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<p>A combative President <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Trump</a> launched an urgent, last-ditch bid Wednesday to revive an Obamacare repeal effort that had been left for dead just 24 hours earlier, imploring <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans to stay in Washington until the job is done and warning that failure would decimate the party and its agenda.</p>
<p>“I’m ready to act,” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said at the <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a>. “For seven years you’ve promised the American people that you would repeal Obamacare. People are hurting. Inaction is not an option.”</p>
<p>The urgent public plea marked a confrontational shift in tone for <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a>, who had been lobbying senators mainly behind the scenes, and a renewed commitment to the effort. One day earlier, <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said Republicans should force Democrats to own Obamacare by letting it collapse under its unsustainable weight.</p>
<p><a href="/news/2017/jul/19/donald-trump-hosting-gop-senators-white-house-obam/" type="external">SEE ALSO: Trump hosting GOP senators at White House on Obamacare repeal</a></p>
<p><a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> got personal at times, leaning into Sen. Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican who faces a tough re-election battle next year and is wary of backing the repeal-and-replace effort.</p>
<p>“He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said to laughter.</p>
<p>It’s unclear whether the eleventh-hour gambit will work. Several moderates are still concerned about reining in the Medicaid program for the poor, while a Plan B to repeal Obamacare now and replace it later would sow uncertainty in the insurance markets and leave more than 30 million Americans without health care coverage by 2026, according to budget estimates.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said he will force his members to stand up and be counted next week when he moves to bring a House-passed health care bill to the floor to kick-start debate on <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> measures.</p>
<p>“We cannot keep the commitment we’ve made to the American people to repeal and replace Obamacare unless we get on the bill,” Mr. McConnell said.</p>
<p>A sufficient number of Republicans had threatened to link arms with Democrats and sink efforts to bring a replacement bill or a fallback plan that would gut Obamacare and give Congress two years to devise a new program.</p>
<p>Sen. Susan M. Collins of Maine was the only Republican to object to both options, at least openly, so Republican leaders could be hoping to leave things flexible enough to avoid more than two defections from their 52-seat majority for the procedural motion, with Vice President Mike Pence serving as a tie-breaker if necessary.</p>
<p>“There is a large majority in our conference that want to demonstrate to the American people that they intend to keep the commitment they made in four straight elections to repeal Obamacare,” Mr. McConnell said. “I think we all agree it’s better to both repeal and replace. But we could have a vote on either.”</p>
<p>Senators are free to offer a plethora of amendments once the chamber takes up either plan, leaders said, so Republicans will have options and can vote to tweak the underlying proposals.</p>
<p>“Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare,” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said.</p>
<p>Conservative groups furious at wavering Republicans piled on. Some threatened to present <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans who resist repeal with busts of Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War turncoat.</p>
<p>“They have to choose. Do they want to be traitors? Do they want to be the next Arlen Specters or Charlie Crists?” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh, referring to notable Republicans who switched to the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Yet some moderate Republicans are itching to move on. They say party leaders should return to regular order and include Democrats, governors and other stakeholders in the health care reform process after attempts to draft an Obamacare replacement in secret and pass it on Republican votes alone fell short.</p>
<p>“I’d like to get some hearings going in the health committee,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, said Wednesday on her way to a floor vote.</p>
<p>Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he will schedule hearings on ways to stabilize the insurance markets in the short term, regardless of how the vote turns out next week.</p>
<p>Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican whose recent surgery forced him to recover at home this week, also called on <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> leaders to “receive input from members of both parties.”</p>
<p>The Congressional Budget Office said the replacement plan that stalled this week would have resulted in 22 million fewer people holding insurance a decade from now. The “repeal, then replace” option would result in 32 million fewer Americans with coverage, the CBO said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The CBO said the repeal-only plan — President Obama vetoed an identical one about 18 months ago — would save $473 billion, but premiums would increase by 25 percent compared with current law in 2018, by 50 percent in 2020 and double by 2026.</p>
<p>Also Wednesday, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey showed only 13 percent of Americans support repealing the health care law without a replacement in hand. It said 8 in 10 believe Republicans should offer to negotiate with Democrats if their own effort fails.</p>
<p>Democrats said Republicans should cut their losses and work on bipartisan fixes to the current program, which failed to attract enough young and healthy people in the early rounds.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said allowing the markets to crumble, as <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> suggested before renewing his replacement push, would be unconscionable.</p>
<p>“President <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Trump</a>’s promise to let our health care system collapse is so, so wrong on three counts,” he said. “It’s a failure morally, it’s a failure politically and it’s a remarkable failure of presidential leadership.”</p>
<p>The <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> said it would make the latest round of cost-sharing payments that reimburse insurers that lose money on low-income customers’ costs, but it hasn’t made a long-term commitment to the payments.</p>
<p>Mr. Schumer urged Congress to do three things immediately to prop up the markets: guarantee funding for cost-sharing payments, establish a reinsurance program that backstops insurers that take on high-cost customers and let people in counties without any insurers on their Obamacare exchanges shop on the D.C. small-business portal that members of Congress use.</p>
<p>“These proposals are specific, nonideological and could pass quickly and make life better for millions of Americans,” he said.</p>
<p>But conservatives said if <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans continue to flounder on repeal, the near-term fight is to block Democratic measures that look like more Obamacare.</p>
<p>“Make no mistake, when lawmakers call for ‘bipartisan market stabilization’ they mean more taxpayer money and more regulations,” said Heritage Action for America, a conservative pressure group. “That approach is unacceptable.”</p>
<p>A slate of Republican holdouts were scheduled to huddle in the Capitol late Wednesday, hoping to make progress on the replacement effort.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> legislative affairs director Marc Short said the president discussed with <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans the devolving of Medicaid programs to states to give them more flexibility, and an amendment put forward by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah designed to drive down premiums.</p>
<p>Mr. Short said any proposed legislation will retain a stipulation that tax credits cannot be used for abortion funding and will include a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood.</p>
<p>Despite long odds, some <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans said the <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> summit gave the repeal-and-replace effort new life.</p>
<p>“Sometimes when you are facing defeat and nobody wants to accept it, that prompts people to rethink positions, open up their minds,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican. “People talk, another accommodation here or there — we want to get a result, we all want to fix this problem. We’re just not giving up. I think that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2017/jul/19/donald-trump-delivers-ultimatum-gop-health-care-bi/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Trump warns Senate Republicans about dire consequences of failure to pass health care bill | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/19/donald-trump-delivers-ultimatum-gop-health-care-bi/ | 2017-07-19 | 0right
| Trump warns Senate Republicans about dire consequences of failure to pass health care bill
<p>A combative President <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Trump</a> launched an urgent, last-ditch bid Wednesday to revive an Obamacare repeal effort that had been left for dead just 24 hours earlier, imploring <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans to stay in Washington until the job is done and warning that failure would decimate the party and its agenda.</p>
<p>“I’m ready to act,” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said at the <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a>. “For seven years you’ve promised the American people that you would repeal Obamacare. People are hurting. Inaction is not an option.”</p>
<p>The urgent public plea marked a confrontational shift in tone for <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a>, who had been lobbying senators mainly behind the scenes, and a renewed commitment to the effort. One day earlier, <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said Republicans should force Democrats to own Obamacare by letting it collapse under its unsustainable weight.</p>
<p><a href="/news/2017/jul/19/donald-trump-hosting-gop-senators-white-house-obam/" type="external">SEE ALSO: Trump hosting GOP senators at White House on Obamacare repeal</a></p>
<p><a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> got personal at times, leaning into Sen. Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican who faces a tough re-election battle next year and is wary of backing the repeal-and-replace effort.</p>
<p>“He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said to laughter.</p>
<p>It’s unclear whether the eleventh-hour gambit will work. Several moderates are still concerned about reining in the Medicaid program for the poor, while a Plan B to repeal Obamacare now and replace it later would sow uncertainty in the insurance markets and leave more than 30 million Americans without health care coverage by 2026, according to budget estimates.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said he will force his members to stand up and be counted next week when he moves to bring a House-passed health care bill to the floor to kick-start debate on <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> measures.</p>
<p>“We cannot keep the commitment we’ve made to the American people to repeal and replace Obamacare unless we get on the bill,” Mr. McConnell said.</p>
<p>A sufficient number of Republicans had threatened to link arms with Democrats and sink efforts to bring a replacement bill or a fallback plan that would gut Obamacare and give Congress two years to devise a new program.</p>
<p>Sen. Susan M. Collins of Maine was the only Republican to object to both options, at least openly, so Republican leaders could be hoping to leave things flexible enough to avoid more than two defections from their 52-seat majority for the procedural motion, with Vice President Mike Pence serving as a tie-breaker if necessary.</p>
<p>“There is a large majority in our conference that want to demonstrate to the American people that they intend to keep the commitment they made in four straight elections to repeal Obamacare,” Mr. McConnell said. “I think we all agree it’s better to both repeal and replace. But we could have a vote on either.”</p>
<p>Senators are free to offer a plethora of amendments once the chamber takes up either plan, leaders said, so Republicans will have options and can vote to tweak the underlying proposals.</p>
<p>“Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare,” <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> said.</p>
<p>Conservative groups furious at wavering Republicans piled on. Some threatened to present <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans who resist repeal with busts of Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War turncoat.</p>
<p>“They have to choose. Do they want to be traitors? Do they want to be the next Arlen Specters or Charlie Crists?” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh, referring to notable Republicans who switched to the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Yet some moderate Republicans are itching to move on. They say party leaders should return to regular order and include Democrats, governors and other stakeholders in the health care reform process after attempts to draft an Obamacare replacement in secret and pass it on Republican votes alone fell short.</p>
<p>“I’d like to get some hearings going in the health committee,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, said Wednesday on her way to a floor vote.</p>
<p>Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he will schedule hearings on ways to stabilize the insurance markets in the short term, regardless of how the vote turns out next week.</p>
<p>Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican whose recent surgery forced him to recover at home this week, also called on <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> leaders to “receive input from members of both parties.”</p>
<p>The Congressional Budget Office said the replacement plan that stalled this week would have resulted in 22 million fewer people holding insurance a decade from now. The “repeal, then replace” option would result in 32 million fewer Americans with coverage, the CBO said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The CBO said the repeal-only plan — President Obama vetoed an identical one about 18 months ago — would save $473 billion, but premiums would increase by 25 percent compared with current law in 2018, by 50 percent in 2020 and double by 2026.</p>
<p>Also Wednesday, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey showed only 13 percent of Americans support repealing the health care law without a replacement in hand. It said 8 in 10 believe Republicans should offer to negotiate with Democrats if their own effort fails.</p>
<p>Democrats said Republicans should cut their losses and work on bipartisan fixes to the current program, which failed to attract enough young and healthy people in the early rounds.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said allowing the markets to crumble, as <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Mr. Trump</a> suggested before renewing his replacement push, would be unconscionable.</p>
<p>“President <a href="/topics/donald-trump/" type="external">Trump</a>’s promise to let our health care system collapse is so, so wrong on three counts,” he said. “It’s a failure morally, it’s a failure politically and it’s a remarkable failure of presidential leadership.”</p>
<p>The <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> said it would make the latest round of cost-sharing payments that reimburse insurers that lose money on low-income customers’ costs, but it hasn’t made a long-term commitment to the payments.</p>
<p>Mr. Schumer urged Congress to do three things immediately to prop up the markets: guarantee funding for cost-sharing payments, establish a reinsurance program that backstops insurers that take on high-cost customers and let people in counties without any insurers on their Obamacare exchanges shop on the D.C. small-business portal that members of Congress use.</p>
<p>“These proposals are specific, nonideological and could pass quickly and make life better for millions of Americans,” he said.</p>
<p>But conservatives said if <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans continue to flounder on repeal, the near-term fight is to block Democratic measures that look like more Obamacare.</p>
<p>“Make no mistake, when lawmakers call for ‘bipartisan market stabilization’ they mean more taxpayer money and more regulations,” said Heritage Action for America, a conservative pressure group. “That approach is unacceptable.”</p>
<p>A slate of Republican holdouts were scheduled to huddle in the Capitol late Wednesday, hoping to make progress on the replacement effort.</p>
<p><a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> legislative affairs director Marc Short said the president discussed with <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans the devolving of Medicaid programs to states to give them more flexibility, and an amendment put forward by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah designed to drive down premiums.</p>
<p>Mr. Short said any proposed legislation will retain a stipulation that tax credits cannot be used for abortion funding and will include a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood.</p>
<p>Despite long odds, some <a href="/topics/senate/" type="external">Senate</a> Republicans said the <a href="/topics/white-house/" type="external">White House</a> summit gave the repeal-and-replace effort new life.</p>
<p>“Sometimes when you are facing defeat and nobody wants to accept it, that prompts people to rethink positions, open up their minds,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican. “People talk, another accommodation here or there — we want to get a result, we all want to fix this problem. We’re just not giving up. I think that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2017/jul/19/donald-trump-delivers-ultimatum-gop-health-care-bi/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 100 |
<p />
<p>Oil rose on Monday after Canada's most destructive wildfire in recent memory knocked out over a million barrels in daily production capacity, but caution among investors prevented a return to late April's 2016 price highs.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The lost capacity is equivalent to well over a third of the country's typical daily production, and almost all of Canada's crude from oil sands is exported to the United States.</p>
<p>U.S. crude futures rose 65 cents to $45.31 a barrel by 1118 GMT, having risen earlier by as much as $1.28, while Brent crude futures gained 40 cents to trade at $45.77 a barrel.</p>
<p>The fire, which broke out on May 1, has forced three major oil firms to warn they will be unable to deliver on some contracts for Canadian crude.</p>
<p>The impact of the production loss has been far more marked in the U.S. crude market, where prices for West Texas Intermediate oil for delivery in July are now above those for Brent.</p>
<p>Investors now hold near-record high bets on a rising oil price, which analysts say might mean there is less scope for Brent to rally after having gained 25 percent in a month.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"Positioning has been already very stretched in the oil market ... Some must have taken the opportunity to exit, so that's one angle that momentum is slowing down," Barclays Capital commodities strategist Miswin Mahesh said.</p>
<p>"There is a slight fear that prices have recovered too quickly, and we risk repeating the same price trajectory seen around Q2 2015, where the rally slowed down the market balancing process," he added.</p>
<p>Canadian officials on Sunday showed some optimism as favorable weather helped fire fighters, driving the flames away from the oil sands town Fort McMurray, but there was no timeline for a restart of operations at evacuated sites.</p>
<p>"The market is close to balanced ... when we consider the large amount of supply offline in Canada and elsewhere, which could last for months," Morgan Stanley said.</p>
<p>U.S. shale oil output is in decline and production is also falling in Latin America, Asia and Nigeria, eroding a 1-2 million barrels per day supply overhang that pulled down oil prices by 70 percent between 2014 and early 2016.</p>
<p>Markets were also watching Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, where a government shake-up over the weekend included the appointment of Khalid al-Falih as head of the new Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources.</p>
<p>"Changes in Saudi Arabia oil leadership only underscore the shift in strategy to one focused on market share over price," Morgan Stanley said.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Barani Krishnan in New York; Editing by Dale Hudson and Susan Thomas)</p> | U.S. Crude Rises on Canadian Wildfire Outages and Saudi Reshuffle | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/09/u-s-crude-rises-on-canadian-wildfire-outages-and-saudi-reshuffle.html | 2016-05-09 | 0right
| U.S. Crude Rises on Canadian Wildfire Outages and Saudi Reshuffle
<p />
<p>Oil rose on Monday after Canada's most destructive wildfire in recent memory knocked out over a million barrels in daily production capacity, but caution among investors prevented a return to late April's 2016 price highs.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The lost capacity is equivalent to well over a third of the country's typical daily production, and almost all of Canada's crude from oil sands is exported to the United States.</p>
<p>U.S. crude futures rose 65 cents to $45.31 a barrel by 1118 GMT, having risen earlier by as much as $1.28, while Brent crude futures gained 40 cents to trade at $45.77 a barrel.</p>
<p>The fire, which broke out on May 1, has forced three major oil firms to warn they will be unable to deliver on some contracts for Canadian crude.</p>
<p>The impact of the production loss has been far more marked in the U.S. crude market, where prices for West Texas Intermediate oil for delivery in July are now above those for Brent.</p>
<p>Investors now hold near-record high bets on a rising oil price, which analysts say might mean there is less scope for Brent to rally after having gained 25 percent in a month.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"Positioning has been already very stretched in the oil market ... Some must have taken the opportunity to exit, so that's one angle that momentum is slowing down," Barclays Capital commodities strategist Miswin Mahesh said.</p>
<p>"There is a slight fear that prices have recovered too quickly, and we risk repeating the same price trajectory seen around Q2 2015, where the rally slowed down the market balancing process," he added.</p>
<p>Canadian officials on Sunday showed some optimism as favorable weather helped fire fighters, driving the flames away from the oil sands town Fort McMurray, but there was no timeline for a restart of operations at evacuated sites.</p>
<p>"The market is close to balanced ... when we consider the large amount of supply offline in Canada and elsewhere, which could last for months," Morgan Stanley said.</p>
<p>U.S. shale oil output is in decline and production is also falling in Latin America, Asia and Nigeria, eroding a 1-2 million barrels per day supply overhang that pulled down oil prices by 70 percent between 2014 and early 2016.</p>
<p>Markets were also watching Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, where a government shake-up over the weekend included the appointment of Khalid al-Falih as head of the new Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources.</p>
<p>"Changes in Saudi Arabia oil leadership only underscore the shift in strategy to one focused on market share over price," Morgan Stanley said.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Barani Krishnan in New York; Editing by Dale Hudson and Susan Thomas)</p> | 101 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Historically, the Nasdaq 100 hasn't been well-known as a habitat for dividend stocks. The tech-heavy exchange was full of companies that tended to reinvest their profits into growth projects rather than returning capital to shareholders. But in recent years, more Nasdaq-listed companies have are looking at dividends as a critical part of their total return success.</p>
<p>Below, we examine the 10 top-yielding dividend stocks in the Nasdaq 100 today, with an eye toward identifying whether any of them give you the combination of income and growth prospects that make them ideal candidates for your portfolio.</p>
<p>Here are the 10 highest-yielding stocks among the Nasdaq 100 as of Aug. 18:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Data source: Yahoo! Finance.</p>
<p>The most obvious thing about this chart is the huge lead that Seagate Technology has over its Nasdaq 100 brethren. The maker of hard-disk drives and other data storage products has long been on many investors' danger lists in terms of expectations for a dividend cut in the future, especially because the company has been under considerable pressure as the mobile revolution reduces the importance of PCs, with their traditional reliance on hard drives for storage. In addition, Seagate's free cash flow has been less than its dividend payments in the first two quarters of 2016.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, such a high yield would indeed be a danger sign. However, Seagate has actually seen its yield drop from double-digit percentages earlier this year as the stock recovered somewhat from lows below $19 a share, and optimism about the company's prospects are the primary cause. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/05/how-seagate-technology-plc-gained-31-in-july.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Investors were pleased by Seagate's recent restructuring announcements Opens a New Window.</a>, and even though the company expects to reduce production of hard drives, it is looking at focusing more on high-end enterprise applications, which carry higher margins. In addition, efforts to expand its exposure to flash memory and solid-state drives could represent growth opportunities for Seagate as well. Rival Western Digital has also seen some positive movement in its share price, and although its yield also remains high, rays of hope have emerged for the data storage industry.</p>
<p>Another trend you can see in this list of stocks is that it includes many former high-flyers that have come upon tough times. In the semiconductor industry, for instance, Qualcomm and Intel are both going through the pains of adapting to changing conditions in the PC and mobile chip businesses. Cisco has seen similar changes afflict its networking hardware unit. Yet an recently improving tech sector has lifted those stocks and sent their yields lower compared to where they were early in 2016.</p>
<p>Among the stocks above, however, there are some interesting growth candidates. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/06/corporate-profits-in-britain-could-soar-and-brexit.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Vodafone has struggled due to competitive pressure Opens a New Window.</a> in the European wireless telecom market, but the decline in the British pound could bolster its profits due to favorable foreign-exchange impacts and help send the stock higher. Moreover, expansion efforts in emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region could also add to growth. Even though Vodafone no longer has its exposure to the U.S. market after selling its minority stake in Verizon Wireless, the British telecom arguably has even better prospects because of the potential in many underserved emerging markets.</p>
<p>At the same time, Paychex has exposure to the strong U.S. economy. By offering payroll services to employers, especially small and mid-sized businesses, Paychex keeps its finger on the pulse of American employment trends. As job growth has increased and the economy has recovered from the financial crisis, Paychex has been able to sustaining its own growth. With the U.S. still outpacing its peers overseas economically, Paychex offers not only an attractive yield but also plenty of possibilities for rising share prices.</p>
<p>For dividend investors looking at the Nasdaq as a source of stock ideas, the index's traditional aversion to dividends has almost entirely disappeared. By focusing on the stocks with the best growth prospects, however, you'll ensure that you not only get paid while you wait for companies to reach their full potential but also enjoy share-price appreciation when they succeed in their growth goals. Seagate offers that mix for those who are willing to assume the execution risk of the storage-device maker's turnaround efforts, and both Vodafone and Paychex also have opportunities to expand their respective businesses to give dividend investors even more of what they want in the months and years ahead.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2759&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of Western Digital. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Intel. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | The 10 Top Nasdaq 100 Dividend Stocks: Do Any Belong in Your Portfolio? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/19/10-top-nasdaq-100-dividend-stocks-do-any-belong-in-your-portfolio.html | 2016-08-19 | 0right
| The 10 Top Nasdaq 100 Dividend Stocks: Do Any Belong in Your Portfolio?
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Historically, the Nasdaq 100 hasn't been well-known as a habitat for dividend stocks. The tech-heavy exchange was full of companies that tended to reinvest their profits into growth projects rather than returning capital to shareholders. But in recent years, more Nasdaq-listed companies have are looking at dividends as a critical part of their total return success.</p>
<p>Below, we examine the 10 top-yielding dividend stocks in the Nasdaq 100 today, with an eye toward identifying whether any of them give you the combination of income and growth prospects that make them ideal candidates for your portfolio.</p>
<p>Here are the 10 highest-yielding stocks among the Nasdaq 100 as of Aug. 18:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Data source: Yahoo! Finance.</p>
<p>The most obvious thing about this chart is the huge lead that Seagate Technology has over its Nasdaq 100 brethren. The maker of hard-disk drives and other data storage products has long been on many investors' danger lists in terms of expectations for a dividend cut in the future, especially because the company has been under considerable pressure as the mobile revolution reduces the importance of PCs, with their traditional reliance on hard drives for storage. In addition, Seagate's free cash flow has been less than its dividend payments in the first two quarters of 2016.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, such a high yield would indeed be a danger sign. However, Seagate has actually seen its yield drop from double-digit percentages earlier this year as the stock recovered somewhat from lows below $19 a share, and optimism about the company's prospects are the primary cause. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/05/how-seagate-technology-plc-gained-31-in-july.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Investors were pleased by Seagate's recent restructuring announcements Opens a New Window.</a>, and even though the company expects to reduce production of hard drives, it is looking at focusing more on high-end enterprise applications, which carry higher margins. In addition, efforts to expand its exposure to flash memory and solid-state drives could represent growth opportunities for Seagate as well. Rival Western Digital has also seen some positive movement in its share price, and although its yield also remains high, rays of hope have emerged for the data storage industry.</p>
<p>Another trend you can see in this list of stocks is that it includes many former high-flyers that have come upon tough times. In the semiconductor industry, for instance, Qualcomm and Intel are both going through the pains of adapting to changing conditions in the PC and mobile chip businesses. Cisco has seen similar changes afflict its networking hardware unit. Yet an recently improving tech sector has lifted those stocks and sent their yields lower compared to where they were early in 2016.</p>
<p>Among the stocks above, however, there are some interesting growth candidates. <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/06/corporate-profits-in-britain-could-soar-and-brexit.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Vodafone has struggled due to competitive pressure Opens a New Window.</a> in the European wireless telecom market, but the decline in the British pound could bolster its profits due to favorable foreign-exchange impacts and help send the stock higher. Moreover, expansion efforts in emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region could also add to growth. Even though Vodafone no longer has its exposure to the U.S. market after selling its minority stake in Verizon Wireless, the British telecom arguably has even better prospects because of the potential in many underserved emerging markets.</p>
<p>At the same time, Paychex has exposure to the strong U.S. economy. By offering payroll services to employers, especially small and mid-sized businesses, Paychex keeps its finger on the pulse of American employment trends. As job growth has increased and the economy has recovered from the financial crisis, Paychex has been able to sustaining its own growth. With the U.S. still outpacing its peers overseas economically, Paychex offers not only an attractive yield but also plenty of possibilities for rising share prices.</p>
<p>For dividend investors looking at the Nasdaq as a source of stock ideas, the index's traditional aversion to dividends has almost entirely disappeared. By focusing on the stocks with the best growth prospects, however, you'll ensure that you not only get paid while you wait for companies to reach their full potential but also enjoy share-price appreciation when they succeed in their growth goals. Seagate offers that mix for those who are willing to assume the execution risk of the storage-device maker's turnaround efforts, and both Vodafone and Paychex also have opportunities to expand their respective businesses to give dividend investors even more of what they want in the months and years ahead.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2759&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of Western Digital. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Intel. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 102 |
<p>Sacramento, CA — Body camera footage has now been released by the Sacramento police department showing the moments leading up to the moment police decided to invade&#160;Zityrua Abraham’s apartment. The police threw the pregnant woman to the ground in the process of kicking down the door of the home they believed the suspect they were pursuing had just entered.</p>
<p>Commentary by Jon Masters,</p>
<p>As previously reported&#160;she and her family were outside their apartment, and Abraham noticed the police, but all of a sudden they came rushing in. She said the person they were really looking for was in an adjacent building. Nevertheless, she attempted to tell the police that she had an 18-month old child sleeping in the bedroom. However, according to Abraham, they didn’t care.</p>
<p>After one of the officers threw her to the ground, throwing her on her stomach, she began having contractions. “The doctor said the way that I landed, my body twisted the wrong way ’cause my left side hurts, and I landed all right here on my right side,” she said at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>Once officers gained entry into the home, by kicking down the door, they apprehended her mother’s boyfriend. Police officers told her that her mother’s boyfriend looked like a car thief suspect they were pursuing. Her mother’s boyfriend had entered their apartment to get a glass of water just before police stormed in after him.</p>
<p>Abraham went immediately to local&#160; <a href="http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/body-camera-video-released-in-sacramento-police-incident-involving-pregnant-woman/" type="external">News Channel Fox 40</a>&#160;to decry the treatment she received by those sworn to protect and serve her best interests. According to the news reports, police blamed Abraham for getting in the way. Sgt. Bryce Heinlein reflected on the events of the day telling reporters:</p>
<p>At that point one of the officers grabbed the female by the arm. During that time she fell to the ground.</p>
<p>Abraham scoffs at the notion she somehow fell down on her own accord. She responded:</p>
<p>I have a baby in my stomach, I’m not fixing to just fall or exaggeratedly fall.&#160; I’m not fixing to do anything to harm my son.</p>
<p>When asked if the actions of the officer who allegedly threw her to the ground where appropriate Heinlein said:</p>
<p>To this day, Abraham maintains her innocence and says the whole home invasion/arrest of her mother’s boyfriend caught her off-guard. She rejects any notion that she and her family are somehow, someway, to blame for what happened when police mistook her mom’s boyfriend for their suspect. She said:</p>
<p>I wasn’t in the way. I was telling them this is my home, trying to figure out what’s going on. I got a 1-year-old that lives here. We wasn’t doing nothing but minding our business that day.</p>
<p>Making matters worse for Abraham, when police entered her apartment they kicked down the door and did not fix it. Luckily, however, neighbors were more helpful than police and actually nailed the frame back together while she was in the hospital.</p>
<p>“I knew they were going to try to justify this whole thing. Right is right and wrong is wrong and. That was wrong what they did, all the way around,” said Abraham.</p>
<p>As you watch the video below, remember, none of the people involved in this raid had committed a crime and no one was arrested — yet all their lives were put in danger thanks to the blatant incompetence of the police.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Raw and Uncut video,</p> | WATCH: Cops Raid Wrong House, Assault Pregnant Woman & Destroy Her Property | false | https://studionewsnetwork.com/news/watch-cops-raid-wrong-house-assault-pregnant-woman-destroy-her-property/ | 2017-08-18 | 3left-center
| WATCH: Cops Raid Wrong House, Assault Pregnant Woman & Destroy Her Property
<p>Sacramento, CA — Body camera footage has now been released by the Sacramento police department showing the moments leading up to the moment police decided to invade&#160;Zityrua Abraham’s apartment. The police threw the pregnant woman to the ground in the process of kicking down the door of the home they believed the suspect they were pursuing had just entered.</p>
<p>Commentary by Jon Masters,</p>
<p>As previously reported&#160;she and her family were outside their apartment, and Abraham noticed the police, but all of a sudden they came rushing in. She said the person they were really looking for was in an adjacent building. Nevertheless, she attempted to tell the police that she had an 18-month old child sleeping in the bedroom. However, according to Abraham, they didn’t care.</p>
<p>After one of the officers threw her to the ground, throwing her on her stomach, she began having contractions. “The doctor said the way that I landed, my body twisted the wrong way ’cause my left side hurts, and I landed all right here on my right side,” she said at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>Once officers gained entry into the home, by kicking down the door, they apprehended her mother’s boyfriend. Police officers told her that her mother’s boyfriend looked like a car thief suspect they were pursuing. Her mother’s boyfriend had entered their apartment to get a glass of water just before police stormed in after him.</p>
<p>Abraham went immediately to local&#160; <a href="http://fox40.com/2017/08/17/body-camera-video-released-in-sacramento-police-incident-involving-pregnant-woman/" type="external">News Channel Fox 40</a>&#160;to decry the treatment she received by those sworn to protect and serve her best interests. According to the news reports, police blamed Abraham for getting in the way. Sgt. Bryce Heinlein reflected on the events of the day telling reporters:</p>
<p>At that point one of the officers grabbed the female by the arm. During that time she fell to the ground.</p>
<p>Abraham scoffs at the notion she somehow fell down on her own accord. She responded:</p>
<p>I have a baby in my stomach, I’m not fixing to just fall or exaggeratedly fall.&#160; I’m not fixing to do anything to harm my son.</p>
<p>When asked if the actions of the officer who allegedly threw her to the ground where appropriate Heinlein said:</p>
<p>To this day, Abraham maintains her innocence and says the whole home invasion/arrest of her mother’s boyfriend caught her off-guard. She rejects any notion that she and her family are somehow, someway, to blame for what happened when police mistook her mom’s boyfriend for their suspect. She said:</p>
<p>I wasn’t in the way. I was telling them this is my home, trying to figure out what’s going on. I got a 1-year-old that lives here. We wasn’t doing nothing but minding our business that day.</p>
<p>Making matters worse for Abraham, when police entered her apartment they kicked down the door and did not fix it. Luckily, however, neighbors were more helpful than police and actually nailed the frame back together while she was in the hospital.</p>
<p>“I knew they were going to try to justify this whole thing. Right is right and wrong is wrong and. That was wrong what they did, all the way around,” said Abraham.</p>
<p>As you watch the video below, remember, none of the people involved in this raid had committed a crime and no one was arrested — yet all their lives were put in danger thanks to the blatant incompetence of the police.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Raw and Uncut video,</p> | 103 |
<p>Moving merchandise for Amazon in the Washington Post.</p>
<p>Amazon.com rang up its biggest sales day ever on Tuesday as shoppers hit up its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/12/amazons-prime-day-is-here-with-100000-deals-and-a-lot-of-hype/" type="external">Prime Day event</a>, a day-long pageant of deals available only to members of its Prime subscription program.</p>
<p>That was the lead on a news story in the Washington Post ( <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/13/prime-day-sets-sales-record-for-amazon/" type="external">7/13/16</a>)—owned, of course, by Amazon CEO <a href="" type="internal">Jeff Bezos</a>.</p>
<p>And the story discloses that parenthetically: “(Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns the Washington Post.)” But there seems to be some confusion: While welcome, disclosure is not an inoculation. We still look askance at a news story with lines like, “That the sale drew such strong spending from shoppers for a second year suggests that Amazon is making inroads establishing this as an appointment summer shopping event.”</p>
<p>When the closest thing to a critical angle is to note that some people were angry that a challenging checkout process meant “they weren’t able to take advantage of the deals,” we’ve gone beyond the sort of a problem that mere disclosure can fix.</p>
<p>Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR, and the producer and host of CounterSpin.</p>
<p>Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>, or via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost" type="external">@washingtonpost</a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.</p> | A Prime Day to Celebrate the Boss’s Business | true | http://fair.org/home/a-prime-day-to-celebrate-the-bosss-business/ | 2016-07-17 | 4left
| A Prime Day to Celebrate the Boss’s Business
<p>Moving merchandise for Amazon in the Washington Post.</p>
<p>Amazon.com rang up its biggest sales day ever on Tuesday as shoppers hit up its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/12/amazons-prime-day-is-here-with-100000-deals-and-a-lot-of-hype/" type="external">Prime Day event</a>, a day-long pageant of deals available only to members of its Prime subscription program.</p>
<p>That was the lead on a news story in the Washington Post ( <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/13/prime-day-sets-sales-record-for-amazon/" type="external">7/13/16</a>)—owned, of course, by Amazon CEO <a href="" type="internal">Jeff Bezos</a>.</p>
<p>And the story discloses that parenthetically: “(Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns the Washington Post.)” But there seems to be some confusion: While welcome, disclosure is not an inoculation. We still look askance at a news story with lines like, “That the sale drew such strong spending from shoppers for a second year suggests that Amazon is making inroads establishing this as an appointment summer shopping event.”</p>
<p>When the closest thing to a critical angle is to note that some people were angry that a challenging checkout process meant “they weren’t able to take advantage of the deals,” we’ve gone beyond the sort of a problem that mere disclosure can fix.</p>
<p>Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR, and the producer and host of CounterSpin.</p>
<p>Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>, or via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost" type="external">@washingtonpost</a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.</p> | 104 |
<p>The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Great Britain, on the grounds that they deserved representative government and popular sovereignty– something denied to them by the British crown.</p>
<p>Iraq was occupied by American troops in 2003 after an illegal invasion, and it is still so occupied. The viceroy appointed by George W. Bush, Paul Bremer, had no legal charter from the US Congress and represented no one, having never been elected to anything. He wrote dozens of laws for the Iraqis by fiat. They are still technically the law of the land in Iraq. He used Iraq’s oil revenue, billions of dollars worth, to run his interim government, even though no Iraqi voted to give it to him for that purpose. In subsequent years the US intervened heavy-handedly in Iraqi political affairs and still does so today. Few complaints of the Founding Fathers against Britain could not be lodged against the United States by Iraq.</p>
<p>All through spring of 2009, US officers in Iraq heavily lobbied the new president, Barack Obama, not to honor the Status of Forces Agreement that George W. Bush had negotiated with the Iraqi parliament during his last months in office. It called for troop reductions. The officers opposed them. It called for US forces to cease actively patrolling major Iraqi cities on June 30, 2009. the officers said that step was foolhardy, and would make it impossible to keep up their collection of intelligence on urban guerrillas. It called for rapid US troop reductions. The officers argued that Iraq would fall back into instability.</p>
<p>Obama stuck to his guns, and the US soldiers stopped patrolling the cities independently on June 30, 2009. In July of that year, the number of attacks by guerrillas and the number of civilians killed both fell by one third. It appears that the patrols were causing violence, not stopping it, since the guerrillas attacked the patrols and ended up killing civilians.</p>
<p>The troop withdrawal also proceeded apace throughout the past year. Although Iraq remains in a low-intensity civil war, the monthly death toll of civilians and security forces averages 300-400 now, compared to 2500 a month in summer of 2006. At the height of the troop escalation or surge there were around 170,000 US troops in Iraq. Today there are about 88,000 and the number is rapidly falling.</p>
<p>Everything the naysayers in the Pentagon alleged about the effect of implementing the SOFA was wrong.</p>
<p>Now unnamed sources in Iraq <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/fighting-but-not-calling-it-combat/" type="external">are leaking again to the New York Times</a>. They want to insist that the timetable for troop withdrawal in the SOFA is unrealistic. They cannot imagine that US troops will really leave by the end of 2011. They are sure that the SOFA will be renegotiated by the new Iraqi government whenever it is finally formed.</p>
<p>While the SOFA could be tinkered with, there are powerful forces working against that outcome. The Sadrists, fundamentalist Shiites who follow cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, may well be kingmakers of the new government, and they are dead set against any change to the SOFA timetables. The Sadrists are highly politically networked and their relative success in the March 7 parliamentary elections attests to their political strength even today. They could prove spoilers of any attempt by the US to drag its feet on withdrawal, since they can put thousands of protesters and hundreds of guerrillas in the street.</p>
<p>Nor is the threat only of renewed political unrest among Sadrists if the US stays in force. Al-Hayat reported on May 24, “The local government in Basra announced yesterday its commitment to the security agreement signed by Iraq and the United States for scheduling the US forces’ withdrawal. The announcement came in reply to statements by Al-Sadr Trend in the governorate about preparing its armed wing “Al-Mahdi Army” to resume the resistance activity against the remaining forces in the governorate and to wait for orders to do this from Trend Leader Muqtada al-Sadr.”</p>
<p>It is true that the 50,000 or so troops that will be left in Iraq as of September may not all be ‘non-combat’ units, since there will be some rebranding. And it is true that Iraq will need the US air force for years to come, for logistics purposes. But to say that the timetable will be tinkered with at the request of the Iraqi parliament in any major way is wishful thinking.</p>
<p>The US commanders were expecting to be asked by the Iraqi officers to go on joint patrols in the major cities. They got few invitations, even though they had trained many of the Iraqi officers who now gave them the cold shoulder. The new Iraqi military is perfectly capable of patrolling on its own now in cities such as Baghdad, and of facing down any ordinary threat from militias. The US is not needed for routine security patrols. While the Iraqi troops have not been able to establish order in Mosul or in Diyala Province, the prospect of the dwindling number of US troops doing so is slim to none. Iraq is just going to be a little unstable for a few years, and even if US troops stayed in numbers past the deadlines, it is highly unlikely that they could miraculously lend the place stability. Bush knocked Iraq off balance, and it will likely remain off balance for a good long time. Bush was not authorized by the Iraqi people to destroy the country. He was acting more like his namesake, King George III, than like a president who won an election.</p>
<p>Moreover, as the US military has increasingly focused on Afghanistan, many will realize that they just don’t have the resources to continue in Iraq.</p>
<p>Iraqi factions are finding it hard to form a government in the wake of the March 7 parliamentary elections. But they have a perfectly good interim government, that of incumbent Nuri al-Maliki, in the meantime. And it took Lebanon 5 months to form a government recently. The Lebanon case is instructive because the national unity government that came out of months of wrangling is fairly representative and seems to have forestalled further trouble of the sort we saw in May 2008. Vice President <a href="" type="external">Biden may or may not succeed in helping the factions make progress during his visit to Baghdad this weekend</a>, but contrary to what some American politicians say, there is no reason the process of government-formation cannot be protracted. Consensus is better in Iraqi politics than up-and-down-votes that cause some faction to lose and to lose face.</p>
<p>For the pragmatic reason that the US cannot afford Iraq, and because it is the right thing to do, the Obama administration should withdraw in a systematic and deliberate manner from Iraq. We owe its people their independence. It is what we used, at least, to stand for.</p> | On Fourth of July, Let Iraq Go | true | http://juancole.com/2010/07/on-fourth-of-july-let-iraq-go.html | 2010-07-04 | 4left
| On Fourth of July, Let Iraq Go
<p>The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Great Britain, on the grounds that they deserved representative government and popular sovereignty– something denied to them by the British crown.</p>
<p>Iraq was occupied by American troops in 2003 after an illegal invasion, and it is still so occupied. The viceroy appointed by George W. Bush, Paul Bremer, had no legal charter from the US Congress and represented no one, having never been elected to anything. He wrote dozens of laws for the Iraqis by fiat. They are still technically the law of the land in Iraq. He used Iraq’s oil revenue, billions of dollars worth, to run his interim government, even though no Iraqi voted to give it to him for that purpose. In subsequent years the US intervened heavy-handedly in Iraqi political affairs and still does so today. Few complaints of the Founding Fathers against Britain could not be lodged against the United States by Iraq.</p>
<p>All through spring of 2009, US officers in Iraq heavily lobbied the new president, Barack Obama, not to honor the Status of Forces Agreement that George W. Bush had negotiated with the Iraqi parliament during his last months in office. It called for troop reductions. The officers opposed them. It called for US forces to cease actively patrolling major Iraqi cities on June 30, 2009. the officers said that step was foolhardy, and would make it impossible to keep up their collection of intelligence on urban guerrillas. It called for rapid US troop reductions. The officers argued that Iraq would fall back into instability.</p>
<p>Obama stuck to his guns, and the US soldiers stopped patrolling the cities independently on June 30, 2009. In July of that year, the number of attacks by guerrillas and the number of civilians killed both fell by one third. It appears that the patrols were causing violence, not stopping it, since the guerrillas attacked the patrols and ended up killing civilians.</p>
<p>The troop withdrawal also proceeded apace throughout the past year. Although Iraq remains in a low-intensity civil war, the monthly death toll of civilians and security forces averages 300-400 now, compared to 2500 a month in summer of 2006. At the height of the troop escalation or surge there were around 170,000 US troops in Iraq. Today there are about 88,000 and the number is rapidly falling.</p>
<p>Everything the naysayers in the Pentagon alleged about the effect of implementing the SOFA was wrong.</p>
<p>Now unnamed sources in Iraq <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/fighting-but-not-calling-it-combat/" type="external">are leaking again to the New York Times</a>. They want to insist that the timetable for troop withdrawal in the SOFA is unrealistic. They cannot imagine that US troops will really leave by the end of 2011. They are sure that the SOFA will be renegotiated by the new Iraqi government whenever it is finally formed.</p>
<p>While the SOFA could be tinkered with, there are powerful forces working against that outcome. The Sadrists, fundamentalist Shiites who follow cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, may well be kingmakers of the new government, and they are dead set against any change to the SOFA timetables. The Sadrists are highly politically networked and their relative success in the March 7 parliamentary elections attests to their political strength even today. They could prove spoilers of any attempt by the US to drag its feet on withdrawal, since they can put thousands of protesters and hundreds of guerrillas in the street.</p>
<p>Nor is the threat only of renewed political unrest among Sadrists if the US stays in force. Al-Hayat reported on May 24, “The local government in Basra announced yesterday its commitment to the security agreement signed by Iraq and the United States for scheduling the US forces’ withdrawal. The announcement came in reply to statements by Al-Sadr Trend in the governorate about preparing its armed wing “Al-Mahdi Army” to resume the resistance activity against the remaining forces in the governorate and to wait for orders to do this from Trend Leader Muqtada al-Sadr.”</p>
<p>It is true that the 50,000 or so troops that will be left in Iraq as of September may not all be ‘non-combat’ units, since there will be some rebranding. And it is true that Iraq will need the US air force for years to come, for logistics purposes. But to say that the timetable will be tinkered with at the request of the Iraqi parliament in any major way is wishful thinking.</p>
<p>The US commanders were expecting to be asked by the Iraqi officers to go on joint patrols in the major cities. They got few invitations, even though they had trained many of the Iraqi officers who now gave them the cold shoulder. The new Iraqi military is perfectly capable of patrolling on its own now in cities such as Baghdad, and of facing down any ordinary threat from militias. The US is not needed for routine security patrols. While the Iraqi troops have not been able to establish order in Mosul or in Diyala Province, the prospect of the dwindling number of US troops doing so is slim to none. Iraq is just going to be a little unstable for a few years, and even if US troops stayed in numbers past the deadlines, it is highly unlikely that they could miraculously lend the place stability. Bush knocked Iraq off balance, and it will likely remain off balance for a good long time. Bush was not authorized by the Iraqi people to destroy the country. He was acting more like his namesake, King George III, than like a president who won an election.</p>
<p>Moreover, as the US military has increasingly focused on Afghanistan, many will realize that they just don’t have the resources to continue in Iraq.</p>
<p>Iraqi factions are finding it hard to form a government in the wake of the March 7 parliamentary elections. But they have a perfectly good interim government, that of incumbent Nuri al-Maliki, in the meantime. And it took Lebanon 5 months to form a government recently. The Lebanon case is instructive because the national unity government that came out of months of wrangling is fairly representative and seems to have forestalled further trouble of the sort we saw in May 2008. Vice President <a href="" type="external">Biden may or may not succeed in helping the factions make progress during his visit to Baghdad this weekend</a>, but contrary to what some American politicians say, there is no reason the process of government-formation cannot be protracted. Consensus is better in Iraqi politics than up-and-down-votes that cause some faction to lose and to lose face.</p>
<p>For the pragmatic reason that the US cannot afford Iraq, and because it is the right thing to do, the Obama administration should withdraw in a systematic and deliberate manner from Iraq. We owe its people their independence. It is what we used, at least, to stand for.</p> | 105 |
<p>On Tuesday, President Obama held a ceremony at the White House to announce his use of executive authority to expand the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/content/ca/en/prog/blm_special_areas/nm/ccnm.html" type="external">California Coastal National Monument</a> (CCNM) to include the Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands on the Mendocino Coast. This is the first land-based addition to the CCNM and permanently protects more than 1,660 acres of beach, bluffs, and the Garcia River estuary. The area is home to rare and endangered species such as coho salmon, steelhead, the Point Arena mountain beaver, and the Behren’s silverspot butterfly. The Mendocino Coast of California was recently picked for the number 3 spot in the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/10/travel/2014-places-to-go.html" type="external">“52 Places to Go in 2014.”</a>&#160;This is the 10th national monument designated by President Obama. For comparison, President Clinton created 19 new monuments and enlarged three others, while President George W. Bush used his power under the Antiquities Act just 5 times.</p>
<p>While Obama has been criticized in the past for his reluctance to declare monuments, there appears to be new momentum in the administration to conserve. Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/25/president-obama-designates-five-new-national-monuments" type="external">announced five designations</a> before leaving office last year, and in November, his successor Sally Jewell delivered a major agenda-setting speech on conservation that challenged Congress to pass the many backlogged conservation bills that are pending, saying that “President Obama is ready and willing to step up where Congress falls short.”</p>
<p>Obama confirmed this in his state of the Union speech, saying — “I’ll use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations.”</p>
<p>Even Congress seems to be hearing the message. Although the previous 112th Congress became somewhat notorious as the first in decades not to protect a single new acre of public lands, last Tuesday, Congress passed a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/congress-passes-bill-to-protect-michigans-sleeping-bear-dunes-as-wilderness-area/2014/03/04/89c0dc34-a3ee-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html" type="external">bill to set aside</a> more than 30,000 acres of wilderness at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan.</p>
<p>“The President’s decision to protect this stunning section of California’s coastline shows his commitment to helping communities protect the lands and waters they love,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “It also sends a clear signal to Congress that — as the President has already made clear — he is not going to continue to wait while dozens of parks and wilderness bills remain stalled, year after year.”</p>
<p>“The President is right to use his authority to ensure that America’s most special places are protected for everyone to experience and enjoy.”</p>
<p>Despite the new momentum to conserve, Obama still has a long way to go to establish balance between conservation and fossil fuel development on federal lands. From the beginning of Obama’s first term through 2013, 7.3 million acres of public lands were leased to oil and gas companies, while just 2.9 million acres were permanently protected.</p>
<p>The newly-designated area has long been considered for special protection. In July, the House <a href="http://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/huffman-introduces-first-bill-as-us-congressman" type="external">unanimously approved</a> Rep. Jared Huffman’s (D-CA) proposal to add the area to the California Coastal National Monument, but subsequently the bill was left to languish in the Senate.</p>
<p>“I am thrilled that President Obama has preserved these pristine and breathtaking coastal lands,” said Congressman Huffman. “Thousands of new visitors each year will flock to see this gateway to the Coastal National Monument. As they enjoy some of the best ocean views in Northern California, they will also provide a significant boost to the local tourism industry, already Mendocino County’s biggest employer. I thank President Obama for bringing this land into permanent protection as a National Monument.”</p>
<p>“This is great news for small businesses, because entrepreneurs know protecting our natural assets is one way we can enhance the financial success of small businesses and local economies.” said John Arensmeyer, Founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “Small business owners in the West strongly believe the designation of additional national parks and monuments enhances local jobs and the economy.”</p>
<p>The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in New Mexico, the Boulder-White Clouds in Idaho and the Greater Canyonlands in Utah are on the top of conservationists’ wish lists for future monument designation.</p>
<p>In response to the president’s action Rep. Rob Bishop released the following statement. “The legislation was held up in the Senate so the president could usurp the congressional process,” said Bishop. “In other words, the House was punked by the president. Had the Senate done its job, the bill would have been considered and passed under regular order. There was broad support for the measure.”</p> | Obama Creates New National Monument | true | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/11/3390781/obama-new-california-national-monument/ | 2014-03-11 | 4left
| Obama Creates New National Monument
<p>On Tuesday, President Obama held a ceremony at the White House to announce his use of executive authority to expand the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/content/ca/en/prog/blm_special_areas/nm/ccnm.html" type="external">California Coastal National Monument</a> (CCNM) to include the Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands on the Mendocino Coast. This is the first land-based addition to the CCNM and permanently protects more than 1,660 acres of beach, bluffs, and the Garcia River estuary. The area is home to rare and endangered species such as coho salmon, steelhead, the Point Arena mountain beaver, and the Behren’s silverspot butterfly. The Mendocino Coast of California was recently picked for the number 3 spot in the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/10/travel/2014-places-to-go.html" type="external">“52 Places to Go in 2014.”</a>&#160;This is the 10th national monument designated by President Obama. For comparison, President Clinton created 19 new monuments and enlarged three others, while President George W. Bush used his power under the Antiquities Act just 5 times.</p>
<p>While Obama has been criticized in the past for his reluctance to declare monuments, there appears to be new momentum in the administration to conserve. Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/25/president-obama-designates-five-new-national-monuments" type="external">announced five designations</a> before leaving office last year, and in November, his successor Sally Jewell delivered a major agenda-setting speech on conservation that challenged Congress to pass the many backlogged conservation bills that are pending, saying that “President Obama is ready and willing to step up where Congress falls short.”</p>
<p>Obama confirmed this in his state of the Union speech, saying — “I’ll use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations.”</p>
<p>Even Congress seems to be hearing the message. Although the previous 112th Congress became somewhat notorious as the first in decades not to protect a single new acre of public lands, last Tuesday, Congress passed a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/congress-passes-bill-to-protect-michigans-sleeping-bear-dunes-as-wilderness-area/2014/03/04/89c0dc34-a3ee-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html" type="external">bill to set aside</a> more than 30,000 acres of wilderness at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan.</p>
<p>“The President’s decision to protect this stunning section of California’s coastline shows his commitment to helping communities protect the lands and waters they love,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “It also sends a clear signal to Congress that — as the President has already made clear — he is not going to continue to wait while dozens of parks and wilderness bills remain stalled, year after year.”</p>
<p>“The President is right to use his authority to ensure that America’s most special places are protected for everyone to experience and enjoy.”</p>
<p>Despite the new momentum to conserve, Obama still has a long way to go to establish balance between conservation and fossil fuel development on federal lands. From the beginning of Obama’s first term through 2013, 7.3 million acres of public lands were leased to oil and gas companies, while just 2.9 million acres were permanently protected.</p>
<p>The newly-designated area has long been considered for special protection. In July, the House <a href="http://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/huffman-introduces-first-bill-as-us-congressman" type="external">unanimously approved</a> Rep. Jared Huffman’s (D-CA) proposal to add the area to the California Coastal National Monument, but subsequently the bill was left to languish in the Senate.</p>
<p>“I am thrilled that President Obama has preserved these pristine and breathtaking coastal lands,” said Congressman Huffman. “Thousands of new visitors each year will flock to see this gateway to the Coastal National Monument. As they enjoy some of the best ocean views in Northern California, they will also provide a significant boost to the local tourism industry, already Mendocino County’s biggest employer. I thank President Obama for bringing this land into permanent protection as a National Monument.”</p>
<p>“This is great news for small businesses, because entrepreneurs know protecting our natural assets is one way we can enhance the financial success of small businesses and local economies.” said John Arensmeyer, Founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “Small business owners in the West strongly believe the designation of additional national parks and monuments enhances local jobs and the economy.”</p>
<p>The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in New Mexico, the Boulder-White Clouds in Idaho and the Greater Canyonlands in Utah are on the top of conservationists’ wish lists for future monument designation.</p>
<p>In response to the president’s action Rep. Rob Bishop released the following statement. “The legislation was held up in the Senate so the president could usurp the congressional process,” said Bishop. “In other words, the House was punked by the president. Had the Senate done its job, the bill would have been considered and passed under regular order. There was broad support for the measure.”</p> | 106 |
<p>Elon Musk is a man of many hats, with Tesla at the forefront of the electric car revolution and SpaceX in the midst of innovating space transportation. But not all of Musk’s ideas are feasible and some are in the wishful realm rather than reality. One of them is the high-speed transportation system Hyperloop, a $6 billion concept calling for pods to shuttle people between U.S. cities.</p>
<p>Instead of quietly putting the idea away, Musk this week affirmed his commitment by going on Twitter – his preferred platform to make announcements – to share that he was exploring building a Hyperloop test track “for companies and student teams to test out their pods,” <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475312,00.asp" type="external">PC Mag</a> reported, adding the track will likely be at an unspecified location in Texas.</p>
<p>In another tweet, Musk mused he was “also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE.”</p>
<p>Originally introduced by Musk in August 2013 as an alternative to California’s maligned high-speed rail system, Hyperloop would function by transporting people in low-pressure tubes with capsules – or “pods” – with up to 28 passengers each. The pods would move at low and high speeds through the tube on air cushion provided through pressurized air and aerodynamic lift, <a href="http://carfanaticsblog.com/2013/08/12/elon-musk-releases-hyperloop-details/" type="external">Car Fanatics Blog</a> reported. Hyperloop could transport people and freight from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about half-hour and the trip would cost $20 if ridership reached 7.4 million people.</p>
<p>Parallel to Hyperloop, Musk is also focused on artificial intelligence, recently donating $10 million to the Future of Life Institute for a global AI research program, PC Mag reported. The donation is surprising considering Musk raised concerns about AI at an MIT conference.</p>
<p /> | Elon Musk looks to other companies, students to push Hyperloop forward | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/01/17/elon-musk-looks-to-other-companies-students-to-push-hyperloop-forward/ | 2015-01-17 | 3left-center
| Elon Musk looks to other companies, students to push Hyperloop forward
<p>Elon Musk is a man of many hats, with Tesla at the forefront of the electric car revolution and SpaceX in the midst of innovating space transportation. But not all of Musk’s ideas are feasible and some are in the wishful realm rather than reality. One of them is the high-speed transportation system Hyperloop, a $6 billion concept calling for pods to shuttle people between U.S. cities.</p>
<p>Instead of quietly putting the idea away, Musk this week affirmed his commitment by going on Twitter – his preferred platform to make announcements – to share that he was exploring building a Hyperloop test track “for companies and student teams to test out their pods,” <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475312,00.asp" type="external">PC Mag</a> reported, adding the track will likely be at an unspecified location in Texas.</p>
<p>In another tweet, Musk mused he was “also thinking of having an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition, like Formula SAE.”</p>
<p>Originally introduced by Musk in August 2013 as an alternative to California’s maligned high-speed rail system, Hyperloop would function by transporting people in low-pressure tubes with capsules – or “pods” – with up to 28 passengers each. The pods would move at low and high speeds through the tube on air cushion provided through pressurized air and aerodynamic lift, <a href="http://carfanaticsblog.com/2013/08/12/elon-musk-releases-hyperloop-details/" type="external">Car Fanatics Blog</a> reported. Hyperloop could transport people and freight from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about half-hour and the trip would cost $20 if ridership reached 7.4 million people.</p>
<p>Parallel to Hyperloop, Musk is also focused on artificial intelligence, recently donating $10 million to the Future of Life Institute for a global AI research program, PC Mag reported. The donation is surprising considering Musk raised concerns about AI at an MIT conference.</p>
<p /> | 107 |
<p>Stock markets across Asia closed weaker and investors in Europe had a gloomy Monday morning as fears over the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/110723/no-new-debt-deal-after-war-words-between-obama-a" type="external">U.S. debt crisis</a> weighed down sentiment.</p>
<p>U.S. futures were down and gold hit a fresh nominal high over fears that any deal on <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/24/live-blog-the-u-s-debt-battle/?mod=e2tw" type="external">U.S. debt reduction</a> will come too late for the United States to meet an Aug. 2 deadline to avoid defaulting on its debts, the Wall Street Journal said in a live blog of the day's market movements.</p>
<p>"With just days to go now before the Aug. 2 deadline, investors who had previously written the impasse off as political games are now going to seriously consider the possibility of a default," GFT <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110724-705138.html" type="external">Global Markets</a>director of global dealing operations Martin Slaney told Dow Jones Newswires.&#160;</p>
<p>"No doubt there will be some midnight oil burnt between President Obama and Democrat leaders, but even were a deal to be cobbled together, the risk-reward of staying long at this late stage is evaporating."</p>
<p>Tokyo closed 0.81 percent lower, Seoul dropped 0.96 percent, Sydney a hefty 1.58 percent, and Hong Kong fell 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>The Shanghai market was hardest hit, losing 2.16 percent with the additional impact of infrastructure concerns following a fatal <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110723/bullet-train-crash-china-kills-11" type="external">high-speed train crash</a> on the weekend.</p>
<p>(GlobalPost reports: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110724/china-bullet-train-crash-toddler-rescued" type="external">Toddler found alive in China train wreck</a>)</p>
<p>The dollar slumped it to its lowest level against the yen since Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.</p>
<p>In Europe, U.K. banks were sold off as London's FTSE 100 opened 0.6 percent lower at 5898.51. Frankfurt's DAX dropped 0.7 percent and Paris's CAC-40 lost 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>After weeks of agonizing talks, President Barack Obama has been unable to convince Republican leaders that a "grand bargain" on long-term deficit reduction must include <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/110723/no-new-debt-deal-after-war-words-between-obama-a" type="external">tax increases on the rich</a> as well as spending cuts for the poor.</p>
<p>The Republican majority in the lower House have said they will not agree to raise the limit on the country's debt, now totaling $14.3 trillion, to allow the government to service its debts without a deal on the deficit.</p>
<p>Economists including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have warned of catastrophic consequences for the world economy, and U.S. credit worthiness, in the event the world's richest economy defaults.</p>
<p>The stalemate only hardened over the weekend when chief Republican negotiator John Boehner refused to return Obama's telephone calls.</p>
<p>Despite Monday's market turmoil, many analysts still believe neither side will allow a default.</p>
<p>Dariusz Kowalczyk, a senior economist and strategist at <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gNJOT7xyzUluCQUQboVzndlGq33g?docId=CNG.7b60b3003a7af7c33f4f5e84be2d4c22.471" type="external">Credit Agricole</a>CIB, told AFP: "With a week still to go, I think the general sentiment is that there could be many solutions. I expect a deal could be reached before August 2."</p> | Global stocks fall on US debt crisis | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-07-25/global-stocks-fall-us-debt-crisis | 2011-07-25 | 3left-center
| Global stocks fall on US debt crisis
<p>Stock markets across Asia closed weaker and investors in Europe had a gloomy Monday morning as fears over the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/110723/no-new-debt-deal-after-war-words-between-obama-a" type="external">U.S. debt crisis</a> weighed down sentiment.</p>
<p>U.S. futures were down and gold hit a fresh nominal high over fears that any deal on <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/24/live-blog-the-u-s-debt-battle/?mod=e2tw" type="external">U.S. debt reduction</a> will come too late for the United States to meet an Aug. 2 deadline to avoid defaulting on its debts, the Wall Street Journal said in a live blog of the day's market movements.</p>
<p>"With just days to go now before the Aug. 2 deadline, investors who had previously written the impasse off as political games are now going to seriously consider the possibility of a default," GFT <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110724-705138.html" type="external">Global Markets</a>director of global dealing operations Martin Slaney told Dow Jones Newswires.&#160;</p>
<p>"No doubt there will be some midnight oil burnt between President Obama and Democrat leaders, but even were a deal to be cobbled together, the risk-reward of staying long at this late stage is evaporating."</p>
<p>Tokyo closed 0.81 percent lower, Seoul dropped 0.96 percent, Sydney a hefty 1.58 percent, and Hong Kong fell 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>The Shanghai market was hardest hit, losing 2.16 percent with the additional impact of infrastructure concerns following a fatal <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110723/bullet-train-crash-china-kills-11" type="external">high-speed train crash</a> on the weekend.</p>
<p>(GlobalPost reports: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110724/china-bullet-train-crash-toddler-rescued" type="external">Toddler found alive in China train wreck</a>)</p>
<p>The dollar slumped it to its lowest level against the yen since Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.</p>
<p>In Europe, U.K. banks were sold off as London's FTSE 100 opened 0.6 percent lower at 5898.51. Frankfurt's DAX dropped 0.7 percent and Paris's CAC-40 lost 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>After weeks of agonizing talks, President Barack Obama has been unable to convince Republican leaders that a "grand bargain" on long-term deficit reduction must include <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/110723/no-new-debt-deal-after-war-words-between-obama-a" type="external">tax increases on the rich</a> as well as spending cuts for the poor.</p>
<p>The Republican majority in the lower House have said they will not agree to raise the limit on the country's debt, now totaling $14.3 trillion, to allow the government to service its debts without a deal on the deficit.</p>
<p>Economists including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have warned of catastrophic consequences for the world economy, and U.S. credit worthiness, in the event the world's richest economy defaults.</p>
<p>The stalemate only hardened over the weekend when chief Republican negotiator John Boehner refused to return Obama's telephone calls.</p>
<p>Despite Monday's market turmoil, many analysts still believe neither side will allow a default.</p>
<p>Dariusz Kowalczyk, a senior economist and strategist at <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gNJOT7xyzUluCQUQboVzndlGq33g?docId=CNG.7b60b3003a7af7c33f4f5e84be2d4c22.471" type="external">Credit Agricole</a>CIB, told AFP: "With a week still to go, I think the general sentiment is that there could be many solutions. I expect a deal could be reached before August 2."</p> | 108 |
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<p>CINCINNATI — A white university police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist during a traffic stop won’t face a third murder trial, a prosecutor announced Tuesday while saying he’s asking federal authorities to consider possible civil rights charges.</p>
<p>Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said he was dropping the case against Ray Tensing on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the death of Sam DuBose. Two previous juries couldn’t reach a unanimous agreement on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges against the former University of Cincinnati officer.</p>
<p>Deters said he concluded he wouldn’t be able to get a jury to convict Tensing and he feels “badly.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’ve got to do what I think is right,” he said.</p>
<p>Tensing’s attorney, Stewart Mathews, said Deters made the right decision because jurors he talked to after the second trial said they felt there would “never be a unanimous decision” reached in the case.</p>
<p>“The system worked exactly as it’s designed to work,” Mathews said. “We tried it with two separate juries, and neither one could come to a unanimous decision, and that’s our justice system working.”</p>
<p>Deters agreed with Mathews that the U.S. justice system is “the best system in the world” but added: “It’s imperfect.” He referred to outrage among some people over football star O.J. Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles on murder charges.</p>
<p>“The division in this country is profound,” Deters said. “I mean, look at the O.J. Simpson case; people were like, ‘What? Not guilty?’ OK? This goes both ways, hard.”</p>
<p>Simpson is up for parole Thursday in Nevada after his 2008 conviction there on armed robbery and other charges.</p>
<p>Tensing shot DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015. The officer, since fired from his job, testified he feared he was going to be killed. The shooting is among numerous cases across the nation that have called attention to how police deal with blacks. It also highlighted the challenges prosecutors face in getting jurors to convict police officers for shooting when they say they’re under threat.</p>
<p>Tensing, 27, testified in his own defense at both trials and said he feared he could be dragged or run over as DuBose, 43, tried to drive away.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I meant to stop the threat,” he told jurors in his second trial. “I didn’t shoot to kill him. I didn’t shoot to wound him. I shot to stop his actions.”</p>
<p>DuBose’s family and civil rights groups wanted a third trial. DuBose’s family earlier called for a federal investigation and wasn’t satisfied by Deters’ announcement the case will be reviewed.</p>
<p>“We are telling the federal government that we believe Tensing violated Sam’s civil rights, his right to life,” DuBose’s sister Terina Allen said. “Tensing has never demonstrated any reasonable or justifiable cause to put a bullet in Sam’s head on July 19.”</p>
<p>U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said authorities will review evidence from the state court trials to assess whether there are possible federal civil rights offenses that might warrant prosecution.</p>
<p>Deters said Glassman’s office contacted his office after the second hung jury. He said case information has been turned over to the federal authorities.</p>
<p>“I’m hopeful that the U.S. attorney’s office will see fit to proceed in this matter,” Deters said.</p>
<p>Federal authorities recently announced they had ended an investigation without charges in a 2014 police shooting of a black man in a Walmart store in Beavercreek.</p>
<p>DuBose had significant amounts of marijuana and cash on him, and Mathews contends he was desperate to get away from police because he knew he would be headed to jail.</p>
<p>An expert hired by prosecutors said his frame-by-frame analysis of Tensing’s body camera video showed Tensing was not being dragged by the car.</p>
<p>To convict Tensing of murder, jurors had to find he purposely killed DuBose. The charge carries a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison.</p>
<p>The voluntary manslaughter charge means killing during sudden passion or a fit of rage. That carries a possible sentence of three to 11 years with conviction.</p>
<p>The university reached a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose’s family, including free undergraduate tuition for his 13 children.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus and Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Dan Sewell at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/dansewell" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/dansewell</a></p> | Case against officer who killed unarmed motorist is dropped | false | https://abqjournal.com/1034490/case-dropped-vs-cincinnati-ex-cop-in-unarmed-mans-shooting.html | 2017-07-18 | 2least
| Case against officer who killed unarmed motorist is dropped
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<p>CINCINNATI — A white university police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist during a traffic stop won’t face a third murder trial, a prosecutor announced Tuesday while saying he’s asking federal authorities to consider possible civil rights charges.</p>
<p>Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said he was dropping the case against Ray Tensing on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the death of Sam DuBose. Two previous juries couldn’t reach a unanimous agreement on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges against the former University of Cincinnati officer.</p>
<p>Deters said he concluded he wouldn’t be able to get a jury to convict Tensing and he feels “badly.”</p>
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<p>“I’ve got to do what I think is right,” he said.</p>
<p>Tensing’s attorney, Stewart Mathews, said Deters made the right decision because jurors he talked to after the second trial said they felt there would “never be a unanimous decision” reached in the case.</p>
<p>“The system worked exactly as it’s designed to work,” Mathews said. “We tried it with two separate juries, and neither one could come to a unanimous decision, and that’s our justice system working.”</p>
<p>Deters agreed with Mathews that the U.S. justice system is “the best system in the world” but added: “It’s imperfect.” He referred to outrage among some people over football star O.J. Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles on murder charges.</p>
<p>“The division in this country is profound,” Deters said. “I mean, look at the O.J. Simpson case; people were like, ‘What? Not guilty?’ OK? This goes both ways, hard.”</p>
<p>Simpson is up for parole Thursday in Nevada after his 2008 conviction there on armed robbery and other charges.</p>
<p>Tensing shot DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015. The officer, since fired from his job, testified he feared he was going to be killed. The shooting is among numerous cases across the nation that have called attention to how police deal with blacks. It also highlighted the challenges prosecutors face in getting jurors to convict police officers for shooting when they say they’re under threat.</p>
<p>Tensing, 27, testified in his own defense at both trials and said he feared he could be dragged or run over as DuBose, 43, tried to drive away.</p>
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<p>“I meant to stop the threat,” he told jurors in his second trial. “I didn’t shoot to kill him. I didn’t shoot to wound him. I shot to stop his actions.”</p>
<p>DuBose’s family and civil rights groups wanted a third trial. DuBose’s family earlier called for a federal investigation and wasn’t satisfied by Deters’ announcement the case will be reviewed.</p>
<p>“We are telling the federal government that we believe Tensing violated Sam’s civil rights, his right to life,” DuBose’s sister Terina Allen said. “Tensing has never demonstrated any reasonable or justifiable cause to put a bullet in Sam’s head on July 19.”</p>
<p>U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said authorities will review evidence from the state court trials to assess whether there are possible federal civil rights offenses that might warrant prosecution.</p>
<p>Deters said Glassman’s office contacted his office after the second hung jury. He said case information has been turned over to the federal authorities.</p>
<p>“I’m hopeful that the U.S. attorney’s office will see fit to proceed in this matter,” Deters said.</p>
<p>Federal authorities recently announced they had ended an investigation without charges in a 2014 police shooting of a black man in a Walmart store in Beavercreek.</p>
<p>DuBose had significant amounts of marijuana and cash on him, and Mathews contends he was desperate to get away from police because he knew he would be headed to jail.</p>
<p>An expert hired by prosecutors said his frame-by-frame analysis of Tensing’s body camera video showed Tensing was not being dragged by the car.</p>
<p>To convict Tensing of murder, jurors had to find he purposely killed DuBose. The charge carries a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison.</p>
<p>The voluntary manslaughter charge means killing during sudden passion or a fit of rage. That carries a possible sentence of three to 11 years with conviction.</p>
<p>The university reached a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose’s family, including free undergraduate tuition for his 13 children.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus and Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Dan Sewell at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/dansewell" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/dansewell</a></p> | 109 |
<p />
<p>Businesses big and small use social media. Whether you’re a local hardware store Instagramming different home improvement projects or a major national retailer conducting a Twitter giveaway, the businesses that&#160; <a href="http://www.business2community.com/social-media/4-steps-effectively-using-social-media-company-0613926" type="external">use social media effectively Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;are building bigger brand followings and driving up their sales.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For those businesses that don’t have a social media strategy in place, you’re falling behind. And even for those that do, it might be time to reexamine your strategies and adopt some new practices to stay fresh and current. Feel like your business is a bit behind in the social media sphere? Shake up your strategy with these different ideas.</p>
<p>1. Join Additional Networks, Increase Engagement</p>
<p>Failing to adapt means falling behind. If your brand hasn’t adopted the latest trends in social media networks, it’s time to start doing so. In 2014, simply tweeting and posting Facebook updates isn’t enough.</p>
<p>Snapchat: What was once an app for sending silly selfies, Snapchat can’t be ignored when it comes to social media marketing.&#160; <a href="http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/snapchat-for-business/" type="external">Businesses can use Snapchat Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to send deals to customers to help get them in the door. Since the message disappears after a number of seconds, send Snaps to customers with a “surprise” discount deal that can only be activated in the store.</p>
<p>More AllBusiness.com:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p><a href="http://www.allbusiness.com/top-25-home-based-businesses/16659292-1.html" type="external">The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/slideshows/10-websites-where-you-should-have-your-company-profile-listed/" type="external">10 Websites Where You Should Have Your Company Profile Listed Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/25-frequently-asked-questions-on-starting-a-business/8225/" type="external">25 Frequently Asked Questions on Starting a Business Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/50-inspirational-quotes-for-entrepreneurs-startups/" type="external">50 Inspirational Quotes for Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Twitter Ads: Chances are your business is already on Twitter engaging customers in some aspect, so adding a Twitter ads campaign can only help drive that engagement up and gain additional followers and sales. Twitter Ads allows extremely hyper-targeted ads, which can lead to a fantastic ROI.</p>
<p>Local Networks: Many businesses aren’t taking advantage of <a href="http://societyflorence.com/circle-the-local-network-is-this-new-app-worth-the-time/" type="external">&#160;local networks such as Circle Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to facilitate discussion and gain more customers. While this might not be applicable to a national brand, individual chains can participate in local networks to become more authoritative and act as a go-to resource for local information. Other local networks such as Meetey are an under-utilized tool that can be of big value.</p>
<p>2. Crowdsource a Custom Wiki</p>
<p>Crowdsourcing was all the rage in 2013, and in 2014 one can reasonably expect it to be even more relevant when it comes to social networks. Successfully utilizing crowdsourcing can be difficult because it requires an already high level of engagement, but if done correctly it can pay dividends for both businesses and customers alike. Crowdsourcing a custom wiki is essentially asking your past customers to develop content for you to help other customers. It could be anything from testimonials to FAQs to common issues; whatever it is, the content is coming from the customers, meaning it’s honest. It will also help you as a business get valuable feedback in order to improve and offer better services.</p>
<p>3. Engage Your 21st&#160;Century Coupon&#160;Young Professionals</p>
<p>One of the main demographic users for social networks, they would never clip a coupon out of a magazine and bring it to your establishment. Businesses are using social media to create customized, unique “eDeals” to engage and draw in customers. Whether it’s&#160; <a href="http://storify.com/miguelsalcido/is-apple-s-ibeacon-the-wave-of-the-future/" type="external">harnessing the power of the iBeacon Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to create GPS targeted deals or offering dedicated customer service agents via Twitter to respond to issues and offer customer retention deals, the 21st&#160;century coupon is a game changer. Each social network offers a somewhat different opportunity relating to how a business could offer a coupon. For example, “checking-in” on Facebook or FourSquare could unlock a deal, or tweeting that you’re at a current location could do the same. The more creative a business is with its social coupons, the higher the likelihood of engagement.</p>
<p>Miguel Salcido is a veteran search marketing executive with a focus on SEO and link building. He has provided&#160; <a href="http://www.organicseoconsultant.com/" type="external">SEO consulting Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to enterprise brands such as McDonald's, State Farm, Chicago Title, Expedia, Qualcomm and others. In his 11+ years in the industry Miguel has built and led large search agencies, holding executive and VP level positions. He is currently providing SEO consulting services to select clients via his boutique SEO agency, Organic Media Group, and also blogging at&#160; <a href="http://professionalseoconsultant.com/" type="external">professionalseoconsultant.com Opens a New Window.</a>.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</p> | 3 Social Media Strategies for Your Business | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/02/27/social-media-strategies-for-your-business.html | 2016-04-07 | 0right
| 3 Social Media Strategies for Your Business
<p />
<p>Businesses big and small use social media. Whether you’re a local hardware store Instagramming different home improvement projects or a major national retailer conducting a Twitter giveaway, the businesses that&#160; <a href="http://www.business2community.com/social-media/4-steps-effectively-using-social-media-company-0613926" type="external">use social media effectively Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;are building bigger brand followings and driving up their sales.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For those businesses that don’t have a social media strategy in place, you’re falling behind. And even for those that do, it might be time to reexamine your strategies and adopt some new practices to stay fresh and current. Feel like your business is a bit behind in the social media sphere? Shake up your strategy with these different ideas.</p>
<p>1. Join Additional Networks, Increase Engagement</p>
<p>Failing to adapt means falling behind. If your brand hasn’t adopted the latest trends in social media networks, it’s time to start doing so. In 2014, simply tweeting and posting Facebook updates isn’t enough.</p>
<p>Snapchat: What was once an app for sending silly selfies, Snapchat can’t be ignored when it comes to social media marketing.&#160; <a href="http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/snapchat-for-business/" type="external">Businesses can use Snapchat Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to send deals to customers to help get them in the door. Since the message disappears after a number of seconds, send Snaps to customers with a “surprise” discount deal that can only be activated in the store.</p>
<p>More AllBusiness.com:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p><a href="http://www.allbusiness.com/top-25-home-based-businesses/16659292-1.html" type="external">The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/slideshows/10-websites-where-you-should-have-your-company-profile-listed/" type="external">10 Websites Where You Should Have Your Company Profile Listed Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/25-frequently-asked-questions-on-starting-a-business/8225/" type="external">25 Frequently Asked Questions on Starting a Business Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://experts.allbusiness.com/50-inspirational-quotes-for-entrepreneurs-startups/" type="external">50 Inspirational Quotes for Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Twitter Ads: Chances are your business is already on Twitter engaging customers in some aspect, so adding a Twitter ads campaign can only help drive that engagement up and gain additional followers and sales. Twitter Ads allows extremely hyper-targeted ads, which can lead to a fantastic ROI.</p>
<p>Local Networks: Many businesses aren’t taking advantage of <a href="http://societyflorence.com/circle-the-local-network-is-this-new-app-worth-the-time/" type="external">&#160;local networks such as Circle Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to facilitate discussion and gain more customers. While this might not be applicable to a national brand, individual chains can participate in local networks to become more authoritative and act as a go-to resource for local information. Other local networks such as Meetey are an under-utilized tool that can be of big value.</p>
<p>2. Crowdsource a Custom Wiki</p>
<p>Crowdsourcing was all the rage in 2013, and in 2014 one can reasonably expect it to be even more relevant when it comes to social networks. Successfully utilizing crowdsourcing can be difficult because it requires an already high level of engagement, but if done correctly it can pay dividends for both businesses and customers alike. Crowdsourcing a custom wiki is essentially asking your past customers to develop content for you to help other customers. It could be anything from testimonials to FAQs to common issues; whatever it is, the content is coming from the customers, meaning it’s honest. It will also help you as a business get valuable feedback in order to improve and offer better services.</p>
<p>3. Engage Your 21st&#160;Century Coupon&#160;Young Professionals</p>
<p>One of the main demographic users for social networks, they would never clip a coupon out of a magazine and bring it to your establishment. Businesses are using social media to create customized, unique “eDeals” to engage and draw in customers. Whether it’s&#160; <a href="http://storify.com/miguelsalcido/is-apple-s-ibeacon-the-wave-of-the-future/" type="external">harnessing the power of the iBeacon Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to create GPS targeted deals or offering dedicated customer service agents via Twitter to respond to issues and offer customer retention deals, the 21st&#160;century coupon is a game changer. Each social network offers a somewhat different opportunity relating to how a business could offer a coupon. For example, “checking-in” on Facebook or FourSquare could unlock a deal, or tweeting that you’re at a current location could do the same. The more creative a business is with its social coupons, the higher the likelihood of engagement.</p>
<p>Miguel Salcido is a veteran search marketing executive with a focus on SEO and link building. He has provided&#160; <a href="http://www.organicseoconsultant.com/" type="external">SEO consulting Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;to enterprise brands such as McDonald's, State Farm, Chicago Title, Expedia, Qualcomm and others. In his 11+ years in the industry Miguel has built and led large search agencies, holding executive and VP level positions. He is currently providing SEO consulting services to select clients via his boutique SEO agency, Organic Media Group, and also blogging at&#160; <a href="http://professionalseoconsultant.com/" type="external">professionalseoconsultant.com Opens a New Window.</a>.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</p> | 110 |
<p>TV actor Dustin Diamond was convicted Friday of two misdemeanors stemming from a barroom fight, but a Wisconsin jury cleared the former "Saved by the Bell" actor of the most serious felony charge.</p>
<p>The jury's verdict came just hours after the 38-year-old actor testified that he never intended to stab anyone in the fight last Christmas Day. He had pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of recklessly endangering public safety, plus two misdemeanors — carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>The first misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of nine months in prison, the second a maximum of 90 days in prison.</p>
<p>Diamond didn't display emotion at the jury's decision Friday night. He told reporters he couldn't comment as he left the courtroom after a 13-hour day of testimony and jury deliberations.</p>
<p>Diamond, who played the character Screech on the popular 1990s show, said some people had wanted to shake his hand and pose for photos at the bar, but that others were badgering him and his girlfriend, Amanda Schutz. He said he was trying to scare bar patrons in Port Washington after his girlfriend was punched in the face.</p>
<p>"I felt like we were being set up for antagonistic purposes," he said.</p>
<p>Witnesses testified that Schutz pushed one woman at the bar and grabbed another woman's hand, initiating the incident. Schutz also faces a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.</p>
<p>Diamond said he tried to help Schutz and took out his pocketknife to deter the group from hurting her more.</p>
<p>The man who was stabbed, 25-year-old Casey Smet, testified Thursday that he didn't know he had been stabbed until he had left the bar and was talking to police.</p>
<p>After maintaining a serious facade during most of the trial, Diamond grinned Friday when a defense attorney asked if he liked being compared to the character Screech. Diamond said he liked being identified in public as the goofy television character.</p>
<p>"That means they love you," Diamond said. "That means you're doing your job."</p>
<p>Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol argued Friday that Diamond lied about what happened and that the actor had scripted his testimony.</p>
<p>Gerol showed body-camera footage of Diamond's testimony to a Port Washington police officer the night of the fight. In the video Diamond first said he might have struck Smet with a pen. In a video of testimony later that night, Diamond said he had a knife at the bar, but hadn't used it to stab anyone.</p>
<p>The jury also convicted Schutz with disorderly conduct Friday night. Schutz faces a maximum of 90 days in prison.</p>
<p>A sentencing date for Diamond and Schutz has not been announced.</p> | Screech on Trial: ‘Saved By the Bell’ Actor Dustin Diamond Convicted in Stabbing | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/screech-trial-saved-bell-actor-dustin-diamond-convicted-stabbing-n366971 | 2015-05-30 | 3left-center
| Screech on Trial: ‘Saved By the Bell’ Actor Dustin Diamond Convicted in Stabbing
<p>TV actor Dustin Diamond was convicted Friday of two misdemeanors stemming from a barroom fight, but a Wisconsin jury cleared the former "Saved by the Bell" actor of the most serious felony charge.</p>
<p>The jury's verdict came just hours after the 38-year-old actor testified that he never intended to stab anyone in the fight last Christmas Day. He had pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of recklessly endangering public safety, plus two misdemeanors — carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>The first misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of nine months in prison, the second a maximum of 90 days in prison.</p>
<p>Diamond didn't display emotion at the jury's decision Friday night. He told reporters he couldn't comment as he left the courtroom after a 13-hour day of testimony and jury deliberations.</p>
<p>Diamond, who played the character Screech on the popular 1990s show, said some people had wanted to shake his hand and pose for photos at the bar, but that others were badgering him and his girlfriend, Amanda Schutz. He said he was trying to scare bar patrons in Port Washington after his girlfriend was punched in the face.</p>
<p>"I felt like we were being set up for antagonistic purposes," he said.</p>
<p>Witnesses testified that Schutz pushed one woman at the bar and grabbed another woman's hand, initiating the incident. Schutz also faces a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.</p>
<p>Diamond said he tried to help Schutz and took out his pocketknife to deter the group from hurting her more.</p>
<p>The man who was stabbed, 25-year-old Casey Smet, testified Thursday that he didn't know he had been stabbed until he had left the bar and was talking to police.</p>
<p>After maintaining a serious facade during most of the trial, Diamond grinned Friday when a defense attorney asked if he liked being compared to the character Screech. Diamond said he liked being identified in public as the goofy television character.</p>
<p>"That means they love you," Diamond said. "That means you're doing your job."</p>
<p>Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol argued Friday that Diamond lied about what happened and that the actor had scripted his testimony.</p>
<p>Gerol showed body-camera footage of Diamond's testimony to a Port Washington police officer the night of the fight. In the video Diamond first said he might have struck Smet with a pen. In a video of testimony later that night, Diamond said he had a knife at the bar, but hadn't used it to stab anyone.</p>
<p>The jury also convicted Schutz with disorderly conduct Friday night. Schutz faces a maximum of 90 days in prison.</p>
<p>A sentencing date for Diamond and Schutz has not been announced.</p> | 111 |
<p>Steven Seagal, <a href="" type="internal">formerly our favorite lawman</a>, is in trouble with the law. He’s being sued for $1 million by Kayden Nguyen, who served as his personal assistant for a few days earlier this year. She says that the <a href="" type="internal">Buddhist</a> martial arts master seriously crossed the line—not only <a href="" type="internal">sexually harassing</a> her, but also trafficking two women for sex. Seagal’s lawyer has naturally denied the charges. “The lawsuit filed by Kayden Nguyen against Steven Seagal is a ridiculous and absurd claim by a disgruntled ex-employee who was fired,” he said. “The claims in her lawsuit are a complete fabrication without a scintilla of truth.” But you gotta check out some of the charges, after the jump.</p>
<p>Geez. And we thought his ponytail was bad. [ <a href="http://www.radarmagazine.com/category/tags/steven-seagal-lawman" type="external">RadarOnline.com</a>]</p> | Steven Seagal Accused Of Forcing Himself On Assistant, Trafficking Women For Sex | true | http://thefrisky.com/post/246-steven-seagal-accused-of-forcing-himself-on-assistant-trafficking-women/ | 2018-10-06 | 4left
| Steven Seagal Accused Of Forcing Himself On Assistant, Trafficking Women For Sex
<p>Steven Seagal, <a href="" type="internal">formerly our favorite lawman</a>, is in trouble with the law. He’s being sued for $1 million by Kayden Nguyen, who served as his personal assistant for a few days earlier this year. She says that the <a href="" type="internal">Buddhist</a> martial arts master seriously crossed the line—not only <a href="" type="internal">sexually harassing</a> her, but also trafficking two women for sex. Seagal’s lawyer has naturally denied the charges. “The lawsuit filed by Kayden Nguyen against Steven Seagal is a ridiculous and absurd claim by a disgruntled ex-employee who was fired,” he said. “The claims in her lawsuit are a complete fabrication without a scintilla of truth.” But you gotta check out some of the charges, after the jump.</p>
<p>Geez. And we thought his ponytail was bad. [ <a href="http://www.radarmagazine.com/category/tags/steven-seagal-lawman" type="external">RadarOnline.com</a>]</p> | 112 |
<p />
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of SM Energy (NYSE: SM) stumbled into 2017, slumping 11% during the first month. While the company had some good news, investors focused more on what the company did not say.</p>
<p>SM Energy actually got the year started off on the right foot, announcing in early January that it had sold its non-operated Eagle Ford shale assets to a unit of private equity firm KKR (NYSE: KKR) for $800 million. That sale will give SM Energy additional flexibility to aggressively grow its Midland Basin assets over the next few years.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Analysts loved the deal, with both Bank of America/Merrill and Baird releasing bullish commentary shortly after its announcement. BofA, for example, initiated the stock at Buy with a $52 price target citing the company's notable transition after selling $2 billion of assets since 2013 to focus on the Midland Basin. Meanwhile, Baird said the stock was underappreciated and reiterated its buy rating and $49 price target. The analyst thought that the company should benefit from rising oil prices due to its focus on the low-cost Midland Basin.</p>
<p>About a week later SM Energy announced that it had put the rest of its Bakken shale assets up for sale by launching a formal bid process for its Divide County assets. The company hopes to close a transaction by mid-year. That announcement follows an earlier divestiture of Bakken assets to Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS). SM Energy used the proceeds from the Oasis Petroleum transaction to help finance an acquisition in the Midland Basin.</p>
<p>Toward the end of the month, SM Energy received another vote of confidence from analysts after KeyBanc said investors should buy shares before its month-end conference call. The analyst thought that the call would prove to be a catalyst for the stock because it would feature an update on its Midland Basin well results. Unfortunately, that call did not turn out to be a catalyst. Instead, <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/31/why-sm-energy-cos-stock-is-stumbling-today.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">shares plunged Opens a New Window.</a> because the company said it would invest capital in testing its acreage instead of ramping up to full development mode. That suggests production growth could come in below what investors were hoping.</p>
<p>SM Energy is still in the early stages of a transition from a diversified shale producer to a company entirely focused on the red-hot Midland Basin. This development is taking longer than investors had hoped. However, that is because SM Energy wants to make sure it gets things right by fully optimizing its acreage in the Midland. That strategy could prove to be a winner over the long term.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than SM EnergyWhen 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=2bc5d967-17f1-49a6-8505-4bac48376b50&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 SM Energy 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=2bc5d967-17f1-49a6-8505-4bac48376b50&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/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's Why SM Energy Co's Stock Plunged 11% in January | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/09/here-why-sm-energy-co-stock-plunged-11-in-january.html | 2017-02-09 | 0right
| Here's Why SM Energy Co's Stock Plunged 11% in January
<p />
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of SM Energy (NYSE: SM) stumbled into 2017, slumping 11% during the first month. While the company had some good news, investors focused more on what the company did not say.</p>
<p>SM Energy actually got the year started off on the right foot, announcing in early January that it had sold its non-operated Eagle Ford shale assets to a unit of private equity firm KKR (NYSE: KKR) for $800 million. That sale will give SM Energy additional flexibility to aggressively grow its Midland Basin assets over the next few years.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Analysts loved the deal, with both Bank of America/Merrill and Baird releasing bullish commentary shortly after its announcement. BofA, for example, initiated the stock at Buy with a $52 price target citing the company's notable transition after selling $2 billion of assets since 2013 to focus on the Midland Basin. Meanwhile, Baird said the stock was underappreciated and reiterated its buy rating and $49 price target. The analyst thought that the company should benefit from rising oil prices due to its focus on the low-cost Midland Basin.</p>
<p>About a week later SM Energy announced that it had put the rest of its Bakken shale assets up for sale by launching a formal bid process for its Divide County assets. The company hopes to close a transaction by mid-year. That announcement follows an earlier divestiture of Bakken assets to Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS). SM Energy used the proceeds from the Oasis Petroleum transaction to help finance an acquisition in the Midland Basin.</p>
<p>Toward the end of the month, SM Energy received another vote of confidence from analysts after KeyBanc said investors should buy shares before its month-end conference call. The analyst thought that the call would prove to be a catalyst for the stock because it would feature an update on its Midland Basin well results. Unfortunately, that call did not turn out to be a catalyst. Instead, <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/31/why-sm-energy-cos-stock-is-stumbling-today.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">shares plunged Opens a New Window.</a> because the company said it would invest capital in testing its acreage instead of ramping up to full development mode. That suggests production growth could come in below what investors were hoping.</p>
<p>SM Energy is still in the early stages of a transition from a diversified shale producer to a company entirely focused on the red-hot Midland Basin. This development is taking longer than investors had hoped. However, that is because SM Energy wants to make sure it gets things right by fully optimizing its acreage in the Midland. That strategy could prove to be a winner over the long term.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than SM EnergyWhen 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=2bc5d967-17f1-49a6-8505-4bac48376b50&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 SM Energy 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=2bc5d967-17f1-49a6-8505-4bac48376b50&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/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 113 |
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<p />
<p>The tape symbolized the complaint they brought to the stage: The school has not been listening to their concerns, and no one had invited them to take part in the news conference.</p>
<p>“Last semester when we were protesting and requesting to meet with you, we were trying our hardest to let you know that something was terribly wrong with the experience that African American students are having at San Jose State,” said Gary Daniels, an SJSU student and chairman of the Black Unity Group, directing his comments to school President Mo Qayoumi. “But you did not want to hear us.”</p>
<p>Daniels said black student groups had tried for a year to meet with Qayoumi, and that they had sent him ideas for making black students feel more welcome on campus, including stronger support for the African American Studies department.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Black students make up about 3 percent of the roughly 25,000-student body at SJSU and say they often feel marginalized and unprotected.</p>
<p>The gathering on Monday came hours after Qayoumi took responsibility for the campus not intervening sooner to stop the alleged abuse of a black student by his white roommates – who had displayed a Confederate flag in the room and also collared him with a bicycle lock – or to suspend the students before they were criminally charged last week.</p>
<p>“By failing to recognize the meaning of a Confederate flag, intervene earlier to stop the abuse, or impose sanctions as soon as the gravity of the behavior became clear, we failed him. I failed him,” Qayoumi said in a statement released Monday morning.</p>
<p>An independent expert will soon be named to examine “how such abuse could have gone unchecked or undetected for weeks,” and to propose reforms, Qayoumi said.</p>
<p>He added that the residence hall advisors were a part of the breakdown: “Their failures are our failures. We must do a better job of training them, and we will.”</p>
<p>Qayoumi appeared with civil rights leaders before the “black power” salute statues where San Jose State students rallied last week against racism. The NAACP leaders called for felony charges against the white freshmen accused of misdemeanor crimes in tormenting their black roommate.</p>
<p>“The community will not stand idly by and allow for any student of color to be terrorized simply due to the color of his skin,” said the Rev. Jethroe Moore II, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, in a statement announcing the news conference. He called the students’ actions “racially based terrorism.”</p>
<p>The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office filed misdemeanor hate crime and battery charges last week against Joseph Bomgardner, 19; Logan Beaschler and Colin Warren, both 18; and a fourth student who, as a minor, is not being named.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The freshmen are accused of taunting their black roommate for weeks this semester, displaying a Confederate flag in their eight-person suite, barricading him in his room and fastening a bicycle lock around his neck. Investigators, who found Nazi symbols in the apartment, say the students later acknowledged the relentless harassment but said they were “pranks.”</p>
<p>At least two resident assistants – students in charge of enforcing student housing policies – asked the students to remove their Confederate flag from public view but did not pursue the matter, according to the police report.</p>
<p>The vice president for student affairs said university police quickly launched an investigation when the problems were reported, identified a hate crime and forwarded it to the District Attorney’s Office.</p>
<p>The NAACP will also ask California Attorney General Kamala Harris and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate, said Alice Huffman, who serves on the national NAACP board.</p>
<p>District Attorney Jeff Rosen said he believed the actions in this case “were acts motivated by hatred,” not merely college pranks.</p>
<p /> | San Jose State students say hate crime is no surprise | false | https://abqjournal.com/309265/san-jose-state-students-say-hate-crime-is-no-surprise.html | 2least
| San Jose State students say hate crime is no surprise
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<p />
<p>The tape symbolized the complaint they brought to the stage: The school has not been listening to their concerns, and no one had invited them to take part in the news conference.</p>
<p>“Last semester when we were protesting and requesting to meet with you, we were trying our hardest to let you know that something was terribly wrong with the experience that African American students are having at San Jose State,” said Gary Daniels, an SJSU student and chairman of the Black Unity Group, directing his comments to school President Mo Qayoumi. “But you did not want to hear us.”</p>
<p>Daniels said black student groups had tried for a year to meet with Qayoumi, and that they had sent him ideas for making black students feel more welcome on campus, including stronger support for the African American Studies department.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Black students make up about 3 percent of the roughly 25,000-student body at SJSU and say they often feel marginalized and unprotected.</p>
<p>The gathering on Monday came hours after Qayoumi took responsibility for the campus not intervening sooner to stop the alleged abuse of a black student by his white roommates – who had displayed a Confederate flag in the room and also collared him with a bicycle lock – or to suspend the students before they were criminally charged last week.</p>
<p>“By failing to recognize the meaning of a Confederate flag, intervene earlier to stop the abuse, or impose sanctions as soon as the gravity of the behavior became clear, we failed him. I failed him,” Qayoumi said in a statement released Monday morning.</p>
<p>An independent expert will soon be named to examine “how such abuse could have gone unchecked or undetected for weeks,” and to propose reforms, Qayoumi said.</p>
<p>He added that the residence hall advisors were a part of the breakdown: “Their failures are our failures. We must do a better job of training them, and we will.”</p>
<p>Qayoumi appeared with civil rights leaders before the “black power” salute statues where San Jose State students rallied last week against racism. The NAACP leaders called for felony charges against the white freshmen accused of misdemeanor crimes in tormenting their black roommate.</p>
<p>“The community will not stand idly by and allow for any student of color to be terrorized simply due to the color of his skin,” said the Rev. Jethroe Moore II, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, in a statement announcing the news conference. He called the students’ actions “racially based terrorism.”</p>
<p>The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office filed misdemeanor hate crime and battery charges last week against Joseph Bomgardner, 19; Logan Beaschler and Colin Warren, both 18; and a fourth student who, as a minor, is not being named.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The freshmen are accused of taunting their black roommate for weeks this semester, displaying a Confederate flag in their eight-person suite, barricading him in his room and fastening a bicycle lock around his neck. Investigators, who found Nazi symbols in the apartment, say the students later acknowledged the relentless harassment but said they were “pranks.”</p>
<p>At least two resident assistants – students in charge of enforcing student housing policies – asked the students to remove their Confederate flag from public view but did not pursue the matter, according to the police report.</p>
<p>The vice president for student affairs said university police quickly launched an investigation when the problems were reported, identified a hate crime and forwarded it to the District Attorney’s Office.</p>
<p>The NAACP will also ask California Attorney General Kamala Harris and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate, said Alice Huffman, who serves on the national NAACP board.</p>
<p>District Attorney Jeff Rosen said he believed the actions in this case “were acts motivated by hatred,” not merely college pranks.</p>
<p /> | 114 |
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<p />
<p>Francis proposed a new set of Beatitudes for all Christians today, saying they are called to be blessed “to confront the troubles and anxieties of our age.”</p>
<p>Francis celebrated Mass under chilly, 8-degree Celsius (46F) skies in the Malmo sports stadium, packed with Nordic Catholics as well as immigrants from the Philippines and beyond for the final event of his overnight trip to southern Sweden.</p>
<p>On Monday, Francis and the heads of the Lutheran World Federation commemorated Martin Luther’s revolt against the abuses of the Catholic Church, praying together for forgiveness at Lund’s cathedral. They signed a joint declaration pledging to put the errors of the past behind them and pursue theological talks with the goal of letting Lutherans and Catholics share in the Eucharist.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In his homily Tuesday, Francis continued with the theme of unity, urging the faithful to meekly draw close to Christ and one another as they commemorate the Reformation over the next year.</p>
<p>Meekness, he said, “enables us to set aside everything that divides and estranges us, and to find ever new ways to advance along the path of unity.”</p>
<p>“Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians,” the pope said.</p>
<p>It was one of the new Beatitudes, or biblical prayers, that he proposed at Mass. Other blessed: those who are close to the marginalized, who protect the environment, who help others.</p>
<p>“Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart,” he said.</p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation started in 1517 after Luther nailed 95 theses on the church door in the town of Wittenberg, Germany, denouncing what he saw as the abuses of the Catholic Church, especially the sale of indulgences.</p>
<p>As Protestantism spread, religious wars erupted, dividing western Christianity in a schism that resulted in hundreds of years of violence, persecution and discrimination.</p>
<p>As a result, the pope’s visit to Sweden to start the yearlong Protestant anniversary raised eyebrows. But the Vatican and Lutheran church both insisted the event was no celebration but rather a solemn commemoration to ask forgiveness for the division and rejoice that relations have improved.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Francis added Tuesday’s Mass in at the last minute after Sweden’s tiny Catholic community protested that Francis was ignoring them and coming only for the Protestant commemoration.</p>
<p>“For us Catholics in the periphery it was a gift and a surprise to find out that the Holy Father wanted to come here,” said the Rev. Anders Arborelius, the Catholic Bishop of Stockholm, thanking the pope for his visit.</p>
<p>Many Catholics from neighboring Denmark crossed the bridge-and-tunnel link to southern Sweden to join the Mass in Malmo.</p>
<p>“It certainly was a great experience,” said Peter Franklin, headmaster of the Sankt Joseph Catholic school in Copenhagen. “Pope Francis has made his mark far beyond the Catholic Church’s boundaries and did it again here.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Nicole Winfield reported from Rome.</p> | Pope presses call for unity in Sweden with new Beatitudes | false | https://abqjournal.com/879534/pope-presses-call-for-unity-in-sweden-with-new-beatitudes.html | 2016-11-01 | 2least
| Pope presses call for unity in Sweden with new Beatitudes
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Francis proposed a new set of Beatitudes for all Christians today, saying they are called to be blessed “to confront the troubles and anxieties of our age.”</p>
<p>Francis celebrated Mass under chilly, 8-degree Celsius (46F) skies in the Malmo sports stadium, packed with Nordic Catholics as well as immigrants from the Philippines and beyond for the final event of his overnight trip to southern Sweden.</p>
<p>On Monday, Francis and the heads of the Lutheran World Federation commemorated Martin Luther’s revolt against the abuses of the Catholic Church, praying together for forgiveness at Lund’s cathedral. They signed a joint declaration pledging to put the errors of the past behind them and pursue theological talks with the goal of letting Lutherans and Catholics share in the Eucharist.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In his homily Tuesday, Francis continued with the theme of unity, urging the faithful to meekly draw close to Christ and one another as they commemorate the Reformation over the next year.</p>
<p>Meekness, he said, “enables us to set aside everything that divides and estranges us, and to find ever new ways to advance along the path of unity.”</p>
<p>“Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians,” the pope said.</p>
<p>It was one of the new Beatitudes, or biblical prayers, that he proposed at Mass. Other blessed: those who are close to the marginalized, who protect the environment, who help others.</p>
<p>“Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart,” he said.</p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation started in 1517 after Luther nailed 95 theses on the church door in the town of Wittenberg, Germany, denouncing what he saw as the abuses of the Catholic Church, especially the sale of indulgences.</p>
<p>As Protestantism spread, religious wars erupted, dividing western Christianity in a schism that resulted in hundreds of years of violence, persecution and discrimination.</p>
<p>As a result, the pope’s visit to Sweden to start the yearlong Protestant anniversary raised eyebrows. But the Vatican and Lutheran church both insisted the event was no celebration but rather a solemn commemoration to ask forgiveness for the division and rejoice that relations have improved.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Francis added Tuesday’s Mass in at the last minute after Sweden’s tiny Catholic community protested that Francis was ignoring them and coming only for the Protestant commemoration.</p>
<p>“For us Catholics in the periphery it was a gift and a surprise to find out that the Holy Father wanted to come here,” said the Rev. Anders Arborelius, the Catholic Bishop of Stockholm, thanking the pope for his visit.</p>
<p>Many Catholics from neighboring Denmark crossed the bridge-and-tunnel link to southern Sweden to join the Mass in Malmo.</p>
<p>“It certainly was a great experience,” said Peter Franklin, headmaster of the Sankt Joseph Catholic school in Copenhagen. “Pope Francis has made his mark far beyond the Catholic Church’s boundaries and did it again here.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Nicole Winfield reported from Rome.</p> | 115 |
<p>The Dow and the S&amp;P 500 fell on Tuesday as materials shares declined and nervousness increased ahead of a Federal Reserve statement, while the Nasdaq ended higher.</p>
<p>Stocks cut losses in afternoon trading, led by a rise in tech shares. The S&amp;P 500 technology index ended up 0.1 percent, helped by gains in Apple, up 1.7 percent at $127.04, and Facebook, up 1.7 percent at $79.36.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>After the bell, shares of Oracle rose 3.4 percent to $44.33 following results.</p>
<p>Investors were anxious as the Federal Open Market Committee kicked off a two-day policy meeting, to be followed by a statement from Fed Chair Janet Yellen Wednesday afternoon.</p>
<p>Most economists expect the Fed to remove a pledge to be "patient" about raising interest rates from its statement. Market strategists said with or without a change in the language, the Fed may still be on track to raise rates as early as June.</p>
<p>"People are waiting for the Fed to provide some degree of clarity," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.</p>
<p>Among S&amp;P 500 sectors, materials was the weakest with a 1.2 percent decline, led by DuPont, down 3.1 percent at $74.68.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 128.34 points, or 0.71 percent, to 17,849.08, the S&amp;P 500 lost 6.91 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,074.28 and the Nasdaq Composite added 7.93 points, or 0.16 percent, to 4,937.44.</p>
<p>In addition to anxiety about the Fed statement, options expiration on Friday may have contributed to the day's volatility, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist, Bolton Global Asset Management in Boston.</p>
<p>While higher rates would be a sign of strength in the U.S. economy, some investors question whether the economy is strong enough to handle increased borrowing costs.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500's pullback followed its biggest percentage gain since Feb. 3 on Monday.</p>
<p>Johnson &amp; Johnson weighed most heavily on the S&amp;P 500 with a 1.2 percent decline to $99.89.</p>
<p>Also boosting the Nasdaq, shares in American Airlines jumped 6.9 percent to $53.69 after an announcement that it would join the S&amp;P 500.</p>
<p>About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 6.6 billion average for the month to date, according to BATS Global Markets.</p>
<p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,607 to 1,429, for a 1.12-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,384 issues rose and 1,330 fell, for a 1.04-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted 26 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 112 new highs and 62 new lows.</p>
<p>(By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish)</p> | Wall Street Worries How Patient Fed will Remain | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/17/fomc-meeting-jitters-permeate-investor-confidence.html | 2016-03-06 | 0right
| Wall Street Worries How Patient Fed will Remain
<p>The Dow and the S&amp;P 500 fell on Tuesday as materials shares declined and nervousness increased ahead of a Federal Reserve statement, while the Nasdaq ended higher.</p>
<p>Stocks cut losses in afternoon trading, led by a rise in tech shares. The S&amp;P 500 technology index ended up 0.1 percent, helped by gains in Apple, up 1.7 percent at $127.04, and Facebook, up 1.7 percent at $79.36.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>After the bell, shares of Oracle rose 3.4 percent to $44.33 following results.</p>
<p>Investors were anxious as the Federal Open Market Committee kicked off a two-day policy meeting, to be followed by a statement from Fed Chair Janet Yellen Wednesday afternoon.</p>
<p>Most economists expect the Fed to remove a pledge to be "patient" about raising interest rates from its statement. Market strategists said with or without a change in the language, the Fed may still be on track to raise rates as early as June.</p>
<p>"People are waiting for the Fed to provide some degree of clarity," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.</p>
<p>Among S&amp;P 500 sectors, materials was the weakest with a 1.2 percent decline, led by DuPont, down 3.1 percent at $74.68.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 128.34 points, or 0.71 percent, to 17,849.08, the S&amp;P 500 lost 6.91 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,074.28 and the Nasdaq Composite added 7.93 points, or 0.16 percent, to 4,937.44.</p>
<p>In addition to anxiety about the Fed statement, options expiration on Friday may have contributed to the day's volatility, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist, Bolton Global Asset Management in Boston.</p>
<p>While higher rates would be a sign of strength in the U.S. economy, some investors question whether the economy is strong enough to handle increased borrowing costs.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500's pullback followed its biggest percentage gain since Feb. 3 on Monday.</p>
<p>Johnson &amp; Johnson weighed most heavily on the S&amp;P 500 with a 1.2 percent decline to $99.89.</p>
<p>Also boosting the Nasdaq, shares in American Airlines jumped 6.9 percent to $53.69 after an announcement that it would join the S&amp;P 500.</p>
<p>About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 6.6 billion average for the month to date, according to BATS Global Markets.</p>
<p>Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,607 to 1,429, for a 1.12-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,384 issues rose and 1,330 fell, for a 1.04-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted 26 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 112 new highs and 62 new lows.</p>
<p>(By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish)</p> | 116 |
<p>GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Authorities say a 20-year-old woman was killed in a fall at an indoor recreation park in western Colorado.</p>
<p>The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel <a href="https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/updated-woman-killed-in-fall-at-gym/article_a42174e0-f1e6-11e7-b6ef-10604b9f7e7c.html" type="external">reports</a> Ciara Romero died at a hospital Thursday night after falling from a significant height at the park, called Get Air at the Silo.</p>
<p>Police spokeswoman Heidi Davidson says emergency crews were called to the park Thursday afternoon and were still performing chest compressions when Romero was wheeled out of the building and taken to the hospital.</p>
<p>Get Air has several indoor recreation areas, including a 70-foot (21-meter) climbing wall and bungee-jump that opened in March. Investigators did not release the circumstances of the accident or how far Romero fell.</p>
<p>A company representative says the park is closed until further notice.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Sentinel, <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external">http://www.gjsentinel.com</a></p>
<p>GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Authorities say a 20-year-old woman was killed in a fall at an indoor recreation park in western Colorado.</p>
<p>The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel <a href="https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/updated-woman-killed-in-fall-at-gym/article_a42174e0-f1e6-11e7-b6ef-10604b9f7e7c.html" type="external">reports</a> Ciara Romero died at a hospital Thursday night after falling from a significant height at the park, called Get Air at the Silo.</p>
<p>Police spokeswoman Heidi Davidson says emergency crews were called to the park Thursday afternoon and were still performing chest compressions when Romero was wheeled out of the building and taken to the hospital.</p>
<p>Get Air has several indoor recreation areas, including a 70-foot (21-meter) climbing wall and bungee-jump that opened in March. Investigators did not release the circumstances of the accident or how far Romero fell.</p>
<p>A company representative says the park is closed until further notice.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Sentinel, <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external">http://www.gjsentinel.com</a></p> | Woman dies after fall at indoor recreation park in Colorado | false | https://apnews.com/89d5f0a83f50443fb9812e61fba80d08 | 2018-01-06 | 2least
| Woman dies after fall at indoor recreation park in Colorado
<p>GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Authorities say a 20-year-old woman was killed in a fall at an indoor recreation park in western Colorado.</p>
<p>The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel <a href="https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/updated-woman-killed-in-fall-at-gym/article_a42174e0-f1e6-11e7-b6ef-10604b9f7e7c.html" type="external">reports</a> Ciara Romero died at a hospital Thursday night after falling from a significant height at the park, called Get Air at the Silo.</p>
<p>Police spokeswoman Heidi Davidson says emergency crews were called to the park Thursday afternoon and were still performing chest compressions when Romero was wheeled out of the building and taken to the hospital.</p>
<p>Get Air has several indoor recreation areas, including a 70-foot (21-meter) climbing wall and bungee-jump that opened in March. Investigators did not release the circumstances of the accident or how far Romero fell.</p>
<p>A company representative says the park is closed until further notice.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Sentinel, <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external">http://www.gjsentinel.com</a></p>
<p>GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Authorities say a 20-year-old woman was killed in a fall at an indoor recreation park in western Colorado.</p>
<p>The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel <a href="https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/updated-woman-killed-in-fall-at-gym/article_a42174e0-f1e6-11e7-b6ef-10604b9f7e7c.html" type="external">reports</a> Ciara Romero died at a hospital Thursday night after falling from a significant height at the park, called Get Air at the Silo.</p>
<p>Police spokeswoman Heidi Davidson says emergency crews were called to the park Thursday afternoon and were still performing chest compressions when Romero was wheeled out of the building and taken to the hospital.</p>
<p>Get Air has several indoor recreation areas, including a 70-foot (21-meter) climbing wall and bungee-jump that opened in March. Investigators did not release the circumstances of the accident or how far Romero fell.</p>
<p>A company representative says the park is closed until further notice.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Sentinel, <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external">http://www.gjsentinel.com</a></p> | 117 |
<p />
<p>“There was CIA involvement through a company called Mega Oil. They were shipping in arms under the cover of oil tools.”</p>
<p>The BP executive was explaining to me how the CIA, MI6 and British Petroleum engineered a coup d’état, overthrowing a nation’s elected president who was “not favorable to BP.” The corporation’s former vice president, Leslie Abrahams, is pictured above, holding an AK-47 in front of BP’s offices in Baku, Azerbaijan. Like most of the other BP executives I spoke with, he proudly added that although he was working for BP, he was also an operative for MI6, British intelligence.</p>
<p>This conversation, which took place in 2010, was far from the weirdest I had in my four-continent investigation of the real story of the Deepwater Horizon.</p>
<p />
<p>The BP oil rig blew out on April 20 of that year, four years ago this Sunday.</p>
<p>Last month, the Obama administration officially OK’d BP’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/20/bp-gulf-of-mexico-leases_n_4996314.html" type="external">right to resume</a> drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A few days after lifting the ban, just to assure the company that all is forgiven, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave BP a new contract to drill in the Gulf of Mexico — right next to where the Deepwater Horizon went down. At the same time, the forgive-and-forget U.S. Justice Department has put the trial of David Rainey, the only BP big shot charged with a felony crime in the disaster, on indefinite hold.</p>
<p>The Deepwater Horizon blowout incinerated 11 men on the rig and poisoned 600 miles of Gulf coastline. What political fairy dust does BP keep in its pocket to receive virtual immunity from the consequences?</p>
<p>To understand what really happened in the Gulf of Mexico, and how BP became a corporate creature beyond the reach of the law, British television network Channel 4 sent me on an investigation through a labyrinthine fun house of bribery, lap dancing, beatings, WikiLeaks, a coup d’état, arrests and oil-state terror.</p>
<p>I found the cause of the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon 7,000 miles from the Gulf in the ancient city of Baku, the Central Asian caravan stop on the Silk Road.</p>
<p />
<p>For the interview with agent Abrahams and the full story of the Deepwater Horizon, see, “Vultures and Vote Rustlers,” the documentary that will be available as a <a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/vulturesandvoterustlersfreedownload/" type="external">download without charge</a> until April 21 courtesy of the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund.</p>
<p />
<p>The literal source of Soviet power until 1991, Baku has been exporting petroleum for 3,000 years. As the Soviet Union shattered into pieces that year, BP set its sights on the city. It is now the capital of the new nation of Azerbaijan, which sits atop the biggest untapped oil field in the world, right beneath the Caspian Sea.</p>
<p>A coup for BP</p>
<p>In 1992, then-BP Chairman Lord Browne flew into Baku as soon as the young state elected its first president, Abulfaz Elchibey. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined him via the “Iron Lady,” a plane the corporation outfitted especially for her. At a state dinner, Browne handed Abrahams, a BP vice president at the time, a briefcase and showed him the contents: a check for $30 million. Browne then gave the check to the president of Azerbaijan.</p>
<p>Still, the new president remained “not favorable” to BP’s demand for control of the Caspian oil, so MI6, the CIA and the corporation went into action. The spy agencies armed and empowered former Soviet KGB chief Heydar Aliyev, who in 1993 overthrew Azerbaijan’s elected government. Once he became dictator, Aliyev named himself president for life and within four months signed a no-bid deal to give the reserves to BP.</p>
<p>BP and MI6 man Abrahams was instructed, he told me, to “smooth the way” for the deal by taking Azeri officials to London in Browne’s jet for weekends of lap dancing and other entertainment. By Abrahams’ own estimation, he paid over $3 million in additional cash bribes to make certain BP would have no trouble.</p>
<p>I should note that Abrahams broke no law: Bribery by a British subject was legal then. BP executives did not deny the payoffs when I questioned them directly, and MI6 officers proudly confirmed the coup’s purpose of locking in the offshore deal for BP.</p>
<p>Quick-dry, quick-kill cement</p>
<p>What does this have to do with the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon?</p>
<p>This: It is now well established that the disaster occurred when the cement used to cap the well failed, allowing explosive methane gas to fill the rig and transform it into a sinking fireball.</p>
<p>But this was not BP’s first cement failure and explosion. Just 17 months earlier, BP’s Caspian Sea Transocean rig had suffered exactly the same fate.</p>
<p>The cause of the two blowouts was identical. In the Caspian as in the Gulf, BP laced its cement with nitrogen gas. The nitrogen bubbles sped up the drying of the mixture, saving BP half a million dollars a day on rig rental charges. But in offshore high-pressure zones, nitrogen-spiked cement can fail. And it did. Twice.Question: Why in the world was BP allowed to use this insanely dangerous “quick-dry” cement just after a failure in the Caspian? Answer: A cover-up — via threats, beatings, arrests, bribery, perjury and the complicity of the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p>I learned of the prior blowout only because of a coded message from the Caspian Sea received from one very nervous eyewitness. To get the evidence, I flew to Baku and headed across the road-less desert to find more witnesses.</p>
<p />
<p>Greg Palast and crew under arrest in Azerbaijan. Photo by Palast Investigative Fund</p>
<p>But we had been ratted out. My crew was placed under arrest by Azerbaijan’s secret police. Although officers demanded our film, I was allowed to keep my pen, which was actually a hidden camera. (I’ve learned a few things from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pArBEnKcoMw" type="external">Maxwell Smart</a>.)</p>
<p>How do you keep a monstrous blowout from going public? As one of the arresting cops told us with odd pride, “BP drives this country.” It drives it with cash. Robert Ebel, former chief of oil analysis for the CIA, estimates that at least <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Conflict-Central-Asia-Caucasus/dp/0742500632" type="external">$140 million in payments</a> by BP for Azeri oil has gone unaccounted for. Where did it go? Notably, the Aliyev ruling family lives like pashas despite the president’s official salary of $100 a month.</p>
<p>Oil worker advocate Mirvari Gahramanli said she was beaten by police for raising questions. In case I doubted it, she showed me photographs of a dozen cops slamming her with long clubs.</p>
<p>What’s worse, while I was tossed out of the country (it would have looked bad to throw a TV reporter into a dungeon), my witnesses disappeared.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks and oily lies</p>
<p>Just five months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, Rainey — BP’s vice president for Gulf exploration — testified before the U.S. Congress that the company had drilled offshore “for the last 50 years in a manner both safe and protective of the environment.”</p>
<p>BP’s testimony was a lie. The Caspian rig had blown out a year earlier.</p>
<p>But the lie was good enough for Congress. Based on Rainey’s assurances, legislators pressured the Department of the Interior to drop objections to plans for drilling in the Gulf’s deep waters.</p>
<p>Withholding information from Congress is a felony. But Rainey has one heck of a defense: The U.S. State Department was in on the cover-up.</p>
<p>Deep in the pile of confidential State Department cables released by one courageous U.S. soldier, Pfc. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, we have the notes from a secret meeting between the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne E. Derse, and the chief of BP’s Caspian operation.</p>
<p>The hugger-mugger was demanded by BP’s American partners, Chevron and Exxon. The U.S. oil companies had complained to the State Department that they were no longer getting their piece of the Caspian loot and BP wouldn’t tell them why. (You’ll remember that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a member of Chevron’s board.)</p>
<p>In the memo, which you can see in our film “ <a href="http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/?id=65" type="external">Vultures and Vote Rustlers</a>,” the U.S. ambassador provides the details of the blowout of the bad cement on the BP rig.</p>
<p>The State Department kept schtum (quiet) about it, not even warning U.S. safety regulators. And Exxon and Chevron’s chiefs joined BP’s Rainey in the mendacious sales pitch to Congress, testifying, despite their knowledge, that their offshore drilling methods were as safe as a game of checkers.</p>
<p>Justice is not always abused: Rainey was indicted on a felony charge of obstruction of Congress. However, the charge centers on a relatively minor falsehood: his alleged understatement of the amount of oil bursting into the Gulf. Neither Rainey nor BP will be tried for the deadlier lie to Congress — the prior blowout caused by the penny-pinching quick-dry cement — because the U.S. government is itself complicit in the cover-up.</p>
<p>Blowbacks and blowouts</p>
<p>And that’s why we are seeing the red carpet rolled out for BP in the Gulf once more.</p>
<p />
<p>The Deepwater Horizon rig in flames. Photo by Palast Investigative Fund</p>
<p>When the U.S. government participates in the corruption of other democracies, when it authorizes bribery and ignores police-state tactics to benefit from business deals, the sins of empire can come back to haunt the nation. In the CIA’s world this is called “blowback.” What was covered up in Baku has killed Americans in the Gulf, and it will likely continue to kill.</p>
<p>And bribery does not simply stay “over there.” American officials are not as different from the Baku bandits as they may like to believe. The agency in charge of regulating BP’s drilling in the Gulf, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, was rife with watchdogs who, like their Azeri counterparts, took backhanders and payouts from BP. And when I say BP was in bed with the regulators, that is not a metaphor: A BP lobbyist was reportedly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html" type="external">sleeping with</a> a chief of the agency.Don’t bother sending Rainey a file in a cake: The BP man won’t get two minutes of jail time. His trial has been suspended indefinitely.</p>
<p>Immunity from law is not new to BP. As I <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> last month, BP was the main culprit in the disaster caused by the Exxon Valdez grounding. The company walked away without paying a dime to the victims. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, a few tenacious attorneys have ensured the corporation pays some compensation in the Gulf. But that money comes nowhere close to the damage it caused and will do nothing to harm the company’s bottom line.</p>
<p>The oil is still there</p>
<p>Today BP has declared Gulf waters clean, as if Mother Nature were just a toilet you can poop in and flush. But I’ve been to the Gulf shores. Dig down 10 inches in the shoals off Gulfport, Miss., and you’ll hit Deepwater Horizon crude. Biologist Rick Steiner told me BP’s poisonous sludge will remain just under the surface for another 40 years. Hidden — just like BP’s crimes.</p>
<p>Watch Palast’s report “Greg Palast Untold Story of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Disaster” on Sunday on <a href="https://www.freespeech.org/GregPalastBP" type="external">Free Speech TV</a> at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET.</p>
<p>Make sure to show your support for Truthdig’s independent journalism by visiting our <a href="" type="internal">donation page</a>.</p>
<p /> | Lap Dancers, the CIA, Payoffs and BP’s Deepwater Horizon | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/lap-dancers-the-cia-payoffs-and-bps-deepwater-horizon/ | 2014-04-18 | 4left
| Lap Dancers, the CIA, Payoffs and BP’s Deepwater Horizon
<p />
<p>“There was CIA involvement through a company called Mega Oil. They were shipping in arms under the cover of oil tools.”</p>
<p>The BP executive was explaining to me how the CIA, MI6 and British Petroleum engineered a coup d’état, overthrowing a nation’s elected president who was “not favorable to BP.” The corporation’s former vice president, Leslie Abrahams, is pictured above, holding an AK-47 in front of BP’s offices in Baku, Azerbaijan. Like most of the other BP executives I spoke with, he proudly added that although he was working for BP, he was also an operative for MI6, British intelligence.</p>
<p>This conversation, which took place in 2010, was far from the weirdest I had in my four-continent investigation of the real story of the Deepwater Horizon.</p>
<p />
<p>The BP oil rig blew out on April 20 of that year, four years ago this Sunday.</p>
<p>Last month, the Obama administration officially OK’d BP’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/20/bp-gulf-of-mexico-leases_n_4996314.html" type="external">right to resume</a> drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A few days after lifting the ban, just to assure the company that all is forgiven, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave BP a new contract to drill in the Gulf of Mexico — right next to where the Deepwater Horizon went down. At the same time, the forgive-and-forget U.S. Justice Department has put the trial of David Rainey, the only BP big shot charged with a felony crime in the disaster, on indefinite hold.</p>
<p>The Deepwater Horizon blowout incinerated 11 men on the rig and poisoned 600 miles of Gulf coastline. What political fairy dust does BP keep in its pocket to receive virtual immunity from the consequences?</p>
<p>To understand what really happened in the Gulf of Mexico, and how BP became a corporate creature beyond the reach of the law, British television network Channel 4 sent me on an investigation through a labyrinthine fun house of bribery, lap dancing, beatings, WikiLeaks, a coup d’état, arrests and oil-state terror.</p>
<p>I found the cause of the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon 7,000 miles from the Gulf in the ancient city of Baku, the Central Asian caravan stop on the Silk Road.</p>
<p />
<p>For the interview with agent Abrahams and the full story of the Deepwater Horizon, see, “Vultures and Vote Rustlers,” the documentary that will be available as a <a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/vulturesandvoterustlersfreedownload/" type="external">download without charge</a> until April 21 courtesy of the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund.</p>
<p />
<p>The literal source of Soviet power until 1991, Baku has been exporting petroleum for 3,000 years. As the Soviet Union shattered into pieces that year, BP set its sights on the city. It is now the capital of the new nation of Azerbaijan, which sits atop the biggest untapped oil field in the world, right beneath the Caspian Sea.</p>
<p>A coup for BP</p>
<p>In 1992, then-BP Chairman Lord Browne flew into Baku as soon as the young state elected its first president, Abulfaz Elchibey. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined him via the “Iron Lady,” a plane the corporation outfitted especially for her. At a state dinner, Browne handed Abrahams, a BP vice president at the time, a briefcase and showed him the contents: a check for $30 million. Browne then gave the check to the president of Azerbaijan.</p>
<p>Still, the new president remained “not favorable” to BP’s demand for control of the Caspian oil, so MI6, the CIA and the corporation went into action. The spy agencies armed and empowered former Soviet KGB chief Heydar Aliyev, who in 1993 overthrew Azerbaijan’s elected government. Once he became dictator, Aliyev named himself president for life and within four months signed a no-bid deal to give the reserves to BP.</p>
<p>BP and MI6 man Abrahams was instructed, he told me, to “smooth the way” for the deal by taking Azeri officials to London in Browne’s jet for weekends of lap dancing and other entertainment. By Abrahams’ own estimation, he paid over $3 million in additional cash bribes to make certain BP would have no trouble.</p>
<p>I should note that Abrahams broke no law: Bribery by a British subject was legal then. BP executives did not deny the payoffs when I questioned them directly, and MI6 officers proudly confirmed the coup’s purpose of locking in the offshore deal for BP.</p>
<p>Quick-dry, quick-kill cement</p>
<p>What does this have to do with the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon?</p>
<p>This: It is now well established that the disaster occurred when the cement used to cap the well failed, allowing explosive methane gas to fill the rig and transform it into a sinking fireball.</p>
<p>But this was not BP’s first cement failure and explosion. Just 17 months earlier, BP’s Caspian Sea Transocean rig had suffered exactly the same fate.</p>
<p>The cause of the two blowouts was identical. In the Caspian as in the Gulf, BP laced its cement with nitrogen gas. The nitrogen bubbles sped up the drying of the mixture, saving BP half a million dollars a day on rig rental charges. But in offshore high-pressure zones, nitrogen-spiked cement can fail. And it did. Twice.Question: Why in the world was BP allowed to use this insanely dangerous “quick-dry” cement just after a failure in the Caspian? Answer: A cover-up — via threats, beatings, arrests, bribery, perjury and the complicity of the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p>I learned of the prior blowout only because of a coded message from the Caspian Sea received from one very nervous eyewitness. To get the evidence, I flew to Baku and headed across the road-less desert to find more witnesses.</p>
<p />
<p>Greg Palast and crew under arrest in Azerbaijan. Photo by Palast Investigative Fund</p>
<p>But we had been ratted out. My crew was placed under arrest by Azerbaijan’s secret police. Although officers demanded our film, I was allowed to keep my pen, which was actually a hidden camera. (I’ve learned a few things from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pArBEnKcoMw" type="external">Maxwell Smart</a>.)</p>
<p>How do you keep a monstrous blowout from going public? As one of the arresting cops told us with odd pride, “BP drives this country.” It drives it with cash. Robert Ebel, former chief of oil analysis for the CIA, estimates that at least <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Conflict-Central-Asia-Caucasus/dp/0742500632" type="external">$140 million in payments</a> by BP for Azeri oil has gone unaccounted for. Where did it go? Notably, the Aliyev ruling family lives like pashas despite the president’s official salary of $100 a month.</p>
<p>Oil worker advocate Mirvari Gahramanli said she was beaten by police for raising questions. In case I doubted it, she showed me photographs of a dozen cops slamming her with long clubs.</p>
<p>What’s worse, while I was tossed out of the country (it would have looked bad to throw a TV reporter into a dungeon), my witnesses disappeared.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks and oily lies</p>
<p>Just five months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, Rainey — BP’s vice president for Gulf exploration — testified before the U.S. Congress that the company had drilled offshore “for the last 50 years in a manner both safe and protective of the environment.”</p>
<p>BP’s testimony was a lie. The Caspian rig had blown out a year earlier.</p>
<p>But the lie was good enough for Congress. Based on Rainey’s assurances, legislators pressured the Department of the Interior to drop objections to plans for drilling in the Gulf’s deep waters.</p>
<p>Withholding information from Congress is a felony. But Rainey has one heck of a defense: The U.S. State Department was in on the cover-up.</p>
<p>Deep in the pile of confidential State Department cables released by one courageous U.S. soldier, Pfc. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, we have the notes from a secret meeting between the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne E. Derse, and the chief of BP’s Caspian operation.</p>
<p>The hugger-mugger was demanded by BP’s American partners, Chevron and Exxon. The U.S. oil companies had complained to the State Department that they were no longer getting their piece of the Caspian loot and BP wouldn’t tell them why. (You’ll remember that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a member of Chevron’s board.)</p>
<p>In the memo, which you can see in our film “ <a href="http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/?id=65" type="external">Vultures and Vote Rustlers</a>,” the U.S. ambassador provides the details of the blowout of the bad cement on the BP rig.</p>
<p>The State Department kept schtum (quiet) about it, not even warning U.S. safety regulators. And Exxon and Chevron’s chiefs joined BP’s Rainey in the mendacious sales pitch to Congress, testifying, despite their knowledge, that their offshore drilling methods were as safe as a game of checkers.</p>
<p>Justice is not always abused: Rainey was indicted on a felony charge of obstruction of Congress. However, the charge centers on a relatively minor falsehood: his alleged understatement of the amount of oil bursting into the Gulf. Neither Rainey nor BP will be tried for the deadlier lie to Congress — the prior blowout caused by the penny-pinching quick-dry cement — because the U.S. government is itself complicit in the cover-up.</p>
<p>Blowbacks and blowouts</p>
<p>And that’s why we are seeing the red carpet rolled out for BP in the Gulf once more.</p>
<p />
<p>The Deepwater Horizon rig in flames. Photo by Palast Investigative Fund</p>
<p>When the U.S. government participates in the corruption of other democracies, when it authorizes bribery and ignores police-state tactics to benefit from business deals, the sins of empire can come back to haunt the nation. In the CIA’s world this is called “blowback.” What was covered up in Baku has killed Americans in the Gulf, and it will likely continue to kill.</p>
<p>And bribery does not simply stay “over there.” American officials are not as different from the Baku bandits as they may like to believe. The agency in charge of regulating BP’s drilling in the Gulf, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, was rife with watchdogs who, like their Azeri counterparts, took backhanders and payouts from BP. And when I say BP was in bed with the regulators, that is not a metaphor: A BP lobbyist was reportedly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html" type="external">sleeping with</a> a chief of the agency.Don’t bother sending Rainey a file in a cake: The BP man won’t get two minutes of jail time. His trial has been suspended indefinitely.</p>
<p>Immunity from law is not new to BP. As I <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> last month, BP was the main culprit in the disaster caused by the Exxon Valdez grounding. The company walked away without paying a dime to the victims. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, a few tenacious attorneys have ensured the corporation pays some compensation in the Gulf. But that money comes nowhere close to the damage it caused and will do nothing to harm the company’s bottom line.</p>
<p>The oil is still there</p>
<p>Today BP has declared Gulf waters clean, as if Mother Nature were just a toilet you can poop in and flush. But I’ve been to the Gulf shores. Dig down 10 inches in the shoals off Gulfport, Miss., and you’ll hit Deepwater Horizon crude. Biologist Rick Steiner told me BP’s poisonous sludge will remain just under the surface for another 40 years. Hidden — just like BP’s crimes.</p>
<p>Watch Palast’s report “Greg Palast Untold Story of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Disaster” on Sunday on <a href="https://www.freespeech.org/GregPalastBP" type="external">Free Speech TV</a> at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET.</p>
<p>Make sure to show your support for Truthdig’s independent journalism by visiting our <a href="" type="internal">donation page</a>.</p>
<p /> | 118 |
<p>One afternoon in September, immigration activists and religious leaders joined politicians standing proudly outside the Cook County Clerk’s Office to celebrate a “victory for immigrant rights.”</p>
<p>“We are committed to the protection of all citizens of Cook County and improving the treatment of immigrants,” said Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia, who had earlier voted along with nine others to approve an ordinance that will end the practice of holding Cook County Jail inmates for immigration purposes.</p>
<p>Under the Fair and Equal County for Immigrants ordinance, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart can decline to enforce an immigration-hold request, also known as a “detainer,” unless the federal government agrees in writing to reimburse the county for the cost of detention. The ordinance also bars immigration agents from having access to county jail inmates without a criminal warrant.</p>
<p>“The practice of detaining people by the sheriff was also eroding the trust and relationship between residents of various communities,” said Garcia, who drafted the ordinance. “It was undermining public safety.”</p>
<p>Cook County’s ordinance is among the first enacted in the country designed to resist Secure Communities, a controversial federal program that aims to deport immigrants who have been arrested by local law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p>Amalia Pallares, associate professor of political science and Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the spirit of the ordinance could be emulated in other counties.</p>
<p>“It is about the rights of immigrants,” said Pallares, who also co-edited a book about immigration activism in Chicago. “Every local government has to figure out what makes sense to them, but the spirit can be used to uphold the rights of undocumented immigrants who don’t have a criminal background.”</p>
<p>As of Aug. 31, immigration detainers were issued for 342 inmates among the daily average population of about 9,000 at Cook County Jail, shows a Chicago Reporter analysis of Cook County inmate reports. Last year, 1,665 inmates were placed under immigration hold.About 87 percent have been charged with a felony, and the rest had a misdemeanor charge, the analysis shows.</p>
<p>Since the ordinance was approved, 48 inmates—36 of them with felony charges—have been released after they posted bond, said Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.</p>
<p>It costs $143 a day to house an inmate at the county jail. By not holding inmates, Garcia said, the ordinance would save the county $15 million a year. Patterson said that number is actually smaller—about $250,000—a year.</p>
<p>A recent federal court ruling cleared the way for the ordinance. An Indiana court case ruled in June that the detainer requests made by immigration enforcement officials are only a request and not criminal warrants.</p>
<p>The ordinance also came after immigration activists rallied around what they say is a flawed implementation of Secure Communities, Garcia said.</p>
<p>Many undocumented immigrants were being booked into immigration custody after an arrest but not conviction, he said.</p>
<p>The Reporter analysis of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security records bears out his claim. In Illinois, 46 percent of 3,023 people who were booked into immigration custody between Nov. 24, 2009, and July 25, 2011, were never charged with, or convicted of, the crimes for which they were arrested, the analysis shows.</p>
<p>Cook County’s unease with Secure Communities began to surface in April 2009, when the sheriff’s office opted not to share fingerprints of its arrestees with the homeland security department.</p>
<p>“We were trying to get answers from [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] about Secure Communities,” Patterson said. “We got a lot of runarounds and conflicting answers.”</p>
<p>Nicole Nava, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the ordinance would release criminals back into communities instead of deporting them.</p>
<p>Her agency “places detainers on aliens arrested on criminal charges to ensure that dangerous criminals are not released from prisons/jails and into our communities,” Nava wrote.</p>
<p>Nava offered three examples of undocumented immigrants being released back to Cook County, including the release of a 32-year-old Mexican charged with a felony and traffic offenses after running a red light and then punching the officer who arrested him.</p>
<p>Garcia said the ordinance was needed to clarify any confusion and to stop immigration enforcement overreach. The ordinance will also protect the county from liability in cases where immigration officials ask the county to hold someone they wrongly suspect as being undocumented.</p>
<p>“We don’t detain people without probable cause,” he said. “That would violate constitutional guarantees like due process and equal protection. But these detainers are not based on probable cause.”</p>
<p>Contributing: Crystal Vance Guerra</p> | Holding penalty | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/holding-penalty/ | 2011-11-01 | 3left-center
| Holding penalty
<p>One afternoon in September, immigration activists and religious leaders joined politicians standing proudly outside the Cook County Clerk’s Office to celebrate a “victory for immigrant rights.”</p>
<p>“We are committed to the protection of all citizens of Cook County and improving the treatment of immigrants,” said Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia, who had earlier voted along with nine others to approve an ordinance that will end the practice of holding Cook County Jail inmates for immigration purposes.</p>
<p>Under the Fair and Equal County for Immigrants ordinance, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart can decline to enforce an immigration-hold request, also known as a “detainer,” unless the federal government agrees in writing to reimburse the county for the cost of detention. The ordinance also bars immigration agents from having access to county jail inmates without a criminal warrant.</p>
<p>“The practice of detaining people by the sheriff was also eroding the trust and relationship between residents of various communities,” said Garcia, who drafted the ordinance. “It was undermining public safety.”</p>
<p>Cook County’s ordinance is among the first enacted in the country designed to resist Secure Communities, a controversial federal program that aims to deport immigrants who have been arrested by local law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p>Amalia Pallares, associate professor of political science and Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the spirit of the ordinance could be emulated in other counties.</p>
<p>“It is about the rights of immigrants,” said Pallares, who also co-edited a book about immigration activism in Chicago. “Every local government has to figure out what makes sense to them, but the spirit can be used to uphold the rights of undocumented immigrants who don’t have a criminal background.”</p>
<p>As of Aug. 31, immigration detainers were issued for 342 inmates among the daily average population of about 9,000 at Cook County Jail, shows a Chicago Reporter analysis of Cook County inmate reports. Last year, 1,665 inmates were placed under immigration hold.About 87 percent have been charged with a felony, and the rest had a misdemeanor charge, the analysis shows.</p>
<p>Since the ordinance was approved, 48 inmates—36 of them with felony charges—have been released after they posted bond, said Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.</p>
<p>It costs $143 a day to house an inmate at the county jail. By not holding inmates, Garcia said, the ordinance would save the county $15 million a year. Patterson said that number is actually smaller—about $250,000—a year.</p>
<p>A recent federal court ruling cleared the way for the ordinance. An Indiana court case ruled in June that the detainer requests made by immigration enforcement officials are only a request and not criminal warrants.</p>
<p>The ordinance also came after immigration activists rallied around what they say is a flawed implementation of Secure Communities, Garcia said.</p>
<p>Many undocumented immigrants were being booked into immigration custody after an arrest but not conviction, he said.</p>
<p>The Reporter analysis of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security records bears out his claim. In Illinois, 46 percent of 3,023 people who were booked into immigration custody between Nov. 24, 2009, and July 25, 2011, were never charged with, or convicted of, the crimes for which they were arrested, the analysis shows.</p>
<p>Cook County’s unease with Secure Communities began to surface in April 2009, when the sheriff’s office opted not to share fingerprints of its arrestees with the homeland security department.</p>
<p>“We were trying to get answers from [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] about Secure Communities,” Patterson said. “We got a lot of runarounds and conflicting answers.”</p>
<p>Nicole Nava, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the ordinance would release criminals back into communities instead of deporting them.</p>
<p>Her agency “places detainers on aliens arrested on criminal charges to ensure that dangerous criminals are not released from prisons/jails and into our communities,” Nava wrote.</p>
<p>Nava offered three examples of undocumented immigrants being released back to Cook County, including the release of a 32-year-old Mexican charged with a felony and traffic offenses after running a red light and then punching the officer who arrested him.</p>
<p>Garcia said the ordinance was needed to clarify any confusion and to stop immigration enforcement overreach. The ordinance will also protect the county from liability in cases where immigration officials ask the county to hold someone they wrongly suspect as being undocumented.</p>
<p>“We don’t detain people without probable cause,” he said. “That would violate constitutional guarantees like due process and equal protection. But these detainers are not based on probable cause.”</p>
<p>Contributing: Crystal Vance Guerra</p> | 119 |
<p />
<p>Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella continues to put his stamp on the company, announcing Wednesday an executive shuffle that involves the departure of former Nokia Corp. chief Stephen Elop.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mr. Elop was the biggest surprise departure in the executive shuffle. Two other Microsoft executives, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder, will, like Mr. Elop "leave Microsoft after a designated transition period," the company said in a news release. Separately, Mark Penn, who had served in a senior strategist role, is leaving Microsoft as well.</p>
<p>Mr. Elop's departure is the latest sign Microsoft is hitting the reset button on its struggling smartphone hardware business. The more than $9 billion purchase of Nokia's handset business--a deal struck by Mr. Nadella's predecessor Steve Ballmer in late 2013--was supposed to make Microsoft a relevant player in smartphones.</p>
<p>Microsoft declined to make Mr. Elop available for an interview.</p>
<p>Instead under Mr. Elop's leadership at Microsoft, the company's Windows smartphones lost market share and bled red ink. The company recently said it planned to further cut costs at the smartphone business and other hardware units. Nokia already was targeted for thousands of job cuts in the biggest layoffs in Microsoft's history, announced last year.</p>
<p>Last July, in an email that rankled some with an introduction of "Hello there," Mr. Elop outlined 12,500 Microsoft job cuts and underlined the challenges the unit was facing.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"It is particularly important to recognize that the role of phones within Microsoft is different than it was within Nokia," he wrote. "Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft's strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope. Therefore, we plan to make some changes."</p>
<p>Mr. Elop had been viewed as a potential successor to Mr. Ballmer, and his return to the company was seen as setting the table for him to win respect in Microsoft's board room as directors searched for a new CEO. In February 2014, Mr. Nadella was appointed to the job.</p>
<p>Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said Elop's exit "speaks to Microsoft's view that Nokia and the overall mobile strategy was clearly not heading down the right path."</p>
<p>Microsoft's hardware devices businesses, which Mr. Elop ran, will now be folded into a new division with Microsoft's operating systems group. Terry Myerson, also an executive vice president, will lead the division.</p> | Key Executive Changes Shake Up Microsoft | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/06/17/key-executive-changes-shake-up-microsoft.html | 2016-03-04 | 0right
| Key Executive Changes Shake Up Microsoft
<p />
<p>Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella continues to put his stamp on the company, announcing Wednesday an executive shuffle that involves the departure of former Nokia Corp. chief Stephen Elop.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mr. Elop was the biggest surprise departure in the executive shuffle. Two other Microsoft executives, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder, will, like Mr. Elop "leave Microsoft after a designated transition period," the company said in a news release. Separately, Mark Penn, who had served in a senior strategist role, is leaving Microsoft as well.</p>
<p>Mr. Elop's departure is the latest sign Microsoft is hitting the reset button on its struggling smartphone hardware business. The more than $9 billion purchase of Nokia's handset business--a deal struck by Mr. Nadella's predecessor Steve Ballmer in late 2013--was supposed to make Microsoft a relevant player in smartphones.</p>
<p>Microsoft declined to make Mr. Elop available for an interview.</p>
<p>Instead under Mr. Elop's leadership at Microsoft, the company's Windows smartphones lost market share and bled red ink. The company recently said it planned to further cut costs at the smartphone business and other hardware units. Nokia already was targeted for thousands of job cuts in the biggest layoffs in Microsoft's history, announced last year.</p>
<p>Last July, in an email that rankled some with an introduction of "Hello there," Mr. Elop outlined 12,500 Microsoft job cuts and underlined the challenges the unit was facing.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"It is particularly important to recognize that the role of phones within Microsoft is different than it was within Nokia," he wrote. "Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft's strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope. Therefore, we plan to make some changes."</p>
<p>Mr. Elop had been viewed as a potential successor to Mr. Ballmer, and his return to the company was seen as setting the table for him to win respect in Microsoft's board room as directors searched for a new CEO. In February 2014, Mr. Nadella was appointed to the job.</p>
<p>Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said Elop's exit "speaks to Microsoft's view that Nokia and the overall mobile strategy was clearly not heading down the right path."</p>
<p>Microsoft's hardware devices businesses, which Mr. Elop ran, will now be folded into a new division with Microsoft's operating systems group. Terry Myerson, also an executive vice president, will lead the division.</p> | 120 |
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<p>New Mexico’s high school class of 2013 is slightly more “college ready” than their predecessors in the class of 2012, according to a new report from the ACT testing service.</p>
<p>The ACT bases its college readiness estimates largely on whether students meet score benchmarks on the four subject tests that make up the ACT. According to the report, students who reach those score targets are likely to pass their freshman courses with a “C” grade or better. The benchmarks are 18 for English, 22 for reading and math and 23 for science.</p>
<p>In New Mexico, 19 percent of students who took the ACT met the benchmarks in all four areas, up from 17 percent last year. Students were most successful in English, with 56 percent meeting that benchmark, and they struggled most in science, with just 29 percent hitting the target score.</p>
<p>However, the science percentage saw the most improvement over last year, when 22 percent hit the benchmark. Students slipped on the reading portion of the test, from 45 percent hitting the target in 2012 to 38 percent this year. The other subjects were relatively flat.</p>
<p>Overall, 70 percent of New Mexico graduates take the ACT, and their average composite score is 19.9. That’s one point below the national average score of 20.9.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The racial and ethnic breakdown of ACT-takers remained relatively unchanged over last year, at 51 percent Hispanic, 28 percent Anglo and 9 percent American Indian. That breakdown has changed significantly over the past five years, with the percentage of Hispanic test-takers increasing from 36 percent in 2009 to 51 percent in 2013.</p>
<p>But even though Hispanic students now take the test in greater numbers than their Anglo counterparts, there is still a yawning gap between the scores of Anglo and Hispanic students. While 50 percent of Anglo students met three or more of the college readiness benchmarks, 22 percent of Hispanic students reached three or more of the targets. That gap has remained unchanged since at least 2009.</p>
<p>Albuquerque Public Schools will place more emphasis on the ACT this school year, in that the district will begin administering the Plan test to sophomores rather than the pre-SAT. The Plan is a pre-ACT test aimed at sophomores.</p>
<p />
<p /> | N.M. class of 2013 slightly more ‘college ready’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/251447/nm-class-of-2013-slightly-more-college-ready.html | 2013-08-22 | 2least
| N.M. class of 2013 slightly more ‘college ready’
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>New Mexico’s high school class of 2013 is slightly more “college ready” than their predecessors in the class of 2012, according to a new report from the ACT testing service.</p>
<p>The ACT bases its college readiness estimates largely on whether students meet score benchmarks on the four subject tests that make up the ACT. According to the report, students who reach those score targets are likely to pass their freshman courses with a “C” grade or better. The benchmarks are 18 for English, 22 for reading and math and 23 for science.</p>
<p>In New Mexico, 19 percent of students who took the ACT met the benchmarks in all four areas, up from 17 percent last year. Students were most successful in English, with 56 percent meeting that benchmark, and they struggled most in science, with just 29 percent hitting the target score.</p>
<p>However, the science percentage saw the most improvement over last year, when 22 percent hit the benchmark. Students slipped on the reading portion of the test, from 45 percent hitting the target in 2012 to 38 percent this year. The other subjects were relatively flat.</p>
<p>Overall, 70 percent of New Mexico graduates take the ACT, and their average composite score is 19.9. That’s one point below the national average score of 20.9.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The racial and ethnic breakdown of ACT-takers remained relatively unchanged over last year, at 51 percent Hispanic, 28 percent Anglo and 9 percent American Indian. That breakdown has changed significantly over the past five years, with the percentage of Hispanic test-takers increasing from 36 percent in 2009 to 51 percent in 2013.</p>
<p>But even though Hispanic students now take the test in greater numbers than their Anglo counterparts, there is still a yawning gap between the scores of Anglo and Hispanic students. While 50 percent of Anglo students met three or more of the college readiness benchmarks, 22 percent of Hispanic students reached three or more of the targets. That gap has remained unchanged since at least 2009.</p>
<p>Albuquerque Public Schools will place more emphasis on the ACT this school year, in that the district will begin administering the Plan test to sophomores rather than the pre-SAT. The Plan is a pre-ACT test aimed at sophomores.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 121 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>A: I say, go for it! Since most everything has been adequately chilled this week I doubt that by spreading manure you would encourage any growth now. Just be sure to give everything a good drink before you spread your black gold. Try and arrange – perhaps by a good neighbor or family member – a watering or two while you are away unless we are blessed by rain or snow. Then, they’d be off the hook, so to speak.</p>
<p>The watering is most important. It helps wash the salts that are usually contained in manure through the soils. If the salts aren’t worked down by a good watering, you run the risk of root damage. So as long as you can arrange to get some help, spread your manure now and don’t worry about being a little early.</p>
<p>Oh, be sure to insist your caretaker unfastens the hoses from your hose bibs after they’ve finished so your plumbing stays healthy, too. Have a marvelous time knowing you’ve done a good thing for next year!</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Q: It seems I’ve brought in a few flying gnat-like bugs with my patio plants. What should I do to get rid of them? – N.G., Belen</p>
<p>A: There is something about finding a gnat doing the backstroke in your first cup of coffee of the morning to set your teeth on edge! Just aggravating! But you can get these pesky critters under control and live the rest of the winter gnat free.</p>
<p>First, be sure that the saucers that came in with your treasures are clean. Wash them clean in hot soapy water to eliminate any of the gnats that could be hanging out there.</p>
<p>Next, see if you can water a little less now that the plants are indoors. Gnats like damp homes so if the soil’s kept a bit on the dry side they aren’t as healthy. Now I’d suggest spraying the soil surface of each and every plant you have with a pesticide. You can find ready-to-use products that are quite safe at most any garden center or nursery. Look for products that contain neem or insecticidal soap in the list of active ingredients.</p>
<p>Or, you can make your own spray. Mix a tablespoon of liquid dish soap in a quart of water and, voilà, you’ve got a safe and pretty inexpensive pesticide!</p>
<p>Be sure to follow the instructions on the label of your store-bought pesticides as to how closely you can apply successive applications, but you will want to spray at least three, maybe four, times.</p>
<p>The home-made type you can spray weekly, for sure. Just be sure to have watered the plants before you spray, wait an hour, and then spray with your chosen pesticide. Be sure to get in the three-to-four sprayings so you will get the next generation, and within a month you and your plants should be gnat-free!</p>
<p>While you are spraying and since these treasures did come in for the winter, be sure to give every one a good, close looking over. I’d be remiss to not warn you of other ne’er-do-wells that could have hitchhiked in with the plants, too. The store-bought pesticides should be able to handle most any bug you could find. The home-made brew should be tested on a sample spot before spraying your plants willy-nilly, if you find a need.</p>
<p>Really, you can get rid of those pesky gnats by spraying routinely for the next couple of weeks and have gnat-free coffee! Happy Digging In.</p>
<p>Need tips on growing your garden? Tracey Fitzgibbon is a certified nurseryman. Send your garden-related questions to Digging In, Rio West, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | Is it OK if I feed my dormant garden early? | false | https://abqjournal.com/297932/is-it-ok-if-i-feed-my-dormant-garden-early.html | 2013-11-09 | 2least
| Is it OK if I feed my dormant garden early?
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>A: I say, go for it! Since most everything has been adequately chilled this week I doubt that by spreading manure you would encourage any growth now. Just be sure to give everything a good drink before you spread your black gold. Try and arrange – perhaps by a good neighbor or family member – a watering or two while you are away unless we are blessed by rain or snow. Then, they’d be off the hook, so to speak.</p>
<p>The watering is most important. It helps wash the salts that are usually contained in manure through the soils. If the salts aren’t worked down by a good watering, you run the risk of root damage. So as long as you can arrange to get some help, spread your manure now and don’t worry about being a little early.</p>
<p>Oh, be sure to insist your caretaker unfastens the hoses from your hose bibs after they’ve finished so your plumbing stays healthy, too. Have a marvelous time knowing you’ve done a good thing for next year!</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Q: It seems I’ve brought in a few flying gnat-like bugs with my patio plants. What should I do to get rid of them? – N.G., Belen</p>
<p>A: There is something about finding a gnat doing the backstroke in your first cup of coffee of the morning to set your teeth on edge! Just aggravating! But you can get these pesky critters under control and live the rest of the winter gnat free.</p>
<p>First, be sure that the saucers that came in with your treasures are clean. Wash them clean in hot soapy water to eliminate any of the gnats that could be hanging out there.</p>
<p>Next, see if you can water a little less now that the plants are indoors. Gnats like damp homes so if the soil’s kept a bit on the dry side they aren’t as healthy. Now I’d suggest spraying the soil surface of each and every plant you have with a pesticide. You can find ready-to-use products that are quite safe at most any garden center or nursery. Look for products that contain neem or insecticidal soap in the list of active ingredients.</p>
<p>Or, you can make your own spray. Mix a tablespoon of liquid dish soap in a quart of water and, voilà, you’ve got a safe and pretty inexpensive pesticide!</p>
<p>Be sure to follow the instructions on the label of your store-bought pesticides as to how closely you can apply successive applications, but you will want to spray at least three, maybe four, times.</p>
<p>The home-made type you can spray weekly, for sure. Just be sure to have watered the plants before you spray, wait an hour, and then spray with your chosen pesticide. Be sure to get in the three-to-four sprayings so you will get the next generation, and within a month you and your plants should be gnat-free!</p>
<p>While you are spraying and since these treasures did come in for the winter, be sure to give every one a good, close looking over. I’d be remiss to not warn you of other ne’er-do-wells that could have hitchhiked in with the plants, too. The store-bought pesticides should be able to handle most any bug you could find. The home-made brew should be tested on a sample spot before spraying your plants willy-nilly, if you find a need.</p>
<p>Really, you can get rid of those pesky gnats by spraying routinely for the next couple of weeks and have gnat-free coffee! Happy Digging In.</p>
<p>Need tips on growing your garden? Tracey Fitzgibbon is a certified nurseryman. Send your garden-related questions to Digging In, Rio West, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | 122 |
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 4, 2017).</p>
<p>Broadcast television networks and metro newspapers are about to get a boost from an unexpected but familiar source: Big Tobacco.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's an old media buy to resolve an old fight. Starting as soon as next month, Altria Group Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC will begin running court-mandated ads to put to rest a lawsuit brought nearly two decades ago by the U.S. Department of Justice over misleading statements the industry had made about cigarettes and their health effects.</p>
<p>The television spots, between 30 and 45 seconds long, will run in prime time five days a week for 52 weeks, and will appear mostly on ABC, CBS or NBC, Altria said. They won't have the graphic images of a typical antismoking public service announcement. Instead, these ads will be reminiscent of the disclosure statement at the end of a pharmaceutical ad, displaying court-mandated text in black on a white screen with a voice narration.</p>
<p>"Altria, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard, and Philip Morris USA intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive," one ad will say. Another reads: "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined."</p>
<p>Although the starkness of the black-and-white text ads could be persuasive because they are so out of the ordinary, ad executives said, it is unclear how effective they will be in an age when fewer young people are watching broadcast TV or reading newspapers.</p>
<p>"The good news for the tobacco companies is they'll avoid a lot of their younger audience" who would be more likely to see a video ad on Facebook than a prime-time TV ad, said John Boiler, co-founder of 72andSunny, an agency that does work for the antitobacco nonprofit Truth Campaign. "I think they're getting off kind of lightly."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Marlboro maker Altria, which owns Philip Morris USA, estimates that it will spend $31 million to broadcast and publish the statements on TV, in newspapers, on company-owned websites and in pamphlets tucked inside the cellophane wrappers on cigarette packs. A spokesman for BAT's U.S. subsidiary Reynolds American, which makes Camels and acquired Newport maker Lorillard in 2015, declined to say how much the company expects to spend.</p>
<p>All the defendants named in the Justice Department's 1999 lawsuit are now owned by either Altria or BAT.</p>
<p>Full-page print ads will appear in at least 45 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, starting as soon as Nov. 26, according to a document filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Monday evening by attorneys for Altria, BAT and the Justice Department, outlining their agreement. The print ads will run on five weekends spread over about four months, according to the court filing. Ads will also appear on the newspapers' websites.</p>
<p>Tobacco companies used to be a staple of Madison Avenue ad agencies with figures like the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, but they have sharply curbed their advertising spending in the U.S. They are no longer allowed to advertise their products on television or billboards, and their legal settlements have funded more than $1 billion dollars in antismoking campaigns.</p>
<p>"This industry has changed dramatically over the last 20 years," Altria's General Counsel Murray Garnick said in a statement, noting that the company supported the 2009 law that gave the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. "We're focused on the future and... working to develop less risky tobacco products."</p>
<p>The FDA recently unveiled plans to overhaul how it regulates tobacco, aiming to reduce nicotine in cigarettes so they're no longer addictive and encourage cigarette smokers to switch to less harmful alternatives.</p>
<p>Write to Jennifer Maloney at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 04, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)</p> | Big Tobacco's New U.S. Ads Will Be Critical of Smoking -- WSJ | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/04/big-tobaccos-new-u-s-ads-will-be-critical-smoking-wsj.html | 2017-10-04 | 0right
| Big Tobacco's New U.S. Ads Will Be Critical of Smoking -- WSJ
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 4, 2017).</p>
<p>Broadcast television networks and metro newspapers are about to get a boost from an unexpected but familiar source: Big Tobacco.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's an old media buy to resolve an old fight. Starting as soon as next month, Altria Group Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC will begin running court-mandated ads to put to rest a lawsuit brought nearly two decades ago by the U.S. Department of Justice over misleading statements the industry had made about cigarettes and their health effects.</p>
<p>The television spots, between 30 and 45 seconds long, will run in prime time five days a week for 52 weeks, and will appear mostly on ABC, CBS or NBC, Altria said. They won't have the graphic images of a typical antismoking public service announcement. Instead, these ads will be reminiscent of the disclosure statement at the end of a pharmaceutical ad, displaying court-mandated text in black on a white screen with a voice narration.</p>
<p>"Altria, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard, and Philip Morris USA intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive," one ad will say. Another reads: "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined."</p>
<p>Although the starkness of the black-and-white text ads could be persuasive because they are so out of the ordinary, ad executives said, it is unclear how effective they will be in an age when fewer young people are watching broadcast TV or reading newspapers.</p>
<p>"The good news for the tobacco companies is they'll avoid a lot of their younger audience" who would be more likely to see a video ad on Facebook than a prime-time TV ad, said John Boiler, co-founder of 72andSunny, an agency that does work for the antitobacco nonprofit Truth Campaign. "I think they're getting off kind of lightly."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Marlboro maker Altria, which owns Philip Morris USA, estimates that it will spend $31 million to broadcast and publish the statements on TV, in newspapers, on company-owned websites and in pamphlets tucked inside the cellophane wrappers on cigarette packs. A spokesman for BAT's U.S. subsidiary Reynolds American, which makes Camels and acquired Newport maker Lorillard in 2015, declined to say how much the company expects to spend.</p>
<p>All the defendants named in the Justice Department's 1999 lawsuit are now owned by either Altria or BAT.</p>
<p>Full-page print ads will appear in at least 45 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, starting as soon as Nov. 26, according to a document filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Monday evening by attorneys for Altria, BAT and the Justice Department, outlining their agreement. The print ads will run on five weekends spread over about four months, according to the court filing. Ads will also appear on the newspapers' websites.</p>
<p>Tobacco companies used to be a staple of Madison Avenue ad agencies with figures like the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, but they have sharply curbed their advertising spending in the U.S. They are no longer allowed to advertise their products on television or billboards, and their legal settlements have funded more than $1 billion dollars in antismoking campaigns.</p>
<p>"This industry has changed dramatically over the last 20 years," Altria's General Counsel Murray Garnick said in a statement, noting that the company supported the 2009 law that gave the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. "We're focused on the future and... working to develop less risky tobacco products."</p>
<p>The FDA recently unveiled plans to overhaul how it regulates tobacco, aiming to reduce nicotine in cigarettes so they're no longer addictive and encourage cigarette smokers to switch to less harmful alternatives.</p>
<p>Write to Jennifer Maloney at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 04, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)</p> | 123 |
<p>One of Afghanistan’s nicknames is “the graveyard of empires.”</p>
<p>First the British Empire swept in and tried to conquer the land, only to be driven out in the deadliest massacre of British soldiers in the empire's history. Then the Soviet Union invaded, only to be driven out by determined, and U.S.-backed, resistance.</p>
<p>A short time later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Though it was much longer, the British Empire also waned in the years after the Afghanistan disaster.</p>
<p>Now, a new book highlights that first attempt to intervene in Afghanistan, to protect its valuable possessions in India.</p>
<p>The book is called “The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842." It did not end well for Britain.</p>
<p>Modern readers may find it interesting how some of the issues that faced the Brits back then have parallels today.</p>
<p>Author Diana Preston said after a relatively easy and successful initial invasion, beginning in 1838, a more friendly regime was installed.</p>
<p>But the new regime struggled to win popularity; it was seen as dependent on foreign military power for its position. Plus, its corruption alienated many, its armed forces were weak and of dubious loyalty and it was unable to manage complex tribal relationships.</p>
<p>Not at all unlike the regime of Hamid Karzai, who the U.S. installed as leader shortly after its invasion.</p>
<p>The Afghans rebelled and forced the British to retreat from Kabul in winter 1841-1842. Despite promises of safe passage, the 4,500-man army was massacred, along with its support staff and even the soldiers’ wives and children. More than 16,000 perished in the ‘dark defiles’ on the road back to India.</p>
<p>Only one British man escaped and made it to the U.S. base at Jalalabad, Dr. William Brydon,</p>
<p>The British returned to Kabul in the summer of 1842 to exact retribution and rescue the British and Indians who had been taken prisoner. They burned Kabul’s Grand Bazaar then abandoned Afghanistan to its fate.</p>
<p>Afghans still remember the war with a mixture of pride and anger, Preston said, as the first in a long series of failed attempts by foreign super-powers to dominate their country.</p> | New book recalls British Empire's attempt to intervene in Afghanistan | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-24/new-book-recalls-british-empires-attempt-intervene-afghanistan | 2012-04-24 | 3left-center
| New book recalls British Empire's attempt to intervene in Afghanistan
<p>One of Afghanistan’s nicknames is “the graveyard of empires.”</p>
<p>First the British Empire swept in and tried to conquer the land, only to be driven out in the deadliest massacre of British soldiers in the empire's history. Then the Soviet Union invaded, only to be driven out by determined, and U.S.-backed, resistance.</p>
<p>A short time later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Though it was much longer, the British Empire also waned in the years after the Afghanistan disaster.</p>
<p>Now, a new book highlights that first attempt to intervene in Afghanistan, to protect its valuable possessions in India.</p>
<p>The book is called “The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842." It did not end well for Britain.</p>
<p>Modern readers may find it interesting how some of the issues that faced the Brits back then have parallels today.</p>
<p>Author Diana Preston said after a relatively easy and successful initial invasion, beginning in 1838, a more friendly regime was installed.</p>
<p>But the new regime struggled to win popularity; it was seen as dependent on foreign military power for its position. Plus, its corruption alienated many, its armed forces were weak and of dubious loyalty and it was unable to manage complex tribal relationships.</p>
<p>Not at all unlike the regime of Hamid Karzai, who the U.S. installed as leader shortly after its invasion.</p>
<p>The Afghans rebelled and forced the British to retreat from Kabul in winter 1841-1842. Despite promises of safe passage, the 4,500-man army was massacred, along with its support staff and even the soldiers’ wives and children. More than 16,000 perished in the ‘dark defiles’ on the road back to India.</p>
<p>Only one British man escaped and made it to the U.S. base at Jalalabad, Dr. William Brydon,</p>
<p>The British returned to Kabul in the summer of 1842 to exact retribution and rescue the British and Indians who had been taken prisoner. They burned Kabul’s Grand Bazaar then abandoned Afghanistan to its fate.</p>
<p>Afghans still remember the war with a mixture of pride and anger, Preston said, as the first in a long series of failed attempts by foreign super-powers to dominate their country.</p> | 124 |
<p>CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in jail without parole on Saturday in the retrial of a corruption case, although the trio is unlikely to go to jail again.</p>
<p>Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years, and his sons, Gamal and Alaa, already spent at least three years each in prison for other cases, so will probably not have to serve out the sentence.</p>
<p>The retrial was of a case in which Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison in May last year on charges of diverting public funds and using the money to upgrade family properties. His two sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case.</p>
<p>But Egypt's high court later overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial.</p>
<p>"The ruling of the court is three years in prison without parole for Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni Mubarak," Judge Hassan Hassanein announced on Saturday.</p>
<p>Mubarak's treatment by the courts since being toppled from the presidency during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings has been perceived by his opponents as too lenient and raised doubts about Egypt's transition toward democracy.</p>
<p>Charges against him of conspiring to kill protesters during the uprising, centered around Cairo's Tahrir Square, were dropped, and some of his associates were released from jail.</p>
<p>— Reuters</p> | Hosni Mubarak and Sons Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison, Likely to Go Free | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/hosni-mubarak-sons-sentenced-3-years-prison-likely-go-free-n356581 | 2015-05-10 | 3left-center
| Hosni Mubarak and Sons Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison, Likely to Go Free
<p>CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in jail without parole on Saturday in the retrial of a corruption case, although the trio is unlikely to go to jail again.</p>
<p>Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years, and his sons, Gamal and Alaa, already spent at least three years each in prison for other cases, so will probably not have to serve out the sentence.</p>
<p>The retrial was of a case in which Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison in May last year on charges of diverting public funds and using the money to upgrade family properties. His two sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case.</p>
<p>But Egypt's high court later overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial.</p>
<p>"The ruling of the court is three years in prison without parole for Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni Mubarak," Judge Hassan Hassanein announced on Saturday.</p>
<p>Mubarak's treatment by the courts since being toppled from the presidency during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings has been perceived by his opponents as too lenient and raised doubts about Egypt's transition toward democracy.</p>
<p>Charges against him of conspiring to kill protesters during the uprising, centered around Cairo's Tahrir Square, were dropped, and some of his associates were released from jail.</p>
<p>— Reuters</p> | 125 |
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<p />
<p>TAYLOR: Appeared on “Designing Women</p>
<p>Taylor died Saturday at his home near Los Angeles, according to agent Dede Binder.</p>
<p>Taylor got an Emmy nod for his portrayal of Anthony Bouvier on “Designing Women” from 1986 to 1993. Then he co-starred for four seasons on another successful comedy, “Dave’s World,” as the best friend of a newspaper humor columnist played by the series’ star, Harry Anderson.</p>
<p>Other series included the cult favorite “Buffalo Bill” and the popular Nickelodeon comedy “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Taylor’s movie roles included a flamboyant window dresser in the 1987 comedy-romance “Mannequin” as well as “Damien: Omen II.”</p>
<p>He guest starred on many series including “Hannah Montana,” “The Unit,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Barney Miller,” “Lou Grant,” “The Drew Carey Show,” and, in an episode that aired in January, “Criminal Minds,” which stars Joe Montegna, with whom Taylor performed early in his career as a fellow member of Chicago’s Organic Theater Company.</p>
<p>Taylor played the assistant director in “Buffalo Bill,” the short-lived NBC sitcom about an arrogant and self-centered talk show host played by Dabney Coleman. It lasted just one season, 1983-84, disappointing its small but fervent following.</p>
<p>Seemingly his gig on “Designing Women” could have been even more short-lived. It was initially a one-shot.</p>
<p>“It was for the Thanksgiving show, about halfway through the first season,” Taylor said. But producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason told him if the character clicked with audiences he could stay.</p>
<p>It did. He spun comic gold with co-stars Jean Smart, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Delta Burke, and never left.</p>
<p>Taylor is survived by his four children and his wife, Bianca Ferguson.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Actor Meshach Taylor dies at age 67 | false | https://abqjournal.com/422787/actor-meshach-taylor-dies-at-age-67.html | 2least
| Actor Meshach Taylor dies at age 67
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<p />
<p>TAYLOR: Appeared on “Designing Women</p>
<p>Taylor died Saturday at his home near Los Angeles, according to agent Dede Binder.</p>
<p>Taylor got an Emmy nod for his portrayal of Anthony Bouvier on “Designing Women” from 1986 to 1993. Then he co-starred for four seasons on another successful comedy, “Dave’s World,” as the best friend of a newspaper humor columnist played by the series’ star, Harry Anderson.</p>
<p>Other series included the cult favorite “Buffalo Bill” and the popular Nickelodeon comedy “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Taylor’s movie roles included a flamboyant window dresser in the 1987 comedy-romance “Mannequin” as well as “Damien: Omen II.”</p>
<p>He guest starred on many series including “Hannah Montana,” “The Unit,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Barney Miller,” “Lou Grant,” “The Drew Carey Show,” and, in an episode that aired in January, “Criminal Minds,” which stars Joe Montegna, with whom Taylor performed early in his career as a fellow member of Chicago’s Organic Theater Company.</p>
<p>Taylor played the assistant director in “Buffalo Bill,” the short-lived NBC sitcom about an arrogant and self-centered talk show host played by Dabney Coleman. It lasted just one season, 1983-84, disappointing its small but fervent following.</p>
<p>Seemingly his gig on “Designing Women” could have been even more short-lived. It was initially a one-shot.</p>
<p>“It was for the Thanksgiving show, about halfway through the first season,” Taylor said. But producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason told him if the character clicked with audiences he could stay.</p>
<p>It did. He spun comic gold with co-stars Jean Smart, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Delta Burke, and never left.</p>
<p>Taylor is survived by his four children and his wife, Bianca Ferguson.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 126 |
|
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children and the pastor of his historic Atlanta church marked the national King holiday Monday with sharp denunciations of President Donald Trump, focusing on disparaging remarks he is said to have made about African countries and Haitian immigrants. Angry pro-Haiti protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposite sides of a street near the president's Florida resort.</p>
<p>At gatherings across the nation, activists, residents and teachers honored the late civil rights leader on what would have been his 89th birthday and ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. But in the many speeches delivered from pulpits and podiums across the country, Trump's name came up nearly as often as King's, with speakers indicating that his turbulent presidency was undermining efforts to ease racial tensions in the U.S.</p>
<p>The president spent his first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in office buffeted by claims that during a meeting with senators on immigration last week, he used a vulgarity to describe African countries and questioned the need to allow more Haitians into the U.S. He also is said to have asked why the country couldn't have more immigrants from nations like Norway.</p>
<p>In Washington, King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db44oYipj74&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">criticized</a> Trump, saying, "When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don't even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is."</p>
<p>He added, "We got to find a way to work on this man's heart."</p>
<p>In Atlanta, King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, told hundreds of people who packed the pews of the Ebenezer Baptist Church that they "cannot allow the nations of the world to embrace the words that come from our president as a reflection of the true spirit of America."</p>
<p>"We are one people, one nation, one blood, one destiny. ... All of civilization and humanity originated from the soils of Africa," Bernice King said. "Our collective voice in this hour must always be louder than the one who sometimes does not reflect the legacy of my father."</p>
<p>Church pastor the Rev. Raphael Warnock also took issue with Trump's campaign slogan to "Make America Great Again."</p>
<p>Warnock said he thinks America "is already great ... in large measure because of Africa and African people."</p>
<p>Down the street from Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Haitian protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposing corners. Trump was staying at the resort for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Video posted by WPEC-TV showed several hundred pro-Haiti demonstrators yelling from one side of the street Monday while waving Haitian flags. The Haitians and their supporters shouted "Our country is not a shithole," referring to comments the president reportedly made. Trump has said that is not the language he used.</p>
<p>The smaller pro-Trump contingent waved American flags and campaign posters and yelled "Trump is making America great again." One man could be seen telling the Haitians to leave the country. Police kept the sides apart.</p>
<p>Trump dedicated his weekly address to the nation, released Monday, to King.</p>
<p>"Dr. King's dream is our dream, it is the American dream, it's the promise stitched into the fabric of our nation, etched into the hearts of our people and written into the soul of humankind," he said in the address, which he tweeted to his followers. "It is the dream of a world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from."</p>
<p>The president's remarks appeared not to resonate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who also used the holiday to take aim at the racial rhetoric Trump is said to have used.</p>
<p>"Trump Tower is in the wrong state," Sharpton told a crowd of 200 at the National Action Network in Harlem. He said it was embarrassing that Trump is from New York. "What we're going to do about Donald Trump is going to be the spirit of Martin Luther King Day," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta, contributed to this report.</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children and the pastor of his historic Atlanta church marked the national King holiday Monday with sharp denunciations of President Donald Trump, focusing on disparaging remarks he is said to have made about African countries and Haitian immigrants. Angry pro-Haiti protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposite sides of a street near the president's Florida resort.</p>
<p>At gatherings across the nation, activists, residents and teachers honored the late civil rights leader on what would have been his 89th birthday and ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. But in the many speeches delivered from pulpits and podiums across the country, Trump's name came up nearly as often as King's, with speakers indicating that his turbulent presidency was undermining efforts to ease racial tensions in the U.S.</p>
<p>The president spent his first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in office buffeted by claims that during a meeting with senators on immigration last week, he used a vulgarity to describe African countries and questioned the need to allow more Haitians into the U.S. He also is said to have asked why the country couldn't have more immigrants from nations like Norway.</p>
<p>In Washington, King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db44oYipj74&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">criticized</a> Trump, saying, "When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don't even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is."</p>
<p>He added, "We got to find a way to work on this man's heart."</p>
<p>In Atlanta, King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, told hundreds of people who packed the pews of the Ebenezer Baptist Church that they "cannot allow the nations of the world to embrace the words that come from our president as a reflection of the true spirit of America."</p>
<p>"We are one people, one nation, one blood, one destiny. ... All of civilization and humanity originated from the soils of Africa," Bernice King said. "Our collective voice in this hour must always be louder than the one who sometimes does not reflect the legacy of my father."</p>
<p>Church pastor the Rev. Raphael Warnock also took issue with Trump's campaign slogan to "Make America Great Again."</p>
<p>Warnock said he thinks America "is already great ... in large measure because of Africa and African people."</p>
<p>Down the street from Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Haitian protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposing corners. Trump was staying at the resort for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Video posted by WPEC-TV showed several hundred pro-Haiti demonstrators yelling from one side of the street Monday while waving Haitian flags. The Haitians and their supporters shouted "Our country is not a shithole," referring to comments the president reportedly made. Trump has said that is not the language he used.</p>
<p>The smaller pro-Trump contingent waved American flags and campaign posters and yelled "Trump is making America great again." One man could be seen telling the Haitians to leave the country. Police kept the sides apart.</p>
<p>Trump dedicated his weekly address to the nation, released Monday, to King.</p>
<p>"Dr. King's dream is our dream, it is the American dream, it's the promise stitched into the fabric of our nation, etched into the hearts of our people and written into the soul of humankind," he said in the address, which he tweeted to his followers. "It is the dream of a world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from."</p>
<p>The president's remarks appeared not to resonate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who also used the holiday to take aim at the racial rhetoric Trump is said to have used.</p>
<p>"Trump Tower is in the wrong state," Sharpton told a crowd of 200 at the National Action Network in Harlem. He said it was embarrassing that Trump is from New York. "What we're going to do about Donald Trump is going to be the spirit of Martin Luther King Day," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta, contributed to this report.</p> | King children criticize Trump, decry racism on MLK holiday | false | https://apnews.com/amp/d2aa5b97312049a0ab5405793f9f1d40 | 2018-01-16 | 2least
| King children criticize Trump, decry racism on MLK holiday
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children and the pastor of his historic Atlanta church marked the national King holiday Monday with sharp denunciations of President Donald Trump, focusing on disparaging remarks he is said to have made about African countries and Haitian immigrants. Angry pro-Haiti protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposite sides of a street near the president's Florida resort.</p>
<p>At gatherings across the nation, activists, residents and teachers honored the late civil rights leader on what would have been his 89th birthday and ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. But in the many speeches delivered from pulpits and podiums across the country, Trump's name came up nearly as often as King's, with speakers indicating that his turbulent presidency was undermining efforts to ease racial tensions in the U.S.</p>
<p>The president spent his first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in office buffeted by claims that during a meeting with senators on immigration last week, he used a vulgarity to describe African countries and questioned the need to allow more Haitians into the U.S. He also is said to have asked why the country couldn't have more immigrants from nations like Norway.</p>
<p>In Washington, King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db44oYipj74&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">criticized</a> Trump, saying, "When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don't even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is."</p>
<p>He added, "We got to find a way to work on this man's heart."</p>
<p>In Atlanta, King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, told hundreds of people who packed the pews of the Ebenezer Baptist Church that they "cannot allow the nations of the world to embrace the words that come from our president as a reflection of the true spirit of America."</p>
<p>"We are one people, one nation, one blood, one destiny. ... All of civilization and humanity originated from the soils of Africa," Bernice King said. "Our collective voice in this hour must always be louder than the one who sometimes does not reflect the legacy of my father."</p>
<p>Church pastor the Rev. Raphael Warnock also took issue with Trump's campaign slogan to "Make America Great Again."</p>
<p>Warnock said he thinks America "is already great ... in large measure because of Africa and African people."</p>
<p>Down the street from Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Haitian protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposing corners. Trump was staying at the resort for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Video posted by WPEC-TV showed several hundred pro-Haiti demonstrators yelling from one side of the street Monday while waving Haitian flags. The Haitians and their supporters shouted "Our country is not a shithole," referring to comments the president reportedly made. Trump has said that is not the language he used.</p>
<p>The smaller pro-Trump contingent waved American flags and campaign posters and yelled "Trump is making America great again." One man could be seen telling the Haitians to leave the country. Police kept the sides apart.</p>
<p>Trump dedicated his weekly address to the nation, released Monday, to King.</p>
<p>"Dr. King's dream is our dream, it is the American dream, it's the promise stitched into the fabric of our nation, etched into the hearts of our people and written into the soul of humankind," he said in the address, which he tweeted to his followers. "It is the dream of a world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from."</p>
<p>The president's remarks appeared not to resonate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who also used the holiday to take aim at the racial rhetoric Trump is said to have used.</p>
<p>"Trump Tower is in the wrong state," Sharpton told a crowd of 200 at the National Action Network in Harlem. He said it was embarrassing that Trump is from New York. "What we're going to do about Donald Trump is going to be the spirit of Martin Luther King Day," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta, contributed to this report.</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children and the pastor of his historic Atlanta church marked the national King holiday Monday with sharp denunciations of President Donald Trump, focusing on disparaging remarks he is said to have made about African countries and Haitian immigrants. Angry pro-Haiti protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposite sides of a street near the president's Florida resort.</p>
<p>At gatherings across the nation, activists, residents and teachers honored the late civil rights leader on what would have been his 89th birthday and ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. But in the many speeches delivered from pulpits and podiums across the country, Trump's name came up nearly as often as King's, with speakers indicating that his turbulent presidency was undermining efforts to ease racial tensions in the U.S.</p>
<p>The president spent his first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in office buffeted by claims that during a meeting with senators on immigration last week, he used a vulgarity to describe African countries and questioned the need to allow more Haitians into the U.S. He also is said to have asked why the country couldn't have more immigrants from nations like Norway.</p>
<p>In Washington, King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db44oYipj74&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">criticized</a> Trump, saying, "When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don't even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is."</p>
<p>He added, "We got to find a way to work on this man's heart."</p>
<p>In Atlanta, King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, told hundreds of people who packed the pews of the Ebenezer Baptist Church that they "cannot allow the nations of the world to embrace the words that come from our president as a reflection of the true spirit of America."</p>
<p>"We are one people, one nation, one blood, one destiny. ... All of civilization and humanity originated from the soils of Africa," Bernice King said. "Our collective voice in this hour must always be louder than the one who sometimes does not reflect the legacy of my father."</p>
<p>Church pastor the Rev. Raphael Warnock also took issue with Trump's campaign slogan to "Make America Great Again."</p>
<p>Warnock said he thinks America "is already great ... in large measure because of Africa and African people."</p>
<p>Down the street from Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Haitian protesters and Trump supporters yelled at each other from opposing corners. Trump was staying at the resort for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Video posted by WPEC-TV showed several hundred pro-Haiti demonstrators yelling from one side of the street Monday while waving Haitian flags. The Haitians and their supporters shouted "Our country is not a shithole," referring to comments the president reportedly made. Trump has said that is not the language he used.</p>
<p>The smaller pro-Trump contingent waved American flags and campaign posters and yelled "Trump is making America great again." One man could be seen telling the Haitians to leave the country. Police kept the sides apart.</p>
<p>Trump dedicated his weekly address to the nation, released Monday, to King.</p>
<p>"Dr. King's dream is our dream, it is the American dream, it's the promise stitched into the fabric of our nation, etched into the hearts of our people and written into the soul of humankind," he said in the address, which he tweeted to his followers. "It is the dream of a world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from."</p>
<p>The president's remarks appeared not to resonate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who also used the holiday to take aim at the racial rhetoric Trump is said to have used.</p>
<p>"Trump Tower is in the wrong state," Sharpton told a crowd of 200 at the National Action Network in Harlem. He said it was embarrassing that Trump is from New York. "What we're going to do about Donald Trump is going to be the spirit of Martin Luther King Day," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta, contributed to this report.</p> | 127 |
<p />
<p />
<p>Blackwater’s recent troubles (the alleged indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians by the company’s “independent contractors”) have led to speculation that Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and president, may seek to lead his company into new and perhaps less controversial lines of business. What better way to do that than by marketing a signature handgun? That’s right, the embattled private military firm has apparently partnered with arms manufacturer Sig Sauer to offer a “Blackwater Special Edition P226,” a 9mm handgun. According to the ad ( <a href="http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/blackwater-spec.html" type="external">posted to Wired‘s Danger Zone</a>), “When personal protection of world leaders in high-risk environments is your job then you only want the best equipment.” Run and get yours now while supplies last.</p>
<p /> | Just in Time For The Holidays, Blackwater’s “Special Edition” Sig Sauer Handgun | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/11/just-time-holidays-blackwaters-special-edition-sig-sauer-handgun/ | 2007-11-01 | 4left
| Just in Time For The Holidays, Blackwater’s “Special Edition” Sig Sauer Handgun
<p />
<p />
<p>Blackwater’s recent troubles (the alleged indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians by the company’s “independent contractors”) have led to speculation that Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and president, may seek to lead his company into new and perhaps less controversial lines of business. What better way to do that than by marketing a signature handgun? That’s right, the embattled private military firm has apparently partnered with arms manufacturer Sig Sauer to offer a “Blackwater Special Edition P226,” a 9mm handgun. According to the ad ( <a href="http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/blackwater-spec.html" type="external">posted to Wired‘s Danger Zone</a>), “When personal protection of world leaders in high-risk environments is your job then you only want the best equipment.” Run and get yours now while supplies last.</p>
<p /> | 128 |
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<p />
<p>“It’s not a redesign, it’s not an improvement plan, it’s not a reorganization,” said Van Buren principal Cardinal Rieger. “It’s not any of those negative connotations.”</p>
<p>Rieger is sensitive to word choice because she doesn’t want her staff to feel the initiative is about fixing a problem. Instead, she said it’s about taking the forward momentum at Van Buren and accelerating it.</p>
<p>The school is on Louisiana SE, south of Trumbull. Nearly all the students at the school come from low-income families and the mobility rate is high, meaning many students move in and out of the school during the year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Test scores at the school are still low – 22.7 percent of students scored proficiently in math last year – but have inched up steadily over the past three years. And the school received top marks on its state school grade for the test score growth of its lowest-performing students. It also showed strong growth among higher-performing students, and the school’s overall grade was a high C.</p>
<p>At a presentation to the school board earlier in the semester, APS Superintendent Winston Brooks said he wants to channel community resources into Van Buren, and the district is partnering with Sandia National Laboratories and other community organizations to support efforts at the school.</p>
<p>“One of the problems we have in APS is everybody wants to help, but they all want to do their thing at their place, and what we’re really trying to do is coordinate all the resources right now at Van Buren and try to get everybody on the same page,” Brooks said. “And it’s not somebody’s little pet project, but it’s all based on what the faculty and the folks at Van Buren want to have happen.”</p>
<p>Rieger said Brooks approached her about putting some resources into the school, and told her to “dream big.” Specifically, the district is eyeing a $200,000 infusion into the school, although the school board still has not approved next year’s budget.</p>
<p>Van Buren was chosen for extra attention as part of an ongoing APS effort to rejuvenate some schools in the southeast part of the city, starting with Emerson Elementary School. Associate Superintendent Eddie Soto said administrators originally envisioned a project like Emerson, which is historically low-performing and was substantially overhauled. But upon visiting Van Buren, Soto said, he and Brooks realized the school already had momentum and just needed resources to maintain and enrich their current efforts.</p>
<p>Rieger said she has been consulting with her staff and has formed a working committee to identify their wants and needs. She said the plan is still in progress, but will definitely include an additional counselor at the school.</p>
<p>“The staff said, and I agree, we need more mental health support for our student population,” Rieger said. “Our children and families have a lot of challenges, and students cannot be successful in school if they do not feel socially, emotionally, psychologically and physically stable.”</p>
<p>Rieger said the plan will probably include an additional teacher who specializes in teaching English as a second language and can work with students who are new to the country. Van Buren has a large population of students from places like Africa and the Middle East, in part because refugee placement services are active in that part of the city.</p>
<p>The new teacher would be assigned to a classroom, and students who need help acclimating to the United States would be placed in that teacher’s class. The teacher would specialize in ESL but also would also teach students other day-to-day skills for living in a new country.</p>
<p>Mara Minnegen, Van Buren’s librarian and a member of the team that’s planning the initiative, said students often need more than language skills, and an additional full-time teacher focusing on those issues will help students move forward.</p>
<p>“It’s not just language,” she said. “Sometimes it’s students who have lived in a very rural area coming to live in the big city. Well, that presents just as many problems as the language barrier.”</p> | APS looks to rejuvenate Van Buren | false | https://abqjournal.com/196789/aps-looks-to-rejuvenate-van-buren.html | 2013-05-08 | 2least
| APS looks to rejuvenate Van Buren
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<p />
<p>“It’s not a redesign, it’s not an improvement plan, it’s not a reorganization,” said Van Buren principal Cardinal Rieger. “It’s not any of those negative connotations.”</p>
<p>Rieger is sensitive to word choice because she doesn’t want her staff to feel the initiative is about fixing a problem. Instead, she said it’s about taking the forward momentum at Van Buren and accelerating it.</p>
<p>The school is on Louisiana SE, south of Trumbull. Nearly all the students at the school come from low-income families and the mobility rate is high, meaning many students move in and out of the school during the year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Test scores at the school are still low – 22.7 percent of students scored proficiently in math last year – but have inched up steadily over the past three years. And the school received top marks on its state school grade for the test score growth of its lowest-performing students. It also showed strong growth among higher-performing students, and the school’s overall grade was a high C.</p>
<p>At a presentation to the school board earlier in the semester, APS Superintendent Winston Brooks said he wants to channel community resources into Van Buren, and the district is partnering with Sandia National Laboratories and other community organizations to support efforts at the school.</p>
<p>“One of the problems we have in APS is everybody wants to help, but they all want to do their thing at their place, and what we’re really trying to do is coordinate all the resources right now at Van Buren and try to get everybody on the same page,” Brooks said. “And it’s not somebody’s little pet project, but it’s all based on what the faculty and the folks at Van Buren want to have happen.”</p>
<p>Rieger said Brooks approached her about putting some resources into the school, and told her to “dream big.” Specifically, the district is eyeing a $200,000 infusion into the school, although the school board still has not approved next year’s budget.</p>
<p>Van Buren was chosen for extra attention as part of an ongoing APS effort to rejuvenate some schools in the southeast part of the city, starting with Emerson Elementary School. Associate Superintendent Eddie Soto said administrators originally envisioned a project like Emerson, which is historically low-performing and was substantially overhauled. But upon visiting Van Buren, Soto said, he and Brooks realized the school already had momentum and just needed resources to maintain and enrich their current efforts.</p>
<p>Rieger said she has been consulting with her staff and has formed a working committee to identify their wants and needs. She said the plan is still in progress, but will definitely include an additional counselor at the school.</p>
<p>“The staff said, and I agree, we need more mental health support for our student population,” Rieger said. “Our children and families have a lot of challenges, and students cannot be successful in school if they do not feel socially, emotionally, psychologically and physically stable.”</p>
<p>Rieger said the plan will probably include an additional teacher who specializes in teaching English as a second language and can work with students who are new to the country. Van Buren has a large population of students from places like Africa and the Middle East, in part because refugee placement services are active in that part of the city.</p>
<p>The new teacher would be assigned to a classroom, and students who need help acclimating to the United States would be placed in that teacher’s class. The teacher would specialize in ESL but also would also teach students other day-to-day skills for living in a new country.</p>
<p>Mara Minnegen, Van Buren’s librarian and a member of the team that’s planning the initiative, said students often need more than language skills, and an additional full-time teacher focusing on those issues will help students move forward.</p>
<p>“It’s not just language,” she said. “Sometimes it’s students who have lived in a very rural area coming to live in the big city. Well, that presents just as many problems as the language barrier.”</p> | 129 |
<p>Did you ever demand any answers? The who, the what or the reason why? Did you ever question the setup? Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best? Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest? Did you settle for the shoddy? Did you think it right To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight, never make a fight, never make a fight?</p>
<p>–From Ballad of Accounting, words and music by Ewan MacColl</p>
<p>Suddenly jobs are on the political agenda. Politicians from the President on down state that creating jobs for American workers is their top priority. Often any jobs, as with the low-wage jobs that Texas Governor Rick Perry brags he “created.” Sometimes they want to create “good paying” jobs. But in this discourse having a job is everything, because it allows one to pay the bills and avoid poverty.</p>
<p>Those who worked with Jean Alonso making missiles in a Massachusetts defense plant – referred to as American Missile and Communications Corporation but sounding suspiciously like Massachusetts-based Raytheon – knew how important it was to have a job in this society. But they also recognized that ”good jobs” should mean far more than good-paying ones. And they knew, from their own bitter experience, that many jobs can be toxic, destroying the mind and soul, and sometimes the body as well of those who work them.</p>
<p>Alonso’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1463538812/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Patriots: An Inside Look at Life in a Defense Plant</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1463538812/counterpunchmaga" type="external">&#160;</a> begins as the missiles fly at the start of the first Gulf War. The fragile community in the plant is strained by tensions between the patriotic workers and Alonso with her antiwar views and activities. Alonso copes with her own anguish by conducting an informal survey of how her coworkers feel about their work. She learns that these coworkers are filled with a profound sense of hopelessness and despair:</p>
<p>“I feel like a zero.”</p>
<p>“Inferior.”</p>
<p>“Empty.”</p>
<p>“Helpless.”</p>
<p>“I’m very depressed and anxious.”</p>
<p>“I’m so unhappy here I get aches and pains from it.”</p>
<p>“Apathetic. I can’t do anything at home anymore but watch TV.”</p>
<p>“I was a musician, you know, so I still need to write everyday – if you don’t you have no soul. But I go home and I’m too tired.”</p>
<p>“I feel like there’s something crushed inside – I feel really defeated. It’s like giving up on your whole self in order to make a living – you can’t figure a way out.” (pp. 10-11).</p>
<p>These responses, expressing feelings that had never been spoken among these workers, start Alonso and a small group of coworkers on a journey to make sense of what was happening to them at work and why. Through monthly meetings buttressed by Alonso’s library research, they explore the deadening effects of repetitive work accompanied by social powerlessness in the workplace. They try to understand Alonso’s realization that “something in this work is changing us, as if we were living by Love Canal” (p. 37).</p>
<p>Over the next couple of years this group of defense plant workers examine their dashed hopes and dreams as well as an extensive body of social science literature, in an attempt to figure out just how the work was changing them. They confessed to each other that their ability to reason had diminished after years in the plant. The lack of mental stimulation was reducing their very intelligence. And, indeed, as Alonso learned from her reading, a German researcher had found that IQ declines following years of unskilled labor. This cognitive decline didn’t seem so surprising to the workers when one of them recalled being told by a supervisor, “You don’t get paid to think.” These workers discovered through their own experience that mindless work induces mindlessness.</p>
<p>Alonso later realized that the experience of the American Missile workers wouldn’t have seemed strange to Adam Smith, who in 1776 wrote of the mind-destroying effects of unskilled work as an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the then new industrial system:</p>
<p>The understanding of the greater part of men is necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man’s whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations and he naturally loses, therefore, the habit [of solving problems] and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become… But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall (p. 180).</p>
<p>In addition to cognitive problems, the plant workers confronted elevated depression, anxiety, and apathy. Alonso’s research convinced her that these symptoms were similar to those experienced by victims of what psychologist Judith Herman called “complex chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome” or CCPTSD. She quotes Herman as saying that those suffering from CCPTSD “have a history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period of time” (p. 125).</p>
<p>The shop floor environment that Alonso and her fellow workers experienced daily was, indeed, totalitarian. Every motion was monitored. Bathroom breaks were strictly regulated.&#160; Supervisors yelled at workers as if they were disobedient children. Conversations were monitored and often forbidden. Escape, while not impossible, became ever more difficult as years in the plant went by and economic chains bound the workers.</p>
<p>In her efforts to better understand the totalitarian aspects of her work environment, Alonso studied military culture and found many similarities to the culture at American Missile. The similarities were not accidental. She realized that the company deliberately sought out supervisors with military backgrounds. The fact that the company was part of the military-industrial complex, producing missiles for US wars, probably made military culture especially desirable to management.</p>
<p>At the time that Alonso writes about, relations between workers in the plant were especially stressed as many of the workers sought a sense of meaning and community through patriotic identification with the company’s missile-producing mission and with the war in progress and became less tolerant of those questioning the war. Pressure to not rock the boat increased as demand for the missiles rose.</p>
<p>Like many manufacturing companies, American Missile had a union. Unfortunately, this was as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. Union officials refused to pursue cases of sexual abuse, wouldn’t recognize the women’s committee founded by Alonso and others, and systematically harassed militants. Thus, much of the energy to improve the workplace was channeled into often futile attempts at union reform.</p>
<p>Throughout The Patriots: An Inside Look at Life in a Defense Plant Alonso weaves her personal account of nearly two decades in the factory with an account of the research into the effects of the work environment on workers. The result is one of the most thought provoking books you will find to read this year. As the politicians talk endlessly about “jobs” while providing few, Alonso reminds us that a good society will provide not just jobs, or even well-paying jobs, but jobs that enhance the spirit and development of those who work them.</p>
<p>Surely today, 235 years after Adam Smith described the mind-destroying nature of unskilled work, an “improved and civilized society,” – as Smith described the new industrial capitalism – should be one that proves him wrong. Such a society would be one in which all who work find that their jobs enhance their thinking, spirit, and sense of humanity. Such a society would be one in which workers are not merely the tools of the already wealthy and powerful, but makers of a more decent world for themselves, their fellow workers, and the rest of society. While the politicians beholden to the powerful are not likely to be concerned with this goal, surely the vast majority of us ought to be.</p>
<p>What did you learn in the morning? How much did you know in the afternoon? Were you content in the evening? Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school? Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool? Did the place where you were living Enrich your life and then Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men, all your fellow men, all your fellow men?</p>
<p>[From Ballad of Accounting, words and music by Ewan MacColl]</p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Stephen Soldz</a>&#160;is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the&#160; <a href="http://www.bgsp.edu/" type="external">Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis</a>. He edits the&#160; <a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/" type="external">Psyche, Science, and Society</a>&#160;blog. Soldz is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations working to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations; he served as a psychological consultant on several Gutanamo trials. Currently Soldz is President of&#160; <a href="http://psysr.org/" type="external">Psychologists for Social Responsibility</a>&#160;[PsySR].</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | The Maker or the Tool? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/09/20/34529/ | 2011-09-20 | 4left
| The Maker or the Tool?
<p>Did you ever demand any answers? The who, the what or the reason why? Did you ever question the setup? Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best? Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest? Did you settle for the shoddy? Did you think it right To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight, never make a fight, never make a fight?</p>
<p>–From Ballad of Accounting, words and music by Ewan MacColl</p>
<p>Suddenly jobs are on the political agenda. Politicians from the President on down state that creating jobs for American workers is their top priority. Often any jobs, as with the low-wage jobs that Texas Governor Rick Perry brags he “created.” Sometimes they want to create “good paying” jobs. But in this discourse having a job is everything, because it allows one to pay the bills and avoid poverty.</p>
<p>Those who worked with Jean Alonso making missiles in a Massachusetts defense plant – referred to as American Missile and Communications Corporation but sounding suspiciously like Massachusetts-based Raytheon – knew how important it was to have a job in this society. But they also recognized that ”good jobs” should mean far more than good-paying ones. And they knew, from their own bitter experience, that many jobs can be toxic, destroying the mind and soul, and sometimes the body as well of those who work them.</p>
<p>Alonso’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1463538812/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Patriots: An Inside Look at Life in a Defense Plant</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1463538812/counterpunchmaga" type="external">&#160;</a> begins as the missiles fly at the start of the first Gulf War. The fragile community in the plant is strained by tensions between the patriotic workers and Alonso with her antiwar views and activities. Alonso copes with her own anguish by conducting an informal survey of how her coworkers feel about their work. She learns that these coworkers are filled with a profound sense of hopelessness and despair:</p>
<p>“I feel like a zero.”</p>
<p>“Inferior.”</p>
<p>“Empty.”</p>
<p>“Helpless.”</p>
<p>“I’m very depressed and anxious.”</p>
<p>“I’m so unhappy here I get aches and pains from it.”</p>
<p>“Apathetic. I can’t do anything at home anymore but watch TV.”</p>
<p>“I was a musician, you know, so I still need to write everyday – if you don’t you have no soul. But I go home and I’m too tired.”</p>
<p>“I feel like there’s something crushed inside – I feel really defeated. It’s like giving up on your whole self in order to make a living – you can’t figure a way out.” (pp. 10-11).</p>
<p>These responses, expressing feelings that had never been spoken among these workers, start Alonso and a small group of coworkers on a journey to make sense of what was happening to them at work and why. Through monthly meetings buttressed by Alonso’s library research, they explore the deadening effects of repetitive work accompanied by social powerlessness in the workplace. They try to understand Alonso’s realization that “something in this work is changing us, as if we were living by Love Canal” (p. 37).</p>
<p>Over the next couple of years this group of defense plant workers examine their dashed hopes and dreams as well as an extensive body of social science literature, in an attempt to figure out just how the work was changing them. They confessed to each other that their ability to reason had diminished after years in the plant. The lack of mental stimulation was reducing their very intelligence. And, indeed, as Alonso learned from her reading, a German researcher had found that IQ declines following years of unskilled labor. This cognitive decline didn’t seem so surprising to the workers when one of them recalled being told by a supervisor, “You don’t get paid to think.” These workers discovered through their own experience that mindless work induces mindlessness.</p>
<p>Alonso later realized that the experience of the American Missile workers wouldn’t have seemed strange to Adam Smith, who in 1776 wrote of the mind-destroying effects of unskilled work as an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the then new industrial system:</p>
<p>The understanding of the greater part of men is necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man’s whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations and he naturally loses, therefore, the habit [of solving problems] and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become… But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall (p. 180).</p>
<p>In addition to cognitive problems, the plant workers confronted elevated depression, anxiety, and apathy. Alonso’s research convinced her that these symptoms were similar to those experienced by victims of what psychologist Judith Herman called “complex chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome” or CCPTSD. She quotes Herman as saying that those suffering from CCPTSD “have a history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period of time” (p. 125).</p>
<p>The shop floor environment that Alonso and her fellow workers experienced daily was, indeed, totalitarian. Every motion was monitored. Bathroom breaks were strictly regulated.&#160; Supervisors yelled at workers as if they were disobedient children. Conversations were monitored and often forbidden. Escape, while not impossible, became ever more difficult as years in the plant went by and economic chains bound the workers.</p>
<p>In her efforts to better understand the totalitarian aspects of her work environment, Alonso studied military culture and found many similarities to the culture at American Missile. The similarities were not accidental. She realized that the company deliberately sought out supervisors with military backgrounds. The fact that the company was part of the military-industrial complex, producing missiles for US wars, probably made military culture especially desirable to management.</p>
<p>At the time that Alonso writes about, relations between workers in the plant were especially stressed as many of the workers sought a sense of meaning and community through patriotic identification with the company’s missile-producing mission and with the war in progress and became less tolerant of those questioning the war. Pressure to not rock the boat increased as demand for the missiles rose.</p>
<p>Like many manufacturing companies, American Missile had a union. Unfortunately, this was as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. Union officials refused to pursue cases of sexual abuse, wouldn’t recognize the women’s committee founded by Alonso and others, and systematically harassed militants. Thus, much of the energy to improve the workplace was channeled into often futile attempts at union reform.</p>
<p>Throughout The Patriots: An Inside Look at Life in a Defense Plant Alonso weaves her personal account of nearly two decades in the factory with an account of the research into the effects of the work environment on workers. The result is one of the most thought provoking books you will find to read this year. As the politicians talk endlessly about “jobs” while providing few, Alonso reminds us that a good society will provide not just jobs, or even well-paying jobs, but jobs that enhance the spirit and development of those who work them.</p>
<p>Surely today, 235 years after Adam Smith described the mind-destroying nature of unskilled work, an “improved and civilized society,” – as Smith described the new industrial capitalism – should be one that proves him wrong. Such a society would be one in which all who work find that their jobs enhance their thinking, spirit, and sense of humanity. Such a society would be one in which workers are not merely the tools of the already wealthy and powerful, but makers of a more decent world for themselves, their fellow workers, and the rest of society. While the politicians beholden to the powerful are not likely to be concerned with this goal, surely the vast majority of us ought to be.</p>
<p>What did you learn in the morning? How much did you know in the afternoon? Were you content in the evening? Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school? Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool? Did the place where you were living Enrich your life and then Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men, all your fellow men, all your fellow men?</p>
<p>[From Ballad of Accounting, words and music by Ewan MacColl]</p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Stephen Soldz</a>&#160;is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the&#160; <a href="http://www.bgsp.edu/" type="external">Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis</a>. He edits the&#160; <a href="http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/" type="external">Psyche, Science, and Society</a>&#160;blog. Soldz is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations working to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations; he served as a psychological consultant on several Gutanamo trials. Currently Soldz is President of&#160; <a href="http://psysr.org/" type="external">Psychologists for Social Responsibility</a>&#160;[PsySR].</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | 130 |
<p>Robert Bales, the U.S. Army staff sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a massacre more than a week ago, is expected to be charged Friday with 17 counts of murder, as well as additional charges at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., according to various media reports.</p>
<p>Bales is accused of walking away from his base to an Afghan village and shooting and stabbing to death several families, including nine children.&#160;</p>
<p>John Henry Browne, the lead attorney for the accused soldier, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/us-sergeant-facing-murder-charges-over-afghan-killing.html?hp" type="external">told The New York Times</a> he was unsurprised by the charges and unconvinced by the facts.</p>
<p>“There’s definitely brain injury, no question about it,” Browne told the Times. "There’s no crime scene. There’s no DNA. There’s no confession, although they’re leaking something, which I don’t believe until I see it. This is going to be a hard case for the government to prove. And my client can’t help me a lot with some of the things because he has mental problems and I believe they’re totally legitimate."</p>
<p>Bales, in a trial that could stretch for years over a series of hearings, could face the death penalty if convicted. There are currently six soldiers and airmen on the U.S. military's death row.</p>
<p>According to the BBC, it's not yet clear why Bales is set to face 17 murder charges. NATO and U.S. officials had previously set the death toll in the attack at 16, though some have cautioned it could actually be higher.</p>
<p>The Taliban criticized the proceedings, saying they have no faith in any trial.</p>
<p>"This was a planned activity and we will certainly take revenge on all American forces in Afghanistan and don't trust such trials," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17484186" type="external">according to the BBC.</a></p> | VIDEO: U.S. Army sergeant expected to face 17 murder charges for Afghan massacre | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-03-23/video-us-army-sergeant-expected-face-17-murder-charges-afghan-massacre | 2012-03-23 | 3left-center
| VIDEO: U.S. Army sergeant expected to face 17 murder charges for Afghan massacre
<p>Robert Bales, the U.S. Army staff sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a massacre more than a week ago, is expected to be charged Friday with 17 counts of murder, as well as additional charges at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., according to various media reports.</p>
<p>Bales is accused of walking away from his base to an Afghan village and shooting and stabbing to death several families, including nine children.&#160;</p>
<p>John Henry Browne, the lead attorney for the accused soldier, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/us-sergeant-facing-murder-charges-over-afghan-killing.html?hp" type="external">told The New York Times</a> he was unsurprised by the charges and unconvinced by the facts.</p>
<p>“There’s definitely brain injury, no question about it,” Browne told the Times. "There’s no crime scene. There’s no DNA. There’s no confession, although they’re leaking something, which I don’t believe until I see it. This is going to be a hard case for the government to prove. And my client can’t help me a lot with some of the things because he has mental problems and I believe they’re totally legitimate."</p>
<p>Bales, in a trial that could stretch for years over a series of hearings, could face the death penalty if convicted. There are currently six soldiers and airmen on the U.S. military's death row.</p>
<p>According to the BBC, it's not yet clear why Bales is set to face 17 murder charges. NATO and U.S. officials had previously set the death toll in the attack at 16, though some have cautioned it could actually be higher.</p>
<p>The Taliban criticized the proceedings, saying they have no faith in any trial.</p>
<p>"This was a planned activity and we will certainly take revenge on all American forces in Afghanistan and don't trust such trials," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17484186" type="external">according to the BBC.</a></p> | 131 |
<p>Bahrain faces heavy criticism for its crackdown on the uprising that began last year.</p>
<p>It was forced to cancel last year's Formula One Grand Prix.</p>
<p>But this year Bahrain is going ahead with the race.</p>
<p>Anchor Marco Werman talks to Damon Hill who won the Formula One World Championship on 1996 and is now a commentator.</p> | Holding the Formula One in Bahrain | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-10/holding-formula-one-bahrain | 2012-04-10 | 3left-center
| Holding the Formula One in Bahrain
<p>Bahrain faces heavy criticism for its crackdown on the uprising that began last year.</p>
<p>It was forced to cancel last year's Formula One Grand Prix.</p>
<p>But this year Bahrain is going ahead with the race.</p>
<p>Anchor Marco Werman talks to Damon Hill who won the Formula One World Championship on 1996 and is now a commentator.</p> | 132 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>A high-mountain yurt for hikers wanting to escape the heat of lower elevations is available for the first time this summer in the high country near Taos.</p>
<p>The yurt at Bull of the Woods Meadow is 24 feet in diameter and accommodates up to 10 persons. This yurt has two futon couches/bunks which fold out for two double beds on the bottom and a full futon on top. Four additional mattresses may be placed on the floor for full occupancy. Water is provided during the spring, summer and fall seasons.</p>
<p>The yurt is situated to provide access to Wheeler Peak and Gold Hill trails. The yurt is at the low point along the ridge between Gold Hill and Wheeler Peak (the highest point in New Mexico) and provides access to above tree-line terrain.</p>
<p>Information on renting the yurt, availability and prices are posted at southwestnordiccenter.com.</p>
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | A hike in northern NM leads to a yurt | false | https://abqjournal.com/434459/a-hike-in-northern-nm-leads-to-a-yurt.html | 2014-07-24 | 2least
| A hike in northern NM leads to a yurt
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>A high-mountain yurt for hikers wanting to escape the heat of lower elevations is available for the first time this summer in the high country near Taos.</p>
<p>The yurt at Bull of the Woods Meadow is 24 feet in diameter and accommodates up to 10 persons. This yurt has two futon couches/bunks which fold out for two double beds on the bottom and a full futon on top. Four additional mattresses may be placed on the floor for full occupancy. Water is provided during the spring, summer and fall seasons.</p>
<p>The yurt is situated to provide access to Wheeler Peak and Gold Hill trails. The yurt is at the low point along the ridge between Gold Hill and Wheeler Peak (the highest point in New Mexico) and provides access to above tree-line terrain.</p>
<p>Information on renting the yurt, availability and prices are posted at southwestnordiccenter.com.</p>
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 133 |
<p>Ninjas: they're not just the stuff of violent video games and ironic hipster t-shirts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.afp.com/en/news/topstories/63-year-old-engineer-japans-last-ninja" type="external">An AFP story about 63-year-old&#160;Jinichi Kawakami,</a>a former engineer who calls himself Japan's last Ninja, has been making the rounds on the Internet this weekend.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/japans-last-ninja-reveals-his-training-secrets/story-fnd134gw-1226453681202" type="external">Kawakami calls himself</a> the last head of the ancient Ban clan, a lineage of Ninjas that reportedly goes back 5,000 years, and feels he's the last to be trained in the ancient, sneaky Japanese art.&#160;</p>
<p>He says he gained the title of master at the age of 19 - and that he is reluctant to the claim the title of "last Ninja," as there is apparently quite a bit of debate regarding who that actually is.&#160;</p>
<p>As "Ninjas don't fit in the modern day," Kawakami isn't taking on any apprentices. You should probably get a refund for that plane ticket.&#160;</p>
<p>There are a considerable number of aspirant female ninjas in Iran who might contest Kawakami's claim about the death of the martial art as well. <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iran/120329/iranian-female-ninjas-suing-reuters-over-report-state-" type="external">The Iranian ninjas recently sued Reuters for</a>reporting that they were "assassins," resulting in Reuters staff being forced to give up their press cards in the country.</p>
<p>There's a lot of myths and falsehoods about ninjas out there, <a href="http://listverse.com/2009/04/23/top-10-myths-about-ninjas/" type="external">and this Listverse article</a>does a good job of sorting through the confusing cultural mish-mash that surrounds the mysterious ninja. Chief among them: they probably didn't wear masks all the time.&#160;</p>
<p>If you want to find out more about Shuriken-do, the ancient Japanes art of blade-throwing-ala-ninja, <a href="http://www.secrets-of-shuriken.com.au/index1.htm" type="external">this website provides a good primer.</a></p>
<p>This excellent video shows the "flying guillotine," a portable head-removal device allegedly used by ninjas. It turns out that it probably wasn't all that good for throwing, but would work reasonably well if the victim was stationary.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Here's another modern-day ninja demonstrating how to avoid an oncoming sword, which is the kind of thing that comes up often in 2012.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | Japanese man may be "last Ninja" | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-08-19/japanese-man-may-be-last-ninja | 2012-08-19 | 3left-center
| Japanese man may be "last Ninja"
<p>Ninjas: they're not just the stuff of violent video games and ironic hipster t-shirts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.afp.com/en/news/topstories/63-year-old-engineer-japans-last-ninja" type="external">An AFP story about 63-year-old&#160;Jinichi Kawakami,</a>a former engineer who calls himself Japan's last Ninja, has been making the rounds on the Internet this weekend.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/japans-last-ninja-reveals-his-training-secrets/story-fnd134gw-1226453681202" type="external">Kawakami calls himself</a> the last head of the ancient Ban clan, a lineage of Ninjas that reportedly goes back 5,000 years, and feels he's the last to be trained in the ancient, sneaky Japanese art.&#160;</p>
<p>He says he gained the title of master at the age of 19 - and that he is reluctant to the claim the title of "last Ninja," as there is apparently quite a bit of debate regarding who that actually is.&#160;</p>
<p>As "Ninjas don't fit in the modern day," Kawakami isn't taking on any apprentices. You should probably get a refund for that plane ticket.&#160;</p>
<p>There are a considerable number of aspirant female ninjas in Iran who might contest Kawakami's claim about the death of the martial art as well. <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iran/120329/iranian-female-ninjas-suing-reuters-over-report-state-" type="external">The Iranian ninjas recently sued Reuters for</a>reporting that they were "assassins," resulting in Reuters staff being forced to give up their press cards in the country.</p>
<p>There's a lot of myths and falsehoods about ninjas out there, <a href="http://listverse.com/2009/04/23/top-10-myths-about-ninjas/" type="external">and this Listverse article</a>does a good job of sorting through the confusing cultural mish-mash that surrounds the mysterious ninja. Chief among them: they probably didn't wear masks all the time.&#160;</p>
<p>If you want to find out more about Shuriken-do, the ancient Japanes art of blade-throwing-ala-ninja, <a href="http://www.secrets-of-shuriken.com.au/index1.htm" type="external">this website provides a good primer.</a></p>
<p>This excellent video shows the "flying guillotine," a portable head-removal device allegedly used by ninjas. It turns out that it probably wasn't all that good for throwing, but would work reasonably well if the victim was stationary.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Here's another modern-day ninja demonstrating how to avoid an oncoming sword, which is the kind of thing that comes up often in 2012.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | 134 |
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<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. — Some visitors to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at California’s Disneyland got a surprise: Captain Jack Sparrow himself.</p>
<p>Johnny Depp donned the getup of his swashbuckling alter ego and interacted with riders on Wednesday. Videos taken by park goers and shared on social media show Depp chatting with fans as they passed by on the ride’s boats. He also spoke to a crowd outside.</p>
<p>Depp returns to the big screen as Sparrow next month in the fifth film based on the ride. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” opens May 26, after premiering at Shanghai Disneyland on May 11.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Surprise! Johnny Depp appears as Jack Sparrow on Disney ride | false | https://abqjournal.com/994309/surprise-johnny-depp-appears-as-jack-sparrow-on-disney-ride.html | 2017-04-27 | 2least
| Surprise! Johnny Depp appears as Jack Sparrow on Disney ride
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<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. — Some visitors to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at California’s Disneyland got a surprise: Captain Jack Sparrow himself.</p>
<p>Johnny Depp donned the getup of his swashbuckling alter ego and interacted with riders on Wednesday. Videos taken by park goers and shared on social media show Depp chatting with fans as they passed by on the ride’s boats. He also spoke to a crowd outside.</p>
<p>Depp returns to the big screen as Sparrow next month in the fifth film based on the ride. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” opens May 26, after premiering at Shanghai Disneyland on May 11.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 135 |
<p>Ashland Johnson (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Name: Ashland Johnson</p>
<p>Age: 32</p>
<p>Occupation: Civil rights lawyer</p>
<p>Identify as: Gay</p>
<p>What are you looking for in a mate? A partnership with someone who moves me.</p>
<p>Biggest turn-off: Turtlenecks</p>
<p>Biggest turn-on: A woman who knows the difference between a man-to-man and zone. Or a great smile.</p>
<p>Hobbies: Sports, infusing bourbon, biking, photography and vintage cameras</p>
<p>Describe your ideal first date: Afternoon art exhibit followed by cocktails and dinner at a cozy bistro. Low lights and close contact. Witty repartee.</p>
<p>Favorite TV show: “X-Files”</p>
<p>Celebrity crush: Melissa Harris-Perry</p>
<p>One obscure fact about yourself: I can name more than 10 different “Star Trek” species.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TOP 20 LGBT SINGLES</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">2016 Most Eligible Singles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ashland Johnson</a></p> | MOST ELIGIBLE SINGLES: Ashland Johnson | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/02/08/most-eligible-singles-ashland-johnson/ | 3left-center
| MOST ELIGIBLE SINGLES: Ashland Johnson
<p>Ashland Johnson (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Name: Ashland Johnson</p>
<p>Age: 32</p>
<p>Occupation: Civil rights lawyer</p>
<p>Identify as: Gay</p>
<p>What are you looking for in a mate? A partnership with someone who moves me.</p>
<p>Biggest turn-off: Turtlenecks</p>
<p>Biggest turn-on: A woman who knows the difference between a man-to-man and zone. Or a great smile.</p>
<p>Hobbies: Sports, infusing bourbon, biking, photography and vintage cameras</p>
<p>Describe your ideal first date: Afternoon art exhibit followed by cocktails and dinner at a cozy bistro. Low lights and close contact. Witty repartee.</p>
<p>Favorite TV show: “X-Files”</p>
<p>Celebrity crush: Melissa Harris-Perry</p>
<p>One obscure fact about yourself: I can name more than 10 different “Star Trek” species.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TOP 20 LGBT SINGLES</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">2016 Most Eligible Singles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ashland Johnson</a></p> | 136 |
|
<p>At this point in the economic cycle, the zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) are arguably doing more harm than good.</p>
<p>Global central banks, by pushing interest rates to artificially low levels around the world, are inadvertently causing deflation in my opinion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That’s exactly the situation that central banks have been trying to avoid.</p>
<p>The torrent of low interest rate capital is flooding markets with liquidity and the money is being put to work at ever lower rates of return.</p>
<p>Specifically, corporations invest in projects with lower internal rates of return and banks and other asset managers make investments in assets with lower expected rates of return.</p>
<p>The result has been higher asset prices and lower rates of expected future returns.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In the manufacturing sector, more and more goods are being produced with low interest capital. As a result, prices of manufactured goods continue to deflate.</p>
<p>The effects of ZIRP are apparent in commodities where the low cost of capital lead to massive overproduction and price deflation.</p>
<p>There are many more examples, however, the key point is that low interest rates distort world markets.</p>
<p>In my opinion, interest rate normalization is critical to the long term realization of global central banks’ inflation goals and investors expected returns.</p>
<p>&#160; &#160; Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/101928213@N05/" type="external">Stacey Gitto Opens a New Window.</a> via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/" type="external">Flickr Creative Commons Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/304233/d35c314d-234a-4afd-8b0d-7fc75bf8873c" type="external">Opens a New Window.</a>//</p>
<p>Subscribe to our once-weekly email newsletter and get the best posts delivered to you in one convenient place, to browse at your leisure://</p>
<p>The post <a href="http://investing.covestor.com/2016/04/central-banks-money-torrent-isnt-working" type="external">Central bank money waterfall misses mark Opens a New Window.</a> appeared first on <a href="http://investing.covestor.com" type="external">Smarter Investing Opens a New Window.</a>Covestor Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Covestor licenses investment strategies from its Model Managers to establish investment models. The commentary here is provided as general and impersonal information and should not be construed as recommendations or advice. Information from Model Managers and third-party sources deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Transaction histories for Covestor models available upon request. Additional important disclosures available at http://site.covestor.com/help/disclosures.</p> | Central bank money waterfall misses mark | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/11/central-bank-money-waterfall-misses-mark.html | 2016-04-11 | 0right
| Central bank money waterfall misses mark
<p>At this point in the economic cycle, the zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) are arguably doing more harm than good.</p>
<p>Global central banks, by pushing interest rates to artificially low levels around the world, are inadvertently causing deflation in my opinion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That’s exactly the situation that central banks have been trying to avoid.</p>
<p>The torrent of low interest rate capital is flooding markets with liquidity and the money is being put to work at ever lower rates of return.</p>
<p>Specifically, corporations invest in projects with lower internal rates of return and banks and other asset managers make investments in assets with lower expected rates of return.</p>
<p>The result has been higher asset prices and lower rates of expected future returns.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In the manufacturing sector, more and more goods are being produced with low interest capital. As a result, prices of manufactured goods continue to deflate.</p>
<p>The effects of ZIRP are apparent in commodities where the low cost of capital lead to massive overproduction and price deflation.</p>
<p>There are many more examples, however, the key point is that low interest rates distort world markets.</p>
<p>In my opinion, interest rate normalization is critical to the long term realization of global central banks’ inflation goals and investors expected returns.</p>
<p>&#160; &#160; Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/101928213@N05/" type="external">Stacey Gitto Opens a New Window.</a> via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/" type="external">Flickr Creative Commons Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/304233/d35c314d-234a-4afd-8b0d-7fc75bf8873c" type="external">Opens a New Window.</a>//</p>
<p>Subscribe to our once-weekly email newsletter and get the best posts delivered to you in one convenient place, to browse at your leisure://</p>
<p>The post <a href="http://investing.covestor.com/2016/04/central-banks-money-torrent-isnt-working" type="external">Central bank money waterfall misses mark Opens a New Window.</a> appeared first on <a href="http://investing.covestor.com" type="external">Smarter Investing Opens a New Window.</a>Covestor Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Covestor licenses investment strategies from its Model Managers to establish investment models. The commentary here is provided as general and impersonal information and should not be construed as recommendations or advice. Information from Model Managers and third-party sources deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Transaction histories for Covestor models available upon request. Additional important disclosures available at http://site.covestor.com/help/disclosures.</p> | 137 |
<p>The Revenge of the Sith, the sixth movie in the Star Wars saga, is drawing record crowds and grossing millions by the week. George Lucas, heady with the success of American Graffiti in 1973, conceived the series two years later. It was to be the story of Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall and ultimate redemption. Since the story was too large for one film, he divided it into two trilogies and decided (for reasons best known to him) to make the second trilogy before the first one.</p>
<p>He offered the science fiction concept to Universal Studios, who had produced American Graffiti. In a decision they would regret badly in the years to come, Universal passed on it because they dismissed the story as “unfathomable and silly.” In fact, every single studio in Hollywood passed on it except for 20th Century Fox.</p>
<p>The first film in the series was released in 1977. By the end of its first theatrical run, it had become the most successful in the history of cinema and turned Lucas into a multi-millionaire. In the decades to come, the Star Wars brand would acquire a cult following equally among the young and the old. Some would be drawn to it because of the lure of space travel. Others would love the stunning special effects that became its hallmark. And many would love its portrayal of war between good and evil. Located in a “galaxy far, far away,” war seemed glorious.</p>
<p>However, it you strip the exotic location and the stunning special effects, the film is a gripping portrayal of the arrogance, anger and hostility that drive people to make war on planet Earth. By not calling it “Earth Wars,” Lucas ensured that millions of people seeking to escape the real wars going on around them would become moviegoers.</p>
<p>Addressing the Asian defense ministers in Singapore earlier this month, an indignant US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked why China was increasing its defense spending in consecutive years by double-digit percentages since it faced no immediate threats. He said such high spending rates could destabilize the Asian military balance. One may, of course, ask the same question of Rumsfeld. The only known enemies of the US are non-state actors that hardly justify the type and level of military spending that it is engaged in.</p>
<p>While accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US accounts for half of global defense spending, according to figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, global military spending topped a trillion dollars last year. This amounts to 2.6 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and represents an expenditure of $162 for every man, woman and child on the planet.</p>
<p>In addition to spending $500 billion annually on its military, the US has allocated $238 billion to prosecute the global war on terror since 2003. As Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute argues in his new book, “The End Of Poverty,” the US has unfortunately neglected the deeper causes of global instability that lead to terror. Its spending on extremely poor people who live on a daily income of less than a dollar a day is about 3 percent of its defense budget. These people are chronically hungry, ill, and uneducated. They lack basic housing and clothing. Today, there are 1.1 billion such people in the globe, all in danger of being killed by poverty.</p>
<p>Yet a callous world continues to increase military spending. No where is this more evident than in South Asia, where defense spending grew by 14 percent last year, compared to a global average growth rate of 5 percent.</p>
<p>While always arguing that it is not engaged in an arms race with India, Pakistan has just raised its defense spending by 16 percent to $3.8 billion. The saving grace is that in the same budget, the government has announced it will raise infrastructure development spending by almost 35 percent to $4.6 billion. Higher economic growth rates in the 6 to 8 percent range have made it possible to raise spending on both defense and development. However, this should not be taken to mean that there is no trade-off between spending on development and defense. If there is any ironclad law in economics, it is that there is no free lunch.</p>
<p>Peace economist Kanta Marwah and Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein have published an analysis of the impact of defense spending on economic growth, drawing upon data from five Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru. During the 1970s and 1980s, these countries spent on average 3.3 percent of their GDP on defense, which translated into an annual military expenditure of $7.4 billion (measured in 1990 US dollars). Marwah and Klein quantify the “hidden cost” of defense spending during this period, by assessing how much it lowered the rate of economic growth.</p>
<p>Applying econometric methods to annual data over the 1970-91 time frame, they find that military spending had a negative impact on economic growth in all five countries. The worst affected country was Paraguay and the least affected was Bolivia. To determine the impact of the defense burden, they simulated what would have happened had the burden been reduced to 1 percent of GDP, emulating the spending cap set by the Central American nation of Costa Rica.</p>
<p>Marwah and Klein find that high military spending caused Argentina to lose nearly 2 percentage points in its annual economic growth rate during the 1976-81 period. It was during this time that the generals in Argentina waged a “dirty war” after having overthrown the civilian government of Isabel Peron.</p>
<p>Similarly, Chile lost annually 1 to 1.5 percentage points in its economic growth rate between 1974 to 1988, when the military government of August Pinochet held sway, after having overthrown the government of Salvadore Allende. For the five countries collectively, excessive military spending took off 1.5 percentage points of the annual rate of economic growth.</p>
<p>The findings of this exercise in revisionist history are very revealing and worth pondering over by governments in all developing countries who are seeking a brighter future for their citizens. In particular, they should be of interest to the leaders of South Asia, which is home to a third of the world’s poor.</p>
<p>Pakistan and India need to take the lead in reducing the defense burden on their populations, especially now that their longstanding tensions seem to be dissipating. Capping (and eventually reducing) military spending would be the ultimate confidence building measure on the road to peace.</p>
<p>AHMAD FARUQUI is a member of <a href="http://www.epsusa.org/" type="external">Economists for Peace and Security</a> and can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>This article was first published in Daily Times, Pakistan.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Star Wars or Earth Wars? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/06/18/star-wars-or-earth-wars/ | 2005-06-18 | 4left
| Star Wars or Earth Wars?
<p>The Revenge of the Sith, the sixth movie in the Star Wars saga, is drawing record crowds and grossing millions by the week. George Lucas, heady with the success of American Graffiti in 1973, conceived the series two years later. It was to be the story of Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall and ultimate redemption. Since the story was too large for one film, he divided it into two trilogies and decided (for reasons best known to him) to make the second trilogy before the first one.</p>
<p>He offered the science fiction concept to Universal Studios, who had produced American Graffiti. In a decision they would regret badly in the years to come, Universal passed on it because they dismissed the story as “unfathomable and silly.” In fact, every single studio in Hollywood passed on it except for 20th Century Fox.</p>
<p>The first film in the series was released in 1977. By the end of its first theatrical run, it had become the most successful in the history of cinema and turned Lucas into a multi-millionaire. In the decades to come, the Star Wars brand would acquire a cult following equally among the young and the old. Some would be drawn to it because of the lure of space travel. Others would love the stunning special effects that became its hallmark. And many would love its portrayal of war between good and evil. Located in a “galaxy far, far away,” war seemed glorious.</p>
<p>However, it you strip the exotic location and the stunning special effects, the film is a gripping portrayal of the arrogance, anger and hostility that drive people to make war on planet Earth. By not calling it “Earth Wars,” Lucas ensured that millions of people seeking to escape the real wars going on around them would become moviegoers.</p>
<p>Addressing the Asian defense ministers in Singapore earlier this month, an indignant US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked why China was increasing its defense spending in consecutive years by double-digit percentages since it faced no immediate threats. He said such high spending rates could destabilize the Asian military balance. One may, of course, ask the same question of Rumsfeld. The only known enemies of the US are non-state actors that hardly justify the type and level of military spending that it is engaged in.</p>
<p>While accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US accounts for half of global defense spending, according to figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, global military spending topped a trillion dollars last year. This amounts to 2.6 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and represents an expenditure of $162 for every man, woman and child on the planet.</p>
<p>In addition to spending $500 billion annually on its military, the US has allocated $238 billion to prosecute the global war on terror since 2003. As Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute argues in his new book, “The End Of Poverty,” the US has unfortunately neglected the deeper causes of global instability that lead to terror. Its spending on extremely poor people who live on a daily income of less than a dollar a day is about 3 percent of its defense budget. These people are chronically hungry, ill, and uneducated. They lack basic housing and clothing. Today, there are 1.1 billion such people in the globe, all in danger of being killed by poverty.</p>
<p>Yet a callous world continues to increase military spending. No where is this more evident than in South Asia, where defense spending grew by 14 percent last year, compared to a global average growth rate of 5 percent.</p>
<p>While always arguing that it is not engaged in an arms race with India, Pakistan has just raised its defense spending by 16 percent to $3.8 billion. The saving grace is that in the same budget, the government has announced it will raise infrastructure development spending by almost 35 percent to $4.6 billion. Higher economic growth rates in the 6 to 8 percent range have made it possible to raise spending on both defense and development. However, this should not be taken to mean that there is no trade-off between spending on development and defense. If there is any ironclad law in economics, it is that there is no free lunch.</p>
<p>Peace economist Kanta Marwah and Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein have published an analysis of the impact of defense spending on economic growth, drawing upon data from five Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru. During the 1970s and 1980s, these countries spent on average 3.3 percent of their GDP on defense, which translated into an annual military expenditure of $7.4 billion (measured in 1990 US dollars). Marwah and Klein quantify the “hidden cost” of defense spending during this period, by assessing how much it lowered the rate of economic growth.</p>
<p>Applying econometric methods to annual data over the 1970-91 time frame, they find that military spending had a negative impact on economic growth in all five countries. The worst affected country was Paraguay and the least affected was Bolivia. To determine the impact of the defense burden, they simulated what would have happened had the burden been reduced to 1 percent of GDP, emulating the spending cap set by the Central American nation of Costa Rica.</p>
<p>Marwah and Klein find that high military spending caused Argentina to lose nearly 2 percentage points in its annual economic growth rate during the 1976-81 period. It was during this time that the generals in Argentina waged a “dirty war” after having overthrown the civilian government of Isabel Peron.</p>
<p>Similarly, Chile lost annually 1 to 1.5 percentage points in its economic growth rate between 1974 to 1988, when the military government of August Pinochet held sway, after having overthrown the government of Salvadore Allende. For the five countries collectively, excessive military spending took off 1.5 percentage points of the annual rate of economic growth.</p>
<p>The findings of this exercise in revisionist history are very revealing and worth pondering over by governments in all developing countries who are seeking a brighter future for their citizens. In particular, they should be of interest to the leaders of South Asia, which is home to a third of the world’s poor.</p>
<p>Pakistan and India need to take the lead in reducing the defense burden on their populations, especially now that their longstanding tensions seem to be dissipating. Capping (and eventually reducing) military spending would be the ultimate confidence building measure on the road to peace.</p>
<p>AHMAD FARUQUI is a member of <a href="http://www.epsusa.org/" type="external">Economists for Peace and Security</a> and can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>This article was first published in Daily Times, Pakistan.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 138 |
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<p />
<p>Obama plans to announce Johnson’s nomination Friday. He must be confirmed by the Senate before taking over the post most recently held by Janet Napolitano, who stepped down in August to become president of the University of California system.</p>
<p>As general counsel at the Defense Department during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson was an aggressive advocate on a number of complex and contentious legal issues. He oversaw the escalation of the use of unmanned drone strikes, the revamping of military commissions to try terrorism suspects rather than using civilian courts and the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members. He also mapped out the legal defense for the American cross-border raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>A senior Obama administration official on Thursday confirmed Johnson’s selection, first reported by The Daily Beast. The official was not authorized to speak about the nomination on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>BIRTHPLACE: New York City.</p>
<p>EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree, Morehouse College, 1979; law degree, Columbia Law School, 1982.</p>
<p>EXPERIENCE: General counsel, Defense Department, 2009-2012; attorney, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &amp; Garrison, LLP, in New York, 2001-2008; general counsel, Department of the Air Force, 1998-2001; attorney, Paul Weiss, 1992-98, assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York, 1989-91; private practice, 1984-88.</p>
<p>FAMILY: Wife, Susan M. DiMarco, a dentist; two children, Jeh and Natalie.</p>
<p>The official said Obama chose Johnson because of his experience as a national security leader. The official noted that Johnson oversaw the work of more than 10,000 lawyers and was responsible for reviewing every military operation approved by the president and defense secretary.</p>
<p>Johnson is not as well versed in the immigration and disaster response side of the Homeland Security Department, although the administration official pointed out the Pentagon also coordinates federal relief to respond quickly to disasters.</p>
<p>Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised Johnson’s selection Thursday, saying he has “impeccable judgment, leadership qualities and high ethical standards.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>At the Pentagon, Johnson was involved in the decision to move Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning from a military jail in Quantico, Va. to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Supporters of Manning, the young soldier who leaked thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, said conditions at the military jail in Virginia were too harsh.</p>
<p>Johnson led a widespread crackdown on unauthorized leaks in the Defense Department, including warning former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette that by publishing a book on the SEAL’s raid that killed bin Laden he was in “material breach” of two nondisclosure agreements he signed earlier in his career. He was also involved in the investigation of retired Marine Gen. John Allen and Tampa, Fla., socialite Jill Kelley.</p>
<p>Johnson sparked criticism when he said in a speech at Britain’s Oxford University last November that the war on terror was not an endless conflict and that the U.S. was approaching a “tipping point” after which the military fight against al-Qaida would be replaced by a law enforcement and intelligence operation.</p>
<p>“War must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs,” Johnson said. “In its 12th year, we must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the new normal.”</p>
<p>Johnson was part of the team that looked at ways to bring women into combat missions and which assessed legal questions surrounding sexual assaults in the military, including how the chain of command should be involved in investigations and prosecutions. He also helped pave the way for the military’s 2010 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay service members.</p>
<p>“For those service members who are gay and lesbian, we lifted a real and personal burden from their shoulders,” Johnson said last year at an event recognizing the service of gay troops. “They no longer have to live a lie in the military.”</p>
<p /> | Pentagon lawyer picked to head Homeland Security | false | https://abqjournal.com/283695/pentagon-lawyer-picked-to-head-homeland-security.html | 2013-10-18 | 2least
| Pentagon lawyer picked to head Homeland Security
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Obama plans to announce Johnson’s nomination Friday. He must be confirmed by the Senate before taking over the post most recently held by Janet Napolitano, who stepped down in August to become president of the University of California system.</p>
<p>As general counsel at the Defense Department during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson was an aggressive advocate on a number of complex and contentious legal issues. He oversaw the escalation of the use of unmanned drone strikes, the revamping of military commissions to try terrorism suspects rather than using civilian courts and the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members. He also mapped out the legal defense for the American cross-border raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>A senior Obama administration official on Thursday confirmed Johnson’s selection, first reported by The Daily Beast. The official was not authorized to speak about the nomination on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>BIRTHPLACE: New York City.</p>
<p>EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree, Morehouse College, 1979; law degree, Columbia Law School, 1982.</p>
<p>EXPERIENCE: General counsel, Defense Department, 2009-2012; attorney, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &amp; Garrison, LLP, in New York, 2001-2008; general counsel, Department of the Air Force, 1998-2001; attorney, Paul Weiss, 1992-98, assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York, 1989-91; private practice, 1984-88.</p>
<p>FAMILY: Wife, Susan M. DiMarco, a dentist; two children, Jeh and Natalie.</p>
<p>The official said Obama chose Johnson because of his experience as a national security leader. The official noted that Johnson oversaw the work of more than 10,000 lawyers and was responsible for reviewing every military operation approved by the president and defense secretary.</p>
<p>Johnson is not as well versed in the immigration and disaster response side of the Homeland Security Department, although the administration official pointed out the Pentagon also coordinates federal relief to respond quickly to disasters.</p>
<p>Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised Johnson’s selection Thursday, saying he has “impeccable judgment, leadership qualities and high ethical standards.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>At the Pentagon, Johnson was involved in the decision to move Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning from a military jail in Quantico, Va. to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Supporters of Manning, the young soldier who leaked thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, said conditions at the military jail in Virginia were too harsh.</p>
<p>Johnson led a widespread crackdown on unauthorized leaks in the Defense Department, including warning former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette that by publishing a book on the SEAL’s raid that killed bin Laden he was in “material breach” of two nondisclosure agreements he signed earlier in his career. He was also involved in the investigation of retired Marine Gen. John Allen and Tampa, Fla., socialite Jill Kelley.</p>
<p>Johnson sparked criticism when he said in a speech at Britain’s Oxford University last November that the war on terror was not an endless conflict and that the U.S. was approaching a “tipping point” after which the military fight against al-Qaida would be replaced by a law enforcement and intelligence operation.</p>
<p>“War must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs,” Johnson said. “In its 12th year, we must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the new normal.”</p>
<p>Johnson was part of the team that looked at ways to bring women into combat missions and which assessed legal questions surrounding sexual assaults in the military, including how the chain of command should be involved in investigations and prosecutions. He also helped pave the way for the military’s 2010 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay service members.</p>
<p>“For those service members who are gay and lesbian, we lifted a real and personal burden from their shoulders,” Johnson said last year at an event recognizing the service of gay troops. “They no longer have to live a lie in the military.”</p>
<p /> | 139 |
<p>Shares of Papa John's International Inc. fell more than 3% late Tuesday as the pizza chain reported quarterly sales below Wall Street expectations. Papa John's said it earned $32.6 million, or 88 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $24.7 million, or 62 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned 69 cents a share, compared with 62 cents a share a year ago. Quarterly sales rose 5.5% to $440 million. North America comparable sales rose 3.8% in the quarter and 3.5% in 2016, while international comparable sales rose 5.6% for the three-month period and 6% for the year, the company said in a statement. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of 66 cents a share on sales of $447 million.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Papa John's Shares Fall After Company Misses Q4 Sales Estimates | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/21/papa-john-shares-fall-after-company-misses-q4-sales-estimates.html | 2017-03-16 | 0right
| Papa John's Shares Fall After Company Misses Q4 Sales Estimates
<p>Shares of Papa John's International Inc. fell more than 3% late Tuesday as the pizza chain reported quarterly sales below Wall Street expectations. Papa John's said it earned $32.6 million, or 88 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $24.7 million, or 62 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned 69 cents a share, compared with 62 cents a share a year ago. Quarterly sales rose 5.5% to $440 million. North America comparable sales rose 3.8% in the quarter and 3.5% in 2016, while international comparable sales rose 5.6% for the three-month period and 6% for the year, the company said in a statement. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of 66 cents a share on sales of $447 million.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | 140 |
<p>The liberal phantom menace of global warming gets more than twice as much federal money as cracking down on the very real menace of failing to secure the United States’ borders, the Daily Caller reported Tuesday.</p>
<p>According <a href="" type="external">to a White House report</a>, combined federal spending among cabinet departments to combat “climate change” was almost $22.2 billion, with $21.4 billion planned for next year.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-86168" alt="immig1028" src="http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/immig1028-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150" /&gt;</a>That compares to about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed 2014 budget, which includes spending about $12 billion on customs and border enforcement, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/28/global-warming-gets-nearly-twice-as-much-taxpayer-money-as-border-security/" type="external">the Daily caller reported</a>.</p>
<p>Republicans on the House Energy and Science Committee want to know where all that global warming money is going.</p>
<p>“With billions of dollars currently being spent annually on climate change activities, Congress and the public should understand the scope of what the federal government is doing, how the billions of dollars are being spent, and what it will accomplish,” U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., told the Daily Caller.</p>
<p>“Anyone who believes the committee ought to be focusing its attention on climate change related issues should be standing with us to get these answers.”</p>
<p>Democrats, of course, insist they already know the answers – the only answers that matter anyway. Because in contradiction to hundreds of years of the scientific method, the fountainhead of world progress since the Enlightenment, they insist the “science is settled,” that the conversation’s over. (For an excellent take on “settled science,” check out this National Review Online <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/356844/settled-science-claim-not-scientific-wesley-j-smith" type="external">piece from Wesley J. Smith</a>. )</p>
<p>“We have turned a corner on that issue,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said last week in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We are — including in our Congress — really past the issue of whether we need to respond.”</p>
<p>That’s hogwash. Former Vice President Al Gore’s endless bloviating notwithstanding, respectable, critical thinkers — whose snout isn’t buried in the public trough of grant money funding “climate change” research – who are skeptical of the whole theology <a href="" type="external">are surprisingly easy to find</a> if you look outside the pages of The New York Times and its fellow-traveling brethren.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, combating the actual fact of border insecurity, in a nation hated by terrorists the world over and already harboring an estimate 11 million people here illegally, is set to get half the money “climate change” fighting gets.</p>
<p>It’s classic liberal thinking: Exactly the wrong priority, exactly the opposite response, to what reality dictates.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for libs, and to paraphrase John Adams, reality is a stubborn thing.</p>
<p>That would be unfortunate for the rest of us, too.</p>
<p>[poll id=”132″]</p> | Taxpayer funding for ‘climate change’ twice that of border security | true | http://bizpacreview.com/2013/10/29/taxpayer-funding-for-climate-change-twice-that-of-border-security-86161 | 2013-10-29 | 0right
| Taxpayer funding for ‘climate change’ twice that of border security
<p>The liberal phantom menace of global warming gets more than twice as much federal money as cracking down on the very real menace of failing to secure the United States’ borders, the Daily Caller reported Tuesday.</p>
<p>According <a href="" type="external">to a White House report</a>, combined federal spending among cabinet departments to combat “climate change” was almost $22.2 billion, with $21.4 billion planned for next year.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-86168" alt="immig1028" src="http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/immig1028-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150" /&gt;</a>That compares to about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed 2014 budget, which includes spending about $12 billion on customs and border enforcement, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/28/global-warming-gets-nearly-twice-as-much-taxpayer-money-as-border-security/" type="external">the Daily caller reported</a>.</p>
<p>Republicans on the House Energy and Science Committee want to know where all that global warming money is going.</p>
<p>“With billions of dollars currently being spent annually on climate change activities, Congress and the public should understand the scope of what the federal government is doing, how the billions of dollars are being spent, and what it will accomplish,” U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., told the Daily Caller.</p>
<p>“Anyone who believes the committee ought to be focusing its attention on climate change related issues should be standing with us to get these answers.”</p>
<p>Democrats, of course, insist they already know the answers – the only answers that matter anyway. Because in contradiction to hundreds of years of the scientific method, the fountainhead of world progress since the Enlightenment, they insist the “science is settled,” that the conversation’s over. (For an excellent take on “settled science,” check out this National Review Online <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/356844/settled-science-claim-not-scientific-wesley-j-smith" type="external">piece from Wesley J. Smith</a>. )</p>
<p>“We have turned a corner on that issue,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said last week in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We are — including in our Congress — really past the issue of whether we need to respond.”</p>
<p>That’s hogwash. Former Vice President Al Gore’s endless bloviating notwithstanding, respectable, critical thinkers — whose snout isn’t buried in the public trough of grant money funding “climate change” research – who are skeptical of the whole theology <a href="" type="external">are surprisingly easy to find</a> if you look outside the pages of The New York Times and its fellow-traveling brethren.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, combating the actual fact of border insecurity, in a nation hated by terrorists the world over and already harboring an estimate 11 million people here illegally, is set to get half the money “climate change” fighting gets.</p>
<p>It’s classic liberal thinking: Exactly the wrong priority, exactly the opposite response, to what reality dictates.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for libs, and to paraphrase John Adams, reality is a stubborn thing.</p>
<p>That would be unfortunate for the rest of us, too.</p>
<p>[poll id=”132″]</p> | 141 |
<p>ST. LOUIS (MO)St. Louis Post DispatchBy William C. Lhotka Post-Dispatchupdated: 05/28/2003 10:18 PM</p>
<p>When the Rev. Bryan Kuchar was on trial last week on charges of molesting a child, the jury was sent out to decide all at once whether he was guilty and what his punishment should be if he was. As it turned out, the jury could not reach a decision on guilt, so the Roman Catholic priest will be tried again. When he is, the decision-making process will be significantly different if Gov. Bob Holden signs - as expected - an omnibus crime bill sent to him by the Legislature. It would split the deliberations so a jury would decide first on guilt. If jurors vote to convict, they then would hear evidence and lawyers' arguments about the proper penalty before retiring again to decide punishment.</p> | Under new law, juries would hear more evidence before sentencing | false | https://poynter.org/news/under-new-law-juries-would-hear-more-evidence-sentencing | 2003-05-29 | 2least
| Under new law, juries would hear more evidence before sentencing
<p>ST. LOUIS (MO)St. Louis Post DispatchBy William C. Lhotka Post-Dispatchupdated: 05/28/2003 10:18 PM</p>
<p>When the Rev. Bryan Kuchar was on trial last week on charges of molesting a child, the jury was sent out to decide all at once whether he was guilty and what his punishment should be if he was. As it turned out, the jury could not reach a decision on guilt, so the Roman Catholic priest will be tried again. When he is, the decision-making process will be significantly different if Gov. Bob Holden signs - as expected - an omnibus crime bill sent to him by the Legislature. It would split the deliberations so a jury would decide first on guilt. If jurors vote to convict, they then would hear evidence and lawyers' arguments about the proper penalty before retiring again to decide punishment.</p> | 142 |
<p>Sometimes we at Crooks and Liars have trouble writing up a video.</p>
<p>This is one of those times. Maybe it's because we've already done over 400 posts about Grover Norquist.</p>
<p>Maybe it's because <a href="" type="internal">he was completely discredited</a> by Samantha Bee on The Daily Show (in 2012, mind you) as an overgrown 8th grader, and that should be the end of his "Tax Pledge" for all eternity.</p>
<p>Or maybe it's just that Grover Norquist has been the same smarmy 'tax cuts for billionaires' douchebag for so very long that we are not only tired of his failed ideology, we're to the point where any Grover Norquist video makes all of us want to punch a wall.</p>
<p />
<p>In any event, here he is, saying what Grover Norquist says, and being called out quite brilliantly as usual by the higher-tolerance-for-this-sh*t-than-we-have Paul Krugman.</p>
<p>Special kudos to Krugman for making Norquist admit that there actually was a Republican President between Saint Ronald Reagan and now. If you listened to Grover you'd think history's only Republican economy was St. Ronnie and his 4% growth recovery (which, by the way, was spurred by GOVERNMENT SPENDING and TAX INCREASES, but I digress).</p>
<p>Krugman also boils down the whole argument in just a few sentences:</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: I think the point is we actually know extremely well what to do. We know exactly what is needed and the problem is the people -- the ideology that Grover is giving here is what stands in the way. The fact that you'll have complete rigid adherence to that ideology, which has failed again and again and again, but nothing has changed, nothing has been learned from experience.</p>
<p>NORQUIST: Look at Reagan and Obama, and Reagan created more jobs and Reagan...</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: They've got to go back 35 years to a completely different situation. We had Bush, got all this stuff, none of it delivered. And it's kind of an amazing thing how Bush has become a nonperson.</p>
<p>But the money quote from this video appears at the 5:00 mark, where Grover says he really likes Trump's tax plan of reducing corporate taxes to 15%.</p>
<p>This is the drowning government in the bathtub dream for Grover. But again, the money quote:</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: Trump is completely incoherent on economic policy. I mean, you can find him on any given day supporting almost anything.</p>
<p>Well, he said he wanted to -- maybe he wanted to raise taxes on the rich, then he said he wanted to cut them. I mean, to actually try to suss out what Trump means, God knows.</p>
<p>NORQUIST: It's written down. And I think the proposal that he has -- getting rid of the death tax, getting rid of the AMT finally, taking the corporate and business takes to 15 percent...</p>
<p>He trusts Trump to stick to an imaginary 15% rate because It's. On. Paper.</p>
<p>Apparently Norquist was in a coma last month when <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/05/3775761/trump-tax-plan-reversal" type="external">Trump said all of his tax proposals would be subject to "negotiation."</a></p>
<p>Listen, Grover, even Trump doesn't trust Trump on taxes. Who is paying you to do so?</p> | Grover Norquist Trusts Trump's Tax Plan: 'It's Written Down' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2016/06/grover-norquist-trusts-trumps-tax-plan-its | 2016-06-06 | 4left
| Grover Norquist Trusts Trump's Tax Plan: 'It's Written Down'
<p>Sometimes we at Crooks and Liars have trouble writing up a video.</p>
<p>This is one of those times. Maybe it's because we've already done over 400 posts about Grover Norquist.</p>
<p>Maybe it's because <a href="" type="internal">he was completely discredited</a> by Samantha Bee on The Daily Show (in 2012, mind you) as an overgrown 8th grader, and that should be the end of his "Tax Pledge" for all eternity.</p>
<p>Or maybe it's just that Grover Norquist has been the same smarmy 'tax cuts for billionaires' douchebag for so very long that we are not only tired of his failed ideology, we're to the point where any Grover Norquist video makes all of us want to punch a wall.</p>
<p />
<p>In any event, here he is, saying what Grover Norquist says, and being called out quite brilliantly as usual by the higher-tolerance-for-this-sh*t-than-we-have Paul Krugman.</p>
<p>Special kudos to Krugman for making Norquist admit that there actually was a Republican President between Saint Ronald Reagan and now. If you listened to Grover you'd think history's only Republican economy was St. Ronnie and his 4% growth recovery (which, by the way, was spurred by GOVERNMENT SPENDING and TAX INCREASES, but I digress).</p>
<p>Krugman also boils down the whole argument in just a few sentences:</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: I think the point is we actually know extremely well what to do. We know exactly what is needed and the problem is the people -- the ideology that Grover is giving here is what stands in the way. The fact that you'll have complete rigid adherence to that ideology, which has failed again and again and again, but nothing has changed, nothing has been learned from experience.</p>
<p>NORQUIST: Look at Reagan and Obama, and Reagan created more jobs and Reagan...</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: They've got to go back 35 years to a completely different situation. We had Bush, got all this stuff, none of it delivered. And it's kind of an amazing thing how Bush has become a nonperson.</p>
<p>But the money quote from this video appears at the 5:00 mark, where Grover says he really likes Trump's tax plan of reducing corporate taxes to 15%.</p>
<p>This is the drowning government in the bathtub dream for Grover. But again, the money quote:</p>
<p>KRUGMAN: Trump is completely incoherent on economic policy. I mean, you can find him on any given day supporting almost anything.</p>
<p>Well, he said he wanted to -- maybe he wanted to raise taxes on the rich, then he said he wanted to cut them. I mean, to actually try to suss out what Trump means, God knows.</p>
<p>NORQUIST: It's written down. And I think the proposal that he has -- getting rid of the death tax, getting rid of the AMT finally, taking the corporate and business takes to 15 percent...</p>
<p>He trusts Trump to stick to an imaginary 15% rate because It's. On. Paper.</p>
<p>Apparently Norquist was in a coma last month when <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/05/3775761/trump-tax-plan-reversal" type="external">Trump said all of his tax proposals would be subject to "negotiation."</a></p>
<p>Listen, Grover, even Trump doesn't trust Trump on taxes. Who is paying you to do so?</p> | 143 |
<p>On Wednesday, the president continued his ongoing feud with the NFL. He has taken it up as a pet cause of his to try and compel players who choose to take a knee during the anthem as a protest on behalf of African Americans to cease their protesting.</p>
<p>In apparent response to reports about the NFL’s consideration of a rule compelling players to stand during the anthem — and thus stem the tide of distracting criticism produced by what’s turned into a PR debacle thanks to the president’s goading — Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to praise NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for “demanding” that all players stand for the pre-game anthem.</p>
<p>There is just one problem — according to the NFL, Trump got Goodell’s position dead wrong.</p>
<p>A statement from the NFL, posted to Twitter by sports journalist Ian Rapoport, reads:</p>
<p>‘Commentary thus morning about the NFL Commissioner’s position on the anthem is not accurate. As we said yesterday, there will be a discussion of these issues at the owners meeting next week. The NFL is doing the hard work of trying to move from protest to progress, working to bring people together.’</p>
<p>Considering this statement from the NFL, Trump has yet again jumped ahead of the truth for the sake of his talking points.</p>
<p>The statement from the NFL responding to Trump’s tweet details Goodell’s efforts to be privy to the concerns of players and potential ways to address those concerns. He reportedly spent Tuesday with the Miami Dolphins, “witnessing first hand the outstanding work our players and clubs are doing to strengthen our communities.”</p>
<p>Considering Goodell’s past statements, he seems to be of the personal persuasion that all should stand for the anthem, but he is, apparently, among those who do not want to force their position on others.</p>
<p>He is most certainly aware and concerned about, as mentioned, the hold that the controversy surrounding the anthem has put on efforts to address the underlying issues at play. Rather than allowing for a general conversation to proceed, the controversy, fueled in no small part by the president’s persistent belligerence, threatens to divide the league and its fans into ever more intense factions — and that’s not good for business.</p>
<p>Read the full statement from the NFL responding to the president below.</p>
<p />
<p>Check out Twitter’s response below.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Featured Image via <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/846974020" type="external">Maddie Meyer/ Getty Images</a></p> | NFL Fires Back After Trump Tweets About Commissioner Forcing Athletes To Stand | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/10/11/nfl-fires-back-after-trump-tweets-about-commissioner-forcing-athletes-to-stand/ | 2017-10-11 | 4left
| NFL Fires Back After Trump Tweets About Commissioner Forcing Athletes To Stand
<p>On Wednesday, the president continued his ongoing feud with the NFL. He has taken it up as a pet cause of his to try and compel players who choose to take a knee during the anthem as a protest on behalf of African Americans to cease their protesting.</p>
<p>In apparent response to reports about the NFL’s consideration of a rule compelling players to stand during the anthem — and thus stem the tide of distracting criticism produced by what’s turned into a PR debacle thanks to the president’s goading — Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to praise NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for “demanding” that all players stand for the pre-game anthem.</p>
<p>There is just one problem — according to the NFL, Trump got Goodell’s position dead wrong.</p>
<p>A statement from the NFL, posted to Twitter by sports journalist Ian Rapoport, reads:</p>
<p>‘Commentary thus morning about the NFL Commissioner’s position on the anthem is not accurate. As we said yesterday, there will be a discussion of these issues at the owners meeting next week. The NFL is doing the hard work of trying to move from protest to progress, working to bring people together.’</p>
<p>Considering this statement from the NFL, Trump has yet again jumped ahead of the truth for the sake of his talking points.</p>
<p>The statement from the NFL responding to Trump’s tweet details Goodell’s efforts to be privy to the concerns of players and potential ways to address those concerns. He reportedly spent Tuesday with the Miami Dolphins, “witnessing first hand the outstanding work our players and clubs are doing to strengthen our communities.”</p>
<p>Considering Goodell’s past statements, he seems to be of the personal persuasion that all should stand for the anthem, but he is, apparently, among those who do not want to force their position on others.</p>
<p>He is most certainly aware and concerned about, as mentioned, the hold that the controversy surrounding the anthem has put on efforts to address the underlying issues at play. Rather than allowing for a general conversation to proceed, the controversy, fueled in no small part by the president’s persistent belligerence, threatens to divide the league and its fans into ever more intense factions — and that’s not good for business.</p>
<p>Read the full statement from the NFL responding to the president below.</p>
<p />
<p>Check out Twitter’s response below.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Featured Image via <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/846974020" type="external">Maddie Meyer/ Getty Images</a></p> | 144 |
<p />
<p>During his <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/11/10704_obama-acceptance-speech.html" type="external">victory speech</a>, President-elect Barack Obama told the world that “if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.”</p>
<p>It seems Wall Street didn’t get the memo. All nine banks about to get a total equity capital injection of $125 billion, courtesy of phase one of the bailout plan, reserved $108 billion during 2008 in order to pay for compensation and bonuses ( <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081028142433.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>). Guess who’ll end up footing the bill?</p>
<p>Helping to pay these awards was not supposed to be part of the bailout plan. On the contrary, when the Senate, including Obama, <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00213" type="external">approved</a> the $700 billion package in October, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called this package one that would loosen the credit markets. The idea was that banks would start lending to each other again, as well as to citizens and small businesses.</p>
<p>That hasn’t happened, which is why it’s particularly offensive that this no-strings-attached money is going to line the pockets of the biggest executives on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs, the country’s top investment bank (which since September 21 calls itself a bank holding company), set aside $11.4 billion during the first nine months of this year to cover bonus payments for its 443 senior partners and other employees. That’s one-third less than last year’s amount, but only slightly more than the firm’s $10 billion US government gift. Economic woes notwithstanding, those partners are still <a href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/wall-streets-bonus-hopes-linger-despite-losses/?hp" type="external">expected to make</a> at least $5 million each. While Wall Street may not believe in higher taxes for the richest citizens, it does believe in higher bonuses for top executives. The bulk of bonus money on Wall Street concentrates there, after ferocious internal discussions about how much each person’s contribution to the firm is worth, no matter what the market conditions are on the outside. Trust me, I witnessed too many of these during my time on Wall Street. They are exercises in pure, unadulterated whines of entitlement.</p>
<p>Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein, bagged a record bonus last year of $67.9 million, including $26.8 million in cash. That amount was nearly double the $38 million that Hank Paulson made at the firm in 2005, the year before he became the treasury secretary, a post for which he received <a href="http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/paulson-e.html" type="external">unanimous approval</a> from the Senate in 2006.</p>
<p>Last year, when the financial crisis was just in brewing mode, the top five investment banks paid themselves $39 billion in compensation and bonuses, up 6 percent from 2006. Two of those firms, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, went bankrupt this year. Bank of America is acquiring a third, Merrill Lynch. The remaining two, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have seen their stock values plummet more than 60 percent.</p>
<p>Yet that didn’t stop their election money from pouring out. Goldman was Obama’s <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&amp;cid=N00009638" type="external">largest corporate campaign contributor</a>, with $874,207. Also in the Obama top 20 were three other recipients of bailout capital injections: JPM, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. In the spirit of not sacrificing Main Street for Wall Street, this shouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>Last week ( <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081028142314.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>), House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) gave the bailout capital recipient firms until November 10 to come up with some darn good reasons to be paying themselves so much. Specifically, he requested detailed information on the total and average compensation per year from 2006 to 2008, the number of employees expected to be paid more than $500,000 in total compensation, and the total compensation projected for the top 10 executives.</p>
<p>Similarly, New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo demanded information about this year’s bonuses, requesting a detailed accounting of expected payments to top management, including the size of the firm’s expected bonus pool both before and after knowing that it would be a recipient of taxpayer funds.</p>
<p>As Cuomo told the firms, “The American taxpayer has provided substantial funds to your firm; the preservation of those funds is a vital obligation of your company. Taxpayers are in many ways now like shareholders of your company, and your firm has a responsibility to them ( <a href="http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2008/oct/bank_letter.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>).”</p>
<p>House Financial Service Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) concurred. “Any use of the these funds for any purpose other than lending—for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions, etc.—is a <a href="http://www.house.gov/frank/tarp103108.html" type="external">violation of the terms</a> of the [Troubled Assets Relief Program] Act.” Next week, his committee will hold oversight hearings on the matter.</p>
<p>To combat these inquires, Wall Street has gone into its best defense mode, projecting an aura of being accommodating and self-deprecating (because it is shedding jobs, too), in order to remain in its status-quo state of self-regulation. Banks are going to tell Congress that of course they won’t use that $125 billion for bonuses—it will go to shoring up balance sheets and for acquisitions just like they promised, whereas the bonus money will come from earnings, as it always does.</p>
<p>If that sounds like accounting prattle, it’s because it is. It doesn’t matter where in the balance sheet capital comes from or goes; the point is, there’s more of it because of taxpayer redistribution in the wrong direction than there would have been otherwise, and that is not just.</p>
<p>According to Gar Alperovitz, economist and coauthor with Lew Daly of the book <a href="http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&amp;task=view_title&amp;metaproductid=1741" type="external">Unjust Deserts</a>, that beautifully explains why too much money goes to those whose contributions are marginal compared to the historical contribution of others before them. “We’re making homeowners take a big hit, and if there’s any justification for any of these bonuses, which is dubious, sharing that burden is important.”</p>
<p>That’s not quite the sharing that Wall Street wanted from the bailout package, but if “change has come to America,” as per Obama’s promise, then it’s time for Wall Street to shoulder its share. Taxpayers will not be getting a personal return on their capital from Goldman Sachs partners. Getting involved in decisively saving taxpayer money from being distributed to the likes of Lloyd Blankfein before these payments are made would be an excellent way for Obama to invoke immediate change.</p>
<p /> | And Now, Back to the Economy | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/11/and-now-back-economy/ | 2008-11-07 | 4left
| And Now, Back to the Economy
<p />
<p>During his <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/11/10704_obama-acceptance-speech.html" type="external">victory speech</a>, President-elect Barack Obama told the world that “if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.”</p>
<p>It seems Wall Street didn’t get the memo. All nine banks about to get a total equity capital injection of $125 billion, courtesy of phase one of the bailout plan, reserved $108 billion during 2008 in order to pay for compensation and bonuses ( <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081028142433.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>). Guess who’ll end up footing the bill?</p>
<p>Helping to pay these awards was not supposed to be part of the bailout plan. On the contrary, when the Senate, including Obama, <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&amp;session=2&amp;vote=00213" type="external">approved</a> the $700 billion package in October, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called this package one that would loosen the credit markets. The idea was that banks would start lending to each other again, as well as to citizens and small businesses.</p>
<p>That hasn’t happened, which is why it’s particularly offensive that this no-strings-attached money is going to line the pockets of the biggest executives on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs, the country’s top investment bank (which since September 21 calls itself a bank holding company), set aside $11.4 billion during the first nine months of this year to cover bonus payments for its 443 senior partners and other employees. That’s one-third less than last year’s amount, but only slightly more than the firm’s $10 billion US government gift. Economic woes notwithstanding, those partners are still <a href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/wall-streets-bonus-hopes-linger-despite-losses/?hp" type="external">expected to make</a> at least $5 million each. While Wall Street may not believe in higher taxes for the richest citizens, it does believe in higher bonuses for top executives. The bulk of bonus money on Wall Street concentrates there, after ferocious internal discussions about how much each person’s contribution to the firm is worth, no matter what the market conditions are on the outside. Trust me, I witnessed too many of these during my time on Wall Street. They are exercises in pure, unadulterated whines of entitlement.</p>
<p>Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein, bagged a record bonus last year of $67.9 million, including $26.8 million in cash. That amount was nearly double the $38 million that Hank Paulson made at the firm in 2005, the year before he became the treasury secretary, a post for which he received <a href="http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/paulson-e.html" type="external">unanimous approval</a> from the Senate in 2006.</p>
<p>Last year, when the financial crisis was just in brewing mode, the top five investment banks paid themselves $39 billion in compensation and bonuses, up 6 percent from 2006. Two of those firms, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, went bankrupt this year. Bank of America is acquiring a third, Merrill Lynch. The remaining two, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have seen their stock values plummet more than 60 percent.</p>
<p>Yet that didn’t stop their election money from pouring out. Goldman was Obama’s <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&amp;cid=N00009638" type="external">largest corporate campaign contributor</a>, with $874,207. Also in the Obama top 20 were three other recipients of bailout capital injections: JPM, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. In the spirit of not sacrificing Main Street for Wall Street, this shouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>Last week ( <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081028142314.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>), House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) gave the bailout capital recipient firms until November 10 to come up with some darn good reasons to be paying themselves so much. Specifically, he requested detailed information on the total and average compensation per year from 2006 to 2008, the number of employees expected to be paid more than $500,000 in total compensation, and the total compensation projected for the top 10 executives.</p>
<p>Similarly, New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo demanded information about this year’s bonuses, requesting a detailed accounting of expected payments to top management, including the size of the firm’s expected bonus pool both before and after knowing that it would be a recipient of taxpayer funds.</p>
<p>As Cuomo told the firms, “The American taxpayer has provided substantial funds to your firm; the preservation of those funds is a vital obligation of your company. Taxpayers are in many ways now like shareholders of your company, and your firm has a responsibility to them ( <a href="http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2008/oct/bank_letter.pdf" type="external">.pdf</a>).”</p>
<p>House Financial Service Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) concurred. “Any use of the these funds for any purpose other than lending—for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions, etc.—is a <a href="http://www.house.gov/frank/tarp103108.html" type="external">violation of the terms</a> of the [Troubled Assets Relief Program] Act.” Next week, his committee will hold oversight hearings on the matter.</p>
<p>To combat these inquires, Wall Street has gone into its best defense mode, projecting an aura of being accommodating and self-deprecating (because it is shedding jobs, too), in order to remain in its status-quo state of self-regulation. Banks are going to tell Congress that of course they won’t use that $125 billion for bonuses—it will go to shoring up balance sheets and for acquisitions just like they promised, whereas the bonus money will come from earnings, as it always does.</p>
<p>If that sounds like accounting prattle, it’s because it is. It doesn’t matter where in the balance sheet capital comes from or goes; the point is, there’s more of it because of taxpayer redistribution in the wrong direction than there would have been otherwise, and that is not just.</p>
<p>According to Gar Alperovitz, economist and coauthor with Lew Daly of the book <a href="http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&amp;task=view_title&amp;metaproductid=1741" type="external">Unjust Deserts</a>, that beautifully explains why too much money goes to those whose contributions are marginal compared to the historical contribution of others before them. “We’re making homeowners take a big hit, and if there’s any justification for any of these bonuses, which is dubious, sharing that burden is important.”</p>
<p>That’s not quite the sharing that Wall Street wanted from the bailout package, but if “change has come to America,” as per Obama’s promise, then it’s time for Wall Street to shoulder its share. Taxpayers will not be getting a personal return on their capital from Goldman Sachs partners. Getting involved in decisively saving taxpayer money from being distributed to the likes of Lloyd Blankfein before these payments are made would be an excellent way for Obama to invoke immediate change.</p>
<p /> | 145 |
<p>In a motion at the Southern Baptists Convention June 14, a Baptist state newspaper editor asked trustees of all Southern Baptist Convention entities to open their meetings to the press.</p>
<p>Lonnie Wilkey</p>
<p>Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Baptist and Reflector newspaper in Tennessee, requested all SBC trustees “to consider examining their media policies, and if they do not have clearly defined guidelines to consider establishing a policy that trustee meetings, including committee meetings, be open to news media.”</p>
<p>By rules which state any motion on the floor of the annual meeting concerning the internal work of an SBC entity be referred to its board of trustees, messengers voted to refer the motion to all entities with a request they report back to the convention next year.</p>
<p>Early this year Wilkey and other Baptist state paper editors <a href="" type="internal">voiced</a> concern about unanswered questions concerning layoffs at the International Mission Board. Wilkey <a href="http://baptistandreflector.org/imb-more-questions-than-answers/" type="external">wrote</a> Jan. 28 that he is “troubled by the lack of communication coming from the IMB.”</p>
<p>Current IMB policy allows for open meetings of certain committees for background information only and a closing plenary session that is open to the public unless trustees decide to go into executive session.</p>
<p>A June 3&#160; <a href="http://baptistmessage.com/editorial-why-are-imb-leaders-not-answering-questions/" type="external">editorial</a> in the Baptist Message&#160;in Louisiana asked “Why are IMB leaders not answering questions?” about the termination of 1,132 missionaries and staff that leadership attributed to budget shortfalls.</p>
<p>“The Message is not a crusading investigative news outlet,” wrote editorial Will Hall, a former vice president at the SBC Executive Committee who directed Baptist Press. “We simply try to ask questions Southern Baptists are asking among themselves.”</p>
<p>On Wednesday SBC messengers adopted a resolution encouraging “journalists and news organizations —&#160;both secular and religious —&#160;to exercise responsibly their freedom” and all SBC entities “to honor freedom of the press by continuing to make reasonable accommodations to the news media seeking to cover Southern Baptist entities and newsmakers.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Baptist editor calls for open meetings | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/baptist-editor-calls-for-open-meetings/ | 3left-center
| Baptist editor calls for open meetings
<p>In a motion at the Southern Baptists Convention June 14, a Baptist state newspaper editor asked trustees of all Southern Baptist Convention entities to open their meetings to the press.</p>
<p>Lonnie Wilkey</p>
<p>Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Baptist and Reflector newspaper in Tennessee, requested all SBC trustees “to consider examining their media policies, and if they do not have clearly defined guidelines to consider establishing a policy that trustee meetings, including committee meetings, be open to news media.”</p>
<p>By rules which state any motion on the floor of the annual meeting concerning the internal work of an SBC entity be referred to its board of trustees, messengers voted to refer the motion to all entities with a request they report back to the convention next year.</p>
<p>Early this year Wilkey and other Baptist state paper editors <a href="" type="internal">voiced</a> concern about unanswered questions concerning layoffs at the International Mission Board. Wilkey <a href="http://baptistandreflector.org/imb-more-questions-than-answers/" type="external">wrote</a> Jan. 28 that he is “troubled by the lack of communication coming from the IMB.”</p>
<p>Current IMB policy allows for open meetings of certain committees for background information only and a closing plenary session that is open to the public unless trustees decide to go into executive session.</p>
<p>A June 3&#160; <a href="http://baptistmessage.com/editorial-why-are-imb-leaders-not-answering-questions/" type="external">editorial</a> in the Baptist Message&#160;in Louisiana asked “Why are IMB leaders not answering questions?” about the termination of 1,132 missionaries and staff that leadership attributed to budget shortfalls.</p>
<p>“The Message is not a crusading investigative news outlet,” wrote editorial Will Hall, a former vice president at the SBC Executive Committee who directed Baptist Press. “We simply try to ask questions Southern Baptists are asking among themselves.”</p>
<p>On Wednesday SBC messengers adopted a resolution encouraging “journalists and news organizations —&#160;both secular and religious —&#160;to exercise responsibly their freedom” and all SBC entities “to honor freedom of the press by continuing to make reasonable accommodations to the news media seeking to cover Southern Baptist entities and newsmakers.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 146 |
|
<p>Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the California Values Act,&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20170916-story.html" type="external">passed&#160;</a>by lawmakers Saturday, which would make the state a “sanctuary state” with new protections for undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>The 27-11 vote, along party lines, was reached after lengthy negotiations. But immigrant rights groups applauded the final bill, noting that it represented a strong rebuke of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, including the Justice Department’s&#160; <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/04/doj-bullying-cities-complying-anti-immigration-efforts" type="external">threats</a>&#160;to withhold law enforcement grants from sanctuary cities.</p>
<p>“This was a hard-fought effort but the end product was worth the fight,” said Jennie Pasquarella, Immigrants’ Rights Director with the ACLU of California. “With SB 54, California will meaningfully improve state law to keep families together and communities whole—and not a moment too soon as the Trump administration continues its draconian and indiscriminate crackdown on immigrants.”</p>
<p>Under the law, state and local law enforcement officers will not be permitted to ask about a person’s immigration status during an arrest or police stop, and their communication with federal immigration authorities will be limited.</p>
<p />
<p>The bill also gives protections to inmates who are immigrants, allowing them to reduce their sentences by completing educational or rehabilitation programs, and ensures that schools, hospitals, libraries, and courthouses remain safe spaces for undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>The original proposal by Democratic state senator Kevin De Leon would have also prohibited state and local police from reporting undocumented immigrants to federal authorities unless they had committed violent or serious crimes.</p>
<p>The bill that is headed to Brown’s desk allows communication with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding anyone who has committed any of the 800 crimes listed in the California Trust Law, which includes some misdemeanors and non-violent crimes. ICE agents will also still be able to enter county jails.</p>
<p>Even after the negotiations, the bill is the most ambitious of its kind; in 1987 Oregon passed a law barring state and local officers from detaining anyone solely on immigration charges, and state lawmakers have proposed&#160; <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2017-06-20/oregon-moves-to-strengthen-its-unique-sanctuary-state-status" type="external">strengthening</a>&#160;that law this year with amendments similar to the measures introduced in California.</p>
<p>Proponents of the California Values Act cited residents’ fear of law enforcement amid the looming threat of deportation as a vital reason to pass the bill.</p>
<p>“Now, more than ever, it is imperative that California law clearly distinguish state and local law enforcement officers from federal deportation agents,” said Pasquarella. “At a time when police data indicates that domestic violence and sexual assault reporting is plummeting among Latinos, California has a moral obligation to ensure law enforcement agents treat everyone fairly, no matter their background, what they look like, or where they are born.”</p> | California Passes Immigrant Protections Bill | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/rejecting-trump-agenda-immigrant-protections-bill-passes-california/ | 2017-09-16 | 4left
| California Passes Immigrant Protections Bill
<p>Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the California Values Act,&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20170916-story.html" type="external">passed&#160;</a>by lawmakers Saturday, which would make the state a “sanctuary state” with new protections for undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>The 27-11 vote, along party lines, was reached after lengthy negotiations. But immigrant rights groups applauded the final bill, noting that it represented a strong rebuke of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, including the Justice Department’s&#160; <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/04/doj-bullying-cities-complying-anti-immigration-efforts" type="external">threats</a>&#160;to withhold law enforcement grants from sanctuary cities.</p>
<p>“This was a hard-fought effort but the end product was worth the fight,” said Jennie Pasquarella, Immigrants’ Rights Director with the ACLU of California. “With SB 54, California will meaningfully improve state law to keep families together and communities whole—and not a moment too soon as the Trump administration continues its draconian and indiscriminate crackdown on immigrants.”</p>
<p>Under the law, state and local law enforcement officers will not be permitted to ask about a person’s immigration status during an arrest or police stop, and their communication with federal immigration authorities will be limited.</p>
<p />
<p>The bill also gives protections to inmates who are immigrants, allowing them to reduce their sentences by completing educational or rehabilitation programs, and ensures that schools, hospitals, libraries, and courthouses remain safe spaces for undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>The original proposal by Democratic state senator Kevin De Leon would have also prohibited state and local police from reporting undocumented immigrants to federal authorities unless they had committed violent or serious crimes.</p>
<p>The bill that is headed to Brown’s desk allows communication with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding anyone who has committed any of the 800 crimes listed in the California Trust Law, which includes some misdemeanors and non-violent crimes. ICE agents will also still be able to enter county jails.</p>
<p>Even after the negotiations, the bill is the most ambitious of its kind; in 1987 Oregon passed a law barring state and local officers from detaining anyone solely on immigration charges, and state lawmakers have proposed&#160; <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2017-06-20/oregon-moves-to-strengthen-its-unique-sanctuary-state-status" type="external">strengthening</a>&#160;that law this year with amendments similar to the measures introduced in California.</p>
<p>Proponents of the California Values Act cited residents’ fear of law enforcement amid the looming threat of deportation as a vital reason to pass the bill.</p>
<p>“Now, more than ever, it is imperative that California law clearly distinguish state and local law enforcement officers from federal deportation agents,” said Pasquarella. “At a time when police data indicates that domestic violence and sexual assault reporting is plummeting among Latinos, California has a moral obligation to ensure law enforcement agents treat everyone fairly, no matter their background, what they look like, or where they are born.”</p> | 147 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>“It doesn’t change anything in New Mexico,” Region II Narcotics Task Force Agent Jeff Browning told The Daily Times. “People still can’t drive impaired and they can’t bring it back to New Mexico.”</p>
<p>Voters in Colorado passed an amendment on Election Day that makes it legal for people 21 or older to buy, use and share small amounts of marijuana, the paper reported. But putting the amendment into effect is raising questions on both sides of the Colorado-New Mexico state line.</p>
<p>“A lot of people are thinking about the different ways to do business related to cannabis,” Durango attorney Stuart Prall told The Daily Times. ”’But everybody’s still so up in the air right now.”</p>
<p>Durango police said Tuesday that they will continue to cite people for possession of marijuana till they hear otherwise, The Daily Times said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“There’s still a lot of work to be done before it takes effect,” Durango police Lt. Ray Shupe told the paper. Marijuana “is still unlawful,” Shupe said.</p>
<p>The amendment doesn’t prohibit out-of-state adults from purchasing marijuana in Colorado, which raised concerns among New Mexico law enforcement about people driving back from Durango with pot or under the influence, The Daily Times said.</p>
<p>If people can drive up to Durango to get high, Neil Haws, director of the Region II Narcotics Task Force, told the paper, “hopefully they’ll stay in a hotel.”</p> | San Juan County Braces for Colo. Pot | false | https://abqjournal.com/146194/san-juan-county-braces-for-colo-pot.html | 2012-11-14 | 2least
| San Juan County Braces for Colo. Pot
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>“It doesn’t change anything in New Mexico,” Region II Narcotics Task Force Agent Jeff Browning told The Daily Times. “People still can’t drive impaired and they can’t bring it back to New Mexico.”</p>
<p>Voters in Colorado passed an amendment on Election Day that makes it legal for people 21 or older to buy, use and share small amounts of marijuana, the paper reported. But putting the amendment into effect is raising questions on both sides of the Colorado-New Mexico state line.</p>
<p>“A lot of people are thinking about the different ways to do business related to cannabis,” Durango attorney Stuart Prall told The Daily Times. ”’But everybody’s still so up in the air right now.”</p>
<p>Durango police said Tuesday that they will continue to cite people for possession of marijuana till they hear otherwise, The Daily Times said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“There’s still a lot of work to be done before it takes effect,” Durango police Lt. Ray Shupe told the paper. Marijuana “is still unlawful,” Shupe said.</p>
<p>The amendment doesn’t prohibit out-of-state adults from purchasing marijuana in Colorado, which raised concerns among New Mexico law enforcement about people driving back from Durango with pot or under the influence, The Daily Times said.</p>
<p>If people can drive up to Durango to get high, Neil Haws, director of the Region II Narcotics Task Force, told the paper, “hopefully they’ll stay in a hotel.”</p> | 148 |
<p>(Left)Protesters burn North Korean flag and images of the late Northern leader.(Right) North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, watches a submarine launched ballistic missile</p>
<p>Tensions across the world continue to heat up as South Korea enters a new level of readiness against northern aggression after the threat of attack raised to "an all time high" today.</p>
<p>In response to North Korea's&#160; <a href="" type="internal">recent ballistic missile launch</a>, and the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">restarting of the country's sole plutonium reactor</a>, the South is responding with "bone numbing" measures against&#160;Pyongyang.</p>
<p>From&#160; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/asia/south-korea-north-korean-terror-attack-claim/index.html?sr=fbCNN021816south-korea-north-korean-terror-attack-claim0928AMStoryLink&amp;linkId=21370498" type="external">CNN</a>:</p>
<p>Seoul (CNN)&#160;North Korea is currently planning a "terrorist attack" on South Korea according to the South's spy agency.</p>
<p>A lawmaker, briefed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), says leader Kim Jong Un himself gave the order to&#160;make preparations.</p>
<p>"North Korea's terrorist attack could be in the form of causing harms to anti-North Korean activists, North Korean defectors or government officials," said Saenuri Party member, Lee Chul-woo, when CNN contacted his office Thursday.</p>
<p>Members of the ruling Saenuri Party held a closed-door meeting with the NIS, defense ministry and other ministries.</p>
<p>South Korea's Presidential office said this latest NIS assessment highlights how important it is to pass an anti-terrorism bill they have been pushing for for some time.</p>
<p>Kim Sung-woo, a senior secretary at the Presidential office, known as the Blue House, said the law needs to be passed&#160;"so that there could be a legal and institutional framework on anti-terrorism so that it can protect our people's lives and property."</p>
<p>As we prepare to elect a new Commander-in-Chief, the world seems to be falling into a chaos that has never been seen before. China is absorbing more and of the South-East Asian seas, Iran is <a href="" type="internal">making a fool of the U.S.</a>&#160;on the world stage, and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">the racial divide is greater than it has been in decades.</a>&#160;The next president will have an intense task ahead of them. We here at FFS hope that the American people vote with this in mind?</p>
<p>0 comments</p> | South Korea prepares for sweeping terrorist attacks by North. | true | http://freedomsfinalstand.com/south-korea-prepares-for-sweeping-terrorist-attacks-by-north/ | 0right
| South Korea prepares for sweeping terrorist attacks by North.
<p>(Left)Protesters burn North Korean flag and images of the late Northern leader.(Right) North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, watches a submarine launched ballistic missile</p>
<p>Tensions across the world continue to heat up as South Korea enters a new level of readiness against northern aggression after the threat of attack raised to "an all time high" today.</p>
<p>In response to North Korea's&#160; <a href="" type="internal">recent ballistic missile launch</a>, and the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">restarting of the country's sole plutonium reactor</a>, the South is responding with "bone numbing" measures against&#160;Pyongyang.</p>
<p>From&#160; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/asia/south-korea-north-korean-terror-attack-claim/index.html?sr=fbCNN021816south-korea-north-korean-terror-attack-claim0928AMStoryLink&amp;linkId=21370498" type="external">CNN</a>:</p>
<p>Seoul (CNN)&#160;North Korea is currently planning a "terrorist attack" on South Korea according to the South's spy agency.</p>
<p>A lawmaker, briefed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), says leader Kim Jong Un himself gave the order to&#160;make preparations.</p>
<p>"North Korea's terrorist attack could be in the form of causing harms to anti-North Korean activists, North Korean defectors or government officials," said Saenuri Party member, Lee Chul-woo, when CNN contacted his office Thursday.</p>
<p>Members of the ruling Saenuri Party held a closed-door meeting with the NIS, defense ministry and other ministries.</p>
<p>South Korea's Presidential office said this latest NIS assessment highlights how important it is to pass an anti-terrorism bill they have been pushing for for some time.</p>
<p>Kim Sung-woo, a senior secretary at the Presidential office, known as the Blue House, said the law needs to be passed&#160;"so that there could be a legal and institutional framework on anti-terrorism so that it can protect our people's lives and property."</p>
<p>As we prepare to elect a new Commander-in-Chief, the world seems to be falling into a chaos that has never been seen before. China is absorbing more and of the South-East Asian seas, Iran is <a href="" type="internal">making a fool of the U.S.</a>&#160;on the world stage, and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">the racial divide is greater than it has been in decades.</a>&#160;The next president will have an intense task ahead of them. We here at FFS hope that the American people vote with this in mind?</p>
<p>0 comments</p> | 149 |
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<p>Tamer, or at least lower-decibel, fun was on tap at an Outdoor Fest in Helena, Mont. Along with kayaking, rafting and archery, there was a more thrilling event for kids of all ages: a “charging bear” that raced toward people at 25 miles per hour. The simulator was inspired by Mark Matheny’s experience of getting chased down by a real-life furious grizzly – with three cubs – that mauled him so badly he needed 200 stitches, mostly on his head. Grizzlies run “faster than a race horse,” he told the Independent Record. “People can be stunned because of their quickness.” Matheny survived his near-death experience determined to create products to make people safer, he said. His latest device, which attaches to a backpack, is handy, but only if you’re running away from a charging bear. As the animal closes in, you push a button on your backpack strap and pepper spray shoots out into the muzzle of the bear behind you. Presumably, this halts the attack cold; Matheny did not say whether he had tried it out.</p>
<p>MONTANA – When three members of the notorious Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church arrived in Bozeman to denounce gays, adultery, lying, fornicating and abortion, they found themselves confronted by crowds of people, many of them high school students, who met their vitriol with wit and compassion. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, they held handmade signs, including “Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus,” and our favorite: “If God hates gays, then why are they so cute?” A Catholic men’s group brought along a painting of the Virgin Mary, because, Tom Nyquist explained, “We want to present a message of love; our feeling is Westboro presents a message of hate.” The dozen or so motorcyclists who regularly appear when Westboro Church members picket military funerals were on hand as well; the riders rev up their motors to drown out church members whenever they start denouncing gays in the military and condemning all service members, whether gay or not, to hell in an apparent example of divine collateral damage. Though more than 300 protesters gathered on a sidewalk across from the three church members at one point, no one became angry or violent toward Westboro members Shirley Phelps-Roper, 55, her husband Brent Roper, 50, and their 11th child, Luke, who is 11. Ms. Phelps-Roper told reporter Gail Schontzler that her church protests evildoers somewhere every day; over the last 22 years, they’ve picketed some 51,000 times. She also warned anyone living close to Yellowstone that it’s “poised to vomit” with “a lot of explosions, a lot of lava,” she said, “because you’ve got same-sex marriage.”</p>
<p>WASHINGTON – Mike Momany, 62, probably thought he had a neat idea for a business that would have next to no overhead and allow him to charge people a fat fee. He’d guide men (no women allowed) into Seattle’s street culture, dressing the tourists down as homeless, and giving them phony nicknames and a “simple life script,” while promising that they would be “completely anonymous.” But after Momany announced his Real View Tours on a website, reaction came fast and it wasn’t exactly positive: “A Seattle man offers a tour package where you can live like a homeless person for three days for $2,000? Damn,” said Paul Richardson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “I can’t even afford to be homeless!” Other critics blasted the service as “tacky as hell” and “poverty tourism.” Momany responded that he believed the experience would help people better understand the predicament of the homeless – especially after his paying customers had slept on the streets themselves.</p>
<p>Marston is the editor of Writers on the Range a service of High Country News ( <a href="http://hcn.org" type="external">hcn.org</a>). Tips of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared, <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p /> | Ear-splitting fun with rented machine guns | false | https://abqjournal.com/302787/earsplitting-fun-with-rented-machine-guns.html | 2013-11-17 | 2least
| Ear-splitting fun with rented machine guns
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<p />
<p>Tamer, or at least lower-decibel, fun was on tap at an Outdoor Fest in Helena, Mont. Along with kayaking, rafting and archery, there was a more thrilling event for kids of all ages: a “charging bear” that raced toward people at 25 miles per hour. The simulator was inspired by Mark Matheny’s experience of getting chased down by a real-life furious grizzly – with three cubs – that mauled him so badly he needed 200 stitches, mostly on his head. Grizzlies run “faster than a race horse,” he told the Independent Record. “People can be stunned because of their quickness.” Matheny survived his near-death experience determined to create products to make people safer, he said. His latest device, which attaches to a backpack, is handy, but only if you’re running away from a charging bear. As the animal closes in, you push a button on your backpack strap and pepper spray shoots out into the muzzle of the bear behind you. Presumably, this halts the attack cold; Matheny did not say whether he had tried it out.</p>
<p>MONTANA – When three members of the notorious Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church arrived in Bozeman to denounce gays, adultery, lying, fornicating and abortion, they found themselves confronted by crowds of people, many of them high school students, who met their vitriol with wit and compassion. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, they held handmade signs, including “Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus,” and our favorite: “If God hates gays, then why are they so cute?” A Catholic men’s group brought along a painting of the Virgin Mary, because, Tom Nyquist explained, “We want to present a message of love; our feeling is Westboro presents a message of hate.” The dozen or so motorcyclists who regularly appear when Westboro Church members picket military funerals were on hand as well; the riders rev up their motors to drown out church members whenever they start denouncing gays in the military and condemning all service members, whether gay or not, to hell in an apparent example of divine collateral damage. Though more than 300 protesters gathered on a sidewalk across from the three church members at one point, no one became angry or violent toward Westboro members Shirley Phelps-Roper, 55, her husband Brent Roper, 50, and their 11th child, Luke, who is 11. Ms. Phelps-Roper told reporter Gail Schontzler that her church protests evildoers somewhere every day; over the last 22 years, they’ve picketed some 51,000 times. She also warned anyone living close to Yellowstone that it’s “poised to vomit” with “a lot of explosions, a lot of lava,” she said, “because you’ve got same-sex marriage.”</p>
<p>WASHINGTON – Mike Momany, 62, probably thought he had a neat idea for a business that would have next to no overhead and allow him to charge people a fat fee. He’d guide men (no women allowed) into Seattle’s street culture, dressing the tourists down as homeless, and giving them phony nicknames and a “simple life script,” while promising that they would be “completely anonymous.” But after Momany announced his Real View Tours on a website, reaction came fast and it wasn’t exactly positive: “A Seattle man offers a tour package where you can live like a homeless person for three days for $2,000? Damn,” said Paul Richardson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “I can’t even afford to be homeless!” Other critics blasted the service as “tacky as hell” and “poverty tourism.” Momany responded that he believed the experience would help people better understand the predicament of the homeless – especially after his paying customers had slept on the streets themselves.</p>
<p>Marston is the editor of Writers on the Range a service of High Country News ( <a href="http://hcn.org" type="external">hcn.org</a>). Tips of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared, <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p /> | 150 |
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<p>Stanley Greenberg’s new survey ( <a href="http://www.greenbergresearch.com/publications/dcorps/08022005_2005_hispanic_memo.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>) of Hispanic voters addresses a number of interesting points, but two really stand out here. The first is the rather obvious truism that candidates really do matter come election time. George W. Bush, of course, captured a near-historic percentage of the Hispanic vote, 40 percent in 2004. But he did this in part by distancing himself from the negative perceptions that Hispanics had of the Republican Party in general. Only 18 percent of Hispanics consider the GOP to be “accepting of different cultures”—indeed, the Democratic Party has a 40 point lead on the issue—but 30 percent thought the same of Bush himself. 30 percent is nothing to brag about in tolerance contests, but difference came in handy on election day. Unfortunately for the GOP, no other presidential name for 2008 seems to carry a similar personal advantage.</p>
<p>Now as to why Kerry did relatively poorly among Hispanics, some 39 percent claimed that they had no idea “what he stood for.” Yeah, well, so it goes, we’ve heard this ad infinitum and it’s not clear what Democrats can do about this besides, perhaps, run a more comprehensible candidate (Hispanics give Bill Clinton, for instance, an overwhelmingly warm personal rating). Anyway, the second reason—28 percent—had to do with Kerry’s “permissiveness on abortion and gay marriage,” which would appear to give “centrist” Democrats <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0121/p03s01-uspo.html" type="external">yet another excuse</a> to sacrifice abortion rights in order to reclaim swing voters. But if you look a bit farther down, a pro-life Democrat would run only slightly better than a pro-choice Democrat, and support for stem cell research pretty much swamps any edge an abortion foe could bring. (Obviously a pro-life, pro-stem cell candidate would do best, but Bill Frist’s delusions of the White House aside, there aren’t many presidential contenders who take this view.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, one should note that Hispanic voters under 30 and Hispanic voters with a college education are overwhelmingly pro-choice (60 and 62 percent respectively). So Bush may have won himself a slight advantage in 2004 on the issue, but over time—given changing demographics and, one would hope, a greater proportion of Hispanics going to college—abortion will turn into a much less successful wedge issue for Republicans to wield. For that matter, read Digby’s <a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_31_digbysblog_archive.html#112337034311216704" type="external">weekend post</a> on this very topic—although I’d note that, at least as far as the polls are concerned, the left-liberal position on both the intelligent design debate and the Ten Commandments-in-the-courthouse debate seem to be spectacularly lost causes. But other than that…</p>
<p /> | Hispanic Voters Revisited | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/08/hispanic-voters-revisited/ | 2005-08-08 | 4left
| Hispanic Voters Revisited
<p />
<p>Stanley Greenberg’s new survey ( <a href="http://www.greenbergresearch.com/publications/dcorps/08022005_2005_hispanic_memo.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>) of Hispanic voters addresses a number of interesting points, but two really stand out here. The first is the rather obvious truism that candidates really do matter come election time. George W. Bush, of course, captured a near-historic percentage of the Hispanic vote, 40 percent in 2004. But he did this in part by distancing himself from the negative perceptions that Hispanics had of the Republican Party in general. Only 18 percent of Hispanics consider the GOP to be “accepting of different cultures”—indeed, the Democratic Party has a 40 point lead on the issue—but 30 percent thought the same of Bush himself. 30 percent is nothing to brag about in tolerance contests, but difference came in handy on election day. Unfortunately for the GOP, no other presidential name for 2008 seems to carry a similar personal advantage.</p>
<p>Now as to why Kerry did relatively poorly among Hispanics, some 39 percent claimed that they had no idea “what he stood for.” Yeah, well, so it goes, we’ve heard this ad infinitum and it’s not clear what Democrats can do about this besides, perhaps, run a more comprehensible candidate (Hispanics give Bill Clinton, for instance, an overwhelmingly warm personal rating). Anyway, the second reason—28 percent—had to do with Kerry’s “permissiveness on abortion and gay marriage,” which would appear to give “centrist” Democrats <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0121/p03s01-uspo.html" type="external">yet another excuse</a> to sacrifice abortion rights in order to reclaim swing voters. But if you look a bit farther down, a pro-life Democrat would run only slightly better than a pro-choice Democrat, and support for stem cell research pretty much swamps any edge an abortion foe could bring. (Obviously a pro-life, pro-stem cell candidate would do best, but Bill Frist’s delusions of the White House aside, there aren’t many presidential contenders who take this view.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, one should note that Hispanic voters under 30 and Hispanic voters with a college education are overwhelmingly pro-choice (60 and 62 percent respectively). So Bush may have won himself a slight advantage in 2004 on the issue, but over time—given changing demographics and, one would hope, a greater proportion of Hispanics going to college—abortion will turn into a much less successful wedge issue for Republicans to wield. For that matter, read Digby’s <a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_31_digbysblog_archive.html#112337034311216704" type="external">weekend post</a> on this very topic—although I’d note that, at least as far as the polls are concerned, the left-liberal position on both the intelligent design debate and the Ten Commandments-in-the-courthouse debate seem to be spectacularly lost causes. But other than that…</p>
<p /> | 151 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to the presidency hasn’t helped him notch significant victories on Capitol Hill over his first five months in office. The nuts and bolts of legislation and the maddening, unpredictable ways and rhythms of Congress can seem foreign to him. Most of his top advisers have little Washington experience — and it’s showed.</p>
<p>Now, facing an enormous challenge in the Senate on health care, Trump and his team are opting for a hands-off approach on legislation to dismantle the “Obamacare” law, instead putting their faith in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to deliver a legacy-defining victory.</p>
<p>“Sen. McConnell has said that he wants a vote next week and that’s up to him to run the chamber the way he sees fit. But the president is very supportive of the bill,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The strategy follows Trump’s seat-of-the-pants approach on health care in the House that almost unraveled and exposed painful rifts among Republicans. Trump’s team also failed to score major wins in last month’s wrap-up spending bill, as lawmakers blocked funding for his border wall, leading the president to lash out on Twitter and ponder vetoing the measure.</p>
<p>After a shaky start, the White House hopes the Senate debate will allow Trump to turn the page on health care and get a fresh start on rewriting the tax code, a plan to rebuild roads and bridges, and his promise to strengthen the military — none of which will prove easy to accomplish.</p>
<p>On taxes, a working group of four top lawmakers is meeting weekly in hopes of coming up with a unified GOP tax plan for a vote this fall.</p>
<p>While health care is still unfinished, Trump took pride on Friday in signing a bill to make it easier to fire workers at the much-criticized Department of Veterans Affairs. He took to Twitter to boast of passing 38 bills thus far.</p>
<p>“I’ve done in five months what other people haven’t done in years,” Trump said in an interview that aired Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox &amp; Friends.”</p>
<p>House GOP leaders say Trump was a big asset in getting the health care bill passed, despite a fight with the hard-right Freedom Caucus that stalled the measure.</p>
<p>“He’s more engaging, which means he has more personal relationships,” said No. 2 House Republican Kevin McCarthy of California. “He will tell you from the health care experience that he’s talked to almost every single member. If he sees somebody on TV and he thought they did something good, he’ll pick up the phone and just call them directly.”</p>
<p>But the Senate is even more complicated and Trump’s lack of interest in the nitty-gritty details of legislation is a liability.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>When Trump suggested on Twitter in late May that Republicans should change the Senate rules to a simple majority vote to speed up the process, McConnell told the president to leave Senate business to him, according to three people familiar with the conversation. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private calls.</p>
<p>During a White House meeting last week with 13 Republican senators, Trump said the House version was “mean” and urged the senators to make it more generous. That message was at odds with Trump’s Rose Garden celebration after the bill cleared the House, when he told lawmakers it was a “great plan.”</p>
<p>But Trump didn’t articulate what improvements he wanted to see in the Senate bill, even as the comment ruffled feathers in the House.</p>
<p>Shortly after the Senate bill was released on Thursday, the challenges that lie ahead in the Senate came into view. If three of the Senate Republicans’ 52 members oppose the bill, it will fail.</p>
<p>Four conservative Senate Republicans — including onetime Trump presidential rivals Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas — said they could not support the plan because it looked too much like Obamacare.</p>
<p>Others, like Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Rob Portman of Ohio, have pointed to concerns about the proposal’s cuts to Medicaid.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a ‘yes,'” Heller said Friday.</p>
<p>Trump helped House leaders corral votes, but his ability to move more difficult-to-influence senators is untested. Several of them felt his lash during last year’s campaign or, like Portman and Susan Collins of Maine, have kept their distance from Trump.</p>
<p>The health care bill could underscore the perils of the president’s poor job approval ratings, which have hovered around 40 percent this year. Some of the GOP senators he’ll need to persuade have built their own separate political identities in their home states and may be less inclined to embrace Trump.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, several members of Trump’s team have been active in discussions with Senate leaders, including chief of staff Reince Priebus; legislative director Marc Short; domestic policy chief Andrew Bremberg, who’s a former aide to McConnell; Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price; and Seema Verma, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid.</p>
<p>Vice President Mike Pence has made weekly trips to Capitol Hill to meet with senators about the health care bill and said he and the president are “determined before this summer is out” to keep their promise to break up Obamacare.</p>
<p>Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the White House needed to “get this health care thing done one way or the other” so it could move forward. But he put the fate of the bill in McConnell’s hands.</p>
<p>“It may be a squeaker, but I have a lot of confidence in the ability and the maneuverability of McConnell,” Lott said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>On Twitter follow Taylor at https://twitter.com/apandrewtaylor and Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC</p> | Health care poses a test of Trump’s work with the Senate | false | https://abqjournal.com/1022742/health-care-poses-a-test-of-trumps-work-with-the-senate.html | 2017-06-23 | 2least
| Health care poses a test of Trump’s work with the Senate
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<p>WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to the presidency hasn’t helped him notch significant victories on Capitol Hill over his first five months in office. The nuts and bolts of legislation and the maddening, unpredictable ways and rhythms of Congress can seem foreign to him. Most of his top advisers have little Washington experience — and it’s showed.</p>
<p>Now, facing an enormous challenge in the Senate on health care, Trump and his team are opting for a hands-off approach on legislation to dismantle the “Obamacare” law, instead putting their faith in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to deliver a legacy-defining victory.</p>
<p>“Sen. McConnell has said that he wants a vote next week and that’s up to him to run the chamber the way he sees fit. But the president is very supportive of the bill,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The strategy follows Trump’s seat-of-the-pants approach on health care in the House that almost unraveled and exposed painful rifts among Republicans. Trump’s team also failed to score major wins in last month’s wrap-up spending bill, as lawmakers blocked funding for his border wall, leading the president to lash out on Twitter and ponder vetoing the measure.</p>
<p>After a shaky start, the White House hopes the Senate debate will allow Trump to turn the page on health care and get a fresh start on rewriting the tax code, a plan to rebuild roads and bridges, and his promise to strengthen the military — none of which will prove easy to accomplish.</p>
<p>On taxes, a working group of four top lawmakers is meeting weekly in hopes of coming up with a unified GOP tax plan for a vote this fall.</p>
<p>While health care is still unfinished, Trump took pride on Friday in signing a bill to make it easier to fire workers at the much-criticized Department of Veterans Affairs. He took to Twitter to boast of passing 38 bills thus far.</p>
<p>“I’ve done in five months what other people haven’t done in years,” Trump said in an interview that aired Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox &amp; Friends.”</p>
<p>House GOP leaders say Trump was a big asset in getting the health care bill passed, despite a fight with the hard-right Freedom Caucus that stalled the measure.</p>
<p>“He’s more engaging, which means he has more personal relationships,” said No. 2 House Republican Kevin McCarthy of California. “He will tell you from the health care experience that he’s talked to almost every single member. If he sees somebody on TV and he thought they did something good, he’ll pick up the phone and just call them directly.”</p>
<p>But the Senate is even more complicated and Trump’s lack of interest in the nitty-gritty details of legislation is a liability.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>When Trump suggested on Twitter in late May that Republicans should change the Senate rules to a simple majority vote to speed up the process, McConnell told the president to leave Senate business to him, according to three people familiar with the conversation. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private calls.</p>
<p>During a White House meeting last week with 13 Republican senators, Trump said the House version was “mean” and urged the senators to make it more generous. That message was at odds with Trump’s Rose Garden celebration after the bill cleared the House, when he told lawmakers it was a “great plan.”</p>
<p>But Trump didn’t articulate what improvements he wanted to see in the Senate bill, even as the comment ruffled feathers in the House.</p>
<p>Shortly after the Senate bill was released on Thursday, the challenges that lie ahead in the Senate came into view. If three of the Senate Republicans’ 52 members oppose the bill, it will fail.</p>
<p>Four conservative Senate Republicans — including onetime Trump presidential rivals Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas — said they could not support the plan because it looked too much like Obamacare.</p>
<p>Others, like Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Rob Portman of Ohio, have pointed to concerns about the proposal’s cuts to Medicaid.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a ‘yes,'” Heller said Friday.</p>
<p>Trump helped House leaders corral votes, but his ability to move more difficult-to-influence senators is untested. Several of them felt his lash during last year’s campaign or, like Portman and Susan Collins of Maine, have kept their distance from Trump.</p>
<p>The health care bill could underscore the perils of the president’s poor job approval ratings, which have hovered around 40 percent this year. Some of the GOP senators he’ll need to persuade have built their own separate political identities in their home states and may be less inclined to embrace Trump.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, several members of Trump’s team have been active in discussions with Senate leaders, including chief of staff Reince Priebus; legislative director Marc Short; domestic policy chief Andrew Bremberg, who’s a former aide to McConnell; Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price; and Seema Verma, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid.</p>
<p>Vice President Mike Pence has made weekly trips to Capitol Hill to meet with senators about the health care bill and said he and the president are “determined before this summer is out” to keep their promise to break up Obamacare.</p>
<p>Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the White House needed to “get this health care thing done one way or the other” so it could move forward. But he put the fate of the bill in McConnell’s hands.</p>
<p>“It may be a squeaker, but I have a lot of confidence in the ability and the maneuverability of McConnell,” Lott said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>On Twitter follow Taylor at https://twitter.com/apandrewtaylor and Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC</p> | 152 |
<p />
<p>George “I Had no Idea” Clooney and Harvey Weinstein</p>
<p>This article first appeared at <a href="https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/10/14/the-downfall-of-hollyweird-stars-er-actress-calls-out-george-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">Fellowship of the Minds</a></p>
<p>Every woman has the right <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/09/14/hillary_clinton_women_should_be_believed_when_they_claim_rape_have_to_increase_prevention.html" type="external">to be heard and believed</a>, correct?</p>
<p>Call ‘em all out girls! Burn it down!</p>
<p>From <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/13/er-actress-calls-out-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">NY Post</a>: A former “ER” actress claims that she was sexually and racially harassed daily on set — and <a href="https://pagesix.com/tag/george-clooney" type="external">George Clooney</a> helped “blacklist” her from Hollywood when she complained.</p>
<p>“Clooney helped blacklist me when I spoke up abt harassment on ER.’women who dont play the game lose career’I did,” <a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/917640021452058624" type="external">tweeted Vanessa Marquez,</a> who played a nurse on the show’s first three seasons.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/918799585719418881" type="external">She accused</a> actor Eriq La Salle and a crew member of being “p—sy grabbers” and said racial abuse about her Mexican heritage came from “Anthony,Noah,Julianna,” referring to cast members Anthony Edwards,&#160;Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies.</p>
<p>Marquez said she complained to executive producer <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/12/tv-academy-announces-hall-of-fame-inductees/" type="external">John Wells.</a> “Wells was the boss&amp;I 1st reported it to him.His 1st question:Did George do something to u,” <a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/918847084337364993" type="external">she tweeted.</a></p>
<p>Marquez has appeared in a handful of short films and TV movies since the 1990s, according to her IMDb page. In 2005, she discussed her shopping addiction on the A&amp;E reality show “Intervention.”</p>
<p>Her accusations came after <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/10/chastain-clooney-and-j-law-slam-harvey-weinstein" type="external">Clooney denounced producer Harvey Weinstein</a> for sexual assault, describing his alleged actions as “indefensible” but saying he had no idea what the movie mogul was up to behind closed doors.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/10/14/the-downfall-of-hollyweird-stars-er-actress-calls-out-george-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">READ MORE…</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | The downfall of Hollyweird stars: ER actress calls out George Clooney, producer in misconduct claim | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/15/the-downfall-of-hollyweird-stars-er-actress-calls-out-george-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/ | 2017-10-15 | 0right
| The downfall of Hollyweird stars: ER actress calls out George Clooney, producer in misconduct claim
<p />
<p>George “I Had no Idea” Clooney and Harvey Weinstein</p>
<p>This article first appeared at <a href="https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/10/14/the-downfall-of-hollyweird-stars-er-actress-calls-out-george-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">Fellowship of the Minds</a></p>
<p>Every woman has the right <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/09/14/hillary_clinton_women_should_be_believed_when_they_claim_rape_have_to_increase_prevention.html" type="external">to be heard and believed</a>, correct?</p>
<p>Call ‘em all out girls! Burn it down!</p>
<p>From <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/13/er-actress-calls-out-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">NY Post</a>: A former “ER” actress claims that she was sexually and racially harassed daily on set — and <a href="https://pagesix.com/tag/george-clooney" type="external">George Clooney</a> helped “blacklist” her from Hollywood when she complained.</p>
<p>“Clooney helped blacklist me when I spoke up abt harassment on ER.’women who dont play the game lose career’I did,” <a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/917640021452058624" type="external">tweeted Vanessa Marquez,</a> who played a nurse on the show’s first three seasons.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/918799585719418881" type="external">She accused</a> actor Eriq La Salle and a crew member of being “p—sy grabbers” and said racial abuse about her Mexican heritage came from “Anthony,Noah,Julianna,” referring to cast members Anthony Edwards,&#160;Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies.</p>
<p>Marquez said she complained to executive producer <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/12/tv-academy-announces-hall-of-fame-inductees/" type="external">John Wells.</a> “Wells was the boss&amp;I 1st reported it to him.His 1st question:Did George do something to u,” <a href="https://twitter.com/vanessathought/status/918847084337364993" type="external">she tweeted.</a></p>
<p>Marquez has appeared in a handful of short films and TV movies since the 1990s, according to her IMDb page. In 2005, she discussed her shopping addiction on the A&amp;E reality show “Intervention.”</p>
<p>Her accusations came after <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/10/chastain-clooney-and-j-law-slam-harvey-weinstein" type="external">Clooney denounced producer Harvey Weinstein</a> for sexual assault, describing his alleged actions as “indefensible” but saying he had no idea what the movie mogul was up to behind closed doors.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/10/14/the-downfall-of-hollyweird-stars-er-actress-calls-out-george-clooney-producer-in-misconduct-claim/" type="external">READ MORE…</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | 153 |
<p>your email</p>
<p>your name</p>
<p>recipient(s) email (comma separated)</p>
<p />
<p>message</p>
<p>captcha</p>
<p />
<p>(Calvin Fleming / Flickr) &#160;</p>
<p>Responding to years of pressure from immigrant activists, President Obama took <a href="" type="internal">executive action</a> on November 20 to provide relief for immigrants. Labor Notes interviewed two activists about the executive order and what’s next in the fight for immigrant rights.</p>
<p>Arianna Salgado is a Chicago-based immigrant and education activist and member of the <a href="http://www.iyjl.org/" type="external">Immigrant Youth Justice League</a>.&#160;Guillermo Perez is the President of the Pittsburgh Labor Council on Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), a member activist in the steelworkers union (USW) local 3657, and a member of the Labor Notes policy committee.</p>
<p>Tell us about your experience in the immigrant rights movement.</p>
<p>Arianna Salgado:&#160;I’m undocumented but I have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival [DACA], which provides me with a work permit and Social Security number and protection against deportation. I’ve been involved in the immigrant rights movement since 2010 or 2011… through the issue of access to education for undocumented students.</p>
<p>Eventually I got involved in the fight against deportations and detentions. We were trying to highlight the reality that people who are in detention or who are facing deportation aren’t these criminals that we’re often times made to believe.</p>
<p>Guillermo Perez:&#160;I’ve been involved in the fight to reform the immigration laws for 15 years. My involvement came from representing undocumented workers who were in the union that I was working for. I really see the fight for immigration reform as a labor fight, because I think that the question of immigration is fundamentally a labor question.</p>
<p>The thing that we were fighting for all along was to achieve something in the way of protections for people so that they could become full-fledged participants in our society, without any regard to whether they had papers or not. In LCLAA we say,&#160;“las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras,”&#160;“workers’ fights don’t have borders.”</p>
<p>Obama’s announcement centered on the creation of a new immigrant status called Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). What do you think of this new status for undocumented parents of children who are citizens or permanent residents?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I think it’s an important achievement. It’s the product of tremendous struggle on the part of immigrant rights activists who really put pressure on this president to do something about the situation. As a victory we have to take it, and we have to build on it.</p>
<p>The White House claims that over 5 million immigrants could be eligible for the new and expanded statuses, out of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Immigrants cannot yet apply for DAPA or the expanded DACA. The changes are expected to happen incrementally in the coming months, unless they are somehow blocked by Congress.</p>
<p>There are 5 million people eligible for DAPA and this now expanded DACA program. The challenge is getting those folks to apply, get them legal status, and make sure that they never lose it. If we don’t get enough people into the program, then it’s more likely that it could be taken away.</p>
<p>AS:&#160;I think it’s definitely a step towards the right direction. We’re very well aware of the fact that it doesn’t cover even half of the people in our community. But we understand how it may be significant to those that it does cover.</p>
<p>The much-accepted narrative is that if an individual is in detention or deportation proceedings then they must have done something really bad to get there. But what we find is that these are individuals who were just picked up, sometimes on routine traffic checks. Even though President Obama has announced DACA and DAPA, the reality is that the deportations will not decrease. This announcement doesn’t really impact that.</p>
<p>What do you think of Obama’s claim that DAPA will allow millions of undocumented immigrants to “come out of the shadows?”</p>
<p>AS:&#160;It’s important to highlight that this whole concept of “coming out of the shadows” is&#160; <a href="http://labornotes.org/blogs/2014/03/no-papers-no-fear" type="external">something that comes from the grassroots</a>; it doesn’t come after a politician provides some sort of announcement. The concept of “coming out of the shadows” is something that people who are undocumented have been doing since about 2010.</p>
<p>I can only speak to DACA, because that’s the only one that has a process right now, but that might give us some insight into how people might react to DAPA. Individuals who have applied to DACA understand that it doesn’t provide us a pathway to permanent legalization, but also understand that it does provide us with some new resources. Before, we weren’t able to work legally, we didn’t have the ability to consider different employment options because we didn’t have a Social Security number.</p>
<p>Something that DAPA may bring is the ability to have more employment options other than just what individuals have had access to, which is usually really low-wage jobs. I’m not saying that all of a sudden people are going to have access to great jobs and pay and benefits, but at least it does provide a bit more opportunity than what people had before.</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I think that it’s vitally important that we convince people that it’s worth doing. In some ways it’s no different than an organizing campaign that we wage. When we talk to workers and they say, “Can I get fired for joining the union?” Yeah, it’s a possibility, but if you don’t join then nothing’s ever going to change.</p>
<p>Some have criticized DAPA’s eligibility requirements (high fees, criminal background checks, five years’ proof of residency in the U.S., a citizen or permanent resident child). How would you respond?</p>
<p>AS:&#160;It does require you to prove your continued presence in the Untied States. For those individuals who don’t have access to all the documents that are required, it will be a challenge.</p>
<p>I can speak to the experience of some of my friends who have had to move since they’ve been in the country. They haven’t had the opportunity to collect documents that prove that they’ve been here since they were six. They’re now 20. That’s a problem.</p>
<p>The announcement doesn’t do anything to address detention or deportation.</p>
<p>We can also see how the U.S. citizen or resident child requirement may be challenging for LGBTQ families who may not be able to adopt children [or may only have one parent considered a legal guardian and therefore eligible for DAPA]. It leaves out people who don’t have U.S. citizen or resident children, even if they qualify under all the other requirements.</p>
<p>What do you make of Obama’s announcement that he will end the&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/opinion/the-secure-communities-illusion.html?_r=0" type="external">much-criticized Secure Communities</a>&#160;program?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;If there’s a certain amount of cynicism being expressed when it comes to this part of the executive action, I think it’s warranted. It’s a victory in a sense, but it’s like a contract victory. You fight like hell, you win something in a contract, but enforcement is everything. Is ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] really going to comply? The president’s record on this has not been great in the past, so people have every reason to be concerned. But that’s our job as activists: to bring it up and to give him grief if they’re not complying with what was supposed to be done.</p>
<p>Employers are known to collude with ICE to retaliate against workers who are organizing by using I-9 audits—sometimes called&#160; <a href="http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/news/immigration-enforcement-a-tool-to-silence-workers/" type="external">“silent raids”</a>—to intimidate and punish workers. Will Obama’s announcement have any effect on this workplace intimidation?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I actually think the executive action could be a huge help. I think it will help us in organizing workplaces where there are substantial numbers of undocumented people who now will have some form of legal status.</p>
<p>AS:&#160;That’s one hope that I do have for this. Both of my parents qualify under our current understanding of the announcement. My mother has faced very bad work environments. When she tried to organize she was immediately fired, and struggled for a bit to find employment after that.</p>
<p>Her employer was very well aware of the fact that she is undocumented. She had been there for 10 years. He said, “if I fire you, I know it’s going to be hard for you to find employment because you don’t have a Social [Security number].” So he knew that my mom was at a disadvantage, and that getting rid of her would stop a lot of the organizing that she was trying to create there. I’m hoping that, with access to these new resources, some of the fear will go away.</p>
<p>How have you responded to Obama’s announcement?</p>
<p>AS: I was one of the individuals&#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/25/obama-heckled-immigration_n_6222256.html?utm_hp_ref=politics" type="external">who interrupted President Obama here in Chicago</a>&#160;[in December]. We decided to take that action because we were with a family in which the father is in deportation proceedings. When we heard President Obama say that his priority was criminals, we felt the need to make sure that everyone understood that this is not true… This father does not match up with Obama’s description of a criminal, and yet he’s in deportation proceedings. Obama’s announcement isn’t going to help him.</p>
<p>How can activists support immigrants in the ongoing struggle?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I’d love to see union halls all over the country opening up and serving as places where people can come to get good information to apply. That would be beautiful. And that’s what we’re working towards in LCLAA.</p>
<p>If you really support the immigrant rights movement and want to do something to address the fight of the undocumented, then find an organization that’s doing this work, give them money, volunteer your time, and also be out there on the street when they mobilize people to put pressure on politicians.</p>
<p>This interview was first published at&#160; <a href="http://labornotes.org/2014/12/interview-what-do-new-immigration-rules-mean" type="external">Labor Notes</a>.</p> | What Do Obama’s New Immigration Rules Mean for Immigration Activists? | true | http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17503/what_do_obamas_new_immigration_rules_mean_for_immigration_activists | 2015-01-05 | 4left
| What Do Obama’s New Immigration Rules Mean for Immigration Activists?
<p>your email</p>
<p>your name</p>
<p>recipient(s) email (comma separated)</p>
<p />
<p>message</p>
<p>captcha</p>
<p />
<p>(Calvin Fleming / Flickr) &#160;</p>
<p>Responding to years of pressure from immigrant activists, President Obama took <a href="" type="internal">executive action</a> on November 20 to provide relief for immigrants. Labor Notes interviewed two activists about the executive order and what’s next in the fight for immigrant rights.</p>
<p>Arianna Salgado is a Chicago-based immigrant and education activist and member of the <a href="http://www.iyjl.org/" type="external">Immigrant Youth Justice League</a>.&#160;Guillermo Perez is the President of the Pittsburgh Labor Council on Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), a member activist in the steelworkers union (USW) local 3657, and a member of the Labor Notes policy committee.</p>
<p>Tell us about your experience in the immigrant rights movement.</p>
<p>Arianna Salgado:&#160;I’m undocumented but I have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival [DACA], which provides me with a work permit and Social Security number and protection against deportation. I’ve been involved in the immigrant rights movement since 2010 or 2011… through the issue of access to education for undocumented students.</p>
<p>Eventually I got involved in the fight against deportations and detentions. We were trying to highlight the reality that people who are in detention or who are facing deportation aren’t these criminals that we’re often times made to believe.</p>
<p>Guillermo Perez:&#160;I’ve been involved in the fight to reform the immigration laws for 15 years. My involvement came from representing undocumented workers who were in the union that I was working for. I really see the fight for immigration reform as a labor fight, because I think that the question of immigration is fundamentally a labor question.</p>
<p>The thing that we were fighting for all along was to achieve something in the way of protections for people so that they could become full-fledged participants in our society, without any regard to whether they had papers or not. In LCLAA we say,&#160;“las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras,”&#160;“workers’ fights don’t have borders.”</p>
<p>Obama’s announcement centered on the creation of a new immigrant status called Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). What do you think of this new status for undocumented parents of children who are citizens or permanent residents?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I think it’s an important achievement. It’s the product of tremendous struggle on the part of immigrant rights activists who really put pressure on this president to do something about the situation. As a victory we have to take it, and we have to build on it.</p>
<p>The White House claims that over 5 million immigrants could be eligible for the new and expanded statuses, out of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Immigrants cannot yet apply for DAPA or the expanded DACA. The changes are expected to happen incrementally in the coming months, unless they are somehow blocked by Congress.</p>
<p>There are 5 million people eligible for DAPA and this now expanded DACA program. The challenge is getting those folks to apply, get them legal status, and make sure that they never lose it. If we don’t get enough people into the program, then it’s more likely that it could be taken away.</p>
<p>AS:&#160;I think it’s definitely a step towards the right direction. We’re very well aware of the fact that it doesn’t cover even half of the people in our community. But we understand how it may be significant to those that it does cover.</p>
<p>The much-accepted narrative is that if an individual is in detention or deportation proceedings then they must have done something really bad to get there. But what we find is that these are individuals who were just picked up, sometimes on routine traffic checks. Even though President Obama has announced DACA and DAPA, the reality is that the deportations will not decrease. This announcement doesn’t really impact that.</p>
<p>What do you think of Obama’s claim that DAPA will allow millions of undocumented immigrants to “come out of the shadows?”</p>
<p>AS:&#160;It’s important to highlight that this whole concept of “coming out of the shadows” is&#160; <a href="http://labornotes.org/blogs/2014/03/no-papers-no-fear" type="external">something that comes from the grassroots</a>; it doesn’t come after a politician provides some sort of announcement. The concept of “coming out of the shadows” is something that people who are undocumented have been doing since about 2010.</p>
<p>I can only speak to DACA, because that’s the only one that has a process right now, but that might give us some insight into how people might react to DAPA. Individuals who have applied to DACA understand that it doesn’t provide us a pathway to permanent legalization, but also understand that it does provide us with some new resources. Before, we weren’t able to work legally, we didn’t have the ability to consider different employment options because we didn’t have a Social Security number.</p>
<p>Something that DAPA may bring is the ability to have more employment options other than just what individuals have had access to, which is usually really low-wage jobs. I’m not saying that all of a sudden people are going to have access to great jobs and pay and benefits, but at least it does provide a bit more opportunity than what people had before.</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I think that it’s vitally important that we convince people that it’s worth doing. In some ways it’s no different than an organizing campaign that we wage. When we talk to workers and they say, “Can I get fired for joining the union?” Yeah, it’s a possibility, but if you don’t join then nothing’s ever going to change.</p>
<p>Some have criticized DAPA’s eligibility requirements (high fees, criminal background checks, five years’ proof of residency in the U.S., a citizen or permanent resident child). How would you respond?</p>
<p>AS:&#160;It does require you to prove your continued presence in the Untied States. For those individuals who don’t have access to all the documents that are required, it will be a challenge.</p>
<p>I can speak to the experience of some of my friends who have had to move since they’ve been in the country. They haven’t had the opportunity to collect documents that prove that they’ve been here since they were six. They’re now 20. That’s a problem.</p>
<p>The announcement doesn’t do anything to address detention or deportation.</p>
<p>We can also see how the U.S. citizen or resident child requirement may be challenging for LGBTQ families who may not be able to adopt children [or may only have one parent considered a legal guardian and therefore eligible for DAPA]. It leaves out people who don’t have U.S. citizen or resident children, even if they qualify under all the other requirements.</p>
<p>What do you make of Obama’s announcement that he will end the&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/opinion/the-secure-communities-illusion.html?_r=0" type="external">much-criticized Secure Communities</a>&#160;program?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;If there’s a certain amount of cynicism being expressed when it comes to this part of the executive action, I think it’s warranted. It’s a victory in a sense, but it’s like a contract victory. You fight like hell, you win something in a contract, but enforcement is everything. Is ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] really going to comply? The president’s record on this has not been great in the past, so people have every reason to be concerned. But that’s our job as activists: to bring it up and to give him grief if they’re not complying with what was supposed to be done.</p>
<p>Employers are known to collude with ICE to retaliate against workers who are organizing by using I-9 audits—sometimes called&#160; <a href="http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/news/immigration-enforcement-a-tool-to-silence-workers/" type="external">“silent raids”</a>—to intimidate and punish workers. Will Obama’s announcement have any effect on this workplace intimidation?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I actually think the executive action could be a huge help. I think it will help us in organizing workplaces where there are substantial numbers of undocumented people who now will have some form of legal status.</p>
<p>AS:&#160;That’s one hope that I do have for this. Both of my parents qualify under our current understanding of the announcement. My mother has faced very bad work environments. When she tried to organize she was immediately fired, and struggled for a bit to find employment after that.</p>
<p>Her employer was very well aware of the fact that she is undocumented. She had been there for 10 years. He said, “if I fire you, I know it’s going to be hard for you to find employment because you don’t have a Social [Security number].” So he knew that my mom was at a disadvantage, and that getting rid of her would stop a lot of the organizing that she was trying to create there. I’m hoping that, with access to these new resources, some of the fear will go away.</p>
<p>How have you responded to Obama’s announcement?</p>
<p>AS: I was one of the individuals&#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/25/obama-heckled-immigration_n_6222256.html?utm_hp_ref=politics" type="external">who interrupted President Obama here in Chicago</a>&#160;[in December]. We decided to take that action because we were with a family in which the father is in deportation proceedings. When we heard President Obama say that his priority was criminals, we felt the need to make sure that everyone understood that this is not true… This father does not match up with Obama’s description of a criminal, and yet he’s in deportation proceedings. Obama’s announcement isn’t going to help him.</p>
<p>How can activists support immigrants in the ongoing struggle?</p>
<p>GP:&#160;I’d love to see union halls all over the country opening up and serving as places where people can come to get good information to apply. That would be beautiful. And that’s what we’re working towards in LCLAA.</p>
<p>If you really support the immigrant rights movement and want to do something to address the fight of the undocumented, then find an organization that’s doing this work, give them money, volunteer your time, and also be out there on the street when they mobilize people to put pressure on politicians.</p>
<p>This interview was first published at&#160; <a href="http://labornotes.org/2014/12/interview-what-do-new-immigration-rules-mean" type="external">Labor Notes</a>.</p> | 154 |
<p>A $10 billion-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to Social Security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors.</p>
<p>Workers scattered across more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an Associated Press analysis of records.</p>
<p>They have clicked links in bogus phishing emails, opened malware-laden websites and been tricked by scammers into sharing information. One was redirected to a hostile site after connecting to a video of tennis star Serena Williams. A few act intentionally, most famously former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who downloaded and leaked documents revealing the government's collection of phone and email records.</p>
<p>Then there was the federal contractor who lost equipment containing the confidential information of millions of Americans, including Robert Curtis of Monument, Colorado.</p>
<p>"I was angry, because we as citizens trust the government to act on our behalf," he said. Curtis, according to court records, was besieged by identity thieves after someone stole data tapes that the contractor left in a car, exposing the health records of about 5 million current and former Pentagon employees and their families.</p>
<p>At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity now trumps terrorism as the No. 1 threat to the U.S. — and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security — the federal government isn't required to publicize its own brushes with data loss.</p>
<p>On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said it was the victim of a cyberattack and that information about its employees, including Social Security numbers, may have been compromised. And last month, a breach of unclassified White House computers by hackers thought to be working for Russia was reported not by officials but The Washington Post. Congressional Republicans complained even they weren't alerted to the hack.</p>
<p>"It would be unwise, I think for rather obvious reasons, for me to discuss from here what we have learned so far," White House press secretary Josh Earnest later said about the report.</p>
<p>To determine the extent of federal cyberincidents, which include probing into network weak spots, stealing data and defacing websites, the AP filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, interviewed hackers, cybersecurity experts and government officials, and obtained documents describing digital cracks in the system.</p>
<p>That review shows that 40 years and more than $100 billion after the first federal data protection law was enacted, the government is struggling to close holes without the knowledge, staff or systems to outwit an ever-evolving foe.</p>
<p>"It's a much bigger challenge than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago," said Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a 24/7 incident-response center responding to threats.</p>
<p>Fears about breaches have been around since the late 1960s, when the federal government began shifting its operations onto computers. Officials responded with software designed to sniff out malicious programs and raise alarms about intruders.</p>
<p>And yet, attackers have always found a way in. Since 2006, there have been more than 87 million sensitive or private records exposed by breaches of federal networks, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which tracks cyberincidents at all levels of government through news, private sector and government reports.</p>
<p>By comparison, retail businesses lost 255 million records during that time, financial and insurance services lost 212 million and educational institutions lost 13 million. The federal records breached included employee usernames and passwords, veterans' medical records and a database detailing structural weaknesses in the nation's dams.</p>
<p>Marc Maiffret, a hacker turned cybersecurity expert, said "today's a little scarier" than when he was breaking into systems in the '90s. Malware and viruses can be purchased or rented, so advanced coding skills aren't required. And there's more mischief to be made, because the government depends on technology for everything from missile targeting to student loan processing.</p>
<p>"There's also a much bigger allure to use these skills to make money, in a criminal sense," said Maiffret, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Beyond Trust, whose customers include the military.</p>
<p>From 2009, when the government began breaking out different types of incidents, to 2013, the number of reported breaches just on federal computer networks — the .gov and .mils — rose from 26,942 to 46,605, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team or US-CERT, which helps defend against cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Last year, US-CERT responded to a total of 228,700 cyberincidents involving federal agencies, companies that run critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants, dams and transit systems, and contract partners. That's more than double the incidents in 2009. And employees are to blame for at least half of the problems.</p>
<p>Last year, for example, about 21 percent of all federal breaches were traced to government workers who violated policies; 16 percent who lost devices or had them stolen; 12 percent who improperly handled sensitive information printed from computers; at least 8 percent who ran or installed malicious software; and 6 percent who were enticed to share private information, according to an annual White House review.</p>
<p>Internal documents released to the AP show how workers were lured in.</p>
<p>U.S. Department of Education employees — who had been warned repeatedly: "Think Before You Click!" — received an email a few weeks before Christmas 2011. "Your Amazon.com order of "Omron XEZ-740V Fat Loss" has shipped!" said the subject line, suggesting they click on a link.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, several of your co-workers have fallen victim to this particular attack," said an urgent message from an incident response team. The department did not release information to the AP about any resulting damage. Meantime, reported cyberattacks at the agency have increased from 10 breaches with actual data loss in 2011 to 89 in 2013.</p>
<p>Reports from the Defense Department's Defense Security Service, tasked with protecting classified information and technologies in the hands of federal contractors, show how easy it is for hackers to get into DOD networks.</p>
<p>One security analyst, when notified that an account appeared to be infected with a virus, looked at the user's history and found he was redirected to a hostile site after trying to play a tennis video. Another military user sought help after receiving messages that his computer was infected when he visited a website on schools. Officials tracked the attacker to what appeared to be a Germany-based server.</p>
<p>"No matter what we do with the technology ... we'll always be vulnerable to the phishing attack and ... human-factor attacks unless we educate the overall workforce," said Eric Rosenbach, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security.</p>
<p>In June, the General Accountability Office released a scathing review of smaller federal agencies' protections. One problem was not fully implementing security training programs for staff.</p>
<p>Email encryption, which protects the contents of messages, is one way the government is seeking to shore up cybersecurity. Fifty-one percent of all federal agencies in 2013 reported using a federally approved encryption service, up from 35 percent in 2012. But some departments, including State, reported zero percent compliance with any approved encryption provider. The State Department wouldn't comment, citing security concerns.</p>
<p>Federal systems grow more susceptible to attack as the government's online offerings expand to user-friendly websites and apps, experts said.</p>
<p>At a hacking convention in Las Vegas in August, Joe Abbey, the director of software for Arxan, an app security service, showed how easy it can be to break in.</p>
<p>Abbey demonstrated how someone could take an iPhone from a doctor who had downloaded a free .gov app to track Medicare and Medicaid payments, run several malicious files and return the device. From that point on, he said, the thief could track every payment and medical record entered.</p>
<p>"This now exposes everything that's inside this app," he said.</p>
<p>Another challenge is that cybersecurity experts are expensive and in short supply. A June study by RAND found the federal government, which doesn't pay as well as private firms, is particularly short-handed.</p>
<p>There are some 90,000 federal information technology security workers, one-third of them contractors. And while the government is projected to hire thousands more and spend $65 billion on cybersecurity contracts between 2015 and 2020, many experts believe the effort is not enough to catch up with a growing pool of hackers whose motives vary.</p>
<p>There are government-sponsored attacks: Cybersecurity firm Mandiant this year tracked Iranian-based hackers targeting several unidentified U.S. government agencies, while the Pentagon last year said Chinese government hackers stole plans for more than two dozen U.S. weapons systems, including an F-35 fighter.</p>
<p>A cyberattack similar to other hacker intrusions from China penetrated computer networks for months at USIS, the government's leading security clearance contractor, before the company noticed earlier this year, officials told the AP. The intrusion compromised the private records of at least 25,000 Homeland Security employees.</p>
<p>Thieves interested in selling valuable data also dig in. Others have less nefarious motives. In February 2013, someone broke into the Emergency Alert System, broadcasting warnings about a zombie attack in California, Michigan, Montana and New Mexico.</p>
<p>Jeremy Hammond, of Chicago, considers himself an activist who hacks to expose wrongs or promote social justice. He is serving 10 years in prison for breaking into the networks of security think tank Stratfor, whose clients include the departments of Homeland Security and Defense.</p>
<p>"I hacked a lot of stuff but the government, they're hacking all over the world," Hammond said in an interview from prison.</p>
<p>Only a small fraction of attackers are caught. Last year, the Justice Department filed 146 cases under the government's computer hacking statute. On Oct. 20, the FBI announced the arrest of a National Weather Service employee accused of illegally downloading sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams in 2012.</p>
<p>For every thief or hostile state, there are tens of thousands of victims like Robert Curtis.</p>
<p>He declined to talk about specifics of his case. According to court records, a thief in September 2011 broke into a car parked in a San Antonio garage and stole unencrypted computer backup tapes containing Social Security numbers and medical information of Pentagon employees and troops. The car belonged to an employee of a federal contractor tasked with securing those records.</p>
<p>Ever since, criminals have tried to get cash, loans, credit, emergency funds — even establish businesses — in Curtis' name. He and his wife have frozen bank and credit accounts. His credit union once transferred $32,500 out of his account. That, he got back.</p>
<p>Curtis described the experience as "devastating." This summer a lawsuit brought by victims against the contractor, the Defense Department and a military health insurer was dismissed.</p>
<p>"It is very ironic," said Curtis, himself a cybersecurity expert who worked to provide secure networks at the Pentagon. "I was the person who had paper shredders in my house. I was a consummate data protection guy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Martha Mendoza on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mendozamartha</p>
<p>A $10 billion-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to Social Security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors.</p>
<p>Workers scattered across more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an Associated Press analysis of records.</p>
<p>They have clicked links in bogus phishing emails, opened malware-laden websites and been tricked by scammers into sharing information. One was redirected to a hostile site after connecting to a video of tennis star Serena Williams. A few act intentionally, most famously former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who downloaded and leaked documents revealing the government's collection of phone and email records.</p>
<p>Then there was the federal contractor who lost equipment containing the confidential information of millions of Americans, including Robert Curtis of Monument, Colorado.</p>
<p>"I was angry, because we as citizens trust the government to act on our behalf," he said. Curtis, according to court records, was besieged by identity thieves after someone stole data tapes that the contractor left in a car, exposing the health records of about 5 million current and former Pentagon employees and their families.</p>
<p>At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity now trumps terrorism as the No. 1 threat to the U.S. — and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security — the federal government isn't required to publicize its own brushes with data loss.</p>
<p>On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said it was the victim of a cyberattack and that information about its employees, including Social Security numbers, may have been compromised. And last month, a breach of unclassified White House computers by hackers thought to be working for Russia was reported not by officials but The Washington Post. Congressional Republicans complained even they weren't alerted to the hack.</p>
<p>"It would be unwise, I think for rather obvious reasons, for me to discuss from here what we have learned so far," White House press secretary Josh Earnest later said about the report.</p>
<p>To determine the extent of federal cyberincidents, which include probing into network weak spots, stealing data and defacing websites, the AP filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, interviewed hackers, cybersecurity experts and government officials, and obtained documents describing digital cracks in the system.</p>
<p>That review shows that 40 years and more than $100 billion after the first federal data protection law was enacted, the government is struggling to close holes without the knowledge, staff or systems to outwit an ever-evolving foe.</p>
<p>"It's a much bigger challenge than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago," said Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a 24/7 incident-response center responding to threats.</p>
<p>Fears about breaches have been around since the late 1960s, when the federal government began shifting its operations onto computers. Officials responded with software designed to sniff out malicious programs and raise alarms about intruders.</p>
<p>And yet, attackers have always found a way in. Since 2006, there have been more than 87 million sensitive or private records exposed by breaches of federal networks, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which tracks cyberincidents at all levels of government through news, private sector and government reports.</p>
<p>By comparison, retail businesses lost 255 million records during that time, financial and insurance services lost 212 million and educational institutions lost 13 million. The federal records breached included employee usernames and passwords, veterans' medical records and a database detailing structural weaknesses in the nation's dams.</p>
<p>Marc Maiffret, a hacker turned cybersecurity expert, said "today's a little scarier" than when he was breaking into systems in the '90s. Malware and viruses can be purchased or rented, so advanced coding skills aren't required. And there's more mischief to be made, because the government depends on technology for everything from missile targeting to student loan processing.</p>
<p>"There's also a much bigger allure to use these skills to make money, in a criminal sense," said Maiffret, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Beyond Trust, whose customers include the military.</p>
<p>From 2009, when the government began breaking out different types of incidents, to 2013, the number of reported breaches just on federal computer networks — the .gov and .mils — rose from 26,942 to 46,605, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team or US-CERT, which helps defend against cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Last year, US-CERT responded to a total of 228,700 cyberincidents involving federal agencies, companies that run critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants, dams and transit systems, and contract partners. That's more than double the incidents in 2009. And employees are to blame for at least half of the problems.</p>
<p>Last year, for example, about 21 percent of all federal breaches were traced to government workers who violated policies; 16 percent who lost devices or had them stolen; 12 percent who improperly handled sensitive information printed from computers; at least 8 percent who ran or installed malicious software; and 6 percent who were enticed to share private information, according to an annual White House review.</p>
<p>Internal documents released to the AP show how workers were lured in.</p>
<p>U.S. Department of Education employees — who had been warned repeatedly: "Think Before You Click!" — received an email a few weeks before Christmas 2011. "Your Amazon.com order of "Omron XEZ-740V Fat Loss" has shipped!" said the subject line, suggesting they click on a link.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, several of your co-workers have fallen victim to this particular attack," said an urgent message from an incident response team. The department did not release information to the AP about any resulting damage. Meantime, reported cyberattacks at the agency have increased from 10 breaches with actual data loss in 2011 to 89 in 2013.</p>
<p>Reports from the Defense Department's Defense Security Service, tasked with protecting classified information and technologies in the hands of federal contractors, show how easy it is for hackers to get into DOD networks.</p>
<p>One security analyst, when notified that an account appeared to be infected with a virus, looked at the user's history and found he was redirected to a hostile site after trying to play a tennis video. Another military user sought help after receiving messages that his computer was infected when he visited a website on schools. Officials tracked the attacker to what appeared to be a Germany-based server.</p>
<p>"No matter what we do with the technology ... we'll always be vulnerable to the phishing attack and ... human-factor attacks unless we educate the overall workforce," said Eric Rosenbach, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security.</p>
<p>In June, the General Accountability Office released a scathing review of smaller federal agencies' protections. One problem was not fully implementing security training programs for staff.</p>
<p>Email encryption, which protects the contents of messages, is one way the government is seeking to shore up cybersecurity. Fifty-one percent of all federal agencies in 2013 reported using a federally approved encryption service, up from 35 percent in 2012. But some departments, including State, reported zero percent compliance with any approved encryption provider. The State Department wouldn't comment, citing security concerns.</p>
<p>Federal systems grow more susceptible to attack as the government's online offerings expand to user-friendly websites and apps, experts said.</p>
<p>At a hacking convention in Las Vegas in August, Joe Abbey, the director of software for Arxan, an app security service, showed how easy it can be to break in.</p>
<p>Abbey demonstrated how someone could take an iPhone from a doctor who had downloaded a free .gov app to track Medicare and Medicaid payments, run several malicious files and return the device. From that point on, he said, the thief could track every payment and medical record entered.</p>
<p>"This now exposes everything that's inside this app," he said.</p>
<p>Another challenge is that cybersecurity experts are expensive and in short supply. A June study by RAND found the federal government, which doesn't pay as well as private firms, is particularly short-handed.</p>
<p>There are some 90,000 federal information technology security workers, one-third of them contractors. And while the government is projected to hire thousands more and spend $65 billion on cybersecurity contracts between 2015 and 2020, many experts believe the effort is not enough to catch up with a growing pool of hackers whose motives vary.</p>
<p>There are government-sponsored attacks: Cybersecurity firm Mandiant this year tracked Iranian-based hackers targeting several unidentified U.S. government agencies, while the Pentagon last year said Chinese government hackers stole plans for more than two dozen U.S. weapons systems, including an F-35 fighter.</p>
<p>A cyberattack similar to other hacker intrusions from China penetrated computer networks for months at USIS, the government's leading security clearance contractor, before the company noticed earlier this year, officials told the AP. The intrusion compromised the private records of at least 25,000 Homeland Security employees.</p>
<p>Thieves interested in selling valuable data also dig in. Others have less nefarious motives. In February 2013, someone broke into the Emergency Alert System, broadcasting warnings about a zombie attack in California, Michigan, Montana and New Mexico.</p>
<p>Jeremy Hammond, of Chicago, considers himself an activist who hacks to expose wrongs or promote social justice. He is serving 10 years in prison for breaking into the networks of security think tank Stratfor, whose clients include the departments of Homeland Security and Defense.</p>
<p>"I hacked a lot of stuff but the government, they're hacking all over the world," Hammond said in an interview from prison.</p>
<p>Only a small fraction of attackers are caught. Last year, the Justice Department filed 146 cases under the government's computer hacking statute. On Oct. 20, the FBI announced the arrest of a National Weather Service employee accused of illegally downloading sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams in 2012.</p>
<p>For every thief or hostile state, there are tens of thousands of victims like Robert Curtis.</p>
<p>He declined to talk about specifics of his case. According to court records, a thief in September 2011 broke into a car parked in a San Antonio garage and stole unencrypted computer backup tapes containing Social Security numbers and medical information of Pentagon employees and troops. The car belonged to an employee of a federal contractor tasked with securing those records.</p>
<p>Ever since, criminals have tried to get cash, loans, credit, emergency funds — even establish businesses — in Curtis' name. He and his wife have frozen bank and credit accounts. His credit union once transferred $32,500 out of his account. That, he got back.</p>
<p>Curtis described the experience as "devastating." This summer a lawsuit brought by victims against the contractor, the Defense Department and a military health insurer was dismissed.</p>
<p>"It is very ironic," said Curtis, himself a cybersecurity expert who worked to provide secure networks at the Pentagon. "I was the person who had paper shredders in my house. I was a consummate data protection guy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Martha Mendoza on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mendozamartha</p> | AP IMPACT: US agencies struggle vs. cyberattacks | false | https://apnews.com/amp/c5d3e05747c04c37b37c29db471d4c3b | 2014-11-10 | 2least
| AP IMPACT: US agencies struggle vs. cyberattacks
<p>A $10 billion-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to Social Security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors.</p>
<p>Workers scattered across more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an Associated Press analysis of records.</p>
<p>They have clicked links in bogus phishing emails, opened malware-laden websites and been tricked by scammers into sharing information. One was redirected to a hostile site after connecting to a video of tennis star Serena Williams. A few act intentionally, most famously former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who downloaded and leaked documents revealing the government's collection of phone and email records.</p>
<p>Then there was the federal contractor who lost equipment containing the confidential information of millions of Americans, including Robert Curtis of Monument, Colorado.</p>
<p>"I was angry, because we as citizens trust the government to act on our behalf," he said. Curtis, according to court records, was besieged by identity thieves after someone stole data tapes that the contractor left in a car, exposing the health records of about 5 million current and former Pentagon employees and their families.</p>
<p>At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity now trumps terrorism as the No. 1 threat to the U.S. — and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security — the federal government isn't required to publicize its own brushes with data loss.</p>
<p>On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said it was the victim of a cyberattack and that information about its employees, including Social Security numbers, may have been compromised. And last month, a breach of unclassified White House computers by hackers thought to be working for Russia was reported not by officials but The Washington Post. Congressional Republicans complained even they weren't alerted to the hack.</p>
<p>"It would be unwise, I think for rather obvious reasons, for me to discuss from here what we have learned so far," White House press secretary Josh Earnest later said about the report.</p>
<p>To determine the extent of federal cyberincidents, which include probing into network weak spots, stealing data and defacing websites, the AP filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, interviewed hackers, cybersecurity experts and government officials, and obtained documents describing digital cracks in the system.</p>
<p>That review shows that 40 years and more than $100 billion after the first federal data protection law was enacted, the government is struggling to close holes without the knowledge, staff or systems to outwit an ever-evolving foe.</p>
<p>"It's a much bigger challenge than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago," said Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a 24/7 incident-response center responding to threats.</p>
<p>Fears about breaches have been around since the late 1960s, when the federal government began shifting its operations onto computers. Officials responded with software designed to sniff out malicious programs and raise alarms about intruders.</p>
<p>And yet, attackers have always found a way in. Since 2006, there have been more than 87 million sensitive or private records exposed by breaches of federal networks, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which tracks cyberincidents at all levels of government through news, private sector and government reports.</p>
<p>By comparison, retail businesses lost 255 million records during that time, financial and insurance services lost 212 million and educational institutions lost 13 million. The federal records breached included employee usernames and passwords, veterans' medical records and a database detailing structural weaknesses in the nation's dams.</p>
<p>Marc Maiffret, a hacker turned cybersecurity expert, said "today's a little scarier" than when he was breaking into systems in the '90s. Malware and viruses can be purchased or rented, so advanced coding skills aren't required. And there's more mischief to be made, because the government depends on technology for everything from missile targeting to student loan processing.</p>
<p>"There's also a much bigger allure to use these skills to make money, in a criminal sense," said Maiffret, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Beyond Trust, whose customers include the military.</p>
<p>From 2009, when the government began breaking out different types of incidents, to 2013, the number of reported breaches just on federal computer networks — the .gov and .mils — rose from 26,942 to 46,605, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team or US-CERT, which helps defend against cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Last year, US-CERT responded to a total of 228,700 cyberincidents involving federal agencies, companies that run critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants, dams and transit systems, and contract partners. That's more than double the incidents in 2009. And employees are to blame for at least half of the problems.</p>
<p>Last year, for example, about 21 percent of all federal breaches were traced to government workers who violated policies; 16 percent who lost devices or had them stolen; 12 percent who improperly handled sensitive information printed from computers; at least 8 percent who ran or installed malicious software; and 6 percent who were enticed to share private information, according to an annual White House review.</p>
<p>Internal documents released to the AP show how workers were lured in.</p>
<p>U.S. Department of Education employees — who had been warned repeatedly: "Think Before You Click!" — received an email a few weeks before Christmas 2011. "Your Amazon.com order of "Omron XEZ-740V Fat Loss" has shipped!" said the subject line, suggesting they click on a link.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, several of your co-workers have fallen victim to this particular attack," said an urgent message from an incident response team. The department did not release information to the AP about any resulting damage. Meantime, reported cyberattacks at the agency have increased from 10 breaches with actual data loss in 2011 to 89 in 2013.</p>
<p>Reports from the Defense Department's Defense Security Service, tasked with protecting classified information and technologies in the hands of federal contractors, show how easy it is for hackers to get into DOD networks.</p>
<p>One security analyst, when notified that an account appeared to be infected with a virus, looked at the user's history and found he was redirected to a hostile site after trying to play a tennis video. Another military user sought help after receiving messages that his computer was infected when he visited a website on schools. Officials tracked the attacker to what appeared to be a Germany-based server.</p>
<p>"No matter what we do with the technology ... we'll always be vulnerable to the phishing attack and ... human-factor attacks unless we educate the overall workforce," said Eric Rosenbach, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security.</p>
<p>In June, the General Accountability Office released a scathing review of smaller federal agencies' protections. One problem was not fully implementing security training programs for staff.</p>
<p>Email encryption, which protects the contents of messages, is one way the government is seeking to shore up cybersecurity. Fifty-one percent of all federal agencies in 2013 reported using a federally approved encryption service, up from 35 percent in 2012. But some departments, including State, reported zero percent compliance with any approved encryption provider. The State Department wouldn't comment, citing security concerns.</p>
<p>Federal systems grow more susceptible to attack as the government's online offerings expand to user-friendly websites and apps, experts said.</p>
<p>At a hacking convention in Las Vegas in August, Joe Abbey, the director of software for Arxan, an app security service, showed how easy it can be to break in.</p>
<p>Abbey demonstrated how someone could take an iPhone from a doctor who had downloaded a free .gov app to track Medicare and Medicaid payments, run several malicious files and return the device. From that point on, he said, the thief could track every payment and medical record entered.</p>
<p>"This now exposes everything that's inside this app," he said.</p>
<p>Another challenge is that cybersecurity experts are expensive and in short supply. A June study by RAND found the federal government, which doesn't pay as well as private firms, is particularly short-handed.</p>
<p>There are some 90,000 federal information technology security workers, one-third of them contractors. And while the government is projected to hire thousands more and spend $65 billion on cybersecurity contracts between 2015 and 2020, many experts believe the effort is not enough to catch up with a growing pool of hackers whose motives vary.</p>
<p>There are government-sponsored attacks: Cybersecurity firm Mandiant this year tracked Iranian-based hackers targeting several unidentified U.S. government agencies, while the Pentagon last year said Chinese government hackers stole plans for more than two dozen U.S. weapons systems, including an F-35 fighter.</p>
<p>A cyberattack similar to other hacker intrusions from China penetrated computer networks for months at USIS, the government's leading security clearance contractor, before the company noticed earlier this year, officials told the AP. The intrusion compromised the private records of at least 25,000 Homeland Security employees.</p>
<p>Thieves interested in selling valuable data also dig in. Others have less nefarious motives. In February 2013, someone broke into the Emergency Alert System, broadcasting warnings about a zombie attack in California, Michigan, Montana and New Mexico.</p>
<p>Jeremy Hammond, of Chicago, considers himself an activist who hacks to expose wrongs or promote social justice. He is serving 10 years in prison for breaking into the networks of security think tank Stratfor, whose clients include the departments of Homeland Security and Defense.</p>
<p>"I hacked a lot of stuff but the government, they're hacking all over the world," Hammond said in an interview from prison.</p>
<p>Only a small fraction of attackers are caught. Last year, the Justice Department filed 146 cases under the government's computer hacking statute. On Oct. 20, the FBI announced the arrest of a National Weather Service employee accused of illegally downloading sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams in 2012.</p>
<p>For every thief or hostile state, there are tens of thousands of victims like Robert Curtis.</p>
<p>He declined to talk about specifics of his case. According to court records, a thief in September 2011 broke into a car parked in a San Antonio garage and stole unencrypted computer backup tapes containing Social Security numbers and medical information of Pentagon employees and troops. The car belonged to an employee of a federal contractor tasked with securing those records.</p>
<p>Ever since, criminals have tried to get cash, loans, credit, emergency funds — even establish businesses — in Curtis' name. He and his wife have frozen bank and credit accounts. His credit union once transferred $32,500 out of his account. That, he got back.</p>
<p>Curtis described the experience as "devastating." This summer a lawsuit brought by victims against the contractor, the Defense Department and a military health insurer was dismissed.</p>
<p>"It is very ironic," said Curtis, himself a cybersecurity expert who worked to provide secure networks at the Pentagon. "I was the person who had paper shredders in my house. I was a consummate data protection guy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Martha Mendoza on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mendozamartha</p>
<p>A $10 billion-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to Social Security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors.</p>
<p>Workers scattered across more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an Associated Press analysis of records.</p>
<p>They have clicked links in bogus phishing emails, opened malware-laden websites and been tricked by scammers into sharing information. One was redirected to a hostile site after connecting to a video of tennis star Serena Williams. A few act intentionally, most famously former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who downloaded and leaked documents revealing the government's collection of phone and email records.</p>
<p>Then there was the federal contractor who lost equipment containing the confidential information of millions of Americans, including Robert Curtis of Monument, Colorado.</p>
<p>"I was angry, because we as citizens trust the government to act on our behalf," he said. Curtis, according to court records, was besieged by identity thieves after someone stole data tapes that the contractor left in a car, exposing the health records of about 5 million current and former Pentagon employees and their families.</p>
<p>At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity now trumps terrorism as the No. 1 threat to the U.S. — and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security — the federal government isn't required to publicize its own brushes with data loss.</p>
<p>On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said it was the victim of a cyberattack and that information about its employees, including Social Security numbers, may have been compromised. And last month, a breach of unclassified White House computers by hackers thought to be working for Russia was reported not by officials but The Washington Post. Congressional Republicans complained even they weren't alerted to the hack.</p>
<p>"It would be unwise, I think for rather obvious reasons, for me to discuss from here what we have learned so far," White House press secretary Josh Earnest later said about the report.</p>
<p>To determine the extent of federal cyberincidents, which include probing into network weak spots, stealing data and defacing websites, the AP filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, interviewed hackers, cybersecurity experts and government officials, and obtained documents describing digital cracks in the system.</p>
<p>That review shows that 40 years and more than $100 billion after the first federal data protection law was enacted, the government is struggling to close holes without the knowledge, staff or systems to outwit an ever-evolving foe.</p>
<p>"It's a much bigger challenge than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago," said Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a 24/7 incident-response center responding to threats.</p>
<p>Fears about breaches have been around since the late 1960s, when the federal government began shifting its operations onto computers. Officials responded with software designed to sniff out malicious programs and raise alarms about intruders.</p>
<p>And yet, attackers have always found a way in. Since 2006, there have been more than 87 million sensitive or private records exposed by breaches of federal networks, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which tracks cyberincidents at all levels of government through news, private sector and government reports.</p>
<p>By comparison, retail businesses lost 255 million records during that time, financial and insurance services lost 212 million and educational institutions lost 13 million. The federal records breached included employee usernames and passwords, veterans' medical records and a database detailing structural weaknesses in the nation's dams.</p>
<p>Marc Maiffret, a hacker turned cybersecurity expert, said "today's a little scarier" than when he was breaking into systems in the '90s. Malware and viruses can be purchased or rented, so advanced coding skills aren't required. And there's more mischief to be made, because the government depends on technology for everything from missile targeting to student loan processing.</p>
<p>"There's also a much bigger allure to use these skills to make money, in a criminal sense," said Maiffret, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Beyond Trust, whose customers include the military.</p>
<p>From 2009, when the government began breaking out different types of incidents, to 2013, the number of reported breaches just on federal computer networks — the .gov and .mils — rose from 26,942 to 46,605, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team or US-CERT, which helps defend against cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Last year, US-CERT responded to a total of 228,700 cyberincidents involving federal agencies, companies that run critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants, dams and transit systems, and contract partners. That's more than double the incidents in 2009. And employees are to blame for at least half of the problems.</p>
<p>Last year, for example, about 21 percent of all federal breaches were traced to government workers who violated policies; 16 percent who lost devices or had them stolen; 12 percent who improperly handled sensitive information printed from computers; at least 8 percent who ran or installed malicious software; and 6 percent who were enticed to share private information, according to an annual White House review.</p>
<p>Internal documents released to the AP show how workers were lured in.</p>
<p>U.S. Department of Education employees — who had been warned repeatedly: "Think Before You Click!" — received an email a few weeks before Christmas 2011. "Your Amazon.com order of "Omron XEZ-740V Fat Loss" has shipped!" said the subject line, suggesting they click on a link.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, several of your co-workers have fallen victim to this particular attack," said an urgent message from an incident response team. The department did not release information to the AP about any resulting damage. Meantime, reported cyberattacks at the agency have increased from 10 breaches with actual data loss in 2011 to 89 in 2013.</p>
<p>Reports from the Defense Department's Defense Security Service, tasked with protecting classified information and technologies in the hands of federal contractors, show how easy it is for hackers to get into DOD networks.</p>
<p>One security analyst, when notified that an account appeared to be infected with a virus, looked at the user's history and found he was redirected to a hostile site after trying to play a tennis video. Another military user sought help after receiving messages that his computer was infected when he visited a website on schools. Officials tracked the attacker to what appeared to be a Germany-based server.</p>
<p>"No matter what we do with the technology ... we'll always be vulnerable to the phishing attack and ... human-factor attacks unless we educate the overall workforce," said Eric Rosenbach, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security.</p>
<p>In June, the General Accountability Office released a scathing review of smaller federal agencies' protections. One problem was not fully implementing security training programs for staff.</p>
<p>Email encryption, which protects the contents of messages, is one way the government is seeking to shore up cybersecurity. Fifty-one percent of all federal agencies in 2013 reported using a federally approved encryption service, up from 35 percent in 2012. But some departments, including State, reported zero percent compliance with any approved encryption provider. The State Department wouldn't comment, citing security concerns.</p>
<p>Federal systems grow more susceptible to attack as the government's online offerings expand to user-friendly websites and apps, experts said.</p>
<p>At a hacking convention in Las Vegas in August, Joe Abbey, the director of software for Arxan, an app security service, showed how easy it can be to break in.</p>
<p>Abbey demonstrated how someone could take an iPhone from a doctor who had downloaded a free .gov app to track Medicare and Medicaid payments, run several malicious files and return the device. From that point on, he said, the thief could track every payment and medical record entered.</p>
<p>"This now exposes everything that's inside this app," he said.</p>
<p>Another challenge is that cybersecurity experts are expensive and in short supply. A June study by RAND found the federal government, which doesn't pay as well as private firms, is particularly short-handed.</p>
<p>There are some 90,000 federal information technology security workers, one-third of them contractors. And while the government is projected to hire thousands more and spend $65 billion on cybersecurity contracts between 2015 and 2020, many experts believe the effort is not enough to catch up with a growing pool of hackers whose motives vary.</p>
<p>There are government-sponsored attacks: Cybersecurity firm Mandiant this year tracked Iranian-based hackers targeting several unidentified U.S. government agencies, while the Pentagon last year said Chinese government hackers stole plans for more than two dozen U.S. weapons systems, including an F-35 fighter.</p>
<p>A cyberattack similar to other hacker intrusions from China penetrated computer networks for months at USIS, the government's leading security clearance contractor, before the company noticed earlier this year, officials told the AP. The intrusion compromised the private records of at least 25,000 Homeland Security employees.</p>
<p>Thieves interested in selling valuable data also dig in. Others have less nefarious motives. In February 2013, someone broke into the Emergency Alert System, broadcasting warnings about a zombie attack in California, Michigan, Montana and New Mexico.</p>
<p>Jeremy Hammond, of Chicago, considers himself an activist who hacks to expose wrongs or promote social justice. He is serving 10 years in prison for breaking into the networks of security think tank Stratfor, whose clients include the departments of Homeland Security and Defense.</p>
<p>"I hacked a lot of stuff but the government, they're hacking all over the world," Hammond said in an interview from prison.</p>
<p>Only a small fraction of attackers are caught. Last year, the Justice Department filed 146 cases under the government's computer hacking statute. On Oct. 20, the FBI announced the arrest of a National Weather Service employee accused of illegally downloading sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams in 2012.</p>
<p>For every thief or hostile state, there are tens of thousands of victims like Robert Curtis.</p>
<p>He declined to talk about specifics of his case. According to court records, a thief in September 2011 broke into a car parked in a San Antonio garage and stole unencrypted computer backup tapes containing Social Security numbers and medical information of Pentagon employees and troops. The car belonged to an employee of a federal contractor tasked with securing those records.</p>
<p>Ever since, criminals have tried to get cash, loans, credit, emergency funds — even establish businesses — in Curtis' name. He and his wife have frozen bank and credit accounts. His credit union once transferred $32,500 out of his account. That, he got back.</p>
<p>Curtis described the experience as "devastating." This summer a lawsuit brought by victims against the contractor, the Defense Department and a military health insurer was dismissed.</p>
<p>"It is very ironic," said Curtis, himself a cybersecurity expert who worked to provide secure networks at the Pentagon. "I was the person who had paper shredders in my house. I was a consummate data protection guy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Martha Mendoza on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mendozamartha</p> | 155 |
<p>Few states track gun ownership by sex and race but African American gun clubs say ownership among black women is rising and women are signing up for firearm instruction in record numbers.</p>
<p>"I thought it would be the brothers joining," Philip Smith <a href="http://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article/ap-photos-american-black-women-feel-its-time-to-get-a-gun" type="external">told</a> AP. He founded the National African American Gun Association in 2012 and estimated it would attract about 300 members, a number achieved in its first month. The association now boasts 20,000 members in 30 chapters.</p>
<p>A surprising growth in membership is coming from black women, with more of them expressing concerns about living either alone or as single parents, and wanting to protect themselves and their homes.</p>
<p>Politics was also emerging as a reason for more African Americans becoming gun owners, Smith told AP.</p>
<p>"Regardless of what side you're on, in the fabric of society right now, there's an undertone, a tension that you see that groups you saw on the fringes 20 years ago are now in the open," he said. "It seems to me it's very cool to be a racist right now, it's in fashion, it's a trend."</p>
<p>Marchelle Tigner launched Trigger Happy Firearm Instruction in Atlanta, Georgia in November. The Army National Guard veteran says her mission is to "effectively teach a million women how to shoot."</p>
<p>Tigner's first class sold out in two days, so she expanded it to 40 sign-ups. Three more classes in March sold out within 24 hours of being announced, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/27/black-women-guns-classes-racism-trump" type="external">according to</a> the Guardian.</p>
<p>"It's important, especially for black women, to learn how to shoot," Tigner told AP, adding that black women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. "We need to learn how to defend ourselves."</p>
<p>A new report <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004915" type="external">published</a> this month by the Crime Prevention Research Center, founded by gun advocate John Lott, shows there are more than 16.3 million concealed handgun permits in the US, a 1.83 million increase since last July. More Americans carry guns today than in 2007, when there were 4.6 million permits.</p>
<p>The report said women are largely fueling the increase. Among the eight states that had data from 2012 to 2016, permits for men grew by 22 percent and permits for women soared by 93 percent. In the 14 states with 2016 data on sex, women now make up 36 percent of permit holders.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/391026-firearm-background-checks-increase/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Over the same period, the number of African Americans with permits increased 30 percent faster than the number of whites with permits. African Americans now make up 11 percent of permit holders.</p>
<p>Four in 10 US adults say they live in a gun-owning household and 48 percent said they grew up in a household with guns, according to a Pew Research Center study on guns and gun ownership published in June. Among gun owners, 67 percent cite protection as a major reason for owning one.</p>
<p>White men are still most likely to be firearms owners, with 48 percent saying they currently own a gun, compared with 24 percent of white women and nonwhite men, and 16 percent of nonwhite women.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/" type="external">Pew</a> also found a vast urban-rural divide in gun ownership rates. Among adults who live in rural areas, 46 percent say they own a gun, versus 28 percent of adults who live in the suburbs and 19 percent in urban areas. Gun ownership is strongly linked to party affiliation, with 44 percent of Republicans and Independents owning a gun, and 20 percent of Democrats.</p> | Black women turn to firearms for self-defense across US | false | https://newsline.com/black-women-turn-to-firearms-for-self-defense-across-us/ | 2017-07-24 | 1right-center
| Black women turn to firearms for self-defense across US
<p>Few states track gun ownership by sex and race but African American gun clubs say ownership among black women is rising and women are signing up for firearm instruction in record numbers.</p>
<p>"I thought it would be the brothers joining," Philip Smith <a href="http://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article/ap-photos-american-black-women-feel-its-time-to-get-a-gun" type="external">told</a> AP. He founded the National African American Gun Association in 2012 and estimated it would attract about 300 members, a number achieved in its first month. The association now boasts 20,000 members in 30 chapters.</p>
<p>A surprising growth in membership is coming from black women, with more of them expressing concerns about living either alone or as single parents, and wanting to protect themselves and their homes.</p>
<p>Politics was also emerging as a reason for more African Americans becoming gun owners, Smith told AP.</p>
<p>"Regardless of what side you're on, in the fabric of society right now, there's an undertone, a tension that you see that groups you saw on the fringes 20 years ago are now in the open," he said. "It seems to me it's very cool to be a racist right now, it's in fashion, it's a trend."</p>
<p>Marchelle Tigner launched Trigger Happy Firearm Instruction in Atlanta, Georgia in November. The Army National Guard veteran says her mission is to "effectively teach a million women how to shoot."</p>
<p>Tigner's first class sold out in two days, so she expanded it to 40 sign-ups. Three more classes in March sold out within 24 hours of being announced, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/27/black-women-guns-classes-racism-trump" type="external">according to</a> the Guardian.</p>
<p>"It's important, especially for black women, to learn how to shoot," Tigner told AP, adding that black women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. "We need to learn how to defend ourselves."</p>
<p>A new report <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004915" type="external">published</a> this month by the Crime Prevention Research Center, founded by gun advocate John Lott, shows there are more than 16.3 million concealed handgun permits in the US, a 1.83 million increase since last July. More Americans carry guns today than in 2007, when there were 4.6 million permits.</p>
<p>The report said women are largely fueling the increase. Among the eight states that had data from 2012 to 2016, permits for men grew by 22 percent and permits for women soared by 93 percent. In the 14 states with 2016 data on sex, women now make up 36 percent of permit holders.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/391026-firearm-background-checks-increase/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Over the same period, the number of African Americans with permits increased 30 percent faster than the number of whites with permits. African Americans now make up 11 percent of permit holders.</p>
<p>Four in 10 US adults say they live in a gun-owning household and 48 percent said they grew up in a household with guns, according to a Pew Research Center study on guns and gun ownership published in June. Among gun owners, 67 percent cite protection as a major reason for owning one.</p>
<p>White men are still most likely to be firearms owners, with 48 percent saying they currently own a gun, compared with 24 percent of white women and nonwhite men, and 16 percent of nonwhite women.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/" type="external">Pew</a> also found a vast urban-rural divide in gun ownership rates. Among adults who live in rural areas, 46 percent say they own a gun, versus 28 percent of adults who live in the suburbs and 19 percent in urban areas. Gun ownership is strongly linked to party affiliation, with 44 percent of Republicans and Independents owning a gun, and 20 percent of Democrats.</p> | 156 |
<p>Watford has been fined nearly 4 million pounds ($5.1 million) for supplying falsified financial information to allow Italian businessman Gino Pozzo to become the club's owner.</p>
<p>Watford pleaded guilty to submitting a forged bank letter to provide proof that Pozzo had enough funds to take over the club before the 2014-15 season. The team was in the second-tier League Championship at the time and won promotion to the Premier League that season.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The English Football League, which runs the three divisions below the Premier League, said in a statement Thursday that Watford's chairman at the time, Raffaele Riva, has been charged and will face a separate disciplinary commission.</p>
<p>The league said it was "satisfied" that neither "Pozzo nor any other director or employee of Watford Football Club was aware that the letter in question was a forgery."</p>
<p>Including costs, Watford's total sanction was 4.3 million pounds ($5.5 million).</p> | Watford fined $5.1m for giving false financial information | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/24/watford-fined-5-1m-for-giving-false-financial-information.html | 2017-08-24 | 0right
| Watford fined $5.1m for giving false financial information
<p>Watford has been fined nearly 4 million pounds ($5.1 million) for supplying falsified financial information to allow Italian businessman Gino Pozzo to become the club's owner.</p>
<p>Watford pleaded guilty to submitting a forged bank letter to provide proof that Pozzo had enough funds to take over the club before the 2014-15 season. The team was in the second-tier League Championship at the time and won promotion to the Premier League that season.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The English Football League, which runs the three divisions below the Premier League, said in a statement Thursday that Watford's chairman at the time, Raffaele Riva, has been charged and will face a separate disciplinary commission.</p>
<p>The league said it was "satisfied" that neither "Pozzo nor any other director or employee of Watford Football Club was aware that the letter in question was a forgery."</p>
<p>Including costs, Watford's total sanction was 4.3 million pounds ($5.5 million).</p> | 157 |
<p>For the past several years Americans have been inundated by reams of journalistic puff pieces extolling the virtues of the new US Counterinsurgency (COIN) Strategy documented by General Petraeus in his much ballyhooed COIN manual — which for the most part was a merely regurgitation of the failed thinking of French Marshal Lyautey’s ink spot strategy (that counterinsurgent forces should aim to secure an ever expanding geographic zone of security with each new area secured providing a basis for further spreading, and so on.)</p>
<p>It is becoming clear, however, the showpiece of this new strategy, the Marjah operation, has failed&#160;to deliver on the promised security improvements&#160;to the people, and in the words of the theater commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has become a “bleeding ulcer.”</p>
<p>Coupled with the deadlines imposed by President President Obama, when he approved McChrystal’s ill-thought out plan&#160;last Fall, notwithstanding the cogent&#160;misgivings expressed by&#160;Ambassador Eikenberry, it is now clear that McChrystal is under mounting pressure to deliver some progress by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Indeed, hair may be on fire at McChrystal’s Bagram headquarters. &#160;Rumors are circulating in military circles of backbiting and finger pointing, as well as complaints that MacChrystal is being set up as a fall guy, while his boss, General Petraeus, skates to a Republican presidential nomination in 2012.</p>
<p>The stressed out psychological atmosphere appears to have induced General McChrystal to return to his special operations roots for a quick fix, by focusing even more on targeted assassinations in order to reverse the course of events, a sense of desperation smacking of&#160;the infamous, Vietnam-era Phoenix Campaign.</p>
<p>Gareth Porter, certainly one of the most able observers of the Afghan Mess, just wrote an eye-opening account of McCrystal’s shift here on the <a href="" type="internal">CounterPunch</a> site. &#160;Gone is the cosmetic COIN strategy purporting to win hearts and minds. &#160;The name of the game is morphing into a hackneyed strategy with an unblemished record of failure in America’s wars of empire: Make deals with the devil to get the intelligence information needed to decapitate the insurgency by assassinating the insurgent leaders.</p>
<p>The strategy of decapitation reflects a tautological doctrinal mindset that goes back to the mechanical theory of strategic bombing that emerged from the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1930s: identify the enemy system’s critical nodes, use precision strikes to destroy these nodes, and because the nodes are vital to the enemy system’s survival, he will collapse, by definition. &#160;It doesn’t matter whether these critical nodes are German ball bearing plants in WWII or guerrilla leaders in the Hindu Kush, the result is tautologically inevitable. &#160;Moreover, the subtle art of war is reduced to a straight-forward engineering problem, where the object of war — the adversary — acts and reacts predictably. QED.</p>
<p>The problem with this kind of tautological thinking is, as Porter shows so clearly, is that the devil has his own agenda.</p>
<p>Franklin “Chuck” Spinney&#160;is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | McChrystal Returns to His Roots | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/05/27/mcchrystal-returns-to-his-roots/ | 2010-05-27 | 4left
| McChrystal Returns to His Roots
<p>For the past several years Americans have been inundated by reams of journalistic puff pieces extolling the virtues of the new US Counterinsurgency (COIN) Strategy documented by General Petraeus in his much ballyhooed COIN manual — which for the most part was a merely regurgitation of the failed thinking of French Marshal Lyautey’s ink spot strategy (that counterinsurgent forces should aim to secure an ever expanding geographic zone of security with each new area secured providing a basis for further spreading, and so on.)</p>
<p>It is becoming clear, however, the showpiece of this new strategy, the Marjah operation, has failed&#160;to deliver on the promised security improvements&#160;to the people, and in the words of the theater commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has become a “bleeding ulcer.”</p>
<p>Coupled with the deadlines imposed by President President Obama, when he approved McChrystal’s ill-thought out plan&#160;last Fall, notwithstanding the cogent&#160;misgivings expressed by&#160;Ambassador Eikenberry, it is now clear that McChrystal is under mounting pressure to deliver some progress by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Indeed, hair may be on fire at McChrystal’s Bagram headquarters. &#160;Rumors are circulating in military circles of backbiting and finger pointing, as well as complaints that MacChrystal is being set up as a fall guy, while his boss, General Petraeus, skates to a Republican presidential nomination in 2012.</p>
<p>The stressed out psychological atmosphere appears to have induced General McChrystal to return to his special operations roots for a quick fix, by focusing even more on targeted assassinations in order to reverse the course of events, a sense of desperation smacking of&#160;the infamous, Vietnam-era Phoenix Campaign.</p>
<p>Gareth Porter, certainly one of the most able observers of the Afghan Mess, just wrote an eye-opening account of McCrystal’s shift here on the <a href="" type="internal">CounterPunch</a> site. &#160;Gone is the cosmetic COIN strategy purporting to win hearts and minds. &#160;The name of the game is morphing into a hackneyed strategy with an unblemished record of failure in America’s wars of empire: Make deals with the devil to get the intelligence information needed to decapitate the insurgency by assassinating the insurgent leaders.</p>
<p>The strategy of decapitation reflects a tautological doctrinal mindset that goes back to the mechanical theory of strategic bombing that emerged from the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1930s: identify the enemy system’s critical nodes, use precision strikes to destroy these nodes, and because the nodes are vital to the enemy system’s survival, he will collapse, by definition. &#160;It doesn’t matter whether these critical nodes are German ball bearing plants in WWII or guerrilla leaders in the Hindu Kush, the result is tautologically inevitable. &#160;Moreover, the subtle art of war is reduced to a straight-forward engineering problem, where the object of war — the adversary — acts and reacts predictably. QED.</p>
<p>The problem with this kind of tautological thinking is, as Porter shows so clearly, is that the devil has his own agenda.</p>
<p>Franklin “Chuck” Spinney&#160;is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p /> | 158 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Town of Taos council has unanimously approved rewriting the municipality’s panhandling ordinance to include tighter restrictions on “non-vocal solicitation,” <a href="http://www.taosnews.com/news/article_6d8965f4-10e1-11e3-b576-001a4bcf887a.html" type="external">The Taos News</a> reported.</p>
<p>“This is as far as the New Mexico courts have allowed folks to go,” Town Attorney Brian James told the council on Aug. 26.</p>
<p>Although panhandling remains legal on public property, the new ordinance adds several new restrictions, the paper reported.</p>
<p>Under the revision, panhandling is now defined as the solicitation of a donation of money or other gratuity from another person through “vocal or non-vocal appeal,” and would include the exchange of an item of little or no monetary value for a donation, according to The News.</p>
<p>Individuals can no longer solicit drivers or their passengers while they are in traffic and they can no longer carry signs larger than four square feet, according to the ordinance.</p>
<p>Taos Plaza is now off-limits to panhandlers after sunset, as are any bus stop, median, parking lot or sidewalk cafe, The News said.</p>
<p>Panhandling also is prohibited within 20 feet of any ATM machine or bank and within 150 feet of a school, and panhandlers can no spend no more than two hours at any one location, the ordinance said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Taos tightens rules on panhandling | false | https://abqjournal.com/257018/taos-tightens-rules-on-panhandling.html | 2013-09-03 | 2least
| Taos tightens rules on panhandling
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Town of Taos council has unanimously approved rewriting the municipality’s panhandling ordinance to include tighter restrictions on “non-vocal solicitation,” <a href="http://www.taosnews.com/news/article_6d8965f4-10e1-11e3-b576-001a4bcf887a.html" type="external">The Taos News</a> reported.</p>
<p>“This is as far as the New Mexico courts have allowed folks to go,” Town Attorney Brian James told the council on Aug. 26.</p>
<p>Although panhandling remains legal on public property, the new ordinance adds several new restrictions, the paper reported.</p>
<p>Under the revision, panhandling is now defined as the solicitation of a donation of money or other gratuity from another person through “vocal or non-vocal appeal,” and would include the exchange of an item of little or no monetary value for a donation, according to The News.</p>
<p>Individuals can no longer solicit drivers or their passengers while they are in traffic and they can no longer carry signs larger than four square feet, according to the ordinance.</p>
<p>Taos Plaza is now off-limits to panhandlers after sunset, as are any bus stop, median, parking lot or sidewalk cafe, The News said.</p>
<p>Panhandling also is prohibited within 20 feet of any ATM machine or bank and within 150 feet of a school, and panhandlers can no spend no more than two hours at any one location, the ordinance said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 159 |
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<p>courtesy of bob walker/ap photoA custom stairway in the inside of the home of Bob Walker and Frances Mooney is just part of the conversion that includes 140 feet of elevated highway, tunnels, ramps, floor-to-ceiling scratching post, rest areas and scenic vistas.</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES – They enjoyed the high life for years. Now eight cats accustomed to the creature comforts of a house that features an elevated feline freeway have not only been brought down to Earth, but squeezed into a 30-foot motorhome with the family Chihuahua.</p>
<p>Gus, Sam, Dave, Stella, Lili, Eddie, Zander, Willow and Sadie the Chihuahua are biding their time in the motorhome, which is parked in the driveway of the San Diego home known for a quarter century as “The Cats’ House.”</p>
<p>Bob Walker and Frances Mooney have sold the house. Escrow closed on July 3 and before the month is over, Walker, Mooney, cats and dog are moving to Fredericksburg, Va.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Walker and Mooney moved into the house in 1986 and turned it into a human-sized cat condo with 140 feet of elevated highway, tunnels, ramps, a spiral staircase, rest areas and scenic vistas. It even had a floor-to-ceiling scratching post.</p>
<p>The kitty thoroughfare remains but has been painted white like the rest of the house. The new owners don’t have a cat.</p>
<p>It used to be a kaleidoscope of colors. Even the outside was purple.</p>
<p>Walker, 63, a photographer and builder, and Mooney, 61, an artist, shared the house.</p>
<p>Walker published eight photo books, including “The Cats’ House.” Over the years, the unusual home attracted over 50 film crews from around the world. At a book signing in 1996, more than 900 people showed up.</p>
<p>The couple was featured in a Chris Smith documentary, “Home Movie” shown at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and later released on DVD.</p>
<p>Walker, Mooney and the cats even had a line of postcards at Target.</p>
<p>Until five months ago, Walker said they thought they’d spend the rest of their lives in the four-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot home overlooking Mission Bay. Built in the 1950s, it was also Mooney’s childhood home.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Then we decided to go on a new adventure and move to the East Coast,” Walker said.</p>
<p>Sadie, Zander and Willow are 3, so this will probably be the couple’s last batch of cats, he said. Cats are 15- or 20-year commitments and they don’t want to leave any behind.</p>
<p>Mooney “was always bonkers for cats,” Walker said. On their wedding day in 1973, they adopted Beauregard, their first cat as a couple.</p>
<p>The ceiling superhighway started when they decided to divide the living room and dining room with a stained glass window. To keep cats from damaging the furniture, they added the floor-to-ceiling scratching post, wrapped with 395 feet of dyed pink sisal rope.</p>
<p>The cats loved it, Walker said, but after chasing each other up the scratching post and across a suspended beam, they had to stop abruptly.</p>
<p>The answer was tunnels and freeway extensions. Walker used 2-by-6 inch planks of Douglas fir. To accommodate the oldest members of the troupe, he added the 23-step spiral staircase into the TV room and a carpet-covered ramp into the bedroom.</p>
<p>Over the years, they’ve had 35 cats, though never more than a dozen at once.</p> | Owners move from ‘Cats’ House’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/240629/owners-move-from-cats-house.html | 2least
| Owners move from ‘Cats’ House’
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<p>courtesy of bob walker/ap photoA custom stairway in the inside of the home of Bob Walker and Frances Mooney is just part of the conversion that includes 140 feet of elevated highway, tunnels, ramps, floor-to-ceiling scratching post, rest areas and scenic vistas.</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES – They enjoyed the high life for years. Now eight cats accustomed to the creature comforts of a house that features an elevated feline freeway have not only been brought down to Earth, but squeezed into a 30-foot motorhome with the family Chihuahua.</p>
<p>Gus, Sam, Dave, Stella, Lili, Eddie, Zander, Willow and Sadie the Chihuahua are biding their time in the motorhome, which is parked in the driveway of the San Diego home known for a quarter century as “The Cats’ House.”</p>
<p>Bob Walker and Frances Mooney have sold the house. Escrow closed on July 3 and before the month is over, Walker, Mooney, cats and dog are moving to Fredericksburg, Va.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Walker and Mooney moved into the house in 1986 and turned it into a human-sized cat condo with 140 feet of elevated highway, tunnels, ramps, a spiral staircase, rest areas and scenic vistas. It even had a floor-to-ceiling scratching post.</p>
<p>The kitty thoroughfare remains but has been painted white like the rest of the house. The new owners don’t have a cat.</p>
<p>It used to be a kaleidoscope of colors. Even the outside was purple.</p>
<p>Walker, 63, a photographer and builder, and Mooney, 61, an artist, shared the house.</p>
<p>Walker published eight photo books, including “The Cats’ House.” Over the years, the unusual home attracted over 50 film crews from around the world. At a book signing in 1996, more than 900 people showed up.</p>
<p>The couple was featured in a Chris Smith documentary, “Home Movie” shown at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and later released on DVD.</p>
<p>Walker, Mooney and the cats even had a line of postcards at Target.</p>
<p>Until five months ago, Walker said they thought they’d spend the rest of their lives in the four-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot home overlooking Mission Bay. Built in the 1950s, it was also Mooney’s childhood home.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Then we decided to go on a new adventure and move to the East Coast,” Walker said.</p>
<p>Sadie, Zander and Willow are 3, so this will probably be the couple’s last batch of cats, he said. Cats are 15- or 20-year commitments and they don’t want to leave any behind.</p>
<p>Mooney “was always bonkers for cats,” Walker said. On their wedding day in 1973, they adopted Beauregard, their first cat as a couple.</p>
<p>The ceiling superhighway started when they decided to divide the living room and dining room with a stained glass window. To keep cats from damaging the furniture, they added the floor-to-ceiling scratching post, wrapped with 395 feet of dyed pink sisal rope.</p>
<p>The cats loved it, Walker said, but after chasing each other up the scratching post and across a suspended beam, they had to stop abruptly.</p>
<p>The answer was tunnels and freeway extensions. Walker used 2-by-6 inch planks of Douglas fir. To accommodate the oldest members of the troupe, he added the 23-step spiral staircase into the TV room and a carpet-covered ramp into the bedroom.</p>
<p>Over the years, they’ve had 35 cats, though never more than a dozen at once.</p> | 160 |
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<p>FILE – In this Oct. 4, 2016 file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange participates via video link at a news conference marking the 10th anniversary of the secrecy-spilling group in Berlin. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — With the U.S. election campaign at an end, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied Tuesday that his group has “a nefarious allegiance with Russia” and said he had come under “enormous pressure” to halt publication of a trove of emails pirated from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.</p>
<p>In a statement published on the group’s website, Assange said efforts to discredit him by linking him to Russian President Vladimir Putin were reminiscent of the “red scare” tactics used in the 1950s to hunt down communists. He did not explain, however, how he obtained the emails.</p>
<p>U.S. officials have accused Russia of the hack that captured the emails and have said their publication by WikiLeaks was part of a plot to influence the U.S. election. WikiLeaks has published tens of thousands of emails in the past month taken from the Gmail account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign’s chairman. So far, WikiLeaks has released 35 batches of the emails.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work,” Assange wrote. “No one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.”</p>
<p>The ultimate impact of WikiLeaks on the election appears to have been muted. But there is little debate that the leaks pulled the veil from a range of election issues.</p>
<p>It was a leaked email that finally disclosed the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, speeches whose secrecy had figured prominently in her primary battle with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders but had lost most of their political relevance when they were revealed a month before Election Day in her battle with Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The leaked emails revealed the bad blood between one of former President Bill Clinton’s confidants and his daughter, Chelsea, and underscored the depth of the personal relationships that tied top Clinton campaign figures to members of the media as well as sitting executive branch officials.</p>
<p>Two top Democratic Party figures lost their jobs because of WikiLeaks: Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out on the eve of the party’s national convention after leaked emails showed her staff had plotted to undercut the Sanders campaign. Her interim replacement as chair, Donna Brazile, was fired as a commentator by CNN after emails showed she’d leaked a debate question to Clinton.</p>
<p>None of which appeared to have altered the course of the campaign, however, though journalists and historians are likely to consult the leaked emails for many months, if not years, in search of insights into the skein of relationships and personalities they reveal.</p>
<p>Assange also came under attack. Ecuador, in whose London embassy he has sought asylum for the past four years, cut off his internet access out of concern he was interfering in the U.S. election, and he became the target of a bizarre multi-continent smear campaign that has never been explained.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, he rebutted criticism that he was seeking to thwart Clinton’s election by releasing only emails related to her Democratic nomination.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We cannot publish what we do not have,” Assange wrote, saying WikiLeaks had not received leaks from the campaigns of Trump or lesser candidates that meet “our stated editorial criteria.”</p>
<p>He asserted that traditional media, “with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions,” did not measure up to “WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media.”</p>
<p>As far as allegations that Russian state hackers had obtained the emails, Assange said such charges were untrue.</p>
<p>“The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications — because none exists,” Assange wrote.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks also claimed that the organization had been under “unrelenting” denial of service attacks that stretched into Election Day.</p>
<p>The head of the U.S. government intelligence apparatus, James Clapper, issued a joint statement Oct. 7 with the Department of Homeland Security declaring that they were “confident” in assessing that Russia and its “senior-most officials” were behind the intrusions. The statement didn’t name the hacks at the DNC and of Podesta directly but it was clear it referred to those penetrations.</p>
<p>Private cybersecurity firms that have done forensics on the digital fingerprints left by the hackers also have charged that cadres from Russia’s security apparatus were behind the penetration.</p>
<p>“We have not published all of our evidence. We have plenty more that gives us complete confidence,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, a cyber threat intelligence firm that was hired to conduct security checks on the DNC computer system.</p>
<p>Two separate and possibly competing groups of Russian state hackers, dubbed Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, penetrated the DNC servers in the year prior to the discovery of the hack, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>Cozy Bear has been blamed for recent hacks of the White House, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and other government entities. It entered the DNC network in the summer of 2015, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>Fancy Bear, which is believed in U.S. intelligence circles to be linked to the GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence service, penetrated the DNC servers only in April, “a couple of weeks before we got there” to do a cybersecurity checkup, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>A hacker who goes by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 has claimed the DNC penetration, but Alperovitch said Guccifer 2.0 also claimed a hack of the World Anti-Doping Agency in August that later proved to be the work of Fancy Bear, which released the breached data.</p> | On Election Day, WikiLeaks’ Assange says voters benefited from email leaks | false | https://abqjournal.com/884668/on-election-day-wikileaks-assange-says-voters-benefited-from-email-leaks.html | 2least
| On Election Day, WikiLeaks’ Assange says voters benefited from email leaks
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<p>FILE – In this Oct. 4, 2016 file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange participates via video link at a news conference marking the 10th anniversary of the secrecy-spilling group in Berlin. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — With the U.S. election campaign at an end, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied Tuesday that his group has “a nefarious allegiance with Russia” and said he had come under “enormous pressure” to halt publication of a trove of emails pirated from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.</p>
<p>In a statement published on the group’s website, Assange said efforts to discredit him by linking him to Russian President Vladimir Putin were reminiscent of the “red scare” tactics used in the 1950s to hunt down communists. He did not explain, however, how he obtained the emails.</p>
<p>U.S. officials have accused Russia of the hack that captured the emails and have said their publication by WikiLeaks was part of a plot to influence the U.S. election. WikiLeaks has published tens of thousands of emails in the past month taken from the Gmail account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign’s chairman. So far, WikiLeaks has released 35 batches of the emails.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work,” Assange wrote. “No one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.”</p>
<p>The ultimate impact of WikiLeaks on the election appears to have been muted. But there is little debate that the leaks pulled the veil from a range of election issues.</p>
<p>It was a leaked email that finally disclosed the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, speeches whose secrecy had figured prominently in her primary battle with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders but had lost most of their political relevance when they were revealed a month before Election Day in her battle with Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The leaked emails revealed the bad blood between one of former President Bill Clinton’s confidants and his daughter, Chelsea, and underscored the depth of the personal relationships that tied top Clinton campaign figures to members of the media as well as sitting executive branch officials.</p>
<p>Two top Democratic Party figures lost their jobs because of WikiLeaks: Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out on the eve of the party’s national convention after leaked emails showed her staff had plotted to undercut the Sanders campaign. Her interim replacement as chair, Donna Brazile, was fired as a commentator by CNN after emails showed she’d leaked a debate question to Clinton.</p>
<p>None of which appeared to have altered the course of the campaign, however, though journalists and historians are likely to consult the leaked emails for many months, if not years, in search of insights into the skein of relationships and personalities they reveal.</p>
<p>Assange also came under attack. Ecuador, in whose London embassy he has sought asylum for the past four years, cut off his internet access out of concern he was interfering in the U.S. election, and he became the target of a bizarre multi-continent smear campaign that has never been explained.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, he rebutted criticism that he was seeking to thwart Clinton’s election by releasing only emails related to her Democratic nomination.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We cannot publish what we do not have,” Assange wrote, saying WikiLeaks had not received leaks from the campaigns of Trump or lesser candidates that meet “our stated editorial criteria.”</p>
<p>He asserted that traditional media, “with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions,” did not measure up to “WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media.”</p>
<p>As far as allegations that Russian state hackers had obtained the emails, Assange said such charges were untrue.</p>
<p>“The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications — because none exists,” Assange wrote.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks also claimed that the organization had been under “unrelenting” denial of service attacks that stretched into Election Day.</p>
<p>The head of the U.S. government intelligence apparatus, James Clapper, issued a joint statement Oct. 7 with the Department of Homeland Security declaring that they were “confident” in assessing that Russia and its “senior-most officials” were behind the intrusions. The statement didn’t name the hacks at the DNC and of Podesta directly but it was clear it referred to those penetrations.</p>
<p>Private cybersecurity firms that have done forensics on the digital fingerprints left by the hackers also have charged that cadres from Russia’s security apparatus were behind the penetration.</p>
<p>“We have not published all of our evidence. We have plenty more that gives us complete confidence,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, a cyber threat intelligence firm that was hired to conduct security checks on the DNC computer system.</p>
<p>Two separate and possibly competing groups of Russian state hackers, dubbed Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, penetrated the DNC servers in the year prior to the discovery of the hack, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>Cozy Bear has been blamed for recent hacks of the White House, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and other government entities. It entered the DNC network in the summer of 2015, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>Fancy Bear, which is believed in U.S. intelligence circles to be linked to the GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence service, penetrated the DNC servers only in April, “a couple of weeks before we got there” to do a cybersecurity checkup, Alperovitch said.</p>
<p>A hacker who goes by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 has claimed the DNC penetration, but Alperovitch said Guccifer 2.0 also claimed a hack of the World Anti-Doping Agency in August that later proved to be the work of Fancy Bear, which released the breached data.</p> | 161 |
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<p>President Donald Trump boasted about American military equipment that’s being sent to South Korea, but said he hopes it never gets used against that country’s northern neighbor.</p>
<p>Trump was asked about North Korea Thursday afternoon during a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House with Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait.</p>
<p>“Military action would certainly be an option. Is it inevitable? Nothing’s inevitable. It would be great if something else could be worked out,” Trump said.</p>
<p>“Each day new equipment is delivered. New and beautiful equipment, the best in the world, the best anywhere in the world, by far. Hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it on North Korea. If we do use it on North Korea, it will be a very sad day for North Korea.”</p>
<p>North Korea has conducted several tests of its missile and nuclear programs this year and has threatened to strike the United States or one of its territories. Trump has responded by sending troops and ships to the region in a show of force.</p>
<p>It was reported this week that U.S. Navy SEALs are <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/kim-jung-un-seal-team-six-navy-seals-assassination/2017/09/06/id/812068/" type="external">training a South Korean military team</a> to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the event that war breaks out on the peninsula.</p>
<p>Trump said North Korea needs to clean up its act and start listening to the international community’s warnings to curb its <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/North-Korea-ICBM-moving/2017/09/04/id/811581/" type="external">aggressive tone and actions</a>.</p>
<p>“I can tell you that North Korea’s behaving badly and it’s gotta stop,” he said.</p> | Trump: 'Sad Day For North Korea' if US Takes Military Action | false | https://newsline.com/trump-sad-day-for-north-korea-if-us-takes-military-action/ | 2017-09-07 | 1right-center
| Trump: 'Sad Day For North Korea' if US Takes Military Action
<p>President Donald Trump boasted about American military equipment that’s being sent to South Korea, but said he hopes it never gets used against that country’s northern neighbor.</p>
<p>Trump was asked about North Korea Thursday afternoon during a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House with Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait.</p>
<p>“Military action would certainly be an option. Is it inevitable? Nothing’s inevitable. It would be great if something else could be worked out,” Trump said.</p>
<p>“Each day new equipment is delivered. New and beautiful equipment, the best in the world, the best anywhere in the world, by far. Hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it on North Korea. If we do use it on North Korea, it will be a very sad day for North Korea.”</p>
<p>North Korea has conducted several tests of its missile and nuclear programs this year and has threatened to strike the United States or one of its territories. Trump has responded by sending troops and ships to the region in a show of force.</p>
<p>It was reported this week that U.S. Navy SEALs are <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/kim-jung-un-seal-team-six-navy-seals-assassination/2017/09/06/id/812068/" type="external">training a South Korean military team</a> to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the event that war breaks out on the peninsula.</p>
<p>Trump said North Korea needs to clean up its act and start listening to the international community’s warnings to curb its <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/North-Korea-ICBM-moving/2017/09/04/id/811581/" type="external">aggressive tone and actions</a>.</p>
<p>“I can tell you that North Korea’s behaving badly and it’s gotta stop,” he said.</p> | 162 |
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<p>RUIDOSO, N.M. — The State Land Office has negotiated a 25-year lease with the village of Ruidoso that will allow for hundreds of acres of trust land on Moon Mountain to be used for recreation.</p>
<p>The Land Office announced the deal this week, saying the property will be open to hikers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts as the village plans to offer an expanded trail system and a community observatory for stargazing.</p>
<p>Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn says he and previous land commissioners have worked to create a healthy environment on the mountain through remediation and flood mitigation.</p>
<p>With the lease, he says the public will have better access to explore the area.</p>
<p>The Land Office said it has owned and managed the property since 1905.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | New Mexico Land Office leases Moon Mountain for recreation | false | https://abqjournal.com/1110024/new-mexico-land-office-leases-moon-mountain-for-recreation.html | 2least
| New Mexico Land Office leases Moon Mountain for recreation
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<p>RUIDOSO, N.M. — The State Land Office has negotiated a 25-year lease with the village of Ruidoso that will allow for hundreds of acres of trust land on Moon Mountain to be used for recreation.</p>
<p>The Land Office announced the deal this week, saying the property will be open to hikers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts as the village plans to offer an expanded trail system and a community observatory for stargazing.</p>
<p>Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn says he and previous land commissioners have worked to create a healthy environment on the mountain through remediation and flood mitigation.</p>
<p>With the lease, he says the public will have better access to explore the area.</p>
<p>The Land Office said it has owned and managed the property since 1905.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 163 |
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<p>Senate Republicans are&#160;stalling on approving funding&#160;for Trump’s proposed border wall. Sen. <a href="http://thehill.com/people/roy-blunt" type="external">Roy Blunt</a> (R-Mo.), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, just told reporters&#160;that Trump’s supplemental funding request for the Mexican border wall will be delayed until later in the year.</p>
<p>“We have the FY17 defense bill,” Blunt said, saying that the supplemental spending bill might complicate the passage of a higher-priority military spending bill, so it should therefore be reviewed separately.</p>
<p>This is, essentially, a denial of Trump’s request to consider the bill alongside the FY17 defense bill.</p>
<p>Trump’s proposed supplemental spending bill&#160;suggests cutting $18 billion from programs such as medical research, infrastructure and community grants so U.S. taxpayers can afford the down payment on the border wall. Many were outraged, and saw this as a betrayal of his oft-shouted “make Mexico pay for it” campaign mantra.</p>
<p>“All of the committees, the leaderships of the House and Senate, are working together to try to finalize the rest of the FY17 bill,” Blunt added. “My guess is that comes together better without the supplemental.”</p>
<p>Government funding is currently scheduled to expire on April 28th, and congressional leaders worry that Trump’s supplemental spending bill <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/15/14937546/senate-democrats-government-shutdown-wall" type="external">may have led to a government showdown</a>.</p>
<p>“We believe it would be inappropriate to insist on the inclusion of such funding in a must-pass appropriations bill that is needed for the Republican majority in control of the Congress to avert a government shutdown so early in President Trump’s Administration,” the Senate Democratic leadership team <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/government-funding-bill-border-wall-democrats-235987" type="external">wrote in a letter</a> addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on March 13.</p>
<p>This will likely make the Trump administration’s troubles even worse, as it was already reeling from the defeats of their failed health care bill and the suspension of their revised Muslim travel ban. The border wall, at this point, had been his only major campaign promise which had not yet completely fallen apart.</p>
<p>Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. His less-political Youtube channel&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTX2M68DdRvR5Jd2YHEH7A" type="external">can be found here</a>.&#160;Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW</p> | Republicans just shut down Trump’s request for border wall funding | true | http://resistancereport.com/news/republicans-just-shut-trumps-request-border-wall-funding/ | 2017-03-28 | 4left
| Republicans just shut down Trump’s request for border wall funding
<p>Senate Republicans are&#160;stalling on approving funding&#160;for Trump’s proposed border wall. Sen. <a href="http://thehill.com/people/roy-blunt" type="external">Roy Blunt</a> (R-Mo.), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, just told reporters&#160;that Trump’s supplemental funding request for the Mexican border wall will be delayed until later in the year.</p>
<p>“We have the FY17 defense bill,” Blunt said, saying that the supplemental spending bill might complicate the passage of a higher-priority military spending bill, so it should therefore be reviewed separately.</p>
<p>This is, essentially, a denial of Trump’s request to consider the bill alongside the FY17 defense bill.</p>
<p>Trump’s proposed supplemental spending bill&#160;suggests cutting $18 billion from programs such as medical research, infrastructure and community grants so U.S. taxpayers can afford the down payment on the border wall. Many were outraged, and saw this as a betrayal of his oft-shouted “make Mexico pay for it” campaign mantra.</p>
<p>“All of the committees, the leaderships of the House and Senate, are working together to try to finalize the rest of the FY17 bill,” Blunt added. “My guess is that comes together better without the supplemental.”</p>
<p>Government funding is currently scheduled to expire on April 28th, and congressional leaders worry that Trump’s supplemental spending bill <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/15/14937546/senate-democrats-government-shutdown-wall" type="external">may have led to a government showdown</a>.</p>
<p>“We believe it would be inappropriate to insist on the inclusion of such funding in a must-pass appropriations bill that is needed for the Republican majority in control of the Congress to avert a government shutdown so early in President Trump’s Administration,” the Senate Democratic leadership team <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/government-funding-bill-border-wall-democrats-235987" type="external">wrote in a letter</a> addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on March 13.</p>
<p>This will likely make the Trump administration’s troubles even worse, as it was already reeling from the defeats of their failed health care bill and the suspension of their revised Muslim travel ban. The border wall, at this point, had been his only major campaign promise which had not yet completely fallen apart.</p>
<p>Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. His less-political Youtube channel&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTX2M68DdRvR5Jd2YHEH7A" type="external">can be found here</a>.&#160;Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW</p> | 164 |
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<p>By DUAA ELDEIB Columbia MissourianMarch 16, 2003</p>
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<p>“I really believe this is our last chance to demonstrate against the war,” said Lenny Fishman of Columbia.&#160; “In truth, I don’t think we can avert war, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do something to stop it. “</p>
<p>Organizers of Peace in the Park said the event Saturday was the fifth major demonstration against a possible war since August 2002. The event, sponsored by the Columbia Peace Coalition, began with a march through downtown and concluded with a rally and concert at Flat Branch Trailhead Park. Organizers said the crowd fluctuated between 500 and 800. Columbia police estimated the crowd was about 450.</p> | Rally�s speakers retain optimism | false | https://poynter.org/news/rallys-speakers-retain-optimism | 2003-03-17 | 2least
| Rally�s speakers retain optimism
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<p>By DUAA ELDEIB Columbia MissourianMarch 16, 2003</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
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<p>“I really believe this is our last chance to demonstrate against the war,” said Lenny Fishman of Columbia.&#160; “In truth, I don’t think we can avert war, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do something to stop it. “</p>
<p>Organizers of Peace in the Park said the event Saturday was the fifth major demonstration against a possible war since August 2002. The event, sponsored by the Columbia Peace Coalition, began with a march through downtown and concluded with a rally and concert at Flat Branch Trailhead Park. Organizers said the crowd fluctuated between 500 and 800. Columbia police estimated the crowd was about 450.</p> | 165 |
<p>It’s not shocking that Osama bin Laden was found in a comfortable Pakistan mansion—what’s shocking is that the U.S. pretends the country isn’t a harbor for terrorists. Plus, <a href="" type="internal">full coverage of bin Laden’s death</a>.</p>
<p>To me, as an American Muslim, it’s significant that <a href="" type="internal">bin Laden is dead</a>. American-Muslim groups zipped out statements through the night after news of his death: Muslims for Progressive Values said it “expresses great relief” at the death, saying, “Osama Bin Laden has singularly disgraced Islam and dragged our faith through the mud…” Islamic Information Center called him “one of the greatest enemies of Islam, if not the entire world.” American Islamic Forum for Democracy said it “applauds” the news.</p>
<p>Photos: <a href="/content/dailybeast/galleries/2011/05/02/inside-osama-bin-laden-s-hideout.html" type="external">Inside Osama bin Laden's Hideout</a></p>
<p>For me, what’s as important, however, is where bin Laden was killed: the hill-station town of <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2011/05/02/al-qaeda-after-bin-ladens-death.html" type="external">Abbottabad, Pakistan</a>, in the heartland of Pakistan in the province of Khyber Paktunkhwa, a province formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province. He wasn’t found in a cave in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, but rather in a comfortable home in a hill station that could be a mini-Colorado Springs, Colorado, of Pakistan, complete with a military academy, numerous military installations, a St. Luke’s church and the Taj Majal Cinema.</p>
<p>Bin Laden’s refuge in Pakistan speaks to the safe haven the nation has given to militants and terrorist operatives for decades and, most troubling, in recent years in a culture of denial that the U.S. has enabled in its prickly relationship with Pakistan. In making the announcement, Obama said America’s “friendship” with Pakistan allowed the operation to assassinate bin Laden, even thanking Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.</p>
<p>As a journalist who has traveled Pakistan and tracked its links to militancy and terrorism, including the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, I consider this sugarcoating just another chapter in America’s peculiar choice to pull its punches regarding a harsh but obvious reality: Pakistan has been a safe haven not only for bin Laden but for dozens of men involved in attacks on the U.S., including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose ethnicity is rooted in the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan. For almost two years, I’ve been working as a cultural trainer to the U.S. military, teaching that the U.S. must know the heartland of Pakistan, from Karachi, a teeming city where so many operatives hide, to places such as southern Punjab, the heart of the country and home to the “Punjabi Taliban” and the foot soldiers involved in Pearl’s kidnapping. As a journalist, I choose to do the cultural training, because I’ll never forget the name Pearl put on the last picture I have with him. We were in Karachi, and he called it, “Clueless in Karachi.”</p>
<p>To know where so many men on the U.S. Most Wanted list have hidden is to know the geography of Pakistan—and not just the wild, wild west of the country’s border region with Afghanistan, but in its heartland and some of its finest neighborhoods, including military cantonments like the one near which bin Laden was killed. I created a Google map outlining cities where <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=209329569017179450454.0004a2442e4e34d5941a7" type="external">al-Qaeda operatives</a> have been picked up. Zoom into Abbottabad, find St. Peter’s church and Gammi Adda Stop, a bus stop, and behind both spots you’ll see a neighborhood where a user had labeled “Osama bin Laden’s compound,” off <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/osama-bin-ladens-compound-already-mapped-on-google/238116/" type="external">Awami Road</a>. It’s near the intersection of roads named for Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the country’s Walt Whitman, poet Allama Iqbal.</p>
<p>Photos: <a href="/content/dailybeast/galleries/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-s-death-the-world-reacts.html" type="external">The World Reacts</a></p>
<p>While I haven’t been to Abbottabad, a city of about 125,000 people, it’s like hill stations I’ve visited around the nation’s capital, scenic, peaceful and home to top schools and resort hotels. I’ve driven not far from it on the highway to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a magical land that writer Rudyard Kipling traveled and wrote poetic prose about.</p>
<p>Located on the Silk Road, known as the Korakoram Highway, it’s no outpost outside central government authority, like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where so much U.S. military strategy and media attention has been focused. It’s home to the Pakistan Military Academy, the equivalent of Pakistan’s West Point. It’s also got an important military cantonment as the headquarters of a brigade in the Second Division of Pakistan’s Northern Army Corps.</p>
<p>The namesake for Abbottabad, British Army Major James Abbott, founded the town in 1853, the “abad” in its name meaning “a place of living” in Urdu. Abbott wrote a poem called Abbottabad, enshrined in a <a href="http://www.panoramio.com/photo/21593241" type="external">city plaque</a>, that has an eerie ring today: “I remember the day when I first came here/And smelt the sweet Abbottabad air/The trees and ground covered with snow/Gave us indeed a brilliant show/To me the place seemed like a dream/And far ran a lonesome stream/The wind hissed as if welcoming us/The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss/And the tiny cuckoo sang it away/A song very melodious and gay/I adored the place from the first sight/And was happy that my coming here was right/And eight good years here passed very soon/And we leave our perhaps on a sunny noon/Oh Abbottabad we are leaving you now/ To your natural beauty do I bow/Perhaps your winds sound will never reach my ear/My gift for you is a few sad tears/I bid you farewell with a heavy heart/Never from my mind will your memories thwart.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden is no longer a threat to the U.S., but a deeper problem remains: Pakistan’s safe harbor for men intent on harming the U.S.</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>In much the same whimsy, we act as if Pakistan has just had a simple “friendship” in America’s fight against al Qaeda, but the truth is that its role as a safe space for ideologues dates back to 1979. That year, an Islamist movement came to Pakistan under a military dictator, Gen. Zia ul Haq. Pakistani intelligence began supporting the mujahideen, or “freedom fighters.” In the years after, men from bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) found an ideological and operational base in Pakistan. As a nation, we turned a blind eye because the freedom fighters were battling the U.S. enemy, the Soviet Union, after its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. In 1989, the Soviets were defeated, and ideologues, including bin Laden, turned their eyes to attacks on the U.S.</p>
<p>Since then, bin Laden’s killing is the latest in a long string of bad guys found, killed, or snatched in Pakistan. In 1993, we had our first attack on the World Trade Center, and on Feb. 17, 1995, according to media reports, U.S. officials raided room number 16 in the Su-Casa Guest House in the city of Islamabad and captured the operational leader of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, before he headed off for the border city of Peshawar. He was a Pakistani, and he was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.</p>
<p>In 1994, British-Pakistani Muslim militant Omar Sheikh was arrested in India for allegedly kidnapping an American in New Delhi. On Dec. 31, 1999, he was freed in exchange for prisoners taken captive on an Indian Airlines jet hijacked from Kathmandu, Nepal, and diverted to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the headquarters for the Taliban in their emergence to power in Afghanistan. At the airport to give the men a welcome home party, according to Sheikh’s FBI report: bin Laden, who was a guest of the Taliban in Kandahar. From Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Omar Sheikh slipped easily into Pakistan, was feted at a party in the coastal city of Karachi and then settled down, marrying and welcoming a son, in the Punjab province capital of Lahore. He moved freely in Pakistan, though the U.S. pressed for extradition on the 1994 kidnapping charge. In early January 2002, Sheikh met Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl at the Akbar Hotel in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, outside Islamabad, and hatched his plot to kidnap him. On Feb. 5, 2002, Sheikh turned himself into Pakistani intelligence in the city of Lahore, and the ISI secretly held him for a week before telling the FBI and the CIA.</p>
<p>The next month, in March 2002, FBI agents and CIA officials raided a safehouse in the city of Faisalabad, also in the province of Punjab, and picked up a senior al-Qaeda operational leader, Abu Zubaydah, who offered the U.S. its first clues that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind behind 9/11. He disclosed something we hardly ever acknowledge: al-Qaeda operatives, from “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to failed “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, freely traveled the roads through Pakistan to get operational instructions from KSM in Karachi.</p>
<p>That spring, KSM and another senior al-Qaeda operational leader Ramzi bin al-Shibh secretly gave an audacious interview to al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda, taking credit for 9/11. The interview aired on the first anniversary of 9/11, and, sure enough, on Sept. 11, 2002, U.S. officials picked up Ramzi bin al-Shibh in a safehouse in the posh Defence Housing Authority neighborhood of Karachi, not far from where I had rented a home months earlier.</p>
<p>The next year, on March 1, 2003, where did CIA officials pick up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? A comfortable home in a military cantonment in the city of Rawalpindi. The list goes on and on. It’s not shocking to me that bin Laden was killed in the heart of Pakistan. As a Muslim dedicated to defeating the ideology of men like bin Laden, I said to myself what it is we are taught to say as Muslims whenever anyone dies: "Innalilahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon." It means: “To God we belong and to Him we will return.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden is no longer a threat to the U.S., but a deeper problem remains: Pakistan’s safe harbor for men intent on harming the U.S. What matters now is that the U.S. stop enabling this very serious problem of Pakistan’s culture of denial for its base as a safe space for militants and al-Qaeda operatives. “Never from my mind will your memories thwart,” Major Abbott said of the city where, about 150 years later, Osama bin Laden, America’s No. 1 enemy in the world, was killed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.asranomani.com/" type="external">Asra Q. Nomani</a> is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060832975/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam</a>. She is co-director of the <a href="http://scs.georgetown.edu/pearlproject/" type="external">Pearl Project</a>, an investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Her activism for women's rights at her mosque in W.V. is the subject of a PBS documentary, <a href="http://www.themosqueinmorgantown.com/MIM/The_Mosque_in_Morgantown.html" type="external">The Mosque in Morgantown</a>. She recently published a monograph, Milestones for a Spiritual Jihad: Toward an Islam of Grace . <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Osama bin Laden Dead: His Pakistan Haven Near Islamabad | true | https://thedailybeast.com/osama-bin-laden-dead-his-pakistan-haven-near-islamabad | 2018-10-03 | 4left
| Osama bin Laden Dead: His Pakistan Haven Near Islamabad
<p>It’s not shocking that Osama bin Laden was found in a comfortable Pakistan mansion—what’s shocking is that the U.S. pretends the country isn’t a harbor for terrorists. Plus, <a href="" type="internal">full coverage of bin Laden’s death</a>.</p>
<p>To me, as an American Muslim, it’s significant that <a href="" type="internal">bin Laden is dead</a>. American-Muslim groups zipped out statements through the night after news of his death: Muslims for Progressive Values said it “expresses great relief” at the death, saying, “Osama Bin Laden has singularly disgraced Islam and dragged our faith through the mud…” Islamic Information Center called him “one of the greatest enemies of Islam, if not the entire world.” American Islamic Forum for Democracy said it “applauds” the news.</p>
<p>Photos: <a href="/content/dailybeast/galleries/2011/05/02/inside-osama-bin-laden-s-hideout.html" type="external">Inside Osama bin Laden's Hideout</a></p>
<p>For me, what’s as important, however, is where bin Laden was killed: the hill-station town of <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2011/05/02/al-qaeda-after-bin-ladens-death.html" type="external">Abbottabad, Pakistan</a>, in the heartland of Pakistan in the province of Khyber Paktunkhwa, a province formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province. He wasn’t found in a cave in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, but rather in a comfortable home in a hill station that could be a mini-Colorado Springs, Colorado, of Pakistan, complete with a military academy, numerous military installations, a St. Luke’s church and the Taj Majal Cinema.</p>
<p>Bin Laden’s refuge in Pakistan speaks to the safe haven the nation has given to militants and terrorist operatives for decades and, most troubling, in recent years in a culture of denial that the U.S. has enabled in its prickly relationship with Pakistan. In making the announcement, Obama said America’s “friendship” with Pakistan allowed the operation to assassinate bin Laden, even thanking Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.</p>
<p>As a journalist who has traveled Pakistan and tracked its links to militancy and terrorism, including the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, I consider this sugarcoating just another chapter in America’s peculiar choice to pull its punches regarding a harsh but obvious reality: Pakistan has been a safe haven not only for bin Laden but for dozens of men involved in attacks on the U.S., including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose ethnicity is rooted in the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan. For almost two years, I’ve been working as a cultural trainer to the U.S. military, teaching that the U.S. must know the heartland of Pakistan, from Karachi, a teeming city where so many operatives hide, to places such as southern Punjab, the heart of the country and home to the “Punjabi Taliban” and the foot soldiers involved in Pearl’s kidnapping. As a journalist, I choose to do the cultural training, because I’ll never forget the name Pearl put on the last picture I have with him. We were in Karachi, and he called it, “Clueless in Karachi.”</p>
<p>To know where so many men on the U.S. Most Wanted list have hidden is to know the geography of Pakistan—and not just the wild, wild west of the country’s border region with Afghanistan, but in its heartland and some of its finest neighborhoods, including military cantonments like the one near which bin Laden was killed. I created a Google map outlining cities where <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=209329569017179450454.0004a2442e4e34d5941a7" type="external">al-Qaeda operatives</a> have been picked up. Zoom into Abbottabad, find St. Peter’s church and Gammi Adda Stop, a bus stop, and behind both spots you’ll see a neighborhood where a user had labeled “Osama bin Laden’s compound,” off <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/osama-bin-ladens-compound-already-mapped-on-google/238116/" type="external">Awami Road</a>. It’s near the intersection of roads named for Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the country’s Walt Whitman, poet Allama Iqbal.</p>
<p>Photos: <a href="/content/dailybeast/galleries/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-s-death-the-world-reacts.html" type="external">The World Reacts</a></p>
<p>While I haven’t been to Abbottabad, a city of about 125,000 people, it’s like hill stations I’ve visited around the nation’s capital, scenic, peaceful and home to top schools and resort hotels. I’ve driven not far from it on the highway to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a magical land that writer Rudyard Kipling traveled and wrote poetic prose about.</p>
<p>Located on the Silk Road, known as the Korakoram Highway, it’s no outpost outside central government authority, like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where so much U.S. military strategy and media attention has been focused. It’s home to the Pakistan Military Academy, the equivalent of Pakistan’s West Point. It’s also got an important military cantonment as the headquarters of a brigade in the Second Division of Pakistan’s Northern Army Corps.</p>
<p>The namesake for Abbottabad, British Army Major James Abbott, founded the town in 1853, the “abad” in its name meaning “a place of living” in Urdu. Abbott wrote a poem called Abbottabad, enshrined in a <a href="http://www.panoramio.com/photo/21593241" type="external">city plaque</a>, that has an eerie ring today: “I remember the day when I first came here/And smelt the sweet Abbottabad air/The trees and ground covered with snow/Gave us indeed a brilliant show/To me the place seemed like a dream/And far ran a lonesome stream/The wind hissed as if welcoming us/The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss/And the tiny cuckoo sang it away/A song very melodious and gay/I adored the place from the first sight/And was happy that my coming here was right/And eight good years here passed very soon/And we leave our perhaps on a sunny noon/Oh Abbottabad we are leaving you now/ To your natural beauty do I bow/Perhaps your winds sound will never reach my ear/My gift for you is a few sad tears/I bid you farewell with a heavy heart/Never from my mind will your memories thwart.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden is no longer a threat to the U.S., but a deeper problem remains: Pakistan’s safe harbor for men intent on harming the U.S.</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>In much the same whimsy, we act as if Pakistan has just had a simple “friendship” in America’s fight against al Qaeda, but the truth is that its role as a safe space for ideologues dates back to 1979. That year, an Islamist movement came to Pakistan under a military dictator, Gen. Zia ul Haq. Pakistani intelligence began supporting the mujahideen, or “freedom fighters.” In the years after, men from bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) found an ideological and operational base in Pakistan. As a nation, we turned a blind eye because the freedom fighters were battling the U.S. enemy, the Soviet Union, after its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. In 1989, the Soviets were defeated, and ideologues, including bin Laden, turned their eyes to attacks on the U.S.</p>
<p>Since then, bin Laden’s killing is the latest in a long string of bad guys found, killed, or snatched in Pakistan. In 1993, we had our first attack on the World Trade Center, and on Feb. 17, 1995, according to media reports, U.S. officials raided room number 16 in the Su-Casa Guest House in the city of Islamabad and captured the operational leader of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, before he headed off for the border city of Peshawar. He was a Pakistani, and he was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.</p>
<p>In 1994, British-Pakistani Muslim militant Omar Sheikh was arrested in India for allegedly kidnapping an American in New Delhi. On Dec. 31, 1999, he was freed in exchange for prisoners taken captive on an Indian Airlines jet hijacked from Kathmandu, Nepal, and diverted to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the headquarters for the Taliban in their emergence to power in Afghanistan. At the airport to give the men a welcome home party, according to Sheikh’s FBI report: bin Laden, who was a guest of the Taliban in Kandahar. From Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Omar Sheikh slipped easily into Pakistan, was feted at a party in the coastal city of Karachi and then settled down, marrying and welcoming a son, in the Punjab province capital of Lahore. He moved freely in Pakistan, though the U.S. pressed for extradition on the 1994 kidnapping charge. In early January 2002, Sheikh met Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl at the Akbar Hotel in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, outside Islamabad, and hatched his plot to kidnap him. On Feb. 5, 2002, Sheikh turned himself into Pakistani intelligence in the city of Lahore, and the ISI secretly held him for a week before telling the FBI and the CIA.</p>
<p>The next month, in March 2002, FBI agents and CIA officials raided a safehouse in the city of Faisalabad, also in the province of Punjab, and picked up a senior al-Qaeda operational leader, Abu Zubaydah, who offered the U.S. its first clues that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind behind 9/11. He disclosed something we hardly ever acknowledge: al-Qaeda operatives, from “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to failed “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, freely traveled the roads through Pakistan to get operational instructions from KSM in Karachi.</p>
<p>That spring, KSM and another senior al-Qaeda operational leader Ramzi bin al-Shibh secretly gave an audacious interview to al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda, taking credit for 9/11. The interview aired on the first anniversary of 9/11, and, sure enough, on Sept. 11, 2002, U.S. officials picked up Ramzi bin al-Shibh in a safehouse in the posh Defence Housing Authority neighborhood of Karachi, not far from where I had rented a home months earlier.</p>
<p>The next year, on March 1, 2003, where did CIA officials pick up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? A comfortable home in a military cantonment in the city of Rawalpindi. The list goes on and on. It’s not shocking to me that bin Laden was killed in the heart of Pakistan. As a Muslim dedicated to defeating the ideology of men like bin Laden, I said to myself what it is we are taught to say as Muslims whenever anyone dies: "Innalilahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon." It means: “To God we belong and to Him we will return.”</p>
<p>Bin Laden is no longer a threat to the U.S., but a deeper problem remains: Pakistan’s safe harbor for men intent on harming the U.S. What matters now is that the U.S. stop enabling this very serious problem of Pakistan’s culture of denial for its base as a safe space for militants and al-Qaeda operatives. “Never from my mind will your memories thwart,” Major Abbott said of the city where, about 150 years later, Osama bin Laden, America’s No. 1 enemy in the world, was killed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.asranomani.com/" type="external">Asra Q. Nomani</a> is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060832975/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam</a>. She is co-director of the <a href="http://scs.georgetown.edu/pearlproject/" type="external">Pearl Project</a>, an investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Her activism for women's rights at her mosque in W.V. is the subject of a PBS documentary, <a href="http://www.themosqueinmorgantown.com/MIM/The_Mosque_in_Morgantown.html" type="external">The Mosque in Morgantown</a>. She recently published a monograph, Milestones for a Spiritual Jihad: Toward an Islam of Grace . <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | 166 |
<p>Ever since President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Scalia, the Democrats have lost their marbles. For example, Senator Jeff Merkley found himself on the receiving end of an <a href="" type="internal">earlier Moron Alert</a> for claiming that the Supreme Court vacancy was a "stolen seat," thus justifying a filibuster of Gorsuch's confirmation.</p>
<p>Since then, news of Gorsuch has been relatively quiet. However, senior United States senator from New Mexico Tom Udall met with Gorsuch today. While he did not explicitly suggest whether he would vote for or against him, he gave the following idea to the press: Nominate Gorsuch and former Obama nominee Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court at the same time.</p>
<p>Here was Udall's full comment:</p>
<p>You had President Trump saying, ‘I want to unite the country, I’m a deal-maker, I’m going to bring people together. Well, the deal right now for President Trump, if he wanted to do it, would be to put Gorsuch and Merrick Garland on the court at the same time.</p>
<p>Here was how Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/tom-udall-neil-gorsuch-merrick-garland-235442" type="external">described</a> Udall's justification for his ludicrous idea to place ten justices on the Supreme Court:</p>
<p>Trump would discuss the option with one of the three Supreme Court justices often mentioned as retirement prospects in the coming years – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer or Anthony Kennedy – and secure a resignation letter from one of them, contingent on Garland getting nominated and confirmed as their replacement.</p>
<p>This entire idea is ridiculous for a handful of reasons:</p>
<p>First, the Supreme Court has consisted of nine justices ever since Congress <a href="http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/landmark_10.html" type="external">passed</a> the Judiciary Act of 1869. The law <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&amp;fileName=016/llsl016.db&amp;recNum=79" type="external">states</a> the following and it has not been amended since:</p>
<p>That the Supreme Court of the United States shall hereafter consist of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum</p>
<p>Second, the last attempt to increase the number of Supreme Court justices came from President Franklin Roosevelt in an <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-franklin-roosevelt-clashed-with-the-supreme-court-and-lost-78497994/" type="external">attempt to pack the court</a> in response to the Court's continuous rejection of his unconstitutional New Deal laws. That was seen as a considerable constitutional crisis where FDR intended to use the legislature to force his agenda down the throat of the judiciary.</p>
<p>Third, Udall's stroke of "genius" only represents a final attempt to bring another judicial <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/03/judge-merrick-garland-a-moderate-a-centrist-not-hardly" type="external">"moderate"</a> into the Supreme Court to undermine conservatives' hopes of putting additional originalists on the bench. Obama and the Democratic Party lost their privilege to nominate Supreme Court justices and federal judgeships the moment Donald Trump swore his oath to the Constitution on January 20, 2017.</p>
<p>Fourth, and far more substantially, it justifies giving the President power to force the resignation of a Supreme Court justice in order to promulgate an agenda. It was an issue when FDR, Lyndon Johnson, or Richard Nixon attempted to do so during their respective presidencies and it should not be a normalized practice under Trump or any other administration. It is also a gross abuse of power for the executive to directly toy with the make-up of the judiciary to ensure that the Court may rule in his favor in the event of constitutional misconduct.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Udall believes that any "true" attempt to unite the country surrounds the nomination and the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court even if it violates nearly 150 years of precedent and if it means undermining the will of the American people <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/poll-majority-of-americans-want-supreme-court-to-interpret-the-constitution-as-originally-written/article/2611261?custom_click=rss" type="external">who want to see more originalists on the Supreme Court</a>. Such pie-in-the-sky thinking completely ignores the laws of the land, undermines the judiciary, and presents itself as the last act of desperation of a party that refuses to accept that Obama is no longer the President of the United States.</p>
<p>Politico also stipulated the following for Udall's radically moronic idea:</p>
<p>Udall’s proposal also mirrors an episode from the fifth season of “The West Wing,” when staffers for fictional President Jed Bartlet — faced with a high court vacancy following the death of an associate justice — persuade the show’s chief justice to also resign so Bartlet could announce a pair of nominees who wouldn’t change the ideological balance of the court.</p>
<p>As if anything that comes out of a fictional television show should act as basis for real-life policy.</p>
<p>You cannot make this stuff up.</p>
<p>Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams" type="external">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/" type="external">Facebook</a>.</p> | MORON ALERT: Senator Tom Udall Says Gorsuch And Garland Should Be Confirmed Simultaneously | true | https://dailywire.com/news/13922/moron-alert-senator-tom-udall-says-gorsuch-and-elliott-hamilton | 2017-02-27 | 0right
| MORON ALERT: Senator Tom Udall Says Gorsuch And Garland Should Be Confirmed Simultaneously
<p>Ever since President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Scalia, the Democrats have lost their marbles. For example, Senator Jeff Merkley found himself on the receiving end of an <a href="" type="internal">earlier Moron Alert</a> for claiming that the Supreme Court vacancy was a "stolen seat," thus justifying a filibuster of Gorsuch's confirmation.</p>
<p>Since then, news of Gorsuch has been relatively quiet. However, senior United States senator from New Mexico Tom Udall met with Gorsuch today. While he did not explicitly suggest whether he would vote for or against him, he gave the following idea to the press: Nominate Gorsuch and former Obama nominee Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court at the same time.</p>
<p>Here was Udall's full comment:</p>
<p>You had President Trump saying, ‘I want to unite the country, I’m a deal-maker, I’m going to bring people together. Well, the deal right now for President Trump, if he wanted to do it, would be to put Gorsuch and Merrick Garland on the court at the same time.</p>
<p>Here was how Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/tom-udall-neil-gorsuch-merrick-garland-235442" type="external">described</a> Udall's justification for his ludicrous idea to place ten justices on the Supreme Court:</p>
<p>Trump would discuss the option with one of the three Supreme Court justices often mentioned as retirement prospects in the coming years – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer or Anthony Kennedy – and secure a resignation letter from one of them, contingent on Garland getting nominated and confirmed as their replacement.</p>
<p>This entire idea is ridiculous for a handful of reasons:</p>
<p>First, the Supreme Court has consisted of nine justices ever since Congress <a href="http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/landmark_10.html" type="external">passed</a> the Judiciary Act of 1869. The law <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&amp;fileName=016/llsl016.db&amp;recNum=79" type="external">states</a> the following and it has not been amended since:</p>
<p>That the Supreme Court of the United States shall hereafter consist of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum</p>
<p>Second, the last attempt to increase the number of Supreme Court justices came from President Franklin Roosevelt in an <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-franklin-roosevelt-clashed-with-the-supreme-court-and-lost-78497994/" type="external">attempt to pack the court</a> in response to the Court's continuous rejection of his unconstitutional New Deal laws. That was seen as a considerable constitutional crisis where FDR intended to use the legislature to force his agenda down the throat of the judiciary.</p>
<p>Third, Udall's stroke of "genius" only represents a final attempt to bring another judicial <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/03/judge-merrick-garland-a-moderate-a-centrist-not-hardly" type="external">"moderate"</a> into the Supreme Court to undermine conservatives' hopes of putting additional originalists on the bench. Obama and the Democratic Party lost their privilege to nominate Supreme Court justices and federal judgeships the moment Donald Trump swore his oath to the Constitution on January 20, 2017.</p>
<p>Fourth, and far more substantially, it justifies giving the President power to force the resignation of a Supreme Court justice in order to promulgate an agenda. It was an issue when FDR, Lyndon Johnson, or Richard Nixon attempted to do so during their respective presidencies and it should not be a normalized practice under Trump or any other administration. It is also a gross abuse of power for the executive to directly toy with the make-up of the judiciary to ensure that the Court may rule in his favor in the event of constitutional misconduct.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Udall believes that any "true" attempt to unite the country surrounds the nomination and the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court even if it violates nearly 150 years of precedent and if it means undermining the will of the American people <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/poll-majority-of-americans-want-supreme-court-to-interpret-the-constitution-as-originally-written/article/2611261?custom_click=rss" type="external">who want to see more originalists on the Supreme Court</a>. Such pie-in-the-sky thinking completely ignores the laws of the land, undermines the judiciary, and presents itself as the last act of desperation of a party that refuses to accept that Obama is no longer the President of the United States.</p>
<p>Politico also stipulated the following for Udall's radically moronic idea:</p>
<p>Udall’s proposal also mirrors an episode from the fifth season of “The West Wing,” when staffers for fictional President Jed Bartlet — faced with a high court vacancy following the death of an associate justice — persuade the show’s chief justice to also resign so Bartlet could announce a pair of nominees who wouldn’t change the ideological balance of the court.</p>
<p>As if anything that comes out of a fictional television show should act as basis for real-life policy.</p>
<p>You cannot make this stuff up.</p>
<p>Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams" type="external">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/" type="external">Facebook</a>.</p> | 167 |
<p>Virginia Baptists will gather in Roanoke Nov. 11-12 for Connect:2008, the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.</p>
<p>Although preregistration has now closed, churches that have not preregistered all of their eligible messengers may register messengers on-site. On-site registration information and forms are available online at www. bgavconnect.net.</p>
<p>People who are not representing churches as messengers may attend as visitors. Although visitors have no voting rights during business sessions, they may participate in all other aspects of Connect:2008, including general sessions, breakout sessions, and the ministry fair. Visitor registration is encouraged, but not required.</p>
<p>Visitors are especially invited to attend the Tuesday evening worship service, which will feature special music by the Highlands Fellowship Praise Band, a time of worship and praise with singer/songwriter Kate Campbell, and messages from Tony Campolo and J. Larry Holland, senior pastor of Franklin Heights Baptist Church in Rocky Mount.</p>
<p>The hours for on-site registration of messengers and visitors, as well as for check-in of preregistrants, are Monday, Nov. 10, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Nov.11, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; and Wednesday, Nov.12, 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.</p>
<p>Attendees are encouraged to check in on Monday and then visit the Ministry Fair, which will open a day earlier this year. The Ministry Fair highlights exhibitors who provide a variety of ministry-related resources and services.</p>
<p>Also at this year's Ministry Fair, attendees can volunteer to help package dehydrated meals for Stop Hunger Now, a nongovernmental organization that provides direct food relief around the world. Organizers hope to package 10,000 meals during the BGAV annual meeting.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, box lunches will be available for $11 at the Roanoke Civic Center. Attendees can take advantage of this convenient lunch option and then network with others or visit the Ministry Fair before the breakout sessions begin at the Hotel Roanoke &amp; Conference Center.</p>
<p>Free shuttle service between the two venues will be provided from 12 noon. to 2 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Parking at the Civic Center is free. Parking at the Hotel Roanoke costs $2 per hour, with a maximum daily charge of $6. Limited free street parking is also available nearby until 4 p.m. only.</p>
<p>Additional information about Connect:2008 is available online at www.bgavconnect.net.</p> | Connect:2008 | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/connect2008/ | 3left-center
| Connect:2008
<p>Virginia Baptists will gather in Roanoke Nov. 11-12 for Connect:2008, the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.</p>
<p>Although preregistration has now closed, churches that have not preregistered all of their eligible messengers may register messengers on-site. On-site registration information and forms are available online at www. bgavconnect.net.</p>
<p>People who are not representing churches as messengers may attend as visitors. Although visitors have no voting rights during business sessions, they may participate in all other aspects of Connect:2008, including general sessions, breakout sessions, and the ministry fair. Visitor registration is encouraged, but not required.</p>
<p>Visitors are especially invited to attend the Tuesday evening worship service, which will feature special music by the Highlands Fellowship Praise Band, a time of worship and praise with singer/songwriter Kate Campbell, and messages from Tony Campolo and J. Larry Holland, senior pastor of Franklin Heights Baptist Church in Rocky Mount.</p>
<p>The hours for on-site registration of messengers and visitors, as well as for check-in of preregistrants, are Monday, Nov. 10, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Nov.11, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; and Wednesday, Nov.12, 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.</p>
<p>Attendees are encouraged to check in on Monday and then visit the Ministry Fair, which will open a day earlier this year. The Ministry Fair highlights exhibitors who provide a variety of ministry-related resources and services.</p>
<p>Also at this year's Ministry Fair, attendees can volunteer to help package dehydrated meals for Stop Hunger Now, a nongovernmental organization that provides direct food relief around the world. Organizers hope to package 10,000 meals during the BGAV annual meeting.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, box lunches will be available for $11 at the Roanoke Civic Center. Attendees can take advantage of this convenient lunch option and then network with others or visit the Ministry Fair before the breakout sessions begin at the Hotel Roanoke &amp; Conference Center.</p>
<p>Free shuttle service between the two venues will be provided from 12 noon. to 2 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Parking at the Civic Center is free. Parking at the Hotel Roanoke costs $2 per hour, with a maximum daily charge of $6. Limited free street parking is also available nearby until 4 p.m. only.</p>
<p>Additional information about Connect:2008 is available online at www.bgavconnect.net.</p> | 168 |
|
<p>After the murderous assault on Dallas police officers on Thursday night in which five policemen were slain and six others wounded, Dallas Police Chief David Brown issued a brief, eloquent statement:</p>
<p>Dallas Police Chief David Brown: <a href="https://t.co/gbG3UfPlGw" type="external">pic.twitter.com/gbG3UfPlGw</a></p>
<p>Brown, who began his tenure as police chief in 2010, is no stranger to tragedy, as The Washington Post reports. Brown’s son David was 27 in 2010 when he shot 23-year-old Jeremy McMillian as he drove through Lancaster with his girlfriend and two children in the car. Lancaster police officer Craig Shaw, 37, responding to the incident, was shot and killed by Brown.</p>
<p>David Brown, the father, told his department at the time, “The past few days have been very troubling and emotional for all of us. My family has not only lost a son, but a fellow police officer and a private citizen lost their lives at the hands of our son. That hurts so deeply I cannot adequately express the sadness I feel inside my heart.”</p>
<p>Before that, in August 1988, Brown’s former partner, Walter Williams, 47, who had been Brown’s classmate at the police academy was killed in the line of duty. Brown told the <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20100522-Dallas-Police-Chief-David-Brown-is-1862.ece" type="external">Dallas Morning News</a> in 2010, “When things like that happen and you’re really close, you don’t believe it for the longest time. I really relate to all of those in-the-line-of-duty deaths [on a] much more personal level . . . you lose a partner, you just never get over it.”</p>
<p>In 1991, Brown’s younger brother Kelvin was killed by drug dealers.</p>
<p>“I can’t deny that’s a part of who I am,” Brown had told the Morning News in 2010. “The families of victims, I know what they go through.”</p> | READ: Moving Statement From Dallas PD Chief: 'We Don't Feel Much Support Most Days' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/7322/read-moving-statement-dallas-pd-chief-we-dont-feel-hank-berrien | 2016-07-08 | 0right
| READ: Moving Statement From Dallas PD Chief: 'We Don't Feel Much Support Most Days'
<p>After the murderous assault on Dallas police officers on Thursday night in which five policemen were slain and six others wounded, Dallas Police Chief David Brown issued a brief, eloquent statement:</p>
<p>Dallas Police Chief David Brown: <a href="https://t.co/gbG3UfPlGw" type="external">pic.twitter.com/gbG3UfPlGw</a></p>
<p>Brown, who began his tenure as police chief in 2010, is no stranger to tragedy, as The Washington Post reports. Brown’s son David was 27 in 2010 when he shot 23-year-old Jeremy McMillian as he drove through Lancaster with his girlfriend and two children in the car. Lancaster police officer Craig Shaw, 37, responding to the incident, was shot and killed by Brown.</p>
<p>David Brown, the father, told his department at the time, “The past few days have been very troubling and emotional for all of us. My family has not only lost a son, but a fellow police officer and a private citizen lost their lives at the hands of our son. That hurts so deeply I cannot adequately express the sadness I feel inside my heart.”</p>
<p>Before that, in August 1988, Brown’s former partner, Walter Williams, 47, who had been Brown’s classmate at the police academy was killed in the line of duty. Brown told the <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20100522-Dallas-Police-Chief-David-Brown-is-1862.ece" type="external">Dallas Morning News</a> in 2010, “When things like that happen and you’re really close, you don’t believe it for the longest time. I really relate to all of those in-the-line-of-duty deaths [on a] much more personal level . . . you lose a partner, you just never get over it.”</p>
<p>In 1991, Brown’s younger brother Kelvin was killed by drug dealers.</p>
<p>“I can’t deny that’s a part of who I am,” Brown had told the Morning News in 2010. “The families of victims, I know what they go through.”</p> | 169 |
<p />
<p>The U.S. Census Bureau regularly conducts a survey of income and program participation that offers insight into Americans' financial well-being. Earlier this month, the Census Bureau updated the public on changes it has made to improve the survey's results, and in that report, it included intriguing new insight into Americans' net worth. Specifically, U.S. households' median net worth reached $80,039 in 2013. Are you keeping pace?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Census Bureau's estimate of household net worth comes from its 2014 survey, which reflects changes that more accurately show where net worth is coming from. The 2014 survey now includes questions on subjects such as annuities, passive business ownership, education savings accounts, and the cash value of life insurance. According to the Census Bureau, without including these new questions, the median net worth of households could have been reported to be as low as $74,083.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>The biggest contributor to Americans' net worth is home equity. Overall, 63% of the survey's respondents say they have equity in their home, and the bureau reports that, across all respondents, equity represents about one-third of the median $80,039 in net worth.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>If you're a home owner, and you're curious how your equity compares to that of other homeowners, the median value of home equity that was reported was $81,000.</p>
<p>A 401(k) plan or a thrift savings plan, a type of defined contribution plan that's offered to government employees, was the second-biggest contributor to U.S. household net worth. Overall, 40.7% of respondents say they have one of those plans, and that the median value of their account is $46,000.</p>
<p>Individual retirement accounts and Keogh accounts are also popular, with 28% of people surveyed saying they have one, with a median balance of $40,000.</p>
<p>Americans' assets also commonly include the cash value of a life insurance plan, and stocks or mutual funds. About 19% of people report a median $12,000 in cash value of life insurance, and 20% say they have a median $32,500 in stocks or mutual funds.</p>
<p>Student loans and credit card debt were the biggest unsecured liabilities weighing down net worth. Mortgages and auto loans were included in the asset column, because on average, home and car owners reported having equity in them.</p>
<p>More than half of households owe debt that is unsecured by collateral, and over 40% report owing money on credit cards and store bills. The median amount that's owed on credit cards is only $3,000, so student loans that are the biggest drag on U.S. net worth. Almost 20% of Americans owe a median $18,000 in student loans or other education-related debt.</p>
<p>Americans' biggest assets are their home and retirement plans, so if you're on the fence about buying a home, or increasing your contribution rate to your 401(k) plan, those two moves could be your best options for increasing net worth over time.</p>
<p>If you already own your home, making an additional mortgage payment every year can help you quickly build up home equity, and it can save you thousands of dollars in interest payments at the same time. A smart and budget-friendly way to increase your contributions to your 401(k) is to boost your contribution annually by the amount of your pay raise.</p>
<p>On the liabilities side of your ledger, revolving credit card debt is a big no-no because credit card interest rates can be high, and money that's used to make monthly credit card payments can be better used if it's invested in your IRA.</p>
<p>Overall, set reasonable goals for increasing your net worth, and check in annually on your progress toward those goals. Remember, however, that most of your net worth comes from homes and investments, and returns on those assets can vary widely in the short term, so make sure you set your goals with a long-term mindset.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's the Average Net Worth in the United States | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/17/here-average-net-worth-in-united-states.html | 2017-03-17 | 0right
| Here's the Average Net Worth in the United States
<p />
<p>The U.S. Census Bureau regularly conducts a survey of income and program participation that offers insight into Americans' financial well-being. Earlier this month, the Census Bureau updated the public on changes it has made to improve the survey's results, and in that report, it included intriguing new insight into Americans' net worth. Specifically, U.S. households' median net worth reached $80,039 in 2013. Are you keeping pace?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Census Bureau's estimate of household net worth comes from its 2014 survey, which reflects changes that more accurately show where net worth is coming from. The 2014 survey now includes questions on subjects such as annuities, passive business ownership, education savings accounts, and the cash value of life insurance. According to the Census Bureau, without including these new questions, the median net worth of households could have been reported to be as low as $74,083.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>The biggest contributor to Americans' net worth is home equity. Overall, 63% of the survey's respondents say they have equity in their home, and the bureau reports that, across all respondents, equity represents about one-third of the median $80,039 in net worth.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>If you're a home owner, and you're curious how your equity compares to that of other homeowners, the median value of home equity that was reported was $81,000.</p>
<p>A 401(k) plan or a thrift savings plan, a type of defined contribution plan that's offered to government employees, was the second-biggest contributor to U.S. household net worth. Overall, 40.7% of respondents say they have one of those plans, and that the median value of their account is $46,000.</p>
<p>Individual retirement accounts and Keogh accounts are also popular, with 28% of people surveyed saying they have one, with a median balance of $40,000.</p>
<p>Americans' assets also commonly include the cash value of a life insurance plan, and stocks or mutual funds. About 19% of people report a median $12,000 in cash value of life insurance, and 20% say they have a median $32,500 in stocks or mutual funds.</p>
<p>Student loans and credit card debt were the biggest unsecured liabilities weighing down net worth. Mortgages and auto loans were included in the asset column, because on average, home and car owners reported having equity in them.</p>
<p>More than half of households owe debt that is unsecured by collateral, and over 40% report owing money on credit cards and store bills. The median amount that's owed on credit cards is only $3,000, so student loans that are the biggest drag on U.S. net worth. Almost 20% of Americans owe a median $18,000 in student loans or other education-related debt.</p>
<p>Americans' biggest assets are their home and retirement plans, so if you're on the fence about buying a home, or increasing your contribution rate to your 401(k) plan, those two moves could be your best options for increasing net worth over time.</p>
<p>If you already own your home, making an additional mortgage payment every year can help you quickly build up home equity, and it can save you thousands of dollars in interest payments at the same time. A smart and budget-friendly way to increase your contributions to your 401(k) is to boost your contribution annually by the amount of your pay raise.</p>
<p>On the liabilities side of your ledger, revolving credit card debt is a big no-no because credit card interest rates can be high, and money that's used to make monthly credit card payments can be better used if it's invested in your IRA.</p>
<p>Overall, set reasonable goals for increasing your net worth, and check in annually on your progress toward those goals. Remember, however, that most of your net worth comes from homes and investments, and returns on those assets can vary widely in the short term, so make sure you set your goals with a long-term mindset.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 170 |
<p>Woman’s husband pays to have her killed. She <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/woman-walks-into-own-funeral-to-surprise-of-husband-who-had-paid-to-have-her-killed-a6855006.html" type="external">shows up at her own funeral</a> like a boss and has him arrested.</p>
<p>Warning women not to get pregnant for fear of contracting fetal-harming Zika virus <a href="http://www.damemagazine.com/2016/02/03/three-letter-word-missing-zika-virus-warnings" type="external">conveniently ignores</a> the fact that men play a part in pregnancy as well.</p>
<p>On the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aimee-meredith-cox/we-know-how-to-act_b_9162024.html" type="external">accountability of Black girls</a> in under resourced cities and schools.</p>
<p>KING – the Black girl group that writes, composes, and produces all of their own music – <a href="http://www.weareking.com/album" type="external">debuted their long awaited first album</a>.</p>
<p>From grandmother, to mother, to daughter:&#160;how <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/02/04/my-mother-and-grandmother-are-proof-that-talking-openly-about-sex-is-a-smart-parenting-tactic/" type="external">sex positivity was generationally passed down</a> in one woman’s family.</p> | Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet | true | http://feministing.com/2016/02/05/daily-feminist-cheat-sheet-745/ | 4left
| Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet
<p>Woman’s husband pays to have her killed. She <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/woman-walks-into-own-funeral-to-surprise-of-husband-who-had-paid-to-have-her-killed-a6855006.html" type="external">shows up at her own funeral</a> like a boss and has him arrested.</p>
<p>Warning women not to get pregnant for fear of contracting fetal-harming Zika virus <a href="http://www.damemagazine.com/2016/02/03/three-letter-word-missing-zika-virus-warnings" type="external">conveniently ignores</a> the fact that men play a part in pregnancy as well.</p>
<p>On the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aimee-meredith-cox/we-know-how-to-act_b_9162024.html" type="external">accountability of Black girls</a> in under resourced cities and schools.</p>
<p>KING – the Black girl group that writes, composes, and produces all of their own music – <a href="http://www.weareking.com/album" type="external">debuted their long awaited first album</a>.</p>
<p>From grandmother, to mother, to daughter:&#160;how <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/02/04/my-mother-and-grandmother-are-proof-that-talking-openly-about-sex-is-a-smart-parenting-tactic/" type="external">sex positivity was generationally passed down</a> in one woman’s family.</p> | 171 |
|
<p>Labor unrest is increasingly hitting the economy as migrant workers would rather stay at home and work in the booming agriculture sector. Especially southern China has been hit by a shortage of labor that has made it easier for disgruntled workers to get into action. Ten days ago the 12, 000 workers of a Wal-Mart supplier, a sino-Japanese joint venture walked out. Interesting detail of the story, writen by <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/16/news/china.html" type="external">Howard</a> <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/16/news/china.html" type="external">French</a> of the New York Times, was that the workers, banned from organizing themselves, used <a href="http://www.chinaherald.net/2004/12/labor-emerging-call-for-real-trade.html" type="external">SMS-messages</a> to stay in touch with each other.Now also <a href="http://www.blogcn.com/user24/unidenppl/index.html" type="external">a weblog</a> has emerged, maintained by the strikers, <a href="http://www.isaacmao.com/meta/2004/12/shenzhen-16000-workers-in.html" type="external">reports blogger</a> Isaac Mao. The strike, now ten days old is continuing without any indication of a result, the blog says.</p> | Chinese Strikers Use Weblogs for Their Struggle | false | https://poynter.org/news/chinese-strikers-use-weblogs-their-struggle | 2004-12-20 | 2least
| Chinese Strikers Use Weblogs for Their Struggle
<p>Labor unrest is increasingly hitting the economy as migrant workers would rather stay at home and work in the booming agriculture sector. Especially southern China has been hit by a shortage of labor that has made it easier for disgruntled workers to get into action. Ten days ago the 12, 000 workers of a Wal-Mart supplier, a sino-Japanese joint venture walked out. Interesting detail of the story, writen by <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/16/news/china.html" type="external">Howard</a> <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/16/news/china.html" type="external">French</a> of the New York Times, was that the workers, banned from organizing themselves, used <a href="http://www.chinaherald.net/2004/12/labor-emerging-call-for-real-trade.html" type="external">SMS-messages</a> to stay in touch with each other.Now also <a href="http://www.blogcn.com/user24/unidenppl/index.html" type="external">a weblog</a> has emerged, maintained by the strikers, <a href="http://www.isaacmao.com/meta/2004/12/shenzhen-16000-workers-in.html" type="external">reports blogger</a> Isaac Mao. The strike, now ten days old is continuing without any indication of a result, the blog says.</p> | 172 |
<p>When it comes to commodities, plenty of investors are familiar with gold and oil, but there are times when other, less heralded commodities outperform bullion and crude. Of course, knowing when a particular commodity will fall out of favor and when it will be a leader is difficult.</p>
<p>So there are advantages to a diversified commodities exchange traded fund, such as the WisdomTree Continuous Commodity Index Fund (NYSE:GCC), which tracks the Thomson Reuters Equal Weight Continuous Commodity Total Return Index. An ETF like GCC can be particularly useful during periods of commodities volatility or when the asset class swings between various extremes as it did last month.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While the overall month was positive, the index was filled with extremes. Lean hogs and feeder cattle are having their 2nd worst months in history, the worst since Dec. 2003 and Aug. 2002, respectively. This drove livestock to return its 7th worst month ever since Dec. 2003 when it lost 15.8%. On the other hand, sugar and lead each posted 11.3% gains this month, said S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices <a href="http://www.indexologyblog.com/2016/10/03/commodities-post-best-september-in-six-years/" type="external">in a recent note Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>GCC offers investors exposure to seven sub-sets of the commodities space: energy, grains, industrial metals, livestock, natural gas, precious metals and softs. Within the ETF, investors will find familiar fare such as gold, oil and silver along with more obscure commodities, such as cocoa, coffee and a sugar.</p>
<p>Commodities are on pace to have several big winners and losers this year. Thus far gold and zinc are set to have their 3rd best years in history while feeder cattle is set to post its worst year. Below is a table of commodities that are closest to be on pace for record setting years. Although natural gas is having one of its best years, it is still negative it has only ever been positive six times through the year at this point, adds S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices.</p>
<p>Another advantage is that it equal weights its lineup, which limits the contributions, negative and positive, an individual commodity makes toward the ETF's performance. Additionally, the ETF's rebalancing frequency ensures commodities that are seeing increases in volatility are limited or pulled from GCC's lineup.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p> | A Compelling Idea Among Commodities | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/04/compelling-idea-among-commodities.html | 2016-10-04 | 0right
| A Compelling Idea Among Commodities
<p>When it comes to commodities, plenty of investors are familiar with gold and oil, but there are times when other, less heralded commodities outperform bullion and crude. Of course, knowing when a particular commodity will fall out of favor and when it will be a leader is difficult.</p>
<p>So there are advantages to a diversified commodities exchange traded fund, such as the WisdomTree Continuous Commodity Index Fund (NYSE:GCC), which tracks the Thomson Reuters Equal Weight Continuous Commodity Total Return Index. An ETF like GCC can be particularly useful during periods of commodities volatility or when the asset class swings between various extremes as it did last month.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While the overall month was positive, the index was filled with extremes. Lean hogs and feeder cattle are having their 2nd worst months in history, the worst since Dec. 2003 and Aug. 2002, respectively. This drove livestock to return its 7th worst month ever since Dec. 2003 when it lost 15.8%. On the other hand, sugar and lead each posted 11.3% gains this month, said S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices <a href="http://www.indexologyblog.com/2016/10/03/commodities-post-best-september-in-six-years/" type="external">in a recent note Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>GCC offers investors exposure to seven sub-sets of the commodities space: energy, grains, industrial metals, livestock, natural gas, precious metals and softs. Within the ETF, investors will find familiar fare such as gold, oil and silver along with more obscure commodities, such as cocoa, coffee and a sugar.</p>
<p>Commodities are on pace to have several big winners and losers this year. Thus far gold and zinc are set to have their 3rd best years in history while feeder cattle is set to post its worst year. Below is a table of commodities that are closest to be on pace for record setting years. Although natural gas is having one of its best years, it is still negative it has only ever been positive six times through the year at this point, adds S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices.</p>
<p>Another advantage is that it equal weights its lineup, which limits the contributions, negative and positive, an individual commodity makes toward the ETF's performance. Additionally, the ETF's rebalancing frequency ensures commodities that are seeing increases in volatility are limited or pulled from GCC's lineup.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.</p> | 173 |
<p>Hanging in there</p>
<p>After a rough last four or five months for their party, Democrats can feel good about this important midterm development: The vulnerable Southern Senate Democrats are still hanging in there, according to new polling from the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/23/upshot/24upshot-south-poll.html" type="external">New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation</a>. In Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) holds a 10-point lead over GOP challenger Tom Cotton, 46%-36%. In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is ahead of likely GOP front-runner Bill Cassidy, 42%-18% (the free-for-all November race will go to a December runoff if no one surpasses 50%, so Landrieu’s lead is not as impressive as you might think for now). In North Carolina, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is up 42%-40% over GOP front-runner Thom Tillis (and up 41%-39% over the other leading GOPer in the race, Greg Brannon). And in Kentucky, it’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at 44%, Democrat Alison Grimes at 43%. Perhaps the most important result here are the Arkansas numbers, because they confirm other polling we’ve seen showing Pryor ahead. The poll also shows that North Carolina is headed -- as we’ve said before -- to be this cycle’s true bellwether for Senate control, because it’s truly a “generic D” vs “generic R” result. And the poll cements the conventional wisdom that the Kentucky Senate race is a pure toss-up. Of course, these vulnerable Democratic incumbents are below 50% (and Landrieu and Hagan are in the low 40s), so they are still in dangerous territory. But the important news for Democrats is that these races are far from done, meaning that Republicans winning the Senate in November (or December) is far from a sure thing.</p>
<p>The bad news for Democrats: Obama remains a liability in these states</p>
<p>The bad news for Democrats is that President Obama remains a big liability in these Southern races. According to the poll, his approval rating among registered voters is 32% in Kentucky, 33% in Arkansas, 41% in North Carolina, and 42% in Louisiana. Strikingly, however, the Democratic governors in Arkansas and Kentucky are very popular (Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has a 68% approval rating, and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has a 56% rating), while the GOP governors in Louisiana and North Carolina are in rough shape (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is at 40%, and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is at 43%). In fact, don’t be surprised if Dems in Louisiana and North Carolina try and make the Republican governors more of an issue as basically a counterpoint to the president. Still, the other bad news for Democrats is that Republicans have other ways to get to a majority beyond these southern races -- given that they’ve put Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire into play (or somewhat into play). But with six months to go until Election Day, Democrats can take comfort that no one is going to write off these southern races. And that’s an important victory for them. Already, the GOP thinks it has three pickups on the board (SD, WV, and MT), if the Democrats can keep them from adding any more into their column in this EARLY stage and force them to be competing in a wider playing field for longer, it’s an important development.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_saLrADKqNM" type="external">“For relaxing times, make it Suntory time”</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, President Obama has arrived in Japan -- the first leg of his overseas trip to Asia. At 8:30 pm ET, he participates in an arrival ceremony and holds a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Abe at 11:00 pm ET. Some have dubbed this trip as an effort to “contain” China. But more than anything else, the trip is about giving love to the United States’ leading allies in this region -- Japan and South Korea. Both countries have felt as if the U.S. hasn’t given them the ally love that they deserve, especially as the U.S. moves closer to China. So this trip is about Obama reassuring both key U.S. allies that the U.S. will play favorites in the region on their behalf. And yes, while the U.S. denies it, there is an obvious “contain China” strategy going on here.</p>
<p>Bob Dole’s tour through Kansas</p>
<p>Don’t miss the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-dole-is-back-in-kansas-running-for-nothing-but-running-hard/2014/04/22/21c15ef6-c9eb-11e3-b81a-6fff56bc591e_story.html" type="external">Washington Post’s Dan Balz</a> on Bob Dole’s tour through Kansas, where the 90-year-old former senator and former presidential candidate is thanking his former constituents. “He is running for nothing but is nonetheless running hard. He made three stops on Monday, four more on Tuesday, including at the Dole Institute, which is named for him, at the University of Kansas here in Lawrence. He has two stops planned for Wednesday. That’s just a warm-up. When he returns next month, he has 16 stops on his schedule… ‘I’ve got a 45-year-old-mind trapped in a 90-year-old body,’ he joked at the Senior Center in Paola.” Dole on Obama: “‘I think President Obama certainly means well,’ he said, ‘but without being critical — because I’m not here for that purpose — I think he needs to get acquainted with more members of Congress. . . . You have to get acquainted obviously with your own party, but you’ve got to get acquainted with the other party. All the wisdom doesn’t reside in one party.’” On the partisanship in Washington: “‘Some people say ‘compromise’ is a bad word,’ he said. ‘That means you must be a liberal. Well, Ronald Reagan told me one day, “Get me 70 percent and I’ll get the rest next year. . . . He was pragmatic — and he was Mr. Conservative.’”</p>
<p>Where the Democrats are fighting back on health care, Part 2</p>
<p>Speaking of Landrieu and her re-election race, she is the latest to use strong language to defend the health-care law she voted for in 2010. “It’s a solid law that needs improvement,” Landrieu tells the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/22/landrieu-ill-put-gop-foe-on-defensive-on-health-care/" type="external">Washington Post’s Greg Sargent</a>. “My opponent offers nothing but repeal, repeal, and repeal. And even with all the law’s setbacks, we’re seeing benefits for thousands of people in Louisiana.” More from Landrieu: “I think the benefits that people have received are worth fighting for… I think Bill Cassidy is going to be at a distinct disadvantage. He has insurance, but he’s also denying it to the 242,000 people who fall into the Jindal gap [not expanding Medicaid]. He also wants to take coverage away from tens of thousands who have gotten it for the first time.” Don’t miss Landrieu’s “Jindal gap” remark when it comes to the GOP governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid. After all, that New York Times/Kaiser poll has Jindal with a lower approval rating among registered voters in Louisiana (40%) than Obama does (42%).</p>
<p>Where the Democrats aren’t fighting back on health care</p>
<p>While Landrieu is defending the health-care law, Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn in Georgia is up with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5TUd60X7E" type="external">TV ad</a> saying she would eliminate the subsidy that members of Congress get to pay for their health insurance under the health-care law. "It's time Washington worked for us for a change."</p>
<p>Tillis wins last night’s debate “by default”</p>
<p>Speaking of North Carolina’s Senate race, the Republican vying to challenge Sen. Kay Hagan participated in their first televised debate last night, and the state’s top political writer essentially declared Thom Tillis the winner. The <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/22/3803308/christensen-senate-debate-reflects.html#emlnl=Today_at_a_Glance" type="external">Raleigh News &amp; Observer’s Rob Christensen</a>: “State House Speaker Thom Tillis, who has been leading in the polls and in fundraising, emerged from the debate largely unscathed despite frequent barbs from Cary physician Greg Brannon, his tea party opponent. The other two candidates, Charlotte pastor Mark Harris and Heather Grant, a nurse practitioner in Wilkes County, chose not to engage their opponents in a debate that was surprisingly staid. The winner by default was Tillis, who had the most to risk because he has an extensive public record to defend and only rarely did he have to do so.”</p>
<p>The war over women’s votes</p>
<p>If you want to see how contraception remains a potent issue for Democrats, just check out this new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11L7Z2A9vs" type="external">TV ad</a> Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is running against challenger Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO). “Gardner sponsored a bill to make abortion a felony, including cases of rape and incest,” the ad goes. Gardner even championed an eight-year crusade to outlaw birth control. And if you want to see how Republicans are trying to parry the “war on women” attacks from Democrats, observe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc_AAje-4l0" type="external">this ad</a> by GOP Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, which knocks down the idea she’s anti-woman (after previously saying that women prefer work flexibility to more pay). "Congressman Gary Peters and his buddies want you to believe I'm waging a war on women," she says to the camera and later concludes: "As a woman, I might know a LITTLE bit more about women than [Democrat] Gary Peters."</p>
<p>Clawson wins GOP special primary in Florida</p>
<p>In the special GOP congressional primary in Florida to replace Rep. Trey Radel -- who resigned after being pleading guilty to cocaine-possession charges -- businessman Curt Clawson came out on top and is likely headed to Congress. <a href="http://atr.rollcall.com/self-funding-republican-wins-primary-in-race-to-replace-trey-radel/?dcz=" type="external">Roll Call</a>: “Clawson won with 38 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of precincts reporting at the time the Associated Press called the race. Finishing behind him were state Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto with 26 percent and state Rep. Paige Kreegel with 25 percent. He will now face Democrat April Freeman in the June 24 special, where Clawson is heavily favored.”</p>
<p>Paul Ryan to meet with Congressional Black Caucus next Wednesday</p>
<p>Fnally, NBC’s Frank Thorp reported that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) <a href="" type="internal">will meet with the Congressional Black Caucus</a> (CBC) next Wednesday at noon to discuss the issue of poverty, an aide for the CBC says, a meeting that was set after Ryan's comments about men not working in "inner cities" sparked accusations that the use of the term was racial. "You know, Congressman Ryan is a nice guy, and as such you know he has tried to frame the comments that he made about inner city folk as just sort of an inarticulate way of communicating," Rep Gwen Moore (D-WI) said during a conference call with reporters today. "We want to challenge his assumptions about that and really raise with him a couple of very specific proposals."</p>
<p><a href="http://is.gd/ccxyrR" type="external">Click here to sign up for First Read emails.</a> Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone. Check us out on <a href="http://is.gd/TzuR1b" type="external">Facebook</a>and also on <a href="http://is.gd/hkhSDT" type="external">Twitter</a>. Follow us @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/chucktodd" type="external">chucktodd</a>, @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/mmurraypolitics" type="external">mmurraypolitics</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CarrieNBCNews" type="external">@carrienbcnews</a></p> | Southern Democrats Hang In There | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/southern-democrats-hang-there-n87486 | 2014-04-23 | 3left-center
| Southern Democrats Hang In There
<p>Hanging in there</p>
<p>After a rough last four or five months for their party, Democrats can feel good about this important midterm development: The vulnerable Southern Senate Democrats are still hanging in there, according to new polling from the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/23/upshot/24upshot-south-poll.html" type="external">New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation</a>. In Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) holds a 10-point lead over GOP challenger Tom Cotton, 46%-36%. In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is ahead of likely GOP front-runner Bill Cassidy, 42%-18% (the free-for-all November race will go to a December runoff if no one surpasses 50%, so Landrieu’s lead is not as impressive as you might think for now). In North Carolina, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is up 42%-40% over GOP front-runner Thom Tillis (and up 41%-39% over the other leading GOPer in the race, Greg Brannon). And in Kentucky, it’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at 44%, Democrat Alison Grimes at 43%. Perhaps the most important result here are the Arkansas numbers, because they confirm other polling we’ve seen showing Pryor ahead. The poll also shows that North Carolina is headed -- as we’ve said before -- to be this cycle’s true bellwether for Senate control, because it’s truly a “generic D” vs “generic R” result. And the poll cements the conventional wisdom that the Kentucky Senate race is a pure toss-up. Of course, these vulnerable Democratic incumbents are below 50% (and Landrieu and Hagan are in the low 40s), so they are still in dangerous territory. But the important news for Democrats is that these races are far from done, meaning that Republicans winning the Senate in November (or December) is far from a sure thing.</p>
<p>The bad news for Democrats: Obama remains a liability in these states</p>
<p>The bad news for Democrats is that President Obama remains a big liability in these Southern races. According to the poll, his approval rating among registered voters is 32% in Kentucky, 33% in Arkansas, 41% in North Carolina, and 42% in Louisiana. Strikingly, however, the Democratic governors in Arkansas and Kentucky are very popular (Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has a 68% approval rating, and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has a 56% rating), while the GOP governors in Louisiana and North Carolina are in rough shape (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is at 40%, and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is at 43%). In fact, don’t be surprised if Dems in Louisiana and North Carolina try and make the Republican governors more of an issue as basically a counterpoint to the president. Still, the other bad news for Democrats is that Republicans have other ways to get to a majority beyond these southern races -- given that they’ve put Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire into play (or somewhat into play). But with six months to go until Election Day, Democrats can take comfort that no one is going to write off these southern races. And that’s an important victory for them. Already, the GOP thinks it has three pickups on the board (SD, WV, and MT), if the Democrats can keep them from adding any more into their column in this EARLY stage and force them to be competing in a wider playing field for longer, it’s an important development.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_saLrADKqNM" type="external">“For relaxing times, make it Suntory time”</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, President Obama has arrived in Japan -- the first leg of his overseas trip to Asia. At 8:30 pm ET, he participates in an arrival ceremony and holds a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Abe at 11:00 pm ET. Some have dubbed this trip as an effort to “contain” China. But more than anything else, the trip is about giving love to the United States’ leading allies in this region -- Japan and South Korea. Both countries have felt as if the U.S. hasn’t given them the ally love that they deserve, especially as the U.S. moves closer to China. So this trip is about Obama reassuring both key U.S. allies that the U.S. will play favorites in the region on their behalf. And yes, while the U.S. denies it, there is an obvious “contain China” strategy going on here.</p>
<p>Bob Dole’s tour through Kansas</p>
<p>Don’t miss the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-dole-is-back-in-kansas-running-for-nothing-but-running-hard/2014/04/22/21c15ef6-c9eb-11e3-b81a-6fff56bc591e_story.html" type="external">Washington Post’s Dan Balz</a> on Bob Dole’s tour through Kansas, where the 90-year-old former senator and former presidential candidate is thanking his former constituents. “He is running for nothing but is nonetheless running hard. He made three stops on Monday, four more on Tuesday, including at the Dole Institute, which is named for him, at the University of Kansas here in Lawrence. He has two stops planned for Wednesday. That’s just a warm-up. When he returns next month, he has 16 stops on his schedule… ‘I’ve got a 45-year-old-mind trapped in a 90-year-old body,’ he joked at the Senior Center in Paola.” Dole on Obama: “‘I think President Obama certainly means well,’ he said, ‘but without being critical — because I’m not here for that purpose — I think he needs to get acquainted with more members of Congress. . . . You have to get acquainted obviously with your own party, but you’ve got to get acquainted with the other party. All the wisdom doesn’t reside in one party.’” On the partisanship in Washington: “‘Some people say ‘compromise’ is a bad word,’ he said. ‘That means you must be a liberal. Well, Ronald Reagan told me one day, “Get me 70 percent and I’ll get the rest next year. . . . He was pragmatic — and he was Mr. Conservative.’”</p>
<p>Where the Democrats are fighting back on health care, Part 2</p>
<p>Speaking of Landrieu and her re-election race, she is the latest to use strong language to defend the health-care law she voted for in 2010. “It’s a solid law that needs improvement,” Landrieu tells the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/22/landrieu-ill-put-gop-foe-on-defensive-on-health-care/" type="external">Washington Post’s Greg Sargent</a>. “My opponent offers nothing but repeal, repeal, and repeal. And even with all the law’s setbacks, we’re seeing benefits for thousands of people in Louisiana.” More from Landrieu: “I think the benefits that people have received are worth fighting for… I think Bill Cassidy is going to be at a distinct disadvantage. He has insurance, but he’s also denying it to the 242,000 people who fall into the Jindal gap [not expanding Medicaid]. He also wants to take coverage away from tens of thousands who have gotten it for the first time.” Don’t miss Landrieu’s “Jindal gap” remark when it comes to the GOP governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid. After all, that New York Times/Kaiser poll has Jindal with a lower approval rating among registered voters in Louisiana (40%) than Obama does (42%).</p>
<p>Where the Democrats aren’t fighting back on health care</p>
<p>While Landrieu is defending the health-care law, Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn in Georgia is up with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5TUd60X7E" type="external">TV ad</a> saying she would eliminate the subsidy that members of Congress get to pay for their health insurance under the health-care law. "It's time Washington worked for us for a change."</p>
<p>Tillis wins last night’s debate “by default”</p>
<p>Speaking of North Carolina’s Senate race, the Republican vying to challenge Sen. Kay Hagan participated in their first televised debate last night, and the state’s top political writer essentially declared Thom Tillis the winner. The <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/22/3803308/christensen-senate-debate-reflects.html#emlnl=Today_at_a_Glance" type="external">Raleigh News &amp; Observer’s Rob Christensen</a>: “State House Speaker Thom Tillis, who has been leading in the polls and in fundraising, emerged from the debate largely unscathed despite frequent barbs from Cary physician Greg Brannon, his tea party opponent. The other two candidates, Charlotte pastor Mark Harris and Heather Grant, a nurse practitioner in Wilkes County, chose not to engage their opponents in a debate that was surprisingly staid. The winner by default was Tillis, who had the most to risk because he has an extensive public record to defend and only rarely did he have to do so.”</p>
<p>The war over women’s votes</p>
<p>If you want to see how contraception remains a potent issue for Democrats, just check out this new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11L7Z2A9vs" type="external">TV ad</a> Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is running against challenger Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO). “Gardner sponsored a bill to make abortion a felony, including cases of rape and incest,” the ad goes. Gardner even championed an eight-year crusade to outlaw birth control. And if you want to see how Republicans are trying to parry the “war on women” attacks from Democrats, observe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc_AAje-4l0" type="external">this ad</a> by GOP Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, which knocks down the idea she’s anti-woman (after previously saying that women prefer work flexibility to more pay). "Congressman Gary Peters and his buddies want you to believe I'm waging a war on women," she says to the camera and later concludes: "As a woman, I might know a LITTLE bit more about women than [Democrat] Gary Peters."</p>
<p>Clawson wins GOP special primary in Florida</p>
<p>In the special GOP congressional primary in Florida to replace Rep. Trey Radel -- who resigned after being pleading guilty to cocaine-possession charges -- businessman Curt Clawson came out on top and is likely headed to Congress. <a href="http://atr.rollcall.com/self-funding-republican-wins-primary-in-race-to-replace-trey-radel/?dcz=" type="external">Roll Call</a>: “Clawson won with 38 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of precincts reporting at the time the Associated Press called the race. Finishing behind him were state Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto with 26 percent and state Rep. Paige Kreegel with 25 percent. He will now face Democrat April Freeman in the June 24 special, where Clawson is heavily favored.”</p>
<p>Paul Ryan to meet with Congressional Black Caucus next Wednesday</p>
<p>Fnally, NBC’s Frank Thorp reported that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) <a href="" type="internal">will meet with the Congressional Black Caucus</a> (CBC) next Wednesday at noon to discuss the issue of poverty, an aide for the CBC says, a meeting that was set after Ryan's comments about men not working in "inner cities" sparked accusations that the use of the term was racial. "You know, Congressman Ryan is a nice guy, and as such you know he has tried to frame the comments that he made about inner city folk as just sort of an inarticulate way of communicating," Rep Gwen Moore (D-WI) said during a conference call with reporters today. "We want to challenge his assumptions about that and really raise with him a couple of very specific proposals."</p>
<p><a href="http://is.gd/ccxyrR" type="external">Click here to sign up for First Read emails.</a> Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone. Check us out on <a href="http://is.gd/TzuR1b" type="external">Facebook</a>and also on <a href="http://is.gd/hkhSDT" type="external">Twitter</a>. Follow us @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/chucktodd" type="external">chucktodd</a>, @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/mmurraypolitics" type="external">mmurraypolitics</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CarrieNBCNews" type="external">@carrienbcnews</a></p> | 174 |
<p>This post is the fourth in a series of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Spilled Milk</a>&#160;columns by Emmy Award-winning writer and producer&#160;William Lucas Walker that chronicle his journey through parenthood.&#160;Spilled Milk,&#160;which originates in&#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-lucas-walker/" type="external">The Huffington Post</a>, appears on these pages every Saturday.</p>
<p>Not too long ago, our little clan took a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. Road trips are one of those mysterious things families feel compelled to do but no one knows why, like camping in the Mojave Desert or supporting the career of Miley Cyrus. I predict in the end it won’t be gay marriage that brings about the destruction of the American family. It will be the road trip.</p>
<p>After getting the kids settled into the back seat of our Honda Odyssey with their DVD players and movies, we hit the freeway. Once out of L.A., I was finally able to sit back, pop open my laptop, and begin jotting down a few ideas for this column. That’s when Kelly woke from his nap and grabbed the steering wheel from me, babbling some nonsense about “safety” and not using my computer while driving. So we switched seats.</p>
<p>Relocated to the passenger side, “safely,” I narrowed my list of possible topics to two: “Surviving Your Child’s K-Mart Taste” and “Parents I Hate.” Then suddenly — at 70 miles per hour — the transmission on our car blew out. And a column was born.</p>
<p>I’m an American, a proud gay American who was raised to believe that bad things don’t happen to Hondas. Yet ours has blown two transmissions in five years.</p>
<p>As we decelerated, the plume of smoke belching from underneath our hood began to panic my unflappable daughter. I tried to calm her as Kelly looked for a place to get off the road. “Think of it as an adventure, honey! We’re inside a fire-breathing dragon who just lost a leg!” She began to cry.</p>
<p>Somehow we managed to limp across four lanes of traffic to the next exit and turn down a hill into the welcoming parking lot of a visitors center that overlooked a picturesque lake. A visitors center with bathrooms and vending machines and other kids to play with. A visitors center we soon noticed had a chain-link fence around it and a propped-up sign gloating, “Closed for Renovations.”</p>
<p>“Look, an abandoned castle!” I tried, failing.</p>
<p>We called AAA Roadside Assistance and waited. Turkeys cook faster. An hour and 40 minutes passed as my iPod faded from Gaga to gone and the sun sank deep into the lake. The battery on our cell phone now dead, our world turned pitch black and eerie quiet.</p>
<p>When our Triple-A savior finally arrived on the scene, I could have jumped for joy. Instead, I froze. The white knight who showed up for our rescue turned out to be a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.</p>
<p>I hesitantly approached the massive flatbed tow truck idling before me and handed up my membership card through the cab window. Barely looking up, he grunted, “You know we only tow free for seven miles. After that it’s 10 bucks a mile. You got about 15 miles to the next town.” I asked if he could fit a family of four in his cab. His shrug said he’d manage.</p>
<p>After finishing his paperwork in silence, he finally lumbered down from his cab and stopped, getting his first, long look at my family. He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:</p>
<p>“These kids y’all’s?”</p>
<p>We answered that yes, they were.</p>
<p>Traveling as a two-dad family can have its challenges. Twice a year we visit my parents in South Carolina, a state so welcoming that its constitution bans not only same-sex marriage and civil unions but birth control and bagels. On its face, California might seem an improvement, until you find yourself stranded in the dark off I-5 in one of those counties where Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever. Then he moved off. He spent the next few minutes hauling out huge, heavy chains with giant metal hooks. In my mind I pictured him encircling them around Kelly and me after he’d shot us, to more easily sink us to the bottom of that all-too-convenient lake.</p>
<p>After attaching the giant hooks to our Odyssey — of course, to complete our family portrait and ensure our suspect status, we were two men driving a minivan — he moved to the side of his flatbed and began pulling mysterious levers that caused his vehicle to groan as it slowly tipped its flatbed to meet our homosexual automobile.</p>
<p>This was too much for our youngest, James, a boy so Bam-Bam butch that for years we’ve referred to him as God’s joke on the gay daddies. By now he truly was jacked up by the adventure of it all. Biologically drawn to the smell of metal and grease like a moth to a blowtorch, James pushed forward and started peppering our AAA guy with questions: “Is our car dead?” “Do you have a bathroom in your truck?” “Who knocked out your tooth? Was it Batman?”</p>
<p>At this point Kelly intervened: “James, stay back so he can do his work.” Mr. Triple-A stopped what he was doing and looked at us. “His name’s James? I got a boy named James.” He had six kids, he informed us, all named after famous people in the Bible. Of course you do, I thought. A home movie began unspooling in my mind, starring a toddler Moses and barefoot Bathsheba helping their brother Goliath blow up frogs by sticking firecrackers up their butts.</p>
<p>Then he did something unexpected, something… perfect. This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands. He then began to gently pull the huge, oil-stained gloves over our son’s tiny fingers. Next he asked if James wanted to help him work the levers on the side of the flatbed so that he could haul our minivan up onto the truck. Mute with awe, James could only nod. As the chains grew taut and our car began to make its slow ascent up the ramp, James’ eyes widened to the size of the moon that had finally peeked through the clouds overhead.</p>
<p>Before long we were all crowded into the cab of the tow truck for the ride to the nearest town. I never would have thought it possible, but somehow the five of us fit. My family was safe. Jesse — he had a Biblical name, too — pulled out his phone and handed it to us so we could see pictures of his family. As the glow from the faces of his wife and kids lit up the inside of the truck, he looked at Kelly and me and said, “So… did you guys get married when y’all had that little window a few years back, before the Prop 8 thing?”</p>
<p>We said that we did. “That’s good,” he said. “My mom did, too,” he said. “She called up me and my brother and sister and told us, ‘Me and Maggie’s gonna have a wedding. You got a week and a half to figure out a way to get here.’”</p>
<p>From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?</p>
<p>“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”</p>
<p>He never charged us the $80 he should have for the extra mileage. Instead, he directed us to the one motel in that truck-stop town that had a swimming pool for the kids. Then he advised us which mechanic to see the next morning and which taco stands to avoid. And before lowering our big, gay minivan into the parking lot of the auto shop, he stopped to put his gloves on our daughter so she could work the levers this time, sending her into a spiral of rapture. After that he offered to drive us to our motel.</p>
<p>After we’d said our goodbyes and settled into our room, we made sure to sit the kids down and tell them how lucky our family had been that Jesse was the one sent to help us. Being kids, they got it: somehow the five of us fit.</p>
<p>After Kelly and the kids fell asleep, I got curious and Googled the name Jesse. Turns out it’s Hebrew for “God’s gift.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Spilled Milk chronicles Bill’s misadventures in Daddyland. The first recurring humor column by a gay parent to appear in a mainstream American publication, Spilled Milk has regularly landed on the front page of The Huffington Post.</p>
<p>Follow William Lucas Walker on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/WmLucasWalker" type="external">@WmLucasWalker</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/SpilledMilkWLW" type="external">@SpilledMilkWLW</a> or Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/SpilledMilkWLW" type="external">“Spilled Milk” by William Lucas Walker</a>. &#160; &#160; &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">Gay Dads</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Gay Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gay parents</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Marriage Equality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Parents News</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Preconceived Notions</a>, <a href="" type="internal">prejudice</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Road Trips</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Same-Sex Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Stereotyping People</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p> | Spilled Milk: Homo’s Odyssey | true | http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/spilled-milk-homos-odyssey/parenting/2012/09/22/49493 | 2012-09-22 | 4left
| Spilled Milk: Homo’s Odyssey
<p>This post is the fourth in a series of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Spilled Milk</a>&#160;columns by Emmy Award-winning writer and producer&#160;William Lucas Walker that chronicle his journey through parenthood.&#160;Spilled Milk,&#160;which originates in&#160; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-lucas-walker/" type="external">The Huffington Post</a>, appears on these pages every Saturday.</p>
<p>Not too long ago, our little clan took a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. Road trips are one of those mysterious things families feel compelled to do but no one knows why, like camping in the Mojave Desert or supporting the career of Miley Cyrus. I predict in the end it won’t be gay marriage that brings about the destruction of the American family. It will be the road trip.</p>
<p>After getting the kids settled into the back seat of our Honda Odyssey with their DVD players and movies, we hit the freeway. Once out of L.A., I was finally able to sit back, pop open my laptop, and begin jotting down a few ideas for this column. That’s when Kelly woke from his nap and grabbed the steering wheel from me, babbling some nonsense about “safety” and not using my computer while driving. So we switched seats.</p>
<p>Relocated to the passenger side, “safely,” I narrowed my list of possible topics to two: “Surviving Your Child’s K-Mart Taste” and “Parents I Hate.” Then suddenly — at 70 miles per hour — the transmission on our car blew out. And a column was born.</p>
<p>I’m an American, a proud gay American who was raised to believe that bad things don’t happen to Hondas. Yet ours has blown two transmissions in five years.</p>
<p>As we decelerated, the plume of smoke belching from underneath our hood began to panic my unflappable daughter. I tried to calm her as Kelly looked for a place to get off the road. “Think of it as an adventure, honey! We’re inside a fire-breathing dragon who just lost a leg!” She began to cry.</p>
<p>Somehow we managed to limp across four lanes of traffic to the next exit and turn down a hill into the welcoming parking lot of a visitors center that overlooked a picturesque lake. A visitors center with bathrooms and vending machines and other kids to play with. A visitors center we soon noticed had a chain-link fence around it and a propped-up sign gloating, “Closed for Renovations.”</p>
<p>“Look, an abandoned castle!” I tried, failing.</p>
<p>We called AAA Roadside Assistance and waited. Turkeys cook faster. An hour and 40 minutes passed as my iPod faded from Gaga to gone and the sun sank deep into the lake. The battery on our cell phone now dead, our world turned pitch black and eerie quiet.</p>
<p>When our Triple-A savior finally arrived on the scene, I could have jumped for joy. Instead, I froze. The white knight who showed up for our rescue turned out to be a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.</p>
<p>I hesitantly approached the massive flatbed tow truck idling before me and handed up my membership card through the cab window. Barely looking up, he grunted, “You know we only tow free for seven miles. After that it’s 10 bucks a mile. You got about 15 miles to the next town.” I asked if he could fit a family of four in his cab. His shrug said he’d manage.</p>
<p>After finishing his paperwork in silence, he finally lumbered down from his cab and stopped, getting his first, long look at my family. He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:</p>
<p>“These kids y’all’s?”</p>
<p>We answered that yes, they were.</p>
<p>Traveling as a two-dad family can have its challenges. Twice a year we visit my parents in South Carolina, a state so welcoming that its constitution bans not only same-sex marriage and civil unions but birth control and bagels. On its face, California might seem an improvement, until you find yourself stranded in the dark off I-5 in one of those counties where Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever. Then he moved off. He spent the next few minutes hauling out huge, heavy chains with giant metal hooks. In my mind I pictured him encircling them around Kelly and me after he’d shot us, to more easily sink us to the bottom of that all-too-convenient lake.</p>
<p>After attaching the giant hooks to our Odyssey — of course, to complete our family portrait and ensure our suspect status, we were two men driving a minivan — he moved to the side of his flatbed and began pulling mysterious levers that caused his vehicle to groan as it slowly tipped its flatbed to meet our homosexual automobile.</p>
<p>This was too much for our youngest, James, a boy so Bam-Bam butch that for years we’ve referred to him as God’s joke on the gay daddies. By now he truly was jacked up by the adventure of it all. Biologically drawn to the smell of metal and grease like a moth to a blowtorch, James pushed forward and started peppering our AAA guy with questions: “Is our car dead?” “Do you have a bathroom in your truck?” “Who knocked out your tooth? Was it Batman?”</p>
<p>At this point Kelly intervened: “James, stay back so he can do his work.” Mr. Triple-A stopped what he was doing and looked at us. “His name’s James? I got a boy named James.” He had six kids, he informed us, all named after famous people in the Bible. Of course you do, I thought. A home movie began unspooling in my mind, starring a toddler Moses and barefoot Bathsheba helping their brother Goliath blow up frogs by sticking firecrackers up their butts.</p>
<p>Then he did something unexpected, something… perfect. This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands. He then began to gently pull the huge, oil-stained gloves over our son’s tiny fingers. Next he asked if James wanted to help him work the levers on the side of the flatbed so that he could haul our minivan up onto the truck. Mute with awe, James could only nod. As the chains grew taut and our car began to make its slow ascent up the ramp, James’ eyes widened to the size of the moon that had finally peeked through the clouds overhead.</p>
<p>Before long we were all crowded into the cab of the tow truck for the ride to the nearest town. I never would have thought it possible, but somehow the five of us fit. My family was safe. Jesse — he had a Biblical name, too — pulled out his phone and handed it to us so we could see pictures of his family. As the glow from the faces of his wife and kids lit up the inside of the truck, he looked at Kelly and me and said, “So… did you guys get married when y’all had that little window a few years back, before the Prop 8 thing?”</p>
<p>We said that we did. “That’s good,” he said. “My mom did, too,” he said. “She called up me and my brother and sister and told us, ‘Me and Maggie’s gonna have a wedding. You got a week and a half to figure out a way to get here.’”</p>
<p>From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?</p>
<p>“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”</p>
<p>He never charged us the $80 he should have for the extra mileage. Instead, he directed us to the one motel in that truck-stop town that had a swimming pool for the kids. Then he advised us which mechanic to see the next morning and which taco stands to avoid. And before lowering our big, gay minivan into the parking lot of the auto shop, he stopped to put his gloves on our daughter so she could work the levers this time, sending her into a spiral of rapture. After that he offered to drive us to our motel.</p>
<p>After we’d said our goodbyes and settled into our room, we made sure to sit the kids down and tell them how lucky our family had been that Jesse was the one sent to help us. Being kids, they got it: somehow the five of us fit.</p>
<p>After Kelly and the kids fell asleep, I got curious and Googled the name Jesse. Turns out it’s Hebrew for “God’s gift.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Spilled Milk chronicles Bill’s misadventures in Daddyland. The first recurring humor column by a gay parent to appear in a mainstream American publication, Spilled Milk has regularly landed on the front page of The Huffington Post.</p>
<p>Follow William Lucas Walker on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/WmLucasWalker" type="external">@WmLucasWalker</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/SpilledMilkWLW" type="external">@SpilledMilkWLW</a> or Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/SpilledMilkWLW" type="external">“Spilled Milk” by William Lucas Walker</a>. &#160; &#160; &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">Gay Dads</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Gay Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gay parents</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Marriage Equality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Parents News</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Preconceived Notions</a>, <a href="" type="internal">prejudice</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Road Trips</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Same-Sex Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Stereotyping People</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p> | 175 |
<p>President Bush announced that rebate checks will start winging their way to taxpayers as early as Monday, helpfully observing that Americans need a little help paying for necessities like groceries and gas during this economic "slowdown" - a slightly different story from his initial justification for this economic stimulus plan, and one that wasn't lost on his critics.</p>
<p>AP via My Way News:</p>
<p>Democrats said they were glad the rebate checks were about to go out, but suggested that multinational oil companies were not among the businesses the stimulus package was originally designed to help.</p>
<p>[?] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed that people "need this rebate to cope with the rising cost of gas and groceries." She said that, while the rebates would help to get the economy moving, there was a need for a second stimulus package "and we have begun some conversation with the administration and Republicans."</p>
<p />
<p>As he had earlier in the week, Bush used the word "slowdown" to describe the state of the economy. He has denied that the nation is in a recession, although many economists say it is.</p>
<p>"It's obvious our economy is in a slowdown. But, fortunately, we recognized the signs early and took action," Bush said.</p>
<p><a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080426/D9098HRG0.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Bush Ready to Stimulate America | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/bush-ready-to-stimulate-america/ | 2008-04-26 | 4left
| Bush Ready to Stimulate America
<p>President Bush announced that rebate checks will start winging their way to taxpayers as early as Monday, helpfully observing that Americans need a little help paying for necessities like groceries and gas during this economic "slowdown" - a slightly different story from his initial justification for this economic stimulus plan, and one that wasn't lost on his critics.</p>
<p>AP via My Way News:</p>
<p>Democrats said they were glad the rebate checks were about to go out, but suggested that multinational oil companies were not among the businesses the stimulus package was originally designed to help.</p>
<p>[?] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed that people "need this rebate to cope with the rising cost of gas and groceries." She said that, while the rebates would help to get the economy moving, there was a need for a second stimulus package "and we have begun some conversation with the administration and Republicans."</p>
<p />
<p>As he had earlier in the week, Bush used the word "slowdown" to describe the state of the economy. He has denied that the nation is in a recession, although many economists say it is.</p>
<p>"It's obvious our economy is in a slowdown. But, fortunately, we recognized the signs early and took action," Bush said.</p>
<p><a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080426/D9098HRG0.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 176 |
<p />
<p>MF Global's collapse and the loss of an estimated $1.6 billion in customer money was triggered by former CEO Jon Corzine's poor management decisions and lax protections for customer funds, a congressional investigation has determined.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The findings of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight will be spelled out in a report to be released on Thursday.</p>
<p>In a preview of the report, the panel's chairman, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, said on Wednesday the evidence unearthed by the committee puts the blame squarely on Corzine, who has denied any wrongdoing.</p>
<p>"The responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine," the report says. "This failure represents a dereliction of his duty as MF Global's chairman and CEO."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Probe Finds Corzine at Fault for MF Global Collapse | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/11/14/probe-finds-corzine-at-fault-for-mf-global-collapse.html | 2016-01-26 | 0right
| Probe Finds Corzine at Fault for MF Global Collapse
<p />
<p>MF Global's collapse and the loss of an estimated $1.6 billion in customer money was triggered by former CEO Jon Corzine's poor management decisions and lax protections for customer funds, a congressional investigation has determined.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The findings of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight will be spelled out in a report to be released on Thursday.</p>
<p>In a preview of the report, the panel's chairman, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, said on Wednesday the evidence unearthed by the committee puts the blame squarely on Corzine, who has denied any wrongdoing.</p>
<p>"The responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine," the report says. "This failure represents a dereliction of his duty as MF Global's chairman and CEO."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | 177 |
<p>Washington is in dire need of reform — and today No Labels will begin its effort to provide solutions to problems in American government.</p>
<p>No Labels is rolling out a series of congressional reforms over the next two weeks. It will include things like putting the House of Representatives and the Senate in session for three weeks a month and out for one week. This would cut down on transportation of elected officials to and from Washington and synchronize the House of Representatives and Senate schedules, allowing for more collaboration.</p>
<p>Over the next two weeks, we will be sharing one reform a day for your feedback and comments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.policymic.com/group/showCompetition/id/2164" type="external">Click here to tell us how you would fix the government.</a></p>
<p>We intend to propose real governance reforms that our elected officials can easily vote upon and implement within 24 hours.</p>
<p>After getting your feedback, on December 13 we will officially announce our package of rule reforms. So starting today, we hope you will help us identify the best solutions that the No Labels community can support in 2012 and insist our leaders implement without delay.</p>
<p>America needs action now. Twice in the past three months Americans have counted down to a potential government shutdown. In August, S&amp;P downgraded our long-term credit rating based on skepticism over Washington’s ability to put our fiscal house in order. &#160;It's no wonder only 9 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress to do the people's business.</p>
<p>America’s rising debt is accompanied by a deficit of leadership. Elected officials in Washington understand that government has serious problems, but they are unable to find solutions. Bill after bill is halted by hyper-partisan gridlock, weighed down by meaningless amendments and doomed to never being rationally debated, let alone passed.</p>
<p>When leadership fails, it’s time for “we the people” to step up. So let’s show our leaders that the left and right don’t have a monopoly on solutions. Let’s show them America’s citizens have answers too.</p> | Reforming Congress Starts Today | false | https://nolabels.org/blog/reforming-congress-starts-today/ | 2011-10-31 | 2least
| Reforming Congress Starts Today
<p>Washington is in dire need of reform — and today No Labels will begin its effort to provide solutions to problems in American government.</p>
<p>No Labels is rolling out a series of congressional reforms over the next two weeks. It will include things like putting the House of Representatives and the Senate in session for three weeks a month and out for one week. This would cut down on transportation of elected officials to and from Washington and synchronize the House of Representatives and Senate schedules, allowing for more collaboration.</p>
<p>Over the next two weeks, we will be sharing one reform a day for your feedback and comments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.policymic.com/group/showCompetition/id/2164" type="external">Click here to tell us how you would fix the government.</a></p>
<p>We intend to propose real governance reforms that our elected officials can easily vote upon and implement within 24 hours.</p>
<p>After getting your feedback, on December 13 we will officially announce our package of rule reforms. So starting today, we hope you will help us identify the best solutions that the No Labels community can support in 2012 and insist our leaders implement without delay.</p>
<p>America needs action now. Twice in the past three months Americans have counted down to a potential government shutdown. In August, S&amp;P downgraded our long-term credit rating based on skepticism over Washington’s ability to put our fiscal house in order. &#160;It's no wonder only 9 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress to do the people's business.</p>
<p>America’s rising debt is accompanied by a deficit of leadership. Elected officials in Washington understand that government has serious problems, but they are unable to find solutions. Bill after bill is halted by hyper-partisan gridlock, weighed down by meaningless amendments and doomed to never being rationally debated, let alone passed.</p>
<p>When leadership fails, it’s time for “we the people” to step up. So let’s show our leaders that the left and right don’t have a monopoly on solutions. Let’s show them America’s citizens have answers too.</p> | 178 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>“We’re definitely going to have some more sure conclusions than before,” said Melissa May, a San Juan Soil and Water Conservation District natural resource specialist.</p>
<p>The conservation district and the San Juan Watershed Group, both local agencies, are partners in the study that is seeking to identify land-use practices contributing to river contamination.</p>
<p>May and New Mexico State University professor Geoffrey Smith will present the study’s 2013 and 2014 results at 6 p.m. in room 9008 in the Henderson Fine Arts building. Only the 2013 results have been reported.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As part of the two-year study, scientists analyzed samples collected from five sites along the San Juan and Animas rivers to test for bacteria — E. coli and Bacteroides — that indicate the presence of human and animal waste. They determined both bacteria are being introduced in San Juan County, and most samples tested positive for human bacteria.</p>
<p>Officials involved in the study have said leaking septic tanks and illegal waste dumping could be the sources of the bacteria. But New Mexico Environment Department spokesman Jim Winchester has said he knows of no evidence to support that conclusion.</p>
<p>“I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to say,” San Juan County Commission Chairman Keith Johns said.</p>
<p>He hopes to attend the meeting, he said. He will take time to learn the results either way, he said.</p>
<p>Concerns about nitrate levels in the San Juan River have prompted discussions about installing sewer systems in Kirtland, he said. It would be great if all communities in the county were connected to sewer systems, he said.</p>
<p>“We need to have a clean river,” he said.</p>
<p>But those connections will not be made in the near future, he said.</p>
<p>Farmington Mayor Tommy Roberts said a city representative will attend the meeting, if he doesn’t. The study is an important one, he said, and understanding its results is also important.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s going to be very important to pinpoint sources of any contamination,” he said.</p>
<p>The county’s rivers are already polluted, according to EPA documents. The La Plata and Animas rivers and San Juan River down stream of Aztec exceed federal E. coli standards. Most of the La Plata River and all of the San Juan River exceed federal sedimentation standards. The La Plata River and half of the Animas River exceed federal nutrients standards. Half of the Animas River exceeds federal phosphorus standards. The San Juan River downstream of Farmington and half of the Animas River are too cloudy. And the entire Animas River is too warm.</p>
<p>Dan Schwartz covers government for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4606 and [email protected]. Follow him @dtdschwartz on Twitter.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2015 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.daily-times.com" type="external">www.daily-times.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC</p>
<p>———-</p>
<p>Topics: t000002828,t000417869,t000002827,t000412858,g000362659,g000362661,g000215302,g000217873,g000066164</p> | Final results of river pollutant study to be presented | false | https://abqjournal.com/545909/final-results-of-river-pollutant-study-to-be-presented.html | 2least
| Final results of river pollutant study to be presented
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>“We’re definitely going to have some more sure conclusions than before,” said Melissa May, a San Juan Soil and Water Conservation District natural resource specialist.</p>
<p>The conservation district and the San Juan Watershed Group, both local agencies, are partners in the study that is seeking to identify land-use practices contributing to river contamination.</p>
<p>May and New Mexico State University professor Geoffrey Smith will present the study’s 2013 and 2014 results at 6 p.m. in room 9008 in the Henderson Fine Arts building. Only the 2013 results have been reported.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As part of the two-year study, scientists analyzed samples collected from five sites along the San Juan and Animas rivers to test for bacteria — E. coli and Bacteroides — that indicate the presence of human and animal waste. They determined both bacteria are being introduced in San Juan County, and most samples tested positive for human bacteria.</p>
<p>Officials involved in the study have said leaking septic tanks and illegal waste dumping could be the sources of the bacteria. But New Mexico Environment Department spokesman Jim Winchester has said he knows of no evidence to support that conclusion.</p>
<p>“I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to say,” San Juan County Commission Chairman Keith Johns said.</p>
<p>He hopes to attend the meeting, he said. He will take time to learn the results either way, he said.</p>
<p>Concerns about nitrate levels in the San Juan River have prompted discussions about installing sewer systems in Kirtland, he said. It would be great if all communities in the county were connected to sewer systems, he said.</p>
<p>“We need to have a clean river,” he said.</p>
<p>But those connections will not be made in the near future, he said.</p>
<p>Farmington Mayor Tommy Roberts said a city representative will attend the meeting, if he doesn’t. The study is an important one, he said, and understanding its results is also important.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s going to be very important to pinpoint sources of any contamination,” he said.</p>
<p>The county’s rivers are already polluted, according to EPA documents. The La Plata and Animas rivers and San Juan River down stream of Aztec exceed federal E. coli standards. Most of the La Plata River and all of the San Juan River exceed federal sedimentation standards. The La Plata River and half of the Animas River exceed federal nutrients standards. Half of the Animas River exceeds federal phosphorus standards. The San Juan River downstream of Farmington and half of the Animas River are too cloudy. And the entire Animas River is too warm.</p>
<p>Dan Schwartz covers government for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4606 and [email protected]. Follow him @dtdschwartz on Twitter.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2015 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.daily-times.com" type="external">www.daily-times.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC</p>
<p>———-</p>
<p>Topics: t000002828,t000417869,t000002827,t000412858,g000362659,g000362661,g000215302,g000217873,g000066164</p> | 179 |
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<p>CARSON CITY — A retired FBI agent will be Nevada’s first statewide opioid coordinator.</p>
<p>Attorney General Aam Laxalt announced on Monday the appointment of Terry Kerns, whose job will be to bridge the gap between law enforcement agencies and victims’ service providers as Nevada responds to the opioid epidemic.</p>
<p>“As a former federal law enforcement officer and registered nurse, Kerns is a perfect fit to assist law enforcement and victim services coordinate responses to the opioid crisis,” Laxalt said in a statement. “As the chair of Nevada’s Substance Abuse Working Group, I understand that prevention goes hand-in-hand with law enforcement efforts.”</p>
<p>Kerns, who recently retired from the FBI, was last a supervisory agent for the agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.</p>
<p>“I’m honored to step into this new role where I can prioritize the public’s health and safety,” Kerns said in a statement. “I would like to thank Attorney General Laxalt for the opportunity to continue my public service, and look forward to working with the dedicated individuals committed to this mission.”</p>
<p>Kerns can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 702-486-0978.</p>
<p>Contact Ben Botkin at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or 775-461-0661. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/BenBotkin1" type="external">@BenBotkin1</a> on Twitter.</p> | Laxalt taps former FBI agent to deal with Nevada’s opioid crisis | false | https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/laxalt-taps-former-fbi-agent-to-deal-with-nevadas-opioid-crisis/ | 2017-10-16 | 1right-center
| Laxalt taps former FBI agent to deal with Nevada’s opioid crisis
<p>CARSON CITY — A retired FBI agent will be Nevada’s first statewide opioid coordinator.</p>
<p>Attorney General Aam Laxalt announced on Monday the appointment of Terry Kerns, whose job will be to bridge the gap between law enforcement agencies and victims’ service providers as Nevada responds to the opioid epidemic.</p>
<p>“As a former federal law enforcement officer and registered nurse, Kerns is a perfect fit to assist law enforcement and victim services coordinate responses to the opioid crisis,” Laxalt said in a statement. “As the chair of Nevada’s Substance Abuse Working Group, I understand that prevention goes hand-in-hand with law enforcement efforts.”</p>
<p>Kerns, who recently retired from the FBI, was last a supervisory agent for the agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.</p>
<p>“I’m honored to step into this new role where I can prioritize the public’s health and safety,” Kerns said in a statement. “I would like to thank Attorney General Laxalt for the opportunity to continue my public service, and look forward to working with the dedicated individuals committed to this mission.”</p>
<p>Kerns can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 702-486-0978.</p>
<p>Contact Ben Botkin at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or 775-461-0661. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/BenBotkin1" type="external">@BenBotkin1</a> on Twitter.</p> | 180 |
<p>Prison officials in California are set to start sending thousands of female inmates home early.</p>
<p>On Monday, the <a href="http://cdcrtoday.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&amp;updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&amp;max-results=" type="external">California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation</a> (CDCR) announced the implementation of the Alternative Custody Program (ACP), which is "aimed at reuniting low-level offenders with their families and providing inmates with rehabilitative services within the community."&#160;</p>
<p>"Approximately two-thirds of CDCR's female inmates are mothers whose children are either with relatives or are in foster care," CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement. "ACP is a step in breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration, as family involvement is one of the biggest indicators of an inmate's rehabilitation."</p>
<p>According to the Los Angeles Times, the move will also help the state meet a court-ordered deadline to make space in its <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-home-20110913,0,6210913.story" type="external">crowded prisons</a>. From the Times:</p>
<p>Mothers who were convicted of non-serious, non-sexual crimes - and have two years or less remaining on their sentences - could start going home as early as next week, prisons spokeswoman Dana Toyama said. The women would be required to wear GPS-enabled ankle bracelets and report to parole officers.</p>
<p>The CDCR said in its announcement that 45 percent of the state's female inmates are potentially available for the ACP, but approval will depend on individual reviews. Sex-offense convictions, escapes in the last 10 years and gang membership are among the exclusionary criteria outlined by the CDCR. The program is open only to female inmates for now, but could be opened up to male inmates in the future.</p>
<p>ACP is expected to save California $6 million next year.</p>
<p>The Times spoke with several critics of the program.</p>
<p>"If they were such great mothers to begin with, they never would have committed the heinous crime that got them sent to state prison," Harriet Salarno, founder of Sacramento-based Crime Victims United, told the paper.</p>
<p>CNN reports that <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/california-may-send-thousands-of-female-prisoners-home/?hpt=hp_t2" type="external">California</a> has the nation's largest prison system. In April, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that aims to reduce prison crowding by moving 33,000 low-level offenders to county jails.</p> | California set to send thousands of female inmates home early | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-09-13/california-set-send-thousands-female-inmates-home-early | 2011-09-13 | 3left-center
| California set to send thousands of female inmates home early
<p>Prison officials in California are set to start sending thousands of female inmates home early.</p>
<p>On Monday, the <a href="http://cdcrtoday.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&amp;updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&amp;max-results=" type="external">California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation</a> (CDCR) announced the implementation of the Alternative Custody Program (ACP), which is "aimed at reuniting low-level offenders with their families and providing inmates with rehabilitative services within the community."&#160;</p>
<p>"Approximately two-thirds of CDCR's female inmates are mothers whose children are either with relatives or are in foster care," CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement. "ACP is a step in breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration, as family involvement is one of the biggest indicators of an inmate's rehabilitation."</p>
<p>According to the Los Angeles Times, the move will also help the state meet a court-ordered deadline to make space in its <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-home-20110913,0,6210913.story" type="external">crowded prisons</a>. From the Times:</p>
<p>Mothers who were convicted of non-serious, non-sexual crimes - and have two years or less remaining on their sentences - could start going home as early as next week, prisons spokeswoman Dana Toyama said. The women would be required to wear GPS-enabled ankle bracelets and report to parole officers.</p>
<p>The CDCR said in its announcement that 45 percent of the state's female inmates are potentially available for the ACP, but approval will depend on individual reviews. Sex-offense convictions, escapes in the last 10 years and gang membership are among the exclusionary criteria outlined by the CDCR. The program is open only to female inmates for now, but could be opened up to male inmates in the future.</p>
<p>ACP is expected to save California $6 million next year.</p>
<p>The Times spoke with several critics of the program.</p>
<p>"If they were such great mothers to begin with, they never would have committed the heinous crime that got them sent to state prison," Harriet Salarno, founder of Sacramento-based Crime Victims United, told the paper.</p>
<p>CNN reports that <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/california-may-send-thousands-of-female-prisoners-home/?hpt=hp_t2" type="external">California</a> has the nation's largest prison system. In April, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law that aims to reduce prison crowding by moving 33,000 low-level offenders to county jails.</p> | 181 |
<p>The best sixth man playing for the National Rifle Association is a Democratic senator from California named Dianne Feinstein. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t.</p>
<p>(Despite the fact that liberals far and wide are calling for greater gun control in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, where Stephen Paddock open fired into a crowd of thousands attending a country music concert and killed 58 individuals, injuring over 500 more.)</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Indeed, Senator Dianne Feinstein shared in an interview on Sunday, October 8th that no legislation could have stopped Stephen Paddock from committing his horrific acts. She straight up admitted the truth about gun control laws. Who could have predicted that?</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/354440-feinstein-no-law-would-have-stopped-las-vegas-gunman" type="external">The Hill</a>:</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
<p>Feinstein spoke on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” about gun legislation in the wake of the attack launched from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel targeting a country music concert.</p>
<p>“Could there have been any law passed that would’ve stopped him?” Host John Dickerson asked the senator.</p>
<p>“No, he passed background checks registering for handguns and other weapons on multiple occasions,” Feinstein replied.</p>
<p>Feinstein’s remark comes as Republicans have started to express interest in a conversation about regulations for bump stock devices, which were found in the hotel room of the suspected gunman. The devices increase the possible rate of gun fire on semi-automatic weapons.</p>
<p>Soooo….I’m confused Feinstein.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Either legislation helps stop crime, stop tragic shootings, stop criminals, stop evil individuals like Stephen Paddock…and, hence, that is why we should pass further legislation… OR laws don’t stop anyone or anything…</p>
<p>And, if that is the case, we are busying ourselves to pass more legislation. Because it won’t change a darn thing.</p>
<p>But to say legislation doesn’t change anything and to push for legislation? That is just darn confusing, confounding, and, well, Californian.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>It is like <a href="" type="internal">Trey Gowdy</a> told <a href="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/" type="external">Louder with Crowder</a>:</p>
<p>We already have controls on what kind of guns you can have, where you can have them, when you can use them and what individuals can possess even a single bullet. So the question to me is whether or not current controls are adequate and there are two fundamental questions that you should put your finger on. What law had it existed at the time would have prevented this mass killing or another mass killing. What law, but for its lack of implementation could have prevented this. That’s one question. The other question is, among all the panoply of current gun laws, how are we doing enforcing them?”</p>
<p>Are we even enforcing the current laws? And, if we are, and that STILL isn’t doing anything…why, oh why, are we creating more laws?</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>We are barking up the absolute wrong tree. Liberals want to DO something. They want to respond with something.</p>
<p>But all they are doing is moving. They aren’t actually making any progress. They’re busying their minds, their state legislatures, the halls of the U.S. Capitol. And that makes them feel better, like they are taking some moral stand.</p>
<p>Like somehow movement equals progress or a solution.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>But it really doesn’t, because anything they try to come up with is not going to stop these things. Attacking inanimate objects is not a legitimate solution to the problem of mass shootings.</p>
<p>Liberals want to frame conservative legislators lack of action as inhumane, cruel, or cold but, instead, it is simply a pragmatic talking point.</p>
<p>The reason why ALL legislators aren’t calling for greater gun control legislation is because it doesn’t work (not to mention that our right of self-defense is not abrogated by unlawful usage of firearms).</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Period.</p>
<p>Feinstein even admitted as much herself.</p>
<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p> | Dianne Feinstein Admits It: No Law Would Have Stopped Las Vegas Gunman | true | http://thefederalistpapers.org/second-amendment-2/dianne-feinstein-admits-no-law-stopped-las-vegas-gunman | 0right
| Dianne Feinstein Admits It: No Law Would Have Stopped Las Vegas Gunman
<p>The best sixth man playing for the National Rifle Association is a Democratic senator from California named Dianne Feinstein. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t.</p>
<p>(Despite the fact that liberals far and wide are calling for greater gun control in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, where Stephen Paddock open fired into a crowd of thousands attending a country music concert and killed 58 individuals, injuring over 500 more.)</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Indeed, Senator Dianne Feinstein shared in an interview on Sunday, October 8th that no legislation could have stopped Stephen Paddock from committing his horrific acts. She straight up admitted the truth about gun control laws. Who could have predicted that?</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/354440-feinstein-no-law-would-have-stopped-las-vegas-gunman" type="external">The Hill</a>:</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
<p>Feinstein spoke on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” about gun legislation in the wake of the attack launched from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel targeting a country music concert.</p>
<p>“Could there have been any law passed that would’ve stopped him?” Host John Dickerson asked the senator.</p>
<p>“No, he passed background checks registering for handguns and other weapons on multiple occasions,” Feinstein replied.</p>
<p>Feinstein’s remark comes as Republicans have started to express interest in a conversation about regulations for bump stock devices, which were found in the hotel room of the suspected gunman. The devices increase the possible rate of gun fire on semi-automatic weapons.</p>
<p>Soooo….I’m confused Feinstein.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Either legislation helps stop crime, stop tragic shootings, stop criminals, stop evil individuals like Stephen Paddock…and, hence, that is why we should pass further legislation… OR laws don’t stop anyone or anything…</p>
<p>And, if that is the case, we are busying ourselves to pass more legislation. Because it won’t change a darn thing.</p>
<p>But to say legislation doesn’t change anything and to push for legislation? That is just darn confusing, confounding, and, well, Californian.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>It is like <a href="" type="internal">Trey Gowdy</a> told <a href="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/" type="external">Louder with Crowder</a>:</p>
<p>We already have controls on what kind of guns you can have, where you can have them, when you can use them and what individuals can possess even a single bullet. So the question to me is whether or not current controls are adequate and there are two fundamental questions that you should put your finger on. What law had it existed at the time would have prevented this mass killing or another mass killing. What law, but for its lack of implementation could have prevented this. That’s one question. The other question is, among all the panoply of current gun laws, how are we doing enforcing them?”</p>
<p>Are we even enforcing the current laws? And, if we are, and that STILL isn’t doing anything…why, oh why, are we creating more laws?</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>We are barking up the absolute wrong tree. Liberals want to DO something. They want to respond with something.</p>
<p>But all they are doing is moving. They aren’t actually making any progress. They’re busying their minds, their state legislatures, the halls of the U.S. Capitol. And that makes them feel better, like they are taking some moral stand.</p>
<p>Like somehow movement equals progress or a solution.</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>But it really doesn’t, because anything they try to come up with is not going to stop these things. Attacking inanimate objects is not a legitimate solution to the problem of mass shootings.</p>
<p>Liberals want to frame conservative legislators lack of action as inhumane, cruel, or cold but, instead, it is simply a pragmatic talking point.</p>
<p>The reason why ALL legislators aren’t calling for greater gun control legislation is because it doesn’t work (not to mention that our right of self-defense is not abrogated by unlawful usage of firearms).</p>
<p>Advertisement - story continues below</p>
<p>Period.</p>
<p>Feinstein even admitted as much herself.</p>
<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p> | 182 |
|
<p>Arizona: “We gotta immigration problem.”</p>
<p>United States: “yeh, tell that to California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, etc… we ain’t doing anything for them either!”</p>
<p>Jan Brewer: “ok, Arizona, let’s have state police have the power to stop people and ask them for their documentation if they look like someone who might be doing manual labor for us illegally.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney: “Gooooooo Arizona!”</p>
<p>Obama: “State’s Rights? Ha! &#160;I’m a Con Law professor. &#160;Try Bill of Rights. You can’t do that.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney: “Yeh they can.”</p>
<p>Small Government Conservative: “Wait, the government can’t just ask for your papers based on race. I can’t support this Romney guy!”</p>
<p>Rush, Hannity, other Bobble Heads: “This is America. &#160;What, are you some kinda Obama liberal? You just want the mexicans to take over and bring that socialist stuff they learned from the Spanish. &#160;Why do you think Spain is bankrupt? &#160;You want that here?”</p>
<p>Small Government Conservative: &#160;“Oh Yeh! &#160;Never-mind&#160;I said anything. &#160;Go Romney!”</p>
<p>Obama: “This has nothing to do with my trip to the NOLEO convention or the upcoming decision to come from the Supreme Court, but we should not punish qualified immigrants who are here illegally.”</p>
<p>Supreme Court: “You can’t just ask for papers because you think someone is illegal. Pretty basic stuff Arizona. &#160;However, you can ask for documentation in the regular course of investigation, just like everyone else does.”</p>
<p>Fox (minus Judge Napolitano): “Victory for Romney”</p>
<p>MSNBC: “Victory for Obama”</p>
<p>Justice Scalia: “Damn you Obamaaaaa!”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Chad's Cliff Notes: Winner of Supreme Court's Immigration Ruling | false | https://ivn.us/2012/06/26/chads-cliff-notes-the-immigration-debate/ | 2012-06-26 | 2least
| Chad's Cliff Notes: Winner of Supreme Court's Immigration Ruling
<p>Arizona: “We gotta immigration problem.”</p>
<p>United States: “yeh, tell that to California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, etc… we ain’t doing anything for them either!”</p>
<p>Jan Brewer: “ok, Arizona, let’s have state police have the power to stop people and ask them for their documentation if they look like someone who might be doing manual labor for us illegally.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney: “Gooooooo Arizona!”</p>
<p>Obama: “State’s Rights? Ha! &#160;I’m a Con Law professor. &#160;Try Bill of Rights. You can’t do that.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney: “Yeh they can.”</p>
<p>Small Government Conservative: “Wait, the government can’t just ask for your papers based on race. I can’t support this Romney guy!”</p>
<p>Rush, Hannity, other Bobble Heads: “This is America. &#160;What, are you some kinda Obama liberal? You just want the mexicans to take over and bring that socialist stuff they learned from the Spanish. &#160;Why do you think Spain is bankrupt? &#160;You want that here?”</p>
<p>Small Government Conservative: &#160;“Oh Yeh! &#160;Never-mind&#160;I said anything. &#160;Go Romney!”</p>
<p>Obama: “This has nothing to do with my trip to the NOLEO convention or the upcoming decision to come from the Supreme Court, but we should not punish qualified immigrants who are here illegally.”</p>
<p>Supreme Court: “You can’t just ask for papers because you think someone is illegal. Pretty basic stuff Arizona. &#160;However, you can ask for documentation in the regular course of investigation, just like everyone else does.”</p>
<p>Fox (minus Judge Napolitano): “Victory for Romney”</p>
<p>MSNBC: “Victory for Obama”</p>
<p>Justice Scalia: “Damn you Obamaaaaa!”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 183 |
<p>On the eve of the meeting intended to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at Annapolis, Maryland, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that Israel will build no new West Bank settlements, but will not “strangle” existing Israel settlements. This means that construction in the 149 existing Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank that are strangling Palestinians, including the settlements on our village’s land, will continue unchecked. Olmert’s cynical announcement underlines our fear that Israel, with US support, will insist on retaining most West Bank settlements in the upcoming negotiations, locking Palestinians into a “separate but unequal” position.</p>
<p>When United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visited the Middle East a few weeks ago, people from our small village of Bil’in joined neighboring villages to send her a message. We protested peacefully against a West Bank highway near us that is reserved for Jewish Israeli settlers, and off-limits to Palestinians, though it was built on Palestinian land. Our banner read: “Condi, What would Rosa Parks do?”</p>
<p>We know that Dr. Rice experienced the bitter taste of discrimination growing up in the South during the US civil rights struggle. In Bil’in, we’ve drawn inspiration from the US civil rights movement as we’ve carried out a three year nonviolent resistance campaign against the discriminatory policies of Israel’s military occupation.</p>
<p>We share Dr. Rice’s admiration for the courage of Rosa Parks who was arrested in Alabama, Rice’s home state, for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. As Palestinians we aren’t even allowed in buses on many roads in our own country, because 200 miles of the best West Bank roads are reserved for Israeli Jewish settlers.1 The color of Palestinian license plates is different from the licenses of Israelis. Palestinian plates are not allowed on most of the highways crisscrossing the West Bank, many of which were built with US government funding. Palestinians have been banned for five years now from Highway 443 where we protested.</p>
<p>According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are 561 physical obstacles and checkpoints inside the West Bank restricting Palestinian movement within the West Bank2, in comparison with only eight checkpoints which separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Nearly all the obstacles and checkpoints are located along the West Bank roads reserved for Israelis. This makes getting to the hospital, school and work or visiting relatives painstakingly difficult or impossible for us. This fragmentation of the West Bank has devastated our economy.</p>
<p>For Palestinians, accepting a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on just 22% of our historic homeland was already a dramatic compromise. But President Bush promised Israel in 2004 that in any negotiated agreement with the Palestinians Israel would retain its “already existing major population centers” in the West Bank.</p>
<p>However, all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. By annexing to Israel strategically located clusters of settlements, or “settlement blocs”, and their highways which carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves, Israel will gain permanent control of our movement, borders, water, and cut us off from Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The Israeli organization Peace Now reported a few weeks ago that the population growth rate in the settlements is three times the growth rate within Israel.3 We’re experiencing such rapid settlement construction around Bil’in and throughout the West Bank that I can’t even find an accurate map of the West Bank for my son.</p>
<p>In 2001, Israeli developers began building settlement homes on land seized from Bil’in, calling them a neighborhood of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc. Four years later, Israel’s segregation wall separated Bil’in from 50% of our agricultural land under the pretext of protecting this new settlement. In response, we held over 200 nonviolent protests together with Israeli and international supporters.</p>
<p>Hundreds of us were injured and arrested. After our protests, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the wall’s route in Bil’in must be changed to return around half of our seized land. Though we celebrated this success, Israel continues to build on our land that wasn’t returned and plans to annex it as part of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc.4</p>
<p>Israel has already de facto annexed the 10.2% of the West Bank that lies between the Green Line and the segregation wall, including the major settlement blocs and 80% of Israel’s 450,000 settlers. The segregation wall, settlements and settlement roads carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves.</p>
<p>We pray that our children will not spend their lives under Israeli military occupation. We hope that the Annapolis meeting will bring our dreams of freedom closer to fulfillment. But we are concerned that if Israel is allowed to keep most of its settlements and the roads that connect them, then the existing system of “separate but unequal” will be cemented in place in a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>MOHAMMED KHATIB is a leading member of Bilin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and the secretary of its village council.</p>
<p>[1] <a href="http://imeu.net/engine/uploads/forbidden_roads_-_israels_discriminatory_road_regime_in_the_west_bank.pdf" type="external">Forbidden roads: The discriminatory West Bank road regime</a>, B’Tselem. [2] OCHA Closure Update: October 2007, <a href="" type="internal">The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.</a> [3] <a href="" type="internal">West Bank settlements ‘expanding’ BBC</a>, 7 November 2007. [4] <a href="" type="internal">One Palestinian Village Struggles Against Israel’s Ever-Expanding “Settlements”</a>, Alternet, 26 September 2007.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Separate and Unequal in Palestine | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/11/28/separate-and-unequal-in-palestine/ | 2007-11-28 | 4left
| Separate and Unequal in Palestine
<p>On the eve of the meeting intended to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at Annapolis, Maryland, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that Israel will build no new West Bank settlements, but will not “strangle” existing Israel settlements. This means that construction in the 149 existing Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank that are strangling Palestinians, including the settlements on our village’s land, will continue unchecked. Olmert’s cynical announcement underlines our fear that Israel, with US support, will insist on retaining most West Bank settlements in the upcoming negotiations, locking Palestinians into a “separate but unequal” position.</p>
<p>When United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visited the Middle East a few weeks ago, people from our small village of Bil’in joined neighboring villages to send her a message. We protested peacefully against a West Bank highway near us that is reserved for Jewish Israeli settlers, and off-limits to Palestinians, though it was built on Palestinian land. Our banner read: “Condi, What would Rosa Parks do?”</p>
<p>We know that Dr. Rice experienced the bitter taste of discrimination growing up in the South during the US civil rights struggle. In Bil’in, we’ve drawn inspiration from the US civil rights movement as we’ve carried out a three year nonviolent resistance campaign against the discriminatory policies of Israel’s military occupation.</p>
<p>We share Dr. Rice’s admiration for the courage of Rosa Parks who was arrested in Alabama, Rice’s home state, for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. As Palestinians we aren’t even allowed in buses on many roads in our own country, because 200 miles of the best West Bank roads are reserved for Israeli Jewish settlers.1 The color of Palestinian license plates is different from the licenses of Israelis. Palestinian plates are not allowed on most of the highways crisscrossing the West Bank, many of which were built with US government funding. Palestinians have been banned for five years now from Highway 443 where we protested.</p>
<p>According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are 561 physical obstacles and checkpoints inside the West Bank restricting Palestinian movement within the West Bank2, in comparison with only eight checkpoints which separate the West Bank from Israel proper. Nearly all the obstacles and checkpoints are located along the West Bank roads reserved for Israelis. This makes getting to the hospital, school and work or visiting relatives painstakingly difficult or impossible for us. This fragmentation of the West Bank has devastated our economy.</p>
<p>For Palestinians, accepting a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on just 22% of our historic homeland was already a dramatic compromise. But President Bush promised Israel in 2004 that in any negotiated agreement with the Palestinians Israel would retain its “already existing major population centers” in the West Bank.</p>
<p>However, all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. By annexing to Israel strategically located clusters of settlements, or “settlement blocs”, and their highways which carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves, Israel will gain permanent control of our movement, borders, water, and cut us off from Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The Israeli organization Peace Now reported a few weeks ago that the population growth rate in the settlements is three times the growth rate within Israel.3 We’re experiencing such rapid settlement construction around Bil’in and throughout the West Bank that I can’t even find an accurate map of the West Bank for my son.</p>
<p>In 2001, Israeli developers began building settlement homes on land seized from Bil’in, calling them a neighborhood of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc. Four years later, Israel’s segregation wall separated Bil’in from 50% of our agricultural land under the pretext of protecting this new settlement. In response, we held over 200 nonviolent protests together with Israeli and international supporters.</p>
<p>Hundreds of us were injured and arrested. After our protests, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the wall’s route in Bil’in must be changed to return around half of our seized land. Though we celebrated this success, Israel continues to build on our land that wasn’t returned and plans to annex it as part of the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc.4</p>
<p>Israel has already de facto annexed the 10.2% of the West Bank that lies between the Green Line and the segregation wall, including the major settlement blocs and 80% of Israel’s 450,000 settlers. The segregation wall, settlements and settlement roads carve Palestinian areas into isolated enclaves.</p>
<p>We pray that our children will not spend their lives under Israeli military occupation. We hope that the Annapolis meeting will bring our dreams of freedom closer to fulfillment. But we are concerned that if Israel is allowed to keep most of its settlements and the roads that connect them, then the existing system of “separate but unequal” will be cemented in place in a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>MOHAMMED KHATIB is a leading member of Bilin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and the secretary of its village council.</p>
<p>[1] <a href="http://imeu.net/engine/uploads/forbidden_roads_-_israels_discriminatory_road_regime_in_the_west_bank.pdf" type="external">Forbidden roads: The discriminatory West Bank road regime</a>, B’Tselem. [2] OCHA Closure Update: October 2007, <a href="" type="internal">The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.</a> [3] <a href="" type="internal">West Bank settlements ‘expanding’ BBC</a>, 7 November 2007. [4] <a href="" type="internal">One Palestinian Village Struggles Against Israel’s Ever-Expanding “Settlements”</a>, Alternet, 26 September 2007.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 184 |
<p>The <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New-York-Yankees/" type="external">New York Yankees</a> have chosen <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Aaron_Boone/" type="external">Aaron Boone</a> to replace <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Joe_Girardi/" type="external">Joe Girardi</a> as their manager, according to multiple reports Friday.</p>
<p>Boone, who helped the Yankees to a 2003 World Series title with a walk-off home run in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Boston-Red-Sox/" type="external">Boston Red Sox</a>, interviewed recently with his former team.</p>
<p>The New York Daily News reported that the Yankees’ brass likes Boone’s “polish.”</p>
<p>New York general manager <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Brian_Cashman/" type="external">Brian Cashman</a> reportedly is intrigued by Boone despite no previous managerial or coaching experience. Boone has been serving as an analyst with ESPN.</p>
<p>Cashman recommended Boone to owner Hal Steinbrenner from a pool of six interviewees that included <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Carlos_Beltran/" type="external">Carlos Beltran</a>, Hensley Meulens, Rob Thomson, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris_Woodward/" type="external">Chris Woodward</a> and Eric Wedge. The search for Girardi’s replacement took over a month.</p>
<p>Various media reports earlier Friday suggested that the decision came down to Boone and Meulens after Beltran and Thomson were both informed that they were not getting the job.</p>
<p>Meulens is currently working as the bench coach for the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/San-Francisco-Giants/" type="external">San Francisco Giants</a> and was on the coaching staff for all three of the Giants’ World Series championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014.</p>
<p>Meulens is a former top prospect in the Yankees organization who played parts of seven major league seasons from 1989 to 1998, including five with New York.</p> | New York Yankees: Aaron Boone reportedly tabbed new manager | false | https://newsline.com/new-york-yankees-aaron-boone-reportedly-tabbed-new-manager/ | 2017-12-02 | 1right-center
| New York Yankees: Aaron Boone reportedly tabbed new manager
<p>The <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New-York-Yankees/" type="external">New York Yankees</a> have chosen <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Aaron_Boone/" type="external">Aaron Boone</a> to replace <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Joe_Girardi/" type="external">Joe Girardi</a> as their manager, according to multiple reports Friday.</p>
<p>Boone, who helped the Yankees to a 2003 World Series title with a walk-off home run in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Boston-Red-Sox/" type="external">Boston Red Sox</a>, interviewed recently with his former team.</p>
<p>The New York Daily News reported that the Yankees’ brass likes Boone’s “polish.”</p>
<p>New York general manager <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Brian_Cashman/" type="external">Brian Cashman</a> reportedly is intrigued by Boone despite no previous managerial or coaching experience. Boone has been serving as an analyst with ESPN.</p>
<p>Cashman recommended Boone to owner Hal Steinbrenner from a pool of six interviewees that included <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Carlos_Beltran/" type="external">Carlos Beltran</a>, Hensley Meulens, Rob Thomson, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris_Woodward/" type="external">Chris Woodward</a> and Eric Wedge. The search for Girardi’s replacement took over a month.</p>
<p>Various media reports earlier Friday suggested that the decision came down to Boone and Meulens after Beltran and Thomson were both informed that they were not getting the job.</p>
<p>Meulens is currently working as the bench coach for the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/San-Francisco-Giants/" type="external">San Francisco Giants</a> and was on the coaching staff for all three of the Giants’ World Series championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014.</p>
<p>Meulens is a former top prospect in the Yankees organization who played parts of seven major league seasons from 1989 to 1998, including five with New York.</p> | 185 |
<p>Model Gigi Hadid used her co-hosting gig at Sunday’s American Music Awards to mock another model — incoming first lady Melania Trump.</p>
<p>After turning away from the camera to “prepare” her imitation of Mrs. Trump, she put on a mock Eastern European accent to which social media did not take kindly. She riffed off Mrs. Trump having taken excerpts of a Michelle Obama speech for her own address at the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p>“‘I love my husband, President Barack Obama. And our children Sasha and Malia,” she said in an accent reminiscent of Natasha on “Rocky &amp; Bullwinkle.”</p>
<p>Co-host Jay Pharoah cheered her: “spot on!”</p>
<p>There was no immediate reaction to the latest pop-culture ridicule from President-elect Donald Trump, who spent part of the weekend denouncing the casts of “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live.”</p>
<p>One Twitter user tried to alert him, though.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow morning @realDonaldTrump will tweet demanding Gigi Hadid to apologize for the Melania Trump impression. #AMAs,” <a href="https://twitter.com/HafizDoc/status/800507359856644096" type="external">tweeted</a> Toronto user Hafiz Shariff.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/nov/20/gigi-hadid-debuts-melania-trump-impression-amas/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | AMA host Gigi Hadid uses forum to mock Melania Trump | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/20/gigi-hadid-debuts-melania-trump-impression-amas/ | 2016-11-20 | 0right
| AMA host Gigi Hadid uses forum to mock Melania Trump
<p>Model Gigi Hadid used her co-hosting gig at Sunday’s American Music Awards to mock another model — incoming first lady Melania Trump.</p>
<p>After turning away from the camera to “prepare” her imitation of Mrs. Trump, she put on a mock Eastern European accent to which social media did not take kindly. She riffed off Mrs. Trump having taken excerpts of a Michelle Obama speech for her own address at the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p>“‘I love my husband, President Barack Obama. And our children Sasha and Malia,” she said in an accent reminiscent of Natasha on “Rocky &amp; Bullwinkle.”</p>
<p>Co-host Jay Pharoah cheered her: “spot on!”</p>
<p>There was no immediate reaction to the latest pop-culture ridicule from President-elect Donald Trump, who spent part of the weekend denouncing the casts of “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live.”</p>
<p>One Twitter user tried to alert him, though.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow morning @realDonaldTrump will tweet demanding Gigi Hadid to apologize for the Melania Trump impression. #AMAs,” <a href="https://twitter.com/HafizDoc/status/800507359856644096" type="external">tweeted</a> Toronto user Hafiz Shariff.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/nov/20/gigi-hadid-debuts-melania-trump-impression-amas/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 186 |
<p />
<p>Most hardworking Americans aren't in the habit of saying no to free money. It's surprising, therefore, to learn that roughly 1 million taxpayers are set to forgo refunds from the 2013 tax year. According to a March 1 statement, the Internal Revenue Service is sitting on as much as $1 billion in total refunds for unfiled 2013 returns. If you're among the million Americans who stand to collect, now's the time to get that old return in -- before it's too late.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Generally speaking, you're supposed to file a tax return each year in time for the deadline, which, for 2017, is April 18. (Yes, you get a few extra days this year.) That said, you technically have a three-year window to claim a refund, which means that if you've yet to file your 2013 return, you still have over a month to do so. Once that April 18 deadline passes, however, you'll no longer have an opportunity to get at that money, at which point it will go straight to the U.S. Treasury instead.</p>
<p>IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.</p>
<p>All in, the IRS says it could owe up to $1 billion in total refunds for the 2013 tax year. Though the median estimated refund varies by state, it ranges from $619 in Idaho to $917 in Alaska. (Note that these figures apply to federal, not state, refunds.)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Now if you're worried that filing your 2013 tax return three years late will result in a penalty that wipes out any potential refund and then some, fear not. There's no penalty for filing a return after the deadline if the IRS owes you money. Rather, it's the opposite situation you need to worry about.</p>
<p>If you owe the IRS money and are late filing your return, you could face a penalty equal to 5% of the taxes you owe for every month your return is late, up to a maximum of 25%. And if you owe money and file your return more than 60 days after the deadline, you'll face a minimum penalty of $135 or 100% of your unpaid tax bill, whichever is smaller. But again, if you're the one who's owed money, you won't be penalized for getting your return in late.</p>
<p>Now keep in mind that if you've also yet to file your 2014 and 2015 returns, your 2013 tax refund may be withheld by the IRS until you get those forms in. Additionally, if you're due a refund from 2013 but owe the IRS money from another tax year, that 2013 refund will first be applied to whatever balance you have outstanding. The same holds true if you're delinquent on a federal student loan or child support payment -- you won't get that money in hand, but instead, it will be used to offset your obligations. But if it's just that 2013 return you neglected to file and you are due a refund, you should have no problems collecting your money in full.</p>
<p>Failing to file a tax return at any time could mean losing out on a pretty sizable refund, and this especially holds true if you're a lower earner. Each year, an estimated 20% of eligible filers miss out on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which this year could be worth up to $6,318 depending on your earnings and the number of qualifying children in your household.</p>
<p>Back in 2013, the EITC was worth as much as $6,044, and the income thresholds to qualify were as follows:</p>
<p>DATA SOURCE: IRS.</p>
<p>Note that these limits have since increased, which means that if you currently earn slightly more than what you're seeing above, you may still qualify for the 2016 tax year.</p>
<p>If you're among the many Americans who failed to submit a 2013 return (or a 2014 or 2015 return, for that matter), you should know that it isn't too late to file those forms and get your hands on some much-needed cash. It's a far better alternative than donating that money to the U.S. Treasury and permanently kissing it goodbye.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's How 1 Million Taxpayers Might Lose Out on $1 Billion in Refunds | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/05/here-how-1-million-taxpayers-might-lose-out-on-1-billion-in-refunds.html | 2017-03-17 | 0right
| Here's How 1 Million Taxpayers Might Lose Out on $1 Billion in Refunds
<p />
<p>Most hardworking Americans aren't in the habit of saying no to free money. It's surprising, therefore, to learn that roughly 1 million taxpayers are set to forgo refunds from the 2013 tax year. According to a March 1 statement, the Internal Revenue Service is sitting on as much as $1 billion in total refunds for unfiled 2013 returns. If you're among the million Americans who stand to collect, now's the time to get that old return in -- before it's too late.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Generally speaking, you're supposed to file a tax return each year in time for the deadline, which, for 2017, is April 18. (Yes, you get a few extra days this year.) That said, you technically have a three-year window to claim a refund, which means that if you've yet to file your 2013 return, you still have over a month to do so. Once that April 18 deadline passes, however, you'll no longer have an opportunity to get at that money, at which point it will go straight to the U.S. Treasury instead.</p>
<p>IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.</p>
<p>All in, the IRS says it could owe up to $1 billion in total refunds for the 2013 tax year. Though the median estimated refund varies by state, it ranges from $619 in Idaho to $917 in Alaska. (Note that these figures apply to federal, not state, refunds.)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Now if you're worried that filing your 2013 tax return three years late will result in a penalty that wipes out any potential refund and then some, fear not. There's no penalty for filing a return after the deadline if the IRS owes you money. Rather, it's the opposite situation you need to worry about.</p>
<p>If you owe the IRS money and are late filing your return, you could face a penalty equal to 5% of the taxes you owe for every month your return is late, up to a maximum of 25%. And if you owe money and file your return more than 60 days after the deadline, you'll face a minimum penalty of $135 or 100% of your unpaid tax bill, whichever is smaller. But again, if you're the one who's owed money, you won't be penalized for getting your return in late.</p>
<p>Now keep in mind that if you've also yet to file your 2014 and 2015 returns, your 2013 tax refund may be withheld by the IRS until you get those forms in. Additionally, if you're due a refund from 2013 but owe the IRS money from another tax year, that 2013 refund will first be applied to whatever balance you have outstanding. The same holds true if you're delinquent on a federal student loan or child support payment -- you won't get that money in hand, but instead, it will be used to offset your obligations. But if it's just that 2013 return you neglected to file and you are due a refund, you should have no problems collecting your money in full.</p>
<p>Failing to file a tax return at any time could mean losing out on a pretty sizable refund, and this especially holds true if you're a lower earner. Each year, an estimated 20% of eligible filers miss out on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which this year could be worth up to $6,318 depending on your earnings and the number of qualifying children in your household.</p>
<p>Back in 2013, the EITC was worth as much as $6,044, and the income thresholds to qualify were as follows:</p>
<p>DATA SOURCE: IRS.</p>
<p>Note that these limits have since increased, which means that if you currently earn slightly more than what you're seeing above, you may still qualify for the 2016 tax year.</p>
<p>If you're among the many Americans who failed to submit a 2013 return (or a 2014 or 2015 return, for that matter), you should know that it isn't too late to file those forms and get your hands on some much-needed cash. It's a far better alternative than donating that money to the U.S. Treasury and permanently kissing it goodbye.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 187 |
<p>Alaa Abd El Fattah's letter was removed in secret from the Bab El-Khalq prison in Cairo by his wife, Manal Hassan. A <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/egypt-revolution-back-mubarak-jails" type="external">full translation</a> is published in the Guardian.</p>
<p>El Fattah describes being held in a cramped cell with eight other men, all of them detained on spurious charges. Some of them claim to have been tortured at the hands of the police.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-casbah/egyptians-challenge-military-rule-televised-debate" type="external">Egyptians challenge military rule in televised debate</a></p>
<p>El Fattah compares the experience to his previous arrests under Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship:</p>
<p>"I never expected to repeat the experience of five years ago: after a revolution that deposed the tyrant, I go back to his jails?"</p>
<p>The only difference, he says, is that the state security prosecutor has been replaced by a military one.</p>
<p>As many as 12,000 civilians are believed to have faced military tribunals since Mubarak's fall in February, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/egyptian-activist-alaa-accuses-army" type="external">the Guardian says</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/111022/press-censorship-threatens-egypts-unfinished-revoluti" type="external">Press censorship threatens Egypt's 'unfinished revolution'</a></p>
<p>The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has been accused of multiple human rights abuses since taking over from the toppled regime. El Fattah was jailed on Sunday after denouncing the army's response to a recent <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/the-night-maspero-turned-war-zone-firsthand-account" type="external">Coptic Christian protest</a> in Maspero, in which at least 27 people died.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/the-night-maspero-turned-war-zone-firsthand-account" type="external">The night Maspero turned into a war zone: A firsthand account</a></p>
<p>His arrest prompted mass protests in Cairo, reports <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContentMulti/25718/Multimedia.aspx" type="external">Al Ahram</a>, with thousands chainting "Freedom!" outside the walls of his prison:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Some fear Egypt's military rulers will seek to retain power permanently, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/middleeast/egypts-tourism-suffers-as-its-revolution-stalls.html?pagewanted=2" type="external">writes the New York Times</a>, pointing to recent posters of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi bearing the slogan "Egypt Above All".</p>
<p>Egyptians are due to vote in <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/egyptians-pessimistic-about-upcoming-parliamentary-electio" type="external">parliamentary elections</a> later this month, to appoint the national assembly that will draw up the country's new constitution.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/egyptians-pessimistic-about-upcoming-parliamentary-electio" type="external">Egyptians pessimistic about upcoming parliamentary elections</a></p> | Alaa Abd El Fattah: Jailed Egyptian blogger accuses army of abuse | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-02/alaa-abd-el-fattah-jailed-egyptian-blogger-accuses-army-abuse | 2011-11-02 | 3left-center
| Alaa Abd El Fattah: Jailed Egyptian blogger accuses army of abuse
<p>Alaa Abd El Fattah's letter was removed in secret from the Bab El-Khalq prison in Cairo by his wife, Manal Hassan. A <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/egypt-revolution-back-mubarak-jails" type="external">full translation</a> is published in the Guardian.</p>
<p>El Fattah describes being held in a cramped cell with eight other men, all of them detained on spurious charges. Some of them claim to have been tortured at the hands of the police.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-casbah/egyptians-challenge-military-rule-televised-debate" type="external">Egyptians challenge military rule in televised debate</a></p>
<p>El Fattah compares the experience to his previous arrests under Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship:</p>
<p>"I never expected to repeat the experience of five years ago: after a revolution that deposed the tyrant, I go back to his jails?"</p>
<p>The only difference, he says, is that the state security prosecutor has been replaced by a military one.</p>
<p>As many as 12,000 civilians are believed to have faced military tribunals since Mubarak's fall in February, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/egyptian-activist-alaa-accuses-army" type="external">the Guardian says</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/111022/press-censorship-threatens-egypts-unfinished-revoluti" type="external">Press censorship threatens Egypt's 'unfinished revolution'</a></p>
<p>The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has been accused of multiple human rights abuses since taking over from the toppled regime. El Fattah was jailed on Sunday after denouncing the army's response to a recent <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/the-night-maspero-turned-war-zone-firsthand-account" type="external">Coptic Christian protest</a> in Maspero, in which at least 27 people died.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/the-night-maspero-turned-war-zone-firsthand-account" type="external">The night Maspero turned into a war zone: A firsthand account</a></p>
<p>His arrest prompted mass protests in Cairo, reports <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContentMulti/25718/Multimedia.aspx" type="external">Al Ahram</a>, with thousands chainting "Freedom!" outside the walls of his prison:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Some fear Egypt's military rulers will seek to retain power permanently, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/middleeast/egypts-tourism-suffers-as-its-revolution-stalls.html?pagewanted=2" type="external">writes the New York Times</a>, pointing to recent posters of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi bearing the slogan "Egypt Above All".</p>
<p>Egyptians are due to vote in <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/egyptians-pessimistic-about-upcoming-parliamentary-electio" type="external">parliamentary elections</a> later this month, to appoint the national assembly that will draw up the country's new constitution.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/tahrir-square/egyptians-pessimistic-about-upcoming-parliamentary-electio" type="external">Egyptians pessimistic about upcoming parliamentary elections</a></p> | 188 |
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-1-4, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(six, one, four; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-1-4, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(six, one, four; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Cash 3 Evening' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/33888a42eb164db4aa8bf068d96e031f | 2018-01-19 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'Cash 3 Evening' game
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-1-4, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(six, one, four; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening's drawing of the Tennessee Lottery's "Cash 3 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-1-4, Lucky Sum: 11</p>
<p>(six, one, four; Lucky Sum: eleven)</p> | 189 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>01-03-06-09-11-12-17-18-21-22-23-24</p>
<p>(one, three, six, nine, eleven, twelve, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>01-03-06-09-11-12-17-18-21-22-23-24</p>
<p>(one, three, six, nine, eleven, twelve, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'All or Nothing Night' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7b70a4fb163b48559f2dc1974bc4f8de | 2018-01-09 | 2least
| Winning numbers drawn in 'All or Nothing Night' game
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>01-03-06-09-11-12-17-18-21-22-23-24</p>
<p>(one, three, six, nine, eleven, twelve, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>01-03-06-09-11-12-17-18-21-22-23-24</p>
<p>(one, three, six, nine, eleven, twelve, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p> | 190 |
<p>Nancy Pelosi can’t even get through a short statement about the attack on a colleague without botching it.</p>
<p>The House Minority Leader was addressing reporters on Thursday when she began referring to the “death” of Rep. Steve Scalise, before catching herself.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“Our hearts are broken over the assault that was made, really on all of us,” Pelosi said, referring to the left-wing activists rampage against Republican members of Congress and their staffers during a baseball practice on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“But personally heartbroken over the dea— uh,” she continued, pausing, closing her eyes and lowering her head, “of what happened to Steve Scalise, our colleague,” she finished.</p>
<p>Scalise’s prognosis appears to have become more unclear, according to President Trump’s statement on Thursday.</p>
<p>“It’s been much more difficult than people even thought at the time,” Trump said at the White House.</p>
<p>“He’s in some trouble, but he’s a great fighter and he’s going to be okay, we hope.”</p> | CONFUSION: Pelosi starts saying heartbroken over Scalise ‘death’ | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/nancy-pelosi-slips-says-heartbroken-death-rep-steve-scalise/ | 2017-06-15 | 0right
| CONFUSION: Pelosi starts saying heartbroken over Scalise ‘death’
<p>Nancy Pelosi can’t even get through a short statement about the attack on a colleague without botching it.</p>
<p>The House Minority Leader was addressing reporters on Thursday when she began referring to the “death” of Rep. Steve Scalise, before catching herself.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“Our hearts are broken over the assault that was made, really on all of us,” Pelosi said, referring to the left-wing activists rampage against Republican members of Congress and their staffers during a baseball practice on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“But personally heartbroken over the dea— uh,” she continued, pausing, closing her eyes and lowering her head, “of what happened to Steve Scalise, our colleague,” she finished.</p>
<p>Scalise’s prognosis appears to have become more unclear, according to President Trump’s statement on Thursday.</p>
<p>“It’s been much more difficult than people even thought at the time,” Trump said at the White House.</p>
<p>“He’s in some trouble, but he’s a great fighter and he’s going to be okay, we hope.”</p> | 191 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Wondering what a <a href="http://www.thegrindstone.com/2012/07/24/mentor/amelia-earhart-is-the-ultimate-feminist-icon-and-she-still-has-lots-to-teach-us/" type="external">feminist icon</a> living in the earlier half of the 1900’s thought about love and marriage? Look no further than the document above, a letter from Earhart to her future husband George Putnam.</p>
<p>You’ll remember Earhart became famous as the first female aviator to fly a solo transatlantic flight, redefining expectations of women along the way. Then, she tragically disappeared during a flight in 1937 (only to reappear in a <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23amelia.html?_r=0" type="external">“carefully scrubbed”</a> <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23amelia.html?_r=0" type="external">and “exasperatingly dull” movie</a> in which she was played by Hilary Swank, but that’s for another post).</p>
<p>Of course, we love her anyway for her courage and fierceness, and even moreso having stumbled upon this priceless prenup agreement. Reading through the document, one thing becomes very clear: this woman had a clear sense of what she wanted out of a marriage. And I find much of her marital vision compelling, even today.</p>
<p />
<p>Earhart first expresses some trepidation about getting married at all (“You must know again my reluctance to marry…”) for fear of derailing her career, which “means most” to her. Maybe it’s just me, but this kind of agonizing over work-life balance sounds like a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/" type="external">distinctly familiar dilemma</a> to the modern feminist. Earhart goes on to give the rough outline of an open marriage (“I shall not hold you to any midaeval [sic] code of faithfulness” and emphasizes rather than monogamy a goal of “finding happiness together”, on which she finds the marriage to be contingent.</p>
<p>Surely there are a lot of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/24/feminist-wedding-jessica-valenti" type="external">modern day feminists</a> who can relate to Earhart’s sentiments about marriage. But while her vision is forward-thinking, the well-reasoned perspective laid out in these papers is strangely reassuring to me, in that it’s a good reminder that ours is hardly the first, second, or even third generation to struggle to define what it means to be an independent, feminist, and successful while also being a loving and supportive partner and perhaps spouse.</p>
<p>For those who are wondering if this little piece of history could be too good to be true, I share and respect your internet skepticism. But this one is real, folks. You can check out the full archive, including this prenup, at the Purdue University Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers <a href="http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/aearhart/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Via <a href="http://www.morganerichardson.com/" type="external">Morgane Richarson</a>. H/t <a href="http://amandahess.tumblr.com/post/37608176896/amelia-earharts-prenup" type="external">Amanda Hess</a>.</p> | Amelia Earhart prenup from the 1930’s lays out a pretty darn modern vision of marriage | true | http://feministing.com/2012/12/10/amelia-earhart-prenup-from-1930s-lays-out-a-pretty-darn-modern-vision-of-marriage/ | 4left
| Amelia Earhart prenup from the 1930’s lays out a pretty darn modern vision of marriage
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Wondering what a <a href="http://www.thegrindstone.com/2012/07/24/mentor/amelia-earhart-is-the-ultimate-feminist-icon-and-she-still-has-lots-to-teach-us/" type="external">feminist icon</a> living in the earlier half of the 1900’s thought about love and marriage? Look no further than the document above, a letter from Earhart to her future husband George Putnam.</p>
<p>You’ll remember Earhart became famous as the first female aviator to fly a solo transatlantic flight, redefining expectations of women along the way. Then, she tragically disappeared during a flight in 1937 (only to reappear in a <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23amelia.html?_r=0" type="external">“carefully scrubbed”</a> <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23amelia.html?_r=0" type="external">and “exasperatingly dull” movie</a> in which she was played by Hilary Swank, but that’s for another post).</p>
<p>Of course, we love her anyway for her courage and fierceness, and even moreso having stumbled upon this priceless prenup agreement. Reading through the document, one thing becomes very clear: this woman had a clear sense of what she wanted out of a marriage. And I find much of her marital vision compelling, even today.</p>
<p />
<p>Earhart first expresses some trepidation about getting married at all (“You must know again my reluctance to marry…”) for fear of derailing her career, which “means most” to her. Maybe it’s just me, but this kind of agonizing over work-life balance sounds like a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/" type="external">distinctly familiar dilemma</a> to the modern feminist. Earhart goes on to give the rough outline of an open marriage (“I shall not hold you to any midaeval [sic] code of faithfulness” and emphasizes rather than monogamy a goal of “finding happiness together”, on which she finds the marriage to be contingent.</p>
<p>Surely there are a lot of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/24/feminist-wedding-jessica-valenti" type="external">modern day feminists</a> who can relate to Earhart’s sentiments about marriage. But while her vision is forward-thinking, the well-reasoned perspective laid out in these papers is strangely reassuring to me, in that it’s a good reminder that ours is hardly the first, second, or even third generation to struggle to define what it means to be an independent, feminist, and successful while also being a loving and supportive partner and perhaps spouse.</p>
<p>For those who are wondering if this little piece of history could be too good to be true, I share and respect your internet skepticism. But this one is real, folks. You can check out the full archive, including this prenup, at the Purdue University Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers <a href="http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/aearhart/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Via <a href="http://www.morganerichardson.com/" type="external">Morgane Richarson</a>. H/t <a href="http://amandahess.tumblr.com/post/37608176896/amelia-earharts-prenup" type="external">Amanda Hess</a>.</p> | 192 |
|
<p>Community colleges are an essential part of San Diego’s success as a city. Students either earn career and technical certification or transition into a university. Bernie Rhinerson believes it is the job of the community colleges and its board of trustees to secure the connections between the education provided and the students’ next step.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is a candidate for the <a href="http://sdccd.edu/public/district/" type="external">San Diego Community College District</a> (SDCCD) Board of Trustees. He highlights his priority for community colleges in <a href="http://www.smartvoter.org/2012/06/05/ca/sd/vote/rhinerson_b/paper1.html" type="external">his ballot statement</a>:</p>
<p>Completion of an A.A. or A.S. degree must lead to placement in a four year college or university. Our career technical programs must also be linked to real world job opportunities.&#160;This extremely difficult economy is not the time to cut back on access to critically needed education and job training.</p>
<p>Rhinerson sees two of the biggest challenges facing SDCCD as completion rates and funding. He explains how he would take on those challenges:</p>
<p>To increase completion rates, I support the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/PolicyInAction/StudentSuccessTaskForce.aspx" type="external">Student Success Task Force</a>, which <a href="http://www.sdccd.edu/public/administration/carroll.shtml" type="external">Chancellor Dr. Constance Carrol</a> participated in. These recommendations would make substantive changes to student assessments, registration policies and other policies that will help students make progress on their educational plans and help move them toward a degree and skills certifications.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is&#160;referring&#160;to the <a href="" type="internal">Student Success Act</a>, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown in&#160;September. The bill is for increasing effective matriculation to make sure students understand the requirements for completion.</p>
<p>On the issue of funding, Rhinerson says he “will be a strong advocate for public education funding.” He is a proponent of Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative Proposition 30. Mr. Rhinerson stresses the return of investment when governments invest in education:</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.collegecampaign.org/index.php/download_file/view/737/91/" type="external">recent study by the Campaign for College Opportunity</a> shows that for every dollar that California invests in students who graduate, the state will receive a net benefit on that investment of four dollars and fifty cents. Education is a great investment for our state.</p>
<p>The race for the community college board is not a highly publicized contest. Candidates who seek to represent educational institutions do not have the same resources as politicians. Bernie Rhinerson says his biggest challenge is getting name identification with voters and, of course, raising money. He further added: “It is also a challenge to campaign when you have a full time job. This is truly a public service position and not a political career for me.”</p>
<p>Since the community college board election is a low-profile race, Bernie Rhinerson recommends that voters should:</p>
<p>Get informed about the candidates and choose a candidate who has the best experience and commitment for the position. The community college board needs a leader who understands public education and who will be a strong advocate for students and for the benefits that public education brings to our local economy.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is a two time graduate of San Diego State University. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Public Administration. He is currently the chief of staff for the San Diego Unified School District and teaches public administration at SDSU. He was also a past president of the SDSU Alumni Association.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson also has 30 years experience in private business. He <a href="http://www.bernie4collegeboard.org/sample-page/" type="external">has worked at</a> Stoorza, Ziegaus &amp; Metzger, Four Square Productions, and Southwest Strategies in high executive positions.</p>
<p>One seat is open for the San Diego Community College Board of Trustees, as current District B representative Bill Schwandt is retiring. District B&#160;covers northern San Diego including Mira Mesa and Scripps Ranch. Bernie Rhinerson is running for the open seat against renewable energy businessman Scott Hasson.</p>
<p>The San Diego Community College District includes three campuses: Mesa, City, and Miramar College. SDCCD also includes six&#160;Continuing&#160;Education campuses, where SDUSD board candidate <a href="" type="internal">Marne Foster</a> has worked extensively.</p>
<p>In the 2009-2010 academic year, SDCCD enrolled a total of 131,403 students.&#160;74,126 were attending one of the three undergraduate campuses and&#160;60,273 were attending Continuing Education campuses.</p> | Bernie Rhinerson Prioritizes Achievement for Community Colleges | false | https://ivn.us/2012/10/25/bernie-rhinerson-prioritizes-achievement-for-community-colleges/ | 2012-10-25 | 2least
| Bernie Rhinerson Prioritizes Achievement for Community Colleges
<p>Community colleges are an essential part of San Diego’s success as a city. Students either earn career and technical certification or transition into a university. Bernie Rhinerson believes it is the job of the community colleges and its board of trustees to secure the connections between the education provided and the students’ next step.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is a candidate for the <a href="http://sdccd.edu/public/district/" type="external">San Diego Community College District</a> (SDCCD) Board of Trustees. He highlights his priority for community colleges in <a href="http://www.smartvoter.org/2012/06/05/ca/sd/vote/rhinerson_b/paper1.html" type="external">his ballot statement</a>:</p>
<p>Completion of an A.A. or A.S. degree must lead to placement in a four year college or university. Our career technical programs must also be linked to real world job opportunities.&#160;This extremely difficult economy is not the time to cut back on access to critically needed education and job training.</p>
<p>Rhinerson sees two of the biggest challenges facing SDCCD as completion rates and funding. He explains how he would take on those challenges:</p>
<p>To increase completion rates, I support the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/PolicyInAction/StudentSuccessTaskForce.aspx" type="external">Student Success Task Force</a>, which <a href="http://www.sdccd.edu/public/administration/carroll.shtml" type="external">Chancellor Dr. Constance Carrol</a> participated in. These recommendations would make substantive changes to student assessments, registration policies and other policies that will help students make progress on their educational plans and help move them toward a degree and skills certifications.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is&#160;referring&#160;to the <a href="" type="internal">Student Success Act</a>, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown in&#160;September. The bill is for increasing effective matriculation to make sure students understand the requirements for completion.</p>
<p>On the issue of funding, Rhinerson says he “will be a strong advocate for public education funding.” He is a proponent of Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative Proposition 30. Mr. Rhinerson stresses the return of investment when governments invest in education:</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.collegecampaign.org/index.php/download_file/view/737/91/" type="external">recent study by the Campaign for College Opportunity</a> shows that for every dollar that California invests in students who graduate, the state will receive a net benefit on that investment of four dollars and fifty cents. Education is a great investment for our state.</p>
<p>The race for the community college board is not a highly publicized contest. Candidates who seek to represent educational institutions do not have the same resources as politicians. Bernie Rhinerson says his biggest challenge is getting name identification with voters and, of course, raising money. He further added: “It is also a challenge to campaign when you have a full time job. This is truly a public service position and not a political career for me.”</p>
<p>Since the community college board election is a low-profile race, Bernie Rhinerson recommends that voters should:</p>
<p>Get informed about the candidates and choose a candidate who has the best experience and commitment for the position. The community college board needs a leader who understands public education and who will be a strong advocate for students and for the benefits that public education brings to our local economy.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson is a two time graduate of San Diego State University. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Public Administration. He is currently the chief of staff for the San Diego Unified School District and teaches public administration at SDSU. He was also a past president of the SDSU Alumni Association.</p>
<p>Bernie Rhinerson also has 30 years experience in private business. He <a href="http://www.bernie4collegeboard.org/sample-page/" type="external">has worked at</a> Stoorza, Ziegaus &amp; Metzger, Four Square Productions, and Southwest Strategies in high executive positions.</p>
<p>One seat is open for the San Diego Community College Board of Trustees, as current District B representative Bill Schwandt is retiring. District B&#160;covers northern San Diego including Mira Mesa and Scripps Ranch. Bernie Rhinerson is running for the open seat against renewable energy businessman Scott Hasson.</p>
<p>The San Diego Community College District includes three campuses: Mesa, City, and Miramar College. SDCCD also includes six&#160;Continuing&#160;Education campuses, where SDUSD board candidate <a href="" type="internal">Marne Foster</a> has worked extensively.</p>
<p>In the 2009-2010 academic year, SDCCD enrolled a total of 131,403 students.&#160;74,126 were attending one of the three undergraduate campuses and&#160;60,273 were attending Continuing Education campuses.</p> | 193 |
<p>When it comes to how we are insured for our health, there are basically three markets: government (Medicaid, Medicare), the employer market, and the individual market. Most Americans are insured either through the government or through their employer. The individual market is where everyone else purchases health insurance, and does so on their own. And this is the market most affected (and decimated) by ObamaCare.</p>
<p>On and off, throughout the last 15 years, it has been through the individual market that I have purchased my own health coverage. This means that I am quite familiar with the damage ObamaCare has done to those stuck in this market, most of whom are not poor enough for Medicaid -- which means they come from the working and middle class. Boiled down, ObamaCare has become a cruel tax on working people, who are now forced by their government to pay an enormous sum of money for what is now a nearly useless product.</p>
<p>Prior to ObamaCare the individual market was far from perfect. You could be denied coverage for any number of reasons, including a pre-existing condition. I was once denied coverage for refusing to take a prescription drug with flu-like side effects.</p>
<p>Even before ObamaCare, one of the individual market's biggest setbacks was a lack of competition. Because our government is corrupt, insurers were and are still not allowed to sell their product across state lines (Trump wants to remedy this, God bless him). This dramatically shrinks the market to within the individual state, which in turn means less competition for insurers, which in turn means higher prices and an increased amount of dickish corporate behavior.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, despite its wild imperfections, I was always able to purchase coverage at a reasonable price. Other than a bad lower back, for a 50 year-old guy I'm in good health. For this reason, I would always purchase what was called a "catastrophic plan" -- a policy with a $6000 to $10,000 deductible for anywhere from $150 to $225 a month.</p>
<p>Catastrophic plans were not just good for me personally, they were good for the entire health care system. What you had were millions of people insured in case of a dire health emergency, like a car crash or cancer, but otherwise doing something no one else does: treating the healthcare industry like a free market.</p>
<p>Somewhere around 90% of insured Americans do NOT treat the health care industry like a free market. Because someone else is paying for their health services (an insurance company), no one prices anything. Therefore, unlike every other product and service in America, health care providers are not under any pressure from customers when it comes to cost.</p>
<p>The perfect example of this is to look at the respective cost curves of medical procedures that are and are not covered by insurance. It is no secret that overall health care costs have exploded, and <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/06/21/health-care-rising-costs/" type="external">done so well ahead of inflation</a> (this is another broken ObamaCare promise). And yet, like plasma televisions and Bluray players, the cost of medical procedures not covered by insurance, like Lasik and plastic surgeries, have decreased. I can also tell you from personal experience that eye exams and glasses are much cheaper than they used to be. My annual flu shot, which is now available at the local CVS or Walgreens, is a mere $25, or about 1/10th of what a doctor visit for a flu shot would cost your insurance company.</p>
<p>Once you are outside of the insurance market, you also discover that even insured services are cheaper. Since I now pay everything out of pocket, everything is cheaper. My doctors charge much less for visits and my prescriptions are actually cheaper than what my co-pay cost when I was insured. I once called around pricing an MRI, something an insured person would never do, and the prices ranged from $2500 to $400. Guess who got my business.</p>
<p>At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, imagine the cost of a brake job or oil change if we insured our car repairs like we do our health. The whole idea of health insurance, outside of a catastrophic illness, is not only stupid, it's exploding costs.</p>
<p>And what did ObamaCare do? It outlawed these wonderful catastrophic plans. I'm not sure how such an act is Constitutional in a free country, but that's for another column. What I do know is that rather than enjoying access to tailor-made insurance plans, every American is now required to purchase a comprehensive plan. Under ObamaCare, although I am a 50 year-old male, I must pay <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/03/13/obamacare-charges-millions-of-unsuspecting-americans-for-coverage-theyll-never-use/#7bbb1a95173c" type="external">for pre-natal care, maternity care, etc.</a></p>
<p>The best comparison to drive home how absurdly ridiculous this is, is to have you imagine the government passing a law that requires everyone to purchase, not just a car, but a Cadillac.</p>
<p>Now that the backfill is complete, let me explain my headline. Here is how ObamaCare is nothing more than a cruel tax on the working and middle class.</p>
<p>Tax #1 - Health care costs have increased dramatically for everyone</p>
<p>Thanks to the failure of ObamaCare, the cost of everyone's healthcare is exploding. Everyone. Not just those in the individual market. If you recall, President LiarMcFailure and his fact-checking media promised us health care costs would decrease by $2500 a year under ObamaCare. The reality is that, in many cases, costs have actually increased by that much. That's a tax.</p>
<p>ObamaCare defenders will argue that costs were increasing prior to ObamaCare, which is true. But not by this much.</p>
<p>Tax #2 - ObamaCare premium explosion</p>
<p>Even before the newest rate increases of around 20% go into <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article80879447.html" type="external">effect next year</a>, the cost of my monthly premiums more than doubled to $450 a month. What's especially maddening is that the deductible is still an obnoxiously high $4000 - $5000.</p>
<p>What this means, essentially, is that I'm paying for a Cadillac health insurance plan that I'll never use.</p>
<p>That's a tax -- a huge tax, a massive tax.</p>
<p>Granted, I never used the catastrophic plan, but that premium was much lower and I was not mandated by our corrupt government to purchase it.</p>
<p>ObamaCare defenders will argue that, thanks to government subsidies, many ObamaCare recipients won't pay a price increase. So what? Taxpayers still have to pay for the subsidy.</p>
<p>Tax #3 - You're paying more for an increasingly awful service</p>
<p>Even with that obnoxious restriction that wouldn’t allow insurance companies to sell across state lines, each state still had a number of companies to choose from. But now that ObamaCare is decimating the individual marketplace, insurance companies are fleeing the individual market, which means that companies you once could purchase insurance from prior to ObamCare, you no longer can. The government has chased them completely out of business.</p>
<p>In most every state, the number of providers is shrinking, your choices as a consumer are decreasing by the year. In the entire state of New Jersey, you have only two insurance companies to choose from.</p>
<p>Tax #4 - The ObamaCare penalty</p>
<p>You're a freeborn American. You look at the choices offered by ObamaCare. You decide that paying $5000 a year for a lousy policy you will never use is madness. You choose not to purchase health insurance and instead choose to pay out of your own pocket for whatever medical needs you and your family might need.</p>
<p>Too bad.</p>
<p>That choice is now outlawed.</p>
<p>If you make that choice, you will be taxed 2.5% of your annual income.</p>
<p>Tax #5 - The deficit</p>
<p>The ObamaCare boondoggle is costing taxpayers tens <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/10/17/now-there-can-be-no-doubt-obamacare-will-increase-the-deficit/#6bfb062953d1" type="external">of millions of dollars</a> a year in deficit spending. Because the Boomers and their spawn are too selfish to live within their means, their bill will be paid for by our children and grandchildren.</p>
<p>That's a tax.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Fewer choices. A worse product. Double the cost.</p>
<p>Those of us opposed to ObamaCare warned of this in advance, and for our trouble the mainstream media labeled us racist.</p>
<p>P.S. I eventually found coverage through <a href="http://www.chministries.org/" type="external">this co-op</a>.</p>
<p>Follow John Nolte on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/NolteNC" type="external">@NolteNC</a></p> | ObamaCare Becomes the Cruelest Tax on Working Americans | true | https://dailywire.com/news/9106/obamacare-becomes-cruelest-tax-working-americans-john-nolte | 2016-09-14 | 0right
| ObamaCare Becomes the Cruelest Tax on Working Americans
<p>When it comes to how we are insured for our health, there are basically three markets: government (Medicaid, Medicare), the employer market, and the individual market. Most Americans are insured either through the government or through their employer. The individual market is where everyone else purchases health insurance, and does so on their own. And this is the market most affected (and decimated) by ObamaCare.</p>
<p>On and off, throughout the last 15 years, it has been through the individual market that I have purchased my own health coverage. This means that I am quite familiar with the damage ObamaCare has done to those stuck in this market, most of whom are not poor enough for Medicaid -- which means they come from the working and middle class. Boiled down, ObamaCare has become a cruel tax on working people, who are now forced by their government to pay an enormous sum of money for what is now a nearly useless product.</p>
<p>Prior to ObamaCare the individual market was far from perfect. You could be denied coverage for any number of reasons, including a pre-existing condition. I was once denied coverage for refusing to take a prescription drug with flu-like side effects.</p>
<p>Even before ObamaCare, one of the individual market's biggest setbacks was a lack of competition. Because our government is corrupt, insurers were and are still not allowed to sell their product across state lines (Trump wants to remedy this, God bless him). This dramatically shrinks the market to within the individual state, which in turn means less competition for insurers, which in turn means higher prices and an increased amount of dickish corporate behavior.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, despite its wild imperfections, I was always able to purchase coverage at a reasonable price. Other than a bad lower back, for a 50 year-old guy I'm in good health. For this reason, I would always purchase what was called a "catastrophic plan" -- a policy with a $6000 to $10,000 deductible for anywhere from $150 to $225 a month.</p>
<p>Catastrophic plans were not just good for me personally, they were good for the entire health care system. What you had were millions of people insured in case of a dire health emergency, like a car crash or cancer, but otherwise doing something no one else does: treating the healthcare industry like a free market.</p>
<p>Somewhere around 90% of insured Americans do NOT treat the health care industry like a free market. Because someone else is paying for their health services (an insurance company), no one prices anything. Therefore, unlike every other product and service in America, health care providers are not under any pressure from customers when it comes to cost.</p>
<p>The perfect example of this is to look at the respective cost curves of medical procedures that are and are not covered by insurance. It is no secret that overall health care costs have exploded, and <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/06/21/health-care-rising-costs/" type="external">done so well ahead of inflation</a> (this is another broken ObamaCare promise). And yet, like plasma televisions and Bluray players, the cost of medical procedures not covered by insurance, like Lasik and plastic surgeries, have decreased. I can also tell you from personal experience that eye exams and glasses are much cheaper than they used to be. My annual flu shot, which is now available at the local CVS or Walgreens, is a mere $25, or about 1/10th of what a doctor visit for a flu shot would cost your insurance company.</p>
<p>Once you are outside of the insurance market, you also discover that even insured services are cheaper. Since I now pay everything out of pocket, everything is cheaper. My doctors charge much less for visits and my prescriptions are actually cheaper than what my co-pay cost when I was insured. I once called around pricing an MRI, something an insured person would never do, and the prices ranged from $2500 to $400. Guess who got my business.</p>
<p>At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, imagine the cost of a brake job or oil change if we insured our car repairs like we do our health. The whole idea of health insurance, outside of a catastrophic illness, is not only stupid, it's exploding costs.</p>
<p>And what did ObamaCare do? It outlawed these wonderful catastrophic plans. I'm not sure how such an act is Constitutional in a free country, but that's for another column. What I do know is that rather than enjoying access to tailor-made insurance plans, every American is now required to purchase a comprehensive plan. Under ObamaCare, although I am a 50 year-old male, I must pay <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/03/13/obamacare-charges-millions-of-unsuspecting-americans-for-coverage-theyll-never-use/#7bbb1a95173c" type="external">for pre-natal care, maternity care, etc.</a></p>
<p>The best comparison to drive home how absurdly ridiculous this is, is to have you imagine the government passing a law that requires everyone to purchase, not just a car, but a Cadillac.</p>
<p>Now that the backfill is complete, let me explain my headline. Here is how ObamaCare is nothing more than a cruel tax on the working and middle class.</p>
<p>Tax #1 - Health care costs have increased dramatically for everyone</p>
<p>Thanks to the failure of ObamaCare, the cost of everyone's healthcare is exploding. Everyone. Not just those in the individual market. If you recall, President LiarMcFailure and his fact-checking media promised us health care costs would decrease by $2500 a year under ObamaCare. The reality is that, in many cases, costs have actually increased by that much. That's a tax.</p>
<p>ObamaCare defenders will argue that costs were increasing prior to ObamaCare, which is true. But not by this much.</p>
<p>Tax #2 - ObamaCare premium explosion</p>
<p>Even before the newest rate increases of around 20% go into <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article80879447.html" type="external">effect next year</a>, the cost of my monthly premiums more than doubled to $450 a month. What's especially maddening is that the deductible is still an obnoxiously high $4000 - $5000.</p>
<p>What this means, essentially, is that I'm paying for a Cadillac health insurance plan that I'll never use.</p>
<p>That's a tax -- a huge tax, a massive tax.</p>
<p>Granted, I never used the catastrophic plan, but that premium was much lower and I was not mandated by our corrupt government to purchase it.</p>
<p>ObamaCare defenders will argue that, thanks to government subsidies, many ObamaCare recipients won't pay a price increase. So what? Taxpayers still have to pay for the subsidy.</p>
<p>Tax #3 - You're paying more for an increasingly awful service</p>
<p>Even with that obnoxious restriction that wouldn’t allow insurance companies to sell across state lines, each state still had a number of companies to choose from. But now that ObamaCare is decimating the individual marketplace, insurance companies are fleeing the individual market, which means that companies you once could purchase insurance from prior to ObamCare, you no longer can. The government has chased them completely out of business.</p>
<p>In most every state, the number of providers is shrinking, your choices as a consumer are decreasing by the year. In the entire state of New Jersey, you have only two insurance companies to choose from.</p>
<p>Tax #4 - The ObamaCare penalty</p>
<p>You're a freeborn American. You look at the choices offered by ObamaCare. You decide that paying $5000 a year for a lousy policy you will never use is madness. You choose not to purchase health insurance and instead choose to pay out of your own pocket for whatever medical needs you and your family might need.</p>
<p>Too bad.</p>
<p>That choice is now outlawed.</p>
<p>If you make that choice, you will be taxed 2.5% of your annual income.</p>
<p>Tax #5 - The deficit</p>
<p>The ObamaCare boondoggle is costing taxpayers tens <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/10/17/now-there-can-be-no-doubt-obamacare-will-increase-the-deficit/#6bfb062953d1" type="external">of millions of dollars</a> a year in deficit spending. Because the Boomers and their spawn are too selfish to live within their means, their bill will be paid for by our children and grandchildren.</p>
<p>That's a tax.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Fewer choices. A worse product. Double the cost.</p>
<p>Those of us opposed to ObamaCare warned of this in advance, and for our trouble the mainstream media labeled us racist.</p>
<p>P.S. I eventually found coverage through <a href="http://www.chministries.org/" type="external">this co-op</a>.</p>
<p>Follow John Nolte on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/NolteNC" type="external">@NolteNC</a></p> | 194 |
<p>Residents of Southern California are no strangers to smog, but new research suggests that South and East Asia could be to blame for increased levels of the brown stuff floating over the Western United States. Ozone and possibly other pollutants are apparently blowing over the ocean, causing all sorts of problems and reminding us that exporting our pollution to the developing world isn’t exactly working out. — PZS</p>
<p>Los Angeles Times:</p>
<p>Ozone from Asia is wafting across the Pacific on springtime winds and boosting the amount of the smog-producing chemical found in the skies above the Western United States, researchers said in a study released Wednesday.</p>
<p>The study, published in the journal Nature, probes a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists in the last decade: Ground-level ozone has dropped in cities thanks to tighter pollution controls, but it has risen in rural areas in the Western U.S., where there is little industry or automobile traffic.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/01/ozone-smog-air-pollution-greenhouse-gases-china-pollution-owen-r-cooper-kathy-law.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Study Blames American Smog on Asia | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/study-blames-american-smog-on-asia/ | 2010-01-21 | 4left
| Study Blames American Smog on Asia
<p>Residents of Southern California are no strangers to smog, but new research suggests that South and East Asia could be to blame for increased levels of the brown stuff floating over the Western United States. Ozone and possibly other pollutants are apparently blowing over the ocean, causing all sorts of problems and reminding us that exporting our pollution to the developing world isn’t exactly working out. — PZS</p>
<p>Los Angeles Times:</p>
<p>Ozone from Asia is wafting across the Pacific on springtime winds and boosting the amount of the smog-producing chemical found in the skies above the Western United States, researchers said in a study released Wednesday.</p>
<p>The study, published in the journal Nature, probes a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists in the last decade: Ground-level ozone has dropped in cities thanks to tighter pollution controls, but it has risen in rural areas in the Western U.S., where there is little industry or automobile traffic.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/01/ozone-smog-air-pollution-greenhouse-gases-china-pollution-owen-r-cooper-kathy-law.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | 195 |
<p />
<p>Three of the biggest makers of diabetes treatments, Sanofi SA, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Co, were named in a class action lawsuit about price fixing filed by a group of patients.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The suit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Massachusetts, said the companies have simultaneously hiked the price of insulin by over 150 percent during the past five years.</p>
<p>Plaintiffs claim that Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly raised their public benchmark price for insulin products while maintaining a lower "true" price they charged large pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts, CVS Health and OptumRX.</p>
<p>The PBMs act as intermediaries with health insurers and keep a percentage of the price difference, according to the lawsuit.</p>
<p>The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, alleged violations of the federal racketeering statute, which allows for triple damages, as well as consumer protection laws in virtually every state.</p> | Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Lilly named in patients' price fixing suit | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/30/sanofi-novo-nordisk-and-lilly-named-in-patients-price-fixing-suit.html | 2017-01-30 | 0right
| Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Lilly named in patients' price fixing suit
<p />
<p>Three of the biggest makers of diabetes treatments, Sanofi SA, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Co, were named in a class action lawsuit about price fixing filed by a group of patients.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The suit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Massachusetts, said the companies have simultaneously hiked the price of insulin by over 150 percent during the past five years.</p>
<p>Plaintiffs claim that Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly raised their public benchmark price for insulin products while maintaining a lower "true" price they charged large pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts, CVS Health and OptumRX.</p>
<p>The PBMs act as intermediaries with health insurers and keep a percentage of the price difference, according to the lawsuit.</p>
<p>The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, alleged violations of the federal racketeering statute, which allows for triple damages, as well as consumer protection laws in virtually every state.</p> | 196 |
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube)</p>
<p>A Broadway musical based on Cher’s life is one step closer to production.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/04/19/a-cher-musical-could-land-on-broadway-soon/" type="external">New York Post,</a> “Jersey Boys” writer Rick Elice presented a script of a musical about the pop star’s life, currently titled “Cher: The Musical,” to “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller on Wednesday. &#160;Seller has also produced “Avenue Q,” “In the Heights” and “Rent.”</p>
<p>“They may pack me in a van and have me carted away when they see what I’ve done with her life,” Elice told the New York Post about presenting his script. “Or I’ll start doing what Arthur Laurents always said about musicals, ‘They don’t get written. They get rewritten.’ ”</p>
<p>The musical will include Cher’s hit songs such as “Believe,” “If I Could Turn Back Time,” “Take Me Home,” “I Got You Babe” and “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.”</p>
<p>In 2012, Cher tweeted producers were developing a musical about her life. The star revealed three actresses would play her in different stages of her career. One actress would play her during the “Sonny and Cher” years, another actress would portray her during her “Believe” tour and the last would be the singer in the current part of her life.</p>
<p>Elice told the New York Post he plans to give Cher the script on her 70th birthday on May 20.</p>
<p>“I’ll be sharing with Cher, if you will,” Elice says.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Broadway</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cher</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cher: The Musical</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jeffrey Seller</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rick Elice</a></p> | ‘Cher: The Musical’ could be on Broadway soon | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/04/22/cher-the-musical-could-be-on-broadway-soon/ | 3left-center
| ‘Cher: The Musical’ could be on Broadway soon
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube)</p>
<p>A Broadway musical based on Cher’s life is one step closer to production.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/04/19/a-cher-musical-could-land-on-broadway-soon/" type="external">New York Post,</a> “Jersey Boys” writer Rick Elice presented a script of a musical about the pop star’s life, currently titled “Cher: The Musical,” to “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller on Wednesday. &#160;Seller has also produced “Avenue Q,” “In the Heights” and “Rent.”</p>
<p>“They may pack me in a van and have me carted away when they see what I’ve done with her life,” Elice told the New York Post about presenting his script. “Or I’ll start doing what Arthur Laurents always said about musicals, ‘They don’t get written. They get rewritten.’ ”</p>
<p>The musical will include Cher’s hit songs such as “Believe,” “If I Could Turn Back Time,” “Take Me Home,” “I Got You Babe” and “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.”</p>
<p>In 2012, Cher tweeted producers were developing a musical about her life. The star revealed three actresses would play her in different stages of her career. One actress would play her during the “Sonny and Cher” years, another actress would portray her during her “Believe” tour and the last would be the singer in the current part of her life.</p>
<p>Elice told the New York Post he plans to give Cher the script on her 70th birthday on May 20.</p>
<p>“I’ll be sharing with Cher, if you will,” Elice says.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Broadway</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cher</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cher: The Musical</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jeffrey Seller</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rick Elice</a></p> | 197 |
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<p />
<p>Presidential designers in recent history have concentrated on giving the ultimate power office a one-day Inauguration Makeover to reflect the fact that a new occupant has taken charge. Kaki Hockersmith, the Clintons’ designer, feverishly replaced dozens of yards of Bush blue curtains with gold silk swags and brought back the 1880 Resolute Desk used by John F. Kennedy from storage. Fort Worth designer Ken Blasingame swapped out the Clinton Oval Office rug for the Reagan Oval Office rug, because George W. Bush preferred the way the presidential seal was depicted on it, and a painting of western horse riders, “A Charge to Keep” by W.H.D. Koerner was hung.</p>
<p>But Smith made only one, symbolic, change that day: He replaced the traditional formal flower arrangement on the coffee table with a wooden bowl of fresh apples.</p>
<p>“The world was in crisis,” Smith says. “This wasn’t the time to do anything major.” He spent most of his time making the Obama girls’ rooms comfortable and welcoming. “Outside you could see huge crowds, but inside you couldn’t hear anything. I was making up beds,” Smith says, “but I knew I was in the eye of the storm.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As Donald and Melania Trump and the rest of the new first family prepare to check out their new digs after he is sworn in as the 45th president, speculation has been rampant – and facts sparse – on who has been helping them plan their move-in.</p>
<p>Although the Trumps have not made public who their designer or designers are, immediate changes are sure to be coming to the Oval Office and private quarters. Donald Trump is extremely image-conscious: He reportedly is very involved with architects and designers for his various hotels, condos and office buildings and knows his way around high-end fixtures (preferably gold) and fabrics.</p>
<p>Style at this White House may be like no other. Consider the current Trump addresses: a glittering jewel-box penthouse of gilded fanciness atop New York’s Trump Tower and private apartments in the palatial Palm Beach landmark Mar-a-Lago. Then there’s the private 757 plane with 24-karat gold-plated seat-belt buckles and bedroom pillows featuring the Trump family crest. Since the Trump Organization headquarters and Trump’s Manhattan penthouse home are both in Trump Tower, he is already living above his office and walking to work, as he will presumably be doing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.</p>
<p>In a 2015 interview in People magazine, Trump said, “If I were elected, I would maybe touch it up a little bit, but the White House is a special place.” He added, “You don’t want to do too much touching.”</p>
<p>As well as being the house of the president, the White House serves as an office, a venue for constant receptions and high-profile dinners, and a museum of American history, full of valuable antiques and paintings. It is constantly undergoing renovation and preservation, not surprising for any house dating from 1800.</p>
<p>At noon on Jan. 20 after the swearing-in, the carefully choreographed change of occupants will begin. The Trumps have been working with White House Chief Usher Angella Reid and White House Curator Bill Allman on details.</p>
<p>At some point, the Trumps will get a briefing about who pays the bills. Part of the funds Congress appropriates for repair and restoration of the White House is a redecorating allowance of $100,000. This money is earmarked for the private quarters. The Obamas and other recent presidents declined the allowance, preferring to use their own money or private funds.</p>
<p>The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit educational institution, provides money for projects from two sources: the White House Endowment Trust, used for public rooms and conserving collections, and the White House Acquisition Trust, used to acquire fine and decorative arts.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Changes to the first floor, called the State Floor, and the ground floor, which contain the State Dining Room, Green Room, Blue Room and others, are made in consultation with the White House curator’s office and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory group established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The committee is a group of experts, including several ex officio members, and others appointed by the president, who are tasked with preserving the “museum quality” of White House public spaces. The president traditionally appoints his own decorator to this committee.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it’s up to the president and his designers to decide what to put into the Oval Office, the room most associated with the presidency.</p>
<p>“Everyone now personalizes it,” says William Seale, a historian who has written books about the White House. “They usually don’t change much right away. But then they might change the curtains, and everyone eventually gets a new rug.”</p>
<p>The designers who have worked with presidential families all have their stories of how they were able to accomplish everything.</p>
<p>Blasingame says he moved into a third-floor White House bedroom on the Monday after the inauguration and spent 10 days getting things organized and comfortable for the Bushes. The first time he walked into the Oval Office he began playing a video in his mind of the news conferences and addresses to the nation that would take place there. “It was so impressive,” he says. “I was just doing my job, but I was participating in something so historic.” He always stuck to the presidential dress code when working on the Oval Office. “Since President Bush wanted everyone to wear a coat and tie when they entered the Oval Office, I did the same,” says Blasingame. “No jeans.”</p>
<p>Everyone wondered how Kaki Hockersmith, the Clintons’ designer from Little Rock, could make such sweeping changes in one day. She says it was because then-first lady Barbara Bush “was very generous and gave us a lot of access in advance.” But on Inauguration Day, she had to hustle to get to the White House and supervise all the installations she had planned. “Hillary Clinton insisted that I come to the swearing-in and she said she would arrange to get me back to the White House as soon as possible. She told us to go to a certain corner across from the Capitol and look for a military officer in a van. We were then cleared to go through every barricade throughout the parade route. And, oh, my God, people would see the vehicle and start waving at us. I will never forget that ride.”</p>
<p>The design world is waiting to see which decorator the Trumps will choose and is hunting for clues as to what it might look like. There aren’t many photos of the Trump penthouse, originally decorated in the 1980s by the late Angelo Donghia, but more gold has shown up over the years. Margaret Russell, longtime design editor, went to the penthouse in the 1980s when Donald Trump was still married to his first wife, Ivana. “What I can see from recent photos is that not much has changed,” says Russell. “It’s very ornate, very detailed. I believe I recall cherubim on the ceiling.”</p>
<p>Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s exotic Palm Beach property, was built between 1923 and 1927 by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who also owned Washington’s Hillwood estate. Its lavish rooms had the look of European castles and palaces, layered in gold leaf and dripping in crystal chandeliers. Post left her villa to the federal government in 1973 to use as a presidential retreat, but the government deemed it too expensive. Trump bought the house and furnishings in 1985. He and his family used it until 1995, when Trump reopened it as a private club, keeping their own private quarters. Wood paneling, pink marble, gold-leaf ceilings and most of the original architecture remain.</p>
<p>The Trumps clearly are used to living in large houses with staff. But the White House is like no other house in the world. “You move there under public scrutiny and you have probably not seen much of where you are going to live,” says Betty Monkman, former White House curator. “When you walk onto the State Floor, the world is watching. It’s a big adjustment for any family to move in there.”</p> | When Donald Trump gets sworn in, the White House is in line for a decorating update | false | https://abqjournal.com/931191/when-donald-trump-gets-sworn-in-the-white-house-is-in-line-for-a-decorating-update.html | 2017-01-19 | 2least
| When Donald Trump gets sworn in, the White House is in line for a decorating update
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<p />
<p>Presidential designers in recent history have concentrated on giving the ultimate power office a one-day Inauguration Makeover to reflect the fact that a new occupant has taken charge. Kaki Hockersmith, the Clintons’ designer, feverishly replaced dozens of yards of Bush blue curtains with gold silk swags and brought back the 1880 Resolute Desk used by John F. Kennedy from storage. Fort Worth designer Ken Blasingame swapped out the Clinton Oval Office rug for the Reagan Oval Office rug, because George W. Bush preferred the way the presidential seal was depicted on it, and a painting of western horse riders, “A Charge to Keep” by W.H.D. Koerner was hung.</p>
<p>But Smith made only one, symbolic, change that day: He replaced the traditional formal flower arrangement on the coffee table with a wooden bowl of fresh apples.</p>
<p>“The world was in crisis,” Smith says. “This wasn’t the time to do anything major.” He spent most of his time making the Obama girls’ rooms comfortable and welcoming. “Outside you could see huge crowds, but inside you couldn’t hear anything. I was making up beds,” Smith says, “but I knew I was in the eye of the storm.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As Donald and Melania Trump and the rest of the new first family prepare to check out their new digs after he is sworn in as the 45th president, speculation has been rampant – and facts sparse – on who has been helping them plan their move-in.</p>
<p>Although the Trumps have not made public who their designer or designers are, immediate changes are sure to be coming to the Oval Office and private quarters. Donald Trump is extremely image-conscious: He reportedly is very involved with architects and designers for his various hotels, condos and office buildings and knows his way around high-end fixtures (preferably gold) and fabrics.</p>
<p>Style at this White House may be like no other. Consider the current Trump addresses: a glittering jewel-box penthouse of gilded fanciness atop New York’s Trump Tower and private apartments in the palatial Palm Beach landmark Mar-a-Lago. Then there’s the private 757 plane with 24-karat gold-plated seat-belt buckles and bedroom pillows featuring the Trump family crest. Since the Trump Organization headquarters and Trump’s Manhattan penthouse home are both in Trump Tower, he is already living above his office and walking to work, as he will presumably be doing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.</p>
<p>In a 2015 interview in People magazine, Trump said, “If I were elected, I would maybe touch it up a little bit, but the White House is a special place.” He added, “You don’t want to do too much touching.”</p>
<p>As well as being the house of the president, the White House serves as an office, a venue for constant receptions and high-profile dinners, and a museum of American history, full of valuable antiques and paintings. It is constantly undergoing renovation and preservation, not surprising for any house dating from 1800.</p>
<p>At noon on Jan. 20 after the swearing-in, the carefully choreographed change of occupants will begin. The Trumps have been working with White House Chief Usher Angella Reid and White House Curator Bill Allman on details.</p>
<p>At some point, the Trumps will get a briefing about who pays the bills. Part of the funds Congress appropriates for repair and restoration of the White House is a redecorating allowance of $100,000. This money is earmarked for the private quarters. The Obamas and other recent presidents declined the allowance, preferring to use their own money or private funds.</p>
<p>The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit educational institution, provides money for projects from two sources: the White House Endowment Trust, used for public rooms and conserving collections, and the White House Acquisition Trust, used to acquire fine and decorative arts.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Changes to the first floor, called the State Floor, and the ground floor, which contain the State Dining Room, Green Room, Blue Room and others, are made in consultation with the White House curator’s office and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory group established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The committee is a group of experts, including several ex officio members, and others appointed by the president, who are tasked with preserving the “museum quality” of White House public spaces. The president traditionally appoints his own decorator to this committee.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it’s up to the president and his designers to decide what to put into the Oval Office, the room most associated with the presidency.</p>
<p>“Everyone now personalizes it,” says William Seale, a historian who has written books about the White House. “They usually don’t change much right away. But then they might change the curtains, and everyone eventually gets a new rug.”</p>
<p>The designers who have worked with presidential families all have their stories of how they were able to accomplish everything.</p>
<p>Blasingame says he moved into a third-floor White House bedroom on the Monday after the inauguration and spent 10 days getting things organized and comfortable for the Bushes. The first time he walked into the Oval Office he began playing a video in his mind of the news conferences and addresses to the nation that would take place there. “It was so impressive,” he says. “I was just doing my job, but I was participating in something so historic.” He always stuck to the presidential dress code when working on the Oval Office. “Since President Bush wanted everyone to wear a coat and tie when they entered the Oval Office, I did the same,” says Blasingame. “No jeans.”</p>
<p>Everyone wondered how Kaki Hockersmith, the Clintons’ designer from Little Rock, could make such sweeping changes in one day. She says it was because then-first lady Barbara Bush “was very generous and gave us a lot of access in advance.” But on Inauguration Day, she had to hustle to get to the White House and supervise all the installations she had planned. “Hillary Clinton insisted that I come to the swearing-in and she said she would arrange to get me back to the White House as soon as possible. She told us to go to a certain corner across from the Capitol and look for a military officer in a van. We were then cleared to go through every barricade throughout the parade route. And, oh, my God, people would see the vehicle and start waving at us. I will never forget that ride.”</p>
<p>The design world is waiting to see which decorator the Trumps will choose and is hunting for clues as to what it might look like. There aren’t many photos of the Trump penthouse, originally decorated in the 1980s by the late Angelo Donghia, but more gold has shown up over the years. Margaret Russell, longtime design editor, went to the penthouse in the 1980s when Donald Trump was still married to his first wife, Ivana. “What I can see from recent photos is that not much has changed,” says Russell. “It’s very ornate, very detailed. I believe I recall cherubim on the ceiling.”</p>
<p>Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s exotic Palm Beach property, was built between 1923 and 1927 by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who also owned Washington’s Hillwood estate. Its lavish rooms had the look of European castles and palaces, layered in gold leaf and dripping in crystal chandeliers. Post left her villa to the federal government in 1973 to use as a presidential retreat, but the government deemed it too expensive. Trump bought the house and furnishings in 1985. He and his family used it until 1995, when Trump reopened it as a private club, keeping their own private quarters. Wood paneling, pink marble, gold-leaf ceilings and most of the original architecture remain.</p>
<p>The Trumps clearly are used to living in large houses with staff. But the White House is like no other house in the world. “You move there under public scrutiny and you have probably not seen much of where you are going to live,” says Betty Monkman, former White House curator. “When you walk onto the State Floor, the world is watching. It’s a big adjustment for any family to move in there.”</p> | 198 |
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<p>Preschool-aged children who are extremely selective about what they eat and dislike even being near certain foods are more likely than others to have underlying anxiety or depression, the study found. But only 3 percent of young children studied were that picky.</p>
<p>Less severe pickiness, dubbed "moderate selected eating" in the study, was found in about 18 percent of kids. These are children who will only eat a narrow range of foods. Kids with either level of pickiness were almost two times more likely than others to develop anxiety symptoms within two years, the study found.</p>
<p>More typical pickiness, including kids who just refuse to eat their vegetables, is probably merely "normal dislike," said eating disorders specialist Nancy Zucker, the lead author and an associate psychiatry professor at Duke University's medical school. These are the kids who typically outgrow their pickiness as they mature.</p>
<p>Zucker said young children with moderate pickiness are probably more likely to outgrow the problem than the severe group, although more research is needed to confirm that.</p>
<p>The study was published today in the journal Pediatrics.</p>
<p>Dr. Arthur Lavin, a Cleveland pediatrician said picky eating is among the top concerns parents bring to his office and that the study "helps us understand who we should be concerned about."</p>
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<p>"There's more going on here than just not wanting to eat broccoli," said Lavin, a member of an American Academy of Pediatrics committee on psycho-social issues. He was not involved in the research.</p>
<p>The study focused on about 900 children aged 2 through 5 who were recruited from primary care doctors affiliated with Duke's medical center in Durham, N.C.</p>
<p>Researchers did in-home interviews with parents to evaluate kids' eating habits and any mental health issues. Follow-up evaluations were done two years later in almost 200 children.</p>
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<p /> | Most picky eating harmless but it can signal emotional woes | false | https://abqjournal.com/622210/most-picky-eating-harmless-but-it-can-signal-emotional-woes.html | 2least
| Most picky eating harmless but it can signal emotional woes
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Preschool-aged children who are extremely selective about what they eat and dislike even being near certain foods are more likely than others to have underlying anxiety or depression, the study found. But only 3 percent of young children studied were that picky.</p>
<p>Less severe pickiness, dubbed "moderate selected eating" in the study, was found in about 18 percent of kids. These are children who will only eat a narrow range of foods. Kids with either level of pickiness were almost two times more likely than others to develop anxiety symptoms within two years, the study found.</p>
<p>More typical pickiness, including kids who just refuse to eat their vegetables, is probably merely "normal dislike," said eating disorders specialist Nancy Zucker, the lead author and an associate psychiatry professor at Duke University's medical school. These are the kids who typically outgrow their pickiness as they mature.</p>
<p>Zucker said young children with moderate pickiness are probably more likely to outgrow the problem than the severe group, although more research is needed to confirm that.</p>
<p>The study was published today in the journal Pediatrics.</p>
<p>Dr. Arthur Lavin, a Cleveland pediatrician said picky eating is among the top concerns parents bring to his office and that the study "helps us understand who we should be concerned about."</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"There's more going on here than just not wanting to eat broccoli," said Lavin, a member of an American Academy of Pediatrics committee on psycho-social issues. He was not involved in the research.</p>
<p>The study focused on about 900 children aged 2 through 5 who were recruited from primary care doctors affiliated with Duke's medical center in Durham, N.C.</p>
<p>Researchers did in-home interviews with parents to evaluate kids' eating habits and any mental health issues. Follow-up evaluations were done two years later in almost 200 children.</p>
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