don’t be frightened just because the USA Patriot Act suggests that lobbying to effect legislation may itself be an act of terror (we told you to read the Patriot Act!).</p>
<p>6. Run for local, state, or federal office.</p>
<p>Community Level Action</p>
<p>1. Join, be active, and speak out in community and professional organizations. Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Clubs, are just a few of the opportunities to be involved. These and other types of organizations are always on the look out for speakers. You might be a speaker or you might get someone who is knowledgeable about the topic, even a sympathetic congressperson, to speak to your group.</p>
<p>2. Be active in your professional organizations–doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals all have local and state professional organizations that have political clout. Help move your organization toward activism in the name of liberty.</p>
<p>3. Write concise, impassioned letters to the editor of your local paper that is responsive to articles (it goes without saying that you can do very little to reclaim the country if you do not know what is going on). It may take a few times to get a letter in, but you will eventually succeed. Carefully follow the paper’s protocol for submission of articles. Missing one step will end your letter in the trash can or “deleted” file. If this doesn’t work, organize your group and make an appointment to see the Letters to the Editor section of your local and/or regional newspapers so that you may have an interactive learning and response situation that may lead to more of your group’s letters being published (your numbers will tell them that you are a serious force in the community–and if your numbers are small, just inflate them a bit, the way political organizations and pollsters do all the time!)</p>
<p>4. Call in local and national talk shows. NPR’s talk shows at least are amenable to some type of dissenting viewpoint. If not, organize your group and let them write and/or call in and say that if they don’t balance things out, you’ll either picket and/or stop sending them funds and ask your friends to do the same (some people are doing this in the San Diego area at this time because of what they perceive to be a Republican bias in their interviews on talk shows).</p>
<p>5. Attend marches and political rallies, and organize some of your own if necessary; you’ll find all kinds of anti-war, anti-fascism groups alive and well in America in this time, the largest number since the Viet Nam war, both in the cities and on the college campus’.</p>
<p>6. Respond to television, website, and radio stations that are taking polls on issues; if necessary, call in or email in more than once so that you compensate for the right-wing groups that are doing this regularly.</p>
<p>7. If you are good at writing, and recognized locally, write and submit op-eds to the local newspapers. These need to be short (500-700 words), factually accurate, precisely written, and devoid of diatribe. You can be passionate with propriety.</p>
<p>These are just a few suggestions to get you going. We are sure you can think of more, and as you do, please send email to us and we will compile your suggestions and update the roadmap for resistance.</p>
<p>Sam Hamod is an expert on world affairs, especially the Arab and Muslim worlds, former editor of THIRD WORLD NEWS (in Wash, DC), a former professor at Princeton University, former Director of The National Islamic Center of Washington, DC, an advisor to the US State Department and author of ISLAM IN THE WORLD TODAY. He is the editor of <a href="http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/" type="external">www.todaysalternativenews.com</a>, and may be reached at <a href="maiilto:/[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>He is also a poet, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 and the author of 10 books of poems.</p>
<p>Elaine Cassel teaches law and psychology and practices law in the District of Columbia and Virginia. She is a contributor to CounterPunch and &lt;Findlaw.com&gt;’s Writ, and keeps a watch on the Bush Administration’s rewriting of the Bill of Rights on her <a href="" type="internal">Civil Liberties Watch site hosted by Minneapolis, Minnesota’s City Pages</a>. Cassel can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 6,334 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>BEIJING — Asian stock markets were mixed Wednesday after U.S. indexes took small losses as Washington and North Korea indicated their willingness to reduce nuclear tensions.</p>
<p>KEEPING SCORE: The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4 percent to 3,239.30 points and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was unchanged at 19,753.70. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.5 percent to 27,309.20 and Sydney’s S&amp;P-ASX 200 shed 0.2 percent to 5,745.20. Seoul’s Kospi advanced 0.6 percent and benchmarks in New Zealand, Malaysia and Jakarta also rose. Taiwan, Singapore and Manila retreated.</p>
<p>WALL STREET: U.S. indexes took small losses as weak results from sporting goods and auto parts retailers left smaller companies with steep declines. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Advance Auto Parts both disclosed disappointing second-quarter results and cut their annual forecasts. The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index lost less than 0.1 percent to 2,464.61. The Dow Jones industrial average picked up 5.28 points to 21,998.99. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent to 6,333.01.</p>
<p>NORTH KOREA: North Korea’s military presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam even as both Koreas and the United States suggested a path toward negotiations to ease nuclear tensions. Kim said he would watch U.S. conduct a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test. Kim’s tone hinted the friction could ease if the U.S. offered a gesture Pyongyang sees as a step back from “reckless actions.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged North Korea to commit to talks. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, said Washington wants to resolve tensions peacefully but is ready to use its military capabilities.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>ANALYST’S TAKE: “The impact of geopolitical tensions on the stock markets has proven once again to be impulsive and short lived. Global equities switched back to ‘risk-on’ mode, with investors taking their cues from Washington claiming to pursue a political resolution of the North Korea threat,” said Margaret Yang Yan of CMC in a report. She noted stronger month-on-month retail sales growth and rising expectations of a December interest rate hike. “Investors are taking advantage of the technical pullback as re-entry opportunities are resulting in a relief rebound in risky assets, and a retracing in safe-haven assets.”</p>
<p>ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 19 cents to $47.74 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost 4 cents on Tuesday to close at $47.55. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 24 cents to $51.04 in London. It added 7 cents on Tuesday to close at $50.80.</p>
<p>CURRENCY: The edged up to 110.67 yen from Tuesday’s 110.66 yen. The euro was little-changed at $1.1737.</p>
|
Asian shares mixed after US indexes take small losses
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1048289/us-stocks-start-lower-as-retailers-take-early-losses.html
|
2017-08-15
| 2least
|
Asian shares mixed after US indexes take small losses
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>BEIJING — Asian stock markets were mixed Wednesday after U.S. indexes took small losses as Washington and North Korea indicated their willingness to reduce nuclear tensions.</p>
<p>KEEPING SCORE: The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4 percent to 3,239.30 points and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was unchanged at 19,753.70. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.5 percent to 27,309.20 and Sydney’s S&amp;P-ASX 200 shed 0.2 percent to 5,745.20. Seoul’s Kospi advanced 0.6 percent and benchmarks in New Zealand, Malaysia and Jakarta also rose. Taiwan, Singapore and Manila retreated.</p>
<p>WALL STREET: U.S. indexes took small losses as weak results from sporting goods and auto parts retailers left smaller companies with steep declines. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Advance Auto Parts both disclosed disappointing second-quarter results and cut their annual forecasts. The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index lost less than 0.1 percent to 2,464.61. The Dow Jones industrial average picked up 5.28 points to 21,998.99. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent to 6,333.01.</p>
<p>NORTH KOREA: North Korea’s military presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam even as both Koreas and the United States suggested a path toward negotiations to ease nuclear tensions. Kim said he would watch U.S. conduct a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test. Kim’s tone hinted the friction could ease if the U.S. offered a gesture Pyongyang sees as a step back from “reckless actions.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged North Korea to commit to talks. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, said Washington wants to resolve tensions peacefully but is ready to use its military capabilities.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>ANALYST’S TAKE: “The impact of geopolitical tensions on the stock markets has proven once again to be impulsive and short lived. Global equities switched back to ‘risk-on’ mode, with investors taking their cues from Washington claiming to pursue a political resolution of the North Korea threat,” said Margaret Yang Yan of CMC in a report. She noted stronger month-on-month retail sales growth and rising expectations of a December interest rate hike. “Investors are taking advantage of the technical pullback as re-entry opportunities are resulting in a relief rebound in risky assets, and a retracing in safe-haven assets.”</p>
<p>ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 19 cents to $47.74 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost 4 cents on Tuesday to close at $47.55. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 24 cents to $51.04 in London. It added 7 cents on Tuesday to close at $50.80.</p>
<p>CURRENCY: The edged up to 110.67 yen from Tuesday’s 110.66 yen. The euro was little-changed at $1.1737.</p>
| 6,335 |
<p>By <a href="http://healthoverprofit.org/2017/03/28/why-this-isnt-the-time-for-a-public-option-or-medicare-for-some/" type="external">Margaret Flowers / Health Over Profit for Everyone</a></p>
<p>This has been a tumultuous week for health care reform. First, there was the pleasantly quick defeat of the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon. Then, that evening, Sen. Sanders spoke at a town hall in Vermont with Sen. Pat Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch where he announced that he would introduce a Medicare for All bill. Medicare for All and Bernie supporters lit up social media with their excitement over the announcement. This should have been great news, but it wasn’t exactly.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, more information was revealed in a series of interviews with Sen. Sanders. Sunday, he said on CNN that single-payer legislation wouldn’t have the votes, so the first priority will be to improve the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a public insurance, called a public option, and possibly lowering the age of Medicare eligibility to 55.</p>
<p>READ: <a href="" type="internal">Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All Plan</a></p>
<p />
<p>There are a number of reasons why this isn’t the time for tinkering with the ACA. We have a health care crisis now and the means to solve it. The ACA is fundamentally flawed and cannot be tweaked into a universal program. And Sanders’ proposals are exactly the same ones used in 2008-10 to divide and weaken the movement for National Improved Medicare for All. We can’t be fooled into going down that path again.</p>
<p>The Current Crisis and its Solution</p>
<p>Right now in the United States, almost 30 million people have no health insurance. On top of that, tens of millions of people who have health insurance can’t afford health care. When people experience a serious accident or illness, they face a stark choice: seek care and risk financial ruin or go without it and risk disability or death. Hundreds of thousands of families go bankrupt each year due to medical illness, and an estimated 29,000 people die each year due to lack of access to care.</p>
<p>Think about how the country galvanized when 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on 9/11 or when the 2,000th soldier was killed in Iraq, but that amount of death happens ten times a year or more in the U.S., and we hardly hear a peep of outrage.</p>
<p>Health outcomes in the United States are not very good. A <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2017/february/why-is-life-expectancy-worse-in-the-united-states" type="external">recent study found</a>:</p>
<p>“Notable among poor-performing countries is the USA, whose life expectancy at birth is already lower than most other high-income countries, and is projected to fall further behind such that its 2030 life expectancy at birth might be similar to the Czech Republic for men, and Croatia and Mexico for women. The USA has the highest child and maternal mortality, homicide rate, and body-mass index of any high-income country, and was the first of high-income countries to experience a halt or possibly reversal of increase in height in adulthood, which is associated with higher longevity. The USA is also the only country in the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] without universal health coverage, and has the largest share of unmet health-care needs due to financial costs.”</p>
<p>Yet, of all of the industrialized nations, the United States spends the most per person on health care, in some cases double the amount, and those countries cover everyone. We are already paying for universal comprehensive health coverage, but we aren’t getting it because the bottom line of the system in the U.S. is profits for a few rather than health for all.</p>
<p>The U.S. has the most complex and heavily bureaucratic system in the world because it is a market-based system with a few public programs to try to fill in the gaps. A third of our health care dollar goes to administration for the hundreds of different insurance plans with their differing coverage, networks and rules. And we pay the highest prices, by far, for health services and pharmaceuticals because there is no rational system to set a fair price.</p>
<p>To begin to solve the health care crisis in the U.S., we need a system that is based on health and the money to pay for it. The proven solution is a universal not-for-profit, publicly-funded system that provides all medically-necessary care. House Resolution 676: “The Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act,” which has 72 co-sponsors, is the model for that system. This would address the fundamental causes of the health care crisis.</p>
<p>READ: <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676" type="external">House Resolution 676: Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act</a></p>
<p>The good news is that not only do we have the money to pay for this system, but there is also widespread support for it. For decades many independent polls have shown more than 60 percent support by the general public, plus more than 80 percent support by Democratic Party voters, rapidly growing support by Republicans who earn under $75,000 and majority support by health professionals.</p>
<p>Why a Public Option and Medicare for Some Plans Will Fail</p>
<p>Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, had an <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/bannon-health-care-bill.html" type="external">interesting statement in the New York Magazine</a> recently. He criticized the Republican’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) because it was “written by the insurance industry.” That same criticism can be made of the Democrat’s ACA, which was basically written by Liz Fowler, a former executive for WellPoint. She also oversaw the regulations’ process.</p>
<p>The ACA is fundamentally flawed because it treats health care as a commodity, not a public necessity. It has achieved the best that it can do, and similar to other attempts at the state level that don’t address the roots of the crisis, it is starting to deteriorate with stagnant coverage and rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs.</p>
<p>Attempts to improve the ACA with a public insurance or Medicare for some will bring coverage to a few more, but they will similarly fail over time because they will not change the system or control health care costs.</p>
<p>Sen. Sanders and others are pushing a public option. This would be a public insurance that people could choose instead of private insurance. It sounds good in theory but has not worked in practice because it draws the sickest patients and struggles to cover their care while keeping premiums and out-of-pocket costs affordable. Private insurers are experts at attracting the healthiest enrollees. In fact, <a href="https://popularresistance.org/newsletter-dont-be-fooled-by-profiteers-option/" type="external">I have argued</a> that a public insurance is just what the private insurers want (though they are unlikely to admit it) because it serves as a relief valve to take sick people off their hands. That leaves private insurers to focus on the young, employed and wealthy, from which they can collect premiums and who won’t need much in the way of health care.</p>
<p>Sen. Sanders is also raising the possibility of lowering the age of Medicare to 55, just as <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2010/06/15/what-about-the-grayson-%E2%80%98medicare-buy-in%E2%80%99-legislation/" type="external">Alan Grayson suggested</a> in 2010. This is another gift to the insurance industry because it takes a group that is more likely to have health problems off of their books. It will place more of a burden on the Medicare system without bringing the cost savings needed to cover health needs. I call this Medicare for some to contrast it with Medicare for all.</p>
<p>The basic reasons that Medicare for all works are because the administrative simplicity of one universal plan provides over $500 billion a year in administrative savings, and its ability to negotiate fair drug prices means over $100 billion per year in savings on pharmaceuticals. The savings offset the cost of paying for care and getting rid of out-of-pocket costs that currently keep people from seeking necessary care.</p>
<p>Rather than wasting time and effort on a public option or Medicare for some, which will still leave people out and maintain the high costs of health care, we need to mobilize to win national improved Medicare for all. Like other industrialized nations, we need to create a universal high quality health system. It doesn’t make sense to leave anybody out when we have the resources to achieve it and public support for it. The only thing lacking is support from members of Congress. But as we witnessed last week with the defeat of the AHCA, changing the minds of members of Congress is within the power of the public.</p>
<p>The public option and Medicare for some are being used to divide and distract supporters of Medicare for all in order to weaken them and make them believe they are asking for too much, just as happened during the health reform efforts in 2008-10. We can’t be taken off track again.</p>
<p>What is the real purpose of a public option or lowering the age of Medicare when neither is an effective nor a lasting solution? It is only because the Democrats are unwilling to take on the powerful health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The problem is that we can’t solve the health care crisis until we do.</p>
|
Why This Isn’t the Time for a Public Health Insurance Option or Medicare for Some
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/why-this-isnt-the-time-for-a-public-health-insurance-option-or-medicare-for-some/
|
2017-03-29
| 4left
|
Why This Isn’t the Time for a Public Health Insurance Option or Medicare for Some
<p>By <a href="http://healthoverprofit.org/2017/03/28/why-this-isnt-the-time-for-a-public-option-or-medicare-for-some/" type="external">Margaret Flowers / Health Over Profit for Everyone</a></p>
<p>This has been a tumultuous week for health care reform. First, there was the pleasantly quick defeat of the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon. Then, that evening, Sen. Sanders spoke at a town hall in Vermont with Sen. Pat Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch where he announced that he would introduce a Medicare for All bill. Medicare for All and Bernie supporters lit up social media with their excitement over the announcement. This should have been great news, but it wasn’t exactly.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, more information was revealed in a series of interviews with Sen. Sanders. Sunday, he said on CNN that single-payer legislation wouldn’t have the votes, so the first priority will be to improve the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a public insurance, called a public option, and possibly lowering the age of Medicare eligibility to 55.</p>
<p>READ: <a href="" type="internal">Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All Plan</a></p>
<p />
<p>There are a number of reasons why this isn’t the time for tinkering with the ACA. We have a health care crisis now and the means to solve it. The ACA is fundamentally flawed and cannot be tweaked into a universal program. And Sanders’ proposals are exactly the same ones used in 2008-10 to divide and weaken the movement for National Improved Medicare for All. We can’t be fooled into going down that path again.</p>
<p>The Current Crisis and its Solution</p>
<p>Right now in the United States, almost 30 million people have no health insurance. On top of that, tens of millions of people who have health insurance can’t afford health care. When people experience a serious accident or illness, they face a stark choice: seek care and risk financial ruin or go without it and risk disability or death. Hundreds of thousands of families go bankrupt each year due to medical illness, and an estimated 29,000 people die each year due to lack of access to care.</p>
<p>Think about how the country galvanized when 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on 9/11 or when the 2,000th soldier was killed in Iraq, but that amount of death happens ten times a year or more in the U.S., and we hardly hear a peep of outrage.</p>
<p>Health outcomes in the United States are not very good. A <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2017/february/why-is-life-expectancy-worse-in-the-united-states" type="external">recent study found</a>:</p>
<p>“Notable among poor-performing countries is the USA, whose life expectancy at birth is already lower than most other high-income countries, and is projected to fall further behind such that its 2030 life expectancy at birth might be similar to the Czech Republic for men, and Croatia and Mexico for women. The USA has the highest child and maternal mortality, homicide rate, and body-mass index of any high-income country, and was the first of high-income countries to experience a halt or possibly reversal of increase in height in adulthood, which is associated with higher longevity. The USA is also the only country in the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] without universal health coverage, and has the largest share of unmet health-care needs due to financial costs.”</p>
<p>Yet, of all of the industrialized nations, the United States spends the most per person on health care, in some cases double the amount, and those countries cover everyone. We are already paying for universal comprehensive health coverage, but we aren’t getting it because the bottom line of the system in the U.S. is profits for a few rather than health for all.</p>
<p>The U.S. has the most complex and heavily bureaucratic system in the world because it is a market-based system with a few public programs to try to fill in the gaps. A third of our health care dollar goes to administration for the hundreds of different insurance plans with their differing coverage, networks and rules. And we pay the highest prices, by far, for health services and pharmaceuticals because there is no rational system to set a fair price.</p>
<p>To begin to solve the health care crisis in the U.S., we need a system that is based on health and the money to pay for it. The proven solution is a universal not-for-profit, publicly-funded system that provides all medically-necessary care. House Resolution 676: “The Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act,” which has 72 co-sponsors, is the model for that system. This would address the fundamental causes of the health care crisis.</p>
<p>READ: <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676" type="external">House Resolution 676: Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act</a></p>
<p>The good news is that not only do we have the money to pay for this system, but there is also widespread support for it. For decades many independent polls have shown more than 60 percent support by the general public, plus more than 80 percent support by Democratic Party voters, rapidly growing support by Republicans who earn under $75,000 and majority support by health professionals.</p>
<p>Why a Public Option and Medicare for Some Plans Will Fail</p>
<p>Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, had an <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/bannon-health-care-bill.html" type="external">interesting statement in the New York Magazine</a> recently. He criticized the Republican’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) because it was “written by the insurance industry.” That same criticism can be made of the Democrat’s ACA, which was basically written by Liz Fowler, a former executive for WellPoint. She also oversaw the regulations’ process.</p>
<p>The ACA is fundamentally flawed because it treats health care as a commodity, not a public necessity. It has achieved the best that it can do, and similar to other attempts at the state level that don’t address the roots of the crisis, it is starting to deteriorate with stagnant coverage and rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs.</p>
<p>Attempts to improve the ACA with a public insurance or Medicare for some will bring coverage to a few more, but they will similarly fail over time because they will not change the system or control health care costs.</p>
<p>Sen. Sanders and others are pushing a public option. This would be a public insurance that people could choose instead of private insurance. It sounds good in theory but has not worked in practice because it draws the sickest patients and struggles to cover their care while keeping premiums and out-of-pocket costs affordable. Private insurers are experts at attracting the healthiest enrollees. In fact, <a href="https://popularresistance.org/newsletter-dont-be-fooled-by-profiteers-option/" type="external">I have argued</a> that a public insurance is just what the private insurers want (though they are unlikely to admit it) because it serves as a relief valve to take sick people off their hands. That leaves private insurers to focus on the young, employed and wealthy, from which they can collect premiums and who won’t need much in the way of health care.</p>
<p>Sen. Sanders is also raising the possibility of lowering the age of Medicare to 55, just as <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2010/06/15/what-about-the-grayson-%E2%80%98medicare-buy-in%E2%80%99-legislation/" type="external">Alan Grayson suggested</a> in 2010. This is another gift to the insurance industry because it takes a group that is more likely to have health problems off of their books. It will place more of a burden on the Medicare system without bringing the cost savings needed to cover health needs. I call this Medicare for some to contrast it with Medicare for all.</p>
<p>The basic reasons that Medicare for all works are because the administrative simplicity of one universal plan provides over $500 billion a year in administrative savings, and its ability to negotiate fair drug prices means over $100 billion per year in savings on pharmaceuticals. The savings offset the cost of paying for care and getting rid of out-of-pocket costs that currently keep people from seeking necessary care.</p>
<p>Rather than wasting time and effort on a public option or Medicare for some, which will still leave people out and maintain the high costs of health care, we need to mobilize to win national improved Medicare for all. Like other industrialized nations, we need to create a universal high quality health system. It doesn’t make sense to leave anybody out when we have the resources to achieve it and public support for it. The only thing lacking is support from members of Congress. But as we witnessed last week with the defeat of the AHCA, changing the minds of members of Congress is within the power of the public.</p>
<p>The public option and Medicare for some are being used to divide and distract supporters of Medicare for all in order to weaken them and make them believe they are asking for too much, just as happened during the health reform efforts in 2008-10. We can’t be taken off track again.</p>
<p>What is the real purpose of a public option or lowering the age of Medicare when neither is an effective nor a lasting solution? It is only because the Democrats are unwilling to take on the powerful health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The problem is that we can’t solve the health care crisis until we do.</p>
| 6,336 |
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<p />
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>ALAMOGORDO – A dozen students occupy the “cockpits” of a half-dozen aircraft flying through Air Force airspace, but the students haven’t left the ground.</p>
<p>Air Force pilots near an MQ-9 Reaper drone at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo. Pilots in the training program are not identified for security reasons. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>They are piloting drones from inside ground control stations at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo as part of their training to pilot the unmanned aircraft responsible for an increasing number of military surveillance and combat missions.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Holloman’s training program for operating “RPAs,” or remotely piloted aircraft – the Air Force prefers this acronym to the word “drone” – has grown exponentially since its inception in 2009. This fiscal year, 714 students will graduate, up from 136 graduates during the program’s first year.</p>
<p>The program has trained nearly every Air Force pilot of the MQ-1 “Predator” and MQ-9 “Reaper” drones, according to training squadron commander Lt. Col. Calvin Powell.</p>
<p>“We have had an over 500 percent growth in student throughput, and we still cannot meet the total demand of the operational units in order to maintain enough air crew in the fight,” Powell said during a presentation this week to the Journal and other media that drew mainly international journalists, including from Norway, Switzerland, France, Italy and Romania.</p>
<p>The use of drones in combat missions in Afghanistan and in fighting suspected terrorists in other nations has occasionally drawn global scrutiny.</p>
<p>Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a report examining six targeted killings by U.S.-operated drones in Yemen between 2009 and 2013. The report found that two of the attacks “killed civilians indiscriminately in clear violation of the laws of war,” while the others “may have targeted people who were not legitimate military objectives or caused disproportionate civilian deaths.”</p>
<p>The U.S. government has said it takes all possible precautions in drone attacks.</p>
<p>Answering a question about collateral damage in drone missile strikes, Powell said, “There are humans in the chain from the start to the finish. Any time you have humans involved, there is always opportunity for human error. However, we go to great lengths from the very beginning of our training to minimize that aspect of it.”</p>
<p>An Air Force sergeant uses a simulator in the drone training program at Holloman Air Force Base. Nearly all of the Air Force’s drone pilots have been trained at Holloman. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Holloman students fly actual drones for practice, but all the “missions” are simulated; there is no live fire. There are no drone combat missions launched from Holloman, although many drone combat missions in Afghanistan are operated from Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base, according to a Holloman spokesman.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Holloman has four MQ-1s and six MQ-9s for training.</p>
<p>About the size of a Cessna 172, the MQ-1 drone can carry two Hellfire missiles and fly for up to 20 hours. It’s the smaller of the two drones and is distinctive for its downward-facing tails.</p>
<p>The larger MQ-9 drone is about the size of the A-10 attack jet known as the “Warthog” – a plane that could soon be scrapped by congressional budget cuts. It can carry up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound, laser-guided bombs. It’s faster than the MQ-1 but is heavier and burns more fuel. It can fly for shorter stretches, up to 16 hours.</p>
<p>The Holloman training program has attracted both Air Force pilots of traditional aircraft as well as a younger generation of airmen who, as drone pilots, have never left the ground.</p>
<p>Among the traditional pilots in the program was a captain who flew B1 bomber jets in Afghanistan before signing up for Holloman’s first class of drone pilots. Now a Holloman instructor, he said flying MQ-9s was just as rewarding and yet he didn’t have to deploy.</p>
<p>The MQ-9 drone is about the size of the A-10 attack jet known as the “Warthog” — a plane that could soon be scrapped by congressional budget cuts. The MQ-9 can carry up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound, laser-guided bombs. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p />
<p />
|
Drone training jumps in NM
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/415668/drone-training-jumps-in-nm-2.html
| 2least
|
Drone training jumps in NM
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>ALAMOGORDO – A dozen students occupy the “cockpits” of a half-dozen aircraft flying through Air Force airspace, but the students haven’t left the ground.</p>
<p>Air Force pilots near an MQ-9 Reaper drone at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo. Pilots in the training program are not identified for security reasons. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>They are piloting drones from inside ground control stations at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo as part of their training to pilot the unmanned aircraft responsible for an increasing number of military surveillance and combat missions.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Holloman’s training program for operating “RPAs,” or remotely piloted aircraft – the Air Force prefers this acronym to the word “drone” – has grown exponentially since its inception in 2009. This fiscal year, 714 students will graduate, up from 136 graduates during the program’s first year.</p>
<p>The program has trained nearly every Air Force pilot of the MQ-1 “Predator” and MQ-9 “Reaper” drones, according to training squadron commander Lt. Col. Calvin Powell.</p>
<p>“We have had an over 500 percent growth in student throughput, and we still cannot meet the total demand of the operational units in order to maintain enough air crew in the fight,” Powell said during a presentation this week to the Journal and other media that drew mainly international journalists, including from Norway, Switzerland, France, Italy and Romania.</p>
<p>The use of drones in combat missions in Afghanistan and in fighting suspected terrorists in other nations has occasionally drawn global scrutiny.</p>
<p>Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a report examining six targeted killings by U.S.-operated drones in Yemen between 2009 and 2013. The report found that two of the attacks “killed civilians indiscriminately in clear violation of the laws of war,” while the others “may have targeted people who were not legitimate military objectives or caused disproportionate civilian deaths.”</p>
<p>The U.S. government has said it takes all possible precautions in drone attacks.</p>
<p>Answering a question about collateral damage in drone missile strikes, Powell said, “There are humans in the chain from the start to the finish. Any time you have humans involved, there is always opportunity for human error. However, we go to great lengths from the very beginning of our training to minimize that aspect of it.”</p>
<p>An Air Force sergeant uses a simulator in the drone training program at Holloman Air Force Base. Nearly all of the Air Force’s drone pilots have been trained at Holloman. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Holloman students fly actual drones for practice, but all the “missions” are simulated; there is no live fire. There are no drone combat missions launched from Holloman, although many drone combat missions in Afghanistan are operated from Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base, according to a Holloman spokesman.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Holloman has four MQ-1s and six MQ-9s for training.</p>
<p>About the size of a Cessna 172, the MQ-1 drone can carry two Hellfire missiles and fly for up to 20 hours. It’s the smaller of the two drones and is distinctive for its downward-facing tails.</p>
<p>The larger MQ-9 drone is about the size of the A-10 attack jet known as the “Warthog” – a plane that could soon be scrapped by congressional budget cuts. It can carry up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound, laser-guided bombs. It’s faster than the MQ-1 but is heavier and burns more fuel. It can fly for shorter stretches, up to 16 hours.</p>
<p>The Holloman training program has attracted both Air Force pilots of traditional aircraft as well as a younger generation of airmen who, as drone pilots, have never left the ground.</p>
<p>Among the traditional pilots in the program was a captain who flew B1 bomber jets in Afghanistan before signing up for Holloman’s first class of drone pilots. Now a Holloman instructor, he said flying MQ-9s was just as rewarding and yet he didn’t have to deploy.</p>
<p>The MQ-9 drone is about the size of the A-10 attack jet known as the “Warthog” — a plane that could soon be scrapped by congressional budget cuts. The MQ-9 can carry up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound, laser-guided bombs. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p />
<p />
| 6,337 |
|
<p>The ‘Comings &amp; Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.</p>
<p>The Comings &amp; Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>Samuel Brinton</p>
<p>Congratulations to Samuel Brinton, who recently founded <a href="http://coresolutionsconsulting.org" type="external">Core Solutions Consulting</a> to serve the national need for expertise on socio-technical translation on issues ranging from nuclear waste management to congressional outreach on advanced nuclear energy innovation policy. Along with his technical expertise on nuclear engineering issues and political connections in the energy policy field, Brinton will continue his state-level political work to end conversion therapy through the <a href="http://50bills50states.org" type="external">50 Bills 50 States</a> effort.</p>
<p>He recently served as a fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, Clean Air Task Force and at Third Way. He was also a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Brinton earned his dual master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nuclear engineering and the technology and policy program. He is a graduate of Kansas State University earning a bachelor’s in mechanical and nuclear engineering and a bachelor’s in vocal music performance, with a minor in Chinese language.</p>
<p>His activism included co-founding NuclearPride an LGBT organization in the nuclear field and creating the ‘Stand With Science’ campaign uniting 10,000 students and allies from across the country to advocate for federal science and engineering research funding.</p>
<p>Congratulations also to both Nakisha M. Lewis and Isaiah R. Wilson who have new positions on the staff of the National Black Justice Coalition. Lewis as director of programs and Institutional Development and Wilson as director of External Affairs.</p>
<p>Lewis is known as a thought leader in the field of philanthropy specializing in developing grant-making strategies addressing racial, gender and educational inequities. She worked extensively with individual donors and foundations to foster grant-making seeking to support, empower and strengthen marginalized communities, including in her most recent position as program officer and senior strategist for Safety at the Ms. Foundation for Women. She is co-creator of the Philanthropic Action for Racial Justice, an effort to organize black philanthropic practitioners around a shared vision for racial justice and investment in black communities centering on the needs and experiences of black women, youth and LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>She is a writer, speaker and lifelong community organizer most recently working to establish Black Lives Matter NYC. She is a co-founder of the #SheWoke Committee, the catalyst for the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, established in 2016, and is the co-chair of Grantmakers for Girls of Color.</p>
<p>Wilson’s new position focuses on the public policy implications of critical issues for black LGBTQ and same-gender loving (SGL) people including: health and wellness; HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention; safe and inclusive schools; employment non-discrimination; relationship recognition; anti-violence; and economic justice.</p>
<p>He will lead the organization’s efforts to advocate for sound policy solutions empowering black LGBTQ/SGL people in the United States and play an integral role in the development of NBJC’s rapid response messaging strategy speaking to the diverse needs of its constituency at the intersection of racial justice and LGBTQ equality.</p>
<p>Prior to joining NBJC in January of 2014, Wilson spent five years working for former Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). There, Wilson worked on issues important to both working-class and marginalized communities. He was Rothman’s chief aide on the judiciary and LGBTQ issues drafting several pieces of legislation, including the original Juror Non-Discrimination Act, prohibiting attorneys from striking potential federal jurors on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity. He was as an officer of the Congressional Black Associates and member of the Congressional LGBT Staff Association.</p>
<p>Nakisha M. Lewis and Isaiah Wilson</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Core Solutions Consulting</a> <a href="" type="internal">Isaiah R. Wilson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Nakisha M. Lewis</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Black Justice Coalition</a> <a href="" type="internal">NBJC</a> <a href="" type="internal">Samuel Brinton</a></p>
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Comings & Goings
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/10/comings-goings-35/
| 3left-center
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Comings & Goings
<p>The ‘Comings &amp; Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.</p>
<p>The Comings &amp; Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>Samuel Brinton</p>
<p>Congratulations to Samuel Brinton, who recently founded <a href="http://coresolutionsconsulting.org" type="external">Core Solutions Consulting</a> to serve the national need for expertise on socio-technical translation on issues ranging from nuclear waste management to congressional outreach on advanced nuclear energy innovation policy. Along with his technical expertise on nuclear engineering issues and political connections in the energy policy field, Brinton will continue his state-level political work to end conversion therapy through the <a href="http://50bills50states.org" type="external">50 Bills 50 States</a> effort.</p>
<p>He recently served as a fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, Clean Air Task Force and at Third Way. He was also a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Brinton earned his dual master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nuclear engineering and the technology and policy program. He is a graduate of Kansas State University earning a bachelor’s in mechanical and nuclear engineering and a bachelor’s in vocal music performance, with a minor in Chinese language.</p>
<p>His activism included co-founding NuclearPride an LGBT organization in the nuclear field and creating the ‘Stand With Science’ campaign uniting 10,000 students and allies from across the country to advocate for federal science and engineering research funding.</p>
<p>Congratulations also to both Nakisha M. Lewis and Isaiah R. Wilson who have new positions on the staff of the National Black Justice Coalition. Lewis as director of programs and Institutional Development and Wilson as director of External Affairs.</p>
<p>Lewis is known as a thought leader in the field of philanthropy specializing in developing grant-making strategies addressing racial, gender and educational inequities. She worked extensively with individual donors and foundations to foster grant-making seeking to support, empower and strengthen marginalized communities, including in her most recent position as program officer and senior strategist for Safety at the Ms. Foundation for Women. She is co-creator of the Philanthropic Action for Racial Justice, an effort to organize black philanthropic practitioners around a shared vision for racial justice and investment in black communities centering on the needs and experiences of black women, youth and LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>She is a writer, speaker and lifelong community organizer most recently working to establish Black Lives Matter NYC. She is a co-founder of the #SheWoke Committee, the catalyst for the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, established in 2016, and is the co-chair of Grantmakers for Girls of Color.</p>
<p>Wilson’s new position focuses on the public policy implications of critical issues for black LGBTQ and same-gender loving (SGL) people including: health and wellness; HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention; safe and inclusive schools; employment non-discrimination; relationship recognition; anti-violence; and economic justice.</p>
<p>He will lead the organization’s efforts to advocate for sound policy solutions empowering black LGBTQ/SGL people in the United States and play an integral role in the development of NBJC’s rapid response messaging strategy speaking to the diverse needs of its constituency at the intersection of racial justice and LGBTQ equality.</p>
<p>Prior to joining NBJC in January of 2014, Wilson spent five years working for former Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). There, Wilson worked on issues important to both working-class and marginalized communities. He was Rothman’s chief aide on the judiciary and LGBTQ issues drafting several pieces of legislation, including the original Juror Non-Discrimination Act, prohibiting attorneys from striking potential federal jurors on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity. He was as an officer of the Congressional Black Associates and member of the Congressional LGBT Staff Association.</p>
<p>Nakisha M. Lewis and Isaiah Wilson</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Core Solutions Consulting</a> <a href="" type="internal">Isaiah R. Wilson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Nakisha M. Lewis</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Black Justice Coalition</a> <a href="" type="internal">NBJC</a> <a href="" type="internal">Samuel Brinton</a></p>
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<p>Ben Bernanke’s first promise upon being nominated for Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve was that he would “maintain continuity with the policies and policy strategies established during the Greenspan years.”</p>
<p>Of course, he was speaking to the financial markets, which tend to worship Greenspan and are rather jittery about change these days–as anyone sitting on the edge of a cliff and staring down into the abyss might be. But following in Greenspan’s hallowed footsteps might not be so easy, nor would it necessarily be the best thing for the U.S. economy. After all, it was Greenspan who persuaded Congress in January 2001 that President Bush’s proposed tax cuts were fiscally responsible, arguing that without them we would pay off the national debt too quickly. Oops! The gross federal debt for the current fiscal year is projected to be the highest in 50 years, at 67.5 percent of our GDP.</p>
<p>Alan Greenspan made some other mistakes that have cost the American people dearly, and others that have yet to come home to roost. After initially warning of “irrational exuberance” in the stock market in December 1996, he reversed himself and allowed the stock market bubble to inflate to unsustainable levels. Millions of Americans lost much of their retirement savings in the ensuing, predictable crash.</p>
<p>When the stock market bubble burst and triggered the recession of 2001, the recovery was fueled by an already established housing bubble that has now created more than $5 trillion of excess wealth. The Greenspan Fed helped this bubble along, too–although recently Mr. Greenspan has started to talk about it. But when this bubble bursts it will almost certainly cause a recession, and we will wish that the Fed had warned the public more clearly–and earlier–about the dangers of over-inflated home values.</p>
<p>Bernanke says that he, like Greenspan, doesn’t see bursting asset-market bubbles as the Fed’s responsibility. But the Fed Chairman testifies regularly on the state of the economy, and the Fed is the major regulator of the country’s economic activity. It makes no sense to say that the Fed can warn of the dangers of inflationary pressures, give advice on spending and tax policy and everything under the sun, but must remain silent when a speculative frenzy poses an economy-wide threat to the nation.</p>
<p>The Fed can cool off a bubble without having to raise interest rates and thereby dampen other economic activity. For example, to deal with the housing bubble, all the Fed Chairman would need to do is explain the reality: since 1996 house prices nationally have increased more than 45 percentage points after adjusting for inflation. From 1950-1995 house prices increased at the same rate as inflation. It is easy to show that this sharp break with the past is the result of a speculative bubble. If the Fed won’t do this, who will?</p>
<p>Bernanke seems less politically aligned than his predecessor, so he is less likely to imitate Greenspan’s endorsement of such partisan plans as Social Security privatization. He is qualified for the job. But he is inheriting some serious economic imbalances. In addition to the housing bubble and the near-record levels of federal debt, we have an unsustainable trade deficit and a much overvalued dollar. The interest rate on long-term (10-year) U.S. Treasuries is being held down by Asian central banks’ buying them, which could slow any time and drive these rates (which the Fed can’t directly control) upward. This would probably pop the housing bubble. And then there is inflation, the Fed’s main enemy, which was running at 9.4 percent annually over the last quarter. Ouch. Bernanke will be lucky if he makes it through his first two years and still has a job.</p>
<p>Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the <a href="http://www.cepr.net/" type="external">Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C</a>. He is the author, with Dean Baker, of <a href="" type="internal">Social Security: the Phony Crisis</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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Bernacke Could Face Serious Trouble
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https://counterpunch.org/2005/10/31/bernacke-could-face-serious-trouble/
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2005-10-31
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Bernacke Could Face Serious Trouble
<p>Ben Bernanke’s first promise upon being nominated for Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve was that he would “maintain continuity with the policies and policy strategies established during the Greenspan years.”</p>
<p>Of course, he was speaking to the financial markets, which tend to worship Greenspan and are rather jittery about change these days–as anyone sitting on the edge of a cliff and staring down into the abyss might be. But following in Greenspan’s hallowed footsteps might not be so easy, nor would it necessarily be the best thing for the U.S. economy. After all, it was Greenspan who persuaded Congress in January 2001 that President Bush’s proposed tax cuts were fiscally responsible, arguing that without them we would pay off the national debt too quickly. Oops! The gross federal debt for the current fiscal year is projected to be the highest in 50 years, at 67.5 percent of our GDP.</p>
<p>Alan Greenspan made some other mistakes that have cost the American people dearly, and others that have yet to come home to roost. After initially warning of “irrational exuberance” in the stock market in December 1996, he reversed himself and allowed the stock market bubble to inflate to unsustainable levels. Millions of Americans lost much of their retirement savings in the ensuing, predictable crash.</p>
<p>When the stock market bubble burst and triggered the recession of 2001, the recovery was fueled by an already established housing bubble that has now created more than $5 trillion of excess wealth. The Greenspan Fed helped this bubble along, too–although recently Mr. Greenspan has started to talk about it. But when this bubble bursts it will almost certainly cause a recession, and we will wish that the Fed had warned the public more clearly–and earlier–about the dangers of over-inflated home values.</p>
<p>Bernanke says that he, like Greenspan, doesn’t see bursting asset-market bubbles as the Fed’s responsibility. But the Fed Chairman testifies regularly on the state of the economy, and the Fed is the major regulator of the country’s economic activity. It makes no sense to say that the Fed can warn of the dangers of inflationary pressures, give advice on spending and tax policy and everything under the sun, but must remain silent when a speculative frenzy poses an economy-wide threat to the nation.</p>
<p>The Fed can cool off a bubble without having to raise interest rates and thereby dampen other economic activity. For example, to deal with the housing bubble, all the Fed Chairman would need to do is explain the reality: since 1996 house prices nationally have increased more than 45 percentage points after adjusting for inflation. From 1950-1995 house prices increased at the same rate as inflation. It is easy to show that this sharp break with the past is the result of a speculative bubble. If the Fed won’t do this, who will?</p>
<p>Bernanke seems less politically aligned than his predecessor, so he is less likely to imitate Greenspan’s endorsement of such partisan plans as Social Security privatization. He is qualified for the job. But he is inheriting some serious economic imbalances. In addition to the housing bubble and the near-record levels of federal debt, we have an unsustainable trade deficit and a much overvalued dollar. The interest rate on long-term (10-year) U.S. Treasuries is being held down by Asian central banks’ buying them, which could slow any time and drive these rates (which the Fed can’t directly control) upward. This would probably pop the housing bubble. And then there is inflation, the Fed’s main enemy, which was running at 9.4 percent annually over the last quarter. Ouch. Bernanke will be lucky if he makes it through his first two years and still has a job.</p>
<p>Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the <a href="http://www.cepr.net/" type="external">Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C</a>. He is the author, with Dean Baker, of <a href="" type="internal">Social Security: the Phony Crisis</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>Housing starts fell 6.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.22 million, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The setback came after strong gains in a warmer-than-usual February. Groundbreakings on new homes are still 8.1 percent higher through the first three months of this year compared with 2016.</p>
<p>More Americans are seeking homes as job security has improved with low unemployment. But even with a wave of construction, a dwindling supply of new and existing homes across much of the country has threatened to become a major drag on the housing market.</p>
<p>Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, suggested that the March decline was likely temporary.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Is it the start of a trend? Likely not, given the strong demand for housing and the low levels of inventory to choose from,” Lee said.</p>
<p>Despite a winter storm last month, housing starts increased in the Northeast largely because of apartment construction. The pace of groundbreakings tumbled in the Midwest, South and West.</p>
<p>The March decline was likely due in part to an unseasonably temperate January and February, which allowed builders to begin construction earlier.</p>
<p>“Much warmer-than-usual weather in the first two months of the year pulled starts forward into those months, and March — with more normal temperatures — saw the payback with declines in both single- and multifamily construction,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide Mutual Insurance.</p>
<p>During the first three months of this year, construction of buildings with at least five units — mainly apartment complexes — has climbed 14.1 percent. Single-family housing starts have risen 5.9 percent.</p>
<p>More properties will likely begin construction in the coming months. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, rose 3.6 percent in March to an annual rate of 1.26 million.</p>
<p>U.S. homebuilders expect rising sales, though they have become somewhat less optimistic. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Monday dipped to 68 this month from 71 in March. Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as favorable rather than poor. The index has been above 60 since September.</p>
<p>But strengthening demand and builder sentiment have yet to generate enough construction to sufficiently boost the availability of homes. That trend could temper sales growth and weaken affordability, in part because the shortage of homes has pushed up prices.</p>
<p>There were 266,000 new homes for sale last month, up nearly 10 percent from a year earlier. But sales of new homes rose 13 percent over the past year.</p>
<p>Purchases of existing homes have also increased. Yet sales listings of existing homes dropped 6.4 percent over the past year to 1.75 million properties in February, a figure only slightly higher than in January when listings were at an all-time low.</p>
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US housing starts fell in March; still stronger than in 2016
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https://abqjournal.com/989419/us-housing-starts-fell-in-march-still-stronger-than-in-2016.html
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2017-04-18
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US housing starts fell in March; still stronger than in 2016
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<p />
<p>Housing starts fell 6.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.22 million, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The setback came after strong gains in a warmer-than-usual February. Groundbreakings on new homes are still 8.1 percent higher through the first three months of this year compared with 2016.</p>
<p>More Americans are seeking homes as job security has improved with low unemployment. But even with a wave of construction, a dwindling supply of new and existing homes across much of the country has threatened to become a major drag on the housing market.</p>
<p>Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, suggested that the March decline was likely temporary.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Is it the start of a trend? Likely not, given the strong demand for housing and the low levels of inventory to choose from,” Lee said.</p>
<p>Despite a winter storm last month, housing starts increased in the Northeast largely because of apartment construction. The pace of groundbreakings tumbled in the Midwest, South and West.</p>
<p>The March decline was likely due in part to an unseasonably temperate January and February, which allowed builders to begin construction earlier.</p>
<p>“Much warmer-than-usual weather in the first two months of the year pulled starts forward into those months, and March — with more normal temperatures — saw the payback with declines in both single- and multifamily construction,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide Mutual Insurance.</p>
<p>During the first three months of this year, construction of buildings with at least five units — mainly apartment complexes — has climbed 14.1 percent. Single-family housing starts have risen 5.9 percent.</p>
<p>More properties will likely begin construction in the coming months. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, rose 3.6 percent in March to an annual rate of 1.26 million.</p>
<p>U.S. homebuilders expect rising sales, though they have become somewhat less optimistic. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Monday dipped to 68 this month from 71 in March. Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as favorable rather than poor. The index has been above 60 since September.</p>
<p>But strengthening demand and builder sentiment have yet to generate enough construction to sufficiently boost the availability of homes. That trend could temper sales growth and weaken affordability, in part because the shortage of homes has pushed up prices.</p>
<p>There were 266,000 new homes for sale last month, up nearly 10 percent from a year earlier. But sales of new homes rose 13 percent over the past year.</p>
<p>Purchases of existing homes have also increased. Yet sales listings of existing homes dropped 6.4 percent over the past year to 1.75 million properties in February, a figure only slightly higher than in January when listings were at an all-time low.</p>
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<p>Jihadist terrorism, back in the news:</p>
<p>Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police has <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rcmp-arrest-two-for-alleged-plot-to-bomb-train/article11465138/" type="external">arrested</a> two in a plot to bomb a passenger train. While news organizations are reporting police denials that the plot had anything to do with the Boston bombing, the Globe &amp; Mail does add this detail:</p>
<p>The RCMP community outreach team has been in touch with local religious groups in Toronto, sources said.</p>
<p>One police source said the number of arrests will be smaller than 18 teenagers and young adults arrested in Toronto in 2006 on bomb plot charges.</p>
<p>Police are not commenting on a CBC report that the investigation thwarted a terrorist attack and that it was a joint effort between Canadian and U.S. authorities, including CSIS, the RCMP, the FBI and homeland security.</p>
<p>Several Muslim community leaders were called by Mounties early Monday to drop what they were doing and come at 2:30 p.m. to the RCMP police station near Toronto's Pearson International Airport.</p>
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Jihadist Plot Thwarted By Canada
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https://thedailybeast.com/jihadist-plot-thwarted-by-canada
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2018-10-05
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Jihadist Plot Thwarted By Canada
<p>Jihadist terrorism, back in the news:</p>
<p>Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police has <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rcmp-arrest-two-for-alleged-plot-to-bomb-train/article11465138/" type="external">arrested</a> two in a plot to bomb a passenger train. While news organizations are reporting police denials that the plot had anything to do with the Boston bombing, the Globe &amp; Mail does add this detail:</p>
<p>The RCMP community outreach team has been in touch with local religious groups in Toronto, sources said.</p>
<p>One police source said the number of arrests will be smaller than 18 teenagers and young adults arrested in Toronto in 2006 on bomb plot charges.</p>
<p>Police are not commenting on a CBC report that the investigation thwarted a terrorist attack and that it was a joint effort between Canadian and U.S. authorities, including CSIS, the RCMP, the FBI and homeland security.</p>
<p>Several Muslim community leaders were called by Mounties early Monday to drop what they were doing and come at 2:30 p.m. to the RCMP police station near Toronto's Pearson International Airport.</p>
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<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Katelyn Caralle</a> October 10, 2017 3:32 pm</p>
<p>White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Tuesday's press briefing that Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) is "entitled to his own opinion, but he's not entitled to his own facts."</p>
<p>Sanders was responding to a question regarding the senator's&#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/us/politics/trump-corker.html?_r=0" type="external">weekend comments</a>.&#160;Corker referred to the White House as an "adult daycare center" on Twitter, and in an interview, said President Donald Trump's actions "concern" him, saying he feared the president was leading the world into World War III.</p>
<p>"Look, Sen. Corker is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts," Sanders said.</p>
<p>"The fact is, this president has been an incredibly strong leader in foreign policy and national security," Sanders said. "And he’s been a leader on this front, and I think that’s been seen and demonstrated time and time again since he took office."</p>
<p>Sanders went on to list accomplishments he has had on the foreign policy and national security front thus far. She further touched on what he plans to do in the future to continue combating U.S. enemies and increase American power and influence.</p>
<p>"Again, Sen. Corker may have an opinion, but the facts certainly don’t lie," Sanders concluded. "The president has been very successful on this front."</p>
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Huckabee Sanders Responds to Corker’s ‘Daycare’ Critique: He’s Entitled to ‘Own Opinion,’ Not ‘Own Facts’
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2017-10-10
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Huckabee Sanders Responds to Corker’s ‘Daycare’ Critique: He’s Entitled to ‘Own Opinion,’ Not ‘Own Facts’
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Katelyn Caralle</a> October 10, 2017 3:32 pm</p>
<p>White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Tuesday's press briefing that Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) is "entitled to his own opinion, but he's not entitled to his own facts."</p>
<p>Sanders was responding to a question regarding the senator's&#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/us/politics/trump-corker.html?_r=0" type="external">weekend comments</a>.&#160;Corker referred to the White House as an "adult daycare center" on Twitter, and in an interview, said President Donald Trump's actions "concern" him, saying he feared the president was leading the world into World War III.</p>
<p>"Look, Sen. Corker is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts," Sanders said.</p>
<p>"The fact is, this president has been an incredibly strong leader in foreign policy and national security," Sanders said. "And he’s been a leader on this front, and I think that’s been seen and demonstrated time and time again since he took office."</p>
<p>Sanders went on to list accomplishments he has had on the foreign policy and national security front thus far. She further touched on what he plans to do in the future to continue combating U.S. enemies and increase American power and influence.</p>
<p>"Again, Sen. Corker may have an opinion, but the facts certainly don’t lie," Sanders concluded. "The president has been very successful on this front."</p>
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<p>I'm sure you all know that Barack Obama went down to Jamaica, mon. Naturally, the Choommander-in-Chief made a stop to the Bob Marley Museum. And, of course, the White House tweeted out a picture of Obama watching a video of Bob Marley, because the White House loves to tweet out pictures of Obama when honoring another person.</p>
<p>But the quote from Obama they selected to accompany this tweet?</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Okay, what is he smoking?!</p>
<p>He shouldn't take a day off?!</p>
<p>Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!</p>
<p>Now, to be fair, Obama doesn't take a day off. One has to actually work in order to take a day off. And since this guy doesn't exactly put in a full day's work, he can't technically take a day off.</p>
<p>Not only that. He tends to take 17-Day vacations, not one day off.</p>
<p>Barack Obama either A) thinks we are deeply stupid or B) completely lacks self-reflection.</p>
<p>How many rounds of golf has he played since being sworn in as President of the United States? How many hundreds of millions of your hard-earned dollars has he and his family gobbled up for vacation after vacation after vacation?</p>
<p>Seriously. What is he smoking?</p>
<p>Do they sell big old doobies at the Bob Marley Museum gift shop?</p>
<p>To be fair, Obama is making the world worse and he takes so many days off, it would be quicker to count the number of days he actually works.</p>
<p>What an asshole.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
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What is he smoking?
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http://patriotretort.com/what-is-he-smoking/
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2015-04-10
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What is he smoking?
<p>I'm sure you all know that Barack Obama went down to Jamaica, mon. Naturally, the Choommander-in-Chief made a stop to the Bob Marley Museum. And, of course, the White House tweeted out a picture of Obama watching a video of Bob Marley, because the White House loves to tweet out pictures of Obama when honoring another person.</p>
<p>But the quote from Obama they selected to accompany this tweet?</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Okay, what is he smoking?!</p>
<p>He shouldn't take a day off?!</p>
<p>Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!</p>
<p>Now, to be fair, Obama doesn't take a day off. One has to actually work in order to take a day off. And since this guy doesn't exactly put in a full day's work, he can't technically take a day off.</p>
<p>Not only that. He tends to take 17-Day vacations, not one day off.</p>
<p>Barack Obama either A) thinks we are deeply stupid or B) completely lacks self-reflection.</p>
<p>How many rounds of golf has he played since being sworn in as President of the United States? How many hundreds of millions of your hard-earned dollars has he and his family gobbled up for vacation after vacation after vacation?</p>
<p>Seriously. What is he smoking?</p>
<p>Do they sell big old doobies at the Bob Marley Museum gift shop?</p>
<p>To be fair, Obama is making the world worse and he takes so many days off, it would be quicker to count the number of days he actually works.</p>
<p>What an asshole.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
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<p>U.S. stocks on Wednesday began trade tentatively higher as a key decision from the Federal Reserve, scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Time, looms. The expected Fed policy update comes as the Bank of Japan announced Wednesday that it was refocusing its monetary-policy efforts to concentrate on keeping 10-year Japanese government-bond yield at zero in its latest initiative to juice its sluggish economy. Rising crude-oil prices also helped give an early lift to U.S. equity benchmarks, boosting energy-related shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 84 points, or 0.5%, at 18,211, the S&amp;P 500 index rose 10 points, or 0.4%, at 2,149, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 21 points, or 0.4%, at 5,262. In corporate news, Viacom Inc. said Wednesday that it was ending its pursuit of a minority investor in Paramount Pictures and that its interim CEO Tom Dooley was set to leave the company Nov. 15.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
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U.S. Stocks Open Higher Ahead Of Fed Decision
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2016-09-21
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U.S. Stocks Open Higher Ahead Of Fed Decision
<p>U.S. stocks on Wednesday began trade tentatively higher as a key decision from the Federal Reserve, scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Time, looms. The expected Fed policy update comes as the Bank of Japan announced Wednesday that it was refocusing its monetary-policy efforts to concentrate on keeping 10-year Japanese government-bond yield at zero in its latest initiative to juice its sluggish economy. Rising crude-oil prices also helped give an early lift to U.S. equity benchmarks, boosting energy-related shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 84 points, or 0.5%, at 18,211, the S&amp;P 500 index rose 10 points, or 0.4%, at 2,149, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 21 points, or 0.4%, at 5,262. In corporate news, Viacom Inc. said Wednesday that it was ending its pursuit of a minority investor in Paramount Pictures and that its interim CEO Tom Dooley was set to leave the company Nov. 15.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
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<p>&lt;a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/464425364"&gt;tomasworks&lt;/a&gt;/iStock</p>
<p />
<p>Back in January, the swank South Florida resort Mar-a-Lago <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doubles-to-200000.html" type="external">got even swankier</a>, doubling its initiation fee to $200,000. Weeks later, its owner, the Trump Organization, got some less appetizing news. In an unannounced inspection on Jan. 26, Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation <a href="https://www.myfloridalicense.com/inspectionDetail.asp?InspVisitID=5936193&amp;id=2923079" type="external">found 10 violations</a>, including ones involving meat: namely, hotdogs, burgers, beef, shrimp, duck, and ham stored at temperatures above 41 degrees Fahrenheit, in two different coolers “not maintained in good repair.”</p>
<p>The “winner,” as the Miami Herald cheekily noted its <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/restaurants/article144261894.html" type="external">report</a>, was the ham, which clocked in at a cool—certainly not cold—57 degrees.</p>
<p>The inspection report also cited fish “offered raw or undercooked,” which “had not undergone proper parasite destruction.” Oops.</p>
<p>The inspectors deemed the above-temperature meat and under-processed fish “High Priority violations,” defined as “those which could contribute directly to a foodborne illness or injury and include items such as cooking, reheating, cooling and hand-washing.”</p>
<p>No doubt much to the comfort of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited and dined at Mar-a-Lago just days after the inspection, all of the serious violations were “Corrected On-Site” under the inspector’s gaze, the report states.</p>
<p>The Herald reports that in the past, Mar-a-Lago owner and US President Donald Trump was “often involved personally in the day-to-day operations,” and it “wasn’t rare to see him check out the kitchen and give directions to the club’s floor personnel.”&#160; The paper adds:</p>
<p>At the time, Mar-a-Lago passed inspections with flying colors, with one or two violations at most.</p>
<p>But as Trump jumped into presidential politics, so did the number of health violations.</p>
<p>There were 11 last year compared to just two in 2015.</p>
<p>If the White House gig doesn’t work out, sounds like Trump can make himself useful back at Mar-a-Lago.</p>
<p />
|
Mar-a-Lago Is the Definition of Excess—Except When It Comes to Refrigerating Raw Meat
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/about-those-hotdogs-mar-lago/
|
2017-04-13
| 4left
|
Mar-a-Lago Is the Definition of Excess—Except When It Comes to Refrigerating Raw Meat
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/464425364"&gt;tomasworks&lt;/a&gt;/iStock</p>
<p />
<p>Back in January, the swank South Florida resort Mar-a-Lago <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doubles-to-200000.html" type="external">got even swankier</a>, doubling its initiation fee to $200,000. Weeks later, its owner, the Trump Organization, got some less appetizing news. In an unannounced inspection on Jan. 26, Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation <a href="https://www.myfloridalicense.com/inspectionDetail.asp?InspVisitID=5936193&amp;id=2923079" type="external">found 10 violations</a>, including ones involving meat: namely, hotdogs, burgers, beef, shrimp, duck, and ham stored at temperatures above 41 degrees Fahrenheit, in two different coolers “not maintained in good repair.”</p>
<p>The “winner,” as the Miami Herald cheekily noted its <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/restaurants/article144261894.html" type="external">report</a>, was the ham, which clocked in at a cool—certainly not cold—57 degrees.</p>
<p>The inspection report also cited fish “offered raw or undercooked,” which “had not undergone proper parasite destruction.” Oops.</p>
<p>The inspectors deemed the above-temperature meat and under-processed fish “High Priority violations,” defined as “those which could contribute directly to a foodborne illness or injury and include items such as cooking, reheating, cooling and hand-washing.”</p>
<p>No doubt much to the comfort of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited and dined at Mar-a-Lago just days after the inspection, all of the serious violations were “Corrected On-Site” under the inspector’s gaze, the report states.</p>
<p>The Herald reports that in the past, Mar-a-Lago owner and US President Donald Trump was “often involved personally in the day-to-day operations,” and it “wasn’t rare to see him check out the kitchen and give directions to the club’s floor personnel.”&#160; The paper adds:</p>
<p>At the time, Mar-a-Lago passed inspections with flying colors, with one or two violations at most.</p>
<p>But as Trump jumped into presidential politics, so did the number of health violations.</p>
<p>There were 11 last year compared to just two in 2015.</p>
<p>If the White House gig doesn’t work out, sounds like Trump can make himself useful back at Mar-a-Lago.</p>
<p />
| 6,345 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>One person is dead and two others are wounded following what the police would only describe at this point as a "domestic incident" at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The fatal incident happened just past midnight Sunday around 12:10 a.m. at a single-family residence at the Baby Hill Graduate and Family Housing Unit.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Authorities have opted not to release the identities of the victims and the suspect yet pending initial investigations.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>There is also no update yet whether any arrests have been made, and if anyone is in custody of the police.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The police have reassured, however, that the community is not under threat from the culprit.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>CBS North Carolina has reported for its part that it has received unconfirmed reports that the incident involves a mother stabbing her child.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Baity Hill is described in its Facebook Page as: "Carolina's premier apartment community for student families. As a resident of Baity Hill at Maso Farm, you'll enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with unparalleled attention to your needs."</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="http://breaking911.com/breaking-news-1-dead-2-injured-university-north-carolina-residence-hall/?onesignal_site_push_notification" type="external">breaking911.com/breaking-news-1-dead-2-injured-university-north-carolina-residence-hall/?onesignal_site_push_notification</a></p>
|
University of North Carolina: 1 Dead, 2 Injured
| true |
http://thegoldwater.com/news/6945-University-of-North-Carolina-1-Dead-2-Injured
|
2017-08-20
| 0right
|
University of North Carolina: 1 Dead, 2 Injured
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>One person is dead and two others are wounded following what the police would only describe at this point as a "domestic incident" at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The fatal incident happened just past midnight Sunday around 12:10 a.m. at a single-family residence at the Baby Hill Graduate and Family Housing Unit.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Authorities have opted not to release the identities of the victims and the suspect yet pending initial investigations.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>There is also no update yet whether any arrests have been made, and if anyone is in custody of the police.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>The police have reassured, however, that the community is not under threat from the culprit.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>CBS North Carolina has reported for its part that it has received unconfirmed reports that the incident involves a mother stabbing her child.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Baity Hill is described in its Facebook Page as: "Carolina's premier apartment community for student families. As a resident of Baity Hill at Maso Farm, you'll enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with unparalleled attention to your needs."</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p><a href="http://breaking911.com/breaking-news-1-dead-2-injured-university-north-carolina-residence-hall/?onesignal_site_push_notification" type="external">breaking911.com/breaking-news-1-dead-2-injured-university-north-carolina-residence-hall/?onesignal_site_push_notification</a></p>
| 6,346 |
<p>I was never born.&#160; Can’t for the life of me figure out why I didn’t notice this till last week.</p>
<p>In the old days, I’d been born twice—once by water and once by blood, as the good book says.&#160; Then last week Eva-Lynn’s reading out loud to Liam this weird-sister book inspired by Macbeth and it hits me like a ton of bricks that I was a C-section.&#160; Probably more painful for my mother, but still.</p>
<p>The privileges that accrue to modern subjects by the accidents of birth have come to me by accident pure and simple.&#160; I have a nice little blue booklet to prove it, almost the same shape as an American passport.</p>
<p>It gets worse.&#160; I was never born but I was born all over the place.&#160; Mexico, Texas, and Colorado, in particular.&#160; You don’t have to put any fancy Frenchifying u’s or e’s in or on that word born for it to have a whole other identity: to carry or bear.&#160; Bear with me here, because this is important.</p>
<p>I was born, for example, in Midland, Texas, not to but by an oilman’s wife (hi Ma!), not far from a guy who’d come to town when he was two from Connecticut and pretended he was born in Texas.&#160; He rode that three-legged mule from Midland all the way to the presidency, bearing right at each crossroads so he went in circles, but he got there eventually.&#160; For our part, we were trailer trash—oil prospectors.</p>
<p>I was born by a prospector’s wife.&#160; But there was no birth.</p>
<p>Nativity’s so venerated in our culture we have a tacky commemorative tableau to mark it called a “nativity scene,” but it’s pretty much a crock of shit.&#160; The manger scene is like the Connecticut-Yankee-in-Texas-bush scene referred to above that underwrites recent chapters in the nation-state fable.&#160; It even has the same apocryphal distribution of birth-moment characters combined with random characters from exactly two years on.&#160; Wise guys, indeed.</p>
<p>Border crossings are a hell of a nativity scene.</p>
<p>Where were you born, and who—my question here—gives a shit?</p>
<p>People who want to pretty up Christianity, which is about a bloody death and a resurrection, focus on the birth event because it’s all they can handle.&#160; Like Jesus is some cuddly little bastard.&#160; Somewhere in fourth- or fifth-degree irony we might remember that the whole point of the ‘nativity’ scene is that the kid’s in the sheep shithouse precisely because he’s not a native to those parts.&#160; The real story of Christmas has always been about the empire’s taxpayer scheme under the Caesar Augustus administration.&#160; Begins with a census in the holidays and before you know it, it isn’t till May 10th that you can stop working for the Man and start working for yourself.&#160; We say, resist—don’t work.</p>
<p>So how did homeland securities everywhere come to protect Der Fatherland with these explicit and obscene and constant references to the vagina event?&#160; Why is every day V-day on the frontera?&#160; Enter almost any nation-state the world over and the first thing the guy in the Boy Scout uniform wants to know is something about your mother’s vagina.&#160; Or in my case the second question after, ‘what’s that on your head’?</p>
<p>It’s just slam bam on the frontier.&#160; Where’s the foreplay?&#160; It’s just: “Vagina event?&#160; Purpose of visit?&#160; Let me see your vagina-event-and-related-visits-abroad calendar.”</p>
<p>Vagina event and trips abroad—what the hell kind of category is that anyway?</p>
<p>“Anything to declare?”&#160; About what?&#160; What would you want to declare to a Boy Scout whose first question is about your mother’s vagina?</p>
<p>Do those of us without a vagina event really exist, or are we just a glitch in the matrix in the matrix?</p>
<p>Nature is camouflage.&#160; As soon as someone says something like ‘nature’ or ‘natural’, my first question is, ‘what are they hiding?’&#160; We’ve laid our obeisances for so long outside the cave of the vagina event we’ve come to believe it’s natural, like it’s not some wacko fetish.&#160; I grew up in (actually, just underneath) a place they called America where people like me, thank God, weren’t allowed to vote—first because we were kids, and then because we weren’t—and if we wanted to vote (hail the latest chief, I guess) we could undergo a process called ‘naturalization’.</p>
<p>Naturalization is a form of brainwashing by which you come to agree that the most bizarre fetish-sex practices are normal as long as someone in a Boy Scout uniform says they are.&#160; And just for the record, yes, I’ve also lived in Waco, Texas, so I know what’s at stake—if the Boy Scouts don’t think you’re natural enough they’ll burn you down inside your house.&#160; What’s at stake is us, as the witch said.</p>
<p>I once had a guy from Russia with a gun at the Detroit border keep me out of America because I didn’t have enough money.</p>
<p>Russia gun Detroit America money.&#160; It’s not the only short story I can tell you about Detroit, but it’ll do.</p>
<p>We’re in at least sixth-level irony here, but I’m telling it to you just like it happened.&#160; I was a circuit-riding preacher boy back in the day before they’d lock such unnaturals up as terrorists, and we could speak our minds a little more than you can now.&#160; This is the middle of the Cold War.&#160; Almost in Detroit, almost in America.&#160; I’m shouting in the 48-state English I speak from street level, with a few 17th-century King James Bible quotations for punctuation, and Slavic Cowboy’s responding in English inflected by having been born under Stalin.&#160; His English puts the slave back in Slavic.</p>
<p>He’s like, “you have zee insufficient funds.”</p>
<p>I’m like, “what’s the hold-up?’</p>
<p>“Hold-up?”</p>
<p>I shoot my hands in the air.&#160; “Oh please don’t shoot me, Mr. Stalin, I don’t like hold-ups.”&#160; That’s in one voice.&#160; Then in a different voice I’m like, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.&#160; Who, sirruh, art thou thus to obstruct his minister?”&#160; I’d been out baking in the sun of America for so many years, even at that age, I’d begun to have notions.</p>
<p>I was a thumb rider and proud of never taking buses, but they shoved me ignominiously onto a bus and sent me to Toronto, of all places.&#160; Said I was born there.&#160; Hard times but good times, I have to tell you.&#160; I’m nearly the last of that generation who could speak Shakespeare before we’d ever heard of him.&#160; Nowadays the Scouts’d tazer you just for looking them in the eyes.&#160; Tell me, does it get any better in life than discussing the subtleties of nativity with the guntotin’ stalinborn at a hundred decibels in the English that’s come down to us from Chaucer?&#160; Not a care in the world, back then.</p>
<p>Why is it the vagina event, and not something else, that entitles you to say you’re “from” somewhere (and if you’re from somewhere, how can you still be there—what’s that even mean, “I’m from here”)?</p>
<p>Why the vagina event?&#160; What about some other life stage?&#160; There’s predetermination, anticipation, insemination, conception, incarnation, germination, cognition, cognation, invagination, parturition, elimination, language acquisition, salvation, education, vaccination, indoctrination, playstation, maturation, matriculation and/or peregrination, higher education.&#160; It goes on and on, all the way through ruination to damnation.&#160; Why in tarnation pick parturition?&#160; By the process of elimination, I’ve finally come to decide that how a man composts his own shit will tell you the most about him.&#160; But frankly his vagina event is from the Age of Too Much Information.</p>
<p>Basing club membership and citizenship on “birth,” whatever the hell that is, is just another stupid form of aristocracy, the idea that it’s not what you do that matters but what vagina you popped out of.&#160; We had centuries of that in Europe.&#160; How’d that work out for you guys?</p>
<p>Birth fetishization is a form of inbreeding.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder people with the proper state connection to their vagina ancestors police their borders with guns.&#160; “Ooh, I’m so important, I’m glad I’m not from West Vagina.” Well lardy dah.&#160; It’s just kind of sad that they can get regular guys from Buffalo to dress up as cowboys and do the dirty work.&#160; Can you guys with the guns really not see through the nonsense?</p>
<p>I know what’s going on with all this vagina stuff.&#160; I wasn’t born yesterday.</p>
<p>DAVID Ker THOMSON lives in the watersheds that are under nations under God. He can be reached at:&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external" /> &#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
|
Against Birth
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2010/05/02/against-birth/
|
2010-05-02
| 4left
|
Against Birth
<p>I was never born.&#160; Can’t for the life of me figure out why I didn’t notice this till last week.</p>
<p>In the old days, I’d been born twice—once by water and once by blood, as the good book says.&#160; Then last week Eva-Lynn’s reading out loud to Liam this weird-sister book inspired by Macbeth and it hits me like a ton of bricks that I was a C-section.&#160; Probably more painful for my mother, but still.</p>
<p>The privileges that accrue to modern subjects by the accidents of birth have come to me by accident pure and simple.&#160; I have a nice little blue booklet to prove it, almost the same shape as an American passport.</p>
<p>It gets worse.&#160; I was never born but I was born all over the place.&#160; Mexico, Texas, and Colorado, in particular.&#160; You don’t have to put any fancy Frenchifying u’s or e’s in or on that word born for it to have a whole other identity: to carry or bear.&#160; Bear with me here, because this is important.</p>
<p>I was born, for example, in Midland, Texas, not to but by an oilman’s wife (hi Ma!), not far from a guy who’d come to town when he was two from Connecticut and pretended he was born in Texas.&#160; He rode that three-legged mule from Midland all the way to the presidency, bearing right at each crossroads so he went in circles, but he got there eventually.&#160; For our part, we were trailer trash—oil prospectors.</p>
<p>I was born by a prospector’s wife.&#160; But there was no birth.</p>
<p>Nativity’s so venerated in our culture we have a tacky commemorative tableau to mark it called a “nativity scene,” but it’s pretty much a crock of shit.&#160; The manger scene is like the Connecticut-Yankee-in-Texas-bush scene referred to above that underwrites recent chapters in the nation-state fable.&#160; It even has the same apocryphal distribution of birth-moment characters combined with random characters from exactly two years on.&#160; Wise guys, indeed.</p>
<p>Border crossings are a hell of a nativity scene.</p>
<p>Where were you born, and who—my question here—gives a shit?</p>
<p>People who want to pretty up Christianity, which is about a bloody death and a resurrection, focus on the birth event because it’s all they can handle.&#160; Like Jesus is some cuddly little bastard.&#160; Somewhere in fourth- or fifth-degree irony we might remember that the whole point of the ‘nativity’ scene is that the kid’s in the sheep shithouse precisely because he’s not a native to those parts.&#160; The real story of Christmas has always been about the empire’s taxpayer scheme under the Caesar Augustus administration.&#160; Begins with a census in the holidays and before you know it, it isn’t till May 10th that you can stop working for the Man and start working for yourself.&#160; We say, resist—don’t work.</p>
<p>So how did homeland securities everywhere come to protect Der Fatherland with these explicit and obscene and constant references to the vagina event?&#160; Why is every day V-day on the frontera?&#160; Enter almost any nation-state the world over and the first thing the guy in the Boy Scout uniform wants to know is something about your mother’s vagina.&#160; Or in my case the second question after, ‘what’s that on your head’?</p>
<p>It’s just slam bam on the frontier.&#160; Where’s the foreplay?&#160; It’s just: “Vagina event?&#160; Purpose of visit?&#160; Let me see your vagina-event-and-related-visits-abroad calendar.”</p>
<p>Vagina event and trips abroad—what the hell kind of category is that anyway?</p>
<p>“Anything to declare?”&#160; About what?&#160; What would you want to declare to a Boy Scout whose first question is about your mother’s vagina?</p>
<p>Do those of us without a vagina event really exist, or are we just a glitch in the matrix in the matrix?</p>
<p>Nature is camouflage.&#160; As soon as someone says something like ‘nature’ or ‘natural’, my first question is, ‘what are they hiding?’&#160; We’ve laid our obeisances for so long outside the cave of the vagina event we’ve come to believe it’s natural, like it’s not some wacko fetish.&#160; I grew up in (actually, just underneath) a place they called America where people like me, thank God, weren’t allowed to vote—first because we were kids, and then because we weren’t—and if we wanted to vote (hail the latest chief, I guess) we could undergo a process called ‘naturalization’.</p>
<p>Naturalization is a form of brainwashing by which you come to agree that the most bizarre fetish-sex practices are normal as long as someone in a Boy Scout uniform says they are.&#160; And just for the record, yes, I’ve also lived in Waco, Texas, so I know what’s at stake—if the Boy Scouts don’t think you’re natural enough they’ll burn you down inside your house.&#160; What’s at stake is us, as the witch said.</p>
<p>I once had a guy from Russia with a gun at the Detroit border keep me out of America because I didn’t have enough money.</p>
<p>Russia gun Detroit America money.&#160; It’s not the only short story I can tell you about Detroit, but it’ll do.</p>
<p>We’re in at least sixth-level irony here, but I’m telling it to you just like it happened.&#160; I was a circuit-riding preacher boy back in the day before they’d lock such unnaturals up as terrorists, and we could speak our minds a little more than you can now.&#160; This is the middle of the Cold War.&#160; Almost in Detroit, almost in America.&#160; I’m shouting in the 48-state English I speak from street level, with a few 17th-century King James Bible quotations for punctuation, and Slavic Cowboy’s responding in English inflected by having been born under Stalin.&#160; His English puts the slave back in Slavic.</p>
<p>He’s like, “you have zee insufficient funds.”</p>
<p>I’m like, “what’s the hold-up?’</p>
<p>“Hold-up?”</p>
<p>I shoot my hands in the air.&#160; “Oh please don’t shoot me, Mr. Stalin, I don’t like hold-ups.”&#160; That’s in one voice.&#160; Then in a different voice I’m like, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.&#160; Who, sirruh, art thou thus to obstruct his minister?”&#160; I’d been out baking in the sun of America for so many years, even at that age, I’d begun to have notions.</p>
<p>I was a thumb rider and proud of never taking buses, but they shoved me ignominiously onto a bus and sent me to Toronto, of all places.&#160; Said I was born there.&#160; Hard times but good times, I have to tell you.&#160; I’m nearly the last of that generation who could speak Shakespeare before we’d ever heard of him.&#160; Nowadays the Scouts’d tazer you just for looking them in the eyes.&#160; Tell me, does it get any better in life than discussing the subtleties of nativity with the guntotin’ stalinborn at a hundred decibels in the English that’s come down to us from Chaucer?&#160; Not a care in the world, back then.</p>
<p>Why is it the vagina event, and not something else, that entitles you to say you’re “from” somewhere (and if you’re from somewhere, how can you still be there—what’s that even mean, “I’m from here”)?</p>
<p>Why the vagina event?&#160; What about some other life stage?&#160; There’s predetermination, anticipation, insemination, conception, incarnation, germination, cognition, cognation, invagination, parturition, elimination, language acquisition, salvation, education, vaccination, indoctrination, playstation, maturation, matriculation and/or peregrination, higher education.&#160; It goes on and on, all the way through ruination to damnation.&#160; Why in tarnation pick parturition?&#160; By the process of elimination, I’ve finally come to decide that how a man composts his own shit will tell you the most about him.&#160; But frankly his vagina event is from the Age of Too Much Information.</p>
<p>Basing club membership and citizenship on “birth,” whatever the hell that is, is just another stupid form of aristocracy, the idea that it’s not what you do that matters but what vagina you popped out of.&#160; We had centuries of that in Europe.&#160; How’d that work out for you guys?</p>
<p>Birth fetishization is a form of inbreeding.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder people with the proper state connection to their vagina ancestors police their borders with guns.&#160; “Ooh, I’m so important, I’m glad I’m not from West Vagina.” Well lardy dah.&#160; It’s just kind of sad that they can get regular guys from Buffalo to dress up as cowboys and do the dirty work.&#160; Can you guys with the guns really not see through the nonsense?</p>
<p>I know what’s going on with all this vagina stuff.&#160; I wasn’t born yesterday.</p>
<p>DAVID Ker THOMSON lives in the watersheds that are under nations under God. He can be reached at:&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external" /> &#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
| 6,347 |
<p>DURHAM, N.H. (AP) — Trae Bell-Haynes scored 20 points and Vermont extended its string of consecutive America East Conference victories to 26 with a 67-56 win over New Hampshire on Thursday night.</p>
<p>The Catamounts now have won eight straight after winning the 150th meeting between the twin state rivals.</p>
<p>New Hampshire held a 27-25 advantage at intermission and Elijah Jordan extended it to 33-28 on his jumper with 18:04 left. Bell-Haynes scored seven straight points to get Vermont the lead and spark a 9-0 run. After Tanner Leissner hit the second of two free throws, the Catamounts went on a 13-0 run.</p>
<p>Ernie Duncan hit four 3-pointers and added 17 points for Vermont (15-5, 5-0) and Cam Ward added another 10 points.</p>
<p>Vermont shot 22 of 45 from the field (48.9 percent), including 7 of 17 from distance, and was 16 of 20 from the line.</p>
<p>John Ogwuche finished with 17 points to lead New Hampshire (7-12, 3-2) and Leissner added another 14.</p>
<p>DURHAM, N.H. (AP) — Trae Bell-Haynes scored 20 points and Vermont extended its string of consecutive America East Conference victories to 26 with a 67-56 win over New Hampshire on Thursday night.</p>
<p>The Catamounts now have won eight straight after winning the 150th meeting between the twin state rivals.</p>
<p>New Hampshire held a 27-25 advantage at intermission and Elijah Jordan extended it to 33-28 on his jumper with 18:04 left. Bell-Haynes scored seven straight points to get Vermont the lead and spark a 9-0 run. After Tanner Leissner hit the second of two free throws, the Catamounts went on a 13-0 run.</p>
<p>Ernie Duncan hit four 3-pointers and added 17 points for Vermont (15-5, 5-0) and Cam Ward added another 10 points.</p>
<p>Vermont shot 22 of 45 from the field (48.9 percent), including 7 of 17 from distance, and was 16 of 20 from the line.</p>
<p>John Ogwuche finished with 17 points to lead New Hampshire (7-12, 3-2) and Leissner added another 14.</p>
|
Vermont wins 8th straight game, beats New Hampshire 67-56
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/8c97b59f3da3414890142a4c63721d78
|
2018-01-19
| 2least
|
Vermont wins 8th straight game, beats New Hampshire 67-56
<p>DURHAM, N.H. (AP) — Trae Bell-Haynes scored 20 points and Vermont extended its string of consecutive America East Conference victories to 26 with a 67-56 win over New Hampshire on Thursday night.</p>
<p>The Catamounts now have won eight straight after winning the 150th meeting between the twin state rivals.</p>
<p>New Hampshire held a 27-25 advantage at intermission and Elijah Jordan extended it to 33-28 on his jumper with 18:04 left. Bell-Haynes scored seven straight points to get Vermont the lead and spark a 9-0 run. After Tanner Leissner hit the second of two free throws, the Catamounts went on a 13-0 run.</p>
<p>Ernie Duncan hit four 3-pointers and added 17 points for Vermont (15-5, 5-0) and Cam Ward added another 10 points.</p>
<p>Vermont shot 22 of 45 from the field (48.9 percent), including 7 of 17 from distance, and was 16 of 20 from the line.</p>
<p>John Ogwuche finished with 17 points to lead New Hampshire (7-12, 3-2) and Leissner added another 14.</p>
<p>DURHAM, N.H. (AP) — Trae Bell-Haynes scored 20 points and Vermont extended its string of consecutive America East Conference victories to 26 with a 67-56 win over New Hampshire on Thursday night.</p>
<p>The Catamounts now have won eight straight after winning the 150th meeting between the twin state rivals.</p>
<p>New Hampshire held a 27-25 advantage at intermission and Elijah Jordan extended it to 33-28 on his jumper with 18:04 left. Bell-Haynes scored seven straight points to get Vermont the lead and spark a 9-0 run. After Tanner Leissner hit the second of two free throws, the Catamounts went on a 13-0 run.</p>
<p>Ernie Duncan hit four 3-pointers and added 17 points for Vermont (15-5, 5-0) and Cam Ward added another 10 points.</p>
<p>Vermont shot 22 of 45 from the field (48.9 percent), including 7 of 17 from distance, and was 16 of 20 from the line.</p>
<p>John Ogwuche finished with 17 points to lead New Hampshire (7-12, 3-2) and Leissner added another 14.</p>
| 6,348 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The fact that the state Public Education Department has signed off on the Albuquerque High School senior who shelled out $200 to re-take senior English over a weekend so he could walk the line at graduation should not be the end of the discussion.</p>
<p>Still to be resolved is what charter schools, Albuquerque Public Schools and other districts are going to do to ensure there is integrity in online K-12 learning going forward.</p>
<p>PED has determined districts have discretion over whether to allow students to enroll in online classes and whether to honor credits. APS has said it wasn’t aware it had that discretion. But since PED says it does, the district and charters need to get busy putting policies in writing that set requirements and standards for online coursework. A good starting point is how you make sure it’s the desperate student trying to graduate or stay eligible for football who is actually doing the work.</p>
<p>The AHS senior wasn’t alone in utilizing online courses; last school year more than 250 APS students joined him to take a total of 399 online courses at Southwest Secondary Learning Center.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Having trouble with a teacher’s method and perform better with measured lessons given at your own pace? Online learning may be an appropriate alternative. Failed an entire class and need to cram it in over a weekend so you can play in the big game or wear the cap and gown? Not so much.</p>
<p>Insta-credits stretch credibility and devalue the important work that happens in classrooms. It is essential that state lawmakers and district leaders heed the concerns of APS board member Martin Esquivel, who cautions that “the real question (is) whether the content of that course was delivered and received with any degree of academic integrity.”</p>
<p>That’s a homework assignment that requires and deserves a well-thought-out answer.</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>
|
Editorial: Districts, Lawmakers Get Online Homework
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/119540/districts-lawmakers-get-online-homework.html
|
2012-07-21
| 2least
|
Editorial: Districts, Lawmakers Get Online Homework
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The fact that the state Public Education Department has signed off on the Albuquerque High School senior who shelled out $200 to re-take senior English over a weekend so he could walk the line at graduation should not be the end of the discussion.</p>
<p>Still to be resolved is what charter schools, Albuquerque Public Schools and other districts are going to do to ensure there is integrity in online K-12 learning going forward.</p>
<p>PED has determined districts have discretion over whether to allow students to enroll in online classes and whether to honor credits. APS has said it wasn’t aware it had that discretion. But since PED says it does, the district and charters need to get busy putting policies in writing that set requirements and standards for online coursework. A good starting point is how you make sure it’s the desperate student trying to graduate or stay eligible for football who is actually doing the work.</p>
<p>The AHS senior wasn’t alone in utilizing online courses; last school year more than 250 APS students joined him to take a total of 399 online courses at Southwest Secondary Learning Center.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Having trouble with a teacher’s method and perform better with measured lessons given at your own pace? Online learning may be an appropriate alternative. Failed an entire class and need to cram it in over a weekend so you can play in the big game or wear the cap and gown? Not so much.</p>
<p>Insta-credits stretch credibility and devalue the important work that happens in classrooms. It is essential that state lawmakers and district leaders heed the concerns of APS board member Martin Esquivel, who cautions that “the real question (is) whether the content of that course was delivered and received with any degree of academic integrity.”</p>
<p>That’s a homework assignment that requires and deserves a well-thought-out answer.</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>
| 6,349 |
<p>Using video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. (Dec. 27)</p>
<p>Using video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. (Dec. 27)</p>
|
School Virtual Shooter Program Aimed at Survival
| false |
https://apnews.com/93c5ccf941b147ed8b556a420bc4169a
|
2017-12-27
| 2least
|
School Virtual Shooter Program Aimed at Survival
<p>Using video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. (Dec. 27)</p>
<p>Using video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. (Dec. 27)</p>
| 6,350 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday morning’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Pick 3 Morning” game were:</p>
<p>1-6-8, Sum It Up: 15</p>
<p>(one, six, eight; Sum It Up: fifteen)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday morning’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Pick 3 Morning” game were:</p>
<p>1-6-8, Sum It Up: 15</p>
<p>(one, six, eight; Sum It Up: fifteen)</p>
|
Winning numbers drawn in ‘Pick 3 Morning’ game
| false |
https://apnews.com/12b16ac738b3462196866a59393077c3
|
2017-12-30
| 2least
|
Winning numbers drawn in ‘Pick 3 Morning’ game
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday morning’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Pick 3 Morning” game were:</p>
<p>1-6-8, Sum It Up: 15</p>
<p>(one, six, eight; Sum It Up: fifteen)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday morning’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Pick 3 Morning” game were:</p>
<p>1-6-8, Sum It Up: 15</p>
<p>(one, six, eight; Sum It Up: fifteen)</p>
| 6,351 |
<p>Donald Trump makes most of the headlines for his flamboyant and ignorant style in which he runs his campaign. Let’s face it, while most of us can’t stand Trump, his interviews are much more&#160;unpredictable&#160;and entertaining&#160;to watch than most.</p>
<p>But as I’ve said before, Trump is nowhere <a href="" type="internal">near the worst candidate running for president</a>. Oh, no. That award goes to Sen. Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz is someone who’s hated by practically everyone. He’s loathed by progressives and even despised by members of his own party. While he often tries to twist that disdain many feel about him as “the establishment being afraid of him,” the truth of the matter is, Cruz is a self-absorbed narcissist who I believe would have no problem watching the country reduce to rubble if he felt it would benefit his own ambitions.</p>
<p>Who does Ted Cruz represent? That’s simple: <a href="" type="internal">Only himself</a>.</p>
<p>Since being elected a United States senator, his entire career has been based upon “governing” in such a way as to set up his current presidential run. When our government was shutdown in 2013,&#160;he&#160;was the one leading the charge to spearhead that debacle even though everyone who understood&#160;the least bit about government knew that his “goal” was unobtainable. Even other Republicans have called him out <a href="" type="internal">for selling American voters lies</a> about things that were unrealistic, all for the sake of his own political career.</p>
<p>Then again,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">all he does is lie</a>.</p>
<p>Only five percent – yes&#160;five percent&#160;– of the comments <a href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ted-cruz/" type="external">non-partisan fact-checking site</a> Politifact has looked into have been deemed 100% “True.” Whereas&#160;67 percent&#160;have been exposed as lies.</p>
<p>That is astonishing.</p>
<p>But even as divisive as he’s been, hated by practically everyone, he still has <a href="" type="internal">the gall to portray himself</a> as someone who can “bring people together.”&#160;Give me a damn break.&#160;</p>
<p>Then again, Cruz is nothing but a snake oil salesman.</p>
<p>The general uneasy creepiness that Cruz brings with him is only trumped by the vile things he’s said and done over the years.</p>
<p>Take a look at this partial list:</p>
<p>The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, Cruz is&#160;everything bad about Trump, plus a whole load of some of the most radical religious rhetoric you’ll hear from anyone. He wants the United States to be an evangelical Christian theocracy.</p>
<p>Fun Fact: <a href="" type="internal">His father once said</a> there’s “no science” behind the theory of evolution and that “evolution and communism go hand in hand.”</p>
<p>So, while I’m sure Donald Trump will still continue to get most of the headlines, don’t discount how disastrous&#160;a “President Ted Cruz” would be for this country. Ted Cruz&#160;is, without a doubt, the most dangerous candidate in this race.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.twitter.com/allen_clifton" type="external">Hit me up on Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allencliftonroc" type="external">Facebook</a> and let me know what you think.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Here are the 5 Main Types of Ted Cruz Supporters</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump is a Conniving Coward, but Ted Cruz is Cold, Calculating and Downright Sociopathic</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">The RNC is Desperate to Defeat Trump, but Ted Cruz Would be an Even Bigger Nightmare for Republicans</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p>
|
Ted Cruz is a Dangerous Megalomaniac Who Only Stands For and Serves Himself
| true |
http://forwardprogressives.com/ted-cruz-dangerous-serves-himself/
|
2016-02-04
| 4left
|
Ted Cruz is a Dangerous Megalomaniac Who Only Stands For and Serves Himself
<p>Donald Trump makes most of the headlines for his flamboyant and ignorant style in which he runs his campaign. Let’s face it, while most of us can’t stand Trump, his interviews are much more&#160;unpredictable&#160;and entertaining&#160;to watch than most.</p>
<p>But as I’ve said before, Trump is nowhere <a href="" type="internal">near the worst candidate running for president</a>. Oh, no. That award goes to Sen. Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz is someone who’s hated by practically everyone. He’s loathed by progressives and even despised by members of his own party. While he often tries to twist that disdain many feel about him as “the establishment being afraid of him,” the truth of the matter is, Cruz is a self-absorbed narcissist who I believe would have no problem watching the country reduce to rubble if he felt it would benefit his own ambitions.</p>
<p>Who does Ted Cruz represent? That’s simple: <a href="" type="internal">Only himself</a>.</p>
<p>Since being elected a United States senator, his entire career has been based upon “governing” in such a way as to set up his current presidential run. When our government was shutdown in 2013,&#160;he&#160;was the one leading the charge to spearhead that debacle even though everyone who understood&#160;the least bit about government knew that his “goal” was unobtainable. Even other Republicans have called him out <a href="" type="internal">for selling American voters lies</a> about things that were unrealistic, all for the sake of his own political career.</p>
<p>Then again,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">all he does is lie</a>.</p>
<p>Only five percent – yes&#160;five percent&#160;– of the comments <a href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ted-cruz/" type="external">non-partisan fact-checking site</a> Politifact has looked into have been deemed 100% “True.” Whereas&#160;67 percent&#160;have been exposed as lies.</p>
<p>That is astonishing.</p>
<p>But even as divisive as he’s been, hated by practically everyone, he still has <a href="" type="internal">the gall to portray himself</a> as someone who can “bring people together.”&#160;Give me a damn break.&#160;</p>
<p>Then again, Cruz is nothing but a snake oil salesman.</p>
<p>The general uneasy creepiness that Cruz brings with him is only trumped by the vile things he’s said and done over the years.</p>
<p>Take a look at this partial list:</p>
<p>The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, Cruz is&#160;everything bad about Trump, plus a whole load of some of the most radical religious rhetoric you’ll hear from anyone. He wants the United States to be an evangelical Christian theocracy.</p>
<p>Fun Fact: <a href="" type="internal">His father once said</a> there’s “no science” behind the theory of evolution and that “evolution and communism go hand in hand.”</p>
<p>So, while I’m sure Donald Trump will still continue to get most of the headlines, don’t discount how disastrous&#160;a “President Ted Cruz” would be for this country. Ted Cruz&#160;is, without a doubt, the most dangerous candidate in this race.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.twitter.com/allen_clifton" type="external">Hit me up on Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allencliftonroc" type="external">Facebook</a> and let me know what you think.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Here are the 5 Main Types of Ted Cruz Supporters</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump is a Conniving Coward, but Ted Cruz is Cold, Calculating and Downright Sociopathic</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">The RNC is Desperate to Defeat Trump, but Ted Cruz Would be an Even Bigger Nightmare for Republicans</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p>
| 6,352 |
<p>U.S. government bonds were little changed Tuesday as the market took a break from its recent selloff.</p>
<p>In recent trading, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was 2.330%, according to Tradeweb, compared with 2.337% Monday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Yields, which fall when bond prices rise, ticked higher overnight but eased lower at the start of the U.S. trading session.</p>
<p>Yields have trended higher in recent weeks due to a variety of factors, among them improved odds for tax cuts out of Washington and speculation that Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen could be replaced next year with someone more inclined to raise interest rates.</p>
<p>After drawing relatively little attention from investors for months, the prospect of a tax-cut package has come back into focus following the release of a Republican plan last week and movement in Congress to pass a budget blueprint that would allow Republicans to cut up to $1.5 trillion in taxes over the next decade without votes from Democrats.</p>
<p>A large tax cut for individuals and corporations could weigh on Treasurys in part by boosting economic growth, which could lead investors to favor riskier assets, as well as inflation, which chips away at the fixed returns of government debt. Tax cuts would also expand the budget deficit, forcing the government to sell more bonds to investors at a time when the Fed is also starting to scale back its purchases of Treasurys.</p>
<p>"A lot of moving parts" have led investors to sell bonds recently, said Stanley Sun, interest-rates strategist at Nomura Securities International in New York.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>While inflation remains low, that "has stopped being news," leaving investors to focus on other matters like tax policy and candidates to replace Ms. Yellen, he added.</p>
<p>Write to Sam Goldfarb at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 03, 2017 11:08 ET (15:08 GMT)</p>
|
Treasurys Pause Following Selloff
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/03/treasurys-pause-following-selloff0.html
|
2017-10-03
| 0right
|
Treasurys Pause Following Selloff
<p>U.S. government bonds were little changed Tuesday as the market took a break from its recent selloff.</p>
<p>In recent trading, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was 2.330%, according to Tradeweb, compared with 2.337% Monday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Yields, which fall when bond prices rise, ticked higher overnight but eased lower at the start of the U.S. trading session.</p>
<p>Yields have trended higher in recent weeks due to a variety of factors, among them improved odds for tax cuts out of Washington and speculation that Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen could be replaced next year with someone more inclined to raise interest rates.</p>
<p>After drawing relatively little attention from investors for months, the prospect of a tax-cut package has come back into focus following the release of a Republican plan last week and movement in Congress to pass a budget blueprint that would allow Republicans to cut up to $1.5 trillion in taxes over the next decade without votes from Democrats.</p>
<p>A large tax cut for individuals and corporations could weigh on Treasurys in part by boosting economic growth, which could lead investors to favor riskier assets, as well as inflation, which chips away at the fixed returns of government debt. Tax cuts would also expand the budget deficit, forcing the government to sell more bonds to investors at a time when the Fed is also starting to scale back its purchases of Treasurys.</p>
<p>"A lot of moving parts" have led investors to sell bonds recently, said Stanley Sun, interest-rates strategist at Nomura Securities International in New York.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>While inflation remains low, that "has stopped being news," leaving investors to focus on other matters like tax policy and candidates to replace Ms. Yellen, he added.</p>
<p>Write to Sam Goldfarb at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 03, 2017 11:08 ET (15:08 GMT)</p>
| 6,353 |
<p>CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ These Vermont lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Gimme 5</p>
<p>21-22-24-28-37</p>
<p>(twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-seven)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>17-18-33-46-60, Mega Ball: 24, Megaplier: 4</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, thirty-three, forty-six, sixty; Mega Ball: twenty-four; Megaplier: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $45 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Day</p>
<p>0-3-1</p>
<p>(zero, three, one)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>7-7-6</p>
<p>(seven, seven, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Day</p>
<p>6-5-7-7</p>
<p>(six, five, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>9-1-0-2</p>
<p>(nine, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $50 million</p>
<p>CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ These Vermont lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Gimme 5</p>
<p>21-22-24-28-37</p>
<p>(twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-seven)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>17-18-33-46-60, Mega Ball: 24, Megaplier: 4</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, thirty-three, forty-six, sixty; Mega Ball: twenty-four; Megaplier: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $45 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Day</p>
<p>0-3-1</p>
<p>(zero, three, one)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>7-7-6</p>
<p>(seven, seven, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Day</p>
<p>6-5-7-7</p>
<p>(six, five, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>9-1-0-2</p>
<p>(nine, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $50 million</p>
|
VT Lottery
| false |
https://apnews.com/e8c45e65fbf9475cad5f78564978f077
|
2018-01-13
| 2least
|
VT Lottery
<p>CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ These Vermont lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Gimme 5</p>
<p>21-22-24-28-37</p>
<p>(twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-seven)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>17-18-33-46-60, Mega Ball: 24, Megaplier: 4</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, thirty-three, forty-six, sixty; Mega Ball: twenty-four; Megaplier: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $45 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Day</p>
<p>0-3-1</p>
<p>(zero, three, one)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>7-7-6</p>
<p>(seven, seven, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Day</p>
<p>6-5-7-7</p>
<p>(six, five, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>9-1-0-2</p>
<p>(nine, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $50 million</p>
<p>CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ These Vermont lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Gimme 5</p>
<p>21-22-24-28-37</p>
<p>(twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-seven)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>17-18-33-46-60, Mega Ball: 24, Megaplier: 4</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, thirty-three, forty-six, sixty; Mega Ball: twenty-four; Megaplier: four)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $45 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Day</p>
<p>0-3-1</p>
<p>(zero, three, one)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>7-7-6</p>
<p>(seven, seven, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Day</p>
<p>6-5-7-7</p>
<p>(six, five, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>9-1-0-2</p>
<p>(nine, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $50 million</p>
| 6,354 |
<p />
<p>Jared Guinther, 18, was diagnosed at three with moderate to severe autism. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to and has been enrolled in special education his entire life. Yet he was recently <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1146882329307730.xml&amp;coll=7" type="external">permitted to enlist</a> in the U.S. Army as a cavalry scout—widely considered the army’s most dangerous job because of its frequent engagement with the enemy using “anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles.” And despite the fact that he was completely unaware of the war in Iraq until last fall, he enlisted when approached by a military recruiter and offered a “$4,000 signing bonus, $67,000 for college and more buddies than he could count.”</p>
<p>His story draws attention to the <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2005/05/the_new_york_times_national_army_recruiters_say_they_feel_pressure_to_bend_rules/" type="external">surge in recruiting improprieties</a> over the last several years. Its possible that recruiters concealed Guinther’s disability in hopes of meeting their enlistment targets. According to The Oregonian, Maj. Curt Steinagel, commander of the Military Entrance Processing Station in Portland, said the papers filled out by Jared’s recruiters contained no indication of his disability. “I can’t speak for Army,” he said, “but it’s no secret that recruiters stretch and bend the rules because of all the pressure they’re under. The problem exists, and we all know it exists.”</p>
<p />
|
Army Recruits Autistic Man
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/army-recruits-autistic-man/
|
2006-05-09
| 4left
|
Army Recruits Autistic Man
<p />
<p>Jared Guinther, 18, was diagnosed at three with moderate to severe autism. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to and has been enrolled in special education his entire life. Yet he was recently <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1146882329307730.xml&amp;coll=7" type="external">permitted to enlist</a> in the U.S. Army as a cavalry scout—widely considered the army’s most dangerous job because of its frequent engagement with the enemy using “anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles.” And despite the fact that he was completely unaware of the war in Iraq until last fall, he enlisted when approached by a military recruiter and offered a “$4,000 signing bonus, $67,000 for college and more buddies than he could count.”</p>
<p>His story draws attention to the <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2005/05/the_new_york_times_national_army_recruiters_say_they_feel_pressure_to_bend_rules/" type="external">surge in recruiting improprieties</a> over the last several years. Its possible that recruiters concealed Guinther’s disability in hopes of meeting their enlistment targets. According to The Oregonian, Maj. Curt Steinagel, commander of the Military Entrance Processing Station in Portland, said the papers filled out by Jared’s recruiters contained no indication of his disability. “I can’t speak for Army,” he said, “but it’s no secret that recruiters stretch and bend the rules because of all the pressure they’re under. The problem exists, and we all know it exists.”</p>
<p />
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<p>Sept. 5 (UPI) — President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> on Tuesday said a wind-down of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allows Congress the “opportunity to advance responsible <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Immigration_Reform/" type="external">immigration reform</a>.”</p>
<p>The president said that though he does “not favor punishing children … for the actions of their parents,” he disagrees with former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a> for using his executive powers in 2012 to create the DACA program.</p>
<p>“The legislative branch, not the executive branch, writes these laws — this is the bedrock of our constitutional system, which I took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend,” Trump said Tuesday after Attorney General <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jeff_Sessions/" type="external">Jeff Sessions</a> announced the elimination of DACA.</p>
<p>Sessions made the announcement at the direction of Trump, rescinding the program, which gave legal protections to roughly 800,000 people.</p>
<p>Sessions, who took no questions from reporters, did not give a timeframe but the Trump administration also announced a plan to continue renewing permits for anyone whose status expires in the next six months.</p>
<p>Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said “new initial requests or associated applications filed after today will be acted on.”</p>
<p>Those whose status expires by March 5 have one month to apply for a new two-year permit, and those applications will be processed.</p>
<p>Trump said the gradual wind-down of DACA will allow Congress to create legislation reforming the immigration system.</p>
<p>“Congress now has the opportunity to advance responsible immigration reform that puts American jobs and American security first,” the president said. “We are facing the symptom of a larger problem, illegal immigration, along with the many other chronic immigration problems Washington has left unsolved.</p>
<p>Sessions has cracked down on undocumented immigration since taking the helm of the Justice Department.</p>
<p>At the time he created DACA, Obama said it was a temporary move. On Tuesday, he issued a statement saying “it made no sense to expel talented, driven, patriotic young people from the only country they know solely because of the actions of their parents.” He said Congress was never able to provide him with legislation reforming the U.S. immigration system, which is why he issued the executive order creating DACA.</p>
<p>“We did so based on the well-established legal principle of prosecutorial discretion, deployed by Democratic and Republican presidents alike, because our immigration enforcement agencies have limited resources, and it makes sense to focus those resources on those who come illegally to this country to do us harm,” he said. “Deportations of criminals went up. Some 800,000 young people stepped forward, met rigorous requirements, and went through background checks. And America grew stronger as a result.”</p>
<p>But Sessions, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca" type="external">in his speech</a>, said the Department of Justice could not “defend this overreach.”</p>
<p>“There is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws. Enforcing the law saves lives, protects communities and taxpayers, and prevents human suffering. Failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism. The compassionate thing is to end the lawlessness, [and[ enforce our laws.”</p>
<p>Duke <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/546423550/trump-signals-end-to-daca-calls-on-congress-to-act" type="external">said the administration</a>, facing legal challenges to the program, “chose the least disruptive option” in letting the program wind down in six months.</p>
<p>The period is intended to push Congress to pass legislation for DACA, the controversial program that allows undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to obtain work permits and study in the country provided they meet certain guidelines, such as graduating from high school and “who do not present a risk to national security or public safety,” as Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/15/remarks-president-immigration" type="external">said at the time</a>.</p>
<p>“This is not amnesty, this is not immunity,” Obama said. “This is not a path to citizenship.”</p>
<p>But if Congress fails to pass legislation by the end of six months, nearly 1 million migrants are at risk of being deported from a country they have lived in most of their lives. In their applications, so-called “Dreamers” — those protected by the program — gave personal information to the U.S. government.</p>
<p>In a statement, House Speaker <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Paul_Ryan/" type="external">Paul Ryan</a> said he wants Congress to reach a solution in time.</p>
<p>“It is my hope that the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution that includes ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country,” the Republican said.</p>
<p>Ryan’s statement was similar to comments last week when he urged Trump not to rescind the order.</p>
<p>“Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this program fulfills a promise that President Trump made to restore the proper role of the executive and legislative branches,” Ryan said. “But now there is more to do, and the president has called on Congress to act. The president’s announcement does not revoke permits immediately, and it is important that those affected have clarity on how this interim period will be carried out. At the heart of this issue are young people who came to this country through no fault of their own, and for many of them it’s the only country they know. Their status is one of many immigration issues, such as border security and interior enforcement, which Congress has failed to adequately address over the years.”</p>
<p>During his campaign, Trump said he would immediately end the program but he had wavered since becoming president. He said he would “deal with DACA with heart” and he supported Dreamers.</p>
<p>Trump has not commented on the issue Tuesday except for a <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/905038986883850240" type="external">tweet on Twitter</a> four hours before Sessions’ the statement: “Congress, get ready to do your job – DACA! “</p>
<p>Congress in the past has failed to approve an immigration policy.</p>
<p>“My hope is that as part of this process we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation, which is the right way to do it and the constitutional way to do it,” Sen. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Marco_Rubio/" type="external">Marco Rubio</a> R-Fla. told <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/politics/daca-on-the-brink/index.html?adkey=bn" type="external">CNN in June</a>. Rubio has supported immigration reform.</p>
<p>Rep. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Steve_King/" type="external">Steve King</a>, R-Iowa, said a six-month timeframe to find new legislation for DACA was too long and it should be ended immediately.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/904508306441494529" type="external">On Sunday</a>, he posted on Twitter: “ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide.”</p>
<p>A group of conservative state attorneys general threatened to sue the Trump administration in federal court unless it begins to dismantle the program by Tuesday.</p>
<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a <a href="https://www.upi.com/Texas-attorney-general-leads-threat-of-lawsuit-over-Dreamers-program/9541498825952/" type="external">letter last June</a> to Sessions and co-signed by nine other state attorneys general, urged the administration to phase out DACA.</p>
<p>In 2014, Obama sought to expand the program, but 26 states sued the federal government to block the expansion along with DAPA.</p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/supreme-court/" type="external">Supreme Court</a> deadlocked on the decision and left a preliminary injunction in place against the expanded version of DACA, but left the original version in place.</p>
<p>Reacting to Sessions’ announcement, Chicago Mayor <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Rahm_Emanuel/" type="external">Rahm Emanuel</a>, a Democrat, said the city would continue to welcome Dreamers and declared it a “Trump-free zone.”</p>
<p>“To all the Dreamers that are here in this room, and in the city of Chicago, you are welcomed in the city of Chicago. This is your home and you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>“Chicago, our schools, our neighborhoods, our city, as it relates to what President Trump said, will be a Trump-free zone. You have nothing to worry about,” he added.</p>
<p>To all <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DREAMers?src=hash" type="external">#DREAMers</a>: You are welcome in the City of Chicago. This is your home. Come to school and pursue your dreams. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DACA?src=hash" type="external">#DACA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChicagoisOne?src=hash" type="external">#ChicagoisOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/YbnEpxqbuG" type="external">pic.twitter.com/YbnEpxqbuG</a></p>
<p>– Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChicagosMayor/status/905099919907803143" type="external">September 5, 2017</a></p>
|
Trump: DACA wind-down gives Congress chance to act on immigration
| false |
https://newsline.com/trump-daca-wind-down-gives-congress-chance-to-act-on-immigration/
|
2017-09-05
| 1right-center
|
Trump: DACA wind-down gives Congress chance to act on immigration
<p>Sept. 5 (UPI) — President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> on Tuesday said a wind-down of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allows Congress the “opportunity to advance responsible <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Immigration_Reform/" type="external">immigration reform</a>.”</p>
<p>The president said that though he does “not favor punishing children … for the actions of their parents,” he disagrees with former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a> for using his executive powers in 2012 to create the DACA program.</p>
<p>“The legislative branch, not the executive branch, writes these laws — this is the bedrock of our constitutional system, which I took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend,” Trump said Tuesday after Attorney General <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jeff_Sessions/" type="external">Jeff Sessions</a> announced the elimination of DACA.</p>
<p>Sessions made the announcement at the direction of Trump, rescinding the program, which gave legal protections to roughly 800,000 people.</p>
<p>Sessions, who took no questions from reporters, did not give a timeframe but the Trump administration also announced a plan to continue renewing permits for anyone whose status expires in the next six months.</p>
<p>Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said “new initial requests or associated applications filed after today will be acted on.”</p>
<p>Those whose status expires by March 5 have one month to apply for a new two-year permit, and those applications will be processed.</p>
<p>Trump said the gradual wind-down of DACA will allow Congress to create legislation reforming the immigration system.</p>
<p>“Congress now has the opportunity to advance responsible immigration reform that puts American jobs and American security first,” the president said. “We are facing the symptom of a larger problem, illegal immigration, along with the many other chronic immigration problems Washington has left unsolved.</p>
<p>Sessions has cracked down on undocumented immigration since taking the helm of the Justice Department.</p>
<p>At the time he created DACA, Obama said it was a temporary move. On Tuesday, he issued a statement saying “it made no sense to expel talented, driven, patriotic young people from the only country they know solely because of the actions of their parents.” He said Congress was never able to provide him with legislation reforming the U.S. immigration system, which is why he issued the executive order creating DACA.</p>
<p>“We did so based on the well-established legal principle of prosecutorial discretion, deployed by Democratic and Republican presidents alike, because our immigration enforcement agencies have limited resources, and it makes sense to focus those resources on those who come illegally to this country to do us harm,” he said. “Deportations of criminals went up. Some 800,000 young people stepped forward, met rigorous requirements, and went through background checks. And America grew stronger as a result.”</p>
<p>But Sessions, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca" type="external">in his speech</a>, said the Department of Justice could not “defend this overreach.”</p>
<p>“There is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws. Enforcing the law saves lives, protects communities and taxpayers, and prevents human suffering. Failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism. The compassionate thing is to end the lawlessness, [and[ enforce our laws.”</p>
<p>Duke <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/546423550/trump-signals-end-to-daca-calls-on-congress-to-act" type="external">said the administration</a>, facing legal challenges to the program, “chose the least disruptive option” in letting the program wind down in six months.</p>
<p>The period is intended to push Congress to pass legislation for DACA, the controversial program that allows undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to obtain work permits and study in the country provided they meet certain guidelines, such as graduating from high school and “who do not present a risk to national security or public safety,” as Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/15/remarks-president-immigration" type="external">said at the time</a>.</p>
<p>“This is not amnesty, this is not immunity,” Obama said. “This is not a path to citizenship.”</p>
<p>But if Congress fails to pass legislation by the end of six months, nearly 1 million migrants are at risk of being deported from a country they have lived in most of their lives. In their applications, so-called “Dreamers” — those protected by the program — gave personal information to the U.S. government.</p>
<p>In a statement, House Speaker <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Paul_Ryan/" type="external">Paul Ryan</a> said he wants Congress to reach a solution in time.</p>
<p>“It is my hope that the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution that includes ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country,” the Republican said.</p>
<p>Ryan’s statement was similar to comments last week when he urged Trump not to rescind the order.</p>
<p>“Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this program fulfills a promise that President Trump made to restore the proper role of the executive and legislative branches,” Ryan said. “But now there is more to do, and the president has called on Congress to act. The president’s announcement does not revoke permits immediately, and it is important that those affected have clarity on how this interim period will be carried out. At the heart of this issue are young people who came to this country through no fault of their own, and for many of them it’s the only country they know. Their status is one of many immigration issues, such as border security and interior enforcement, which Congress has failed to adequately address over the years.”</p>
<p>During his campaign, Trump said he would immediately end the program but he had wavered since becoming president. He said he would “deal with DACA with heart” and he supported Dreamers.</p>
<p>Trump has not commented on the issue Tuesday except for a <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/905038986883850240" type="external">tweet on Twitter</a> four hours before Sessions’ the statement: “Congress, get ready to do your job – DACA! “</p>
<p>Congress in the past has failed to approve an immigration policy.</p>
<p>“My hope is that as part of this process we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation, which is the right way to do it and the constitutional way to do it,” Sen. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Marco_Rubio/" type="external">Marco Rubio</a> R-Fla. told <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/politics/daca-on-the-brink/index.html?adkey=bn" type="external">CNN in June</a>. Rubio has supported immigration reform.</p>
<p>Rep. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Steve_King/" type="external">Steve King</a>, R-Iowa, said a six-month timeframe to find new legislation for DACA was too long and it should be ended immediately.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/904508306441494529" type="external">On Sunday</a>, he posted on Twitter: “ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide.”</p>
<p>A group of conservative state attorneys general threatened to sue the Trump administration in federal court unless it begins to dismantle the program by Tuesday.</p>
<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a <a href="https://www.upi.com/Texas-attorney-general-leads-threat-of-lawsuit-over-Dreamers-program/9541498825952/" type="external">letter last June</a> to Sessions and co-signed by nine other state attorneys general, urged the administration to phase out DACA.</p>
<p>In 2014, Obama sought to expand the program, but 26 states sued the federal government to block the expansion along with DAPA.</p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/supreme-court/" type="external">Supreme Court</a> deadlocked on the decision and left a preliminary injunction in place against the expanded version of DACA, but left the original version in place.</p>
<p>Reacting to Sessions’ announcement, Chicago Mayor <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Rahm_Emanuel/" type="external">Rahm Emanuel</a>, a Democrat, said the city would continue to welcome Dreamers and declared it a “Trump-free zone.”</p>
<p>“To all the Dreamers that are here in this room, and in the city of Chicago, you are welcomed in the city of Chicago. This is your home and you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>“Chicago, our schools, our neighborhoods, our city, as it relates to what President Trump said, will be a Trump-free zone. You have nothing to worry about,” he added.</p>
<p>To all <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DREAMers?src=hash" type="external">#DREAMers</a>: You are welcome in the City of Chicago. This is your home. Come to school and pursue your dreams. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DACA?src=hash" type="external">#DACA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChicagoisOne?src=hash" type="external">#ChicagoisOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/YbnEpxqbuG" type="external">pic.twitter.com/YbnEpxqbuG</a></p>
<p>– Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChicagosMayor/status/905099919907803143" type="external">September 5, 2017</a></p>
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<p>FILE – In this June 16, 2013 file photo, Internet users browse their Facebook website by the free wifi internet service in an underground station in Hong Kong. It’s never too early to start planning for your digital afterlife, the fate of your numerous online accounts once you shed this mortal coil. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK — Sure, you have a lot to do today — laundry, bills, dinner — but it’s never too early to start planning for your digital afterlife, the fate of your numerous online accounts once you shed this mortal coil.</p>
<p>Facebook, Google, Twitter and other sites have different policies on dealing with dead users. Some states are also considering laws that would automatically give loved ones access to, though not control of, their dead relative’s digital accounts, unless otherwise specified.</p>
<p>Unless you take action, you might not like the outcome: Would you want to give your spouse automatic access to your email correspondences? Should parents automatically be able to browse through a deceased child’s online dating profile?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Now that you’re mulling your eventual demise, here’s a look at how some of the biggest Internet companies deal with deceased users’ accounts and what you can do to control your information.</p>
<p>— GOOGLE</p>
<p>The company behind Gmail and Google Plus has a tool that lets you decide what happens with your account after you die or become inactive online for another reason, such as moving to a deserted island off the grid with no Internet access. The tool is called “inactive account manager.”</p>
<p>You can choose to have your data deleted after three, six or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can choose someone, such as a parent or a spouse, to receive the data. The tool covers not just email but also other Google services such as Google Plus, YouTube and Blogger.</p>
<p>Before deleting data, Google will send a warning to a secondary email address or a phone number if you have provided one. This, of course, won’t help if you’re dead. But you can also have that warning go to a loved one.</p>
<p>Google’s inactive account manager: <a href="http://bit.ly/XuvgqD" type="external">http://bit.ly/XuvgqD</a></p>
<p>–FACEBOOK</p>
<p>The world’s largest online social network doesn’t give relatives access to dead people’s accounts. Instead, loved ones can request for your account to be “memorialized” if you die. This means no one will be able to log in or modify any settings, such as adding or removing friends or deleting content. In addition, Facebook won’t show the account in its “people you may know” section for suggesting friends and won’t send birthday reminders.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Privacy settings from when you were alive will carry over, and those can’t be changed. So if friends were able to post to your account’s Timeline, they’ll still be able to do so. The Timeline posts will be viewable by the same people who were able to see those posts before. Friends will also be able to send private messages, as long as they were able to before, even though no one will see them.</p>
<p>Facebook’s page on deleting or memorializing accounts: <a href="http://on.fb.me/1cyCi5e" type="external">http://on.fb.me/1cyCi5e</a></p>
<p>–TWITTER</p>
<p>Twitter will deactivate your account if contacted by a family member or a person authorized to act on behalf of your estate. For this, the person will need a death certificate. Because many people don’t use their real names on Twitter, the company will also want a “brief description of the details that evidence this account belongs to the deceased,” its policy states.</p>
<p>After 30 days, a deactivated Twitter account is permanently deleted.</p>
<p>To respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter says it may also remove images of deceased individuals that circulate on the site. The policy applies only in limited circumstances and was implemented recently, after some users sent altered images of Robin Williams to his daughter Zelda after the actor committed suicide in August.</p>
<p>The policy was also used to remove gruesome images of the beheading of journalist James Foley. The company’s CEO Dick Costolo said last month, in reference to the Foley images, that Twitter “is actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery.”</p>
<p>Twitter contact page for family members of the dead: <a href="http://bit.ly/1w7cGaY" type="external">http://bit.ly/1w7cGaY</a></p>
|
A Closer Look: Your (online) life after death
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/463128/a-closer-look-your-online-life-after-death.html
| 2least
|
A Closer Look: Your (online) life after death
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<p>FILE – In this June 16, 2013 file photo, Internet users browse their Facebook website by the free wifi internet service in an underground station in Hong Kong. It’s never too early to start planning for your digital afterlife, the fate of your numerous online accounts once you shed this mortal coil. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK — Sure, you have a lot to do today — laundry, bills, dinner — but it’s never too early to start planning for your digital afterlife, the fate of your numerous online accounts once you shed this mortal coil.</p>
<p>Facebook, Google, Twitter and other sites have different policies on dealing with dead users. Some states are also considering laws that would automatically give loved ones access to, though not control of, their dead relative’s digital accounts, unless otherwise specified.</p>
<p>Unless you take action, you might not like the outcome: Would you want to give your spouse automatic access to your email correspondences? Should parents automatically be able to browse through a deceased child’s online dating profile?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Now that you’re mulling your eventual demise, here’s a look at how some of the biggest Internet companies deal with deceased users’ accounts and what you can do to control your information.</p>
<p>— GOOGLE</p>
<p>The company behind Gmail and Google Plus has a tool that lets you decide what happens with your account after you die or become inactive online for another reason, such as moving to a deserted island off the grid with no Internet access. The tool is called “inactive account manager.”</p>
<p>You can choose to have your data deleted after three, six or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can choose someone, such as a parent or a spouse, to receive the data. The tool covers not just email but also other Google services such as Google Plus, YouTube and Blogger.</p>
<p>Before deleting data, Google will send a warning to a secondary email address or a phone number if you have provided one. This, of course, won’t help if you’re dead. But you can also have that warning go to a loved one.</p>
<p>Google’s inactive account manager: <a href="http://bit.ly/XuvgqD" type="external">http://bit.ly/XuvgqD</a></p>
<p>–FACEBOOK</p>
<p>The world’s largest online social network doesn’t give relatives access to dead people’s accounts. Instead, loved ones can request for your account to be “memorialized” if you die. This means no one will be able to log in or modify any settings, such as adding or removing friends or deleting content. In addition, Facebook won’t show the account in its “people you may know” section for suggesting friends and won’t send birthday reminders.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Privacy settings from when you were alive will carry over, and those can’t be changed. So if friends were able to post to your account’s Timeline, they’ll still be able to do so. The Timeline posts will be viewable by the same people who were able to see those posts before. Friends will also be able to send private messages, as long as they were able to before, even though no one will see them.</p>
<p>Facebook’s page on deleting or memorializing accounts: <a href="http://on.fb.me/1cyCi5e" type="external">http://on.fb.me/1cyCi5e</a></p>
<p>–TWITTER</p>
<p>Twitter will deactivate your account if contacted by a family member or a person authorized to act on behalf of your estate. For this, the person will need a death certificate. Because many people don’t use their real names on Twitter, the company will also want a “brief description of the details that evidence this account belongs to the deceased,” its policy states.</p>
<p>After 30 days, a deactivated Twitter account is permanently deleted.</p>
<p>To respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter says it may also remove images of deceased individuals that circulate on the site. The policy applies only in limited circumstances and was implemented recently, after some users sent altered images of Robin Williams to his daughter Zelda after the actor committed suicide in August.</p>
<p>The policy was also used to remove gruesome images of the beheading of journalist James Foley. The company’s CEO Dick Costolo said last month, in reference to the Foley images, that Twitter “is actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery.”</p>
<p>Twitter contact page for family members of the dead: <a href="http://bit.ly/1w7cGaY" type="external">http://bit.ly/1w7cGaY</a></p>
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<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — In a story April 3 about Texas’ voter ID law, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a federal judge was delaying until after June 7 a decision about whether state lawmakers deliberately intended to discriminate when they approved the law. That order applied to a separate case on how to fix the law, not on its intent.</p>
<p>A corrected version of the story is below:</p>
<p>Texas voter ID case delayed until after legislative session</p>
<p>A federal judge mulling how to fix Texas’ voter ID law has agreed to delay the case until after the state’s legislative session ends next month</p>
<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A federal judge mulling how to fix Texas’ voter ID law has agreed to delay the case until after the state’s legislative session ends next month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos said in an order Monday that she’ll delay any ruling until after a hearing June 7. The Texas Legislature adjourns May 29.</p>
<p>Last year, a federal court ruled Texas’ law discriminatory against poor and minority state residents, and ordered a workaround letting people without approved ID vote in November by signing an affidavit.</p>
<p>Gozales Ramos is deciding how to fix the law. In a separate case, she’s deciding whether state lawmakers meant to discriminate when approving the law in 2011, which would violate the Voting Rights Act.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a bill making permanent the affidavit process is working its way through the Legislature this session.</p>
|
Correction: Voter ID-Texas story
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/981666/texas-voter-id-case-delayed-until-after-legislative-session.html
|
2017-04-03
| 2least
|
Correction: Voter ID-Texas story
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<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — In a story April 3 about Texas’ voter ID law, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a federal judge was delaying until after June 7 a decision about whether state lawmakers deliberately intended to discriminate when they approved the law. That order applied to a separate case on how to fix the law, not on its intent.</p>
<p>A corrected version of the story is below:</p>
<p>Texas voter ID case delayed until after legislative session</p>
<p>A federal judge mulling how to fix Texas’ voter ID law has agreed to delay the case until after the state’s legislative session ends next month</p>
<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A federal judge mulling how to fix Texas’ voter ID law has agreed to delay the case until after the state’s legislative session ends next month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos said in an order Monday that she’ll delay any ruling until after a hearing June 7. The Texas Legislature adjourns May 29.</p>
<p>Last year, a federal court ruled Texas’ law discriminatory against poor and minority state residents, and ordered a workaround letting people without approved ID vote in November by signing an affidavit.</p>
<p>Gozales Ramos is deciding how to fix the law. In a separate case, she’s deciding whether state lawmakers meant to discriminate when approving the law in 2011, which would violate the Voting Rights Act.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a bill making permanent the affidavit process is working its way through the Legislature this session.</p>
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<p>TRENTON, N.J. — After a furious lobbying effort by the state’s newspapers, a measure supported by Republican Gov. Chris Christie to scrap a requirement that local governments publish legal notices in newspapers was delayed until at least after the new year.</p>
<p>Newspapers and other opponents said the measure, which would allow government agencies to publish the notices on their own websites, amounted to Christie targeting the media over their coverage of him as a two-term governor, failed presidential candidate and adviser to Republican President-elect Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Christie argued that the measure had nothing to do with targeting the press and was instead a reform effort to fix a requirement that burdens taxpayers, whose money goes to local governments, which pay newspapers to run notices. A spokesman for Christie said the change “will be a top priority when we return from the holidays.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The governor has fought this fight for the taxpayers for seven years, and he will continue this fight at the beginning of year eight,” Christie spokesman Jeremy Rosen said Monday.</p>
<p>The executive director of the New Jersey Press Association, George White, said at least nine other states reviewed the newspaper publication requirement and decided to keep it. He said the proposal could cost taxpayers if local governments have to hire additional workers to handle publishing legal notices. He said New Jersey would be the first state to make the change.</p>
<p>Newspapers responded with fiery editorials and ad campaigns against the measure, with most of the newspapers owned by the Gannett Co. Inc. in the state running a front-page editorial urging voters to “Drain the Swamp in Trenton.”</p>
<p>Democratic Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto said his members “engaged in a robust discussion” about legal ads and “opinions varied as to how best we can maintain transparency in this ever-evolving information age.” He said the bill will be a priority early next year. Monday was the final voting session of 2016.</p>
<p>Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Christie opponent running in next year’s Democratic primary to replace him, called it a “revenge bill” and a “politically motivated crackdown on the press in New Jersey.”</p>
<p>Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat also seeking the governorship, called it a “vendetta.”</p>
<p>Christie argues the bill would save $80 million spent on legal notices by governments, businesses and residents. Christie spokesman Brian Murray said $60 million of that figure is for pending foreclosure notices, which are required to be publicized. The administration argues the bill amounts to property tax relief since local government revenue comes from property taxes.</p>
<p>The state’s Office of Legislative Services says the fiscal impact couldn’t be fully determined.</p>
<p>The New Jersey Press Association estimated in 2011, when a similar bill was proposed, that local governments spent $20 million a year, but about 60 percent of that was reimbursed by private entities, including banks paying for foreclosure notices.</p>
<p>Legal-notice rates haven’t been raised since 1983, the association says. Lawmakers last week didn’t consider a proposal from the association to cut the rate paid by governments by 50 percent while raising rates on businesses.</p>
<p>The New Jersey Association of Counties estimates the state’s 21 counties would save between $1 million and $1.25 million a year. The League of Municipalities said 147 towns that responded to a survey paid $1.05 million in legal ads last year. That’s about a quarter of the towns in the state.</p>
|
Vote on bill viewed as Christie attack on newspapers delayed
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/912347/vote-on-bill-viewed-as-christie-attack-on-newspapers-delayed.html
|
2016-12-19
| 2least
|
Vote on bill viewed as Christie attack on newspapers delayed
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>TRENTON, N.J. — After a furious lobbying effort by the state’s newspapers, a measure supported by Republican Gov. Chris Christie to scrap a requirement that local governments publish legal notices in newspapers was delayed until at least after the new year.</p>
<p>Newspapers and other opponents said the measure, which would allow government agencies to publish the notices on their own websites, amounted to Christie targeting the media over their coverage of him as a two-term governor, failed presidential candidate and adviser to Republican President-elect Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Christie argued that the measure had nothing to do with targeting the press and was instead a reform effort to fix a requirement that burdens taxpayers, whose money goes to local governments, which pay newspapers to run notices. A spokesman for Christie said the change “will be a top priority when we return from the holidays.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The governor has fought this fight for the taxpayers for seven years, and he will continue this fight at the beginning of year eight,” Christie spokesman Jeremy Rosen said Monday.</p>
<p>The executive director of the New Jersey Press Association, George White, said at least nine other states reviewed the newspaper publication requirement and decided to keep it. He said the proposal could cost taxpayers if local governments have to hire additional workers to handle publishing legal notices. He said New Jersey would be the first state to make the change.</p>
<p>Newspapers responded with fiery editorials and ad campaigns against the measure, with most of the newspapers owned by the Gannett Co. Inc. in the state running a front-page editorial urging voters to “Drain the Swamp in Trenton.”</p>
<p>Democratic Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto said his members “engaged in a robust discussion” about legal ads and “opinions varied as to how best we can maintain transparency in this ever-evolving information age.” He said the bill will be a priority early next year. Monday was the final voting session of 2016.</p>
<p>Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Christie opponent running in next year’s Democratic primary to replace him, called it a “revenge bill” and a “politically motivated crackdown on the press in New Jersey.”</p>
<p>Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat also seeking the governorship, called it a “vendetta.”</p>
<p>Christie argues the bill would save $80 million spent on legal notices by governments, businesses and residents. Christie spokesman Brian Murray said $60 million of that figure is for pending foreclosure notices, which are required to be publicized. The administration argues the bill amounts to property tax relief since local government revenue comes from property taxes.</p>
<p>The state’s Office of Legislative Services says the fiscal impact couldn’t be fully determined.</p>
<p>The New Jersey Press Association estimated in 2011, when a similar bill was proposed, that local governments spent $20 million a year, but about 60 percent of that was reimbursed by private entities, including banks paying for foreclosure notices.</p>
<p>Legal-notice rates haven’t been raised since 1983, the association says. Lawmakers last week didn’t consider a proposal from the association to cut the rate paid by governments by 50 percent while raising rates on businesses.</p>
<p>The New Jersey Association of Counties estimates the state’s 21 counties would save between $1 million and $1.25 million a year. The League of Municipalities said 147 towns that responded to a survey paid $1.05 million in legal ads last year. That’s about a quarter of the towns in the state.</p>
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<p>A former San Jose City Council candidate and City Hall staffer is under investigation by a city commission&#160;after he deposited&#160;leftover&#160;money from his failed campaign into another political committee — which then supported a slate of current council candidates.</p>
<p>That appears to be a violation of San Jose’s election law&#160;which says remaining campaign funds must be returned to donors or deposited into the city’s general fund within 180 days of the election. The rule applies to both winning and losing candidates.</p>
<p>Joshua Barousse, who’s an aide&#160;to Councilman Ash Kalra, put his excess campaign dollars into a PAC supporting two Milpitas City Council candidates, Anthony Phan and Mark Tiernan. Barousse unsuccessfully ran for San Jose’s District 8 council seat in the spring.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think it was a violation,” Barousse told IA. “I consulted with some campaign folks and they said it would be fine. I didn’t know what my options were.”</p>
<p>Some political insiders likened it to money-laundering. It led to an ethics complaint filed last week against Barousse.</p>
<p>Barousse on Oct. 14 <a href="http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/_pdfs/460fastforwardsiliconvalley.pdf" type="external">dropped $2,841</a> into “Fast Forward Silicon Valley,” a committee that supports Phan and Tiernan. Four days later, campaign filings show the committee made $100 contributions to labor-friendly candidates like Sergio Jimenez, Helen Chapman and Sylvia Arenas in San Jose’s Districts 2, 6 and 8 council races.</p>
<p>It also gave $100 to Ahmad Rafah, a Santa Clara City Council candidate, and Pattie Cortese, who’s running to keep her seat on the East Side Union High School District.</p>
<p>The Milpitas committee is also linked to Armando Gomez, who Barousse says helped set up the PAC and <a href="http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/_pdfs/460fastforwardsiliconvalley.pdf" type="external">gave $2,700 to it</a>. Gomez, who was former&#160;Mayor Chuck Reed‘s budget director, also faced <a href="" type="internal">scrutiny eight years</a> ago when he raised cash for two city-backed measures — raising ethical concerns.</p>
<p>The PAC’s campaign filings also show a $5,000 campaign contribution from Central Valley Construction in Stockton. That company also gave $10,000 to Milpitas’ No on Measure L campaign, which opposes awarding an agreement to Waste Management for disposal services. Gomez is the treasurer of that campaign and loaned it $6,000.</p>
<p>Barousse says he’s not sure if he’ll ask the candidates to return their $100 contributions, especially since Election Day is five days away.</p>
<p>But, Barousse added, he’s committed to correcting the violation. The city’s ethics commission, now called the Board of Fair Campaign and Political Practices, started its investigation this week.</p>
<p>“Whatever they want me to do,” he said. “If they want me to pay it, I’ll do it.”</p>
<p />
|
Former San Jose council candidate, City Hall staffer faces ethics probe
| false |
https://mercurynews.com/2016/11/03/former-san-jose-council-candidate-city-hall-staffer-faces-ethics-probe/
|
2016-11-03
| 3left-center
|
Former San Jose council candidate, City Hall staffer faces ethics probe
<p>A former San Jose City Council candidate and City Hall staffer is under investigation by a city commission&#160;after he deposited&#160;leftover&#160;money from his failed campaign into another political committee — which then supported a slate of current council candidates.</p>
<p>That appears to be a violation of San Jose’s election law&#160;which says remaining campaign funds must be returned to donors or deposited into the city’s general fund within 180 days of the election. The rule applies to both winning and losing candidates.</p>
<p>Joshua Barousse, who’s an aide&#160;to Councilman Ash Kalra, put his excess campaign dollars into a PAC supporting two Milpitas City Council candidates, Anthony Phan and Mark Tiernan. Barousse unsuccessfully ran for San Jose’s District 8 council seat in the spring.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think it was a violation,” Barousse told IA. “I consulted with some campaign folks and they said it would be fine. I didn’t know what my options were.”</p>
<p>Some political insiders likened it to money-laundering. It led to an ethics complaint filed last week against Barousse.</p>
<p>Barousse on Oct. 14 <a href="http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/_pdfs/460fastforwardsiliconvalley.pdf" type="external">dropped $2,841</a> into “Fast Forward Silicon Valley,” a committee that supports Phan and Tiernan. Four days later, campaign filings show the committee made $100 contributions to labor-friendly candidates like Sergio Jimenez, Helen Chapman and Sylvia Arenas in San Jose’s Districts 2, 6 and 8 council races.</p>
<p>It also gave $100 to Ahmad Rafah, a Santa Clara City Council candidate, and Pattie Cortese, who’s running to keep her seat on the East Side Union High School District.</p>
<p>The Milpitas committee is also linked to Armando Gomez, who Barousse says helped set up the PAC and <a href="http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/_pdfs/460fastforwardsiliconvalley.pdf" type="external">gave $2,700 to it</a>. Gomez, who was former&#160;Mayor Chuck Reed‘s budget director, also faced <a href="" type="internal">scrutiny eight years</a> ago when he raised cash for two city-backed measures — raising ethical concerns.</p>
<p>The PAC’s campaign filings also show a $5,000 campaign contribution from Central Valley Construction in Stockton. That company also gave $10,000 to Milpitas’ No on Measure L campaign, which opposes awarding an agreement to Waste Management for disposal services. Gomez is the treasurer of that campaign and loaned it $6,000.</p>
<p>Barousse says he’s not sure if he’ll ask the candidates to return their $100 contributions, especially since Election Day is five days away.</p>
<p>But, Barousse added, he’s committed to correcting the violation. The city’s ethics commission, now called the Board of Fair Campaign and Political Practices, started its investigation this week.</p>
<p>“Whatever they want me to do,” he said. “If they want me to pay it, I’ll do it.”</p>
<p />
| 6,360 |
<p>The mid-term elections of 2006 brought an unprecedented barrage of advertising containing much that is false or misleading. We found&#160;examples of&#160;disregard for facts and honesty&#160;– on both sides&#160;– that would get a reporter fired in a heartbeat from any decent news organization.</p>
<p>Candidates, parties and independent groups&#160;have faked quotes, twisted words, misrepresented&#160;votes and positions, and engaged in rank fear-mongering and outright fabrication.&#160;Here we review some of the&#160;worst deceptions&#160;we found.</p>
<p>We haven’t addressed every false or misleading statement in 2006 House and Senate campaigns&#160;–&#160;there were too many of them and our resources are too limited for that. For the full record of our work please refer to the earlier articles on the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">home page</a> and in&#160;our <a href="" type="internal">archive</a>.</p>
<p>Much of what we found went well beyond the bounds of honest advocacy, and would warrant dismissal for any reporter who tried to pass it off as an accurate news story. We believe reasonable citizens will also find these distortions to be unacceptable even in political advertising, where a certain amount of puffery is expected and tolerated. It’s one thing to present your own case in the best light and to point out the flaws in your opponent. But a lot of&#160;what we&#160;encountered was far from the truth.&#160;Some examples:</p>
<p>In addition to a general disregard for factual accuracy, we also found systematic attempts to mislead voters about some of the most important issues of the day. Republicans repeatedly mischaracterized Democratic positions on dealing with terrorism. Democrats continued to claim that the Medicare drug benefit is somehow bad for seniors when in fact it saves them hundreds of dollars per year on average.</p>
<p>Both sides made false or twisted claims about the government’s largest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare.</p>
<p>This year, as in the 2004 campaign, a number of persons have asked us how candidates and other groups can get away with such deceitful advertising. The truth is that the law of libel is not a practical deterrent. There also is&#160;no federal “truth in political advertising” law on the books, nor is there likely to be such a law so long as the First Amendment stands. For a full discussion see “ <a href="" type="internal">False Ads: There Oughtta Be A Law! Or&#160;–&#160;Maybe Not</a>,”&#160;our Special Report from June 3, 2004. Our system of government leaves it to voters to sort out the truth from what they see and hear, with whatever help they can get from&#160;a free press.</p>
<p>(For footnotes see original articles)</p>
|
The Whoppers Of 2006
| false |
https://factcheck.org/2006/11/the-whoppers-of-2006/
|
2006-11-04
| 2least
|
The Whoppers Of 2006
<p>The mid-term elections of 2006 brought an unprecedented barrage of advertising containing much that is false or misleading. We found&#160;examples of&#160;disregard for facts and honesty&#160;– on both sides&#160;– that would get a reporter fired in a heartbeat from any decent news organization.</p>
<p>Candidates, parties and independent groups&#160;have faked quotes, twisted words, misrepresented&#160;votes and positions, and engaged in rank fear-mongering and outright fabrication.&#160;Here we review some of the&#160;worst deceptions&#160;we found.</p>
<p>We haven’t addressed every false or misleading statement in 2006 House and Senate campaigns&#160;–&#160;there were too many of them and our resources are too limited for that. For the full record of our work please refer to the earlier articles on the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">home page</a> and in&#160;our <a href="" type="internal">archive</a>.</p>
<p>Much of what we found went well beyond the bounds of honest advocacy, and would warrant dismissal for any reporter who tried to pass it off as an accurate news story. We believe reasonable citizens will also find these distortions to be unacceptable even in political advertising, where a certain amount of puffery is expected and tolerated. It’s one thing to present your own case in the best light and to point out the flaws in your opponent. But a lot of&#160;what we&#160;encountered was far from the truth.&#160;Some examples:</p>
<p>In addition to a general disregard for factual accuracy, we also found systematic attempts to mislead voters about some of the most important issues of the day. Republicans repeatedly mischaracterized Democratic positions on dealing with terrorism. Democrats continued to claim that the Medicare drug benefit is somehow bad for seniors when in fact it saves them hundreds of dollars per year on average.</p>
<p>Both sides made false or twisted claims about the government’s largest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare.</p>
<p>This year, as in the 2004 campaign, a number of persons have asked us how candidates and other groups can get away with such deceitful advertising. The truth is that the law of libel is not a practical deterrent. There also is&#160;no federal “truth in political advertising” law on the books, nor is there likely to be such a law so long as the First Amendment stands. For a full discussion see “ <a href="" type="internal">False Ads: There Oughtta Be A Law! Or&#160;–&#160;Maybe Not</a>,”&#160;our Special Report from June 3, 2004. Our system of government leaves it to voters to sort out the truth from what they see and hear, with whatever help they can get from&#160;a free press.</p>
<p>(For footnotes see original articles)</p>
| 6,361 |
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<p />
<p>Trump over the past months has angered EU leaders with his public support for the British Brexit decision to leave the EU, for showing no interest in pushing negotiations for the trans-Atlantic trade agreement with the bloc and for favoring bilateral relations.</p>
<p>In an interview with The Associated Press, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said “Mr. Trump will learn very fast that the EU is not a bunch of 27 grocery shops, where you knock at the door and start doing business.”</p>
<p>“Instead, it is something grand, if we stick together and continue to act together,” Bettel said.</p>
<p>Bettel was in Rome with the other EU leaders — minus British Prime Minister Theresa May — to mark Saturday’s 60th anniversary of the bloc, which is in crisis because of Britain’s impending departure.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Despite the difficult relations, the White House on Friday congratulated the EU, saying “Our two continents share the same values and, above all, the same commitment to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.”</p>
<p>“Together we look forward to another sixty years and more of shared security and shared prosperity,” the statement said.</p>
<p>For Bettel, it is only normal that Trump would reach out to Brussels.</p>
<p>“We perhaps need Europe, but he too needs Europe. So it is a two-way street,” he said. “If he thinks he doesn’t need Europe, it is a lose-lose situation. But is now important for everyone to go for a win-win situation.”</p>
|
Luxembourg leader urges Trump to value EU relations more
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/975669/luxembourg-leader-urges-trump-to-value-eu-relations-more.html
|
2017-03-24
| 2least
|
Luxembourg leader urges Trump to value EU relations more
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Trump over the past months has angered EU leaders with his public support for the British Brexit decision to leave the EU, for showing no interest in pushing negotiations for the trans-Atlantic trade agreement with the bloc and for favoring bilateral relations.</p>
<p>In an interview with The Associated Press, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said “Mr. Trump will learn very fast that the EU is not a bunch of 27 grocery shops, where you knock at the door and start doing business.”</p>
<p>“Instead, it is something grand, if we stick together and continue to act together,” Bettel said.</p>
<p>Bettel was in Rome with the other EU leaders — minus British Prime Minister Theresa May — to mark Saturday’s 60th anniversary of the bloc, which is in crisis because of Britain’s impending departure.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Despite the difficult relations, the White House on Friday congratulated the EU, saying “Our two continents share the same values and, above all, the same commitment to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.”</p>
<p>“Together we look forward to another sixty years and more of shared security and shared prosperity,” the statement said.</p>
<p>For Bettel, it is only normal that Trump would reach out to Brussels.</p>
<p>“We perhaps need Europe, but he too needs Europe. So it is a two-way street,” he said. “If he thinks he doesn’t need Europe, it is a lose-lose situation. But is now important for everyone to go for a win-win situation.”</p>
| 6,362 |
<p>Nov. 7 (UPI) — More people have signed up for healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act in the first few days of this month, the first open enrollment period under President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>, than they did last year at this time.</p>
<p>The enrollment period began Nov. 1, with more than 200,000 Americans buying health coverage that day — more than double the number who signed up on the first day of enrollment last year, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/359011-obamacare-signups-surge-in-early-days-to-set-new-record" type="external">The Hill reported</a> Tuesday.</p>
<p>About 1 million people visited the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/" type="external">Healthcare.gov website</a> on the first day of signups, a 33 percent increase from last year. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/06/aca-signups-spike-at-open-enrollments-start/" type="external">also reported a spike</a> in ACA enrollments.</p>
<p>The exact figures could possibly be larger, because more than a dozen states run their own programs apart from the federal website. This year’s enrollment window is half as long as last year’s.</p>
<p>Democrats had feared the signup numbers would fall this year, as <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/11/01/First-ACA-enrollment-under-Trump-begins-amid-many-changes/4401509405488/" type="external">Trump has cut back</a> on outreach and advertising by 90 percent — and has led repeated attempts to repeal former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a>‘s signature healthcare law.</p>
<p>Obama has encouraged Americans to sign up for coverage — even releasing a video urging people to buy ACA plans.</p>
<p>The enrollment period is scheduled to run through Dec. 15.</p>
|
First ACA signups under Trump exceeding last year's pace
| false |
https://newsline.com/first-aca-signups-under-trump-exceeding-last-year039s-pace/
|
2017-11-07
| 1right-center
|
First ACA signups under Trump exceeding last year's pace
<p>Nov. 7 (UPI) — More people have signed up for healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act in the first few days of this month, the first open enrollment period under President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>, than they did last year at this time.</p>
<p>The enrollment period began Nov. 1, with more than 200,000 Americans buying health coverage that day — more than double the number who signed up on the first day of enrollment last year, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/359011-obamacare-signups-surge-in-early-days-to-set-new-record" type="external">The Hill reported</a> Tuesday.</p>
<p>About 1 million people visited the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/" type="external">Healthcare.gov website</a> on the first day of signups, a 33 percent increase from last year. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/06/aca-signups-spike-at-open-enrollments-start/" type="external">also reported a spike</a> in ACA enrollments.</p>
<p>The exact figures could possibly be larger, because more than a dozen states run their own programs apart from the federal website. This year’s enrollment window is half as long as last year’s.</p>
<p>Democrats had feared the signup numbers would fall this year, as <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/11/01/First-ACA-enrollment-under-Trump-begins-amid-many-changes/4401509405488/" type="external">Trump has cut back</a> on outreach and advertising by 90 percent — and has led repeated attempts to repeal former President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a>‘s signature healthcare law.</p>
<p>Obama has encouraged Americans to sign up for coverage — even releasing a video urging people to buy ACA plans.</p>
<p>The enrollment period is scheduled to run through Dec. 15.</p>
| 6,363 |
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>Neil Patrick Harris revealed one of his big dreams is to earn an EGOT (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award) in an interview with <a href="http://www.advocate.com/advocate50/2017/5/02/why-america-loves-neil-patrick-harris" type="external">The Advocate.</a></p>
<p>When asked what legacy he hopes to leave behind, Harris opened up that he wants the best for his family and for him personally.</p>
<p>“I hope my family gets to do great things in their lives, have countless adventures, affect some sort of positive change, and not have to worry for money. That’s pretty much all I want. Oh, and an EGOT,” Harris, who has two children with husband David Burtka, told The Advocate.</p>
<p>Harris also says that while he’s accomplished a lot as an out actor, hosting the Emmys, Oscars and Tonys and being on PEOPLE’s “Sexiest Man Alive” shortlist, his goal is to set a good example for his children.</p>
<p>“I’ve really just been scrapping to stay employed and in doing so, trying to keep as many avenues open, as many demographics as possible aware of what I do, and hopefully I can provide some worth,” Harris says.&#160;“If that translates into acceptance somehow, that’s golden, but not necessary. There are many other people doing vastly more impactful things than me. I’m just trying to make mostly good choices, and hopefully those choices will make a positive imprint on our children.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">David Burtka</a> <a href="" type="internal">Neil Patrick Harris</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Advocate</a></p>
|
Neil Patrick Harris wants to leave behind an EGOT legacy
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2017/05/04/neil-patrick-harris-wants-leave-behind-egot-legacy/
| 3left-center
|
Neil Patrick Harris wants to leave behind an EGOT legacy
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>Neil Patrick Harris revealed one of his big dreams is to earn an EGOT (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award) in an interview with <a href="http://www.advocate.com/advocate50/2017/5/02/why-america-loves-neil-patrick-harris" type="external">The Advocate.</a></p>
<p>When asked what legacy he hopes to leave behind, Harris opened up that he wants the best for his family and for him personally.</p>
<p>“I hope my family gets to do great things in their lives, have countless adventures, affect some sort of positive change, and not have to worry for money. That’s pretty much all I want. Oh, and an EGOT,” Harris, who has two children with husband David Burtka, told The Advocate.</p>
<p>Harris also says that while he’s accomplished a lot as an out actor, hosting the Emmys, Oscars and Tonys and being on PEOPLE’s “Sexiest Man Alive” shortlist, his goal is to set a good example for his children.</p>
<p>“I’ve really just been scrapping to stay employed and in doing so, trying to keep as many avenues open, as many demographics as possible aware of what I do, and hopefully I can provide some worth,” Harris says.&#160;“If that translates into acceptance somehow, that’s golden, but not necessary. There are many other people doing vastly more impactful things than me. I’m just trying to make mostly good choices, and hopefully those choices will make a positive imprint on our children.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">David Burtka</a> <a href="" type="internal">Neil Patrick Harris</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Advocate</a></p>
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<p />
<p>But the same cannot be said for the University of New Mexico student apartments on the building’s five other floors.</p>
<p>Residential occupancy sits at 30 percent, leaving UNM short of rental funds it expected to cover its Rainforest lease payments and prompting regents last month to approve $520,000 in reserves to meet this year’s $2.2 million obligation.</p>
<p>Administrators say they do not anticipate ongoing trouble filling the units at the Rainforest – a cornerstone of the Innovate ABQ site at Broadway and Central – and blame timing for this year’s high vacancy. The freshly built apartments opened just days before the fall semester, creating a marketing challenge.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Chris Vallejos, associate vice president of Institutional Support Services at UNM, said the school had aimed to “mimic” the marketplace and rent at least 90 percent of its units, but “we didn’t really have a product to show” prospective students.</p>
<p>The Lobo Rainforest boasts 155 two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments. It has 94 residents out of a possible 310.</p>
<p>Students pay $629 a month, compared with a more standard campus dormitory rate of $489. But Vallejos noted that Rainforest residents have their own bathrooms, and that each unit features a full kitchen and washer and dryer.</p>
<p>The university is hoping to recruit more residents from the pool of students taking classes at UNM’s on-site Innovation Academy, he said. The school is also interviewing Rainforest residents to see what, if anything, needs tweaking, because satisfied customers can help spread the word.</p>
<p>“The majority of them are liking it,” Vallejos said, noting that one area of concern has been construction along Central.</p>
<p>But with work wrapping up on the Albuquerque Rapid Transit line and new amenities coming to the area, “I think (the Rainforest is) just going to be very popular,” he said.</p>
<p>Rainforest resident Kyle Guin is happy with the building, deeming it “UNM’s nicest living facility.” The UNM junior is so enthusiastic about the building’s potential – especially as a venue for students to interact with the tech heavyweights downstairs – that he asked officials if he could assume the title of “student ambassador” for the Rainforest.</p>
<p>Guin said UNM this spring will collaborate with its commercial tenants to host student-oriented events to better showcase the building.</p>
<p>“I think 2018 we are going to have a ton of students (living) here,” Guin said. “It’s not because students didn’t want to live here; it was because there wasn’t awareness. They didn’t know it existed, and it just didn’t open in time.”</p>
<p />
<p />
|
Wanted: UNM students for Lobo Rainforest
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1107956/wanted-unm-students-for-lobo-rainforest.html
| 2least
|
Wanted: UNM students for Lobo Rainforest
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>But the same cannot be said for the University of New Mexico student apartments on the building’s five other floors.</p>
<p>Residential occupancy sits at 30 percent, leaving UNM short of rental funds it expected to cover its Rainforest lease payments and prompting regents last month to approve $520,000 in reserves to meet this year’s $2.2 million obligation.</p>
<p>Administrators say they do not anticipate ongoing trouble filling the units at the Rainforest – a cornerstone of the Innovate ABQ site at Broadway and Central – and blame timing for this year’s high vacancy. The freshly built apartments opened just days before the fall semester, creating a marketing challenge.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Chris Vallejos, associate vice president of Institutional Support Services at UNM, said the school had aimed to “mimic” the marketplace and rent at least 90 percent of its units, but “we didn’t really have a product to show” prospective students.</p>
<p>The Lobo Rainforest boasts 155 two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments. It has 94 residents out of a possible 310.</p>
<p>Students pay $629 a month, compared with a more standard campus dormitory rate of $489. But Vallejos noted that Rainforest residents have their own bathrooms, and that each unit features a full kitchen and washer and dryer.</p>
<p>The university is hoping to recruit more residents from the pool of students taking classes at UNM’s on-site Innovation Academy, he said. The school is also interviewing Rainforest residents to see what, if anything, needs tweaking, because satisfied customers can help spread the word.</p>
<p>“The majority of them are liking it,” Vallejos said, noting that one area of concern has been construction along Central.</p>
<p>But with work wrapping up on the Albuquerque Rapid Transit line and new amenities coming to the area, “I think (the Rainforest is) just going to be very popular,” he said.</p>
<p>Rainforest resident Kyle Guin is happy with the building, deeming it “UNM’s nicest living facility.” The UNM junior is so enthusiastic about the building’s potential – especially as a venue for students to interact with the tech heavyweights downstairs – that he asked officials if he could assume the title of “student ambassador” for the Rainforest.</p>
<p>Guin said UNM this spring will collaborate with its commercial tenants to host student-oriented events to better showcase the building.</p>
<p>“I think 2018 we are going to have a ton of students (living) here,” Guin said. “It’s not because students didn’t want to live here; it was because there wasn’t awareness. They didn’t know it existed, and it just didn’t open in time.”</p>
<p />
<p />
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The trial of a former Union University student accused of murdering his fiancee has been postponed from May 12 until Sept. 28 due to a backlog in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab.</p>
<p>Charles Pittman, charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Olivia Greenlee, 21, whose body was found dead from a gunshot wound in a car parked on a campus parking lot in February 2014, is scheduled to be in court again June 8 for a status update. That is his deadline to change his plea from not guilty to guilty before the case proceeds to trial.</p>
<p>According to the Jackson Sun, the TBI has yet to return DNA, ballistic and blood splatter analysis tests to either the prosecution or defense. “Basically we haven’t seen a large majority of the evidence,” said public defender George Googe. “So we’re not ready to go to trial, just like the state’s not ready to go to trial yet.”</p>
<p>Googe said the backlog of data that is slowing the process is due in part to Holly Bobo, a 20-year-old nursing student who disappeared April 13, 2011, from her family home in Darden, Tenn., after being seen walking into the woods outside her home with a man wearing camouflage. Her remains were found about 20 miles away in September 2014, and her death was ruled a homicide.</p>
<p>Corinth Baptist Church in Darden, Tenn., <a href="http://wkrn.com/2015/04/07/memorial-service-planned-for-holly-bobo-this-weekend/" type="external">held</a> a memorial service on Sunday, April 12, one day before the four-year anniversary of her disappearance.</p>
<p>Previous story:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Plea deadline extended for Union University murder suspect</a></p>
|
Union University murder trial postponed
| false |
https://baptistnews.com/article/union-university-murder-trial-postponed/
| 3left-center
|
Union University murder trial postponed
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The trial of a former Union University student accused of murdering his fiancee has been postponed from May 12 until Sept. 28 due to a backlog in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab.</p>
<p>Charles Pittman, charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Olivia Greenlee, 21, whose body was found dead from a gunshot wound in a car parked on a campus parking lot in February 2014, is scheduled to be in court again June 8 for a status update. That is his deadline to change his plea from not guilty to guilty before the case proceeds to trial.</p>
<p>According to the Jackson Sun, the TBI has yet to return DNA, ballistic and blood splatter analysis tests to either the prosecution or defense. “Basically we haven’t seen a large majority of the evidence,” said public defender George Googe. “So we’re not ready to go to trial, just like the state’s not ready to go to trial yet.”</p>
<p>Googe said the backlog of data that is slowing the process is due in part to Holly Bobo, a 20-year-old nursing student who disappeared April 13, 2011, from her family home in Darden, Tenn., after being seen walking into the woods outside her home with a man wearing camouflage. Her remains were found about 20 miles away in September 2014, and her death was ruled a homicide.</p>
<p>Corinth Baptist Church in Darden, Tenn., <a href="http://wkrn.com/2015/04/07/memorial-service-planned-for-holly-bobo-this-weekend/" type="external">held</a> a memorial service on Sunday, April 12, one day before the four-year anniversary of her disappearance.</p>
<p>Previous story:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Plea deadline extended for Union University murder suspect</a></p>
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<p>In commentary on President Obama's speeches, conservative media have apparently concluded that references to Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech are a handy tool to use, no matter the topic at hand. For instance:</p>
<p>Obama's August 31 address on Iraq</p>
<p>Obama's June 15 Oval Office speech on the BP oil spill</p>
<p>Obama's June 2 speech on the economy at Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Obama's January 20 Inaugural Address</p>
|
Every Obama speech is Carter's "malaise" speech to media conservatives
| true |
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201009010056
|
2010-09-02
| 4left
|
Every Obama speech is Carter's "malaise" speech to media conservatives
<p>In commentary on President Obama's speeches, conservative media have apparently concluded that references to Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech are a handy tool to use, no matter the topic at hand. For instance:</p>
<p>Obama's August 31 address on Iraq</p>
<p>Obama's June 15 Oval Office speech on the BP oil spill</p>
<p>Obama's June 2 speech on the economy at Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Obama's January 20 Inaugural Address</p>
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<p>Rock band Kongos has found success with its single “Come With Me Now,” which has been a staple on radio.</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Daniel Kongos is in Nashville, Tenn., and enjoying some time to himself before a show.</p>
<p>The guitarist for rock band Kongos has been back on the road for about a month opening for Kings of Leon. This comes after a two-week hiatus when one of the members of Kings of Leon needed to recover from an accident.</p>
<p>“The hiatus was fun for us because we got a chance to do some one-off dates,” he says during a recent phone interview. “We tried to do smaller shows on the dates that we had to cancel. It gave our fans a chance not to miss us.”</p>
<p>Kongos and his brothers – Dylan, Jesse and Johnny – have seen their success at its highest point in the past year or so. The band’s single “Come With Me Now” is a staple on rock radio and has made its way to mainstream. The accordion-driven song also has been used for promotion of various films and TV shows.</p>
<p>“We had written this song about two years ago and knew it was something special,” he says. “How often do you hear an accordion on pop radio? It has just taken off.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The band’s album “Lunatic,” which was originally recorded in 2009, also got a boost and was re-released in 2012 due to the single’s success.</p>
<p>Kongos says the quartet has stayed on the road.</p>
<p>“We’re riding this wave because we want the music to be heard,” he says. “We waited about two years for something to happen. We’re concentrating on touring right now, but we’ve also got ideas for the next album in our heads.”</p>
<p>Recently, Kongos spent a few days in New York to shoot the music video for its next single, “I Want to Know.” Kongos says the band got pitched a lot of treatments for the video and settled on a visual effects heavy treatment.</p>
<p />
|
Come with me now: You know the song – its’ the one rockin’ the accordion
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/468352/albuquerque-rock-66.html
| 2least
|
Come with me now: You know the song – its’ the one rockin’ the accordion
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>Rock band Kongos has found success with its single “Come With Me Now,” which has been a staple on radio.</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Daniel Kongos is in Nashville, Tenn., and enjoying some time to himself before a show.</p>
<p>The guitarist for rock band Kongos has been back on the road for about a month opening for Kings of Leon. This comes after a two-week hiatus when one of the members of Kings of Leon needed to recover from an accident.</p>
<p>“The hiatus was fun for us because we got a chance to do some one-off dates,” he says during a recent phone interview. “We tried to do smaller shows on the dates that we had to cancel. It gave our fans a chance not to miss us.”</p>
<p>Kongos and his brothers – Dylan, Jesse and Johnny – have seen their success at its highest point in the past year or so. The band’s single “Come With Me Now” is a staple on rock radio and has made its way to mainstream. The accordion-driven song also has been used for promotion of various films and TV shows.</p>
<p>“We had written this song about two years ago and knew it was something special,” he says. “How often do you hear an accordion on pop radio? It has just taken off.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The band’s album “Lunatic,” which was originally recorded in 2009, also got a boost and was re-released in 2012 due to the single’s success.</p>
<p>Kongos says the quartet has stayed on the road.</p>
<p>“We’re riding this wave because we want the music to be heard,” he says. “We waited about two years for something to happen. We’re concentrating on touring right now, but we’ve also got ideas for the next album in our heads.”</p>
<p>Recently, Kongos spent a few days in New York to shoot the music video for its next single, “I Want to Know.” Kongos says the band got pitched a lot of treatments for the video and settled on a visual effects heavy treatment.</p>
<p />
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<p>After rolling back the Obama-era birth control mandate on Friday, thus allowing employers to deny birth control coverage to employees based on religious or moral grounds, the Trump administration has made another assault on women’s health care. It has done so in the language included in the Health and Human Services’ <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">draft strategic plan</a>&#160;to “improve” American health.</p>
<p>The draft currently presents five goals: enhancing the national health care system; improving the general lifestyles of Americans; scientific advancement; improving national prosperity; and lengthening the average lifespan. But the draft also problematically defines&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/life-begins-at-conception-according-to-draft-of-hhs-st-1819317131?rev=1507650930432&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_source=jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_medium=socialflow" type="external">life as beginning at&#160;conception</a>—a move largely overlooked by the media.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">HHS strategic plan for 2014 to 2018</a>&#160;said:</p>
<p>HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving Americans at every stage of life.</p>
<p />
<p>The new&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">draft</a>&#160;says:</p>
<p>HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving&#160;and protecting&#160;Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.</p>
<p>Conception as the start of life is mentioned again in&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/goal-3/index.html" type="external">Goal #3&#160;</a>of the draft, which seems to reflect current HHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Charmaine Yoest’s&#160; <a href="http://www.aul.org/2015/10/aul-condemns-the-legalization-of-physician-assisted-suicide-in-california-law-endangers-californias-most-vulnerable-citizens-and-undermines-efforts-to-improve-their-lives/" type="external">anti-euthanasia views</a>:</p>
<p>“A core component of the HHS mission is our dedication to serve all Americans from conception to natural death.”</p>
<p>Yoest is not the only HHS appointee with a history of opposition to women’s health.&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/life-begins-at-conception-according-to-draft-of-hhs-st-1819317131?rev=1507650930432&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_source=jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_medium=socialflow" type="external">According to Jezebel:</a></p>
<p>Though Sec. Tom Price has recently departed HHS in a cloud of private plane exhaust, he has, throughout his career as a public servant,&#160; <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trumps-new-hhs-secretary-tried-curb-contraceptive-access/" type="external">fought vigorously</a> against contraceptive access for women. Among other things, Price sponsored the “Right to Life Act” in 2005, a bill that defined life at conception and would give zygotes (or a “preborn human person”) full legal rights with no exception for rape, incest, or threat to a woman’s life; it would make the morning after pill and IUDs illegal, and, as Slate&#160; <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/11/29/trump_s_first_step_toward_impeding_birth_control_access_is_making_tom_price.html" type="external">put it</a>, “would put control over women’s bodies—including, perhaps, what she ate, drank, or did while pregnant—in the hands of the state.”</p>
<p>Price leaves behind a department stocked with like-minded individuals, such as&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-expected-to-appoint-anti-abortion-anti-contracep-1794813726" type="external">Teresa Manning</a>, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, an anti-abortion activist who once claimed that the “efficacy” of birth control is “very low” and that “family planning is something that occurs between a husband and a wife and God.” Other HHS appointments include&#160; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-names-anti-abortion-leader-charmaine-yoest-high-post-hhs-n752836" type="external">Charmaine Yoest</a>, the former president of Americans United for Life, former Republican Rep.&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/congressman-duped-by-the-onions-abortionplex-has-been-a-1793788972#_ga=2.49107302.1736370420.1507639460-281964221.1475067010" type="external">John Fleming</a>, another anti-abortion activist, and&#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/336620-abstinence-education-advocate-named-to-hhs-post" type="external">Valerie Huber</a>, an abstinence education advocate.</p>
<p>There is a great deal of language prioritizing the protection of faith-based communities over the rights of women in the draft. One section of&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/goal-1/objective-1-3/index.html" type="external">Objective 1.3 reads:</a></p>
<p>Implement Executive Order 13798 of May 4, 2017,&#160; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/04/presidential-executive-order-promoting-free-speech-and-religious-liberty" type="external">Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty</a>, and identify and remove barriers to, or burdens imposed on, the exercise of religious beliefs and/or moral convictions by persons or organizations partnering with, or served by HHS, and affirmatively accommodate such beliefs and convictions, to ensure full and active engagement of persons of faith or moral conviction and of faith-based organizations in the work of HHS.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/tom-price-influence-health-human-services-243403" type="external">Politico writes</a>&#160;that this language is common in Price’s conservative legacy at HHS:</p>
<p>A “draft strategic plan” for HHS, published before Price resigned last week, references “faith” or “faith-based” organizations more than 40 times in its five-year statement of priorities. The Obama administration’s last strategic plan contained only three such references.</p>
<p>Susan Berke Fogel, director of reproductive health at the National Health Law Program,&#160; <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/tom-price-influence-health-human-services-243403" type="external">told Politico,</a> “This is a license to discriminate. All of that language brings back all of these things that we’ve seen in the past that are just incongruous with really protecting health care and really improving people’s lives.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
|
New HHS Strategic Plan: Life Begins at Conception
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/new-hhs-strategic-plan-life-begins-conception/
|
2017-10-11
| 4left
|
New HHS Strategic Plan: Life Begins at Conception
<p>After rolling back the Obama-era birth control mandate on Friday, thus allowing employers to deny birth control coverage to employees based on religious or moral grounds, the Trump administration has made another assault on women’s health care. It has done so in the language included in the Health and Human Services’ <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">draft strategic plan</a>&#160;to “improve” American health.</p>
<p>The draft currently presents five goals: enhancing the national health care system; improving the general lifestyles of Americans; scientific advancement; improving national prosperity; and lengthening the average lifespan. But the draft also problematically defines&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/life-begins-at-conception-according-to-draft-of-hhs-st-1819317131?rev=1507650930432&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_source=jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_medium=socialflow" type="external">life as beginning at&#160;conception</a>—a move largely overlooked by the media.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">HHS strategic plan for 2014 to 2018</a>&#160;said:</p>
<p>HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving Americans at every stage of life.</p>
<p />
<p>The new&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/introduction/index.html" type="external">draft</a>&#160;says:</p>
<p>HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving&#160;and protecting&#160;Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.</p>
<p>Conception as the start of life is mentioned again in&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/goal-3/index.html" type="external">Goal #3&#160;</a>of the draft, which seems to reflect current HHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Charmaine Yoest’s&#160; <a href="http://www.aul.org/2015/10/aul-condemns-the-legalization-of-physician-assisted-suicide-in-california-law-endangers-californias-most-vulnerable-citizens-and-undermines-efforts-to-improve-their-lives/" type="external">anti-euthanasia views</a>:</p>
<p>“A core component of the HHS mission is our dedication to serve all Americans from conception to natural death.”</p>
<p>Yoest is not the only HHS appointee with a history of opposition to women’s health.&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/life-begins-at-conception-according-to-draft-of-hhs-st-1819317131?rev=1507650930432&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_source=jezebel_facebook&amp;utm_medium=socialflow" type="external">According to Jezebel:</a></p>
<p>Though Sec. Tom Price has recently departed HHS in a cloud of private plane exhaust, he has, throughout his career as a public servant,&#160; <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trumps-new-hhs-secretary-tried-curb-contraceptive-access/" type="external">fought vigorously</a> against contraceptive access for women. Among other things, Price sponsored the “Right to Life Act” in 2005, a bill that defined life at conception and would give zygotes (or a “preborn human person”) full legal rights with no exception for rape, incest, or threat to a woman’s life; it would make the morning after pill and IUDs illegal, and, as Slate&#160; <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/11/29/trump_s_first_step_toward_impeding_birth_control_access_is_making_tom_price.html" type="external">put it</a>, “would put control over women’s bodies—including, perhaps, what she ate, drank, or did while pregnant—in the hands of the state.”</p>
<p>Price leaves behind a department stocked with like-minded individuals, such as&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-expected-to-appoint-anti-abortion-anti-contracep-1794813726" type="external">Teresa Manning</a>, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, an anti-abortion activist who once claimed that the “efficacy” of birth control is “very low” and that “family planning is something that occurs between a husband and a wife and God.” Other HHS appointments include&#160; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-names-anti-abortion-leader-charmaine-yoest-high-post-hhs-n752836" type="external">Charmaine Yoest</a>, the former president of Americans United for Life, former Republican Rep.&#160; <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/congressman-duped-by-the-onions-abortionplex-has-been-a-1793788972#_ga=2.49107302.1736370420.1507639460-281964221.1475067010" type="external">John Fleming</a>, another anti-abortion activist, and&#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/336620-abstinence-education-advocate-named-to-hhs-post" type="external">Valerie Huber</a>, an abstinence education advocate.</p>
<p>There is a great deal of language prioritizing the protection of faith-based communities over the rights of women in the draft. One section of&#160; <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/draft-strategic-plan/goal-1/objective-1-3/index.html" type="external">Objective 1.3 reads:</a></p>
<p>Implement Executive Order 13798 of May 4, 2017,&#160; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/04/presidential-executive-order-promoting-free-speech-and-religious-liberty" type="external">Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty</a>, and identify and remove barriers to, or burdens imposed on, the exercise of religious beliefs and/or moral convictions by persons or organizations partnering with, or served by HHS, and affirmatively accommodate such beliefs and convictions, to ensure full and active engagement of persons of faith or moral conviction and of faith-based organizations in the work of HHS.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/tom-price-influence-health-human-services-243403" type="external">Politico writes</a>&#160;that this language is common in Price’s conservative legacy at HHS:</p>
<p>A “draft strategic plan” for HHS, published before Price resigned last week, references “faith” or “faith-based” organizations more than 40 times in its five-year statement of priorities. The Obama administration’s last strategic plan contained only three such references.</p>
<p>Susan Berke Fogel, director of reproductive health at the National Health Law Program,&#160; <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/tom-price-influence-health-human-services-243403" type="external">told Politico,</a> “This is a license to discriminate. All of that language brings back all of these things that we’ve seen in the past that are just incongruous with really protecting health care and really improving people’s lives.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
| 6,369 |
<p>Speakers denounced religious bigotry at a Dupont Circle vigil on Wednesday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>An estimated 2,000 people filled Dupont Circle Wednesday night for a candlelight vigil commemorating the 49 people who lost their lives and the 53 wounded in the June 12 shooting massacre at the Orlando, Fla., gay nightclub Pulse.</p>
<p>The event, which was organized by the LGBT Catholic group Dignity Washington, included more than a dozen speakers from local churches and faith-based organizations who said they wanted to join the LGBT community to mourn the loss of the mostly LGBT Latino and Latina patrons at Pulse.</p>
<p>With hundreds holding lit candles, Dignity Washington President Vin Testa opened the vigil by calling for 102 seconds of silence to commemorate the 49 people killed and the 53 wounded during the Orlando incident.</p>
<p>Speakers then read the names of the victims as the audience called out the Spanish world “presente,” or present, after each name was read.</p>
<p>Several of the speakers, including Dignity USA official Allen Rose, called for an end to the condemnation of LGBT people by religious leaders of many denominations that they said most likely prompted lone gunman Omar Mateen to target a gay nightclub for his shooting rampage.</p>
<p>The FBI and Orlando police have said Mateen called 911 during his attack on the nightclub and told a dispatcher that he supported the radical Islamic group ISIS.</p>
<p>“It is becoming clear that the perpetrator of this evil was responding, at least in part, to religious based homophobia that he internalized,” said Dignity USA official Allen Rose.</p>
<p>“Many of us here are actively involved in religious denominations that still preach negative and dehumanizing things about LGBTQ people,” he said. “I pray that all of us who are involved in these churches commit to redoubling our efforts to seek justice by getting our denominations to affirm the gift and lives of LGBTQ people.”</p>
<p>Similar to a Dupont Circle vigil commemorating the Orlando gay nightclub tragedy held on Monday night, speakers at Wednesday’s vigil called for solidarity between the LGBT community and the Muslim community, saying they would do all they could to denounce efforts to scapegoat Muslims for the Orlando incident.</p>
<p>Darren Phelps, pastor of Bethel Christian Church of D.C., drew loud applause and cheers when he cited his own relationship with his church as an example of how LGBT people can and should be a part of their communities of faith.</p>
<p>“The truth is I was in that club at one point in my life,” he said. “I’m out. I’m gay. I’m black. I’m same-gender-loving and I’m a Christian pastor,” he shouted.</p>
<p>“You cannot silence me with the Bible that you read from because my Bible points to a God of love and grace that is for everyone. Enough is enough,” he said. “It’s time for these bully pastors to stop using the pulpit to bash people.”</p>
<p>Wednesday’s vigil, which began at 8 p.m., followed an LGBTQ Community Dialogue held several blocks away at the Foundry United Methodist Church, which drew more than 200 people.</p>
<p>Officials with the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community and Whitman-Walker Health, who were among the LGBT supportive groups that organized the event, said it was aimed at providing a safe place for LGBT people to express their feelings about the Orlando tragedy.</p>
<p>A LGBTQ Community Dialogue was held at Foundry United Methodist Church before the vigil. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Lesbian activist and psychologist Patricia Hawkins told the gathering that the grieving process over an incident like a mass killing sometimes brings about depression and other mental health issues and those who experience them should seek out support from friends and family and possibly counseling or therapy from a licensed mental health professional if needed.</p>
<p>Other speakers at the event announced that trained counselors were present and would be pleased to talk to anyone attending the community dialogue forum who wished to approach them.</p>
<p>“All of you have had experiences with grief in your life,” Hawkins said. “But this is different. It is an act of violence against a community.”</p>
<p>Hawkins said that although everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, she cautioned that in some cases the grieving process could lead to post traumatic stress disorder, which should be treated by a mental health professional.</p>
<p>During an audience participation period, several people said they were grappling with the Orlando shooting incident as a deep personal loss that made them feel unsafe.</p>
<p>“It could have been me,” said one young woman. “I could have been in that nightclub or in a place right here where this could happen,” she said.</p>
<p>Other speakers who identified themselves as Latino or Latina members of the LGBT community pointed out that the large majority of victims at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando were Puerto Rican in a part of Florida with a large and growing Puerto Rican population.</p>
<p>Among the facilitator-speakers at the community dialogue event were Maria Alejandra Salas-Baltuano, a Latina community activist; Joanna Cifredo, Racial and Economic Justice Policy Analyst for the National Center for Transgender Equality; Sahar Shafqat, associate professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland&#160;and Steering Committee member of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diverstity; and Urooj Arshad, an official with the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Alan Rose</a> <a href="" type="internal">Allen Rose</a> <a href="" type="internal">Bethel Christian Church of D.C.</a> <a href="" type="internal">candlelight vigil</a> <a href="" type="internal">Darren Phelps</a> <a href="" type="internal">District of Columbia</a> <a href="" type="internal">Dupont Circle</a> <a href="" type="internal">FBI</a> <a href="" type="internal">Florida</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">ISIS</a> <a href="" type="internal">Joanna Cifredo</a> <a href="" type="internal">LGBTQ</a> <a href="" type="internal">Maria Alejandra Salas-Baltuano</a> <a href="" type="internal">mass shooting</a> <a href="" type="internal">Muslim</a> <a href="" type="internal">Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Center for Transgender Equality</a> <a href="" type="internal">NCTE</a> <a href="" type="internal">Omar Mateen</a> <a href="" type="internal">Orlando</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sahar Shafqat</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Mary’s College of Maryland</a> <a href="" type="internal">the Pulse nightclub</a> <a href="" type="internal">Urooj Arshad</a> <a href="" type="internal">Vin Testa</a></p>
|
Nearly 2,000 pack Dupont Circle for Orlando vigil
| false |
http://washingtonblade.com/2016/06/16/nearly-2000-pack-dupont-circle-for-orlando-vigil/
| 3left-center
|
Nearly 2,000 pack Dupont Circle for Orlando vigil
<p>Speakers denounced religious bigotry at a Dupont Circle vigil on Wednesday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>An estimated 2,000 people filled Dupont Circle Wednesday night for a candlelight vigil commemorating the 49 people who lost their lives and the 53 wounded in the June 12 shooting massacre at the Orlando, Fla., gay nightclub Pulse.</p>
<p>The event, which was organized by the LGBT Catholic group Dignity Washington, included more than a dozen speakers from local churches and faith-based organizations who said they wanted to join the LGBT community to mourn the loss of the mostly LGBT Latino and Latina patrons at Pulse.</p>
<p>With hundreds holding lit candles, Dignity Washington President Vin Testa opened the vigil by calling for 102 seconds of silence to commemorate the 49 people killed and the 53 wounded during the Orlando incident.</p>
<p>Speakers then read the names of the victims as the audience called out the Spanish world “presente,” or present, after each name was read.</p>
<p>Several of the speakers, including Dignity USA official Allen Rose, called for an end to the condemnation of LGBT people by religious leaders of many denominations that they said most likely prompted lone gunman Omar Mateen to target a gay nightclub for his shooting rampage.</p>
<p>The FBI and Orlando police have said Mateen called 911 during his attack on the nightclub and told a dispatcher that he supported the radical Islamic group ISIS.</p>
<p>“It is becoming clear that the perpetrator of this evil was responding, at least in part, to religious based homophobia that he internalized,” said Dignity USA official Allen Rose.</p>
<p>“Many of us here are actively involved in religious denominations that still preach negative and dehumanizing things about LGBTQ people,” he said. “I pray that all of us who are involved in these churches commit to redoubling our efforts to seek justice by getting our denominations to affirm the gift and lives of LGBTQ people.”</p>
<p>Similar to a Dupont Circle vigil commemorating the Orlando gay nightclub tragedy held on Monday night, speakers at Wednesday’s vigil called for solidarity between the LGBT community and the Muslim community, saying they would do all they could to denounce efforts to scapegoat Muslims for the Orlando incident.</p>
<p>Darren Phelps, pastor of Bethel Christian Church of D.C., drew loud applause and cheers when he cited his own relationship with his church as an example of how LGBT people can and should be a part of their communities of faith.</p>
<p>“The truth is I was in that club at one point in my life,” he said. “I’m out. I’m gay. I’m black. I’m same-gender-loving and I’m a Christian pastor,” he shouted.</p>
<p>“You cannot silence me with the Bible that you read from because my Bible points to a God of love and grace that is for everyone. Enough is enough,” he said. “It’s time for these bully pastors to stop using the pulpit to bash people.”</p>
<p>Wednesday’s vigil, which began at 8 p.m., followed an LGBTQ Community Dialogue held several blocks away at the Foundry United Methodist Church, which drew more than 200 people.</p>
<p>Officials with the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community and Whitman-Walker Health, who were among the LGBT supportive groups that organized the event, said it was aimed at providing a safe place for LGBT people to express their feelings about the Orlando tragedy.</p>
<p>A LGBTQ Community Dialogue was held at Foundry United Methodist Church before the vigil. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Lesbian activist and psychologist Patricia Hawkins told the gathering that the grieving process over an incident like a mass killing sometimes brings about depression and other mental health issues and those who experience them should seek out support from friends and family and possibly counseling or therapy from a licensed mental health professional if needed.</p>
<p>Other speakers at the event announced that trained counselors were present and would be pleased to talk to anyone attending the community dialogue forum who wished to approach them.</p>
<p>“All of you have had experiences with grief in your life,” Hawkins said. “But this is different. It is an act of violence against a community.”</p>
<p>Hawkins said that although everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, she cautioned that in some cases the grieving process could lead to post traumatic stress disorder, which should be treated by a mental health professional.</p>
<p>During an audience participation period, several people said they were grappling with the Orlando shooting incident as a deep personal loss that made them feel unsafe.</p>
<p>“It could have been me,” said one young woman. “I could have been in that nightclub or in a place right here where this could happen,” she said.</p>
<p>Other speakers who identified themselves as Latino or Latina members of the LGBT community pointed out that the large majority of victims at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando were Puerto Rican in a part of Florida with a large and growing Puerto Rican population.</p>
<p>Among the facilitator-speakers at the community dialogue event were Maria Alejandra Salas-Baltuano, a Latina community activist; Joanna Cifredo, Racial and Economic Justice Policy Analyst for the National Center for Transgender Equality; Sahar Shafqat, associate professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland&#160;and Steering Committee member of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diverstity; and Urooj Arshad, an official with the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Alan Rose</a> <a href="" type="internal">Allen Rose</a> <a href="" type="internal">Bethel Christian Church of D.C.</a> <a href="" type="internal">candlelight vigil</a> <a href="" type="internal">Darren Phelps</a> <a href="" type="internal">District of Columbia</a> <a href="" type="internal">Dupont Circle</a> <a href="" type="internal">FBI</a> <a href="" type="internal">Florida</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">ISIS</a> <a href="" type="internal">Joanna Cifredo</a> <a href="" type="internal">LGBTQ</a> <a href="" type="internal">Maria Alejandra Salas-Baltuano</a> <a href="" type="internal">mass shooting</a> <a href="" type="internal">Muslim</a> <a href="" type="internal">Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Center for Transgender Equality</a> <a href="" type="internal">NCTE</a> <a href="" type="internal">Omar Mateen</a> <a href="" type="internal">Orlando</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sahar Shafqat</a> <a href="" type="internal">St. Mary’s College of Maryland</a> <a href="" type="internal">the Pulse nightclub</a> <a href="" type="internal">Urooj Arshad</a> <a href="" type="internal">Vin Testa</a></p>
| 6,370 |
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<p />
<p>From <a href="http://povertybarn.typepad.com/povertybarn/2006/03/reason_487_i_am.html" type="external">Poverty Barn</a> comes the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/03/02/national/a131001S48.DTL" type="external">news</a> that in Welch, West Virginia, Police Chief Bobby Bowman has been has been accused in a federal lawsuit of impeding a rescuer from saving the life of 43-year-old Claude Green, who died of a heart attack in June. According to Green’s friend, Billy Snead, who performed chest compressions on Green, Bowman ordered him to get away and said that Green was HIV positive.</p>
<p>“He was a police officer so I got out the way. I assumed he would help. I didn’t want to be a hindrance,” Snead said. “He also told the ambulance drivers that he was HIV positive and to be careful.”</p>
<p>Bowman denies that he he refused Green CPR and calls the accusation a “boldface lie” (obviously, he meant a “bald-faced lie”). Rose Saxe, an attorney with the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/hiv/gen/24335prs20060302.html" type="external">ACLU AIDS Project</a> said that Bowman’s alleged actions not only contributed to Green’s death (he died half an hour after arriving at the hospital), but also violated the <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm" type="external">Americans with Disabilities Act</a>.</p>
<p>Says Saxe: “It’s hard to say what was more shameful: that Chief Bowman assumed Claude Green was HIV positive solely because he was gay, or that Bowman was so ignorant about HIV that he felt you couldn’t safely perform CPR on an HIV positive person.”</p>
<p />
|
Police chief accused of denying CPR to gay man
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/03/police-chief-accused-denying-cpr-gay-man/
|
2006-03-03
| 4left
|
Police chief accused of denying CPR to gay man
<p />
<p>From <a href="http://povertybarn.typepad.com/povertybarn/2006/03/reason_487_i_am.html" type="external">Poverty Barn</a> comes the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/03/02/national/a131001S48.DTL" type="external">news</a> that in Welch, West Virginia, Police Chief Bobby Bowman has been has been accused in a federal lawsuit of impeding a rescuer from saving the life of 43-year-old Claude Green, who died of a heart attack in June. According to Green’s friend, Billy Snead, who performed chest compressions on Green, Bowman ordered him to get away and said that Green was HIV positive.</p>
<p>“He was a police officer so I got out the way. I assumed he would help. I didn’t want to be a hindrance,” Snead said. “He also told the ambulance drivers that he was HIV positive and to be careful.”</p>
<p>Bowman denies that he he refused Green CPR and calls the accusation a “boldface lie” (obviously, he meant a “bald-faced lie”). Rose Saxe, an attorney with the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/hiv/gen/24335prs20060302.html" type="external">ACLU AIDS Project</a> said that Bowman’s alleged actions not only contributed to Green’s death (he died half an hour after arriving at the hospital), but also violated the <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm" type="external">Americans with Disabilities Act</a>.</p>
<p>Says Saxe: “It’s hard to say what was more shameful: that Chief Bowman assumed Claude Green was HIV positive solely because he was gay, or that Bowman was so ignorant about HIV that he felt you couldn’t safely perform CPR on an HIV positive person.”</p>
<p />
| 6,371 |
<p>Yes, THAT Pauly Shore. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/pauly-shore-mocks-stephen-millers-statue-of-liberty-presser-w496193" type="external">Rolling Stone</a> reports:</p>
<p>Pauly Shore plays Trump policy aide Stephen Miller in a Funny or Die sketch that mocks Miller’s White House briefing room showdown with a reporter over the Statue of Liberty and the poem “The New Colossus.”</p>
<p>In the sketch, which utilizes footage from that actual argument with CNN reporter Jim Acosta, Shore’s Miller presents other revisionist “facts” about the Statue of Liberty, including informing reporters that Lady Liberty is holding an iPad.</p>
<p>“Why don’t we talk a little history? In the year 2000, did you know a mutant known as Wolverine scaled the Statue of Liberty in a climatic showdown with Sabretooth,” “Miller” asked. “Or when the Ghostbusters brought the Lady Liberty to life with the power of Ectoplasm? Was that violating – in your opinion Jim Acosta – the Statue of Liberty law of the land?”</p>
<p>The clip below already has 300K views.</p>
<p />
|
Introducing Pauly Shore As Stephen Miller [VIDEO]
| true |
http://joemygod.com/2017/08/06/introducing-pauly-shore-stephen-miller-video/
|
2017-08-06
| 4left
|
Introducing Pauly Shore As Stephen Miller [VIDEO]
<p>Yes, THAT Pauly Shore. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/pauly-shore-mocks-stephen-millers-statue-of-liberty-presser-w496193" type="external">Rolling Stone</a> reports:</p>
<p>Pauly Shore plays Trump policy aide Stephen Miller in a Funny or Die sketch that mocks Miller’s White House briefing room showdown with a reporter over the Statue of Liberty and the poem “The New Colossus.”</p>
<p>In the sketch, which utilizes footage from that actual argument with CNN reporter Jim Acosta, Shore’s Miller presents other revisionist “facts” about the Statue of Liberty, including informing reporters that Lady Liberty is holding an iPad.</p>
<p>“Why don’t we talk a little history? In the year 2000, did you know a mutant known as Wolverine scaled the Statue of Liberty in a climatic showdown with Sabretooth,” “Miller” asked. “Or when the Ghostbusters brought the Lady Liberty to life with the power of Ectoplasm? Was that violating – in your opinion Jim Acosta – the Statue of Liberty law of the land?”</p>
<p>The clip below already has 300K views.</p>
<p />
| 6,372 |
<p>Exchange-traded funds dedicated to European equities have among the leaders of the ex-U.S. developed markets renaissance this year. While many of these ETFs, by intent or incident, are heavily exposed to European exporters, investors should note Europe's domestic economies are rebounding, providing opportunity with equities more levered to that theme.</p>
<p>The WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Fund (BATS: EDOM) is an ideal ETF with which to play the rebound in Europe's local economies. A year-to-date gain of almost 25 percent confirms as much. EDOM, which is almost two years old, follows the WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Index.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That market capitalization-weighted benchmark is designed to provide exposure to European companies that are most sensitive to economic growth prospects in the Eurozone and that derive more than 50% of their revenue from Europe, <a href="https://www.wisdomtree.com/index/wtelr" type="external">according to WisdomTree Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Europe ETFs have been delivering impressive performances since the start of this year, but EDOM was among the leaders in the group during the first six months of 2017.</p>
<p>The WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Index, notable for its focus on companies that derive more than 50% of their revenues from INSIDE Europe, delivered a 20.6% return over this period, said <a href="https://www.wisdomtree.com/blog/2017-07-21/which-european-strategies-work-now" type="external">WisdomTree in a recent note Opens a New Window.</a>. Weve generally heard that the European thesis in 2017 is dependent upon activity in Europe turning up and looking stronger. This Index is designed to tap into that type of exposure, whereas both the MSCI EMU and FTSE Developed Europe All Cap Indexes focus predominantly on large caps, many of which are multinationals.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>EDOM is heavily allocated to three sectors: financials services, industrials and consumer discretionary. Those sectors combine for almost 80 percent of the ETF's weight, according to issuer data.</p>
<p>Last year, European bank stocks were a toxic bet, but that trend is changing for the better this year. For example, the MSCI Europe Financials Index is up 22 percent year to date, indicating EDOM's nearly 31 percent weight to financials is benefiting investors.</p>
<p>If investors are looking at Financials as an opportunity, this Index has definitely tapped into that sector, and it has benefited recently from the equity reaction that occurred as a result of the recent announcements out of Italy, said WisdomTree. Notably, this Index is designed not to have exposure to Utilities, Telecommunication Services, Health Care or Consumer Staples due to its positioning as a European cyclical growth-oriented index.</p>
<p>EDOM allocates about 48 percent of its weight to France and Germany, the eurozone's two largest economies. Italy, the region's third-largest economy, chimes in at 17 percent.</p>
<p>Related Links:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/17/07/9797487/remember-this-em-etf-with-the-nifty-ticker" type="external">Remember This International ETF Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/17/07/9770615/this-new-etf-brings-leverage-to-the-eurozone" type="external">Add Some Spice To The Europe Trade Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p>
|
Internal Focus Works In Europe
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/24/internal-focus-works-in-europe.html
|
2017-07-25
| 0right
|
Internal Focus Works In Europe
<p>Exchange-traded funds dedicated to European equities have among the leaders of the ex-U.S. developed markets renaissance this year. While many of these ETFs, by intent or incident, are heavily exposed to European exporters, investors should note Europe's domestic economies are rebounding, providing opportunity with equities more levered to that theme.</p>
<p>The WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Fund (BATS: EDOM) is an ideal ETF with which to play the rebound in Europe's local economies. A year-to-date gain of almost 25 percent confirms as much. EDOM, which is almost two years old, follows the WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Index.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That market capitalization-weighted benchmark is designed to provide exposure to European companies that are most sensitive to economic growth prospects in the Eurozone and that derive more than 50% of their revenue from Europe, <a href="https://www.wisdomtree.com/index/wtelr" type="external">according to WisdomTree Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Europe ETFs have been delivering impressive performances since the start of this year, but EDOM was among the leaders in the group during the first six months of 2017.</p>
<p>The WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Index, notable for its focus on companies that derive more than 50% of their revenues from INSIDE Europe, delivered a 20.6% return over this period, said <a href="https://www.wisdomtree.com/blog/2017-07-21/which-european-strategies-work-now" type="external">WisdomTree in a recent note Opens a New Window.</a>. Weve generally heard that the European thesis in 2017 is dependent upon activity in Europe turning up and looking stronger. This Index is designed to tap into that type of exposure, whereas both the MSCI EMU and FTSE Developed Europe All Cap Indexes focus predominantly on large caps, many of which are multinationals.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>EDOM is heavily allocated to three sectors: financials services, industrials and consumer discretionary. Those sectors combine for almost 80 percent of the ETF's weight, according to issuer data.</p>
<p>Last year, European bank stocks were a toxic bet, but that trend is changing for the better this year. For example, the MSCI Europe Financials Index is up 22 percent year to date, indicating EDOM's nearly 31 percent weight to financials is benefiting investors.</p>
<p>If investors are looking at Financials as an opportunity, this Index has definitely tapped into that sector, and it has benefited recently from the equity reaction that occurred as a result of the recent announcements out of Italy, said WisdomTree. Notably, this Index is designed not to have exposure to Utilities, Telecommunication Services, Health Care or Consumer Staples due to its positioning as a European cyclical growth-oriented index.</p>
<p>EDOM allocates about 48 percent of its weight to France and Germany, the eurozone's two largest economies. Italy, the region's third-largest economy, chimes in at 17 percent.</p>
<p>Related Links:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/17/07/9797487/remember-this-em-etf-with-the-nifty-ticker" type="external">Remember This International ETF Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/17/07/9770615/this-new-etf-brings-leverage-to-the-eurozone" type="external">Add Some Spice To The Europe Trade Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p>
| 6,373 |
<p>Rival South African opposition parties joined forces on Wednesday when tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital Pretoria calling for President&#160;Jacob&#160;Zuma&#160;to resign.</p>
<p>The march to Union Buildings, the official seat of government, was organised on&#160;Zuma's 75th birthday and came after nationwide rallies against the president last week.</p>
<p>Zuma's recent sacking of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan has fanned years of public anger over government corruption scandals, record unemployment and slowing economic growth.</p>
<p>Supporters of the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, the main opposition Democratic Alliance, and smaller parties mingled at Wednesday's demonstration in a display of unity.</p>
<p>Police said the event had been peaceful.</p>
<p>"You came out in large numbers and sent a strong message," EFF leader Julius Malema told the crowd.</p>
<p>"We are here to defend the future of our children whether you are black [or]&#160;white. We are united on the purpose of winning back our beautiful country."</p>
<p>Gordhan's sacking triggered unprecedented criticism from senior figures within the ruling African National Congress, including from Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>Parliament announced late Wednesday that it had postponed a planned vote of no confidence in&#160;Zuma&#160;at the request of the DA.</p>
<p>The party had requested the delay pending the outcome of a Constitutional Court case to seek a secret vote by lawmakers.&#160;</p>
<p>The ANC lawmakers had in the past voted overwhelmingly against previous motions of no confidence launched by the opposition.</p>
<p>The date for the new vote has not yet been set.</p>
<p>"At this moment of crisis, we, as political parties, put our differences aside for one common cause — to save South Africa from&#160;Jacob&#160;Zuma," said John Moodey, DA leader in Gauteng province, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg.</p>
<p>"[Zuma's supporters]&#160;will do everything to stay in power, even intimidating MPs. With a secret ballot, we could put&#160;Zuma&#160;out by a huge majority.</p>
<p>"Even if it doesn't succeed, I can guarantee you that we will have a coalition government in 2019."</p>
<p>Zuma, who came to office in 2009, is due to step down as head of the ANC in December, and as national president ahead of the 2019 general election.</p>
<p>"In December the ANC will elect a new leader, I don't know who that would be. The ANC will decide,"&#160;Zuma&#160;told supporters at his birthday party in Soweto.</p>
<p>"In 2019 I will step down as president of the country," he said, adding that he was willing to step down from both his positions if asked to do so.&#160;</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;is seen as favouring his ex-wife, former African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him.</p>
<p>Protesters on Wednesday held placards reading "Zuma&#160;must fall", "Hamba tsotsi" ("Go away thief"), and "Zuma&#160;liar".</p>
<p>"I came because&#160;Zuma&#160;has to step down. He sold the country. I don't want him anymore,"&#160;Mavis Madisha, a 37-year-old EFF supporter, told AFP.</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;has been accused of being in the sway of the wealthy Gupta business family, allegedly granting them influence over government appointments, contracts and state-owned businesses.</p>
<p>The Constitutional Court last year found&#160;Zuma&#160;guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.</p>
<p>He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.</p>
<p>The dismissal of Gordhan saw the Fitch and Standard &amp; Poor's agencies cut South Africa's sovereign credit rating to junk status due to fears of political instability and growing corruption.</p>
<p>The ANC has lost popularity in recent years and slipped to 55 percent of the vote in last year's local elections — its worst ever result.</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;has easily survived previous parliamentary votes against him due to the ANC's majority.</p>
<p>The president branded last week's protests, which attracted tens of thousands of marchers, as racist.</p>
|
Rival South African parties unite to protest President Zuma — on his birthday
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2017-04-13/rival-south-african-parties-unite-protest-president-zuma-his-birthday
|
2017-04-13
| 3left-center
|
Rival South African parties unite to protest President Zuma — on his birthday
<p>Rival South African opposition parties joined forces on Wednesday when tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital Pretoria calling for President&#160;Jacob&#160;Zuma&#160;to resign.</p>
<p>The march to Union Buildings, the official seat of government, was organised on&#160;Zuma's 75th birthday and came after nationwide rallies against the president last week.</p>
<p>Zuma's recent sacking of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan has fanned years of public anger over government corruption scandals, record unemployment and slowing economic growth.</p>
<p>Supporters of the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, the main opposition Democratic Alliance, and smaller parties mingled at Wednesday's demonstration in a display of unity.</p>
<p>Police said the event had been peaceful.</p>
<p>"You came out in large numbers and sent a strong message," EFF leader Julius Malema told the crowd.</p>
<p>"We are here to defend the future of our children whether you are black [or]&#160;white. We are united on the purpose of winning back our beautiful country."</p>
<p>Gordhan's sacking triggered unprecedented criticism from senior figures within the ruling African National Congress, including from Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>Parliament announced late Wednesday that it had postponed a planned vote of no confidence in&#160;Zuma&#160;at the request of the DA.</p>
<p>The party had requested the delay pending the outcome of a Constitutional Court case to seek a secret vote by lawmakers.&#160;</p>
<p>The ANC lawmakers had in the past voted overwhelmingly against previous motions of no confidence launched by the opposition.</p>
<p>The date for the new vote has not yet been set.</p>
<p>"At this moment of crisis, we, as political parties, put our differences aside for one common cause — to save South Africa from&#160;Jacob&#160;Zuma," said John Moodey, DA leader in Gauteng province, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg.</p>
<p>"[Zuma's supporters]&#160;will do everything to stay in power, even intimidating MPs. With a secret ballot, we could put&#160;Zuma&#160;out by a huge majority.</p>
<p>"Even if it doesn't succeed, I can guarantee you that we will have a coalition government in 2019."</p>
<p>Zuma, who came to office in 2009, is due to step down as head of the ANC in December, and as national president ahead of the 2019 general election.</p>
<p>"In December the ANC will elect a new leader, I don't know who that would be. The ANC will decide,"&#160;Zuma&#160;told supporters at his birthday party in Soweto.</p>
<p>"In 2019 I will step down as president of the country," he said, adding that he was willing to step down from both his positions if asked to do so.&#160;</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;is seen as favouring his ex-wife, former African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him.</p>
<p>Protesters on Wednesday held placards reading "Zuma&#160;must fall", "Hamba tsotsi" ("Go away thief"), and "Zuma&#160;liar".</p>
<p>"I came because&#160;Zuma&#160;has to step down. He sold the country. I don't want him anymore,"&#160;Mavis Madisha, a 37-year-old EFF supporter, told AFP.</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;has been accused of being in the sway of the wealthy Gupta business family, allegedly granting them influence over government appointments, contracts and state-owned businesses.</p>
<p>The Constitutional Court last year found&#160;Zuma&#160;guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers' money used to refurbish his private rural house.</p>
<p>He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.</p>
<p>The dismissal of Gordhan saw the Fitch and Standard &amp; Poor's agencies cut South Africa's sovereign credit rating to junk status due to fears of political instability and growing corruption.</p>
<p>The ANC has lost popularity in recent years and slipped to 55 percent of the vote in last year's local elections — its worst ever result.</p>
<p>Zuma&#160;has easily survived previous parliamentary votes against him due to the ANC's majority.</p>
<p>The president branded last week's protests, which attracted tens of thousands of marchers, as racist.</p>
| 6,374 |
<p>The United States has a new point man in China.</p>
<p>Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington and most recently President Obama's Commerce Secretary, was sworn in on Monday as the newest US ambassador to China. Locke replaces Jon Huntsman, a charismatic Republican former governor of Utah who left the post after two years to run for president against his boss. Huntsman is now enmeshed in the GOP presidential primary race.</p>
<p>The appointment brings Locke full circle back to China. The grandson of a Chinese immigrant from Guangdong province, Locke has visited China several times in his official capacities. In his swearing-in speech, Locke <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/08/169440.htm" type="external">said</a> he would work to improve US-China relations during his tenure.</p>
<p>"The United States and China have a profoundly important and complex diplomatic, economic, and strategic bilateral relationship - one with challenges, no question, but one which also holds great promise for extended cooperation and collaboration," he said. "I look forward to working with the Chinese Government to fulfill that promise, but more importantly, to build the positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship that President Obama and President Hu have agreed that our two countries should aspire to."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Locke sworn in as China ambassador
| false |
https://pri.org/stories/2011-08-01/locke-sworn-china-ambassador
|
2011-08-01
| 3left-center
|
Locke sworn in as China ambassador
<p>The United States has a new point man in China.</p>
<p>Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington and most recently President Obama's Commerce Secretary, was sworn in on Monday as the newest US ambassador to China. Locke replaces Jon Huntsman, a charismatic Republican former governor of Utah who left the post after two years to run for president against his boss. Huntsman is now enmeshed in the GOP presidential primary race.</p>
<p>The appointment brings Locke full circle back to China. The grandson of a Chinese immigrant from Guangdong province, Locke has visited China several times in his official capacities. In his swearing-in speech, Locke <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/08/169440.htm" type="external">said</a> he would work to improve US-China relations during his tenure.</p>
<p>"The United States and China have a profoundly important and complex diplomatic, economic, and strategic bilateral relationship - one with challenges, no question, but one which also holds great promise for extended cooperation and collaboration," he said. "I look forward to working with the Chinese Government to fulfill that promise, but more importantly, to build the positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship that President Obama and President Hu have agreed that our two countries should aspire to."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 6,375 |
<p>When a refugee crisis of such magnitude as the mass exodus from Syria occurs, it tends to draw out both the best and worst qualities of people. The progressive, humanitarian angle on a situation like this&#160;is to take the high of road of offering solace and aid to as many suffering people as possible. An understandable expression of human compassion, however, on&#160;the other hand, as a means of protecting and preserving their individual customs and culture, nationalistic movements come out swinging for an end to such destructive immigration policies.</p>
<p>Immigration is being used as a political weapon to destabilize the West.&#160; <a href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/mass-migration-to-europe-in-line-with-nwo/" type="external">Western governments and political leaders are deliberately&#160;permitting&#160;unlimited unreasonable amounts of legal and illegal immigration</a>as well as accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Muslim nations into their own states. Additionally,&#160; <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240295/Imam-tells-Muslim-migrants-breed-children-Europeans-conquer-countries-vows-trample-underfoot-Allah-willing.html" type="external">radical Islam is admittedly using immigration into Western nations as a tactic to achieve the publicly stated and oft-repeated goal of conquering non-Muslim nations</a> from within their own borders by simply outgrowing them.</p>
<p>Typically known for his peaceful spiritual guidance and leadership in our troubled world, the <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> recently chimed in with his thoughts about the present refugee crisis in Europe. Without going into too much detail, he stated the simple and unavoidable truth of the situation: immigration, both legal and illegal, is not always a good thing.</p>
<p>Speaking from&#160;Dharamsala in northern India where the Tibetan government resides in exile, the <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> began by reminding us of the compassion normal people feel when seeing such terrible <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/10/01/drone-footage-of-a-battlefield-victory-in-the-orwellian-permanent-war/" type="external">suffering as is happening in Syria</a> and around the Middle East.</p>
<p>“When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering.” – The Dalai Lama</p>
<p>He went a bit further then, commenting on our inherent human duty to help others, but pointing out that a even a policy of compassion has its limits:</p>
<p>“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now.”</p>
<p>Too many? As reported by RT, the refugee crisis is admitting so many people that there is no possible way to effectively <a href="" type="internal">integrate</a>&#160;their&#160;wildly different political, social and religious beliefs into Europe. Regarding the Dalai Lama’s statements, RT notes:</p>
<p>“He said that countries taking in refugees should take a healthy look at the situation and realize that it’s not possible for all of the newcomers to be integrated into European society, stressing that the main goal for Europe’s leaders is to provide them with temporary shelter.” [ <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/344983-dalai-lama-refugee-crisis/" type="external">Source</a>]</p>
<p>In the age of <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/02/10/political-correctness-language-and-thought-control/" type="external">political correctness</a> and forced diversity, few in the <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/23/television-news-illusion-reporter-field-location/" type="external">corporate press</a> are willing to speak on this unavoidable fact of life, but, people of different cultures have rarely historically been able to peacefully assimilate and combine their cultures, traditions and ways of life. The result is all too often conflict both political and physical, which we are already seeing spreading throughout Europe. In the present scenario, it is clear that many Muslim immigrants are not at all interested in assimilating into their refugee states, which is causing a clash of cultures.</p>
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> touched on this issue, noting that the reality that unfettered immigration into Europe directly threatens to overpower long standing European culture:</p>
<p>“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany…&#160;There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.” – The Dalai Lama</p>
<p>The issue of immigration is complex and difficult, and even the most compassionate of leaders have little to say about an amicable and functional solution to the problem. While the Dalai Lama did indeed approach this issue with his comments, he offers no wisdom on how to manage the situation going forward, only stating&#160;the general sentiment that the immigration threatens Europe and that it should only be temporary.</p>
<p>The West, however is engaged in the mass destruction of the Middle East through <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/11/18/6-painful-truths-about-the-war-on-terrorism/" type="external">the war on terror</a> and the policies of regime change and nation-building. This offers little hope that refugee immigrants will have a livable place to return to any time soon.</p>
<p>We’re already see the first serious signs of the effects of weaponized immigration into Europe, and in some areas, major physical conflicts and dangerous lawlessness are already happening. Take, for example, recent footage from France that shows wild mobs of immigrants disrupting transit and attacking, robbing and vandalizing people.</p>
<p />
<p>Events of this nature add to&#160;testimony against&#160;policies of diversity and political correctness, which aim to conceal the truth and shame people into moulding their personal views and statements around the political agenda of the elite. You are not racist, nor are you xenophobic to speak the truth about the negative effects of uncontrolled immigration.</p>
<p>For someone in a position of spiritual leadership as is the Dalai Lama, it is rather incredible to hear truthful statements that speak to the fact that in order for human compassion to be of value to those who need it,there must&#160;be&#160;limits to protect those who are in a position to offer aid and solace.&#160;</p>
<p>Peace is just not possible in a lawless environment where people of conflicting cultures are forced to coexist when neither group would have chosen to do so if not coerced to do so by agenda-driven politics.</p>
<p>For a broader perspective on the European immigration crisis and how it is affecting communities around Europe, take a look a this video of compiled footage of the immigration crisis in Europe.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/contributors/alex-pietrowski/" type="external">Alex Pietrowski</a> is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/" type="external">WakingTimes.com</a> and <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/" type="external">Offgrid Outpost</a>, a provider of&#160; <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/healthy-storable-food.html" type="external">storable food</a> and <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/emergency-essentials/survival-kits.html" type="external">emergency kits</a>. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/23/dalai-lama-speaks-uncomfortable-truth-immigration/" type="external">WakingTimes.com</a></p>
<p />
<p />
|
The Dalai Lama Speaks the Uncomfortable Truth about Immigration
| true |
http://dcclothesline.com/2016/06/24/the-dalai-lama-speaks-the-uncomfortable-truth-about-immigration/
|
2016-06-24
| 0right
|
The Dalai Lama Speaks the Uncomfortable Truth about Immigration
<p>When a refugee crisis of such magnitude as the mass exodus from Syria occurs, it tends to draw out both the best and worst qualities of people. The progressive, humanitarian angle on a situation like this&#160;is to take the high of road of offering solace and aid to as many suffering people as possible. An understandable expression of human compassion, however, on&#160;the other hand, as a means of protecting and preserving their individual customs and culture, nationalistic movements come out swinging for an end to such destructive immigration policies.</p>
<p>Immigration is being used as a political weapon to destabilize the West.&#160; <a href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/mass-migration-to-europe-in-line-with-nwo/" type="external">Western governments and political leaders are deliberately&#160;permitting&#160;unlimited unreasonable amounts of legal and illegal immigration</a>as well as accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Muslim nations into their own states. Additionally,&#160; <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240295/Imam-tells-Muslim-migrants-breed-children-Europeans-conquer-countries-vows-trample-underfoot-Allah-willing.html" type="external">radical Islam is admittedly using immigration into Western nations as a tactic to achieve the publicly stated and oft-repeated goal of conquering non-Muslim nations</a> from within their own borders by simply outgrowing them.</p>
<p>Typically known for his peaceful spiritual guidance and leadership in our troubled world, the <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> recently chimed in with his thoughts about the present refugee crisis in Europe. Without going into too much detail, he stated the simple and unavoidable truth of the situation: immigration, both legal and illegal, is not always a good thing.</p>
<p>Speaking from&#160;Dharamsala in northern India where the Tibetan government resides in exile, the <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> began by reminding us of the compassion normal people feel when seeing such terrible <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/10/01/drone-footage-of-a-battlefield-victory-in-the-orwellian-permanent-war/" type="external">suffering as is happening in Syria</a> and around the Middle East.</p>
<p>“When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering.” – The Dalai Lama</p>
<p>He went a bit further then, commenting on our inherent human duty to help others, but pointing out that a even a policy of compassion has its limits:</p>
<p>“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now.”</p>
<p>Too many? As reported by RT, the refugee crisis is admitting so many people that there is no possible way to effectively <a href="" type="internal">integrate</a>&#160;their&#160;wildly different political, social and religious beliefs into Europe. Regarding the Dalai Lama’s statements, RT notes:</p>
<p>“He said that countries taking in refugees should take a healthy look at the situation and realize that it’s not possible for all of the newcomers to be integrated into European society, stressing that the main goal for Europe’s leaders is to provide them with temporary shelter.” [ <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/344983-dalai-lama-refugee-crisis/" type="external">Source</a>]</p>
<p>In the age of <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/02/10/political-correctness-language-and-thought-control/" type="external">political correctness</a> and forced diversity, few in the <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/23/television-news-illusion-reporter-field-location/" type="external">corporate press</a> are willing to speak on this unavoidable fact of life, but, people of different cultures have rarely historically been able to peacefully assimilate and combine their cultures, traditions and ways of life. The result is all too often conflict both political and physical, which we are already seeing spreading throughout Europe. In the present scenario, it is clear that many Muslim immigrants are not at all interested in assimilating into their refugee states, which is causing a clash of cultures.</p>
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">Dalai Lama</a> touched on this issue, noting that the reality that unfettered immigration into Europe directly threatens to overpower long standing European culture:</p>
<p>“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany…&#160;There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.” – The Dalai Lama</p>
<p>The issue of immigration is complex and difficult, and even the most compassionate of leaders have little to say about an amicable and functional solution to the problem. While the Dalai Lama did indeed approach this issue with his comments, he offers no wisdom on how to manage the situation going forward, only stating&#160;the general sentiment that the immigration threatens Europe and that it should only be temporary.</p>
<p>The West, however is engaged in the mass destruction of the Middle East through <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/11/18/6-painful-truths-about-the-war-on-terrorism/" type="external">the war on terror</a> and the policies of regime change and nation-building. This offers little hope that refugee immigrants will have a livable place to return to any time soon.</p>
<p>We’re already see the first serious signs of the effects of weaponized immigration into Europe, and in some areas, major physical conflicts and dangerous lawlessness are already happening. Take, for example, recent footage from France that shows wild mobs of immigrants disrupting transit and attacking, robbing and vandalizing people.</p>
<p />
<p>Events of this nature add to&#160;testimony against&#160;policies of diversity and political correctness, which aim to conceal the truth and shame people into moulding their personal views and statements around the political agenda of the elite. You are not racist, nor are you xenophobic to speak the truth about the negative effects of uncontrolled immigration.</p>
<p>For someone in a position of spiritual leadership as is the Dalai Lama, it is rather incredible to hear truthful statements that speak to the fact that in order for human compassion to be of value to those who need it,there must&#160;be&#160;limits to protect those who are in a position to offer aid and solace.&#160;</p>
<p>Peace is just not possible in a lawless environment where people of conflicting cultures are forced to coexist when neither group would have chosen to do so if not coerced to do so by agenda-driven politics.</p>
<p>For a broader perspective on the European immigration crisis and how it is affecting communities around Europe, take a look a this video of compiled footage of the immigration crisis in Europe.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/contributors/alex-pietrowski/" type="external">Alex Pietrowski</a> is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/" type="external">WakingTimes.com</a> and <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/" type="external">Offgrid Outpost</a>, a provider of&#160; <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/healthy-storable-food.html" type="external">storable food</a> and <a href="https://www.offgridoutpost.com/emergency-essentials/survival-kits.html" type="external">emergency kits</a>. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/23/dalai-lama-speaks-uncomfortable-truth-immigration/" type="external">WakingTimes.com</a></p>
<p />
<p />
| 6,376 |
<p>WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump demanded the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June but backed down after White House lawyer Don McGahn threatened to resign, according to a New York Times report that Trump quickly dismissed Friday as “fake news.”</p>
<p>The newspaper reported that Trump demanded Mueller’s firing just weeks after the special counsel was first appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.</p>
<p>Trump pushed back against the report, without addressing the specific allegation, as he arrived Friday at the site of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</p>
<p>“Fake news, folks. Fake news. Typical New York Times fake stories,” Trump told reporters.</p>
<p />
<p>McGahn said he would not deliver the order to the Justice Department, according to The Times, which cites four people familiar with the request by the president.</p>
<p>Trump argued at the time that Mueller could not be fair because of a dispute over golf club fees that he said Mueller owed at a Trump golf club in Sterling, Virginia. The president also believed Mueller had a conflict of interest because he worked for the same law firm that was representing Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.</p>
<p>Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday night. Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer working on the response to the Russia probe, declined comment Thursday night.</p>
<p>The response from Democrats was nearly immediate. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that if the report in The Times is true, Trump has crossed a “red line.”</p>
<p>“Any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses or otherwise interfere in the investigation would be a gross abuse of power, and all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately,” Warner said.</p>
<p>The report comes as Mueller moves ever closer to interviewing Trump himself. The president said Wednesday that he would gladly testify under oath — although a White House official quickly said afterward that Trump did not mean he was volunteering to testify.</p>
<p>Last June, when Trump was considering how to fire Mueller, the special counsel’s probe had not progressed far, at least not in public.</p>
<p>At that time he had yet to call on any major witnesses to testify and had not yet issued any charges or signed any plea deals. But that would change just a few months later, when federal agents would arrest former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and ultimately turn him into a cooperating witness.</p>
<p>Since then, Trump has largely stopped talking about explicitly trying to fire Mueller, but has instead shifted to accusing Mueller and his team of being biased and unable to complete a fair investigation.</p>
<p>The latest evidence the president has cited was a string of text messages from a former agent on Mueller’s probe, which show that agent vociferously opposing the president. But Mueller swiftly removed the agent, Peter Strzok, from his probe after learning about his texts.</p>
<p>Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump adviser Rick Gates were charged by Mueller with criminal conspiracy related to millions of dollars they earned while working for a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian political party. And former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn agreed to cooperate with investigators in a plea deal revealed two months ago. Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI.</p>
<p>Mueller’s investigators have been focusing their inquiry on questions surrounding Trump’s firing of Flynn and also his firing of former FBI Director James Comey. They have slowly been calling in more witnesses closer to the president himself and, recently, began negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Trump’s lawyer said that more than 20 White House employees have given interviews to the special counsel in his probe of possible obstruction of justice and Trump campaign ties to Russian election interference.</p>
<p>John Dowd, Trump’s attorney, said the White House, in an unprecedented display of cooperation with Mueller’s investigation, has turned over more than 20,000 pages of records. The president’s 2016 campaign has turned over more than 1.4 million pages.</p>
<p>The number of voluntary interviews included eight people from the White House counsel’s office.</p>
<p>An additional 28 people affiliated with the Trump campaign have also been interviewed by either the special counsel or congressional committees probing Russian election meddling. Dowd’s disclosure did not name the people nor provide a breakdown of how many were interviewed only by Mueller’s team.</p>
|
Trump Calls Report on Effort to Fire Mueller 'Fake News'
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/trump-ordered-mueller-fired-backed-off-n-y-times-reports/
|
2018-01-25
| 4left
|
Trump Calls Report on Effort to Fire Mueller 'Fake News'
<p>WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump demanded the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June but backed down after White House lawyer Don McGahn threatened to resign, according to a New York Times report that Trump quickly dismissed Friday as “fake news.”</p>
<p>The newspaper reported that Trump demanded Mueller’s firing just weeks after the special counsel was first appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.</p>
<p>Trump pushed back against the report, without addressing the specific allegation, as he arrived Friday at the site of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</p>
<p>“Fake news, folks. Fake news. Typical New York Times fake stories,” Trump told reporters.</p>
<p />
<p>McGahn said he would not deliver the order to the Justice Department, according to The Times, which cites four people familiar with the request by the president.</p>
<p>Trump argued at the time that Mueller could not be fair because of a dispute over golf club fees that he said Mueller owed at a Trump golf club in Sterling, Virginia. The president also believed Mueller had a conflict of interest because he worked for the same law firm that was representing Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.</p>
<p>Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday night. Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer working on the response to the Russia probe, declined comment Thursday night.</p>
<p>The response from Democrats was nearly immediate. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that if the report in The Times is true, Trump has crossed a “red line.”</p>
<p>“Any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses or otherwise interfere in the investigation would be a gross abuse of power, and all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately,” Warner said.</p>
<p>The report comes as Mueller moves ever closer to interviewing Trump himself. The president said Wednesday that he would gladly testify under oath — although a White House official quickly said afterward that Trump did not mean he was volunteering to testify.</p>
<p>Last June, when Trump was considering how to fire Mueller, the special counsel’s probe had not progressed far, at least not in public.</p>
<p>At that time he had yet to call on any major witnesses to testify and had not yet issued any charges or signed any plea deals. But that would change just a few months later, when federal agents would arrest former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and ultimately turn him into a cooperating witness.</p>
<p>Since then, Trump has largely stopped talking about explicitly trying to fire Mueller, but has instead shifted to accusing Mueller and his team of being biased and unable to complete a fair investigation.</p>
<p>The latest evidence the president has cited was a string of text messages from a former agent on Mueller’s probe, which show that agent vociferously opposing the president. But Mueller swiftly removed the agent, Peter Strzok, from his probe after learning about his texts.</p>
<p>Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump adviser Rick Gates were charged by Mueller with criminal conspiracy related to millions of dollars they earned while working for a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian political party. And former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn agreed to cooperate with investigators in a plea deal revealed two months ago. Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI.</p>
<p>Mueller’s investigators have been focusing their inquiry on questions surrounding Trump’s firing of Flynn and also his firing of former FBI Director James Comey. They have slowly been calling in more witnesses closer to the president himself and, recently, began negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Trump’s lawyer said that more than 20 White House employees have given interviews to the special counsel in his probe of possible obstruction of justice and Trump campaign ties to Russian election interference.</p>
<p>John Dowd, Trump’s attorney, said the White House, in an unprecedented display of cooperation with Mueller’s investigation, has turned over more than 20,000 pages of records. The president’s 2016 campaign has turned over more than 1.4 million pages.</p>
<p>The number of voluntary interviews included eight people from the White House counsel’s office.</p>
<p>An additional 28 people affiliated with the Trump campaign have also been interviewed by either the special counsel or congressional committees probing Russian election meddling. Dowd’s disclosure did not name the people nor provide a breakdown of how many were interviewed only by Mueller’s team.</p>
| 6,377 |
<p>Establishment Republicans want Donald Trump to drop out of the race; they want Jeb Bush to stay in it to win it. Precisely the opposite needs to happen as soon as humanly possible.</p>
<p>Jeb Bush’s badly flailing campaign has now <a href="" type="internal">foundered on the rocks</a> of the Donald Trump candidacy – and Jeb is feeling the pain. Last week, Trump told Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle that despite Jeb’s protestations that his brother, former President George W. Bush, “kept us safe,” 9/11 happened under his watch. “Say what you want,” stated Trump, “the World Trade Center came down during his time….He was president, OK? Don’t blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president.”</p>
<p>Jeb quickly responded by calling Trump an unserious candidate, explaining, “Across the spectrum of foreign policy, Mr. Trump talks about things as though he’s still on The Apprentice…Next week, Mr. Trump is probably going to say that FDR was around when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.”</p>
<p>Jeb may be right on the merits. But it won’t help him one bit: the Bush presidency historical rewriting has already taken place. Indeed, it took place in real time as the media insisted there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ( <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html" type="external">false</a>), that Bush’s anti-terror efforts were useless ( <a href="https://nypost.com/2012/05/06/how-we-broke-ksm/" type="external">false</a>), and that the surge in Iraq did not reduce the threat of terrorism ( <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/18/fivefold-increase-terrorism-fatalities-global-index" type="external">false</a>). Thanks to the legacy of George W. Bush, Jeb’s once-significant lead in the polls has disappeared: he dropped from 15 percent in July, leading the field according to the Monmouth poll, to a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-donald-trump-monmouth-poll" type="external">mere 5 percent today</a>.</p>
<p>Jeb and the rest of the establishment cling to the slim hope that Trump will somehow implode. He won’t.</p>
<p>Trump, meanwhile, has led the Republican field for nearly four months. As Rush Limbaugh said this morning, if Bush had Trump’s numbers, the establishment would already have declared the race over.</p>
<p>Trump’s comments about Bush are an acid test for the establishment Republicans who want another Bush presidency: if Jeb can’t stop the Trump juggernaut, how will he stop Hillary’s far more powerful juggernaut? If he can’t rebut Trump on Iraq and the war on terror, how can he hope to do so against Clinton, backed by the full power of the mainstream media? The same holds true for the entire Republican field: if they can’t defeat Trump’s economic populist nonsense in a Republican primary, how can they hope to defeat the same proposals from the left? Trump should not be the Republican candidate because he’s simply not conservative – but he’s providing a stiff test for anyone who would grab the brass ring.</p>
<p>It appears that the Jeb campaign has given up on trying to buckle Trump’s knees; instead, they’re targeting Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). They expected Rubio to drop behind Jeb in Florida, but also believed that if they began to lose Florida as a stronghold, they could always turn to Texas; Cruz has locked up the state instead. That led W. to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/jeb-bush-george-bush-donors-ted-cruz-214933" type="external">slam Cruz</a>: “I just don’t like that guy,” he told donors. W. specifically objected to Cruz’s strategic alliance with Trump, calling it “opportunistic.”</p>
<p>But the establishment has to know at this point that their only chance of stopping Trump may lie in wooing Rubio and dumping Jeb. The current polling numbers from CNN place Trump in the lead at 27 percent; Ben Carson at 22 percent; and Bush and Rubio with 8 percent. The numbers from NBC tell a similar story: Trump at 25 percent; Carson at 22 percent; Rubio with 13 percent; Cruz and Bush are nearly tied with 9 percent and 8 percent respectively. Trump will not drop out; neither, it appears, will money leader Carson. That means that the establishment candidate must somehow get to thirty percent to feel safe in the primaries. Jeb will never get beyond 10 percent – according to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, more Republican voters say they’ll never vote for Bush (44 percent) than Trump (36 percent). Rubio and Carson lead the way in terms of their level of general support – 74 percent of Republicans say they could back Carson, and 65 percent say they could back Rubio.</p>
<p>If Bush dropped out, his support would likely move to Rubio, a far more palatable candidate than Jeb. That would bring him up to 21 percent, competitive with the leaders, in the NBC poll, and bring him up to 16 percent, just behind them, in the CNN poll. If Carly Fiorina were persuaded to drop out as well, her support would likely accrue to Rubio, putting him in the lead.</p>
<p>Jeb and the rest of the establishment cling to the slim hope that Trump will somehow implode. He won’t. Neither will Carson. If they want to stop the Trump machine, they’ll need to drop the latest Bush in favor of somebody new. And as Iowa draws closer, that inevitable inflection point does too.</p>
|
Trump Shouldn't Drop Out. Jeb Should.
| true |
https://dailywire.com/news/538/trump-shouldnt-drop-out-jeb-should-ben-shapiro
|
2015-10-20
| 0right
|
Trump Shouldn't Drop Out. Jeb Should.
<p>Establishment Republicans want Donald Trump to drop out of the race; they want Jeb Bush to stay in it to win it. Precisely the opposite needs to happen as soon as humanly possible.</p>
<p>Jeb Bush’s badly flailing campaign has now <a href="" type="internal">foundered on the rocks</a> of the Donald Trump candidacy – and Jeb is feeling the pain. Last week, Trump told Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle that despite Jeb’s protestations that his brother, former President George W. Bush, “kept us safe,” 9/11 happened under his watch. “Say what you want,” stated Trump, “the World Trade Center came down during his time….He was president, OK? Don’t blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president.”</p>
<p>Jeb quickly responded by calling Trump an unserious candidate, explaining, “Across the spectrum of foreign policy, Mr. Trump talks about things as though he’s still on The Apprentice…Next week, Mr. Trump is probably going to say that FDR was around when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.”</p>
<p>Jeb may be right on the merits. But it won’t help him one bit: the Bush presidency historical rewriting has already taken place. Indeed, it took place in real time as the media insisted there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ( <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html" type="external">false</a>), that Bush’s anti-terror efforts were useless ( <a href="https://nypost.com/2012/05/06/how-we-broke-ksm/" type="external">false</a>), and that the surge in Iraq did not reduce the threat of terrorism ( <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/18/fivefold-increase-terrorism-fatalities-global-index" type="external">false</a>). Thanks to the legacy of George W. Bush, Jeb’s once-significant lead in the polls has disappeared: he dropped from 15 percent in July, leading the field according to the Monmouth poll, to a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-donald-trump-monmouth-poll" type="external">mere 5 percent today</a>.</p>
<p>Jeb and the rest of the establishment cling to the slim hope that Trump will somehow implode. He won’t.</p>
<p>Trump, meanwhile, has led the Republican field for nearly four months. As Rush Limbaugh said this morning, if Bush had Trump’s numbers, the establishment would already have declared the race over.</p>
<p>Trump’s comments about Bush are an acid test for the establishment Republicans who want another Bush presidency: if Jeb can’t stop the Trump juggernaut, how will he stop Hillary’s far more powerful juggernaut? If he can’t rebut Trump on Iraq and the war on terror, how can he hope to do so against Clinton, backed by the full power of the mainstream media? The same holds true for the entire Republican field: if they can’t defeat Trump’s economic populist nonsense in a Republican primary, how can they hope to defeat the same proposals from the left? Trump should not be the Republican candidate because he’s simply not conservative – but he’s providing a stiff test for anyone who would grab the brass ring.</p>
<p>It appears that the Jeb campaign has given up on trying to buckle Trump’s knees; instead, they’re targeting Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). They expected Rubio to drop behind Jeb in Florida, but also believed that if they began to lose Florida as a stronghold, they could always turn to Texas; Cruz has locked up the state instead. That led W. to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/jeb-bush-george-bush-donors-ted-cruz-214933" type="external">slam Cruz</a>: “I just don’t like that guy,” he told donors. W. specifically objected to Cruz’s strategic alliance with Trump, calling it “opportunistic.”</p>
<p>But the establishment has to know at this point that their only chance of stopping Trump may lie in wooing Rubio and dumping Jeb. The current polling numbers from CNN place Trump in the lead at 27 percent; Ben Carson at 22 percent; and Bush and Rubio with 8 percent. The numbers from NBC tell a similar story: Trump at 25 percent; Carson at 22 percent; Rubio with 13 percent; Cruz and Bush are nearly tied with 9 percent and 8 percent respectively. Trump will not drop out; neither, it appears, will money leader Carson. That means that the establishment candidate must somehow get to thirty percent to feel safe in the primaries. Jeb will never get beyond 10 percent – according to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, more Republican voters say they’ll never vote for Bush (44 percent) than Trump (36 percent). Rubio and Carson lead the way in terms of their level of general support – 74 percent of Republicans say they could back Carson, and 65 percent say they could back Rubio.</p>
<p>If Bush dropped out, his support would likely move to Rubio, a far more palatable candidate than Jeb. That would bring him up to 21 percent, competitive with the leaders, in the NBC poll, and bring him up to 16 percent, just behind them, in the CNN poll. If Carly Fiorina were persuaded to drop out as well, her support would likely accrue to Rubio, putting him in the lead.</p>
<p>Jeb and the rest of the establishment cling to the slim hope that Trump will somehow implode. He won’t. Neither will Carson. If they want to stop the Trump machine, they’ll need to drop the latest Bush in favor of somebody new. And as Iowa draws closer, that inevitable inflection point does too.</p>
| 6,378 |
<p>Emmy award-winning filmmaker <a href="http://johnpilger.com/" type="external">John Pilger</a> is among the most important political filmmakers of the 20th and 21st century. From Vietnam to Palestine to atomic war, Pilger’s work has been on the cutting edge, and his stinging critique of western media has always been revelatory. And, no doubt, his biting analysis is more relevant and important now than ever. His latest film, “The Coming War on China,” powerfully presages the growing potential for war between the U.S. and China.</p>
<p>Randy Credico and Dennis J. Bernstein spoke with Pilger on January 18 about the multiple failures of the corporate press in fanning the phony flames of Russiagate, and turning its back on Julian Assange—acting more like prosecutors than journalists, whose responsibility it is to monitor the centers of power and report back to the people.</p>
<p>They also spoke with Pilger about the recent decision by the British Library to acquire his substantial works and invaluable archives and make them readily available to a much wider audience</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: Congratulations, John. Your work has now been made a part of the collection at the British Library.</p>
<p />
<p>John Pilger: To see all my written work over the years go onto a single hard drive was a sobering experience. I am pleased, however, because now in the digital age people can access all of my work and I myself can access information I may have forgotten.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: I would like to read a little of what they said on the record when they welcomed your material into the library. They write, “Throughout his career, John Pilger has demonstrated the power and significance of investigative journalism in uncovering stories of people who have been ignored by the mainstream media or left otherwise without voice. His groundbreaking work in Cambodia revealed the devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge and his film ‘Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia’ has subsequently been described as one of the ten most influential documentaries of the twentieth century.”</p>
<p>I would like to read now a little of the statement that you sent to the World’s Socialist Conference where they were discussing the deep nature of censorship. You wrote, “Something has changed. Although the media was always a loose extension of capital power, it is now almost fully integrated. Dissent, once tolerated in the mainstream, has now regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves toward a form of corporate dictatorship.” And it is getting worse at an exponential rate, wouldn’t you say?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Yes. Chris Hedges is an example of that. He was right in the mainstream at The New York Times and now finds himself outside it. Another example is America’s most celebrated investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, who it appears now can only get published in Germany. Hersh has effectively been ejected from the mainstream in the United States.</p>
<p>In my own case, I navigated my way through the mainstream. My films are still shown on commercial TV in Britain. My written journalism, however, is no longer welcome. Its last home was The Guardian, which three years ago got rid of people like me and others in a kind of purge of those who were saying what The Guardian no longer says anymore.</p>
<p>That has happened right across the liberal media. The Washington Post—which is at the moment going through a period of self-aggrandizement with the release of the film “The Post”—is also the notorious source of a site which listed some of the most distinguished dissenting sites in the United States, including Consortiumnews, Black Agenda Report, CounterPunch and others, as sources of Russian propaganda. It is forcing all of us into this margin, when really the mainstream is in the margin and the margin is in the mainstream.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: Could you talk about the work of Julian Assange in the context of this corporate censorship machine?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Julian Assange has personally borne the brunt of much of this historic shift. He and Wikileaks have exposed so much, and that is unforgivable. There is no doubt that what Wikileaks has done is the most important disclosure journalism of my lifetime. Around the world, politicians who have been deceiving the public have been caught out by the revelations of WikiLeaks. It is quite an epic achievement.</p>
<p>Anger has been directed at Julian by people in the media who have been shamed by WikiLeaks. Because WikiLeaks did the job that journalists ought to have been doing for many years. WikiLeaks has done it across such a spectrum and put to shame those who are paid to keep the record straight. That has been Assange’s crime.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: It has come to the point where to tell the truth is to commit professional suicide.</p>
<p>Randy Credico: At the recent World Socialist Conference, Julian Assange warned of what he called the “super states” on the internet and how much power they have—the Facebooks and Googles, etc.</p>
<p>John Pilger: He raised the whole specter of artificial intelligence and how it can be abused by the undemocratic forces that control so much of the world. I think what he had to say was very interesting and extremely timely. It is important to remember that Assange is a refugee and that the refugee is almost a symbol of our times. There are those who try to cross the Mediterranean and don’t make it or who cross deserts to get work to support their families.</p>
<p>Julian is a political refugee who is trying to inform us of something we either don’t know about or are unwilling to talk about. The United Nations has recognized that he is being detained unlawfully. It is interesting to hear what he says but we also have to keep an eye on his welfare. His situation should be a burning issue for journalists everywhere. If it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us.</p>
<p>Randy Credico: A lot of mainstream journalists complain when Trump refers to them as the enemy of the people, but they have shown themselves to be very unwilling to circle the wagons around Assange. What is the upshot for journalists of Assange being taken down?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Trump knows which nerves to touch. His campaign against the mainstream media may even help to get him re-elected, because most people don’t trust the mainstream media anymore.</p>
<p>In my experience as a journalist, the public have always been ahead of the media. And yet, in many news outlets there has always been a kind of veiled contempt for the public. You find young journalists affecting a false cynicism that they think ordains them as journalists. The cynicism is not about the people at the top, it’s about the people at the bottom, the people that Hillary Clinton dismissed as “irredeemable.”</p>
<p>CNN and NBC and the rest of the networks have been the voices of power and have been the source of distorted news for such a long time. They are not circling the wagons because the wagons are on the wrong side. These people in the mainstream have been an extension of the power that has corrupted so much of our body politic. They have been the sources of so many myths.</p>
<p>This latest film about “The Post” neglects to mention that The Washington Post was a passionate supporter of the Vietnam War before it decided to have a moral crisis about whether to publish the Pentagon Papers. Today, The Washington Post has a $600 million deal with the CIA to supply them with information.</p>
<p>Media in the West is now an extension of imperial power. It is no longer a loose extension, it is a direct extension. Whether or not it has fallen out with Donald Trump is completely irrelevant. It is lined up with all the forces that want to get rid of Donald Trump. He is not the one they want in the White House, they wanted Hillary Clinton, who is safer and more reliable.</p>
<p>Editor’s note: To listen to the interview, <a href="https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=277808" type="external">click here</a>. According to news reports, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/24/julian-assanges-health-in-dangerous-condition-say-doctors" type="external">Julian Assange’s health</a> is in a “dangerous” condition.</p>
<p>Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of “ <a href="https://books.nyq.org/title/specialed" type="external">Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom</a>.” You can access the audio archives at <a href="http://www.flashpoints.net/" type="external">www.flashpoints.net</a>.</p>
|
Mainstream Media an Extension of Imperial Power
| true |
https://truthdig.com/articles/john-pilger-media-west-now-extension-imperial-power/
|
2018-01-25
| 4left
|
Mainstream Media an Extension of Imperial Power
<p>Emmy award-winning filmmaker <a href="http://johnpilger.com/" type="external">John Pilger</a> is among the most important political filmmakers of the 20th and 21st century. From Vietnam to Palestine to atomic war, Pilger’s work has been on the cutting edge, and his stinging critique of western media has always been revelatory. And, no doubt, his biting analysis is more relevant and important now than ever. His latest film, “The Coming War on China,” powerfully presages the growing potential for war between the U.S. and China.</p>
<p>Randy Credico and Dennis J. Bernstein spoke with Pilger on January 18 about the multiple failures of the corporate press in fanning the phony flames of Russiagate, and turning its back on Julian Assange—acting more like prosecutors than journalists, whose responsibility it is to monitor the centers of power and report back to the people.</p>
<p>They also spoke with Pilger about the recent decision by the British Library to acquire his substantial works and invaluable archives and make them readily available to a much wider audience</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: Congratulations, John. Your work has now been made a part of the collection at the British Library.</p>
<p />
<p>John Pilger: To see all my written work over the years go onto a single hard drive was a sobering experience. I am pleased, however, because now in the digital age people can access all of my work and I myself can access information I may have forgotten.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: I would like to read a little of what they said on the record when they welcomed your material into the library. They write, “Throughout his career, John Pilger has demonstrated the power and significance of investigative journalism in uncovering stories of people who have been ignored by the mainstream media or left otherwise without voice. His groundbreaking work in Cambodia revealed the devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge and his film ‘Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia’ has subsequently been described as one of the ten most influential documentaries of the twentieth century.”</p>
<p>I would like to read now a little of the statement that you sent to the World’s Socialist Conference where they were discussing the deep nature of censorship. You wrote, “Something has changed. Although the media was always a loose extension of capital power, it is now almost fully integrated. Dissent, once tolerated in the mainstream, has now regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves toward a form of corporate dictatorship.” And it is getting worse at an exponential rate, wouldn’t you say?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Yes. Chris Hedges is an example of that. He was right in the mainstream at The New York Times and now finds himself outside it. Another example is America’s most celebrated investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, who it appears now can only get published in Germany. Hersh has effectively been ejected from the mainstream in the United States.</p>
<p>In my own case, I navigated my way through the mainstream. My films are still shown on commercial TV in Britain. My written journalism, however, is no longer welcome. Its last home was The Guardian, which three years ago got rid of people like me and others in a kind of purge of those who were saying what The Guardian no longer says anymore.</p>
<p>That has happened right across the liberal media. The Washington Post—which is at the moment going through a period of self-aggrandizement with the release of the film “The Post”—is also the notorious source of a site which listed some of the most distinguished dissenting sites in the United States, including Consortiumnews, Black Agenda Report, CounterPunch and others, as sources of Russian propaganda. It is forcing all of us into this margin, when really the mainstream is in the margin and the margin is in the mainstream.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: Could you talk about the work of Julian Assange in the context of this corporate censorship machine?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Julian Assange has personally borne the brunt of much of this historic shift. He and Wikileaks have exposed so much, and that is unforgivable. There is no doubt that what Wikileaks has done is the most important disclosure journalism of my lifetime. Around the world, politicians who have been deceiving the public have been caught out by the revelations of WikiLeaks. It is quite an epic achievement.</p>
<p>Anger has been directed at Julian by people in the media who have been shamed by WikiLeaks. Because WikiLeaks did the job that journalists ought to have been doing for many years. WikiLeaks has done it across such a spectrum and put to shame those who are paid to keep the record straight. That has been Assange’s crime.</p>
<p>Dennis Bernstein: It has come to the point where to tell the truth is to commit professional suicide.</p>
<p>Randy Credico: At the recent World Socialist Conference, Julian Assange warned of what he called the “super states” on the internet and how much power they have—the Facebooks and Googles, etc.</p>
<p>John Pilger: He raised the whole specter of artificial intelligence and how it can be abused by the undemocratic forces that control so much of the world. I think what he had to say was very interesting and extremely timely. It is important to remember that Assange is a refugee and that the refugee is almost a symbol of our times. There are those who try to cross the Mediterranean and don’t make it or who cross deserts to get work to support their families.</p>
<p>Julian is a political refugee who is trying to inform us of something we either don’t know about or are unwilling to talk about. The United Nations has recognized that he is being detained unlawfully. It is interesting to hear what he says but we also have to keep an eye on his welfare. His situation should be a burning issue for journalists everywhere. If it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us.</p>
<p>Randy Credico: A lot of mainstream journalists complain when Trump refers to them as the enemy of the people, but they have shown themselves to be very unwilling to circle the wagons around Assange. What is the upshot for journalists of Assange being taken down?</p>
<p>John Pilger: Trump knows which nerves to touch. His campaign against the mainstream media may even help to get him re-elected, because most people don’t trust the mainstream media anymore.</p>
<p>In my experience as a journalist, the public have always been ahead of the media. And yet, in many news outlets there has always been a kind of veiled contempt for the public. You find young journalists affecting a false cynicism that they think ordains them as journalists. The cynicism is not about the people at the top, it’s about the people at the bottom, the people that Hillary Clinton dismissed as “irredeemable.”</p>
<p>CNN and NBC and the rest of the networks have been the voices of power and have been the source of distorted news for such a long time. They are not circling the wagons because the wagons are on the wrong side. These people in the mainstream have been an extension of the power that has corrupted so much of our body politic. They have been the sources of so many myths.</p>
<p>This latest film about “The Post” neglects to mention that The Washington Post was a passionate supporter of the Vietnam War before it decided to have a moral crisis about whether to publish the Pentagon Papers. Today, The Washington Post has a $600 million deal with the CIA to supply them with information.</p>
<p>Media in the West is now an extension of imperial power. It is no longer a loose extension, it is a direct extension. Whether or not it has fallen out with Donald Trump is completely irrelevant. It is lined up with all the forces that want to get rid of Donald Trump. He is not the one they want in the White House, they wanted Hillary Clinton, who is safer and more reliable.</p>
<p>Editor’s note: To listen to the interview, <a href="https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=277808" type="external">click here</a>. According to news reports, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/24/julian-assanges-health-in-dangerous-condition-say-doctors" type="external">Julian Assange’s health</a> is in a “dangerous” condition.</p>
<p>Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of “ <a href="https://books.nyq.org/title/specialed" type="external">Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom</a>.” You can access the audio archives at <a href="http://www.flashpoints.net/" type="external">www.flashpoints.net</a>.</p>
| 6,379 |
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday ruled against President Donald Trump’s effort to broadly enforce a temporary travel and refugee ban on people from certain Muslim-majority countries that the Republican president said was necessary for national security.</p>
<p>A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said that the government did not persuasively explain why the travel ban should be enforced against grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from the six countries.</p>
<p>In the latest legal back and forth over the President’s controversial executive order, the court also said that refugee resettlement agencies have a “bona fide” relationship with refugees, which under a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court, should allow them into the United States.</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>
|
U.S. appeals court rules against broad interpretation of Trump's travel ban
| false |
https://newsline.com/u-s-appeals-court-rules-against-broad-interpretation-of-trump039s-travel-ban/
|
2017-09-07
| 1right-center
|
U.S. appeals court rules against broad interpretation of Trump's travel ban
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday ruled against President Donald Trump’s effort to broadly enforce a temporary travel and refugee ban on people from certain Muslim-majority countries that the Republican president said was necessary for national security.</p>
<p>A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said that the government did not persuasively explain why the travel ban should be enforced against grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from the six countries.</p>
<p>In the latest legal back and forth over the President’s controversial executive order, the court also said that refugee resettlement agencies have a “bona fide” relationship with refugees, which under a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court, should allow them into the United States.</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>
| 6,380 |
<p>JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli anti-settlement group says the government has approved over a thousand new housing units in the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of their future state.</p>
<p>Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now movement said on Thursday that 1,122 were approved this week.</p>
<p>Ofran says the government is "trying to prevent the possibility for peace and a two state solution." She says it "adds more people Israel will need to evict in a peace agreement."</p>
<p>Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there.</p>
<p>Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations.</p>
<p>JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli anti-settlement group says the government has approved over a thousand new housing units in the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of their future state.</p>
<p>Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now movement said on Thursday that 1,122 were approved this week.</p>
<p>Ofran says the government is "trying to prevent the possibility for peace and a two state solution." She says it "adds more people Israel will need to evict in a peace agreement."</p>
<p>Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there.</p>
<p>Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations.</p>
|
Group: Israel OKs more construction in West Bank settlements
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/651bd404bf4b48eab7aa3ac109c9eee4
|
2018-01-11
| 2least
|
Group: Israel OKs more construction in West Bank settlements
<p>JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli anti-settlement group says the government has approved over a thousand new housing units in the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of their future state.</p>
<p>Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now movement said on Thursday that 1,122 were approved this week.</p>
<p>Ofran says the government is "trying to prevent the possibility for peace and a two state solution." She says it "adds more people Israel will need to evict in a peace agreement."</p>
<p>Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there.</p>
<p>Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations.</p>
<p>JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli anti-settlement group says the government has approved over a thousand new housing units in the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of their future state.</p>
<p>Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now movement said on Thursday that 1,122 were approved this week.</p>
<p>Ofran says the government is "trying to prevent the possibility for peace and a two state solution." She says it "adds more people Israel will need to evict in a peace agreement."</p>
<p>Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there.</p>
<p>Much of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel says the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations.</p>
| 6,381 |
<p>By GEORGE CICCIARELLO-MAHER</p>
<p>Much has been eclipsed in the post-election euphoria, not least of which is the continuity of racist violence in the United States. The election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the black population still bears the overwhelming brunt of this violence, in its systematic and informal guises, in prisons and on the streets, and with the <a href="" type="internal">far-right gearing up we can expect more of the same</a>. But with new dynamics, political and geopolitical, come new violences, and we have seen in recent years a steady increase in anti-Latino or anti-immigrant violence alongside a notable spike after September 11th in anti-“Arab” violence.</p>
<p>Recently-released statistics show violence against Latino immigrants to be the fastest growing of all hate crimes, fuelled by an atmosphere of linguistic-racial hatred and permissiveness to violence against all those deemed to be from “elsewhere.” <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=845" type="external">In a recent report</a>, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the shocking growth in anti-Latino hate crime, and in early November, an Ecuadorian man was beaten and stabbed to death on Long Island, New York, by a lynch mob of young, mostly white teens looking for some racist fun “hunting beaners,” a game they <a href="" type="internal">claim to have played weekly</a>. Less than a month later yet another Ecuadorean was <a href="" type="internal">beaten until brain-dead in Brooklyn</a>, this time allegedly by black men who shouted ethnic and homophobic slurs.</p>
<p>Such informal violence has always gone hand-in-hand with the structural violence of the state: informal and legal lynching are but a single, Janus-faced phenomenon. In this vein, alongside a rise in informal hate crimes, we have seen a marked increase in the destructive intervention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local law enforcement vigilantes like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, permissiveness toward racist Minutemen-type militia organizations, and the direct result of these policies in skyrocketing deaths along the border. And the ties between this formal anti-immigrant racism and the prison-industrial complex are increasingly clear, <a href="http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/8265_toolkit-immigration.pdf" type="external">as INCITE! recently revealed</a> that the U.S. government’s anti-immigration enforcement budget had increased nearly ten-fold since 1993, to $13.6 billion in 2008, and that immigrant detention “is now the fastest-growing incarceration program in the country.”</p>
<p>“Free to Live, Love, and Work…”</p>
<p>In this rising tide of state and informal violence, Arizona has come to be ground zero. There, Lou Dobbs darling “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio of Maricopa County has institutionalized a “Posse” program, deputizing civilians to enforce anti-immigration laws. After Arizona passed a 2005 law extending felony immigrant-smuggling charges to state jurisdiction (the so-called “Coyote Law”), anti-immigrant attorney Andrew P. Thomas handed down a decision that would charge smuggled immigrants as felonious co-conspirators of their smugglers, and Arpaio (who once claimed to be “honored” to be compared to the KKK) has proceeded to enforce this controversial decision obsessively, empowering his 3,000 “Posse” volunteers (some armed) to apprehend “illegal immigrants” for criminal prosecution. <a href="http://regulus.azstarnet.com/borderdeaths/search.php" type="external">Deaths on the Arizona border</a> regularly account for half of all border deaths, and 2008 is on pace to be a record-setting year.</p>
<p>But this rabidly-racist anti-immigrant movement has not gone uncontested, meeting instead with popular resistance in the Latino community (both undocumented and documented), and to a lesser degree in the progressive white community. Recently, these sectors have coalesced in <a href="" type="internal">Repeal Coalition</a> (Coalición de Cambio), a Flagstaff-based organization which has brought together members of groups like <a href="http://www.nomoredeaths.org/" type="external">No More Deaths/No Más Muertes</a> and Bring the Ruckus, and which “demands the repeal of all laws—federal, state, and local—that degrade and discriminate against undocumented individuals and that deny U.S. citizens their lawful rights.” Repeal members like Xochitl Trevizo insist that their view is a moral one, and this is reflected in their slogan, which insists that “all people, regardless of documentation, have the right to live, love, and work wherever they please.” I had the opportunity to speak with several active members of Repeal Coalition to better understand their motivations, arguments, and prospects for long-term success.</p>
<p>Two Conservatisms, Two Immoral Visions</p>
<p>Asuka began working with Repeal Coalition shortly after arriving in Arizona for an international student exchange program in September. As a Japanese-Peruvian, Asuka was initially surprised to discover the severity of the situation along the southern border: “Before I arrived in Arizona, I didn’t realize how bravo, how roughthe situation is, how much damage these laws are doing to the people here.” According to Katie, a Phoenix native and Repeal member, many local activists felt that, while No More Deaths had been effective in providing a minimal degree of humanitarian aid to those crossing through the desert, “things had gotten so bad that humanitarian aid wasn’t enough, and someone had to step forward with political proposals.”</p>
<p>While some in No More Deaths were critical of the push toward political organizing, arguing that to do so would encourage repression of often subterraneous immigrant communities, many NMD members eventually joined Repeal. Repeal Coalition initially coalesced in February 2008 around the idea to write a resolution that would declare Flagstaff a “sanctuary city” in which “all human beings—with papers or without—be guaranteed access to work, housing, health care, education, legal protection, and other public benefits, as well as the right to organize.”</p>
<p>As members of the nascent coalition saw things, Arizonans were confronted with two conservative sectors with equally unethical perspectives on immigration: either to “kick them all out” (the response, generally, of social conservatives), or to institute a new form of highly-exploitative guest worker, or bracero program (the response from local capitalists who thrive on immigrant labor). But needless to say, these are not the only two options, even if cowardly liberals bow to the conservative dichotomy. On the ground in Arizona, the Repeal Coalition has provided a basis through which undocumented workers and activists are forging new paths of resistance to these false alternatives.</p>
<p>But according to Repeal’s “power analysis,” establishing Flagstaff’s sanctuary city status was to be no easy task, the city’s relatively progressive credentials notwithstanding. “I would like to say the city council looks friendly,” Taryn tells me, “but our resolution is aggressive, asking the city not to enforce any immigration laws, or to do so at a bare minimum.” And if Repeal was to avoid falling into the trap of being a largely-white organization speaking for the interests of the immigrant community, members recognized that they needed to respond more directly to the needs and desires of that community. As a result, the “sanctuary city” resolution has, in practice, served in the words of Katie “more as an organizing tool to build a community movement,” and Repeal Coalition members have been canvassing Flagstaff’s Latino community heavily for months, in an effort to put the undocumented community in the drivers’ seat of the coalition while building the organizational basis for further resistance and struggle. As members put it:</p>
<p>Each door has brought us closer to the reality and fear that undocumented and people of color are facing on a daily basis. This is the fear of the police, the fear of deportation and the fear of being excluded from something as basic as the right to live, love and work wherever they please… One woman told her story, while holding her baby, of her fear to drive to the hospital when her child was sick. She was too afraid to leave her house. And she could barely get the words out of her mouth as tears dripped down her face.</p>
<p>When asked how the undocumented community has responded to Repeal’s message, Katie is upbeat: “people are responding well,” she insists, noting that membership in the Coalition and recent meetings have seen significant growth. But there has also been more demand for community support, reliable contacts that undocumented residents can call upon for groceries or supplies if they are too at-risk to leave their homes safely, “you know, little things that make the day easier if you’re under attack.” As Asuka puts it, “we have created a close connection with the community, for me that’s the best part.”</p>
<p>ICE Responds</p>
<p>For Repeal member Taryn, one objective of the coalition’s “sanctuary city” resolution was to “test Flagstaff’s liberal credentials.” After all, this is an area where undocumented workers had been relatively free to live out in the open without fear of ICE or local vigilante “posses,” and where local political and police leaders had openly opposed the sorts of repressive measures deployed elsewhere. But as it turned out, Repeal would not need to wait for the resolution to be introduced for those “liberal credentials” to be tested.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, November 19th, Repeal Coalition mobilized a large show of support for a rally in Flagstaff, and the very next day, Flagstaff was under full ICE assault: doors were kicked in, community-members were arrested, and as tends to be the case in ICE raids, families were torn apart. While ICE’s stated purpose in the raids was to arrest only “alien absconders,” or those undocumented migrants with outstanding criminal warrants, witnesses insist that officials didn’t stop there. Many of the enforced warrants were only issued for overstaying visas, and some were up to a decade old, but ICE was seen making arrests even in cases where the individuals sought had moved out years ago. There are also reports that, contradicting stated policy, Flagstaff police aided ICE in gaining entry, and even allegations that family members have been detained as a sort of “ransom” until the targets of arrest turn themselves in.</p>
<p>While ICE has insisted that the raid had been in the works for a while, activists associated with Repeal Coalition are skeptical of such convenient timing. As Taryn puts it: “It could have been strategic on their part to launch the raids the day after we had this rally, telling people to stand up and resist …. But I know it was good that we had all the contact information.” As soon as Repeal was tipped off about the raids in progress, their organizational structure kicked in, and the coalition was able to help spread word among the undocumented community that ICE was in town. When they received the additional tip that ICE was planning to make arrests when parents picked their children up from Killip Elementary School, they mobilized a significant bloc of 50 documented members to warn of the raids and serve as a buffer between ICE and threatened community-members. This bloc then developed and strengthened into a public rally on the streets outside Coconino County Jail to protest ICE’s presence.</p>
<p>As dusk fell, Repeal Coalition joined forces with the local Copwatch, creating an ad hoc “ICE-watch” that patrolled the streets of Flagstaff to ensure that ICE was neither making indiscriminate arrests nor brutalizing those it was detaining. According to participants, this quick response managed to break up two separate ICE raids that were being conducted without warrants, despite ICE’s insistence that they were seeking only “alien absconders.” Furthermore, despite the explicit policies of Flagstaff Police and the insistence of local officials that they were as surprised by the raids by anyone, witnesses claim local police were aiding ICE’s entry into residences. “People had felt that Flagstaff was a safer community than Phoenix,” Katie told me, “city officials had said that they wouldn’t ask immigration status, but this showed that immigrants aren’t safe in any part of Arizona.”</p>
<p>Press Demonization and Misrepresentation</p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the ICE raids, press coverage of Repeal Coalition’s role was positive on the whole, with the Arizona Daily Sun publishing a <a href="" type="internal">largely sympathetic piece</a>, but by the very next day, the same author had evidently received his talking points from Flagstaff police, <a href="" type="internal">penning a new article</a> with the intentionally damaging subtitle: “the activists trying to stop the arrests ended up frightening students.” This, however, was not how Repeal members and many in the undocumented community saw it. According to Taryn, this was merely a “nasty article… none of that happened.” Repeal member Joel Olson <a href="" type="internal">responded with a letter</a> insisting that:</p>
<p>we did not create the fear at Killip; the ICE roundup did… The Repeal Coalition’s intention was to ease those worries. When we got word that ICE was arresting people, we were told that the children at Killip were petrified because many of them feared their loved ones had been arrested (as was true for some of them). In response, we organized U.S. citizens to go to Killip to escort any family members who were afraid to pick up their children. No one offered rides to children without adult supervision. No one sought to intimidate the children.</p>
<p>If anything, members insist that by accurately assessing the threat level that the raids entailed, Repeal Coalition gained the respect of many community members. When the ICE raids hit, as Taryn tells me, “Repeal Coalition was seen as providing the advice that people needed at that moment.” Since the raids, that advice has been largely legal in nature: advising community members of their rights, instructing them not to sign any papers offered by ICE or the police, and informing them how to be in contact with lawyers if necessary. This strategy has been forced by the situation: as Katie tells me, “we aren’t going to be knocking on doors while ICE is doing the same thing.” For Taryn, Repeal’s current role is one of creating connections: “We’re trying to be a listening board, connecting people with other people outside ourselves who can help them.”</p>
<p>Press distortions, however, were not limited to right-wing demonization by the police, but extended even to the left-wing coverage of the event. In <a href="" type="internal">an article posted to local Indymedia</a> shortly after Repeal’s mobilization at Killip Elementary, a well-meaning writer claimed that the resistance to the ICE raids was an “ad hoc mobilization” organized through “impromptu meetings using consensus process.” For Repeal members, however sympathetic to the writer’s perspective, this article neglected the fact that the coalition had been organizing on the ground for a full nine months, and that the mobilization, rather than appearing spontaneously, was instead the result of the “patient and deliberate work of political organizers.”</p>
<p>FIRE Turns Up the Heat, Melts ICE</p>
<p>Since the raids, it has been public knowledge that ICE agents have remained stationed in Flagstaff, holed up in the swanky Radisson, but even their home base would not be safe from community outrage. On Thursday, December 4th, a previously-unknown organization known as Flagstaff Immigrants Rights Enforcement (FIRE) gained entry to an ICE strategy session at the Radisson ( <a href="" type="internal">video here</a>). According to the <a href="" type="internal">organization’s communiqué</a>,</p>
<p>FIRE agent Del Fuego read the notice of deportation to more than 15 ICE associated criminals, some of whom appeared to possibly be illegal immigrants themselves, as they were not Indigenous People. Agent Del Fuego called for the immediate withdrawal of ICE from the Flagstaff community and notified ICE of the cease and desist order for all future raids.</p>
<p>Like Repeal Coalition, groups like FIRE are coming together in the immigration battleground of Arizona to effectively call globalization’s bluff: if the proponents of global capital insist that it’s all about freedom, then the strategy is to hold the powerful to their bad faith promises, and ensure that people are free too, free to “live, love, and work as they please…”</p>
<p>Repeal Coalition is currently soliciting donations to ensure that anti-immigrant racism not go unanswered. You can make a donation <a href="" type="internal">through their webpage</a>.</p>
<p>George Ciccariello-Maher is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at U.C. Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, where he is currently completing a people’s history of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution entitled We Created Him. He can be reached by email at gjcm(at)berkeley.edu.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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|
By the Time I Get to Arizona
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2008/12/19/by-the-time-i-get-to-arizona/
|
2008-12-19
| 4left
|
By the Time I Get to Arizona
<p>By GEORGE CICCIARELLO-MAHER</p>
<p>Much has been eclipsed in the post-election euphoria, not least of which is the continuity of racist violence in the United States. The election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the black population still bears the overwhelming brunt of this violence, in its systematic and informal guises, in prisons and on the streets, and with the <a href="" type="internal">far-right gearing up we can expect more of the same</a>. But with new dynamics, political and geopolitical, come new violences, and we have seen in recent years a steady increase in anti-Latino or anti-immigrant violence alongside a notable spike after September 11th in anti-“Arab” violence.</p>
<p>Recently-released statistics show violence against Latino immigrants to be the fastest growing of all hate crimes, fuelled by an atmosphere of linguistic-racial hatred and permissiveness to violence against all those deemed to be from “elsewhere.” <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=845" type="external">In a recent report</a>, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the shocking growth in anti-Latino hate crime, and in early November, an Ecuadorian man was beaten and stabbed to death on Long Island, New York, by a lynch mob of young, mostly white teens looking for some racist fun “hunting beaners,” a game they <a href="" type="internal">claim to have played weekly</a>. Less than a month later yet another Ecuadorean was <a href="" type="internal">beaten until brain-dead in Brooklyn</a>, this time allegedly by black men who shouted ethnic and homophobic slurs.</p>
<p>Such informal violence has always gone hand-in-hand with the structural violence of the state: informal and legal lynching are but a single, Janus-faced phenomenon. In this vein, alongside a rise in informal hate crimes, we have seen a marked increase in the destructive intervention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local law enforcement vigilantes like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, permissiveness toward racist Minutemen-type militia organizations, and the direct result of these policies in skyrocketing deaths along the border. And the ties between this formal anti-immigrant racism and the prison-industrial complex are increasingly clear, <a href="http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/8265_toolkit-immigration.pdf" type="external">as INCITE! recently revealed</a> that the U.S. government’s anti-immigration enforcement budget had increased nearly ten-fold since 1993, to $13.6 billion in 2008, and that immigrant detention “is now the fastest-growing incarceration program in the country.”</p>
<p>“Free to Live, Love, and Work…”</p>
<p>In this rising tide of state and informal violence, Arizona has come to be ground zero. There, Lou Dobbs darling “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio of Maricopa County has institutionalized a “Posse” program, deputizing civilians to enforce anti-immigration laws. After Arizona passed a 2005 law extending felony immigrant-smuggling charges to state jurisdiction (the so-called “Coyote Law”), anti-immigrant attorney Andrew P. Thomas handed down a decision that would charge smuggled immigrants as felonious co-conspirators of their smugglers, and Arpaio (who once claimed to be “honored” to be compared to the KKK) has proceeded to enforce this controversial decision obsessively, empowering his 3,000 “Posse” volunteers (some armed) to apprehend “illegal immigrants” for criminal prosecution. <a href="http://regulus.azstarnet.com/borderdeaths/search.php" type="external">Deaths on the Arizona border</a> regularly account for half of all border deaths, and 2008 is on pace to be a record-setting year.</p>
<p>But this rabidly-racist anti-immigrant movement has not gone uncontested, meeting instead with popular resistance in the Latino community (both undocumented and documented), and to a lesser degree in the progressive white community. Recently, these sectors have coalesced in <a href="" type="internal">Repeal Coalition</a> (Coalición de Cambio), a Flagstaff-based organization which has brought together members of groups like <a href="http://www.nomoredeaths.org/" type="external">No More Deaths/No Más Muertes</a> and Bring the Ruckus, and which “demands the repeal of all laws—federal, state, and local—that degrade and discriminate against undocumented individuals and that deny U.S. citizens their lawful rights.” Repeal members like Xochitl Trevizo insist that their view is a moral one, and this is reflected in their slogan, which insists that “all people, regardless of documentation, have the right to live, love, and work wherever they please.” I had the opportunity to speak with several active members of Repeal Coalition to better understand their motivations, arguments, and prospects for long-term success.</p>
<p>Two Conservatisms, Two Immoral Visions</p>
<p>Asuka began working with Repeal Coalition shortly after arriving in Arizona for an international student exchange program in September. As a Japanese-Peruvian, Asuka was initially surprised to discover the severity of the situation along the southern border: “Before I arrived in Arizona, I didn’t realize how bravo, how roughthe situation is, how much damage these laws are doing to the people here.” According to Katie, a Phoenix native and Repeal member, many local activists felt that, while No More Deaths had been effective in providing a minimal degree of humanitarian aid to those crossing through the desert, “things had gotten so bad that humanitarian aid wasn’t enough, and someone had to step forward with political proposals.”</p>
<p>While some in No More Deaths were critical of the push toward political organizing, arguing that to do so would encourage repression of often subterraneous immigrant communities, many NMD members eventually joined Repeal. Repeal Coalition initially coalesced in February 2008 around the idea to write a resolution that would declare Flagstaff a “sanctuary city” in which “all human beings—with papers or without—be guaranteed access to work, housing, health care, education, legal protection, and other public benefits, as well as the right to organize.”</p>
<p>As members of the nascent coalition saw things, Arizonans were confronted with two conservative sectors with equally unethical perspectives on immigration: either to “kick them all out” (the response, generally, of social conservatives), or to institute a new form of highly-exploitative guest worker, or bracero program (the response from local capitalists who thrive on immigrant labor). But needless to say, these are not the only two options, even if cowardly liberals bow to the conservative dichotomy. On the ground in Arizona, the Repeal Coalition has provided a basis through which undocumented workers and activists are forging new paths of resistance to these false alternatives.</p>
<p>But according to Repeal’s “power analysis,” establishing Flagstaff’s sanctuary city status was to be no easy task, the city’s relatively progressive credentials notwithstanding. “I would like to say the city council looks friendly,” Taryn tells me, “but our resolution is aggressive, asking the city not to enforce any immigration laws, or to do so at a bare minimum.” And if Repeal was to avoid falling into the trap of being a largely-white organization speaking for the interests of the immigrant community, members recognized that they needed to respond more directly to the needs and desires of that community. As a result, the “sanctuary city” resolution has, in practice, served in the words of Katie “more as an organizing tool to build a community movement,” and Repeal Coalition members have been canvassing Flagstaff’s Latino community heavily for months, in an effort to put the undocumented community in the drivers’ seat of the coalition while building the organizational basis for further resistance and struggle. As members put it:</p>
<p>Each door has brought us closer to the reality and fear that undocumented and people of color are facing on a daily basis. This is the fear of the police, the fear of deportation and the fear of being excluded from something as basic as the right to live, love and work wherever they please… One woman told her story, while holding her baby, of her fear to drive to the hospital when her child was sick. She was too afraid to leave her house. And she could barely get the words out of her mouth as tears dripped down her face.</p>
<p>When asked how the undocumented community has responded to Repeal’s message, Katie is upbeat: “people are responding well,” she insists, noting that membership in the Coalition and recent meetings have seen significant growth. But there has also been more demand for community support, reliable contacts that undocumented residents can call upon for groceries or supplies if they are too at-risk to leave their homes safely, “you know, little things that make the day easier if you’re under attack.” As Asuka puts it, “we have created a close connection with the community, for me that’s the best part.”</p>
<p>ICE Responds</p>
<p>For Repeal member Taryn, one objective of the coalition’s “sanctuary city” resolution was to “test Flagstaff’s liberal credentials.” After all, this is an area where undocumented workers had been relatively free to live out in the open without fear of ICE or local vigilante “posses,” and where local political and police leaders had openly opposed the sorts of repressive measures deployed elsewhere. But as it turned out, Repeal would not need to wait for the resolution to be introduced for those “liberal credentials” to be tested.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, November 19th, Repeal Coalition mobilized a large show of support for a rally in Flagstaff, and the very next day, Flagstaff was under full ICE assault: doors were kicked in, community-members were arrested, and as tends to be the case in ICE raids, families were torn apart. While ICE’s stated purpose in the raids was to arrest only “alien absconders,” or those undocumented migrants with outstanding criminal warrants, witnesses insist that officials didn’t stop there. Many of the enforced warrants were only issued for overstaying visas, and some were up to a decade old, but ICE was seen making arrests even in cases where the individuals sought had moved out years ago. There are also reports that, contradicting stated policy, Flagstaff police aided ICE in gaining entry, and even allegations that family members have been detained as a sort of “ransom” until the targets of arrest turn themselves in.</p>
<p>While ICE has insisted that the raid had been in the works for a while, activists associated with Repeal Coalition are skeptical of such convenient timing. As Taryn puts it: “It could have been strategic on their part to launch the raids the day after we had this rally, telling people to stand up and resist …. But I know it was good that we had all the contact information.” As soon as Repeal was tipped off about the raids in progress, their organizational structure kicked in, and the coalition was able to help spread word among the undocumented community that ICE was in town. When they received the additional tip that ICE was planning to make arrests when parents picked their children up from Killip Elementary School, they mobilized a significant bloc of 50 documented members to warn of the raids and serve as a buffer between ICE and threatened community-members. This bloc then developed and strengthened into a public rally on the streets outside Coconino County Jail to protest ICE’s presence.</p>
<p>As dusk fell, Repeal Coalition joined forces with the local Copwatch, creating an ad hoc “ICE-watch” that patrolled the streets of Flagstaff to ensure that ICE was neither making indiscriminate arrests nor brutalizing those it was detaining. According to participants, this quick response managed to break up two separate ICE raids that were being conducted without warrants, despite ICE’s insistence that they were seeking only “alien absconders.” Furthermore, despite the explicit policies of Flagstaff Police and the insistence of local officials that they were as surprised by the raids by anyone, witnesses claim local police were aiding ICE’s entry into residences. “People had felt that Flagstaff was a safer community than Phoenix,” Katie told me, “city officials had said that they wouldn’t ask immigration status, but this showed that immigrants aren’t safe in any part of Arizona.”</p>
<p>Press Demonization and Misrepresentation</p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the ICE raids, press coverage of Repeal Coalition’s role was positive on the whole, with the Arizona Daily Sun publishing a <a href="" type="internal">largely sympathetic piece</a>, but by the very next day, the same author had evidently received his talking points from Flagstaff police, <a href="" type="internal">penning a new article</a> with the intentionally damaging subtitle: “the activists trying to stop the arrests ended up frightening students.” This, however, was not how Repeal members and many in the undocumented community saw it. According to Taryn, this was merely a “nasty article… none of that happened.” Repeal member Joel Olson <a href="" type="internal">responded with a letter</a> insisting that:</p>
<p>we did not create the fear at Killip; the ICE roundup did… The Repeal Coalition’s intention was to ease those worries. When we got word that ICE was arresting people, we were told that the children at Killip were petrified because many of them feared their loved ones had been arrested (as was true for some of them). In response, we organized U.S. citizens to go to Killip to escort any family members who were afraid to pick up their children. No one offered rides to children without adult supervision. No one sought to intimidate the children.</p>
<p>If anything, members insist that by accurately assessing the threat level that the raids entailed, Repeal Coalition gained the respect of many community members. When the ICE raids hit, as Taryn tells me, “Repeal Coalition was seen as providing the advice that people needed at that moment.” Since the raids, that advice has been largely legal in nature: advising community members of their rights, instructing them not to sign any papers offered by ICE or the police, and informing them how to be in contact with lawyers if necessary. This strategy has been forced by the situation: as Katie tells me, “we aren’t going to be knocking on doors while ICE is doing the same thing.” For Taryn, Repeal’s current role is one of creating connections: “We’re trying to be a listening board, connecting people with other people outside ourselves who can help them.”</p>
<p>Press distortions, however, were not limited to right-wing demonization by the police, but extended even to the left-wing coverage of the event. In <a href="" type="internal">an article posted to local Indymedia</a> shortly after Repeal’s mobilization at Killip Elementary, a well-meaning writer claimed that the resistance to the ICE raids was an “ad hoc mobilization” organized through “impromptu meetings using consensus process.” For Repeal members, however sympathetic to the writer’s perspective, this article neglected the fact that the coalition had been organizing on the ground for a full nine months, and that the mobilization, rather than appearing spontaneously, was instead the result of the “patient and deliberate work of political organizers.”</p>
<p>FIRE Turns Up the Heat, Melts ICE</p>
<p>Since the raids, it has been public knowledge that ICE agents have remained stationed in Flagstaff, holed up in the swanky Radisson, but even their home base would not be safe from community outrage. On Thursday, December 4th, a previously-unknown organization known as Flagstaff Immigrants Rights Enforcement (FIRE) gained entry to an ICE strategy session at the Radisson ( <a href="" type="internal">video here</a>). According to the <a href="" type="internal">organization’s communiqué</a>,</p>
<p>FIRE agent Del Fuego read the notice of deportation to more than 15 ICE associated criminals, some of whom appeared to possibly be illegal immigrants themselves, as they were not Indigenous People. Agent Del Fuego called for the immediate withdrawal of ICE from the Flagstaff community and notified ICE of the cease and desist order for all future raids.</p>
<p>Like Repeal Coalition, groups like FIRE are coming together in the immigration battleground of Arizona to effectively call globalization’s bluff: if the proponents of global capital insist that it’s all about freedom, then the strategy is to hold the powerful to their bad faith promises, and ensure that people are free too, free to “live, love, and work as they please…”</p>
<p>Repeal Coalition is currently soliciting donations to ensure that anti-immigrant racism not go unanswered. You can make a donation <a href="" type="internal">through their webpage</a>.</p>
<p>George Ciccariello-Maher is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at U.C. Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, where he is currently completing a people’s history of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution entitled We Created Him. He can be reached by email at gjcm(at)berkeley.edu.</p>
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<p>CNN, which is searching for a new president, is considering several television news veterans for the job, according to the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/cnn_crisis_call_FQ9bxOj1sbiwX49vPd1glM" type="external">New York Post</a>.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Among those under consideration are former CBS News chief Howard Stringer, former NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker and former ABC News president David Westin.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that these men, plus others who have been rumored to be in the running, have the experience necessary to run a network news operation, but that may not be enough.</p>
<p>One source told the Post that what the network needed was a Roger Ailes, referring to the chief of Fox News who in just a few years took Fox from a fledgling cable news network to the number one spot in cable news, toppling CNN along the way.</p>
<p>That would mean choosing someone who has fresh ideas and who isn’t wedded to the old ways. But that could make it difficult for Zucker and Westin, and even more so for Stringer, who has been out of the business for more than 15 years.</p>
<p>Considering that CNN’s ratings are sinking like a stone and the network is lacking innovation and creativity in its programming decisions, they would be risking very little by choosing a younger, less hardened executive who is willing to take some chances and take a stand on the issues, instead of flailing about while trying to appear to play the political middle. That clearly hasn’t worked.</p>
<p>It’s time for the new guard to take over CNN, but right now it appears that the old guard thinking still rules the day.</p>
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CNN May Reach Back in Time for New Boss
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http://aim.org/don-irvine-blog/cnn-may-reach-back-in-time-for-new-boss/
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2012-09-26
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CNN May Reach Back in Time for New Boss
<p>CNN, which is searching for a new president, is considering several television news veterans for the job, according to the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/cnn_crisis_call_FQ9bxOj1sbiwX49vPd1glM" type="external">New York Post</a>.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Among those under consideration are former CBS News chief Howard Stringer, former NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker and former ABC News president David Westin.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that these men, plus others who have been rumored to be in the running, have the experience necessary to run a network news operation, but that may not be enough.</p>
<p>One source told the Post that what the network needed was a Roger Ailes, referring to the chief of Fox News who in just a few years took Fox from a fledgling cable news network to the number one spot in cable news, toppling CNN along the way.</p>
<p>That would mean choosing someone who has fresh ideas and who isn’t wedded to the old ways. But that could make it difficult for Zucker and Westin, and even more so for Stringer, who has been out of the business for more than 15 years.</p>
<p>Considering that CNN’s ratings are sinking like a stone and the network is lacking innovation and creativity in its programming decisions, they would be risking very little by choosing a younger, less hardened executive who is willing to take some chances and take a stand on the issues, instead of flailing about while trying to appear to play the political middle. That clearly hasn’t worked.</p>
<p>It’s time for the new guard to take over CNN, but right now it appears that the old guard thinking still rules the day.</p>
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<p>( <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/" type="external">Natural News</a>) Sometimes the longer you boil the pot, the more the scum rises to the top. It’s called “Hollywood.”</p>
<p>That’s what we’re all now witnessing with a gamut of liberal Hollywood elitists now being called out by women for abuse, exploitation, misogyny and every other sicko behavior the Hollywood culture ridiculously claimed was only carried out by conservatives.</p>
<p>Hollywood media “god” Harvey Weinstein’s world is imploding by the hour as women keep pouring out of the woodwork, affirming that he man-handled them into unwelcome gropes, perverted showers or even forced oral sex, all under the premise that Weinstein could turn them into movie stars if they would just drop their panties on command. The entire left-wing media, not surprisingly, covered up all this for at least a decade, enabling Weinstein to continue his predatory behavior that targeted young, vulnerable women. Those media outlets that engaged in the cover-up include the New York Times and NBC News, among dozens of other usual suspects.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.truthwiki.org/jimmy-kimmel/" type="external">Jimmy Kimmel</a>, for his part, has been exposed for&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-put-your-mouth-on-it-gross-video-resurfaces-of-jimmy-kimmel-having-women-guess-whats-in-his-pants.html" type="external">a video he filmed with multiple street women</a>&#160;where he encourages women to “guess what’s in my pants” by putting their mouths on his crotch. Kimmel, of course, is the same anti-American Trump hater who also&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/048834_Jimmy_Kimmel_hate_speech_labels_anti-vaxxers.html" type="external">pushes vaccines on children in California</a>&#160;in a kind of&#160;medical child molestation schemethat seems to get the jollies really humming for these sicko left-wing Hollywood elitists.</p>
<p />
<p>Here are some stills from the video, showing how Jimmy Kimmel convinces street women to feel his crotch and even engage in “oral activity” on his crotch, all on camera, in full public view:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Jimmy Kimmel, Anthony Weiner, Ben Affleck, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein… are you starting the notice the pattern here yet? They’re all&#160;Clinton supporters and die-hard leftists, and they’ve all been caught abusing women, raping women or exploiting women through predatory or highly inappropriate behavior.</p>
<p>They all hate the Second Amendment, they’re all pro-abortion, and they all called out Donald Trump for his supposed mistreatment of women. Yet the dark secrets in their own closets are far more egregious than anything Donald Trump ever did by merely&#160;talkingwith the help of some raunchy locker room lingo. (Follow more news about celebrity reputations at&#160; <a href="http://celebrityreputation.com/" type="external">CelebrityReputation.com</a>)</p>
<p>Ben Affleck, a long-time chum of Weinstein, likely knew about Weinstein’s indiscretions all along. In fact, he’s been caught himself in video footage showing him groping a young journalist. He’s quoted in this video, saying to the woman, “Sunday morning? That never stopped you before from getting those t**ties out.”</p>
<p />
<p>For over a decade, the left-wing media deliberately buried the Weinstein story, making sure his large donations to left-wing causes wouldn’t be interrupted. Innocent women paid the price, of course, while the left-wing fake news media machine went all-in for Weinstein, becoming complicit in the multitude of crimes committed against women. In addition to&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-nyt-engaged-in-massive-cover-up-to-bury-the-truth-about-harvey-weinstein-but-gladly-fabricated-fake-sources-to-try-to-destroy-donald-trump-with-lies.html" type="external">the New York Times burying the story in 2004</a>, we also now know that NBC News tried to crush the story in the last two weeks. The cover-up may have even&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/were-nbc-top-execs-andy-lack-or-steve-burke-involved-in-burying-harvey-weinstein-story/" type="external">been ordered by top executives at NBC News</a>, reports Mediaite.com:</p>
<p>The claim that NBC was uncomfortable with the sourcing of Farrow’s report is a remarkably curious one if true. The&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/breaking-three-women-accuse-harvey-weinstein-of-rape-in-bombshell-new-yorker-expose/" type="external">article was published with audio&#160;</a>revealing a desperate Mr. Weinstein pressuring a young actress to join him in his hotel room, while she expresses clear discomfort and alleges that “he had touched her breast” the day earlier. Other subjects mentioned in the article have since&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/mira-sorvino-confirms-sexual-harassment-from-harvey-weinstein-its-high-time-this-came-out/" type="external">publicly confirmed the report</a>. It appears to be as well sourced an article as one could possibly hope, particularly given the subject and subject matter.</p>
<p>The media cover-up is so egregious that even CNN’s Jake Tapper railed against media complicity (which of course includes his own network, CNN) in smearing the reputations of women who refused to be raped by Weinstein.&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/they-have-assault-and-rape-on-their-hands-tapper-rips-media-complicity-in-weinstein-scandal/" type="external">Via Mediaite.com</a>:</p>
<p>Tapper went on to highlight a 2015&#160;New York Post&#160;cover that dragged the model,&#160;Ambra Gutierrez, pointing out that it was just one of many media attacks against Gutierrez during that time. (The New Yorker recently published audio of Weinstein admitting to Gutierrez that he groped her breasts.)</p>
<p>“They have assault and rape on their hands, in my view,” Tapper declared.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-nyt-engaged-in-massive-cover-up-to-bury-the-truth-about-harvey-weinstein-but-gladly-fabricated-fake-sources-to-try-to-destroy-donald-trump-with-lies.html" type="external">Via Natural News</a>:</p>
<p>Sharon Waxman, who now runs&#160;The Wrap, says she “gagged” after reading Jim Rutenberg’s recent piece about the “media enablers” who kept the Weinstein story from the public for so many years. After all, Waxman was the NYT reporter who was among the first to discover that Weinstein is a seasoned sexual predator who takes advantage of young Hollywood starlets – her employer, the NYT, being one of those very media enablers that Rutenberg is now condemning, even though he also writes for the NYT.</p>
<p>Waxman had been part of an in-depth investigation into Weinstein’s secret life, having uncovered mountains of evidence via interviews with alleged victims, legal records, emails, and internal documents that showed Weinstein had a penchant for making unwanted advances at young actresses, and in some cases even assaulting and raping them. And because Weinstein was in charge of major production companies and studios such as Miramax and the Weinstein Company, he was basically given a free pass for such behavior.</p>
<p>All of this was known by the NYT almost 15 years ago, and yet because of Weinstein’s influence at the paper, it was never published.</p>
<p>None of the left-wing media stories about Harvey Weinstein dare mention Bill Clinton, America’s former&#160;rapist-in-chief&#160;who sexually assaulted numerous women who have gone public with their accusations. These women, of course, are routinely censored, demeaned and smeared by the exact same left-wing media that smeared those young models who refused to be raped by Weinstein. It’s all a grand, sick, criminal cover-up scheme run by powerful left-wing elitists who own the media, Hollywood and many of the corporate giants in America today.</p>
<p>Dozens of women who were accosted or sexually abused by Bill Clinton have been silenced, of course, by the Clinton war machine, previously headed by&#160; <a href="http://clinton.news/" type="external">Hillary Clinton</a>&#160;and George Stephanopoulos, both of whom prioritized destroying female accusers using the exact same media smear tactics Harvey Weinsten wielded against his own accusers.</p>
<p>“Weinstein used the media like a bludgeon to keep his alleged victims in line, by many accounts. He did it skillfully — and with plenty of help,”&#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/did-the-media-help-harvey-weinstein-lure-his-prey-and-smear-his-accusers/2017/10/10/705b4bf2-adf5-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.012bb3defa36" type="external">reports the Washington Post</a>, which ironically aided Weinstein in his efforts to smear his enemies. “One technique: Supplying information that would drag an accuser’s name through the mud,” says the Post, echoing the exact tactics the Washington Post used against candidate Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Under the tutelage of morally-challenged leftists, Hollywood has become a cesspool of perverts, pedophiles, sex predators and rapists. Toss in other prominent left-wing perverts like Mr. “date rape” Bill Cosby, Anthony “text me your t#tties” Weiner and William Jefferson “you might want to put some ice on that” Clinton, and you start to understand why left-wing women think all men are pigs:&#160;It’s because powerful left-wing men really are pigs, and they hide behind a pro-abortion, pro-transgender narrative so they can get away with systematically abusing, exploiting and raping vulnerable women and teens.</p>
<p>Hollywood, for its part, is a gay pedophilia orgy fest of predatory movie directors and casting couch perverts who prey equally on young boys and girls. Famous child actor Corey Feldman has gone public with many accusations, saying pedophilia is “Hollywood’s biggest problem.” See his video here:</p>
<p />
<p>A documentary film called “An Open Secret” dares to take a closer look at left-wing Hollywood’s pedophilia culture, exposing the ritualistic abuse of young boys and girls, all in the quest for personal gratification among powerful Hollywood moguls:</p>
<p />
<p>Even Robert Downey Jr. has blown the whistle on the culture of pedophilia in Hollywood:</p>
<p />
<p>This all brings new context to another issue: Remember how aggressively the left-wing media tried to cover up the Pi##agate story? I can’t even use the word here, or this article will be algorithmically banned by Google, Facebook and Twitter, because that term has been deemed “permanent fake news.” Yet now we are all coming to see how the left-wing media has been complicit in covering up systemic sex abuse, rape and exploitation of women among Hollywood elitists. The pizza shop theory no longer seems so outlandish, does it?</p>
<p>The only question now is: How deep does all this really go? My guess is that&#160;thousands&#160;of Hollywood producers, directors and casting executives are involved in&#160;a massive network of pedophilia, rape and pay-to-play casting deals&#160;where flesh is bartered for fame, and not all the flesh is given with consent. This culture of criminal sicko sexual behavior, by the way, shows you the mindset of powerful, well-connected Democrats, who are almost universally mentally ill and saturated with evil intent. The very same people who scream in condemnation of gun rights are very often, in the privacy of their own hot tubs and suites, violating under-age children and teens for their own sick, selfish pleasure. That’s what Hollywood has become: A cesspool of sickness, suffering, exploitation and perversion.</p>
<p>No wonder everything on Netflix now has to feature sexual perversion: It’s part of their culture. And the very same people who take great pleasure in violating children and women are also the same people telling us that Donald Trump is a bad person, America needs no border protection, and Hillary Clinton was an angel. Are you seeing the full pattern in all this yet?</p>
<p>ACTION ITEM: Stop watching movies.&#160;Stop renting movies. Stop financially supporting the pedophiles and perverts of Hollywood. Every movie you pay to see is another “vote” for the sexual exploitation of women and children by powerful, wealth Hollywood elitists like Harvey Weinstein. Everything the Left touches, it infects with evil and destruction: Hollywood, the NFL, universities and even climate “science.” The Left is an out-of-control cartel of sick-minded lunatics and perverts who are systematically attempting to destroy men, families, national sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution. The culture war is in full force, and if the Left wins, they will literally rape and pillage their way across the entire culture, gutting every institution until the country we once knew is utterly decimated.</p>
<p>Stay informed by reading&#160; <a href="http://outragedepot.com/" type="external">OutrageDepot.com</a>.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-parade-of-dirtbags-ben-affleck-jimmy-kimmel-harvey-weinstein-all-exposed-as-liberal-hollywood-elitists-who-abuse-women.html" type="external">Natural News</a></p>
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Parade of dirtbags: Ben Affleck, Jimmy Kimmel, Harvey Weinstein all exposed as liberal Hollywood elitists who abuse women
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http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/13/parade-of-dirtbags-ben-affleck-jimmy-kimmel-harvey-weinstein-all-exposed-as-liberal-hollywood-elitists-who-abuse-women/
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2017-10-13
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Parade of dirtbags: Ben Affleck, Jimmy Kimmel, Harvey Weinstein all exposed as liberal Hollywood elitists who abuse women
<p>( <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/" type="external">Natural News</a>) Sometimes the longer you boil the pot, the more the scum rises to the top. It’s called “Hollywood.”</p>
<p>That’s what we’re all now witnessing with a gamut of liberal Hollywood elitists now being called out by women for abuse, exploitation, misogyny and every other sicko behavior the Hollywood culture ridiculously claimed was only carried out by conservatives.</p>
<p>Hollywood media “god” Harvey Weinstein’s world is imploding by the hour as women keep pouring out of the woodwork, affirming that he man-handled them into unwelcome gropes, perverted showers or even forced oral sex, all under the premise that Weinstein could turn them into movie stars if they would just drop their panties on command. The entire left-wing media, not surprisingly, covered up all this for at least a decade, enabling Weinstein to continue his predatory behavior that targeted young, vulnerable women. Those media outlets that engaged in the cover-up include the New York Times and NBC News, among dozens of other usual suspects.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.truthwiki.org/jimmy-kimmel/" type="external">Jimmy Kimmel</a>, for his part, has been exposed for&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-put-your-mouth-on-it-gross-video-resurfaces-of-jimmy-kimmel-having-women-guess-whats-in-his-pants.html" type="external">a video he filmed with multiple street women</a>&#160;where he encourages women to “guess what’s in my pants” by putting their mouths on his crotch. Kimmel, of course, is the same anti-American Trump hater who also&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/048834_Jimmy_Kimmel_hate_speech_labels_anti-vaxxers.html" type="external">pushes vaccines on children in California</a>&#160;in a kind of&#160;medical child molestation schemethat seems to get the jollies really humming for these sicko left-wing Hollywood elitists.</p>
<p />
<p>Here are some stills from the video, showing how Jimmy Kimmel convinces street women to feel his crotch and even engage in “oral activity” on his crotch, all on camera, in full public view:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Jimmy Kimmel, Anthony Weiner, Ben Affleck, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein… are you starting the notice the pattern here yet? They’re all&#160;Clinton supporters and die-hard leftists, and they’ve all been caught abusing women, raping women or exploiting women through predatory or highly inappropriate behavior.</p>
<p>They all hate the Second Amendment, they’re all pro-abortion, and they all called out Donald Trump for his supposed mistreatment of women. Yet the dark secrets in their own closets are far more egregious than anything Donald Trump ever did by merely&#160;talkingwith the help of some raunchy locker room lingo. (Follow more news about celebrity reputations at&#160; <a href="http://celebrityreputation.com/" type="external">CelebrityReputation.com</a>)</p>
<p>Ben Affleck, a long-time chum of Weinstein, likely knew about Weinstein’s indiscretions all along. In fact, he’s been caught himself in video footage showing him groping a young journalist. He’s quoted in this video, saying to the woman, “Sunday morning? That never stopped you before from getting those t**ties out.”</p>
<p />
<p>For over a decade, the left-wing media deliberately buried the Weinstein story, making sure his large donations to left-wing causes wouldn’t be interrupted. Innocent women paid the price, of course, while the left-wing fake news media machine went all-in for Weinstein, becoming complicit in the multitude of crimes committed against women. In addition to&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-nyt-engaged-in-massive-cover-up-to-bury-the-truth-about-harvey-weinstein-but-gladly-fabricated-fake-sources-to-try-to-destroy-donald-trump-with-lies.html" type="external">the New York Times burying the story in 2004</a>, we also now know that NBC News tried to crush the story in the last two weeks. The cover-up may have even&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/were-nbc-top-execs-andy-lack-or-steve-burke-involved-in-burying-harvey-weinstein-story/" type="external">been ordered by top executives at NBC News</a>, reports Mediaite.com:</p>
<p>The claim that NBC was uncomfortable with the sourcing of Farrow’s report is a remarkably curious one if true. The&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/breaking-three-women-accuse-harvey-weinstein-of-rape-in-bombshell-new-yorker-expose/" type="external">article was published with audio&#160;</a>revealing a desperate Mr. Weinstein pressuring a young actress to join him in his hotel room, while she expresses clear discomfort and alleges that “he had touched her breast” the day earlier. Other subjects mentioned in the article have since&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/mira-sorvino-confirms-sexual-harassment-from-harvey-weinstein-its-high-time-this-came-out/" type="external">publicly confirmed the report</a>. It appears to be as well sourced an article as one could possibly hope, particularly given the subject and subject matter.</p>
<p>The media cover-up is so egregious that even CNN’s Jake Tapper railed against media complicity (which of course includes his own network, CNN) in smearing the reputations of women who refused to be raped by Weinstein.&#160; <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/they-have-assault-and-rape-on-their-hands-tapper-rips-media-complicity-in-weinstein-scandal/" type="external">Via Mediaite.com</a>:</p>
<p>Tapper went on to highlight a 2015&#160;New York Post&#160;cover that dragged the model,&#160;Ambra Gutierrez, pointing out that it was just one of many media attacks against Gutierrez during that time. (The New Yorker recently published audio of Weinstein admitting to Gutierrez that he groped her breasts.)</p>
<p>“They have assault and rape on their hands, in my view,” Tapper declared.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-nyt-engaged-in-massive-cover-up-to-bury-the-truth-about-harvey-weinstein-but-gladly-fabricated-fake-sources-to-try-to-destroy-donald-trump-with-lies.html" type="external">Via Natural News</a>:</p>
<p>Sharon Waxman, who now runs&#160;The Wrap, says she “gagged” after reading Jim Rutenberg’s recent piece about the “media enablers” who kept the Weinstein story from the public for so many years. After all, Waxman was the NYT reporter who was among the first to discover that Weinstein is a seasoned sexual predator who takes advantage of young Hollywood starlets – her employer, the NYT, being one of those very media enablers that Rutenberg is now condemning, even though he also writes for the NYT.</p>
<p>Waxman had been part of an in-depth investigation into Weinstein’s secret life, having uncovered mountains of evidence via interviews with alleged victims, legal records, emails, and internal documents that showed Weinstein had a penchant for making unwanted advances at young actresses, and in some cases even assaulting and raping them. And because Weinstein was in charge of major production companies and studios such as Miramax and the Weinstein Company, he was basically given a free pass for such behavior.</p>
<p>All of this was known by the NYT almost 15 years ago, and yet because of Weinstein’s influence at the paper, it was never published.</p>
<p>None of the left-wing media stories about Harvey Weinstein dare mention Bill Clinton, America’s former&#160;rapist-in-chief&#160;who sexually assaulted numerous women who have gone public with their accusations. These women, of course, are routinely censored, demeaned and smeared by the exact same left-wing media that smeared those young models who refused to be raped by Weinstein. It’s all a grand, sick, criminal cover-up scheme run by powerful left-wing elitists who own the media, Hollywood and many of the corporate giants in America today.</p>
<p>Dozens of women who were accosted or sexually abused by Bill Clinton have been silenced, of course, by the Clinton war machine, previously headed by&#160; <a href="http://clinton.news/" type="external">Hillary Clinton</a>&#160;and George Stephanopoulos, both of whom prioritized destroying female accusers using the exact same media smear tactics Harvey Weinsten wielded against his own accusers.</p>
<p>“Weinstein used the media like a bludgeon to keep his alleged victims in line, by many accounts. He did it skillfully — and with plenty of help,”&#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/did-the-media-help-harvey-weinstein-lure-his-prey-and-smear-his-accusers/2017/10/10/705b4bf2-adf5-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.012bb3defa36" type="external">reports the Washington Post</a>, which ironically aided Weinstein in his efforts to smear his enemies. “One technique: Supplying information that would drag an accuser’s name through the mud,” says the Post, echoing the exact tactics the Washington Post used against candidate Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Under the tutelage of morally-challenged leftists, Hollywood has become a cesspool of perverts, pedophiles, sex predators and rapists. Toss in other prominent left-wing perverts like Mr. “date rape” Bill Cosby, Anthony “text me your t#tties” Weiner and William Jefferson “you might want to put some ice on that” Clinton, and you start to understand why left-wing women think all men are pigs:&#160;It’s because powerful left-wing men really are pigs, and they hide behind a pro-abortion, pro-transgender narrative so they can get away with systematically abusing, exploiting and raping vulnerable women and teens.</p>
<p>Hollywood, for its part, is a gay pedophilia orgy fest of predatory movie directors and casting couch perverts who prey equally on young boys and girls. Famous child actor Corey Feldman has gone public with many accusations, saying pedophilia is “Hollywood’s biggest problem.” See his video here:</p>
<p />
<p>A documentary film called “An Open Secret” dares to take a closer look at left-wing Hollywood’s pedophilia culture, exposing the ritualistic abuse of young boys and girls, all in the quest for personal gratification among powerful Hollywood moguls:</p>
<p />
<p>Even Robert Downey Jr. has blown the whistle on the culture of pedophilia in Hollywood:</p>
<p />
<p>This all brings new context to another issue: Remember how aggressively the left-wing media tried to cover up the Pi##agate story? I can’t even use the word here, or this article will be algorithmically banned by Google, Facebook and Twitter, because that term has been deemed “permanent fake news.” Yet now we are all coming to see how the left-wing media has been complicit in covering up systemic sex abuse, rape and exploitation of women among Hollywood elitists. The pizza shop theory no longer seems so outlandish, does it?</p>
<p>The only question now is: How deep does all this really go? My guess is that&#160;thousands&#160;of Hollywood producers, directors and casting executives are involved in&#160;a massive network of pedophilia, rape and pay-to-play casting deals&#160;where flesh is bartered for fame, and not all the flesh is given with consent. This culture of criminal sicko sexual behavior, by the way, shows you the mindset of powerful, well-connected Democrats, who are almost universally mentally ill and saturated with evil intent. The very same people who scream in condemnation of gun rights are very often, in the privacy of their own hot tubs and suites, violating under-age children and teens for their own sick, selfish pleasure. That’s what Hollywood has become: A cesspool of sickness, suffering, exploitation and perversion.</p>
<p>No wonder everything on Netflix now has to feature sexual perversion: It’s part of their culture. And the very same people who take great pleasure in violating children and women are also the same people telling us that Donald Trump is a bad person, America needs no border protection, and Hillary Clinton was an angel. Are you seeing the full pattern in all this yet?</p>
<p>ACTION ITEM: Stop watching movies.&#160;Stop renting movies. Stop financially supporting the pedophiles and perverts of Hollywood. Every movie you pay to see is another “vote” for the sexual exploitation of women and children by powerful, wealth Hollywood elitists like Harvey Weinstein. Everything the Left touches, it infects with evil and destruction: Hollywood, the NFL, universities and even climate “science.” The Left is an out-of-control cartel of sick-minded lunatics and perverts who are systematically attempting to destroy men, families, national sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution. The culture war is in full force, and if the Left wins, they will literally rape and pillage their way across the entire culture, gutting every institution until the country we once knew is utterly decimated.</p>
<p>Stay informed by reading&#160; <a href="http://outragedepot.com/" type="external">OutrageDepot.com</a>.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-11-parade-of-dirtbags-ben-affleck-jimmy-kimmel-harvey-weinstein-all-exposed-as-liberal-hollywood-elitists-who-abuse-women.html" type="external">Natural News</a></p>
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<p>CRANBROOK, British Columbia — A Canadian woman is seeking to have her conviction overturned after she was sentenced to seven months in jail for taking a 13-year-old girl to the United States to marry the leader of a polygamous church.</p>
<p>Gail Blackmore filed an appeal Wednesday arguing that British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman was wrong to find her guilty and imposed a sentence that is unduly harsh and excessive.</p>
<p>Blackmore and ex-husband Brandon Blackmore were found guilty in February of removing a child from Canada for a sexual purpose.</p>
<p>Their trial heard that the girl was taken across the border in 2004 to marry Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Jeffs is now serving a life sentence for assaulting two of his child brides.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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Appeal filed in Canada child-bride case
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/1063584/appeal-filed-in-canada-child-bride-case.html
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2017-09-14
| 2least
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Appeal filed in Canada child-bride case
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<p>CRANBROOK, British Columbia — A Canadian woman is seeking to have her conviction overturned after she was sentenced to seven months in jail for taking a 13-year-old girl to the United States to marry the leader of a polygamous church.</p>
<p>Gail Blackmore filed an appeal Wednesday arguing that British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman was wrong to find her guilty and imposed a sentence that is unduly harsh and excessive.</p>
<p>Blackmore and ex-husband Brandon Blackmore were found guilty in February of removing a child from Canada for a sexual purpose.</p>
<p>Their trial heard that the girl was taken across the border in 2004 to marry Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Jeffs is now serving a life sentence for assaulting two of his child brides.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
| 6,385 |
<p>This past week, Uber’s Senior Vice President of engineering Amit Singhal was asked to resign after&#160; <a href="http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google-uber" type="external">allegations of sexual harassment</a> at his previous job at Google surfaced. His resignation comes on the heels of <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/tesla-sexism-lawsuit-harassment-uber" type="external">multiple</a> <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">viral</a> <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/21/uber-women-sexual-harassment-fowler/" type="external">accounts</a> by women this past month detailing the rampant sexual harassment in the tech industry.</p>
<p />
<p>Forty percent of women with a degree in tech <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/08/08/jane-lansing-women-in-tech/" type="external">drop out or never enter the field</a> at all. This statistic could probably entirely be explained by the frequency with which sexual assault and harassment is covered up and excused by this boys club. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">The Guardian</a> yesterday, “hundreds if not thousands [emphasis added] of women and people of color in tech come forward each year with complaints of toxic work environments largely controlled by white men.” The report is backed up by a <a href="https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/" type="external">recent survey</a>: 60% of women in Silicon Valley experience sexual harassment—and 60% were unsatisfied with the resolution offered to them by their company.</p>
<p>This harassment looks similar in many of the cases. Gaslighting is common. Women are consistently told there must have been a “misunderstanding,” as in the case of <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">Hannah Levy, the head of content at Amino</a>, or with Haana, whose perpetrator suggested <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">she must have “‘misinterpreted’ a ‘hug’.”</a> &#160;Women are coerced through threat to their careers and reputations. Multiple women, such as <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">Sysamone Phaphon, founder and CEO at Groupeezz</a>, reported frequently hearing things such as, “‘I can help you if&#160;you are open to more than a working relationship.’”</p>
<p>The fact that perpetrators often continue to succeed and thrive despite documented allegations against them is, unfortunately, not news to many of us. What is shocking however, is the degree to which this has been happening, and how little attention it’s gotten. With a culture set up “ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">more like a fraternity than it is a workplace</a>” women are often ignored, berated, and shamed into silence. And like many fraternities, the men in this tech driven boys club don’t seem to feel they need to be accountable for their actions, nor do they seem to feel the need to keep them hidden.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for many of these men, they work in a tech industry where technology forces them to be held accountable. As is the case with Travis Kalanick, <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/01/uber-ceo-has-patronising-outburst-at-driver-who-challenged-him-for-making-him-bankrupt-6480521/" type="external">Uber’s CEO who was recently caught on tape verbally assaulting one of his drivers of color</a>, the very carelessness through which their disrespect flourishes might be (finally) catching up to them. Let’s hope it helps take them down.</p>
<p><a href="https://thetechportal.com/2017/02/20/former-uber-employee-sexual-harassment/" type="external">Header image via</a></p>
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The Rampant Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley
| true |
http://feministing.com/2017/03/07/the-rampant-sexual-harassment-in-silicon-valley/
| 4left
|
The Rampant Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley
<p>This past week, Uber’s Senior Vice President of engineering Amit Singhal was asked to resign after&#160; <a href="http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google-uber" type="external">allegations of sexual harassment</a> at his previous job at Google surfaced. His resignation comes on the heels of <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/tesla-sexism-lawsuit-harassment-uber" type="external">multiple</a> <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">viral</a> <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/21/uber-women-sexual-harassment-fowler/" type="external">accounts</a> by women this past month detailing the rampant sexual harassment in the tech industry.</p>
<p />
<p>Forty percent of women with a degree in tech <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/08/08/jane-lansing-women-in-tech/" type="external">drop out or never enter the field</a> at all. This statistic could probably entirely be explained by the frequency with which sexual assault and harassment is covered up and excused by this boys club. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">The Guardian</a> yesterday, “hundreds if not thousands [emphasis added] of women and people of color in tech come forward each year with complaints of toxic work environments largely controlled by white men.” The report is backed up by a <a href="https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/" type="external">recent survey</a>: 60% of women in Silicon Valley experience sexual harassment—and 60% were unsatisfied with the resolution offered to them by their company.</p>
<p>This harassment looks similar in many of the cases. Gaslighting is common. Women are consistently told there must have been a “misunderstanding,” as in the case of <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">Hannah Levy, the head of content at Amino</a>, or with Haana, whose perpetrator suggested <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">she must have “‘misinterpreted’ a ‘hug’.”</a> &#160;Women are coerced through threat to their careers and reputations. Multiple women, such as <a href="http://observer.com/2017/02/uber-sexual-harrasment-susan-fowler/" type="external">Sysamone Phaphon, founder and CEO at Groupeezz</a>, reported frequently hearing things such as, “‘I can help you if&#160;you are open to more than a working relationship.’”</p>
<p>The fact that perpetrators often continue to succeed and thrive despite documented allegations against them is, unfortunately, not news to many of us. What is shocking however, is the degree to which this has been happening, and how little attention it’s gotten. With a culture set up “ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-startups" type="external">more like a fraternity than it is a workplace</a>” women are often ignored, berated, and shamed into silence. And like many fraternities, the men in this tech driven boys club don’t seem to feel they need to be accountable for their actions, nor do they seem to feel the need to keep them hidden.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for many of these men, they work in a tech industry where technology forces them to be held accountable. As is the case with Travis Kalanick, <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/01/uber-ceo-has-patronising-outburst-at-driver-who-challenged-him-for-making-him-bankrupt-6480521/" type="external">Uber’s CEO who was recently caught on tape verbally assaulting one of his drivers of color</a>, the very carelessness through which their disrespect flourishes might be (finally) catching up to them. Let’s hope it helps take them down.</p>
<p><a href="https://thetechportal.com/2017/02/20/former-uber-employee-sexual-harassment/" type="external">Header image via</a></p>
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<p>If you see someone you suspect is driving under the influence you now can do more than shake your head in disbelief and slow down and get out of the way. You can call the 24-hour-a-day hotline at 1-877-DWI-HALT (1-877-394-4258) and operators at the state Department of Public Safety will take your tip and immediately notify the relevant local law enforcement agency.</p>
<p>The hotline, which was announced by Gov. Bill Richardson last week, is up and running, making New Mexico only the second state in the nation to implement a DWI hotline.</p>
<p>According to a report on TheNewMexicoChannel.com (Channel 7’s Web site), the hotline has gotten dozens of calls since it went up on Dec. 22 — none of which had resulted yet in any drunken driving arrests.</p>
<p>The governor also announced the kickoff last Friday of the holiday DWI Super Blitz, which will last till Jan. 8.DWI checkpoints will be up throughout the state, combined with increased law enforcement and a media campaign to increase public awareness.</p>
<p>Last year, the holiday season Super Blitz resulted in 900 DWI arrests, according to a New Mexico Department of Transportation news release.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The holiday season also saw 111 crashes in the state attributed to drunken driving, resulting in six deaths.</p>
<p>A DWI checkpoint is also planned for Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights tonight, but officials aren’t saying exactly where, KOAT-TV is reporting this morning.</p>
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6:55am — Who Ya Gonna Call?
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/22058/655am-who-ya-gonna-call.html
| 2least
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6:55am — Who Ya Gonna Call?
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<p />
<p>If you see someone you suspect is driving under the influence you now can do more than shake your head in disbelief and slow down and get out of the way. You can call the 24-hour-a-day hotline at 1-877-DWI-HALT (1-877-394-4258) and operators at the state Department of Public Safety will take your tip and immediately notify the relevant local law enforcement agency.</p>
<p>The hotline, which was announced by Gov. Bill Richardson last week, is up and running, making New Mexico only the second state in the nation to implement a DWI hotline.</p>
<p>According to a report on TheNewMexicoChannel.com (Channel 7’s Web site), the hotline has gotten dozens of calls since it went up on Dec. 22 — none of which had resulted yet in any drunken driving arrests.</p>
<p>The governor also announced the kickoff last Friday of the holiday DWI Super Blitz, which will last till Jan. 8.DWI checkpoints will be up throughout the state, combined with increased law enforcement and a media campaign to increase public awareness.</p>
<p>Last year, the holiday season Super Blitz resulted in 900 DWI arrests, according to a New Mexico Department of Transportation news release.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The holiday season also saw 111 crashes in the state attributed to drunken driving, resulting in six deaths.</p>
<p>A DWI checkpoint is also planned for Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights tonight, but officials aren’t saying exactly where, KOAT-TV is reporting this morning.</p>
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<p />
<p>Commodity prices are enjoying their best run in years, fresh evidence that investors are betting on a pickup in the global economy after years of sluggish growth and scant inflation.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The S&amp;P GSCI Index, which tracks commodity futures, rose 28% last year in its biggest gain since 2009. Many commodities have continued to rally this year. Oil and natural-gas prices have soared more than 50% over the past 12 months. Precious metals like silver and materials like lumber have scored big gains in recent weeks.</p>
<p>Rising interest in commodities reflects a sharp turnaround from a year ago, when these markets fell to historic lows that wiped away all gains from the 2000s. Booming commodity prices had attracted new producers, flooding markets for everything from oil and gas to aluminum and wheat.</p>
<p>Now, as signs of inflation and improving global demand have returned, investors are beginning to pile back into commodities.</p>
<p>Commodity assets under management globally rose 7% in January from the previous month to $391 billion, up more than 50% compared with the previous year, according to Citigroup. Long positions at actively managed funds rose to the highest level since 2014, the bank said.</p>
<p>Darwei Kung, portfolio manager of the $2.1 billion Deutsche Enhanced Commodity Strategy Fund, thinks the rally is just getting started after an epic collapse that only ended last year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"We have a long ways to go on prices," he said.</p>
<p>A sustained rally in commodities would likely signal healthy consumer and business demand. It could also be a boon to the many emerging-market countries that rely on commodity exports, such as Russia, South Africa and Malaysia. A Brazil exchange-traded fund doubled in price over the past year, in part boosted by the powerful gains in commodities, analysts say.</p>
<p>But extended commodity rallies also tend to stoke inflation, which could bring higher U.S. interest rates that can choke off economic growth. Rising interest rates could also boost the dollar, another threat to the commodities and emerging-markets rally.</p>
<p>Bullish bets on oil, copper and cotton futures all hit record levels in January, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that goes back to 2006. That was the first time in nearly a decade that this cross section of materials and resources established new highs simultaneously.</p>
<p>The Materials Price Index, which tracks oil, metals, lumber and other commodities, closed higher for a record 17 straight weeks before finally falling in the last week of February.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of optimism coming back into the market," said John Caruso, senior trader at RJ O'Brien &amp; Associates LLC.</p>
<p>Commodities aren't the only investment rising on optimistic growth expectations. Bets on Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, which offer protection against higher consumer prices, have been increasing. Major U.S. stock indexes are also at all-time highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above 21000 on Wednesday for the first time.</p>
<p>Inflation has been nearly nonexistent in much of the developed world, though it is showing signs of stirring.</p>
<p>The U.S. consumer-price index increased in January by 0.6%, the biggest monthly gain in almost four years. Europe's inflation measure rose to the highest in four years last month. Recent Chinese data also shows expansion in manufacturing and increasing consumer confidence, easing investor concerns that China's growth would continue to slow.</p>
<p>Investors hope that President Donald Trump's fiscal stimulus and financial deregulation proposals can boost growth and consumer prices further. Mr. Trump reiterated plans to push for tax reform and infrastructure spending in his first address to Congress on Tuesday.</p>
<p>"There has been euphoria postelection," said Jeffrey Sherman, portfolio manager of the DoubleLine Strategic Commodity Fund. The fund started increasing exposure to commodities about a year ago, and has gone from holding its base minimum of 75% long positions in September 2015 to being 90% long at the end of January.</p>
<p>Some analysts believe the euphoria may be misplaced. They say that these early signs of growth could still fizzle out. In a February report, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote that even if economic indicators look promising, "'show me the activity'; real demand, real stock draws and empty warehouses."</p>
<p>A rising dollar could also pose a problem. While the currency declined for most of the first two months of this year, it has rallied in recent days on stronger indications that the Federal Reserve could raise rates at its mid-March meeting. That could put pressure on commodities. Most are priced in dollars, and when the dollar appreciates that makes it more expensive for foreigners to buy these goods.</p>
<p>Not all markets are sending bullish signals for growth. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury debt recently fell to their lowest level since November, a warning that riskier assets may be overvalued. Gold has also staged a comeback this year, as buyers have sought insurance against economic and political risk.</p>
<p>Investors have other reasons to be cautious. Oil prices rallied after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other big oil producers agreed to cut output in November. But a significant expansion of U.S. production, or if OPEC fails to extend its production cuts beyond June, could undermine the gains in oil.</p>
<p>A retreat in commodities prices, combined with a strengthening dollar, would be a double blow to emerging markets, which would find it much more expensive to pay back their dollar-denominated debt.</p>
<p>Some institutional investors that got slammed during the commodities collapse may be reluctant to jump into this rally.</p>
<p>"You haven't seen this wholesale buying from the investment community, and I think a lot of it is they've gotten burned for owning commodities for many years," said Mr. Sherman.</p>
<p>Even the extreme bullish positions in commodities stoke concern that any bad news could spark a reversal if investors unwind their bets. The last time oil, copper and cotton set all-time highs together was in 2008, months before an economic downturn sent commodity prices tumbling.</p>
<p>"There is so much uncertainty that we just haven't felt comfortable taking positions in commodities right now," said Bill O'Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management, a St. Louis-based money manager.</p>
<p>Still, prices may continue to rise as investors come back to the market, he said. "[It's] really starting to capture the imagination of some investors. We could see it get even more extreme."</p>
<p>--Katherine Dunn contributed to this article.</p>
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Bullish Commodity Bets Hit Record Highs as Investors Seize on Signs of Growth
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/05/bullish-commodity-bets-hit-record-highs-as-investors-seize-on-signs-growth.html
|
2017-03-05
| 0right
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Bullish Commodity Bets Hit Record Highs as Investors Seize on Signs of Growth
<p />
<p>Commodity prices are enjoying their best run in years, fresh evidence that investors are betting on a pickup in the global economy after years of sluggish growth and scant inflation.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The S&amp;P GSCI Index, which tracks commodity futures, rose 28% last year in its biggest gain since 2009. Many commodities have continued to rally this year. Oil and natural-gas prices have soared more than 50% over the past 12 months. Precious metals like silver and materials like lumber have scored big gains in recent weeks.</p>
<p>Rising interest in commodities reflects a sharp turnaround from a year ago, when these markets fell to historic lows that wiped away all gains from the 2000s. Booming commodity prices had attracted new producers, flooding markets for everything from oil and gas to aluminum and wheat.</p>
<p>Now, as signs of inflation and improving global demand have returned, investors are beginning to pile back into commodities.</p>
<p>Commodity assets under management globally rose 7% in January from the previous month to $391 billion, up more than 50% compared with the previous year, according to Citigroup. Long positions at actively managed funds rose to the highest level since 2014, the bank said.</p>
<p>Darwei Kung, portfolio manager of the $2.1 billion Deutsche Enhanced Commodity Strategy Fund, thinks the rally is just getting started after an epic collapse that only ended last year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"We have a long ways to go on prices," he said.</p>
<p>A sustained rally in commodities would likely signal healthy consumer and business demand. It could also be a boon to the many emerging-market countries that rely on commodity exports, such as Russia, South Africa and Malaysia. A Brazil exchange-traded fund doubled in price over the past year, in part boosted by the powerful gains in commodities, analysts say.</p>
<p>But extended commodity rallies also tend to stoke inflation, which could bring higher U.S. interest rates that can choke off economic growth. Rising interest rates could also boost the dollar, another threat to the commodities and emerging-markets rally.</p>
<p>Bullish bets on oil, copper and cotton futures all hit record levels in January, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that goes back to 2006. That was the first time in nearly a decade that this cross section of materials and resources established new highs simultaneously.</p>
<p>The Materials Price Index, which tracks oil, metals, lumber and other commodities, closed higher for a record 17 straight weeks before finally falling in the last week of February.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of optimism coming back into the market," said John Caruso, senior trader at RJ O'Brien &amp; Associates LLC.</p>
<p>Commodities aren't the only investment rising on optimistic growth expectations. Bets on Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, which offer protection against higher consumer prices, have been increasing. Major U.S. stock indexes are also at all-time highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above 21000 on Wednesday for the first time.</p>
<p>Inflation has been nearly nonexistent in much of the developed world, though it is showing signs of stirring.</p>
<p>The U.S. consumer-price index increased in January by 0.6%, the biggest monthly gain in almost four years. Europe's inflation measure rose to the highest in four years last month. Recent Chinese data also shows expansion in manufacturing and increasing consumer confidence, easing investor concerns that China's growth would continue to slow.</p>
<p>Investors hope that President Donald Trump's fiscal stimulus and financial deregulation proposals can boost growth and consumer prices further. Mr. Trump reiterated plans to push for tax reform and infrastructure spending in his first address to Congress on Tuesday.</p>
<p>"There has been euphoria postelection," said Jeffrey Sherman, portfolio manager of the DoubleLine Strategic Commodity Fund. The fund started increasing exposure to commodities about a year ago, and has gone from holding its base minimum of 75% long positions in September 2015 to being 90% long at the end of January.</p>
<p>Some analysts believe the euphoria may be misplaced. They say that these early signs of growth could still fizzle out. In a February report, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote that even if economic indicators look promising, "'show me the activity'; real demand, real stock draws and empty warehouses."</p>
<p>A rising dollar could also pose a problem. While the currency declined for most of the first two months of this year, it has rallied in recent days on stronger indications that the Federal Reserve could raise rates at its mid-March meeting. That could put pressure on commodities. Most are priced in dollars, and when the dollar appreciates that makes it more expensive for foreigners to buy these goods.</p>
<p>Not all markets are sending bullish signals for growth. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury debt recently fell to their lowest level since November, a warning that riskier assets may be overvalued. Gold has also staged a comeback this year, as buyers have sought insurance against economic and political risk.</p>
<p>Investors have other reasons to be cautious. Oil prices rallied after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other big oil producers agreed to cut output in November. But a significant expansion of U.S. production, or if OPEC fails to extend its production cuts beyond June, could undermine the gains in oil.</p>
<p>A retreat in commodities prices, combined with a strengthening dollar, would be a double blow to emerging markets, which would find it much more expensive to pay back their dollar-denominated debt.</p>
<p>Some institutional investors that got slammed during the commodities collapse may be reluctant to jump into this rally.</p>
<p>"You haven't seen this wholesale buying from the investment community, and I think a lot of it is they've gotten burned for owning commodities for many years," said Mr. Sherman.</p>
<p>Even the extreme bullish positions in commodities stoke concern that any bad news could spark a reversal if investors unwind their bets. The last time oil, copper and cotton set all-time highs together was in 2008, months before an economic downturn sent commodity prices tumbling.</p>
<p>"There is so much uncertainty that we just haven't felt comfortable taking positions in commodities right now," said Bill O'Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management, a St. Louis-based money manager.</p>
<p>Still, prices may continue to rise as investors come back to the market, he said. "[It's] really starting to capture the imagination of some investors. We could see it get even more extreme."</p>
<p>--Katherine Dunn contributed to this article.</p>
| 6,388 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Yet when it comes to the cloak and dagger effort of catching philandering lovers, all high-tech weapons appear to be fair game – at least to the tens of thousands of Brazilians who downloaded “Boyfriend Tracker” to their smartphones before the stealthy software was removed from the Google Play app store last week, apparently in response to complaints about privacy abuses and its potential to be used for extortion or even stalking.</p>
<p>“Brazilians are a jealous people, what can I say? Of course it’s going to be popular,” said Marcia Almeida, a 47-year-old woman in Rio whose marriage ended seven years ago in large part because of what she said was her husband’s infidelity.</p>
<p>“It’s a different type of spying,” she said of comparisons to the NSA surveillance program. “You’re checking up on somebody you know intimately, not some stranger.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The app, called “Rastreador de Namorados” (Portuguese for Boyfriend Tracker), promises to act like a “private detective in your partner’s pocket.”</p>
<p>Functions include sending the person doing the tracking updates on their partner’s location and forwarding duplicates of text message traffic from the targeted phone. There is even a command that allows a user to force the target phone to silently call their own, like a pocket dial, so they can listen in on what the person is saying.</p>
<p>Similar apps are marketed for smartphone users in other countries, including Europe and the U.S., but Boyfriend Tracker is the first that has made any impact in Brazil, a country still irate as it learns more about Washington’s snooping. Brazil has sent a government delegation to meet with U.S. leaders about the spy program that was revealed by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has been on the run since May and was recently granted asylum in Russia.</p>
<p>Google spokeswoman Gina Johnson said by email that as a policy the company doesn’t comment on why apps are removed.</p>
<p>Critics say even as advertised, apps like Boyfriend Tracker can violate privacy rights, and they warn that in the wrong hands they could be used for more sinister purposes, like stalking. Some in Brazil argue it breaks an anti-online harassment and hacking law in place since April. The law is named after Brazilian actress Carolina Dieckmann, who had nude photos of herself leaked by hackers in 2012 after she refused to pay about $5,000.</p>
<p>However, similar apps popular on Google Play market themselves to parents as a means of monitoring how teenage children use the phone and where they are at any given moment.</p>
<p>Matheus Grijo, a 24-year-old Sao Paulo-based developer behind Boyfriend Tracker, says it has attracted around 50,000 users since its launch about two months ago, most since the site began attracting media attention two weeks ago.</p>
<p>Grijo insists his lawyer vetted the app and determined it does not violate any Brazilian laws. Despite being removed by Google, it is still available via direct download from his company’s website.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>A disclaimer on that website stipulates the app is for “social and recreational use” and absolves the developer of responsibility for any misuse. The first line of the download instructions says a woman installing the tracker on her boyfriend’s phone should do so “with his consent.”</p>
<p>“We are waiting for Google’s position on the removal of ‘Boyfriend Tracker’ from Google Play, which we consider an error,” read a posting on a Facebook page Grijo set up for the app.</p>
<p>To install Boyfriend Tracker, suspicious partners have to get their hands on their loved one’s smartphones and upload the app. A free version leaves the app’s icon visible on the target’s phone, while a version that costs $2 a month masks the icon.</p>
<p>Grijo said the app began as a joke between him and his girlfriend but the idea quickly caught on among their friends.</p>
<p>“In Brazil, we have this culture of switching partners really quickly, so this is a way of dealing with that,” said Grijo. “People really appreciate having a tool to help them find out whether they’re being cheated on.”</p>
<p>He acknowledged that “of course some people are against it, but on balance the response from users has been positive.” He said he’s received messages of gratitude from around 50 people who used the app to ferret out their partners’ infidelity.</p>
<p>While cheating in Brazil cuts both ways, the app is clearly marketed to women suspicious of their male partners, right down to the name. Postings on the app’s Facebook page exhort: “Girls, share this.”</p>
<p>Still, Grijo insisted he personally has never given his girlfriends any reason to worry.</p>
<p>“I’ve had three steady girlfriends until now but I’ve never had these kinds of issues,” he said.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks contributed to this report.</p>
|
‘Boyfriend Tracker’ app raises stir in Brazil
| false |
https://abqjournal.com/251617/boyfriend-tracker-app-raises-stir-in-brazil.html
|
2013-08-22
| 2least
|
‘Boyfriend Tracker’ app raises stir in Brazil
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Yet when it comes to the cloak and dagger effort of catching philandering lovers, all high-tech weapons appear to be fair game – at least to the tens of thousands of Brazilians who downloaded “Boyfriend Tracker” to their smartphones before the stealthy software was removed from the Google Play app store last week, apparently in response to complaints about privacy abuses and its potential to be used for extortion or even stalking.</p>
<p>“Brazilians are a jealous people, what can I say? Of course it’s going to be popular,” said Marcia Almeida, a 47-year-old woman in Rio whose marriage ended seven years ago in large part because of what she said was her husband’s infidelity.</p>
<p>“It’s a different type of spying,” she said of comparisons to the NSA surveillance program. “You’re checking up on somebody you know intimately, not some stranger.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The app, called “Rastreador de Namorados” (Portuguese for Boyfriend Tracker), promises to act like a “private detective in your partner’s pocket.”</p>
<p>Functions include sending the person doing the tracking updates on their partner’s location and forwarding duplicates of text message traffic from the targeted phone. There is even a command that allows a user to force the target phone to silently call their own, like a pocket dial, so they can listen in on what the person is saying.</p>
<p>Similar apps are marketed for smartphone users in other countries, including Europe and the U.S., but Boyfriend Tracker is the first that has made any impact in Brazil, a country still irate as it learns more about Washington’s snooping. Brazil has sent a government delegation to meet with U.S. leaders about the spy program that was revealed by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has been on the run since May and was recently granted asylum in Russia.</p>
<p>Google spokeswoman Gina Johnson said by email that as a policy the company doesn’t comment on why apps are removed.</p>
<p>Critics say even as advertised, apps like Boyfriend Tracker can violate privacy rights, and they warn that in the wrong hands they could be used for more sinister purposes, like stalking. Some in Brazil argue it breaks an anti-online harassment and hacking law in place since April. The law is named after Brazilian actress Carolina Dieckmann, who had nude photos of herself leaked by hackers in 2012 after she refused to pay about $5,000.</p>
<p>However, similar apps popular on Google Play market themselves to parents as a means of monitoring how teenage children use the phone and where they are at any given moment.</p>
<p>Matheus Grijo, a 24-year-old Sao Paulo-based developer behind Boyfriend Tracker, says it has attracted around 50,000 users since its launch about two months ago, most since the site began attracting media attention two weeks ago.</p>
<p>Grijo insists his lawyer vetted the app and determined it does not violate any Brazilian laws. Despite being removed by Google, it is still available via direct download from his company’s website.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>A disclaimer on that website stipulates the app is for “social and recreational use” and absolves the developer of responsibility for any misuse. The first line of the download instructions says a woman installing the tracker on her boyfriend’s phone should do so “with his consent.”</p>
<p>“We are waiting for Google’s position on the removal of ‘Boyfriend Tracker’ from Google Play, which we consider an error,” read a posting on a Facebook page Grijo set up for the app.</p>
<p>To install Boyfriend Tracker, suspicious partners have to get their hands on their loved one’s smartphones and upload the app. A free version leaves the app’s icon visible on the target’s phone, while a version that costs $2 a month masks the icon.</p>
<p>Grijo said the app began as a joke between him and his girlfriend but the idea quickly caught on among their friends.</p>
<p>“In Brazil, we have this culture of switching partners really quickly, so this is a way of dealing with that,” said Grijo. “People really appreciate having a tool to help them find out whether they’re being cheated on.”</p>
<p>He acknowledged that “of course some people are against it, but on balance the response from users has been positive.” He said he’s received messages of gratitude from around 50 people who used the app to ferret out their partners’ infidelity.</p>
<p>While cheating in Brazil cuts both ways, the app is clearly marketed to women suspicious of their male partners, right down to the name. Postings on the app’s Facebook page exhort: “Girls, share this.”</p>
<p>Still, Grijo insisted he personally has never given his girlfriends any reason to worry.</p>
<p>“I’ve had three steady girlfriends until now but I’ve never had these kinds of issues,” he said.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks contributed to this report.</p>
| 6,389 |
<p>Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew into New York City Saturday. He had come to the United States to speak before the UN General Assembly’s opening session this week. Under agreement with the UN, the United States as the host country for the UN headquarters cannot refuse to issue a visa to heads of state or other officials who come to the UN to speak. However, the State Department can and does impose a maximum travel radius on representatives of countries deemed unfriendly. Moreover, within the allowed radius, police departments may refuse requests, on the basis of security concerns, to go to specific destinations.</p>
<p>On Monday morning–September 24–The New York Daily News front page was taken up with a picture of President Ahmadinejad and four words, all in capital letters: The EVIL HAS LANDED. The objection so voiced in print was part of the wide-spread protest against a speaking engagement at Columbia University by the Iranian president.</p>
<p>The invitation tendered by Columbia was freely extended and freely accepted, with no preconditions or restrictions. Despite some vociferous objections to allowing an individual who denies that the Holocaust happened and has said that Israel should disappear from the map, the venue was most appropriate. To quote the great 19th century Roman Catholic prelate-scholar, John Henry Cardinal Newman, a university is a “School of Universal Learning [implying] the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot.Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. [A] University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country” (The Idea of a University).</p>
<p>Of course, if “communication and circulation of thought” justifies giving Ahmadinejad a forum, the question comes as to whether there is any limitations on free speech in a university setting. Constitutionally, the Supreme Court has carved out some limits on general First Amendment rights, but the Court, as far as I am aware, has not directed such limits to universities.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I suggest that there is at least one limit: courtesy to a guest, especially when the guest has been invited, in part, because his views are known to be contrary to those of the institutions. It is this limit that Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, violated in his rather extended remarks delivered before President Ahmadinejad said a word.</p>
<p>Protesting that he was but a university professor who happened also to be a university president, Bollinger started by reminding the audience that to listen to someone in no way implies acceptance or an endorsement of what is said–which includes both Columbia’s guest and those demonstrating against his presence on the university campus. Bollinger also urged his listeners to never retreat when confronted with ideas that one detests but to take them on.</p>
<p>All that was fair game and needed to be said. Bollinger then presented a list of grievances and accusations against internal policies and practices of the Iranian state as well as the foreign policies of the Islamic Republic. This too, was within bounds, particularly since Bollinger started by reminding Ahmadinejad that his country had arrested, imprisoned, and only recently released some Iranian-American academics visiting Iran, including members of Columbia’s faculty. (At least one academic is still under house arrest in Iran.) But then President Bollinger veered into a personal attack, calling Ahmadinejad “a petty and cruel dictator.”</p>
<p>President Bollinger is perfectly free to hold that opinion and to express it–which he did directly to the Iranian president. Yet, the verbal assault on the visitor seemed extremely crude and, arguably, not factual. Granted that all candidates for political office in Iran are subject to a vetting process, Iranians seem to feel that they have (few?) real choices when they participate in general elections for president, parliament, and “local” government.</p>
<p>Ahmadinejad’s reaction was to chide Bollinger for, in effect, being rude. Bollinger, in my view, accomplished nothing by delivering his verbal assault before Ahmadinejad spoke other than confirm for Iranians that, even in its universities, America is an intolerant society.</p>
<p>For those who decided to skip the broadcast of the speech (carried partially on CNN and completely by Fox News), the general themes that are Ahmadinejad’s stock in trade were present: Palestine-Israel, U.S. dominance, nuclear energy/weapons, sanction regimes (e.g., spare parts for commercial airliners), and Iran as a victim of terror. He also, without naming the United States, rejected the authenticity of “freedom” in what he termed “bullying powers” whose governments spy on citizens’ telephone conversations, r try to undermine ancient cultures, or try to prevent other countries from making scientific advances (obviously referring to nuclear energy development). In fact, running throughout the speech was a noticeable emphasis on science and the scientific method as an instrument for improving people’s lives</p>
<p>Those were most of the main points in Ahmadinejad’s prepared remarks. But one issue deserves additional comment: Ahmadinejad’s position on the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Columbia the Iranian president did not claim that the Holocaust never happened. He expressed concern that the prevalent attitude that further research on the Holocaust is not needed violates the principles of intellectual and academic enquiry. Nothing is so extensively investigated, he said, that we can be sure that no further knowledge or fresh perspectives will be forthcoming.</p>
<p>Listening carefully to the speech and the answers to questions that the audience posed, it is possible to unravel Ahmadinejad’s line of thought. He seems to assume that the methodology of learning is the same regardless of the subject–and that is the scientific mode of enquiry that is never conclusive, never final, always open to revision and correction. The other distinguishing feature of scientific enquiry is the ability of other scientists to replicate experiments and confirm the results.</p>
<p>But there is another methodology, one that Ahmadinejad ignores even though it pertains to non-scientific enquiries. This “humanistic” methodology is an inductive process that assimilates reports of events and perspectives of individuals to build a holistic description (or as nearly holistic as possible) of an event. Unlike a scientific experiment in which variables can be frozen and unfrozen as the experiment runs, life cannot be frozen or exactly replicated because the context of the original event can never be recovered</p>
<p>In terms of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad tries to apply to a historical event that cannot be replicated the same standard that scientific enquiry yields–contingent consensus on what is “reality” based on the present state of knowledge. But in humanistic events, once they happen, they cannot be altered. At best, they can be thoroughly investigated and recorded to serve as a warning for future generations.</p>
<p>And although I do not believe President Ahmadinejad’s comments were directed to this point, there is one aspect of the Holocaust that must not be closed off. That is the questioning of the conditions that should have served as warning signs–in history, sociology, and politics–and tracking these back as far as possible.</p>
<p>Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur are recent reminders that we have not yet escaped the possibility of another Holocaust. More study on how to sustain the veneer of “civilized” behavior is needed–and soon.</p>
<p>Col. DAN SMITH is a military affairs analyst for <a href="http://www.fpif.org/" type="external">Foreign Policy In Focus</a> , a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Email at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
|
Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn
| true |
https://counterpunch.org/2007/09/25/freedom-to-speak-freedom-to-learn/
|
2007-09-25
| 4left
|
Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn
<p>Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew into New York City Saturday. He had come to the United States to speak before the UN General Assembly’s opening session this week. Under agreement with the UN, the United States as the host country for the UN headquarters cannot refuse to issue a visa to heads of state or other officials who come to the UN to speak. However, the State Department can and does impose a maximum travel radius on representatives of countries deemed unfriendly. Moreover, within the allowed radius, police departments may refuse requests, on the basis of security concerns, to go to specific destinations.</p>
<p>On Monday morning–September 24–The New York Daily News front page was taken up with a picture of President Ahmadinejad and four words, all in capital letters: The EVIL HAS LANDED. The objection so voiced in print was part of the wide-spread protest against a speaking engagement at Columbia University by the Iranian president.</p>
<p>The invitation tendered by Columbia was freely extended and freely accepted, with no preconditions or restrictions. Despite some vociferous objections to allowing an individual who denies that the Holocaust happened and has said that Israel should disappear from the map, the venue was most appropriate. To quote the great 19th century Roman Catholic prelate-scholar, John Henry Cardinal Newman, a university is a “School of Universal Learning [implying] the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot.Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. [A] University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country” (The Idea of a University).</p>
<p>Of course, if “communication and circulation of thought” justifies giving Ahmadinejad a forum, the question comes as to whether there is any limitations on free speech in a university setting. Constitutionally, the Supreme Court has carved out some limits on general First Amendment rights, but the Court, as far as I am aware, has not directed such limits to universities.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I suggest that there is at least one limit: courtesy to a guest, especially when the guest has been invited, in part, because his views are known to be contrary to those of the institutions. It is this limit that Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, violated in his rather extended remarks delivered before President Ahmadinejad said a word.</p>
<p>Protesting that he was but a university professor who happened also to be a university president, Bollinger started by reminding the audience that to listen to someone in no way implies acceptance or an endorsement of what is said–which includes both Columbia’s guest and those demonstrating against his presence on the university campus. Bollinger also urged his listeners to never retreat when confronted with ideas that one detests but to take them on.</p>
<p>All that was fair game and needed to be said. Bollinger then presented a list of grievances and accusations against internal policies and practices of the Iranian state as well as the foreign policies of the Islamic Republic. This too, was within bounds, particularly since Bollinger started by reminding Ahmadinejad that his country had arrested, imprisoned, and only recently released some Iranian-American academics visiting Iran, including members of Columbia’s faculty. (At least one academic is still under house arrest in Iran.) But then President Bollinger veered into a personal attack, calling Ahmadinejad “a petty and cruel dictator.”</p>
<p>President Bollinger is perfectly free to hold that opinion and to express it–which he did directly to the Iranian president. Yet, the verbal assault on the visitor seemed extremely crude and, arguably, not factual. Granted that all candidates for political office in Iran are subject to a vetting process, Iranians seem to feel that they have (few?) real choices when they participate in general elections for president, parliament, and “local” government.</p>
<p>Ahmadinejad’s reaction was to chide Bollinger for, in effect, being rude. Bollinger, in my view, accomplished nothing by delivering his verbal assault before Ahmadinejad spoke other than confirm for Iranians that, even in its universities, America is an intolerant society.</p>
<p>For those who decided to skip the broadcast of the speech (carried partially on CNN and completely by Fox News), the general themes that are Ahmadinejad’s stock in trade were present: Palestine-Israel, U.S. dominance, nuclear energy/weapons, sanction regimes (e.g., spare parts for commercial airliners), and Iran as a victim of terror. He also, without naming the United States, rejected the authenticity of “freedom” in what he termed “bullying powers” whose governments spy on citizens’ telephone conversations, r try to undermine ancient cultures, or try to prevent other countries from making scientific advances (obviously referring to nuclear energy development). In fact, running throughout the speech was a noticeable emphasis on science and the scientific method as an instrument for improving people’s lives</p>
<p>Those were most of the main points in Ahmadinejad’s prepared remarks. But one issue deserves additional comment: Ahmadinejad’s position on the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Columbia the Iranian president did not claim that the Holocaust never happened. He expressed concern that the prevalent attitude that further research on the Holocaust is not needed violates the principles of intellectual and academic enquiry. Nothing is so extensively investigated, he said, that we can be sure that no further knowledge or fresh perspectives will be forthcoming.</p>
<p>Listening carefully to the speech and the answers to questions that the audience posed, it is possible to unravel Ahmadinejad’s line of thought. He seems to assume that the methodology of learning is the same regardless of the subject–and that is the scientific mode of enquiry that is never conclusive, never final, always open to revision and correction. The other distinguishing feature of scientific enquiry is the ability of other scientists to replicate experiments and confirm the results.</p>
<p>But there is another methodology, one that Ahmadinejad ignores even though it pertains to non-scientific enquiries. This “humanistic” methodology is an inductive process that assimilates reports of events and perspectives of individuals to build a holistic description (or as nearly holistic as possible) of an event. Unlike a scientific experiment in which variables can be frozen and unfrozen as the experiment runs, life cannot be frozen or exactly replicated because the context of the original event can never be recovered</p>
<p>In terms of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad tries to apply to a historical event that cannot be replicated the same standard that scientific enquiry yields–contingent consensus on what is “reality” based on the present state of knowledge. But in humanistic events, once they happen, they cannot be altered. At best, they can be thoroughly investigated and recorded to serve as a warning for future generations.</p>
<p>And although I do not believe President Ahmadinejad’s comments were directed to this point, there is one aspect of the Holocaust that must not be closed off. That is the questioning of the conditions that should have served as warning signs–in history, sociology, and politics–and tracking these back as far as possible.</p>
<p>Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur are recent reminders that we have not yet escaped the possibility of another Holocaust. More study on how to sustain the veneer of “civilized” behavior is needed–and soon.</p>
<p>Col. DAN SMITH is a military affairs analyst for <a href="http://www.fpif.org/" type="external">Foreign Policy In Focus</a> , a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Email at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| 6,390 |
<p />
<p>Past presidents have made a tradition of rewarding top donors, longtime friends, and loyalists with cushy ambassadorships in desirable locales—and George W. Bush certainly took to this practice with gusto. Of the more than 120 overseas postings he has filled to date, nearly half have gone to “Pioneers” or “Rangers” who’ve contributed $100,000 or $200,000, respectively, to his campaigns. Meet some of Bush’s big-dollar diplomats:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/2006/73937.htm" type="external">Mary Ourisman</a>, Ambassador to Barbados, 2006-PresentMO: Washington socialite best known for hosting charity galas and serving on the “decorating committee” of Blair House, the president’s guest quarters for foreign heads of state.Patronage: Along with her husband, the owner of one of the DC area’s biggest car dealerships, she has donated nearly half a million dollars to GOP candidates and causes since 1999.</p>
<p>Richard Egan, Ambassador to Ireland, 2001-2003MO: The billionaire founder of technology company EMC was caught investing $62 million in a sham Irish tax shelter, which the IRS later seized.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>Roland Arnall, Ambassador to the Netherlands, 2006-2008MO: The late founder of <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/03/roland-arnall-a.html" type="external">Ameriquest Capital Corp</a>., his company faced investigations in 30 states over its predatory lending practices at the time of his nomination in 2005.Patronage: Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>James Nicholson, Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican), 2001-2005MO: The former GOP chairman and one-time VA secretary was accused of violating State Department regs by throwing lavish embassy parties and hitting up private businesses to pay for them.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>George Argyros, Ambassador to Spain, 2001-2004MO: The billionaire real estate magnate—and notorious slum lord—was accused of defrauding thousands of low-income residents in California.Patronage: Pioneer; donated $100,000 to Bush’s first inaugural.</p>
<p>William Farish III, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2001-2004MO: The horse breeder’s tenure in the UK—he took the job as a “working sabbatical”—was notable only for his conspicuous absence during the run-up to the Iraq War. “It’s probably easier to get an interview with Saddam Hussein than with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jun/04/gm.comment?commentpage=1" type="external">William Farrish</a>,” a Guardian columnist wrote on the eve of the war.Patronage: Donated $100,000 for Bush’s inaugural.</p>
<p>Robert Tuttle, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2005-PresentMO: Dubbed a “chiseling little crook” by London’s mayor, the California car dealer refused to pay the $3.9 million the embassy owed in congestion charges for driving in central London.Patronage: Pioneer</p>
<p>Sam Fox, Ambassador to Belgium, 2007-PresentMO: The Missouri businessman’s $50,000 donation to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth" type="external">Swift Boat Veterans for Truth</a> during the 2004 election came back to haunt him when John Kerry got a crack at questioning him during his February 2007 confirmation hearing. “I’ve always been against 527s,” he told the senator, whose presidential bid he helped end by funding one.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>Robert Jordan, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 2001-2003MO: The Texas lawyer represented Bush during an SEC investigation into allegations of insider trading at Harken Energy.Patronage: Pioneer (2000)</p>
<p>Mercer Reynolds III, Ambassador to Switzerland, 2001-2003MO: The businessman helped bail out Bush’s failed Texas oil company and later went in with him as an investor on the Texas Rangers franchise. He also served as the Bush/Cheney Ohio finance chair in 2000 and national finance chair in 2004.Patronage: Ranger (and then some)</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.buyingofthepresident.org" type="external">Center for Public Integrity</a></p>
<p />
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Dollar Diplomacy
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/08/dollar-diplomacy/
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2008-08-25
| 4left
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Dollar Diplomacy
<p />
<p>Past presidents have made a tradition of rewarding top donors, longtime friends, and loyalists with cushy ambassadorships in desirable locales—and George W. Bush certainly took to this practice with gusto. Of the more than 120 overseas postings he has filled to date, nearly half have gone to “Pioneers” or “Rangers” who’ve contributed $100,000 or $200,000, respectively, to his campaigns. Meet some of Bush’s big-dollar diplomats:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/2006/73937.htm" type="external">Mary Ourisman</a>, Ambassador to Barbados, 2006-PresentMO: Washington socialite best known for hosting charity galas and serving on the “decorating committee” of Blair House, the president’s guest quarters for foreign heads of state.Patronage: Along with her husband, the owner of one of the DC area’s biggest car dealerships, she has donated nearly half a million dollars to GOP candidates and causes since 1999.</p>
<p>Richard Egan, Ambassador to Ireland, 2001-2003MO: The billionaire founder of technology company EMC was caught investing $62 million in a sham Irish tax shelter, which the IRS later seized.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>Roland Arnall, Ambassador to the Netherlands, 2006-2008MO: The late founder of <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/03/roland-arnall-a.html" type="external">Ameriquest Capital Corp</a>., his company faced investigations in 30 states over its predatory lending practices at the time of his nomination in 2005.Patronage: Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>James Nicholson, Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican), 2001-2005MO: The former GOP chairman and one-time VA secretary was accused of violating State Department regs by throwing lavish embassy parties and hitting up private businesses to pay for them.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>George Argyros, Ambassador to Spain, 2001-2004MO: The billionaire real estate magnate—and notorious slum lord—was accused of defrauding thousands of low-income residents in California.Patronage: Pioneer; donated $100,000 to Bush’s first inaugural.</p>
<p>William Farish III, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2001-2004MO: The horse breeder’s tenure in the UK—he took the job as a “working sabbatical”—was notable only for his conspicuous absence during the run-up to the Iraq War. “It’s probably easier to get an interview with Saddam Hussein than with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jun/04/gm.comment?commentpage=1" type="external">William Farrish</a>,” a Guardian columnist wrote on the eve of the war.Patronage: Donated $100,000 for Bush’s inaugural.</p>
<p>Robert Tuttle, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2005-PresentMO: Dubbed a “chiseling little crook” by London’s mayor, the California car dealer refused to pay the $3.9 million the embassy owed in congestion charges for driving in central London.Patronage: Pioneer</p>
<p>Sam Fox, Ambassador to Belgium, 2007-PresentMO: The Missouri businessman’s $50,000 donation to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth" type="external">Swift Boat Veterans for Truth</a> during the 2004 election came back to haunt him when John Kerry got a crack at questioning him during his February 2007 confirmation hearing. “I’ve always been against 527s,” he told the senator, whose presidential bid he helped end by funding one.Patronage: Pioneer (2000), Ranger (2004)</p>
<p>Robert Jordan, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 2001-2003MO: The Texas lawyer represented Bush during an SEC investigation into allegations of insider trading at Harken Energy.Patronage: Pioneer (2000)</p>
<p>Mercer Reynolds III, Ambassador to Switzerland, 2001-2003MO: The businessman helped bail out Bush’s failed Texas oil company and later went in with him as an investor on the Texas Rangers franchise. He also served as the Bush/Cheney Ohio finance chair in 2000 and national finance chair in 2004.Patronage: Ranger (and then some)</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.buyingofthepresident.org" type="external">Center for Public Integrity</a></p>
<p />
| 6,391 |
<p />
<p>John McCain is in Memphis today commemorating the death of Dr. King, but he can’t run from his <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/04/mccain-mlk/" type="external">spotty history</a> on the MLK holiday and civil rights. In 1983, McCain was one of 77 Republican Congressmen to vote against establishing a federal holiday in MLK’s honor. McCain was in the minority even among his GOP colleagues: even Dick Cheney, who voted against the holiday in 1978, voted for it in ’83. Later, McCain would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/us/politics/04mccain.html?adxnnl=1&amp;adxnnlx=1207325708-2O43PQ3cQ6+uy+0gurmwjQ" type="external">explain his vote</a> by saying he “thought that it was not necessary to have another federal holiday, that it cost too much money, that other presidents were not recognized.”</p>
<p>In 1999 McCain admitted that he was wrong to vote the way he did. He told NBC’s Tim Russert, “on the Martin Luther King issue, we all learn, OK? We all learn. I will admit to learning, and I hope that the people that I represent appreciate that, too. I voted in 1983 against the recognition of Martin Luther King… I regret that vote.”</p>
<p>The 1983 vote, however, is the not the end of the issue. In 1987, Arizona’s Republican Governor repealed the state’s recognition of King; McCain supported the decision. He changed his mind in 1990, when a King holiday was put to a vote in the state.</p>
<p>But even by 1990, McCain hadn’t come to appreciate what King stood for. The Civil Rights Act of 1990 sought to overturn “Supreme Court rulings that made it much more difficult for individual employees to prove discrimination.” The legislation was fought by big business, because it imposed new penalties on employers convicted of job discrimination. McCain voted against the act <a href="http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81331" type="external">four times</a>.</p>
<p>And in his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain employed a man named Richard Quinn in his South Carolina organization. Quinn was a toxic figure, writing:</p>
<p>“King Day should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane. By celebrating King as the incarnation of all they admire, they [black leaders] have chosen to glorify the histrionic rather than the heroic and by inference they spurned the brightest and the best among their own race. Ignoring the real heroes in our nation’s life, the blacks have chosen a man who represents not their emancipation, not their sacrifices and bravery in service to their country; rather, they have chosen a man whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state…”</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81331" type="external">AlterNet</a>, “Quinn has also advocated electing David Duke, and sold T-Shirts through his magazine celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.” McCain defended Quinn as a “respected” and “fine man.” He refused to fire him from the campaign.</p>
<p>In McCain’s <a href="http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/Read.aspx?guid=d7c66df4-c33e-4aac-baec-fd0a54d9bde0" type="external">speech today</a> he said all the right things:</p>
<p>Even in this most idealistic of nations, we do not always take kindly to being reminded of what more we can do, or how much better we can be, or who else can be included in the promise of America. We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans. But he knew as well that in the long term, confidence in the reasonability and good heart of America is always well placed. And always, that was his method in word and action — to remind us of who we are and what we believe. His arguments were unanswerable and they were familiar, the case always resting on the writings of the Founders, the teachings of the prophets, and the Word of the Lord.</p>
<p>He’s evolved on the issue: millions of Americans have. But when it counted, McCain got this issue wrong. And today, his positions on economic justice, housing, and the war show that while McCain may appreciate King’s importance, he still doesn’t understand the meaning of King’s message.</p>
<p />
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McCain’s Tricky History With the MLK Holiday
| true |
https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/04/mccains-tricky-history-mlk-holiday/
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2008-04-04
| 4left
|
McCain’s Tricky History With the MLK Holiday
<p />
<p>John McCain is in Memphis today commemorating the death of Dr. King, but he can’t run from his <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/04/mccain-mlk/" type="external">spotty history</a> on the MLK holiday and civil rights. In 1983, McCain was one of 77 Republican Congressmen to vote against establishing a federal holiday in MLK’s honor. McCain was in the minority even among his GOP colleagues: even Dick Cheney, who voted against the holiday in 1978, voted for it in ’83. Later, McCain would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/us/politics/04mccain.html?adxnnl=1&amp;adxnnlx=1207325708-2O43PQ3cQ6+uy+0gurmwjQ" type="external">explain his vote</a> by saying he “thought that it was not necessary to have another federal holiday, that it cost too much money, that other presidents were not recognized.”</p>
<p>In 1999 McCain admitted that he was wrong to vote the way he did. He told NBC’s Tim Russert, “on the Martin Luther King issue, we all learn, OK? We all learn. I will admit to learning, and I hope that the people that I represent appreciate that, too. I voted in 1983 against the recognition of Martin Luther King… I regret that vote.”</p>
<p>The 1983 vote, however, is the not the end of the issue. In 1987, Arizona’s Republican Governor repealed the state’s recognition of King; McCain supported the decision. He changed his mind in 1990, when a King holiday was put to a vote in the state.</p>
<p>But even by 1990, McCain hadn’t come to appreciate what King stood for. The Civil Rights Act of 1990 sought to overturn “Supreme Court rulings that made it much more difficult for individual employees to prove discrimination.” The legislation was fought by big business, because it imposed new penalties on employers convicted of job discrimination. McCain voted against the act <a href="http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81331" type="external">four times</a>.</p>
<p>And in his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain employed a man named Richard Quinn in his South Carolina organization. Quinn was a toxic figure, writing:</p>
<p>“King Day should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane. By celebrating King as the incarnation of all they admire, they [black leaders] have chosen to glorify the histrionic rather than the heroic and by inference they spurned the brightest and the best among their own race. Ignoring the real heroes in our nation’s life, the blacks have chosen a man who represents not their emancipation, not their sacrifices and bravery in service to their country; rather, they have chosen a man whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state…”</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81331" type="external">AlterNet</a>, “Quinn has also advocated electing David Duke, and sold T-Shirts through his magazine celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.” McCain defended Quinn as a “respected” and “fine man.” He refused to fire him from the campaign.</p>
<p>In McCain’s <a href="http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/Read.aspx?guid=d7c66df4-c33e-4aac-baec-fd0a54d9bde0" type="external">speech today</a> he said all the right things:</p>
<p>Even in this most idealistic of nations, we do not always take kindly to being reminded of what more we can do, or how much better we can be, or who else can be included in the promise of America. We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans. But he knew as well that in the long term, confidence in the reasonability and good heart of America is always well placed. And always, that was his method in word and action — to remind us of who we are and what we believe. His arguments were unanswerable and they were familiar, the case always resting on the writings of the Founders, the teachings of the prophets, and the Word of the Lord.</p>
<p>He’s evolved on the issue: millions of Americans have. But when it counted, McCain got this issue wrong. And today, his positions on economic justice, housing, and the war show that while McCain may appreciate King’s importance, he still doesn’t understand the meaning of King’s message.</p>
<p />
| 6,392 |
<p>Norway's Statoil ASA (STL.OS) Thursday reported a slightly wider third-quarter loss after booking a number of impairment charges mainly related to an unconventional onshore asset in North America, triggered by lower-than-expected production.</p>
<p>The company reported a loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 of $480 billion, compared with a year-earlier loss of $432 million. Revenue rose 12% to $13.61 billion; expectations were for $14.11 billion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Statoil's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, which excludes one-off items, rose to $2.3 billion from about $600 million a year earlier. Analysts expected $2.4 billion.</p>
<p>Statoil delivered equity production of 2.05 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the quarter compared with 1.81 million a year earlier. The rise was mainly due to increased flexible gas production due to higher prices, lower turnaround activity, ramp-up of new fields, additional well capacity and continued strong operational performance, it said.</p>
<p>Statoil has raised its 2017 production growth target to 6% from 5%.</p>
<p>The board kept the dividend at 22.01 cents a share.</p>
<p>Write to Ian Walker at [email protected]; @IanWalk40289749</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 26, 2017 01:18 ET (05:18 GMT)</p>
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Statoil 3Q Loss Widens
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/26/statoil-3q-loss-widens.html
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2017-10-26
| 0right
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Statoil 3Q Loss Widens
<p>Norway's Statoil ASA (STL.OS) Thursday reported a slightly wider third-quarter loss after booking a number of impairment charges mainly related to an unconventional onshore asset in North America, triggered by lower-than-expected production.</p>
<p>The company reported a loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 of $480 billion, compared with a year-earlier loss of $432 million. Revenue rose 12% to $13.61 billion; expectations were for $14.11 billion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Statoil's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, which excludes one-off items, rose to $2.3 billion from about $600 million a year earlier. Analysts expected $2.4 billion.</p>
<p>Statoil delivered equity production of 2.05 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the quarter compared with 1.81 million a year earlier. The rise was mainly due to increased flexible gas production due to higher prices, lower turnaround activity, ramp-up of new fields, additional well capacity and continued strong operational performance, it said.</p>
<p>Statoil has raised its 2017 production growth target to 6% from 5%.</p>
<p>The board kept the dividend at 22.01 cents a share.</p>
<p>Write to Ian Walker at [email protected]; @IanWalk40289749</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 26, 2017 01:18 ET (05:18 GMT)</p>
| 6,393 |
<p>FBN’s Jo Ling Kent on Alibaba’s ‘Singles Day’ sales numbers.</p>
<p>Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) reported a record $9.3 billion dollars in sales on Singles Day in China, flexing its muscles to investors and smashing records on its busiest shopping day of the year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Some 278.5 million items were ordered on its platforms, including TMall and Taobao. That figure was seven times more than how much Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) sold on Cyber Monday in 2013. And 42.6% of all Alibaba purchases on Tuesday were completed on mobile devices. At the peak of the shopping day, 2.85 million transactions were processed per minute by Alipay.</p>
<p>“I don’t think any other company in China can create a day like this,” Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai&#160; told reporters at Alibaba’s headquarters. "You're seeing the unleashing of the consumption power of the Chinese consumer.”</p>
<p>The "11.11 Shopping Festival," which started several years ago, resembles Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It began as a day when single Chinese consumers bought a gift for themselves or single friends, and some consider it their version of Valentine’s Day because of the four single digits in its date.</p>
<p>In 2009, executive chairman Jack Ma and his team leveraged the idea into the biggest day for e-commerce globally and sold $7 million dollars worth of goods. Four years later, in 2013, sales totaled $5.8 billion. This year, more than 27,000 merchants participated, and consumers from more than 200 countries bought something on Alibaba. In fact, Chinese consumers spent more this Singles Day than Americans did last Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, according to data collected by Adobe.</p>
<p>Xiaomi, the world’s third largest smartphone maker, tweeted on Weibo that it sold more than 850,000 mobile phones in the first 14 hours. The top five sellers by gross merchandise volume at that point of the 24-hour shopping spree were Xiaomi, appliance maker Haier, Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, smartphone marker Huawei and Chinese furniture retailer Linshimuye, <a href="http://www.alizila.com/1111-sale-update-big-chinese-brands-are-having-nice-day" type="external">according to Alibaba Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>International brands new to Chinese consumers also fared well. In a press conference, Tmall.com President Steve Wang said, “Brands like [Spanish clothing retailer] Massimo Dutti, who are participating for the first time this year, are posting good numbers.”</p>
<p>Ma also announced that the payment and financial services arm of Alibaba, known as Alipay, “will definitely go public.” He told Chinese Central Television he hopes it will list on a mainland Chinese exchange.</p>
<p>The news comes less than eight weeks after Alibaba’s initial public offering, which was the largest in history. The Hangzhou-based company raised $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange.</p>
<p>Alibaba shares have experienced its second-worst trading day today, with some investors selling on the Singles Day news. It has dragged down several other Chinese e-commerce stocks with it, including JD and bookseller Dang Dang. However, Alibaba stock is up 20% for the month as of Monday’s close and has reached record highs in the previous six consecutive trading sessions.</p>
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Alibaba Shatters E-commerce Records as Alipay Prepares to Go Public
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/11/11/alibaba-shatters-e-commerce-records-as-alipay-prepares-to-go-public.html
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2016-03-04
| 0right
|
Alibaba Shatters E-commerce Records as Alipay Prepares to Go Public
<p>FBN’s Jo Ling Kent on Alibaba’s ‘Singles Day’ sales numbers.</p>
<p>Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) reported a record $9.3 billion dollars in sales on Singles Day in China, flexing its muscles to investors and smashing records on its busiest shopping day of the year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Some 278.5 million items were ordered on its platforms, including TMall and Taobao. That figure was seven times more than how much Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) sold on Cyber Monday in 2013. And 42.6% of all Alibaba purchases on Tuesday were completed on mobile devices. At the peak of the shopping day, 2.85 million transactions were processed per minute by Alipay.</p>
<p>“I don’t think any other company in China can create a day like this,” Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai&#160; told reporters at Alibaba’s headquarters. "You're seeing the unleashing of the consumption power of the Chinese consumer.”</p>
<p>The "11.11 Shopping Festival," which started several years ago, resembles Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It began as a day when single Chinese consumers bought a gift for themselves or single friends, and some consider it their version of Valentine’s Day because of the four single digits in its date.</p>
<p>In 2009, executive chairman Jack Ma and his team leveraged the idea into the biggest day for e-commerce globally and sold $7 million dollars worth of goods. Four years later, in 2013, sales totaled $5.8 billion. This year, more than 27,000 merchants participated, and consumers from more than 200 countries bought something on Alibaba. In fact, Chinese consumers spent more this Singles Day than Americans did last Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, according to data collected by Adobe.</p>
<p>Xiaomi, the world’s third largest smartphone maker, tweeted on Weibo that it sold more than 850,000 mobile phones in the first 14 hours. The top five sellers by gross merchandise volume at that point of the 24-hour shopping spree were Xiaomi, appliance maker Haier, Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, smartphone marker Huawei and Chinese furniture retailer Linshimuye, <a href="http://www.alizila.com/1111-sale-update-big-chinese-brands-are-having-nice-day" type="external">according to Alibaba Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>International brands new to Chinese consumers also fared well. In a press conference, Tmall.com President Steve Wang said, “Brands like [Spanish clothing retailer] Massimo Dutti, who are participating for the first time this year, are posting good numbers.”</p>
<p>Ma also announced that the payment and financial services arm of Alibaba, known as Alipay, “will definitely go public.” He told Chinese Central Television he hopes it will list on a mainland Chinese exchange.</p>
<p>The news comes less than eight weeks after Alibaba’s initial public offering, which was the largest in history. The Hangzhou-based company raised $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange.</p>
<p>Alibaba shares have experienced its second-worst trading day today, with some investors selling on the Singles Day news. It has dragged down several other Chinese e-commerce stocks with it, including JD and bookseller Dang Dang. However, Alibaba stock is up 20% for the month as of Monday’s close and has reached record highs in the previous six consecutive trading sessions.</p>
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<p>Located in the Pacheco Park office complex, the restaurant’s off-the-beaten track address serves as preface, a prelude to its inventive approach to food. The space has a pleasant, contemporary industrial look, welcoming and informal. Customers dine in the light, airy space beneath a cathedral ceiling. Softer touches include colorful paintings by a local artist, a special table with surprises for children and a bulletin board crowded with business cards and flyers for local services and events.</p>
<p>Although Sweetwater is out of the way for visitors, the location is handy for state workers and for the many small business and entrepreneurs who have studios and workspaces along Pacheco. If the Sweetwater folks continue to run a sound operation, the locals-friendly location could be an asset.</p>
<p>Sweetwater combines self- and staff-service. Customers order at the counter, selecting a special from the board or something tempting from the printed paper menus. Be advised: This isn’t the place to come if you want a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>No beef or cheddar here, but animal eaters can get bacon, prosciutto, shrimp, turkey and turkey sausage. And duck breast at dinner. Vegetarians have many choices, as do the vegan and gluten-free crowd. Most breakfast and lunch prices are in the $8-$12 range. A soup and salad combo, for example, is $10.50.</p>
<p>If you are partial to commercial sodas, you’ll need to make another adjustment. Sweetwater conjures up its own refreshing blend of fruit juice and club soda. My friend liked it but balked at the price – $3 with no free refills. Coffee and tea are organic, fair trade varieties with chai, lattes and other fancy coffee drinks available. You also can get several kinds of smoothies and a mango lassie. The restaurant has wines on tap, a high-tech concept to keep wine fresh, and offers specialty beers and locally brewed mead, or wine made with honey.</p>
<p>We ordered at the front counter: a salad sampler plate, two soups and the day’s special. Portions are moderately sized and the flavors were first-rate.</p>
<p>I loved the parsnip and sweet potato soup ($4.50/cup), a subtle pale gold puree that tasted so fresh it could have been made just for me. It’s great to see something different on a menu and for much-ignored parsnips to have a day to be special. Our other soup, turkey-based tortilla, was a heartier concoction of rice, black beans, corn and bits of turkey meat topped with crisp strips cut to resemble shoe string potatoes. We picked it as the soup or salad choice with the day’s special, which was a turkey, cheese and green chile sandwich on grilled bread. It had enough meat and the bread was nicely grilled and obviously fresh. I didn’t care for the chile, too mild and watery, but I’m fussy that way.</p>
<p>Two of the three salads on the salad sampler were good, too. The house salad got a star for its interesting tahini dressing and the inclusion of quinoa, almonds, avocado and a touch of feta cheese to augment the bed of fresh greens.</p>
<p>The mozzarella salad had black olives, dried cranberries, walnuts, and Brussels sprout leaves. The mild, soft mozzarella cheese is made in house. The “greens” included red lettuce.</p>
<p>The third, what the menu calls the shaved salad, combined narrow slivers of red and white cabbage with bright orange pumpkin and circles of white radish. A hint of minced pear and a whisper of gruyere cheese finished the dish. It looked better than it tasted. The champagne vinaigrette was too strong, and the too-thin shredded cabbage kept slipping off the fork. The pretty pumpkin lacked flavor.</p>
<p>We finished on a lovely note, however, with some of the best carrot cake I’ve had. Not too sweet, not too dense and topped with just enough yummy frosting, it was well worth $5.95. Desserts are tempting and are displayed at the entrance/ordering counter.</p>
<p>Seating includes tables for two or four and a long community table. Parking is available behind the building, with the entrance on Pacheco Street.</p>
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Find healthy choices in this ‘Kitchen’
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https://abqjournal.com/195163/find-healthy-choices-in-this-kitchen.html
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2013-05-03
| 2least
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Find healthy choices in this ‘Kitchen’
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Located in the Pacheco Park office complex, the restaurant’s off-the-beaten track address serves as preface, a prelude to its inventive approach to food. The space has a pleasant, contemporary industrial look, welcoming and informal. Customers dine in the light, airy space beneath a cathedral ceiling. Softer touches include colorful paintings by a local artist, a special table with surprises for children and a bulletin board crowded with business cards and flyers for local services and events.</p>
<p>Although Sweetwater is out of the way for visitors, the location is handy for state workers and for the many small business and entrepreneurs who have studios and workspaces along Pacheco. If the Sweetwater folks continue to run a sound operation, the locals-friendly location could be an asset.</p>
<p>Sweetwater combines self- and staff-service. Customers order at the counter, selecting a special from the board or something tempting from the printed paper menus. Be advised: This isn’t the place to come if you want a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>No beef or cheddar here, but animal eaters can get bacon, prosciutto, shrimp, turkey and turkey sausage. And duck breast at dinner. Vegetarians have many choices, as do the vegan and gluten-free crowd. Most breakfast and lunch prices are in the $8-$12 range. A soup and salad combo, for example, is $10.50.</p>
<p>If you are partial to commercial sodas, you’ll need to make another adjustment. Sweetwater conjures up its own refreshing blend of fruit juice and club soda. My friend liked it but balked at the price – $3 with no free refills. Coffee and tea are organic, fair trade varieties with chai, lattes and other fancy coffee drinks available. You also can get several kinds of smoothies and a mango lassie. The restaurant has wines on tap, a high-tech concept to keep wine fresh, and offers specialty beers and locally brewed mead, or wine made with honey.</p>
<p>We ordered at the front counter: a salad sampler plate, two soups and the day’s special. Portions are moderately sized and the flavors were first-rate.</p>
<p>I loved the parsnip and sweet potato soup ($4.50/cup), a subtle pale gold puree that tasted so fresh it could have been made just for me. It’s great to see something different on a menu and for much-ignored parsnips to have a day to be special. Our other soup, turkey-based tortilla, was a heartier concoction of rice, black beans, corn and bits of turkey meat topped with crisp strips cut to resemble shoe string potatoes. We picked it as the soup or salad choice with the day’s special, which was a turkey, cheese and green chile sandwich on grilled bread. It had enough meat and the bread was nicely grilled and obviously fresh. I didn’t care for the chile, too mild and watery, but I’m fussy that way.</p>
<p>Two of the three salads on the salad sampler were good, too. The house salad got a star for its interesting tahini dressing and the inclusion of quinoa, almonds, avocado and a touch of feta cheese to augment the bed of fresh greens.</p>
<p>The mozzarella salad had black olives, dried cranberries, walnuts, and Brussels sprout leaves. The mild, soft mozzarella cheese is made in house. The “greens” included red lettuce.</p>
<p>The third, what the menu calls the shaved salad, combined narrow slivers of red and white cabbage with bright orange pumpkin and circles of white radish. A hint of minced pear and a whisper of gruyere cheese finished the dish. It looked better than it tasted. The champagne vinaigrette was too strong, and the too-thin shredded cabbage kept slipping off the fork. The pretty pumpkin lacked flavor.</p>
<p>We finished on a lovely note, however, with some of the best carrot cake I’ve had. Not too sweet, not too dense and topped with just enough yummy frosting, it was well worth $5.95. Desserts are tempting and are displayed at the entrance/ordering counter.</p>
<p>Seating includes tables for two or four and a long community table. Parking is available behind the building, with the entrance on Pacheco Street.</p>
| 6,395 |
<p />
<p>A Philadelphia state court jury on Tuesday ordered Bayer AG and Johnson &amp; Johnson to pay $27.8 million to an Indiana couple over the drugmakers’ failure to warn of internal bleeding risks by its blockbuster drug Xarelto.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The jury slapped the companies, which jointly developed the blood thinner, with $1.8 million in compensatory and $26 million in punitive damages, according to the couple’s lawyer.</p>
<p>The verdict marks the first trial loss in litigation over Xarelto. Bayer and J&amp;J have won three previous cases in federal court.</p>
|
Jury orders Bayer, J&J to pay $28 million in Xarelto lawsuit
| true |
http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/12/05/jury-orders-bayer-j-j-to-pay-28-million-in-xarelto-lawsuit.html
|
2017-12-05
| 0right
|
Jury orders Bayer, J&J to pay $28 million in Xarelto lawsuit
<p />
<p>A Philadelphia state court jury on Tuesday ordered Bayer AG and Johnson &amp; Johnson to pay $27.8 million to an Indiana couple over the drugmakers’ failure to warn of internal bleeding risks by its blockbuster drug Xarelto.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The jury slapped the companies, which jointly developed the blood thinner, with $1.8 million in compensatory and $26 million in punitive damages, according to the couple’s lawyer.</p>
<p>The verdict marks the first trial loss in litigation over Xarelto. Bayer and J&amp;J have won three previous cases in federal court.</p>
| 6,396 |
<p>Twenty years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israeli and Palestinian leaders are still negotiating with no end in sight. It's as though the process were caught in a timeless prism separated from reality, with the U.S. sponsored talks moving forward alongside Israeli settlement expansion and increased segregation of Palestinians. But few are asking if the patron of the negotiations is interested in peace or just managing Middle East conflicts.</p>
<p>When the Americans mediated the 1979 C <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords" type="external">amp David Peace Accords</a> between Israel and Egypt, a new approach to American power in the Middle East began unfolding. As close relations between Israel and Egypt's security forces developed, Egypt became the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Middle East after Israel. The country at the center of professed pan-Arabism became an essential tool in dividing the Arab world.</p>
<p>By the time the Oslo process began in the early 1990s a newly divided Middle East provided the U.S. with an opportunity to entrench its interests through brokering a new round of Israeli peace negotiations. A bankrupt Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) in exile had few options with a divided Arab world and the assertion of U.S. dominance following the First Gulf War.</p>
<p>Over the two decades that followed, U.S. aid flowed to the dependent Palestinian leadership when talks were on and the Israeli occupation was given a stable process of expansion. For the U.S., the rhetoric of resolving the longest standing Middle East conflict secured a long-term, multi layered presence in regional politics. The unending negotiations have given Israel the domestic stability to lash out in the region, using its American made weapons.</p>
<p>On one level this process provides Israel clear incentives to maintain the status quo, but in the bigger picture, this conflict and its reverberations help serve the U.S. approach to power and oil access in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Since the negotiations process began, Israel has launched three wars and brutally put down a Palestinian popular uprising while engaging in military strikes and covert assassination attempts around the region. Through it all, after providing support to the Israelis, the U.S. has intervened in the conflicts as a central power broker, moving to contain the fallout while securing its centrality in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Even when negotiations are not happening, the discussion of getting back to the table has become an end goal in itself, providing a role for Israeli provocation both domestically and in the region while facilitating America intervention to find short term diplomatic solutions. It is why the Palestinians are only brought to the table at points of increasing weakness.</p>
<p>The Palestinian leadership initially agreed to the Oslo process in a bid to gain American legitimacy, support and recognition. These days, return to the table is based on that same leadership's need to maintain its U.S. legitimacy and funding as it faces an unprecedented lack of popularity with its people and an inability to reconcile internal Palestinian divisions with the Hamas, which rules Gaza.</p>
<p>But when the Arab revolutions brought popular discontent and calls for government by the people onto the streets in 2011, the divisions of the Middle East shifted. Instead of hinging its influence on its traditional alliances, conflicts and acerbated divisions, America was forced to respond to popular demands that challenged key allies, like Egypt. For a brief moment it appeared U.S. polarization was receding as the discontents of the Arab world confronting authoritarian rule, inequality and poverty forced the U.S. to deal with new reality.</p>
<p>Still, a door to the past was opened for the Americans when the general's stormed back into power in Egypt and Assad clung to his rule by turning a popular uprising it into a sectarian based civil war.</p>
<p>As traditional division in the regions central conflicts unfolded on Israel's borders, the U.S. has seen fit to push forward another round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that, like Oslo, are in no way structured to reach a just and final settlement. In the meantime Israel strengthens its ties with the Egyptian military and is working with the U.S. in pushing a position on Syria that aims for neither Assad nor the opposition to claim victory, continuing the bloodletting on all sides.</p>
<p>Constantly striving to be decider-in-chief in the Middle East and acerbating conflicts that facilitate this goal, twenty years on from Oslo, the platitudes of eventual peace should be treated as a central plank of the U.S. strategy to manipulate regional fractures.</p>
|
The Oslo Accords Have Served U.S. and Israeli Interests, But Not Palestine's
| true |
https://thedailybeast.com/the-oslo-accords-have-served-us-and-israeli-interests-but-not-palestines
|
2018-10-03
| 4left
|
The Oslo Accords Have Served U.S. and Israeli Interests, But Not Palestine's
<p>Twenty years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israeli and Palestinian leaders are still negotiating with no end in sight. It's as though the process were caught in a timeless prism separated from reality, with the U.S. sponsored talks moving forward alongside Israeli settlement expansion and increased segregation of Palestinians. But few are asking if the patron of the negotiations is interested in peace or just managing Middle East conflicts.</p>
<p>When the Americans mediated the 1979 C <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords" type="external">amp David Peace Accords</a> between Israel and Egypt, a new approach to American power in the Middle East began unfolding. As close relations between Israel and Egypt's security forces developed, Egypt became the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Middle East after Israel. The country at the center of professed pan-Arabism became an essential tool in dividing the Arab world.</p>
<p>By the time the Oslo process began in the early 1990s a newly divided Middle East provided the U.S. with an opportunity to entrench its interests through brokering a new round of Israeli peace negotiations. A bankrupt Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) in exile had few options with a divided Arab world and the assertion of U.S. dominance following the First Gulf War.</p>
<p>Over the two decades that followed, U.S. aid flowed to the dependent Palestinian leadership when talks were on and the Israeli occupation was given a stable process of expansion. For the U.S., the rhetoric of resolving the longest standing Middle East conflict secured a long-term, multi layered presence in regional politics. The unending negotiations have given Israel the domestic stability to lash out in the region, using its American made weapons.</p>
<p>On one level this process provides Israel clear incentives to maintain the status quo, but in the bigger picture, this conflict and its reverberations help serve the U.S. approach to power and oil access in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Since the negotiations process began, Israel has launched three wars and brutally put down a Palestinian popular uprising while engaging in military strikes and covert assassination attempts around the region. Through it all, after providing support to the Israelis, the U.S. has intervened in the conflicts as a central power broker, moving to contain the fallout while securing its centrality in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Even when negotiations are not happening, the discussion of getting back to the table has become an end goal in itself, providing a role for Israeli provocation both domestically and in the region while facilitating America intervention to find short term diplomatic solutions. It is why the Palestinians are only brought to the table at points of increasing weakness.</p>
<p>The Palestinian leadership initially agreed to the Oslo process in a bid to gain American legitimacy, support and recognition. These days, return to the table is based on that same leadership's need to maintain its U.S. legitimacy and funding as it faces an unprecedented lack of popularity with its people and an inability to reconcile internal Palestinian divisions with the Hamas, which rules Gaza.</p>
<p>But when the Arab revolutions brought popular discontent and calls for government by the people onto the streets in 2011, the divisions of the Middle East shifted. Instead of hinging its influence on its traditional alliances, conflicts and acerbated divisions, America was forced to respond to popular demands that challenged key allies, like Egypt. For a brief moment it appeared U.S. polarization was receding as the discontents of the Arab world confronting authoritarian rule, inequality and poverty forced the U.S. to deal with new reality.</p>
<p>Still, a door to the past was opened for the Americans when the general's stormed back into power in Egypt and Assad clung to his rule by turning a popular uprising it into a sectarian based civil war.</p>
<p>As traditional division in the regions central conflicts unfolded on Israel's borders, the U.S. has seen fit to push forward another round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that, like Oslo, are in no way structured to reach a just and final settlement. In the meantime Israel strengthens its ties with the Egyptian military and is working with the U.S. in pushing a position on Syria that aims for neither Assad nor the opposition to claim victory, continuing the bloodletting on all sides.</p>
<p>Constantly striving to be decider-in-chief in the Middle East and acerbating conflicts that facilitate this goal, twenty years on from Oslo, the platitudes of eventual peace should be treated as a central plank of the U.S. strategy to manipulate regional fractures.</p>
| 6,397 |
<p>FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Jamaal King scored 21 points and Saint Francis pulled away down the stretch for a 73-60 win over Sacred Heart on Saturday.</p>
<p>The Red Flash (11-8, 5-3 Northeast Conference), who outscored the Pioneers (7-14, 2-6) by 12 from the foul line, made 15 of 16 free throws in the second half.</p>
<p>Saint Francis led 34-31 at the half but Sacred Heart tied it at 53 and 55 before a 9-0 run gave the Red Flash some breathing room with 5½ minutes left. Mario Matasovic hit a 3-pointer with 3½ minutes left but after that, the Pioneers had two turnovers and three missed shots and didn't score again.</p>
<p>Andre Wolford had 17 points and Keith Braxton 15 for Saint Francis, which finished 19 of 23 from the foul line.</p>
<p>De'Von Barnett and Kinnon LaRose had 12 points apiece for the Pioneers, who were 7 of 9 from the line.</p>
<p>FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Jamaal King scored 21 points and Saint Francis pulled away down the stretch for a 73-60 win over Sacred Heart on Saturday.</p>
<p>The Red Flash (11-8, 5-3 Northeast Conference), who outscored the Pioneers (7-14, 2-6) by 12 from the foul line, made 15 of 16 free throws in the second half.</p>
<p>Saint Francis led 34-31 at the half but Sacred Heart tied it at 53 and 55 before a 9-0 run gave the Red Flash some breathing room with 5½ minutes left. Mario Matasovic hit a 3-pointer with 3½ minutes left but after that, the Pioneers had two turnovers and three missed shots and didn't score again.</p>
<p>Andre Wolford had 17 points and Keith Braxton 15 for Saint Francis, which finished 19 of 23 from the foul line.</p>
<p>De'Von Barnett and Kinnon LaRose had 12 points apiece for the Pioneers, who were 7 of 9 from the line.</p>
|
King has 21, St. Francis (Pa) tops Sacred Heart 73-60
| false |
https://apnews.com/amp/ca201ee80b5849a185997bb9f58c1a18
|
2018-01-20
| 2least
|
King has 21, St. Francis (Pa) tops Sacred Heart 73-60
<p>FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Jamaal King scored 21 points and Saint Francis pulled away down the stretch for a 73-60 win over Sacred Heart on Saturday.</p>
<p>The Red Flash (11-8, 5-3 Northeast Conference), who outscored the Pioneers (7-14, 2-6) by 12 from the foul line, made 15 of 16 free throws in the second half.</p>
<p>Saint Francis led 34-31 at the half but Sacred Heart tied it at 53 and 55 before a 9-0 run gave the Red Flash some breathing room with 5½ minutes left. Mario Matasovic hit a 3-pointer with 3½ minutes left but after that, the Pioneers had two turnovers and three missed shots and didn't score again.</p>
<p>Andre Wolford had 17 points and Keith Braxton 15 for Saint Francis, which finished 19 of 23 from the foul line.</p>
<p>De'Von Barnett and Kinnon LaRose had 12 points apiece for the Pioneers, who were 7 of 9 from the line.</p>
<p>FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Jamaal King scored 21 points and Saint Francis pulled away down the stretch for a 73-60 win over Sacred Heart on Saturday.</p>
<p>The Red Flash (11-8, 5-3 Northeast Conference), who outscored the Pioneers (7-14, 2-6) by 12 from the foul line, made 15 of 16 free throws in the second half.</p>
<p>Saint Francis led 34-31 at the half but Sacred Heart tied it at 53 and 55 before a 9-0 run gave the Red Flash some breathing room with 5½ minutes left. Mario Matasovic hit a 3-pointer with 3½ minutes left but after that, the Pioneers had two turnovers and three missed shots and didn't score again.</p>
<p>Andre Wolford had 17 points and Keith Braxton 15 for Saint Francis, which finished 19 of 23 from the foul line.</p>
<p>De'Von Barnett and Kinnon LaRose had 12 points apiece for the Pioneers, who were 7 of 9 from the line.</p>
| 6,398 |
<p>Hotel de Love by Craig Rosenberg is, like Cosi, a fresh and amusing Australian film that puts Hollywood schlock like Fools Rush In to shame. It tells the story of twin brothers, Rick (Aden Young, who also plays Nick in Cosi) and Stephen (Simon Bossell) who fall in love with the same girl, Melissa (Saffron Burrows), at a party when they are 18. Rick gets in first and claims her, while she thinks that Stephen is just a good friend. Rick is unsuccessful in persuading her into bed because she has a “pact,” she tells him, with her future husband, to save her virginity for him. Stephen likes the idea of this pact; Rick does not. But the night before she is due to go back to England, and after returning home, she comes back and climbs in Rick’s window with a ladder, in her nightgown, and they make love. There are moments of great tenderness between them, and they promise to write.</p>
<p>Stephen, on coming home from an amorous experience of his own, is disgusted to find Melissa climbing out of the window. As they stand there talking, we hear the sounds of Rick’s and Stephen’s parents, Edith (Julia Blake) and Jack (Ray Barrett) Dunne, fighting. This seems to be a daily occurrence. Mention is made at this stage of what must now seem the cursed place where Edith and Jack spent their ill-starred honeymoon, the kitschy “Hotel de Love,” one of the features of which is something called Niagara Smalls, a little three foot waterfall. The younger generation is horrified at the very idea.</p>
<p>Ten years pass. We find that, of all places in the world Rick has ended up as a desk clerk at the Hotel de Love. Not only that, but Edith and Jack, escorted by Stephen, are coming back to the place to renew their wedding vows. This is a bizarre exercise, thinks Rick, “like watching the ambulance guys push the victims back in the car wreck: go on, in you go; you’re not disfigured enough yet.” Rick is there because he was jilted there by one Rachel. He is now wallowing in his misery at having been left and carrying on a loveless affair with Alison Leigh (Pippa Grandison), who does a clairvoyant, “love fortune” number at the theme-park hotel. The repartee between them suggests the battles of Rick’s parents, as when he says to her: “Don’t analyse me, I’m too shallow” or she to him: “I love being nice to you; it makes you so uncomfortable.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile Stephen is calculating the chances of a person’s finding love in the world by going to the airport and counting the number of people who are greeted with kisses and embraces as opposed to those who are not. He reckons the odds stand at 54 per cent in favor. It is his own response to the awful example of their parents, whose despair is rendered comically. On waking up in their luridly football-themed honeymoon suite, for example, Jack says simply: “Bloody hell! Still alive.” He then goes on about “one last breakfast to get me through the day,” and “one last banana.” Edith is still fed up with him, but finds an anonymous love letter to herself on the breakfast tray, with a little overwrought poetry inside. “My tongue searches for your damp wisdom.”</p>
<p>Who should turn up but Melissa with her latest boyfriend, Norman (Peter O’Brien). She spars a bit with Rick, because he never wrote to her. Rick’s sour attitude finds gnomic expression: “Men and women can’t be honest with each other; the whole social fabric would break down.” But Rick is still in love with Melissa and he tries to persuade her of this. She insists that she is going to marry Norman. And that the two of them are completely honest with each other.</p>
<p>“You have created a complete fantasy out of me; it’s a complete illusion,” she tells Rick.</p>
<p>“That’s love!” he replies.</p>
<p>When Norman takes the news of Rick’s presence badly, and Melissa begins to get more and more emotional, it becomes clear that she still cares for Rick too. Best bit of picture is the moment of Rick’s and Melissa’s two minutes of absolute honesty with each other. Melissa asks “Why do men lie?” This is a hard one, and Rick asks to be allowed to warm up with some other questions. Finally, however, he answers: Because, he says, we are not as good as you are, and we want to hide our failings so as to be allowed to be near to you. If we’re near you some of your goodness might rub off, and we will be better.” Whatever may be the truth of this observation, it is one to which the movie is faithful.</p>
<p>Edith finds that it was (of course) Jack who was writing her the anonymous letters. They decide to stay together after first having decided that it is time they divorce. Rick looks on in amazement at their reconciliation and says to the old and very bad piano player: “Maybe there’s something to this marriage thing after all; what do you think?” He never stays for a reply to these outpourings, but this time the piano player grabs him by the arm and gives him the pithy message: “The trick is doing it with the right person.”</p>
<p>So off he goes in pursuit of Melissa, who resists the temptation to leave Norman at the altar only to tell him, once they are in the car together: “I want a divorce.”</p>
<p>Rick and Melissa are married, we are told by Stephen, the narrator, a year later. He himself gets Alison on the rebound, having learned that she was at the same party where he and Rick first saw Melissa, and that if he had simply turned his head he would have seen her. And she’s the one! He promises to wait for her when she goes to “the beautiful city of Barcelona” —a trip she has deferred for one boyfriend after another and is not going to defer again. She says don’t bother to wait. She is not even sure she is coming back. He ends going down to the airport to wait for her to return every week, continuing his calculations on the chances of finding love, which he reckons are improving.</p>
|
Hotel de Love
| false |
https://eppc.org/publications/hotel-de-love/
| 1right-center
|
Hotel de Love
<p>Hotel de Love by Craig Rosenberg is, like Cosi, a fresh and amusing Australian film that puts Hollywood schlock like Fools Rush In to shame. It tells the story of twin brothers, Rick (Aden Young, who also plays Nick in Cosi) and Stephen (Simon Bossell) who fall in love with the same girl, Melissa (Saffron Burrows), at a party when they are 18. Rick gets in first and claims her, while she thinks that Stephen is just a good friend. Rick is unsuccessful in persuading her into bed because she has a “pact,” she tells him, with her future husband, to save her virginity for him. Stephen likes the idea of this pact; Rick does not. But the night before she is due to go back to England, and after returning home, she comes back and climbs in Rick’s window with a ladder, in her nightgown, and they make love. There are moments of great tenderness between them, and they promise to write.</p>
<p>Stephen, on coming home from an amorous experience of his own, is disgusted to find Melissa climbing out of the window. As they stand there talking, we hear the sounds of Rick’s and Stephen’s parents, Edith (Julia Blake) and Jack (Ray Barrett) Dunne, fighting. This seems to be a daily occurrence. Mention is made at this stage of what must now seem the cursed place where Edith and Jack spent their ill-starred honeymoon, the kitschy “Hotel de Love,” one of the features of which is something called Niagara Smalls, a little three foot waterfall. The younger generation is horrified at the very idea.</p>
<p>Ten years pass. We find that, of all places in the world Rick has ended up as a desk clerk at the Hotel de Love. Not only that, but Edith and Jack, escorted by Stephen, are coming back to the place to renew their wedding vows. This is a bizarre exercise, thinks Rick, “like watching the ambulance guys push the victims back in the car wreck: go on, in you go; you’re not disfigured enough yet.” Rick is there because he was jilted there by one Rachel. He is now wallowing in his misery at having been left and carrying on a loveless affair with Alison Leigh (Pippa Grandison), who does a clairvoyant, “love fortune” number at the theme-park hotel. The repartee between them suggests the battles of Rick’s parents, as when he says to her: “Don’t analyse me, I’m too shallow” or she to him: “I love being nice to you; it makes you so uncomfortable.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile Stephen is calculating the chances of a person’s finding love in the world by going to the airport and counting the number of people who are greeted with kisses and embraces as opposed to those who are not. He reckons the odds stand at 54 per cent in favor. It is his own response to the awful example of their parents, whose despair is rendered comically. On waking up in their luridly football-themed honeymoon suite, for example, Jack says simply: “Bloody hell! Still alive.” He then goes on about “one last breakfast to get me through the day,” and “one last banana.” Edith is still fed up with him, but finds an anonymous love letter to herself on the breakfast tray, with a little overwrought poetry inside. “My tongue searches for your damp wisdom.”</p>
<p>Who should turn up but Melissa with her latest boyfriend, Norman (Peter O’Brien). She spars a bit with Rick, because he never wrote to her. Rick’s sour attitude finds gnomic expression: “Men and women can’t be honest with each other; the whole social fabric would break down.” But Rick is still in love with Melissa and he tries to persuade her of this. She insists that she is going to marry Norman. And that the two of them are completely honest with each other.</p>
<p>“You have created a complete fantasy out of me; it’s a complete illusion,” she tells Rick.</p>
<p>“That’s love!” he replies.</p>
<p>When Norman takes the news of Rick’s presence badly, and Melissa begins to get more and more emotional, it becomes clear that she still cares for Rick too. Best bit of picture is the moment of Rick’s and Melissa’s two minutes of absolute honesty with each other. Melissa asks “Why do men lie?” This is a hard one, and Rick asks to be allowed to warm up with some other questions. Finally, however, he answers: Because, he says, we are not as good as you are, and we want to hide our failings so as to be allowed to be near to you. If we’re near you some of your goodness might rub off, and we will be better.” Whatever may be the truth of this observation, it is one to which the movie is faithful.</p>
<p>Edith finds that it was (of course) Jack who was writing her the anonymous letters. They decide to stay together after first having decided that it is time they divorce. Rick looks on in amazement at their reconciliation and says to the old and very bad piano player: “Maybe there’s something to this marriage thing after all; what do you think?” He never stays for a reply to these outpourings, but this time the piano player grabs him by the arm and gives him the pithy message: “The trick is doing it with the right person.”</p>
<p>So off he goes in pursuit of Melissa, who resists the temptation to leave Norman at the altar only to tell him, once they are in the car together: “I want a divorce.”</p>
<p>Rick and Melissa are married, we are told by Stephen, the narrator, a year later. He himself gets Alison on the rebound, having learned that she was at the same party where he and Rick first saw Melissa, and that if he had simply turned his head he would have seen her. And she’s the one! He promises to wait for her when she goes to “the beautiful city of Barcelona” —a trip she has deferred for one boyfriend after another and is not going to defer again. She says don’t bother to wait. She is not even sure she is coming back. He ends going down to the airport to wait for her to return every week, continuing his calculations on the chances of finding love, which he reckons are improving.</p>
| 6,399 |
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