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<p>A 17-year-old undocumented migrant is being prevented from accessing abortion care, and remains in custody in Texas.</p> <p>After escaping an abusive home in Central America where her sister was beaten by her parents for being pregnant, "Jane Doe" is facing a different kind of punishment in the country where she sought refuge.</p> <p>On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled to allow the pregnant teen access to an abortion. But on Thursday, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/18/politics/pregnant-teen-immigrant-abortion-ruling/index.html" type="external">US Court of Appeals issued a stay</a> against that ruling, meaning the teen may be forced to carry her pregnancy to term.</p> <p>Jane Doe has until Oct. 31 to secure a sponsor, allowing her to be released from the custody of Health and Human Services (HHS). Two candidates have already been rejected as acceptable sponsors.</p> <p>On the deadline of Oct. 31, she will be about 18 weeks pregnant. Abortion is illegal in Texas after 20 weeks of pregnancy.</p> <p><a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-center-for-choice/texas-abortion-laws?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx6iF5YaF1wIVDIFpCh3togTbEAAYASAAEgLNg_D_BwE" type="external">Texas law</a> also requires parental consent for minors seeking abortion care. A state court judge in Texas had already granted her legal permission to bypass this law and proceed with an abortion without her parents' consent. But the federal government's administrative stay means she is no longer able to move forward with the procedure.</p> <p>The undocumented minor will remain in a Texas shelter under the <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr" type="external">Office of Refugee Resettlement of HHS</a>, and she cannot leave unless she agrees to return to her country of origin, where abortion is illegal. An undocumented adult would have been able to access an abortion while in detention, but a minor cannot because she can instead consent to this " <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/voluntary-departure" type="external">voluntary departure</a>" under immigration law.</p> <p>Even if she were to elect this option, she would have to stay in custody until she is deported.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/jane-doe-wants-abortion-government-hell-bent" type="external">ACLU</a>, which is representing the teen, says the government is "essentially holding her hostage."</p>

The US government is blocking an undocumented teen from abortion access

https://circa.com/story/2017/10/22/nation/the-us-government-is-blocking-an-undocumented-teen-from-abortion-access

2017-10-22

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The US government is blocking an undocumented teen from abortion access <p>A 17-year-old undocumented migrant is being prevented from accessing abortion care, and remains in custody in Texas.</p> <p>After escaping an abusive home in Central America where her sister was beaten by her parents for being pregnant, "Jane Doe" is facing a different kind of punishment in the country where she sought refuge.</p> <p>On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled to allow the pregnant teen access to an abortion. But on Thursday, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/18/politics/pregnant-teen-immigrant-abortion-ruling/index.html" type="external">US Court of Appeals issued a stay</a> against that ruling, meaning the teen may be forced to carry her pregnancy to term.</p> <p>Jane Doe has until Oct. 31 to secure a sponsor, allowing her to be released from the custody of Health and Human Services (HHS). Two candidates have already been rejected as acceptable sponsors.</p> <p>On the deadline of Oct. 31, she will be about 18 weeks pregnant. Abortion is illegal in Texas after 20 weeks of pregnancy.</p> <p><a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-center-for-choice/texas-abortion-laws?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx6iF5YaF1wIVDIFpCh3togTbEAAYASAAEgLNg_D_BwE" type="external">Texas law</a> also requires parental consent for minors seeking abortion care. A state court judge in Texas had already granted her legal permission to bypass this law and proceed with an abortion without her parents' consent. But the federal government's administrative stay means she is no longer able to move forward with the procedure.</p> <p>The undocumented minor will remain in a Texas shelter under the <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr" type="external">Office of Refugee Resettlement of HHS</a>, and she cannot leave unless she agrees to return to her country of origin, where abortion is illegal. An undocumented adult would have been able to access an abortion while in detention, but a minor cannot because she can instead consent to this " <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/voluntary-departure" type="external">voluntary departure</a>" under immigration law.</p> <p>Even if she were to elect this option, she would have to stay in custody until she is deported.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/jane-doe-wants-abortion-government-hell-bent" type="external">ACLU</a>, which is representing the teen, says the government is "essentially holding her hostage."</p>

<p /> <p>Image source: Getty Images.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Telkom Indonesia (NYSE: TLK) <a href="http://www.telkom.co.id/assets/uploads/2013/05/TLKM-Info-Memo-9M16-Final.pdf" type="external">reported Opens a New Window.</a> third-quarter results on October 25. Here's a deeper dive into that business update.</p> <p>Data source: <a href="http://www.telkom.co.id/assets/uploads/2013/05/FS-English_Q3_2016_FINAL_ammend2.pdf" type="external">Telkom Indonesia Opens a New Window.</a> (opens PDF document). YOY = year over year.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The leading provider of communications services in Indonesia saw solid growth across the board, in large part thanks to strong sales of wireless voice and data services.</p> <p>Telkom's management noted that the company should continue to grow faster than the local communications market overall, reiterating the existing guidance for fiscal year 2016:</p> <p>In a conference call with market analysts, Telkom Indonesia CEO Alex Sinaga underscored the company's dominant market position in a nation with 238 million citizens.</p> <p>"In terms of broadband service, we estimated that Telkom controls around 64% of traffic market share in Indonesia, with 2,349 gigabytes-per-second bandwidth in service," Sinaga said. "We also provide data-center service to our enterprise clients, with 75,000 square meters of data-center facilities based in Indonesia. We estimate that we have around 52% share of total data-center revenues in the country."</p> <p>He also noted that the Indonesian wireless phone market is becoming quite saturated. In response to that trend, the company is focusing on more profitable data services and higher-quality customers.</p> <p>Telkom Indonesia is expanding its global reach these days. The company is getting ready to launch voice and data services in Myanmar, which Sinaga described as a high-growth developing market of 50 million new potential customers. In collaboration with other international telecoms, Telkom is also laying down high-speed fiber backbone connections to France and California, hoping to establish better and faster overseas data services.</p> <p>This report did not move Telkom's share prices much, but the stock has been on a roll recently: Share prices have now gained 28% so far in 2016, and 43% over the last 52 weeks.</p> <p>Forget the 2016 Election: 10 stocks we like better than Telkom Indonesia Donald Trump was just elected president, and volatility is up. But here's why you should ignore the election:</p> <p>Investing geniuses Tom and David Gardner have spent a long time beating the market no matter who's in the White House. In fact, 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=26e6f585-1ab8-48b1-9378-bec88ad0ffe7&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">ten best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Telkom Indonesia 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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=26e6f585-1ab8-48b1-9378-bec88ad0ffe7&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p> <p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFZahrim/info.aspx" type="external">Anders Bylund Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Telkom Indonesia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Telkom Indonesia Earnings: It's All About the Data Customer

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/14/telkom-indonesia-earnings-it-all-about-data-customer.html

2016-11-14

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Telkom Indonesia Earnings: It's All About the Data Customer <p /> <p>Image source: Getty Images.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Telkom Indonesia (NYSE: TLK) <a href="http://www.telkom.co.id/assets/uploads/2013/05/TLKM-Info-Memo-9M16-Final.pdf" type="external">reported Opens a New Window.</a> third-quarter results on October 25. Here's a deeper dive into that business update.</p> <p>Data source: <a href="http://www.telkom.co.id/assets/uploads/2013/05/FS-English_Q3_2016_FINAL_ammend2.pdf" type="external">Telkom Indonesia Opens a New Window.</a> (opens PDF document). YOY = year over year.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The leading provider of communications services in Indonesia saw solid growth across the board, in large part thanks to strong sales of wireless voice and data services.</p> <p>Telkom's management noted that the company should continue to grow faster than the local communications market overall, reiterating the existing guidance for fiscal year 2016:</p> <p>In a conference call with market analysts, Telkom Indonesia CEO Alex Sinaga underscored the company's dominant market position in a nation with 238 million citizens.</p> <p>"In terms of broadband service, we estimated that Telkom controls around 64% of traffic market share in Indonesia, with 2,349 gigabytes-per-second bandwidth in service," Sinaga said. "We also provide data-center service to our enterprise clients, with 75,000 square meters of data-center facilities based in Indonesia. We estimate that we have around 52% share of total data-center revenues in the country."</p> <p>He also noted that the Indonesian wireless phone market is becoming quite saturated. In response to that trend, the company is focusing on more profitable data services and higher-quality customers.</p> <p>Telkom Indonesia is expanding its global reach these days. The company is getting ready to launch voice and data services in Myanmar, which Sinaga described as a high-growth developing market of 50 million new potential customers. In collaboration with other international telecoms, Telkom is also laying down high-speed fiber backbone connections to France and California, hoping to establish better and faster overseas data services.</p> <p>This report did not move Telkom's share prices much, but the stock has been on a roll recently: Share prices have now gained 28% so far in 2016, and 43% over the last 52 weeks.</p> <p>Forget the 2016 Election: 10 stocks we like better than Telkom Indonesia Donald Trump was just elected president, and volatility is up. But here's why you should ignore the election:</p> <p>Investing geniuses Tom and David Gardner have spent a long time beating the market no matter who's in the White House. 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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%2Fecap-foolcom-bbn-election%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0000468%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6454%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=26e6f585-1ab8-48b1-9378-bec88ad0ffe7&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p> <p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFZahrim/info.aspx" type="external">Anders Bylund Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Telkom Indonesia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H) on Thursday reported third-quarter earnings of $62 million.</p> <p>The Chicago-based company said it had profit of 47 cents per share.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 28 cents per share.</p> <p>The hotel operator posted revenue of $1.09 billion in the period, falling short of Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.1 billion.</p> <p>Hyatt Hotels shares have increased almost 7 percent since the beginning of the year. The stock has fallen 0.5 percent in the last 12 months.</p> <p>_____</p> <p>This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on H at https://www.zacks.com/ap/H</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>_____</p> <p>Keywords: Hyatt Hotels, Earnings Report</p>

Hyatt Hotels beats 3Q profit forecasts

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/03/hyatt-hotels-beats-3q-profit-forecasts.html

2016-11-03

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Hyatt Hotels beats 3Q profit forecasts <p>Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H) on Thursday reported third-quarter earnings of $62 million.</p> <p>The Chicago-based company said it had profit of 47 cents per share.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 28 cents per share.</p> <p>The hotel operator posted revenue of $1.09 billion in the period, falling short of Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.1 billion.</p> <p>Hyatt Hotels shares have increased almost 7 percent since the beginning of the year. The stock has fallen 0.5 percent in the last 12 months.</p> <p>_____</p> <p>This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on H at https://www.zacks.com/ap/H</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>_____</p> <p>Keywords: Hyatt Hotels, Earnings Report</p>

<p>Defense Department documents handed over to the Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request raised the possibility that the &#8220;friendly-fire&#8221; death of soldier and former NFL player Pat Tillman amounted to a crime. Doctors examining Tillman&#8217;s body after he was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators that the three bullet holes in his head appeared to have been fired by an M-16 from less than a dozen yards away rather than the 100 meters or so that the military has claimed.</p> <p>AP via Washington Post:</p> <p>Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman&#8217;s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player&#8217;s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.</p> <p>&#8220;The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,&#8221; a doctor who examined Tillman&#8217;s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.</p> <p /> <p>The doctors &#8212; whose names were blacked out &#8212; said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.</p> <p>Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman&#8217;s comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman&#8217;s death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.</p> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072602025.html?sub=AR" type="external">Read more</a> (registration wall)</p> <p>Related on Truthdig</p> <p>Jul 26, 2007 | <a href="" type="internal">Army to Discipline 7 in Tillman Case</a> Oct 19, 2006 | <a href="" type="internal">After Pat&#8217;s Birthday by Kevin Tillman</a></p>

Pat Tillman Murdered?

https://truthdig.com/articles/pat-tillman-murdered/

2007-07-27

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Pat Tillman Murdered? <p>Defense Department documents handed over to the Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request raised the possibility that the &#8220;friendly-fire&#8221; death of soldier and former NFL player Pat Tillman amounted to a crime. Doctors examining Tillman&#8217;s body after he was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators that the three bullet holes in his head appeared to have been fired by an M-16 from less than a dozen yards away rather than the 100 meters or so that the military has claimed.</p> <p>AP via Washington Post:</p> <p>Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman&#8217;s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player&#8217;s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.</p> <p>&#8220;The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,&#8221; a doctor who examined Tillman&#8217;s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.</p> <p /> <p>The doctors &#8212; whose names were blacked out &#8212; said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.</p> <p>Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman&#8217;s comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman&#8217;s death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.</p> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072602025.html?sub=AR" type="external">Read more</a> (registration wall)</p> <p>Related on Truthdig</p> <p>Jul 26, 2007 | <a href="" type="internal">Army to Discipline 7 in Tillman Case</a> Oct 19, 2006 | <a href="" type="internal">After Pat&#8217;s Birthday by Kevin Tillman</a></p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Check out Sunday&#8217;s Journal and abqjournal.com for more coverage.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico fails to capitalize on an interception and a 35-yard return by linebacker Dallas Bollema. QB Cole Gautsche and RB Crusoe Gongbay miss connections on a handoff and Nevada recovers at the Wolf Pack 13.&amp;#160; Nevada still leads 31-14 with 2 minutes and change remaining.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; Lobo RB Kasey Carrier stopped short of the marker on a 3rd-and-4; Lobos punt from their own 11. Nevada takes over at its own 42 with 6:12 left in the game. Lobos 2-of-10 on third down.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos force a Nevada punt from the Lobo 45, take over at their own 2-yard line with 8:23 left in the game. Seeing eye punt by Nevada&#8217;s Chase Tenpenny.</p> <p>New Mexico goes for it on 4th and 1 from the Nevada 30, but Cole Gautsche is stopped for no gain. Nevada takes over on its own 30 with 101/2 minutes left in the game.</p> <p>&#8230; After three quarters, Nevada leads New Mexico 31-24. The Wolf Pack will start the fourth quarter by punting from their own 25-yard line after the UNM defense forces a three-and-out. Key play: a sack good for 7 yards by cornerback Destry Berry.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada comes right back &#8212; no surprise there &#8212; to take a 31-24 lead with 4:02 left in the third quarter. The Wolf Pack drives 75 yards in 12 plays, the key a 24-yard Cody Fajardo scramble on third-and-7. Fajardo hits Brandon Wimberly fot the TD from 2 yards out for the score.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos tie it up. a career-long 76-yard Kasey Carrier run sets up a 2-yard Jhurell Pressley run,&amp;#160; and it&#8217;s 24-24 with 8:48 left in the third quarter.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada takes the opening kickoff and drives 68 yards, settling for a 24-yard Colin Ditsworth field goal. Wolf Pack lead, 24-17 with 10:41 left in the third quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; Halftime stats: New Mexico &#8212; 11 first downs, 216 yards rushing on 30 carries, 0-of-2 passing, 216 yards total offense. Lamaar Thomas, 65 yards rushing on three carries; Crusoe Gongbay, 60 yards on six carries. Cole Gautsche, 42 yards on eight carries. Kasey Carrier: 33 yards on 10 carries. Nevada: 212 yards rushing, 61 yards passing, 273 yards total offense: Cody Fajardo: 115 yards on nine carries. Stefphon Jefferson, 93 yards on 12 carries. Fajardo, 9-of-14 passing for 61 yards.</p> <p>&#8230; Halftime: Nevada 21, New Mexico 17. Tiny crowd. Lots of people missing an entertaining game.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada scores on a five-play, 75-yard drive, taking the lead for the first time this afternoon at 21-17. The Wolf Pack gets the TD on a 1-yard, fourth-down pass from Cody Fajardo to Brandon Wimberly. Key play: a 62-yard run by Stefphon Jefferson. There&#8217;s 5 minutes left in the second quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico drives 50 yards in 10 plays, gets a career-long, 42-yard field goal from Justus Adams to take a 17-14 lead over Nevada with 6:45 left in the first half. Key play: 15-yard pass-interference penalty on the Wolf Pack.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada drives 60 yards in seven plays, scores on a 1-yard, fourth-down pass from Cody Fajardo-to-Stephen Jeffers. Key play: a 42-run yard by Fajardo on a read-option keeper. Boy, is that guy fast. Score: 14-14 with 12:34 left in the second quarter.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; End of an eventful first quarter: New Mexico 14, Nevada 7. Nevada has the ball, second-and-2 at its own 48 as the second quarter begins.</p> <p>&#8230;Lobos run an option play on 3rd and 10, get just 4 yards on a Cole Gautsche keeper, forced to punt. Pass-challenged Lobos need to avoid 3rd-and-long situations.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos hold the Wolf Pack on downs at the UNM 14-yard line. Two big defensive plays by New Mexico Man Matt Raymer, back to back. Lobos have the ball 1st and 10 at their own 14 with 2:26 left in the first quarter, leading 14-7.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico quarterback Cole Gautsche scores on a fourth-down, 3-yard option keeper, capping a 10-play, 69-yard New Mexico&amp;#160; scoring drive. Key play: a 34-yard run by sophomore running back Crusoe Gongbay. It&#8217;s 14-7 New Mexico with 4:07 left in the first quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada drives 67 yards in 12 plays, tying the score at 7 with 9:39 left in the first quarter. Wolf Pack overcome a 15-yard personal foul penalty; RB Stefphon Jefferson gets the TD from a yard out.</p> <p>&#8230; Wow. New Mexico drives 75 yards in only three plays, leads 7-0 with 13:44 left in the first quarter. Lamaar Thomas runs 53 yards in the wildcat; QB Cole Gautsche runs 20 yards through the entire Nevada defense for the TD.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230;Chase Clayton deep for the Lobos to receive the kickoff. And here we go.</p> <p>Lobos win the toss and will receive. No particular advantage in deferring since there&#8217;s virtually no wind.</p> <p>&#8230; Senior strong safety Matt Raymer, this week&#8217;s New Mexico Man, leads the team onto the field bearing the New Mexico flag.</p> <p>&#8230;. The Lobos&#8217; 23 seniors are being honored on the field before their final home game. Each player has a placard with his name and number, most players joined by family members. For all they&#8217;ve been through, these guys deserve all the respect they can get.</p> <p>&#8230; Here&#8217;s something I&#8217;ve never seen before in pre-game. The Lobos are in a circle, doing a version of the Oklahoma Drill, 25 minutes before kickoff. We&#8217;re talking about an offensive player and a defensive player trying to drive each other back, with their teammates egging them on &#8212; a very physical drill. But it lasted only a couple of minutes before the Lobos moved to special teams.</p> <p>&#8230; Good afternoon from University Stadium, where the New Mexico Lobos (4-7 overall, 1-5 in Mountain West Conference play) and the Nevada Wolf Pack (6-4, 3-3) will tee it up in about half an hour. I&#8217;ll be blogging with score changes, updates at the quarter and halftime breaks, trends and whatever else catches my eye.</p> <p>We&#8217;ve got a warm, hazy&amp;#160; November day &#8212; temps in the 50&#8217;s, perhaps rising to the low 60s. A crowd of some 17-18,000 is expected.</p>

Rick Wright's blog: Lobos vs. Wolf Pack

https://abqjournal.com/238232/rick-wrights-blog-lobos-vs-wolf-pack.html

2least

Rick Wright's blog: Lobos vs. Wolf Pack <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Check out Sunday&#8217;s Journal and abqjournal.com for more coverage.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico fails to capitalize on an interception and a 35-yard return by linebacker Dallas Bollema. QB Cole Gautsche and RB Crusoe Gongbay miss connections on a handoff and Nevada recovers at the Wolf Pack 13.&amp;#160; Nevada still leads 31-14 with 2 minutes and change remaining.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; Lobo RB Kasey Carrier stopped short of the marker on a 3rd-and-4; Lobos punt from their own 11. Nevada takes over at its own 42 with 6:12 left in the game. Lobos 2-of-10 on third down.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos force a Nevada punt from the Lobo 45, take over at their own 2-yard line with 8:23 left in the game. Seeing eye punt by Nevada&#8217;s Chase Tenpenny.</p> <p>New Mexico goes for it on 4th and 1 from the Nevada 30, but Cole Gautsche is stopped for no gain. Nevada takes over on its own 30 with 101/2 minutes left in the game.</p> <p>&#8230; After three quarters, Nevada leads New Mexico 31-24. The Wolf Pack will start the fourth quarter by punting from their own 25-yard line after the UNM defense forces a three-and-out. Key play: a sack good for 7 yards by cornerback Destry Berry.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada comes right back &#8212; no surprise there &#8212; to take a 31-24 lead with 4:02 left in the third quarter. The Wolf Pack drives 75 yards in 12 plays, the key a 24-yard Cody Fajardo scramble on third-and-7. Fajardo hits Brandon Wimberly fot the TD from 2 yards out for the score.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos tie it up. a career-long 76-yard Kasey Carrier run sets up a 2-yard Jhurell Pressley run,&amp;#160; and it&#8217;s 24-24 with 8:48 left in the third quarter.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada takes the opening kickoff and drives 68 yards, settling for a 24-yard Colin Ditsworth field goal. Wolf Pack lead, 24-17 with 10:41 left in the third quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; Halftime stats: New Mexico &#8212; 11 first downs, 216 yards rushing on 30 carries, 0-of-2 passing, 216 yards total offense. Lamaar Thomas, 65 yards rushing on three carries; Crusoe Gongbay, 60 yards on six carries. Cole Gautsche, 42 yards on eight carries. Kasey Carrier: 33 yards on 10 carries. Nevada: 212 yards rushing, 61 yards passing, 273 yards total offense: Cody Fajardo: 115 yards on nine carries. Stefphon Jefferson, 93 yards on 12 carries. Fajardo, 9-of-14 passing for 61 yards.</p> <p>&#8230; Halftime: Nevada 21, New Mexico 17. Tiny crowd. Lots of people missing an entertaining game.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada scores on a five-play, 75-yard drive, taking the lead for the first time this afternoon at 21-17. The Wolf Pack gets the TD on a 1-yard, fourth-down pass from Cody Fajardo to Brandon Wimberly. Key play: a 62-yard run by Stefphon Jefferson. There&#8217;s 5 minutes left in the second quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico drives 50 yards in 10 plays, gets a career-long, 42-yard field goal from Justus Adams to take a 17-14 lead over Nevada with 6:45 left in the first half. Key play: 15-yard pass-interference penalty on the Wolf Pack.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada drives 60 yards in seven plays, scores on a 1-yard, fourth-down pass from Cody Fajardo-to-Stephen Jeffers. Key play: a 42-run yard by Fajardo on a read-option keeper. Boy, is that guy fast. Score: 14-14 with 12:34 left in the second quarter.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230; End of an eventful first quarter: New Mexico 14, Nevada 7. Nevada has the ball, second-and-2 at its own 48 as the second quarter begins.</p> <p>&#8230;Lobos run an option play on 3rd and 10, get just 4 yards on a Cole Gautsche keeper, forced to punt. Pass-challenged Lobos need to avoid 3rd-and-long situations.</p> <p>&#8230; Lobos hold the Wolf Pack on downs at the UNM 14-yard line. Two big defensive plays by New Mexico Man Matt Raymer, back to back. Lobos have the ball 1st and 10 at their own 14 with 2:26 left in the first quarter, leading 14-7.</p> <p>&#8230; New Mexico quarterback Cole Gautsche scores on a fourth-down, 3-yard option keeper, capping a 10-play, 69-yard New Mexico&amp;#160; scoring drive. Key play: a 34-yard run by sophomore running back Crusoe Gongbay. It&#8217;s 14-7 New Mexico with 4:07 left in the first quarter.</p> <p>&#8230; Nevada drives 67 yards in 12 plays, tying the score at 7 with 9:39 left in the first quarter. Wolf Pack overcome a 15-yard personal foul penalty; RB Stefphon Jefferson gets the TD from a yard out.</p> <p>&#8230; Wow. New Mexico drives 75 yards in only three plays, leads 7-0 with 13:44 left in the first quarter. Lamaar Thomas runs 53 yards in the wildcat; QB Cole Gautsche runs 20 yards through the entire Nevada defense for the TD.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8230;Chase Clayton deep for the Lobos to receive the kickoff. And here we go.</p> <p>Lobos win the toss and will receive. No particular advantage in deferring since there&#8217;s virtually no wind.</p> <p>&#8230; Senior strong safety Matt Raymer, this week&#8217;s New Mexico Man, leads the team onto the field bearing the New Mexico flag.</p> <p>&#8230;. The Lobos&#8217; 23 seniors are being honored on the field before their final home game. Each player has a placard with his name and number, most players joined by family members. For all they&#8217;ve been through, these guys deserve all the respect they can get.</p> <p>&#8230; Here&#8217;s something I&#8217;ve never seen before in pre-game. The Lobos are in a circle, doing a version of the Oklahoma Drill, 25 minutes before kickoff. We&#8217;re talking about an offensive player and a defensive player trying to drive each other back, with their teammates egging them on &#8212; a very physical drill. But it lasted only a couple of minutes before the Lobos moved to special teams.</p> <p>&#8230; Good afternoon from University Stadium, where the New Mexico Lobos (4-7 overall, 1-5 in Mountain West Conference play) and the Nevada Wolf Pack (6-4, 3-3) will tee it up in about half an hour. I&#8217;ll be blogging with score changes, updates at the quarter and halftime breaks, trends and whatever else catches my eye.</p> <p>We&#8217;ve got a warm, hazy&amp;#160; November day &#8212; temps in the 50&#8217;s, perhaps rising to the low 60s. A crowd of some 17-18,000 is expected.</p>

<p>In India today, nationalism has a religion. Hinduism. We may pussyfoot around it and refer to it as Hindutva, saffronisation or, what the ruling rightwing Bhartiya Janata Party calls &#8220;fringe elements&#8221;, but the discourse is clearly embedded in the faith of the majority community.</p> <p>Slurs against Muslims have become commonplace. A country that wants to declare the cow as the mother of the nation and where minorities have to prove their patriotism not by allegiance to the flag but to the political party in power is bound to descend into chaos.</p> <p>Two years ago, a mob brandishing hockey sticks and knives barged into Mohammed Akhlaq&#8217;s house in Dadri in north India and assaulted all the family members before killing him because they suspected there was beef in their fridge. The meat was sent to the forensic lab and it was found to be lamb.</p> <p>When one of his killers <a href="" type="internal">died</a> (of natural causes), he was given a martyr&#8217;s funeral; his coffin was draped in the national flag and there were speeches by leaders from Hindu organisations that have direct access to the government.</p> <p>Last month towards the end of Ramadan when Junaid boarded the train to return home with his Eid shopping bags, he might not have imagined that the elderly man whom he offered the seat to would egg on a mob punching him and his friends. Abuses flew. &#8220;Beef eater&#8221;, &#8220;antinational&#8221;, &#8220;mullah&#8221;. They pulled at their skull caps and newly-sprouted beards. Knives came out telling them to go to Pakistan. They were bleeding. Nobody came to their rescue. Junaid was stabbed. He died. He was 16. At the stations en route some of the lynch mob got off, enough to let the cops shrug about little evidence.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">A scuffle</a> for seats got transformed into a fight for political and religious space. Or, perhaps, religious assertiveness is seeking out reasons.</p> <p>Meat trader Alimuddin Ansari was beaten up by a mob and his van, ostensibly with cattle meat, was set on fire in Jharkhand. There seemed to have been a dispute with some people who were extorting money from him. Such excuses have become the norm where the victim is invariably Muslim, for it was not a spontaneous act. His movements were tracked for hours before he was murdered.</p> <p>Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan of Latehar were taking their cattle to a fair many miles away. Five men with a mission waylaid them. After they killed the 35 and 13 year old, they tied a noose around their necks and hung them from a tree.</p> <p>&#8220;Prima facie it appears to have been a case of a gang attempting to loot cattle,&#8221; the cops said. For those in a hurry to rob and make a quick escape with the cattle to profit from it, they seemed to have relished in committing the murders. Not only did they kill the two, they hanged them. The hanging was a message. To shame. To hold them up as an example. How dare they not respect their gau mata, the cow mother, their religion?</p> <p>It is disconcerting that mobs are using cow protection as the higher cause even to settle petty disputes. The shaming has got a further boost because the videos are uploaded and shared. The message gets more traction. What is so evident in these viral videos is that the so-called &#8216;jihadi mentality&#8217; that Muslims are accused of does not respond in kind. The victims are just&amp;#160;overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack; in some instances they are&amp;#160;pleading, in one the man does not even have the energy or presence of&amp;#160;mind to protest as they grab his hair and kick him. He just takes it like a&amp;#160;stoic who has become accustomed to lie on a bed of nails.</p> <p>***</p> <p>Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has not uttered a word condoling any of these deaths. He tweets mourning for the loss of lives in a fire in Portugal, but makes no attempt to reach out to the families of those killed by men purportedly supporting his party&#8217;s Hindutva dream, a dream to reclaim ancient India and transform the country into a Hindu nation.</p> <p>When he does <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/strict-action-will-be-taken-against-cow-vigilante-groups-says-pm-modi/299582" type="external">speak</a>, it is evasive: &#8220;All (state) governments should take stringent action against those who are violating law in the name of cow protection.&#8221;</p> <p>How will this happen when some state governments are handing out expensive beef detection kits to the cops to smell for trouble, effectively converting the police force into cow protectors too? The very fact that there are several cow protection groups is worrying, for they aren&#8217;t animal rights activists but soldiers of the faith.</p> <p>&#8220;Bolo Jai Shri Ram&#8221; (Hail Lord Rama), is the war cry. People are stopped in the streets and asked to owe allegiance to their god. A mentally unstable woman was slapped and forced to utter the words; a cleric was pummelled just outside the mosque by a group insisting he chant the phrase; <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/was-forced-to-say-jai-sri-ram-by-bajrang-dal-activists-claims-ndtv-journalist-4731743/" type="external">journalist Munne Bharti</a> was driving with his elderly parents. Suddenly, their car was surrounded by a group. They threatened to set the car on fire if they did not chant &#8220;Jai Shri Ram&#8221;. They did. An adult was frightened, for himself and his aged parents.</p> <p>***</p> <p>How is this not about religion, then?</p> <p>It was always about religion, perhaps by a few skewed minds.&amp;#160;25 years ago Bal Thackeray, the leader of the militant Shiv Sena, had asked for the disenfranchisement of Muslims. He would address huge rallies at an open ground referring to Muslims as &#8220;katuas&#8221;, the cut ones without a foreskin. After the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, on the instructions of these political parties, and the riots reached what was then Bombay, the men in the streets would point at the crotches of Muslim men and snigger, &#8220;katua&#8221;. They were stopped and asked to strip for a random check by random people. Unlike the Sikhs after the riots in 1984 who discarded their turbans and shaved off their hair to protect themselves, Muslims could not get back their foreskin.</p> <p>At the <a href="" type="internal">All-India Hindu Convention</a>&amp;#160;held last month in Goa, for 4 days all the cars at the venue were sprayed with cow urine to purify them. &#8220;Their car needs shuddhi karan. We do it to all objects &#8212; watches, clothes, sometimes even handbags. It&#8217;s a spiritual exercise.&#8221;</p> <p>How people choose to practise their faith is a personal matter. But when you have a cow piss soda, cow dung and urine being made a part of ayurvedic medicines and <a href="" type="internal">astrologers treating people</a> in hospital OPDs, then it becomes obvious that the cow and beef are incidental here. They are only the more potent batons to beat the minorities. There is also the commercial angle. Giving a charlatan guru called Ramdev land and business rights to run an empire ostensibly selling indigenous products is a strategy to bring the devil close to your home.</p> <p>Young Hindu women are <a href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/love-jihadis-beware-hindu-girls-being-prepared-to-fight-forced-religious-conversion-in-aligarh_1896121.html" type="external">training in self-defence</a> to protect them from &#8220;love jihad&#8221;, a bogey created by the rightwing suggesting that Muslim men are luring them to fall in love to later convert them.</p> <p>In May last year, there was a report about a <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bajrang-dal-imparts-military-training-to-cadre-to-fight-terror/1/675774.html" type="external">camp</a> in Uttar Pradesh training the youth wing of militant Hindu organisations to protect the country from terrorists. In the video images they are aiming their air guns and sticks at men wearing skull caps. The governor had justified the drill: &#8220;Those who cannot defend themselves, cannot ultimately defend the country and there is nothing wrong if some youths are getting arms-training purely for self defence.&#8221;</p> <p>That instead of urging these fit youth to join the army, they are being brainwashed to target a particular group makes the intention clear. How is this not about religion?</p> <p>***</p> <p>The fallout of such brainwashing is not restricted to the extremist Hindutva proponents alone. There is a not-so-subtle attempt to deflect from the Hinduness of the terror by liberals too. An academic who has taken it upon himself to explain India to Indians on social media from his perch in the US has <a href="" type="internal">written</a> about the global Muslim victimhood industry by playing victim: &#8220;One cannot use the term &#8216;Muslim terror&#8217; (but Hindu or Christian or Left terror is fine) or even Islamic terror without worry of being termed communal, bigoted, or Islamophobic. The appropriate phrase is &#8216;Islamist terror,&#8217; which, we are expected to clarify, has nothing to do with Islam.&#8221;</p> <p>Some commentators have begun to call India Lynchistan, the land of lynching. We do not seem to realise that mobs thrive on notoriety. They are not seeking a popular mandate, because they already are the popular mandate. Paper tiger responses only embolden their cause. The truth is that nobody in mainstream media or in activism or with an outsider&#8217;s perspective, like <a href="" type="internal">Dr. Amartya Sen</a>, has had the courage or the will to call these planned lynchings as Hindu terrorism.</p> <p>Is such nomenclature important? It is. Because it is a systematic attempt to annihilate the minorities, specifically Muslims. (Quite different from Islamist terrorism whose victims are mainly Muslim and, in some cases like the ISIS&#8217;s victims, also people who are liberal enough to support Muslims.)</p> <p>Muslims immediately distance themselves from any jihad violence, even though that does not assuage their neighbours from seeing them as potential suspects. Hindus are not doing so in large enough numbers, and they are chary of admitting the faith angle because they believe that Hinduism is not a monotheistic faith with allegiance to one book and one god. It is amorphous and therefore fluid, they reason.</p> <p>The caste system and its treatment of Dalits and the backward castes certainly reveals &#8216;fluidity&#8217;. All the government-engineered riots have been masterminded by a vile intellect that outsources the war to the police and army and pumps up the trading class to decimate minority businesses. The murder of minorities is only a more violent assertion of this sheltered ghettoisation of the elite majority.</p> <p>There are many who use their internet liberalism to rationalise their own subtle bigotry. That many of them also have a stake in steak does lend weight to their public &#8220;I&#8217;m not too Hindu&#8221; utterances.</p> <p>In one such recent piece, the headline <a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bloody-mary/is-the-hindu-a-victim-no-hindus-feel-safe-and-the-victim-narrative-is-a-manufactured-war-cry/" type="external">flashed</a> about how Hindu victimhood is a manufactured cry. In the first para itself, though, the writer gave a clean chit to Muslims quoting, of all people, George Bush: &#8220;India is a country which does not have a single al-Qaida member in a population of 150 million Muslims.&#8221; Hindus do not have to prove whether they have allegiance to any extremist organisation, even if they elect them to power.</p> <p>The usage of Islamist phrases like fatwa and jihad to explain Hindu terror acts and suggest they are only &#8220;mimicking&#8221; reeks of another version of Islamophobia and projects violence by Hindu extremists as a reaction to centuries of abuse by Muslim rulers. This historic narrative pushes the &#8216;tolerate Muslims despite their past&#8217; idea, the moral compass revealing who considers itself the superior side.</p> <p>These recent attempts to call out Hindu extremists is not organic. They are a response to some of us wondering why we did not link the Hindu word with terrorism. We have woken up or, in good old Hindu speak, and in deference to many of us being converts from the ancient religion, our third eye has been awakened.</p>

The Murder of Muslims

https://counterpunch.org/2017/07/21/the-murder-of-muslims/

2017-07-21

4left

The Murder of Muslims <p>In India today, nationalism has a religion. Hinduism. We may pussyfoot around it and refer to it as Hindutva, saffronisation or, what the ruling rightwing Bhartiya Janata Party calls &#8220;fringe elements&#8221;, but the discourse is clearly embedded in the faith of the majority community.</p> <p>Slurs against Muslims have become commonplace. A country that wants to declare the cow as the mother of the nation and where minorities have to prove their patriotism not by allegiance to the flag but to the political party in power is bound to descend into chaos.</p> <p>Two years ago, a mob brandishing hockey sticks and knives barged into Mohammed Akhlaq&#8217;s house in Dadri in north India and assaulted all the family members before killing him because they suspected there was beef in their fridge. The meat was sent to the forensic lab and it was found to be lamb.</p> <p>When one of his killers <a href="" type="internal">died</a> (of natural causes), he was given a martyr&#8217;s funeral; his coffin was draped in the national flag and there were speeches by leaders from Hindu organisations that have direct access to the government.</p> <p>Last month towards the end of Ramadan when Junaid boarded the train to return home with his Eid shopping bags, he might not have imagined that the elderly man whom he offered the seat to would egg on a mob punching him and his friends. Abuses flew. &#8220;Beef eater&#8221;, &#8220;antinational&#8221;, &#8220;mullah&#8221;. They pulled at their skull caps and newly-sprouted beards. Knives came out telling them to go to Pakistan. They were bleeding. Nobody came to their rescue. Junaid was stabbed. He died. He was 16. At the stations en route some of the lynch mob got off, enough to let the cops shrug about little evidence.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">A scuffle</a> for seats got transformed into a fight for political and religious space. Or, perhaps, religious assertiveness is seeking out reasons.</p> <p>Meat trader Alimuddin Ansari was beaten up by a mob and his van, ostensibly with cattle meat, was set on fire in Jharkhand. There seemed to have been a dispute with some people who were extorting money from him. Such excuses have become the norm where the victim is invariably Muslim, for it was not a spontaneous act. His movements were tracked for hours before he was murdered.</p> <p>Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan of Latehar were taking their cattle to a fair many miles away. Five men with a mission waylaid them. After they killed the 35 and 13 year old, they tied a noose around their necks and hung them from a tree.</p> <p>&#8220;Prima facie it appears to have been a case of a gang attempting to loot cattle,&#8221; the cops said. For those in a hurry to rob and make a quick escape with the cattle to profit from it, they seemed to have relished in committing the murders. Not only did they kill the two, they hanged them. The hanging was a message. To shame. To hold them up as an example. How dare they not respect their gau mata, the cow mother, their religion?</p> <p>It is disconcerting that mobs are using cow protection as the higher cause even to settle petty disputes. The shaming has got a further boost because the videos are uploaded and shared. The message gets more traction. What is so evident in these viral videos is that the so-called &#8216;jihadi mentality&#8217; that Muslims are accused of does not respond in kind. The victims are just&amp;#160;overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack; in some instances they are&amp;#160;pleading, in one the man does not even have the energy or presence of&amp;#160;mind to protest as they grab his hair and kick him. He just takes it like a&amp;#160;stoic who has become accustomed to lie on a bed of nails.</p> <p>***</p> <p>Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has not uttered a word condoling any of these deaths. He tweets mourning for the loss of lives in a fire in Portugal, but makes no attempt to reach out to the families of those killed by men purportedly supporting his party&#8217;s Hindutva dream, a dream to reclaim ancient India and transform the country into a Hindu nation.</p> <p>When he does <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/strict-action-will-be-taken-against-cow-vigilante-groups-says-pm-modi/299582" type="external">speak</a>, it is evasive: &#8220;All (state) governments should take stringent action against those who are violating law in the name of cow protection.&#8221;</p> <p>How will this happen when some state governments are handing out expensive beef detection kits to the cops to smell for trouble, effectively converting the police force into cow protectors too? The very fact that there are several cow protection groups is worrying, for they aren&#8217;t animal rights activists but soldiers of the faith.</p> <p>&#8220;Bolo Jai Shri Ram&#8221; (Hail Lord Rama), is the war cry. People are stopped in the streets and asked to owe allegiance to their god. A mentally unstable woman was slapped and forced to utter the words; a cleric was pummelled just outside the mosque by a group insisting he chant the phrase; <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/was-forced-to-say-jai-sri-ram-by-bajrang-dal-activists-claims-ndtv-journalist-4731743/" type="external">journalist Munne Bharti</a> was driving with his elderly parents. Suddenly, their car was surrounded by a group. They threatened to set the car on fire if they did not chant &#8220;Jai Shri Ram&#8221;. They did. An adult was frightened, for himself and his aged parents.</p> <p>***</p> <p>How is this not about religion, then?</p> <p>It was always about religion, perhaps by a few skewed minds.&amp;#160;25 years ago Bal Thackeray, the leader of the militant Shiv Sena, had asked for the disenfranchisement of Muslims. He would address huge rallies at an open ground referring to Muslims as &#8220;katuas&#8221;, the cut ones without a foreskin. After the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, on the instructions of these political parties, and the riots reached what was then Bombay, the men in the streets would point at the crotches of Muslim men and snigger, &#8220;katua&#8221;. They were stopped and asked to strip for a random check by random people. Unlike the Sikhs after the riots in 1984 who discarded their turbans and shaved off their hair to protect themselves, Muslims could not get back their foreskin.</p> <p>At the <a href="" type="internal">All-India Hindu Convention</a>&amp;#160;held last month in Goa, for 4 days all the cars at the venue were sprayed with cow urine to purify them. &#8220;Their car needs shuddhi karan. We do it to all objects &#8212; watches, clothes, sometimes even handbags. It&#8217;s a spiritual exercise.&#8221;</p> <p>How people choose to practise their faith is a personal matter. But when you have a cow piss soda, cow dung and urine being made a part of ayurvedic medicines and <a href="" type="internal">astrologers treating people</a> in hospital OPDs, then it becomes obvious that the cow and beef are incidental here. They are only the more potent batons to beat the minorities. There is also the commercial angle. Giving a charlatan guru called Ramdev land and business rights to run an empire ostensibly selling indigenous products is a strategy to bring the devil close to your home.</p> <p>Young Hindu women are <a href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/love-jihadis-beware-hindu-girls-being-prepared-to-fight-forced-religious-conversion-in-aligarh_1896121.html" type="external">training in self-defence</a> to protect them from &#8220;love jihad&#8221;, a bogey created by the rightwing suggesting that Muslim men are luring them to fall in love to later convert them.</p> <p>In May last year, there was a report about a <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bajrang-dal-imparts-military-training-to-cadre-to-fight-terror/1/675774.html" type="external">camp</a> in Uttar Pradesh training the youth wing of militant Hindu organisations to protect the country from terrorists. In the video images they are aiming their air guns and sticks at men wearing skull caps. The governor had justified the drill: &#8220;Those who cannot defend themselves, cannot ultimately defend the country and there is nothing wrong if some youths are getting arms-training purely for self defence.&#8221;</p> <p>That instead of urging these fit youth to join the army, they are being brainwashed to target a particular group makes the intention clear. How is this not about religion?</p> <p>***</p> <p>The fallout of such brainwashing is not restricted to the extremist Hindutva proponents alone. There is a not-so-subtle attempt to deflect from the Hinduness of the terror by liberals too. An academic who has taken it upon himself to explain India to Indians on social media from his perch in the US has <a href="" type="internal">written</a> about the global Muslim victimhood industry by playing victim: &#8220;One cannot use the term &#8216;Muslim terror&#8217; (but Hindu or Christian or Left terror is fine) or even Islamic terror without worry of being termed communal, bigoted, or Islamophobic. The appropriate phrase is &#8216;Islamist terror,&#8217; which, we are expected to clarify, has nothing to do with Islam.&#8221;</p> <p>Some commentators have begun to call India Lynchistan, the land of lynching. We do not seem to realise that mobs thrive on notoriety. They are not seeking a popular mandate, because they already are the popular mandate. Paper tiger responses only embolden their cause. The truth is that nobody in mainstream media or in activism or with an outsider&#8217;s perspective, like <a href="" type="internal">Dr. Amartya Sen</a>, has had the courage or the will to call these planned lynchings as Hindu terrorism.</p> <p>Is such nomenclature important? It is. Because it is a systematic attempt to annihilate the minorities, specifically Muslims. (Quite different from Islamist terrorism whose victims are mainly Muslim and, in some cases like the ISIS&#8217;s victims, also people who are liberal enough to support Muslims.)</p> <p>Muslims immediately distance themselves from any jihad violence, even though that does not assuage their neighbours from seeing them as potential suspects. Hindus are not doing so in large enough numbers, and they are chary of admitting the faith angle because they believe that Hinduism is not a monotheistic faith with allegiance to one book and one god. It is amorphous and therefore fluid, they reason.</p> <p>The caste system and its treatment of Dalits and the backward castes certainly reveals &#8216;fluidity&#8217;. All the government-engineered riots have been masterminded by a vile intellect that outsources the war to the police and army and pumps up the trading class to decimate minority businesses. The murder of minorities is only a more violent assertion of this sheltered ghettoisation of the elite majority.</p> <p>There are many who use their internet liberalism to rationalise their own subtle bigotry. That many of them also have a stake in steak does lend weight to their public &#8220;I&#8217;m not too Hindu&#8221; utterances.</p> <p>In one such recent piece, the headline <a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bloody-mary/is-the-hindu-a-victim-no-hindus-feel-safe-and-the-victim-narrative-is-a-manufactured-war-cry/" type="external">flashed</a> about how Hindu victimhood is a manufactured cry. In the first para itself, though, the writer gave a clean chit to Muslims quoting, of all people, George Bush: &#8220;India is a country which does not have a single al-Qaida member in a population of 150 million Muslims.&#8221; Hindus do not have to prove whether they have allegiance to any extremist organisation, even if they elect them to power.</p> <p>The usage of Islamist phrases like fatwa and jihad to explain Hindu terror acts and suggest they are only &#8220;mimicking&#8221; reeks of another version of Islamophobia and projects violence by Hindu extremists as a reaction to centuries of abuse by Muslim rulers. This historic narrative pushes the &#8216;tolerate Muslims despite their past&#8217; idea, the moral compass revealing who considers itself the superior side.</p> <p>These recent attempts to call out Hindu extremists is not organic. They are a response to some of us wondering why we did not link the Hindu word with terrorism. We have woken up or, in good old Hindu speak, and in deference to many of us being converts from the ancient religion, our third eye has been awakened.</p>

<p /> <p>Hello,</p> <p>My name is Cynthia. I recently graduated with my master's degree and have secured a full-time job in East Palo Alto with a nonprofit working with young people. I have steady income, good references, a 759 credit score and good renter history. I am responsible.</p> <p>I try to live as healthy as possible. So, I spend a lot of time outside. I don't own a TV. I like to write. I am looking for a long-term space for my daughter and myself. She is 6 years old.</p> <p>We are looking for a calm space that we can call home. At the moment, we are homeless. It is hard to find someone who is willing to offer us a space. We have a regular early rise type of sleeping schedule. We are very clean individuals and find that organization makes our life easier.&amp;#160;</p> <p>We try to be as positive as possible and believe in communication first, as long as people are willing. If not, we keep to ourselves.</p> <p>My daughter will be gone most weekends with her father. Otherwise, she is always by my side. She is well behaved. We have family in Redwood City. So, we spend most of our time there.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Thank you for your time,</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>CLC</p> <p>This is the introduction that I have been sending out like a robot on a daily basis, in the desperate hope of finding a place to live. I never expected it to be so difficult to find housing in California's Bay Area, especially on the Peninsula, my place of birth and where I grew up.</p> <p>Throughout the years, I have witnessed the drastic changes that my hometown, Redwood City, has gone through, and I don't know if any of those changes have benefited the individuals in my community, including myself. Since I was 12 years old, I have been engaged within my community by participating in programs and organizations that are rooted in social justice.</p> <p /> <p>The people living in low-income communities of color that are being gentrified deserve to live in the space that we call home, not because we are a needed component of a hierarchy system but because we are human.?</p> <p>Cynthia Cruz, a Silicon Valley resident</p> <p /> <p>I have volunteered and served as a model for young people, who are struggling with the same circumstances that I experienced while growing up as a first-generation, low-income, fatherless, little Brown girl.</p> <p>Last May, I walked across the stage at San Jose State University and received my third college degree, after navigating the unpaved road of higher education. As the American Dream dictates, I have worked incessantly, bootstraps have permanently scarred my hands. I pull and sustain.</p> <p>My community has failed me when I have worked to be a productive member of society, but I cannot find a safe space for my family to live. During my search for housing, I have felt completely degraded as a human being. Looking for housing on the Peninsula has turned into a human rights violation.</p> <p>During my search, I have experienced circumstances that are fundamentally degrading and have made me make sacrifices. I dedicate an average of two hours a day sending out emails, making calls and driving to see spaces. Recently, after taking the time to drive to a potential home, investigating the space and filling out a three-page application, I was told, not to bother applying by a White man.</p> <p>He did not even make eye contact with me.&amp;#160;He stated that there had already been more than 10 applicants for a $1,500 per month studio without parking or washer and dryer amenities.</p> <p>At open houses, standing with my daughter in hand, I quickly understood that I could not compete with all of the high-tech, single "professionals." They are always the preferred candidate. With my daughter next to me, I am asked personal questions about my romantic life, my child custody agreement, details about my daily routine - questions that I must answer even with extreme discomfort if I wish to be considered.</p> <p>My discomfort escalated and morphed into something aberrant on the occasion that I was recorded without my consent. At the end of a conversation with a landlord, she simply tapped her phone, which had been on the table and said, "I hope we were loud enough. It is so I won't forget anything when I talk to my husband."</p> <p>I concluded that our entire conversation had been recorded. I was never told that our conversation would be recorded. She never asked for consent. I swallowed all of the immediate alarms going off in my head and the dark feeling creeping out of my chest. I simply smiled and said I would wait for her decision about the mini studio.</p> <p>Two days later, the landlord contacted me to let me know she was willing to rent to me but was asking for $1,650, instead of $1,500 which was the original listing price. I cannot afford to pay $1,650 per month for a mini studio. It is not sustainable for myself and my daughter. My conscience awakens with all of the wrath brought to an ocean by a hurricane, but is abruptly stunted by the desire to be able to tell my daughter that we have a home.</p> <p>These two incidents reflect my entire experience of trying to search for a home on the Peninsula for my daughter and myself. As an individual working with the public in communities that are violently being displaced, I battle with the monster that is gentrification. Its claws have uprooted open spaces, filled them with concrete and one-way mirrors.</p> <p>Its teeth have chewed away at all of the affordable housing, leaving it smeared with the shiny saliva of luxury condominiums. It is an uphill battle, when what nourishes this monster is capitalistic greed. We are also consumed, when the mainstream arguments against gentrification revolve around the very same ideas that keeps this monster alive.</p> <p>"If all of the low-income people move away who will work in the service jobs?"</p> <p>"Who will keep the Peninsula functioning if there are no blue collar workers?"</p> <p>This discourse is located within the framework that creates a situation in which people are literally pushed out of their homes and communities. Gentrification is more than the appropriation of environment - it is about stripping an entire community of a way of life, tradition, history and sustainability.</p> <p>Gentrification is a symptom of social inequality, which makes social justice the only argument against displacement.</p> <p>The people living in low-income communities of color that are being gentrified deserve to live in the space that we call home, not because we are a needed component of a hierarchy system but because we are human.</p> <p>There is a problem when attempting to secure basic survival, comes with the loss of self respect and scrapes down my throat as I swallow in order to provide for my daughter.</p> <p>I do not strive for luxury served on a silver spoon. I would simply like the basic needs that society assured I would be able to secure if I walked down the directed path. I realize the American Dream will never manifest for me when I open my eyes.</p> <p>I must imagine my own - a type of dream that is not dehumanizing when I attempt to make it a reality and one that is inclusive of individuals like myself and my daughter.</p> <p>A version of this essay first appeared in <a href="http://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/" type="external">Silicon Valley De-Bug</a>, a community organizing, advocacy and media <a href="" type="internal">organization</a> in San Jose, Calif. It is reprinted with permission. The photograph of Cynthia Cruz and her daughter and the photo illustration are courtesy of Silicon Valley De-Bug.&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p> <p>&amp;#160;&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">affordable homes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">American Dream</a>, <a href="" type="internal">displacement</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Families</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gentrification</a>, <a href="" type="internal">housing</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Latina</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Redwood City</a>, <a href="" type="internal">San Jose area</a>, <a href="" type="internal">San Jose State University</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Silicon Valley</a></p>

Silicon Valley Gentrification Is Pushing Out a Mom, Who Asks: Why?

http://equalvoiceforfamilies.org/silicon-valley-gentrification-is-pushing-out-a-mom-who-asks-why/

4left

Silicon Valley Gentrification Is Pushing Out a Mom, Who Asks: Why? <p /> <p>Hello,</p> <p>My name is Cynthia. I recently graduated with my master's degree and have secured a full-time job in East Palo Alto with a nonprofit working with young people. I have steady income, good references, a 759 credit score and good renter history. I am responsible.</p> <p>I try to live as healthy as possible. So, I spend a lot of time outside. I don't own a TV. I like to write. I am looking for a long-term space for my daughter and myself. She is 6 years old.</p> <p>We are looking for a calm space that we can call home. At the moment, we are homeless. It is hard to find someone who is willing to offer us a space. We have a regular early rise type of sleeping schedule. We are very clean individuals and find that organization makes our life easier.&amp;#160;</p> <p>We try to be as positive as possible and believe in communication first, as long as people are willing. If not, we keep to ourselves.</p> <p>My daughter will be gone most weekends with her father. Otherwise, she is always by my side. She is well behaved. We have family in Redwood City. So, we spend most of our time there.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Thank you for your time,</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>CLC</p> <p>This is the introduction that I have been sending out like a robot on a daily basis, in the desperate hope of finding a place to live. I never expected it to be so difficult to find housing in California's Bay Area, especially on the Peninsula, my place of birth and where I grew up.</p> <p>Throughout the years, I have witnessed the drastic changes that my hometown, Redwood City, has gone through, and I don't know if any of those changes have benefited the individuals in my community, including myself. Since I was 12 years old, I have been engaged within my community by participating in programs and organizations that are rooted in social justice.</p> <p /> <p>The people living in low-income communities of color that are being gentrified deserve to live in the space that we call home, not because we are a needed component of a hierarchy system but because we are human.?</p> <p>Cynthia Cruz, a Silicon Valley resident</p> <p /> <p>I have volunteered and served as a model for young people, who are struggling with the same circumstances that I experienced while growing up as a first-generation, low-income, fatherless, little Brown girl.</p> <p>Last May, I walked across the stage at San Jose State University and received my third college degree, after navigating the unpaved road of higher education. As the American Dream dictates, I have worked incessantly, bootstraps have permanently scarred my hands. I pull and sustain.</p> <p>My community has failed me when I have worked to be a productive member of society, but I cannot find a safe space for my family to live. During my search for housing, I have felt completely degraded as a human being. Looking for housing on the Peninsula has turned into a human rights violation.</p> <p>During my search, I have experienced circumstances that are fundamentally degrading and have made me make sacrifices. I dedicate an average of two hours a day sending out emails, making calls and driving to see spaces. Recently, after taking the time to drive to a potential home, investigating the space and filling out a three-page application, I was told, not to bother applying by a White man.</p> <p>He did not even make eye contact with me.&amp;#160;He stated that there had already been more than 10 applicants for a $1,500 per month studio without parking or washer and dryer amenities.</p> <p>At open houses, standing with my daughter in hand, I quickly understood that I could not compete with all of the high-tech, single "professionals." They are always the preferred candidate. With my daughter next to me, I am asked personal questions about my romantic life, my child custody agreement, details about my daily routine - questions that I must answer even with extreme discomfort if I wish to be considered.</p> <p>My discomfort escalated and morphed into something aberrant on the occasion that I was recorded without my consent. At the end of a conversation with a landlord, she simply tapped her phone, which had been on the table and said, "I hope we were loud enough. It is so I won't forget anything when I talk to my husband."</p> <p>I concluded that our entire conversation had been recorded. I was never told that our conversation would be recorded. She never asked for consent. I swallowed all of the immediate alarms going off in my head and the dark feeling creeping out of my chest. I simply smiled and said I would wait for her decision about the mini studio.</p> <p>Two days later, the landlord contacted me to let me know she was willing to rent to me but was asking for $1,650, instead of $1,500 which was the original listing price. I cannot afford to pay $1,650 per month for a mini studio. It is not sustainable for myself and my daughter. My conscience awakens with all of the wrath brought to an ocean by a hurricane, but is abruptly stunted by the desire to be able to tell my daughter that we have a home.</p> <p>These two incidents reflect my entire experience of trying to search for a home on the Peninsula for my daughter and myself. As an individual working with the public in communities that are violently being displaced, I battle with the monster that is gentrification. Its claws have uprooted open spaces, filled them with concrete and one-way mirrors.</p> <p>Its teeth have chewed away at all of the affordable housing, leaving it smeared with the shiny saliva of luxury condominiums. It is an uphill battle, when what nourishes this monster is capitalistic greed. We are also consumed, when the mainstream arguments against gentrification revolve around the very same ideas that keeps this monster alive.</p> <p>"If all of the low-income people move away who will work in the service jobs?"</p> <p>"Who will keep the Peninsula functioning if there are no blue collar workers?"</p> <p>This discourse is located within the framework that creates a situation in which people are literally pushed out of their homes and communities. Gentrification is more than the appropriation of environment - it is about stripping an entire community of a way of life, tradition, history and sustainability.</p> <p>Gentrification is a symptom of social inequality, which makes social justice the only argument against displacement.</p> <p>The people living in low-income communities of color that are being gentrified deserve to live in the space that we call home, not because we are a needed component of a hierarchy system but because we are human.</p> <p>There is a problem when attempting to secure basic survival, comes with the loss of self respect and scrapes down my throat as I swallow in order to provide for my daughter.</p> <p>I do not strive for luxury served on a silver spoon. I would simply like the basic needs that society assured I would be able to secure if I walked down the directed path. I realize the American Dream will never manifest for me when I open my eyes.</p> <p>I must imagine my own - a type of dream that is not dehumanizing when I attempt to make it a reality and one that is inclusive of individuals like myself and my daughter.</p> <p>A version of this essay first appeared in <a href="http://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/" type="external">Silicon Valley De-Bug</a>, a community organizing, advocacy and media <a href="" type="internal">organization</a> in San Jose, Calif. It is reprinted with permission. The photograph of Cynthia Cruz and her daughter and the photo illustration are courtesy of Silicon Valley De-Bug.&amp;#160;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p> <p>&amp;#160;&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">affordable homes</a>, <a href="" type="internal">American Dream</a>, <a href="" type="internal">displacement</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Families</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gentrification</a>, <a href="" type="internal">housing</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Latina</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Redwood City</a>, <a href="" type="internal">San Jose area</a>, <a href="" type="internal">San Jose State University</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Silicon Valley</a></p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>A Farmington fire captain recently convicted of drunken driving remains on the job despite a new city policy requiring that any employee found guilty of DWI be terminated, <a href="http://www.daily-times.com/ci_16089030" type="external">The Daily Times</a> reported.</p> <p>Capt. Charles Martin was found guilty by a jury in June of driving while intoxicated and was sentenced last month to community service, was fined and ordered to complete a drunken driving treatment program, according to court records.</p> <p>In July 2009, following a rash of DWI arrests, the city enacted a written policy that any city employee found guilty of drunken driving would be fired, The Daily Times said.</p> <p>City Manager Rob Mayes told The Daily Times in a phone interview that the new policy does not apply to Martin because he was arrested before the new policy was enacted on July 1, 2009.</p> <p>Martin was arrested on the DWI charge March 27, 2009, the same night that fire training chief Vincent Moffitt was arrested in a separate drunken-driving incident, The Daily Times said. Both officers were off-duty at the time of the incidents.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Moffitt resigned from the department after he entered a no-contest plea on Feb. 26, the paper reported.</p> <p>Although Mayes said at the time that it was clear to Moffitt the city would have followed its policy regarding DWI conviction, the city manager told The Daily Times that both cases were reviewed fairly based on the city&#8217;s older DWI policy, where each case is evaluated individually.</p> <p>Mayes said he believed Martin&#8217;s and Moffitt&#8217;s cases were the only two DWI cases whose arrests came before the new policy was enacted but whose convictions came after July 2009, The Daily Times said.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

7:55am — Farmington Firefighter Still on Job After DWI Conviction

https://abqjournal.com/9350/755am-farmington-firefighter-still-on-job-after-dwi-conviction.html

2least

7:55am — Farmington Firefighter Still on Job After DWI Conviction <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>A Farmington fire captain recently convicted of drunken driving remains on the job despite a new city policy requiring that any employee found guilty of DWI be terminated, <a href="http://www.daily-times.com/ci_16089030" type="external">The Daily Times</a> reported.</p> <p>Capt. Charles Martin was found guilty by a jury in June of driving while intoxicated and was sentenced last month to community service, was fined and ordered to complete a drunken driving treatment program, according to court records.</p> <p>In July 2009, following a rash of DWI arrests, the city enacted a written policy that any city employee found guilty of drunken driving would be fired, The Daily Times said.</p> <p>City Manager Rob Mayes told The Daily Times in a phone interview that the new policy does not apply to Martin because he was arrested before the new policy was enacted on July 1, 2009.</p> <p>Martin was arrested on the DWI charge March 27, 2009, the same night that fire training chief Vincent Moffitt was arrested in a separate drunken-driving incident, The Daily Times said. Both officers were off-duty at the time of the incidents.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Moffitt resigned from the department after he entered a no-contest plea on Feb. 26, the paper reported.</p> <p>Although Mayes said at the time that it was clear to Moffitt the city would have followed its policy regarding DWI conviction, the city manager told The Daily Times that both cases were reviewed fairly based on the city&#8217;s older DWI policy, where each case is evaluated individually.</p> <p>Mayes said he believed Martin&#8217;s and Moffitt&#8217;s cases were the only two DWI cases whose arrests came before the new policy was enacted but whose convictions came after July 2009, The Daily Times said.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

<p>It's always the way. The very people the Left claims to champion are the very ones they end up hurting.&amp;#160;</p> <p>New analysis conducted by&amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;and&amp;#160;reported&amp;#160;by <a href="http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/analysis-of-crime-data-links-gun-violence-spike-in-chicago-to-anti-police-protests/" type="external">LawNews</a>&amp;#160;reveals that violent crime in the city of&amp;#160;Chicago has spiked in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. The report claims that the increase in violence is "directly related to the release of a video that shows the police shooting of&amp;#160;Laquan McDonald&amp;#160;and the&amp;#160;protests, activism and reforms that followed shortly thereafter." The idea is that police officers are taking a less proactive approach to law enforcement for fear of reprisals.&amp;#160;</p> <p>According to the&amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;analysis, crime data shows&amp;#160;175 homicides and 675 nonfatal shootings incidents occurred in Chicago over the time period beginning December 1, 2015 and ending on March 31, 2016 (the McDonald shooting video was released on November 24, 2015). &amp;#160;This reflects a 48% percent increase in homicides and a 73% increase in nonfatal shootings from the same time period one-year ago. &amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;describes the statistical variations from year to year as too significant to be &#8220;explained by seasonal [weather] fluctuations or chance.&#8221;</p> <p>If these numbers hold, Chicago will be on pace for approximately 570 homicides and more than 2,000 nonfatal shootings, which would make it the most violent year for the city in over a decade.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Chicago Police Department spokesman&amp;#160;Anthony&amp;#160;Guglielmi&amp;#160;said recently, "no&amp;#160;police officer wants to be the next viral video," and that about sums up the problem.</p> <p>&amp;#160;Jamie Kalven, the journalist whose reporting is credited with drawing attention to the McDonald case, said that in speaking with Chicago officers he found &#8220;a genuine lack of clarity about the job description, the parameters of the job, and who will have their back in ambiguous situations.&#8221; As a result, officers are taking less proactive policing measures that are meant to prevent crime, such as street stops or really any &#8220;discretionary interactions with civilians.&#8221;</p> <p>Of course this was all predictable and likely the result the Left wanted.</p>

Report: Crime Spikes in Wake of Black Lives Matter

http://truthrevolt.org/news/report-crime-spikes-wake-black-lives-matter

2018-10-03

0right

Report: Crime Spikes in Wake of Black Lives Matter <p>It's always the way. The very people the Left claims to champion are the very ones they end up hurting.&amp;#160;</p> <p>New analysis conducted by&amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;and&amp;#160;reported&amp;#160;by <a href="http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/analysis-of-crime-data-links-gun-violence-spike-in-chicago-to-anti-police-protests/" type="external">LawNews</a>&amp;#160;reveals that violent crime in the city of&amp;#160;Chicago has spiked in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. The report claims that the increase in violence is "directly related to the release of a video that shows the police shooting of&amp;#160;Laquan McDonald&amp;#160;and the&amp;#160;protests, activism and reforms that followed shortly thereafter." The idea is that police officers are taking a less proactive approach to law enforcement for fear of reprisals.&amp;#160;</p> <p>According to the&amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;analysis, crime data shows&amp;#160;175 homicides and 675 nonfatal shootings incidents occurred in Chicago over the time period beginning December 1, 2015 and ending on March 31, 2016 (the McDonald shooting video was released on November 24, 2015). &amp;#160;This reflects a 48% percent increase in homicides and a 73% increase in nonfatal shootings from the same time period one-year ago. &amp;#160;FiveThirtyEight&amp;#160;describes the statistical variations from year to year as too significant to be &#8220;explained by seasonal [weather] fluctuations or chance.&#8221;</p> <p>If these numbers hold, Chicago will be on pace for approximately 570 homicides and more than 2,000 nonfatal shootings, which would make it the most violent year for the city in over a decade.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Chicago Police Department spokesman&amp;#160;Anthony&amp;#160;Guglielmi&amp;#160;said recently, "no&amp;#160;police officer wants to be the next viral video," and that about sums up the problem.</p> <p>&amp;#160;Jamie Kalven, the journalist whose reporting is credited with drawing attention to the McDonald case, said that in speaking with Chicago officers he found &#8220;a genuine lack of clarity about the job description, the parameters of the job, and who will have their back in ambiguous situations.&#8221; As a result, officers are taking less proactive policing measures that are meant to prevent crime, such as street stops or really any &#8220;discretionary interactions with civilians.&#8221;</p> <p>Of course this was all predictable and likely the result the Left wanted.</p>

<p>BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) &#8212; A Wal-Mart manager has apologized to a Montana State University professor who said an employee at the store listed his occupation on a fishing license as a toilet cleaner.</p> <p>The apology came as part of a settlement involving a discrimination complaint that Gilbert Kalonde filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau after an employee wrote "clean toilets" on the fishing license the professor bought in 2015, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle <a href="https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/wal-mart-apologizes-for-racist-comment-to-msu-professor/article_b23f29ee-826e-5ed9-b588-a9febe436d59.html" type="external">reported</a> Monday. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.</p> <p>Jeremy Huckleberry, manager of the Bozeman Wal-Mart, wrote that the "unfortunate incident" was "unacceptable."</p> <p>"We value and respect all of our customers, and we will continue to undertake measures to help safeguard against this type of incident in the future," he wrote.</p> <p>Kalonde, who was born in Zambia, Africa, is an assistant professor of technology education at MSU, where he has worked since 2014. He also filed a separate lawsuit in Gallatin County District Court that was later dismissed.</p> <p>The professor said he showed the worker proof of employment, but he was instead labeled as a toilet cleaner on the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks fishing license. The false information remained on the license when Kalonde renewed it the following year.</p> <p>Kalonde said he demanded a written apology from Wal-Mart but was not given one at the time.</p> <p>"Gilbert Kalonde stood up to a giant corporation to show that Montanans who experience discrimination based on race, national origin or any other protected class have recourse and that such discrimination is absolutely illegal," said Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the professor.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com" type="external">http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com</a></p> <p>BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) &#8212; A Wal-Mart manager has apologized to a Montana State University professor who said an employee at the store listed his occupation on a fishing license as a toilet cleaner.</p> <p>The apology came as part of a settlement involving a discrimination complaint that Gilbert Kalonde filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau after an employee wrote "clean toilets" on the fishing license the professor bought in 2015, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle <a href="https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/wal-mart-apologizes-for-racist-comment-to-msu-professor/article_b23f29ee-826e-5ed9-b588-a9febe436d59.html" type="external">reported</a> Monday. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.</p> <p>Jeremy Huckleberry, manager of the Bozeman Wal-Mart, wrote that the "unfortunate incident" was "unacceptable."</p> <p>"We value and respect all of our customers, and we will continue to undertake measures to help safeguard against this type of incident in the future," he wrote.</p> <p>Kalonde, who was born in Zambia, Africa, is an assistant professor of technology education at MSU, where he has worked since 2014. He also filed a separate lawsuit in Gallatin County District Court that was later dismissed.</p> <p>The professor said he showed the worker proof of employment, but he was instead labeled as a toilet cleaner on the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks fishing license. The false information remained on the license when Kalonde renewed it the following year.</p> <p>Kalonde said he demanded a written apology from Wal-Mart but was not given one at the time.</p> <p>"Gilbert Kalonde stood up to a giant corporation to show that Montanans who experience discrimination based on race, national origin or any other protected class have recourse and that such discrimination is absolutely illegal," said Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the professor.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com" type="external">http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com</a></p>

Wal-Mart apologizes for labeling professor toilet cleaner

https://apnews.com/amp/74b95cb4455c4944aa3bb9bfd26ebd56

2018-01-15

2least

Wal-Mart apologizes for labeling professor toilet cleaner <p>BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) &#8212; A Wal-Mart manager has apologized to a Montana State University professor who said an employee at the store listed his occupation on a fishing license as a toilet cleaner.</p> <p>The apology came as part of a settlement involving a discrimination complaint that Gilbert Kalonde filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau after an employee wrote "clean toilets" on the fishing license the professor bought in 2015, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle <a href="https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/wal-mart-apologizes-for-racist-comment-to-msu-professor/article_b23f29ee-826e-5ed9-b588-a9febe436d59.html" type="external">reported</a> Monday. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.</p> <p>Jeremy Huckleberry, manager of the Bozeman Wal-Mart, wrote that the "unfortunate incident" was "unacceptable."</p> <p>"We value and respect all of our customers, and we will continue to undertake measures to help safeguard against this type of incident in the future," he wrote.</p> <p>Kalonde, who was born in Zambia, Africa, is an assistant professor of technology education at MSU, where he has worked since 2014. He also filed a separate lawsuit in Gallatin County District Court that was later dismissed.</p> <p>The professor said he showed the worker proof of employment, but he was instead labeled as a toilet cleaner on the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks fishing license. The false information remained on the license when Kalonde renewed it the following year.</p> <p>Kalonde said he demanded a written apology from Wal-Mart but was not given one at the time.</p> <p>"Gilbert Kalonde stood up to a giant corporation to show that Montanans who experience discrimination based on race, national origin or any other protected class have recourse and that such discrimination is absolutely illegal," said Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the professor.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com" type="external">http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com</a></p> <p>BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) &#8212; A Wal-Mart manager has apologized to a Montana State University professor who said an employee at the store listed his occupation on a fishing license as a toilet cleaner.</p> <p>The apology came as part of a settlement involving a discrimination complaint that Gilbert Kalonde filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau after an employee wrote "clean toilets" on the fishing license the professor bought in 2015, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle <a href="https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/wal-mart-apologizes-for-racist-comment-to-msu-professor/article_b23f29ee-826e-5ed9-b588-a9febe436d59.html" type="external">reported</a> Monday. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.</p> <p>Jeremy Huckleberry, manager of the Bozeman Wal-Mart, wrote that the "unfortunate incident" was "unacceptable."</p> <p>"We value and respect all of our customers, and we will continue to undertake measures to help safeguard against this type of incident in the future," he wrote.</p> <p>Kalonde, who was born in Zambia, Africa, is an assistant professor of technology education at MSU, where he has worked since 2014. He also filed a separate lawsuit in Gallatin County District Court that was later dismissed.</p> <p>The professor said he showed the worker proof of employment, but he was instead labeled as a toilet cleaner on the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks fishing license. The false information remained on the license when Kalonde renewed it the following year.</p> <p>Kalonde said he demanded a written apology from Wal-Mart but was not given one at the time.</p> <p>"Gilbert Kalonde stood up to a giant corporation to show that Montanans who experience discrimination based on race, national origin or any other protected class have recourse and that such discrimination is absolutely illegal," said Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the professor.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com" type="external">http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com</a></p>

<p>Did you watch NBC's "Nightly News" last week &#8212; or the "Nitely News"?</p> <p>The little misspelling could make a huge difference. Advertising rates are based on ratings compiled by Nielsen Holdings, so if networks could figure out how to keep the good ratings and somehow delete the bad ratings &#8212; well, ka-ching!</p> <p>That is apparently what one network was recently nabbed trying to do. "Mediaite first noticed in June that an episode of NBC News' 'Nightly News' set to air the Friday before Memorial Day (typically a slow news day) was retitled 'Nitely News.' As a result, Nielsen's automated system treated the Friday show as if it were another show entirely," the <a href="http://freebeacon.com/culture/networks-intentionally-misspelling-news-shows-titles-hide-bad-ratings/?utm_source=Press+List&amp;amp;utm_campaign=3331dc3d1f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_07&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_term=0_5b0ef94baa-3331dc3d1f-25550289" type="external">Free Beacon</a> reported.</p> <p>The deception worked: NBC's news program topped ABC's World News Tonight, which suffered from weak ratings on its properly-spelled Friday newscast.</p> <p>But ABC has tried the trick before, too, the Wall Street Journal reported, airing seven episodes of Wrld New Tonite. And CBS has aired 12 episodes of Evening Nws.</p> <p>Nielsen, apparently, does allow such deceptions, but they're reserved for special circumstances, like on Christmas Day or when a scheduled broadcast is moved to accommodate a special sporting event.</p> <p>"If we find a network working in contrast to this agreed-upon policy, we address the issue in a direct fashion as a way to maintain fairness and balance for all of our clients and the industry as a whole," Nielsen told the Journal.</p> <p>The war between the networks has been growing tighter in recent months, with NBC and ABC battling for the top spot, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/did-nbc-change-nitely-news-spelling-in-effort-to-goose-ratings-sure-looks-like-it/" type="external">Mediaite</a> reported.</p> <p>Nightly News is dangerously close to losing the season to ABC in total viewers for the first time in 21 years. During the last season before David Muir became anchor (2013-14), World News Tonight lost the season by an average of more than 1 million viewers per night. Three years later, World News Tonight has closed this viewer deficit gap and is currently leading the season for the first time in 21 years since Peter Jennings was anchor. ...</p> <p>According to research available at the time of publishing, had Nightly News&#8216; ratings average been based on the full five days of last week &#8212; as was ABC&#8217;s &#8212; and did not retitle Friday&#8217;s program &#8212; then World News Tonight would have won the week by roughly 37,000 viewers head-to-head. But the shrewd manner by which NBC retitled Friday&#8217;s show dropped their lowest-rated day of the average which pulled NBC&#8217;s program ahead of ABC&#8217;s by 264,000. Oddly, had ABC also retitled their Friday show (dropping the least viewed day out of their weekly average) NBC would have also won the week. Got it? ...</p> <p>This isn&#8217;t the first time NBC has displayed aggressive tactics. In 2015 they secretly aired Nightly News overnight in several markets to increase viewership and count two viewership numbers in these cities instead of one. And a cursory search of &#8216;Nitely News&#8216; suggests that this isn&#8217;t the first time that &#8216;Nitely News&#8216; has boosted their ratings.</p>

Networks Intentionally Misspell Names Of News Shows To Mask Bad Ratings

https://dailywire.com/news/18387/networks-intentionally-misspell-names-news-shows-joseph-curl

2017-07-09

0right

Networks Intentionally Misspell Names Of News Shows To Mask Bad Ratings <p>Did you watch NBC's "Nightly News" last week &#8212; or the "Nitely News"?</p> <p>The little misspelling could make a huge difference. Advertising rates are based on ratings compiled by Nielsen Holdings, so if networks could figure out how to keep the good ratings and somehow delete the bad ratings &#8212; well, ka-ching!</p> <p>That is apparently what one network was recently nabbed trying to do. "Mediaite first noticed in June that an episode of NBC News' 'Nightly News' set to air the Friday before Memorial Day (typically a slow news day) was retitled 'Nitely News.' As a result, Nielsen's automated system treated the Friday show as if it were another show entirely," the <a href="http://freebeacon.com/culture/networks-intentionally-misspelling-news-shows-titles-hide-bad-ratings/?utm_source=Press+List&amp;amp;utm_campaign=3331dc3d1f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_07&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_term=0_5b0ef94baa-3331dc3d1f-25550289" type="external">Free Beacon</a> reported.</p> <p>The deception worked: NBC's news program topped ABC's World News Tonight, which suffered from weak ratings on its properly-spelled Friday newscast.</p> <p>But ABC has tried the trick before, too, the Wall Street Journal reported, airing seven episodes of Wrld New Tonite. And CBS has aired 12 episodes of Evening Nws.</p> <p>Nielsen, apparently, does allow such deceptions, but they're reserved for special circumstances, like on Christmas Day or when a scheduled broadcast is moved to accommodate a special sporting event.</p> <p>"If we find a network working in contrast to this agreed-upon policy, we address the issue in a direct fashion as a way to maintain fairness and balance for all of our clients and the industry as a whole," Nielsen told the Journal.</p> <p>The war between the networks has been growing tighter in recent months, with NBC and ABC battling for the top spot, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/did-nbc-change-nitely-news-spelling-in-effort-to-goose-ratings-sure-looks-like-it/" type="external">Mediaite</a> reported.</p> <p>Nightly News is dangerously close to losing the season to ABC in total viewers for the first time in 21 years. During the last season before David Muir became anchor (2013-14), World News Tonight lost the season by an average of more than 1 million viewers per night. Three years later, World News Tonight has closed this viewer deficit gap and is currently leading the season for the first time in 21 years since Peter Jennings was anchor. ...</p> <p>According to research available at the time of publishing, had Nightly News&#8216; ratings average been based on the full five days of last week &#8212; as was ABC&#8217;s &#8212; and did not retitle Friday&#8217;s program &#8212; then World News Tonight would have won the week by roughly 37,000 viewers head-to-head. But the shrewd manner by which NBC retitled Friday&#8217;s show dropped their lowest-rated day of the average which pulled NBC&#8217;s program ahead of ABC&#8217;s by 264,000. Oddly, had ABC also retitled their Friday show (dropping the least viewed day out of their weekly average) NBC would have also won the week. Got it? ...</p> <p>This isn&#8217;t the first time NBC has displayed aggressive tactics. In 2015 they secretly aired Nightly News overnight in several markets to increase viewership and count two viewership numbers in these cities instead of one. And a cursory search of &#8216;Nitely News&#8216; suggests that this isn&#8217;t the first time that &#8216;Nitely News&#8216; has boosted their ratings.</p>

<p>Truthdig Radio airs every Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Los Angeles on 90.7 KPFK. If you can&#8217;t listen live, starting on Wednesday nights look for the podcast and transcript of each week&#8217;s show right here on <a href="" type="internal">Truthdig</a>.</p> <p>We put together a very special show on the labor movement, covering the gamut from farmworkers to teachers and even millionaire athletes.</p> <p>This special edition of the Truthdig Radio show was broadcast nationally as part of Pacifica&#8217;s national teach-in on the subject.</p> <p>The show below features Bill Boyarsky and Jim Mamer on teachers, Philip Dray on why &#8220;there is power in a union&#8221; and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and former United Auto Workers officer Paul Schrade in conversation with Robert Scheer. Also: Howie Stier reports from the streets of L.A. and Mark Heisler puts millionaire athletes in context.</p> <p /> <p>Click to listen to the show, or continue reading the full transcript below.</p> <p>{g_podcast_box}</p> <p>Peter Scheer:</p> <p>This is Truthdig Radio from KPFK Los Angeles, coming to the whole Pacifica network on a special day of themed programming around the subject of labor. Today we&#8217;re going to run the gamut from farmworkers to teachers to millionaire athletes, and later we&#8217;ll be speaking with Dolores Huerta and many, many other guests. But first, Philip Dray.</p> <p>* * *Josh Scheer:</p> <p>Well, we&#8217;re sitting here with Philip Dray, and we&#8217;re here with Robert Scheer, and I&#8217;m Joshua Scheer. We&#8217;re discussing Philip&#8217;s book, &#8220;There is Power in a Union.&#8221; Why do you think people overlook labor history?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Good question! You know, I think it&#8217;s because the labor movement, over the past half-century, went into kind of a decline. It began losing numbers; unionized jobs disappeared, because of new technology; you had large industrial centers like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, sort of dwindle in size; you had charges of corruption against unions, which tended to stick in people&#8217;s minds. And then, of course, you had globalization in the last 15, 20 years, which reduces the leverage that unionized workers have, and so tends to reduce the power of unions generally. And I think they&#8217;ve been cast sort of unfairly as organizations that bargain for generous pensions, and that kind of thing, and then wind up messing up cities&#8217; fiscal situations, or what have you. But you know, I think there&#8217;s been a lot of negative public relations about unions, from various sources; I don&#8217;t think that much of it is really deserved.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: This is Robert Scheer cutting in. Let me just say, what your book captures is the vibrant, robust contribution of trade unions to American democracy. And what has really happened is that the political system, through the work of lobbyists, has been turned against unions. So you can go back to Taft-Hartley and that whole battle, but globalization, all these things didn&#8217;t happen by accident. In your book you talk about Ronald Reagan&#8217;s role, the air traffic controllers issue going back to 1981. So the destruction of unions was not a natural phenomenon.</p> <p>Philip Dray: Yeah, that&#8217;s a very good point, you know. People have been out to get unions through one means or another for a very long time, whether it was the misuse of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Palmer Raids, what have you, and now this most recent assault, of course, against collective bargaining in Wisconsin and elsewhere.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, speaking of that, I mean, what is so infuriating about this&#8212;the Wall Street Journal on Monday has a big story about how wages are stagnant, this is the wageless recovery. You know, unemployment has gone down to 8.8%, and we&#8217;re supposed to be happy with this, and there&#8217;s a very large number of people who can&#8217;t, have given up looking for jobs, and the people who get jobs are very often getting them below their skill set, below what they had expected. And you have, now, these multinational corporations can move their practices abroad, where they don&#8217;t have taxes to face, and they can take advantage of this reserved army of the unemployed, if you like, to drive wages down. Does this foretell a whole erosion of the American middle class that was built on good-paid jobs?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, I think that&#8217;s already underway. You know, I think that really a lot of people think of the PATCO strike of 1981, when Reagan got rid of all the air traffic controllers in one fell swoop, as kind of the beginning of all that. It certainly ushered in an era when workers were seen as contingent workers, as temps, they could be replaced, and so on. And then of course, again, as you point out, as the power of the corporations goes global, labor just had no way to keep up with that. And so yeah, as a result, you find the labor, you know, work force disenfranchised, in a sense. And of course now, they&#8217;re actually trying to disenfranchise and really kind of deny them some of their most essential, quasi-constitutional rights, really, for collective bargaining.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: You know, in your book, it&#8217;s not just about Reagan; you go back into the 1870s, and I was wondering about the Tompkins Square Riot. And you talk about riot after riot, and these kind of very vibrant scenes. Is that something that&#8217;s going to be required in the future, do you think? To get unions back, to have more of a, you know, there&#8217;s going to be a battle?</p> <p>Philip Dray: That&#8217;s a really good question because, you know, if they start taking away collective bargaining rights, it does cast the workers back to the conditions that they were in before collective bargaining. And of course, that&#8217;s what collective bargaining was partly meant to get rid of, to ameliorate, was this sense of working people having no rights, really. And the idea was it was part of the progressive movement of the early 20th century, what they called industrial democracy. It was literally a way to bring workers into the American system, and give them some status, some standing. And so when you take that away, yes of course, you are asking for all kinds of unseen problems.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, it&#8217;s interesting, your book deals with a sort of mythology in America; the self-made person, and why do you need unions. And unions challenge that notion; they say no, it&#8217;s not a level playing field, we have to collectively work for our common rights and so forth. And we&#8217;re in a very odd moment now when you have an economic meltdown that is directly the result of Wall Street policies and government policies purchased by Wall Street, deregulation of the financial industry. And yet the people paying the price for this are unionized, primarily unionized government workers, who are being told they&#8217;ve got to take it in the neck now because of what Wall Street did. And there&#8217;s a disconnect here that the mass media doesn&#8217;t seem to comment on.</p> <p>Philip Dray: I mean, you&#8217;re right on a couple of accounts there. Of course, there&#8217;s always been that kind of myth of the rugged individual; it has always played against the collective might of unions in America. You know, that&#8217;s always been a factor. And now, you&#8217;re absolutely right of course, it&#8217;s&#8212;you know, I think it&#8217;s almost comical, if it wasn&#8217;t so tragic, that the people who are blamed now are public school teachers&#8212;of all people. Like, of all the stuff that&#8217;s gone on in the last decade, with the corporations and the big banks and whatever, the idea that it&#8217;s the fault of the public schoolteachers, who are pretty &#8230; you know, they&#8217;re a hard-bitten bunch; I mean, they work hard, they have a hard job, they don&#8217;t earn all that much money, whatever. And yeah, I mean, you know, these pensions or whatever they are were negotiated in good faith. Corporations and employers love to give away things over the rainbow, in exchange for lower wages in the near term. So then to come back years later and say, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s your greed that&#8217;s causing all this meltdown,&#8221; yeah, of course, it&#8217;s totally fallacious.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Why did you write a book on labor? I mean, it seems sort of a thankless task. It came out in October of last year. And, you know, we don&#8217;t teach labor history in the schools; newspapers have huge business departments; sometimes they have a labor reporter; rarely, though. And what prompted you to capture this history, and why do you think it&#8217;s important, and why should people read your book?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, again, I think it was something&#8230;a little perverse, I agree. And I remember at the time I thought, &#8220;Gee, a book&#8230; who would even&#8230;&#8221; You know, it was not an easy sell to the publishers, to be perfectly honest. People thought &#8220;Labor history?&#8221; But yeah, I felt&#8230;you know, when you look into it, of course&#8212;you&#8217;re aware of this, I&#8217;m sure a lot of your listeners are, too&#8212;it&#8217;s an enormous history; it involves millions of people, there were all kinds of dramatic episodes and victories and setbacks. So it just seemed kind of ridiculous that it would be forgotten, particularly given the kind of pernicious assaults on unions. And going forward, I believe in the title of my book. I believe there is power in a union, and how that&#8217;ll work out in years ahead, I don&#8217;t know. But I do think, as we see recently with Wisconsin, I do think people will respond; I think people do cherish collective bargaining and other essential rights for working people, and they will collectivize and turn to those, turn to their colleagues when necessary.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Well, let&#8217;s end with a bigger plug for your book than you&#8217;re giving. I think it provides an indispensable point to the current debate that&#8217;s been ignored. The labor unions have been the main way of expanding the middle class, preserving American democracy; you capture that rich history in this book published by Doubleday, and people should go out and buy it.</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, thank you for providing more amplitude. [Laughs]&#8230;thank you so much.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Well, thank you for joining us, Philip. And again, go out and buy the book, &#8220;There Is Power in a Union.&#8221;</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>Last week, the labor movement could be found on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. We sent Howard Stier to take a look.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Pershing Square, a vast expanse of concrete in downtown Los Angeles, is where, during the Great Depression, authors Charles Bukowski and John Fante came to take in the pageant of human life. It&#8217;s where crowds gathered in 1960 to catch a glimpse of presidential candidate John Kennedy arriving to accept a nomination at the Democratic National Convention. And it is where thousands of union workers&#8212;truck drivers, movie technicians, farmworkers, and nurses and teachers and janitors rallied last weekend in a show of support for the beleaguered state public workers of Wisconsin. [Indistinct yelling] Timothy Sklekens, a supermarket cashier, motivated unionists from UFCW Local 770, representing food industry workers. You&#8217;re protesting Ralphs, particularly?</p> <p>Timothy Sklekens: Ralphs is one of the stores, one of the big three, that&#8217;s not negotiating contracts with us. We&#8217;ve had several meetings with them, and they&#8217;re not taking us seriously. We want a decent contract, we want a fair wage. Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons are the big three that we&#8217;re negotiating with now, and we just want a fair contract. We&#8217;re out here to show that we want a fair wage, like everybody else.</p> <p>Howie Stier: So where does Ralphs come in?</p> <p>Timothy Sklekens: Right now, they&#8217;re negotiating, trying to [take] away our benefits again, like they do every contract. So we&#8217;re out here to fight it.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Tim Canova is an attorney and a professor of law at Chapman University in Orange, California, and a consultant to labor organizers. He&#8217;s concerned that an assault on union rights will hinder an economic recovery.</p> <p>Tim Canova: We have a major jobs crisis, the most severe jobs recession in a century, and unions have to get on board to try to apply a lot of political pressure to create jobs. The private sector&#8217;s not creating them; the whole trend has been for austerity and budget-cutting, and now is not the time to be cutting budgets. Now is the time for the government to step up and to actually have jobs programs.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Well, with unions, as we saw in Wisconsin, being undercut by legislators, what hope is there other than coming out in the streets?</p> <p>Tim Canova: Well, there needs to be recalls in places like Wisconsin. Politicians who think that they can just bust public-sector unions and have anti-worker policies have to pay a big price for it. And an immediate price. So the recalls that they&#8217;re now undertaking in Wisconsin&#8212;that&#8217;s the way to go. The biggest inequality in income since the Gilded Age. You know, Wall Street executives haven&#8217;t been taking a hit at all; their salaries, their bonuses, keep going higher and higher. They&#8217;re the ones that wrecked this economy, not the teachers, not labor, not workers, organized or unorganized. And while wages are going down, that hurts the economy for everyone. You need more purchasing power in the economy. You see, right now, gas prices going up again, more than four dollars a gallon here at the pump in California. That means less money for people to spend on all other kinds of things. So it has ripple effects throughout the entire economy. And it&#8217;s all part of this fantasy that if you could just get rid of government, somehow the private sector will create jobs. That&#8217;s never been the way that jobs and economic development has occurred in this country. So regulation is only a bad word when the regulators get captured by industry. Howie Stier: Draped in a neon-colored toga, L.A. performance artist Ari Kletzky was inspired to transform himself into a polychrome Statue of Liberty to make a stand for workers&#8217; rights. He was accompanied by costume designer Rachel Weir. Can you tell me about your outfit here today?</p> <p>Ari Kletzky: We are celebrating liberty and justice, which is the ability for everyone to have the freedom to influence our government without being controlled by other people&#8217;s privilege and wealth.</p> <p>Howie Stier: OK, all these union members out here, they&#8217;re also protesting and exercising their rights; they&#8217;re just not dressed in every swath of fabric you could buy in Santee Alley. What explains this outfit&#8212;or do you dress like this every day?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: I wanted to participate in this protest as an artist, and so I&#8217;m a costume designer and I express myself through costume. And I wanted to explore the celebratory nature of justice, and to me that means bright colors, that means psychedelic, that means wearing a wig, that means going in drag. It means being fabulous.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Are you pretty busy, are you working?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: Ah, a little bit. Wish I was working more, but I&#8217;m doing some footwork. I&#8217;m becoming a member of the Costumers Local 705. And I&#8217;m making contacts through there, and being a part of a community.</p> <p>Howie Stier: You plan to join a union&#8212;are they going to get a job for you, or do you have to have a job before you join a union?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: I currently have a job that gave me the opportunity to join the union.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Patrick Kelly is the secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local [952] from Orange County, California.</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: My name&#8217;s Patrick Kelly, I&#8217;m with Teamsters Local 952.</p> <p>Howie Stier: How many people are in your union?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: There&#8217;s about 9,000 active, and there&#8217;s about 1,300 or 1,400 that are out of work right now.</p> <p>Howie Stier: How long have those 1,300 been out of work?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: For the last year and a half, two years.</p> <p>Howie Stier: And what&#8217;s your message here today?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: Our message is that union people need to band together, register to vote, raise money for their packs, and start directly confronting the non-union employers, and pushing wages and benefits up.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Governor Brown just announced billions of dollars in cuts. Is that affecting your union members?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: Yeah, it&#8217;s affecting everybody. And my remedy on that is, let&#8217;s have a tax on the oil industry at the well head, and raise some serious money, because everybody&#8217;s getting killed on their gas and diesel prices. We need to recover that money from the oil companies and the energy companies at the point of production. Thoughts on what Obama could do to stimulate jobs for union members&#8212;stop supporting the hedge fund Democrats and the financial class, and start creating some jobs for working people and the unemployed.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Phillip Mesa is an affable, 40-year-old grocery clerk who stocks the dairy department in an Albertson&#8217;s store in Ontario, California. He is also the rapper known as Mr. Picket Man.</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: My name is Phillip Mesa.</p> <p>Howie Stier: You&#8217;re a union activist?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Yes, a union activist, union member. I&#8217;m on the executive board for my local UFCW Local 1428. I&#8217;m an Albertson&#8217;s employee that&#8217;s been with Albertson&#8217;s for 20 years.</p> <p>Howie Stier: What does the store think about your rapping and Mr. Picket Man?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: A lot of the stores, especially some of the recent management that I&#8217;ve had, they understand that it&#8217;s not that we want to set the company down, because we need the company to have our jobs. We just want the company to negotiate fairly with us as workers, and I feel most of the managers that I&#8217;ve worked for in the past two years understand that&#8212;the union would rather work with the company than work against the company. And I think they appreciate me; I&#8217;m honest with them and they&#8217;re honest with me.</p> <p>Howie Stier: What&#8217;s your hourly wage at Albertsons?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Ah, $19.55, with Albertsons.</p> <p>Howie Stier: That&#8217;s after 20 years.</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Yeah, that&#8217;s at the top. The new ones are starting basically at minimum wage; I&#8217;m at the end, one of the last, the dying breed that probably has made this a career. A lot of the new hires, I mean a lot of the new ones won&#8217;t stick around to reach that point. The ones that are like me, myself, I mean, as we retire and get older and phase out of the industry, it&#8217;s going to be, basically, I feel that they&#8217;re just going to try to squeeze it down to a low-paying, low-wage job with high turnover rate, just to keep their costs down, just like a Wal-Mart does or something like that. And we just want to return it to the status that it once was, and that&#8217;s to be a good quality career, job.</p> <p>Howie Stier: We take you out with Mr. Picket Man&#8217;s workers&#8217; rap, &#8220;Fight On.&#8221; [Rap music playing]</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>I&#8217;m Peter Scheer with Josh Scheer, and we&#8217;re speaking with Truthdig sports writer, and L.A. Times sports writer, Mark Heisler. And we want to ask, as part of this national-themed show about labor&#8212;broaden the discussion and talk a little bit about sports labor. Because really, as you outline in your newest Truthdig piece, Mark, sports is an area where labor movements have been very successful.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: It&#8217;s a weird, ah&#8230;really stretching the term labor, there. [Laughter] Because, you know, the labor is rich, by and large.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: So&#8230;and in baseball, the labor kind of runs the game; it&#8217;s really more powerful than the administration. So it&#8217;s kind of a, it&#8217;s definitely a specialized area of labor.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: I had a quick question, though, for the KPFK audience, because I&#8217;ve always actually wondered this, and I was trying to find this out. Do the major league baseball players&#8217; union, the NBA union&#8212;maybe you don&#8217;t know, maybe no one knows this&#8212;but do they actually support the public service unions and other unions, or is it kind of they&#8217;re out for themselves?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: I don&#8217;t really know the answer to that, but my impression is&#8212;I&#8217;ve never read anything or heard anything about it&#8212;I think they&#8217;re pretty much, you know, like stand-alone entities. I don&#8217;t think they have very much to do with each other. Except there is some crossover&#8212;I think there&#8217;s a guy named Jeff Kessler, if I got the name right [Laughter]&#8212;I&#8217;m always getting, I get the Jeffs mixed up back there, and you know, some of them work for the league and some of them work for the NBA. But if I got the right one, you know, I think he may be doing some stuff for the NFL union right now&#8230;</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah. And he also does some stuff for the NBA too.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Yeah, his big thing is the NBA. And in management, too, Gary Bettman, who runs the NHL &#8230; was David Stern&#8217;s right-hand man. There was some crossover, you know, within sports. But there isn&#8217;t a whole lot outside of that, even if some very important people, like Marvin Miller, you know, came to baseball, came to the baseball union, I think he was like a steelworkers guy or somethin&#8217;.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah, Howard Ganz, also, he reps both the NBA and the NFL in terms of the management side [Laughs], as an attorney. But it&#8217;s interesting, though, because these unions are very successful and they&#8217;re very big, but we do&#8212;you know, the other unions that are in trouble&#8230;these, I mean, these unions expect us to go, like, &#8220;Oh, $9.3 billion, that&#8217;s a lot of money.&#8221; Right? So you&#8217;d think they&#8217;d want to support the lower-end unions, but&#8230;</p> <p>Mark Heisler: The union movement in general, you know, there&#8217;s&#8230;you talk about workers and solidarity, and supporting each other&#8230;You know, I think everybody kind of understands, as athletes and owners of sports teams, that&#8217;s a whole different thing; it&#8217;s just like its own little niche. And it&#8217;s an elite niche on both sides. And it doesn&#8217;t have very much to do with the outside world. So baseball owners&#8230;don&#8217;t have very much to do with U.S. Steel or anything like that.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: No.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: But there was a time when that wasn&#8217;t the case. And you had in the, I forget what year it was, but back when basketball, when the NBA was a struggling entity and the players showed some solidarity, the famous players and the less-famous players, refusing to play in the all-star game that year.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Oh yeah, I think [there&#8217;s] solidarity within the unions and within the sports&#8230;</p> <p>Peter Scheer: But there was a time when they weren&#8217;t, you know, pulling together for millions and millions of dollars for the richest among them. There was a time when it was just about having some basic standards, right, some basic safety? Mark Heisler: Oh yeah, absolutely. That was one of the hallmarks of the NBA, you know&#8230;the birth of the NBA union, was the big guys&#8212;the Tommy Heinsohns and the Bob Cousys and the Oscar Robertsons and the Elgin Baylors&#8212;they were standing up for the little guys, and that was the&#8230;tradition of the NBA union into the &#8217;90s. And Isiah Thomas, who was castigated for just about everything, people forget he was the last of the big stars who was the president of the union, who was running it for the little guys. And then the David Falk people got in, and David Falk started putting his star clients in important positions in the union, and trying to run it for the stars. And now I think they&#8217;re kind of back to where they were&#8212;the last couple of player heads have been Derek Fisher and Michael Curry&#8212;I think they&#8217;re back to where they were. On the other hand, no matter what they were doing, when the NBA players started the union they didn&#8217;t have very much awareness of the garment workers&#8217; union, or anything like that.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: It was basically&#8230;it was basketball players taking care of basketball players.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: What is the status of the labor movement, or the labor relations in sports now? There&#8217;s a lot of news with the NFL and the NBA maybe having lockout seasons, and how powerful are they still?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: I think it varies dramatically from sport to sport. Very interestingly, there was a guy named Sal Galioto, I think is his name; he&#8217;s a New York investment guy&#8230;and he specializes in sports stuff, and he set up a company, and he was on CNBC and he was talking about the NFL and the NBA. And the point he made about the NFL was he thinks&#8230;business is so great that they&#8217;ll make a deal, that they&#8217;ll just have to make a deal, because that&#8217;s what logic dictates; there&#8217;s just no reason for them to lose games or lose the season because they are making a lot of money. Whereas he thinks the NBA is not doing that well, and the owners are very united, and it&#8217;s a whole different situation. And I think that&#8217;s true. On the other hand, I have a big question about whether the NBA is doing actually as badly as David Stern says it is, and you can find a wide divergence of opinion on that matter. On the other hand, Stern has been very, very successful in convincing just about everybody that the NBA owners are in extremely dire straits.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: I want to ask you about football, Mark, because you write in your latest <a href="" type="internal">column</a> that if the NFL flew, like Icarus, too close to the sun, [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell would just have the orb moved. The NFL is wildly successful, and you say the players&#8217; union there has also been really successful. And at the same time you have this stuff coming out, with these head injuries, guys in their 40s getting Alzheimer&#8217;s, you know, the less famous people&#8212;they don&#8217;t have guaranteed contracts, they have&#8212;it&#8217;s not like the NBA, where they can make a few million and retire. You know, what&#8217;s wrong there, what&#8217;s&#8230;?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Well, there&#8217;s a very different dynamic in each sport about the relative strength of the union. The NFL union, although it has managed to exist and still is a force, is not very strong vis-&#224;-vis the owner. The owner&#8212;the NFL is a sport in which the owners have always dominated. And for&#8230;the evidence is just&#8230;the things you just mentioned, especially guaranteed contracts. And they have a hard cap, you know&#8230;they have the most owner-friendly system of the American professional sports leagues. The NBA&#8212;it&#8217;s a pretty even contest between management and the union. The management tends to think that it has the upper hand in it, and they&#8217;re all saying that they think that the union is going to fold. There&#8217;s only been one test, and the union held right up until January and the drop-dead date, and then both sides made concessions and made a deal. So that&#8217;s kind of an ongoing contest. In baseball, the union is extremely powerful. Having&#8230;they&#8217;ve had a lot of tests, I forget how many stoppages, four or five. And of course in [1994] they burned the World Series and really, essentially, taught the owners a lesson. And the owners have never really challenged them since. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s a completely player-friendly system now; there&#8217;s no salary cap whatsoever; there&#8217;s minor restrictions about, you know, luxury tax. But what baseball has done is&#8230;they&#8217;ve done a very good job of redistributing income, you know, with a revenue sharing plan, so that everybody&#8217;s making money. Now the one thing that the NBA owners have not done is&#8230;they claim&#8230;they&#8217;re talking about a $400 million operating loss, and I think it&#8217;s completely wrong. I think they&#8217;re tossing non-operating expenditures in there, like debt service. And I think the real number is the one that Forbes comes out with, and Forbes&#8217; figure for last season was&#8230;plus $150 million profit, except that most of it went to about five teams, and I think they had 12 teams making money and 18 teams losing by the end of it. I think the way it really breaks down is like five or six teams making almost all the real money, and about 10 of them lose a lot.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Well, I guess the moral of the story is that even when the laborers are millionaires, you can&#8217;t trust management, right, Josh?</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah. And thank you, Mark, and again, we&#8217;ll continue this discussion because I&#8217;m sure this won&#8217;t go anywhere.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: All right. That&#8217;s Mark Heisler joining us to talk about sports. Thanks, Mark.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: My pleasure.</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>This is Peter Scheer with Kasia Anderson, and we&#8217;re joined by Bill Boyarsky and Jim Mamer as part of this special, national broadcast on the theme of labor. Their two pieces are &#8220;Flunking Teachers Gives the Ruling Class a Pass,&#8221; by Bill Boyarsky, and &#8220;Time for a Little Education,&#8221; by Jim Mamer.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: And Jim&#8212;this is Kasia&#8212;I wanted to ask you, just by way of kicking off here &#8230; we can&#8217;t say your exact quotation on the radio here, but I&#8217;ll paraphrase. You say, &#8220;I&#8217;m a retired teacher, and I&#8217;m ticked off.&#8221; That&#8217;s what opens your piece. Do you want to give us an idea of what got you going there?</p> <p>Jim Mamer: You mean &#8230; I&#8217;m not ticked off all the time.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: No, right, right. Yeah, very good-natured individual, but in this case, you make an exception.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: You know, it&#8217;s been pretty obvious over a while, but the economic problems and the debt crisis in general, and complex problems in education have seemed to be reduced to an attack on government workers, and teachers in particular. So it is kind of offensive to be offered bumper-sticker solutions to everything. And I guess in this case it&#8217;s &#8220;fire bad teachers.&#8221;</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Bill, on this note, you start your column by saying &#8220;With all the evil people in the world, why are public school teachers being villainized, and how did they attract such powerful enemies?&#8221; And you&#8217;ve gone out in the field to look into this question. What did you find?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: I found that there&#8217;s people who are in favor of so-called education reform that tend to be business people, such as&#8212;forward-looking business people such as Bill Gates at Microsoft, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education in the Obama administration. And then a lot of investors, hedge-fund investors and other investors in charter schools, which are basically government-financed, privately operated schools, that are, in a sense, privatizing the &#8230; public schools. So there&#8217;s an economic motive, and then there&#8217;s a strong ideological motive, this sort of business &#8220;if I could just get in there with this enterprise, and clean it up, and fire all the incompetents, and cut down the workforce, everything would be fine.&#8221;</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Yeah, you&#8217;ve made the comparison to basically like corporate raiders, right? Where they just come in and sweep through the place and fire everyone right and left, and try to restructure.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Right. Right, Kasia, with the know-it-all CEO coming in, you know, with all of the answers, to what is an extremely complex situation.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Jim, you&#8217;re not just a teacher&#8212;or I should say a retired teacher&#8212;but you were a great teacher. You won a national award for your teaching. And I want to know why, as other groups like the police and firemen are able to say &#8220;Hey, if you don&#8217;t treat us right you&#8217;re going to, what, have crime and danger and &#8230;&#8221; you know, why is it with teachers we&#8217;re able to say, &#8220;Your kids are going to end up dumb if you don&#8217;t hire good teachers.&#8221; We want to be competitive in the world, so we&#8217;re going to take it out on teachers; we&#8217;re going to have fewer teachers who are going to be less well paid. I mean, isn&#8217;t this a recipe for disaster?</p> <p>Jim Mamer: Oh, it&#8217;s definitely a recipe for disaster. I&#8217;m not sure that the police and the firefighters are actually as immune to those attacks as that sounds. But in terms of teachers, I think there&#8217;s two contradictory messages that are being sent out at the same time. And one of them, obviously, we talked about, is that teacher unions are the major obstacle to effective reform; I&#8217;ve never thought teachers&#8217; unions should be primarily about reform anyway. I mean, teacher unions are there to protect teachers. But they&#8217;re being cast as the main reason we don&#8217;t have reform, and you end up at the same time with this&#8212;especially from the Obama administration, and I suspect almost every officeholder&#8212;saying we need more teachers; we&#8217;ve got the baby boom retiring, and we need good teachers, and this is a great job. There was an article this morning in the L.A. Times talking about the same thing. The fact that the number of people who are entering the teaching profession has fallen&#8212;I think this is just about the state of California&#8212;by 29 percent in the last couple of years. So you&#8212;we&#8217;ve really got a problem coming up. You can&#8217;t attack teachers, attack their pensions, attack virtually everything they&#8217;re doing in the classroom, and also call for more people to want to be teachers. And yeah, I think we&#8217;re headed to &#8230; in a real bad direction.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Bill, I wanted to ask you, from your column&#8212;one of the things I love the most about your writing is that you actually go out on the street and into institutions in various parts of society and you talk to people. It&#8217;s, you know, Basic Reporting 101, but seems like it&#8217;s lacking these days. You went to a couple of different places and talked to people about your most recent piece. What did you find, kind of out there in the world?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Well, I went to a new high school in Los Angeles, the Robert Kennedy educational complex; it&#8217;s built on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. And there are six small high schools on this site, and they, some of them, specialize in music or theater or just basic high school. The one I visited was run by the UCLA School of Education and the Los Angeles School District, and it was &#8230; a general high school. And it&#8217;s also, these high schools&#8212;they&#8217;re called pilot schools&#8212;they&#8217;re also deeply involved in the teachers&#8217; union. The teachers&#8217; union helps shape the high school, as do the faculty and the administrators on the site. I found that they conduct themselves in a way that&#8217;s really contrary to what the so-called reformers believe in, which is&#8212;you know, they believe in testing, testing of students; comparison of the test scores of one teacher with another, and all of that. And they [the RFK schools] have rather a long and complex system of evaluation of teachers by the principal, by peers, and by outside groups. And they actually look at the work product of the students and the quality of the assignments, and they compare the assignments to the work product. They realize&#8212;and I agree&#8212;that, you know, teachers should be evaluated, and done in a systematic way. And that if a teacher isn&#8217;t cutting it, the teacher should go. The teachers at this school, under their union contract, they sign one-year contracts. And if they&#8217;re not making it at the end of the year, then they&#8217;re not picked up the following year. They have to go somewhere else. And so there is a system of evaluation, and there are standards. But it&#8217;s one that reflects the realities of the classroom, and that&#8217;s what impressed me. I was also impressed by just walking around the campus and looking at how such a large school, which could be like a lot of big-city schools&#8212;you know, this inhuman fortress&#8212;was really made into an open and pleasant place. Jim Mamer: I think you&#8217;ve probably all seen the &#8220;Waiting for Superman&#8221; documentary?</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: That begins&#8212;somewhere near the beginning is this guy, Geoffrey Canada, who looks at the camera and simply says, &#8220;Public school &#8230; this thing is just an utter failure.&#8221; Well, it&#8217;s not just an utter failure; there are really good schools out there. And the ones that are being lauded, the charter schools in that film&#8212;it&#8217;s interesting; I have no objection to charter schools. But if you look at the research, they have just as many successful schools&#8212;I think if I remember the research right from a couple of years ago, 17 percent of charter schools are doing better than their neighboring public schools; 37 percent are doing worse. And the rest are about the same. Well, that&#8217;s not a nut film. So you have this guy saying it&#8217;s an utter failure, and I think people want to believe it. There&#8217;s even one point in that film where Eric Hanushek, who&#8217;s an economist with the Hoover Institute, looks at this chart and says if you fire 5 to 10 percent of the bad teachers and replace them with average, not outstanding, teachers but average teachers, the American educational system will be equal to Finland. And Finland keeps coming up No. 1 or No. 2 on all of the international tests. It&#8217;s just crazy. Somehow we&#8217;ve focused only on the performance of teachers, and we&#8217;ve got this stereotype that the entire public school system&#8217;s failing. It&#8217;s not.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Bill, maybe for one last question, can you give us your take on what the main sort of opposition to teachers, the party lines are, and maybe how to refute them?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: The main attack on teachers comes from the use of tests, especially one called the value-added test, which is&#8212;the value-added examinations, which are&#8212;which the Los Angeles Times has done a series of stories comparing the value-added scores of teachers in elementary schools in the Los Angeles School District and, you know, publishing the names and the scores of these teachers. These, basically, without getting too complicated&#8212;you take the test scores of the kid at the end of one semester, and from that you kind of project what the kid should do into the next semester, and if the kid does better, that&#8217;s what they call &#8220;added value,&#8221; and that&#8217;s good for the teacher; and if the kid does worse, then that&#8217;s bad for the teacher, and the teacher has a lower score. I&#8217;m vastly oversimplifying. But there seems to be a feeling&#8212;and I mean, it&#8217;s kind of like business, you know; it&#8217;s like &#8230; you can quantify everything. Everything can be quantified, and from your quantifying it, you can get dead-sure results that one teacher is better than another. Well, as a matter of fact, there&#8217;s a good amount of margin of error in this value-added system. And so the difference between the teacher who has a high value-added score and one that has an average one is pretty hard to measure. That&#8217;s one really big objection to what they&#8217;re doing with teachers. Why&#8212;I just don&#8217;t know why, though&#8212;the media, and these business leaders like Gates and like Arne Duncan, are focusing on teachers, because they&#8217;re kind of inflaming this. And, you know, a lot of things about teachers are&#8212;people like their kid&#8217;s teacher, the one they have them in contact with, usually. But then, they may not like the system.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Well, that&#8217;s, regretfully, all the time we have, but I want to thank you both for joining us.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: Thank you. I enjoyed it.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Me, too.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: They are Bill Boyarsky, Truthdig reporter at large, and Jim Mamer, a veteran teacher&#8212;and a good one, by the way&#8212;now retired. Thanks for being with us, guys.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Thank you.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Bye-bye.</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>Welcome back. We are speaking with Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and Paul Schrade, a former officer of the United Auto Workers union [UAW], who just won an award from the Cesar Chavez Foundation.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, let me&#8212;this is Robert Scheer&#8212;let me set this up. I recall when Paul was&#8212;I think you were the West Coast regional director of the United Auto Workers &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: I was on the national board.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: &#8230; yeah, on the national board. And you did two things that I thought were really quite remarkable. You were the first major labor leader to come out against the Vietnam War, even though some of your workers that you represented were working in the defense industry. And the other thing you did that was so gutsy is you supported the farmworkers. And maybe, Dolores, do you have memory of that time? Could you say something about that?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Oh, absolutely. Not only did Paul support the farmworkers, but there were busloads of autoworkers that would come from Los Angeles to come to the picket lines, and then Paul actually brought <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/reuther.cfm" type="external">Walter Reuther</a> himself to the Forty Acres, you know, to Delano, to be there with us. And of course it was also through Paul Schrade that we formed our connection with Robert Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy. So Paul was a&#8212;I might have called him the padrino in Spanish, and it&#8217;s got a better connotation in Spanish than in English, but the godfather [Laughs] of the farmworkers&#8217; union, because Paul&#8212;not only was he helping us back then, but he&#8217;s been helping throughout all of these years to support the farmworkers. And also just for my foundation, for community organizing, Paul is on my board; I&#8217;m really proud to say that. But his influence was very, very huge. And as you know, at that time the autoworkers were not part of the AFL-CIO. And so we were, you know, we didn&#8217;t really have that support of labor, and at that point in time I think it was only the UAW, I believe the <a href="http://www.ilwu.org/%20" type="external">ILWU</a>, and I believe it was also the Newspaper Guild that was supportive of our fledgling union then, of the National Farm Workers&#8217; Association.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You mentioned bringing Bobby Kennedy, but it was Paul Schrade who was standing next to Bobby Kennedy when he was assassinated. And, Paul, you were very severely injured. And while that, obviously, was a traumatic moment, those days represent sort of a high point for trade unionism in America. And it&#8217;s been downhill since, and now we have a challenge to the very idea of collective bargaining, and so forth. Can you describe the arc as you&#8217;ve seen it?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, a lot of high points &#8230; the recognition [by] General Motors of the sit-down strikes in the late &#8217;30s is important. And I also think that we&#8217;re on our way now to a new birth &#8230; of the labor movement with the terrible action by Republican governors and the Congress against workers. And I see the labor movement beginning to rise again.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: And what about this victory&#8212;I&#8217;ve seen some signs of it&#8212;a victory in California that will go against this grain of reactionary governors, that maybe our Legislature and our governor will sign off something on legislation that will help the farmworkers &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: No&#8212;Dolores probably knows more about this than I do, but the L.A. Times reported that the California state Senate passed a law providing for a card check rather than a vote of workers, in order to get bargaining rights. And it&#8217;s been passed by the Senate, and probably will be passed by the Assembly; of course would be signed by Jerry Brown. And Jerry Brown is &#8230; not like those people, the governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and the other states, where they&#8217;re attacking laborers&#8217; rights.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Do you have a comment on that, Dolores?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: I hope the governor signs it. I&#8217;m just getting a little concerned about, you know, what he&#8217;s facing up against with his budget deficit, and he&#8217;s gotten the Chamber of Commerce to endorse the extension of these taxes that he&#8217;s trying to extend. I don&#8217;t know how that would affect what the governor does in terms of the card check for the farmworkers. I would hope that if it passes the Assembly&#8212;we know it&#8217;s passed the Senate&#8212;that he would be able to sign it this year. If he doesn&#8217;t sign it this year, I know that Jerry Brown, we can count on him to &#8230; sign it the next year. And I&#8217;m just&#8212;this is my opinion; I haven&#8217;t spoken to the governor [Laughs], so I don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s doing on this issue. I know it&#8217;s a very big issue, not only for the farmworkers, but you know, it&#8217;s an issue for all of labor. I think all of the labor unions should have the ability to have workers choose their labor representative by their signature. And I always like to say, if your signature&#8217;s good enough to buy a home, open a bank account, get your passport, you know, buy an automobile, get your driver&#8217;s license, get a marriage or a divorce, it ought to be good enough to choose your union, right? And they should make it as easy as possible. And I think this whole attack on labor is very scary, because labor is of course what creates the middle class of our country. And if you get rid of labor unions, you get rid of the middle class; if you get rid of the middle class, you get rid of democracy. So then you have a plutocracy, and this is really, really scary, what&#8217;s happening right now, and I think a lot of people don&#8217;t realize this. And not only the attack on collective bargaining, you know, the attacks on teachers, the public employees; and then going after their retirement, after their pensions. You know, people don&#8217;t realize that when you negotiate&#8212;I know Paul&#8217;s been at the bargaining table, I&#8217;ve been at the bargaining table for farmworkers&#8212;when you negotiate a pension for workers, you&#8217;re giving up part of wages. So workers have given up part of their wages to be able to have some kind of retirement in the future, and now you hear all this talk about going after the pensions of the public employees, and other workers. So it&#8217;s a very vicious attack that&#8217;s going on right now. Instead of attacking the people that created this mess&#8212;which are the financial managers and the people who really don&#8217;t do any physical work, right, but just manage other people&#8217;s money, and have gotten our country into such a big mess&#8212;they&#8217;re going after the working people who create the wealth of the country. So it&#8217;s a very, very scary situation.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah, and it&#8217;s a historic scapegoating situation. Here we had this banking meltdown that has impoverished the nation, and then they want to blame immigrants; they want to blame union people; it&#8217;s absolutely bizarre. And professor [Joseph] Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize, Columbia professor, has an article in Vanity Fair this month saying, you know, pointing out that 1 percent of the people in this country control 40 percent of the wealth. And you use the word plutocracy&#8212;I mean, it&#8217;s incredible! And yet we have this tea party movement, we have outrage, what, about teachers getting a pension. It&#8217;s bizarre. And what happened to the relationship&#8212;was it the government attacks on labor, was it corporate attacks on labor&#8212;what has happened to the situation of the labor unions in this country?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: It&#8217;s all that big money going into the war against labor, and to control the government. Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, but what he left out, a point that he was going to make, and that is that the big money buys the Congress. And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s what&#8217;s happened. It&#8217;s controlled not just by the Koch brothers, but all the other corporations that buy into the presidency and also into the Congress.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Well, take us back to that moment when Bobby Kennedy was both against the war in Vietnam, against the military-industrial complex, and came out in support of the farmworkers. Can the two of you describe that? When I mention that it&#8217;s a high point in our country, I don&#8217;t mean that it was the only great victory, but it was a moment in which there was a lot of idealism felt about, at least, the farmworkers, and the possibility for progress, and &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, let&#8217;s start with the victory first. Dolores was with us that night, and was in the pantry when we lost Robert Kennedy. But the important part of that day was that the farmworkers, under &#8230; with the leadership of Dolores and Cesar [Chavez], were campaigning in all of the districts in Los Angeles. And when [Kennedy aide] Frank Mankiewicz got word that the polls had closed in East L.A. and in Watts, in the black community, he sent out scouts that said why are these polls closing, and the guys came back laughing, because by 3 and 4 o&#8217;clock, a hundred percent of the people had voted in many of those precincts. Because Cesar and Dolores were out there, getting voters out, and that&#8217;s the reason Robert Kennedy won that primary. And Dolores was with us that night, celebrating that victory, and also facing that tragedy, for us and for the country, when Bob was killed. Robert Scheer: How do you&#8212;you know, Dolores, I want to ask you&#8212;how do you guys keep going, you know? I mean, you&#8217;ve been at this a long time, you and Paul. And how do you keep up your spirit, your idealism, you&#8217;re still out there organizing, you&#8217;re still optimistic &#8230; what do you drink? What&#8217;s the secret, here?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: [Laughs] No, it&#8217;s the passion for justice, for one thing, and the fact that we have been effective in many ways; we&#8217;ve lost a lot of battles, but we&#8217;re effective. Dolores worked with us on getting the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools built, after we were opposed by Donald Trump and by the school board and by the [Los Angeles] Conservancy. We won that school; it was a 23-year fight, but we did it. And that keeps me going after, you know, you walk into that school now and see the kids, thirty-five hundred kids are going to a very marvelously constructed school.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: This is the same location where you were shot, and where Bobby Kennedy was killed.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Yeah.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Right, yeah.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: In fact, during the dedication, on November 13th&#8212;Dolores was with us then&#8212;we were standing, when we were speaking, right where Robert Kennedy made his victory speech. But that location, which was the Embassy Ballroom, is now the library. And it&#8217;s such a beautiful structure now, all the false ceilings and draperies out of there, it&#8217;s just a beautiful room, an exact replica of the Embassy Ballroom where Bob made his victory speech. And Bill Rosendahl, who was with us that night too, just was in tears, because it was such a happy moment to have that library and that school dedicated for the people.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Bill Rosendahl [is now] on the City Council. You know, I was there that night, and I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve ever been in a more depressing scene; I had just interviewed Bobby Kennedy upstairs; John Lewis, the great congressman from Georgia, was crying on the floor, a civil rights veteran. So, Dolores, how do you pick yourself up each time, and keep going? I mean, you&#8217;ve spoken in my classes; I know you have this enormous enthusiasm. What keeps you going? We need some optimism now.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: She&#8217;s great.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Well, it&#8217;s like Paul said&#8212;we&#8217;ve been through &#8230; social justice, right, and that gives us the energy. And Cesar always used to say that &#8230; the struggle itself gives you the energy to continue, and not to give up. And that&#8217;s the other thing I love to quote about Cesar, since we&#8217;re celebrating his birthday, is he always said that you&#8217;re always going to win as long as you don&#8217;t quit. No matter how long it takes &#8230; ultimately you will win, as long as you don&#8217;t quit; that&#8217;s the important thing. And the other thing I love to quote Cesar on, when he talked about nonviolence, you know&#8212;nonviolence also means having the patience to hang in there. To know it&#8217;s not going to happen quickly, that it&#8217;s going to take a lot of work to achieve the justice that we&#8217;re seeking, that we&#8217;re working for. And you know the other thing&#8212;I just want to comment on something that you mentioned a little while ago, about how California, we were so different than the rest of the country&#8212;and I want to give credit again to the labor movement, especially to Maria Elena Durazo, who is the head of the labor council there in Los Angeles. But you know, I had the good fortune, at her invitation, to join some of those people that were walking the precincts in this last election, and who were they? They were immigrants; they were the people from the hotels; they were the people from the&#8212;the janitors, you know? You know, the homemakers &#8230; the hotel keepers, and you know, this is like immigrant people, you know, that have just become citizens, and many of them were not yet citizens, that were knocking on those doors in Los Angeles in this last election, and they knocked on over 300,000 doors. And we saw somewhat of a miracle, I call it, because we ended up with the most progressive slate in the country, you know. From Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris&#8212;the first African-American, also [Asian] Indian, woman to be elected to [the attorney general&#8217;s] office, you know, in the state. And all of the constitutional offices were from Northern California, and they were elected with the Latino votes from Southern California. And I think that&#8217;s just incredible, and I think that sets a model for the rest of the country. That they&#8217;ve got to realize that the only way we&#8217;re going to win, and we&#8217;re going to counteract the tea baggers and these anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-women&#8212;because, you know, they&#8217;re also going after choice and after the LGBT community&#8212;the only way that we can counteract that is with organizing on the ground. And this is what laborers do, this is what labor unions do. And this is why they want to get rid of labor unions. And I think the governor of Wisconsin said, well, if we get rid of the labor unions then we get rid of the Democrats. And if we get rid of the Democrats and we get rid of labor unions, then the Republicans have complete control, and they&#8217;ve already shown us what they&#8217;re trying to do; you know, by getting rid of education and privatizing education, privatizing everything. So &#8230; and I know people don&#8217;t like to use that word, fascism, but this is where we&#8217;re at; this is the road that these people want to put us on. And I think it&#8217;s up to us to fight back. We have to remind people that Hitler was elected to office, you know? It wasn&#8217;t a coup; he was elected. And that we see some of the same patterns there; the xenophobia, the fighting people of color, wanting to put everybody in prison. It&#8217;s really scary.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah, you know, it&#8217;s an important point, I think maybe the most important point, to be made. Because we&#8217;ve really seen a classic bait-and-switch, you know; we&#8217;ve seen the hijacking of what should be a real populism and are given a phony populism. So instead of focusing attention on Wall Street&#8212;on the big corporate, on the big banks and the damage they did to everybody in this country, beginning with working people&#8212;instead, we have the blame, as I said before, on the immigrants and now on the teachers, and on people working in the public sector, on unionized workers. But what&#8217;s so positive about what you&#8217;ve just said&#8212;and I think we need to hear this from time to time&#8212;is that California did not go the way of the rest of the country. California&#8212;which, you know, is not Greenwich Village; it&#8217;s not some isolated, bohemian center&#8212;California gave us Richard Nixon, it gave us Ronald Reagan&#8212;you know, it&#8217;s a real state, and the most important state, I would argue. And yet in this last election&#8212;and the media didn&#8217;t notice it, really, very much&#8212;California went the other way. And I think your point, Dolores, is really the one to take away from this: It is the role of the immigrant labor force that the unions have so effectively organized in California. And that has changed the whole balance.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: And just like it was the workforce back in the &#8217;30s, when the UAW first got organized; a lot of those people were from the South and the Midwest, and they really carried the ball, and through sit-down strikes, changed the life of workers in the automobile industry.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Right, and they&#8217;re celebrating 100 years of the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/25/100th_anniversary_of_the_triangle_shirtwaist%20" type="external">Triangle Shirtwaist fire</a> in New York, you know, when the garment workers&#8212;you know, out of that tragedy came the garment workers&#8217; union &#8230; that was organized. And then that, of course, led the way to many of the other labor unions, also, that happened on the East Coast after that tragic fire, which killed all these young women that were locked into a building, and they couldn&#8217;t get out. All these shirt-makers, these young women who sat at their sewing machines. So, and that was an immigrant labor force at that time also, that worked in those garment factories. So we know that the working people are really the ones that are the engine of the economy, the engine of progress, and if anything, if our country has gone down the tube economically, it&#8217;s because we have disdained our working people, we&#8217;ve taken their jobs away and sent them overseas, and we&#8217;re just making them into a nation of bankers. And this is very wrong. But we&#8217;ve got to kind of remind people&#8212;and this is what we do with our organizing&#8212;is that we have it within our power to change these things. I just came from New Mexico, and you know, we have now a Latina governor, Susana Martinez, very conservative. But good news for everybody&#8212;even though she had her agenda, very anti-immigrant agenda, taking away driver&#8217;s licenses from people who were undocumented&#8212;the state Senate of New Mexico stopped her in her tracks, and she couldn&#8217;t get her agenda through the Legislature. So there&#8217;s some glimmers of hope out there.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, I want to end this on a note of hope about older people; you know, it happens that as we&#8217;re recording this, I&#8217;m experiencing my 75th birthday. And I&#8217;ve known you guys for a long time; I remember going back to those early rallies, and so forth, when I was editing Ramparts magazine. And 75 years ago my father lost his job&#8212;the day I was born, had to tell my mother that&#8212;didn&#8217;t get it back for four years; they were both garment workers. And when you mentioned the Triangle disaster&#8212;my parents talked about it all the time, and unions were the basis of our life. And ironically, if you read Ronald Reagan&#8217;s own autobiography, he&#8217;ll tell you Roosevelt was, you know, a god in their family&#8217;s house; his father went to work for the New Deal. And without the New Deal, Ronald Reagan, of all people, said his family would have starved. And I think some of us old-timers have to remind people that it was, as you said before, unions that gave this country the gift of the middle class that is the basis of democracy. So do you guys have a last, positive word? I know you always do. Paul?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, it&#8217;s good to be with the Scheer family, and happy birthday!</p> <p>Robert Scheer: [Laughs] OK! And Dolores?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Well &#8230; thank you for your great light of journalism; you were a light back there in the &#8217;60s, when everything seemed so dark, and to know that your light is still shining&#8212;and also that you have, I guess, your son following in your footsteps&#8230;</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah &#8230; all three of them, all three of them.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: &#8230; so that more people can hear the way that you really interpret what&#8217;s happening in our world for the rest of us. And happy birthday, also!</p> <p>Robert Scheer: OK. Great, guys, thanks.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Si se puede!</p> <p>Peter Scheer: That&#8217;s it for this special edition of Truthdig Radio from KPFK Los Angeles. Thanks to all our guests, Dolores Huerta, Paul Schrade, Jim Mamer, Bill Boyarsky, Mark Heisler and Philip Dray. Special thanks to engineer Sam Mizrahi and also Alan Minsky. For Robert Scheer, Kasia Anderson, Howard Stier, Josh Scheer and myself, thanks for listening.</p> <p />

Truthdig Radio: Power in a Union

https://truthdig.com/articles/truthdig-radio-power-in-a-union-2/

2011-04-07

4left

Truthdig Radio: Power in a Union <p>Truthdig Radio airs every Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Los Angeles on 90.7 KPFK. If you can&#8217;t listen live, starting on Wednesday nights look for the podcast and transcript of each week&#8217;s show right here on <a href="" type="internal">Truthdig</a>.</p> <p>We put together a very special show on the labor movement, covering the gamut from farmworkers to teachers and even millionaire athletes.</p> <p>This special edition of the Truthdig Radio show was broadcast nationally as part of Pacifica&#8217;s national teach-in on the subject.</p> <p>The show below features Bill Boyarsky and Jim Mamer on teachers, Philip Dray on why &#8220;there is power in a union&#8221; and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and former United Auto Workers officer Paul Schrade in conversation with Robert Scheer. Also: Howie Stier reports from the streets of L.A. and Mark Heisler puts millionaire athletes in context.</p> <p /> <p>Click to listen to the show, or continue reading the full transcript below.</p> <p>{g_podcast_box}</p> <p>Peter Scheer:</p> <p>This is Truthdig Radio from KPFK Los Angeles, coming to the whole Pacifica network on a special day of themed programming around the subject of labor. Today we&#8217;re going to run the gamut from farmworkers to teachers to millionaire athletes, and later we&#8217;ll be speaking with Dolores Huerta and many, many other guests. But first, Philip Dray.</p> <p>* * *Josh Scheer:</p> <p>Well, we&#8217;re sitting here with Philip Dray, and we&#8217;re here with Robert Scheer, and I&#8217;m Joshua Scheer. We&#8217;re discussing Philip&#8217;s book, &#8220;There is Power in a Union.&#8221; Why do you think people overlook labor history?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Good question! You know, I think it&#8217;s because the labor movement, over the past half-century, went into kind of a decline. It began losing numbers; unionized jobs disappeared, because of new technology; you had large industrial centers like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, sort of dwindle in size; you had charges of corruption against unions, which tended to stick in people&#8217;s minds. And then, of course, you had globalization in the last 15, 20 years, which reduces the leverage that unionized workers have, and so tends to reduce the power of unions generally. And I think they&#8217;ve been cast sort of unfairly as organizations that bargain for generous pensions, and that kind of thing, and then wind up messing up cities&#8217; fiscal situations, or what have you. But you know, I think there&#8217;s been a lot of negative public relations about unions, from various sources; I don&#8217;t think that much of it is really deserved.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: This is Robert Scheer cutting in. Let me just say, what your book captures is the vibrant, robust contribution of trade unions to American democracy. And what has really happened is that the political system, through the work of lobbyists, has been turned against unions. So you can go back to Taft-Hartley and that whole battle, but globalization, all these things didn&#8217;t happen by accident. In your book you talk about Ronald Reagan&#8217;s role, the air traffic controllers issue going back to 1981. So the destruction of unions was not a natural phenomenon.</p> <p>Philip Dray: Yeah, that&#8217;s a very good point, you know. People have been out to get unions through one means or another for a very long time, whether it was the misuse of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Palmer Raids, what have you, and now this most recent assault, of course, against collective bargaining in Wisconsin and elsewhere.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, speaking of that, I mean, what is so infuriating about this&#8212;the Wall Street Journal on Monday has a big story about how wages are stagnant, this is the wageless recovery. You know, unemployment has gone down to 8.8%, and we&#8217;re supposed to be happy with this, and there&#8217;s a very large number of people who can&#8217;t, have given up looking for jobs, and the people who get jobs are very often getting them below their skill set, below what they had expected. And you have, now, these multinational corporations can move their practices abroad, where they don&#8217;t have taxes to face, and they can take advantage of this reserved army of the unemployed, if you like, to drive wages down. Does this foretell a whole erosion of the American middle class that was built on good-paid jobs?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, I think that&#8217;s already underway. You know, I think that really a lot of people think of the PATCO strike of 1981, when Reagan got rid of all the air traffic controllers in one fell swoop, as kind of the beginning of all that. It certainly ushered in an era when workers were seen as contingent workers, as temps, they could be replaced, and so on. And then of course, again, as you point out, as the power of the corporations goes global, labor just had no way to keep up with that. And so yeah, as a result, you find the labor, you know, work force disenfranchised, in a sense. And of course now, they&#8217;re actually trying to disenfranchise and really kind of deny them some of their most essential, quasi-constitutional rights, really, for collective bargaining.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: You know, in your book, it&#8217;s not just about Reagan; you go back into the 1870s, and I was wondering about the Tompkins Square Riot. And you talk about riot after riot, and these kind of very vibrant scenes. Is that something that&#8217;s going to be required in the future, do you think? To get unions back, to have more of a, you know, there&#8217;s going to be a battle?</p> <p>Philip Dray: That&#8217;s a really good question because, you know, if they start taking away collective bargaining rights, it does cast the workers back to the conditions that they were in before collective bargaining. And of course, that&#8217;s what collective bargaining was partly meant to get rid of, to ameliorate, was this sense of working people having no rights, really. And the idea was it was part of the progressive movement of the early 20th century, what they called industrial democracy. It was literally a way to bring workers into the American system, and give them some status, some standing. And so when you take that away, yes of course, you are asking for all kinds of unseen problems.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, it&#8217;s interesting, your book deals with a sort of mythology in America; the self-made person, and why do you need unions. And unions challenge that notion; they say no, it&#8217;s not a level playing field, we have to collectively work for our common rights and so forth. And we&#8217;re in a very odd moment now when you have an economic meltdown that is directly the result of Wall Street policies and government policies purchased by Wall Street, deregulation of the financial industry. And yet the people paying the price for this are unionized, primarily unionized government workers, who are being told they&#8217;ve got to take it in the neck now because of what Wall Street did. And there&#8217;s a disconnect here that the mass media doesn&#8217;t seem to comment on.</p> <p>Philip Dray: I mean, you&#8217;re right on a couple of accounts there. Of course, there&#8217;s always been that kind of myth of the rugged individual; it has always played against the collective might of unions in America. You know, that&#8217;s always been a factor. And now, you&#8217;re absolutely right of course, it&#8217;s&#8212;you know, I think it&#8217;s almost comical, if it wasn&#8217;t so tragic, that the people who are blamed now are public school teachers&#8212;of all people. Like, of all the stuff that&#8217;s gone on in the last decade, with the corporations and the big banks and whatever, the idea that it&#8217;s the fault of the public schoolteachers, who are pretty &#8230; you know, they&#8217;re a hard-bitten bunch; I mean, they work hard, they have a hard job, they don&#8217;t earn all that much money, whatever. And yeah, I mean, you know, these pensions or whatever they are were negotiated in good faith. Corporations and employers love to give away things over the rainbow, in exchange for lower wages in the near term. So then to come back years later and say, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s your greed that&#8217;s causing all this meltdown,&#8221; yeah, of course, it&#8217;s totally fallacious.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Why did you write a book on labor? I mean, it seems sort of a thankless task. It came out in October of last year. And, you know, we don&#8217;t teach labor history in the schools; newspapers have huge business departments; sometimes they have a labor reporter; rarely, though. And what prompted you to capture this history, and why do you think it&#8217;s important, and why should people read your book?</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, again, I think it was something&#8230;a little perverse, I agree. And I remember at the time I thought, &#8220;Gee, a book&#8230; who would even&#8230;&#8221; You know, it was not an easy sell to the publishers, to be perfectly honest. People thought &#8220;Labor history?&#8221; But yeah, I felt&#8230;you know, when you look into it, of course&#8212;you&#8217;re aware of this, I&#8217;m sure a lot of your listeners are, too&#8212;it&#8217;s an enormous history; it involves millions of people, there were all kinds of dramatic episodes and victories and setbacks. So it just seemed kind of ridiculous that it would be forgotten, particularly given the kind of pernicious assaults on unions. And going forward, I believe in the title of my book. I believe there is power in a union, and how that&#8217;ll work out in years ahead, I don&#8217;t know. But I do think, as we see recently with Wisconsin, I do think people will respond; I think people do cherish collective bargaining and other essential rights for working people, and they will collectivize and turn to those, turn to their colleagues when necessary.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Well, let&#8217;s end with a bigger plug for your book than you&#8217;re giving. I think it provides an indispensable point to the current debate that&#8217;s been ignored. The labor unions have been the main way of expanding the middle class, preserving American democracy; you capture that rich history in this book published by Doubleday, and people should go out and buy it.</p> <p>Philip Dray: Well, thank you for providing more amplitude. [Laughs]&#8230;thank you so much.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Well, thank you for joining us, Philip. And again, go out and buy the book, &#8220;There Is Power in a Union.&#8221;</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>Last week, the labor movement could be found on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. We sent Howard Stier to take a look.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Pershing Square, a vast expanse of concrete in downtown Los Angeles, is where, during the Great Depression, authors Charles Bukowski and John Fante came to take in the pageant of human life. It&#8217;s where crowds gathered in 1960 to catch a glimpse of presidential candidate John Kennedy arriving to accept a nomination at the Democratic National Convention. And it is where thousands of union workers&#8212;truck drivers, movie technicians, farmworkers, and nurses and teachers and janitors rallied last weekend in a show of support for the beleaguered state public workers of Wisconsin. [Indistinct yelling] Timothy Sklekens, a supermarket cashier, motivated unionists from UFCW Local 770, representing food industry workers. You&#8217;re protesting Ralphs, particularly?</p> <p>Timothy Sklekens: Ralphs is one of the stores, one of the big three, that&#8217;s not negotiating contracts with us. We&#8217;ve had several meetings with them, and they&#8217;re not taking us seriously. We want a decent contract, we want a fair wage. Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons are the big three that we&#8217;re negotiating with now, and we just want a fair contract. We&#8217;re out here to show that we want a fair wage, like everybody else.</p> <p>Howie Stier: So where does Ralphs come in?</p> <p>Timothy Sklekens: Right now, they&#8217;re negotiating, trying to [take] away our benefits again, like they do every contract. So we&#8217;re out here to fight it.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Tim Canova is an attorney and a professor of law at Chapman University in Orange, California, and a consultant to labor organizers. He&#8217;s concerned that an assault on union rights will hinder an economic recovery.</p> <p>Tim Canova: We have a major jobs crisis, the most severe jobs recession in a century, and unions have to get on board to try to apply a lot of political pressure to create jobs. The private sector&#8217;s not creating them; the whole trend has been for austerity and budget-cutting, and now is not the time to be cutting budgets. Now is the time for the government to step up and to actually have jobs programs.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Well, with unions, as we saw in Wisconsin, being undercut by legislators, what hope is there other than coming out in the streets?</p> <p>Tim Canova: Well, there needs to be recalls in places like Wisconsin. Politicians who think that they can just bust public-sector unions and have anti-worker policies have to pay a big price for it. And an immediate price. So the recalls that they&#8217;re now undertaking in Wisconsin&#8212;that&#8217;s the way to go. The biggest inequality in income since the Gilded Age. You know, Wall Street executives haven&#8217;t been taking a hit at all; their salaries, their bonuses, keep going higher and higher. They&#8217;re the ones that wrecked this economy, not the teachers, not labor, not workers, organized or unorganized. And while wages are going down, that hurts the economy for everyone. You need more purchasing power in the economy. You see, right now, gas prices going up again, more than four dollars a gallon here at the pump in California. That means less money for people to spend on all other kinds of things. So it has ripple effects throughout the entire economy. And it&#8217;s all part of this fantasy that if you could just get rid of government, somehow the private sector will create jobs. That&#8217;s never been the way that jobs and economic development has occurred in this country. So regulation is only a bad word when the regulators get captured by industry. Howie Stier: Draped in a neon-colored toga, L.A. performance artist Ari Kletzky was inspired to transform himself into a polychrome Statue of Liberty to make a stand for workers&#8217; rights. He was accompanied by costume designer Rachel Weir. Can you tell me about your outfit here today?</p> <p>Ari Kletzky: We are celebrating liberty and justice, which is the ability for everyone to have the freedom to influence our government without being controlled by other people&#8217;s privilege and wealth.</p> <p>Howie Stier: OK, all these union members out here, they&#8217;re also protesting and exercising their rights; they&#8217;re just not dressed in every swath of fabric you could buy in Santee Alley. What explains this outfit&#8212;or do you dress like this every day?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: I wanted to participate in this protest as an artist, and so I&#8217;m a costume designer and I express myself through costume. And I wanted to explore the celebratory nature of justice, and to me that means bright colors, that means psychedelic, that means wearing a wig, that means going in drag. It means being fabulous.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Are you pretty busy, are you working?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: Ah, a little bit. Wish I was working more, but I&#8217;m doing some footwork. I&#8217;m becoming a member of the Costumers Local 705. And I&#8217;m making contacts through there, and being a part of a community.</p> <p>Howie Stier: You plan to join a union&#8212;are they going to get a job for you, or do you have to have a job before you join a union?</p> <p>Rachel Weir: I currently have a job that gave me the opportunity to join the union.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Patrick Kelly is the secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local [952] from Orange County, California.</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: My name&#8217;s Patrick Kelly, I&#8217;m with Teamsters Local 952.</p> <p>Howie Stier: How many people are in your union?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: There&#8217;s about 9,000 active, and there&#8217;s about 1,300 or 1,400 that are out of work right now.</p> <p>Howie Stier: How long have those 1,300 been out of work?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: For the last year and a half, two years.</p> <p>Howie Stier: And what&#8217;s your message here today?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: Our message is that union people need to band together, register to vote, raise money for their packs, and start directly confronting the non-union employers, and pushing wages and benefits up.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Governor Brown just announced billions of dollars in cuts. Is that affecting your union members?</p> <p>Patrick Kelly: Yeah, it&#8217;s affecting everybody. And my remedy on that is, let&#8217;s have a tax on the oil industry at the well head, and raise some serious money, because everybody&#8217;s getting killed on their gas and diesel prices. We need to recover that money from the oil companies and the energy companies at the point of production. Thoughts on what Obama could do to stimulate jobs for union members&#8212;stop supporting the hedge fund Democrats and the financial class, and start creating some jobs for working people and the unemployed.</p> <p>Howie Stier: Phillip Mesa is an affable, 40-year-old grocery clerk who stocks the dairy department in an Albertson&#8217;s store in Ontario, California. He is also the rapper known as Mr. Picket Man.</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: My name is Phillip Mesa.</p> <p>Howie Stier: You&#8217;re a union activist?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Yes, a union activist, union member. I&#8217;m on the executive board for my local UFCW Local 1428. I&#8217;m an Albertson&#8217;s employee that&#8217;s been with Albertson&#8217;s for 20 years.</p> <p>Howie Stier: What does the store think about your rapping and Mr. Picket Man?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: A lot of the stores, especially some of the recent management that I&#8217;ve had, they understand that it&#8217;s not that we want to set the company down, because we need the company to have our jobs. We just want the company to negotiate fairly with us as workers, and I feel most of the managers that I&#8217;ve worked for in the past two years understand that&#8212;the union would rather work with the company than work against the company. And I think they appreciate me; I&#8217;m honest with them and they&#8217;re honest with me.</p> <p>Howie Stier: What&#8217;s your hourly wage at Albertsons?</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Ah, $19.55, with Albertsons.</p> <p>Howie Stier: That&#8217;s after 20 years.</p> <p>Phillip Mesa: Yeah, that&#8217;s at the top. The new ones are starting basically at minimum wage; I&#8217;m at the end, one of the last, the dying breed that probably has made this a career. A lot of the new hires, I mean a lot of the new ones won&#8217;t stick around to reach that point. The ones that are like me, myself, I mean, as we retire and get older and phase out of the industry, it&#8217;s going to be, basically, I feel that they&#8217;re just going to try to squeeze it down to a low-paying, low-wage job with high turnover rate, just to keep their costs down, just like a Wal-Mart does or something like that. And we just want to return it to the status that it once was, and that&#8217;s to be a good quality career, job.</p> <p>Howie Stier: We take you out with Mr. Picket Man&#8217;s workers&#8217; rap, &#8220;Fight On.&#8221; [Rap music playing]</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>I&#8217;m Peter Scheer with Josh Scheer, and we&#8217;re speaking with Truthdig sports writer, and L.A. Times sports writer, Mark Heisler. And we want to ask, as part of this national-themed show about labor&#8212;broaden the discussion and talk a little bit about sports labor. Because really, as you outline in your newest Truthdig piece, Mark, sports is an area where labor movements have been very successful.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: It&#8217;s a weird, ah&#8230;really stretching the term labor, there. [Laughter] Because, you know, the labor is rich, by and large.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: So&#8230;and in baseball, the labor kind of runs the game; it&#8217;s really more powerful than the administration. So it&#8217;s kind of a, it&#8217;s definitely a specialized area of labor.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: I had a quick question, though, for the KPFK audience, because I&#8217;ve always actually wondered this, and I was trying to find this out. Do the major league baseball players&#8217; union, the NBA union&#8212;maybe you don&#8217;t know, maybe no one knows this&#8212;but do they actually support the public service unions and other unions, or is it kind of they&#8217;re out for themselves?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: I don&#8217;t really know the answer to that, but my impression is&#8212;I&#8217;ve never read anything or heard anything about it&#8212;I think they&#8217;re pretty much, you know, like stand-alone entities. I don&#8217;t think they have very much to do with each other. Except there is some crossover&#8212;I think there&#8217;s a guy named Jeff Kessler, if I got the name right [Laughter]&#8212;I&#8217;m always getting, I get the Jeffs mixed up back there, and you know, some of them work for the league and some of them work for the NBA. But if I got the right one, you know, I think he may be doing some stuff for the NFL union right now&#8230;</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah. And he also does some stuff for the NBA too.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Yeah, his big thing is the NBA. And in management, too, Gary Bettman, who runs the NHL &#8230; was David Stern&#8217;s right-hand man. There was some crossover, you know, within sports. But there isn&#8217;t a whole lot outside of that, even if some very important people, like Marvin Miller, you know, came to baseball, came to the baseball union, I think he was like a steelworkers guy or somethin&#8217;.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah, Howard Ganz, also, he reps both the NBA and the NFL in terms of the management side [Laughs], as an attorney. But it&#8217;s interesting, though, because these unions are very successful and they&#8217;re very big, but we do&#8212;you know, the other unions that are in trouble&#8230;these, I mean, these unions expect us to go, like, &#8220;Oh, $9.3 billion, that&#8217;s a lot of money.&#8221; Right? So you&#8217;d think they&#8217;d want to support the lower-end unions, but&#8230;</p> <p>Mark Heisler: The union movement in general, you know, there&#8217;s&#8230;you talk about workers and solidarity, and supporting each other&#8230;You know, I think everybody kind of understands, as athletes and owners of sports teams, that&#8217;s a whole different thing; it&#8217;s just like its own little niche. And it&#8217;s an elite niche on both sides. And it doesn&#8217;t have very much to do with the outside world. So baseball owners&#8230;don&#8217;t have very much to do with U.S. Steel or anything like that.</p> <p>Josh Scheer: No.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: But there was a time when that wasn&#8217;t the case. And you had in the, I forget what year it was, but back when basketball, when the NBA was a struggling entity and the players showed some solidarity, the famous players and the less-famous players, refusing to play in the all-star game that year.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Oh yeah, I think [there&#8217;s] solidarity within the unions and within the sports&#8230;</p> <p>Peter Scheer: But there was a time when they weren&#8217;t, you know, pulling together for millions and millions of dollars for the richest among them. There was a time when it was just about having some basic standards, right, some basic safety? Mark Heisler: Oh yeah, absolutely. That was one of the hallmarks of the NBA, you know&#8230;the birth of the NBA union, was the big guys&#8212;the Tommy Heinsohns and the Bob Cousys and the Oscar Robertsons and the Elgin Baylors&#8212;they were standing up for the little guys, and that was the&#8230;tradition of the NBA union into the &#8217;90s. And Isiah Thomas, who was castigated for just about everything, people forget he was the last of the big stars who was the president of the union, who was running it for the little guys. And then the David Falk people got in, and David Falk started putting his star clients in important positions in the union, and trying to run it for the stars. And now I think they&#8217;re kind of back to where they were&#8212;the last couple of player heads have been Derek Fisher and Michael Curry&#8212;I think they&#8217;re back to where they were. On the other hand, no matter what they were doing, when the NBA players started the union they didn&#8217;t have very much awareness of the garment workers&#8217; union, or anything like that.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: It was basically&#8230;it was basketball players taking care of basketball players.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: What is the status of the labor movement, or the labor relations in sports now? There&#8217;s a lot of news with the NFL and the NBA maybe having lockout seasons, and how powerful are they still?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: I think it varies dramatically from sport to sport. Very interestingly, there was a guy named Sal Galioto, I think is his name; he&#8217;s a New York investment guy&#8230;and he specializes in sports stuff, and he set up a company, and he was on CNBC and he was talking about the NFL and the NBA. And the point he made about the NFL was he thinks&#8230;business is so great that they&#8217;ll make a deal, that they&#8217;ll just have to make a deal, because that&#8217;s what logic dictates; there&#8217;s just no reason for them to lose games or lose the season because they are making a lot of money. Whereas he thinks the NBA is not doing that well, and the owners are very united, and it&#8217;s a whole different situation. And I think that&#8217;s true. On the other hand, I have a big question about whether the NBA is doing actually as badly as David Stern says it is, and you can find a wide divergence of opinion on that matter. On the other hand, Stern has been very, very successful in convincing just about everybody that the NBA owners are in extremely dire straits.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: I want to ask you about football, Mark, because you write in your latest <a href="" type="internal">column</a> that if the NFL flew, like Icarus, too close to the sun, [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell would just have the orb moved. The NFL is wildly successful, and you say the players&#8217; union there has also been really successful. And at the same time you have this stuff coming out, with these head injuries, guys in their 40s getting Alzheimer&#8217;s, you know, the less famous people&#8212;they don&#8217;t have guaranteed contracts, they have&#8212;it&#8217;s not like the NBA, where they can make a few million and retire. You know, what&#8217;s wrong there, what&#8217;s&#8230;?</p> <p>Mark Heisler: Well, there&#8217;s a very different dynamic in each sport about the relative strength of the union. The NFL union, although it has managed to exist and still is a force, is not very strong vis-&#224;-vis the owner. The owner&#8212;the NFL is a sport in which the owners have always dominated. And for&#8230;the evidence is just&#8230;the things you just mentioned, especially guaranteed contracts. And they have a hard cap, you know&#8230;they have the most owner-friendly system of the American professional sports leagues. The NBA&#8212;it&#8217;s a pretty even contest between management and the union. The management tends to think that it has the upper hand in it, and they&#8217;re all saying that they think that the union is going to fold. There&#8217;s only been one test, and the union held right up until January and the drop-dead date, and then both sides made concessions and made a deal. So that&#8217;s kind of an ongoing contest. In baseball, the union is extremely powerful. Having&#8230;they&#8217;ve had a lot of tests, I forget how many stoppages, four or five. And of course in [1994] they burned the World Series and really, essentially, taught the owners a lesson. And the owners have never really challenged them since. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s a completely player-friendly system now; there&#8217;s no salary cap whatsoever; there&#8217;s minor restrictions about, you know, luxury tax. But what baseball has done is&#8230;they&#8217;ve done a very good job of redistributing income, you know, with a revenue sharing plan, so that everybody&#8217;s making money. Now the one thing that the NBA owners have not done is&#8230;they claim&#8230;they&#8217;re talking about a $400 million operating loss, and I think it&#8217;s completely wrong. I think they&#8217;re tossing non-operating expenditures in there, like debt service. And I think the real number is the one that Forbes comes out with, and Forbes&#8217; figure for last season was&#8230;plus $150 million profit, except that most of it went to about five teams, and I think they had 12 teams making money and 18 teams losing by the end of it. I think the way it really breaks down is like five or six teams making almost all the real money, and about 10 of them lose a lot.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Well, I guess the moral of the story is that even when the laborers are millionaires, you can&#8217;t trust management, right, Josh?</p> <p>Josh Scheer: Yeah. And thank you, Mark, and again, we&#8217;ll continue this discussion because I&#8217;m sure this won&#8217;t go anywhere.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: All right. That&#8217;s Mark Heisler joining us to talk about sports. Thanks, Mark.</p> <p>Mark Heisler: My pleasure.</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>This is Peter Scheer with Kasia Anderson, and we&#8217;re joined by Bill Boyarsky and Jim Mamer as part of this special, national broadcast on the theme of labor. Their two pieces are &#8220;Flunking Teachers Gives the Ruling Class a Pass,&#8221; by Bill Boyarsky, and &#8220;Time for a Little Education,&#8221; by Jim Mamer.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: And Jim&#8212;this is Kasia&#8212;I wanted to ask you, just by way of kicking off here &#8230; we can&#8217;t say your exact quotation on the radio here, but I&#8217;ll paraphrase. You say, &#8220;I&#8217;m a retired teacher, and I&#8217;m ticked off.&#8221; That&#8217;s what opens your piece. Do you want to give us an idea of what got you going there?</p> <p>Jim Mamer: You mean &#8230; I&#8217;m not ticked off all the time.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: No, right, right. Yeah, very good-natured individual, but in this case, you make an exception.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: You know, it&#8217;s been pretty obvious over a while, but the economic problems and the debt crisis in general, and complex problems in education have seemed to be reduced to an attack on government workers, and teachers in particular. So it is kind of offensive to be offered bumper-sticker solutions to everything. And I guess in this case it&#8217;s &#8220;fire bad teachers.&#8221;</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Bill, on this note, you start your column by saying &#8220;With all the evil people in the world, why are public school teachers being villainized, and how did they attract such powerful enemies?&#8221; And you&#8217;ve gone out in the field to look into this question. What did you find?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: I found that there&#8217;s people who are in favor of so-called education reform that tend to be business people, such as&#8212;forward-looking business people such as Bill Gates at Microsoft, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education in the Obama administration. And then a lot of investors, hedge-fund investors and other investors in charter schools, which are basically government-financed, privately operated schools, that are, in a sense, privatizing the &#8230; public schools. So there&#8217;s an economic motive, and then there&#8217;s a strong ideological motive, this sort of business &#8220;if I could just get in there with this enterprise, and clean it up, and fire all the incompetents, and cut down the workforce, everything would be fine.&#8221;</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Yeah, you&#8217;ve made the comparison to basically like corporate raiders, right? Where they just come in and sweep through the place and fire everyone right and left, and try to restructure.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Right. Right, Kasia, with the know-it-all CEO coming in, you know, with all of the answers, to what is an extremely complex situation.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Jim, you&#8217;re not just a teacher&#8212;or I should say a retired teacher&#8212;but you were a great teacher. You won a national award for your teaching. And I want to know why, as other groups like the police and firemen are able to say &#8220;Hey, if you don&#8217;t treat us right you&#8217;re going to, what, have crime and danger and &#8230;&#8221; you know, why is it with teachers we&#8217;re able to say, &#8220;Your kids are going to end up dumb if you don&#8217;t hire good teachers.&#8221; We want to be competitive in the world, so we&#8217;re going to take it out on teachers; we&#8217;re going to have fewer teachers who are going to be less well paid. I mean, isn&#8217;t this a recipe for disaster?</p> <p>Jim Mamer: Oh, it&#8217;s definitely a recipe for disaster. I&#8217;m not sure that the police and the firefighters are actually as immune to those attacks as that sounds. But in terms of teachers, I think there&#8217;s two contradictory messages that are being sent out at the same time. And one of them, obviously, we talked about, is that teacher unions are the major obstacle to effective reform; I&#8217;ve never thought teachers&#8217; unions should be primarily about reform anyway. I mean, teacher unions are there to protect teachers. But they&#8217;re being cast as the main reason we don&#8217;t have reform, and you end up at the same time with this&#8212;especially from the Obama administration, and I suspect almost every officeholder&#8212;saying we need more teachers; we&#8217;ve got the baby boom retiring, and we need good teachers, and this is a great job. There was an article this morning in the L.A. Times talking about the same thing. The fact that the number of people who are entering the teaching profession has fallen&#8212;I think this is just about the state of California&#8212;by 29 percent in the last couple of years. So you&#8212;we&#8217;ve really got a problem coming up. You can&#8217;t attack teachers, attack their pensions, attack virtually everything they&#8217;re doing in the classroom, and also call for more people to want to be teachers. And yeah, I think we&#8217;re headed to &#8230; in a real bad direction.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Bill, I wanted to ask you, from your column&#8212;one of the things I love the most about your writing is that you actually go out on the street and into institutions in various parts of society and you talk to people. It&#8217;s, you know, Basic Reporting 101, but seems like it&#8217;s lacking these days. You went to a couple of different places and talked to people about your most recent piece. What did you find, kind of out there in the world?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Well, I went to a new high school in Los Angeles, the Robert Kennedy educational complex; it&#8217;s built on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. And there are six small high schools on this site, and they, some of them, specialize in music or theater or just basic high school. The one I visited was run by the UCLA School of Education and the Los Angeles School District, and it was &#8230; a general high school. And it&#8217;s also, these high schools&#8212;they&#8217;re called pilot schools&#8212;they&#8217;re also deeply involved in the teachers&#8217; union. The teachers&#8217; union helps shape the high school, as do the faculty and the administrators on the site. I found that they conduct themselves in a way that&#8217;s really contrary to what the so-called reformers believe in, which is&#8212;you know, they believe in testing, testing of students; comparison of the test scores of one teacher with another, and all of that. And they [the RFK schools] have rather a long and complex system of evaluation of teachers by the principal, by peers, and by outside groups. And they actually look at the work product of the students and the quality of the assignments, and they compare the assignments to the work product. They realize&#8212;and I agree&#8212;that, you know, teachers should be evaluated, and done in a systematic way. And that if a teacher isn&#8217;t cutting it, the teacher should go. The teachers at this school, under their union contract, they sign one-year contracts. And if they&#8217;re not making it at the end of the year, then they&#8217;re not picked up the following year. They have to go somewhere else. And so there is a system of evaluation, and there are standards. But it&#8217;s one that reflects the realities of the classroom, and that&#8217;s what impressed me. I was also impressed by just walking around the campus and looking at how such a large school, which could be like a lot of big-city schools&#8212;you know, this inhuman fortress&#8212;was really made into an open and pleasant place. Jim Mamer: I think you&#8217;ve probably all seen the &#8220;Waiting for Superman&#8221; documentary?</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Right.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: That begins&#8212;somewhere near the beginning is this guy, Geoffrey Canada, who looks at the camera and simply says, &#8220;Public school &#8230; this thing is just an utter failure.&#8221; Well, it&#8217;s not just an utter failure; there are really good schools out there. And the ones that are being lauded, the charter schools in that film&#8212;it&#8217;s interesting; I have no objection to charter schools. But if you look at the research, they have just as many successful schools&#8212;I think if I remember the research right from a couple of years ago, 17 percent of charter schools are doing better than their neighboring public schools; 37 percent are doing worse. And the rest are about the same. Well, that&#8217;s not a nut film. So you have this guy saying it&#8217;s an utter failure, and I think people want to believe it. There&#8217;s even one point in that film where Eric Hanushek, who&#8217;s an economist with the Hoover Institute, looks at this chart and says if you fire 5 to 10 percent of the bad teachers and replace them with average, not outstanding, teachers but average teachers, the American educational system will be equal to Finland. And Finland keeps coming up No. 1 or No. 2 on all of the international tests. It&#8217;s just crazy. Somehow we&#8217;ve focused only on the performance of teachers, and we&#8217;ve got this stereotype that the entire public school system&#8217;s failing. It&#8217;s not.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Bill, maybe for one last question, can you give us your take on what the main sort of opposition to teachers, the party lines are, and maybe how to refute them?</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: The main attack on teachers comes from the use of tests, especially one called the value-added test, which is&#8212;the value-added examinations, which are&#8212;which the Los Angeles Times has done a series of stories comparing the value-added scores of teachers in elementary schools in the Los Angeles School District and, you know, publishing the names and the scores of these teachers. These, basically, without getting too complicated&#8212;you take the test scores of the kid at the end of one semester, and from that you kind of project what the kid should do into the next semester, and if the kid does better, that&#8217;s what they call &#8220;added value,&#8221; and that&#8217;s good for the teacher; and if the kid does worse, then that&#8217;s bad for the teacher, and the teacher has a lower score. I&#8217;m vastly oversimplifying. But there seems to be a feeling&#8212;and I mean, it&#8217;s kind of like business, you know; it&#8217;s like &#8230; you can quantify everything. Everything can be quantified, and from your quantifying it, you can get dead-sure results that one teacher is better than another. Well, as a matter of fact, there&#8217;s a good amount of margin of error in this value-added system. And so the difference between the teacher who has a high value-added score and one that has an average one is pretty hard to measure. That&#8217;s one really big objection to what they&#8217;re doing with teachers. Why&#8212;I just don&#8217;t know why, though&#8212;the media, and these business leaders like Gates and like Arne Duncan, are focusing on teachers, because they&#8217;re kind of inflaming this. And, you know, a lot of things about teachers are&#8212;people like their kid&#8217;s teacher, the one they have them in contact with, usually. But then, they may not like the system.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: Well, that&#8217;s, regretfully, all the time we have, but I want to thank you both for joining us.</p> <p>Jim Mamer: Thank you. I enjoyed it.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Me, too.</p> <p>Peter Scheer: They are Bill Boyarsky, Truthdig reporter at large, and Jim Mamer, a veteran teacher&#8212;and a good one, by the way&#8212;now retired. Thanks for being with us, guys.</p> <p>Kasia Anderson: Thank you.</p> <p>Bill Boyarsky: Bye-bye.</p> <p>* * *Peter Scheer:</p> <p>Welcome back. We are speaking with Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and Paul Schrade, a former officer of the United Auto Workers union [UAW], who just won an award from the Cesar Chavez Foundation.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, let me&#8212;this is Robert Scheer&#8212;let me set this up. I recall when Paul was&#8212;I think you were the West Coast regional director of the United Auto Workers &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: I was on the national board.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: &#8230; yeah, on the national board. And you did two things that I thought were really quite remarkable. You were the first major labor leader to come out against the Vietnam War, even though some of your workers that you represented were working in the defense industry. And the other thing you did that was so gutsy is you supported the farmworkers. And maybe, Dolores, do you have memory of that time? Could you say something about that?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Oh, absolutely. Not only did Paul support the farmworkers, but there were busloads of autoworkers that would come from Los Angeles to come to the picket lines, and then Paul actually brought <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/reuther.cfm" type="external">Walter Reuther</a> himself to the Forty Acres, you know, to Delano, to be there with us. And of course it was also through Paul Schrade that we formed our connection with Robert Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy. So Paul was a&#8212;I might have called him the padrino in Spanish, and it&#8217;s got a better connotation in Spanish than in English, but the godfather [Laughs] of the farmworkers&#8217; union, because Paul&#8212;not only was he helping us back then, but he&#8217;s been helping throughout all of these years to support the farmworkers. And also just for my foundation, for community organizing, Paul is on my board; I&#8217;m really proud to say that. But his influence was very, very huge. And as you know, at that time the autoworkers were not part of the AFL-CIO. And so we were, you know, we didn&#8217;t really have that support of labor, and at that point in time I think it was only the UAW, I believe the <a href="http://www.ilwu.org/%20" type="external">ILWU</a>, and I believe it was also the Newspaper Guild that was supportive of our fledgling union then, of the National Farm Workers&#8217; Association.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You mentioned bringing Bobby Kennedy, but it was Paul Schrade who was standing next to Bobby Kennedy when he was assassinated. And, Paul, you were very severely injured. And while that, obviously, was a traumatic moment, those days represent sort of a high point for trade unionism in America. And it&#8217;s been downhill since, and now we have a challenge to the very idea of collective bargaining, and so forth. Can you describe the arc as you&#8217;ve seen it?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, a lot of high points &#8230; the recognition [by] General Motors of the sit-down strikes in the late &#8217;30s is important. And I also think that we&#8217;re on our way now to a new birth &#8230; of the labor movement with the terrible action by Republican governors and the Congress against workers. And I see the labor movement beginning to rise again.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: And what about this victory&#8212;I&#8217;ve seen some signs of it&#8212;a victory in California that will go against this grain of reactionary governors, that maybe our Legislature and our governor will sign off something on legislation that will help the farmworkers &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: No&#8212;Dolores probably knows more about this than I do, but the L.A. Times reported that the California state Senate passed a law providing for a card check rather than a vote of workers, in order to get bargaining rights. And it&#8217;s been passed by the Senate, and probably will be passed by the Assembly; of course would be signed by Jerry Brown. And Jerry Brown is &#8230; not like those people, the governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and the other states, where they&#8217;re attacking laborers&#8217; rights.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Do you have a comment on that, Dolores?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: I hope the governor signs it. I&#8217;m just getting a little concerned about, you know, what he&#8217;s facing up against with his budget deficit, and he&#8217;s gotten the Chamber of Commerce to endorse the extension of these taxes that he&#8217;s trying to extend. I don&#8217;t know how that would affect what the governor does in terms of the card check for the farmworkers. I would hope that if it passes the Assembly&#8212;we know it&#8217;s passed the Senate&#8212;that he would be able to sign it this year. If he doesn&#8217;t sign it this year, I know that Jerry Brown, we can count on him to &#8230; sign it the next year. And I&#8217;m just&#8212;this is my opinion; I haven&#8217;t spoken to the governor [Laughs], so I don&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s doing on this issue. I know it&#8217;s a very big issue, not only for the farmworkers, but you know, it&#8217;s an issue for all of labor. I think all of the labor unions should have the ability to have workers choose their labor representative by their signature. And I always like to say, if your signature&#8217;s good enough to buy a home, open a bank account, get your passport, you know, buy an automobile, get your driver&#8217;s license, get a marriage or a divorce, it ought to be good enough to choose your union, right? And they should make it as easy as possible. And I think this whole attack on labor is very scary, because labor is of course what creates the middle class of our country. And if you get rid of labor unions, you get rid of the middle class; if you get rid of the middle class, you get rid of democracy. So then you have a plutocracy, and this is really, really scary, what&#8217;s happening right now, and I think a lot of people don&#8217;t realize this. And not only the attack on collective bargaining, you know, the attacks on teachers, the public employees; and then going after their retirement, after their pensions. You know, people don&#8217;t realize that when you negotiate&#8212;I know Paul&#8217;s been at the bargaining table, I&#8217;ve been at the bargaining table for farmworkers&#8212;when you negotiate a pension for workers, you&#8217;re giving up part of wages. So workers have given up part of their wages to be able to have some kind of retirement in the future, and now you hear all this talk about going after the pensions of the public employees, and other workers. So it&#8217;s a very vicious attack that&#8217;s going on right now. Instead of attacking the people that created this mess&#8212;which are the financial managers and the people who really don&#8217;t do any physical work, right, but just manage other people&#8217;s money, and have gotten our country into such a big mess&#8212;they&#8217;re going after the working people who create the wealth of the country. So it&#8217;s a very, very scary situation.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah, and it&#8217;s a historic scapegoating situation. Here we had this banking meltdown that has impoverished the nation, and then they want to blame immigrants; they want to blame union people; it&#8217;s absolutely bizarre. And professor [Joseph] Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize, Columbia professor, has an article in Vanity Fair this month saying, you know, pointing out that 1 percent of the people in this country control 40 percent of the wealth. And you use the word plutocracy&#8212;I mean, it&#8217;s incredible! And yet we have this tea party movement, we have outrage, what, about teachers getting a pension. It&#8217;s bizarre. And what happened to the relationship&#8212;was it the government attacks on labor, was it corporate attacks on labor&#8212;what has happened to the situation of the labor unions in this country?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: It&#8217;s all that big money going into the war against labor, and to control the government. Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, but what he left out, a point that he was going to make, and that is that the big money buys the Congress. And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s what&#8217;s happened. It&#8217;s controlled not just by the Koch brothers, but all the other corporations that buy into the presidency and also into the Congress.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Well, take us back to that moment when Bobby Kennedy was both against the war in Vietnam, against the military-industrial complex, and came out in support of the farmworkers. Can the two of you describe that? When I mention that it&#8217;s a high point in our country, I don&#8217;t mean that it was the only great victory, but it was a moment in which there was a lot of idealism felt about, at least, the farmworkers, and the possibility for progress, and &#8230;</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, let&#8217;s start with the victory first. Dolores was with us that night, and was in the pantry when we lost Robert Kennedy. But the important part of that day was that the farmworkers, under &#8230; with the leadership of Dolores and Cesar [Chavez], were campaigning in all of the districts in Los Angeles. And when [Kennedy aide] Frank Mankiewicz got word that the polls had closed in East L.A. and in Watts, in the black community, he sent out scouts that said why are these polls closing, and the guys came back laughing, because by 3 and 4 o&#8217;clock, a hundred percent of the people had voted in many of those precincts. Because Cesar and Dolores were out there, getting voters out, and that&#8217;s the reason Robert Kennedy won that primary. And Dolores was with us that night, celebrating that victory, and also facing that tragedy, for us and for the country, when Bob was killed. Robert Scheer: How do you&#8212;you know, Dolores, I want to ask you&#8212;how do you guys keep going, you know? I mean, you&#8217;ve been at this a long time, you and Paul. And how do you keep up your spirit, your idealism, you&#8217;re still out there organizing, you&#8217;re still optimistic &#8230; what do you drink? What&#8217;s the secret, here?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: [Laughs] No, it&#8217;s the passion for justice, for one thing, and the fact that we have been effective in many ways; we&#8217;ve lost a lot of battles, but we&#8217;re effective. Dolores worked with us on getting the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools built, after we were opposed by Donald Trump and by the school board and by the [Los Angeles] Conservancy. We won that school; it was a 23-year fight, but we did it. And that keeps me going after, you know, you walk into that school now and see the kids, thirty-five hundred kids are going to a very marvelously constructed school.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: This is the same location where you were shot, and where Bobby Kennedy was killed.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Yeah.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Right, yeah.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: In fact, during the dedication, on November 13th&#8212;Dolores was with us then&#8212;we were standing, when we were speaking, right where Robert Kennedy made his victory speech. But that location, which was the Embassy Ballroom, is now the library. And it&#8217;s such a beautiful structure now, all the false ceilings and draperies out of there, it&#8217;s just a beautiful room, an exact replica of the Embassy Ballroom where Bob made his victory speech. And Bill Rosendahl, who was with us that night too, just was in tears, because it was such a happy moment to have that library and that school dedicated for the people.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Bill Rosendahl [is now] on the City Council. You know, I was there that night, and I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve ever been in a more depressing scene; I had just interviewed Bobby Kennedy upstairs; John Lewis, the great congressman from Georgia, was crying on the floor, a civil rights veteran. So, Dolores, how do you pick yourself up each time, and keep going? I mean, you&#8217;ve spoken in my classes; I know you have this enormous enthusiasm. What keeps you going? We need some optimism now.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: She&#8217;s great.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Well, it&#8217;s like Paul said&#8212;we&#8217;ve been through &#8230; social justice, right, and that gives us the energy. And Cesar always used to say that &#8230; the struggle itself gives you the energy to continue, and not to give up. And that&#8217;s the other thing I love to quote about Cesar, since we&#8217;re celebrating his birthday, is he always said that you&#8217;re always going to win as long as you don&#8217;t quit. No matter how long it takes &#8230; ultimately you will win, as long as you don&#8217;t quit; that&#8217;s the important thing. And the other thing I love to quote Cesar on, when he talked about nonviolence, you know&#8212;nonviolence also means having the patience to hang in there. To know it&#8217;s not going to happen quickly, that it&#8217;s going to take a lot of work to achieve the justice that we&#8217;re seeking, that we&#8217;re working for. And you know the other thing&#8212;I just want to comment on something that you mentioned a little while ago, about how California, we were so different than the rest of the country&#8212;and I want to give credit again to the labor movement, especially to Maria Elena Durazo, who is the head of the labor council there in Los Angeles. But you know, I had the good fortune, at her invitation, to join some of those people that were walking the precincts in this last election, and who were they? They were immigrants; they were the people from the hotels; they were the people from the&#8212;the janitors, you know? You know, the homemakers &#8230; the hotel keepers, and you know, this is like immigrant people, you know, that have just become citizens, and many of them were not yet citizens, that were knocking on those doors in Los Angeles in this last election, and they knocked on over 300,000 doors. And we saw somewhat of a miracle, I call it, because we ended up with the most progressive slate in the country, you know. From Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris&#8212;the first African-American, also [Asian] Indian, woman to be elected to [the attorney general&#8217;s] office, you know, in the state. And all of the constitutional offices were from Northern California, and they were elected with the Latino votes from Southern California. And I think that&#8217;s just incredible, and I think that sets a model for the rest of the country. That they&#8217;ve got to realize that the only way we&#8217;re going to win, and we&#8217;re going to counteract the tea baggers and these anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-women&#8212;because, you know, they&#8217;re also going after choice and after the LGBT community&#8212;the only way that we can counteract that is with organizing on the ground. And this is what laborers do, this is what labor unions do. And this is why they want to get rid of labor unions. And I think the governor of Wisconsin said, well, if we get rid of the labor unions then we get rid of the Democrats. And if we get rid of the Democrats and we get rid of labor unions, then the Republicans have complete control, and they&#8217;ve already shown us what they&#8217;re trying to do; you know, by getting rid of education and privatizing education, privatizing everything. So &#8230; and I know people don&#8217;t like to use that word, fascism, but this is where we&#8217;re at; this is the road that these people want to put us on. And I think it&#8217;s up to us to fight back. We have to remind people that Hitler was elected to office, you know? It wasn&#8217;t a coup; he was elected. And that we see some of the same patterns there; the xenophobia, the fighting people of color, wanting to put everybody in prison. It&#8217;s really scary.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah, you know, it&#8217;s an important point, I think maybe the most important point, to be made. Because we&#8217;ve really seen a classic bait-and-switch, you know; we&#8217;ve seen the hijacking of what should be a real populism and are given a phony populism. So instead of focusing attention on Wall Street&#8212;on the big corporate, on the big banks and the damage they did to everybody in this country, beginning with working people&#8212;instead, we have the blame, as I said before, on the immigrants and now on the teachers, and on people working in the public sector, on unionized workers. But what&#8217;s so positive about what you&#8217;ve just said&#8212;and I think we need to hear this from time to time&#8212;is that California did not go the way of the rest of the country. California&#8212;which, you know, is not Greenwich Village; it&#8217;s not some isolated, bohemian center&#8212;California gave us Richard Nixon, it gave us Ronald Reagan&#8212;you know, it&#8217;s a real state, and the most important state, I would argue. And yet in this last election&#8212;and the media didn&#8217;t notice it, really, very much&#8212;California went the other way. And I think your point, Dolores, is really the one to take away from this: It is the role of the immigrant labor force that the unions have so effectively organized in California. And that has changed the whole balance.</p> <p>Paul Schrade: And just like it was the workforce back in the &#8217;30s, when the UAW first got organized; a lot of those people were from the South and the Midwest, and they really carried the ball, and through sit-down strikes, changed the life of workers in the automobile industry.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Right, and they&#8217;re celebrating 100 years of the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/25/100th_anniversary_of_the_triangle_shirtwaist%20" type="external">Triangle Shirtwaist fire</a> in New York, you know, when the garment workers&#8212;you know, out of that tragedy came the garment workers&#8217; union &#8230; that was organized. And then that, of course, led the way to many of the other labor unions, also, that happened on the East Coast after that tragic fire, which killed all these young women that were locked into a building, and they couldn&#8217;t get out. All these shirt-makers, these young women who sat at their sewing machines. So, and that was an immigrant labor force at that time also, that worked in those garment factories. So we know that the working people are really the ones that are the engine of the economy, the engine of progress, and if anything, if our country has gone down the tube economically, it&#8217;s because we have disdained our working people, we&#8217;ve taken their jobs away and sent them overseas, and we&#8217;re just making them into a nation of bankers. And this is very wrong. But we&#8217;ve got to kind of remind people&#8212;and this is what we do with our organizing&#8212;is that we have it within our power to change these things. I just came from New Mexico, and you know, we have now a Latina governor, Susana Martinez, very conservative. But good news for everybody&#8212;even though she had her agenda, very anti-immigrant agenda, taking away driver&#8217;s licenses from people who were undocumented&#8212;the state Senate of New Mexico stopped her in her tracks, and she couldn&#8217;t get her agenda through the Legislature. So there&#8217;s some glimmers of hope out there.</p> <p>Robert Scheer: You know, I want to end this on a note of hope about older people; you know, it happens that as we&#8217;re recording this, I&#8217;m experiencing my 75th birthday. And I&#8217;ve known you guys for a long time; I remember going back to those early rallies, and so forth, when I was editing Ramparts magazine. And 75 years ago my father lost his job&#8212;the day I was born, had to tell my mother that&#8212;didn&#8217;t get it back for four years; they were both garment workers. And when you mentioned the Triangle disaster&#8212;my parents talked about it all the time, and unions were the basis of our life. And ironically, if you read Ronald Reagan&#8217;s own autobiography, he&#8217;ll tell you Roosevelt was, you know, a god in their family&#8217;s house; his father went to work for the New Deal. And without the New Deal, Ronald Reagan, of all people, said his family would have starved. And I think some of us old-timers have to remind people that it was, as you said before, unions that gave this country the gift of the middle class that is the basis of democracy. So do you guys have a last, positive word? I know you always do. Paul?</p> <p>Paul Schrade: Well, it&#8217;s good to be with the Scheer family, and happy birthday!</p> <p>Robert Scheer: [Laughs] OK! And Dolores?</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Well &#8230; thank you for your great light of journalism; you were a light back there in the &#8217;60s, when everything seemed so dark, and to know that your light is still shining&#8212;and also that you have, I guess, your son following in your footsteps&#8230;</p> <p>Robert Scheer: Yeah &#8230; all three of them, all three of them.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: &#8230; so that more people can hear the way that you really interpret what&#8217;s happening in our world for the rest of us. And happy birthday, also!</p> <p>Robert Scheer: OK. Great, guys, thanks.</p> <p>Dolores Huerta: Si se puede!</p> <p>Peter Scheer: That&#8217;s it for this special edition of Truthdig Radio from KPFK Los Angeles. Thanks to all our guests, Dolores Huerta, Paul Schrade, Jim Mamer, Bill Boyarsky, Mark Heisler and Philip Dray. Special thanks to engineer Sam Mizrahi and also Alan Minsky. For Robert Scheer, Kasia Anderson, Howard Stier, Josh Scheer and myself, thanks for listening.</p> <p />

<p /> <p>Image source: Casey's General Stores.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Convenience stores represent a very fragmented market. One of the biggest players is Casey's General Stores , which focuses on building clusters of stores in small-town America. The company is based in Iowa and got its start in the Midwest, but it is moving to both the South and East rapidly.</p> <p>While some might think of this as a relatively boring industry, Casey's focus on becoming one of the biggest pizza companies in the country has gotten investors excited lately. Shares have tripled over the past five years, and the bump in the company's "food and fountain" comparable-store sales (comps) is one of the biggest reasons.</p> <p>The thesis for investors is simple: People go to Casey's to get their (low-margin) gas, but as they go inside, they buy more groceries, cigarettes, and most importantly (high-margin) prepared foods -- with pizza being the primary food that's bought. While gas might make up the bulk of revenue, it's things that are bought inside the store that contribute the most gross profit dollars.</p> <p><a href="http://charts.infogr.am/pie-chart?utm_source=embed_bottom&amp;amp;utm_medium=seo&amp;amp;utm_campaign=pie_chart" type="external">Create pie charts Opens a New Window.</a></p> <p>The company has done a fantastic job of capitalizing on this opportunity, and should be lauded for seeing a niche that was underserved. Investors, however, need to be careful about management overpromising and underdelivering. That's what happened this year, and it seems like the table is set for it to happen again. Casey's reported Q4 2016 results Monday and held a conference call with analysts Tuesday morning.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Data source: SEC filings and Casey's General Stores investor relations.</p> <p>When it comes to convenience stores, investors shouldn't pay too much attention to revenue numbers. That's because the price of gas can fluctuate widely, and management has little control over this. Like you saw above, it also is a very low-margin aspect of the business.</p> <p>One year ago, management set out goals for the company's comps and margins in its three main categories. As you can see below, they met almost all of those, with one very notable exception.</p> <p><a href="http://charts.infogr.am/column-chart?utm_source=embed_bottom&amp;amp;utm_medium=seo&amp;amp;utm_campaign=column_chart" type="external">Create column charts Opens a New Window.</a></p> <p>It is the shortfall in food and fountain that I find the most concerning. This is the central thesis to an investment in Casey's.</p> <p>No doubt, any company would die for comps above 5% in any category. But the assumption of double-digit comp growth in prepared foods is already baked into Casey's stock price -- and if the company continues to fall short of these projections, investors will pay the price.</p> <p>Management continually stated during the conference call that the reason for the shortfall was simply because the rollout of many growth initiatives -- a mobile food ordering app, 24-hour service, pizza delivery, and major remodels -- were weighted heavily toward the fourth quarter.</p> <p>But even then, comps during the fourth quarter were 8.2% -- well short of the 10.4% management foresaw for the year. That should give investors pause.</p> <p>It's also worth noting that the company either built or acquired 56 new stores during the fiscal year, but this fell well short of the 75-113 new locations that management said it would accomplish during the past 12 months.</p> <p>When management released its outlook for fiscal 2017, it said that it expected food and fountain to grow by 10.2% -- basically the same outlook it gave last year. Given the company's failure to live up to expectations in 2016, analysts were surprised.</p> <p>When pressed by analysts as to why the company would give such a high estimate, CEO Terry Handly said that the company was confident that the aforementioned growth initiatives could help get comps "back in the double-digit area" and that they are "cautiously optimistic."</p> <p>Cautiously optimistic? That struck me as an odd way to put it. After falling 20% short of its comp growth and then restating the same goals for the current year, I would classify that goal as overly optimistic.</p> <p>It's also worth mentioning that a number of analysts questioned whether Hy-Vee's new convenience stores -- which are usually placed in front of their namesake grocery stores and offer prepared food as well -- were becoming a serious competitor. Management said they were a competitor, but left it at that.</p> <p>Given the nearly 5% sell-off in the stock as of 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, the market has concerns as well. Management made clear that the pace of store openings will accelerate in the coming year. That's a good move, as the company wants to establish itself in new markets it thinks it can exploit.</p> <p>Currently, the company trades for 21 times trailing earnings and 20 times 2017's expected earnings. That's not overly expensive or cheap, but I believe the performance of the company's food and fountain comps will be the primary determinant of where the stock heads over the next 12 months.</p> <p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/07/where-caseys-general-stores-inc-fell-short.aspx" type="external">Where Casey's General Stores Inc. Fell Short Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCheesehead/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Brian Stoffel Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Casey's General Stores. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Where Casey's General Stores Inc. Fell Short

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/07/where-casey-general-stores-inc-fell-short.html

2016-06-07

0right

Where Casey's General Stores Inc. Fell Short <p /> <p>Image source: Casey's General Stores.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Convenience stores represent a very fragmented market. One of the biggest players is Casey's General Stores , which focuses on building clusters of stores in small-town America. The company is based in Iowa and got its start in the Midwest, but it is moving to both the South and East rapidly.</p> <p>While some might think of this as a relatively boring industry, Casey's focus on becoming one of the biggest pizza companies in the country has gotten investors excited lately. Shares have tripled over the past five years, and the bump in the company's "food and fountain" comparable-store sales (comps) is one of the biggest reasons.</p> <p>The thesis for investors is simple: People go to Casey's to get their (low-margin) gas, but as they go inside, they buy more groceries, cigarettes, and most importantly (high-margin) prepared foods -- with pizza being the primary food that's bought. While gas might make up the bulk of revenue, it's things that are bought inside the store that contribute the most gross profit dollars.</p> <p><a href="http://charts.infogr.am/pie-chart?utm_source=embed_bottom&amp;amp;utm_medium=seo&amp;amp;utm_campaign=pie_chart" type="external">Create pie charts Opens a New Window.</a></p> <p>The company has done a fantastic job of capitalizing on this opportunity, and should be lauded for seeing a niche that was underserved. Investors, however, need to be careful about management overpromising and underdelivering. That's what happened this year, and it seems like the table is set for it to happen again. Casey's reported Q4 2016 results Monday and held a conference call with analysts Tuesday morning.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Data source: SEC filings and Casey's General Stores investor relations.</p> <p>When it comes to convenience stores, investors shouldn't pay too much attention to revenue numbers. That's because the price of gas can fluctuate widely, and management has little control over this. Like you saw above, it also is a very low-margin aspect of the business.</p> <p>One year ago, management set out goals for the company's comps and margins in its three main categories. As you can see below, they met almost all of those, with one very notable exception.</p> <p><a href="http://charts.infogr.am/column-chart?utm_source=embed_bottom&amp;amp;utm_medium=seo&amp;amp;utm_campaign=column_chart" type="external">Create column charts Opens a New Window.</a></p> <p>It is the shortfall in food and fountain that I find the most concerning. This is the central thesis to an investment in Casey's.</p> <p>No doubt, any company would die for comps above 5% in any category. But the assumption of double-digit comp growth in prepared foods is already baked into Casey's stock price -- and if the company continues to fall short of these projections, investors will pay the price.</p> <p>Management continually stated during the conference call that the reason for the shortfall was simply because the rollout of many growth initiatives -- a mobile food ordering app, 24-hour service, pizza delivery, and major remodels -- were weighted heavily toward the fourth quarter.</p> <p>But even then, comps during the fourth quarter were 8.2% -- well short of the 10.4% management foresaw for the year. That should give investors pause.</p> <p>It's also worth noting that the company either built or acquired 56 new stores during the fiscal year, but this fell well short of the 75-113 new locations that management said it would accomplish during the past 12 months.</p> <p>When management released its outlook for fiscal 2017, it said that it expected food and fountain to grow by 10.2% -- basically the same outlook it gave last year. Given the company's failure to live up to expectations in 2016, analysts were surprised.</p> <p>When pressed by analysts as to why the company would give such a high estimate, CEO Terry Handly said that the company was confident that the aforementioned growth initiatives could help get comps "back in the double-digit area" and that they are "cautiously optimistic."</p> <p>Cautiously optimistic? That struck me as an odd way to put it. After falling 20% short of its comp growth and then restating the same goals for the current year, I would classify that goal as overly optimistic.</p> <p>It's also worth mentioning that a number of analysts questioned whether Hy-Vee's new convenience stores -- which are usually placed in front of their namesake grocery stores and offer prepared food as well -- were becoming a serious competitor. Management said they were a competitor, but left it at that.</p> <p>Given the nearly 5% sell-off in the stock as of 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, the market has concerns as well. Management made clear that the pace of store openings will accelerate in the coming year. That's a good move, as the company wants to establish itself in new markets it thinks it can exploit.</p> <p>Currently, the company trades for 21 times trailing earnings and 20 times 2017's expected earnings. That's not overly expensive or cheap, but I believe the performance of the company's food and fountain comps will be the primary determinant of where the stock heads over the next 12 months.</p> <p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/07/where-caseys-general-stores-inc-fell-short.aspx" type="external">Where Casey's General Stores Inc. Fell Short Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCheesehead/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Brian Stoffel Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Casey's General Stores. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>Amazon's move to whittle its list for a second headquarters leaves more than 200 municipalities disappointed. Here are statements from some of the places that didn't make the tech giant's cut to 20 contenders:</p> <p>___</p> <p>DETROIT</p> <p>"We would have loved to have made it into the next round for Amazon's second headquarters but everyone here is incredibly proud of the proposal we submitted," Mayor Mike Duggan said. "It showed a clear vision for the future of our city and brought out the very best of our city and our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>MEMPHIS, Tennessee</p> <p>"We came together and gave it our best shot," Mayor Jim Strickland said. "The good news is that this exercise showed us new ways to showcase our city that we are already using to attract other businesses."</p> <p>"Memphis has momentum and other companies have seen and will continue to see our value"</p> <p>The city offered Amazon $60 million in cash incentives.</p> <p>___</p> <p>KANSAS CITY, Missouri</p> <p>"I can understand that some Kansas Citians may be disappointed, but it's important to remember that as a result of this very collaborative effort, more people today know more great things about Kansas City than they ever did before," said Mayor Sly James. "Kansas City will continue to develop transformational projects and partnerships that continue the momentum you feel in every block and every neighborhood of this great city. We truly are a city on the rise, and I look forward to our exciting future."</p> <p>___</p> <p>DELAWARE</p> <p>Delaware's Gov. John Carney and the state's congressional delegation said they were "of course" disappointed not to be chosen.</p> <p>"But we used this opportunity to showcase all the options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but for any business looking for a location to set down roots and grow," they said. "In that respect, Delaware's effort &#8212; which brought together leaders in the public and private sectors to promote our great state &#8212; was a resounding success. Going forward, we'll do everything we can to support Philadelphia's application, to help bring Amazon to our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NEW HAMPSHIRE</p> <p>"New Hampshire's groundbreaking proposal to recruit Amazon was the most comprehensive business marketing plan our state has ever produced," Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. "While we always knew that our bid was considered a long shot, we are excited that it is already serving as a template for other businesses that now have New Hampshire on their radar. Our commitment to economic and workforce development is already yielding results. We will never stop emphasizing that New Hampshire is open for business, open for workers, and open for opportunity."</p> <p>New Hampshire's Amazon proposal was centered in Londonderry and emphasized the state's lack of a sales or income tax.</p> <p>___</p> <p>SAN DIEGO</p> <p>"While disappointed San Diego/Chula Vista did not advance, we are not at all surprised," said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. "We knew that this would be a long shot based on geography and incentive options, but we also know that as a region, San Diego can most definitely compete with others in terms of talent, entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of life."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NORTHERN CALIFORNIA</p> <p>The two bids submitted by cities in the San Francisco Bay Area were both rejected by Amazon. Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said the decision was disappointing. "We're not completely surprised by Amazon's decision," he said. "The Bay Area is one of the most innovative regions in the world and the huge economic expansion we have witnessed here over the past 10 years has created significant challenges in the form of high housing costs, high cost of living and growing traffic. We are working hard to address these challenges, but we suspect they factored heavily in Amazon's decision to look elsewhere."</p> <p>___</p> <p>VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA</p> <p>"We're disappointed the City of Virginia Beach was not listed among the top 20 finalists for this project. However, we're excited the Commonwealth of Virginia is still under consideration," Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessoms Jr. said. "A project of this magnitude will create many opportunities, and, if Virginia is selected, we expect Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads will benefit."</p> <p>Amazon's move to whittle its list for a second headquarters leaves more than 200 municipalities disappointed. Here are statements from some of the places that didn't make the tech giant's cut to 20 contenders:</p> <p>___</p> <p>DETROIT</p> <p>"We would have loved to have made it into the next round for Amazon's second headquarters but everyone here is incredibly proud of the proposal we submitted," Mayor Mike Duggan said. "It showed a clear vision for the future of our city and brought out the very best of our city and our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>MEMPHIS, Tennessee</p> <p>"We came together and gave it our best shot," Mayor Jim Strickland said. "The good news is that this exercise showed us new ways to showcase our city that we are already using to attract other businesses."</p> <p>"Memphis has momentum and other companies have seen and will continue to see our value"</p> <p>The city offered Amazon $60 million in cash incentives.</p> <p>___</p> <p>KANSAS CITY, Missouri</p> <p>"I can understand that some Kansas Citians may be disappointed, but it's important to remember that as a result of this very collaborative effort, more people today know more great things about Kansas City than they ever did before," said Mayor Sly James. "Kansas City will continue to develop transformational projects and partnerships that continue the momentum you feel in every block and every neighborhood of this great city. We truly are a city on the rise, and I look forward to our exciting future."</p> <p>___</p> <p>DELAWARE</p> <p>Delaware's Gov. John Carney and the state's congressional delegation said they were "of course" disappointed not to be chosen.</p> <p>"But we used this opportunity to showcase all the options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but for any business looking for a location to set down roots and grow," they said. "In that respect, Delaware's effort &#8212; which brought together leaders in the public and private sectors to promote our great state &#8212; was a resounding success. Going forward, we'll do everything we can to support Philadelphia's application, to help bring Amazon to our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NEW HAMPSHIRE</p> <p>"New Hampshire's groundbreaking proposal to recruit Amazon was the most comprehensive business marketing plan our state has ever produced," Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. "While we always knew that our bid was considered a long shot, we are excited that it is already serving as a template for other businesses that now have New Hampshire on their radar. Our commitment to economic and workforce development is already yielding results. We will never stop emphasizing that New Hampshire is open for business, open for workers, and open for opportunity."</p> <p>New Hampshire's Amazon proposal was centered in Londonderry and emphasized the state's lack of a sales or income tax.</p> <p>___</p> <p>SAN DIEGO</p> <p>"While disappointed San Diego/Chula Vista did not advance, we are not at all surprised," said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. "We knew that this would be a long shot based on geography and incentive options, but we also know that as a region, San Diego can most definitely compete with others in terms of talent, entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of life."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NORTHERN CALIFORNIA</p> <p>The two bids submitted by cities in the San Francisco Bay Area were both rejected by Amazon. Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said the decision was disappointing. "We're not completely surprised by Amazon's decision," he said. "The Bay Area is one of the most innovative regions in the world and the huge economic expansion we have witnessed here over the past 10 years has created significant challenges in the form of high housing costs, high cost of living and growing traffic. We are working hard to address these challenges, but we suspect they factored heavily in Amazon's decision to look elsewhere."</p> <p>___</p> <p>VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA</p> <p>"We're disappointed the City of Virginia Beach was not listed among the top 20 finalists for this project. However, we're excited the Commonwealth of Virginia is still under consideration," Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessoms Jr. said. "A project of this magnitude will create many opportunities, and, if Virginia is selected, we expect Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads will benefit."</p>

Amazon's potential HQ2 sites leaves many cities disappointed

https://apnews.com/amp/5200695bbbb841c8ae21f53b5f427809

2018-01-18

2least

Amazon's potential HQ2 sites leaves many cities disappointed <p>Amazon's move to whittle its list for a second headquarters leaves more than 200 municipalities disappointed. Here are statements from some of the places that didn't make the tech giant's cut to 20 contenders:</p> <p>___</p> <p>DETROIT</p> <p>"We would have loved to have made it into the next round for Amazon's second headquarters but everyone here is incredibly proud of the proposal we submitted," Mayor Mike Duggan said. "It showed a clear vision for the future of our city and brought out the very best of our city and our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>MEMPHIS, Tennessee</p> <p>"We came together and gave it our best shot," Mayor Jim Strickland said. "The good news is that this exercise showed us new ways to showcase our city that we are already using to attract other businesses."</p> <p>"Memphis has momentum and other companies have seen and will continue to see our value"</p> <p>The city offered Amazon $60 million in cash incentives.</p> <p>___</p> <p>KANSAS CITY, Missouri</p> <p>"I can understand that some Kansas Citians may be disappointed, but it's important to remember that as a result of this very collaborative effort, more people today know more great things about Kansas City than they ever did before," said Mayor Sly James. "Kansas City will continue to develop transformational projects and partnerships that continue the momentum you feel in every block and every neighborhood of this great city. We truly are a city on the rise, and I look forward to our exciting future."</p> <p>___</p> <p>DELAWARE</p> <p>Delaware's Gov. John Carney and the state's congressional delegation said they were "of course" disappointed not to be chosen.</p> <p>"But we used this opportunity to showcase all the options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but for any business looking for a location to set down roots and grow," they said. "In that respect, Delaware's effort &#8212; which brought together leaders in the public and private sectors to promote our great state &#8212; was a resounding success. Going forward, we'll do everything we can to support Philadelphia's application, to help bring Amazon to our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NEW HAMPSHIRE</p> <p>"New Hampshire's groundbreaking proposal to recruit Amazon was the most comprehensive business marketing plan our state has ever produced," Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. "While we always knew that our bid was considered a long shot, we are excited that it is already serving as a template for other businesses that now have New Hampshire on their radar. Our commitment to economic and workforce development is already yielding results. We will never stop emphasizing that New Hampshire is open for business, open for workers, and open for opportunity."</p> <p>New Hampshire's Amazon proposal was centered in Londonderry and emphasized the state's lack of a sales or income tax.</p> <p>___</p> <p>SAN DIEGO</p> <p>"While disappointed San Diego/Chula Vista did not advance, we are not at all surprised," said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. "We knew that this would be a long shot based on geography and incentive options, but we also know that as a region, San Diego can most definitely compete with others in terms of talent, entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of life."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NORTHERN CALIFORNIA</p> <p>The two bids submitted by cities in the San Francisco Bay Area were both rejected by Amazon. Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said the decision was disappointing. "We're not completely surprised by Amazon's decision," he said. "The Bay Area is one of the most innovative regions in the world and the huge economic expansion we have witnessed here over the past 10 years has created significant challenges in the form of high housing costs, high cost of living and growing traffic. We are working hard to address these challenges, but we suspect they factored heavily in Amazon's decision to look elsewhere."</p> <p>___</p> <p>VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA</p> <p>"We're disappointed the City of Virginia Beach was not listed among the top 20 finalists for this project. However, we're excited the Commonwealth of Virginia is still under consideration," Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessoms Jr. said. "A project of this magnitude will create many opportunities, and, if Virginia is selected, we expect Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads will benefit."</p> <p>Amazon's move to whittle its list for a second headquarters leaves more than 200 municipalities disappointed. Here are statements from some of the places that didn't make the tech giant's cut to 20 contenders:</p> <p>___</p> <p>DETROIT</p> <p>"We would have loved to have made it into the next round for Amazon's second headquarters but everyone here is incredibly proud of the proposal we submitted," Mayor Mike Duggan said. "It showed a clear vision for the future of our city and brought out the very best of our city and our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>MEMPHIS, Tennessee</p> <p>"We came together and gave it our best shot," Mayor Jim Strickland said. "The good news is that this exercise showed us new ways to showcase our city that we are already using to attract other businesses."</p> <p>"Memphis has momentum and other companies have seen and will continue to see our value"</p> <p>The city offered Amazon $60 million in cash incentives.</p> <p>___</p> <p>KANSAS CITY, Missouri</p> <p>"I can understand that some Kansas Citians may be disappointed, but it's important to remember that as a result of this very collaborative effort, more people today know more great things about Kansas City than they ever did before," said Mayor Sly James. "Kansas City will continue to develop transformational projects and partnerships that continue the momentum you feel in every block and every neighborhood of this great city. We truly are a city on the rise, and I look forward to our exciting future."</p> <p>___</p> <p>DELAWARE</p> <p>Delaware's Gov. John Carney and the state's congressional delegation said they were "of course" disappointed not to be chosen.</p> <p>"But we used this opportunity to showcase all the options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but for any business looking for a location to set down roots and grow," they said. "In that respect, Delaware's effort &#8212; which brought together leaders in the public and private sectors to promote our great state &#8212; was a resounding success. Going forward, we'll do everything we can to support Philadelphia's application, to help bring Amazon to our region."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NEW HAMPSHIRE</p> <p>"New Hampshire's groundbreaking proposal to recruit Amazon was the most comprehensive business marketing plan our state has ever produced," Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. "While we always knew that our bid was considered a long shot, we are excited that it is already serving as a template for other businesses that now have New Hampshire on their radar. Our commitment to economic and workforce development is already yielding results. We will never stop emphasizing that New Hampshire is open for business, open for workers, and open for opportunity."</p> <p>New Hampshire's Amazon proposal was centered in Londonderry and emphasized the state's lack of a sales or income tax.</p> <p>___</p> <p>SAN DIEGO</p> <p>"While disappointed San Diego/Chula Vista did not advance, we are not at all surprised," said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. "We knew that this would be a long shot based on geography and incentive options, but we also know that as a region, San Diego can most definitely compete with others in terms of talent, entrepreneurship, innovation and quality of life."</p> <p>___</p> <p>NORTHERN CALIFORNIA</p> <p>The two bids submitted by cities in the San Francisco Bay Area were both rejected by Amazon. Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said the decision was disappointing. "We're not completely surprised by Amazon's decision," he said. "The Bay Area is one of the most innovative regions in the world and the huge economic expansion we have witnessed here over the past 10 years has created significant challenges in the form of high housing costs, high cost of living and growing traffic. We are working hard to address these challenges, but we suspect they factored heavily in Amazon's decision to look elsewhere."</p> <p>___</p> <p>VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA</p> <p>"We're disappointed the City of Virginia Beach was not listed among the top 20 finalists for this project. However, we're excited the Commonwealth of Virginia is still under consideration," Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessoms Jr. said. "A project of this magnitude will create many opportunities, and, if Virginia is selected, we expect Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads will benefit."</p>

<p>Originally printed in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn-797816.html" type="external">The Independent</a>.</p> <p>Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a &#8220;hell-disaster&#8221;.</p> <p>But we have used these parallels before and they have drifted away in the Tigris breeze. Iraq is swamped in blood. Yet what is the state of our remorse? Why, we will have a public inquiry &#8212; but not yet! If only inadequacy was our only sin.</p> <p>Today, we are engaged in a fruitless debate. What went wrong? How did the people &#8212; the senatus populusque Romanus of our modern world &#8212; not rise up in rebellion when told the lies about weapons of mass destruction, about Saddam&#8217;s links with Osama bin Laden and 11 September? How did we let it happen? And how come we didn&#8217;t plan for the aftermath of war?</p> <p /> <p>Oh, the British tried to get the Americans to listen, Downing Street now tells us. We really, honestly did try, before we absolutely and completely knew it was right to embark on this illegal war. There is now a vast literature on the Iraq debacle and there are precedents for post-war planning &#8212; of which more later &#8212; but this is not the point. Our predicament in Iraq is on an infinitely more terrible scale.</p> <p>As the Americans came storming up Iraq in 2003, their cruise missiles hissing through the sandstorm towards a hundred Iraqi towns and cities, I would sit in my filthy room in the Baghdad Palestine Hotel, unable to sleep for the thunder of explosions, and root through the books I&#8217;d brought to fill the dark, dangerous hours. Tolstoy&#8217;s War and Peace reminded me how conflict can be described with sensitivity and grace and horror &#8212; I recommend the Battle of Borodino &#8212; along with a file of newspaper clippings. In this little folder, there was a long rant by Pat Buchanan, written five months earlier; and still, today I feel its power and its prescience and its absolute historical honesty: &#8220;With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla war.</p> <p>&#8220;They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.&#8221;</p> <p>How easily the little men took us into the inferno, with no knowledge or, at least, interest in history. None of them read of the 1920 Iraqi insurgency against British occupation, nor of Churchill&#8217;s brusque and brutal settlement of Iraq the following year.</p> <p>On our historical radars, not even Crassus appeared, the wealthiest Roman general of all, who demanded an emperorship after conquering Macedonia &#8212; &#8220;Mission Accomplished&#8221; &#8212; and vengefully set forth to destroy Mesopotamia. At a spot in the desert near the Euphrates river, the Parthians &#8212; ancestors of present day Iraqi insurgents &#8212; annihilated the legions, chopped off Crassus&#8217;s head and sent it back to Rome filled with gold. Today, they would have videotaped his beheading.</p> <p>To their monumental hubris, these little men who took us to war five years ago now prove that they have learnt nothing. Anthony Blair &#8212; as we should always have called this small town lawyer &#8212; should be facing trial for his mendacity. Instead, he now presumes to bring peace to an Arab-Israeli conflict which he has done so much to exacerbate. And now we have the man who changed his mind on the legality of war &#8212; and did so on a single sheet of A4 paper &#8212; daring to suggest that we should test immigrants for British citizenship. Question 1, I contend, should be: Which blood-soaked British attorney general helped to send 176 British soldiers to their deaths for a lie? Question 2: How did he get away with it?</p> <p>But in a sense, the facile, dumbo nature of Lord Goldsmith&#8217;s proposal is a clue to the whole transitory, cardboard structure of our decision-making. The great issues that face us &#8212; be they Iraq or Afghanistan, the US economy or global warming, planned invasions or &#8220;terrorism&#8221; &#8212; are discussed not according to serious political timetables but around television schedules and press conferences.</p> <p>Will the first air raids on Iraq hit prime-time television in the States? Mercifully, yes. Will the first US troops in Baghdad appear on the breakfast shows? Of course. Will Saddam&#8217;s capture be announced by Bush and Blair simultaneously?</p> <p>But this is all part of the problem. True, Churchill and Roosevelt argued about the timing of the announcement that war in Europe had ended. And it was the Russians who pipped them to the post. But we told the truth. When the British were retreating to Dunkirk, Churchill announced that the Germans had &#8220;penetrated deeply and spread alarm and confusion in their tracks&#8221;.</p> <p>Why didn&#8217;t Bush or Blair tell us this when the Iraqi insurgents began to assault the Western occupation forces? Well, they were too busy telling us that things were getting better, that the rebels were mere &#8220;dead-enders&#8221;.</p> <p>On 17 June 1940, Churchill told the people of Britain: &#8220;The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune.&#8221; Why didn&#8217;t Blair or Bush tell us that the news from Iraq was very bad and that they grieved &#8212; even just a few tears for a minute or so &#8212; for the Iraqis?</p> <p>For these were the men who had the temerity, the sheer, unadulterated gall, to dress themselves up as Churchill, heroes who would stage a rerun of the Second World War, the BBC dutifully calling the invaders &#8220;the Allies&#8221; &#8212; they did, by the way &#8212; and painting Saddam&#8217;s regime as the Third Reich.</p> <p>Of course, when I was at school, our leaders &#8212; Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, or Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy in the United States &#8212; had real experience of real war. Not a single Western leader today has any first-hand experience of conflict. When the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq began, the most prominent European opponent of the war was Jacques Chirac, who fought in the Algerian conflict. But he has now gone. So has Colin Powell, a Vietnam veteran but himself duped by Rumsfeld and the CIA.</p> <p>Yet one of the terrible ironies of our times is that the most bloodthirsty of American statesmen &#8212; Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfovitz &#8212; have either never heard a shot fired in anger or have ensured they did not have to fight for their country when they had the chance to do so. No wonder Hollywood titles like &#8220;Shock and Awe&#8221; appeal to the White House. Movies are their only experience of human conflict; the same goes for Blair and Brown.</p> <p>Churchill had to account for the loss of Singapore before a packed House. Brown won&#8217;t even account for Iraq until the war is over.</p> <p>It is a grotesque truism that today &#8212; after all the posturing of our political midgets five years ago &#8212; we might at last be permitted a valid seance with the ghosts of the Second World War. Statistics are the medium, and the room would have to be dark. But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200).</p> <p>They count for just over a third of the total fatalities (11,014) of the entire British Expeditionary Force from the German invasion of Belgium to the final evacuation at Dunkirk in June 1940. The number of British dead in Iraq &#8212; 176 &#8212; is almost equal to the total of UK forces lost at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45 (just over 200). The number of US wounded in Iraq &#8212; 29,395 &#8212; is more than nine times the number of Americans injured on 6 June (3,184) and more than a quarter of the tally for US wounded in the entire 1950-53 Korean war (103,284).</p> <p>Iraqi casualties allow an even closer comparison to the Second World War. Even if we accept the lowest of fatality statistics for civilian dead &#8212; they range from 350,000 up to a million &#8212; these long ago dwarfed the number of British civilian dead in the flying-bomb blitz on London in 1944-45 (6,000) and now far outnumber the total figure for civilians killed in bombing raids across the United Kingdom &#8212; 60,595 dead, 86,182 seriously wounded &#8212; from 1940 to 1945.</p> <p>Indeed, the Iraqi civilian death toll since our invasion is now greater than the total number of British military fatalities in the Second World War, which came to an astounding 265,000 dead (some histories give this figure as 300,000) and 277,000 wounded. Minimum estimates for Iraqi dead mean that the civilians of Mesopotamia have suffered six or seven Dresdens or &#8212; more terrible still &#8212; two Hiroshimas.</p> <p>Yet in a sense, all this is a distraction from the awful truth in Buchanan&#8217;s warning. We have dispatched our armies into the land of Islam. We have done so with the sole encouragement of Israel, whose own false intelligence over Iraq has been discreetly forgotten by our masters, while weeping crocodile tears for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.</p> <p>America&#8217;s massive military prestige has been irreparably diminished. And if there are, as I now calculate, 22 times as many Western troops in the Muslim world as there were at the time of the 11th and 12th century Crusades, we must ask what we are doing. Are we there for oil? For democracy? For Israel? For fear of weapons of mass destruction? Or for fear of Islam?</p> <p>We blithely connect Afghanistan to Iraq. If only Washington had not become distracted by Iraq, so the narrative now goes, the Taliban could not have re-established themselves. But al-Qa&#8217;ida and the nebulous Osama bin Laden were not distracted. Which is why they expanded their operations into Iraq and then used this experience to assault the West in Afghanistan with the hitherto &#8212; in Afghanistan &#8212; unheard of suicide bomber.</p> <p>And I will hazard a terrible guess: that we have lost Afghanistan as surely as we have lost Iraq and as surely as we are going to &#8220;lose&#8221; Pakistan. It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror &#8212; yes, our terror &#8212; of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and &#8220;terror&#8221;. But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and &#8220;terror&#8221;. It&#8217;s not too complicated an equation. And we don&#8217;t need a public inquiry to get it right.</p> <p />

The Only Lesson We Ever Learn Is That We Never Learn

https://truthdig.com/articles/the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn/

2008-03-19

4left

The Only Lesson We Ever Learn Is That We Never Learn <p>Originally printed in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-the-only-lesson-we-ever-learn-is-that-we-never-learn-797816.html" type="external">The Independent</a>.</p> <p>Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a &#8220;hell-disaster&#8221;.</p> <p>But we have used these parallels before and they have drifted away in the Tigris breeze. Iraq is swamped in blood. Yet what is the state of our remorse? Why, we will have a public inquiry &#8212; but not yet! If only inadequacy was our only sin.</p> <p>Today, we are engaged in a fruitless debate. What went wrong? How did the people &#8212; the senatus populusque Romanus of our modern world &#8212; not rise up in rebellion when told the lies about weapons of mass destruction, about Saddam&#8217;s links with Osama bin Laden and 11 September? How did we let it happen? And how come we didn&#8217;t plan for the aftermath of war?</p> <p /> <p>Oh, the British tried to get the Americans to listen, Downing Street now tells us. We really, honestly did try, before we absolutely and completely knew it was right to embark on this illegal war. There is now a vast literature on the Iraq debacle and there are precedents for post-war planning &#8212; of which more later &#8212; but this is not the point. Our predicament in Iraq is on an infinitely more terrible scale.</p> <p>As the Americans came storming up Iraq in 2003, their cruise missiles hissing through the sandstorm towards a hundred Iraqi towns and cities, I would sit in my filthy room in the Baghdad Palestine Hotel, unable to sleep for the thunder of explosions, and root through the books I&#8217;d brought to fill the dark, dangerous hours. Tolstoy&#8217;s War and Peace reminded me how conflict can be described with sensitivity and grace and horror &#8212; I recommend the Battle of Borodino &#8212; along with a file of newspaper clippings. In this little folder, there was a long rant by Pat Buchanan, written five months earlier; and still, today I feel its power and its prescience and its absolute historical honesty: &#8220;With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla war.</p> <p>&#8220;They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.&#8221;</p> <p>How easily the little men took us into the inferno, with no knowledge or, at least, interest in history. None of them read of the 1920 Iraqi insurgency against British occupation, nor of Churchill&#8217;s brusque and brutal settlement of Iraq the following year.</p> <p>On our historical radars, not even Crassus appeared, the wealthiest Roman general of all, who demanded an emperorship after conquering Macedonia &#8212; &#8220;Mission Accomplished&#8221; &#8212; and vengefully set forth to destroy Mesopotamia. At a spot in the desert near the Euphrates river, the Parthians &#8212; ancestors of present day Iraqi insurgents &#8212; annihilated the legions, chopped off Crassus&#8217;s head and sent it back to Rome filled with gold. Today, they would have videotaped his beheading.</p> <p>To their monumental hubris, these little men who took us to war five years ago now prove that they have learnt nothing. Anthony Blair &#8212; as we should always have called this small town lawyer &#8212; should be facing trial for his mendacity. Instead, he now presumes to bring peace to an Arab-Israeli conflict which he has done so much to exacerbate. And now we have the man who changed his mind on the legality of war &#8212; and did so on a single sheet of A4 paper &#8212; daring to suggest that we should test immigrants for British citizenship. Question 1, I contend, should be: Which blood-soaked British attorney general helped to send 176 British soldiers to their deaths for a lie? Question 2: How did he get away with it?</p> <p>But in a sense, the facile, dumbo nature of Lord Goldsmith&#8217;s proposal is a clue to the whole transitory, cardboard structure of our decision-making. The great issues that face us &#8212; be they Iraq or Afghanistan, the US economy or global warming, planned invasions or &#8220;terrorism&#8221; &#8212; are discussed not according to serious political timetables but around television schedules and press conferences.</p> <p>Will the first air raids on Iraq hit prime-time television in the States? Mercifully, yes. Will the first US troops in Baghdad appear on the breakfast shows? Of course. Will Saddam&#8217;s capture be announced by Bush and Blair simultaneously?</p> <p>But this is all part of the problem. True, Churchill and Roosevelt argued about the timing of the announcement that war in Europe had ended. And it was the Russians who pipped them to the post. But we told the truth. When the British were retreating to Dunkirk, Churchill announced that the Germans had &#8220;penetrated deeply and spread alarm and confusion in their tracks&#8221;.</p> <p>Why didn&#8217;t Bush or Blair tell us this when the Iraqi insurgents began to assault the Western occupation forces? Well, they were too busy telling us that things were getting better, that the rebels were mere &#8220;dead-enders&#8221;.</p> <p>On 17 June 1940, Churchill told the people of Britain: &#8220;The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune.&#8221; Why didn&#8217;t Blair or Bush tell us that the news from Iraq was very bad and that they grieved &#8212; even just a few tears for a minute or so &#8212; for the Iraqis?</p> <p>For these were the men who had the temerity, the sheer, unadulterated gall, to dress themselves up as Churchill, heroes who would stage a rerun of the Second World War, the BBC dutifully calling the invaders &#8220;the Allies&#8221; &#8212; they did, by the way &#8212; and painting Saddam&#8217;s regime as the Third Reich.</p> <p>Of course, when I was at school, our leaders &#8212; Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, or Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy in the United States &#8212; had real experience of real war. Not a single Western leader today has any first-hand experience of conflict. When the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq began, the most prominent European opponent of the war was Jacques Chirac, who fought in the Algerian conflict. But he has now gone. So has Colin Powell, a Vietnam veteran but himself duped by Rumsfeld and the CIA.</p> <p>Yet one of the terrible ironies of our times is that the most bloodthirsty of American statesmen &#8212; Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfovitz &#8212; have either never heard a shot fired in anger or have ensured they did not have to fight for their country when they had the chance to do so. No wonder Hollywood titles like &#8220;Shock and Awe&#8221; appeal to the White House. Movies are their only experience of human conflict; the same goes for Blair and Brown.</p> <p>Churchill had to account for the loss of Singapore before a packed House. Brown won&#8217;t even account for Iraq until the war is over.</p> <p>It is a grotesque truism that today &#8212; after all the posturing of our political midgets five years ago &#8212; we might at last be permitted a valid seance with the ghosts of the Second World War. Statistics are the medium, and the room would have to be dark. But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200).</p> <p>They count for just over a third of the total fatalities (11,014) of the entire British Expeditionary Force from the German invasion of Belgium to the final evacuation at Dunkirk in June 1940. The number of British dead in Iraq &#8212; 176 &#8212; is almost equal to the total of UK forces lost at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45 (just over 200). The number of US wounded in Iraq &#8212; 29,395 &#8212; is more than nine times the number of Americans injured on 6 June (3,184) and more than a quarter of the tally for US wounded in the entire 1950-53 Korean war (103,284).</p> <p>Iraqi casualties allow an even closer comparison to the Second World War. Even if we accept the lowest of fatality statistics for civilian dead &#8212; they range from 350,000 up to a million &#8212; these long ago dwarfed the number of British civilian dead in the flying-bomb blitz on London in 1944-45 (6,000) and now far outnumber the total figure for civilians killed in bombing raids across the United Kingdom &#8212; 60,595 dead, 86,182 seriously wounded &#8212; from 1940 to 1945.</p> <p>Indeed, the Iraqi civilian death toll since our invasion is now greater than the total number of British military fatalities in the Second World War, which came to an astounding 265,000 dead (some histories give this figure as 300,000) and 277,000 wounded. Minimum estimates for Iraqi dead mean that the civilians of Mesopotamia have suffered six or seven Dresdens or &#8212; more terrible still &#8212; two Hiroshimas.</p> <p>Yet in a sense, all this is a distraction from the awful truth in Buchanan&#8217;s warning. We have dispatched our armies into the land of Islam. We have done so with the sole encouragement of Israel, whose own false intelligence over Iraq has been discreetly forgotten by our masters, while weeping crocodile tears for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.</p> <p>America&#8217;s massive military prestige has been irreparably diminished. And if there are, as I now calculate, 22 times as many Western troops in the Muslim world as there were at the time of the 11th and 12th century Crusades, we must ask what we are doing. Are we there for oil? For democracy? For Israel? For fear of weapons of mass destruction? Or for fear of Islam?</p> <p>We blithely connect Afghanistan to Iraq. If only Washington had not become distracted by Iraq, so the narrative now goes, the Taliban could not have re-established themselves. But al-Qa&#8217;ida and the nebulous Osama bin Laden were not distracted. Which is why they expanded their operations into Iraq and then used this experience to assault the West in Afghanistan with the hitherto &#8212; in Afghanistan &#8212; unheard of suicide bomber.</p> <p>And I will hazard a terrible guess: that we have lost Afghanistan as surely as we have lost Iraq and as surely as we are going to &#8220;lose&#8221; Pakistan. It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror &#8212; yes, our terror &#8212; of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and &#8220;terror&#8221;. But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and &#8220;terror&#8221;. It&#8217;s not too complicated an equation. And we don&#8217;t need a public inquiry to get it right.</p> <p />

<p>In the twelve-course meal that is the war in Iraq, America has just been served the first entree. The fight with Iraq&#8217;s state armed forces was merely the amuse-bouche. The subsequent guerilla war with the Baath, as distasteful as we found it, was still just the appetizer. Over the past two weeks, we have been presented with the first of the main courses, Fourth Generation war waged for religion. If, as is traditional, this is the fish course, our reaction suggests it is flounder.</p> <p>Frankly, I was surprised how quickly this dish arrived. It seems Mohammed&#8217;s kitchen is working rather more speedily than usual. While a broadening and intensifying of the anti-American resistance was inevitable, I did not think it would reach its present intensity until this summer. The fact that is has erupted so early has political as well as military implications. The full scope of our disaster in Syracuse&#8211;er, sorry, Iraq&#8211;may be evident before the party conventions, as well as prior to the fall election. Might Bush do an LBJ and choose not to run? Will a Kerry who voted for the war be a credible nominee? Military disaster can displace all sorts of certainties.</p> <p>It is not yet a disaster, some may say. On the tactical level, that is true, although it may not be true much longer. But on the strategic level it is not just one disaster, it is four:</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>The pretense that we came to &#8220;liberate&#8221; the Iraqi people and not as conquerors is no longer credible. Faced with a popular uprising, we effectively declared war on the people of Iraq. The overall American commander, General Abizaid, &#8220;gave a stark warning for the Iraqi fighters, from the minority Sunni as well as the majority Shiite populations,&#8221; according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. &#8220;&#8216;First, we are going to win,&#8217; Abizaid said, seated at a table in a marbled palace hall&#8230;&#8217;Secondly, everyone needs to understand that there is no more powerful force assembled on Earth than this military force in this country&#8230;'&#8221; That is the language of conquest, not liberation, and it destroys the legitimacy of America&#8217;s presence in Iraq, both locally and around the world.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>We have now picked a fight with the Shiites, who control our lines of communication and who make up a majority of the Iraqi population. I thought that even the Valley of the Blind that is the CPA would have better sense than to make this final, fatal strategic blunder, but it seems they can always find a new ditch to stumble into. We did it over the utterly trivial matter of Muqtada al-Sadr&#8217;s newspaper printing lies&#8211;this from an American administration that long ago won the Order of Pinocchio, First Class, with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. While many Iraqi Shiites don&#8217;t much like al-Sadr, they like seeing Americans kill fellow Shiites even less.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>The Marines threw away the opportunity to de-escalate the fighting with the Sunnis in Fallujah and instead have raised the intensity of anti-Americanism there. For months, the Marines trained for de-escalation. But because of one minor incident of barely tactical importance, the killing of four American contractors, the de-escalation strategy was thrown out the window and replaced by an all-out assault on an Iraqi city. The Marines may have been given no choice by the White House, but it also looks as if their own training did not go very deep; the Plain Dealer quoted a Marine battalion commander in Fallujah as saying, &#8220;What is coming is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah. They have two choices: Submit or die.&#8221; That is hardly the language of de-escalation.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>Finally, our whole &#8220;say good-bye at the end of June&#8221; strategy depends on the reliability of the Iraqi security forces we have been busy creating. But when faced with fighting their own people on behalf of Christian foreigners, most of them went over or went home. This was utterly predictable, but its effect is to leave us without any exit strategy at all.</p> <p>So what comes next? The current violence may follow a sine wave, ebbing and then flowing again, with the whole curve gradually trending up. Or, it may rise in a linear, accelerating curve, in which case we will soon be driven out of Iraq, possibly in a full-scale sauve que peut rout. The former appears more likely, but it still leads to the same ending, if taking a bit more time to get there. Unlike traditional twelve-course dinners, this one does not finish with a dessert or a savoury. It ends, to borrow one of John Boyd&#8217;s favorite phrases, with the &#8220;coalition&#8221; getting the whole enchilada right up the p&#8212; chute. You cannot get anything you want at Mohammed&#8217;s restaurant.</p> <p>WILLIAM S. LIND is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation</p> <p>Keep CounterPunch Alive: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/Donations.html" type="external">Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/" type="external">home</a> / <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Subscriptions.html" type="external">subscribe</a> / <a href="aboutus.html" type="external">about us</a> / <a href="books.html" type="external">books</a> / <a href="archive.html" type="external">archives</a> / <a href="search.html" type="external">search</a> / <a href="links.html" type="external">links</a> / WILLIAM S. LIND</p>

"Your Fish, Sir"

https://counterpunch.org/2004/04/16/quot-your-fish-sir-quot/

2004-04-16

4left

"Your Fish, Sir" <p>In the twelve-course meal that is the war in Iraq, America has just been served the first entree. The fight with Iraq&#8217;s state armed forces was merely the amuse-bouche. The subsequent guerilla war with the Baath, as distasteful as we found it, was still just the appetizer. Over the past two weeks, we have been presented with the first of the main courses, Fourth Generation war waged for religion. If, as is traditional, this is the fish course, our reaction suggests it is flounder.</p> <p>Frankly, I was surprised how quickly this dish arrived. It seems Mohammed&#8217;s kitchen is working rather more speedily than usual. While a broadening and intensifying of the anti-American resistance was inevitable, I did not think it would reach its present intensity until this summer. The fact that is has erupted so early has political as well as military implications. The full scope of our disaster in Syracuse&#8211;er, sorry, Iraq&#8211;may be evident before the party conventions, as well as prior to the fall election. Might Bush do an LBJ and choose not to run? Will a Kerry who voted for the war be a credible nominee? Military disaster can displace all sorts of certainties.</p> <p>It is not yet a disaster, some may say. On the tactical level, that is true, although it may not be true much longer. But on the strategic level it is not just one disaster, it is four:</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>The pretense that we came to &#8220;liberate&#8221; the Iraqi people and not as conquerors is no longer credible. Faced with a popular uprising, we effectively declared war on the people of Iraq. The overall American commander, General Abizaid, &#8220;gave a stark warning for the Iraqi fighters, from the minority Sunni as well as the majority Shiite populations,&#8221; according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. &#8220;&#8216;First, we are going to win,&#8217; Abizaid said, seated at a table in a marbled palace hall&#8230;&#8217;Secondly, everyone needs to understand that there is no more powerful force assembled on Earth than this military force in this country&#8230;'&#8221; That is the language of conquest, not liberation, and it destroys the legitimacy of America&#8217;s presence in Iraq, both locally and around the world.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>We have now picked a fight with the Shiites, who control our lines of communication and who make up a majority of the Iraqi population. I thought that even the Valley of the Blind that is the CPA would have better sense than to make this final, fatal strategic blunder, but it seems they can always find a new ditch to stumble into. We did it over the utterly trivial matter of Muqtada al-Sadr&#8217;s newspaper printing lies&#8211;this from an American administration that long ago won the Order of Pinocchio, First Class, with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. While many Iraqi Shiites don&#8217;t much like al-Sadr, they like seeing Americans kill fellow Shiites even less.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>The Marines threw away the opportunity to de-escalate the fighting with the Sunnis in Fallujah and instead have raised the intensity of anti-Americanism there. For months, the Marines trained for de-escalation. But because of one minor incident of barely tactical importance, the killing of four American contractors, the de-escalation strategy was thrown out the window and replaced by an all-out assault on an Iraqi city. The Marines may have been given no choice by the White House, but it also looks as if their own training did not go very deep; the Plain Dealer quoted a Marine battalion commander in Fallujah as saying, &#8220;What is coming is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah. They have two choices: Submit or die.&#8221; That is hardly the language of de-escalation.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>Finally, our whole &#8220;say good-bye at the end of June&#8221; strategy depends on the reliability of the Iraqi security forces we have been busy creating. But when faced with fighting their own people on behalf of Christian foreigners, most of them went over or went home. This was utterly predictable, but its effect is to leave us without any exit strategy at all.</p> <p>So what comes next? The current violence may follow a sine wave, ebbing and then flowing again, with the whole curve gradually trending up. Or, it may rise in a linear, accelerating curve, in which case we will soon be driven out of Iraq, possibly in a full-scale sauve que peut rout. The former appears more likely, but it still leads to the same ending, if taking a bit more time to get there. Unlike traditional twelve-course dinners, this one does not finish with a dessert or a savoury. It ends, to borrow one of John Boyd&#8217;s favorite phrases, with the &#8220;coalition&#8221; getting the whole enchilada right up the p&#8212; chute. You cannot get anything you want at Mohammed&#8217;s restaurant.</p> <p>WILLIAM S. LIND is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation</p> <p>Keep CounterPunch Alive: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/Donations.html" type="external">Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/" type="external">home</a> / <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Subscriptions.html" type="external">subscribe</a> / <a href="aboutus.html" type="external">about us</a> / <a href="books.html" type="external">books</a> / <a href="archive.html" type="external">archives</a> / <a href="search.html" type="external">search</a> / <a href="links.html" type="external">links</a> / WILLIAM S. LIND</p>

<p /> <p>Donald Trump is making waves at the Pentagon -- again!</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>By now you've all heard about President-elect Donald Trump and his government-by-tweet initiatives to get Boeing (NYSE: BA) to cut the price of Air Force One, and persuade Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) to lower the cost of its F-35 stealth fighter jet, by <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/17/will-trump-shoot-down-boeings-air-force-one-contra.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">criticizing their sticker prices on Twitter Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>BOEING'S F/A-18 fighter jet. Is it really comparable to Lockheed Martin's F-35? IMAGE SOURCE: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FA-18F_Super_Hornet_Jolly_Rogers_edit_1.jpg" type="external">U.S. NAVY Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>As a negotiating tactic, the effort has merit. It embarrasses the president-elect's negotiating partners and gives them incentive to offer concessions, without requiring Trump and the taxpayers he will soon represent to make any concessions of their own. But in his latest social media salvo, President-elect Trump may have gone a bit too far.</p> <p>Last week, the soon-to-be-president challenged Boeing to produce "a comparable F-18 Super Hornet" at a price better than Lockheed Martin's F-35 -- which is curious. There is no such thing as a fourth-generation F -18 Super Hornet from Boeing that is comparable to a fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II from Lockheed.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>True, from a cosmetic viewpoint, both Boeing's F/A-18 and Lockheed's F-35 are fighter jets. Both planes have two wings, two vertical stabilizers and... fly. But that's about where the similarities end.</p> <p>Boeing's F/A-18 is a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/30/boeings-fighter-jets-are-doomed-and-thats-ok.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fourth-generation warbird Opens a New Window.</a>, designed for an era in which the U.S. would command air superiority from the get-go in almost any conflict. It operates at a quick tempo, picking up bombs and missiles from an aircraft carrier and delivering them to a target, with quick turnaround times. The F/A-18 doesn't worry about stealth, because it ain't got time for that -- it's got bombs to drop! But if you light up an F/A-18 with radar, it looks exactly like what it is -- a fighter jet -- and is relatively easy to track and target.</p> <p>Lockheed Martin's F-35, on the other hand, is a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/08/did-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-just-get.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fifth-generation fighter Opens a New Window.</a>, designed to combat advanced 21st-century opponents possessing robust air defenses. The F-35's radar absorbing skin and curious configuration make it invisible to radar. While certain very-high-frequency radars <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/19/did-china-just-render-americas-1-trillion-stealth.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">may be able to detect it Opens a New Window.</a>, the plane's radar cross-section on fire control radars is similar in size to a golf ball -- too small for fire control radar to lock onto it and guide a missile all the way to contact.</p> <p>Simply put, an F-35 is designed to survive threats that would take down an F/A-18. Thus, in modern warfare, F-35s would be deployed first to penetrate and take down an adversary's air defenses, after which the F/A-18s would swoop in to finish the job. The planes are thus complementary, not comparable.</p> <p>So is Donald Trump completely off his rocker? And if he isn't, what might Trump's F-35 tweet mean for Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and for their investors?</p> <p>Here's my take: The president-elect cannot be off his rocker, because the differences between Boeing's F/A-18 and Lockheed Martin's F-35 are too glaringly obvious for anyone to make a mistake this big, and this publicly. In addition to the differences noted, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are currently the only services using Boeing's F/A-18, so the plane could not possibly be used to replace the <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/07/lockheed-martins-f-35b-stealth-fighter-wins-a-rare.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">1,750-odd F-35A stealth fighters Opens a New Window.</a> that the Air Force plans to buy -- just the 520 or so F-35-Bs and -Cs on order by the <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy-to-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-w.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Navy and Marines Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Of course, the president-elect couldn't go into all of these details in a 140-character tweet. But what might he have said if he had a bit more room to expand on his idea of a comparable F-18 Super Hornet, and what would the implications be then for investors?</p> <p>There are a couple of possibilities. For one, Boeing has for some years been working on design changes to the F/A-18 that the company contends would make it stealth-like -- if not completely stealthy. While Lockheed Martin would argue this is not comparable to its F-35, Trump may argue that Boeing's improvements are good enough to compete with the F-35 -- at the right price.</p> <p>Alternatively, Trump may be referring back to Boeing's X-32 aircraft, the stealth fighter Boeing entered in <a href="http://www.fool.com/news/2001/lmt011029.htm?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">the Joint Strike Fighter competition back in 2001 Opens a New Window.</a> -- the plane that ultimately lost to Lockheed Martin's F-35.</p> <p>As you recall, back then, the Pentagon had asked both companies to bid a plane they thought they could build for <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/08/did-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-just-get.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">about $35 million a copy Opens a New Window.</a> (in 1994 dollars). Arguably, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/18/how-lockheed-martins-grand-plan-for-the-f-35-fell.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Lockheed broke that bargain Opens a New Window.</a> when, after winning the competition, it hiked the F-35's cost up to the $100 million or so a copy that the plane costs today. But if Boeing could dust off its plans for the X-32 and build the Air Force a stealthy fighter for something closer to the original asking price, that might be something that would interest Trump -- and Boeing -- very much. Thirty-five million dollars in 1994 dollars would be $57 million today, or about half the price that Lockheed is charging for the F-35. Granted, it would take Boeing significant investment to update its 2001 design and bid a new price on such a comparable F-18 (i.e., the X-32).</p> <p>But with the prospect of reintroducing competition to the fighter jet industry, and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts at stake, Boeing just might bite.</p> <p>10 stocks we like better than Boeing When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p> <p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db76e929-ef9d-4ba9-9b2f-6b2c1bb68693&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Boeing 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;amp;impression=db76e929-ef9d-4ba9-9b2f-6b2c1bb68693&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p> <p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p> <p>Fool contributor <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Smith Opens a New Window.</a>does not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on <a href="http://caps.fool.com/" type="external">Motley Fool CAPS Opens a New Window.</a>, publicly pontificating under the handle <a href="http://caps.fool.com/ViewPlayer.aspx?t=01002844399633209838" type="external">TMFDitty Opens a New Window.</a>, where he's currently ranked No. 346 out of more than 75,000 rated members.</p> <p>The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Trump Tweets Against Lockheed's F-35: Here Are the Facts

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/01/trump-tweets-against-lockheed-f-35-here-are-facts.html

2017-01-01

0right

Trump Tweets Against Lockheed's F-35: Here Are the Facts <p /> <p>Donald Trump is making waves at the Pentagon -- again!</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>By now you've all heard about President-elect Donald Trump and his government-by-tweet initiatives to get Boeing (NYSE: BA) to cut the price of Air Force One, and persuade Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) to lower the cost of its F-35 stealth fighter jet, by <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/17/will-trump-shoot-down-boeings-air-force-one-contra.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">criticizing their sticker prices on Twitter Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>BOEING'S F/A-18 fighter jet. Is it really comparable to Lockheed Martin's F-35? IMAGE SOURCE: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FA-18F_Super_Hornet_Jolly_Rogers_edit_1.jpg" type="external">U.S. NAVY Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>As a negotiating tactic, the effort has merit. It embarrasses the president-elect's negotiating partners and gives them incentive to offer concessions, without requiring Trump and the taxpayers he will soon represent to make any concessions of their own. But in his latest social media salvo, President-elect Trump may have gone a bit too far.</p> <p>Last week, the soon-to-be-president challenged Boeing to produce "a comparable F-18 Super Hornet" at a price better than Lockheed Martin's F-35 -- which is curious. There is no such thing as a fourth-generation F -18 Super Hornet from Boeing that is comparable to a fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II from Lockheed.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>True, from a cosmetic viewpoint, both Boeing's F/A-18 and Lockheed's F-35 are fighter jets. Both planes have two wings, two vertical stabilizers and... fly. But that's about where the similarities end.</p> <p>Boeing's F/A-18 is a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/30/boeings-fighter-jets-are-doomed-and-thats-ok.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fourth-generation warbird Opens a New Window.</a>, designed for an era in which the U.S. would command air superiority from the get-go in almost any conflict. It operates at a quick tempo, picking up bombs and missiles from an aircraft carrier and delivering them to a target, with quick turnaround times. The F/A-18 doesn't worry about stealth, because it ain't got time for that -- it's got bombs to drop! But if you light up an F/A-18 with radar, it looks exactly like what it is -- a fighter jet -- and is relatively easy to track and target.</p> <p>Lockheed Martin's F-35, on the other hand, is a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/08/did-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-just-get.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fifth-generation fighter Opens a New Window.</a>, designed to combat advanced 21st-century opponents possessing robust air defenses. The F-35's radar absorbing skin and curious configuration make it invisible to radar. While certain very-high-frequency radars <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/19/did-china-just-render-americas-1-trillion-stealth.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">may be able to detect it Opens a New Window.</a>, the plane's radar cross-section on fire control radars is similar in size to a golf ball -- too small for fire control radar to lock onto it and guide a missile all the way to contact.</p> <p>Simply put, an F-35 is designed to survive threats that would take down an F/A-18. Thus, in modern warfare, F-35s would be deployed first to penetrate and take down an adversary's air defenses, after which the F/A-18s would swoop in to finish the job. The planes are thus complementary, not comparable.</p> <p>So is Donald Trump completely off his rocker? And if he isn't, what might Trump's F-35 tweet mean for Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and for their investors?</p> <p>Here's my take: The president-elect cannot be off his rocker, because the differences between Boeing's F/A-18 and Lockheed Martin's F-35 are too glaringly obvious for anyone to make a mistake this big, and this publicly. In addition to the differences noted, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are currently the only services using Boeing's F/A-18, so the plane could not possibly be used to replace the <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/07/lockheed-martins-f-35b-stealth-fighter-wins-a-rare.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">1,750-odd F-35A stealth fighters Opens a New Window.</a> that the Air Force plans to buy -- just the 520 or so F-35-Bs and -Cs on order by the <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy-to-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-w.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Navy and Marines Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Of course, the president-elect couldn't go into all of these details in a 140-character tweet. But what might he have said if he had a bit more room to expand on his idea of a comparable F-18 Super Hornet, and what would the implications be then for investors?</p> <p>There are a couple of possibilities. For one, Boeing has for some years been working on design changes to the F/A-18 that the company contends would make it stealth-like -- if not completely stealthy. While Lockheed Martin would argue this is not comparable to its F-35, Trump may argue that Boeing's improvements are good enough to compete with the F-35 -- at the right price.</p> <p>Alternatively, Trump may be referring back to Boeing's X-32 aircraft, the stealth fighter Boeing entered in <a href="http://www.fool.com/news/2001/lmt011029.htm?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">the Joint Strike Fighter competition back in 2001 Opens a New Window.</a> -- the plane that ultimately lost to Lockheed Martin's F-35.</p> <p>As you recall, back then, the Pentagon had asked both companies to bid a plane they thought they could build for <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/08/did-lockheed-martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-just-get.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">about $35 million a copy Opens a New Window.</a> (in 1994 dollars). Arguably, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/18/how-lockheed-martins-grand-plan-for-the-f-35-fell.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Lockheed broke that bargain Opens a New Window.</a> when, after winning the competition, it hiked the F-35's cost up to the $100 million or so a copy that the plane costs today. But if Boeing could dust off its plans for the X-32 and build the Air Force a stealthy fighter for something closer to the original asking price, that might be something that would interest Trump -- and Boeing -- very much. Thirty-five million dollars in 1994 dollars would be $57 million today, or about half the price that Lockheed is charging for the F-35. Granted, it would take Boeing significant investment to update its 2001 design and bid a new price on such a comparable F-18 (i.e., the X-32).</p> <p>But with the prospect of reintroducing competition to the fighter jet industry, and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts at stake, Boeing just might bite.</p> <p>10 stocks we like better than Boeing When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p> <p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db76e929-ef9d-4ba9-9b2f-6b2c1bb68693&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Boeing 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;amp;impression=db76e929-ef9d-4ba9-9b2f-6b2c1bb68693&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p> <p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p> <p>Fool contributor <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Smith Opens a New Window.</a>does not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on <a href="http://caps.fool.com/" type="external">Motley Fool CAPS Opens a New Window.</a>, publicly pontificating under the handle <a href="http://caps.fool.com/ViewPlayer.aspx?t=01002844399633209838" type="external">TMFDitty Opens a New Window.</a>, where he's currently ranked No. 346 out of more than 75,000 rated members.</p> <p>The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>On Thursday, speaking at the National Counterterrorism Center, Barack Obama made the <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/326351-obama-isis-fbi-homeland/" type="external">outrageous claim</a> that terrorism committed by individuals and small groups in the United states only surfaced quite recently.</p> <p>Obama pontificated, &#8220;We are in a new phase of terrorism, including lone actors and small groups of terrorists like those in San Bernardino. Because they are smaller &#8210; often self-initiating, self-motivating &#8210; they&#8217;re harder to detect. And that makes it harder to prevent.&#8221;</p> <p>What a bald-faced liar. What was Fort Hood in 2009? What was the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing? What was the attack on the naval center in Maryland in 2015?</p> <p>Obama reassured his audience that his Administration is &#8220;going after terrorists over there&#8221; and &#8220;hitting ISIL harder than ever in Syria and Iraq&#8221;; &#8220;doing everything in our power to prevent terrorists from getting into the United States.&#8221; Yet Obama&#8217;s own Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, had the gall to <a href="" type="internal">warn</a> Americans not to suspect Muslims in particular, although they have been the group most responsible for repeated acts of the kinds of terrorism Obama spoke about. Lynch said: "Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech, but when it edges towards violence, when we see the potential for someone lifting that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric&#8212;or, as we saw after 9/11, violence directed at individuals who may not even be Muslims but perceived to be Muslims, and they will suffer just as much&#8212;when we see that we will take action."</p> <p>Here is just a <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/americanattacks.htm" type="external">partial list</a> of small group or individual acts of terrorism that mitigate against Lynch&#8217;s perspective:</p> <p>July 1, 1973: Palestinian terrorist shoots and kills an Israeli diplomat in Bethesda, Maryland.</p> <p>March 9 1977: Hanifi Muslims take over three buildings including a B'nai B'rith in Washington D.C., holding 134 people hostage; two innocent people get shot, one dies.</p> <p>November 5, 1990: Israeli rabbi shot and killed by a Muslim attacker in New York City.</p> <p>January 25, 1993: A Pakistani with Mujahideen ties shoots to death two CIA agents in Langley, Virginia.</p> <p>February 6, 1993: Islamic terrorists detonate truck bomb under the World Trade Center; six people killed, over 1,000 injured.</p> <p>March 1, 1994: Muslim gunman targets a van filled with Jewish boys, kills a 16-year-old.</p> <p>March 23, 1997: Palestinian shoots seven people at the top of the Empire state building.</p> <p>March 17, 2000: Supposed imam shoots to death a deputy sheriff in Atlanta.</p> <p>(9/11/2001: 3,000 dead. 3,000 dead. 3,000 dead.)</p> <p>July 4, 2002: Two killed by Muslim man at El Al counter at LAX.</p> <p>September 21, 2002: Muslim snipers shoot two women, kill one, Montgomery, Alabama.</p> <p>July 25, 2006: Muslim shoots four of his co-workers and a police officer, Denver, Colorado.</p> <p>July 28, 2006: Muslim-American shoots six women at Seattle Jewish center, one dies.</p> <p>Since Obama took office:</p> <p>November 5, 2009: Nidal Hasan slaughters 13 at Fort Hood, wounds 30 others.</p> <p>September 11, 2001: Muslim terrorists slash three Jewish men&#8217;s throats in Waltham, MA.</p> <p>April 15, 2013: Boston marathon bombing. Three die. Many others injured, lose limbs.</p> <p>July 16, 2015: Muslim terrorist shoots and kills five at naval center in Chattanooga.</p> <p>None of this matters to Obama. As one woman cogently tweeted:</p> <p>And he's off to Hawaii for 16 days. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ObamaSpeech?src=hash" type="external">#ObamaSpeech</a></p>

Obama Tells Another Whopper About Terrorism

https://dailywire.com/news/1968/obama-tells-another-whopper-about-terrorism-hank-berrien

2015-12-17

0right

Obama Tells Another Whopper About Terrorism <p>On Thursday, speaking at the National Counterterrorism Center, Barack Obama made the <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/326351-obama-isis-fbi-homeland/" type="external">outrageous claim</a> that terrorism committed by individuals and small groups in the United states only surfaced quite recently.</p> <p>Obama pontificated, &#8220;We are in a new phase of terrorism, including lone actors and small groups of terrorists like those in San Bernardino. Because they are smaller &#8210; often self-initiating, self-motivating &#8210; they&#8217;re harder to detect. And that makes it harder to prevent.&#8221;</p> <p>What a bald-faced liar. What was Fort Hood in 2009? What was the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing? What was the attack on the naval center in Maryland in 2015?</p> <p>Obama reassured his audience that his Administration is &#8220;going after terrorists over there&#8221; and &#8220;hitting ISIL harder than ever in Syria and Iraq&#8221;; &#8220;doing everything in our power to prevent terrorists from getting into the United States.&#8221; Yet Obama&#8217;s own Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, had the gall to <a href="" type="internal">warn</a> Americans not to suspect Muslims in particular, although they have been the group most responsible for repeated acts of the kinds of terrorism Obama spoke about. Lynch said: "Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech, but when it edges towards violence, when we see the potential for someone lifting that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric&#8212;or, as we saw after 9/11, violence directed at individuals who may not even be Muslims but perceived to be Muslims, and they will suffer just as much&#8212;when we see that we will take action."</p> <p>Here is just a <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/americanattacks.htm" type="external">partial list</a> of small group or individual acts of terrorism that mitigate against Lynch&#8217;s perspective:</p> <p>July 1, 1973: Palestinian terrorist shoots and kills an Israeli diplomat in Bethesda, Maryland.</p> <p>March 9 1977: Hanifi Muslims take over three buildings including a B'nai B'rith in Washington D.C., holding 134 people hostage; two innocent people get shot, one dies.</p> <p>November 5, 1990: Israeli rabbi shot and killed by a Muslim attacker in New York City.</p> <p>January 25, 1993: A Pakistani with Mujahideen ties shoots to death two CIA agents in Langley, Virginia.</p> <p>February 6, 1993: Islamic terrorists detonate truck bomb under the World Trade Center; six people killed, over 1,000 injured.</p> <p>March 1, 1994: Muslim gunman targets a van filled with Jewish boys, kills a 16-year-old.</p> <p>March 23, 1997: Palestinian shoots seven people at the top of the Empire state building.</p> <p>March 17, 2000: Supposed imam shoots to death a deputy sheriff in Atlanta.</p> <p>(9/11/2001: 3,000 dead. 3,000 dead. 3,000 dead.)</p> <p>July 4, 2002: Two killed by Muslim man at El Al counter at LAX.</p> <p>September 21, 2002: Muslim snipers shoot two women, kill one, Montgomery, Alabama.</p> <p>July 25, 2006: Muslim shoots four of his co-workers and a police officer, Denver, Colorado.</p> <p>July 28, 2006: Muslim-American shoots six women at Seattle Jewish center, one dies.</p> <p>Since Obama took office:</p> <p>November 5, 2009: Nidal Hasan slaughters 13 at Fort Hood, wounds 30 others.</p> <p>September 11, 2001: Muslim terrorists slash three Jewish men&#8217;s throats in Waltham, MA.</p> <p>April 15, 2013: Boston marathon bombing. Three die. Many others injured, lose limbs.</p> <p>July 16, 2015: Muslim terrorist shoots and kills five at naval center in Chattanooga.</p> <p>None of this matters to Obama. As one woman cogently tweeted:</p> <p>And he's off to Hawaii for 16 days. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ObamaSpeech?src=hash" type="external">#ObamaSpeech</a></p>

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a Democratic proposal to cut $11.4 billion in spending, saying that &#8220;the Legislature must solve the entire [$27 billion] deficit &#8230; and must not push the problem off to tomorrow.&#8221; With IOUs now a certainty and the state in financial ruin, a prominent Democrat called the governor&#8217;s stance &#8220;the most irresponsible thing that I&#8217;ve seen in my 15 years of public service.&#8221;</p> <p>San Francisco Chronicle:</p> <p>The Democratic legislators failed to win over Schwarzenegger with a promise to put together a comprehensive reform package within 60 days &#8212; in response to his demand &#8212; that would root out fraud in health and social service programs and streamline government.</p> <p>In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said, &#8220;I have been very clear that the Legislature must solve the entire deficit, must make the hard decisions now, and must not push the problem off to tomorrow.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BAUQ18H9EH.DTL&amp;amp;tsp=1" type="external">Read more</a></p>

Schwarzenegger Won't Budge as California Nears Collapse

https://truthdig.com/articles/schwarzenegger-wont-budge-as-california-nears-collapse/

2009-07-02

4left

Schwarzenegger Won't Budge as California Nears Collapse <p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a Democratic proposal to cut $11.4 billion in spending, saying that &#8220;the Legislature must solve the entire [$27 billion] deficit &#8230; and must not push the problem off to tomorrow.&#8221; With IOUs now a certainty and the state in financial ruin, a prominent Democrat called the governor&#8217;s stance &#8220;the most irresponsible thing that I&#8217;ve seen in my 15 years of public service.&#8221;</p> <p>San Francisco Chronicle:</p> <p>The Democratic legislators failed to win over Schwarzenegger with a promise to put together a comprehensive reform package within 60 days &#8212; in response to his demand &#8212; that would root out fraud in health and social service programs and streamline government.</p> <p>In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said, &#8220;I have been very clear that the Legislature must solve the entire deficit, must make the hard decisions now, and must not push the problem off to tomorrow.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BAUQ18H9EH.DTL&amp;amp;tsp=1" type="external">Read more</a></p>

<p>According to state officials, Aaron and Melissa Klein, co-owners of the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa, dropped off a check Monday for $136,927.07 to the Bureau of Labor and Industries in fulfillment of a fine handed down to them in July for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple&#8217;s wedding ceremony. That hefty sum was reportedly in addition to the $7,000 the couple paid the government earlier this month.</p> <p>The dispute between the Kleins and Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, the lesbian couple who filed the complaint, began back in January of 2013. According to Melissa, the bakery has serviced the women before but apologetically told them that supplying a cake for their gay wedding would go against their religious convictions. Subsequently, the lesbian couple filed a complaint with the state, sparking a national debate over the balance of religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws.</p> <p>"Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian awarded the damages nearly six months ago, saying the owners had violated the women&#8217;s civil rights by discriminating on the basis of their sexual orientation," <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html#.VoJ7mKDgE8Q.email" type="external">reported Fox News</a>. "A 2007 Oregon law protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. The state ruled it also bars private businesses from discriminating against potential customers."</p> <p>The damages awarded to the couple ranged from "emotional" to even physical distress supposedly caused by the bakery refusing to bake their cake.</p> <p>In the video above, Klein maintains that his religious liberty was breached and suggests that his freedom of speech was violated too. Aaron was likely referring to the gag order placed on the bakery owners which "prohibited them from speaking publicly about their refusal to participate in or bake wedding cakes for same-sex marriages."</p> <p>Although Aaron and his wife Melissa paid the fine, they are still hopeful for a successful appeal, which is slated for next year.</p> <p>The Kleins were forced to close their business and remain in litigation over the suit. Aaron is now working as a garbage man and has said that the couple brings home about half the income they brought home from the bakery.</p> <p>Many on the left are not sympathetic to the Kleins' plight. "Will anti-gay Christians be politically and socially ostracized? I sure hope so. Just as those orthodox Christians who still believe in strict, traditional gender roles have been increasingly mocked as absurd," <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/05/the-new-post-homophobic-christianity.html" type="external">wrote</a> liberal pundit Sally Kohn this past July in a piece for The Daily Beast.</p> <p>Kohn&#8217;s desire for traditional-minded Christians to be "politically and socially ostracized&#8221; has seemingly been surpassed. Those with religious convictions that don&#8217;t align with the liberal "moral good" are now being run out of business and fined too, all at the behest of government and in direct opposition to the First Amendment.</p> <p>Top video via <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/02/state-silences-bakers-who-refused-to-make-cake-for-lesbian-couple-fines-them-135k/" type="external">The Daily Signal</a>.</p>

These Bakers Got Fined By The Government For Not Catering a Same-Sex Wedding. Here’s How Much It Cost Them.

https://dailywire.com/news/2198/these-bakers-got-fined-government-not-catering-amanda-prestigiacomo

2015-12-29

0right

These Bakers Got Fined By The Government For Not Catering a Same-Sex Wedding. Here’s How Much It Cost Them. <p>According to state officials, Aaron and Melissa Klein, co-owners of the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa, dropped off a check Monday for $136,927.07 to the Bureau of Labor and Industries in fulfillment of a fine handed down to them in July for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple&#8217;s wedding ceremony. That hefty sum was reportedly in addition to the $7,000 the couple paid the government earlier this month.</p> <p>The dispute between the Kleins and Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, the lesbian couple who filed the complaint, began back in January of 2013. According to Melissa, the bakery has serviced the women before but apologetically told them that supplying a cake for their gay wedding would go against their religious convictions. Subsequently, the lesbian couple filed a complaint with the state, sparking a national debate over the balance of religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws.</p> <p>"Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian awarded the damages nearly six months ago, saying the owners had violated the women&#8217;s civil rights by discriminating on the basis of their sexual orientation," <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html#.VoJ7mKDgE8Q.email" type="external">reported Fox News</a>. "A 2007 Oregon law protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. The state ruled it also bars private businesses from discriminating against potential customers."</p> <p>The damages awarded to the couple ranged from "emotional" to even physical distress supposedly caused by the bakery refusing to bake their cake.</p> <p>In the video above, Klein maintains that his religious liberty was breached and suggests that his freedom of speech was violated too. Aaron was likely referring to the gag order placed on the bakery owners which "prohibited them from speaking publicly about their refusal to participate in or bake wedding cakes for same-sex marriages."</p> <p>Although Aaron and his wife Melissa paid the fine, they are still hopeful for a successful appeal, which is slated for next year.</p> <p>The Kleins were forced to close their business and remain in litigation over the suit. Aaron is now working as a garbage man and has said that the couple brings home about half the income they brought home from the bakery.</p> <p>Many on the left are not sympathetic to the Kleins' plight. "Will anti-gay Christians be politically and socially ostracized? I sure hope so. Just as those orthodox Christians who still believe in strict, traditional gender roles have been increasingly mocked as absurd," <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/05/the-new-post-homophobic-christianity.html" type="external">wrote</a> liberal pundit Sally Kohn this past July in a piece for The Daily Beast.</p> <p>Kohn&#8217;s desire for traditional-minded Christians to be "politically and socially ostracized&#8221; has seemingly been surpassed. Those with religious convictions that don&#8217;t align with the liberal "moral good" are now being run out of business and fined too, all at the behest of government and in direct opposition to the First Amendment.</p> <p>Top video via <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/02/state-silences-bakers-who-refused-to-make-cake-for-lesbian-couple-fines-them-135k/" type="external">The Daily Signal</a>.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>FILE - This image made from video released anonymously to reporters in Pakistan on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows Warren Weinstein, a 72-year-old American development worker who was kidnapped in Pakistan by al-Qaida in 2011. The White House says Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian held by the terror organization since 2012, were inadvertently killed during U.S. counterterrorism operations in a border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan in January 2015. In addition, the U.S. believes that two Americans who were working with al-Qaida were also killed. (AP Photo via AP video, File)</p> <p>WASHINGTON - A look at the lives of four men - two Western hostages and two American terror suspects - who were killed by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The American and Italian aid workers were killed inadvertently in a drone attack targeting al-Qaida in January, U.S. officials said.</p> <p>The four are:</p> <p>___</p> <p>WARREN WEINSTEIN</p> <p>A 73-year-old aid worker and grandfather from Rockville, Md., Weinstein was held captive for three-and-a-half years.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The business development specialist was abducted by al-Qaida four days before the end of a seven-year assignment in Pakistan.</p> <p>His wife, Elaine Weinstein, said her husband "spent his entire life working to benefit people across the globe and loved the work that he did to make people's lives better."</p> <p>Weinstein wore traditional Pakistani garments and spoke Urdu in his work as the country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S. firm advising Pakistani businesses and government under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His wife said he "loved and respected the Pakistani people and their culture."</p> <p>He was kidnapped from his house in Lahore in August 2011.</p> <p>Videos of Weinstein appealing for help appeared in 2012 and 2013. In a video sent to reporters in December 2013, Weinstein, bearded and haggard-looking, appealed to President Barack Obama to negotiate his release. It was impossible to tell whether the statement was scripted by his captors.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>"Nine years ago I came to Pakistan to help my government, and I did so at a time when most Americans would not come here," he said in the 13-minute video. "And now when I need my government it seems that I have been totally abandoned and forgotten."</p> <p>Al-Qaida had said it would free Weinstein if the U.S. halted airstrikes in the Middle East and also demanded the release of all al-Qaida and Taliban suspects around the world. The White House called for Weinstein's release but said the U.S. wouldn't negotiate with terrorists.</p> <p>In her statement, Elaine Weinstein said their family had long hoped that the U.S. and Pakistan would do more to secure his release and "there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartache we are going through."</p> <p>A local militant, Hafiz Imran, was convicted of a role in the kidnapping and was sentenced to death in January, according to a Pakistani lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.</p> <p>___</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>GIOVANNI LO PORTO</p> <p>Friends and co-workers remembered Giovanni Lo Porto, 39, as an amiable man with a profound commitment to aiding the world's poor.</p> <p>Hailing from Palermo, Sicily, Lo Porto studied peace and conflict at London Metropolitan University and graduated in 2010.</p> <p>"Giovanni was a popular student who was committed to helping others," the university said in a statement.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry called Lo Porto a "generous and expert volunteer."</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Obama, expressing regret for the hostages' deaths, said that Lo Porto "fell in love with Pakistan and its people, and believed passionately that he could make a difference in their lives."</p> <p>Lo Porto joined German aid group Welthungerhilfe in October 2011. He was in Pakistan's Multan region, managing a project to restore drinking water after devastating floods, when he was kidnapped in January 2012 together with German Bernd Muehlenbeck, said Simone Pott, a spokeswoman for the group.</p> <p>"He was the kind of guy who had a lot of friends," Pott said of Lo Porto.</p> <p>He was experienced and had received security training, she said, "but in the end there's always a risk."</p> <p>Muehlenbeck was freed last year under circumstances that Pott declined to describe.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Those close to Lo Porto held out hope that he, too, would come back. The Italian Foreign Ministry said it had tried for three years to track down Lo Porto and return him to his family.</p> <p>"We always thought he would return home," said Margherita Romanelli, of Italian aid group GVC, calling Lo Porto a friend and colleague. "Now we're without words. But when the moment is right we will ask for light to be shed on the circumstances of his death."</p> <p>___</p> <p>ADAM GADAHN</p> <p>A spokesman for Osama bin Laden, Gadahn called himself "Azzam the American" in numerous videos promoting al-Qaida.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He became the only American since the World War II era to be charged with treason. The U.S. had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Gadahn's arrest.</p> <p>He was born in 1978 in Oregon as Adam Pearlman. His father, a musician, changed his name from Pearlman to Gadahn in the 1970s. Young Adam grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California. He was home-schooled, played Little League ball and was raised as a Christian.</p> <p>In 1995, at age 17, he converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. A few years later he moved to Pakistan, where he joined al-Qaida as a propagandist, making videos that denounced U.S. moves in Afghanistan and elsewhere and threatened attacks on Western interests abroad.</p> <p>U.S. authorities filed treason charges against him in 2006. The FBI described Gadahn as 5-foot-11, a little more than 200 pounds, with brown hair and scars on his chest and right forearm.</p> <p>Some tidbits about his work for al-Qaida surfaced in documents leaked by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The documents show that bin Laden's inner circle was frustrated in 2010 that attention in the U.S. had shifted to the economic downturn without linking al-Qaida to the damage. "All the political talk in America is about the economy, forgetting or ignoring the war and its role in weakening the economy," Gadahn wrote.</p> <p>The papers also showed that Gadahn studied U.S. media, advising that CNN was too close to the government and heaping scorn on Fox News which "falls into the abyss, as you know, and lacks neutrality."</p> <p>The government said he was killed in a separate drone strike from the one that killed the two hostages and another American tied to al-Qaida.</p> <p>___</p> <p>AHMED FAROUQ</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Farouq was an American who became an al-Qaida leader in Pakistan, the White House says.</p> <p>He had assumed the title of deputy emir of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, and was involved in planning terrorist attacks, according to a U.S. official, who said Farouq had dual U.S.-Pakistani citizenship.</p> <p>The al-Qaida offshoot claimed responsibility for a failed attempt last year to hijack Pakistani naval vessels and use them to attack U.S. warships.</p> <p>Farouq was considered an up-and-coming leader within the group, according to the terror-tracking website Long War Journal, which cited correspondence recovered from bin Laden's compound and released in a Brooklyn terror trial.</p> <p>In a 2010 letter to bin Laden, al-Qaida's general manager at the time, Atiyah Abd al Rahman, said Farouq knew Arabic well, had management skills, was cultured and possessed a strong will. The letter said Farouq could be invited into the terror group's elite shura council.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Associated Press writers Brett Zongker, Matthew Lee, Deb Riechmann and Julie Pace in Washington, Karl Ritter in Rome, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.</p>

Profiles of 4 killed by drones: aid workers, terror suspects

https://abqjournal.com/574620/profiles-of-4-killed-by-drones-aid-workers-terror-suspects.html

2least

Profiles of 4 killed by drones: aid workers, terror suspects <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>FILE - This image made from video released anonymously to reporters in Pakistan on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows Warren Weinstein, a 72-year-old American development worker who was kidnapped in Pakistan by al-Qaida in 2011. The White House says Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian held by the terror organization since 2012, were inadvertently killed during U.S. counterterrorism operations in a border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan in January 2015. In addition, the U.S. believes that two Americans who were working with al-Qaida were also killed. (AP Photo via AP video, File)</p> <p>WASHINGTON - A look at the lives of four men - two Western hostages and two American terror suspects - who were killed by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The American and Italian aid workers were killed inadvertently in a drone attack targeting al-Qaida in January, U.S. officials said.</p> <p>The four are:</p> <p>___</p> <p>WARREN WEINSTEIN</p> <p>A 73-year-old aid worker and grandfather from Rockville, Md., Weinstein was held captive for three-and-a-half years.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The business development specialist was abducted by al-Qaida four days before the end of a seven-year assignment in Pakistan.</p> <p>His wife, Elaine Weinstein, said her husband "spent his entire life working to benefit people across the globe and loved the work that he did to make people's lives better."</p> <p>Weinstein wore traditional Pakistani garments and spoke Urdu in his work as the country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S. firm advising Pakistani businesses and government under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His wife said he "loved and respected the Pakistani people and their culture."</p> <p>He was kidnapped from his house in Lahore in August 2011.</p> <p>Videos of Weinstein appealing for help appeared in 2012 and 2013. In a video sent to reporters in December 2013, Weinstein, bearded and haggard-looking, appealed to President Barack Obama to negotiate his release. It was impossible to tell whether the statement was scripted by his captors.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>"Nine years ago I came to Pakistan to help my government, and I did so at a time when most Americans would not come here," he said in the 13-minute video. "And now when I need my government it seems that I have been totally abandoned and forgotten."</p> <p>Al-Qaida had said it would free Weinstein if the U.S. halted airstrikes in the Middle East and also demanded the release of all al-Qaida and Taliban suspects around the world. The White House called for Weinstein's release but said the U.S. wouldn't negotiate with terrorists.</p> <p>In her statement, Elaine Weinstein said their family had long hoped that the U.S. and Pakistan would do more to secure his release and "there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartache we are going through."</p> <p>A local militant, Hafiz Imran, was convicted of a role in the kidnapping and was sentenced to death in January, according to a Pakistani lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.</p> <p>___</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>GIOVANNI LO PORTO</p> <p>Friends and co-workers remembered Giovanni Lo Porto, 39, as an amiable man with a profound commitment to aiding the world's poor.</p> <p>Hailing from Palermo, Sicily, Lo Porto studied peace and conflict at London Metropolitan University and graduated in 2010.</p> <p>"Giovanni was a popular student who was committed to helping others," the university said in a statement.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry called Lo Porto a "generous and expert volunteer."</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Obama, expressing regret for the hostages' deaths, said that Lo Porto "fell in love with Pakistan and its people, and believed passionately that he could make a difference in their lives."</p> <p>Lo Porto joined German aid group Welthungerhilfe in October 2011. He was in Pakistan's Multan region, managing a project to restore drinking water after devastating floods, when he was kidnapped in January 2012 together with German Bernd Muehlenbeck, said Simone Pott, a spokeswoman for the group.</p> <p>"He was the kind of guy who had a lot of friends," Pott said of Lo Porto.</p> <p>He was experienced and had received security training, she said, "but in the end there's always a risk."</p> <p>Muehlenbeck was freed last year under circumstances that Pott declined to describe.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Those close to Lo Porto held out hope that he, too, would come back. The Italian Foreign Ministry said it had tried for three years to track down Lo Porto and return him to his family.</p> <p>"We always thought he would return home," said Margherita Romanelli, of Italian aid group GVC, calling Lo Porto a friend and colleague. "Now we're without words. But when the moment is right we will ask for light to be shed on the circumstances of his death."</p> <p>___</p> <p>ADAM GADAHN</p> <p>A spokesman for Osama bin Laden, Gadahn called himself "Azzam the American" in numerous videos promoting al-Qaida.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He became the only American since the World War II era to be charged with treason. The U.S. had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Gadahn's arrest.</p> <p>He was born in 1978 in Oregon as Adam Pearlman. His father, a musician, changed his name from Pearlman to Gadahn in the 1970s. Young Adam grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California. He was home-schooled, played Little League ball and was raised as a Christian.</p> <p>In 1995, at age 17, he converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. A few years later he moved to Pakistan, where he joined al-Qaida as a propagandist, making videos that denounced U.S. moves in Afghanistan and elsewhere and threatened attacks on Western interests abroad.</p> <p>U.S. authorities filed treason charges against him in 2006. The FBI described Gadahn as 5-foot-11, a little more than 200 pounds, with brown hair and scars on his chest and right forearm.</p> <p>Some tidbits about his work for al-Qaida surfaced in documents leaked by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The documents show that bin Laden's inner circle was frustrated in 2010 that attention in the U.S. had shifted to the economic downturn without linking al-Qaida to the damage. "All the political talk in America is about the economy, forgetting or ignoring the war and its role in weakening the economy," Gadahn wrote.</p> <p>The papers also showed that Gadahn studied U.S. media, advising that CNN was too close to the government and heaping scorn on Fox News which "falls into the abyss, as you know, and lacks neutrality."</p> <p>The government said he was killed in a separate drone strike from the one that killed the two hostages and another American tied to al-Qaida.</p> <p>___</p> <p>AHMED FAROUQ</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Farouq was an American who became an al-Qaida leader in Pakistan, the White House says.</p> <p>He had assumed the title of deputy emir of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, and was involved in planning terrorist attacks, according to a U.S. official, who said Farouq had dual U.S.-Pakistani citizenship.</p> <p>The al-Qaida offshoot claimed responsibility for a failed attempt last year to hijack Pakistani naval vessels and use them to attack U.S. warships.</p> <p>Farouq was considered an up-and-coming leader within the group, according to the terror-tracking website Long War Journal, which cited correspondence recovered from bin Laden's compound and released in a Brooklyn terror trial.</p> <p>In a 2010 letter to bin Laden, al-Qaida's general manager at the time, Atiyah Abd al Rahman, said Farouq knew Arabic well, had management skills, was cultured and possessed a strong will. The letter said Farouq could be invited into the terror group's elite shura council.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Associated Press writers Brett Zongker, Matthew Lee, Deb Riechmann and Julie Pace in Washington, Karl Ritter in Rome, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>In the next, the Air Force Falcons football coach would sink into a sad-sack routine about all the struggles his team was going through. Old softie Jim Sweeney of Fresno State once said DeBerry's tale of woe brought a tear to his eye. <a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>DeBerry hasn't coached the Falcons since 2006, but that hasn't lessened the fun of having Air Force on UNM's schedule.</p> <p>It's good having the Falcons in the same league as the Lobos. The United States Air Force Academy brings a regal air to the Mountain West Conference with its academic standards and its service to our country.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Plus, they've played some pretty good football over the years and have a classic mascot.</p> <p>In 1995, a 4-month-old prairie falcon named Arthur visited Carrie Tingley Children's Hospital. I was told Arthur could exceed speeds of 100 mph while diving for prey.</p> <p>But it is the cadets themselves who make Air Force worthy of praise. I've had the opportunity to talk to a few of them over the years and I highly recommend it.</p> <p>Some of them are in love with flying.</p> <p>LeRon Hudgins, an Air Force safety in the mid-1990s, told me he was 11 years old when he boarded a 747 for a flight to Japan.</p> <p>"I was so fascinated by the idea of that big thing getting up in the air,"he said in 1995.</p> <p>Today he flies planes for Southwest Airlines.</p> <p>His teammate Bret Cillesson, a 257-pound offensive lineman, saw a Thunderbird show when he was in sixth grade and decided he wanted to fly.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Then there is that quarterback legacy.</p> <p>Beau Morgan, who set records while playing QB at Air Force, was captivated by Dee Dowis, a Heisman Trophy candidate when he played for the Falcons.</p> <p>"I wore a couple of videos out," Morgan said of studying Dowis, who eventually joined DeBerry's staff while Morgan was still there.</p> <p>"What Dee helped me with is being able to handle the whole academy environment," Morgan said.</p> <p>And there is the schedule. In 2010, quarterback Tim Jefferson Jr. described to me his usual school day agenda:</p> <p>6:30 a.m., wake up</p> <p>7:20 a.m., breakfast</p> <p>7:50 a.m., classes</p> <p>11:45 a.m., lunch, marching</p> <p>1:50 p.m., football meetings, practice</p> <p>7 p.m., dinner, school work</p> <p>10:45 p.m., bed.</p> <p>A check of current Falcons QB Karson Roberts' schedule is strikingly similar, although notably his lights-out time is midnight.</p> <p>Of course, there is the prospect of life in the military in an increasingly dangerous world.</p> <p>In talking with AFA linebacker Connor Healy last summer, he said some cadets think about that more than others.</p> <p>"Depends on the person," he said. "I pay attention to it, but at the end of the day, our job is to do what your country asks of you - whether that be going half way around the world and doing something or be it staying at home."</p> <p>Jefferson told me, "I gave it good thought when I was making the decision. But I thought, people have gone to war before me, people will do it after me. Why can't I do it?"</p>

Air Force Academy good for the MWC

https://abqjournal.com/682082/air-force-academy-good-for-the-mwc.html

2least

Air Force Academy good for the MWC <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>In the next, the Air Force Falcons football coach would sink into a sad-sack routine about all the struggles his team was going through. Old softie Jim Sweeney of Fresno State once said DeBerry's tale of woe brought a tear to his eye. <a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>DeBerry hasn't coached the Falcons since 2006, but that hasn't lessened the fun of having Air Force on UNM's schedule.</p> <p>It's good having the Falcons in the same league as the Lobos. The United States Air Force Academy brings a regal air to the Mountain West Conference with its academic standards and its service to our country.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Plus, they've played some pretty good football over the years and have a classic mascot.</p> <p>In 1995, a 4-month-old prairie falcon named Arthur visited Carrie Tingley Children's Hospital. I was told Arthur could exceed speeds of 100 mph while diving for prey.</p> <p>But it is the cadets themselves who make Air Force worthy of praise. I've had the opportunity to talk to a few of them over the years and I highly recommend it.</p> <p>Some of them are in love with flying.</p> <p>LeRon Hudgins, an Air Force safety in the mid-1990s, told me he was 11 years old when he boarded a 747 for a flight to Japan.</p> <p>"I was so fascinated by the idea of that big thing getting up in the air,"he said in 1995.</p> <p>Today he flies planes for Southwest Airlines.</p> <p>His teammate Bret Cillesson, a 257-pound offensive lineman, saw a Thunderbird show when he was in sixth grade and decided he wanted to fly.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Then there is that quarterback legacy.</p> <p>Beau Morgan, who set records while playing QB at Air Force, was captivated by Dee Dowis, a Heisman Trophy candidate when he played for the Falcons.</p> <p>"I wore a couple of videos out," Morgan said of studying Dowis, who eventually joined DeBerry's staff while Morgan was still there.</p> <p>"What Dee helped me with is being able to handle the whole academy environment," Morgan said.</p> <p>And there is the schedule. In 2010, quarterback Tim Jefferson Jr. described to me his usual school day agenda:</p> <p>6:30 a.m., wake up</p> <p>7:20 a.m., breakfast</p> <p>7:50 a.m., classes</p> <p>11:45 a.m., lunch, marching</p> <p>1:50 p.m., football meetings, practice</p> <p>7 p.m., dinner, school work</p> <p>10:45 p.m., bed.</p> <p>A check of current Falcons QB Karson Roberts' schedule is strikingly similar, although notably his lights-out time is midnight.</p> <p>Of course, there is the prospect of life in the military in an increasingly dangerous world.</p> <p>In talking with AFA linebacker Connor Healy last summer, he said some cadets think about that more than others.</p> <p>"Depends on the person," he said. "I pay attention to it, but at the end of the day, our job is to do what your country asks of you - whether that be going half way around the world and doing something or be it staying at home."</p> <p>Jefferson told me, "I gave it good thought when I was making the decision. But I thought, people have gone to war before me, people will do it after me. Why can't I do it?"</p>

<p>On September 28, at approximately 8:00 p.m., a masked man carrying a handgun entered a Durham, North Carolina, Smoke 4 Less &#8212; but the clerk was ready for a fight.</p> <p>Before the would-be robber even entered the smoke shop, security camera footage shows the clerk pointing his gun at the door. Upon entering the store, the robber "fired a shot" at the clerk, who then "returned fire," according to <a href="http://www.wral.com/suspect-employee-exchange-fire-during-attempted-armed-robbery-in-durham/17012504/" type="external">WRAL</a>.</p> <p>The clerk "sustained a gunshot wound to his arm, and the man fled without taking anything."</p> <p>Security camera footage from outside and inside the store captured the entire exchange from multiple angles:</p> <p>The suspect is still at large. According to the Durham Police Department <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DurhamPoliceDepartment/posts/1740046282672291" type="external">Facebook page</a>: "He was described as a black male with a skinny build. He was wearing a black mask, dark clothing and brown Timberland boots. ... The man is also suspected of robbing a Hardees fast food restaurant at gunpoint 30 minutes later."</p> <p>If you have any information, call the Durham Police Department at 919-560-4440 or Crime Stoppers at 919-683-1200.</p>

Robbery Foiled After Smoke Shop Clerk Shoots Back

https://dailywire.com/news/22255/robbery-foiled-after-smoke-shop-clerk-shoots-back-frank-camp

2017-10-13

0right

Robbery Foiled After Smoke Shop Clerk Shoots Back <p>On September 28, at approximately 8:00 p.m., a masked man carrying a handgun entered a Durham, North Carolina, Smoke 4 Less &#8212; but the clerk was ready for a fight.</p> <p>Before the would-be robber even entered the smoke shop, security camera footage shows the clerk pointing his gun at the door. Upon entering the store, the robber "fired a shot" at the clerk, who then "returned fire," according to <a href="http://www.wral.com/suspect-employee-exchange-fire-during-attempted-armed-robbery-in-durham/17012504/" type="external">WRAL</a>.</p> <p>The clerk "sustained a gunshot wound to his arm, and the man fled without taking anything."</p> <p>Security camera footage from outside and inside the store captured the entire exchange from multiple angles:</p> <p>The suspect is still at large. According to the Durham Police Department <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DurhamPoliceDepartment/posts/1740046282672291" type="external">Facebook page</a>: "He was described as a black male with a skinny build. He was wearing a black mask, dark clothing and brown Timberland boots. ... The man is also suspected of robbing a Hardees fast food restaurant at gunpoint 30 minutes later."</p> <p>If you have any information, call the Durham Police Department at 919-560-4440 or Crime Stoppers at 919-683-1200.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The Bellingham Herald reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2uoPXZq)" type="external">http://bit.ly/2uoPXZq)</a> that 55-year-old Mark Redwine appeared in a Whatcom County courtroom Tuesday and waived extradition in the 2012 death of 13-year-old Dylan Redwine.</p> <p>The father was arrested in Bellingham on July 21, following a grand jury indictment for second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.</p> <p>The boy&#8217;s remains were found about 10 miles from the father&#8217;s southwestern Colorado home in 2013. The boy had traveled to be with his father for a court-ordered visit the previous Thanksgiving. Mark Redwine and the boy&#8217;s mother had gone through a contentious custody battle.</p> <p>An indictment says the boy&#8217;s blood was found in Mark Redwine&#8217;s home, and a cadaver dog picked up the scent of a body on the father&#8217;s clothes and in his truck.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Mark Redwine has denied any involvement.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: The Bellingham Herald, <a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com" type="external">http://www.bellinghamherald.com</a></p>

Colorado father accused of killing son waives extradition

https://abqjournal.com/1045423/colorado-father-accused-of-killing-son-waives-extradition.html

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Colorado father accused of killing son waives extradition <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The Bellingham Herald reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2uoPXZq)" type="external">http://bit.ly/2uoPXZq)</a> that 55-year-old Mark Redwine appeared in a Whatcom County courtroom Tuesday and waived extradition in the 2012 death of 13-year-old Dylan Redwine.</p> <p>The father was arrested in Bellingham on July 21, following a grand jury indictment for second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.</p> <p>The boy&#8217;s remains were found about 10 miles from the father&#8217;s southwestern Colorado home in 2013. The boy had traveled to be with his father for a court-ordered visit the previous Thanksgiving. Mark Redwine and the boy&#8217;s mother had gone through a contentious custody battle.</p> <p>An indictment says the boy&#8217;s blood was found in Mark Redwine&#8217;s home, and a cadaver dog picked up the scent of a body on the father&#8217;s clothes and in his truck.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Mark Redwine has denied any involvement.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: The Bellingham Herald, <a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com" type="external">http://www.bellinghamherald.com</a></p>

<p /> <p>A story from Fox News covering Sweden&#8217;s &#8220;migrant crime wave&#8221; is now the top story nationally, according to Google News.</p> <p>In their quest to attack President Trump for any possible reason, <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56293" type="external">the lying media made up a fake news story claiming Trump spoke of a non-existent &#8220;terror attack&#8221; which occurred Friday night in Sweden</a>.</p> <p>In fact, <a href="" type="internal">Trump never said there was a &#8220;terror attack&#8221; in Sweden</a>, he said people should look at what&#8217;s happening in Sweden to see how their country is being destroyed by &#8220;refugees.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s the bottom line, we&#8217;ve got to keep our country safe,&#8221; Trump said at his rally Saturday. &#8220;You look at what&#8217;s happening in Germany, you look at what&#8217;s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They&#8217;re having problems like they never thought possible.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump said on twitter Sunday his comments were referencing this story which was broadcast on Tucker Carlson&#8217;s show Friday:</p> <p /> <p /> <p>That clip has since gone viral as well as tons of other stories on migrant crime in Sweden.</p> <p>Trump tweeted this morning: &#8220;Give the public a break &#8211; The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>The following story from Fox featuring an interview with Tucker Carlson and a host of migrant crime stats took the top slot earlier today on Google News.</p> <p>From <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/20/trump-may-have-been-unclear-but-sweden-experiencing-migrant-crime-wave.html" type="external">Fox News, &#8220;Trump may have been unclear, but Sweden experiencing a migrant crime wave&#8221;</a>:</p> <p>Police investigator Peter Springare isn&#8217;t likely to be among those mocking President Trump for his remarks about refugees in Sweden.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s comments during a Florida campaign rally on Saturday &#8211; which some took as a misstatement about a supposed terror attack &#8211; dovetail with what Springare has been seeing during a typical week in Orebro, Sweden. Five rapes, three assaults, a pair of extortions, blackmail, an attempted murder, violence against police and a robbery made up Springare&#8217;s caseload for a five-day period earlier this month, according to a Feb. 3 Facebook post he wrote. The suspects were all from Muslim-majority countries &#8211; Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Turkey &#8211; save for one Swedish man nabbed in a drug-related case.</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;Mohammed, Mahmod, Ali, again and again,&#8221; Springare wrote of those arrested.</p> <p>Springare, who was briefly investigated for possible hate crime incitement based on his post, managed to elucidate what Trump only hinted at during a Florida campaign speech &#8211; somewhat opaquely.</p> <p /> <p>&#8230;Last month, the police chief for the southern Swedish city of Malmo issued a desperate plea for help curtailing a plague of attempted murders, beatings and rapes. About 32 percent of Malmo&#8217;s occupants are migrants, although it is not clear what role migrants play in the crime wave.</p> <p>&#8220;We cannot do it on our own,&#8221; Chief Stefan Sinteus wrote in an open letter about the &#8220;upward spiral of violence.&#8221;</p> <p>And Sinteus is not merely dealing with typical crimes that any modern city would witness.</p> <p>Malmo had 52 hand grenade attacks in 2016 alone, a jump from 48 attacks in 2015, according to figures provided by the Swedish Police Authority.</p> <p>Nationwide, the terror threat level is at &#8220;elevated&#8221; and police believe at least 300 Swedish nationals have travelled to Syria and Iraq for jihadi training. On Feb. 11, a Swedish man and a Danish man were arrested in Turkey, suspected of plotting to carry out attacks in Europe. Tofik Saleh, a 38-year-old Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin, had been training with ISIS since 2014, officials said.</p> <p>The left can&#8217;t respond to any of this. They thought they could just make snarky comments about everything in Sweden being A-OK to score cheap political points.</p> <p /> <p>While this may fly in Sweden where the media is totally dominated by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnier_family" type="external">Bonnier family</a> and far-left state-run broadcasters, it&#8217;s laughable to the rest of the world.</p> <p>The fact of the matter is crime has exploded since they opened their borders in the 1960&#8217;s and they&#8217;re now <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5195/sweden-rape" type="external">the rape capital of the West</a>.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>As with every other fake news media hoax, this latest one has backfired tremendously.</p> <p>Incidentally, here&#8217;s a glace at what happened Friday.</p> <p>&#8211; A group of children were <a href="http://www.friatider.se/barn-pa-lekplats-hotades-av-ranare" type="external">robbed at a playground by a gang of four teenagers in J&#228;rf&#228;lla and S&#246;dert&#228;lje</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; A man was murdered by <a href="http://www.friatider.se/man-mordad-i-midsommarkransen" type="external">career criminals in Midsommarkransen</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; Three cars were set on fire in <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Vastra-Gotaland/2017-02-17-1945-Brand-Goteborg/" type="external">Gothenburg</a> and <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Halland/2017-02-17-1938-Brand-Halmstad/" type="external">Halmstad</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; There was an <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Skane/2017-02-17-1914-Ran-vapnat-Malmo/" type="external">armed robbery at a Grocery store in Malmo</a> where someone <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Skane/2017-02-17-1829-Ran-Malmo/" type="external">was beaten by a gang of 3-4 men</a>.</p> <p>None of the suspects are identified as migrants because Swedish police have been banned from identifying criminals based on race, but as we know from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peter.springare" type="external">Peter Springare</a>, almost all crime is committed by people named variants of &#8220;Mohammed.&#8221;</p> <p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56294" type="external">Information Liberation</a></p> <p /> <p />

Sweden’s Migrant Crime Wave Becomes Top National Story As Media’s Lies Backfire

http://dcclothesline.com/2017/02/21/swedens-migrant-crime-wave-becomes-top-national-story-as-medias-lies-backfire/

2017-02-21

0right

Sweden’s Migrant Crime Wave Becomes Top National Story As Media’s Lies Backfire <p /> <p>A story from Fox News covering Sweden&#8217;s &#8220;migrant crime wave&#8221; is now the top story nationally, according to Google News.</p> <p>In their quest to attack President Trump for any possible reason, <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56293" type="external">the lying media made up a fake news story claiming Trump spoke of a non-existent &#8220;terror attack&#8221; which occurred Friday night in Sweden</a>.</p> <p>In fact, <a href="" type="internal">Trump never said there was a &#8220;terror attack&#8221; in Sweden</a>, he said people should look at what&#8217;s happening in Sweden to see how their country is being destroyed by &#8220;refugees.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s the bottom line, we&#8217;ve got to keep our country safe,&#8221; Trump said at his rally Saturday. &#8220;You look at what&#8217;s happening in Germany, you look at what&#8217;s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They&#8217;re having problems like they never thought possible.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump said on twitter Sunday his comments were referencing this story which was broadcast on Tucker Carlson&#8217;s show Friday:</p> <p /> <p /> <p>That clip has since gone viral as well as tons of other stories on migrant crime in Sweden.</p> <p>Trump tweeted this morning: &#8220;Give the public a break &#8211; The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>The following story from Fox featuring an interview with Tucker Carlson and a host of migrant crime stats took the top slot earlier today on Google News.</p> <p>From <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/20/trump-may-have-been-unclear-but-sweden-experiencing-migrant-crime-wave.html" type="external">Fox News, &#8220;Trump may have been unclear, but Sweden experiencing a migrant crime wave&#8221;</a>:</p> <p>Police investigator Peter Springare isn&#8217;t likely to be among those mocking President Trump for his remarks about refugees in Sweden.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s comments during a Florida campaign rally on Saturday &#8211; which some took as a misstatement about a supposed terror attack &#8211; dovetail with what Springare has been seeing during a typical week in Orebro, Sweden. Five rapes, three assaults, a pair of extortions, blackmail, an attempted murder, violence against police and a robbery made up Springare&#8217;s caseload for a five-day period earlier this month, according to a Feb. 3 Facebook post he wrote. The suspects were all from Muslim-majority countries &#8211; Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Turkey &#8211; save for one Swedish man nabbed in a drug-related case.</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;Mohammed, Mahmod, Ali, again and again,&#8221; Springare wrote of those arrested.</p> <p>Springare, who was briefly investigated for possible hate crime incitement based on his post, managed to elucidate what Trump only hinted at during a Florida campaign speech &#8211; somewhat opaquely.</p> <p /> <p>&#8230;Last month, the police chief for the southern Swedish city of Malmo issued a desperate plea for help curtailing a plague of attempted murders, beatings and rapes. About 32 percent of Malmo&#8217;s occupants are migrants, although it is not clear what role migrants play in the crime wave.</p> <p>&#8220;We cannot do it on our own,&#8221; Chief Stefan Sinteus wrote in an open letter about the &#8220;upward spiral of violence.&#8221;</p> <p>And Sinteus is not merely dealing with typical crimes that any modern city would witness.</p> <p>Malmo had 52 hand grenade attacks in 2016 alone, a jump from 48 attacks in 2015, according to figures provided by the Swedish Police Authority.</p> <p>Nationwide, the terror threat level is at &#8220;elevated&#8221; and police believe at least 300 Swedish nationals have travelled to Syria and Iraq for jihadi training. On Feb. 11, a Swedish man and a Danish man were arrested in Turkey, suspected of plotting to carry out attacks in Europe. Tofik Saleh, a 38-year-old Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin, had been training with ISIS since 2014, officials said.</p> <p>The left can&#8217;t respond to any of this. They thought they could just make snarky comments about everything in Sweden being A-OK to score cheap political points.</p> <p /> <p>While this may fly in Sweden where the media is totally dominated by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnier_family" type="external">Bonnier family</a> and far-left state-run broadcasters, it&#8217;s laughable to the rest of the world.</p> <p>The fact of the matter is crime has exploded since they opened their borders in the 1960&#8217;s and they&#8217;re now <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5195/sweden-rape" type="external">the rape capital of the West</a>.</p> <p /> <p /> <p /> <p>As with every other fake news media hoax, this latest one has backfired tremendously.</p> <p>Incidentally, here&#8217;s a glace at what happened Friday.</p> <p>&#8211; A group of children were <a href="http://www.friatider.se/barn-pa-lekplats-hotades-av-ranare" type="external">robbed at a playground by a gang of four teenagers in J&#228;rf&#228;lla and S&#246;dert&#228;lje</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; A man was murdered by <a href="http://www.friatider.se/man-mordad-i-midsommarkransen" type="external">career criminals in Midsommarkransen</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; Three cars were set on fire in <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Vastra-Gotaland/2017-02-17-1945-Brand-Goteborg/" type="external">Gothenburg</a> and <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Halland/2017-02-17-1938-Brand-Halmstad/" type="external">Halmstad</a>.</p> <p>&#8211; There was an <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Skane/2017-02-17-1914-Ran-vapnat-Malmo/" type="external">armed robbery at a Grocery store in Malmo</a> where someone <a href="https://polisen.se/Aktuellt/Handelser/Skane/2017-02-17-1829-Ran-Malmo/" type="external">was beaten by a gang of 3-4 men</a>.</p> <p>None of the suspects are identified as migrants because Swedish police have been banned from identifying criminals based on race, but as we know from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peter.springare" type="external">Peter Springare</a>, almost all crime is committed by people named variants of &#8220;Mohammed.&#8221;</p> <p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56294" type="external">Information Liberation</a></p> <p /> <p />

<p>No leader and scorched Note 7 smartphones? No problem.</p> <p>After a tumultuous year of surreal corruption scandals involving exotic horses and the jailed billionaire scion and one of the most embarrassing recalls in the consumer electronics history, Samsung stunned investors with another improbable record: the South Korean tech giant may have earned more than Apple and ended Intel's quarter century dominance in the semiconductor industry.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Seemingly invincible Samsung Electronics appears set to log record annual profit this year as exploding use of data in mobile devices and the "memory supercycle" help it surmount the jailing of its de facto leader and sidestep losses from its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s.</p> <p>South Korea's largest company reported Thursday record high quarterly profit and sales that likely will help it nudge aside Intel as the leading maker of semiconductors.</p> <p>Samsung also likely outstripped Apple in quarterly earnings for the first time as soaring use of connected devices and mobile data fueled demand for computer chips.</p> <p>Samsung's bottom line is better than ever, even with its vice chairman and de facto chief Lee Jae-yong jailed as part of a corruption scandal that unseated former South Korean president, Park Geun-hye.</p> <p>While Lee and Park battle allegations of bribery and other charges, Samsung is thriving thanks to tiny microchips called DRAM and NAND memory chips, which are needed to store and process data in servers and mobile devices.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Companies are adding server memory capacity to expand new server platforms and cloud services and handle artificial intelligence and other emerging services. Hardware manufacturers will likely increase orders of memory chips for smartphones as they launch new models later this year. Consumers also expect their handsets to be packed with higher memory storage, which increases memory demand.</p> <p>The unprecedented boom in the memory chip industry dubbed the "memory super cycle" helped push Samsung's April-June net income to 10.8 trillion won ($9.7 billion), up 85 percent from 5.8 trillion won a year earlier.</p> <p>Analysts had forecast 10.1 trillion won in net profit according to FactSet, a financial data provider.</p> <p>Operating profit jumped 73 percent over a year earlier to 14.1 trillion won ($12.7 billion) while sales rose 20 percent to 61 trillion won ($54.8 billion), in line with Samsung's earlier guidance.</p> <p>Despite relatively slow demand for smartphones and TVs, increased use of connected devices and mobile data is driving demand for server memory to store, analyze and process data. Memory chip prices have soared thanks to tight supply conditions, bringing unprecedented profitability to both Samsung and South Korea's No. 2 chip manufacturer, SK Hynix.</p> <p>Nearly 60 percent of Samsung's quarterly income was generated by its semiconductor division, which booked a record operating income of 8 trillion won ($7.2 billion) on sales of 17.6 trillion won ($15.8 billion).</p> <p>Samsung's other components business, which makes high-end display panels called OLED for smartphones, also saw solid gains in earnings after this spring's launch of new Samsung Galaxy smartphones using the advanced displays.</p> <p>The Galaxy S8 series of smartphones recorded higher sales than their predecessors, helping the company's mobile business rebound from last year's crisis over Galaxy Note 7s that had to be recalled and eventually discontinued because they tended to overheat or catch fire. That fiasco cost Samsung more than $5 billion last year.</p> <p>Samsung said its mobile business logged 4.1 trillion won ($3.7 billion) in operating profit. That is slightly lower than its year-earlier result due to higher component prices but nearly double the previous quarter's income</p> <p>The good times for Samsung appear likely to put it ahead of its rivals.</p> <p>Apple is forecast to report $8.2 billion in quarterly net profit when its financial results are disclosed on Tuesday, according to FactSet. April-June is typically a slow season for Apple.</p> <p>Intel, due to report its earnings later Thursday, is expected to book $14.4 billion in quarterly revenue.</p> <p>Looking ahead, Samsung said its third quarter profit may take a hit from marketing expenses from its upcoming launch in its new Galaxy Note series smartphone.</p> <p>But it still has a good chance of reporting its biggest annual earnings in its history this year.</p> <p>The outlook for semiconductor demand is robust and the overall profit during the second half will grow thanks to memory chips and its OLED screens, Samsung predicted.</p> <p>In the meantime, Samsung has largely insulated its day-to-day operations from Lee's legal troubles, though the longer term implications for Samsung's leadership remain unclear.</p> <p>Both Lee and Park have denied wrongdoing. A court ruling on Lee's case is expected before Aug. 27, when his arrest warrant expires.</p>

Samsung soars, sidestepping jailing of chief, Note 7 fiasco

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/26/samsung-electronics-reports-85-percent-jump-in-profit.html

2017-07-27

0right

Samsung soars, sidestepping jailing of chief, Note 7 fiasco <p>No leader and scorched Note 7 smartphones? No problem.</p> <p>After a tumultuous year of surreal corruption scandals involving exotic horses and the jailed billionaire scion and one of the most embarrassing recalls in the consumer electronics history, Samsung stunned investors with another improbable record: the South Korean tech giant may have earned more than Apple and ended Intel's quarter century dominance in the semiconductor industry.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Seemingly invincible Samsung Electronics appears set to log record annual profit this year as exploding use of data in mobile devices and the "memory supercycle" help it surmount the jailing of its de facto leader and sidestep losses from its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s.</p> <p>South Korea's largest company reported Thursday record high quarterly profit and sales that likely will help it nudge aside Intel as the leading maker of semiconductors.</p> <p>Samsung also likely outstripped Apple in quarterly earnings for the first time as soaring use of connected devices and mobile data fueled demand for computer chips.</p> <p>Samsung's bottom line is better than ever, even with its vice chairman and de facto chief Lee Jae-yong jailed as part of a corruption scandal that unseated former South Korean president, Park Geun-hye.</p> <p>While Lee and Park battle allegations of bribery and other charges, Samsung is thriving thanks to tiny microchips called DRAM and NAND memory chips, which are needed to store and process data in servers and mobile devices.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Companies are adding server memory capacity to expand new server platforms and cloud services and handle artificial intelligence and other emerging services. Hardware manufacturers will likely increase orders of memory chips for smartphones as they launch new models later this year. Consumers also expect their handsets to be packed with higher memory storage, which increases memory demand.</p> <p>The unprecedented boom in the memory chip industry dubbed the "memory super cycle" helped push Samsung's April-June net income to 10.8 trillion won ($9.7 billion), up 85 percent from 5.8 trillion won a year earlier.</p> <p>Analysts had forecast 10.1 trillion won in net profit according to FactSet, a financial data provider.</p> <p>Operating profit jumped 73 percent over a year earlier to 14.1 trillion won ($12.7 billion) while sales rose 20 percent to 61 trillion won ($54.8 billion), in line with Samsung's earlier guidance.</p> <p>Despite relatively slow demand for smartphones and TVs, increased use of connected devices and mobile data is driving demand for server memory to store, analyze and process data. Memory chip prices have soared thanks to tight supply conditions, bringing unprecedented profitability to both Samsung and South Korea's No. 2 chip manufacturer, SK Hynix.</p> <p>Nearly 60 percent of Samsung's quarterly income was generated by its semiconductor division, which booked a record operating income of 8 trillion won ($7.2 billion) on sales of 17.6 trillion won ($15.8 billion).</p> <p>Samsung's other components business, which makes high-end display panels called OLED for smartphones, also saw solid gains in earnings after this spring's launch of new Samsung Galaxy smartphones using the advanced displays.</p> <p>The Galaxy S8 series of smartphones recorded higher sales than their predecessors, helping the company's mobile business rebound from last year's crisis over Galaxy Note 7s that had to be recalled and eventually discontinued because they tended to overheat or catch fire. That fiasco cost Samsung more than $5 billion last year.</p> <p>Samsung said its mobile business logged 4.1 trillion won ($3.7 billion) in operating profit. That is slightly lower than its year-earlier result due to higher component prices but nearly double the previous quarter's income</p> <p>The good times for Samsung appear likely to put it ahead of its rivals.</p> <p>Apple is forecast to report $8.2 billion in quarterly net profit when its financial results are disclosed on Tuesday, according to FactSet. April-June is typically a slow season for Apple.</p> <p>Intel, due to report its earnings later Thursday, is expected to book $14.4 billion in quarterly revenue.</p> <p>Looking ahead, Samsung said its third quarter profit may take a hit from marketing expenses from its upcoming launch in its new Galaxy Note series smartphone.</p> <p>But it still has a good chance of reporting its biggest annual earnings in its history this year.</p> <p>The outlook for semiconductor demand is robust and the overall profit during the second half will grow thanks to memory chips and its OLED screens, Samsung predicted.</p> <p>In the meantime, Samsung has largely insulated its day-to-day operations from Lee's legal troubles, though the longer term implications for Samsung's leadership remain unclear.</p> <p>Both Lee and Park have denied wrongdoing. A court ruling on Lee's case is expected before Aug. 27, when his arrest warrant expires.</p>

<p>Annie Lowrey has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/do-millennials-stand-a-chance-in-the-real-world.html" type="external">fascinating piece</a> in the New York Times Magazine on the anxiety of the millennial generation. We're scared to take on debt, scared to form lasting relationships, and scared to start families. I'll answer her question in the simple fashion: yes, we do stand a chance. But there was one passage that makes our generation look quite pathetic:</p> <p>During World War II, the ethos was &#8220;use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.&#8221; But the 21st-century rallying cry among the young is &#8220;We are the 99 percent.&#8221; This recession&#8217;s emphasis was never on making do with little; for many millennials, it has seemed more about wondering why they had to make do with so little when so few had so much. This sentiment was captured in recent exit polls that found that nearly two-thirds of presidential voters 29 and younger thought the American economic system favored the wealthy.</p> <p>We are the inheritors of the wealthiest, most powerful nation in human history. The crisis we are slowly exiting was awful, but we remain on top. Can we tone down the emo-ness?</p>

Millennials Will Be Just Fine

https://thedailybeast.com/millennials-will-be-just-fine

2018-10-02

4left

Millennials Will Be Just Fine <p>Annie Lowrey has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/do-millennials-stand-a-chance-in-the-real-world.html" type="external">fascinating piece</a> in the New York Times Magazine on the anxiety of the millennial generation. We're scared to take on debt, scared to form lasting relationships, and scared to start families. I'll answer her question in the simple fashion: yes, we do stand a chance. But there was one passage that makes our generation look quite pathetic:</p> <p>During World War II, the ethos was &#8220;use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.&#8221; But the 21st-century rallying cry among the young is &#8220;We are the 99 percent.&#8221; This recession&#8217;s emphasis was never on making do with little; for many millennials, it has seemed more about wondering why they had to make do with so little when so few had so much. This sentiment was captured in recent exit polls that found that nearly two-thirds of presidential voters 29 and younger thought the American economic system favored the wealthy.</p> <p>We are the inheritors of the wealthiest, most powerful nation in human history. The crisis we are slowly exiting was awful, but we remain on top. Can we tone down the emo-ness?</p>

<p>August 1st marks a big day for women under the Affordable Care Act as multiple provisions go into effect, including free birth control. Eight new preventative services go into effect for new health insurance plans at no additional cost.</p> <p>The eight services <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/08/womensprevention08012011a.html" type="external">are</a>:</p> <p>The new rules go beyond free birth control and extend into preventative services that many women have found unaffordable. Up until this point, many of these services have only been available with high deductibles or copayments.</p> <p>The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the new rules will apply to 47 million women once their health plans are renewed.</p> <p>Except for the free birth control rule, the changes have met little resistance. The only pushback has come from religious universities and health centers who have another year to comply and the Obama administration is seeking a <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/10/146693907/white-house-bends-on-birth-control-requirement-for-religious-groups" type="external">compromise</a> with those providers.</p> <p>The free services should detect health issues earlier at more treatable stages. Other preventative services including mammograms, cholesterol screenings, and flu shots at no extra cost have already gone into effect because of the ACA.</p>

Women's ACA Rules Go Into Effect Incl. Free Birth Control

https://ivn.us/2012/08/01/womens-aca-rules-go-into-effect-incl-free-birth-control-2/

2012-08-01

2least

Women's ACA Rules Go Into Effect Incl. Free Birth Control <p>August 1st marks a big day for women under the Affordable Care Act as multiple provisions go into effect, including free birth control. Eight new preventative services go into effect for new health insurance plans at no additional cost.</p> <p>The eight services <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/08/womensprevention08012011a.html" type="external">are</a>:</p> <p>The new rules go beyond free birth control and extend into preventative services that many women have found unaffordable. Up until this point, many of these services have only been available with high deductibles or copayments.</p> <p>The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the new rules will apply to 47 million women once their health plans are renewed.</p> <p>Except for the free birth control rule, the changes have met little resistance. The only pushback has come from religious universities and health centers who have another year to comply and the Obama administration is seeking a <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/10/146693907/white-house-bends-on-birth-control-requirement-for-religious-groups" type="external">compromise</a> with those providers.</p> <p>The free services should detect health issues earlier at more treatable stages. Other preventative services including mammograms, cholesterol screenings, and flu shots at no extra cost have already gone into effect because of the ACA.</p>

<p>Bernie Casey, the former NFL star known for his work in the films &#8220;Boxcar Bertha&#8221; and &#8220;Revenge of the Nerds,&#8221; died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, Variety has confirmed. He was 78.</p> <p>Casey made his film debut in the 1969 sequel &#8220;Guns of the Magnificent Seven.&#8221; He then acted alongside fellow former NFL star Jim Brown in the crime dramas &#8220;&#8230;tick&#8230;tick&#8230;tick&#8230;&#8221; and &#8220;Black Gunn.&#8221; He played the title role in the 1972 science fiction TV film &#8220;Gargoyles,&#8221; and then portrayed Tamara Dobson&#8217;s love interest in 1973&#8217;s &#8220;Cleopatra Jones.&#8221;</p> <p>Casey wrote, directed, produced, and starred in &#8220;The Dinner,&#8221; a 1997 film centering on three black men who discuss slavery, black self-loathing, and homophobia. That same year, he loosely portrayed a version George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party who was killed, in the drama &#8220;Brothers.&#8221;</p> <p>In Martin Scorsese&#8217;s &#8220;Boxcar Bertha,&#8221; he played a heroic former slave and train robber, and then a recurring character in Bond films, CIA agent Felix Leiter. In 1981, he portrayed a detective opposite another former NFL player-turned-actor, Burt Reynolds, in &#8220;Sharky&#8217;s Machine,&#8221; which was directed by Reynolds. The two worked together a few years later on &#8220;Rent-a-Cop.&#8221;</p> <p>His prolific acting career also included films such as &#8220;Revenge of the Nerds,&#8221; &#8220;Black Chariot,&#8221; &#8220;The Man Who Fell to Earth,&#8221; &#8220;In the Mouth of Madness,&#8221; &#8220;The Glass Shield,&#8221; &#8220;Mr. Hyde,&#8221; &#8220;Once Upon a Time &#8230; When We Were Colored,&#8221; and &#8220;I&#8217;m Gonna Git You Sucka.&#8221; On television, he was in &#8220;Roots: The Next Generations,&#8221; &#8220;Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,&#8221; and &#8220;Bay City Blues.&#8221;</p> <p>Casey was born in Wyco, W.Va., and raised in Columbus, Ohio, before attending Bowling Green State University on a football scholarship. There, in addition to his football successes, he was a record-breaking track and field athlete, and competed in the 1960 U.S. Olympic trials.</p> <p>He was picked ninth overall in the NFL draft, and spent six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers before going to the Rams for two years. He retired at age 30 and finished his professional career with 359 catches for 5,444 yards and 40 touchdowns.</p> <p>After leaving the NFL, he dabbled in acting, painting, and poetry. Casey received an honorary doctorate degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He advocated for arts education and served as chairman of the board at the Georgia school. Casey was both a published poet and painter, whose work appeared in galleries across the globe.</p>

Bernie Casey, 'Revenge of the Nerds' Actor and Former NFL Player, Dies at 78

https://newsline.com/bernie-casey-revenge-of-the-nerds-actor-and-former-nfl-player-dies-at-78-2/

2017-09-20

1right-center

Bernie Casey, 'Revenge of the Nerds' Actor and Former NFL Player, Dies at 78 <p>Bernie Casey, the former NFL star known for his work in the films &#8220;Boxcar Bertha&#8221; and &#8220;Revenge of the Nerds,&#8221; died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, Variety has confirmed. He was 78.</p> <p>Casey made his film debut in the 1969 sequel &#8220;Guns of the Magnificent Seven.&#8221; He then acted alongside fellow former NFL star Jim Brown in the crime dramas &#8220;&#8230;tick&#8230;tick&#8230;tick&#8230;&#8221; and &#8220;Black Gunn.&#8221; He played the title role in the 1972 science fiction TV film &#8220;Gargoyles,&#8221; and then portrayed Tamara Dobson&#8217;s love interest in 1973&#8217;s &#8220;Cleopatra Jones.&#8221;</p> <p>Casey wrote, directed, produced, and starred in &#8220;The Dinner,&#8221; a 1997 film centering on three black men who discuss slavery, black self-loathing, and homophobia. That same year, he loosely portrayed a version George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party who was killed, in the drama &#8220;Brothers.&#8221;</p> <p>In Martin Scorsese&#8217;s &#8220;Boxcar Bertha,&#8221; he played a heroic former slave and train robber, and then a recurring character in Bond films, CIA agent Felix Leiter. In 1981, he portrayed a detective opposite another former NFL player-turned-actor, Burt Reynolds, in &#8220;Sharky&#8217;s Machine,&#8221; which was directed by Reynolds. The two worked together a few years later on &#8220;Rent-a-Cop.&#8221;</p> <p>His prolific acting career also included films such as &#8220;Revenge of the Nerds,&#8221; &#8220;Black Chariot,&#8221; &#8220;The Man Who Fell to Earth,&#8221; &#8220;In the Mouth of Madness,&#8221; &#8220;The Glass Shield,&#8221; &#8220;Mr. Hyde,&#8221; &#8220;Once Upon a Time &#8230; When We Were Colored,&#8221; and &#8220;I&#8217;m Gonna Git You Sucka.&#8221; On television, he was in &#8220;Roots: The Next Generations,&#8221; &#8220;Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,&#8221; and &#8220;Bay City Blues.&#8221;</p> <p>Casey was born in Wyco, W.Va., and raised in Columbus, Ohio, before attending Bowling Green State University on a football scholarship. There, in addition to his football successes, he was a record-breaking track and field athlete, and competed in the 1960 U.S. Olympic trials.</p> <p>He was picked ninth overall in the NFL draft, and spent six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers before going to the Rams for two years. He retired at age 30 and finished his professional career with 359 catches for 5,444 yards and 40 touchdowns.</p> <p>After leaving the NFL, he dabbled in acting, painting, and poetry. Casey received an honorary doctorate degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He advocated for arts education and served as chairman of the board at the Georgia school. Casey was both a published poet and painter, whose work appeared in galleries across the globe.</p>

<p>It may seem hard to believe in a country where Donald Trump has a shot at becoming president, but people make rational political decisions. Most of the time, at least.</p> <p>When an affluent voter in a high tax bracket who owns a business and a nice house shows up and votes for a Republican, that is a rational decision. And when a lower-income voter who has little access to health care and pays rent to a landlord shows up to vote for a Democrat, that is also a rational decision.</p> <p>And for most of the population in most of the country, this is still how votes for the two parties break down: more affluent voters pull the lever for Republicans and less affluent voters do so for Democrats.</p> <p>If every adult living in the United States turned out to vote on every Election Day, and was forced to choose only between the two parties, it is almost certain that the Republican Party in its current form would lose not only the presidency but every state legislature and congressional race.</p> <p>The problem though is that <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997" type="external">affluent people show up</a> on Election Day with a lot more frequency than the less affluent. The Republican-backed voter suppression laws have had a huge effect. But this predates that. Over the years the policy preferences of voters and nonvoters have diverged sharply, particularly when it comes to class-based issues. Voters are far more conservative when it comes to things like the welfare state, wealth inequality, and labor unions than nonvoters are. So if more of these nonvoters began to show up at the polls, we would suddenly have an electorate dramatically more supportive of the kind of social-democratic program favored by Sanders and his supporters.</p> <p>One explanation could be that the affluent party, the GOP, is much better and more consistent at rewarding electoral loyalty to their constituents through concrete, material economic policy than the less affluent party, the Democrats, is for their lower-income constituency. When George W. Bush took power, he delivered to his constituency immediately: capital gains and top marginal tax rates were slashed and the Department of Labor was gutted, making it harder for his voters&#8217; employees to check their bosses&#8217; power. More than sweet promises and a dozen roses once a year, the GOP put a ring on it.</p> <p>But when Obama took power, he passed the Heritage Foundation&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">health-care plan</a> and dropped organized labor&#8217;s central priority &#8212; the Employee Free Choice Act &#8212; even as he oversaw the Democratic Party&#8217;s greatest congressional majority in years. Regardless of whatever constraints he had and the small but real victories his administration offered for workers (Medicaid expansion, the overtime rule, etc.) it&#8217;s just true that his Republican predecessor delivered more to his affluent voters, and more quickly, than Obama did to his less affluent voters.</p> <p>The Republican Party is simply better at being a party of capital than the Democratic Party is at being a party of the working classes. And it&#8217;s not an accident.</p> <p>Last week, Seth Ackerman <a href="" type="internal">wrote a piece</a> pushing back on <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/15/13286498/donald-trump-voters-race-economic-anxiety" type="external">Vox&#8217;s study</a> of lower-income Trump voters. He ended that essay with a pretty undeniable fact: despite all the talk of a GOP in decline, they control Congress and the vast majority of state governments. The party that had been beaten back into the minority for most of the twentieth century now, in the 2010s, can not only obstruct but govern. And perhaps one reason they&#8217;re able to have that power is due to the fact that there is a massive, untapped portion of the electorate &#8212; downscale whites&amp;#160; &#8212; who <a href="" type="internal">just don&#8217;t vote</a> anymore.</p> <p>While we hear constantly that they&#8217;re demographically dying out, white workers without a college degree remain at least 63 percent of the working class and in twenty years, will be a &#8220;mere&#8221; 49.5 percent. That&#8217;s a ton of potential voters. Ackerman&#8217;s argument was that instead of writing off lower-income Trump supporters as hopeless racists who&#8217;ll always vote for white supremacy over their wallets, we should instead attempt to forge a broad, working-class political program that could win them over.</p> <p>Pretty quickly, the <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/789175810015932416" type="external">pundits</a> had a collective brain melt. How dare we argue that the left-of-center party use a working-class program to appeal to these working-class bigots! In one illuminating discussion, I saw a high-profile political commentator state that this was a ridiculous strategy because the Democratic Party already gets the non-racist share of the white working class to show up. And that the only way these poorer whites would come to the table is if the Democratic Party promised to explicitly or implicitly protect white supremacy.</p> <p>The implication here is that the huge number of low-income whites who simply stay home on Election Day (or the much smaller number who pull the lever for the GOP) can only be operating &#8212; or failing to operate &#8212; out of racism.</p> <p>It was suddenly clear: the liberal commentators who hold this view believe that their party and&amp;#160;its&amp;#160;record on both campaigning on and enacting a working-class program was so obviously good that to be a worker and fail to vote for the Democratic Party must signal some greater, all-encompassing ideological drive that overpowered class interest.</p> <p>To this punditocracy, that overriding ideology that thwarts a vote for &#8220;the working-class party&#8221; must be white supremacy. And thus this huge chunk of downscale white voters who don&#8217;t vote at all (and the smaller chunk who vote GOP) would only change their behavior if the Democratic Party became a White Man&#8217;s Party in the old Dixiecrat mold or if they somehow, sitting in their homes, managed to overcome their racism through personal enlightenment.</p> <p>This couldn&#8217;t be farther from the truth.</p> <p>Let&#8217;s look at McDowell County, West Virginia. The Guardian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqceHviNBC4" type="external">zeroed in</a> on McDowell due to Trump winning 91.5 percent of the Republican primary vote. They of course left out the fact that more than three times as many Democratic Party ballots were cast and that nearly twice as many people voted for Sanders as voted for Trump &#8212; but we&#8217;ll give them a pass because at the time of the primary, the GOP race was effectively decided. Fair enough. McDowell County will likely go for Trump in November. Just as it did for Romney in 2012.</p> <p>And yet in 2008, Barack Obama won McDowell handily with 53 percent of the vote. Recent studies have shown that Obama won across the country in 2008 with <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/dems-need-better-answers-for-the-working-class.html" type="external">far more</a> white working-class voters than commonly thought. Even though he lost many of them four years later in 2012 &#8212; they either stayed home or went with Romney. Trump&#8217;s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/upshot/the-new-blue-and-red-educational-split-is-replacing-the-culture-war.html" type="external">strength</a> in the Midwest this year appears to stem in part from white working-class ex-Obama voters. As one older, ex-mine worker in McDowell says to the Guardian, &#8220;I voted for that black guy two times.&#8221; He&#8217;s now with Trump.</p> <p>How does a liberal pundit explain this? If these voters are such obstinate racists who&#8217;ll always choose upholding &#8220;white supremacy&#8221; over their pocketbooks, why did they give Obama a shot in the first place? Did they think he wasn&#8217;t really black? Why didn&#8217;t they vote in 2008 like they did in 2012 and plan to in 2016? Did they simply expect Obama to help uphold white supremacy and, when he got into office, found that he acted &#8220;too radically for blackness&#8221;? Was inviting Jay-Z to the White House the moment where Obama lost the white working class forever?</p> <p>Or, perhaps, in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama and his party simply <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/624777/obamas-biggest-failure" type="external">failed</a> to make the lives of voters in McDowell County substantially better. Since Obama, the Democrats have campaigned in every subsequent election under the galvanizing cry of &#8220;Hey, it <a href="" type="internal">could&#8217;ve been worse</a>.&#8221; Maybe these McDowell voters question how it was that the wealthiest Americans recovered so quickly from the crash while they and their families and neighbors were worse off than ever.</p> <p>Is this really a crazy hypothesis? Staying home on Election Day or &#8212; in a two-party system &#8212; voting for &#8220;the other guys&#8221; is certainly something no left-of-center person wants to see. But it&#8217;s not an insane or necessarily ideological decision when your life has fallen apart during the eight years one particular party has held the White House. While Obama at least delivered Medicaid expansion to West Virginians, his presumptive successor campaigned on, &#8220;We&#8217;re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.&#8221; And while Clinton promised to enact programs to ease the loss of those livelihoods, Bill Clinton made similar promises about easing the job losses of NAFTA. To no one&#8217;s surprise, they didn&#8217;t materialize. I&#8217;d say that&#8217;s some <a href="" type="internal">well-earned skepticism</a>.</p> <p>When it comes to the nature of the white working class, I agree with civil rights leader Bayard Rustin: they are neither inherently conservative nor liberal. Which way they break is determined by politics and organization &#8212; not destiny or their whiteness.</p> <p>Racism can be fought, defeated, or overruled by working-class politics. Or it can be brought front and center. As Ackerman pointed out in his article, West Virginia in the 1920s was a bastion of reaction &#8212; the KKK and coal operators <a href="" type="internal">ran the state</a>. In the 1930s and up through the 1970s, it was a hotbed of labor unions, class struggle, and a hell of a lot of Democratic Party votes. Hubert Humphrey, who rose to prominence for his commitment to both civil rights and the welfare state, crushed Richard Nixon and George Wallace in West Virginia with 49.6 percent of the vote. Was this because the whites of West Virginia were simply less racist than the whites of Georgia, who helped Wallace carry their state? Or was it because West Virginia was the site of class struggle and labor politics in a way that Georgia at that time was not?</p> <p>In fact, the <a href="" type="internal">greatest determinant</a> of whether a white working-class person votes GOP or Democrat is still whether or not he or she is in a labor union. A union is, after all, an organization that, ideally, keeps its members focused on their material, class interests even between elections. They build solidarity between people who might otherwise dislike, distrust, or even hate each other. They keep working people focused on their inherent commonality in a way that no privilege-checking session, feel-good campaign ad, or BuzzFeed quiz ever can. That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re powerful. And that&#8217;s why the rich despise them.</p> <p>And while labor-union membership has been in decline overall for decades now, the potential for workers to organize is as strong as ever &#8212; even under twenty-first-century capitalism. As sociologist Beverly Silver <a href="" type="internal">has pointed out</a>, the spread of just-in-time production means a relatively small number of workers still &#8220;can bring an entire corporation to a standstill.&#8221; And even with globalization, &#8220;the potential geographical scale of the impacts of these stoppages has increased.&#8221;</p> <p>Even today strategies and technologies to diminish workers&#8217; rights in education and transportation have resulted in the first stirrings of union drives from charter school teachers and Uber drivers. As much as we hear otherwise, capitalism will always need workers to make their profits and will thus always be vulnerable to the potential of organized labor. That is the core truth of a capitalist economy that Marxists understand &#8212; no matter how zany we can get about other things &#8212; and that liberals do not.</p> <p>It also means we&#8217;re inoculated from other catechisms that bear no resemblance to the historical record. The belief that &#8220;racism&#8221; is a transhistorical phenomenon that can and will always destroy working-class solidarity is not only <a href="" type="internal">wrong</a>, it fundamentally aligns &#8212; almost like an ideological partnership &#8212; with the same belief we hear in the press all the time that organized labor can only hope to manage its extinction and nothing more. And that the working classes are obsolete.</p> <p>Together, these beliefs &#8212; perpetual racism and the hopelessness of labor fighting back against capital &#8212; form a politics that is fundamentally conservative. And in this retreat from a politics of class solidarity and working-class self-determination, the professional classes have stepped in and taken the wheel.</p> <p>Today, the Democratic Party can count on the votes of millions of working-class Americans, largely people of color. And yet it&#8217;s an open secret that the party&#8217;s program is led by the affluent professional class at best and enlightened Silicon Valley billionaires at worst. Obama himself <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/barack-obama-venture-capitalist" type="external">has hinted</a> that he&#8217;s interested in going into venture capital after his presidency. Organized labor &#8212; always a junior partner in the Democratic Party even at its height &#8212; is now something closer to Donny in The Big Lebowski. Frail, meek and at death&#8217;s door, he must always &#8220;shut the fuck up.&#8221;</p> <p>That means that while this form of liberal politics can probably scare up enough votes to win a few elections, it&#8217;s fundamentally incapable of not only governing but of changing society for the better. It surrenders Congress and the majority of state legislatures to the most fiendish right-wing maniacs in the country. And it&#8217;s a politics that&#8217;s fundamentally limited even in its ability to help fight racial discrimination.</p> <p>After all, the two most significant and expansive pieces of federal legislation on civil rights in the twentieth century were signed by two presidents who won the votes of the white working class &#8212; Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. And it was Walter Reuther&#8217;s <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/united-auto-workers-convention-speech" type="external">United Auto Workers</a> that provided financial support to Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement &#8212; not &#8220;woke&#8221; corporate executives.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that working-class politics has been torn apart by racial strife in the past but the opposite is equally true. Black and white workers in the Jim Crow South were able to organize unions together even if racist political appeals always had to be fought off. How strange it is to believe that a white forty-year-old worker in 2016 is just as much or more driven by racial animosity than his Southern 1937 Jim Crow equivalent. (A recent Reuters survey puts Trump&#8217;s support among non-college Southern whites at 55 percent for those over fifty years of age, but only 39 percent for those forty-nine and younger.) And as much as liberals like to point out that the supposed &#8220;bellwether&#8221; Macomb County, Michigan &#8212; the home of many unionized autoworkers &#8212; went for Nixon in 1968 and Reagan in 1980, it is equally true that they repeatedly reelected David Bonior, one of the most left-wing members of the House of Representatives. In 1976, even at the height of the busing riots, Carter won the county, just as he won the nation&#8217;s entire white working-class vote, North and South.</p> <p>Politics, especially working-class politics, is complicated. Well-funded reactionaries will always be able to find weak points in such a coalition. That doesn&#8217;t mean that &#8220;white supremacy&#8221; is destiny. In 1980, Reagan did in fact win working-class whites &#8212; but with the exception of black voters, he won pretty much every demographic that year. Even ones that had historically gone for Democrats. Women, Catholics, you name it. Yet studies in 1984 showed that most people sided with the Democratic Party on questions of welfare spending. They just believed that the Democrats, unlike Reagan, were incompetent at managing the economy.</p> <p>Is that racism? Or is it the fact that Carter put the economy into recession in order to save bondholders? This is the president who went on television to tell working Americans that from now on, they&#8217;d have to do more with less. The president whose appointee to the chair of the Federal Reserve, <a href="" type="internal">Paul Volcker</a>, said in 1979: &#8220;The standard of living of the average American has to decline.&#8221; I&#8217;d call that a pretty good indicator that his party wasn&#8217;t that interested in its working-class constituents.</p> <p>After all, &#8220;doing more with less&#8221; certainly didn&#8217;t apply to the wealthy of this country. Do liberals think the working classes simply wouldn&#8217;t notice that this new frugal standard applied only to themselves? While Reagan ran on &#8220;Morning in America,&#8221; the Democrats became the party of austerity and balanced budgets. Dukakis, in his 1988 convention biopic, was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/06/us/more-wealth-than-meets-the-eye-lies-behind-frugal-dukakis-image.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">depicted</a> as mowing his own lawn with an old-fashioned push-mower. Apparently, a gasoline-powered motor would just be too decadent.</p> <p>The pundit class, however, can&#8217;t see these flaws. As members of wealthy, coastal communities, its backers see only the symbolic achievements of the twenty-first-century Democrats and none of the failures. We are talking about a class <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumpism-is-a-politics-of-loss-and-revenge" type="external">of</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/789175810015932416" type="external">people</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/08/angry-white-men-love-donald-trump" type="external">who</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/trump-reflects-white-male-fragility.html" type="external">believe</a> <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/04/30/we_must_shame_dumb_trump_fans_the_white_working_class_are_not_victims/" type="external">the</a> anger and bitterness of white working-class middle Americans in 2016 is rooted in the anxiety that &#8220;their whiteness has lost its value.&#8221; No, it couldn&#8217;t be that they&#8217;ve lost their livelihoods, families, or homes &#8212; it&#8217;s that they&#8217;ve just been told George Wallace isn&#8217;t coming to save them after all. It&#8217;s not only not true, it&#8217;s garbage politics.&amp;#160;In effect, it is nothing more than academic jargon used by the affluent to dismiss and slander working people&#8217;s rightful belief that as a society grows far wealthier (as the United States has over the past several decades), they&#8217;re entitled to rising expectations &#8212; not diminished ones.</p> <p>Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now know that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Bill Gates &#8212; the billionaire who has been leading the movement to destroy public education &#8212; both made it onto <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13315952/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-running-mate-tim-cook-bill-gates" type="external">Clinton&#8217;s shortlist</a> for running-mate. This is the party rejected by white workers supposedly out of &#8220;racism&#8221; and nothing more &#8212; not the party of civil rights and Medicare. The obstinate belief that good and sincere pro-labor politicians like Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Perez, and Keith Ellison are in the driver&#8217;s seat of the Democratic Party is simply a delusion. If the Democratic Party is Madison Square Garden, then Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, and the Clintons sit courtside, chatting with the players. Sanders, Warren, and Brown are up in the nosebleeds.</p> <p>So what is to be done when the Democratic Party of 2016 can win neither Congress nor the majority of state governments? According to the pundit class, we&#8217;re supposed to just wait. A decade or two. Instead of adopting Sanders&#8217;s class politics to <a href="" type="internal">win over</a> the entire working class, many liberal pundits would prefer we simply wait twenty years when the white working class will no longer be a majority of workers. Demography, they seem to believe, is political destiny. Somehow, I kind of doubt that an eighty-six year-old senator Chuck Schumer will announce in the year 2036 that his party intends to finally &#8220;extinguish the billionaire class.&#8221;</p> <p>I can understand how appealing it is to believe that it&#8217;s simply &#8220;miserable, angry whites&#8221; and their racism that&#8217;s holding back the Democratic Party from becoming either a social-democratic powerhouse or one that can at least expand on the achievements of its mid-century golden age all over again. It certainly seems easier to just wait patiently than to fight some of the most powerful people in the country for control over a party that is, structurally, far more theirs than ours &#8212; likely, irrevocably so.</p> <p>But demographics won&#8217;t turn the <a href="" type="internal">party of Silicon Valley</a> into the party of Chicago&#8217;s South Side or West Virginia&#8217;s coal country. All that waiting will do is prolong the undeniable suffering felt both by Trump and Clinton&#8217;s working-class supporters &#8212; and the large number of low-income Americans who don&#8217;t vote at all. Because that suffering isn&#8217;t exclusive to downscale Trumpists &#8212; &#8220;the deplorables&#8221; &#8212; it&#8217;s everyone who works or desperately hopes to work for a measly wage in order to survive. In other words, not the pundits who have next to nothing in common with them.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not just &#8220;vulgar class-first&#8221; issues where the Democrats are failing &#8212; the party&#8217;s nationwide marginalization means, in much of the country, it&#8217;s been decades since it&#8217;s been this difficult to start or join a labor union or have access to abortion services. Despite having largely shed the &#8220;racist&#8221; white working class from the Democrat&#8217;s electoral coalition, the black-white wage gaps are now <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/black-white-wage-gaps-expand-with-rising-wage-inequality/" type="external">larger today</a> than they were in 1979. And therein lies the central irony of the Democrats&#8217; tighter rhetorical embrace of social liberalism alongside a staunch rejection of populist class politics: they actually made far more progress on the former when they were a party capable of the latter.</p> <p>The belief that bringing in the nonvoting white working class requires surrendering on commitments to gender equality and antiracism is simply that &#8212; a belief. Sanders simultaneously attracted the support of white working-class voters in states like Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan even as he repeatedly championed Black Lives Matter and the fight against racial discrimination. There was no Sister Souljah moment with Bernie. The idea that bringing in certain segments of the working class automatically negates the coalition&#8217;s commitment to social liberalism is a myth.</p> <p>Among non-Evangelical Protestants, black voters still disproportionately <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/" type="external">oppose same-sex marriage</a> even as they disproportionately vote Democratic. In 2008, African-American Protestants strongly supported Prop 8 in California. By our punditocracy&#8217;s &#8220;working-class contaminant&#8221; theory, the Democratic Party would be forced to choose here between commitment to same-sex marriage and their black Protestant voters. Yet neither has been &#8220;purged&#8221; from the coalition. And, steadily, progress has been made &#8212; far more Democrats, black Protestants, and Americans support same-sex marriage now than they did fifteen years ago.</p> <p>So while we&#8217;re told about just how insane white workers are for voting the way they do, I frankly don&#8217;t find it surprising. Many still vote for today&#8217;s affluent, professional-class Democratic Party with low expectations. Some, with no labor union or political organization to corral them, fall back onto reactionary prejudices and throw in with people like Trump for the worst reasons.</p> <p>And most, understandably, just stay home on Election Day. Until we change that fact, social justice in the United States will continue to remain out of reach for everyone who has to work for a living.</p>

This Didn’t Have to Happen

https://jacobinmag.com/2016/10/democratic-party-clinton-trump-white-voters-workers/

2018-10-04

4left

This Didn’t Have to Happen <p>It may seem hard to believe in a country where Donald Trump has a shot at becoming president, but people make rational political decisions. Most of the time, at least.</p> <p>When an affluent voter in a high tax bracket who owns a business and a nice house shows up and votes for a Republican, that is a rational decision. And when a lower-income voter who has little access to health care and pays rent to a landlord shows up to vote for a Democrat, that is also a rational decision.</p> <p>And for most of the population in most of the country, this is still how votes for the two parties break down: more affluent voters pull the lever for Republicans and less affluent voters do so for Democrats.</p> <p>If every adult living in the United States turned out to vote on every Election Day, and was forced to choose only between the two parties, it is almost certain that the Republican Party in its current form would lose not only the presidency but every state legislature and congressional race.</p> <p>The problem though is that <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997" type="external">affluent people show up</a> on Election Day with a lot more frequency than the less affluent. The Republican-backed voter suppression laws have had a huge effect. But this predates that. Over the years the policy preferences of voters and nonvoters have diverged sharply, particularly when it comes to class-based issues. Voters are far more conservative when it comes to things like the welfare state, wealth inequality, and labor unions than nonvoters are. So if more of these nonvoters began to show up at the polls, we would suddenly have an electorate dramatically more supportive of the kind of social-democratic program favored by Sanders and his supporters.</p> <p>One explanation could be that the affluent party, the GOP, is much better and more consistent at rewarding electoral loyalty to their constituents through concrete, material economic policy than the less affluent party, the Democrats, is for their lower-income constituency. When George W. Bush took power, he delivered to his constituency immediately: capital gains and top marginal tax rates were slashed and the Department of Labor was gutted, making it harder for his voters&#8217; employees to check their bosses&#8217; power. More than sweet promises and a dozen roses once a year, the GOP put a ring on it.</p> <p>But when Obama took power, he passed the Heritage Foundation&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">health-care plan</a> and dropped organized labor&#8217;s central priority &#8212; the Employee Free Choice Act &#8212; even as he oversaw the Democratic Party&#8217;s greatest congressional majority in years. Regardless of whatever constraints he had and the small but real victories his administration offered for workers (Medicaid expansion, the overtime rule, etc.) it&#8217;s just true that his Republican predecessor delivered more to his affluent voters, and more quickly, than Obama did to his less affluent voters.</p> <p>The Republican Party is simply better at being a party of capital than the Democratic Party is at being a party of the working classes. And it&#8217;s not an accident.</p> <p>Last week, Seth Ackerman <a href="" type="internal">wrote a piece</a> pushing back on <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/15/13286498/donald-trump-voters-race-economic-anxiety" type="external">Vox&#8217;s study</a> of lower-income Trump voters. He ended that essay with a pretty undeniable fact: despite all the talk of a GOP in decline, they control Congress and the vast majority of state governments. The party that had been beaten back into the minority for most of the twentieth century now, in the 2010s, can not only obstruct but govern. And perhaps one reason they&#8217;re able to have that power is due to the fact that there is a massive, untapped portion of the electorate &#8212; downscale whites&amp;#160; &#8212; who <a href="" type="internal">just don&#8217;t vote</a> anymore.</p> <p>While we hear constantly that they&#8217;re demographically dying out, white workers without a college degree remain at least 63 percent of the working class and in twenty years, will be a &#8220;mere&#8221; 49.5 percent. That&#8217;s a ton of potential voters. Ackerman&#8217;s argument was that instead of writing off lower-income Trump supporters as hopeless racists who&#8217;ll always vote for white supremacy over their wallets, we should instead attempt to forge a broad, working-class political program that could win them over.</p> <p>Pretty quickly, the <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/789175810015932416" type="external">pundits</a> had a collective brain melt. How dare we argue that the left-of-center party use a working-class program to appeal to these working-class bigots! In one illuminating discussion, I saw a high-profile political commentator state that this was a ridiculous strategy because the Democratic Party already gets the non-racist share of the white working class to show up. And that the only way these poorer whites would come to the table is if the Democratic Party promised to explicitly or implicitly protect white supremacy.</p> <p>The implication here is that the huge number of low-income whites who simply stay home on Election Day (or the much smaller number who pull the lever for the GOP) can only be operating &#8212; or failing to operate &#8212; out of racism.</p> <p>It was suddenly clear: the liberal commentators who hold this view believe that their party and&amp;#160;its&amp;#160;record on both campaigning on and enacting a working-class program was so obviously good that to be a worker and fail to vote for the Democratic Party must signal some greater, all-encompassing ideological drive that overpowered class interest.</p> <p>To this punditocracy, that overriding ideology that thwarts a vote for &#8220;the working-class party&#8221; must be white supremacy. And thus this huge chunk of downscale white voters who don&#8217;t vote at all (and the smaller chunk who vote GOP) would only change their behavior if the Democratic Party became a White Man&#8217;s Party in the old Dixiecrat mold or if they somehow, sitting in their homes, managed to overcome their racism through personal enlightenment.</p> <p>This couldn&#8217;t be farther from the truth.</p> <p>Let&#8217;s look at McDowell County, West Virginia. The Guardian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqceHviNBC4" type="external">zeroed in</a> on McDowell due to Trump winning 91.5 percent of the Republican primary vote. They of course left out the fact that more than three times as many Democratic Party ballots were cast and that nearly twice as many people voted for Sanders as voted for Trump &#8212; but we&#8217;ll give them a pass because at the time of the primary, the GOP race was effectively decided. Fair enough. McDowell County will likely go for Trump in November. Just as it did for Romney in 2012.</p> <p>And yet in 2008, Barack Obama won McDowell handily with 53 percent of the vote. Recent studies have shown that Obama won across the country in 2008 with <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/dems-need-better-answers-for-the-working-class.html" type="external">far more</a> white working-class voters than commonly thought. Even though he lost many of them four years later in 2012 &#8212; they either stayed home or went with Romney. Trump&#8217;s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/upshot/the-new-blue-and-red-educational-split-is-replacing-the-culture-war.html" type="external">strength</a> in the Midwest this year appears to stem in part from white working-class ex-Obama voters. As one older, ex-mine worker in McDowell says to the Guardian, &#8220;I voted for that black guy two times.&#8221; He&#8217;s now with Trump.</p> <p>How does a liberal pundit explain this? If these voters are such obstinate racists who&#8217;ll always choose upholding &#8220;white supremacy&#8221; over their pocketbooks, why did they give Obama a shot in the first place? Did they think he wasn&#8217;t really black? Why didn&#8217;t they vote in 2008 like they did in 2012 and plan to in 2016? Did they simply expect Obama to help uphold white supremacy and, when he got into office, found that he acted &#8220;too radically for blackness&#8221;? Was inviting Jay-Z to the White House the moment where Obama lost the white working class forever?</p> <p>Or, perhaps, in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama and his party simply <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/624777/obamas-biggest-failure" type="external">failed</a> to make the lives of voters in McDowell County substantially better. Since Obama, the Democrats have campaigned in every subsequent election under the galvanizing cry of &#8220;Hey, it <a href="" type="internal">could&#8217;ve been worse</a>.&#8221; Maybe these McDowell voters question how it was that the wealthiest Americans recovered so quickly from the crash while they and their families and neighbors were worse off than ever.</p> <p>Is this really a crazy hypothesis? Staying home on Election Day or &#8212; in a two-party system &#8212; voting for &#8220;the other guys&#8221; is certainly something no left-of-center person wants to see. But it&#8217;s not an insane or necessarily ideological decision when your life has fallen apart during the eight years one particular party has held the White House. While Obama at least delivered Medicaid expansion to West Virginians, his presumptive successor campaigned on, &#8220;We&#8217;re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.&#8221; And while Clinton promised to enact programs to ease the loss of those livelihoods, Bill Clinton made similar promises about easing the job losses of NAFTA. To no one&#8217;s surprise, they didn&#8217;t materialize. I&#8217;d say that&#8217;s some <a href="" type="internal">well-earned skepticism</a>.</p> <p>When it comes to the nature of the white working class, I agree with civil rights leader Bayard Rustin: they are neither inherently conservative nor liberal. Which way they break is determined by politics and organization &#8212; not destiny or their whiteness.</p> <p>Racism can be fought, defeated, or overruled by working-class politics. Or it can be brought front and center. As Ackerman pointed out in his article, West Virginia in the 1920s was a bastion of reaction &#8212; the KKK and coal operators <a href="" type="internal">ran the state</a>. In the 1930s and up through the 1970s, it was a hotbed of labor unions, class struggle, and a hell of a lot of Democratic Party votes. Hubert Humphrey, who rose to prominence for his commitment to both civil rights and the welfare state, crushed Richard Nixon and George Wallace in West Virginia with 49.6 percent of the vote. Was this because the whites of West Virginia were simply less racist than the whites of Georgia, who helped Wallace carry their state? Or was it because West Virginia was the site of class struggle and labor politics in a way that Georgia at that time was not?</p> <p>In fact, the <a href="" type="internal">greatest determinant</a> of whether a white working-class person votes GOP or Democrat is still whether or not he or she is in a labor union. A union is, after all, an organization that, ideally, keeps its members focused on their material, class interests even between elections. They build solidarity between people who might otherwise dislike, distrust, or even hate each other. They keep working people focused on their inherent commonality in a way that no privilege-checking session, feel-good campaign ad, or BuzzFeed quiz ever can. That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re powerful. And that&#8217;s why the rich despise them.</p> <p>And while labor-union membership has been in decline overall for decades now, the potential for workers to organize is as strong as ever &#8212; even under twenty-first-century capitalism. As sociologist Beverly Silver <a href="" type="internal">has pointed out</a>, the spread of just-in-time production means a relatively small number of workers still &#8220;can bring an entire corporation to a standstill.&#8221; And even with globalization, &#8220;the potential geographical scale of the impacts of these stoppages has increased.&#8221;</p> <p>Even today strategies and technologies to diminish workers&#8217; rights in education and transportation have resulted in the first stirrings of union drives from charter school teachers and Uber drivers. As much as we hear otherwise, capitalism will always need workers to make their profits and will thus always be vulnerable to the potential of organized labor. That is the core truth of a capitalist economy that Marxists understand &#8212; no matter how zany we can get about other things &#8212; and that liberals do not.</p> <p>It also means we&#8217;re inoculated from other catechisms that bear no resemblance to the historical record. The belief that &#8220;racism&#8221; is a transhistorical phenomenon that can and will always destroy working-class solidarity is not only <a href="" type="internal">wrong</a>, it fundamentally aligns &#8212; almost like an ideological partnership &#8212; with the same belief we hear in the press all the time that organized labor can only hope to manage its extinction and nothing more. And that the working classes are obsolete.</p> <p>Together, these beliefs &#8212; perpetual racism and the hopelessness of labor fighting back against capital &#8212; form a politics that is fundamentally conservative. And in this retreat from a politics of class solidarity and working-class self-determination, the professional classes have stepped in and taken the wheel.</p> <p>Today, the Democratic Party can count on the votes of millions of working-class Americans, largely people of color. And yet it&#8217;s an open secret that the party&#8217;s program is led by the affluent professional class at best and enlightened Silicon Valley billionaires at worst. Obama himself <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/barack-obama-venture-capitalist" type="external">has hinted</a> that he&#8217;s interested in going into venture capital after his presidency. Organized labor &#8212; always a junior partner in the Democratic Party even at its height &#8212; is now something closer to Donny in The Big Lebowski. Frail, meek and at death&#8217;s door, he must always &#8220;shut the fuck up.&#8221;</p> <p>That means that while this form of liberal politics can probably scare up enough votes to win a few elections, it&#8217;s fundamentally incapable of not only governing but of changing society for the better. It surrenders Congress and the majority of state legislatures to the most fiendish right-wing maniacs in the country. And it&#8217;s a politics that&#8217;s fundamentally limited even in its ability to help fight racial discrimination.</p> <p>After all, the two most significant and expansive pieces of federal legislation on civil rights in the twentieth century were signed by two presidents who won the votes of the white working class &#8212; Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. And it was Walter Reuther&#8217;s <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/united-auto-workers-convention-speech" type="external">United Auto Workers</a> that provided financial support to Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement &#8212; not &#8220;woke&#8221; corporate executives.</p> <p>It&#8217;s true that working-class politics has been torn apart by racial strife in the past but the opposite is equally true. Black and white workers in the Jim Crow South were able to organize unions together even if racist political appeals always had to be fought off. How strange it is to believe that a white forty-year-old worker in 2016 is just as much or more driven by racial animosity than his Southern 1937 Jim Crow equivalent. (A recent Reuters survey puts Trump&#8217;s support among non-college Southern whites at 55 percent for those over fifty years of age, but only 39 percent for those forty-nine and younger.) And as much as liberals like to point out that the supposed &#8220;bellwether&#8221; Macomb County, Michigan &#8212; the home of many unionized autoworkers &#8212; went for Nixon in 1968 and Reagan in 1980, it is equally true that they repeatedly reelected David Bonior, one of the most left-wing members of the House of Representatives. In 1976, even at the height of the busing riots, Carter won the county, just as he won the nation&#8217;s entire white working-class vote, North and South.</p> <p>Politics, especially working-class politics, is complicated. Well-funded reactionaries will always be able to find weak points in such a coalition. That doesn&#8217;t mean that &#8220;white supremacy&#8221; is destiny. In 1980, Reagan did in fact win working-class whites &#8212; but with the exception of black voters, he won pretty much every demographic that year. Even ones that had historically gone for Democrats. Women, Catholics, you name it. Yet studies in 1984 showed that most people sided with the Democratic Party on questions of welfare spending. They just believed that the Democrats, unlike Reagan, were incompetent at managing the economy.</p> <p>Is that racism? Or is it the fact that Carter put the economy into recession in order to save bondholders? This is the president who went on television to tell working Americans that from now on, they&#8217;d have to do more with less. The president whose appointee to the chair of the Federal Reserve, <a href="" type="internal">Paul Volcker</a>, said in 1979: &#8220;The standard of living of the average American has to decline.&#8221; I&#8217;d call that a pretty good indicator that his party wasn&#8217;t that interested in its working-class constituents.</p> <p>After all, &#8220;doing more with less&#8221; certainly didn&#8217;t apply to the wealthy of this country. Do liberals think the working classes simply wouldn&#8217;t notice that this new frugal standard applied only to themselves? While Reagan ran on &#8220;Morning in America,&#8221; the Democrats became the party of austerity and balanced budgets. Dukakis, in his 1988 convention biopic, was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/06/us/more-wealth-than-meets-the-eye-lies-behind-frugal-dukakis-image.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">depicted</a> as mowing his own lawn with an old-fashioned push-mower. Apparently, a gasoline-powered motor would just be too decadent.</p> <p>The pundit class, however, can&#8217;t see these flaws. As members of wealthy, coastal communities, its backers see only the symbolic achievements of the twenty-first-century Democrats and none of the failures. We are talking about a class <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumpism-is-a-politics-of-loss-and-revenge" type="external">of</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/789175810015932416" type="external">people</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/08/angry-white-men-love-donald-trump" type="external">who</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/trump-reflects-white-male-fragility.html" type="external">believe</a> <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/04/30/we_must_shame_dumb_trump_fans_the_white_working_class_are_not_victims/" type="external">the</a> anger and bitterness of white working-class middle Americans in 2016 is rooted in the anxiety that &#8220;their whiteness has lost its value.&#8221; No, it couldn&#8217;t be that they&#8217;ve lost their livelihoods, families, or homes &#8212; it&#8217;s that they&#8217;ve just been told George Wallace isn&#8217;t coming to save them after all. It&#8217;s not only not true, it&#8217;s garbage politics.&amp;#160;In effect, it is nothing more than academic jargon used by the affluent to dismiss and slander working people&#8217;s rightful belief that as a society grows far wealthier (as the United States has over the past several decades), they&#8217;re entitled to rising expectations &#8212; not diminished ones.</p> <p>Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now know that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Bill Gates &#8212; the billionaire who has been leading the movement to destroy public education &#8212; both made it onto <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13315952/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-running-mate-tim-cook-bill-gates" type="external">Clinton&#8217;s shortlist</a> for running-mate. This is the party rejected by white workers supposedly out of &#8220;racism&#8221; and nothing more &#8212; not the party of civil rights and Medicare. The obstinate belief that good and sincere pro-labor politicians like Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Perez, and Keith Ellison are in the driver&#8217;s seat of the Democratic Party is simply a delusion. If the Democratic Party is Madison Square Garden, then Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, and the Clintons sit courtside, chatting with the players. Sanders, Warren, and Brown are up in the nosebleeds.</p> <p>So what is to be done when the Democratic Party of 2016 can win neither Congress nor the majority of state governments? According to the pundit class, we&#8217;re supposed to just wait. A decade or two. Instead of adopting Sanders&#8217;s class politics to <a href="" type="internal">win over</a> the entire working class, many liberal pundits would prefer we simply wait twenty years when the white working class will no longer be a majority of workers. Demography, they seem to believe, is political destiny. Somehow, I kind of doubt that an eighty-six year-old senator Chuck Schumer will announce in the year 2036 that his party intends to finally &#8220;extinguish the billionaire class.&#8221;</p> <p>I can understand how appealing it is to believe that it&#8217;s simply &#8220;miserable, angry whites&#8221; and their racism that&#8217;s holding back the Democratic Party from becoming either a social-democratic powerhouse or one that can at least expand on the achievements of its mid-century golden age all over again. It certainly seems easier to just wait patiently than to fight some of the most powerful people in the country for control over a party that is, structurally, far more theirs than ours &#8212; likely, irrevocably so.</p> <p>But demographics won&#8217;t turn the <a href="" type="internal">party of Silicon Valley</a> into the party of Chicago&#8217;s South Side or West Virginia&#8217;s coal country. All that waiting will do is prolong the undeniable suffering felt both by Trump and Clinton&#8217;s working-class supporters &#8212; and the large number of low-income Americans who don&#8217;t vote at all. Because that suffering isn&#8217;t exclusive to downscale Trumpists &#8212; &#8220;the deplorables&#8221; &#8212; it&#8217;s everyone who works or desperately hopes to work for a measly wage in order to survive. In other words, not the pundits who have next to nothing in common with them.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not just &#8220;vulgar class-first&#8221; issues where the Democrats are failing &#8212; the party&#8217;s nationwide marginalization means, in much of the country, it&#8217;s been decades since it&#8217;s been this difficult to start or join a labor union or have access to abortion services. Despite having largely shed the &#8220;racist&#8221; white working class from the Democrat&#8217;s electoral coalition, the black-white wage gaps are now <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/black-white-wage-gaps-expand-with-rising-wage-inequality/" type="external">larger today</a> than they were in 1979. And therein lies the central irony of the Democrats&#8217; tighter rhetorical embrace of social liberalism alongside a staunch rejection of populist class politics: they actually made far more progress on the former when they were a party capable of the latter.</p> <p>The belief that bringing in the nonvoting white working class requires surrendering on commitments to gender equality and antiracism is simply that &#8212; a belief. Sanders simultaneously attracted the support of white working-class voters in states like Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan even as he repeatedly championed Black Lives Matter and the fight against racial discrimination. There was no Sister Souljah moment with Bernie. The idea that bringing in certain segments of the working class automatically negates the coalition&#8217;s commitment to social liberalism is a myth.</p> <p>Among non-Evangelical Protestants, black voters still disproportionately <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/" type="external">oppose same-sex marriage</a> even as they disproportionately vote Democratic. In 2008, African-American Protestants strongly supported Prop 8 in California. By our punditocracy&#8217;s &#8220;working-class contaminant&#8221; theory, the Democratic Party would be forced to choose here between commitment to same-sex marriage and their black Protestant voters. Yet neither has been &#8220;purged&#8221; from the coalition. And, steadily, progress has been made &#8212; far more Democrats, black Protestants, and Americans support same-sex marriage now than they did fifteen years ago.</p> <p>So while we&#8217;re told about just how insane white workers are for voting the way they do, I frankly don&#8217;t find it surprising. Many still vote for today&#8217;s affluent, professional-class Democratic Party with low expectations. Some, with no labor union or political organization to corral them, fall back onto reactionary prejudices and throw in with people like Trump for the worst reasons.</p> <p>And most, understandably, just stay home on Election Day. Until we change that fact, social justice in the United States will continue to remain out of reach for everyone who has to work for a living.</p>

<p>F. Scott Fitzgerald&#8217;s 1926 short story &#8220;The Rich Boy&#8221; opens with the line &#8220;Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.&#8221;</p> <p>It&#8217;s 2015, and the decadence that differentiates the very rich is still a uniquely American obsession. And while the narrators have changed and the stories have shifted, we&#8217;re still listening. Wednesday Martin&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">Primates of Park Avenue</a> recently made headlines for its detailed, pseudo-anthropological study of the Upper East Side and its rarified inhabitants. The memoir is small enough to fit in a Birkin, but with the kind of explosive potential that gets you permanently barred from Temple Emanu-El. It charts the progress of Upper East Side mothers with the thoroughness of a serial killer and the eye of a Bloomingdale&#8217;s head shopper. Martin jots down details ranging from drinks of choice (anything alcoholic) to trending exercise regimens (if you have to ask, you&#8217;ll never be in the SoulCycle front row). From summers spent at Long Island&#8217;s East Egg&#8212;I mean East End&#8212;to alleged &#8220;wife bonuses,&#8221; no tidbit is too personal.</p> <p>The Upper East Side Mom is similarly studied in Bravo&#8217;s new scripted TV show <a href="" type="internal">Odd Mom Out</a>. Odd Mom Out follows one quirky mother, played by Upper East Side native Jill Kargman, as she navigates the world of Rockefellers, Roman numerals, and really, really rich people.</p> <p>The Upper East Side has always held pop cultural appeal, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to The Official Preppy Handbook. More recently, a glut of TV shows including Gossip Girl, <a href="" type="internal">The Real Housewives of New York City</a>, and <a href="" type="internal">NYC Prep</a> have attempted to offer a penthouse window view of Manhattan&#8217;s elite. These shows are all fueled by an appetite that combines fantasy and righteous contempt, and they trade in stereotypes that recycle an unbelievable, ratings-pandering approximation of the Upper East Side that&#8217;s as unreal, tragic, and glamorous as Jay Gatsby himself. Like all TV shows that weren&#8217;t created by Shonda Rhimes, they follow a predictable recipe for maximum sleaze, shock, and envy, and revolve around predictable obsessions: prep schools, absentee parents, lavish parties, insane real estate, and designer clothes.</p> <p>The Upper East side that spans around thirty blocks and a handful of avenues on the island of Manhattan contains a number of elite private schools, many of them single-sex, all boasting high average SAT scores and fro-yo machines with a range of flavors. The non-existent, magical Upper East Side that exists in the minds of Real Housewives and Gossip Girl fan club presidents is a whole different story. In Primates of Park Avenue, housewives are totally high on higher education. Ivy League admission is presented not as the goal but as the norm&#8212;attending the most expensive pre-schools and private academies is a progeny prerequisite, and having a Princeton-degreed daddy isn&#8217;t the golden ticket it used to be. Martin <a href="http://www.popsugar.com/moms/Primates-Park-Avenue-Book-Excerpt-37646805" type="external">writes</a>, &#8220;The specter of failing to land one's child in an elite school&#8212;in the altered ecology of the Upper East Side, this was the terrifying predator to be outwitted and bested.&#8221;</p> <p>But according to shows like Gossip Girl and NYC Prep, the real challenge isn&#8217;t landing a spot in an elite private school, but rather surviving the best education you can buy your way into. Every girl&#8217;s book bag is designer, every boy owns an ascot and a boat in Maine, and being from Brooklyn is enough to merit social pariah status. Disappointingly enough, most of these juicy descriptions read more like the work of a private school creative writing class than an accurate reflection of reality&#8212;not that most traditional prep schools offer hippie classes like creative writing, which would be impossible to fit into a schedule packed with four AP&#8217;s, Latin, and Greek.</p> <p>For one thing, not everyone at these schools is a Blair Waldorf. I attended one of the oldest private schools in New York, a school so status-obsessed that it actually boasts of being the longest continuously run school in Manhattan&#8212;because it sided with the British. While I saw my share of Cartier love bracelets floundering around on the wrists of 15-year-old girls, the over-spending was far more contained and far less evocative of the fall of the Roman Empire than television would have you believe. No one was mocked for wearing Abercrombie &amp;amp; Fitch jeans or Gap polo shirts. We did not all live on Park or summer in the Hamptons. In fact, I don&#8217;t think I ever heard summer sincerely used as a verb until I watched the first few episodes of Odd Mom Out. People actually worked hard; a rich boy like Chuck Bass would not be able to earn a diploma simply by repeating the motto of &#8220;I&#8217;m Chuck Bass&#8221; to school administrators (or club bouncers, for that matter).</p> <p>Gossip Girl relied on the premise that rich Upper East Siders can buy, do, and get away with anything. It centered on drugs, sex, and parties, and looked more like a Madonna-envisioned bacchanalia than any teenager&#8217;s lived existence. Upper East Siders are actually just like other teenagers&#8212;they smoke pot in parks, hang out in living rooms with their friends, and try to convince people to buy them alcohol.</p> <p>On NYC Prep, the tragically singular first season culminates in a lavish gala. On Gossip Girl, everyone and their literal mothers are obsessed with debutante balls, the WASP-y ceremony where young girls symbolically enter society. The debutante ball is another excuse for Blair, Serena, and their interchangeable arm candy to don Net-a-Porter level couture and drink and bicker like adults. For the record, debutante balls are the purview of a few, very traditional families. Similarly galas, like weekly drinks at Lavo, are a largely fantastical element of the Upper East Side experience, at least for the younger set. And when/if Upper East Side kids go out they have to use fake ID&#8217;s, just like the rest of us&#8212;having a trust fund and living on 70th and Park doesn&#8217;t magically make you look like Blake Lively.</p> <p>Speaking of addresses, pop culture seems particularly obsessed with the geography of wealth. In multiple interviews, Odd Mom Out&#8217;s Jill Kargman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/fashion/in-odd-mom-out-mining-the-upper-east-side-for-comedy-gold.html" type="external">describes her neighborhood</a> as &#8220;Durito, for &#8216;Down under the Roosevelt Island Tram Pass.&#8217;&#8221; This differentiation between the fabled, gold-paved sidewalks of the iconic upper East and Kargman&#8217;s more humble real estate seems like a deliberate attempt at self-deprecation, equal parts reliable punch line and serious attempt to cast Kargman as an outsider amongst insiders. This subtle distinction allows Kargman&#8217;s Bravo character to parody the Upper East Side even as a one-percenter participant.</p> <p>Pop culture approximations of the fabulously wealthy make a huge mistake in limiting their purview to one piece of Manhattan. Wolves of Wall Street mark out their territory everywhere from gorgeous townhouses in TriBeCa to Upper West Side apartments. Yes, they even live in Brooklyn (not to mention Tenafly and Scarsdale). The most laughable moments on Gossip Girl are when insiders like Blair shamelessly mock Brooklyn boy Dan for his pauper&#8217;s loft in Williamsburg. The aforementioned loft, which could easily cover Dwell magazine and sell for millions, is offered as shorthand for outsider status. The implication is that the truly wealthy wouldn&#8217;t dare leave the bubble of the Upper East Side; that privilege exclusively presents as a building with a doorman, an implicit dress code, and a view of the Met. This same erroneous logic fuels the much-repeated myth that Upper East Siders don&#8217;t go downtown, or have never set foot on the subway. Even if you attended a mythical school like Dan and Blair did, you&#8217;ve probably still heard of gentrification.</p> <p>More importantly, the assumption that Dan and his sister Jenny&#8217;s real estate porn loft caused them extreme social discomfort erases the experience of those who truly deviate from the norm in prep school&#8212;students of color and kids who exist in a socioeconomic strata that&#8217;s markedly lower than their relatively wealthy peers. Despite <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/when-minority-students-attend-elite-private-schools/282416/" type="external">well-publicized diversity programs</a>, NYC private schoolers often self-segregate according to race or socioeconomic status. This phenomenon might explain, but does not justify, the lily-whiteness of shows like NYC Prep and Gossip Girl, where ambiguously ethnic characters are occasionally seen but rarely heard&#8212;transparent casting decisions that inadvertently mirror many real-life experiences of tokenization.</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>While living in Brooklyn is not realistic social suicide, Gossip Girl&#8217;s insistence on manufacturing a misfit is extremely telling. The myth of the Upper East Side is, after all, founded on the premise of privilege and exclusion. The 1 percent implies the other 99, outsiders with television sets and a complicated relationship to wealth that&#8217;s equal parts demonization and deification. Like all constructions, the Upper East Side serves a multitude of purposes, and is ultimately a reflection of those who are behind the lens, not under it. Almost every representation of the neighborhood features an outsider figure.</p> <p>In The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway famously &#8220;liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives.&#8221; While NYC Prep&#8217;s token public schooler Taylor DiGiovanni never cited classic literature, her story is an extension of Nick&#8217;s: outsider fantasizes about entering the world of the elite, admires their designer labels and lavish circumstances, but is ultimately disenchanted by the superficiality and brutality of the pretty lives that pass her by.</p> <p>Similarly, when Gossip Girl&#8217;s Dan begins to associate with the upper echelon, fellow Brooklynite Vanessa narrates, &#8220;The outsider goes inside. A likable everyman's pursuit of his dream girl begins his descent into the bowels of hell. This is mythic stuff.&#8221; The couch-surfer pop psychology at work here is not difficult to analyze. We project on these outsiders, whose fringe existences highlight both the possibility of party crashing and the alluring exclusivity of the upper crust. The mythic Upper East Side is a classic, ivy-covered brick fa&#231;ade that doubles as a fortress. Through the eyes of the outsider, we are allowed to dream and aspire, and are ushered into a world that&#8217;s mirage-like in its decadence. Of course, that&#8217;s because it is a mirage, and our interlopers often find themselves unable to integrate and are ultimately cast out, thrust back into the &#8220;real world&#8221; of public school boyfriends and Brooklyn coffee shops.</p> <p>The trailer for 'Gossip Girl.'</p> <p>While this voyeuristic exercise allows the viewer a degree of fantasy-fulfillment, it also acts as a foil. The superficiality of the portrayed elite in tell-alls like Primates of Park Avenue and Odd Mom Out serves to highlight and reinforce the humility, humor, and all-around goodness of the outside observer. While Martin and Kargman might outwardly aspire to belong, they are also presented as more intelligent, self-aware, and present than their Upper East Side counterparts. This idolization of the outsider is especially prevalent at moments when the complicated American relationship towards insane wealth accumulation tips more towards admonishment than admiration.</p> <p>As <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/xoxo-conspicuous-consumption-how-the-economy-killed-gossip-girl/266181/" type="external">the Atlantic pointed out</a>, Gossip Girl was actually a victim of the recession. &#8220;When banks began to fail and the market plummeted in October 2008, a few episodes into Gossip Girl's second season, public opinion turned swiftly and dramatically against the very rich.&#8221; Aspiring to join the one percent became as pass&#233; as Tory Burch flats. We didn&#8217;t want to envy the ultra-rich&#8212;we wanted to crucify them. Cue the rising popularity of The Real Housewives of New York City, which was first aired in 2008. The real housewives, with their tacky dreams of fame and fortune and their televised social lives and squabbles, deconstructed the Upper East Side as it lampooned its inhabitants. Inverting Fitzgerald&#8217;s outsider&#8217;s fantasy, the show insisted that these wealthy residents were in fact just like us, that we could easily be Upper East Siders&#8212;if we were money-hungry socialites with surgically removed moral compasses. At the height of our hatred, we stopped looking in and sought to break through the penthouse windows&#8212;busting into private lives and passing judgment on the privileged.</p> <p>Odd Mom Out and Primates of Park Avenue are products of a post-recession era. According to <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/308343/" type="external">Holly Peterson</a>, the author of the Upper East Side-centric novel The Manny, &#8220;There&#8217;s so much money on the Upper East Side right now. If you look at the original movie Wall Street, it was a phenomenon where there were men in their 30s and 40s making $2 and $3 million a year, and that was disgusting. But then you had the Internet age, and then globalization, and you had people in their 30s, through hedge funds and Goldman Sachs partner jobs, who were making $20, $30, $40 million a year.&#8221;</p> <p>American dreamers are reverting to that potent mix of envy and admiration; fear of an increasing wealth disparity combined with a deep desire to wind up on the right side of the widening gap. The sleazy, semi-exploitation of the Housewives era is being combined with the classic envious outsider narrative. Martin and Kargman are self-congratulatory commentators who live in the world they parody. They might come across as smarter than the other members of their keratin&#8217;d clan, but they&#8217;ve still chosen to live on the Upper East Side in the first place. Martin is a wealthy woman with a Birkin of her own, and real-life Kargman is the UES bred daughter of a former Chanel president. As befitting a capitalist society that borders on plutocracy, the outsiders are looking more and more like insiders, as the bubble between the haves and the have-nots is growing a visibly thicker and less permeable skin.</p>

Why We Love to Loathe Manhattan’s Upper East Side: From F. Scott Fitzgerald to ‘Odd Mom Out’

https://thedailybeast.com/why-we-love-to-loathe-manhattans-upper-east-side-from-f-scott-fitzgerald-to-odd-mom-out

2018-10-06

4left

Why We Love to Loathe Manhattan’s Upper East Side: From F. Scott Fitzgerald to ‘Odd Mom Out’ <p>F. Scott Fitzgerald&#8217;s 1926 short story &#8220;The Rich Boy&#8221; opens with the line &#8220;Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.&#8221;</p> <p>It&#8217;s 2015, and the decadence that differentiates the very rich is still a uniquely American obsession. And while the narrators have changed and the stories have shifted, we&#8217;re still listening. Wednesday Martin&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">Primates of Park Avenue</a> recently made headlines for its detailed, pseudo-anthropological study of the Upper East Side and its rarified inhabitants. The memoir is small enough to fit in a Birkin, but with the kind of explosive potential that gets you permanently barred from Temple Emanu-El. It charts the progress of Upper East Side mothers with the thoroughness of a serial killer and the eye of a Bloomingdale&#8217;s head shopper. Martin jots down details ranging from drinks of choice (anything alcoholic) to trending exercise regimens (if you have to ask, you&#8217;ll never be in the SoulCycle front row). From summers spent at Long Island&#8217;s East Egg&#8212;I mean East End&#8212;to alleged &#8220;wife bonuses,&#8221; no tidbit is too personal.</p> <p>The Upper East Side Mom is similarly studied in Bravo&#8217;s new scripted TV show <a href="" type="internal">Odd Mom Out</a>. Odd Mom Out follows one quirky mother, played by Upper East Side native Jill Kargman, as she navigates the world of Rockefellers, Roman numerals, and really, really rich people.</p> <p>The Upper East Side has always held pop cultural appeal, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to The Official Preppy Handbook. More recently, a glut of TV shows including Gossip Girl, <a href="" type="internal">The Real Housewives of New York City</a>, and <a href="" type="internal">NYC Prep</a> have attempted to offer a penthouse window view of Manhattan&#8217;s elite. These shows are all fueled by an appetite that combines fantasy and righteous contempt, and they trade in stereotypes that recycle an unbelievable, ratings-pandering approximation of the Upper East Side that&#8217;s as unreal, tragic, and glamorous as Jay Gatsby himself. Like all TV shows that weren&#8217;t created by Shonda Rhimes, they follow a predictable recipe for maximum sleaze, shock, and envy, and revolve around predictable obsessions: prep schools, absentee parents, lavish parties, insane real estate, and designer clothes.</p> <p>The Upper East side that spans around thirty blocks and a handful of avenues on the island of Manhattan contains a number of elite private schools, many of them single-sex, all boasting high average SAT scores and fro-yo machines with a range of flavors. The non-existent, magical Upper East Side that exists in the minds of Real Housewives and Gossip Girl fan club presidents is a whole different story. In Primates of Park Avenue, housewives are totally high on higher education. Ivy League admission is presented not as the goal but as the norm&#8212;attending the most expensive pre-schools and private academies is a progeny prerequisite, and having a Princeton-degreed daddy isn&#8217;t the golden ticket it used to be. Martin <a href="http://www.popsugar.com/moms/Primates-Park-Avenue-Book-Excerpt-37646805" type="external">writes</a>, &#8220;The specter of failing to land one's child in an elite school&#8212;in the altered ecology of the Upper East Side, this was the terrifying predator to be outwitted and bested.&#8221;</p> <p>But according to shows like Gossip Girl and NYC Prep, the real challenge isn&#8217;t landing a spot in an elite private school, but rather surviving the best education you can buy your way into. Every girl&#8217;s book bag is designer, every boy owns an ascot and a boat in Maine, and being from Brooklyn is enough to merit social pariah status. Disappointingly enough, most of these juicy descriptions read more like the work of a private school creative writing class than an accurate reflection of reality&#8212;not that most traditional prep schools offer hippie classes like creative writing, which would be impossible to fit into a schedule packed with four AP&#8217;s, Latin, and Greek.</p> <p>For one thing, not everyone at these schools is a Blair Waldorf. I attended one of the oldest private schools in New York, a school so status-obsessed that it actually boasts of being the longest continuously run school in Manhattan&#8212;because it sided with the British. While I saw my share of Cartier love bracelets floundering around on the wrists of 15-year-old girls, the over-spending was far more contained and far less evocative of the fall of the Roman Empire than television would have you believe. No one was mocked for wearing Abercrombie &amp;amp; Fitch jeans or Gap polo shirts. We did not all live on Park or summer in the Hamptons. In fact, I don&#8217;t think I ever heard summer sincerely used as a verb until I watched the first few episodes of Odd Mom Out. People actually worked hard; a rich boy like Chuck Bass would not be able to earn a diploma simply by repeating the motto of &#8220;I&#8217;m Chuck Bass&#8221; to school administrators (or club bouncers, for that matter).</p> <p>Gossip Girl relied on the premise that rich Upper East Siders can buy, do, and get away with anything. It centered on drugs, sex, and parties, and looked more like a Madonna-envisioned bacchanalia than any teenager&#8217;s lived existence. Upper East Siders are actually just like other teenagers&#8212;they smoke pot in parks, hang out in living rooms with their friends, and try to convince people to buy them alcohol.</p> <p>On NYC Prep, the tragically singular first season culminates in a lavish gala. On Gossip Girl, everyone and their literal mothers are obsessed with debutante balls, the WASP-y ceremony where young girls symbolically enter society. The debutante ball is another excuse for Blair, Serena, and their interchangeable arm candy to don Net-a-Porter level couture and drink and bicker like adults. For the record, debutante balls are the purview of a few, very traditional families. Similarly galas, like weekly drinks at Lavo, are a largely fantastical element of the Upper East Side experience, at least for the younger set. And when/if Upper East Side kids go out they have to use fake ID&#8217;s, just like the rest of us&#8212;having a trust fund and living on 70th and Park doesn&#8217;t magically make you look like Blake Lively.</p> <p>Speaking of addresses, pop culture seems particularly obsessed with the geography of wealth. In multiple interviews, Odd Mom Out&#8217;s Jill Kargman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/fashion/in-odd-mom-out-mining-the-upper-east-side-for-comedy-gold.html" type="external">describes her neighborhood</a> as &#8220;Durito, for &#8216;Down under the Roosevelt Island Tram Pass.&#8217;&#8221; This differentiation between the fabled, gold-paved sidewalks of the iconic upper East and Kargman&#8217;s more humble real estate seems like a deliberate attempt at self-deprecation, equal parts reliable punch line and serious attempt to cast Kargman as an outsider amongst insiders. This subtle distinction allows Kargman&#8217;s Bravo character to parody the Upper East Side even as a one-percenter participant.</p> <p>Pop culture approximations of the fabulously wealthy make a huge mistake in limiting their purview to one piece of Manhattan. Wolves of Wall Street mark out their territory everywhere from gorgeous townhouses in TriBeCa to Upper West Side apartments. Yes, they even live in Brooklyn (not to mention Tenafly and Scarsdale). The most laughable moments on Gossip Girl are when insiders like Blair shamelessly mock Brooklyn boy Dan for his pauper&#8217;s loft in Williamsburg. The aforementioned loft, which could easily cover Dwell magazine and sell for millions, is offered as shorthand for outsider status. The implication is that the truly wealthy wouldn&#8217;t dare leave the bubble of the Upper East Side; that privilege exclusively presents as a building with a doorman, an implicit dress code, and a view of the Met. This same erroneous logic fuels the much-repeated myth that Upper East Siders don&#8217;t go downtown, or have never set foot on the subway. Even if you attended a mythical school like Dan and Blair did, you&#8217;ve probably still heard of gentrification.</p> <p>More importantly, the assumption that Dan and his sister Jenny&#8217;s real estate porn loft caused them extreme social discomfort erases the experience of those who truly deviate from the norm in prep school&#8212;students of color and kids who exist in a socioeconomic strata that&#8217;s markedly lower than their relatively wealthy peers. Despite <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/when-minority-students-attend-elite-private-schools/282416/" type="external">well-publicized diversity programs</a>, NYC private schoolers often self-segregate according to race or socioeconomic status. This phenomenon might explain, but does not justify, the lily-whiteness of shows like NYC Prep and Gossip Girl, where ambiguously ethnic characters are occasionally seen but rarely heard&#8212;transparent casting decisions that inadvertently mirror many real-life experiences of tokenization.</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>While living in Brooklyn is not realistic social suicide, Gossip Girl&#8217;s insistence on manufacturing a misfit is extremely telling. The myth of the Upper East Side is, after all, founded on the premise of privilege and exclusion. The 1 percent implies the other 99, outsiders with television sets and a complicated relationship to wealth that&#8217;s equal parts demonization and deification. Like all constructions, the Upper East Side serves a multitude of purposes, and is ultimately a reflection of those who are behind the lens, not under it. Almost every representation of the neighborhood features an outsider figure.</p> <p>In The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway famously &#8220;liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives.&#8221; While NYC Prep&#8217;s token public schooler Taylor DiGiovanni never cited classic literature, her story is an extension of Nick&#8217;s: outsider fantasizes about entering the world of the elite, admires their designer labels and lavish circumstances, but is ultimately disenchanted by the superficiality and brutality of the pretty lives that pass her by.</p> <p>Similarly, when Gossip Girl&#8217;s Dan begins to associate with the upper echelon, fellow Brooklynite Vanessa narrates, &#8220;The outsider goes inside. A likable everyman's pursuit of his dream girl begins his descent into the bowels of hell. This is mythic stuff.&#8221; The couch-surfer pop psychology at work here is not difficult to analyze. We project on these outsiders, whose fringe existences highlight both the possibility of party crashing and the alluring exclusivity of the upper crust. The mythic Upper East Side is a classic, ivy-covered brick fa&#231;ade that doubles as a fortress. Through the eyes of the outsider, we are allowed to dream and aspire, and are ushered into a world that&#8217;s mirage-like in its decadence. Of course, that&#8217;s because it is a mirage, and our interlopers often find themselves unable to integrate and are ultimately cast out, thrust back into the &#8220;real world&#8221; of public school boyfriends and Brooklyn coffee shops.</p> <p>The trailer for 'Gossip Girl.'</p> <p>While this voyeuristic exercise allows the viewer a degree of fantasy-fulfillment, it also acts as a foil. The superficiality of the portrayed elite in tell-alls like Primates of Park Avenue and Odd Mom Out serves to highlight and reinforce the humility, humor, and all-around goodness of the outside observer. While Martin and Kargman might outwardly aspire to belong, they are also presented as more intelligent, self-aware, and present than their Upper East Side counterparts. This idolization of the outsider is especially prevalent at moments when the complicated American relationship towards insane wealth accumulation tips more towards admonishment than admiration.</p> <p>As <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/xoxo-conspicuous-consumption-how-the-economy-killed-gossip-girl/266181/" type="external">the Atlantic pointed out</a>, Gossip Girl was actually a victim of the recession. &#8220;When banks began to fail and the market plummeted in October 2008, a few episodes into Gossip Girl's second season, public opinion turned swiftly and dramatically against the very rich.&#8221; Aspiring to join the one percent became as pass&#233; as Tory Burch flats. We didn&#8217;t want to envy the ultra-rich&#8212;we wanted to crucify them. Cue the rising popularity of The Real Housewives of New York City, which was first aired in 2008. The real housewives, with their tacky dreams of fame and fortune and their televised social lives and squabbles, deconstructed the Upper East Side as it lampooned its inhabitants. Inverting Fitzgerald&#8217;s outsider&#8217;s fantasy, the show insisted that these wealthy residents were in fact just like us, that we could easily be Upper East Siders&#8212;if we were money-hungry socialites with surgically removed moral compasses. At the height of our hatred, we stopped looking in and sought to break through the penthouse windows&#8212;busting into private lives and passing judgment on the privileged.</p> <p>Odd Mom Out and Primates of Park Avenue are products of a post-recession era. According to <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/308343/" type="external">Holly Peterson</a>, the author of the Upper East Side-centric novel The Manny, &#8220;There&#8217;s so much money on the Upper East Side right now. If you look at the original movie Wall Street, it was a phenomenon where there were men in their 30s and 40s making $2 and $3 million a year, and that was disgusting. But then you had the Internet age, and then globalization, and you had people in their 30s, through hedge funds and Goldman Sachs partner jobs, who were making $20, $30, $40 million a year.&#8221;</p> <p>American dreamers are reverting to that potent mix of envy and admiration; fear of an increasing wealth disparity combined with a deep desire to wind up on the right side of the widening gap. The sleazy, semi-exploitation of the Housewives era is being combined with the classic envious outsider narrative. Martin and Kargman are self-congratulatory commentators who live in the world they parody. They might come across as smarter than the other members of their keratin&#8217;d clan, but they&#8217;ve still chosen to live on the Upper East Side in the first place. Martin is a wealthy woman with a Birkin of her own, and real-life Kargman is the UES bred daughter of a former Chanel president. As befitting a capitalist society that borders on plutocracy, the outsiders are looking more and more like insiders, as the bubble between the haves and the have-nots is growing a visibly thicker and less permeable skin.</p>

<p>Alphabet Inc.'s Google won a reprieve from one of its biggest legal battles in Europe on Wednesday, when a Paris court threw out a EUR1.11 billion ($1.27 billion) bill that France's tax authority has sought from the search giant for five years of back taxes.</p> <p>In a decision issued Wednesday afternoon, Paris's administrative tribunal ruled that Google's lucrative advertising-sales business had no taxable presence in France -- absolving it of income or sales taxes on advertising income from French clients.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The decision, covering the years 2005 to 2010, backs Google's position in a dispute that has dragged on for more than six years, and could have implications for other tax battles in Europe and elsewhere.</p> <p>A Google spokesman said that the court "has confirmed Google abides by French tax law and international standards," adding: "We remain committed to France and the growth of its digital economy."</p> <p>French Budget Minister G&#233;rald Darmanin said that the tax authority is analyzing the decision with a view to appealing it, noting "the significant role of French employees in Google's commercial activity in France."</p> <p>Though the decision concerns only France, and is subject to appeal, it is a victory for Google and other Silicon Valley firms when they are facing multiple regulatory battles on topics including taxes, competition and privacy.</p> <p>The European Union two weeks ago fined Google EUR2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) for abusing the dominance of its search engine to promote one of its own businesses, one of three antitrust cases in which the EU has filed formal charges.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Multiple European regulators are also investigating Facebook Inc. over its use of personal data, and tech companies are also clashing with authorities over how to best remove hate speech and terrorist propaganda from their platforms. Last month, Germany passed a new law threatening fines of up to $57 million for companies that don't comply quickly enough.</p> <p>Taxes have been a particular pressure point. Politicians in countries such as France and the U.K. have said tech giants declare too little profit in their countries and then manage to reduce whatever profit they do declare elsewhere in Europe by paying huge untaxed royalty fees that often end up in tax havens.</p> <p>Several European countries, other than France, have pursued Google for back taxes. Spain raided Google offices in Madrid last year, and the company earlier this year to pay Italian tax authorities EUR306 million ($349 million).</p> <p>The EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple Inc. stemming from profits the EU said Apple should have declared as taxable in Ireland, and it is investigating whether Amazon.com Inc. should owe back taxes to Luxembourg. Apple is appealing, and Amazon has said it pays all the tax it owes.</p> <p>The threat of legal action -- coupled with new tax rules proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a new "diverted profits tax" in the U. K. -- has led companies to make structural changes. Last year, Facebook began directing U.K. clients to start paying an affiliate in the country rather than funneling that money through Ireland and then on to the Cayman Islands, boosting its tax payments in the U.K.</p> <p>Google also made a controversial tax deal with the U.K. that involves attributing more income to that country, therefore paying more taxes there.</p> <p>The French case indicates, however, that there may be limits to tax authorities' efforts to make significant clawbacks of taxes under existing laws.</p> <p>Similar to how Google operates in other large EU countries, its French unit doesn't sell ads to French customers, but rather offers only logistical and marketing support to the Google unit in Ireland that closes the advertising deals. Google Ireland pays the French unit for that support service, leaving a smaller profit in France than if the sales were booked in the country.</p> <p>The French tax authority argued that the structure is fictitious and that it believed French employees were actually selling ads in France. The authority said that meant the Google's Irish unit should have paid income and sales taxes as if it had a "permanent establishment" in France.</p> <p>But in its decision, the court backed Google's argument that its French employees were doing nothing more than preparatory work allowed under the Franco-Irish tax treaty.</p> <p>France's tax authority has separately complained to France's tax prosecutor, which said last year that it has been investigating the company since 2015 for aggravated tax evasion. Wednesday's court decision that Google doesn't owe any additional taxes could complicate that criminal case.</p> <p>Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com</p> <p>Corrections &amp;amp; Amplifications</p> <p>This item was corrected at 5:34 p.m. ET to show that the EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple. The original incorrectly stated $14.8 million.</p> <p>The EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple. "French Court Throws Out Google's EUR11.1 Billion Tax Bill -- Update," at 2:20 p.m. ET and a subsequent update at 4:28 p.m., incorrectly said $14.8 million in the 11th paragraph.</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>July 12, 2017 17:49 ET (21:49 GMT)</p>

French Court Throws Out Google's $1.3 Billion Tax Bill -- 2nd Update

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/12/french-court-throws-out-googles-1-3-billion-tax-bill-2nd-update.html

2017-07-12

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French Court Throws Out Google's $1.3 Billion Tax Bill -- 2nd Update <p>Alphabet Inc.'s Google won a reprieve from one of its biggest legal battles in Europe on Wednesday, when a Paris court threw out a EUR1.11 billion ($1.27 billion) bill that France's tax authority has sought from the search giant for five years of back taxes.</p> <p>In a decision issued Wednesday afternoon, Paris's administrative tribunal ruled that Google's lucrative advertising-sales business had no taxable presence in France -- absolving it of income or sales taxes on advertising income from French clients.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The decision, covering the years 2005 to 2010, backs Google's position in a dispute that has dragged on for more than six years, and could have implications for other tax battles in Europe and elsewhere.</p> <p>A Google spokesman said that the court "has confirmed Google abides by French tax law and international standards," adding: "We remain committed to France and the growth of its digital economy."</p> <p>French Budget Minister G&#233;rald Darmanin said that the tax authority is analyzing the decision with a view to appealing it, noting "the significant role of French employees in Google's commercial activity in France."</p> <p>Though the decision concerns only France, and is subject to appeal, it is a victory for Google and other Silicon Valley firms when they are facing multiple regulatory battles on topics including taxes, competition and privacy.</p> <p>The European Union two weeks ago fined Google EUR2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) for abusing the dominance of its search engine to promote one of its own businesses, one of three antitrust cases in which the EU has filed formal charges.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Multiple European regulators are also investigating Facebook Inc. over its use of personal data, and tech companies are also clashing with authorities over how to best remove hate speech and terrorist propaganda from their platforms. Last month, Germany passed a new law threatening fines of up to $57 million for companies that don't comply quickly enough.</p> <p>Taxes have been a particular pressure point. Politicians in countries such as France and the U.K. have said tech giants declare too little profit in their countries and then manage to reduce whatever profit they do declare elsewhere in Europe by paying huge untaxed royalty fees that often end up in tax havens.</p> <p>Several European countries, other than France, have pursued Google for back taxes. Spain raided Google offices in Madrid last year, and the company earlier this year to pay Italian tax authorities EUR306 million ($349 million).</p> <p>The EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple Inc. stemming from profits the EU said Apple should have declared as taxable in Ireland, and it is investigating whether Amazon.com Inc. should owe back taxes to Luxembourg. Apple is appealing, and Amazon has said it pays all the tax it owes.</p> <p>The threat of legal action -- coupled with new tax rules proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a new "diverted profits tax" in the U. K. -- has led companies to make structural changes. Last year, Facebook began directing U.K. clients to start paying an affiliate in the country rather than funneling that money through Ireland and then on to the Cayman Islands, boosting its tax payments in the U.K.</p> <p>Google also made a controversial tax deal with the U.K. that involves attributing more income to that country, therefore paying more taxes there.</p> <p>The French case indicates, however, that there may be limits to tax authorities' efforts to make significant clawbacks of taxes under existing laws.</p> <p>Similar to how Google operates in other large EU countries, its French unit doesn't sell ads to French customers, but rather offers only logistical and marketing support to the Google unit in Ireland that closes the advertising deals. Google Ireland pays the French unit for that support service, leaving a smaller profit in France than if the sales were booked in the country.</p> <p>The French tax authority argued that the structure is fictitious and that it believed French employees were actually selling ads in France. The authority said that meant the Google's Irish unit should have paid income and sales taxes as if it had a "permanent establishment" in France.</p> <p>But in its decision, the court backed Google's argument that its French employees were doing nothing more than preparatory work allowed under the Franco-Irish tax treaty.</p> <p>France's tax authority has separately complained to France's tax prosecutor, which said last year that it has been investigating the company since 2015 for aggravated tax evasion. Wednesday's court decision that Google doesn't owe any additional taxes could complicate that criminal case.</p> <p>Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com</p> <p>Corrections &amp;amp; Amplifications</p> <p>This item was corrected at 5:34 p.m. ET to show that the EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple. The original incorrectly stated $14.8 million.</p> <p>The EU last year demanded that Ireland recoup as much as EUR13 billion ($14.8 billion) in back taxes from Apple. "French Court Throws Out Google's EUR11.1 Billion Tax Bill -- Update," at 2:20 p.m. ET and a subsequent update at 4:28 p.m., incorrectly said $14.8 million in the 11th paragraph.</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>July 12, 2017 17:49 ET (21:49 GMT)</p>

<p>The belief widely held is that enlarged federalism is the appropriate response to the economic crisis provoked by the Wall Street credit crash. Why? Fundamental to the crisis is the degree of federation it already has. Seventeen economically disparate nations bound their fortunes together in creating the euro zone, and it is exactly this that has thrown the European project into crisis.</p> <p>Large parts of the populations of Greece, Spain and Portugal have been forced into destitution; the economies of all 17 members of the euro zone have been gravely damaged; governments of the weaker countries have been stripped of policy autonomy and placed under the tutelage of a &#8220;troika&#8221; of foreigners from the EU Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, who are imposing uniform, highly controversial and thus far generally unsuccessful austerity programs.</p> <p>How would a strengthened European federation improve this situation? Advocates of federation can argue that if the individual states of the EU were under federal authority, they would not have been allowed to get into their present plight. But most of the damage was done by innocent submission of credulous policymakers to the conventional wisdom of the international marketplace, the self-interested advice and investment promotions of the international investment banks, and discredited academic theories of deregulated and autonomous &#8220;perfect&#8221; markets. If the European Union had become a federation when it expanded in 2004, can we believe that its leaders would have done otherwise? The whole European economy might be in worse shape than it is now.</p> <p>The writer Timothy Garton Ash wants Europe to &#8220;save&#8221; itself by &#8220;moving toward closer fiscal and political union.&#8221; This is Angela Merkel&#8217;s position as well. From Chancellor Merkel&#8217;s viewpoint, this might seem a solution because it implies a much more influential role for Germany. I think she underestimates the resistance of the smaller European countries to any federal authority (or indeed, to adoption of such a project).</p> <p /> <p>Would federal authority have an answer to the authoritarian trends in the present internal politics of Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania &#8212; the kind of practices that gave the Balkans a bad name in the past? What can be expected from such candidate members as Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia in a new federation? Garton Ash knows the Balkans much better than most people, as well as the mafias in that part of Europe.</p> <p>The United States is usually cited by Europeans as an example of successful federation. It was in the beginning a group of 13 states with a shared language, literature, history, a common intellectual and moral formation, Christian religious values (despite major sectarian differences), and which possessed common expectations and understandings of politics and history. Nonetheless, the objections of the Southern states to yielding what originally had been understood as irrevocable state sovereignty were only overcome by a terrible civil war.</p> <p>The degree of integration and political agreement the major powers of Europe now have achieved came after centuries of rivalry among the British, Germanic, French, Spanish, Danish and Swedish peoples, to speak only of the traditional great powers of Western Europe, plus a profusion of wars culminating in two immense wars fought in nearly every quarter of the world. To think this is all over, and that European history has come to an end, defies the global political landscape of the present day.</p> <p>NATO&#8217;s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen does his best to prepare and arm the European members of the alliance for &#8220;key security threats from global challenges.&#8221; Would a European federation go abroad to fight global threats? Which ones? European analysts argue that Europe&#8217;s present quasi-disarmed condition forfeits global influence. It does, but are Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Macedonia, Italy, Spain and all the others in the EU prepared to commit troops to a European foreign expeditionary army to recover Europe&#8217;s world influence?</p> <p>To my foreigner&#8217;s eyes, the future of Europe best lies in the union it already possesses. I am confident that the euro can and should survive, but possibly as part of a double-currency system in economically weaker countries, where the euro would function as the international exchange currency and the reference value for floating national currencies.</p> <p>There would be a common foreign policy exercising probably the world&#8217;s most powerful armory of the instruments of &#8220;soft&#8221; power. The major European states, the former &#8220;great powers,&#8221; could individually or cooperatively, according to their choice, play an armed role in the external world, as they do now, with such support and endorsement as their fellow EU members may wish to provide. In circumstances now unforeseeable, the Union as a whole might wish to adopt common defensive and deterrent measures. Europe in this way could be a different global &#8220;great power.&#8221;</p> <p>Visit William Pfaff&#8217;s website for more on his latest book, &#8220;The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America&#8217;s Foreign Policy&#8221; (Walker &amp;amp; Co., $25), at <a href="http://www.williampfaff.com" type="external">www.williampfaff.com</a>. &#169; 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.</p>

The Root of Europe's Problem

https://truthdig.com/articles/the-root-of-europes-problem/

2012-09-05

4left

The Root of Europe's Problem <p>The belief widely held is that enlarged federalism is the appropriate response to the economic crisis provoked by the Wall Street credit crash. Why? Fundamental to the crisis is the degree of federation it already has. Seventeen economically disparate nations bound their fortunes together in creating the euro zone, and it is exactly this that has thrown the European project into crisis.</p> <p>Large parts of the populations of Greece, Spain and Portugal have been forced into destitution; the economies of all 17 members of the euro zone have been gravely damaged; governments of the weaker countries have been stripped of policy autonomy and placed under the tutelage of a &#8220;troika&#8221; of foreigners from the EU Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, who are imposing uniform, highly controversial and thus far generally unsuccessful austerity programs.</p> <p>How would a strengthened European federation improve this situation? Advocates of federation can argue that if the individual states of the EU were under federal authority, they would not have been allowed to get into their present plight. But most of the damage was done by innocent submission of credulous policymakers to the conventional wisdom of the international marketplace, the self-interested advice and investment promotions of the international investment banks, and discredited academic theories of deregulated and autonomous &#8220;perfect&#8221; markets. If the European Union had become a federation when it expanded in 2004, can we believe that its leaders would have done otherwise? The whole European economy might be in worse shape than it is now.</p> <p>The writer Timothy Garton Ash wants Europe to &#8220;save&#8221; itself by &#8220;moving toward closer fiscal and political union.&#8221; This is Angela Merkel&#8217;s position as well. From Chancellor Merkel&#8217;s viewpoint, this might seem a solution because it implies a much more influential role for Germany. I think she underestimates the resistance of the smaller European countries to any federal authority (or indeed, to adoption of such a project).</p> <p /> <p>Would federal authority have an answer to the authoritarian trends in the present internal politics of Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania &#8212; the kind of practices that gave the Balkans a bad name in the past? What can be expected from such candidate members as Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia in a new federation? Garton Ash knows the Balkans much better than most people, as well as the mafias in that part of Europe.</p> <p>The United States is usually cited by Europeans as an example of successful federation. It was in the beginning a group of 13 states with a shared language, literature, history, a common intellectual and moral formation, Christian religious values (despite major sectarian differences), and which possessed common expectations and understandings of politics and history. Nonetheless, the objections of the Southern states to yielding what originally had been understood as irrevocable state sovereignty were only overcome by a terrible civil war.</p> <p>The degree of integration and political agreement the major powers of Europe now have achieved came after centuries of rivalry among the British, Germanic, French, Spanish, Danish and Swedish peoples, to speak only of the traditional great powers of Western Europe, plus a profusion of wars culminating in two immense wars fought in nearly every quarter of the world. To think this is all over, and that European history has come to an end, defies the global political landscape of the present day.</p> <p>NATO&#8217;s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen does his best to prepare and arm the European members of the alliance for &#8220;key security threats from global challenges.&#8221; Would a European federation go abroad to fight global threats? Which ones? European analysts argue that Europe&#8217;s present quasi-disarmed condition forfeits global influence. It does, but are Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Macedonia, Italy, Spain and all the others in the EU prepared to commit troops to a European foreign expeditionary army to recover Europe&#8217;s world influence?</p> <p>To my foreigner&#8217;s eyes, the future of Europe best lies in the union it already possesses. I am confident that the euro can and should survive, but possibly as part of a double-currency system in economically weaker countries, where the euro would function as the international exchange currency and the reference value for floating national currencies.</p> <p>There would be a common foreign policy exercising probably the world&#8217;s most powerful armory of the instruments of &#8220;soft&#8221; power. The major European states, the former &#8220;great powers,&#8221; could individually or cooperatively, according to their choice, play an armed role in the external world, as they do now, with such support and endorsement as their fellow EU members may wish to provide. In circumstances now unforeseeable, the Union as a whole might wish to adopt common defensive and deterrent measures. Europe in this way could be a different global &#8220;great power.&#8221;</p> <p>Visit William Pfaff&#8217;s website for more on his latest book, &#8220;The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America&#8217;s Foreign Policy&#8221; (Walker &amp;amp; Co., $25), at <a href="http://www.williampfaff.com" type="external">www.williampfaff.com</a>. &#169; 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.</p>

<p /> <p>U.S. job growth likely slowed in August after two straight months of robust gains, but the pace of increase should be more than sufficient for the Federal Reserve to announce a plan to start trimming its massive bond portfolio.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>According to a Reuters survey of economists, the Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday will probably show that nonfarm payrolls increased by 180,000&amp;#160;jobslast month.</p> <p>That would be close to the 184,000 monthly average employment gains for this year and far more than what is needed to keep up with growth in the work-age population.</p> <p>While the job gains would clear the path for the U.S. central bank to outline a plan to start shrinking its $4.2 trillion portfolio of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities at its Sept. 19-20 policy meeting, tepid wage growth could leave a December interest rate increase in doubt.</p> <p>Average hourly earnings are forecast rising 0.2 percent after advancing 0.3 percent in June, likely keeping the year-on-year gain in wages at 2.5 percent for a fifth consecutive month.</p> <p>Sluggish wage growth would come on the heels of a report on Thursday showing the Fed's preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, increased 1.4 percent in the 12 months to July - the smallest rise in just over 1-1/2 years.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>"The job market is in very good shape, but wage growth is very disappointing and that's likely to continue for over the next several months," said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. "Whether or not the Fed moves in December will be contingent on inflation."</p> <p>U.S. financial markets are pricing in a roughly 36 percent probability of a rate hike at the Fed's December meeting according to CME Group's FedWatch program. The Fed has increased borrowing costs twice this year.</p> <p>Lack of strong wage growth would also raise concerns about the sustainability of a recent surge in consumer spending, which spurred the fastest economic growth in more than two years in the second quarter.</p> <p>The expected deceleration in hiring last month, which follows back-to-back payroll increases of more than 200,000 in June and July, also reflects a shortage of qualified workers that has left employers unable to fill vacant positions.</p> <p>SKILLS SHORTAGE</p> <p>"Given a dearth in labor supply, the typical seasonal influx of workers at the start of the summer may have resulted in more&amp;#160;jobs&amp;#160;than usual being filled and explain the relatively strong readings in June and July," said Michelle Girard, chief economist at NatWest Markets in Stamford, Connecticut.</p> <p>"By August, the added supply of labor was likely to have been absorbed, diminishing that boost to employment growth."</p> <p>Payroll gains could surprise on the downside. Over the last several years, the initial August job count has tended to underestimate employment growth because of seasonal factors.</p> <p>They could also beat expectations as online retailer Amazon.com held a series of job fairs to hire about 50,000 workers last month. No impact is expected from Hurricane Harvey, which devastated parts of Texas, as the disaster happened after the survey period for the Augustjobs&amp;#160;report.</p> <p>The economy needs to create 75,000 to 100,000&amp;#160;jobs&amp;#160;per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate is forecast holding steady at 4.3 percent. It has dropped five-tenths of a percentage point this year and matches the most recent Fed median forecast for 2017.</p> <p>The labor market has continued to strengthen even as hopes for a promised tax cut this year have faded.</p> <p>Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday reiterated his longstanding call for slashing the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent at a time when lawmakers believe they could be lucky to bring it down to 25 percent.</p> <p>The Republican-led U.S. Congress faces a tough challenge in passing tax reform legislation, having already failed to deliver on healthcare reform sought by Trump.</p> <p>The private services sector likely led the moderation in job growth last month. Retail employment probably fell after two straight monthly gains.</p> <p>Manufacturing payrolls are forecast increasing by 9,000&amp;#160;jobs. But employment in the automobile sector probably fell after a surprise increase in July. Motor vehicle manufacturers are cutting back on production to cope with slowing sales.</p> <p>Further job gains are likely in construction, despite a lull in homebuilding activity and home sales.</p> <p>(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)</p>

U.S. job growth likely slowed in August; wages seen tepid

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/01/u-s-job-growth-likely-slowed-in-august-wages-seen-tepid.html

2017-09-01

0right

U.S. job growth likely slowed in August; wages seen tepid <p /> <p>U.S. job growth likely slowed in August after two straight months of robust gains, but the pace of increase should be more than sufficient for the Federal Reserve to announce a plan to start trimming its massive bond portfolio.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>According to a Reuters survey of economists, the Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday will probably show that nonfarm payrolls increased by 180,000&amp;#160;jobslast month.</p> <p>That would be close to the 184,000 monthly average employment gains for this year and far more than what is needed to keep up with growth in the work-age population.</p> <p>While the job gains would clear the path for the U.S. central bank to outline a plan to start shrinking its $4.2 trillion portfolio of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities at its Sept. 19-20 policy meeting, tepid wage growth could leave a December interest rate increase in doubt.</p> <p>Average hourly earnings are forecast rising 0.2 percent after advancing 0.3 percent in June, likely keeping the year-on-year gain in wages at 2.5 percent for a fifth consecutive month.</p> <p>Sluggish wage growth would come on the heels of a report on Thursday showing the Fed's preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, increased 1.4 percent in the 12 months to July - the smallest rise in just over 1-1/2 years.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>"The job market is in very good shape, but wage growth is very disappointing and that's likely to continue for over the next several months," said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. "Whether or not the Fed moves in December will be contingent on inflation."</p> <p>U.S. financial markets are pricing in a roughly 36 percent probability of a rate hike at the Fed's December meeting according to CME Group's FedWatch program. The Fed has increased borrowing costs twice this year.</p> <p>Lack of strong wage growth would also raise concerns about the sustainability of a recent surge in consumer spending, which spurred the fastest economic growth in more than two years in the second quarter.</p> <p>The expected deceleration in hiring last month, which follows back-to-back payroll increases of more than 200,000 in June and July, also reflects a shortage of qualified workers that has left employers unable to fill vacant positions.</p> <p>SKILLS SHORTAGE</p> <p>"Given a dearth in labor supply, the typical seasonal influx of workers at the start of the summer may have resulted in more&amp;#160;jobs&amp;#160;than usual being filled and explain the relatively strong readings in June and July," said Michelle Girard, chief economist at NatWest Markets in Stamford, Connecticut.</p> <p>"By August, the added supply of labor was likely to have been absorbed, diminishing that boost to employment growth."</p> <p>Payroll gains could surprise on the downside. Over the last several years, the initial August job count has tended to underestimate employment growth because of seasonal factors.</p> <p>They could also beat expectations as online retailer Amazon.com held a series of job fairs to hire about 50,000 workers last month. No impact is expected from Hurricane Harvey, which devastated parts of Texas, as the disaster happened after the survey period for the Augustjobs&amp;#160;report.</p> <p>The economy needs to create 75,000 to 100,000&amp;#160;jobs&amp;#160;per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate is forecast holding steady at 4.3 percent. It has dropped five-tenths of a percentage point this year and matches the most recent Fed median forecast for 2017.</p> <p>The labor market has continued to strengthen even as hopes for a promised tax cut this year have faded.</p> <p>Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday reiterated his longstanding call for slashing the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent at a time when lawmakers believe they could be lucky to bring it down to 25 percent.</p> <p>The Republican-led U.S. Congress faces a tough challenge in passing tax reform legislation, having already failed to deliver on healthcare reform sought by Trump.</p> <p>The private services sector likely led the moderation in job growth last month. Retail employment probably fell after two straight monthly gains.</p> <p>Manufacturing payrolls are forecast increasing by 9,000&amp;#160;jobs. But employment in the automobile sector probably fell after a surprise increase in July. Motor vehicle manufacturers are cutting back on production to cope with slowing sales.</p> <p>Further job gains are likely in construction, despite a lull in homebuilding activity and home sales.</p> <p>(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Predictions</p> <p>&#9830; Class B Girls: No. 3 Des Moines over No. 1 Elida</p> <p>&#9830; Class B Boys: No. 1 Hondo over No. 3 Wagon Mound</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#9830; Class 1A Girls: No. 1 Tatum over No. 2 Cliff</p> <p>&#9830; Class 1A Boys: No. 1 Cliff over No. 2 Hagerman</p> <p>&#9830; Class 2A Girls: No. 3 Navajo Pine over No. 1 Laguna Acoma</p> <p>&#9830; Class 2A Boys: No. 2 Pecos over No. 4 Tularosa</p> <p>&#9830; Class 3A Girls: No. 1 Hope over No. 2 SFIS</p> <p>&#9830; Class 3A Boys: No. 1 Hope over No. 3 Sandia Prep</p> <p>&#9830; Class 4A Girls: No. 1 Los Lunas over No. 3 Santa Fe</p> <p>&#9830; Class 4A Boys: No. 2 St. Pius over No. 1 Roswell</p> <p>&#9830; Class 5A Girls: No. 1 Clovis over No. 3 Cibola</p> <p>&#9830; Class 5A Boys: No. 1 Eldorado over No. 2 Sandia &#8212; This article appeared on page C10 of the Albuquerque Journal</p>

Pit will be melting pot of styles this week

https://abqjournal.com/239111/pit-will-be-melting-pot-of-styles-this-week.html

2least

Pit will be melting pot of styles this week <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Predictions</p> <p>&#9830; Class B Girls: No. 3 Des Moines over No. 1 Elida</p> <p>&#9830; Class B Boys: No. 1 Hondo over No. 3 Wagon Mound</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#9830; Class 1A Girls: No. 1 Tatum over No. 2 Cliff</p> <p>&#9830; Class 1A Boys: No. 1 Cliff over No. 2 Hagerman</p> <p>&#9830; Class 2A Girls: No. 3 Navajo Pine over No. 1 Laguna Acoma</p> <p>&#9830; Class 2A Boys: No. 2 Pecos over No. 4 Tularosa</p> <p>&#9830; Class 3A Girls: No. 1 Hope over No. 2 SFIS</p> <p>&#9830; Class 3A Boys: No. 1 Hope over No. 3 Sandia Prep</p> <p>&#9830; Class 4A Girls: No. 1 Los Lunas over No. 3 Santa Fe</p> <p>&#9830; Class 4A Boys: No. 2 St. Pius over No. 1 Roswell</p> <p>&#9830; Class 5A Girls: No. 1 Clovis over No. 3 Cibola</p> <p>&#9830; Class 5A Boys: No. 1 Eldorado over No. 2 Sandia &#8212; This article appeared on page C10 of the Albuquerque Journal</p>

<p /> <p>The crisis in Haiti continues&#8230;</p> <p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4308488.stm" type="external">The BBC reported more disturbing news</a> today on the U.S.-appointed interim regime:</p> <p>Guards working for Haiti&#8217;s interim leader have been accused of assaulting at least two journalists at a ceremony in the capital, Port-au-Prince.</p> <p>The journalists say they were hit as they tried to cover the inauguration of the Supreme Court, attended by President Boniface Alexandre.</p> <p>Mr Alexandre&#8217;s chief of security said the reporters tried to force their way in after arriving late.</p> <p>He said US company DynCorp had provided the president&#8217;s bodyguards.</p> <p>How nice: Haitian security has been subcontracted out to a U.S. corporation. You would think that foreign governments would have seen how bad an idea this was after the U.S.&#8217;s debacle with subcontracting to private security firms in Iraq.</p>

Reporters Attacked

https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/10/reporters-attacked/

2005-10-04

4left

Reporters Attacked <p /> <p>The crisis in Haiti continues&#8230;</p> <p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4308488.stm" type="external">The BBC reported more disturbing news</a> today on the U.S.-appointed interim regime:</p> <p>Guards working for Haiti&#8217;s interim leader have been accused of assaulting at least two journalists at a ceremony in the capital, Port-au-Prince.</p> <p>The journalists say they were hit as they tried to cover the inauguration of the Supreme Court, attended by President Boniface Alexandre.</p> <p>Mr Alexandre&#8217;s chief of security said the reporters tried to force their way in after arriving late.</p> <p>He said US company DynCorp had provided the president&#8217;s bodyguards.</p> <p>How nice: Haitian security has been subcontracted out to a U.S. corporation. You would think that foreign governments would have seen how bad an idea this was after the U.S.&#8217;s debacle with subcontracting to private security firms in Iraq.</p>

<p>Hillary Clinton&#8217;s public speaking appearances and interviews have been chronically interrupted by bouts of coughing and hoarseness since at least early this year. Speculation about possible illness has been driven by dissident right-wing media outlets. Legacy media outlets, however, have pooh-poohed such conjecture.</p> <p>Left-wing and Democrat-aligned media outlets such as <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/08/14/cnns_brian_stelter_sean_hannity_irresponsibly_spreading_conspiracy_theories_about_hillary_clinton_health_problems.html" type="external">CNN</a> and <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-latest-hillary-clinton-conspiracy-theory-746215491827" type="external">MSNBC</a> have derided inquiries into Clinton&#8217;s persistent coughing fits as &#8220;conspiracy theories.&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton has often been seen coughing or clearing her throat. When particularly acute, she always has some sort of oral consumable - a lozenge or candy - available.</p> <p>During a Labor Day <a href="" type="internal">campaign event</a> in Cleveland, OH, Clinton was seen spitting something into a glass of water.</p> <p /> <p>WARNING: Grossest thing ever!!! The fat sociopath is spitting out part of her lung in the glass!!!!!! <a href="https://t.co/6I6l0taFPB" type="external">pic.twitter.com/6I6l0taFPB</a></p> <p>Clinton&#8217;s infrequent public appearances - including rare interviews and virtually non-existent press conferences - contributes to suspicions that she displays symptoms of illness she cannot completely anticipate or control. Given media landscape&#8217;s general alignment with Democrats, she is not avoiding public and media appearances for fear of aggressive journalism.</p> <p>Donald Trump noted the disparity between social media&#8217;s focus and that of conventional media outlets. Earlier this month, <a href="" type="internal">#HillarysHealth trended</a> on Twitter.</p> <p>Mainstream media never covered Hillary&#8217;s massive &#8220;hacking&#8221; or coughing attack, yet it is #1 trending. What&#8217;s up?</p> <p>Donald Trump Jr. <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/06/donald_trump_jr_hillary_clintons_health_is_fair_game.html" type="external">said today</a> that questions of Clinton's health are "fair game."</p> <p>Below is a sample montage of some of Clinton's more prominent coughing fits and associated periods hoarseness across the past year.</p> <p /> <p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>

Clinton Cough-A-Thon Supercut Montage

https://dailywire.com/news/8939/clinton-cough-thon-supercut-montage-robert-kraychik

2016-09-06

0right

Clinton Cough-A-Thon Supercut Montage <p>Hillary Clinton&#8217;s public speaking appearances and interviews have been chronically interrupted by bouts of coughing and hoarseness since at least early this year. Speculation about possible illness has been driven by dissident right-wing media outlets. Legacy media outlets, however, have pooh-poohed such conjecture.</p> <p>Left-wing and Democrat-aligned media outlets such as <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/08/14/cnns_brian_stelter_sean_hannity_irresponsibly_spreading_conspiracy_theories_about_hillary_clinton_health_problems.html" type="external">CNN</a> and <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-latest-hillary-clinton-conspiracy-theory-746215491827" type="external">MSNBC</a> have derided inquiries into Clinton&#8217;s persistent coughing fits as &#8220;conspiracy theories.&#8221;</p> <p>Clinton has often been seen coughing or clearing her throat. When particularly acute, she always has some sort of oral consumable - a lozenge or candy - available.</p> <p>During a Labor Day <a href="" type="internal">campaign event</a> in Cleveland, OH, Clinton was seen spitting something into a glass of water.</p> <p /> <p>WARNING: Grossest thing ever!!! The fat sociopath is spitting out part of her lung in the glass!!!!!! <a href="https://t.co/6I6l0taFPB" type="external">pic.twitter.com/6I6l0taFPB</a></p> <p>Clinton&#8217;s infrequent public appearances - including rare interviews and virtually non-existent press conferences - contributes to suspicions that she displays symptoms of illness she cannot completely anticipate or control. Given media landscape&#8217;s general alignment with Democrats, she is not avoiding public and media appearances for fear of aggressive journalism.</p> <p>Donald Trump noted the disparity between social media&#8217;s focus and that of conventional media outlets. Earlier this month, <a href="" type="internal">#HillarysHealth trended</a> on Twitter.</p> <p>Mainstream media never covered Hillary&#8217;s massive &#8220;hacking&#8221; or coughing attack, yet it is #1 trending. What&#8217;s up?</p> <p>Donald Trump Jr. <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/06/donald_trump_jr_hillary_clintons_health_is_fair_game.html" type="external">said today</a> that questions of Clinton's health are "fair game."</p> <p>Below is a sample montage of some of Clinton's more prominent coughing fits and associated periods hoarseness across the past year.</p> <p /> <p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>

<p>Last July, my sister and brother-in-law got sick on Chipotle, and then my mom got sick on a meal from the same Chipotle location a week later. We&#8217;ve been boycotting our burrito bowls since then, and when the news broke in October that <a href="" type="internal">the chain had an E. Coli outbreak</a>, we did little more than cock an eyebrow and go &#8220;Mmmmhmm.&#8221;</p> <p>Chipotle has continued to suffer <a href="https://nypost.com/2015/12/27/chipotles-e-coli-outbreak-makes-for-long-recovery/" type="external">business-wise</a> for the last four months, and now they&#8217;re trying to win us all back by <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/731314/chipotle-is-closing-all-its-restaurants-for-1-day-so-plan-accordingly" type="external">closing all of their stores for a day</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/13/chipotles-new-plan-give-away-more-free-food.html" type="external">giving away free food</a>. The nationwide closures &#8211; on February 8, in case you&#8217;re still eating there, which, why? &#8211; is for an &#8220;all-employee meeting about the plans to eliminate the issue&#8221; and &#8220;to give execs time to answer questions about the outbreak and to go over a new marketing plan to bring customers back,&#8221; according to E! News.</p> <p>The free food, on the other hand, is only kinda-sorta free food &#8211; Chipotle is just doubling the amount of free food its locations can give away, but the actual amount they will give away is up to each location&#8217;s manager. So, maybe you&#8217;ll get free burritos, maybe you won&#8217;t. Chipotle, you sly bastard, I knew I couldn&#8217;t trust you.</p> <p>My lack of confidence is unshaken. I live in one of the best cities in America for Mexican food (have you even had El Milagro tortillas?), so thanks but no thanks, Chipotle, I&#8217;m going to stay woke and stick to my local taco shops.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/731314/chipotle-is-closing-all-its-restaurants-for-1-day-so-plan-accordingly" type="external">E! News</a>] [ <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/13/chipotles-new-plan-give-away-more-free-food.html" type="external">CNBC</a>] Send me a line at <a href="" type="internal">rebecca@thefrisky.com</a>.</p>

Chipotle Closing For A Day, Giving Away Free Burritos To Try To Win You Back

http://thefrisky.com/2016-01-15/chipotle-closing-for-a-day-giving-away-free-burritos-to-try-to-win-you-back/?utm_source%3Dsc-fb%26utm_medium%3Dref%26utm_campaign%3Dfood

2018-10-06

4left

Chipotle Closing For A Day, Giving Away Free Burritos To Try To Win You Back <p>Last July, my sister and brother-in-law got sick on Chipotle, and then my mom got sick on a meal from the same Chipotle location a week later. We&#8217;ve been boycotting our burrito bowls since then, and when the news broke in October that <a href="" type="internal">the chain had an E. Coli outbreak</a>, we did little more than cock an eyebrow and go &#8220;Mmmmhmm.&#8221;</p> <p>Chipotle has continued to suffer <a href="https://nypost.com/2015/12/27/chipotles-e-coli-outbreak-makes-for-long-recovery/" type="external">business-wise</a> for the last four months, and now they&#8217;re trying to win us all back by <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/731314/chipotle-is-closing-all-its-restaurants-for-1-day-so-plan-accordingly" type="external">closing all of their stores for a day</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/13/chipotles-new-plan-give-away-more-free-food.html" type="external">giving away free food</a>. The nationwide closures &#8211; on February 8, in case you&#8217;re still eating there, which, why? &#8211; is for an &#8220;all-employee meeting about the plans to eliminate the issue&#8221; and &#8220;to give execs time to answer questions about the outbreak and to go over a new marketing plan to bring customers back,&#8221; according to E! News.</p> <p>The free food, on the other hand, is only kinda-sorta free food &#8211; Chipotle is just doubling the amount of free food its locations can give away, but the actual amount they will give away is up to each location&#8217;s manager. So, maybe you&#8217;ll get free burritos, maybe you won&#8217;t. Chipotle, you sly bastard, I knew I couldn&#8217;t trust you.</p> <p>My lack of confidence is unshaken. I live in one of the best cities in America for Mexican food (have you even had El Milagro tortillas?), so thanks but no thanks, Chipotle, I&#8217;m going to stay woke and stick to my local taco shops.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>[ <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/731314/chipotle-is-closing-all-its-restaurants-for-1-day-so-plan-accordingly" type="external">E! News</a>] [ <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/13/chipotles-new-plan-give-away-more-free-food.html" type="external">CNBC</a>] Send me a line at <a href="" type="internal">rebecca@thefrisky.com</a>.</p>

<p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - Four Massachusetts residents have been charged with keeping a 16-year-old girl in a basement that a police officer described as a "torture chamber."</p> <p>Police say the teenager was sexually assaulted, had her hair shaved off and was burned with a cigarette.</p> <p>The suspects are charged with kidnapping and other offenses. They appeared in a hearing Wednesday to determine whether they can be held without bail.</p> <p>Prosecutors say the suspects held the girl in an Auburn home because they thought she knew who was responsible for a Dec. 27 home invasion. Prosecutors say she was duct-taped to a chair and had a machete held against her throat.</p> <p>Defendant Krystal Lugo was held without bail. Her attorney said she was not a danger. The hearings for three male defendants will continue until Friday.</p> <p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - Four Massachusetts residents have been charged with keeping a 16-year-old girl in a basement that a police officer described as a "torture chamber."</p> <p>Police say the teenager was sexually assaulted, had her hair shaved off and was burned with a cigarette.</p> <p>The suspects are charged with kidnapping and other offenses. They appeared in a hearing Wednesday to determine whether they can be held without bail.</p> <p>Prosecutors say the suspects held the girl in an Auburn home because they thought she knew who was responsible for a Dec. 27 home invasion. Prosecutors say she was duct-taped to a chair and had a machete held against her throat.</p> <p>Defendant Krystal Lugo was held without bail. Her attorney said she was not a danger. The hearings for three male defendants will continue until Friday.</p>

4 people charged with kidnapping, assaulting teen girl

https://apnews.com/8b7c81573be34a0687587d556c84c99b

2018-01-04

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4 people charged with kidnapping, assaulting teen girl <p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - Four Massachusetts residents have been charged with keeping a 16-year-old girl in a basement that a police officer described as a "torture chamber."</p> <p>Police say the teenager was sexually assaulted, had her hair shaved off and was burned with a cigarette.</p> <p>The suspects are charged with kidnapping and other offenses. They appeared in a hearing Wednesday to determine whether they can be held without bail.</p> <p>Prosecutors say the suspects held the girl in an Auburn home because they thought she knew who was responsible for a Dec. 27 home invasion. Prosecutors say she was duct-taped to a chair and had a machete held against her throat.</p> <p>Defendant Krystal Lugo was held without bail. Her attorney said she was not a danger. The hearings for three male defendants will continue until Friday.</p> <p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - Four Massachusetts residents have been charged with keeping a 16-year-old girl in a basement that a police officer described as a "torture chamber."</p> <p>Police say the teenager was sexually assaulted, had her hair shaved off and was burned with a cigarette.</p> <p>The suspects are charged with kidnapping and other offenses. They appeared in a hearing Wednesday to determine whether they can be held without bail.</p> <p>Prosecutors say the suspects held the girl in an Auburn home because they thought she knew who was responsible for a Dec. 27 home invasion. Prosecutors say she was duct-taped to a chair and had a machete held against her throat.</p> <p>Defendant Krystal Lugo was held without bail. Her attorney said she was not a danger. The hearings for three male defendants will continue until Friday.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to appear at Regent University Saturday, his first stop in the state since he delivered a surprisingly strong, policy-driven speech to a crowd in Roanoke nearly a month ago.</p> <p>In that speech, Trump gave me a momentary glimpse of what his campaign could have done in the campaign&#8217;s last weeks to bring Republicans back to his banner and perhaps even sway a few undecided voters.</p> <p>He talked about the nation&#8217;s inner cities. He spoke of fighting for minorities, promising to fight for their success and to champion school choice for their kids.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He sounded, almost, kind of, like the late Jack Kemp.</p> <p>But a month is a lifetime in politics. And since his last visit to Virginia, Trump&#8217;s campaign has sagged under the weight of his own crude remarks and erratic behavior.</p> <p>How will he perform at Regent this weekend?</p> <p>Way back in February, Trump sat down for a question-and-answer session with Regent&#8217;s founder, one-time GOP presidential contender Pat Robertson.</p> <p>It was an odd paring.</p> <p>Trump had just won the Nevada primary. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and others had already dropped out of the race. Looming ahead was Super Tuesday, and Virginia&#8217;s opportunity to weigh in on the race.</p> <p>Trump was feeling confident.</p> <p>Robertson, one of the old-guard evangelicals who won the Iowa caucuses in 1988, didn&#8217;t seem like the kind of Republican grandee who would get behind Trump.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>But in their talk, Robertson said to Trump, &#8220;You inspire us.&#8221;</p> <p>It may have helped a bit in Virginia, where Trump defeated Rubio, a senator from Florida, by three percentage points in the March 1 primary.</p> <p>Now Trump returns. He still has the support of evangelical leaders such as Robertson (who called the candidate&#8217;s lewd remarks about women &#8220;macho&#8221; talk). He has the support of Liberty University&#8217;s Jerry Falwell Jr., as well.</p> <p>But do Virginia voters still support Trump?</p> <p>A Christopher Newport University poll released last week said they don&#8217;t. Trump only leads the field in southwest Virginia. In Hampton Roads, where Regent is located, the CNU poll shows Trump lagging far behind Hillary Clinton and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson nipping at his heels.</p> <p>Worse for Trump, the CNU poll shows military voters, a traditionally Republican constituency, back Clinton.</p> <p>So, with his numbers cratering to the point that states such as Arizona, Georgia and Utah may be in play, why is Trump returning to Virginia Beach?</p> <p>It could be ego. Trump needs to show that the recent disarray in his campaign, which saw his long-time Virginia co-chairman Corey Stewart fired for staging an unauthorized protest outside of Republican National Committee headquarters, has done nothing to dim his hopes of winning here.</p> <p>It could be convenience: The Virginia Beach market spills over into North Carolina, another state where he trails and that he needs desperately to win.</p> <p>Or it could be that despite all the evidence, Trump agrees with something Robertson recently said:</p> <p>&#8220;Trump is like the Phoenix. They think he&#8217;s dead, he&#8217;s come back. And he came back strong. In the meantime, he speaks to adoring thousands wherever he goes.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump may indeed think he&#8217;s still got what it takes to win, even in a state like Virginia and that he can again turn all the bad press, weak polls and personal failings into a triumph.</p> <p>But Rubio&#8217;s words echo across the Virginia landscape: At a Chesterfield County stop in late February, just a few days after Trump and Robertson&#8217;s first meeting, Rubio told the crowd Trump was a &#8220;con artist&#8221; who threatened &#8220;the very identity of the United States.&#8221;</p> <p>Public perception of Trump hasn&#8217;t changed much since then. While Robertson contends Trump can rise like a phoenix, it appears Rubio&#8217;s criticisms, months after the fact, are what actually sprung from the ashes.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Norman Leahy is a political reporter for the American Media Institute and producer of the Score radio show.</p> <p>trump-virginia-comment</p>

Virginia for the Win: Donald Trump tries to rise again in the Old Dominion

https://abqjournal.com/872573/virginia-for-the-win-donald-trump-tries-to-rise-again-in-the-old-dominion.html

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Virginia for the Win: Donald Trump tries to rise again in the Old Dominion <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to appear at Regent University Saturday, his first stop in the state since he delivered a surprisingly strong, policy-driven speech to a crowd in Roanoke nearly a month ago.</p> <p>In that speech, Trump gave me a momentary glimpse of what his campaign could have done in the campaign&#8217;s last weeks to bring Republicans back to his banner and perhaps even sway a few undecided voters.</p> <p>He talked about the nation&#8217;s inner cities. He spoke of fighting for minorities, promising to fight for their success and to champion school choice for their kids.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He sounded, almost, kind of, like the late Jack Kemp.</p> <p>But a month is a lifetime in politics. And since his last visit to Virginia, Trump&#8217;s campaign has sagged under the weight of his own crude remarks and erratic behavior.</p> <p>How will he perform at Regent this weekend?</p> <p>Way back in February, Trump sat down for a question-and-answer session with Regent&#8217;s founder, one-time GOP presidential contender Pat Robertson.</p> <p>It was an odd paring.</p> <p>Trump had just won the Nevada primary. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and others had already dropped out of the race. Looming ahead was Super Tuesday, and Virginia&#8217;s opportunity to weigh in on the race.</p> <p>Trump was feeling confident.</p> <p>Robertson, one of the old-guard evangelicals who won the Iowa caucuses in 1988, didn&#8217;t seem like the kind of Republican grandee who would get behind Trump.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>But in their talk, Robertson said to Trump, &#8220;You inspire us.&#8221;</p> <p>It may have helped a bit in Virginia, where Trump defeated Rubio, a senator from Florida, by three percentage points in the March 1 primary.</p> <p>Now Trump returns. He still has the support of evangelical leaders such as Robertson (who called the candidate&#8217;s lewd remarks about women &#8220;macho&#8221; talk). He has the support of Liberty University&#8217;s Jerry Falwell Jr., as well.</p> <p>But do Virginia voters still support Trump?</p> <p>A Christopher Newport University poll released last week said they don&#8217;t. Trump only leads the field in southwest Virginia. In Hampton Roads, where Regent is located, the CNU poll shows Trump lagging far behind Hillary Clinton and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson nipping at his heels.</p> <p>Worse for Trump, the CNU poll shows military voters, a traditionally Republican constituency, back Clinton.</p> <p>So, with his numbers cratering to the point that states such as Arizona, Georgia and Utah may be in play, why is Trump returning to Virginia Beach?</p> <p>It could be ego. Trump needs to show that the recent disarray in his campaign, which saw his long-time Virginia co-chairman Corey Stewart fired for staging an unauthorized protest outside of Republican National Committee headquarters, has done nothing to dim his hopes of winning here.</p> <p>It could be convenience: The Virginia Beach market spills over into North Carolina, another state where he trails and that he needs desperately to win.</p> <p>Or it could be that despite all the evidence, Trump agrees with something Robertson recently said:</p> <p>&#8220;Trump is like the Phoenix. They think he&#8217;s dead, he&#8217;s come back. And he came back strong. In the meantime, he speaks to adoring thousands wherever he goes.&#8221;</p> <p>Trump may indeed think he&#8217;s still got what it takes to win, even in a state like Virginia and that he can again turn all the bad press, weak polls and personal failings into a triumph.</p> <p>But Rubio&#8217;s words echo across the Virginia landscape: At a Chesterfield County stop in late February, just a few days after Trump and Robertson&#8217;s first meeting, Rubio told the crowd Trump was a &#8220;con artist&#8221; who threatened &#8220;the very identity of the United States.&#8221;</p> <p>Public perception of Trump hasn&#8217;t changed much since then. While Robertson contends Trump can rise like a phoenix, it appears Rubio&#8217;s criticisms, months after the fact, are what actually sprung from the ashes.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Norman Leahy is a political reporter for the American Media Institute and producer of the Score radio show.</p> <p>trump-virginia-comment</p>

<p /> <p>A brief history of the long, rocky relationship between the United States and Cuba, from the Spanish-American War through the recent reestablishment of diplomatic relations, as told in pictures.</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p />

120 Years of Rocky US-Cuba Relations, in Pictures

https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/united-states-cuba-castro-history-photos/

2018-09-01

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120 Years of Rocky US-Cuba Relations, in Pictures <p /> <p>A brief history of the long, rocky relationship between the United States and Cuba, from the Spanish-American War through the recent reestablishment of diplomatic relations, as told in pictures.</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p />

<p>By Jeff Brumley</p> <p>The term &#8220;Baptist peacemaking&#8221; conjures up images of President Jimmy Carter observing elections on troubled continents. For others it means human rights activists brokering peace deals between warring factions in Africa or the Middle East.</p> <p>But it doesn&#8217;t mean only that, says LeDayne McLeese Polaski, the program coordinator for the <a href="http://www.bpfna.org/" type="external">Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America</a>.</p> <p>Peacemaking can also include actions like mentoring inner-city children and writing members of Congress about public policy issues trying to understand why a local school is under-resourced, Polaski said.</p> <p>Basically, any action that promotes justice leads to peace, and that means a lot of Baptists and other Christians are peacemakers without even knowing it.</p> <p>&#8220;Part of our job is to help others see what they are already doing and name it as peacemaking,&#8221; Polaski said. &#8220;A lot of churches are already doing something.&#8221;</p> <p>Creating new traditions</p> <p>The nature and state of Baptist peacemaking has entered the spotlight with <a href="ministry/people/item/28631-glen-stassen-baptist-peacemaker-dead-at-78#.U2AKAK1dWaE" type="external">the April 26 death</a> of Baptist theologian Glen Stassen, known for his writings and teachings on the ethics of war and peace.</p> <p>Stassen, who was 78 when he died in California, taught at Southern Baptist Theological and Fuller Theological seminaries, among other colleges and universities. He was for 30 years a leading voice for peace and his groundbreaking book, Just Peacemaking, promoted positive and practical steps to end war.</p> <p>Stassen propelled Baptists into a Christian context where the active peace movement was led by Mennonites, Quakers and others.</p> <p>&#8220;Glen Stassen created a new tradition for peacemaking among Baptists,&#8221; said Robert Parham, the founder and executive director of the <a href="http://www.ethicsdaily.com/" type="external">Baptist Center for Ethics</a>&amp;#160;and a former student of Stassen&#8217;s at Southern.</p> <p>Parham and other members of an ethics course taught by Stassen drafted a resolution in support of nuclear arms control. The resolution was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1978.</p> <p>&#8216;On the outer circle&#8217;</p> <p>The core of Stassen&#8217;s theology on peacemaking was that the Sermon on the Mount was a commandment his followers were to take seriously, Parham said. &amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8220;He challenged the common reading in many churches that [the sermon] was an idealistic statement,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Glen believed it was a realistic statement.&#8221;</p> <p>He also lived out his theology, still traveling the world as an advocate and activist for peace.</p> <p>But Stassen&#8217;s single-minded focus on peacemaking didn&#8217;t make huge inroads in Baptist life, Parham said.</p> <p>While working to educate and motivate Baptists to take a practical view of the Sermon on the Mount as the basis for peacemaking and human rights, he was limited by a denominational context &#8220;where Southern Baptist fundamentalists were more committed to Leviticus than the synoptic Gospels.&#8221;</p> <p>He was also challenged by a larger culture &#8212;&amp;#160;reflected by his denomination &#8212;&amp;#160;that is predisposed to the use of military force, Parham added.</p> <p>&#8220;He created a new tradition of peacemaking among Baptists, but he was never successful in moving that tradition into the mainstream of Baptist churches,&#8221; Parham said. &#8220;Peacemaking remains on the outer circle of the Baptist moral agenda.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8216;Increasing incrementally&#8217;</p> <p>But there is reason to be optimistic about the present and future of Baptist peace activism, as some participants note an increasing presence of Baptists in ongoing campaigns.</p> <p>The Baptist World Alliance and the Baptist Peace Fellowship continue to do excellent work while individual Baptist scholars and theologians are more and more involved in peace delegations to war-torn and hostile nations, said Jim Jennings, the founder of <a href="http://www.conscienceinternational.org/" type="external">Conscience International</a> and a member of First Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga.</p> <p>In January, Jennings led&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">a delegation of American scholars</a> to Iran for talks with Iranian academics and government officials. One of the leading American delegates was Rob Nash of Mercer University&#8217;s McAfee School of Theology.</p> <p>&#8220;I think that&#8217;s increasing incrementally,&#8221; Jennings said. There will be natural limits to that increase based on the attitudes of society.</p> <p>&#8220;Baptists are a reflection of the political spectrum of our country &#8212;&amp;#160;and probably in other countries as well.&#8221;</p> <p>Personally, Jennings said his Baptist faith is a &#8220;100 percent&#8221; motivator of the peace and justice work he does around the world.</p> <p>That work has taken him to Iran, Syria, the Sudan and Lebanon. He&#8217;s also met with &#8220;Islamic organizations that have intimidating names&#8221; to Americans.</p> <p>His drive matches Stassen&#8217;s in this regard, Jennings said.</p> <p>&#8220;Everything springs out of a vision of peace that when Jesus says &#8216;blessed are the peacemakers,&#8217; it is incumbent on us as Christians to follow that.&#8221;</p> <p>Bringing &#8216;real change&#8217;</p> <p>Another trend some are noticing is that many Baptist peace and justice activists are flat-out exhausted, Polaski said.</p> <p>That comes from years spent, domestically and internationally, combating poverty, racism, education inequality and other social ills.</p> <p>&#8220;There are a lot who &#8230; are tired because they are working on issues that don&#8217;t get fixed in a lifetime,&#8221; Polaski said. &#8220;No matter how faithful you are, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to fix poverty.&#8221;</p> <p>But there is a positive trend at the same time where the work by Baptists around the world are being seen to influence more positive behavior among those being helped, she added.</p> <p>Those strides are made where Baptists are teaching conflict transformation skills in settings ranging from American churches to villages in Africa.</p> <p>&#8220;Peacemakers are people who respond to inevitable conflict in ways that go deeper, in ways that bring real healing and ways that bring real change,&#8221; Polaski said.</p> <p>Baptist peacemaking is moving ahead, she added.</p> <p>&#8220;While some people are tired and frustrated because a lot of injustice is still out there, I also see people who are making a real difference every single day.&#8221;</p>

Activists reflect on Baptist peacemaking in wake of Stassen death

https://baptistnews.com/article/activists-reflect-on-baptist-peacemaking-in-wake-of-stassen-death/

3left-center

Activists reflect on Baptist peacemaking in wake of Stassen death <p>By Jeff Brumley</p> <p>The term &#8220;Baptist peacemaking&#8221; conjures up images of President Jimmy Carter observing elections on troubled continents. For others it means human rights activists brokering peace deals between warring factions in Africa or the Middle East.</p> <p>But it doesn&#8217;t mean only that, says LeDayne McLeese Polaski, the program coordinator for the <a href="http://www.bpfna.org/" type="external">Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America</a>.</p> <p>Peacemaking can also include actions like mentoring inner-city children and writing members of Congress about public policy issues trying to understand why a local school is under-resourced, Polaski said.</p> <p>Basically, any action that promotes justice leads to peace, and that means a lot of Baptists and other Christians are peacemakers without even knowing it.</p> <p>&#8220;Part of our job is to help others see what they are already doing and name it as peacemaking,&#8221; Polaski said. &#8220;A lot of churches are already doing something.&#8221;</p> <p>Creating new traditions</p> <p>The nature and state of Baptist peacemaking has entered the spotlight with <a href="ministry/people/item/28631-glen-stassen-baptist-peacemaker-dead-at-78#.U2AKAK1dWaE" type="external">the April 26 death</a> of Baptist theologian Glen Stassen, known for his writings and teachings on the ethics of war and peace.</p> <p>Stassen, who was 78 when he died in California, taught at Southern Baptist Theological and Fuller Theological seminaries, among other colleges and universities. He was for 30 years a leading voice for peace and his groundbreaking book, Just Peacemaking, promoted positive and practical steps to end war.</p> <p>Stassen propelled Baptists into a Christian context where the active peace movement was led by Mennonites, Quakers and others.</p> <p>&#8220;Glen Stassen created a new tradition for peacemaking among Baptists,&#8221; said Robert Parham, the founder and executive director of the <a href="http://www.ethicsdaily.com/" type="external">Baptist Center for Ethics</a>&amp;#160;and a former student of Stassen&#8217;s at Southern.</p> <p>Parham and other members of an ethics course taught by Stassen drafted a resolution in support of nuclear arms control. The resolution was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1978.</p> <p>&#8216;On the outer circle&#8217;</p> <p>The core of Stassen&#8217;s theology on peacemaking was that the Sermon on the Mount was a commandment his followers were to take seriously, Parham said. &amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8220;He challenged the common reading in many churches that [the sermon] was an idealistic statement,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Glen believed it was a realistic statement.&#8221;</p> <p>He also lived out his theology, still traveling the world as an advocate and activist for peace.</p> <p>But Stassen&#8217;s single-minded focus on peacemaking didn&#8217;t make huge inroads in Baptist life, Parham said.</p> <p>While working to educate and motivate Baptists to take a practical view of the Sermon on the Mount as the basis for peacemaking and human rights, he was limited by a denominational context &#8220;where Southern Baptist fundamentalists were more committed to Leviticus than the synoptic Gospels.&#8221;</p> <p>He was also challenged by a larger culture &#8212;&amp;#160;reflected by his denomination &#8212;&amp;#160;that is predisposed to the use of military force, Parham added.</p> <p>&#8220;He created a new tradition of peacemaking among Baptists, but he was never successful in moving that tradition into the mainstream of Baptist churches,&#8221; Parham said. &#8220;Peacemaking remains on the outer circle of the Baptist moral agenda.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8216;Increasing incrementally&#8217;</p> <p>But there is reason to be optimistic about the present and future of Baptist peace activism, as some participants note an increasing presence of Baptists in ongoing campaigns.</p> <p>The Baptist World Alliance and the Baptist Peace Fellowship continue to do excellent work while individual Baptist scholars and theologians are more and more involved in peace delegations to war-torn and hostile nations, said Jim Jennings, the founder of <a href="http://www.conscienceinternational.org/" type="external">Conscience International</a> and a member of First Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga.</p> <p>In January, Jennings led&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">a delegation of American scholars</a> to Iran for talks with Iranian academics and government officials. One of the leading American delegates was Rob Nash of Mercer University&#8217;s McAfee School of Theology.</p> <p>&#8220;I think that&#8217;s increasing incrementally,&#8221; Jennings said. There will be natural limits to that increase based on the attitudes of society.</p> <p>&#8220;Baptists are a reflection of the political spectrum of our country &#8212;&amp;#160;and probably in other countries as well.&#8221;</p> <p>Personally, Jennings said his Baptist faith is a &#8220;100 percent&#8221; motivator of the peace and justice work he does around the world.</p> <p>That work has taken him to Iran, Syria, the Sudan and Lebanon. He&#8217;s also met with &#8220;Islamic organizations that have intimidating names&#8221; to Americans.</p> <p>His drive matches Stassen&#8217;s in this regard, Jennings said.</p> <p>&#8220;Everything springs out of a vision of peace that when Jesus says &#8216;blessed are the peacemakers,&#8217; it is incumbent on us as Christians to follow that.&#8221;</p> <p>Bringing &#8216;real change&#8217;</p> <p>Another trend some are noticing is that many Baptist peace and justice activists are flat-out exhausted, Polaski said.</p> <p>That comes from years spent, domestically and internationally, combating poverty, racism, education inequality and other social ills.</p> <p>&#8220;There are a lot who &#8230; are tired because they are working on issues that don&#8217;t get fixed in a lifetime,&#8221; Polaski said. &#8220;No matter how faithful you are, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to fix poverty.&#8221;</p> <p>But there is a positive trend at the same time where the work by Baptists around the world are being seen to influence more positive behavior among those being helped, she added.</p> <p>Those strides are made where Baptists are teaching conflict transformation skills in settings ranging from American churches to villages in Africa.</p> <p>&#8220;Peacemakers are people who respond to inevitable conflict in ways that go deeper, in ways that bring real healing and ways that bring real change,&#8221; Polaski said.</p> <p>Baptist peacemaking is moving ahead, she added.</p> <p>&#8220;While some people are tired and frustrated because a lot of injustice is still out there, I also see people who are making a real difference every single day.&#8221;</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. &#8212; Chocolate lovers are in for a treat at this year&#8217;s Balloon Fiesta.</p> <p>The Albuquerque Balloon Museum is hosting the first ever Big Top Chocolate Festival on the Balloon Museum lawn on Saturday, October 6 and Sunday, Oct. 7 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival will feature over 25 chocolatiers, coffee roasters, bakers, baristas and more throughout New Mexico.</p> <p>Tickets are $10 for adults and $1 for children (ages 4 to 12). Tickets include admission to the Balloon Museum.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

First ever Big Top Chocolate Festival will be held during Fiesta

https://abqjournal.com/134723/first-ever-big-top-chocolate-festival-will-be-held-during-fiesta.html

2012-10-01

2least

First ever Big Top Chocolate Festival will be held during Fiesta <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. &#8212; Chocolate lovers are in for a treat at this year&#8217;s Balloon Fiesta.</p> <p>The Albuquerque Balloon Museum is hosting the first ever Big Top Chocolate Festival on the Balloon Museum lawn on Saturday, October 6 and Sunday, Oct. 7 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival will feature over 25 chocolatiers, coffee roasters, bakers, baristas and more throughout New Mexico.</p> <p>Tickets are $10 for adults and $1 for children (ages 4 to 12). Tickets include admission to the Balloon Museum.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Patriotism and respect for those who put their personal safety on the line to protect the country&#8217;s freedom are certainly not in short supply in Rio Rancho.</p> <p>More than 100 people attended a ceremony at Veterans Monument Park, off Southern Boulevard on Pinetree Road, on Veterans Day to pay homage to the men and women who of the armed services and to listen to members of the Rio Rancho Symphonic Band play the national anthem. A number of speakers marked the occasion as well.</p> <p>After the ceremony was over and people began walking to their cars, the most common greeting among group was &#8220;Thank you for your service.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Saluting those who served

https://abqjournal.com/300215/saluting-those-who-served.html

2013-11-13

2least

Saluting those who served <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Patriotism and respect for those who put their personal safety on the line to protect the country&#8217;s freedom are certainly not in short supply in Rio Rancho.</p> <p>More than 100 people attended a ceremony at Veterans Monument Park, off Southern Boulevard on Pinetree Road, on Veterans Day to pay homage to the men and women who of the armed services and to listen to members of the Rio Rancho Symphonic Band play the national anthem. A number of speakers marked the occasion as well.</p> <p>After the ceremony was over and people began walking to their cars, the most common greeting among group was &#8220;Thank you for your service.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

<p>&#8220;I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have publicly said those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.&#8221;</p> <p>A grateful nation thanks you, Newt Gingrich. The presidential campaign is just starting, and already you&#8217;ve given us a passage that will live in infamy &#8212; forever &#8212; in the annals of American political speech. Your delightful quotation shall be filed under &#8220;fiascos&#8221; and flagged with a cross-reference to &#8220;utter nonsense.&#8221;</p> <p>I can&#8217;t remember when we&#8217;ve heard a politician plead so desperately to take back something he said. Then again, naked desperation is clearly in order. The favorite parlor game in Washington this week has been trying to remember a more disastrous campaign launch than the one Gingrich is having. Many candidates have stumbled coming out of the gate, but few have taken off like a shot in the wrong direction.</p> <p>The great irony, of course, is that Gingrich&#8217;s grievous error was to speak the truth. Appearing on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; last Sunday, he referred to the proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to convert Medicare into a voucher program &#8212; endorsed by all but four members of the GOP majority in the House &#8212; as &#8220;right-wing social engineering.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>He went on, &#8220;I think that that is too big a jump. I think that what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options.&#8221; He said he considered President Obama&#8217;s health care reform law to be &#8220;radical change&#8221; and added that &#8220;I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.&#8221;</p> <p>Prominent Republicans immediately grabbed their pitchforks, lit their torches and formed an angry mob. From opinion surveys and town-hall meetings, it was already clear that the Ryan plan to fundamentally alter the Medicare program is deeply unpopular &#8212; and that ultimately it is likely to hurt the party at the polls. Now one of the best-known figures in the party, a candidate for the presidential nomination, was breaking ranks. Rather than accept the fact that Gingrich is right &#8212; or was right, since he now wants us to forget he ever appeared on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; &#8212; Republicans mau-maued him into a full-throated disavowal.</p> <p>First he tried to claim that host David Gregory had somehow bamboozled him with a trick question; this &#8220;babe in the woods&#8221; defense was laughable, given that Gingrich had been on the show 34 times before Sunday&#8217;s self-immolation. Then he claimed he actually supported the Ryan plan but believed the groundwork, in terms of public opinion, hadn&#8217;t been properly laid. Finally, he just gave up and demanded to take it all back.</p> <p>But by then, video was already circulating of an encounter Gingrich had with an Iowa voter who told him that &#8220;what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.&#8221; When Gingrich mildly protested, the man persisted: &#8220;Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the House. You&#8217;re an embarrassment to our party. &#8230; Why don&#8217;t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?&#8221;</p> <p>Gingrich&#8217;s week just couldn&#8217;t get any worse. But then it did.</p> <p>While he and his wife Callista were at a book signing in Minnesota on Tuesday, a gay-rights activist showered the candidate with colorful glitter. That same day, it was reported that Callista Gingrich, in disclosure reports she was required to file when she worked for the House Agriculture Committee, stated that at one point the couple owed between $250,000 and $500,000 to Tiffany&#8217;s. So much for understanding the struggles of everyday Americans.</p> <p>To cap it all off, Gingrich&#8217;s press secretary, Rick Tyler, was asked by the Huffington Post to comment on media coverage of his candidate. Tyler&#8217;s response suggests that the next time he sends someone out for coffee, he might ask for decaf. &#8220;The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,&#8221; it begins, before going on to describe an epic &#8220;firefight&#8221; that somehow involves sheep, cocktail parties and bylines.</p> <p>&#8220;A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught,&#8221; Tyler wrote. &#8220;But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won&#8217;t be intimidated by the political elite.&#8221;</p> <p>I must note that Gingrich, a former House speaker, has been a card-carrying member of the political elite for years. But don&#8217;t you dare quote me.</p> <p>Eugene Robinson&#8217;s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.</p> <p>&#169; 2011, Washington Post Writers Group</p>

Meltdown on the Launch Pad

https://truthdig.com/articles/meltdown-on-the-launch-pad/

2011-05-20

4left

Meltdown on the Launch Pad <p>&#8220;I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have publicly said those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.&#8221;</p> <p>A grateful nation thanks you, Newt Gingrich. The presidential campaign is just starting, and already you&#8217;ve given us a passage that will live in infamy &#8212; forever &#8212; in the annals of American political speech. Your delightful quotation shall be filed under &#8220;fiascos&#8221; and flagged with a cross-reference to &#8220;utter nonsense.&#8221;</p> <p>I can&#8217;t remember when we&#8217;ve heard a politician plead so desperately to take back something he said. Then again, naked desperation is clearly in order. The favorite parlor game in Washington this week has been trying to remember a more disastrous campaign launch than the one Gingrich is having. Many candidates have stumbled coming out of the gate, but few have taken off like a shot in the wrong direction.</p> <p>The great irony, of course, is that Gingrich&#8217;s grievous error was to speak the truth. Appearing on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; last Sunday, he referred to the proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to convert Medicare into a voucher program &#8212; endorsed by all but four members of the GOP majority in the House &#8212; as &#8220;right-wing social engineering.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>He went on, &#8220;I think that that is too big a jump. I think that what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options.&#8221; He said he considered President Obama&#8217;s health care reform law to be &#8220;radical change&#8221; and added that &#8220;I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.&#8221;</p> <p>Prominent Republicans immediately grabbed their pitchforks, lit their torches and formed an angry mob. From opinion surveys and town-hall meetings, it was already clear that the Ryan plan to fundamentally alter the Medicare program is deeply unpopular &#8212; and that ultimately it is likely to hurt the party at the polls. Now one of the best-known figures in the party, a candidate for the presidential nomination, was breaking ranks. Rather than accept the fact that Gingrich is right &#8212; or was right, since he now wants us to forget he ever appeared on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; &#8212; Republicans mau-maued him into a full-throated disavowal.</p> <p>First he tried to claim that host David Gregory had somehow bamboozled him with a trick question; this &#8220;babe in the woods&#8221; defense was laughable, given that Gingrich had been on the show 34 times before Sunday&#8217;s self-immolation. Then he claimed he actually supported the Ryan plan but believed the groundwork, in terms of public opinion, hadn&#8217;t been properly laid. Finally, he just gave up and demanded to take it all back.</p> <p>But by then, video was already circulating of an encounter Gingrich had with an Iowa voter who told him that &#8220;what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.&#8221; When Gingrich mildly protested, the man persisted: &#8220;Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the House. You&#8217;re an embarrassment to our party. &#8230; Why don&#8217;t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?&#8221;</p> <p>Gingrich&#8217;s week just couldn&#8217;t get any worse. But then it did.</p> <p>While he and his wife Callista were at a book signing in Minnesota on Tuesday, a gay-rights activist showered the candidate with colorful glitter. That same day, it was reported that Callista Gingrich, in disclosure reports she was required to file when she worked for the House Agriculture Committee, stated that at one point the couple owed between $250,000 and $500,000 to Tiffany&#8217;s. So much for understanding the struggles of everyday Americans.</p> <p>To cap it all off, Gingrich&#8217;s press secretary, Rick Tyler, was asked by the Huffington Post to comment on media coverage of his candidate. Tyler&#8217;s response suggests that the next time he sends someone out for coffee, he might ask for decaf. &#8220;The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,&#8221; it begins, before going on to describe an epic &#8220;firefight&#8221; that somehow involves sheep, cocktail parties and bylines.</p> <p>&#8220;A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught,&#8221; Tyler wrote. &#8220;But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won&#8217;t be intimidated by the political elite.&#8221;</p> <p>I must note that Gingrich, a former House speaker, has been a card-carrying member of the political elite for years. But don&#8217;t you dare quote me.</p> <p>Eugene Robinson&#8217;s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.</p> <p>&#169; 2011, Washington Post Writers Group</p>

<p>There is no way to prove this, but see if you agree with me: The average American parent would be glad to see his public high school celebrate Martin Luther King Day with tributes to the Civil Rights Movement, lectures on the history of slavery and Jim Crow, and discussions of the challenges faced by blacks and other minorities in America today. Actually, it&#8217;s not really a guess, because curricula like that are found throughout the nation.</p> <p>The program that is being imposed on Winnetka, Ill., by contrast, is hard-left indoctrination that could have come straight from the pages of Howard Zinn. In 2016 it was held on MLK Day itself, but this year&#8217;s Seminar Day on race, &#8220;Understanding Today&#8217;s Struggle for Racial Civil Rights,&#8221; is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28.</p> <p>The all-school program will feature a full day of lectures and seminars, and as the title betrays, the slant is built in. As one of the parents who have protested the content noted, civil rights are for everyone, aren&#8217;t they? There are no &#8220;racial&#8221; rights. That was Martin Luther King&#8217;s point, or one of them.</p> <p>New Trier has scheduled two keynote speakers and dozens of seminars for the 4,000 students to choose among. One or two are unobjectionable, like &#8220;Black Gospel Music: Make a Joyful Noise!&#8221; or &#8220;Rap with a Social Conscience&#8221; (though much would depend upon which rap was discussed). But the rest of the offerings are thoroughly turgid agitprop. Students can attend a session titled &#8220;Seeing the Unseen: The Bias All Around You,&#8221; or learn to &#8220;recognize our own implicit biases.&#8221; They can attend seminars about &#8220;cultural appropriation,&#8221; &#8220;trans people of color navigating the U.S.,&#8221; &#8220;race, class, and police interactions,&#8221; &#8220;systemic racism in housing,&#8221; &#8220;myths&#8221; about affirmative action in college admissions, and &#8220;21st century voter suppression.&#8221;</p> <p>High-school students usually range in age from 14 to 18, so you might imagine that some care would be taken to avoid speakers whose social media are rife with profanity, racial epithets, and sexual content. No. Political radicalism means all is permitted. John the Author, one of the invited speakers, raps about &#8220;Blackenomics,&#8221; which includes the following lyrics:</p> <p>I don&#8217;t wanna be king, but I&#8217;m the only one ready for it now, Cause all these other niggas selling out, Individualism is all these motherf***ers yelling about</p> <p>Divide and conquer, white supremacy the silent monster</p> <p>One might have hoped, in a program dedicated to civil rights and mutual understanding, that the guests themselves might steer clear of racism and anti-Semitism. Kevin Coval&#8217;s poem &#8220;Occupation,&#8221; says this about Israel: &#8220;Fascist ones believe in one monotheism, a walled prison, Israelis sleep through the night.&#8221; Monica Trinidad will conduct a talk on &#8220;We Charge Genocide: An Emergence of a Continued Movement.&#8221; Her Twitter feed encourages people to boycott an Israeli dance troupe (&#8220;Don&#8217;t dance with apartheid!&#8221;) with a link to the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) hashtag. She tweeted a picture of mounted police officers with the comment &#8220;Get them animals off those horses.&#8221;</p> <p>So, one might suppose that New Trier parents would be enraged. Yet the pushback has been about as polite, substantive, and reasonable as you could possibly wish (especially in our bitter era). On their website, parentsofnewtrier.org, they suggest adding other speakers to achieve &#8212; wait for it &#8212; intellectual diversity. They note that, in contrast to what the seminars hammer home, people of the same race do not necessarily think alike. Among the speakers the parents group recommends: Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, John McWhorter, and Star Parker.</p> <p>Rather than marinate in doctrinaire leftism heavily inflected with a Black Lives Matter sensibility, the parents object, why not have students volunteer for the day (Chicago is 16 miles south)? The website offers other volunteering suggestions: &#8220;Good News Partners (Rogers Park), Connections for the Homeless (Evanston), Pastor Corey Brooks from New Beginnings Church in Woodlawn and &#8216;ProjectHood.org.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>Despite multiple requests, school officials have refused every appeal from dismayed parents. No to additional speakers. No to adding another seminar at a later date for different viewpoints. No to requiring that parents sign off on their children&#8217;s seminar-panel choices. No to postponing the program until parental input could be considered.</p> <p>New Trier has very few black students, but the father of one wrote this: &#8220;This group [the small group of faculty and students who developed the program] does NOT represent the best of black Americans and does not advocate anything that has a track record of making black lives better.&#8221;</p> <p>These &#8220;check your privilege&#8221; brainwashing sessions have become commonplace at colleges. Parents don&#8217;t seem to know or care enough to protest. The New Trier parents group is a sign that resistance to deadening propaganda is alive and well &#8212; and polite.</p> <p>&#8212; Mona Charen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Copyright &#169;&amp;#160;2017 Creators.com</p>

Another Kind of Resistance — from Parents

https://eppc.org/publications/another-kind-of-resistance-from-parents/

1right-center

Another Kind of Resistance — from Parents <p>There is no way to prove this, but see if you agree with me: The average American parent would be glad to see his public high school celebrate Martin Luther King Day with tributes to the Civil Rights Movement, lectures on the history of slavery and Jim Crow, and discussions of the challenges faced by blacks and other minorities in America today. Actually, it&#8217;s not really a guess, because curricula like that are found throughout the nation.</p> <p>The program that is being imposed on Winnetka, Ill., by contrast, is hard-left indoctrination that could have come straight from the pages of Howard Zinn. In 2016 it was held on MLK Day itself, but this year&#8217;s Seminar Day on race, &#8220;Understanding Today&#8217;s Struggle for Racial Civil Rights,&#8221; is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28.</p> <p>The all-school program will feature a full day of lectures and seminars, and as the title betrays, the slant is built in. As one of the parents who have protested the content noted, civil rights are for everyone, aren&#8217;t they? There are no &#8220;racial&#8221; rights. That was Martin Luther King&#8217;s point, or one of them.</p> <p>New Trier has scheduled two keynote speakers and dozens of seminars for the 4,000 students to choose among. One or two are unobjectionable, like &#8220;Black Gospel Music: Make a Joyful Noise!&#8221; or &#8220;Rap with a Social Conscience&#8221; (though much would depend upon which rap was discussed). But the rest of the offerings are thoroughly turgid agitprop. Students can attend a session titled &#8220;Seeing the Unseen: The Bias All Around You,&#8221; or learn to &#8220;recognize our own implicit biases.&#8221; They can attend seminars about &#8220;cultural appropriation,&#8221; &#8220;trans people of color navigating the U.S.,&#8221; &#8220;race, class, and police interactions,&#8221; &#8220;systemic racism in housing,&#8221; &#8220;myths&#8221; about affirmative action in college admissions, and &#8220;21st century voter suppression.&#8221;</p> <p>High-school students usually range in age from 14 to 18, so you might imagine that some care would be taken to avoid speakers whose social media are rife with profanity, racial epithets, and sexual content. No. Political radicalism means all is permitted. John the Author, one of the invited speakers, raps about &#8220;Blackenomics,&#8221; which includes the following lyrics:</p> <p>I don&#8217;t wanna be king, but I&#8217;m the only one ready for it now, Cause all these other niggas selling out, Individualism is all these motherf***ers yelling about</p> <p>Divide and conquer, white supremacy the silent monster</p> <p>One might have hoped, in a program dedicated to civil rights and mutual understanding, that the guests themselves might steer clear of racism and anti-Semitism. Kevin Coval&#8217;s poem &#8220;Occupation,&#8221; says this about Israel: &#8220;Fascist ones believe in one monotheism, a walled prison, Israelis sleep through the night.&#8221; Monica Trinidad will conduct a talk on &#8220;We Charge Genocide: An Emergence of a Continued Movement.&#8221; Her Twitter feed encourages people to boycott an Israeli dance troupe (&#8220;Don&#8217;t dance with apartheid!&#8221;) with a link to the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) hashtag. She tweeted a picture of mounted police officers with the comment &#8220;Get them animals off those horses.&#8221;</p> <p>So, one might suppose that New Trier parents would be enraged. Yet the pushback has been about as polite, substantive, and reasonable as you could possibly wish (especially in our bitter era). On their website, parentsofnewtrier.org, they suggest adding other speakers to achieve &#8212; wait for it &#8212; intellectual diversity. They note that, in contrast to what the seminars hammer home, people of the same race do not necessarily think alike. Among the speakers the parents group recommends: Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, John McWhorter, and Star Parker.</p> <p>Rather than marinate in doctrinaire leftism heavily inflected with a Black Lives Matter sensibility, the parents object, why not have students volunteer for the day (Chicago is 16 miles south)? The website offers other volunteering suggestions: &#8220;Good News Partners (Rogers Park), Connections for the Homeless (Evanston), Pastor Corey Brooks from New Beginnings Church in Woodlawn and &#8216;ProjectHood.org.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>Despite multiple requests, school officials have refused every appeal from dismayed parents. No to additional speakers. No to adding another seminar at a later date for different viewpoints. No to requiring that parents sign off on their children&#8217;s seminar-panel choices. No to postponing the program until parental input could be considered.</p> <p>New Trier has very few black students, but the father of one wrote this: &#8220;This group [the small group of faculty and students who developed the program] does NOT represent the best of black Americans and does not advocate anything that has a track record of making black lives better.&#8221;</p> <p>These &#8220;check your privilege&#8221; brainwashing sessions have become commonplace at colleges. Parents don&#8217;t seem to know or care enough to protest. The New Trier parents group is a sign that resistance to deadening propaganda is alive and well &#8212; and polite.</p> <p>&#8212; Mona Charen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Copyright &#169;&amp;#160;2017 Creators.com</p>

<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p> <p>Cyndi Lauper thinks Madonna&#8217;s speech at the Women&#8217;s March in D.C. &amp;#160;&#8220;didn&#8217;t serve its purpose.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;I was glad that she (Madonna) went,&#8221; Lauper, 63, said on &#8220;Watch What Happens Live.&#8221; &#8220;I think it happens a lot when you are really jacked up, feeling your emotions. I don&#8217;t think it served our purpose because anger is not better than clarity and humanity.&#8221;</p> <p>In Madonna&#8217;s passionate speech she said that she had thought about blowing up the White House and used profanity. Afterward, Madonna posted on <a href="" type="internal">Instagram</a> that her White House comment had been taken out of context.</p> <p>Other celebrities who spoke to the crowds at the March included Alicia Keys and Scarlett Johansson. For Lauper, Johansson&#8217;s speech was more productive.</p> <p>&#8220;When you want to change people&#8217;s minds, you have to share your real story like Scarlett Johansson. She shared her story. It was clear. It was eloquent. Yelling doesn&#8217;t. It just jacks people up,&#8221; Lauper continued.</p> <p /> <p><a href="" type="internal">Cyndi Lauper</a> <a href="" type="internal">Madonna</a> <a href="" type="internal">Scarlett Johansson</a> <a href="" type="internal">What What Happens Live</a> <a href="" type="internal">Women's March</a> <a href="" type="internal">Women's March in Washington</a></p>

Cyndi Lauper criticizes Madonna’s controversial Women’s March speech

http://washingtonblade.com/2017/01/27/23526091/

3left-center

Cyndi Lauper criticizes Madonna’s controversial Women’s March speech <p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p> <p>Cyndi Lauper thinks Madonna&#8217;s speech at the Women&#8217;s March in D.C. &amp;#160;&#8220;didn&#8217;t serve its purpose.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;I was glad that she (Madonna) went,&#8221; Lauper, 63, said on &#8220;Watch What Happens Live.&#8221; &#8220;I think it happens a lot when you are really jacked up, feeling your emotions. I don&#8217;t think it served our purpose because anger is not better than clarity and humanity.&#8221;</p> <p>In Madonna&#8217;s passionate speech she said that she had thought about blowing up the White House and used profanity. Afterward, Madonna posted on <a href="" type="internal">Instagram</a> that her White House comment had been taken out of context.</p> <p>Other celebrities who spoke to the crowds at the March included Alicia Keys and Scarlett Johansson. For Lauper, Johansson&#8217;s speech was more productive.</p> <p>&#8220;When you want to change people&#8217;s minds, you have to share your real story like Scarlett Johansson. She shared her story. It was clear. It was eloquent. Yelling doesn&#8217;t. It just jacks people up,&#8221; Lauper continued.</p> <p /> <p><a href="" type="internal">Cyndi Lauper</a> <a href="" type="internal">Madonna</a> <a href="" type="internal">Scarlett Johansson</a> <a href="" type="internal">What What Happens Live</a> <a href="" type="internal">Women's March</a> <a href="" type="internal">Women's March in Washington</a></p>

<p>Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and&amp;#160; Agricultural Affairs. This&amp;#160; comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street&amp;#160; over the Obama administration&#8217;s economic and financial policy.&amp;#160; True, Hormats is &#8220;a talker rather than a decider&#8221;&amp;#160;according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of&amp;#160; them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy.</p> <p>Among the familiar Wall Street faces that Hormats will encounter in his new post will that of Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew, lately Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup Alternative Investments Group which lost $509 million in the first quarter of 2008 alone.&amp;#160; On visits to the White House he is sure to bump into Michael Froman, who also tore a swath through the Citi balance sheet at the alternative investments shop (they specialized in &#8220;esoteric&#8221; investments such as private highways) but is now Obama&#8217;s Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs.&amp;#160; If Froman is otherwise engaged, Hormats can interface with Froman&#8217;s deputy, David Lipton, who was until recently running Citi&#8217;s global country risk management effort.</p> <p>Citigroup is also well represented at Treasury, in the form of Lewis Alexander, formerly the bank&#8217;s chief economist and now Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.&amp;#160; Given the role played by all of the above in bankrupting us all, Alexander&#8217;s 2007 verdict on the onset of the mortgage crash, &#8220;I think that&#8217;s not going to spill more broadly into the economy and so I think we&#8217;re going to have a normal kind of housing cycle though the middle of this year,&#8221; can only have been a recommendation in the eyes of his current employer.</p> <p>Alexander&#8217;s function at Citi may have been merely to endorse the financial depredations of colleagues with economic blather, rather than exercise loss-making functions personally.&amp;#160; Not so Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, who has moved over to the number two job at the department from the Hartford Insurance Company, where he served as president and chief operating officer of the Property and Casualty Group.&amp;#160; Hartford was one of the insurance companies that got suckered by the banks into backing their ruinous investments in real estate and other esoterica, but Wolin&#8217;s Treasury has just handed Hartford $3.4 billion of our money in the form of TARP funds.</p> <p>Hormats&#8217; agricultural responsibilities will of necessity bring him into frequent contact with the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler &#8211;&amp;#160; a former Goldman partner.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; As Assistant Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Adminsitration Gensler played a key role in greasing the skids for the notorious Commodity Futures Modernization Act of&amp;#160; 2000, which set the stage for the great credit default swaps scam that underpinned the recent bubble and subsequent collapse.&amp;#160; News of the appointment did generate threats of obstruction in the Senate &#8211; any one of&amp;#160; the senators could have blocked the appointment had they really wished to do so &#8211; but such threats proved predictably hollow.&amp;#160; Had they been otherwise, Treasury Chief of Staff Mark Patterson could of course have lent the expertise he gained as Goldman&#8217;s lobbyist to overcome the obstacle.</p> <p>For sheer gall it would be hard to equal the appointment of&amp;#160; Gensler, one of the engineers of this catastrophe, but the administration has managed it with the selection of Linda Robertson, formerly a key Enron lobbyist and intimately involved in pushing through the commodity futures act as chief flack&amp;#160; for the Federal Reserve.&amp;#160; Prior to joining the crooked energy-trading firm, Robertson was an important figure in the Clinton Treasury Department, latterly serving her friend Larry Summers and before him Robert Rubin during their terms as Treasury Secretaries.</p> <p>Such connection to the key enablers of our bankrupt casino helps explain many of the other hires listed above.&amp;#160; Michael Froman was Chief of Staff to Robert Rubin at Treasury before following Rubin to his reward at Citigroup.&amp;#160; Most significantly, it was Froman who first introduced Rubin to his Harvard classmate Barack Obama.&amp;#160; David Lipton also served in the Rubin Treasury, as deputy under secretary for international affairs.&amp;#160; Neal Wolin, on the other hand, appears to have more an acolyte of Summers, who cherished him as Treasury General Counsel from &#8217;99 to &#8217;01.&amp;#160; Summers and Robertson were similarly close, and certainly he raised no objection to her fatal submissions on behalf of her paymasters at Enron.</p> <p>Recent reports suggest that financial industry lobbying in Washington, at $104.7 million for the first three months of 2009, is 8% down on last year.&amp;#160; But that is to be expected &#8211; why should Wall Street continue paying&amp;#160; top dollar for a wholly owned subsidiary?</p> <p>ANDREW COCKBURN writes about national security and related matters. His most recent book is &amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416535748/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy.</a> He is the co-producer of <a href="http://www.americancasinothemovie.com/" type="external">American Casino</a>, the feature documentary on the ongoing financial collapse. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:amcockburn@gmail.com" type="external">amcockburn@gmail.com</a>. &amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

The Wall Street White House

https://counterpunch.org/2009/07/02/the-wall-street-white-house/

2009-07-02

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The Wall Street White House <p>Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and&amp;#160; Agricultural Affairs. This&amp;#160; comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street&amp;#160; over the Obama administration&#8217;s economic and financial policy.&amp;#160; True, Hormats is &#8220;a talker rather than a decider&#8221;&amp;#160;according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of&amp;#160; them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy.</p> <p>Among the familiar Wall Street faces that Hormats will encounter in his new post will that of Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew, lately Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup Alternative Investments Group which lost $509 million in the first quarter of 2008 alone.&amp;#160; On visits to the White House he is sure to bump into Michael Froman, who also tore a swath through the Citi balance sheet at the alternative investments shop (they specialized in &#8220;esoteric&#8221; investments such as private highways) but is now Obama&#8217;s Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs.&amp;#160; If Froman is otherwise engaged, Hormats can interface with Froman&#8217;s deputy, David Lipton, who was until recently running Citi&#8217;s global country risk management effort.</p> <p>Citigroup is also well represented at Treasury, in the form of Lewis Alexander, formerly the bank&#8217;s chief economist and now Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.&amp;#160; Given the role played by all of the above in bankrupting us all, Alexander&#8217;s 2007 verdict on the onset of the mortgage crash, &#8220;I think that&#8217;s not going to spill more broadly into the economy and so I think we&#8217;re going to have a normal kind of housing cycle though the middle of this year,&#8221; can only have been a recommendation in the eyes of his current employer.</p> <p>Alexander&#8217;s function at Citi may have been merely to endorse the financial depredations of colleagues with economic blather, rather than exercise loss-making functions personally.&amp;#160; Not so Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, who has moved over to the number two job at the department from the Hartford Insurance Company, where he served as president and chief operating officer of the Property and Casualty Group.&amp;#160; Hartford was one of the insurance companies that got suckered by the banks into backing their ruinous investments in real estate and other esoterica, but Wolin&#8217;s Treasury has just handed Hartford $3.4 billion of our money in the form of TARP funds.</p> <p>Hormats&#8217; agricultural responsibilities will of necessity bring him into frequent contact with the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler &#8211;&amp;#160; a former Goldman partner.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; As Assistant Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Adminsitration Gensler played a key role in greasing the skids for the notorious Commodity Futures Modernization Act of&amp;#160; 2000, which set the stage for the great credit default swaps scam that underpinned the recent bubble and subsequent collapse.&amp;#160; News of the appointment did generate threats of obstruction in the Senate &#8211; any one of&amp;#160; the senators could have blocked the appointment had they really wished to do so &#8211; but such threats proved predictably hollow.&amp;#160; Had they been otherwise, Treasury Chief of Staff Mark Patterson could of course have lent the expertise he gained as Goldman&#8217;s lobbyist to overcome the obstacle.</p> <p>For sheer gall it would be hard to equal the appointment of&amp;#160; Gensler, one of the engineers of this catastrophe, but the administration has managed it with the selection of Linda Robertson, formerly a key Enron lobbyist and intimately involved in pushing through the commodity futures act as chief flack&amp;#160; for the Federal Reserve.&amp;#160; Prior to joining the crooked energy-trading firm, Robertson was an important figure in the Clinton Treasury Department, latterly serving her friend Larry Summers and before him Robert Rubin during their terms as Treasury Secretaries.</p> <p>Such connection to the key enablers of our bankrupt casino helps explain many of the other hires listed above.&amp;#160; Michael Froman was Chief of Staff to Robert Rubin at Treasury before following Rubin to his reward at Citigroup.&amp;#160; Most significantly, it was Froman who first introduced Rubin to his Harvard classmate Barack Obama.&amp;#160; David Lipton also served in the Rubin Treasury, as deputy under secretary for international affairs.&amp;#160; Neal Wolin, on the other hand, appears to have more an acolyte of Summers, who cherished him as Treasury General Counsel from &#8217;99 to &#8217;01.&amp;#160; Summers and Robertson were similarly close, and certainly he raised no objection to her fatal submissions on behalf of her paymasters at Enron.</p> <p>Recent reports suggest that financial industry lobbying in Washington, at $104.7 million for the first three months of 2009, is 8% down on last year.&amp;#160; But that is to be expected &#8211; why should Wall Street continue paying&amp;#160; top dollar for a wholly owned subsidiary?</p> <p>ANDREW COCKBURN writes about national security and related matters. His most recent book is &amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416535748/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy.</a> He is the co-producer of <a href="http://www.americancasinothemovie.com/" type="external">American Casino</a>, the feature documentary on the ongoing financial collapse. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:amcockburn@gmail.com" type="external">amcockburn@gmail.com</a>. &amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

<p>NEW YORK - U.S. officials have announced that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has resigned because of financial conflicts of interest.</p> <p>Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald had been in the job since July.</p> <p>A statement Wednesday from the Department of Health and Human Services said Fitzgerald's complex financial interests had caused conflicts of interest that made it difficult to do her job. Alex Azar, who was sworn in as head of the department Monday, accepted her resignation.</p> <p>When Fitzgerald took the job, she owned a range of stocks, including holdings in beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International, and a number of health care companies. She said she sold some but still has others because of financial restrictions that prevent her from selling them.</p> <p />

CDC Director Resigns Over Financial Conflicts

https://truthdig.com/articles/cdc-director-resigns-financial-conflicts/

2018-01-31

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CDC Director Resigns Over Financial Conflicts <p>NEW YORK - U.S. officials have announced that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has resigned because of financial conflicts of interest.</p> <p>Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald had been in the job since July.</p> <p>A statement Wednesday from the Department of Health and Human Services said Fitzgerald's complex financial interests had caused conflicts of interest that made it difficult to do her job. Alex Azar, who was sworn in as head of the department Monday, accepted her resignation.</p> <p>When Fitzgerald took the job, she owned a range of stocks, including holdings in beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International, and a number of health care companies. She said she sold some but still has others because of financial restrictions that prevent her from selling them.</p> <p />

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>One of those ways is through new fundraising to build a recording studio on the premises.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re hoping to have our ribbon-cutting ceremony this spring,&#8221; says Howard Wulkan, a member of the board of directors. &#8220;The first of its kind, the studio will cater to the needs of the AYS students and faculty, first and foremost, with additional outreach to the community through a custom-designed series of workshops aimed at the working musician. We&#8217;ll explore topics such as transforming poetry into lyrics suitable for songs, basic engineering techniques in the studio, song arranging, the &#8216;business&#8217; of music and much, much more.&#8221;</p> <p>The AYS program provides students with a high-quality music education, instills an emotional connection and lifelong passion for music, fosters a diverse community of musicians and offers outstanding symphonic performance opportunities for students to share their musical gifts with the community.</p> <p>Wulkan says the program focuses on Albuquerque, though he hopes the endeavors will set an example that can be duplicated in other parts of the state.</p> <p>In spearheading the studio effort, he is definitely in his wheelhouse.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He&#8217;s worked for several major record labels and distribution companies. He also owns and runs the 505 (The LAB Recording Studio) and owns Cinder Cone Records, a small label.</p> <p>&#8220;My passion, though, is composing and working directly with artists in the role of producer, co-writer and arranger,&#8221; he says.</p> <p>And with the effort for an on-site studio being a first, Wulkan says, there haven&#8217;t been too many obstacles.</p> <p>&#8220;There aren&#8217;t any when working with like-minded folk,&#8221; he says. &#8220;AYS embraces the best of traditional and progressive thinking; a necessary &#8216;melting pot&#8217; of minds this day and age, particularly if the organization is to grow and progress over the next several decades.&#8221;</p> <p />

Recording studio for Youth Symphony

https://abqjournal.com/948391/recording-studio-for-youth-symphony.html

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Recording studio for Youth Symphony <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>One of those ways is through new fundraising to build a recording studio on the premises.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re hoping to have our ribbon-cutting ceremony this spring,&#8221; says Howard Wulkan, a member of the board of directors. &#8220;The first of its kind, the studio will cater to the needs of the AYS students and faculty, first and foremost, with additional outreach to the community through a custom-designed series of workshops aimed at the working musician. We&#8217;ll explore topics such as transforming poetry into lyrics suitable for songs, basic engineering techniques in the studio, song arranging, the &#8216;business&#8217; of music and much, much more.&#8221;</p> <p>The AYS program provides students with a high-quality music education, instills an emotional connection and lifelong passion for music, fosters a diverse community of musicians and offers outstanding symphonic performance opportunities for students to share their musical gifts with the community.</p> <p>Wulkan says the program focuses on Albuquerque, though he hopes the endeavors will set an example that can be duplicated in other parts of the state.</p> <p>In spearheading the studio effort, he is definitely in his wheelhouse.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>He&#8217;s worked for several major record labels and distribution companies. He also owns and runs the 505 (The LAB Recording Studio) and owns Cinder Cone Records, a small label.</p> <p>&#8220;My passion, though, is composing and working directly with artists in the role of producer, co-writer and arranger,&#8221; he says.</p> <p>And with the effort for an on-site studio being a first, Wulkan says, there haven&#8217;t been too many obstacles.</p> <p>&#8220;There aren&#8217;t any when working with like-minded folk,&#8221; he says. &#8220;AYS embraces the best of traditional and progressive thinking; a necessary &#8216;melting pot&#8217; of minds this day and age, particularly if the organization is to grow and progress over the next several decades.&#8221;</p> <p />

<p>Actress and social-icon Zsa Zsa Gabor died Sunday of an apparent heart attack. She was 99.</p> <p>Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, the Hungarian beauty queen&#8217;s ninth husband, told <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/hollywood-legend-zsa-zsa-gabor-dead-99-husband" type="external">Agence France-Presse</a>&amp;#160;while holding back sobs that Miss Gabor, who had been bedridden in recent years, died surrounded by family.</p> <p>&#8220;Everybody was there. She didn&#8217;t die alone,&#8221; he told AFP by telephone.</p> <p><a href="/multimedia/collection/celebrity-deaths-2016/" type="external">PHOTOS: Celebrity deaths in 2016: The famous faces we've lost</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.tmz.com/2016/12/18/zsa-zsa-gabor-dead-at-99/" type="external">According to</a> celebrity-news site TMZ, which first reported the death, Miss Gabor was rushed to a hospital after the cardiac arrest, but doctors couldn&#8217;t save her.</p> <p>Born Sari Gabor, she was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936 and was a stage actress in Vienna before arriving in the U.S. with her sisters Eva and Magda just as Europe was being engulfed by the war.</p> <p>Her best-known film roles in the 1950s included supporting roles in &#8220;We&#8217;re Not Married&#8221; and Orson Welles&#8217; &#8220;Touch of Evil&#8221; and as the female lead opposite Oscar-nominee Jose Ferrer in &#8220;Moulin Rouge.&#8221;</p> <p>But Miss Gabor was probably best known as one of the first tabloid stars &#8212; someone &#8220;famous for being famous,&#8221; with her every personal move and romantic fling making news. She even had a signature phrase &#8212; &#8220;dahling,&#8221; in her florid Hungarian accent.</p> <p>&#8220;Zsa Zsa is unique. She&#8217;s a woman from the court of Louis XV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century, undamaged by the PTA,&#8221; wrote author Gerald Frank, who helped Miss Gabor with her 1960 autobiography.</p> <p>She had nine husbands, but was still with Mr. von Anhalt more than 30 years after they were married.</p> <p>Ever the saucy personality, when Miss Gabor was asked &#8220;How many husbands have you had?&#8221; she replied, &#8220;You mean other than my own?&#8221;</p> <p>As for the impact of the 1960s and feminism on much-married socialites, she replied: &#8220;The women&#8217;s movement hasn&#8217;t changed my sex life. It wouldn&#8217;t dare.&#8221;</p> <p>In her second autobiography, 1993&#8217;s &#8220;One Lifetime is Not Enough,&#8221; she claimed that her first sexual encounter was in 1932 with Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, when she was 15.</p> <p>&#8220;For the rest of my life, I would search for another god to eclipse him,&#8221; Miss Gabor wrote.</p> <p>She had one daughter, Constance Francesca Hilton, born 1947 when she was married to hotelier Conrad Hilton, making Miss Gabor technically a distant relative to Paris Hilton.</p> <p>One of her splashiest tabloid appearance grew out of a 1989 traffic stop in which she slapped the face of a Beverly Hills policeman who stopped her Rolls-Royce on a traffic violation. Miss Gabor gleefully attacked the policeman&#8217;s character on TV afterward. Besides the assault on a lawman, she was convicted of driving without a license and an open-container violation.</p> <p>She was sentenced to three days in jail and community service, but refused to perform the latter and so served three more days in jail.</p> <p>And in a gesture that typified her insouciance, Miss Gabor made a joke of the whole thing for the opening credits of the 1991 cop-show-parody movie &#8220;The Naked Gun 2&#189;.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>After the siren that had been making its way through a whole series of impossibly surreal events pulls over a Rolls-Royce, Miss Gabor gets out of the car and slaps the siren, saying &#8220;this happens every f&#8211;ing time when I go shopping.&#8221;</p> <p>After a 2002 auto accident in which Miss Gabor (a passenger) suffered partial paralysis, Miss Gabor basically retired from the public eye. Since then, she suffered multiple strokes, had part of her leg amputated, required a feeding tube, had a hip replacement and couldn&#8217;t even attend her birthday parties.</p> <p>Her husband reportedly even <a href="https://dailynewshungary.com/zsa-zsa-gabor-i-want-to-die-in-hungary/" type="external">kept from her</a> the news of daughter&#8217;s Francesca&#8217;s 2015 death from her, from fear she couldn&#8217;t handle it. Her last wish reportedly was to return to Hungary in time for her 100th birthday on Feb. 6 and live out her years there.</p> <p>Copyright &#169; 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/dec/18/zsa-zsa-gabor-dies-99-report/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Actress and social icon Zsa Zsa Gabor dies at 99

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/18/zsa-zsa-gabor-dies-99-report/

2016-12-18

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Actress and social icon Zsa Zsa Gabor dies at 99 <p>Actress and social-icon Zsa Zsa Gabor died Sunday of an apparent heart attack. She was 99.</p> <p>Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, the Hungarian beauty queen&#8217;s ninth husband, told <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/hollywood-legend-zsa-zsa-gabor-dead-99-husband" type="external">Agence France-Presse</a>&amp;#160;while holding back sobs that Miss Gabor, who had been bedridden in recent years, died surrounded by family.</p> <p>&#8220;Everybody was there. She didn&#8217;t die alone,&#8221; he told AFP by telephone.</p> <p><a href="/multimedia/collection/celebrity-deaths-2016/" type="external">PHOTOS: Celebrity deaths in 2016: The famous faces we've lost</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.tmz.com/2016/12/18/zsa-zsa-gabor-dead-at-99/" type="external">According to</a> celebrity-news site TMZ, which first reported the death, Miss Gabor was rushed to a hospital after the cardiac arrest, but doctors couldn&#8217;t save her.</p> <p>Born Sari Gabor, she was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936 and was a stage actress in Vienna before arriving in the U.S. with her sisters Eva and Magda just as Europe was being engulfed by the war.</p> <p>Her best-known film roles in the 1950s included supporting roles in &#8220;We&#8217;re Not Married&#8221; and Orson Welles&#8217; &#8220;Touch of Evil&#8221; and as the female lead opposite Oscar-nominee Jose Ferrer in &#8220;Moulin Rouge.&#8221;</p> <p>But Miss Gabor was probably best known as one of the first tabloid stars &#8212; someone &#8220;famous for being famous,&#8221; with her every personal move and romantic fling making news. She even had a signature phrase &#8212; &#8220;dahling,&#8221; in her florid Hungarian accent.</p> <p>&#8220;Zsa Zsa is unique. She&#8217;s a woman from the court of Louis XV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century, undamaged by the PTA,&#8221; wrote author Gerald Frank, who helped Miss Gabor with her 1960 autobiography.</p> <p>She had nine husbands, but was still with Mr. von Anhalt more than 30 years after they were married.</p> <p>Ever the saucy personality, when Miss Gabor was asked &#8220;How many husbands have you had?&#8221; she replied, &#8220;You mean other than my own?&#8221;</p> <p>As for the impact of the 1960s and feminism on much-married socialites, she replied: &#8220;The women&#8217;s movement hasn&#8217;t changed my sex life. It wouldn&#8217;t dare.&#8221;</p> <p>In her second autobiography, 1993&#8217;s &#8220;One Lifetime is Not Enough,&#8221; she claimed that her first sexual encounter was in 1932 with Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, when she was 15.</p> <p>&#8220;For the rest of my life, I would search for another god to eclipse him,&#8221; Miss Gabor wrote.</p> <p>She had one daughter, Constance Francesca Hilton, born 1947 when she was married to hotelier Conrad Hilton, making Miss Gabor technically a distant relative to Paris Hilton.</p> <p>One of her splashiest tabloid appearance grew out of a 1989 traffic stop in which she slapped the face of a Beverly Hills policeman who stopped her Rolls-Royce on a traffic violation. Miss Gabor gleefully attacked the policeman&#8217;s character on TV afterward. Besides the assault on a lawman, she was convicted of driving without a license and an open-container violation.</p> <p>She was sentenced to three days in jail and community service, but refused to perform the latter and so served three more days in jail.</p> <p>And in a gesture that typified her insouciance, Miss Gabor made a joke of the whole thing for the opening credits of the 1991 cop-show-parody movie &#8220;The Naked Gun 2&#189;.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>After the siren that had been making its way through a whole series of impossibly surreal events pulls over a Rolls-Royce, Miss Gabor gets out of the car and slaps the siren, saying &#8220;this happens every f&#8211;ing time when I go shopping.&#8221;</p> <p>After a 2002 auto accident in which Miss Gabor (a passenger) suffered partial paralysis, Miss Gabor basically retired from the public eye. Since then, she suffered multiple strokes, had part of her leg amputated, required a feeding tube, had a hip replacement and couldn&#8217;t even attend her birthday parties.</p> <p>Her husband reportedly even <a href="https://dailynewshungary.com/zsa-zsa-gabor-i-want-to-die-in-hungary/" type="external">kept from her</a> the news of daughter&#8217;s Francesca&#8217;s 2015 death from her, from fear she couldn&#8217;t handle it. Her last wish reportedly was to return to Hungary in time for her 100th birthday on Feb. 6 and live out her years there.</p> <p>Copyright &#169; 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/dec/18/zsa-zsa-gabor-dies-99-report/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

<p>PIERRE, S.D. (AP) &#8212; The Latest on sexual harassment training at the South Dakota Legislature (all times local):</p> <p>___</p> <p>6 p.m.</p> <p>South Dakota lawmakers and their staff have attended sexual harassment training after news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse.</p> <p>The Wednesday training was required for legislative employees. Leaders said all lawmakers were expected to attend, but it wasn't mandatory.</p> <p>The ethics, professionalism and sexual harassment training addressed topics including state and federal law and the South Dakota Legislature's joint rules.</p> <p>Republican Sen. Deb Peters, who helped bring the training to South Dakota, says she wanted to make sure lawmakers keep the issues of ethics, civility and sexual harassment at the forefront of their thoughts. But Peters says she hasn't seen sexual harassment at the Legislature.</p> <p>Some lawmakers declined to attend. Republican Rep. Lance Carson, who was at his House desk during the meeting, says he previously went through sexual harassment training.</p> <p>___</p> <p>11:43 a.m.</p> <p>A South Dakota organization that encourages women to enter politics says the group hopes sexual harassment training will help make the legislative session safer and more inclusive for women.</p> <p>The Wednesday training is required for legislative employees. Leaders say all lawmakers are expected to attend.</p> <p>LEAD South Dakota Co-Chair Susan Kroger says the training is a good first step. But she says real change will come from dismantling the "permissive culture in Pierre" and electing new people.</p> <p>The training follows news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse. The articles came after a former lawmaker and lobbyist shared stories of harassment and assault.</p> <p>LEAD Board Member Nikki Gronli says the group was alarmed to hear about misconduct allegations. She says they expect a professional, productive atmosphere that's welcoming to women.</p> <p>PIERRE, S.D. (AP) &#8212; The Latest on sexual harassment training at the South Dakota Legislature (all times local):</p> <p>___</p> <p>6 p.m.</p> <p>South Dakota lawmakers and their staff have attended sexual harassment training after news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse.</p> <p>The Wednesday training was required for legislative employees. Leaders said all lawmakers were expected to attend, but it wasn't mandatory.</p> <p>The ethics, professionalism and sexual harassment training addressed topics including state and federal law and the South Dakota Legislature's joint rules.</p> <p>Republican Sen. Deb Peters, who helped bring the training to South Dakota, says she wanted to make sure lawmakers keep the issues of ethics, civility and sexual harassment at the forefront of their thoughts. But Peters says she hasn't seen sexual harassment at the Legislature.</p> <p>Some lawmakers declined to attend. Republican Rep. Lance Carson, who was at his House desk during the meeting, says he previously went through sexual harassment training.</p> <p>___</p> <p>11:43 a.m.</p> <p>A South Dakota organization that encourages women to enter politics says the group hopes sexual harassment training will help make the legislative session safer and more inclusive for women.</p> <p>The Wednesday training is required for legislative employees. Leaders say all lawmakers are expected to attend.</p> <p>LEAD South Dakota Co-Chair Susan Kroger says the training is a good first step. But she says real change will come from dismantling the "permissive culture in Pierre" and electing new people.</p> <p>The training follows news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse. The articles came after a former lawmaker and lobbyist shared stories of harassment and assault.</p> <p>LEAD Board Member Nikki Gronli says the group was alarmed to hear about misconduct allegations. She says they expect a professional, productive atmosphere that's welcoming to women.</p>

The Latest: Legislature holds sexual harassment training

https://apnews.com/amp/e12948f1753a4b6f981ce906d16217eb

2018-01-17

2least

The Latest: Legislature holds sexual harassment training <p>PIERRE, S.D. (AP) &#8212; The Latest on sexual harassment training at the South Dakota Legislature (all times local):</p> <p>___</p> <p>6 p.m.</p> <p>South Dakota lawmakers and their staff have attended sexual harassment training after news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse.</p> <p>The Wednesday training was required for legislative employees. Leaders said all lawmakers were expected to attend, but it wasn't mandatory.</p> <p>The ethics, professionalism and sexual harassment training addressed topics including state and federal law and the South Dakota Legislature's joint rules.</p> <p>Republican Sen. Deb Peters, who helped bring the training to South Dakota, says she wanted to make sure lawmakers keep the issues of ethics, civility and sexual harassment at the forefront of their thoughts. But Peters says she hasn't seen sexual harassment at the Legislature.</p> <p>Some lawmakers declined to attend. Republican Rep. Lance Carson, who was at his House desk during the meeting, says he previously went through sexual harassment training.</p> <p>___</p> <p>11:43 a.m.</p> <p>A South Dakota organization that encourages women to enter politics says the group hopes sexual harassment training will help make the legislative session safer and more inclusive for women.</p> <p>The Wednesday training is required for legislative employees. Leaders say all lawmakers are expected to attend.</p> <p>LEAD South Dakota Co-Chair Susan Kroger says the training is a good first step. But she says real change will come from dismantling the "permissive culture in Pierre" and electing new people.</p> <p>The training follows news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse. The articles came after a former lawmaker and lobbyist shared stories of harassment and assault.</p> <p>LEAD Board Member Nikki Gronli says the group was alarmed to hear about misconduct allegations. She says they expect a professional, productive atmosphere that's welcoming to women.</p> <p>PIERRE, S.D. (AP) &#8212; The Latest on sexual harassment training at the South Dakota Legislature (all times local):</p> <p>___</p> <p>6 p.m.</p> <p>South Dakota lawmakers and their staff have attended sexual harassment training after news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse.</p> <p>The Wednesday training was required for legislative employees. Leaders said all lawmakers were expected to attend, but it wasn't mandatory.</p> <p>The ethics, professionalism and sexual harassment training addressed topics including state and federal law and the South Dakota Legislature's joint rules.</p> <p>Republican Sen. Deb Peters, who helped bring the training to South Dakota, says she wanted to make sure lawmakers keep the issues of ethics, civility and sexual harassment at the forefront of their thoughts. But Peters says she hasn't seen sexual harassment at the Legislature.</p> <p>Some lawmakers declined to attend. Republican Rep. Lance Carson, who was at his House desk during the meeting, says he previously went through sexual harassment training.</p> <p>___</p> <p>11:43 a.m.</p> <p>A South Dakota organization that encourages women to enter politics says the group hopes sexual harassment training will help make the legislative session safer and more inclusive for women.</p> <p>The Wednesday training is required for legislative employees. Leaders say all lawmakers are expected to attend.</p> <p>LEAD South Dakota Co-Chair Susan Kroger says the training is a good first step. But she says real change will come from dismantling the "permissive culture in Pierre" and electing new people.</p> <p>The training follows news reports about women who experienced sexism and harassment around the statehouse. The articles came after a former lawmaker and lobbyist shared stories of harassment and assault.</p> <p>LEAD Board Member Nikki Gronli says the group was alarmed to hear about misconduct allegations. She says they expect a professional, productive atmosphere that's welcoming to women.</p>

<p>Oddly enough, the Washington Post chose to illustrate a story about life in Scandinavia with a photo of &#8220;Miss Denmark&#8221; Mette Riis Sorensen in a Tokyo shopping mall. (photo: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty)</p> <p>The Washington Post decided to correct the positive image of Denmark that Sen. Bernie Sanders and others have been giving it in recent months. It ran a piece <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/why-denmark-isnt-the-utopian-fantasy-bernie-sanders-describes/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_wb-denmark-330pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" type="external">telling readers</a>:</p> <p>Why Denmark Isn&#8217;t the Utopian Fantasy Bernie Sanders Describes</p> <p>The piece is centered on an interview with Michael Booth, a food and travel writer who has spent a considerable period of time in the Scandinavian countries.</p> <p>Much of the piece is focused on the alleged economic problems of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. At one point the interviewer, Ana Swanson, asks:</p> <p>Danes are experiencing a rising debt level, and a lower proportion of people working. Are these worrying signs for its economy or the country&#8217;s model?</p> <p>While Denmark&#8217;s employment rate has been declining, it is still far higher than the employment rate in the United States. The employment rate for prime age workers (ages 25&#8211;54) is still more than 5 full percentage points higher than in the United States. If the rate of decline since the 2001 peak continues, it will fall below the current US level in roughly 24 years. (The US rate also fell over this period.) If we take the broader 16&#8211;64 age group, then the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=LFS_SEXAGE_I_R" type="external">gap falls slightly</a>, to 4.7 percentage points.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>As far as having an unsustainable debt level, Swanson seems somewhat confused. According to <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=43&amp;amp;pr.y=7&amp;amp;sy=2010&amp;amp;ey=2020&amp;amp;scsm=1&amp;amp;ssd=1&amp;amp;sort=country&amp;amp;ds=.&amp;amp;br=1&amp;amp;c=128%2C142%2C144%2C111&amp;amp;s=GGXCNL_NGDP%2CGGXWDN_NGDP%2CBCA_NGDPD&amp;amp;grp=0&amp;amp;a=" type="external">the IMF</a>, Denmark&#8217;s net debt-to-GDP ratio will be 6.3 percent at the end of this year. Sweden has a negative net debt, meaning the government owns more financial assets than the amount of debt it has outstanding. In Norway&#8217;s case, because of its huge oil assets, the proceeds of which it has largely saved, the government wealth-to-GDP ratio is almost 270 percent. This would be equivalent to having a public investment fund of more than $40 trillion in the United States.</p> <p>Some of the other assertions in the piece are either misleading or inaccurate. For example, Booth is quoted as saying:</p> <p>Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women&amp;#160;&#8212; only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.</p> <p>Actually, Danish women are far less likely to be murdered by their husbands or boyfriends than women in the United States. Its <a href="https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html" type="external">murder rate</a> is 0.8 per 100,000, compared to 4.7 per 100,000 in the United States.</p> <p>Later Booth is quoted as saying:</p> <p>In Denmark, the quality of the free&amp;#160;education and healthcare is substandard: They are way down on the PISA [ <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/" type="external">Programme for International Student Assessment</a>] educational rankings, have the lowest life expectancy in the region, and the highest rates of death from cancer. And there is broad consensus that the economic model of a public sector and welfare state on this scale is unsustainable.</p> <p>While Denmark is not among the leaders on either PISA scores or <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?order=wbapi_data_value_2013+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&amp;amp;sort=desc" type="external">life expectancy</a>, on both measures it is well ahead of the United States. And the &#8220;broad consensus that the economic model&#8230;is unsustainable&#8221; exists only in Booth&#8217;s head.</p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/taxing-wages-tax-burden-trends-latest-year.htm" type="external">OECD figures</a>, labor is taxed more heavily in several non-Scandinavian countries, including Belgium, Austria, Germany, Hungary, France and Italy.</p> <p>Booth is also apparently confused about tax rates around the world. He tells readers:</p> <p>Denmark has the highest direct and indirect taxes in the world, and you don&#8217;t need to be a high earner to make it into the top tax bracket of 56 percent (to which you must add 25 percent value-added tax, the highest energy taxes in the world, car import duty of 180 percent, and so on).</p> <p>Actually, France has a top marginal tax rate of 75 percent. The U.S. rate was 90 percent during the Eisenhower administration.</p> <p>Booth apparently is confused about Denmark&#8217;s public spending. He tells readers: &#8220;How the money is spent is kept deliberately opaque by the authorities.&#8221;</p> <p>Actually, it is not difficult to find a great deal of information about how Denmark&#8217;s money is spent. Much of it can be gotten from the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SNA_TABLE11" type="external">OECD&#8217;s website</a>.</p> <p>So we get that Mr. Booth doesn&#8217;t like Denmark. He tells readers that the food and weather are awful. That may be true, but his analysis of other aspects of Danish society doesn&#8217;t fit with the data.</p> <p>Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. A version of this post originally appeared on CEPR&#8217;s blog Beat the Press ( <a href="http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/socialism-in-denmark-may-push-employment-rates-down-to-u-s-levels-in-25-years" type="external">11/4/15</a>).</p> <p>Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at <a href="mailto:letters@washpost.com" type="external">letters@washpost.com</a>, or via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost" type="external">@washingtonpost</a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.</p>

Washington Post’s (Very) Rough Guide to Denmark

http://fair.org/home/washington-posts-very-rough-guide-to-denmark/

2015-11-05

4left

Washington Post’s (Very) Rough Guide to Denmark <p>Oddly enough, the Washington Post chose to illustrate a story about life in Scandinavia with a photo of &#8220;Miss Denmark&#8221; Mette Riis Sorensen in a Tokyo shopping mall. (photo: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty)</p> <p>The Washington Post decided to correct the positive image of Denmark that Sen. Bernie Sanders and others have been giving it in recent months. It ran a piece <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/03/why-denmark-isnt-the-utopian-fantasy-bernie-sanders-describes/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_wb-denmark-330pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" type="external">telling readers</a>:</p> <p>Why Denmark Isn&#8217;t the Utopian Fantasy Bernie Sanders Describes</p> <p>The piece is centered on an interview with Michael Booth, a food and travel writer who has spent a considerable period of time in the Scandinavian countries.</p> <p>Much of the piece is focused on the alleged economic problems of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. At one point the interviewer, Ana Swanson, asks:</p> <p>Danes are experiencing a rising debt level, and a lower proportion of people working. Are these worrying signs for its economy or the country&#8217;s model?</p> <p>While Denmark&#8217;s employment rate has been declining, it is still far higher than the employment rate in the United States. The employment rate for prime age workers (ages 25&#8211;54) is still more than 5 full percentage points higher than in the United States. If the rate of decline since the 2001 peak continues, it will fall below the current US level in roughly 24 years. (The US rate also fell over this period.) If we take the broader 16&#8211;64 age group, then the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=LFS_SEXAGE_I_R" type="external">gap falls slightly</a>, to 4.7 percentage points.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p>As far as having an unsustainable debt level, Swanson seems somewhat confused. According to <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=43&amp;amp;pr.y=7&amp;amp;sy=2010&amp;amp;ey=2020&amp;amp;scsm=1&amp;amp;ssd=1&amp;amp;sort=country&amp;amp;ds=.&amp;amp;br=1&amp;amp;c=128%2C142%2C144%2C111&amp;amp;s=GGXCNL_NGDP%2CGGXWDN_NGDP%2CBCA_NGDPD&amp;amp;grp=0&amp;amp;a=" type="external">the IMF</a>, Denmark&#8217;s net debt-to-GDP ratio will be 6.3 percent at the end of this year. Sweden has a negative net debt, meaning the government owns more financial assets than the amount of debt it has outstanding. In Norway&#8217;s case, because of its huge oil assets, the proceeds of which it has largely saved, the government wealth-to-GDP ratio is almost 270 percent. This would be equivalent to having a public investment fund of more than $40 trillion in the United States.</p> <p>Some of the other assertions in the piece are either misleading or inaccurate. For example, Booth is quoted as saying:</p> <p>Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women&amp;#160;&#8212; only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.</p> <p>Actually, Danish women are far less likely to be murdered by their husbands or boyfriends than women in the United States. Its <a href="https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html" type="external">murder rate</a> is 0.8 per 100,000, compared to 4.7 per 100,000 in the United States.</p> <p>Later Booth is quoted as saying:</p> <p>In Denmark, the quality of the free&amp;#160;education and healthcare is substandard: They are way down on the PISA [ <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/" type="external">Programme for International Student Assessment</a>] educational rankings, have the lowest life expectancy in the region, and the highest rates of death from cancer. And there is broad consensus that the economic model of a public sector and welfare state on this scale is unsustainable.</p> <p>While Denmark is not among the leaders on either PISA scores or <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?order=wbapi_data_value_2013+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&amp;amp;sort=desc" type="external">life expectancy</a>, on both measures it is well ahead of the United States. And the &#8220;broad consensus that the economic model&#8230;is unsustainable&#8221; exists only in Booth&#8217;s head.</p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/taxing-wages-tax-burden-trends-latest-year.htm" type="external">OECD figures</a>, labor is taxed more heavily in several non-Scandinavian countries, including Belgium, Austria, Germany, Hungary, France and Italy.</p> <p>Booth is also apparently confused about tax rates around the world. He tells readers:</p> <p>Denmark has the highest direct and indirect taxes in the world, and you don&#8217;t need to be a high earner to make it into the top tax bracket of 56 percent (to which you must add 25 percent value-added tax, the highest energy taxes in the world, car import duty of 180 percent, and so on).</p> <p>Actually, France has a top marginal tax rate of 75 percent. The U.S. rate was 90 percent during the Eisenhower administration.</p> <p>Booth apparently is confused about Denmark&#8217;s public spending. He tells readers: &#8220;How the money is spent is kept deliberately opaque by the authorities.&#8221;</p> <p>Actually, it is not difficult to find a great deal of information about how Denmark&#8217;s money is spent. Much of it can be gotten from the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SNA_TABLE11" type="external">OECD&#8217;s website</a>.</p> <p>So we get that Mr. Booth doesn&#8217;t like Denmark. He tells readers that the food and weather are awful. That may be true, but his analysis of other aspects of Danish society doesn&#8217;t fit with the data.</p> <p>Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. A version of this post originally appeared on CEPR&#8217;s blog Beat the Press ( <a href="http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/socialism-in-denmark-may-push-employment-rates-down-to-u-s-levels-in-25-years" type="external">11/4/15</a>).</p> <p>Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at <a href="mailto:letters@washpost.com" type="external">letters@washpost.com</a>, or via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost" type="external">@washingtonpost</a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.</p>

<p>Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) says last week's natural disasters were a response from above to out-of-control spending.&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/teambachmann/5958892888/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&amp;gt;Rep. Michele Bachmann&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p /> <p>As a general rule, if you&#8217;re a candidate for higher office and you&#8217;ve previously bragged about <a href="" type="internal">attending conferences devoted to Biblical prophecy</a>, you should avoid saying things like <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/hundreds-turn-out-for-bachmann-rally-in-sarasota-but-some-prefer-perry/1188559" type="external">this</a>:</p> <p>[Bachmann] hailed the tea party as being common-sense Americans who understand government shouldn&#8217;t spend more than it takes in, know they&#8217;re taxed enough already and want government to abide by the Constitution.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We&#8217;ve had an earthquake; we&#8217;ve had a hurricane. He said, &#8216;Are you going to start listening to me here?&#8216; Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we&#8217;ve got to rein in the spending.&#8221;</p> <p>Bachmann&#8217;s remarks came at a tea party rally in&amp;#160;Sarasota,&amp;#160;Florida on Sunday. Hurricane Irene was thankfully <a href="" type="internal">not as bad</a> as it could have been (and the earthquake wasn&#8217;t very bad at all), but it still took an enormous economic toll on the East Coast and has caused serious flooding in upstate New York and Vermont, which are not part of Washington. The wisdom of using it as a political bludgeon is questionable to say the least.</p> <p>But it&#8217;s also kind of an odd point to make. Congress is in recess for the month of August, and about a fifth of the chamber is <a href="" type="internal">actually in&amp;#160;Israel</a> right now. President Obama was out of town as well. The &#8220;politicians,&#8221; of which&amp;#160;Bachamnn is one, were for the most part not affected by the storm. Which isn&#8217;t to say God&#8217;s not infallible&#8212;but maybe Michele Bachmann isn&#8217;t.</p> <p>Update: Spokeswoman says Bachmann&#8217;s comments were &#8220; <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/bachmann-campaign-irene-wakeup-call-quote-in-jest.php?ref=fpa" type="external">clearly in jest</a>.&#8221; I think the point stands, though, that this is kind of a risk for a politician who has publicly dabbled in Biblical prophecy before.</p> <p />

Bachmann: Hurricane Irene Was Message From God

https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/bachmann-hurricane-earthquake-were-messages-god/

2011-08-29

4left

Bachmann: Hurricane Irene Was Message From God <p>Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) says last week's natural disasters were a response from above to out-of-control spending.&amp;lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/teambachmann/5958892888/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&amp;gt;Rep. Michele Bachmann&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;/Flickr</p> <p /> <p>As a general rule, if you&#8217;re a candidate for higher office and you&#8217;ve previously bragged about <a href="" type="internal">attending conferences devoted to Biblical prophecy</a>, you should avoid saying things like <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/hundreds-turn-out-for-bachmann-rally-in-sarasota-but-some-prefer-perry/1188559" type="external">this</a>:</p> <p>[Bachmann] hailed the tea party as being common-sense Americans who understand government shouldn&#8217;t spend more than it takes in, know they&#8217;re taxed enough already and want government to abide by the Constitution.</p> <p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We&#8217;ve had an earthquake; we&#8217;ve had a hurricane. He said, &#8216;Are you going to start listening to me here?&#8216; Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we&#8217;ve got to rein in the spending.&#8221;</p> <p>Bachmann&#8217;s remarks came at a tea party rally in&amp;#160;Sarasota,&amp;#160;Florida on Sunday. Hurricane Irene was thankfully <a href="" type="internal">not as bad</a> as it could have been (and the earthquake wasn&#8217;t very bad at all), but it still took an enormous economic toll on the East Coast and has caused serious flooding in upstate New York and Vermont, which are not part of Washington. The wisdom of using it as a political bludgeon is questionable to say the least.</p> <p>But it&#8217;s also kind of an odd point to make. Congress is in recess for the month of August, and about a fifth of the chamber is <a href="" type="internal">actually in&amp;#160;Israel</a> right now. President Obama was out of town as well. The &#8220;politicians,&#8221; of which&amp;#160;Bachamnn is one, were for the most part not affected by the storm. Which isn&#8217;t to say God&#8217;s not infallible&#8212;but maybe Michele Bachmann isn&#8217;t.</p> <p>Update: Spokeswoman says Bachmann&#8217;s comments were &#8220; <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/bachmann-campaign-irene-wakeup-call-quote-in-jest.php?ref=fpa" type="external">clearly in jest</a>.&#8221; I think the point stands, though, that this is kind of a risk for a politician who has publicly dabbled in Biblical prophecy before.</p> <p />

<p>An aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told a colleague that their boss lied at a 2013 press conference during which he told reporters that top staffers knew nothing of a scheme to punish a political opponent with lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, court documents released Wednesday alleged.</p> <p>"Are you listening? He just flat out lied about senior staff and (former campaign manager Bill) Stepian not being involved," the aide, Christina Genovese Renna, wrote in a text message to campaign worker Peter Sheridan as they watched the Dec. 13, 2013 press conference, when the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal was just beginning to unfold.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m listening.&#8221; Sheridan replied. He added: &#8220;Gov is doing fine. Holding his own up there.&#8221;</p> <p>Renna wrote back: &#8220;Yes. But he lied. And if emails are found with the subpoena or ccfg emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad.&#8221; The abbreviation ccfg is an apparent reference to Christie's election campaign.</p> <p>The exchange was submitted in a brief by lawyers representing Bill Baroni, one of two former Christie allies who will go on trial next month for their roles in the lane closures. Federal prosecutors allege the closures were concocted to cause traffic mayhem in a town whose mayor declined to endorse Christie's re-election bid. Baroni's lawyers say the government is ignoring key evidence that points blame toward others, and included Renna's texts as an example.</p> <p>The lawyers also alleged that Renna deleted her text messages after the New Jersey state Legislature issued subpoenas on the case.</p> <p>Christie has consistently said he knew nothing about the lane closures, and he hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing. And on Wednesday, he said he hadn't lied.</p> <p>"I absolutely dispute it. It's ridiculous. It's nothing new," Christie said, <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/87c0f908faac41af80ccfb9cf0b48884/former-aide-text-christie-flat-out-lied-bridge-case?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;amp;utm_medium=AP" type="external">according to The Associated Press</a>. "There's nothing new to talk about."</p> <p>Christie also pointed out that defense lawyers had submitted the texts, rather than someone who was under oath, the AP reported.</p> <p>Renna's lawyer, Henry Klingeman, said in an email only that his client "will answer questions publicly when she testifies at the upcoming trial, not before."</p> <p>Stepien's lawyer, Kevin Marino, said that the government has been in possession of the test messages for years and has not charged Stepien. Marino said in an email that it was "categorically false and irresponsible" to use those texts now to suggest that he was involved.</p>

Chris Christie Aide Accused Him of Lying on Bridgegate, Documents Say

http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chris-christie-aide-accused-him-lying-bridgegate-documents-say-n627286

2016-08-10

3left-center

Chris Christie Aide Accused Him of Lying on Bridgegate, Documents Say <p>An aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told a colleague that their boss lied at a 2013 press conference during which he told reporters that top staffers knew nothing of a scheme to punish a political opponent with lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, court documents released Wednesday alleged.</p> <p>"Are you listening? He just flat out lied about senior staff and (former campaign manager Bill) Stepian not being involved," the aide, Christina Genovese Renna, wrote in a text message to campaign worker Peter Sheridan as they watched the Dec. 13, 2013 press conference, when the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal was just beginning to unfold.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m listening.&#8221; Sheridan replied. He added: &#8220;Gov is doing fine. Holding his own up there.&#8221;</p> <p>Renna wrote back: &#8220;Yes. But he lied. And if emails are found with the subpoena or ccfg emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad.&#8221; The abbreviation ccfg is an apparent reference to Christie's election campaign.</p> <p>The exchange was submitted in a brief by lawyers representing Bill Baroni, one of two former Christie allies who will go on trial next month for their roles in the lane closures. Federal prosecutors allege the closures were concocted to cause traffic mayhem in a town whose mayor declined to endorse Christie's re-election bid. Baroni's lawyers say the government is ignoring key evidence that points blame toward others, and included Renna's texts as an example.</p> <p>The lawyers also alleged that Renna deleted her text messages after the New Jersey state Legislature issued subpoenas on the case.</p> <p>Christie has consistently said he knew nothing about the lane closures, and he hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing. And on Wednesday, he said he hadn't lied.</p> <p>"I absolutely dispute it. It's ridiculous. It's nothing new," Christie said, <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/87c0f908faac41af80ccfb9cf0b48884/former-aide-text-christie-flat-out-lied-bridge-case?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;amp;utm_medium=AP" type="external">according to The Associated Press</a>. "There's nothing new to talk about."</p> <p>Christie also pointed out that defense lawyers had submitted the texts, rather than someone who was under oath, the AP reported.</p> <p>Renna's lawyer, Henry Klingeman, said in an email only that his client "will answer questions publicly when she testifies at the upcoming trial, not before."</p> <p>Stepien's lawyer, Kevin Marino, said that the government has been in possession of the test messages for years and has not charged Stepien. Marino said in an email that it was "categorically false and irresponsible" to use those texts now to suggest that he was involved.</p>

<p>AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Toronto Star-Michael Stuparyk</p> <p>Toronto has had enough of Donald Trump. After more than a decade of drama, Trump&#8217;s name is being stripped from a 65-story hotel and condo building in downtown Toronto, following years of financial failure and lawsuits. In the end, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto has become yet another symbol of the flaws of the Trump business empire: construction setbacks, strange financing, angry investors, and empty hotel rooms.</p> <p>Trump first made his move into Canada at the height of his&amp;#160;Apprentice deal-making fame, inking an agreement&amp;#160;to attach his name&#8212;and reputation&#8212;to a shiny new Toronto tower, in which he had no ownership interest. When the building&amp;#160;opened five years ago, Trump kicked off the project with a bit of promotion that looks a lot like the PR strategy he would employ as a candidate and as president: a&amp;#160;tweet with a dramatic video of his plane landing and a black motorcade of SUVs rolling into the hotel&#8217;s entrance, where an adoring crowd waited.</p> <p /> <p>In the 2012&amp;#160;video&#8212;after a montage of the future commander-in-chief examining bathrooms and piles of merchandise set to jazzy trumpet music&#8212;Trump took the podium and declared, &#8220;About eight years ago I began this voyage, and it turned out to be a beautiful voyage, because the end result is this spectacular building.&#8221;</p> <p>The beautiful voyage did not last. The Toronto tower he leased his name to never lived up to the hype. On Tuesday morning, the Trump Organization and the building&#8217;s current owner announced that the president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/trump-hotel-owner-in-toronto-reaches-deal-to-remove-trump-brand" type="external">name will be removed from the hotel</a>.</p> <p>Trump spent years promoting the property as a total success and an extension of his brand. His original partners in the project were two Russian-Canadian businessmen, neither of whom had any experience with building a skyscraper. As the building went up, construction delays and other problems&#8212;including <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/glass-falls-from-trump-tower/article5306888/" type="external">pieces of the building falling off&#8212;</a>set the project back.</p> <p>The building was to be financed through a scheme&#8212;used in other Trump projects, such as the Trump Soho in New York City&#8212;in which investors bought individual units and signed an agreement allowing them to be rented out through the Trump-managed hotel. In return for providing money upfront for the construction, these owners would enjoy a slice of the profits when their rooms were filled by hotel customers.</p> <p>Trump agreed to manage the hotel once the building was complete, but <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/08/513946283/trump-tower-in-toronto-is-up-for-sale-and-facing-legal-woes" type="external">lawsuits from investors</a> charged that Trump and his partners had misled them&amp;#160;about his role in the building.</p> <p>These investor lawsuits were not unique to Trump&#8217;s Toronto deal. He battled similar actions in relation to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?_r=0" type="external">Trump Soho</a>&amp;#160;and other properties. In these cases, investors complained that they had been misled by the promotional material and sales teams that&amp;#160;pitched the deals as successful Trump-led projects. (Trump <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/23/trump-lawsuit-chicago/2355929/" type="external">prevailed</a> in one such high-profile case in 2013.)</p> <p>The majority of the Toronto building&#8217;s units remained unsold. (Some investors who had bought units prior to construction later backed out after the 2008 economic crisis.) Trump&#8217;s partners then turned to another source of financing. One of those partners, Alexander Shnaider, owned a stake in a Ukrainian steel mill; he sold it in 2010 and used some of the estimated $850 million in proceeds to prop up the Trump Toronto project. The buyer at the other end of the Ukrainian steel mill deal? A Russian state-owned bank known to have close ties to Vladimir Putin and now on the list of financial institutions under sanction by the US government. (In May, the Wall Street Journal&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-state-run-bank-financed-deal-involving-trump-hotel-partner-1495031708" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;that this deal has become a subject of interest for US investigators probing Trump&#8217;s potential connections with Russia.)</p> <p>The extra financing, though, wasn&#8217;t enough, and the building remained troubled. This past November, shortly after the US election, Trump&#8217;s Canadian partners <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/trump-hotel-in-toronto-nears-auction-after-default-by-developer" type="external">lost control of the building</a>. It was the new owner, JCF Capital, that&amp;#160;announced Tuesday&amp;#160;that it was cutting ties with the Trump Organization. Given the building&#8217;s checkered history and the hotel&#8217;s struggle to succeed under Trump management, such a move made sense. Since Trump&#8217;s election, protesters in Toronto have homed&amp;#160;in on the property as the target of their ire. Recent searches of hotel booking websites show rooms there being offered at steep discounts.</p> <p>According to Bloomberg, JCF Capital <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/trump-hotel-owner-in-toronto-reaches-deal-to-remove-trump-brand" type="external">may have paid as much as $6 million</a> to ditch the Trump name. But Trump will lose a valuable revenue stream. According to the three personal financial disclosures he has filed since first announcing his candidacy, Trump has earned more than half a million dollars per year for the last three years in management fees, though he reported that&amp;#160;his fees had fallen&amp;#160;in the past year. (Trump&#8217;s adult sons have assumed daily control of the Trump Organization, but Trump still retains near complete ownership of the business and almost all its assets.)</p> <p>The collapse of the Toronto business is the latest in a series of hits to Trump&#8217;s high-end luxury hotel empire. Questions have been raised by former employees <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-21/trump-russia-and-those-shadowy-sater-deals-at-bayrock" type="external">about the source of financing of the&amp;#160;</a>the Trump Soho, which Trump once owned&amp;#160;a stake in but now only manages.&amp;#160;Recently, that hotel reportedly <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/24/new-yorks-trump-soho-hotel-is-reportedly-planning-to-lay-off-staff.html" type="external">laid off staff</a> and shuttered a high-end restaurant following a post-election slump in business. A new Trump-managed golf course in New York City <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/nyregion/trump-golf-course-bronx.html" type="external">has had its business decline in the past year</a>, and several other Trump properties, including his beloved Mar-a-Lago,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-banquet-business-was-booming-at-mar-a-lago-then-trump-became-president/2017/06/23/1f50cf28-5145-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html" type="external">have suffered as well</a>.</p> <p>Last week,&amp;#160;Mother Jones <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> that Trump condo sales seem to be slumping, with large cuts in the listing prices for several prominent Trump-owned units in New York City. The removal of his name from the troubled hotel in Toronto is another sign that his new job&#8212;while certainly creating new business opportunities for him and his family&#8212;has posed its own set of complications.</p>

Here’s What Trump’s Latest Failure Tells Us About His Business Empire

https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/heres-what-trumps-latest-failure-tells-us-about-his-business-empire/

2017-06-27

4left

Here’s What Trump’s Latest Failure Tells Us About His Business Empire <p>AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Toronto Star-Michael Stuparyk</p> <p>Toronto has had enough of Donald Trump. After more than a decade of drama, Trump&#8217;s name is being stripped from a 65-story hotel and condo building in downtown Toronto, following years of financial failure and lawsuits. In the end, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto has become yet another symbol of the flaws of the Trump business empire: construction setbacks, strange financing, angry investors, and empty hotel rooms.</p> <p>Trump first made his move into Canada at the height of his&amp;#160;Apprentice deal-making fame, inking an agreement&amp;#160;to attach his name&#8212;and reputation&#8212;to a shiny new Toronto tower, in which he had no ownership interest. When the building&amp;#160;opened five years ago, Trump kicked off the project with a bit of promotion that looks a lot like the PR strategy he would employ as a candidate and as president: a&amp;#160;tweet with a dramatic video of his plane landing and a black motorcade of SUVs rolling into the hotel&#8217;s entrance, where an adoring crowd waited.</p> <p /> <p>In the 2012&amp;#160;video&#8212;after a montage of the future commander-in-chief examining bathrooms and piles of merchandise set to jazzy trumpet music&#8212;Trump took the podium and declared, &#8220;About eight years ago I began this voyage, and it turned out to be a beautiful voyage, because the end result is this spectacular building.&#8221;</p> <p>The beautiful voyage did not last. The Toronto tower he leased his name to never lived up to the hype. On Tuesday morning, the Trump Organization and the building&#8217;s current owner announced that the president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/trump-hotel-owner-in-toronto-reaches-deal-to-remove-trump-brand" type="external">name will be removed from the hotel</a>.</p> <p>Trump spent years promoting the property as a total success and an extension of his brand. His original partners in the project were two Russian-Canadian businessmen, neither of whom had any experience with building a skyscraper. As the building went up, construction delays and other problems&#8212;including <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/glass-falls-from-trump-tower/article5306888/" type="external">pieces of the building falling off&#8212;</a>set the project back.</p> <p>The building was to be financed through a scheme&#8212;used in other Trump projects, such as the Trump Soho in New York City&#8212;in which investors bought individual units and signed an agreement allowing them to be rented out through the Trump-managed hotel. In return for providing money upfront for the construction, these owners would enjoy a slice of the profits when their rooms were filled by hotel customers.</p> <p>Trump agreed to manage the hotel once the building was complete, but <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/08/513946283/trump-tower-in-toronto-is-up-for-sale-and-facing-legal-woes" type="external">lawsuits from investors</a> charged that Trump and his partners had misled them&amp;#160;about his role in the building.</p> <p>These investor lawsuits were not unique to Trump&#8217;s Toronto deal. He battled similar actions in relation to&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?_r=0" type="external">Trump Soho</a>&amp;#160;and other properties. In these cases, investors complained that they had been misled by the promotional material and sales teams that&amp;#160;pitched the deals as successful Trump-led projects. (Trump <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/23/trump-lawsuit-chicago/2355929/" type="external">prevailed</a> in one such high-profile case in 2013.)</p> <p>The majority of the Toronto building&#8217;s units remained unsold. (Some investors who had bought units prior to construction later backed out after the 2008 economic crisis.) Trump&#8217;s partners then turned to another source of financing. One of those partners, Alexander Shnaider, owned a stake in a Ukrainian steel mill; he sold it in 2010 and used some of the estimated $850 million in proceeds to prop up the Trump Toronto project. The buyer at the other end of the Ukrainian steel mill deal? A Russian state-owned bank known to have close ties to Vladimir Putin and now on the list of financial institutions under sanction by the US government. (In May, the Wall Street Journal&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-state-run-bank-financed-deal-involving-trump-hotel-partner-1495031708" type="external">reported</a>&amp;#160;that this deal has become a subject of interest for US investigators probing Trump&#8217;s potential connections with Russia.)</p> <p>The extra financing, though, wasn&#8217;t enough, and the building remained troubled. This past November, shortly after the US election, Trump&#8217;s Canadian partners <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/trump-hotel-in-toronto-nears-auction-after-default-by-developer" type="external">lost control of the building</a>. It was the new owner, JCF Capital, that&amp;#160;announced Tuesday&amp;#160;that it was cutting ties with the Trump Organization. Given the building&#8217;s checkered history and the hotel&#8217;s struggle to succeed under Trump management, such a move made sense. Since Trump&#8217;s election, protesters in Toronto have homed&amp;#160;in on the property as the target of their ire. Recent searches of hotel booking websites show rooms there being offered at steep discounts.</p> <p>According to Bloomberg, JCF Capital <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/trump-hotel-owner-in-toronto-reaches-deal-to-remove-trump-brand" type="external">may have paid as much as $6 million</a> to ditch the Trump name. But Trump will lose a valuable revenue stream. According to the three personal financial disclosures he has filed since first announcing his candidacy, Trump has earned more than half a million dollars per year for the last three years in management fees, though he reported that&amp;#160;his fees had fallen&amp;#160;in the past year. (Trump&#8217;s adult sons have assumed daily control of the Trump Organization, but Trump still retains near complete ownership of the business and almost all its assets.)</p> <p>The collapse of the Toronto business is the latest in a series of hits to Trump&#8217;s high-end luxury hotel empire. Questions have been raised by former employees <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-21/trump-russia-and-those-shadowy-sater-deals-at-bayrock" type="external">about the source of financing of the&amp;#160;</a>the Trump Soho, which Trump once owned&amp;#160;a stake in but now only manages.&amp;#160;Recently, that hotel reportedly <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/24/new-yorks-trump-soho-hotel-is-reportedly-planning-to-lay-off-staff.html" type="external">laid off staff</a> and shuttered a high-end restaurant following a post-election slump in business. A new Trump-managed golf course in New York City <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/nyregion/trump-golf-course-bronx.html" type="external">has had its business decline in the past year</a>, and several other Trump properties, including his beloved Mar-a-Lago,&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-banquet-business-was-booming-at-mar-a-lago-then-trump-became-president/2017/06/23/1f50cf28-5145-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html" type="external">have suffered as well</a>.</p> <p>Last week,&amp;#160;Mother Jones <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> that Trump condo sales seem to be slumping, with large cuts in the listing prices for several prominent Trump-owned units in New York City. The removal of his name from the troubled hotel in Toronto is another sign that his new job&#8212;while certainly creating new business opportunities for him and his family&#8212;has posed its own set of complications.</p>

<p>Washington Post Live OnlineJohn Kelly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15588-2005Feb10.html" type="external">tells</a> readers how to peruse the print Washington Post. A chat participant <a href="http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/05/metro_kelly021105.htm" type="external">tells him</a> why the online version is better: 1. No ink stains on fingers. 2. No piles and piles of paper to haul to the curb, or the dump, to dispose. 3. I don't own a bird or a puppy. Those Sunday editions weight a ton. 4. You can participate in lunchtime chats with columnists and people think you're working through lunch. Get brownie points for that one. 5. No extra verbiage you don't want to read, like Sports, Classifieds, real estate, personals, legal notices. Just zoom in on what you want. 6. Does the Graham family really need my 35 cents? Don't they have enough already? Could they adopt me? 7. You can print the recipes you want from the Wednesday edition without having to find scissors to clip them. 8. When you're done, just turn exit the website. No newsprint to recycle.</p>

Eight reasons why WP website is better than print edition

https://poynter.org/news/eight-reasons-why-wp-website-better-print-edition

2005-02-11

2least

Eight reasons why WP website is better than print edition <p>Washington Post Live OnlineJohn Kelly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15588-2005Feb10.html" type="external">tells</a> readers how to peruse the print Washington Post. A chat participant <a href="http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/05/metro_kelly021105.htm" type="external">tells him</a> why the online version is better: 1. No ink stains on fingers. 2. No piles and piles of paper to haul to the curb, or the dump, to dispose. 3. I don't own a bird or a puppy. Those Sunday editions weight a ton. 4. You can participate in lunchtime chats with columnists and people think you're working through lunch. Get brownie points for that one. 5. No extra verbiage you don't want to read, like Sports, Classifieds, real estate, personals, legal notices. Just zoom in on what you want. 6. Does the Graham family really need my 35 cents? Don't they have enough already? Could they adopt me? 7. You can print the recipes you want from the Wednesday edition without having to find scissors to clip them. 8. When you're done, just turn exit the website. No newsprint to recycle.</p>

<p /> <p>Francela M&#233;ndez was a member of Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a who was killed at a friend&#8217;s home in 2015. The transgender rights organization has hung this tribute to her at its offices in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)</p> <p /> <p>Bianka Rodr&#237;guez of Comunicado y Capacitando a Mujeres Trans, a Salvadoran advocacy group known by the acronym COMCAVIS, told commissioners during the March 21 hearing in D.C. that at least 600 people have been victims of hate crimes based on their sexual orientation or gender identity since 2004.</p> <p>Statistics from COMCAVIS and Asociaci&#243;n para Impulsar el Desarrollo Humano (ASPIDH) Arcoiris Trans, another Salvadoran advocacy group, indicate roughly two dozen trans people were reported killed in El Salvador in 2015. One of these victims was <a href="" type="internal">Francela M&#233;ndez,</a> a prominent trans rights advocate who was a board member of Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a, a trans advocacy group that is based in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador.</p> <p>Three trans women were <a href="" type="internal">killed</a>in San Luis Talpa, a municipality in La Paz Department, last month. Rodr&#237;guez said eight trans women have fled El Salvador since these murders.</p> <p>&#8220;The violence that El Salvador faces is a problem that affects all sectors of society,&#8221; she said. &#8220;LGTBI (lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and intersex) people aren&#8217;t immune to this problem.&#8221;</p> <p>The Organization of American States, which is based in D.C., created the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1959 as a way to promote human rights throughout the Western Hemisphere. Anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in El Salvador is among the LGBT-specific issues the commission examined last week.</p> <p>El Salvador, which borders Guatemala and Honduras, has one of the world&#8217;s highest murder rates. Anti-LGBT rhetoric from politicians and religious figures, discrimination, poverty and a lack of educational opportunities are among the factors that have made LGBT Salvadorans particularly vulnerable to violence.</p> <p>A report from El Salvador&#8217;s Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights indicates 52 percent of trans women it surveyed said they received death threats. A press release the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released on March 23 indicates 17 of the more than 40 reports of &#8220;serious crimes&#8221; against LGBT people that have been committed in the Western Hemisphere so far this year come from El Salvador.</p> <p>Rodr&#237;guez said trans women&#8217;s family members frequently commit acts of violence against them because of their gender identity. She also told the commission that gang members routinely extort money from those who engage in sex work.</p> <p>&#8220;We find ourselves in a cycle of violence, discrimination and criminalization,&#8221; said Rodr&#237;guez.</p> <p>Rodr&#237;guez and others who testified at the hearing said LGBT rights advocates in El Salvador are frequently threatened and attacked.</p> <p>Ambar Alfaro of ASPIDH Arcoiris said an activist was carjacked last October as she left a San Salvador mall and held against her will for nearly an hour. She pointed out a group of four &#8220;unknown men&#8221; with guns carjacked COMCAVIS Director Karla Avelar during the same month, demanded her identification and her cell phone and threatened her.</p> <p>Alex Pe&#241;a of Generaci&#243;n de Hombres Trans de El Salvador, a group that advocates on behalf of trans Salvadoran men, said a group of police officers attacked him in 2015 after he had a confrontation with a bus driver while returning home from a San Salvador Pride celebration. Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad (ESMULES) Executive Director Andrea Ayala told the Blade during <a href="" type="internal">a previous interview</a> that she suspects police officers broke into her office after she and other advocates publicly denounced the attack.</p> <p>&#8220;The state has not adopted any type of measures that protect us and guarantee that we can do our work without risk,&#8221; said Alfaro.</p> <p>Avelar did not attend the hearing because she was unable to obtain a visa that would have allowed her to travel to the U.S.</p> <p>Representatives of the Salvadoran government who testified at the hearing defended the country&#8217;s efforts to combat anti-LGBT violence and discrimination.</p> <p>Cruz Torres, director of the Office of Diversity in El Salvador&#8217;s Ministry of Social Inclusion, noted he specifically works on LGBT issues. He also pointed out the country&#8217;s government has directed public agencies to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.</p> <p>Salvadoran lawmakers in 2015 approved an amendment to the country&#8217;s legal code that enhances penalties for anti-LGBT hate crimes.</p> <p>Three of the five police officers who Pe&#241;a accused of attacking him were convicted last October and were sentenced to prison. A State Department spokesperson told the Blade last month that it <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;supports&#8221;</a> the ongoing investigation into the murders of the three trans women in San Luis Talpa.</p> <p>&#8220;For the country of El Salvador, this hearing held to talk about the situation of the human rights of the LGTBI community in our country constitutes an important space to highlight so many of the advances that we have made in this area as well as the challenges that all of us have,&#8221; said Ambassador Carlos Calles, who is El Salvador&#8217;s permanent OAS representative.</p> <p /> <p>Alex Pe&#241;a of Generaci&#243;n de Hombres Trans de El Salvador was allegedly attacked by police officers in June 2015 while returning home from a Pride celebration in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo courtesy of Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad)</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;We are receptive to listening to this commission,&#8221; she said.</p> <p>Kerlin Belloso of the Fundaci&#243;n de Estudios para la Aplicaci&#243;n del Derecho, a Salvadoran human rights group known by the acronym FESPAD, said the hate crimes law has &#8220;not had any affect in practice.&#8221; She and other advocates who testified also pointed out stigma and mistreatment and a lack of urgency on the part of law enforcement and public officials are among the barriers that LGBT Salvadorans face when they are victims of hate crimes and discrimination.</p> <p>&#8220;The state&#8217;s inaction is almost absolute,&#8221; said Alfaro.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Alex Pe&#241;a</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ambar Alfaro</a> <a href="" type="internal">Andrea Ayala</a> <a href="" type="internal">ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">Bianka Rodr&#237;guez</a> <a href="" type="internal">bisexual</a> <a href="" type="internal">Carlos Calles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a</a> <a href="" type="internal">COMCAVIS</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cruz Torres</a> <a href="" type="internal">El Salvador</a> <a href="" type="internal">Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad</a> <a href="" type="internal">Francela M&#233;ndez</a> <a href="" type="internal">Fundaci&#243;n de Estudios para la Aplicaci&#243;n del Derecho</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Inter-American Commission on Human Rights</a> <a href="" type="internal">intersex</a> <a href="" type="internal">Karla Avelar</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kerlin Belloso</a> <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a> <a href="" type="internal">Organization of American States</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">Wendy Acevedo</a></p>

OAS commission holds hearing on anti-LGBT violence in El Salvador

http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/27/oas-commission-holds-hearing-anti-lgbt-violence-el-salvador/

3left-center

OAS commission holds hearing on anti-LGBT violence in El Salvador <p /> <p>Francela M&#233;ndez was a member of Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a who was killed at a friend&#8217;s home in 2015. The transgender rights organization has hung this tribute to her at its offices in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)</p> <p /> <p>Bianka Rodr&#237;guez of Comunicado y Capacitando a Mujeres Trans, a Salvadoran advocacy group known by the acronym COMCAVIS, told commissioners during the March 21 hearing in D.C. that at least 600 people have been victims of hate crimes based on their sexual orientation or gender identity since 2004.</p> <p>Statistics from COMCAVIS and Asociaci&#243;n para Impulsar el Desarrollo Humano (ASPIDH) Arcoiris Trans, another Salvadoran advocacy group, indicate roughly two dozen trans people were reported killed in El Salvador in 2015. One of these victims was <a href="" type="internal">Francela M&#233;ndez,</a> a prominent trans rights advocate who was a board member of Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a, a trans advocacy group that is based in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador.</p> <p>Three trans women were <a href="" type="internal">killed</a>in San Luis Talpa, a municipality in La Paz Department, last month. Rodr&#237;guez said eight trans women have fled El Salvador since these murders.</p> <p>&#8220;The violence that El Salvador faces is a problem that affects all sectors of society,&#8221; she said. &#8220;LGTBI (lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and intersex) people aren&#8217;t immune to this problem.&#8221;</p> <p>The Organization of American States, which is based in D.C., created the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1959 as a way to promote human rights throughout the Western Hemisphere. Anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in El Salvador is among the LGBT-specific issues the commission examined last week.</p> <p>El Salvador, which borders Guatemala and Honduras, has one of the world&#8217;s highest murder rates. Anti-LGBT rhetoric from politicians and religious figures, discrimination, poverty and a lack of educational opportunities are among the factors that have made LGBT Salvadorans particularly vulnerable to violence.</p> <p>A report from El Salvador&#8217;s Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights indicates 52 percent of trans women it surveyed said they received death threats. A press release the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released on March 23 indicates 17 of the more than 40 reports of &#8220;serious crimes&#8221; against LGBT people that have been committed in the Western Hemisphere so far this year come from El Salvador.</p> <p>Rodr&#237;guez said trans women&#8217;s family members frequently commit acts of violence against them because of their gender identity. She also told the commission that gang members routinely extort money from those who engage in sex work.</p> <p>&#8220;We find ourselves in a cycle of violence, discrimination and criminalization,&#8221; said Rodr&#237;guez.</p> <p>Rodr&#237;guez and others who testified at the hearing said LGBT rights advocates in El Salvador are frequently threatened and attacked.</p> <p>Ambar Alfaro of ASPIDH Arcoiris said an activist was carjacked last October as she left a San Salvador mall and held against her will for nearly an hour. She pointed out a group of four &#8220;unknown men&#8221; with guns carjacked COMCAVIS Director Karla Avelar during the same month, demanded her identification and her cell phone and threatened her.</p> <p>Alex Pe&#241;a of Generaci&#243;n de Hombres Trans de El Salvador, a group that advocates on behalf of trans Salvadoran men, said a group of police officers attacked him in 2015 after he had a confrontation with a bus driver while returning home from a San Salvador Pride celebration. Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad (ESMULES) Executive Director Andrea Ayala told the Blade during <a href="" type="internal">a previous interview</a> that she suspects police officers broke into her office after she and other advocates publicly denounced the attack.</p> <p>&#8220;The state has not adopted any type of measures that protect us and guarantee that we can do our work without risk,&#8221; said Alfaro.</p> <p>Avelar did not attend the hearing because she was unable to obtain a visa that would have allowed her to travel to the U.S.</p> <p>Representatives of the Salvadoran government who testified at the hearing defended the country&#8217;s efforts to combat anti-LGBT violence and discrimination.</p> <p>Cruz Torres, director of the Office of Diversity in El Salvador&#8217;s Ministry of Social Inclusion, noted he specifically works on LGBT issues. He also pointed out the country&#8217;s government has directed public agencies to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.</p> <p>Salvadoran lawmakers in 2015 approved an amendment to the country&#8217;s legal code that enhances penalties for anti-LGBT hate crimes.</p> <p>Three of the five police officers who Pe&#241;a accused of attacking him were convicted last October and were sentenced to prison. A State Department spokesperson told the Blade last month that it <a href="" type="internal">&#8220;supports&#8221;</a> the ongoing investigation into the murders of the three trans women in San Luis Talpa.</p> <p>&#8220;For the country of El Salvador, this hearing held to talk about the situation of the human rights of the LGTBI community in our country constitutes an important space to highlight so many of the advances that we have made in this area as well as the challenges that all of us have,&#8221; said Ambassador Carlos Calles, who is El Salvador&#8217;s permanent OAS representative.</p> <p /> <p>Alex Pe&#241;a of Generaci&#243;n de Hombres Trans de El Salvador was allegedly attacked by police officers in June 2015 while returning home from a Pride celebration in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo courtesy of Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad)</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;We are receptive to listening to this commission,&#8221; she said.</p> <p>Kerlin Belloso of the Fundaci&#243;n de Estudios para la Aplicaci&#243;n del Derecho, a Salvadoran human rights group known by the acronym FESPAD, said the hate crimes law has &#8220;not had any affect in practice.&#8221; She and other advocates who testified also pointed out stigma and mistreatment and a lack of urgency on the part of law enforcement and public officials are among the barriers that LGBT Salvadorans face when they are victims of hate crimes and discrimination.</p> <p>&#8220;The state&#8217;s inaction is almost absolute,&#8221; said Alfaro.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Alex Pe&#241;a</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ambar Alfaro</a> <a href="" type="internal">Andrea Ayala</a> <a href="" type="internal">ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">Bianka Rodr&#237;guez</a> <a href="" type="internal">bisexual</a> <a href="" type="internal">Carlos Calles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Colectivo Alejandr&#237;a</a> <a href="" type="internal">COMCAVIS</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cruz Torres</a> <a href="" type="internal">El Salvador</a> <a href="" type="internal">Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas por la Diversidad</a> <a href="" type="internal">Francela M&#233;ndez</a> <a href="" type="internal">Fundaci&#243;n de Estudios para la Aplicaci&#243;n del Derecho</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Inter-American Commission on Human Rights</a> <a href="" type="internal">intersex</a> <a href="" type="internal">Karla Avelar</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kerlin Belloso</a> <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a> <a href="" type="internal">Organization of American States</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">Wendy Acevedo</a></p>

<p /> <p>Many tech companies and automakers believe that driverless cars will hit public roads within the next decade. Those expectations have fueled a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/11/11-facts-about-driverless-cars-every-investor-shou.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">land grab Opens a New Window.</a> in driverless technologies, and many companies with exposure to that market have rallied over the past year.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Image source: Google.</p> <p>As a result, many of the obvious plays in that sector -- like Mobileye, Nvidia, and Tesla Motors -- have fairly high valuations. More value-oriented investors might want to seek out more overlooked and undervalued companies with exposure to the driverless market.</p> <p>In a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/01/2-incredibly-cheap-driverless-car-stocks.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">previous article Opens a New Window.</a>, I highlighted NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI) and Delphi Automotive as undervalued plays on driverless cars. Today, I'll focus on two other players with attractive valuations -- Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU).</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Qualcomm, the world's biggest mobile chipmaker, will likely acquireNXP Semiconductors, the world's top automotive chipmaker, for over $37 billion in the near future. Once that <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/04/should-qualcomm-inc-pay-30-billion-for-nxp-semicon.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">deal closes Opens a New Window.</a>, Qualcomm will become the 800-pound gorilla in the automotive chips market.</p> <p>Over the past few years, Qualcomm has gradually lost market share in mobile devices to cheaper rivals like MediaTek and first-party chips from major OEMs like Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. To offset those losses, Qualcomm <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/11/qualcomm-inc-is-running-out-of-room-to-grow-whats.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">aggressively expanded Opens a New Window.</a>into Internet of Things (IoT) devices, drones, connected cameras, and connected cars.</p> <p>Prior to the NXP deal, Qualcomm acquired IoT and automotive chipmaker CSR for $2.4 billion last year, and launched a line of Snapdragon Automotive chips forinfotainment and navigation systems. Buying NXP (which expanded its automotive business by buying Freescale last year) will add a wide variety of automotive chips, along with the turnkey driverless platform BlueBox, to Qualcomm's portfolio.</p> <p>The exact impact of the merger will be hard to gauge until the deal is formally announced, but Qualcomm currently trades at fairly low multiples. Despite rallying 35% this year, Qualcomm still trades at 20 times earnings -- which is lower than the average P/E of 22 for broad line semiconductor companies.</p> <p>Baidu, the top search engine in China, announced inJune that it would put driverless cars on public roads within the next five years. Like its American counterpart, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google, Baidu doesn't plan to mass produce the cars by itself. Instead, it plans to outsource the production to existing automakers, with the first Baidu-branded vehicle set to arrive in 2018. That vehicle will be a driverless shuttle bus programmed to run in a loop.</p> <p>Last December, Baidu started testing out its driverless technology on a fleet of BMW 3-Series GTs in Beijing and Wuhu. Earlier this year, Baidu established a driverless tech research center in Silicon Valley, with the goal of testing out autonomous cars in the U.S. in the near future.</p> <p>BMW 3-Series GT. Image source: BMW.</p> <p>Baidu's growing interest in driverless cars comes at a time when Chinese tech companies are battling over online-to-offline (O2O) services (like hailing cabs, ordering movie tickets, making dinner reservations) instead of simple online searches. As ride-hailing apps and driverless cars both grow in popularity, they will likely converge with apps for hailing autonomous taxis.</p> <p>When that happens, Baidu's expansive ecosystem of search, maps, mobile payments, and O2O services could help it dominate the market by leveraging its users' dependence on those core services. While that ambitious goal might take years to reach, Baidu remains fairly cheap at 13 times earnings -- which is much lower than the industry average of P/E of 50 for internet information providers.</p> <p>Qualcomm and Baidu still trade at relatively low multiples because many investors are worried about their near-term headwinds. Qualcomm still faces tough competition in smartphone chips, and its higher-margin licensing business remains under pressure from defiant OEMs and government regulators. Baidu's margins have declined over the past few years due to its increased spending on new markets like O2O services and driverless cars.</p> <p>Investors are wise to question Qualcomm and Baidu's ability to clear those big hurdles, but they should also note that both companies are well-poised to capitalize on the growth of driverless cars. Moreover, their fairly low valuations indicate that they might have more upside growth potential than more richly valued driverless stocks like <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/22/better-driverless-car-stock-mobileye-nv-or-nvidi-2.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Nvidia and Mobileye Opens a New Window.</a>.</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;amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;amp;ftm_pit=2668&amp;amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSunLion/info.aspx" type="external">Leo Sun Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, Baidu, Nvidia, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, and Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

2 Most Unbelievably Undervalued Driverless Cars Stocks

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/25/2-most-unbelievably-undervalued-driverless-cars-stocks.html

2016-10-25

0right

2 Most Unbelievably Undervalued Driverless Cars Stocks <p /> <p>Many tech companies and automakers believe that driverless cars will hit public roads within the next decade. Those expectations have fueled a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/11/11-facts-about-driverless-cars-every-investor-shou.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">land grab Opens a New Window.</a> in driverless technologies, and many companies with exposure to that market have rallied over the past year.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Image source: Google.</p> <p>As a result, many of the obvious plays in that sector -- like Mobileye, Nvidia, and Tesla Motors -- have fairly high valuations. More value-oriented investors might want to seek out more overlooked and undervalued companies with exposure to the driverless market.</p> <p>In a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/01/2-incredibly-cheap-driverless-car-stocks.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">previous article Opens a New Window.</a>, I highlighted NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI) and Delphi Automotive as undervalued plays on driverless cars. Today, I'll focus on two other players with attractive valuations -- Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU).</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Qualcomm, the world's biggest mobile chipmaker, will likely acquireNXP Semiconductors, the world's top automotive chipmaker, for over $37 billion in the near future. Once that <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/04/should-qualcomm-inc-pay-30-billion-for-nxp-semicon.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">deal closes Opens a New Window.</a>, Qualcomm will become the 800-pound gorilla in the automotive chips market.</p> <p>Over the past few years, Qualcomm has gradually lost market share in mobile devices to cheaper rivals like MediaTek and first-party chips from major OEMs like Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. To offset those losses, Qualcomm <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/11/qualcomm-inc-is-running-out-of-room-to-grow-whats.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">aggressively expanded Opens a New Window.</a>into Internet of Things (IoT) devices, drones, connected cameras, and connected cars.</p> <p>Prior to the NXP deal, Qualcomm acquired IoT and automotive chipmaker CSR for $2.4 billion last year, and launched a line of Snapdragon Automotive chips forinfotainment and navigation systems. Buying NXP (which expanded its automotive business by buying Freescale last year) will add a wide variety of automotive chips, along with the turnkey driverless platform BlueBox, to Qualcomm's portfolio.</p> <p>The exact impact of the merger will be hard to gauge until the deal is formally announced, but Qualcomm currently trades at fairly low multiples. Despite rallying 35% this year, Qualcomm still trades at 20 times earnings -- which is lower than the average P/E of 22 for broad line semiconductor companies.</p> <p>Baidu, the top search engine in China, announced inJune that it would put driverless cars on public roads within the next five years. Like its American counterpart, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google, Baidu doesn't plan to mass produce the cars by itself. Instead, it plans to outsource the production to existing automakers, with the first Baidu-branded vehicle set to arrive in 2018. That vehicle will be a driverless shuttle bus programmed to run in a loop.</p> <p>Last December, Baidu started testing out its driverless technology on a fleet of BMW 3-Series GTs in Beijing and Wuhu. Earlier this year, Baidu established a driverless tech research center in Silicon Valley, with the goal of testing out autonomous cars in the U.S. in the near future.</p> <p>BMW 3-Series GT. Image source: BMW.</p> <p>Baidu's growing interest in driverless cars comes at a time when Chinese tech companies are battling over online-to-offline (O2O) services (like hailing cabs, ordering movie tickets, making dinner reservations) instead of simple online searches. As ride-hailing apps and driverless cars both grow in popularity, they will likely converge with apps for hailing autonomous taxis.</p> <p>When that happens, Baidu's expansive ecosystem of search, maps, mobile payments, and O2O services could help it dominate the market by leveraging its users' dependence on those core services. While that ambitious goal might take years to reach, Baidu remains fairly cheap at 13 times earnings -- which is much lower than the industry average of P/E of 50 for internet information providers.</p> <p>Qualcomm and Baidu still trade at relatively low multiples because many investors are worried about their near-term headwinds. Qualcomm still faces tough competition in smartphone chips, and its higher-margin licensing business remains under pressure from defiant OEMs and government regulators. Baidu's margins have declined over the past few years due to its increased spending on new markets like O2O services and driverless cars.</p> <p>Investors are wise to question Qualcomm and Baidu's ability to clear those big hurdles, but they should also note that both companies are well-poised to capitalize on the growth of driverless cars. Moreover, their fairly low valuations indicate that they might have more upside growth potential than more richly valued driverless stocks like <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/22/better-driverless-car-stock-mobileye-nv-or-nvidi-2.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Nvidia and Mobileye Opens a New Window.</a>.</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;amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;amp;ftm_pit=2668&amp;amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSunLion/info.aspx" type="external">Leo Sun Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, Baidu, Nvidia, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, and Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>Below is a collection of the latest WALMARTIANS that frequent this one-stop-shop super store.&amp;#160; It seems there are certain requirements to be a part of the WALMARTIAN society.&amp;#160; I&#8217;m guessing the following is at least three of them:</p> <p>I should warn you, once you view these photos you won&#8217;t be able to scrub them from your brain.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p />

When the Creatures of WALMART are Photographed…

http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/when-the-creatures-of-walmart-are-photographed/

0right

When the Creatures of WALMART are Photographed… <p>Below is a collection of the latest WALMARTIANS that frequent this one-stop-shop super store.&amp;#160; It seems there are certain requirements to be a part of the WALMARTIAN society.&amp;#160; I&#8217;m guessing the following is at least three of them:</p> <p>I should warn you, once you view these photos you won&#8217;t be able to scrub them from your brain.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p />

<p>If you&#8217;re out holiday shopping, your list might include a few new books. One novel that&#8217;s appearing on several "best of" lists for 2013 is from author Daniel Alarc&#243;n. He's also the leader of one of our partners here at PRI: Radio Ambulante, a radio program that gathers stories from the US and Latin America in both Spanish and English.</p> <p>But this isn't your standard author interview. Recently,&amp;#160;for Portland bookstore Powell&#8217;s Books,&amp;#160;Alarc&#243;n put together a soundtrack to go with his novel. Great idea, Powell&#8217;s.&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>You can check out <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/playlist/the-powells-playlist-daniel-alarcn-by-daniel-alarcon/" type="external">Powell's playlist</a>, but it's helpful to understand Alarc&#243;n's&amp;#160;book, too. He summed it up like this:&amp;#160;</p> <p>The book is about a young man named Nelson, who is kind of wandering through his late adolescence and early adulthood. He is obsessed with the theater ... and goes off on a tour of the countryside with his hero, Henry Nu&#241;ez, an older playwright, and another character, Patalarga. They're part of this revival of a legendary theater troupe called Diciembre and their very controversial play called 'The Idiot President,' a play that landed Nu&#241;ez in prison 15 years before.</p> <p>The bulk of the novel is really about what Nelson is running away from, his own personal problems, including his sort of fractured relationship with is girlfriend.&amp;#160;</p> <p>It takes place in an unnamed Latin American country, based very closely on Peru, on the country where I was born.</p> <p>Other characters include M&#243;nica&amp;#160;de&amp;#160;Sebasti&#225;n, who are Nelson&#8217;s parents. Sebasti&#225;n has passed away and M&#243;nica is a widow in the city at the time that the novel takes place. There&#8217;s also Francisco, who is Nelson&#8217;s brother. He has been living in the United States since Nelson was about 12 years old. And there&#8217;s also Ixta, Nelson&#8217;s ex-girlfriend, with whome he&#8217;s still carrying on relations and with whom he still loves.</p> <p>Here's <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/playlist/the-powells-playlist-daniel-alarcn-by-daniel-alarcon/" type="external">the playlist Alarc&#243;n&amp;#160;provided Powell&#8217;s Books</a>, as well as a Spotify playlist of all the songs.</p> <p>And here is an except of&amp;#160;Alarc&#243;n's&amp;#160;book, &#8220;At Night We Walk in Circles:&#8221;</p>

Books can have soundtracks too. Here's one for Daniel Alarcón's highly-acclaimed novel

https://pri.org/stories/2013-12-20/books-can-have-soundtracks-too-heres-one-daniel-alarc-ns-highly-acclaimed-novel

2013-12-20

3left-center

Books can have soundtracks too. Here's one for Daniel Alarcón's highly-acclaimed novel <p>If you&#8217;re out holiday shopping, your list might include a few new books. One novel that&#8217;s appearing on several "best of" lists for 2013 is from author Daniel Alarc&#243;n. He's also the leader of one of our partners here at PRI: Radio Ambulante, a radio program that gathers stories from the US and Latin America in both Spanish and English.</p> <p>But this isn't your standard author interview. Recently,&amp;#160;for Portland bookstore Powell&#8217;s Books,&amp;#160;Alarc&#243;n put together a soundtrack to go with his novel. Great idea, Powell&#8217;s.&amp;#160;</p> <p /> <p>You can check out <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/playlist/the-powells-playlist-daniel-alarcn-by-daniel-alarcon/" type="external">Powell's playlist</a>, but it's helpful to understand Alarc&#243;n's&amp;#160;book, too. He summed it up like this:&amp;#160;</p> <p>The book is about a young man named Nelson, who is kind of wandering through his late adolescence and early adulthood. He is obsessed with the theater ... and goes off on a tour of the countryside with his hero, Henry Nu&#241;ez, an older playwright, and another character, Patalarga. They're part of this revival of a legendary theater troupe called Diciembre and their very controversial play called 'The Idiot President,' a play that landed Nu&#241;ez in prison 15 years before.</p> <p>The bulk of the novel is really about what Nelson is running away from, his own personal problems, including his sort of fractured relationship with is girlfriend.&amp;#160;</p> <p>It takes place in an unnamed Latin American country, based very closely on Peru, on the country where I was born.</p> <p>Other characters include M&#243;nica&amp;#160;de&amp;#160;Sebasti&#225;n, who are Nelson&#8217;s parents. Sebasti&#225;n has passed away and M&#243;nica is a widow in the city at the time that the novel takes place. There&#8217;s also Francisco, who is Nelson&#8217;s brother. He has been living in the United States since Nelson was about 12 years old. And there&#8217;s also Ixta, Nelson&#8217;s ex-girlfriend, with whome he&#8217;s still carrying on relations and with whom he still loves.</p> <p>Here's <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/playlist/the-powells-playlist-daniel-alarcn-by-daniel-alarcon/" type="external">the playlist Alarc&#243;n&amp;#160;provided Powell&#8217;s Books</a>, as well as a Spotify playlist of all the songs.</p> <p>And here is an except of&amp;#160;Alarc&#243;n's&amp;#160;book, &#8220;At Night We Walk in Circles:&#8221;</p>

<p>If you thought Watters World was a documentary about Donald Trump&#8217;s adventures with hookers in a Moscow hotel, you&#8217;re mistaken, but understandably so. In fact, it&#8217;s a program on Fox News featuring Jesse Watters, who is also a co-host of the daily afternoon program The Five. Watters is best known for being a smug, smartass who did ambush interviews for Bill O&#8217;Reilly and allegedly humorous segments that were overtly racist.</p> <p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2069926576355460" type="external" /></p> <p>Now the New York Daily News is <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/fox-news-host-jesse-watters-divorce-affair-employee-article-1.3867486" type="external">reporting</a> that Watters&#8217; wife has filed for divorce due to his ongoing adulterous affair with a twenty-five year old co-worker, Emma DiGiovine. Watters has admitted his infidelity which he only reported to Fox News human resources after the divorce papers were filed. He and his now-estranged wife have twin six year old daughters.</p> <p>Most companies have strict prohibitions against employees engaging in romantic relationships with subordinates on their staff. Generally it mandates termination of the superior employee who is in a position to abuse their power. Presumably, Fox News has the same policy. However, the response by Fox upon discovery of the relationship was to transfer DiGiovine to another program and let Watters off the hook entirely. Now he can continue leading classy discussions wherein he describes single women as &#8220;Beyonc&#233; voters&#8221; who &#8220;depend on government because they&#8217;re not depending on their husbands. They need things like contraception, health care and they love to talk about equal pay.&#8221;</p> <p>This is just the latest sex scandal at Fox News. Previously their founder and CEO, the late Roger Ailes was fired after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. Then their star host, Bill O&#8217;Reilly, got the ax when it became publicly known that he had paid millions of dollars in settlements to silence his accusers. Gee, Doanld Trump only paid $130,000 (that we know of). Fox and Friends anchor Ed Henry was suspended for several weeks for having an adulterous affair. Fox business host Charles Payne was also the subject of harassment charges. And Watters got his seat on The Five by replacing Eric Bolling, who was fired for sending explicit photos to women colleagues at Fox.</p> <p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p> <p>This obviously isn&#8217;t a case of a few bad apples. Fox News is a breeding ground for perverts. It&#8217;s a haven for men who exploit their power to demean and control women. Or as former Fox News host and victim Andrea Tantaros <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andrea-tantaros-sues-fox-news-retaliation-sexual-harassment" type="external">said in her lawsuit</a>, &#8220;it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny.&#8221; And now Jesse Watters has become the latest face of the reprehensible pattern of misogynistic behavior that is nurtured by Fox and its management. But he certainly won&#8217;t be the last.</p>

Another Fox News Sleazeball Has Been Caught in a Sex Scandal with a 25 Year Old Co-Worker

http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D31602

4left

Another Fox News Sleazeball Has Been Caught in a Sex Scandal with a 25 Year Old Co-Worker <p>If you thought Watters World was a documentary about Donald Trump&#8217;s adventures with hookers in a Moscow hotel, you&#8217;re mistaken, but understandably so. In fact, it&#8217;s a program on Fox News featuring Jesse Watters, who is also a co-host of the daily afternoon program The Five. Watters is best known for being a smug, smartass who did ambush interviews for Bill O&#8217;Reilly and allegedly humorous segments that were overtly racist.</p> <p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2069926576355460" type="external" /></p> <p>Now the New York Daily News is <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/fox-news-host-jesse-watters-divorce-affair-employee-article-1.3867486" type="external">reporting</a> that Watters&#8217; wife has filed for divorce due to his ongoing adulterous affair with a twenty-five year old co-worker, Emma DiGiovine. Watters has admitted his infidelity which he only reported to Fox News human resources after the divorce papers were filed. He and his now-estranged wife have twin six year old daughters.</p> <p>Most companies have strict prohibitions against employees engaging in romantic relationships with subordinates on their staff. Generally it mandates termination of the superior employee who is in a position to abuse their power. Presumably, Fox News has the same policy. However, the response by Fox upon discovery of the relationship was to transfer DiGiovine to another program and let Watters off the hook entirely. Now he can continue leading classy discussions wherein he describes single women as &#8220;Beyonc&#233; voters&#8221; who &#8220;depend on government because they&#8217;re not depending on their husbands. They need things like contraception, health care and they love to talk about equal pay.&#8221;</p> <p>This is just the latest sex scandal at Fox News. Previously their founder and CEO, the late Roger Ailes was fired after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. Then their star host, Bill O&#8217;Reilly, got the ax when it became publicly known that he had paid millions of dollars in settlements to silence his accusers. Gee, Doanld Trump only paid $130,000 (that we know of). Fox and Friends anchor Ed Henry was suspended for several weeks for having an adulterous affair. Fox business host Charles Payne was also the subject of harassment charges. And Watters got his seat on The Five by replacing Eric Bolling, who was fired for sending explicit photos to women colleagues at Fox.</p> <p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p> <p>This obviously isn&#8217;t a case of a few bad apples. Fox News is a breeding ground for perverts. It&#8217;s a haven for men who exploit their power to demean and control women. Or as former Fox News host and victim Andrea Tantaros <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andrea-tantaros-sues-fox-news-retaliation-sexual-harassment" type="external">said in her lawsuit</a>, &#8220;it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny.&#8221; And now Jesse Watters has become the latest face of the reprehensible pattern of misogynistic behavior that is nurtured by Fox and its management. But he certainly won&#8217;t be the last.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Cans of food are compiled into sculpture at Santa Fe Place mall. (Jackie Jadrnak/Journal)</p> <p>SANTA FE, N.M. - It sounds like one of those creativity tests: What can you do with a can of food?</p> <p>Eat it - the food, not the can - is the obvious choice, but participants in Canstruction Santa Fe have made for more creative choices. Four teams were hard at work this past weekend creating sculptures, art installations, whatever you want to call them, from piles of food cans. The objects also are being collected to benefit The Food Depot.</p> <p>The completed works will be on display at Santa Fe Place mall until April 25.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Food cans as art - and we're not talking Andy Warhol

https://abqjournal.com/568736/food-cans-as-art-and-were-not-talking-andy-warhol.html

2least

Food cans as art - and we're not talking Andy Warhol <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Cans of food are compiled into sculpture at Santa Fe Place mall. (Jackie Jadrnak/Journal)</p> <p>SANTA FE, N.M. - It sounds like one of those creativity tests: What can you do with a can of food?</p> <p>Eat it - the food, not the can - is the obvious choice, but participants in Canstruction Santa Fe have made for more creative choices. Four teams were hard at work this past weekend creating sculptures, art installations, whatever you want to call them, from piles of food cans. The objects also are being collected to benefit The Food Depot.</p> <p>The completed works will be on display at Santa Fe Place mall until April 25.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

<p>California almond growers have reason to be worried, very worried. Honeybee populations across the country have declined sharply since last Fall. The California almond industry, supplying 80 percent of the world market of almonds, requires roughly half of the nation&#8217;s commercial hives to pollinate its groves. This ratio might see a dramatic change when new tallies on hives are available this Spring.</p> <p>Many beekeepers have seen Winter hive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031402600.html?hpid=artslot" type="external">losses</a> as high as 50 percent. One Pennsylvania beekeeper told the Washington Post, &#8220;This was probably the worst year ever.&#8221;</p> <p>After a year of slowing down, &#8220;colony-collapse disorder,&#8221; or CCD, has reemerged in an ominous way. The phenomenon is characterized by a sudden drop in beehive populations as foraging bees fail to return to their hives. With one third of the nation&#8217;s crops pollinated by insects (the majority being honeybees), the newest reports from apiarists are not just troubling&amp;#160; for Californians.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The current rate of bee disappearance is actually an uptick in an almost four year established trend. A new study claims that hive losses have stabilized at 30 percent per year. But that report doesn&#8217;t include this Winter&#8217;s data. One bee industry official has claimed that from 30 to 80 percent of California&#8217;s hives have succumbed to CCD.</p> <p>Researchers have yet to pin down the cause of the mysterious condition affecting honeybees nationwide. While some posit that a parasitic mite is to blame, others claim malnutrition or increased pesticide use is the source of the problem. The only consensus that has been reached: a multitude of factors are working to wipe out the bees.</p> <p>An almond industry insider said it is too soon to see if this year&#8217;s yields will be affected by the continuing decline in bee colonies. Right now, growers are preoccupied with moisture induced problems from continued rains and freezing temperatures.</p>

Collapsing honeybee population worries California almond growers

https://ivn.us/2010/03/17/collapsing-honeybee-population-worries-california-almond-growers/

2010-03-17

2least

Collapsing honeybee population worries California almond growers <p>California almond growers have reason to be worried, very worried. Honeybee populations across the country have declined sharply since last Fall. The California almond industry, supplying 80 percent of the world market of almonds, requires roughly half of the nation&#8217;s commercial hives to pollinate its groves. This ratio might see a dramatic change when new tallies on hives are available this Spring.</p> <p>Many beekeepers have seen Winter hive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031402600.html?hpid=artslot" type="external">losses</a> as high as 50 percent. One Pennsylvania beekeeper told the Washington Post, &#8220;This was probably the worst year ever.&#8221;</p> <p>After a year of slowing down, &#8220;colony-collapse disorder,&#8221; or CCD, has reemerged in an ominous way. The phenomenon is characterized by a sudden drop in beehive populations as foraging bees fail to return to their hives. With one third of the nation&#8217;s crops pollinated by insects (the majority being honeybees), the newest reports from apiarists are not just troubling&amp;#160; for Californians.&amp;#160;</p> <p>The current rate of bee disappearance is actually an uptick in an almost four year established trend. A new study claims that hive losses have stabilized at 30 percent per year. But that report doesn&#8217;t include this Winter&#8217;s data. One bee industry official has claimed that from 30 to 80 percent of California&#8217;s hives have succumbed to CCD.</p> <p>Researchers have yet to pin down the cause of the mysterious condition affecting honeybees nationwide. While some posit that a parasitic mite is to blame, others claim malnutrition or increased pesticide use is the source of the problem. The only consensus that has been reached: a multitude of factors are working to wipe out the bees.</p> <p>An almond industry insider said it is too soon to see if this year&#8217;s yields will be affected by the continuing decline in bee colonies. Right now, growers are preoccupied with moisture induced problems from continued rains and freezing temperatures.</p>

<p>NEW YORK &#8212; Donald Trump embraced new Cabinet officers Wednesday whose backgrounds suggest he&#8217;s primed to put tough actions behind his campaign rhetoric on immigration and the environment, even as he seemed to soften his yearlong stance on immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.</p> <p>It&#8217;s clearer by the day, underscored by Trump&#8217;s at-times contradictory words, that his actual policies as president won&#8217;t be settled until after he takes his seat in the Oval Office.</p> <p>Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier whose policies have helped fossil fuel companies, is to be announced as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.</p> <p>Separately, Trump named the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, to head the Small Business Administration &#8212; and may have breathed new life into the candidacy of a secretary of state contender.</p> <p>Trump said he planned to name his choice for the key Cabinet post next week and insisted that former rival Mitt Romney still had a chance. Trump, who has met twice with the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, denied he was stringing Romney along to make him pay for earlier remarks that Trump was unfit to be president.</p> <p>&#8220;No, it&#8217;s not about revenge. It&#8217;s about what&#8217;s good for the country, and I&#8217;m able to put this stuff behind us &#8212; and I hit him very hard also,&#8221; Trump said in a telephone interview on NBC.</p> <p>Three sources close to the selection process said late Wednesday that Romney&#8217;s stock is on the rise again within Trump&#8217;s circle after a period in which the celebrity businessman had cooled on the candidacy of the former Massachusetts governor. But Trump has changed his mind repeatedly throughout the process and has expanded the pool of contenders beyond the previously identified final four of Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s long presidential campaign was in large part defined by searing rhetoric and his steadfast promises to build an impenetrable wall on the border with Mexico and crack down on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But he struck a softer tone in an interview published Wednesday after he was named Time Magazine&#8217;s &#8220;Person of the Year.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going to work something out that&#8217;s going to make people happy and proud,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;They got brought here at a very young age; they&#8217;ve worked here, they&#8217;ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they&#8217;re in never-never land because they don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen.&#8221;</p> <p>He offered no details about a policy that would make that clear.</p> <p>During the campaign, Trump&#8217;s tough comments &#8212; including a vow to overturn President Barack Obama&#8217;s executive orders on immigration &#8212; have led to fears among immigrant advocates that he will end Obama&#8217;s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have gained work permits and temporary protection from deportation under the 2012 program, which aides to Trump have said would be revisited.</p> <p>Others continue to press the immigrants&#8217; case. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel presented Trump a letter Wednesday from 14 big city mayors urging him to keep the program intact.</p> <p>&#8220;They were working hard toward the American dream,&#8221; Emmanuel told reporters in lobby of Trump&#8217;s skyscraper. &#8220;It&#8217;s no fault of their own their parents came here. They are something we should hold up and embrace.&#8221;</p> <p>Though some immigrant advocates hope Trump&#8217;s words were an olive branch, others were skeptical.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen this movie before,&#8221; Frank Sharry of the immigrant-rights group America&#8217;s Voice said in a statement. &#8220;Unfortunately we expect no pivot and no softening.&#8221;</p> <p>Meanwhile, Trump moved toward making another addition to the collection of generals in his Cabinet, settling on Kelly to head Homeland Security, according to people close to transition. Gen. Kelly, who joined the Marine Corps in 1970, retired this year after a final command that included oversight of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.</p> <p>He has a reputation as a border hawk after a time in the Southern Command, which is based in South Florida and regularly works with Homeland Security on missions to identify and dismantle immigrant smuggling networks.</p> <p>Trump also picked Pruitt, a longtime critic of the EPA, to head that same agency, according to person close to Pruitt who was not authorized to speak publicly about the choice before it was announced. The move comes just after Trump met with former Vice President Al Gore, who is an environmental activist, and said he had &#8220;an open mind&#8221; about honoring the Paris climate accords.</p> <p>That gave hope to some environmentalists, but on Wednesday Trump&#8217;s apparent decision was denounced by Democrats.</p> <p>&#8220;Mr. Pruitt&#8217;s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels,&#8221; said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.</p> <p>But Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican, said Pruitt &#8220;has proven that being a good steward of the environment does not mean burdening taxpayers and businesses with red tape.&#8221;</p> <p>The president-elect also announced his selection of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as the new U.S. ambassador to China. Trump and Branstad are expected to appear together in Iowa on Thursday.</p> <p>Before that, Trump will meet with some of the victims of last week&#8217;s car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University. He has denounced immigration policies that allowed the apparent attacker into the country.</p>

Trump softens speech while embracing hardliners for Cabinet positions

https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/trump-softens-speech-while-embracing-hardliners-for-cabinet-positions/

2016-12-07

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Trump softens speech while embracing hardliners for Cabinet positions <p>NEW YORK &#8212; Donald Trump embraced new Cabinet officers Wednesday whose backgrounds suggest he&#8217;s primed to put tough actions behind his campaign rhetoric on immigration and the environment, even as he seemed to soften his yearlong stance on immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.</p> <p>It&#8217;s clearer by the day, underscored by Trump&#8217;s at-times contradictory words, that his actual policies as president won&#8217;t be settled until after he takes his seat in the Oval Office.</p> <p>Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier whose policies have helped fossil fuel companies, is to be announced as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.</p> <p>Separately, Trump named the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, to head the Small Business Administration &#8212; and may have breathed new life into the candidacy of a secretary of state contender.</p> <p>Trump said he planned to name his choice for the key Cabinet post next week and insisted that former rival Mitt Romney still had a chance. Trump, who has met twice with the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, denied he was stringing Romney along to make him pay for earlier remarks that Trump was unfit to be president.</p> <p>&#8220;No, it&#8217;s not about revenge. It&#8217;s about what&#8217;s good for the country, and I&#8217;m able to put this stuff behind us &#8212; and I hit him very hard also,&#8221; Trump said in a telephone interview on NBC.</p> <p>Three sources close to the selection process said late Wednesday that Romney&#8217;s stock is on the rise again within Trump&#8217;s circle after a period in which the celebrity businessman had cooled on the candidacy of the former Massachusetts governor. But Trump has changed his mind repeatedly throughout the process and has expanded the pool of contenders beyond the previously identified final four of Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s long presidential campaign was in large part defined by searing rhetoric and his steadfast promises to build an impenetrable wall on the border with Mexico and crack down on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But he struck a softer tone in an interview published Wednesday after he was named Time Magazine&#8217;s &#8220;Person of the Year.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going to work something out that&#8217;s going to make people happy and proud,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;They got brought here at a very young age; they&#8217;ve worked here, they&#8217;ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they&#8217;re in never-never land because they don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen.&#8221;</p> <p>He offered no details about a policy that would make that clear.</p> <p>During the campaign, Trump&#8217;s tough comments &#8212; including a vow to overturn President Barack Obama&#8217;s executive orders on immigration &#8212; have led to fears among immigrant advocates that he will end Obama&#8217;s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have gained work permits and temporary protection from deportation under the 2012 program, which aides to Trump have said would be revisited.</p> <p>Others continue to press the immigrants&#8217; case. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel presented Trump a letter Wednesday from 14 big city mayors urging him to keep the program intact.</p> <p>&#8220;They were working hard toward the American dream,&#8221; Emmanuel told reporters in lobby of Trump&#8217;s skyscraper. &#8220;It&#8217;s no fault of their own their parents came here. They are something we should hold up and embrace.&#8221;</p> <p>Though some immigrant advocates hope Trump&#8217;s words were an olive branch, others were skeptical.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen this movie before,&#8221; Frank Sharry of the immigrant-rights group America&#8217;s Voice said in a statement. &#8220;Unfortunately we expect no pivot and no softening.&#8221;</p> <p>Meanwhile, Trump moved toward making another addition to the collection of generals in his Cabinet, settling on Kelly to head Homeland Security, according to people close to transition. Gen. Kelly, who joined the Marine Corps in 1970, retired this year after a final command that included oversight of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.</p> <p>He has a reputation as a border hawk after a time in the Southern Command, which is based in South Florida and regularly works with Homeland Security on missions to identify and dismantle immigrant smuggling networks.</p> <p>Trump also picked Pruitt, a longtime critic of the EPA, to head that same agency, according to person close to Pruitt who was not authorized to speak publicly about the choice before it was announced. The move comes just after Trump met with former Vice President Al Gore, who is an environmental activist, and said he had &#8220;an open mind&#8221; about honoring the Paris climate accords.</p> <p>That gave hope to some environmentalists, but on Wednesday Trump&#8217;s apparent decision was denounced by Democrats.</p> <p>&#8220;Mr. Pruitt&#8217;s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels,&#8221; said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.</p> <p>But Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican, said Pruitt &#8220;has proven that being a good steward of the environment does not mean burdening taxpayers and businesses with red tape.&#8221;</p> <p>The president-elect also announced his selection of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as the new U.S. ambassador to China. Trump and Branstad are expected to appear together in Iowa on Thursday.</p> <p>Before that, Trump will meet with some of the victims of last week&#8217;s car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University. He has denounced immigration policies that allowed the apparent attacker into the country.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>A hawk soars overhead and then finds a tree to use as a perch.</p> <p>Elk tracks can be seen leading to a water source.</p> <p>A cactus can be seen blooming nearby.</p> <p>Evidence of wildlife can be seen on most parts of the 230,000-acre Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>While a large portion of the refuge is off limits as a habitat for the wildlife, there is still plenty for visitors to see on the refuge in northern Socorro County between Socorro and Belen.</p> <p>To start with, there are trails ranging from a half-mile to 3.5 miles at the visitor's center.</p> <p>"You can see a variety of plants and birds," said Tamara Coombs, President of Amigos de la Sevilleta, the friends group of the refuge.</p> <p>Visitors walking along the trail will also see different species of cactus in bloom, according to Jeannine Kimble, Sevilleta Wildlife Refuge Visitor Services manager.</p> <p>"There are also some really great views," Kimble said of the mesas, mountains and desert terrain within view of the visitor's center.</p> <p>San Lorenzo Canyon on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is a favorite with hikers. (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal)</p> <p>Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge Manager Kathy Granillo points out that a variety of lizards can also be seen along the trails.</p> <p>There are also interpretive panels along the trails providing visitors with information about the vegetation on the refuge.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>"If you want to learn about vegetation, these trails would be a good start," Kimble said.</p> <p>But access to the refuge isn't limited to the trails.</p> <p>There is also the refuge's portion of San Lorenzo Canyon. It's possible to see elk - and even bighorn sheep - among the animal life there, according to Granillo.</p> <p>Elk tracks were in abundance there last week leading to a waterfall at the canyon.</p> <p>The wetlands are also now open again to the public after work on the habitat of endangered and threatened species along the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher and the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.</p> <p>"The wetlands offer a wonderful opportunity to see several species of birds," said Granillo, who is also a birding enthusiast. "People can walk around. It's just a few klicks north of the Rio Saludo."</p> <p>There are also other opportunities to other parts of the refuge - especially if you join the Amigos de la Sevilleta.</p> <p>The Amigos host tours and events on the refuge during various times of the year.</p> <p>The events include horseback rides, bird and canyon hikes, as well as opportunities for star, meteor and moon gazing.</p> <p>Among the events coming up include the Second Annual Butterfly Count on June starting at 8 a.m.. The refuge is one of only two places in New Mexico where butterfly counts have been performed.</p> <p>Steve Cary, author of Butterfly Landscapes of New Mexico, will again serve as chief identifier. Cary has traveled all over the state to study and photograph more than 300 species.</p> <p>The count is free. No experience is necessary.</p> <p>Nineteen butterfly species were counted on the refuge during the first count.</p> <p>There will also a Moth Night on July 30 from 7 p.m. to midnight.</p> <p>The chief identifier will be Eric Metzler, recipient of a National Park Service Award for his research at White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.</p> <p>As a volunteer, Metzler discovered more than 600 species of moth, 36 of which are new to science.</p> <p>The Amigos will begin to make reservations for both on May 2. Reservations may be made at <a href="mailto:reservations@amigosdelasevilleta.org" type="external">reservations@amigosdelasevilleta.org</a> or leave a message at 505-864-4021, ext. 102.</p> <p>There are a limited number of overnight accommodations available for Moth Night at the UNM Sevilleta Field Station at $25 per person. Participants must bring sleeping bags and towels.</p> <p>The Amigos support the refuge in fundraising, which is becoming increasingly important with decreasing government budgets, according to Coombs. They also do what they can to help the five-member staff of the refuge.</p> <p>The Amigos help with education and research at the refuge, and work to preserve the natural and historical resources of the refuge.</p> <p>Members make Amigos possible and membership is open to all. Amigos de la Sevilleta raises money through member's fees and special events. Grants and store sales also contribute. They help by volunteering in a variety of jobs at the refuge.</p> <p>They help with public events such as tours, and bring special speakers to the refuge. They help bring school groups by paying the cost of school buses. They pay for research equipment such as the radio tracking collars used by refuge scientists.</p> <p />

Sevilleta refuge a wild wonder

https://abqjournal.com/756580/sevilleta-refuge-a-wild-wonder.html

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Sevilleta refuge a wild wonder <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>A hawk soars overhead and then finds a tree to use as a perch.</p> <p>Elk tracks can be seen leading to a water source.</p> <p>A cactus can be seen blooming nearby.</p> <p>Evidence of wildlife can be seen on most parts of the 230,000-acre Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>While a large portion of the refuge is off limits as a habitat for the wildlife, there is still plenty for visitors to see on the refuge in northern Socorro County between Socorro and Belen.</p> <p>To start with, there are trails ranging from a half-mile to 3.5 miles at the visitor's center.</p> <p>"You can see a variety of plants and birds," said Tamara Coombs, President of Amigos de la Sevilleta, the friends group of the refuge.</p> <p>Visitors walking along the trail will also see different species of cactus in bloom, according to Jeannine Kimble, Sevilleta Wildlife Refuge Visitor Services manager.</p> <p>"There are also some really great views," Kimble said of the mesas, mountains and desert terrain within view of the visitor's center.</p> <p>San Lorenzo Canyon on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is a favorite with hikers. (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal)</p> <p>Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge Manager Kathy Granillo points out that a variety of lizards can also be seen along the trails.</p> <p>There are also interpretive panels along the trails providing visitors with information about the vegetation on the refuge.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>"If you want to learn about vegetation, these trails would be a good start," Kimble said.</p> <p>But access to the refuge isn't limited to the trails.</p> <p>There is also the refuge's portion of San Lorenzo Canyon. It's possible to see elk - and even bighorn sheep - among the animal life there, according to Granillo.</p> <p>Elk tracks were in abundance there last week leading to a waterfall at the canyon.</p> <p>The wetlands are also now open again to the public after work on the habitat of endangered and threatened species along the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher and the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.</p> <p>"The wetlands offer a wonderful opportunity to see several species of birds," said Granillo, who is also a birding enthusiast. "People can walk around. It's just a few klicks north of the Rio Saludo."</p> <p>There are also other opportunities to other parts of the refuge - especially if you join the Amigos de la Sevilleta.</p> <p>The Amigos host tours and events on the refuge during various times of the year.</p> <p>The events include horseback rides, bird and canyon hikes, as well as opportunities for star, meteor and moon gazing.</p> <p>Among the events coming up include the Second Annual Butterfly Count on June starting at 8 a.m.. The refuge is one of only two places in New Mexico where butterfly counts have been performed.</p> <p>Steve Cary, author of Butterfly Landscapes of New Mexico, will again serve as chief identifier. Cary has traveled all over the state to study and photograph more than 300 species.</p> <p>The count is free. No experience is necessary.</p> <p>Nineteen butterfly species were counted on the refuge during the first count.</p> <p>There will also a Moth Night on July 30 from 7 p.m. to midnight.</p> <p>The chief identifier will be Eric Metzler, recipient of a National Park Service Award for his research at White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.</p> <p>As a volunteer, Metzler discovered more than 600 species of moth, 36 of which are new to science.</p> <p>The Amigos will begin to make reservations for both on May 2. Reservations may be made at <a href="mailto:reservations@amigosdelasevilleta.org" type="external">reservations@amigosdelasevilleta.org</a> or leave a message at 505-864-4021, ext. 102.</p> <p>There are a limited number of overnight accommodations available for Moth Night at the UNM Sevilleta Field Station at $25 per person. Participants must bring sleeping bags and towels.</p> <p>The Amigos support the refuge in fundraising, which is becoming increasingly important with decreasing government budgets, according to Coombs. They also do what they can to help the five-member staff of the refuge.</p> <p>The Amigos help with education and research at the refuge, and work to preserve the natural and historical resources of the refuge.</p> <p>Members make Amigos possible and membership is open to all. Amigos de la Sevilleta raises money through member's fees and special events. Grants and store sales also contribute. They help by volunteering in a variety of jobs at the refuge.</p> <p>They help with public events such as tours, and bring special speakers to the refuge. They help bring school groups by paying the cost of school buses. They pay for research equipment such as the radio tracking collars used by refuge scientists.</p> <p />

<p>Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a preliminary agreement with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault last year to settle a civil lawsuit she brought against him, sources familiar with the case said.</p> <p>While a source in New York cautioned that the agreement could still fall apart, influential French daily Le Monde reported, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, that the parties had agreed on a payment of $6 million to settle the case.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Le Monde said 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn and the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, would meet a judge in New York on Dec. 7 to sign the deal and close an affair that ended the Frenchman's International Monetary Fund career and wrecked his presidential ambitions.</p> <p>"The discussions have been going on for weeks, months. The agreement should be confirmed at the start of next week,'' Michele Saban, a friend of Strauss-Kahn who saw him recently, told Reuters in Paris. She could not confirm the sum involved.</p> <p>"We are moving towards the end of a tragedy,'' she said, adding that Diallo had always been open to negotiating a settlement despite reticence from her lawyers. Le Monde reported that Strauss-Kahn planned to take out a bank loan for $3 million and would be lent the other $3 million by his wife Anne Sinclair, despite the fact the couple separated in the summer and now live on different sides of Paris.</p> <p>Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and Diallo based in Paris declined to comment on the case and lawyers in New York did not immediately respond to requests made on Thursday evening. The New York Times, which first reported the development, also said the pair would appear before a judge in New York next week. It said the settlement sum could not be determined.</p> <p>END OF THE AFFAIR</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>News of the deal comes as Strauss-Kahn is awaiting a decision by a French court on Dec. 19 on whether to call off a sex offence inquiry involving parties attended by prostitutes, where he risks trial on a charge of ``aggravated pimping''. If that case is dropped and Diallo ends her civil case, Strauss-Kahn would have a freer rein to pursue his consultancy work and could even consider a tentative return to public life in France, where he has been shunned since the Diallo scandal.</p> <p>Images of the then IMF chief paraded before TV cameras in handcuffs before being charged with attempted rape shocked the world and led to French media raking over smutty details of the former finance minister's private life.</p> <p>"That's the end, not only of this affair, but of any potential affair because one of the reasons for signing this kind of agreement is that both parties agree that they will never again bring a lawsuit,'' Christopher Mesnooh, a U.S. lawyer who practices in France, said of the Diallo agreement.</p> <p>"There will always be people who wonder about what happened in New York and in Lille, but from a legal standpoint if he gets all this behind him, he's a free man,'' he added. Diallo alleged that Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex on May 14, 2011, in his suite at the Manhattan Sofitel. The criminal prosecution fell apart after doubts emerged concerning Diallo's credibility as a witness and the attempted rape charges against Strauss-Kahn were eventually dropped.</p> <p>Strauss-Kahn has maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual, although he admitted in a TV interview after his return to France that he regretted his ``moral error''. Strauss-Kahn filed his own countersuit against the maid earlier this year, claiming that Diallo's accusations had destroyed his career and harmed his reputation.</p> <p>In recent months, Strauss-Kahn has been making a comeback under-the-radar with a handful of speaking engagements at private conferences and by setting up a business consultancy firm in Paris.</p>

Strauss-Kahn Strikes Preliminary Civil Case Deal with Maid

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/11/30/strauss-kahn-strikes-preliminary-civil-case-deal-with-maid.html

2016-03-03

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Strauss-Kahn Strikes Preliminary Civil Case Deal with Maid <p>Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a preliminary agreement with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault last year to settle a civil lawsuit she brought against him, sources familiar with the case said.</p> <p>While a source in New York cautioned that the agreement could still fall apart, influential French daily Le Monde reported, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, that the parties had agreed on a payment of $6 million to settle the case.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Le Monde said 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn and the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, would meet a judge in New York on Dec. 7 to sign the deal and close an affair that ended the Frenchman's International Monetary Fund career and wrecked his presidential ambitions.</p> <p>"The discussions have been going on for weeks, months. The agreement should be confirmed at the start of next week,'' Michele Saban, a friend of Strauss-Kahn who saw him recently, told Reuters in Paris. She could not confirm the sum involved.</p> <p>"We are moving towards the end of a tragedy,'' she said, adding that Diallo had always been open to negotiating a settlement despite reticence from her lawyers. Le Monde reported that Strauss-Kahn planned to take out a bank loan for $3 million and would be lent the other $3 million by his wife Anne Sinclair, despite the fact the couple separated in the summer and now live on different sides of Paris.</p> <p>Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and Diallo based in Paris declined to comment on the case and lawyers in New York did not immediately respond to requests made on Thursday evening. The New York Times, which first reported the development, also said the pair would appear before a judge in New York next week. It said the settlement sum could not be determined.</p> <p>END OF THE AFFAIR</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>News of the deal comes as Strauss-Kahn is awaiting a decision by a French court on Dec. 19 on whether to call off a sex offence inquiry involving parties attended by prostitutes, where he risks trial on a charge of ``aggravated pimping''. If that case is dropped and Diallo ends her civil case, Strauss-Kahn would have a freer rein to pursue his consultancy work and could even consider a tentative return to public life in France, where he has been shunned since the Diallo scandal.</p> <p>Images of the then IMF chief paraded before TV cameras in handcuffs before being charged with attempted rape shocked the world and led to French media raking over smutty details of the former finance minister's private life.</p> <p>"That's the end, not only of this affair, but of any potential affair because one of the reasons for signing this kind of agreement is that both parties agree that they will never again bring a lawsuit,'' Christopher Mesnooh, a U.S. lawyer who practices in France, said of the Diallo agreement.</p> <p>"There will always be people who wonder about what happened in New York and in Lille, but from a legal standpoint if he gets all this behind him, he's a free man,'' he added. Diallo alleged that Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex on May 14, 2011, in his suite at the Manhattan Sofitel. The criminal prosecution fell apart after doubts emerged concerning Diallo's credibility as a witness and the attempted rape charges against Strauss-Kahn were eventually dropped.</p> <p>Strauss-Kahn has maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual, although he admitted in a TV interview after his return to France that he regretted his ``moral error''. Strauss-Kahn filed his own countersuit against the maid earlier this year, claiming that Diallo's accusations had destroyed his career and harmed his reputation.</p> <p>In recent months, Strauss-Kahn has been making a comeback under-the-radar with a handful of speaking engagements at private conferences and by setting up a business consultancy firm in Paris.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://variety.com/t/broadway/" type="external">Broadway</a> League, the trade association of <a href="http://variety.com/2017/legit/features/streetcar-named-desire-anniversary-1202626588/" type="external">Broadway</a> producers, have brought a legal complaint against the New York theater industry&#8217;s biggest <a href="http://variety.com/t/casting-directors/" type="external">casting directors</a>, branding the casting companies as a &#8220;cartel&#8221; that is violating antitrust laws in its <a href="http://variety.com/2017/legit/news/broadway-casting-directors-union-tony-award-1202458398/" type="external">current efforts to unionize</a>.</p> <p>The League filed <a href="https://www.broadwayleague.com/static/user/admin/media/complaint.pdf" type="external">the complaint</a> early Tuesday morning against companies including Telsey &amp;amp; Co. and Tara Rubin Casting, as well as the Casting Society of America and the Teamsters Local 817, the labor union that has joined the <a href="http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/emmys-casting-directors-toasted-and-roasted-at-cocktail-reception-1200605895/" type="external">casting directors</a> in the push to unionize. The two sides have been deadlocked in a contentious battle over the issue for months; the League&#8217;s filing alleges that the casting directors&#8217; actions amount to a &#8220;conspiracy [that] threatens to irreparably destroy competition for decades to come.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;The defendants continuing illegal and anticompetitive cartel behavior is jeopardizing the survival of Broadway shows, and bringing real harm to the actors, stagehands, musicians, and others who depend on the theater for their very livelihood,&#8221; said Charlotte St. Martin, the Broadway League president, in a statement. &#8220;We have no choice but to seek a legal remedy to the cartel&#8217;s illegal behavior.&#8221;</p> <p>Broadway casting directors and the Teamsters could not be reached early Tuesday for comment.</p> <p>The League&#8217;s action comes after casting directors began to get serious about their demands last month, collectively refusing new work unless producers agreed to increased fees for what casting directors labeled as &#8220;pension and welfare benefits&#8221; but the League&#8217;s complaint calls &#8220;a 29% surcharge.&#8221; In its suit, the League calls the standoff a &#8220;boycott&#8221; that aims to jack up prices and eliminate competition unfairly.</p> <p>At the heart of the issue is whether casting companies can be deemed employees or independent companies. In their attempts to unionize, the casting directors have positioned themselves as employees hired by producers for individual productions; the League&#8217;s pushback labels them independent companies, each of which funds and develops a proprietary database of performers used to cast actors across&amp;#160; shows for multiple independent producers.</p> <p>The League filed the complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.</p>

Broadway Producers Accuse Casting Directors of Conspiracy in New Lawsuit

https://newsline.com/broadway-producers-accuse-casting-directors-of-conspiracy-in-new-lawsuit/

2017-12-05

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Broadway Producers Accuse Casting Directors of Conspiracy in New Lawsuit <p>The <a href="http://variety.com/t/broadway/" type="external">Broadway</a> League, the trade association of <a href="http://variety.com/2017/legit/features/streetcar-named-desire-anniversary-1202626588/" type="external">Broadway</a> producers, have brought a legal complaint against the New York theater industry&#8217;s biggest <a href="http://variety.com/t/casting-directors/" type="external">casting directors</a>, branding the casting companies as a &#8220;cartel&#8221; that is violating antitrust laws in its <a href="http://variety.com/2017/legit/news/broadway-casting-directors-union-tony-award-1202458398/" type="external">current efforts to unionize</a>.</p> <p>The League filed <a href="https://www.broadwayleague.com/static/user/admin/media/complaint.pdf" type="external">the complaint</a> early Tuesday morning against companies including Telsey &amp;amp; Co. and Tara Rubin Casting, as well as the Casting Society of America and the Teamsters Local 817, the labor union that has joined the <a href="http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/emmys-casting-directors-toasted-and-roasted-at-cocktail-reception-1200605895/" type="external">casting directors</a> in the push to unionize. The two sides have been deadlocked in a contentious battle over the issue for months; the League&#8217;s filing alleges that the casting directors&#8217; actions amount to a &#8220;conspiracy [that] threatens to irreparably destroy competition for decades to come.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;The defendants continuing illegal and anticompetitive cartel behavior is jeopardizing the survival of Broadway shows, and bringing real harm to the actors, stagehands, musicians, and others who depend on the theater for their very livelihood,&#8221; said Charlotte St. Martin, the Broadway League president, in a statement. &#8220;We have no choice but to seek a legal remedy to the cartel&#8217;s illegal behavior.&#8221;</p> <p>Broadway casting directors and the Teamsters could not be reached early Tuesday for comment.</p> <p>The League&#8217;s action comes after casting directors began to get serious about their demands last month, collectively refusing new work unless producers agreed to increased fees for what casting directors labeled as &#8220;pension and welfare benefits&#8221; but the League&#8217;s complaint calls &#8220;a 29% surcharge.&#8221; In its suit, the League calls the standoff a &#8220;boycott&#8221; that aims to jack up prices and eliminate competition unfairly.</p> <p>At the heart of the issue is whether casting companies can be deemed employees or independent companies. In their attempts to unionize, the casting directors have positioned themselves as employees hired by producers for individual productions; the League&#8217;s pushback labels them independent companies, each of which funds and develops a proprietary database of performers used to cast actors across&amp;#160; shows for multiple independent producers.</p> <p>The League filed the complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.</p>

<p>We are now into reckless territory with the latest North Korean nuclear test &#8211; in all probability a genuine hydrogen weapon &#8211; sending the ever reckless US President Donald Trump into a true state of belligerent adolescence.</p> <p>After Saturday midnight, Washington time, when the test is meant to have taken place, Trump took little time to start pushing out those less than encyclopaedic tweets.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; He felt, for one, that South Korea needed a good ticking off, a scolding for presuming that some diplomatic, accommodating stance between Seoul and the north might be possible.&amp;#160; &#8220;South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!&#8221; <a href="#_ftn1" type="external">[1]</a></p> <p>Peering through that transparent glass, Trump&#8217;s anger with Seoul may well also have another context: the issue of trade, or practices he deems &#8220;unfair&#8221;.&amp;#160; (The spirit of Steve Bannon still rides high.)&amp;#160; Given his aversion to various free trade deals, Trump has taken exception to arrangements with South Korea.</p> <p>Gary D. Cohn of the National Economic Council, and national security advisor H.R. McMaster, warn against the needless aggravation that would ensue should the US wish to rewrite, or withdraw from the South Korean deal. <a href="#_ftn2" type="external">[2]</a>&amp;#160; But the position is by no means uniform, and diplomats are fully charged with the mission of extricating Washington.&amp;#160; Even under threat of incineration and the mushroom cloud, the president reveals his true enthusiasm: doing business, and doing it badly.</p> <p>Defense Secretary James Mattis, who had been the more stable of the two, was feeling an insistent and heavy breather down his back.&amp;#160; Be strong, came the message, and do so with a promise of violence, should the circumstances arise. Importantly, give the impression that a bag of tricks so vast was still available to the Trump administration. Just don&#8217;t let one that this bag has gone missing.</p> <p>Mattis&#8217; briefing to the press in front of the White House came dangerously close to those lunatic appraisals by mega-death advocates who believed that fighting a nuclear conflict would be entirely feasible.</p> <p>For one thing, Mattis insisted that there were &#8220;many military options and the President wanted to be briefed on each of them.&#8221; In truth, these options, at least vis-&#224;-vis the North Korean nuclear project, are non-existent.</p> <p>The issue would be different should Kim Jong-un prefer to attack the US and its interests: &#8220;Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam, or our allies, will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.&#8221;</p> <p>Having laid out the necessary punches, even if into thin air, Mattis retracted a bit, considering it good form to tell Pyongyang that the US was against obliterating it.&amp;#160; &#8220;Because we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn3" type="external">[3]</a></p> <p>US satellite spokesman and Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was doing his best to stir the war pot, insisting that the peninsula was on the verge of conflict at a point closer than any time since the Korean war.&amp;#160; (Does this sage know something we do not?)&amp;#160; Such statements are beyond testing, and only have meaning if there is, in fact, a conflict: the rest, till then, is not merely speculation but irresponsible venting.</p> <p>After the initial doom and gloom rant, the economic option again remains a point of fancy.&amp;#160; According to Trump, &#8220;the United States is considering, in addition to other options, stoping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn4" type="external">[4]</a></p> <p>Tediously, China is again being pressed, as if Beijing wishes to aid in perpetrating a collapse in Pyongyang.&amp;#160; Trump is ever decent enough to suggest that Beijing might be trying to help, but has proven ineffectual &#8211; much like an ignored parent.&amp;#160; &#8220;North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn5" type="external">[5]</a></p> <p>Turnbull similarly likes speaking for China, having, it would seem, a telepathic linen into the Chinese foreign ministry.&amp;#160; &#8220;The Chinese are frustrated and dismayed by North Korea&#8217;s conduct, but China has the greatest leverage, and with the greatest leverage comes the greatest responsibility.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn6" type="external">[6]</a></p> <p>Given that China does trade with Pyongyang, the cessation of trade between the US and the world&#8217;s second largest economy is bound to be an own goal of dramatic idiocy.&amp;#160; Doing so will make the US smaller rather than great, somewhat against the current puffy rhetoric preferred in the White House.</p> <p>As for other options &#8211; take the denuclearisation of the peninsula &#8211; realism starts to ebb. The idea was again advanced by Mattis as an important goal of the UN Security Council; but such matters remain the stuff of nonsense.&amp;#160; Having struck gold, a person is hardly going to relinquish it.&amp;#160; The nuclear weapon remains Kim&#8217;s best insurance policy, his plumage of warning. He also knows that his opponents in the west, most notably in the United States, know that fact better than most.</p> <p>Notes.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" type="external">[1]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904309527381716992</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" type="external">[2]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/02/trump-plans-withdrawal-from-south-korea-trade-deal/</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref3" type="external">[3]</a> <a href="" type="internal">http://thehill.com/policy/defense/349081-mattis-on-north-korea-we-are-not-looking-for-the-annihilation-of-north-korea</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref4" type="external">[4]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref5" type="external">[5]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904307898213433344</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref6" type="external">[6]</a> <a href="https://www.fiveaa.com.au/content/pm-calls-urgent-un-action-n-korea" type="external">https://www.fiveaa.com.au/content/pm-calls-urgent-un-action-n-korea</a></p>

Unnerving the Donald: North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test

https://counterpunch.org/2017/09/04/unnerving-the-donald-north-koreas-sixth-nuclear-test/

2017-09-04

4left

Unnerving the Donald: North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test <p>We are now into reckless territory with the latest North Korean nuclear test &#8211; in all probability a genuine hydrogen weapon &#8211; sending the ever reckless US President Donald Trump into a true state of belligerent adolescence.</p> <p>After Saturday midnight, Washington time, when the test is meant to have taken place, Trump took little time to start pushing out those less than encyclopaedic tweets.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; He felt, for one, that South Korea needed a good ticking off, a scolding for presuming that some diplomatic, accommodating stance between Seoul and the north might be possible.&amp;#160; &#8220;South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!&#8221; <a href="#_ftn1" type="external">[1]</a></p> <p>Peering through that transparent glass, Trump&#8217;s anger with Seoul may well also have another context: the issue of trade, or practices he deems &#8220;unfair&#8221;.&amp;#160; (The spirit of Steve Bannon still rides high.)&amp;#160; Given his aversion to various free trade deals, Trump has taken exception to arrangements with South Korea.</p> <p>Gary D. Cohn of the National Economic Council, and national security advisor H.R. McMaster, warn against the needless aggravation that would ensue should the US wish to rewrite, or withdraw from the South Korean deal. <a href="#_ftn2" type="external">[2]</a>&amp;#160; But the position is by no means uniform, and diplomats are fully charged with the mission of extricating Washington.&amp;#160; Even under threat of incineration and the mushroom cloud, the president reveals his true enthusiasm: doing business, and doing it badly.</p> <p>Defense Secretary James Mattis, who had been the more stable of the two, was feeling an insistent and heavy breather down his back.&amp;#160; Be strong, came the message, and do so with a promise of violence, should the circumstances arise. Importantly, give the impression that a bag of tricks so vast was still available to the Trump administration. Just don&#8217;t let one that this bag has gone missing.</p> <p>Mattis&#8217; briefing to the press in front of the White House came dangerously close to those lunatic appraisals by mega-death advocates who believed that fighting a nuclear conflict would be entirely feasible.</p> <p>For one thing, Mattis insisted that there were &#8220;many military options and the President wanted to be briefed on each of them.&#8221; In truth, these options, at least vis-&#224;-vis the North Korean nuclear project, are non-existent.</p> <p>The issue would be different should Kim Jong-un prefer to attack the US and its interests: &#8220;Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam, or our allies, will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.&#8221;</p> <p>Having laid out the necessary punches, even if into thin air, Mattis retracted a bit, considering it good form to tell Pyongyang that the US was against obliterating it.&amp;#160; &#8220;Because we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn3" type="external">[3]</a></p> <p>US satellite spokesman and Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was doing his best to stir the war pot, insisting that the peninsula was on the verge of conflict at a point closer than any time since the Korean war.&amp;#160; (Does this sage know something we do not?)&amp;#160; Such statements are beyond testing, and only have meaning if there is, in fact, a conflict: the rest, till then, is not merely speculation but irresponsible venting.</p> <p>After the initial doom and gloom rant, the economic option again remains a point of fancy.&amp;#160; According to Trump, &#8220;the United States is considering, in addition to other options, stoping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn4" type="external">[4]</a></p> <p>Tediously, China is again being pressed, as if Beijing wishes to aid in perpetrating a collapse in Pyongyang.&amp;#160; Trump is ever decent enough to suggest that Beijing might be trying to help, but has proven ineffectual &#8211; much like an ignored parent.&amp;#160; &#8220;North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn5" type="external">[5]</a></p> <p>Turnbull similarly likes speaking for China, having, it would seem, a telepathic linen into the Chinese foreign ministry.&amp;#160; &#8220;The Chinese are frustrated and dismayed by North Korea&#8217;s conduct, but China has the greatest leverage, and with the greatest leverage comes the greatest responsibility.&#8221; <a href="#_ftn6" type="external">[6]</a></p> <p>Given that China does trade with Pyongyang, the cessation of trade between the US and the world&#8217;s second largest economy is bound to be an own goal of dramatic idiocy.&amp;#160; Doing so will make the US smaller rather than great, somewhat against the current puffy rhetoric preferred in the White House.</p> <p>As for other options &#8211; take the denuclearisation of the peninsula &#8211; realism starts to ebb. The idea was again advanced by Mattis as an important goal of the UN Security Council; but such matters remain the stuff of nonsense.&amp;#160; Having struck gold, a person is hardly going to relinquish it.&amp;#160; The nuclear weapon remains Kim&#8217;s best insurance policy, his plumage of warning. He also knows that his opponents in the west, most notably in the United States, know that fact better than most.</p> <p>Notes.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" type="external">[1]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904309527381716992</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" type="external">[2]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/02/trump-plans-withdrawal-from-south-korea-trade-deal/</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref3" type="external">[3]</a> <a href="" type="internal">http://thehill.com/policy/defense/349081-mattis-on-north-korea-we-are-not-looking-for-the-annihilation-of-north-korea</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref4" type="external">[4]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref5" type="external">[5]</a> <a href="" type="internal">https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904307898213433344</a></p> <p><a href="#_ftnref6" type="external">[6]</a> <a href="https://www.fiveaa.com.au/content/pm-calls-urgent-un-action-n-korea" type="external">https://www.fiveaa.com.au/content/pm-calls-urgent-un-action-n-korea</a></p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>&#8211; Donald Trump, campaign rally, Oct. 25, 2016</p> <p>&#8220;Remember that Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of American uranium and, you know, she was paid a fortune. You know, they got a tremendous amount of money.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8211; Donald Trump, campaign rally, Oct. 24, 2016</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8220;She even handed over American uranium rights to the Russians.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8211; voice-over in Trump campaign ad, &#8220;Corruption&#8221;</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Hillary Clinton&#8217;s involvement with a Russian uranium deal has come under scrutiny since author and Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer dedicated a chapter to the topic in his 2015 book, &#8220;Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.&#8221;</p> <p>The Trump campaign has been attacking Clinton over the uranium deal lately, perhaps as a way to distract attention from criticism of Trump&#8217;s interest in fostering a closer relationship with Russia. &#8220;Clinton Cash&#8221; was made into a graphic novel and a documentary, and on Oct. 20, makers of the graphic novel released an animated ad about the uranium deal. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact have covered the facts, and we wrote about the deal briefly in a speech roundup. But with the renewed attention this month, we decided to take a deeper look at Clinton&#8217;s role in this deal.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>The deal</p> <p>The Trump campaign pointed to an April 2015 New York Times article about this deal, based on a preview of &#8220;Clinton Cash.&#8221; The Times said it &#8220;scrutinized his [Schweizer&#8217;s] information and built upon it with its own reporting.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The story starts with Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and donor to the Clinton Foundation; Giustra&#8217;s company, UrAsia; and Uranium One, a uranium mining company headquartered in Toronto.</p> <p>In 2007, Giustra sold UrAsia to Uranium One, which was based in South Africa and chaired by his friend, Ian Telfer. Giustra said he sold his personal stake in the deal in fall 2007, shortly after the merger with Uranium One, in the midst of Clinton&#8217;s 2008 presidential campaign and before Clinton realized Barack Obama would win the nomination and she would become his secretary of state.</p> <p>In 2009, Russia&#8217;s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, began buying shares in Uranium One as a part of a larger move to acquire mines around the world. Rosatom first bought a 17 percent share of Uranium One, which has holdings in the United States. In 2010, the Russians sought to increase their share to 51 percent. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the deal. In 2013, Russia assumed 100 percent ownership.</p> <p>The deal gave Russia control of about 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity, according to a 2010 CNN article about the deal. In other words, Russia has rights to the uranium extracted at those sites, which represents 20 percent of the U.S. uranium production capacity.</p> <p>Clinton&#8217;s role</p> <p>The State Department was one of nine agencies comprising CFIUS, which vets potential national security impacts of transactions where a foreign government gains control of a U.S. company. It was established by Congress in 2007 after the controversy over the planned purchase of seaports by a company in United Arab Emirates. The other agencies were the departments of Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security, and two White House agencies (Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Office of Science and Technology Policy).</p> <p>The CFIUS can approve a deal, but only the president can suspend or stop a transaction. If the committee can&#8217;t come to a consensus, a member can recommend a suspension or prohibition of the deal, and the president makes the call.</p> <p>Due to confidentiality laws, there are few details made public about the deal or about Clinton&#8217;s role in it, factcheck.org found. The Clinton campaign said Clinton herself was not involved in the State Department&#8217;s review and did not direct the department to take any position on the sale of Uranium One. Matters of the CFIUS did not rise to the level of the secretary, the campaign said.</p> <p>Jose Fernandez, then-assistant secretary of state for economic, energy and business affairs, sat on the committee. Fernandez told the Times: &#8220;Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter.&#8221; Fernandez did not respond to our requests for comment.</p> <p>&#8220;Hillary&#8217;s opposition [to the Uranium One deal] would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president. That never happened,&#8221; Schweizer wrote in &#8220;Clinton Cash.&#8221;</p> <p>At the time the sale was underway, the Obama administration was attempting to &#8220;reset&#8221; its relations with Russia, with Clinton leading the effort as secretary of state. But there is no evidence approval of the sale was connected to the reset policy. The national security concern that the United States faced when CFIUS considered the deal concerned American dependence on foreign uranium sources, the Times reported.</p> <p>Yet the Uranium One deal was not on the radar of Michael McFaul, even though he was aware of many CFIUS cases in his role as the National Security Council&#8217;s senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs from 2009 to 2012 (and as a prime architect of the administration&#8217;s reset policy). McFaul, now senior fellow at Stanford University&#8217;s Hoover Institution, said Fernandez could not &#8220;dictate the outcome of any decision single-handedly,&#8221; as he was one of nine members.</p> <p>&#8220;Knowing how the CFIUS process works and how the bureaucracy at the State Department works, I cannot imagine that such an issue would be reviewed by the secretary of state. there is a hierarchy in place precisely to protect the secretary&#8217;s time for only the most important of issues and meetings,&#8221; McFaul said.</p> <p>&#8220;I was not personally involved because that wasn&#8217;t something the secretary of state did,&#8221; Clinton told a New Hampshire TV station in June 2015.</p> <p>Some Republican lawmakers in 2010 did raise concerns about the deal &#8211; but they sent their letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. (Treasury chairs the CFIUS.) Final approval was given by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which noted the mines would remain under the control of U.S. subsidies. &#8220;Neither Uranium One nor ARMZ [the Russian firm] holds an NRC export license, so no uranium produced at either facility may be exported,&#8221; the NRC said. (Some uranium yellowcake is extracted, processed in Canada and returned to the United States.)</p> <p>We asked the Trump campaign for evidence that Clinton or the State Department had more of a role in the deal than any of the eight other member agencies of CFIUS, and did not receive a response.</p> <p>Quid pro quo claims</p> <p>Did the Clintons get paid for the Russian deal? The Trump campaign pointed to donations to the Clinton Foundation, as reported by the Times. Giustra became friends with Bill Clinton in 2005, over their charity work. The Washington Post took an in-depth look at their ties and described their friendship as one &#8220;that has helped propel the Clinton Foundation into a global giant and established Giustra&#8217;s reputation as an international philanthropist while helping him build connections in countries where his business was expanding.&#8221;</p> <p>Giustra eventually became one of the largest individual donors to the Clinton Foundation. His relationship with the Clintons came under scrutiny over donors to the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), which raises money for the similarly-named Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, one of Clinton Foundation&#8217;s initiatives.</p> <p>Individuals related to Uranium One and UrAsia, including Giustra and Telfer, donated to the Clinton Foundation, totaling about $145 million. The Times reported that Telfer also donated to the Clinton Foundation using his family charity based in Canada. These were donations made to the Clinton Foundation, not directly to the Clintons.</p> <p>As PolitiFact found, the majority of these donations were made before and during Clinton&#8217;s 2008 presidential run. So Trump&#8217;s claim that Hillary Clinton &#8220;gave [uranium to] Russia for a big payment&#8221; is not accurate. If she had actually become president, she would have had more power over the deal than as the head of one agency among nine represented on CFIUS.</p> <p>The Trump campaign also noted that Bill Clinton received speaking fees while the Uranium One deal was underway. After the Russians announced that they would acquire stakes in Uranium One, and while the Kremlin was promoting the purchase, Bill Clinton received $500,000 in 2010 for a speech in Moscow from a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin. Putin personally thanked Clinton, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that a review of Bill Clinton&#8217;s speeches &#8220;found no evidence that speaking fees were paid to the former president in exchange for any action by Mrs. Clinton.&#8221;</p> <p>The Times also did not report a direct link between Bill Clinton and the deal. The bank&#8217;s analysts talked up Uranium One&#8217;s stock while the deal was under CFIUS consideration, and assigned it a &#8220;buy&#8221; rating. The bank &#8220;would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton&#8217;s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal,&#8221; the Times reported.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Trump and his campaign claim that Clinton &#8220;gave&#8221; or &#8220;handed over&#8221; 20 percent of American uranium rights to the Russians. Through the Uranium One deal, the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company does now have control over 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity. But it cannot export the uranium.</p> <p>In 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the sale of the majority of the shares to the Russians. The State Department was one of nine agencies on the committee that approved the deal. The deal was also separately approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.</p> <p>There is no evidence Clinton herself got involved in the deal personally, and it is highly questionable that this deal even rose to the level of the secretary of state. Theoretically, as Schweizer says, Clinton could have intervened. But even then, it ultimately would have been Obama&#8217;s decision whether to suspend or block the deal.</p> <p>Trump so often uses broad-brushed language that pushes him into greater untrue territory, and this is yet another one of those cases. He specifically names Hillary Clinton as the active agent in the Uranium One deal, saying she &#8220;gave them&#8221; or &#8220;handed over&#8221; uranium to the Russians, but that is not the case. Then, he further claimed the sale went forward in exchange &#8220;for a big payment.&#8221; There&#8217;s no evidence for that claim either.</p> <p>Trump could have avoided an untrue rating had he been more careful with the language. For example: &#8220;Hillary Clinton&#8217;s State Department was one of nine agencies that approved the deal.&#8221; Words matter.</p> <p>trump-factcheck</p>

Fact Checker: The facts behind Donald Trump’s repeated claim about Hillary Clinton’s role in the Russian uranium deal

https://abqjournal.com/875279/fact-checker-the-facts-behind-donald-trumps-repeated-claim-about-hillary-clintons-role-in-the-russian-uranium-deal.html

2least

Fact Checker: The facts behind Donald Trump’s repeated claim about Hillary Clinton’s role in the Russian uranium deal <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>&#8211; Donald Trump, campaign rally, Oct. 25, 2016</p> <p>&#8220;Remember that Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of American uranium and, you know, she was paid a fortune. You know, they got a tremendous amount of money.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8211; Donald Trump, campaign rally, Oct. 24, 2016</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8220;She even handed over American uranium rights to the Russians.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8211; voice-over in Trump campaign ad, &#8220;Corruption&#8221;</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Hillary Clinton&#8217;s involvement with a Russian uranium deal has come under scrutiny since author and Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer dedicated a chapter to the topic in his 2015 book, &#8220;Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.&#8221;</p> <p>The Trump campaign has been attacking Clinton over the uranium deal lately, perhaps as a way to distract attention from criticism of Trump&#8217;s interest in fostering a closer relationship with Russia. &#8220;Clinton Cash&#8221; was made into a graphic novel and a documentary, and on Oct. 20, makers of the graphic novel released an animated ad about the uranium deal. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact have covered the facts, and we wrote about the deal briefly in a speech roundup. But with the renewed attention this month, we decided to take a deeper look at Clinton&#8217;s role in this deal.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>The deal</p> <p>The Trump campaign pointed to an April 2015 New York Times article about this deal, based on a preview of &#8220;Clinton Cash.&#8221; The Times said it &#8220;scrutinized his [Schweizer&#8217;s] information and built upon it with its own reporting.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The story starts with Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and donor to the Clinton Foundation; Giustra&#8217;s company, UrAsia; and Uranium One, a uranium mining company headquartered in Toronto.</p> <p>In 2007, Giustra sold UrAsia to Uranium One, which was based in South Africa and chaired by his friend, Ian Telfer. Giustra said he sold his personal stake in the deal in fall 2007, shortly after the merger with Uranium One, in the midst of Clinton&#8217;s 2008 presidential campaign and before Clinton realized Barack Obama would win the nomination and she would become his secretary of state.</p> <p>In 2009, Russia&#8217;s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, began buying shares in Uranium One as a part of a larger move to acquire mines around the world. Rosatom first bought a 17 percent share of Uranium One, which has holdings in the United States. In 2010, the Russians sought to increase their share to 51 percent. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the deal. In 2013, Russia assumed 100 percent ownership.</p> <p>The deal gave Russia control of about 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity, according to a 2010 CNN article about the deal. In other words, Russia has rights to the uranium extracted at those sites, which represents 20 percent of the U.S. uranium production capacity.</p> <p>Clinton&#8217;s role</p> <p>The State Department was one of nine agencies comprising CFIUS, which vets potential national security impacts of transactions where a foreign government gains control of a U.S. company. It was established by Congress in 2007 after the controversy over the planned purchase of seaports by a company in United Arab Emirates. The other agencies were the departments of Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security, and two White House agencies (Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Office of Science and Technology Policy).</p> <p>The CFIUS can approve a deal, but only the president can suspend or stop a transaction. If the committee can&#8217;t come to a consensus, a member can recommend a suspension or prohibition of the deal, and the president makes the call.</p> <p>Due to confidentiality laws, there are few details made public about the deal or about Clinton&#8217;s role in it, factcheck.org found. The Clinton campaign said Clinton herself was not involved in the State Department&#8217;s review and did not direct the department to take any position on the sale of Uranium One. Matters of the CFIUS did not rise to the level of the secretary, the campaign said.</p> <p>Jose Fernandez, then-assistant secretary of state for economic, energy and business affairs, sat on the committee. Fernandez told the Times: &#8220;Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter.&#8221; Fernandez did not respond to our requests for comment.</p> <p>&#8220;Hillary&#8217;s opposition [to the Uranium One deal] would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president. That never happened,&#8221; Schweizer wrote in &#8220;Clinton Cash.&#8221;</p> <p>At the time the sale was underway, the Obama administration was attempting to &#8220;reset&#8221; its relations with Russia, with Clinton leading the effort as secretary of state. But there is no evidence approval of the sale was connected to the reset policy. The national security concern that the United States faced when CFIUS considered the deal concerned American dependence on foreign uranium sources, the Times reported.</p> <p>Yet the Uranium One deal was not on the radar of Michael McFaul, even though he was aware of many CFIUS cases in his role as the National Security Council&#8217;s senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs from 2009 to 2012 (and as a prime architect of the administration&#8217;s reset policy). McFaul, now senior fellow at Stanford University&#8217;s Hoover Institution, said Fernandez could not &#8220;dictate the outcome of any decision single-handedly,&#8221; as he was one of nine members.</p> <p>&#8220;Knowing how the CFIUS process works and how the bureaucracy at the State Department works, I cannot imagine that such an issue would be reviewed by the secretary of state. there is a hierarchy in place precisely to protect the secretary&#8217;s time for only the most important of issues and meetings,&#8221; McFaul said.</p> <p>&#8220;I was not personally involved because that wasn&#8217;t something the secretary of state did,&#8221; Clinton told a New Hampshire TV station in June 2015.</p> <p>Some Republican lawmakers in 2010 did raise concerns about the deal &#8211; but they sent their letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. (Treasury chairs the CFIUS.) Final approval was given by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which noted the mines would remain under the control of U.S. subsidies. &#8220;Neither Uranium One nor ARMZ [the Russian firm] holds an NRC export license, so no uranium produced at either facility may be exported,&#8221; the NRC said. (Some uranium yellowcake is extracted, processed in Canada and returned to the United States.)</p> <p>We asked the Trump campaign for evidence that Clinton or the State Department had more of a role in the deal than any of the eight other member agencies of CFIUS, and did not receive a response.</p> <p>Quid pro quo claims</p> <p>Did the Clintons get paid for the Russian deal? The Trump campaign pointed to donations to the Clinton Foundation, as reported by the Times. Giustra became friends with Bill Clinton in 2005, over their charity work. The Washington Post took an in-depth look at their ties and described their friendship as one &#8220;that has helped propel the Clinton Foundation into a global giant and established Giustra&#8217;s reputation as an international philanthropist while helping him build connections in countries where his business was expanding.&#8221;</p> <p>Giustra eventually became one of the largest individual donors to the Clinton Foundation. His relationship with the Clintons came under scrutiny over donors to the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), which raises money for the similarly-named Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, one of Clinton Foundation&#8217;s initiatives.</p> <p>Individuals related to Uranium One and UrAsia, including Giustra and Telfer, donated to the Clinton Foundation, totaling about $145 million. The Times reported that Telfer also donated to the Clinton Foundation using his family charity based in Canada. These were donations made to the Clinton Foundation, not directly to the Clintons.</p> <p>As PolitiFact found, the majority of these donations were made before and during Clinton&#8217;s 2008 presidential run. So Trump&#8217;s claim that Hillary Clinton &#8220;gave [uranium to] Russia for a big payment&#8221; is not accurate. If she had actually become president, she would have had more power over the deal than as the head of one agency among nine represented on CFIUS.</p> <p>The Trump campaign also noted that Bill Clinton received speaking fees while the Uranium One deal was underway. After the Russians announced that they would acquire stakes in Uranium One, and while the Kremlin was promoting the purchase, Bill Clinton received $500,000 in 2010 for a speech in Moscow from a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin. Putin personally thanked Clinton, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that a review of Bill Clinton&#8217;s speeches &#8220;found no evidence that speaking fees were paid to the former president in exchange for any action by Mrs. Clinton.&#8221;</p> <p>The Times also did not report a direct link between Bill Clinton and the deal. The bank&#8217;s analysts talked up Uranium One&#8217;s stock while the deal was under CFIUS consideration, and assigned it a &#8220;buy&#8221; rating. The bank &#8220;would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton&#8217;s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal,&#8221; the Times reported.</p> <p>&#8212;</p> <p>Trump and his campaign claim that Clinton &#8220;gave&#8221; or &#8220;handed over&#8221; 20 percent of American uranium rights to the Russians. Through the Uranium One deal, the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company does now have control over 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity. But it cannot export the uranium.</p> <p>In 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the sale of the majority of the shares to the Russians. The State Department was one of nine agencies on the committee that approved the deal. The deal was also separately approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.</p> <p>There is no evidence Clinton herself got involved in the deal personally, and it is highly questionable that this deal even rose to the level of the secretary of state. Theoretically, as Schweizer says, Clinton could have intervened. But even then, it ultimately would have been Obama&#8217;s decision whether to suspend or block the deal.</p> <p>Trump so often uses broad-brushed language that pushes him into greater untrue territory, and this is yet another one of those cases. He specifically names Hillary Clinton as the active agent in the Uranium One deal, saying she &#8220;gave them&#8221; or &#8220;handed over&#8221; uranium to the Russians, but that is not the case. Then, he further claimed the sale went forward in exchange &#8220;for a big payment.&#8221; There&#8217;s no evidence for that claim either.</p> <p>Trump could have avoided an untrue rating had he been more careful with the language. For example: &#8220;Hillary Clinton&#8217;s State Department was one of nine agencies that approved the deal.&#8221; Words matter.</p> <p>trump-factcheck</p>

<p>Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, displayed some faux modesty Monday night when <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/matt-kibbe" type="external">Freedomworks CEO Matt Kibbe</a> suggested the recent drop in <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=3&amp;amp;sqi=2&amp;amp;ved=0CDgQFjAC&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fpoliticalticker.blogs.cnn.com%2F2013%2F10%2F16%2Fpoll-tea-partys-favorable-numbers-take-a-hit%2F&amp;amp;ei=r_VlUpv_EujSiALo5YD4Cg&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEYVQFc-mKwQ7f4FzkVh5ja4EOsTg&amp;amp;bvm=bv.55123115,d.cGE" type="external">Tea Party opinion polls</a> just may have resulted from the excessive bias permeating throughout MSNBC and the mainstream media itself. Matthews immediately fired back:</p> <p>I don't control the polls, Matt. C'mon, you know that! We effect some people, perhaps in their thinking, perhaps. But the idea that the main body of the American people is affected in its thinking by one or two T.V stations is wrong. I don't believe people are that moved by an opinion I express. They have their own thinking...</p> <p>This probably would've been a good time for Kibbe to suggest that Matthews head down to his local bookstore to pick up a copy of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpBW6Tx2bGs" type="external">Left Turn</a> by Tim Groseclose. Indeed, the book's studies reveal the heavy sway media bias (left leaning) has on the average American -- 25 points on a scale of 100 to be exact. With numbers like those, Matthews should be taking pride in the results that he and his colleagues worked so hard for, but a little modesty never hurt anyone. Though, he could be referring to the <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/category/ratings" type="external">low ratings</a> MSNBC's received in recent months.</p>

Chris Matthews Displays Some Faux Modesty

http://truthrevolt.org/news/chris-matthews-displays-some-faux-modesty

2018-10-03

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Chris Matthews Displays Some Faux Modesty <p>Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, displayed some faux modesty Monday night when <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/matt-kibbe" type="external">Freedomworks CEO Matt Kibbe</a> suggested the recent drop in <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=3&amp;amp;sqi=2&amp;amp;ved=0CDgQFjAC&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fpoliticalticker.blogs.cnn.com%2F2013%2F10%2F16%2Fpoll-tea-partys-favorable-numbers-take-a-hit%2F&amp;amp;ei=r_VlUpv_EujSiALo5YD4Cg&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEYVQFc-mKwQ7f4FzkVh5ja4EOsTg&amp;amp;bvm=bv.55123115,d.cGE" type="external">Tea Party opinion polls</a> just may have resulted from the excessive bias permeating throughout MSNBC and the mainstream media itself. Matthews immediately fired back:</p> <p>I don't control the polls, Matt. C'mon, you know that! We effect some people, perhaps in their thinking, perhaps. But the idea that the main body of the American people is affected in its thinking by one or two T.V stations is wrong. I don't believe people are that moved by an opinion I express. They have their own thinking...</p> <p>This probably would've been a good time for Kibbe to suggest that Matthews head down to his local bookstore to pick up a copy of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpBW6Tx2bGs" type="external">Left Turn</a> by Tim Groseclose. Indeed, the book's studies reveal the heavy sway media bias (left leaning) has on the average American -- 25 points on a scale of 100 to be exact. With numbers like those, Matthews should be taking pride in the results that he and his colleagues worked so hard for, but a little modesty never hurt anyone. Though, he could be referring to the <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/category/ratings" type="external">low ratings</a> MSNBC's received in recent months.</p>

<p>Hall of Fame broadcaster Rafael &#8220;Felo&#8221; Ramirez, who served as the Spanish radio voice of the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Miami-Marlins/" type="external">Miami Marlins</a> since their inaugural season, died on Monday at the age of 94, the team announced.</p> <p>Ramirez had been hospitalized since April 26 after he hit his head while falling off the team bus in Philadelphia.</p> <p>Ramirez, who joined the Marlins as the team&#8217;s Spanish announced in 1993, was enshrined in Cooperstown after receiving the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ford_C._Frick/" type="external">Ford C. Frick</a> Award for broadcasters in 2001.</p> <p>&#8220;The entire Marlins organization is deeply saddened by the loss of a great friend, Hall-of-Fame broadcaster and community icon, Felo Ramirez,&#8221; the team said in a statement. &#8220;Since our inaugural season, he brought home practically every magical moment in franchise history to generations of fans. A true broadcast legend, Felo lent his voice to over 30 World Series and All-Star Games and his extensive contributions to our game will never be forgotten.</p> <p>Luis Quintana, his broadcast partner for the last 16 seasons, went a step further.</p> <p>&#8220;There&#8217;s never been anybody in Spanish broadcasting who has called as many games as he has. He&#8217;s dedicated his life to baseball,&#8221; Quintana told the Miami Herald. &#8220;When the season ended here in the United States, he would go call games in Venezuela, Puerto Rico. He would call winter league games &#8212; even juvenile games.</p> <p>&#8220;His life is baseball, and there isn&#8217;t a broadcaster in Spanish radio today who isn&#8217;t influenced by Felo.&#8221;</p>

Hall of Fame broadcaster, Miami Marlins legend Rafael &apos;Felo&apos; Ramirez dies

https://newsline.com/hall-of-fame-broadcaster-miami-marlins-legend-rafael-039felo039-ramirez-dies/

2017-08-22

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Hall of Fame broadcaster, Miami Marlins legend Rafael &apos;Felo&apos; Ramirez dies <p>Hall of Fame broadcaster Rafael &#8220;Felo&#8221; Ramirez, who served as the Spanish radio voice of the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Miami-Marlins/" type="external">Miami Marlins</a> since their inaugural season, died on Monday at the age of 94, the team announced.</p> <p>Ramirez had been hospitalized since April 26 after he hit his head while falling off the team bus in Philadelphia.</p> <p>Ramirez, who joined the Marlins as the team&#8217;s Spanish announced in 1993, was enshrined in Cooperstown after receiving the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ford_C._Frick/" type="external">Ford C. Frick</a> Award for broadcasters in 2001.</p> <p>&#8220;The entire Marlins organization is deeply saddened by the loss of a great friend, Hall-of-Fame broadcaster and community icon, Felo Ramirez,&#8221; the team said in a statement. &#8220;Since our inaugural season, he brought home practically every magical moment in franchise history to generations of fans. A true broadcast legend, Felo lent his voice to over 30 World Series and All-Star Games and his extensive contributions to our game will never be forgotten.</p> <p>Luis Quintana, his broadcast partner for the last 16 seasons, went a step further.</p> <p>&#8220;There&#8217;s never been anybody in Spanish broadcasting who has called as many games as he has. He&#8217;s dedicated his life to baseball,&#8221; Quintana told the Miami Herald. &#8220;When the season ended here in the United States, he would go call games in Venezuela, Puerto Rico. He would call winter league games &#8212; even juvenile games.</p> <p>&#8220;His life is baseball, and there isn&#8217;t a broadcaster in Spanish radio today who isn&#8217;t influenced by Felo.&#8221;</p>

<p>ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan on Congressman Luis Gutierrez slamming President Trump's immigration policy and California's sanctuary city laws.</p> <p>ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan on Tuesday said the agency will be left with no option but to enforce the laws Congress enacted in the &#8220;sanctuary state&#8221; of California.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>&#8220;We are going to enforce the laws. We are not going to be bullied [into] not enforcing the laws. We are doing our jobs. We [are] doing our sworn duties to enforce the laws of this country and help protect this country,&#8221; Homan told FOX Business&#8217; Stuart Varney.</p> <p>On Thursday, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation making the Golden State a sanctuary for immigrants, limiting state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.</p> <p>The so-called &#8220;sanctuary state&#8221; bill counters President Trump&#8217;s hard line approach on immigration enforcement. Democrat Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois criticized Trump&#8217;s wish list on immigration calling the administration&#8217;s policy an &#8220;extension of the white supremacist agenda.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an extension of the white supremacist agenda &#8211; what they want to do is criminalize and delegitimize Latinos,&#8221; Gutierrez said in an interview on Sunday.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Homan called Rep. Gutierrez&#8217; statement &#8220;irresponsible&#8221; and said ICE officers are enforcing the laws that Congress enacted.</p> <p>&#8220;I got 20,000 American patriots that serve their country every day, strap a gun to their hip, [and] leave the safety and well-being of their homes and their families to protect this nation. Shame on him,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>The ICE Acting Director said his officers will be forced to go into illegal immigrant communities to arrest criminal offenders which will force additional arrests of illegal immigrants and further hurt the community.</p>

ICE Director: No choice but to arrest illegal immigrants in California

http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/10/10/ice-director-no-choice-but-to-arrest-illegal-immigrants-in-california.html

2017-10-10

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ICE Director: No choice but to arrest illegal immigrants in California <p>ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan on Congressman Luis Gutierrez slamming President Trump's immigration policy and California's sanctuary city laws.</p> <p>ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan on Tuesday said the agency will be left with no option but to enforce the laws Congress enacted in the &#8220;sanctuary state&#8221; of California.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>&#8220;We are going to enforce the laws. We are not going to be bullied [into] not enforcing the laws. We are doing our jobs. We [are] doing our sworn duties to enforce the laws of this country and help protect this country,&#8221; Homan told FOX Business&#8217; Stuart Varney.</p> <p>On Thursday, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation making the Golden State a sanctuary for immigrants, limiting state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.</p> <p>The so-called &#8220;sanctuary state&#8221; bill counters President Trump&#8217;s hard line approach on immigration enforcement. Democrat Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois criticized Trump&#8217;s wish list on immigration calling the administration&#8217;s policy an &#8220;extension of the white supremacist agenda.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an extension of the white supremacist agenda &#8211; what they want to do is criminalize and delegitimize Latinos,&#8221; Gutierrez said in an interview on Sunday.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Homan called Rep. Gutierrez&#8217; statement &#8220;irresponsible&#8221; and said ICE officers are enforcing the laws that Congress enacted.</p> <p>&#8220;I got 20,000 American patriots that serve their country every day, strap a gun to their hip, [and] leave the safety and well-being of their homes and their families to protect this nation. Shame on him,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>The ICE Acting Director said his officers will be forced to go into illegal immigrant communities to arrest criminal offenders which will force additional arrests of illegal immigrants and further hurt the community.</p>

<p>Gender expert and psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Stathis has issued a warning about the overdiagnoses of trans youths, claiming many of the children and teens he sees at his Australian-based gender clinic are not actually suffering from gender dysphoria, or transgenderism, but are instead trying to become trans because it's trendy, wishing to gain attention from their peers. One such child <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">told</a> Stathis that transgenderism "is the new black."</p> <p>According to the psychiatrist, only a small minority of the youths at Brisbane&#8217;s Lady Cilento Children&#8217;s Hospital's gender service will actually be <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">diagnosed</a> with gender dysphoria. By the time most of these struggling youths reach puberty, says Stathis, they will have grown out of their confusion and identify as their biological sex.</p> <p>Stathis says a lot of those youths are &#8220;trying out being transgender&#8221; to be different from their peers and gain attention.</p> <p>&#8220;One said to me, &#8216;Dr Steve ... I want to be transgender, it&#8217;s the new black&#8217;,&#8221; said the doctor.</p> <p>&#8220;You might get a six- or seven-year-old girl wanting to dress as a boy,&#8221; <a href="https://heatst.com/culture-wars/gender-expert-teens-are-trying-to-be-transgender-because-its-trendy/" type="external">explained</a> Stathis during a March interview. &#8220;She may even say she wants to be a boy. When she hits puberty, she says, &#8216;No, I&#8217;m just a girl who likes to do boy things.&#8221;</p> <p>The psychiatrist also warned that other children and teens may claim to be transgender because of past trauma. For instance, Stathis said he's seen young girls who have been sexually abused turn to transgenderism.</p> <p>&#8220;The girls say, &#8216;If only I had been a male I wouldn&#8217;t have been abused,'" he said.</p> <p>Being young and transgender has become the new hotness on the Left. The New York Times, for example, recently claimed it would be insane not to offer children suffering from gender confusion hormone therapy.</p> <p>But this notion that we must pump Tomboys and gender-confused children with hormone blockers and therapies and eventually mutilate their bodies is cruel.</p> <p>As outlined by Stathis and backed by much data, there is an incredibly high rate of children who aren't actually suffering from transgenderism who believe they are, many of whom simply outgrow normal sex confusion. The transgender push, instead of helping marginalized youths, is actually <a href="https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2016/08/21/real-life-victims-of-the-transgender-cult/" type="external">creating victims</a>.</p>

Gender Expert Says Teens Are Trying To Be Transgender Because It's Cool

https://dailywire.com/news/15404/gender-expert-says-teens-are-becoming-transgender-amanda-prestigiacomo

2017-04-14

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Gender Expert Says Teens Are Trying To Be Transgender Because It's Cool <p>Gender expert and psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Stathis has issued a warning about the overdiagnoses of trans youths, claiming many of the children and teens he sees at his Australian-based gender clinic are not actually suffering from gender dysphoria, or transgenderism, but are instead trying to become trans because it's trendy, wishing to gain attention from their peers. One such child <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">told</a> Stathis that transgenderism "is the new black."</p> <p>According to the psychiatrist, only a small minority of the youths at Brisbane&#8217;s Lady Cilento Children&#8217;s Hospital's gender service will actually be <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">diagnosed</a> with gender dysphoria. By the time most of these struggling youths reach puberty, says Stathis, they will have grown out of their confusion and identify as their biological sex.</p> <p>Stathis says a lot of those youths are &#8220;trying out being transgender&#8221; to be different from their peers and gain attention.</p> <p>&#8220;One said to me, &#8216;Dr Steve ... I want to be transgender, it&#8217;s the new black&#8217;,&#8221; said the doctor.</p> <p>&#8220;You might get a six- or seven-year-old girl wanting to dress as a boy,&#8221; <a href="https://heatst.com/culture-wars/gender-expert-teens-are-trying-to-be-transgender-because-its-trendy/" type="external">explained</a> Stathis during a March interview. &#8220;She may even say she wants to be a boy. When she hits puberty, she says, &#8216;No, I&#8217;m just a girl who likes to do boy things.&#8221;</p> <p>The psychiatrist also warned that other children and teens may claim to be transgender because of past trauma. For instance, Stathis said he's seen young girls who have been sexually abused turn to transgenderism.</p> <p>&#8220;The girls say, &#8216;If only I had been a male I wouldn&#8217;t have been abused,'" he said.</p> <p>Being young and transgender has become the new hotness on the Left. The New York Times, for example, recently claimed it would be insane not to offer children suffering from gender confusion hormone therapy.</p> <p>But this notion that we must pump Tomboys and gender-confused children with hormone blockers and therapies and eventually mutilate their bodies is cruel.</p> <p>As outlined by Stathis and backed by much data, there is an incredibly high rate of children who aren't actually suffering from transgenderism who believe they are, many of whom simply outgrow normal sex confusion. The transgender push, instead of helping marginalized youths, is actually <a href="https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2016/08/21/real-life-victims-of-the-transgender-cult/" type="external">creating victims</a>.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The justices on Wednesday sided 6-3 with former driver Peggy Young in throwing out lower court rulings that rejected her lawsuit.</p> <p>The case concerned employers&#8217; responsibilities under the 37-year-old Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Atlanta-based UPS Inc. maintained that it obeyed the law because it provided light-work duty only in limited situations and did not single out pregnant women.</p> <p>But in ordering lower courts to look again at Young&#8217;s claim, Justice Stephen Breyer said for the court that one consideration should be, &#8220;Why, when the employer accommodated so many, could it not accommodate pregnant women as well?&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>UPS said it did not provide light-duty work to any employees unless they were injured on the job, had a condition that was covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act or lost their federal certificate to drive a commercial vehicle.</p> <p>Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the majority waved &#8220;the Supreme Wand&#8221; to arrive at the outcome it preferred. Scalia said the law &#8220;does not prohibit denying pregnant women accommodations, or any other benefit for that matter, on the basis of an evenhanded policy.&#8221; Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.</p> <p>The outcome reflects a &#8220;middle ground&#8221; that Justice Elena Kagan suggested during arguments in early December. Courts must now re-examine Young&#8217;s case with a more accepting view of the discrimination claim. UPS and other employers facing similar suits still are able to argue their policies were legal because they were based on seniority or some other acceptable reason.</p> <p>UPS has since changed its policy and now says it will try to accommodate pregnant workers. Nine states also have adopted laws directing employers to do so.</p> <p>In recent months, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has updated guidance to employers to make clear that they should accommodate people in Young&#8217;s situation. Yet the U.S. Postal Service said it has made no change in policy and maintains the practice that UPS has now abandoned.</p> <p>Pregnant workers in situations similar to Young&#8217;s also may have additional protections under 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Young&#8217;s pregnancy occurred before Congress changed the disabilities law.</p> <p>Women&#8217;s rights groups and Young&#8217;s lawyers praised the decision. &#8220;We think it&#8217;s a big win for Peggy Young. We think it&#8217;s a big win for pregnant workers around the country,&#8221; said Samuel Bagenstos, Young&#8217;s lawyer at the Supreme Court.</p> <p>UPS spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg said the court did not embrace Young&#8217;s argument that UPS&#8217; policy was discriminatory and instead ordered lower court review under a standard that neither side argued for at the Supreme Court.</p> <p>&#8220;We are confident that those courts will find that UPS did not discriminate against Ms. Young under this newly announced standard,&#8221; Rosenberg said.</p> <p>Young&#8217;s dispute with UPS arose after she became pregnant through in-vitro fertilization and gave her supervisor a doctor&#8217;s note recommending that she not lift packages heavier than 20 pounds. Young, now 43, said she dealt almost exclusively with overnight letters, but UPS said its drivers must be able to lift packages weighing up to 70 pounds. She returned to work two months after her daughter, Triniti, was born. Young left the company in 2009.</p> <p>The Virginia woman lost two rounds in lower courts. Triniti is now 7.</p>

Justices revive ex-UPS worker’s pregnancy bias lawsuit

https://abqjournal.com/559893/justices-revive-ex-ups-workers-pregnancy-bias-lawsuit.html

2least

Justices revive ex-UPS worker’s pregnancy bias lawsuit <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The justices on Wednesday sided 6-3 with former driver Peggy Young in throwing out lower court rulings that rejected her lawsuit.</p> <p>The case concerned employers&#8217; responsibilities under the 37-year-old Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Atlanta-based UPS Inc. maintained that it obeyed the law because it provided light-work duty only in limited situations and did not single out pregnant women.</p> <p>But in ordering lower courts to look again at Young&#8217;s claim, Justice Stephen Breyer said for the court that one consideration should be, &#8220;Why, when the employer accommodated so many, could it not accommodate pregnant women as well?&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>UPS said it did not provide light-duty work to any employees unless they were injured on the job, had a condition that was covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act or lost their federal certificate to drive a commercial vehicle.</p> <p>Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the majority waved &#8220;the Supreme Wand&#8221; to arrive at the outcome it preferred. Scalia said the law &#8220;does not prohibit denying pregnant women accommodations, or any other benefit for that matter, on the basis of an evenhanded policy.&#8221; Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.</p> <p>The outcome reflects a &#8220;middle ground&#8221; that Justice Elena Kagan suggested during arguments in early December. Courts must now re-examine Young&#8217;s case with a more accepting view of the discrimination claim. UPS and other employers facing similar suits still are able to argue their policies were legal because they were based on seniority or some other acceptable reason.</p> <p>UPS has since changed its policy and now says it will try to accommodate pregnant workers. Nine states also have adopted laws directing employers to do so.</p> <p>In recent months, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has updated guidance to employers to make clear that they should accommodate people in Young&#8217;s situation. Yet the U.S. Postal Service said it has made no change in policy and maintains the practice that UPS has now abandoned.</p> <p>Pregnant workers in situations similar to Young&#8217;s also may have additional protections under 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Young&#8217;s pregnancy occurred before Congress changed the disabilities law.</p> <p>Women&#8217;s rights groups and Young&#8217;s lawyers praised the decision. &#8220;We think it&#8217;s a big win for Peggy Young. We think it&#8217;s a big win for pregnant workers around the country,&#8221; said Samuel Bagenstos, Young&#8217;s lawyer at the Supreme Court.</p> <p>UPS spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg said the court did not embrace Young&#8217;s argument that UPS&#8217; policy was discriminatory and instead ordered lower court review under a standard that neither side argued for at the Supreme Court.</p> <p>&#8220;We are confident that those courts will find that UPS did not discriminate against Ms. Young under this newly announced standard,&#8221; Rosenberg said.</p> <p>Young&#8217;s dispute with UPS arose after she became pregnant through in-vitro fertilization and gave her supervisor a doctor&#8217;s note recommending that she not lift packages heavier than 20 pounds. Young, now 43, said she dealt almost exclusively with overnight letters, but UPS said its drivers must be able to lift packages weighing up to 70 pounds. She returned to work two months after her daughter, Triniti, was born. Young left the company in 2009.</p> <p>The Virginia woman lost two rounds in lower courts. Triniti is now 7.</p>

<p>Horovitz remains skeptical that Rice was able to move Israelis and Palestinians any closer to implementing a peace deal. (What does it mean that within hours of Rice's leaving, Israel announces the building of 600 new homes in East Jerusalem?) it highlights the differences in opinion between not only Israel and the Palestinians but also Israel and the US. Rice has been outspoken in opposing such construction. (So it sounds like Israel is completely ignoring the US on the settlement issue?) Well the settlement issue is not the same as the East Jerusalem issue. The settlement issue is a contentious one even amongst Israelis. But East Jerusalem is not considered as an area where settlements are built. (Rice and the Palestinian President both said they're confident a peace deal could be signed by the end of this year. What are diplomats saying about this prospect? Is it at all realistic?) Well first separate this announcement from implementing a deal. Core principals could be agreed on, but it could be impossible to implement it. (Did anything concrete happen from this trip?) Israelis agreed to remove some roadblocks in the West Bank, more Palestinian security forces could be deployed in some West Bank cities and so on. We've heard in the past about such measures being contemplated and some Israelis still worry about more violence. (Does Rice have less credibility now because she's working for a lameduck President?) there's less leverage and credibility at this point, but Iran's nuclear drive is making this most difficult. If Iran is thwarted, it might embolden the US side.</p>

Middle East trip over

https://pri.org/stories/2008-03-31/middle-east-trip-over

2008-03-31

3left-center

Middle East trip over <p>Horovitz remains skeptical that Rice was able to move Israelis and Palestinians any closer to implementing a peace deal. (What does it mean that within hours of Rice's leaving, Israel announces the building of 600 new homes in East Jerusalem?) it highlights the differences in opinion between not only Israel and the Palestinians but also Israel and the US. Rice has been outspoken in opposing such construction. (So it sounds like Israel is completely ignoring the US on the settlement issue?) Well the settlement issue is not the same as the East Jerusalem issue. The settlement issue is a contentious one even amongst Israelis. But East Jerusalem is not considered as an area where settlements are built. (Rice and the Palestinian President both said they're confident a peace deal could be signed by the end of this year. What are diplomats saying about this prospect? Is it at all realistic?) Well first separate this announcement from implementing a deal. Core principals could be agreed on, but it could be impossible to implement it. (Did anything concrete happen from this trip?) Israelis agreed to remove some roadblocks in the West Bank, more Palestinian security forces could be deployed in some West Bank cities and so on. We've heard in the past about such measures being contemplated and some Israelis still worry about more violence. (Does Rice have less credibility now because she's working for a lameduck President?) there's less leverage and credibility at this point, but Iran's nuclear drive is making this most difficult. If Iran is thwarted, it might embolden the US side.</p>

<p /> <p>Image source: Getty Images.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>"You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong." -- Warren Buffett</p> <p>He's right: more often than not, if you simply hold on to a stock over the years through thick and thin, you'll likely be well rewarded. It can be difficult to never sell, especially when times seem dire -- but if you can pick companies with durable competitive advantages, you should be able to sleep at night and avoid pressing the panic "sell" button.</p> <p>Here are four Motley Fool contributors with companies that they recommend never selling: International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Allergan (NYSE: AGN), Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), and Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA).</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Tim Green Opens a New Window.</a>: Every stock that I buy I intend to hold for years. Ideally, a stock will produce exceptional returns indefinitely, never requiring me to sell. Things change, of course, and investors can't be afraid to sell a stock if their thesis has been turned upside down. But in general, the longer the holding period, the better.</p> <p>Predicting how technology will evolve is hard, if not impossible, and that makes committing to holding a technology stock indefinitely risky. But International Business Machines, a company that has been around for a century, is one tech stock that I'm comfortable holding for a long time. The company has transformed itself on multiple occasions during its lifetime, shifting from mechanical tabulating machines to computers, then transitioning into a software and services company, and now throwing its weight behind cloud and cognitive computing.</p> <p>Transitions are always painful, and the current one IBM is undergoing is no exception. Revenue has been declining for years, and earnings are being pressured as the company shifts resources from legacy businesses to areas that offer the most potential. There's no guarantee that IBM will succeed, but if I'm going to be holding a tech stock for a very long time, a company with a long history of adaptation makes the most sense.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGBudwell/info.aspx" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a>: There aren't many stocks I would absolutely never sell, but specialty pharma Allergan is an exception to the rule. The short story is that Allergan is currently in the process of shedding its generic-drug business to focus on branded products like the double-chin treatment Kybella, and the IBS drugs Linzess and Viberzi, among many others. As a result, the health of the drugmaker's balance sheet has improved dramatically in the last few months, with the company already retiring $9 billion in debt this year. And Allergan's recent double-digit top-line growth appears to be sustainable for the long haul, given that the drugmaker is in the midst of multiple new product launches at the moment.</p> <p>Having said that, Allergan's penchant for wheeling and dealing is an area of concern. So far, management has carefully guided the company through multiple acquisitions that have led to an overall healthier enterprise. However, one bad deal in the pharmaceutical industry can hamper a company's growth for a decade or more. That's why I would personally prefer for Allergan to pay off even more debt, and perhaps sit tight for the time being, instead of rushing out to spend its recent windfall from the sale of its generic unit. But this is Allergan, after all, meaning that a monstrous acquisition is almost certainly coming down the pike soon. So, hopefully, management can continue their winning ways by adding yet another value-creating asset to the company's already strong product portfolio of branded medicines. Stay tuned.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo Opens a New Window.</a>: Midstream pipeline giant Enterprise Products Partners has been a part of my portfolio since 2007. I plan on keeping it right where it is, and adding to my position over time, because I view it as an anchor income holding. It is a decision that paid off very well in the past, and one that I expect will continue for many years to come.</p> <p>What drew me toward Enterprise Products Partners was its eye-popping yield, which at the time of <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/27/the-secret-to-buying-high-yield-stocks.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">my initial investment Opens a New Window.</a> was just shy of 7%. However, since my first purchase, the distribution has gone up every single quarter. Because of that, the yield on my initial investment is now more than 11.5%.</p> <p>Three factors drive Enterprise's ability to grow the payout. First, it primarily owns fee-based assets that are under long-term contracts, so it generates rather stable cash flow. Second, unlike most master limited partnerships, it does not distribute all of its cash flow back to investors; instead, it retains a substantial portion to reinvest into growth projects, including $5.3 billion since 2011. Finally, the company continues to construct a steady stream of fee-based assets that drive cash-flow growth; currently, it has $5.6 billion of projects under construction to drive growth through 2018.</p> <p>With a solid foundation and ample running room for future growth, Enterprise Products Partners is one company that I have no desire to sell.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a>: Investors hopping off the Boeing Co. bandwagon could be forgiven, especially after a rough second quarter, when the aviation juggernaut took almost $3 billion in pre-tax charges from its 787, 747 and KC-46 tanker programs. However, despite the rough quarter, Boeing still has durable comparable advantages with its commercial and defense businesses, which make it a stock you shouldn't sell.</p> <p>Boeing operates in an intensely regulated commercial aircraft industry, so it's extremely difficult for new competitors to enter the market, leaving Boeing and Airbus to dominate the area. There are very real barriers to entry imposed by the knowledge and experience required to develop, design, assemble and certify commercial aircraft; that isn't changing any time soon, which is great news for investors willing to stick around for the long haul.</p> <p>Another bonus is that over the past five years, Boeing has increasingly focused on returning value to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, as you can see below:</p> <p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/BA/shares_outstanding" type="external">BA Shares Outstanding</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>And despite being in a cyclical industry, Boeing has more than $470 billion worth of orders in its combined commercial and defense backlog, which is roughly five years' worth of revenue transparency. On top of that, Boeing made the decision to incrementally improve both the 737 and 777 programs, rather than develop all-new aircraft, which should generate more cash flow and increase its return on invested capital.</p> <p>The downside with Boeing is that the company operates in a cyclical industry, which guarantees turbulence at some point, and when operational mistakes happen they cost a pretty penny see Boeing's second quarter. But any company that operates in an industry with steep barriers to entry and has a history of returning value to shareholders is a company you shouldn't sell anytime soon.</p> <p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;amp;ftm_pit=2691&amp;amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/gbudwell/info.aspx" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Allergan. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo</a> owns shares of Enterprise Products Partners. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green</a> owns shares of IBM. The Motley Fool recommends Enterprise Products Partners.</p> <p>Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

4 Stocks We Would Never Sell

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/07/4-stocks-would-never-sell.html

2016-09-07

0right

4 Stocks We Would Never Sell <p /> <p>Image source: Getty Images.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>"You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong." -- Warren Buffett</p> <p>He's right: more often than not, if you simply hold on to a stock over the years through thick and thin, you'll likely be well rewarded. It can be difficult to never sell, especially when times seem dire -- but if you can pick companies with durable competitive advantages, you should be able to sleep at night and avoid pressing the panic "sell" button.</p> <p>Here are four Motley Fool contributors with companies that they recommend never selling: International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Allergan (NYSE: AGN), Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), and Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA).</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Tim Green Opens a New Window.</a>: Every stock that I buy I intend to hold for years. Ideally, a stock will produce exceptional returns indefinitely, never requiring me to sell. Things change, of course, and investors can't be afraid to sell a stock if their thesis has been turned upside down. But in general, the longer the holding period, the better.</p> <p>Predicting how technology will evolve is hard, if not impossible, and that makes committing to holding a technology stock indefinitely risky. But International Business Machines, a company that has been around for a century, is one tech stock that I'm comfortable holding for a long time. The company has transformed itself on multiple occasions during its lifetime, shifting from mechanical tabulating machines to computers, then transitioning into a software and services company, and now throwing its weight behind cloud and cognitive computing.</p> <p>Transitions are always painful, and the current one IBM is undergoing is no exception. Revenue has been declining for years, and earnings are being pressured as the company shifts resources from legacy businesses to areas that offer the most potential. There's no guarantee that IBM will succeed, but if I'm going to be holding a tech stock for a very long time, a company with a long history of adaptation makes the most sense.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGBudwell/info.aspx" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a>: There aren't many stocks I would absolutely never sell, but specialty pharma Allergan is an exception to the rule. The short story is that Allergan is currently in the process of shedding its generic-drug business to focus on branded products like the double-chin treatment Kybella, and the IBS drugs Linzess and Viberzi, among many others. As a result, the health of the drugmaker's balance sheet has improved dramatically in the last few months, with the company already retiring $9 billion in debt this year. And Allergan's recent double-digit top-line growth appears to be sustainable for the long haul, given that the drugmaker is in the midst of multiple new product launches at the moment.</p> <p>Having said that, Allergan's penchant for wheeling and dealing is an area of concern. So far, management has carefully guided the company through multiple acquisitions that have led to an overall healthier enterprise. However, one bad deal in the pharmaceutical industry can hamper a company's growth for a decade or more. That's why I would personally prefer for Allergan to pay off even more debt, and perhaps sit tight for the time being, instead of rushing out to spend its recent windfall from the sale of its generic unit. But this is Allergan, after all, meaning that a monstrous acquisition is almost certainly coming down the pike soon. So, hopefully, management can continue their winning ways by adding yet another value-creating asset to the company's already strong product portfolio of branded medicines. Stay tuned.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo Opens a New Window.</a>: Midstream pipeline giant Enterprise Products Partners has been a part of my portfolio since 2007. I plan on keeping it right where it is, and adding to my position over time, because I view it as an anchor income holding. It is a decision that paid off very well in the past, and one that I expect will continue for many years to come.</p> <p>What drew me toward Enterprise Products Partners was its eye-popping yield, which at the time of <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/27/the-secret-to-buying-high-yield-stocks.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">my initial investment Opens a New Window.</a> was just shy of 7%. However, since my first purchase, the distribution has gone up every single quarter. Because of that, the yield on my initial investment is now more than 11.5%.</p> <p>Three factors drive Enterprise's ability to grow the payout. First, it primarily owns fee-based assets that are under long-term contracts, so it generates rather stable cash flow. Second, unlike most master limited partnerships, it does not distribute all of its cash flow back to investors; instead, it retains a substantial portion to reinvest into growth projects, including $5.3 billion since 2011. Finally, the company continues to construct a steady stream of fee-based assets that drive cash-flow growth; currently, it has $5.6 billion of projects under construction to drive growth through 2018.</p> <p>With a solid foundation and ample running room for future growth, Enterprise Products Partners is one company that I have no desire to sell.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a>: Investors hopping off the Boeing Co. bandwagon could be forgiven, especially after a rough second quarter, when the aviation juggernaut took almost $3 billion in pre-tax charges from its 787, 747 and KC-46 tanker programs. However, despite the rough quarter, Boeing still has durable comparable advantages with its commercial and defense businesses, which make it a stock you shouldn't sell.</p> <p>Boeing operates in an intensely regulated commercial aircraft industry, so it's extremely difficult for new competitors to enter the market, leaving Boeing and Airbus to dominate the area. There are very real barriers to entry imposed by the knowledge and experience required to develop, design, assemble and certify commercial aircraft; that isn't changing any time soon, which is great news for investors willing to stick around for the long haul.</p> <p>Another bonus is that over the past five years, Boeing has increasingly focused on returning value to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, as you can see below:</p> <p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/BA/shares_outstanding" type="external">BA Shares Outstanding</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>And despite being in a cyclical industry, Boeing has more than $470 billion worth of orders in its combined commercial and defense backlog, which is roughly five years' worth of revenue transparency. On top of that, Boeing made the decision to incrementally improve both the 737 and 777 programs, rather than develop all-new aircraft, which should generate more cash flow and increase its return on invested capital.</p> <p>The downside with Boeing is that the company operates in a cyclical industry, which guarantees turbulence at some point, and when operational mistakes happen they cost a pretty penny see Boeing's second quarter. But any company that operates in an industry with steep barriers to entry and has a history of returning value to shareholders is a company you shouldn't sell anytime soon.</p> <p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;amp;ftm_pit=2691&amp;amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/gbudwell/info.aspx" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Allergan. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo</a> owns shares of Enterprise Products Partners. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green</a> owns shares of IBM. The Motley Fool recommends Enterprise Products Partners.</p> <p>Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p /> <p>Kraft Foods Group, the North American grocery business that is set to spin off from Kraft (NYSE:KFT) later this year, will join the S&amp;amp;P 500 on at the close of trading on Oct. 1, the index said on Wednesday.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The newly-formed food brand will replace Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR), which will in turn replace Korn/Ferry (NYSE:KFY) in the S&amp;amp;P MidCap 400. The Los Angeles-based recruitment company will replace Pulse Electronics (NYSE:PULS) in the S&amp;amp;P SmallCap 600.</p> <p>Kraft Foods, currently a member of both to S&amp;amp;P 100 &amp;amp; 500, is set to spin off the Kraft Foods Group and at that time the iconic Kraft Foods brand will change its name to Mondelez International and continue to reside on the major S&amp;amp;P indices under the symbol MDLZ.</p> <p>S&amp;amp;P Dow Jones Indices said the reason behind shifting Korn/Ferry and Alpha Natural Resources to smaller-cap indices is because those indices better reflect their current market caps. It added that Pulse Electronics is currently ranked 600 in the S&amp;amp;P SmallCap 600 and therefore is &#8220;no longer appropriate for the inclusion in that index.&#8221;</p> <p>The admittance into the S&amp;amp;P comes two weeks after soon-to-be Mondelez was booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, where it was replaced by insurance giant UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH).</p> <p>Mondelez is expected to be a smaller-cap company and generate less U.S. revenue when it pulls away from Kraft Foods Group next month. Kraft had warned earlier this month that as a standalone company with the North American grocery business, it would likely miss Wall Street expectations in 2013.</p> <p>However, the Northfield, Ill.-based company has touted the potential of Kraft Foods Group, which will umbrella popular brands like Oscar Mayer and Maxwell House coffee. That newly-formed company is expected to grow either in-line or slightly above the sector&#8217;s average, Kraft said.</p> <p>Advertisement</p>

Kraft Foods Group to Join S&P 500, Demote Alpha Natural Resources

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/09/26/kraft-foods-group-to-join-sp-500-demote-alpha-natural-resources.html

2016-01-26

0right

Kraft Foods Group to Join S&P 500, Demote Alpha Natural Resources <p /> <p>Kraft Foods Group, the North American grocery business that is set to spin off from Kraft (NYSE:KFT) later this year, will join the S&amp;amp;P 500 on at the close of trading on Oct. 1, the index said on Wednesday.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The newly-formed food brand will replace Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR), which will in turn replace Korn/Ferry (NYSE:KFY) in the S&amp;amp;P MidCap 400. The Los Angeles-based recruitment company will replace Pulse Electronics (NYSE:PULS) in the S&amp;amp;P SmallCap 600.</p> <p>Kraft Foods, currently a member of both to S&amp;amp;P 100 &amp;amp; 500, is set to spin off the Kraft Foods Group and at that time the iconic Kraft Foods brand will change its name to Mondelez International and continue to reside on the major S&amp;amp;P indices under the symbol MDLZ.</p> <p>S&amp;amp;P Dow Jones Indices said the reason behind shifting Korn/Ferry and Alpha Natural Resources to smaller-cap indices is because those indices better reflect their current market caps. It added that Pulse Electronics is currently ranked 600 in the S&amp;amp;P SmallCap 600 and therefore is &#8220;no longer appropriate for the inclusion in that index.&#8221;</p> <p>The admittance into the S&amp;amp;P comes two weeks after soon-to-be Mondelez was booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, where it was replaced by insurance giant UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH).</p> <p>Mondelez is expected to be a smaller-cap company and generate less U.S. revenue when it pulls away from Kraft Foods Group next month. Kraft had warned earlier this month that as a standalone company with the North American grocery business, it would likely miss Wall Street expectations in 2013.</p> <p>However, the Northfield, Ill.-based company has touted the potential of Kraft Foods Group, which will umbrella popular brands like Oscar Mayer and Maxwell House coffee. That newly-formed company is expected to grow either in-line or slightly above the sector&#8217;s average, Kraft said.</p> <p>Advertisement</p>

<p>Vehicle sales come in better than expected, help add to market optimism</p> <p>U.S. stock benchmarks scrambled deeper into record territory on Tuesday, setting the S&amp;amp;P 500 on course for its sixth gain in a row, as investors took their cues from upbeat data, including a report on vehicle sales.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>What stock benchmarks are doing</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 84 points, or 0.4%, to 22,640. The S&amp;amp;P 500 rose 4 points to 2,533, an increase of 0.2%.</p> <p>The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 10 points, or 0.2%, to 6,526.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P has gained for five consecutive trading days, its longest winning streak since a six-session advance that ended Sept. 1. The Dow has moved higher in four straight sessions, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has risen for five sessions in a row.</p> <p>The Russell 2000 , meanwhile, fell around 3 points, or 0.2%, to 1,506. The index of small companies hit an all-time high in early trading, but soon turned lower and is on track to snap a seven-session rally.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>What are driving markets?</p> <p>Stocks have been supported by some strong economic data, including the recent ISM manufacturing survey (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/key-yardstick-of-us-manufacturers-touches-highest-level-since-2004-ism-finds-2017-10-02) for September, as well as hopes for tax-cut legislation. However, there are lingering concerns that the market's record advance--the S&amp;amp;P is up 13% year to date, the Dow is on track for a nearly 15% return thus far this year, while the Nasdaq has gained more than 20%--has been overdone. That's especially as the Federal Reserve increases borrowing costs.</p> <p>What strategists are saying</p> <p>Which stocks are in focus?</p> <p>Shares in MGM Resorts International(MGM) shed 0.2% after falling 5.6% Monday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mgm-resorts-stock-falls-5-premarket-after-mandalay-bay-shooting-2017-10-02) in the wake of the mass shooting at the company's Mandalay Bay property in Las Vegas.</p> <p>See:Las Vegas shooter Paddock had 42 guns and a 'bump stock' (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/las-vegas-shooter-paddock-had-42-guns-and-a-device-enabling-firing-at-an-automatic-rate-2017-10-03)</p> <p>Gun-maker stocks such as Smith &amp;amp; Wesson parent American Outdoor Brands Corp.(AOBC) and Sturm, Ruger &amp;amp; Co. Inc. (RGR) also could see another active session after rallying Monday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gun-maker-stocks-surge-after-mass-shooting-in-las-vegas-2017-10-02). They often gain when traders think stricter regulations are coming, as sales can get a lift ahead of any change. Shares of both American Outdoor and Sturm rose 0.9%.</p> <p>What are the data saying?</p> <p>Major auto makers posted better-than-expected sales gains in September amid heavier consumer discounts and demand to replace hurricane-damaged vehicles, giving the industry relief from a protracted period of (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-ford-toyota-post-sharp-sept-sales-gains-2017-10-03-144851637)declining results.</p> <p>General Motors Co.(GM) rose 2.7% after it reported U.S. sales growth of 12% (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gms-stock-shoots-up-to-record-high-after-september-sales-report-2017-10-03), with the stock hitting a record in early trading.</p> <p>Ford Motor Co.(F) was up 2.3% after it posted sales growth of 8.7%. The auto maker was also in focus as new CEO Jim Hackett is due to provide an update on the company's progress (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-ford-chief-says-ready-to-tinker-under-the-hood-2017-09-30) at an investor meeting.</p> <p>Fiat Chrysler's (FCA.MI) September numbers fell by 10% year-over-year (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fiat-chryslers-us-september-sales-fall-with-sharp-declines-in-jeep-chrysler-and-dodge-brand-sales-2017-10-03), thanks to declines in its Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge brands. Its shares last traded slightly weaker, down 0.3% from yesterday.</p> <p>Shares in Tesla Inc.(TSLA) pared previous losses and rose almost 1.6%. Late Monday, news came that third-quarter production for the electric car maker's Model 3 sedan was lower than anticipated, due to manufacturing bottlenecks (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-model-3-hit-by-production-bottleneck-that-slowed-initial-deliveries-2017-10-02), causing Tesla's shares to take a dive.</p> <p>Home builder Lennar Corp. (LEN) rose 5.3% after better-than-anticipated quarterly results (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lennars-stock-set-for-rally-after-profit-and-sales-beat-expectations-2017-10-03).</p> <p>Check out:MarketWatch's Economic Calendar (http://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendars/economic)</p> <p>What other assets are doing</p> <p>European stock markets (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-pause-for-breath-after-8-day-winning-run-2017-10-03) traded in tight ranges on Tuesday, taking a breather after an eight-day winning streak. Asian equity markets largely closed higher (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hang-seng-nikkei-lead-market-gains-in-asia-2017-10-02), though some bourses remained closed for holidays.</p> <p>Oil futures were trading slightly lower (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-slips-further-on-concerns-about-higher-supply-2017-10-03), while gold futures booked their third straight decline (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-extends-retreat-as-bond-yields-stocks-rise-2017-10-03), as the ICE U.S. Dollar Index inched higher (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-holds-ground-at-six-week-highs-2017-10-03).</p> <p>--Victor Reklaitis contributed to this article</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>October 03, 2017 14:45 ET (18:45 GMT)</p>

MARKET SNAPSHOT: Dow Gains Momentum; S&P 500 Aims For 6-day Win Streak

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/03/market-snapshot-dow-gains-momentum-s-p-500-aims-for-6-day-win-streak.html

2017-10-03

0right

MARKET SNAPSHOT: Dow Gains Momentum; S&P 500 Aims For 6-day Win Streak <p>Vehicle sales come in better than expected, help add to market optimism</p> <p>U.S. stock benchmarks scrambled deeper into record territory on Tuesday, setting the S&amp;amp;P 500 on course for its sixth gain in a row, as investors took their cues from upbeat data, including a report on vehicle sales.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>What stock benchmarks are doing</p> <p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 84 points, or 0.4%, to 22,640. The S&amp;amp;P 500 rose 4 points to 2,533, an increase of 0.2%.</p> <p>The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 10 points, or 0.2%, to 6,526.</p> <p>The S&amp;amp;P has gained for five consecutive trading days, its longest winning streak since a six-session advance that ended Sept. 1. The Dow has moved higher in four straight sessions, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has risen for five sessions in a row.</p> <p>The Russell 2000 , meanwhile, fell around 3 points, or 0.2%, to 1,506. The index of small companies hit an all-time high in early trading, but soon turned lower and is on track to snap a seven-session rally.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>What are driving markets?</p> <p>Stocks have been supported by some strong economic data, including the recent ISM manufacturing survey (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/key-yardstick-of-us-manufacturers-touches-highest-level-since-2004-ism-finds-2017-10-02) for September, as well as hopes for tax-cut legislation. However, there are lingering concerns that the market's record advance--the S&amp;amp;P is up 13% year to date, the Dow is on track for a nearly 15% return thus far this year, while the Nasdaq has gained more than 20%--has been overdone. That's especially as the Federal Reserve increases borrowing costs.</p> <p>What strategists are saying</p> <p>Which stocks are in focus?</p> <p>Shares in MGM Resorts International(MGM) shed 0.2% after falling 5.6% Monday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mgm-resorts-stock-falls-5-premarket-after-mandalay-bay-shooting-2017-10-02) in the wake of the mass shooting at the company's Mandalay Bay property in Las Vegas.</p> <p>See:Las Vegas shooter Paddock had 42 guns and a 'bump stock' (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/las-vegas-shooter-paddock-had-42-guns-and-a-device-enabling-firing-at-an-automatic-rate-2017-10-03)</p> <p>Gun-maker stocks such as Smith &amp;amp; Wesson parent American Outdoor Brands Corp.(AOBC) and Sturm, Ruger &amp;amp; Co. Inc. (RGR) also could see another active session after rallying Monday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gun-maker-stocks-surge-after-mass-shooting-in-las-vegas-2017-10-02). They often gain when traders think stricter regulations are coming, as sales can get a lift ahead of any change. Shares of both American Outdoor and Sturm rose 0.9%.</p> <p>What are the data saying?</p> <p>Major auto makers posted better-than-expected sales gains in September amid heavier consumer discounts and demand to replace hurricane-damaged vehicles, giving the industry relief from a protracted period of (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-ford-toyota-post-sharp-sept-sales-gains-2017-10-03-144851637)declining results.</p> <p>General Motors Co.(GM) rose 2.7% after it reported U.S. sales growth of 12% (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gms-stock-shoots-up-to-record-high-after-september-sales-report-2017-10-03), with the stock hitting a record in early trading.</p> <p>Ford Motor Co.(F) was up 2.3% after it posted sales growth of 8.7%. The auto maker was also in focus as new CEO Jim Hackett is due to provide an update on the company's progress (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-ford-chief-says-ready-to-tinker-under-the-hood-2017-09-30) at an investor meeting.</p> <p>Fiat Chrysler's (FCA.MI) September numbers fell by 10% year-over-year (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fiat-chryslers-us-september-sales-fall-with-sharp-declines-in-jeep-chrysler-and-dodge-brand-sales-2017-10-03), thanks to declines in its Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge brands. Its shares last traded slightly weaker, down 0.3% from yesterday.</p> <p>Shares in Tesla Inc.(TSLA) pared previous losses and rose almost 1.6%. Late Monday, news came that third-quarter production for the electric car maker's Model 3 sedan was lower than anticipated, due to manufacturing bottlenecks (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-model-3-hit-by-production-bottleneck-that-slowed-initial-deliveries-2017-10-02), causing Tesla's shares to take a dive.</p> <p>Home builder Lennar Corp. (LEN) rose 5.3% after better-than-anticipated quarterly results (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lennars-stock-set-for-rally-after-profit-and-sales-beat-expectations-2017-10-03).</p> <p>Check out:MarketWatch's Economic Calendar (http://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendars/economic)</p> <p>What other assets are doing</p> <p>European stock markets (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-pause-for-breath-after-8-day-winning-run-2017-10-03) traded in tight ranges on Tuesday, taking a breather after an eight-day winning streak. Asian equity markets largely closed higher (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hang-seng-nikkei-lead-market-gains-in-asia-2017-10-02), though some bourses remained closed for holidays.</p> <p>Oil futures were trading slightly lower (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-slips-further-on-concerns-about-higher-supply-2017-10-03), while gold futures booked their third straight decline (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-extends-retreat-as-bond-yields-stocks-rise-2017-10-03), as the ICE U.S. Dollar Index inched higher (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-holds-ground-at-six-week-highs-2017-10-03).</p> <p>--Victor Reklaitis contributed to this article</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>October 03, 2017 14:45 ET (18:45 GMT)</p>

<p>By <a href="http://husseini.posthaven.com/is-us-policy-to-prolong-the-syrian-war" type="external">Sam Husseini</a></p> <p>Many are claiming that Trump is being inconsistent in illegally attacking the Syrian regime with cruise missiles.</p> <p>After all, he had been saying the U.S. should focus on defeating ISIS, and now he seems to be going after Assad. But contradictions from Trump are a dime a dozen.</p> <p>A closer examination shows a deeper pattern of remarkable consistency in U.S. policy toward Syria that is far more critical than the perennial contradictions of politicians like Trump.</p> <p /> <p>To summarize U.S. actions and non-actions in terms of direct publicly announced U.S. air attacks targeting the Syrian regime: In 2013, when Assad was losing the war, Obama refrained from strikes that may well have ended his regime. Now, four years later, when Assad seems close to winning the war, Trump with a revamped NSC does a 180 on his previous pronouncements and attacks Assad.</p> <p>Push away the personalities. Dispense with the rhetoric. Free yourself from the spin cycle that much of the media obsess over. Just follow the policy.</p> <p>The evidence is that the underlying U.S. policy &#8212; whether the president is Obama or Trump &#8212; is to prolong the Syrian war as much as possible. Let Assad off the hook when he&#8217;s cornered, hit him when he&#8217;s about to win.</p> <p>This would not at all be unprecedented. Through the 1980s, the U.S. backed both sides in the Iran-Iraq War, which resulted in horrific carnage. See Dahlia Wasfi&#8217;s piece from 2015 &#8212; &#8220; <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/battling-isis-iran-iraq-war-redux-1538117706" type="external">Battling ISIS: Iran-Iraq war redux</a>&#8221; &#8212; which argued that &#8220;Obama&#8217;s unofficial strategy to fight ISIS may be that of Reagan&#8217;s for Iran and Iraq in the 1980s: a long, drawn-out war to strengthen U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region.&#8221;</p> <p>Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, we&#8217;ve seen a series of actions by the U.S. government and its allies and clients &#8212; from Israel and Saudi Arabia in particular &#8212; to ensure the destruction of secular, at times independent Arab governments.</p> <p>Many obsess over &#8220;double standards&#8221; and apparent contradictions by Trump, Obama, Clinton and other political figures. But much of this analysis presumes that these political figures have stated what their actual goals are.</p> <p>But a president can&#8217;t come forward and publicly say that the goal is the continuation of the war in Syria. That would be to embrace the carnage and suffering that the policy causes. The president can&#8217;t just say we&#8217;re in cahoots with the authoritarian Israeli and Saudi regimes to keep countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya in turmoil.</p> <p>So, politicians claim they are acting to save human life or to stop weapons proliferation or whatever their pretext is. Then, because it&#8217;s not their actual reasons, people see what seem like contractions: &#8220;They don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re doing!&#8221; &#8220;He&#8217;s such an idiot!&#8221; But they are not really contradictions, they just highlight that the stated goals are not the actual goals.</p> <p>Except at times. Trump did say <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/09/16/cnn-reagan-library-debate-later-debate-full-transcript/" type="external">in a high profile debate</a> in September, 2015: &#8220;ISIS wants to fight Syria. Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the remnants.&#8221;</p> <p>And this gruesome notion is occasionally brought up in the establishment media in more polite terms. In 2013, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/middleeast/israel-backs-limited-strike-against-syria.html?pagewanted=all&amp;amp;_r=0" type="external">the New York Times reported on</a> how Israel viewed the prospect of Obama bombing Assad&#8217;s forces:</p> <p>Israelis have increasingly argued that the best outcome for Syria&#8217;s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome.</p> <p>[For the Israeli government], the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad&#8217;s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.</p> <p>&#8220;This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don&#8217;t want one to win &#8212; we&#8217;ll settle for a tie,&#8221; said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. &#8220;Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that&#8217;s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there&#8217;s no real threat from Syria.&#8221;</p> <p>The synergy between the Israeli and American positions, while not explicitly articulated by the leaders of either country, could be a critical source of support as Mr. Obama seeks Congressional approval for surgical strikes in Syria.</p> <p>This notion <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/syria-the-imperative-of-protecting-civilians" type="external">comes up</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/world/middleeast/obamas-uncertain-path-amid-syria-bloodshed.html" type="external">occasionally</a>.</p> <p>It&#8217;s often claimed that &#8220;regime change&#8221; is the goal of the U.S., including by <a href="https://husseini.posthaven.com/crosstalk-lives-up-to-its-name" type="external">presumed critics of it</a>. But that might be too simple of an explanation. After all, the U.S. government sometimes claims this is its goal. At times the goal may well be not &#8220;regime change&#8221; but No Regime.</p> <p>Perhaps the U.S. establishments would like subservient leaders in Syria and Iraq and Libya. But these are significant counties with population, some resources and some capacity for independence. This is in contrast with Gulf sheikdoms and other monarchies like Jordan which are effectively client states of the U.S.</p> <p>So, if permanent subservience is not possible, then a crippled country, with the possibility of dismemberment, is a fairly good option for those intent on ensuring U.S.-Israel-Saudi dominance of the region. At least for the time being.</p> <p>Keep the fighting, keep the bleeding. Keep the people of the Mideast divided and fighting while the U.S. establishment solidifies its plans on how it will &#8220;pick up the remnants.&#8221;</p> <p>The phrase &#8220;Deep State&#8221; has been in vogue of late, as if it&#8217;s an entity that Donald Trump were out to undo even as he empowers it. But what does that really mean? A bureaucracy, perhaps. But more than anything, I think it&#8217;s an articulation of policy that the U.S. government pursues that dare not speak its name.</p> <p>Sam Husseini is founder of <a href="http://www.votepact.org/" type="external">VotePact.org</a>, which works for left-right cooperation. He is also communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.</p>

Is It Our Goal to Prolong the Syrian War?

https://truthdig.com/articles/is-it-our-goal-to-prolong-the-syrian-war/

2017-04-08

4left

Is It Our Goal to Prolong the Syrian War? <p>By <a href="http://husseini.posthaven.com/is-us-policy-to-prolong-the-syrian-war" type="external">Sam Husseini</a></p> <p>Many are claiming that Trump is being inconsistent in illegally attacking the Syrian regime with cruise missiles.</p> <p>After all, he had been saying the U.S. should focus on defeating ISIS, and now he seems to be going after Assad. But contradictions from Trump are a dime a dozen.</p> <p>A closer examination shows a deeper pattern of remarkable consistency in U.S. policy toward Syria that is far more critical than the perennial contradictions of politicians like Trump.</p> <p /> <p>To summarize U.S. actions and non-actions in terms of direct publicly announced U.S. air attacks targeting the Syrian regime: In 2013, when Assad was losing the war, Obama refrained from strikes that may well have ended his regime. Now, four years later, when Assad seems close to winning the war, Trump with a revamped NSC does a 180 on his previous pronouncements and attacks Assad.</p> <p>Push away the personalities. Dispense with the rhetoric. Free yourself from the spin cycle that much of the media obsess over. Just follow the policy.</p> <p>The evidence is that the underlying U.S. policy &#8212; whether the president is Obama or Trump &#8212; is to prolong the Syrian war as much as possible. Let Assad off the hook when he&#8217;s cornered, hit him when he&#8217;s about to win.</p> <p>This would not at all be unprecedented. Through the 1980s, the U.S. backed both sides in the Iran-Iraq War, which resulted in horrific carnage. See Dahlia Wasfi&#8217;s piece from 2015 &#8212; &#8220; <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/battling-isis-iran-iraq-war-redux-1538117706" type="external">Battling ISIS: Iran-Iraq war redux</a>&#8221; &#8212; which argued that &#8220;Obama&#8217;s unofficial strategy to fight ISIS may be that of Reagan&#8217;s for Iran and Iraq in the 1980s: a long, drawn-out war to strengthen U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region.&#8221;</p> <p>Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, we&#8217;ve seen a series of actions by the U.S. government and its allies and clients &#8212; from Israel and Saudi Arabia in particular &#8212; to ensure the destruction of secular, at times independent Arab governments.</p> <p>Many obsess over &#8220;double standards&#8221; and apparent contradictions by Trump, Obama, Clinton and other political figures. But much of this analysis presumes that these political figures have stated what their actual goals are.</p> <p>But a president can&#8217;t come forward and publicly say that the goal is the continuation of the war in Syria. That would be to embrace the carnage and suffering that the policy causes. The president can&#8217;t just say we&#8217;re in cahoots with the authoritarian Israeli and Saudi regimes to keep countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya in turmoil.</p> <p>So, politicians claim they are acting to save human life or to stop weapons proliferation or whatever their pretext is. Then, because it&#8217;s not their actual reasons, people see what seem like contractions: &#8220;They don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re doing!&#8221; &#8220;He&#8217;s such an idiot!&#8221; But they are not really contradictions, they just highlight that the stated goals are not the actual goals.</p> <p>Except at times. Trump did say <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/09/16/cnn-reagan-library-debate-later-debate-full-transcript/" type="external">in a high profile debate</a> in September, 2015: &#8220;ISIS wants to fight Syria. Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the remnants.&#8221;</p> <p>And this gruesome notion is occasionally brought up in the establishment media in more polite terms. In 2013, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/middleeast/israel-backs-limited-strike-against-syria.html?pagewanted=all&amp;amp;_r=0" type="external">the New York Times reported on</a> how Israel viewed the prospect of Obama bombing Assad&#8217;s forces:</p> <p>Israelis have increasingly argued that the best outcome for Syria&#8217;s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome.</p> <p>[For the Israeli government], the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad&#8217;s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.</p> <p>&#8220;This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don&#8217;t want one to win &#8212; we&#8217;ll settle for a tie,&#8221; said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. &#8220;Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that&#8217;s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there&#8217;s no real threat from Syria.&#8221;</p> <p>The synergy between the Israeli and American positions, while not explicitly articulated by the leaders of either country, could be a critical source of support as Mr. Obama seeks Congressional approval for surgical strikes in Syria.</p> <p>This notion <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/syria-the-imperative-of-protecting-civilians" type="external">comes up</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/world/middleeast/obamas-uncertain-path-amid-syria-bloodshed.html" type="external">occasionally</a>.</p> <p>It&#8217;s often claimed that &#8220;regime change&#8221; is the goal of the U.S., including by <a href="https://husseini.posthaven.com/crosstalk-lives-up-to-its-name" type="external">presumed critics of it</a>. But that might be too simple of an explanation. After all, the U.S. government sometimes claims this is its goal. At times the goal may well be not &#8220;regime change&#8221; but No Regime.</p> <p>Perhaps the U.S. establishments would like subservient leaders in Syria and Iraq and Libya. But these are significant counties with population, some resources and some capacity for independence. This is in contrast with Gulf sheikdoms and other monarchies like Jordan which are effectively client states of the U.S.</p> <p>So, if permanent subservience is not possible, then a crippled country, with the possibility of dismemberment, is a fairly good option for those intent on ensuring U.S.-Israel-Saudi dominance of the region. At least for the time being.</p> <p>Keep the fighting, keep the bleeding. Keep the people of the Mideast divided and fighting while the U.S. establishment solidifies its plans on how it will &#8220;pick up the remnants.&#8221;</p> <p>The phrase &#8220;Deep State&#8221; has been in vogue of late, as if it&#8217;s an entity that Donald Trump were out to undo even as he empowers it. But what does that really mean? A bureaucracy, perhaps. But more than anything, I think it&#8217;s an articulation of policy that the U.S. government pursues that dare not speak its name.</p> <p>Sam Husseini is founder of <a href="http://www.votepact.org/" type="external">VotePact.org</a>, which works for left-right cooperation. He is also communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.</p>

<p>(Breitbart) &#8211; Congressional sources say that GOP lawmakers and strategists are urging Speaker Boehner to kill any gun control legislation that comes to the House by refusing to act on it. The Speaker is planning &#8220;what could be a months-long review of the bill that likely would involve chipping away at gun-related measures&#8221; and instead encourage options that focus on the mental health aspect of gun violence.</p> <p>&#8220;I fully expect that the House will act on (gun) legislation in the coming months,&#8221; Boehner said. &#8220;But &#8230; I want the (House) Judiciary Committee to take the time to look at whatever the Senate does produce &#8211; assuming they produce something &#8211; and have members on both sides review that and make their determination.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">FAX BLAST SPECIAL:</a> <a href="" type="internal">Don&#8217;t Let The Government Take Your Guns! Protect Your Second Amendment Rights!</a></p> <p>While the media reports growing support for background check measures, the focus on the mental health component of gun control legislation has been neglected. In particular, appearances by the families of the Sandy Hook victims have had an effect on the Hill, and on Saturday President Obama went so far as to turn his weekly address over to the mother of a Sandy Hook victim.</p> <p>Boehner has pledged that the House will act on any gun bill that emerges from the Senate. He has indicated that the House&#8217;s review would allow a lengthy debate without many of the deadlines and restrictions that usually guide the chamber&#8217;s work.</p> <p>It is expected that second amendment supporters in the House will have a generous time-frame to come up with amendments &#8220;that could make the gun bill unpalatable even to Senate Democrats who now support it.&#8221;</p> <p>The Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on the &#8220;Toomey-Manchin-Schumer&#8221; compromise.&amp;#160; Amendments to limit high capacity magazines and &#8216;military-style assault weapons&#8217; are expected as well as amendment from GOP Senators.</p> <p>http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/15/House-Gun-Mental-health</p>

Boehner Plans Lengthy Review of Senate Gun Bill

http://teaparty.org/boehner-plans-lengthy-review-of-senate-gun-bill-23021/

0right

Boehner Plans Lengthy Review of Senate Gun Bill <p>(Breitbart) &#8211; Congressional sources say that GOP lawmakers and strategists are urging Speaker Boehner to kill any gun control legislation that comes to the House by refusing to act on it. The Speaker is planning &#8220;what could be a months-long review of the bill that likely would involve chipping away at gun-related measures&#8221; and instead encourage options that focus on the mental health aspect of gun violence.</p> <p>&#8220;I fully expect that the House will act on (gun) legislation in the coming months,&#8221; Boehner said. &#8220;But &#8230; I want the (House) Judiciary Committee to take the time to look at whatever the Senate does produce &#8211; assuming they produce something &#8211; and have members on both sides review that and make their determination.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">FAX BLAST SPECIAL:</a> <a href="" type="internal">Don&#8217;t Let The Government Take Your Guns! Protect Your Second Amendment Rights!</a></p> <p>While the media reports growing support for background check measures, the focus on the mental health component of gun control legislation has been neglected. In particular, appearances by the families of the Sandy Hook victims have had an effect on the Hill, and on Saturday President Obama went so far as to turn his weekly address over to the mother of a Sandy Hook victim.</p> <p>Boehner has pledged that the House will act on any gun bill that emerges from the Senate. He has indicated that the House&#8217;s review would allow a lengthy debate without many of the deadlines and restrictions that usually guide the chamber&#8217;s work.</p> <p>It is expected that second amendment supporters in the House will have a generous time-frame to come up with amendments &#8220;that could make the gun bill unpalatable even to Senate Democrats who now support it.&#8221;</p> <p>The Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on the &#8220;Toomey-Manchin-Schumer&#8221; compromise.&amp;#160; Amendments to limit high capacity magazines and &#8216;military-style assault weapons&#8217; are expected as well as amendment from GOP Senators.</p> <p>http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/15/House-Gun-Mental-health</p>

<p>John Whitehouse / Media Matters</p> <p>Last Thursday, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html" type="external">published</a> a gut-wrenchingly detailed and thorough article revealing decades of sexual harassment reports made against prominent film producer and serial sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.</p> <p>The report led to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment.html" type="external">resignations</a> of Weinstein Company board members and legal advisers, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/5/16432006/harvey-weinstein-statement-sexual-harassment" type="external">bizarre and public non-apology</a> from Weinstein, Weinstein&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/business/harvey-weinstein-fired.html" type="external">firing</a> from the company that bears his name, and statements from <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/weinstein-sexual-harassment-allegation_us_59d7ea3de4b046f5ad984211?4dk" type="external">more women</a> in the film industry who say they&#8217;ve experienced harassment or assault by Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood. A subsequently published <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories?mbid=social_twitter" type="external">report</a> from NBC&#8217;s Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker detailed horrific new reports of rape and sexual assault committed by Weinstein, spanning decades and from multiple women, corroborated by many others who&#8217;ve encountered the producer. The Times has now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?_r=0" type="external">followed up</a> with further on-the-record reports of sexual harassment from more women.</p> <p>Some of the women who spoke out did so anonymously, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/upshot/its-not-just-fox-why-women-dont-report-sexual-harassment.html" type="external">fearing retribution</a> from an extremely rich and powerful man with millions of dollars and high-profile connections at his disposal and a loudly and frequently discussed <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/917767769558601729" type="external">penchant for personally attacking women he&#8217;s already attempted to victimize</a>. Others, including well-known actresses Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie, have also spoken on the record about Weinstein&#8217;s harassment. It is likely, given the nature of these accounts and the prevailing culture of dismissing and demeaning survivors, that more will choose to speak out, and still others will choose not to.</p> <p>The primary public conversation beginning to play out now is familiar: How has our culture -- in film, in politics, across all partisan divides -- allowed this violence to persist for so long? Why and how do our current systems work to keep women fearful and silent? Will any of it change? It remains to be seen if any of these questions will earn an answer, or whether they will, once again, fade back out of the spotlight, labeled as persistent, unsolvable issues. Nothing can be done to protect the vulnerable from the powerful, it seems.</p> <p>A secondary conversation is also emerging, centered more squarely on the media: What is the responsibility of journalists -- tasked with reporting the facts and acting in the public interest -- when they encounter serial interpersonal violence that&#8217;s been allowed to persist without public knowledge?</p> <p>The fact remains that journalists have a choice, every time: Do what can be done, following industry standards, to expose the truth and aide the powerless, or resort to becoming a tool for exploitation.</p> <p>The Weinstein reports -- and before them the Bill O&#8217;Reilly reports, the Roger Ailes reports, the Bill Cosby reports, the Woody Allen reports, the Roman Polanski reports, the Donald Trump reports, on and on -- have showcased these options repeatedly.</p> <p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html" type="external">doggedly reported</a> on multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly in April. Fox <a href="" type="internal">fired</a> O&#8217;Reilly only when it was <a href="" type="internal">finally forced to do so</a>. The network paid him <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/business/media/bill-oreilly-payout.html" type="external">$25 million</a> on the way out, then <a href="" type="internal">invited him back</a> onto Hannity months later because it was scared of Rachel Maddow and, besides, O&#8217;Reilly had a <a href="" type="internal">new book</a> to promote. O&#8217;Reilly also appeared on NBC&#8217;s Today for an <a href="" type="internal">uncomfortable and unnecessary interview</a> with Matt Lauer in which he <a href="" type="internal">attempted to publicly disparage a woman who had reported him</a>. He <a href="" type="internal">referred</a> to an article on the right-wing site Newsmax.com, cross-posted to O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s personal website, that he touted as a redeeming investigation.</p> <p>Earlier, Fox also pushed out Roger Ailes when it was finally forced to do so. It handed the former Fox News chairman and CEO <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-roger-ailes-gretchen-carlson-payout_us_57cee12ce4b02c637c57d8b0" type="external">$40 million</a> as he left, and the <a href="" type="internal">people who enabled his serial harassment</a> simply closed ranks. <a href="" type="internal">The culture didn&#8217;t change</a>. When Ailes died months later, he was fondly and emotionally eulogized on air, with no thoughtful discussion of his <a href="" type="internal">real legacy</a> of hurting and silencing women.</p> <p>Like Weinstein&#8217;s behavior, Cosby&#8217;s violent misconduct was an &#8220; <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-warned-you-about-bill-cosby-in-2007" type="external">open secret</a>&#8221; in their industry, allowed to persist in part because society has taught us not to listen to women when they do come forward, and in part because women have been silenced by the culture around them and terrified of retaliation should they speak out. According to <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/media-enablers-harvey-weinstein-new-york-times/" type="external">one account</a>, actors Matt Damon and Russell Crowe may have personally worked to quash a 2004 New York Times article about Weinstein&#8217;s serial predatory misconduct. Weinstein also <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/917767769558601729" type="external">reportedly bragged</a> about placing negative articles about people who dared to speak out about him. Indeed, even as he issued his non-apology, Weinstein was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-harvey-weinstein/harvey-weinstein-threatens-to-sue-new-york-times-over-harassment-story-idUSKBN1CA2JX" type="external">threatening to sue</a> the Times.</p> <p>Just over a year ago, The Washington Post&#8217;s David Fahrenthold <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html" type="external">published</a> audio of President Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. NBC, then-employer of TV host Billy Bush who was also featured in the tape, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/17/media/billy-bush-leaves-nbc/index.html" type="external">subsequently fired Bush</a>. Network executives reportedly <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/trump-tape-nbc-news-access-hollywood-billy-bush-214344" type="external">knew about the tape</a> but&amp;#160;hadn&#8217;t reported on it yet, instead beat to the story by a competitor. (This week, Ronan Farrow wrote of new sexual assault and rape reports against Weinstein in The New Yorker -- though he is an NBC employee.) And in the months prior to the release of the Trump recording, television news writ large <a href="" type="internal">remained virtually silent</a> on another report of sexual harassment and sexual assault committed by Trump.</p> <p>Responsible journalists recognize that serial sexual violence, particularly when perpetrated by society&#8217;s most powerful, is a difficult story to tell. Survivors are rightfully fearful of retribution, in keeping with the warped and disgusting power dynamic reaffirmed by the personal violence they&#8217;re already endured. They&#8217;re also often stymied by the culture of silence around sexual harassment and assault. The powerful people reported for misconduct -- frequently white, almost always men -- have the best lawyers their millions can buy. They have friends -- also frequently white, frequently men, always wealthy -- who will stand by them, defend them on TV, make movies with them, call newspapers to keep the story under wraps for another day.</p> <p>Reporters have a responsibility to report the truth, particularly when it challenges the abuse of power, with all available tools and at any cost. They have a responsibility to work against those abuses of power, giving voice to the voiceless without compromising their safety and sparing no question. They have a responsibility to afford no comfort to powerful men who have not earned protection, but instead have used their outsized power to steal that of others. Kudos to those doing this hard and crucial -- in fact, morally imperative -- work; they should be examples to the rest.</p>

Lesson of horrific Weinstein reports: Be a voice for the oppressed, or help the oppressors stay in power

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/10/lesson-horrific-weinstein-reports-be-voice-oppressed-or-help-oppressors-stay-power/218187

2017-10-10

4left

Lesson of horrific Weinstein reports: Be a voice for the oppressed, or help the oppressors stay in power <p>John Whitehouse / Media Matters</p> <p>Last Thursday, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html" type="external">published</a> a gut-wrenchingly detailed and thorough article revealing decades of sexual harassment reports made against prominent film producer and serial sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.</p> <p>The report led to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/us/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment.html" type="external">resignations</a> of Weinstein Company board members and legal advisers, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/5/16432006/harvey-weinstein-statement-sexual-harassment" type="external">bizarre and public non-apology</a> from Weinstein, Weinstein&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/business/harvey-weinstein-fired.html" type="external">firing</a> from the company that bears his name, and statements from <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/weinstein-sexual-harassment-allegation_us_59d7ea3de4b046f5ad984211?4dk" type="external">more women</a> in the film industry who say they&#8217;ve experienced harassment or assault by Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood. A subsequently published <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories?mbid=social_twitter" type="external">report</a> from NBC&#8217;s Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker detailed horrific new reports of rape and sexual assault committed by Weinstein, spanning decades and from multiple women, corroborated by many others who&#8217;ve encountered the producer. The Times has now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?_r=0" type="external">followed up</a> with further on-the-record reports of sexual harassment from more women.</p> <p>Some of the women who spoke out did so anonymously, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/upshot/its-not-just-fox-why-women-dont-report-sexual-harassment.html" type="external">fearing retribution</a> from an extremely rich and powerful man with millions of dollars and high-profile connections at his disposal and a loudly and frequently discussed <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/917767769558601729" type="external">penchant for personally attacking women he&#8217;s already attempted to victimize</a>. Others, including well-known actresses Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie, have also spoken on the record about Weinstein&#8217;s harassment. It is likely, given the nature of these accounts and the prevailing culture of dismissing and demeaning survivors, that more will choose to speak out, and still others will choose not to.</p> <p>The primary public conversation beginning to play out now is familiar: How has our culture -- in film, in politics, across all partisan divides -- allowed this violence to persist for so long? Why and how do our current systems work to keep women fearful and silent? Will any of it change? It remains to be seen if any of these questions will earn an answer, or whether they will, once again, fade back out of the spotlight, labeled as persistent, unsolvable issues. Nothing can be done to protect the vulnerable from the powerful, it seems.</p> <p>A secondary conversation is also emerging, centered more squarely on the media: What is the responsibility of journalists -- tasked with reporting the facts and acting in the public interest -- when they encounter serial interpersonal violence that&#8217;s been allowed to persist without public knowledge?</p> <p>The fact remains that journalists have a choice, every time: Do what can be done, following industry standards, to expose the truth and aide the powerless, or resort to becoming a tool for exploitation.</p> <p>The Weinstein reports -- and before them the Bill O&#8217;Reilly reports, the Roger Ailes reports, the Bill Cosby reports, the Woody Allen reports, the Roman Polanski reports, the Donald Trump reports, on and on -- have showcased these options repeatedly.</p> <p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html" type="external">doggedly reported</a> on multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly in April. Fox <a href="" type="internal">fired</a> O&#8217;Reilly only when it was <a href="" type="internal">finally forced to do so</a>. The network paid him <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/business/media/bill-oreilly-payout.html" type="external">$25 million</a> on the way out, then <a href="" type="internal">invited him back</a> onto Hannity months later because it was scared of Rachel Maddow and, besides, O&#8217;Reilly had a <a href="" type="internal">new book</a> to promote. O&#8217;Reilly also appeared on NBC&#8217;s Today for an <a href="" type="internal">uncomfortable and unnecessary interview</a> with Matt Lauer in which he <a href="" type="internal">attempted to publicly disparage a woman who had reported him</a>. He <a href="" type="internal">referred</a> to an article on the right-wing site Newsmax.com, cross-posted to O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s personal website, that he touted as a redeeming investigation.</p> <p>Earlier, Fox also pushed out Roger Ailes when it was finally forced to do so. It handed the former Fox News chairman and CEO <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-roger-ailes-gretchen-carlson-payout_us_57cee12ce4b02c637c57d8b0" type="external">$40 million</a> as he left, and the <a href="" type="internal">people who enabled his serial harassment</a> simply closed ranks. <a href="" type="internal">The culture didn&#8217;t change</a>. When Ailes died months later, he was fondly and emotionally eulogized on air, with no thoughtful discussion of his <a href="" type="internal">real legacy</a> of hurting and silencing women.</p> <p>Like Weinstein&#8217;s behavior, Cosby&#8217;s violent misconduct was an &#8220; <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-warned-you-about-bill-cosby-in-2007" type="external">open secret</a>&#8221; in their industry, allowed to persist in part because society has taught us not to listen to women when they do come forward, and in part because women have been silenced by the culture around them and terrified of retaliation should they speak out. According to <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/media-enablers-harvey-weinstein-new-york-times/" type="external">one account</a>, actors Matt Damon and Russell Crowe may have personally worked to quash a 2004 New York Times article about Weinstein&#8217;s serial predatory misconduct. Weinstein also <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/917767769558601729" type="external">reportedly bragged</a> about placing negative articles about people who dared to speak out about him. Indeed, even as he issued his non-apology, Weinstein was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-harvey-weinstein/harvey-weinstein-threatens-to-sue-new-york-times-over-harassment-story-idUSKBN1CA2JX" type="external">threatening to sue</a> the Times.</p> <p>Just over a year ago, The Washington Post&#8217;s David Fahrenthold <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html" type="external">published</a> audio of President Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. NBC, then-employer of TV host Billy Bush who was also featured in the tape, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/17/media/billy-bush-leaves-nbc/index.html" type="external">subsequently fired Bush</a>. Network executives reportedly <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/trump-tape-nbc-news-access-hollywood-billy-bush-214344" type="external">knew about the tape</a> but&amp;#160;hadn&#8217;t reported on it yet, instead beat to the story by a competitor. (This week, Ronan Farrow wrote of new sexual assault and rape reports against Weinstein in The New Yorker -- though he is an NBC employee.) And in the months prior to the release of the Trump recording, television news writ large <a href="" type="internal">remained virtually silent</a> on another report of sexual harassment and sexual assault committed by Trump.</p> <p>Responsible journalists recognize that serial sexual violence, particularly when perpetrated by society&#8217;s most powerful, is a difficult story to tell. Survivors are rightfully fearful of retribution, in keeping with the warped and disgusting power dynamic reaffirmed by the personal violence they&#8217;re already endured. They&#8217;re also often stymied by the culture of silence around sexual harassment and assault. The powerful people reported for misconduct -- frequently white, almost always men -- have the best lawyers their millions can buy. They have friends -- also frequently white, frequently men, always wealthy -- who will stand by them, defend them on TV, make movies with them, call newspapers to keep the story under wraps for another day.</p> <p>Reporters have a responsibility to report the truth, particularly when it challenges the abuse of power, with all available tools and at any cost. They have a responsibility to work against those abuses of power, giving voice to the voiceless without compromising their safety and sparing no question. They have a responsibility to afford no comfort to powerful men who have not earned protection, but instead have used their outsized power to steal that of others. Kudos to those doing this hard and crucial -- in fact, morally imperative -- work; they should be examples to the rest.</p>

<p>George Zimmerman continues to play 'celebrity.' This weekend, the shooter of Trayvon Martin attended a gun show in Orange County Florida, shook hands, posed for photos and signed autographs for fans.</p> <p>On Saturday, Zimmerman greeted attendees at the New Orlando Gun show, which had to be <a href="//www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/george-zimmerman-signs-autographs-at-orlando-gun-show/24881564#ixzz2vZFKgQdi" type="external">relocated to a local gun shop</a> after angered community residents heard it was to be held at the Majestic Event Center and Banquet ball.</p> <p>&#8220;They told us they canceled for community pressure,&#8221; said Mike Piwowarski, a show organizer. &#8220;They were getting phone calls and backlash, and didn&#8217;t want that kind of person there.&#8221;</p> <p>But Piwowarski says that the pressure to move the even cost him more than $300,000 in lost gun sales and he's planning a lawsuit against the Majestic to recoup his losses.</p> <p>Piwowarski has been a supporter of Zimmerman, both during the high-profile trial and in its aftermath. Zimmerman's appearance at the gun show on Saturday is said to be Zimmerman's way of returning the favor.</p> <p>Less than 20 people are reported to have asked for an autograph or a photograph with Zimmerman, who was at the show for six hours.</p> <p>Zimmerman is no longer a recluse, and has been seeking publicity in recent months. In December, he began selling his paintings on eBay. Later it was found that his first painting, of an American flag, was copied from a stock image taken from Shutterstock without attribution. Zimmerman later tried to stage a celebrity boxing tournament, with proceeds going to charity. However, civil rights activists were enraged that Zimmerman believed himself to be "a celebrity" and that he would possibly fight a black man (a rumored opponent was rapper DMX).</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Cliff Weathers is a former senior editor at AlterNet and served as a deputy editor at&amp;#160;Consumer Reports. Twitter&amp;#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/cliffweathers" type="external">@cliffweathers</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

George Zimmerman Signs Autographs, Poses With His Fans at Florida Gun Show

http://alternet.org/news-amp-politics/george-zimmerman-signs-autographs-poses-his-fans-florida-gun-show

2014-03-10

4left

George Zimmerman Signs Autographs, Poses With His Fans at Florida Gun Show <p>George Zimmerman continues to play 'celebrity.' This weekend, the shooter of Trayvon Martin attended a gun show in Orange County Florida, shook hands, posed for photos and signed autographs for fans.</p> <p>On Saturday, Zimmerman greeted attendees at the New Orlando Gun show, which had to be <a href="//www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/george-zimmerman-signs-autographs-at-orlando-gun-show/24881564#ixzz2vZFKgQdi" type="external">relocated to a local gun shop</a> after angered community residents heard it was to be held at the Majestic Event Center and Banquet ball.</p> <p>&#8220;They told us they canceled for community pressure,&#8221; said Mike Piwowarski, a show organizer. &#8220;They were getting phone calls and backlash, and didn&#8217;t want that kind of person there.&#8221;</p> <p>But Piwowarski says that the pressure to move the even cost him more than $300,000 in lost gun sales and he's planning a lawsuit against the Majestic to recoup his losses.</p> <p>Piwowarski has been a supporter of Zimmerman, both during the high-profile trial and in its aftermath. Zimmerman's appearance at the gun show on Saturday is said to be Zimmerman's way of returning the favor.</p> <p>Less than 20 people are reported to have asked for an autograph or a photograph with Zimmerman, who was at the show for six hours.</p> <p>Zimmerman is no longer a recluse, and has been seeking publicity in recent months. In December, he began selling his paintings on eBay. Later it was found that his first painting, of an American flag, was copied from a stock image taken from Shutterstock without attribution. Zimmerman later tried to stage a celebrity boxing tournament, with proceeds going to charity. However, civil rights activists were enraged that Zimmerman believed himself to be "a celebrity" and that he would possibly fight a black man (a rumored opponent was rapper DMX).</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>Cliff Weathers is a former senior editor at AlterNet and served as a deputy editor at&amp;#160;Consumer Reports. Twitter&amp;#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/cliffweathers" type="external">@cliffweathers</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

<p>For today's Geo Quiz...we visit the land of the long white cloud. That's the Maori name for New Zealand ... translated into English. Two large islands make up most of New Zealand.</p> <p>New ZealandNew Zealand</p> <p>We want the name of the northern half. It's where three quarters of the country's population lives. Auckland and Wellington are both located on this island.</p> <p>To the south --- is the Cook Strait named after the 18th century British Explorer. To the north, its closest Pacific neighbors include New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga.</p> <p>Even if you haven't been here, you may have seen this island's dramatic landscape at the movies. Its spectacular volcanoes show up in The Lord of the Rings and The Last Samurai.</p> <p>The landscape along the island's eastern seaboard is also impressive -- and it was the backdrop for a dramatic rescue.</p> <p>We'll tell you about that when we return with the answer here</p> <p>The answer to today's Geo Quiz is New Zealand's North Island, where conservationists struggled to save two pygmy sperm whales stranded on the island's eastern coast. The World's David Leveille has the story:</p>

Geo answer

https://pri.org/stories/2008-03-12/geo-answer

2008-03-12

3left-center

Geo answer <p>For today's Geo Quiz...we visit the land of the long white cloud. That's the Maori name for New Zealand ... translated into English. Two large islands make up most of New Zealand.</p> <p>New ZealandNew Zealand</p> <p>We want the name of the northern half. It's where three quarters of the country's population lives. Auckland and Wellington are both located on this island.</p> <p>To the south --- is the Cook Strait named after the 18th century British Explorer. To the north, its closest Pacific neighbors include New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga.</p> <p>Even if you haven't been here, you may have seen this island's dramatic landscape at the movies. Its spectacular volcanoes show up in The Lord of the Rings and The Last Samurai.</p> <p>The landscape along the island's eastern seaboard is also impressive -- and it was the backdrop for a dramatic rescue.</p> <p>We'll tell you about that when we return with the answer here</p> <p>The answer to today's Geo Quiz is New Zealand's North Island, where conservationists struggled to save two pygmy sperm whales stranded on the island's eastern coast. The World's David Leveille has the story:</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>WASHINGTON &#8212; The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell for a second straight week, further evidence of the strength of the labor market.</p> <p>THE NUMBERS: The Labor Department said Thursday that claims for jobless benefits last week dropped by 8,000, to a seasonally adjusted 237,000. The less-volatile four-week average rose by 1,000 to 243,000.</p> <p>THE TAKEAWAY: Applications for unemployment benefits are a proxy for layoffs. They&#8217;ve come in below 300,000, a historically low figure, for 119 straight weeks, the longest such stretch since 1970. Overall, 1.94 million people were collecting unemployment checks, down 10.2 percent from a year ago.</p> <p>KEY DRIVERS: Various indicators show the job market is healthy even though hiring has slowed lately, partly because employers are having trouble finding workers. The jobless rate fell in May to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent.</p> <p>The economy has generated 162,000 jobs a month so far this year &#8212; up from an average of 157,000 a month from January through May last year but down from an average of 187,000 a month for all of 2016.</p> <p>On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve, noting the strong job market, voted to boost a key interest rate for the third time in six months, pushing its federal funds rate up by a quarter-point to a new range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent. The Fed signaled that it intended to raise rates one more time this year.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Claims for US jobless benefits fall by 8,000, to 237,000

https://abqjournal.com/1018148/claims-for-us-jobless-benefits-fall-by-8000-to-237000.html

2017-06-15

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Claims for US jobless benefits fall by 8,000, to 237,000 <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>WASHINGTON &#8212; The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell for a second straight week, further evidence of the strength of the labor market.</p> <p>THE NUMBERS: The Labor Department said Thursday that claims for jobless benefits last week dropped by 8,000, to a seasonally adjusted 237,000. The less-volatile four-week average rose by 1,000 to 243,000.</p> <p>THE TAKEAWAY: Applications for unemployment benefits are a proxy for layoffs. They&#8217;ve come in below 300,000, a historically low figure, for 119 straight weeks, the longest such stretch since 1970. Overall, 1.94 million people were collecting unemployment checks, down 10.2 percent from a year ago.</p> <p>KEY DRIVERS: Various indicators show the job market is healthy even though hiring has slowed lately, partly because employers are having trouble finding workers. The jobless rate fell in May to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent.</p> <p>The economy has generated 162,000 jobs a month so far this year &#8212; up from an average of 157,000 a month from January through May last year but down from an average of 187,000 a month for all of 2016.</p> <p>On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve, noting the strong job market, voted to boost a key interest rate for the third time in six months, pushing its federal funds rate up by a quarter-point to a new range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent. The Fed signaled that it intended to raise rates one more time this year.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) &#8212; State University of New York officials have revoked an honorary award given to television host Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations.</p> <p>The Daily News <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/suny-revokes-charlie-rose-honorary-degree-article-1.3774762" type="external">reports</a> that the SUNY Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to revoke the doctor of humane letters degree that Rose received from SUNY Oswego in 2014.</p> <p>Rose was fired by CBS and PBS cut ties with him after several women accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Rose has apologized to his accusers but says he doesn't believe all the allegations are accurate.</p> <p>In a statement, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson says "sexual harassment or misconduct, no matter the form, is not tolerated."</p> <p>SUNY officials in November also took back an honorary doctorate given to movie mogul and alleged serial sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein by the University at Buffalo.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Daily News, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com" type="external">http://www.nydailynews.com</a></p> <p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) &#8212; State University of New York officials have revoked an honorary award given to television host Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations.</p> <p>The Daily News <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/suny-revokes-charlie-rose-honorary-degree-article-1.3774762" type="external">reports</a> that the SUNY Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to revoke the doctor of humane letters degree that Rose received from SUNY Oswego in 2014.</p> <p>Rose was fired by CBS and PBS cut ties with him after several women accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Rose has apologized to his accusers but says he doesn't believe all the allegations are accurate.</p> <p>In a statement, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson says "sexual harassment or misconduct, no matter the form, is not tolerated."</p> <p>SUNY officials in November also took back an honorary doctorate given to movie mogul and alleged serial sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein by the University at Buffalo.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Daily News, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com" type="external">http://www.nydailynews.com</a></p>

SUNY revokes honorary degree awarded to Charlie Rose

https://apnews.com/amp/3224270ee1b84791a562b11d8db5afe8

2018-01-23

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SUNY revokes honorary degree awarded to Charlie Rose <p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) &#8212; State University of New York officials have revoked an honorary award given to television host Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations.</p> <p>The Daily News <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/suny-revokes-charlie-rose-honorary-degree-article-1.3774762" type="external">reports</a> that the SUNY Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to revoke the doctor of humane letters degree that Rose received from SUNY Oswego in 2014.</p> <p>Rose was fired by CBS and PBS cut ties with him after several women accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Rose has apologized to his accusers but says he doesn't believe all the allegations are accurate.</p> <p>In a statement, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson says "sexual harassment or misconduct, no matter the form, is not tolerated."</p> <p>SUNY officials in November also took back an honorary doctorate given to movie mogul and alleged serial sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein by the University at Buffalo.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Daily News, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com" type="external">http://www.nydailynews.com</a></p> <p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) &#8212; State University of New York officials have revoked an honorary award given to television host Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations.</p> <p>The Daily News <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/suny-revokes-charlie-rose-honorary-degree-article-1.3774762" type="external">reports</a> that the SUNY Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to revoke the doctor of humane letters degree that Rose received from SUNY Oswego in 2014.</p> <p>Rose was fired by CBS and PBS cut ties with him after several women accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Rose has apologized to his accusers but says he doesn't believe all the allegations are accurate.</p> <p>In a statement, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson says "sexual harassment or misconduct, no matter the form, is not tolerated."</p> <p>SUNY officials in November also took back an honorary doctorate given to movie mogul and alleged serial sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein by the University at Buffalo.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Daily News, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com" type="external">http://www.nydailynews.com</a></p>

<p>At companies across America, generals are bringing battlefield lessons to business.</p> <p>Software maker Red Hat Inc. and computer-security firm Symantec Corp. are among the employers turning to generals for help on numerous fronts, from corporate governance to grappling with cyberwarfare. At not-for-profit Florida Hospital, a retired general is developing global partnerships and leadership talent, while Finland's Cargotec Oyj has one running its rough-terrain-equipment unit in Texas.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Military brass have gained clout in the White House, too. Often referring to them as "my generals," the president has tapped a trio of leaders to impose order and shape his national-security policy. Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly swiftly brought a forceful management style to his job as the president's chief of staff, staffers say, while both Republicans and Democrats see Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster as calming forces in a turbulent presidency.</p> <p>Discipline, though, is only one of the traits companies say military leaders bring to boards and management teams.</p> <p>In the fog of war, and in peacetime, generals are trained to anticipate unknown risks, build high-functioning teams and make quick, strategic decisions in high-pressure situations. "They are the same traits necessary in the fog of business," says Henry Stoever, a captain in the Marine Corps who is now chief marketing officer of the National Association of Corporate Directors.</p> <p>The group has put some 500 retired generals and admirals through a three-day course to prepare them for corporate board duty; half of them now sit on private and public boards, including those of Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co., USA Truck Inc. and aerospace supplier Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc.</p> <p>Companies, especially those in crisis, covet the reputational boost that comes from seeking the counsel of a former military leader, says Wendy Monsen, president of executive recruiter Korn/Ferry's federal-government practice. Whereas more than three-quarters of Americans trust the military to act in the public's interest, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, only 41% feel the same way about business leaders.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>For companies seeking cybersecurity skills or geopolitical know-how, "general officers end up on our short list quite a bit for industry clients," says Ms. Monsen.</p> <p>However, outside the defense industry, military brass remain rare in c-suites and boardrooms. The number of top executives who once served has shrunk over the decades as Vietnam War-era veterans have retired. Among S&amp;amp;P 500 firms, only 13 are led by former service members, and just under 5% of their combined board members are veterans, according to S&amp;amp;P Global Market Intelligence data.</p> <p>Rather than barking orders and enforcing hierarchy, military leaders who succeed in the corporate world know how to coax different groups into collaborating, says retired Army Maj. Gen. Michael J. Diamond, an organizational leadership consultant.</p> <p>Before her retirement in 2013, Maj. Gen. Suzanne Vautrinot led the U.S. Air Force's cyber operations. She has parlayed that expertise into board seats at companies such as Wells Fargo and water treatment- and cleaning-products maker Ecolab Inc.</p> <p>Like many senior officers in the private sector, Gen. Vautrinot urges others not to call her by her Air Force title, instead going by "Zan." Ecolab Chief Executive Doug Baker says her disarming style lets her push her points without ruffling feathers. "Think about that generation of women generals," he says. "You have to have pretty good [emotional intelligence] skills, and she does."</p> <p>Gen. Vautrinot says she examines company strategies much like military leaders are trained to do: "You're looking at the future and connecting the dots, and you're looking at the risks," she said. "If the assumptions that went into the strategy change, how do you think about adjusting?" The approach "isn't unique to me as a military member," she says, "but it is inherent."</p> <p>Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling brought disparate brigades and regiments into a cohesive force as commander of the U.S. Army Europe. Similar challenges awaited when he joined Florida Hospital in 2013. Hired to develop idea-exchanges and other partnerships abroad, he soon after was asked to devise a leadership course for doctors, in part to improve collaboration with administrators and get physicians more involved in broader decisions at the 32,000-employee hospital group.</p> <p>Gen. Hertling's course culminates in several dozen doctors, nurses and administrators going to Gettysburg, Pa., each year. There, he assigns each to be a different figure in the pivotal Civil War battle; afterward the staff discuss how the lessons apply to health care. "They really dig into that person's personality and see how their achievements or dysfunctions contributed to the bigger disaster or accomplishment," he says.</p> <p>Generals learn lessons, too. After retiring from the Army seven years ago, Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes developed enterprise strategy at financial-services firm USAA for three years before he was let go. In hindsight, he says he failed to grasp the need to build consensus around his decisions and didn't recognize when colleagues weren't on board.</p> <p>"In my old days, I was a decision-making machine. It was a quick look around the room and if no one had objections, it was go," he says. "In the corporate world, once you make a decision, you have to continue to sell its execution."</p> <p>Now rounding his fourth year as CEO of Kalmar Rough Terrain Center LLC, a Texas unit of cargo-equipment maker Cargotec, Gen. Speakes says he has learned to encourage staff input and allow time for them to get behind ideas.</p> <p>He keeps up other practices honed during his 35-year military career, such as making sure he knows the situation on the ground, frequently holding company meetings on the plant floor. "When manufacturing companies get too big, the leaders leave the manufacturing floor," he says. But "the people on the line will tell you in a heartbeat what's going on and why."</p> <p>Write to Vanessa Fuhrmans at vanessa.fuhrmans@wsj.com</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>August 29, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)</p>

Generals Bring Battlefield Expertise to the Business World

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/29/generals-bring-battlefield-expertise-to-business-world.html

2017-08-29

0right

Generals Bring Battlefield Expertise to the Business World <p>At companies across America, generals are bringing battlefield lessons to business.</p> <p>Software maker Red Hat Inc. and computer-security firm Symantec Corp. are among the employers turning to generals for help on numerous fronts, from corporate governance to grappling with cyberwarfare. At not-for-profit Florida Hospital, a retired general is developing global partnerships and leadership talent, while Finland's Cargotec Oyj has one running its rough-terrain-equipment unit in Texas.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Military brass have gained clout in the White House, too. Often referring to them as "my generals," the president has tapped a trio of leaders to impose order and shape his national-security policy. Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly swiftly brought a forceful management style to his job as the president's chief of staff, staffers say, while both Republicans and Democrats see Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster as calming forces in a turbulent presidency.</p> <p>Discipline, though, is only one of the traits companies say military leaders bring to boards and management teams.</p> <p>In the fog of war, and in peacetime, generals are trained to anticipate unknown risks, build high-functioning teams and make quick, strategic decisions in high-pressure situations. "They are the same traits necessary in the fog of business," says Henry Stoever, a captain in the Marine Corps who is now chief marketing officer of the National Association of Corporate Directors.</p> <p>The group has put some 500 retired generals and admirals through a three-day course to prepare them for corporate board duty; half of them now sit on private and public boards, including those of Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co., USA Truck Inc. and aerospace supplier Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc.</p> <p>Companies, especially those in crisis, covet the reputational boost that comes from seeking the counsel of a former military leader, says Wendy Monsen, president of executive recruiter Korn/Ferry's federal-government practice. Whereas more than three-quarters of Americans trust the military to act in the public's interest, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, only 41% feel the same way about business leaders.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>For companies seeking cybersecurity skills or geopolitical know-how, "general officers end up on our short list quite a bit for industry clients," says Ms. Monsen.</p> <p>However, outside the defense industry, military brass remain rare in c-suites and boardrooms. The number of top executives who once served has shrunk over the decades as Vietnam War-era veterans have retired. Among S&amp;amp;P 500 firms, only 13 are led by former service members, and just under 5% of their combined board members are veterans, according to S&amp;amp;P Global Market Intelligence data.</p> <p>Rather than barking orders and enforcing hierarchy, military leaders who succeed in the corporate world know how to coax different groups into collaborating, says retired Army Maj. Gen. Michael J. Diamond, an organizational leadership consultant.</p> <p>Before her retirement in 2013, Maj. Gen. Suzanne Vautrinot led the U.S. Air Force's cyber operations. She has parlayed that expertise into board seats at companies such as Wells Fargo and water treatment- and cleaning-products maker Ecolab Inc.</p> <p>Like many senior officers in the private sector, Gen. Vautrinot urges others not to call her by her Air Force title, instead going by "Zan." Ecolab Chief Executive Doug Baker says her disarming style lets her push her points without ruffling feathers. "Think about that generation of women generals," he says. "You have to have pretty good [emotional intelligence] skills, and she does."</p> <p>Gen. Vautrinot says she examines company strategies much like military leaders are trained to do: "You're looking at the future and connecting the dots, and you're looking at the risks," she said. "If the assumptions that went into the strategy change, how do you think about adjusting?" The approach "isn't unique to me as a military member," she says, "but it is inherent."</p> <p>Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling brought disparate brigades and regiments into a cohesive force as commander of the U.S. Army Europe. Similar challenges awaited when he joined Florida Hospital in 2013. Hired to develop idea-exchanges and other partnerships abroad, he soon after was asked to devise a leadership course for doctors, in part to improve collaboration with administrators and get physicians more involved in broader decisions at the 32,000-employee hospital group.</p> <p>Gen. Hertling's course culminates in several dozen doctors, nurses and administrators going to Gettysburg, Pa., each year. There, he assigns each to be a different figure in the pivotal Civil War battle; afterward the staff discuss how the lessons apply to health care. "They really dig into that person's personality and see how their achievements or dysfunctions contributed to the bigger disaster or accomplishment," he says.</p> <p>Generals learn lessons, too. After retiring from the Army seven years ago, Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes developed enterprise strategy at financial-services firm USAA for three years before he was let go. In hindsight, he says he failed to grasp the need to build consensus around his decisions and didn't recognize when colleagues weren't on board.</p> <p>"In my old days, I was a decision-making machine. It was a quick look around the room and if no one had objections, it was go," he says. "In the corporate world, once you make a decision, you have to continue to sell its execution."</p> <p>Now rounding his fourth year as CEO of Kalmar Rough Terrain Center LLC, a Texas unit of cargo-equipment maker Cargotec, Gen. Speakes says he has learned to encourage staff input and allow time for them to get behind ideas.</p> <p>He keeps up other practices honed during his 35-year military career, such as making sure he knows the situation on the ground, frequently holding company meetings on the plant floor. "When manufacturing companies get too big, the leaders leave the manufacturing floor," he says. But "the people on the line will tell you in a heartbeat what's going on and why."</p> <p>Write to Vanessa Fuhrmans at vanessa.fuhrmans@wsj.com</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>August 29, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)</p>

<p>It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes, the best stocks to buy are the ones that are trading near their 52-week highs. The reason is that winners tend to keep on winning, so jumping in after a company has made a bullish move can often lead to market-beating gains.</p> <p>Which recent winners do we think are worth paying up to own? We asked that question to a team of Motley Fool investors, and they picked Rio Tinto plc (NYSE: RIO),&amp;#160;Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), and Mazor Robotics (NASDAQ: MZOR).</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/ReubenGBrewer/activity.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Reuben Gregg Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> (Rio Tinto plc): Rio Tinto's shares have been on a tear since commodity prices started to move higher in early 2016. If you step in here, you have to keep in mind that commodity prices will have a huge impact on Rio's stock. That's particularly true for iron ore, which made up around 62% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and 80% of underlying earnings through the first half of 2017.</p> <p>But here's the thing: Rio's business is really getting better. For example, it used the upturn in commodity prices to improve its <a href="https://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/how-to-value-stocks-how-to-read-a-balance-sheet-de.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">balance sheet Opens a New Window.</a>, reducing long-term debt by nearly 14% in the first six months of the year, or roughly $2.3 billion dollars. But go back to the start of 2016, right before the commodity upturn, and Rio has cut long-term debt by nearly 30%, or around $6 billion.</p> <p>Long-term debt stands at a very reasonable 25% (or so) of the capital structure. Rio added debt to make it through the downturn, but is now prudently cutting debt as commodity markets recover.</p> <p>In addition, it's still expanding its business, even as it works to mend its balance sheet. It's got a few major projects in the works, with its Silvergrass iron-ore development expected to be fully commissioned later this year, the Amrun bauxite project set for 2019, and the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine on track for 2020. Like all miners, it cut back on capital spending during the downturn, but it clearly didn't stop spending on the projects it believed will position it best for the future. As those efforts bear fruit, the fundamentals of Rio's business will get stronger.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Commodity prices will always have a big impact on Rio's top and bottom lines. There's nothing it can do about that. But the improvement on the balance sheet and its strategic investments are things it can control -- and those efforts are paying off.</p> <p>Yes, the stock is hitting highs, but the underlying improvement in the business is real. Rio has not only proven on a fundamental level that it's a survivor, but also that it's a miner with plans to keep getting better in good times and bad. That remains true no matter what the price is today.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/keithnoonan/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a>&amp;#160;(Take-Two Interactive):&amp;#160;Most known for its hugely successful&amp;#160;Grand Theft Auto&amp;#160;video game series, Take-Two Interactive has been on a huge winning streak. Shares are up roughly 850% over the last five years and have nearly doubled year to date.</p> <p>My thesis on whether Take-Two can continue to deliver stellar returns for shareholders can be simplified to three questions. Naturally, its performance will be affected by additional factors, but these are the drivers that best explain why I'm still bullish on the game publisher -- even at record prices.</p> <p>First, is Grand Theft Auto (GTA)&amp;#160;a property at the top of its popularity, or can it still expand its audience and sales? As the overall games industry has grown, GTA&amp;#160;has grown with it, with each mainline installment selling more than its immediate predecessor.</p> <p>GTA V&amp;#160;has shipped more than 80 million copies -- an incredible feat. I think the next installment has the potential to match or exceed the most recent release's profits if Take-Two takes the smart, and somewhat obvious, route after <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/08/take-two-interactives-grand-theft-auto-v-is-more-t.aspx?source=iaasitlnk0000003&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">GTA V's performance Opens a New Window.</a>&amp;#160;-- and focuses on the sequel's online mode. It would need to release the game at the tail end of the current console cycle to take advantage of user-base size, and then release an updated version for the next generation of video game hardware.</p> <p>Next, does it look like the company's broader stable of properties is gaining strength? Again, the outlook is promising. With franchises like&amp;#160;NBA 2K,&amp;#160;Red Dead Redemption, and&amp;#160;Borderlands, a team of proven development studios, and the company's bigger push into mobile gaming, Take-Two has what it takes to benefit from industry momentum and capture the next level of growth with an expanding portfolio of franchises.</p> <p>Finally, will the company continue to benefit from growth of high-margin digital sales? With video games transitioning to digital distribution, players showing increasing appetites for in-game purchases, and a strong group of franchises to work with, Take-Two is on track to deliver wins here, as well.</p> <p>As the global games market continues to expand, Take-Two is positioned to be one of the biggest winners. I think long-term investors have the potential for substantial gains with the stock, even at today's record prices.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Brian Feroldi Opens a New Window.</a> (Mazor Robotics):&amp;#160;I've been an investor&amp;#160;in the&amp;#160;robotic surgery upstart Mazor Robotics for <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/07/im-already-up-over-200-on-the-next-intuitive-surgi.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">several years now</a>. While I knew that the company was highly speculative when I first purchased shares, I was attracted to Mazor's razor-and-blade business model. My willingness to invest so early has allowed me to triple my money in less than three years.</p> <p>Despite the huge gains, I still think that it makes sense for interested investors to pick up a few shares today. My reasoning is that the company recently released some big news related to its strategic alliance with Medtronic (NYSE: MDT). For those who haven't been following this story closely, Medtronic signed a <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/28/does-mazor-robotics-deal-with-medtronic-make-it-2.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">transformative deal Opens a New Window.</a> with Mazor last year where it agreed to&amp;#160;co-market Mazor Robotics' systems. The deal also called for Medtronic to become a major investor in Mazor, and also granted it the right to deepen its investment in the company if the first phase of the partnership went well.</p> <p>Just a few days ago, we learned that Medtronic agreed to expand its relationship with Mazor earlier than expected. The new deal makes Medtronic into the exclusive provider of the Mazor X Surgical Assurance Platform and its accessories. In addition, Medtronic also agreed to invest another $40 million into Mazor and committed to annual minimums for Mazor X system purchases.</p> <p>Medtronic agreed to this move because phase one of the partnership led to 59 Mazor X system sales in less than nine months' time. That represents a significant acceleration when compared to what Mazor was able to sell on its own.</p> <p>When this news broke, Mazor's stock immediately jumped to a 52-week high, which makes sense because this deal promises to be a financial windfall for the company. With Mazor's growth trajectory now on firm footing, I'm much more confident that the company's future is looking bright. That's why I think it still makes sense to get in today, even though shares are trading quite close to their all time high.</p> <p>10 stocks we like better than Take-Two Interactive SoftwareWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p> <p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db8a0bc1-e6f6-46fa-ae5b-5114643b4f93&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Take-Two Interactive Software wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p> <p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db8a0bc1-e6f6-46fa-ae5b-5114643b4f93&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;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 September 5, 2017</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Brian Feroldi Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Mazor Robotics. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNoons/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Take-Two Interactive Software. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFReubenGBrewer/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Reuben Gregg Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Take-Two Interactive Software. The Motley Fool owns shares of Medtronic. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

3 Stocks at 52-Week Highs Still Worth Buying

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/25/3-stocks-at-52-week-highs-still-worth-buying.html

2017-09-09

0right

3 Stocks at 52-Week Highs Still Worth Buying <p>It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes, the best stocks to buy are the ones that are trading near their 52-week highs. The reason is that winners tend to keep on winning, so jumping in after a company has made a bullish move can often lead to market-beating gains.</p> <p>Which recent winners do we think are worth paying up to own? We asked that question to a team of Motley Fool investors, and they picked Rio Tinto plc (NYSE: RIO),&amp;#160;Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), and Mazor Robotics (NASDAQ: MZOR).</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/ReubenGBrewer/activity.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Reuben Gregg Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> (Rio Tinto plc): Rio Tinto's shares have been on a tear since commodity prices started to move higher in early 2016. If you step in here, you have to keep in mind that commodity prices will have a huge impact on Rio's stock. That's particularly true for iron ore, which made up around 62% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and 80% of underlying earnings through the first half of 2017.</p> <p>But here's the thing: Rio's business is really getting better. For example, it used the upturn in commodity prices to improve its <a href="https://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/how-to-value-stocks-how-to-read-a-balance-sheet-de.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">balance sheet Opens a New Window.</a>, reducing long-term debt by nearly 14% in the first six months of the year, or roughly $2.3 billion dollars. But go back to the start of 2016, right before the commodity upturn, and Rio has cut long-term debt by nearly 30%, or around $6 billion.</p> <p>Long-term debt stands at a very reasonable 25% (or so) of the capital structure. Rio added debt to make it through the downturn, but is now prudently cutting debt as commodity markets recover.</p> <p>In addition, it's still expanding its business, even as it works to mend its balance sheet. It's got a few major projects in the works, with its Silvergrass iron-ore development expected to be fully commissioned later this year, the Amrun bauxite project set for 2019, and the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine on track for 2020. Like all miners, it cut back on capital spending during the downturn, but it clearly didn't stop spending on the projects it believed will position it best for the future. As those efforts bear fruit, the fundamentals of Rio's business will get stronger.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Commodity prices will always have a big impact on Rio's top and bottom lines. There's nothing it can do about that. But the improvement on the balance sheet and its strategic investments are things it can control -- and those efforts are paying off.</p> <p>Yes, the stock is hitting highs, but the underlying improvement in the business is real. Rio has not only proven on a fundamental level that it's a survivor, but also that it's a miner with plans to keep getting better in good times and bad. That remains true no matter what the price is today.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/keithnoonan/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a>&amp;#160;(Take-Two Interactive):&amp;#160;Most known for its hugely successful&amp;#160;Grand Theft Auto&amp;#160;video game series, Take-Two Interactive has been on a huge winning streak. Shares are up roughly 850% over the last five years and have nearly doubled year to date.</p> <p>My thesis on whether Take-Two can continue to deliver stellar returns for shareholders can be simplified to three questions. Naturally, its performance will be affected by additional factors, but these are the drivers that best explain why I'm still bullish on the game publisher -- even at record prices.</p> <p>First, is Grand Theft Auto (GTA)&amp;#160;a property at the top of its popularity, or can it still expand its audience and sales? As the overall games industry has grown, GTA&amp;#160;has grown with it, with each mainline installment selling more than its immediate predecessor.</p> <p>GTA V&amp;#160;has shipped more than 80 million copies -- an incredible feat. I think the next installment has the potential to match or exceed the most recent release's profits if Take-Two takes the smart, and somewhat obvious, route after <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/08/take-two-interactives-grand-theft-auto-v-is-more-t.aspx?source=iaasitlnk0000003&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">GTA V's performance Opens a New Window.</a>&amp;#160;-- and focuses on the sequel's online mode. It would need to release the game at the tail end of the current console cycle to take advantage of user-base size, and then release an updated version for the next generation of video game hardware.</p> <p>Next, does it look like the company's broader stable of properties is gaining strength? Again, the outlook is promising. With franchises like&amp;#160;NBA 2K,&amp;#160;Red Dead Redemption, and&amp;#160;Borderlands, a team of proven development studios, and the company's bigger push into mobile gaming, Take-Two has what it takes to benefit from industry momentum and capture the next level of growth with an expanding portfolio of franchises.</p> <p>Finally, will the company continue to benefit from growth of high-margin digital sales? With video games transitioning to digital distribution, players showing increasing appetites for in-game purchases, and a strong group of franchises to work with, Take-Two is on track to deliver wins here, as well.</p> <p>As the global games market continues to expand, Take-Two is positioned to be one of the biggest winners. I think long-term investors have the potential for substantial gains with the stock, even at today's record prices.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Brian Feroldi Opens a New Window.</a> (Mazor Robotics):&amp;#160;I've been an investor&amp;#160;in the&amp;#160;robotic surgery upstart Mazor Robotics for <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/07/im-already-up-over-200-on-the-next-intuitive-surgi.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">several years now</a>. While I knew that the company was highly speculative when I first purchased shares, I was attracted to Mazor's razor-and-blade business model. My willingness to invest so early has allowed me to triple my money in less than three years.</p> <p>Despite the huge gains, I still think that it makes sense for interested investors to pick up a few shares today. My reasoning is that the company recently released some big news related to its strategic alliance with Medtronic (NYSE: MDT). For those who haven't been following this story closely, Medtronic signed a <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/28/does-mazor-robotics-deal-with-medtronic-make-it-2.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">transformative deal Opens a New Window.</a> with Mazor last year where it agreed to&amp;#160;co-market Mazor Robotics' systems. The deal also called for Medtronic to become a major investor in Mazor, and also granted it the right to deepen its investment in the company if the first phase of the partnership went well.</p> <p>Just a few days ago, we learned that Medtronic agreed to expand its relationship with Mazor earlier than expected. The new deal makes Medtronic into the exclusive provider of the Mazor X Surgical Assurance Platform and its accessories. In addition, Medtronic also agreed to invest another $40 million into Mazor and committed to annual minimums for Mazor X system purchases.</p> <p>Medtronic agreed to this move because phase one of the partnership led to 59 Mazor X system sales in less than nine months' time. That represents a significant acceleration when compared to what Mazor was able to sell on its own.</p> <p>When this news broke, Mazor's stock immediately jumped to a 52-week high, which makes sense because this deal promises to be a financial windfall for the company. With Mazor's growth trajectory now on firm footing, I'm much more confident that the company's future is looking bright. That's why I think it still makes sense to get in today, even though shares are trading quite close to their all time high.</p> <p>10 stocks we like better than Take-Two Interactive SoftwareWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p> <p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db8a0bc1-e6f6-46fa-ae5b-5114643b4f93&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Take-Two Interactive Software wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p> <p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;amp;impression=db8a0bc1-e6f6-46fa-ae5b-5114643b4f93&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;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 September 5, 2017</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Brian Feroldi Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Mazor Robotics. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNoons/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Take-Two Interactive Software. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFReubenGBrewer/info.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Reuben Gregg Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Take-Two Interactive Software. The Motley Fool owns shares of Medtronic. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;amp;uuid=3845d258-949d-11e7-b617-0050569d4be0&amp;amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>ROCKY HILL, Conn. (AP) _ These Connecticut lotteries were drawn Tuesday:</p> <p>Cash 5</p> <p>04-14-18-19-30</p> <p>(four, fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, thirty)</p> <p>Lotto</p> <p>04-12-13-15-31-37</p> <p>(four, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, thirty-one, thirty-seven)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $1.6 million</p> <p>Lucky Links Day</p> <p>02-08-10-13-15-16-19-20</p> <p>(two, eight, ten, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty)</p> <p>Lucky Links Night</p> <p>02-06-07-09-10-14-16-19</p> <p>(two, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, sixteen, nineteen)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>10-12-20-38-41, Mega Ball: 25, Megaplier: 4</p> <p>(ten, twelve, twenty, thirty-eight, forty-one; Mega Ball: twenty-five; Megaplier: four)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $277 million</p> <p>Play3 Day</p> <p>2-5-6</p> <p>(two, five, six)</p> <p>Play3 Night</p> <p>1-7-4</p> <p>(one, seven, four)</p> <p>Play4 Day</p> <p>6-2-0-9</p> <p>(six, two, zero, nine)</p> <p>Play4 Night</p> <p>8-1-4-7</p> <p>(eight, one, four, seven)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p> <p>ROCKY HILL, Conn. (AP) _ These Connecticut lotteries were drawn Tuesday:</p> <p>Cash 5</p> <p>04-14-18-19-30</p> <p>(four, fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, thirty)</p> <p>Lotto</p> <p>04-12-13-15-31-37</p> <p>(four, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, thirty-one, thirty-seven)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $1.6 million</p> <p>Lucky Links Day</p> <p>02-08-10-13-15-16-19-20</p> <p>(two, eight, ten, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty)</p> <p>Lucky Links Night</p> <p>02-06-07-09-10-14-16-19</p> <p>(two, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, sixteen, nineteen)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>10-12-20-38-41, Mega Ball: 25, Megaplier: 4</p> <p>(ten, twelve, twenty, thirty-eight, forty-one; Mega Ball: twenty-five; Megaplier: four)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $277 million</p> <p>Play3 Day</p> <p>2-5-6</p> <p>(two, five, six)</p> <p>Play3 Night</p> <p>1-7-4</p> <p>(one, seven, four)</p> <p>Play4 Day</p> <p>6-2-0-9</p> <p>(six, two, zero, nine)</p> <p>Play4 Night</p> <p>8-1-4-7</p> <p>(eight, one, four, seven)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p>

CT Lottery

https://apnews.com/amp/52be6625c2d24e83a2be7aa7b70211c8

2017-12-27

2least

CT Lottery <p>ROCKY HILL, Conn. (AP) _ These Connecticut lotteries were drawn Tuesday:</p> <p>Cash 5</p> <p>04-14-18-19-30</p> <p>(four, fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, thirty)</p> <p>Lotto</p> <p>04-12-13-15-31-37</p> <p>(four, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, thirty-one, thirty-seven)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $1.6 million</p> <p>Lucky Links Day</p> <p>02-08-10-13-15-16-19-20</p> <p>(two, eight, ten, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty)</p> <p>Lucky Links Night</p> <p>02-06-07-09-10-14-16-19</p> <p>(two, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, sixteen, nineteen)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>10-12-20-38-41, Mega Ball: 25, Megaplier: 4</p> <p>(ten, twelve, twenty, thirty-eight, forty-one; Mega Ball: twenty-five; Megaplier: four)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $277 million</p> <p>Play3 Day</p> <p>2-5-6</p> <p>(two, five, six)</p> <p>Play3 Night</p> <p>1-7-4</p> <p>(one, seven, four)</p> <p>Play4 Day</p> <p>6-2-0-9</p> <p>(six, two, zero, nine)</p> <p>Play4 Night</p> <p>8-1-4-7</p> <p>(eight, one, four, seven)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p> <p>ROCKY HILL, Conn. (AP) _ These Connecticut lotteries were drawn Tuesday:</p> <p>Cash 5</p> <p>04-14-18-19-30</p> <p>(four, fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, thirty)</p> <p>Lotto</p> <p>04-12-13-15-31-37</p> <p>(four, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, thirty-one, thirty-seven)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $1.6 million</p> <p>Lucky Links Day</p> <p>02-08-10-13-15-16-19-20</p> <p>(two, eight, ten, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty)</p> <p>Lucky Links Night</p> <p>02-06-07-09-10-14-16-19</p> <p>(two, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, sixteen, nineteen)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>10-12-20-38-41, Mega Ball: 25, Megaplier: 4</p> <p>(ten, twelve, twenty, thirty-eight, forty-one; Mega Ball: twenty-five; Megaplier: four)</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $277 million</p> <p>Play3 Day</p> <p>2-5-6</p> <p>(two, five, six)</p> <p>Play3 Night</p> <p>1-7-4</p> <p>(one, seven, four)</p> <p>Play4 Day</p> <p>6-2-0-9</p> <p>(six, two, zero, nine)</p> <p>Play4 Night</p> <p>8-1-4-7</p> <p>(eight, one, four, seven)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p>

<p>Eww! We told you once, now get rid of that smell, or we will!</p> <p>A California city has declared the factory that produces the popular Sriracha hot sauce a public nuisance because of the smells of boiling spices that waft over the area.</p> <p>The Irwindale City Council's action Wednesday night gives the factory 90 days to make changes to stop the odors that prompted complaints by residents who suffered teary eyes and other sickening effects. Declaring a public nuisance will allow city officials to enter the factory and make changes if the odors persist after the deadline. The council did not elaborate on what action its officials might take.</p> <p>The South Coast Air Quality Management District said its inspectors have taken air samples inside the plant, and believed the information gathered should allow the factory and the city to resolve their differences.</p> <p>Attorney John Tate, who represents Sriracha maker Huy Fong Foods, called the public nuisance declaration a demonstration of "the city flexing its muscle and thumbing Huy Fong in the eye." There was no immediate comment from the city on Thursday.</p> <p>Irwindale, which is 20 miles east of Los Angeles, sued Huy Fong last October, asking a judge to halt production at the factory. It said residents downwind complained that fumes from the grinding of red chili peppers was stinging their eyes and giving them headaches and coughing fits. In November a judge ordered the company to stop producing the annoying odors, but by then the annual pepper-grinding season, which runs from August through October, had ended.</p> <p>In the meantime, several residents complained that the smell was persisting as Huy Fong Foods workers continued to bottle the popular hot sauce that is a staple in Asian restaurants and homes.</p> <p>- The Associated Press</p>

Big Stink: Sriracha Sauce Maker Feeling Heat Over Factory Smell

http://nbcnews.com/business/consumer/big-stink-sriracha-sauce-maker-feeling-heat-over-factory-smell-n76931

2014-04-10

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Big Stink: Sriracha Sauce Maker Feeling Heat Over Factory Smell <p>Eww! We told you once, now get rid of that smell, or we will!</p> <p>A California city has declared the factory that produces the popular Sriracha hot sauce a public nuisance because of the smells of boiling spices that waft over the area.</p> <p>The Irwindale City Council's action Wednesday night gives the factory 90 days to make changes to stop the odors that prompted complaints by residents who suffered teary eyes and other sickening effects. Declaring a public nuisance will allow city officials to enter the factory and make changes if the odors persist after the deadline. The council did not elaborate on what action its officials might take.</p> <p>The South Coast Air Quality Management District said its inspectors have taken air samples inside the plant, and believed the information gathered should allow the factory and the city to resolve their differences.</p> <p>Attorney John Tate, who represents Sriracha maker Huy Fong Foods, called the public nuisance declaration a demonstration of "the city flexing its muscle and thumbing Huy Fong in the eye." There was no immediate comment from the city on Thursday.</p> <p>Irwindale, which is 20 miles east of Los Angeles, sued Huy Fong last October, asking a judge to halt production at the factory. It said residents downwind complained that fumes from the grinding of red chili peppers was stinging their eyes and giving them headaches and coughing fits. In November a judge ordered the company to stop producing the annoying odors, but by then the annual pepper-grinding season, which runs from August through October, had ended.</p> <p>In the meantime, several residents complained that the smell was persisting as Huy Fong Foods workers continued to bottle the popular hot sauce that is a staple in Asian restaurants and homes.</p> <p>- The Associated Press</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria warned students that he would not tolerate racism at the academy and invoked some of the racial tensions that have been gripping the country. At one point, he insisted that everyone in the audience take out their phones and record him so his message was clearly heard.</p> <p>&#8220;If you can&#8217;t treat someone with dignity and respect, get out,&#8221; he said Thursday as audience members looked on with rapt attention.</p> <p>Air Force security personnel are investigating the incident after the slurs were discovered Tuesday. Racial slurs are illegal in the military and can bring charges of violating orders and conduct unbecoming an officer.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Officials have said they cannot provide any more information about what happened because of the ongoing investigation. No additional details were released Friday.</p> <p>Silveria said he called the families of the five prep school students who were the objects of the slurs.</p> <p>His speech quickly became a widely viewed video online, coming in the aftermath of racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the debate about NFL players kneeling for the national anthem.</p> <p>&#8220;We would also be tone deaf not to think about the backdrop of what is going on in our country. Things like Charlottesville, Ferguson, the protests in the NFL,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Silveria, a veteran fighter pilot who directed the air war in the Middle East, took command at the school in August. The academy has struggled with sexual misconduct problems several times in recent years, and the 1985 academy graduate and son of an Air Force master sergeant has repeatedly told cadets and staff that his highest priority is ensuring a climate of dignity and respect.</p> <p>When Silveria took over as the school&#8217;s leader, he told The Gazette: &#8220;My red line is cadets who can&#8217;t treat each other with respect and dignity.&#8221;</p> <p>Silveria enrolled in the academy a year after it graduated its first female cadets. His class was 7 percent black compared with 8 percent in 2015. About 29 percent of the academy&#8217;s cadets were minorities in 2015, according to the school&#8217;s website. Ten percent were Hispanic, 10 percent Asian and Pacific islander and 1 percent Native American.</p> <p>The preparatory school has a 10-month program for potential cadets who applied for the four-year academic and military program at the academy but were not accepted. The goal is to help them meet academy requirements.</p> <p>The prep school usually accepts about 240 students. The academy itself has about 4,000 students.</p> <p>Silveria has flown combat missions in Iraq and the Balkans and formerly served as the vice commander at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.</p>

Air Force Academy leader delivers powerful speech on race

https://abqjournal.com/1070996/air-force-academy-leader-delivers-powerful-speech-on-race.html

2017-09-29

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Air Force Academy leader delivers powerful speech on race <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria warned students that he would not tolerate racism at the academy and invoked some of the racial tensions that have been gripping the country. At one point, he insisted that everyone in the audience take out their phones and record him so his message was clearly heard.</p> <p>&#8220;If you can&#8217;t treat someone with dignity and respect, get out,&#8221; he said Thursday as audience members looked on with rapt attention.</p> <p>Air Force security personnel are investigating the incident after the slurs were discovered Tuesday. Racial slurs are illegal in the military and can bring charges of violating orders and conduct unbecoming an officer.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Officials have said they cannot provide any more information about what happened because of the ongoing investigation. No additional details were released Friday.</p> <p>Silveria said he called the families of the five prep school students who were the objects of the slurs.</p> <p>His speech quickly became a widely viewed video online, coming in the aftermath of racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the debate about NFL players kneeling for the national anthem.</p> <p>&#8220;We would also be tone deaf not to think about the backdrop of what is going on in our country. Things like Charlottesville, Ferguson, the protests in the NFL,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Silveria, a veteran fighter pilot who directed the air war in the Middle East, took command at the school in August. The academy has struggled with sexual misconduct problems several times in recent years, and the 1985 academy graduate and son of an Air Force master sergeant has repeatedly told cadets and staff that his highest priority is ensuring a climate of dignity and respect.</p> <p>When Silveria took over as the school&#8217;s leader, he told The Gazette: &#8220;My red line is cadets who can&#8217;t treat each other with respect and dignity.&#8221;</p> <p>Silveria enrolled in the academy a year after it graduated its first female cadets. His class was 7 percent black compared with 8 percent in 2015. About 29 percent of the academy&#8217;s cadets were minorities in 2015, according to the school&#8217;s website. Ten percent were Hispanic, 10 percent Asian and Pacific islander and 1 percent Native American.</p> <p>The preparatory school has a 10-month program for potential cadets who applied for the four-year academic and military program at the academy but were not accepted. The goal is to help them meet academy requirements.</p> <p>The prep school usually accepts about 240 students. The academy itself has about 4,000 students.</p> <p>Silveria has flown combat missions in Iraq and the Balkans and formerly served as the vice commander at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.</p>

<p>Research on 202 former football players found evidence of brain disease in nearly all of them, from athletes in the NFL, college and even high school.</p> <p>It&#8217;s the largest update on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain disease linked with repeated head blows.</p> <p>But the report doesn&#8217;t confirm that the condition is common in all football players; it reflects high occurrence in samples at a Boston brain bank that studies CTE. Many donors or their families contributed because of the players&#8217; repeated concussions and troubling symptoms before death.</p> <p>&#8220;There are many questions that remain unanswered,&#8221; said lead author Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuroscientist. &#8220;How common is this&#8221; in the general population and all football players?</p> <p>&#8220;How many years of football is too many?&#8221; and &#8220;What is the genetic risk? Some players do not have evidence of this disease despite long playing years,&#8221; she noted.</p> <p>It&#8217;s also uncertain if some players&#8217; lifestyle habits &#8212; alcohol, drugs, steroids, diet &#8212; might somehow contribute, McKee said.</p> <p>Dr. Munro Cullum, a neuropsychologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, emphasized that the report is based on a selective sample of men who were not necessarily representative of all football players. He said problems other than CTE might explain some of their most common symptoms before death &#8212; depression, impulsivity and behavior changes. He was not involved in the report.</p> <p>McKee said research from the brain bank may lead to answers and an understanding of how to detect the disease in life, &#8220;while there&#8217;s still a chance to do something about it.&#8221; There&#8217;s no known treatment.</p> <p>The strongest scientific evidence says CTE can only be diagnosed by examining brains after death, although some researchers are experimenting with tests performed on the living. Many scientists believe that repeated blows to the head increase risks for developing CTE, leading to progressive loss of normal brain matter and an abnormal buildup of a protein called tau. Combat veterans and athletes in rough contact sports like football and boxing are among those thought to be most at risk.</p> <p>The new report was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.</p> <p>CTE was diagnosed in 177 former players or nearly 90 percent of brains studied. That includes 110 of 111 brains from former NFL players; 48 of 53 college players; nine of 14 semi-professional players, seven of eight Canadian Football league players and three of 14 high school players. The disease was not found in brains from two younger players.</p> <p>A panel of neuropathologists made the diagnosis by examining brain tissue, using recent criteria from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, McKee said.</p> <p>The NFL issued a statement saying these reports are important for advancing science related to head trauma and said the league &#8220;will continue to work with a wide range of experts to improve the health of current and former NFL athletes.&#8221;</p> <p>After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged a link between head blows and brain disease and agreed in a $1 billion settlement to compensate former players who had accused the league of hiding the risks.</p> <p>The journal update includes many previously reported cases, including former NFL players Bubba Smith, Ken Stabler, Junior Seau and Dave Duerson.</p> <p>New ones include retired tight end Frank Wainright, whose 10-year NFL career included stints with the Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens. Wainright died last October at age 48 from a heart attack triggered by bleeding in the brain, said his wife, Stacie. She said he had struggled almost eight years with frightening symptoms including confusion, memory loss and behavior changes.</p> <p>Wainright played before the league adopted stricter safety rules and had many concussions, she said. He feared CTE and was adamant about donating his brain, she said.</p> <p>&#8220;A lot of families are really tragically affected by it &#8212; not even mentioning what these men are going through and they&#8217;re really not sure what is happening to them. It&#8217;s like a storm that you can&#8217;t quite get out of,&#8221; his wife said.</p> <p>Frank Wycheck, another former NFL tight end, said he worries that concussions during his nine-year career &#8212; the last seven with the Tennessee Titans &#8212; have left him with CTE and he plans to donate his brain to research.</p> <p>&#8220;Some people have heads made of concrete, and it doesn&#8217;t really affect some of those guys,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But CTE is real.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;I know I&#8217;m suffering through it, and it&#8217;s been a struggle and I feel for all the guys out there that are going through this,&#8221; said Wycheck, 45.</p> <p>In the new report, McKee and colleagues found the most severe disease in former professional players; mild disease was found in all three former high school players diagnosed with the disease. Brain bank researchers previously reported that the earliest known evidence of CTE was found in a high school athlete who played football and other sports who died at age 18. He was not included in the current report.</p> <p>The average age of death among all players studied was 66. There were 18 suicides among the 177 diagnosed.</p>

Brain Disease Seen in Most Football Players in Large Report

https://newsline.com/brain-disease-seen-in-most-football-players-in-large-report/

2017-07-25

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Brain Disease Seen in Most Football Players in Large Report <p>Research on 202 former football players found evidence of brain disease in nearly all of them, from athletes in the NFL, college and even high school.</p> <p>It&#8217;s the largest update on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain disease linked with repeated head blows.</p> <p>But the report doesn&#8217;t confirm that the condition is common in all football players; it reflects high occurrence in samples at a Boston brain bank that studies CTE. Many donors or their families contributed because of the players&#8217; repeated concussions and troubling symptoms before death.</p> <p>&#8220;There are many questions that remain unanswered,&#8221; said lead author Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuroscientist. &#8220;How common is this&#8221; in the general population and all football players?</p> <p>&#8220;How many years of football is too many?&#8221; and &#8220;What is the genetic risk? Some players do not have evidence of this disease despite long playing years,&#8221; she noted.</p> <p>It&#8217;s also uncertain if some players&#8217; lifestyle habits &#8212; alcohol, drugs, steroids, diet &#8212; might somehow contribute, McKee said.</p> <p>Dr. Munro Cullum, a neuropsychologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, emphasized that the report is based on a selective sample of men who were not necessarily representative of all football players. He said problems other than CTE might explain some of their most common symptoms before death &#8212; depression, impulsivity and behavior changes. He was not involved in the report.</p> <p>McKee said research from the brain bank may lead to answers and an understanding of how to detect the disease in life, &#8220;while there&#8217;s still a chance to do something about it.&#8221; There&#8217;s no known treatment.</p> <p>The strongest scientific evidence says CTE can only be diagnosed by examining brains after death, although some researchers are experimenting with tests performed on the living. Many scientists believe that repeated blows to the head increase risks for developing CTE, leading to progressive loss of normal brain matter and an abnormal buildup of a protein called tau. Combat veterans and athletes in rough contact sports like football and boxing are among those thought to be most at risk.</p> <p>The new report was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.</p> <p>CTE was diagnosed in 177 former players or nearly 90 percent of brains studied. That includes 110 of 111 brains from former NFL players; 48 of 53 college players; nine of 14 semi-professional players, seven of eight Canadian Football league players and three of 14 high school players. The disease was not found in brains from two younger players.</p> <p>A panel of neuropathologists made the diagnosis by examining brain tissue, using recent criteria from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, McKee said.</p> <p>The NFL issued a statement saying these reports are important for advancing science related to head trauma and said the league &#8220;will continue to work with a wide range of experts to improve the health of current and former NFL athletes.&#8221;</p> <p>After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged a link between head blows and brain disease and agreed in a $1 billion settlement to compensate former players who had accused the league of hiding the risks.</p> <p>The journal update includes many previously reported cases, including former NFL players Bubba Smith, Ken Stabler, Junior Seau and Dave Duerson.</p> <p>New ones include retired tight end Frank Wainright, whose 10-year NFL career included stints with the Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens. Wainright died last October at age 48 from a heart attack triggered by bleeding in the brain, said his wife, Stacie. She said he had struggled almost eight years with frightening symptoms including confusion, memory loss and behavior changes.</p> <p>Wainright played before the league adopted stricter safety rules and had many concussions, she said. He feared CTE and was adamant about donating his brain, she said.</p> <p>&#8220;A lot of families are really tragically affected by it &#8212; not even mentioning what these men are going through and they&#8217;re really not sure what is happening to them. It&#8217;s like a storm that you can&#8217;t quite get out of,&#8221; his wife said.</p> <p>Frank Wycheck, another former NFL tight end, said he worries that concussions during his nine-year career &#8212; the last seven with the Tennessee Titans &#8212; have left him with CTE and he plans to donate his brain to research.</p> <p>&#8220;Some people have heads made of concrete, and it doesn&#8217;t really affect some of those guys,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But CTE is real.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;I know I&#8217;m suffering through it, and it&#8217;s been a struggle and I feel for all the guys out there that are going through this,&#8221; said Wycheck, 45.</p> <p>In the new report, McKee and colleagues found the most severe disease in former professional players; mild disease was found in all three former high school players diagnosed with the disease. Brain bank researchers previously reported that the earliest known evidence of CTE was found in a high school athlete who played football and other sports who died at age 18. He was not included in the current report.</p> <p>The average age of death among all players studied was 66. There were 18 suicides among the 177 diagnosed.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) &#8212; He considered moving to a Zen monastery before shifting his sights to Silicon Valley, where he became a brash businessman.</p> <p>He preached about the dangers of desire but urged consumers to covet every new iPhone incarnation.</p> <p>&amp;#160;&#8220;He was an enlightened being who was cruel,&#8221; says a former girlfriend. &#8220;That&#8217;s a strange combination.&#8221;</p> <p>Now, we can add another irony to the legacy of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs: Since his death on Oct. 5, the famously private man&#8217;s spiritual side has become an open book.</p> <p /> <p>A relative recounted his last words for the New York Times. A new biography traces his early quest for enlightenment and lifelong appreciation for Zen Buddhism. Everyone from ABC News to India Today has pondered the link between his religious interests and business acumen.</p> <p>All this for a guy who guarded his personal life like it was an Apple trade secret.</p> <p>On Oct. 30, the New York Times published the eulogy that Mona Simpson, Jobs&#8217;s sister, delivered at his Oct. 16 memorial service.</p> <p>In his last moments, Jobs&#8217; breath shortened, as if he were climbing a steep path. His last words were &#8220;OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW,&#8221; Simpson writes.</p> <p>Whatever Jobs saw, he had been seeking it for decades, according to a new biography by Walter Isaacson.</p> <p>&#8220;For most of my life, I&#8217;ve felt there must be more to our existence than meets the eye,&#8221; Jobs told Isaacson. The adopted son of blue-collar Californians spent much of his early adulthood searching for that unseen something.</p> <p>At age 13, Jobs asked the Lutheran pastor of his parents&#8217; church if God knew about starving children. &#8220;Yes, God knows everything,&#8221; the pastor replied. Jobs never returned to church, refusing to worship a God who allowed such suffering.</p> <p>Like many baby boomers, Jobs later turned to Eastern spirituality, particularly countercultural keystones such as Be Here Now, Baba Ram Dass' guide to meditation and psychedelic drugs.</p> <p>He also studied Buddhism, practicing meditation and reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a collection of lectures by Shunryu Suzuki, one of the first Zen masters to teach in America.</p> <p>In 1974, Jobs traveled halfway around the world, to India, in search of his own guru. Upon returning, he found one in his hometown of Los Altos, Calif., where a Suzuki disciple, Kobun Chino Otagawa, had opened the Haiku Zen Center.</p> <p>Jobs and the Zen master quickly forged a bond, discussing life and Buddhism during midnight walks.</p> <p>&#8220;I ended up spending as much time with him as I could,&#8221; Jobs told Isaacson. &#8220;Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since.&#8221;</p> <p>Jobs even considered traveling to Eihei-ji, the main training temple of the Soto school of Zen in Japan. But Kobun, as he was known, counseled Jobs to stay in California.</p> <p>Les Kaye, a Zen teacher in Silicon Valley who also studied under Kobun, remembers Kobun as enigmatic and wise. &#8220;He was the epitome of an enlightened being: sweet, kind and generous. People flocked to him.&#8221;</p> <p>In 1976, after just one year, Jobs stopped practicing Buddhism at the Haiku Zen Center, said Kaye, who was a member of the center at the time. Apple had begun to consume the budding businessman&#8217;s attention.</p> <p>Jobs kept in contact with Kobun, asking him to officiate at his 1991 wedding. He also gave friends recordings of Kobun&#8217;s lectures, including one in which he cautions against craving. Buddhism&#8217;s &#8220;first noble truth&#8221; teaches that desire fuels suffering.</p> <p>Jobs bristled when a friend pointed out the irony of a marketing genius warning against materialism, according to Isaacson.</p> <p>When Kobun drowned in 2002, Jobs called Kaye in tears. &#8220;Kobun's death really struck him,&#8221; Kaye said. &#8220;He was beside himself.&#8221;</p> <p>Jobs believed that Zen meditation taught him to concentrate and ignore distractions, according to Isaacson. He also learned to trust intuition and curiosity &#8212; what Buddhists call &#8220;beginner's mind&#8221; &#8212; over analysis and preconceptions.</p> <p>More visibly, Apple&#8217;s sleek, minimalist designs reveal Jobs&#8217;s zeal for Zen aesthetics &#8212; the uncluttered lines of calligraphy and Japanese gardens, according to Isaacson&#8217;s book.</p> <p>Kaye, who teaches meditation to Silicon Valley companies, said Jobs was delighted when he began offering classes at Apple 12 years ago. He particularly wanted Apple&#8217;s engineers to learn meditation, Kaye said, to boost their creativity.</p> <p>But Jobs told Kaye that he had practiced Zen &#8220;only occasionally&#8221; in recent years.</p> <p>Despite his Buddhist background, Jobs was often mean, manipulative and egocentric, writes Isaacson, whose book is filled with tales of the Apple chief&#8217;s abusive behavior.</p> <p>&#8220;Unfortunately his Zen training never quite produced in him a Zen-like calm of inner serenity,&#8221; Isaacson writes, &#8220;and that, too, is part of his legacy.&#8221;</p> <p>Kaye, the head teacher of Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View, Calif., said Jobs didn&#8217;t practice Buddhism long enough to let it sink in.</p> <p>&#8220;He got to the aesthetic part of Zen &#8212; the relationship between lines and spaces, the quality and craftsmanship,&#8221; Kaye said. &#8220;But he didn&#8217;t stay long enough to get the Buddhist part, the compassion part, the sensitivity part.&#8221;</p>

Since his death, Steve Jobs’ private spirituality now an open book

https://baptistnews.com/article/sincehisdeathstevejobsprivatespiritualitynowanopenbook/

3left-center

Since his death, Steve Jobs’ private spirituality now an open book <p>WASHINGTON (RNS) &#8212; He considered moving to a Zen monastery before shifting his sights to Silicon Valley, where he became a brash businessman.</p> <p>He preached about the dangers of desire but urged consumers to covet every new iPhone incarnation.</p> <p>&amp;#160;&#8220;He was an enlightened being who was cruel,&#8221; says a former girlfriend. &#8220;That&#8217;s a strange combination.&#8221;</p> <p>Now, we can add another irony to the legacy of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs: Since his death on Oct. 5, the famously private man&#8217;s spiritual side has become an open book.</p> <p /> <p>A relative recounted his last words for the New York Times. A new biography traces his early quest for enlightenment and lifelong appreciation for Zen Buddhism. Everyone from ABC News to India Today has pondered the link between his religious interests and business acumen.</p> <p>All this for a guy who guarded his personal life like it was an Apple trade secret.</p> <p>On Oct. 30, the New York Times published the eulogy that Mona Simpson, Jobs&#8217;s sister, delivered at his Oct. 16 memorial service.</p> <p>In his last moments, Jobs&#8217; breath shortened, as if he were climbing a steep path. His last words were &#8220;OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW,&#8221; Simpson writes.</p> <p>Whatever Jobs saw, he had been seeking it for decades, according to a new biography by Walter Isaacson.</p> <p>&#8220;For most of my life, I&#8217;ve felt there must be more to our existence than meets the eye,&#8221; Jobs told Isaacson. The adopted son of blue-collar Californians spent much of his early adulthood searching for that unseen something.</p> <p>At age 13, Jobs asked the Lutheran pastor of his parents&#8217; church if God knew about starving children. &#8220;Yes, God knows everything,&#8221; the pastor replied. Jobs never returned to church, refusing to worship a God who allowed such suffering.</p> <p>Like many baby boomers, Jobs later turned to Eastern spirituality, particularly countercultural keystones such as Be Here Now, Baba Ram Dass' guide to meditation and psychedelic drugs.</p> <p>He also studied Buddhism, practicing meditation and reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a collection of lectures by Shunryu Suzuki, one of the first Zen masters to teach in America.</p> <p>In 1974, Jobs traveled halfway around the world, to India, in search of his own guru. Upon returning, he found one in his hometown of Los Altos, Calif., where a Suzuki disciple, Kobun Chino Otagawa, had opened the Haiku Zen Center.</p> <p>Jobs and the Zen master quickly forged a bond, discussing life and Buddhism during midnight walks.</p> <p>&#8220;I ended up spending as much time with him as I could,&#8221; Jobs told Isaacson. &#8220;Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since.&#8221;</p> <p>Jobs even considered traveling to Eihei-ji, the main training temple of the Soto school of Zen in Japan. But Kobun, as he was known, counseled Jobs to stay in California.</p> <p>Les Kaye, a Zen teacher in Silicon Valley who also studied under Kobun, remembers Kobun as enigmatic and wise. &#8220;He was the epitome of an enlightened being: sweet, kind and generous. People flocked to him.&#8221;</p> <p>In 1976, after just one year, Jobs stopped practicing Buddhism at the Haiku Zen Center, said Kaye, who was a member of the center at the time. Apple had begun to consume the budding businessman&#8217;s attention.</p> <p>Jobs kept in contact with Kobun, asking him to officiate at his 1991 wedding. He also gave friends recordings of Kobun&#8217;s lectures, including one in which he cautions against craving. Buddhism&#8217;s &#8220;first noble truth&#8221; teaches that desire fuels suffering.</p> <p>Jobs bristled when a friend pointed out the irony of a marketing genius warning against materialism, according to Isaacson.</p> <p>When Kobun drowned in 2002, Jobs called Kaye in tears. &#8220;Kobun's death really struck him,&#8221; Kaye said. &#8220;He was beside himself.&#8221;</p> <p>Jobs believed that Zen meditation taught him to concentrate and ignore distractions, according to Isaacson. He also learned to trust intuition and curiosity &#8212; what Buddhists call &#8220;beginner's mind&#8221; &#8212; over analysis and preconceptions.</p> <p>More visibly, Apple&#8217;s sleek, minimalist designs reveal Jobs&#8217;s zeal for Zen aesthetics &#8212; the uncluttered lines of calligraphy and Japanese gardens, according to Isaacson&#8217;s book.</p> <p>Kaye, who teaches meditation to Silicon Valley companies, said Jobs was delighted when he began offering classes at Apple 12 years ago. He particularly wanted Apple&#8217;s engineers to learn meditation, Kaye said, to boost their creativity.</p> <p>But Jobs told Kaye that he had practiced Zen &#8220;only occasionally&#8221; in recent years.</p> <p>Despite his Buddhist background, Jobs was often mean, manipulative and egocentric, writes Isaacson, whose book is filled with tales of the Apple chief&#8217;s abusive behavior.</p> <p>&#8220;Unfortunately his Zen training never quite produced in him a Zen-like calm of inner serenity,&#8221; Isaacson writes, &#8220;and that, too, is part of his legacy.&#8221;</p> <p>Kaye, the head teacher of Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View, Calif., said Jobs didn&#8217;t practice Buddhism long enough to let it sink in.</p> <p>&#8220;He got to the aesthetic part of Zen &#8212; the relationship between lines and spaces, the quality and craftsmanship,&#8221; Kaye said. &#8220;But he didn&#8217;t stay long enough to get the Buddhist part, the compassion part, the sensitivity part.&#8221;</p>

<p>QUEENS (NY)Queens Chronicleby Bryan Joiner, South Queens Editor&amp;#160;Father John Thompson, the former pastor at St. Elizabeth&#8217;s parish in Ozone Park who is on trial for allegedly embezzling thousands of dollars to finance a live-in gay lover at the church, may have done the same thing with a male go-go dancer at a Brooklyn church in the 1980s, according to trial testimony. Louise O&#8217;Connor, Thompson&#8217;s secretary from 1986-1988 at the Church of the Holy Name in Windsor Terrace, wrote that Thompson knew &#8220;damn well that what went on here at Holy Name fell nothing short of what went on at St. Elizabeth&#8217;s&#8221; in a letter that was read to the court last Wednesday, according to published reports last week. O&#8217;Connor also stated that Thompson bought her underage son a pair of roller skates, which she said was an attempt to target the boy. &#8220;My son was almost a victim of John Thompson,&#8221; she said.</p>

St. Elizabeth�s Trial Shocker: Priest Had Live-In Lover Before

https://poynter.org/news/st-elizabeths-trial-shocker-priest-had-live-lover

2003-05-16

2least

St. Elizabeth�s Trial Shocker: Priest Had Live-In Lover Before <p>QUEENS (NY)Queens Chronicleby Bryan Joiner, South Queens Editor&amp;#160;Father John Thompson, the former pastor at St. Elizabeth&#8217;s parish in Ozone Park who is on trial for allegedly embezzling thousands of dollars to finance a live-in gay lover at the church, may have done the same thing with a male go-go dancer at a Brooklyn church in the 1980s, according to trial testimony. Louise O&#8217;Connor, Thompson&#8217;s secretary from 1986-1988 at the Church of the Holy Name in Windsor Terrace, wrote that Thompson knew &#8220;damn well that what went on here at Holy Name fell nothing short of what went on at St. Elizabeth&#8217;s&#8221; in a letter that was read to the court last Wednesday, according to published reports last week. O&#8217;Connor also stated that Thompson bought her underage son a pair of roller skates, which she said was an attempt to target the boy. &#8220;My son was almost a victim of John Thompson,&#8221; she said.</p>

<p /> <p>Among investors, Warren Buffett, the CEO of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway , is arguably the most famous -- and with good reason. Over the past six-plus decades, Buffett has grown his personal wealth from just shy of $10,000 to $68 billion. Although Buffett may not be correct on every investment he's made throughout the years, his overwhelming growth in net worth, coupled with his willingness to share what the stock market has taught him over multiple decades, has transformed him into the face of long-term investing.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Best of all, Buffett makes his thoughts readily available via an annual shareholder letter, as well as through Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, which typically draws around 40,000 shareholders and is set up as a multi-day event. Buffett also isn't shy about doing interviews with a host of financial news agencies. In other words, we don't have to look far to find the next great nugget of wisdom from Buffett.</p> <p>Warren Buffett's best nugget of wisdom is somewhat strange Previously, I've listed some of my <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/02/22/the-25-smartest-things-warren-buffett-ever-said-.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">favorite Buffett quotes Opens a New Window.</a>, as well as some of the reasoning behind why they're so meaningful. However, with Buffett regularly talking to the media and his shareholders, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/07/13-brand-new-warren-buffett-quotes-youve-got-to-se.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">new nuggets of wisdom Opens a New Window.</a> emerge quite frequently. But if my arm were twisted and I needed to choose one particular Buffett quote that stands out, this might be it:</p> <p>In other words, Warren Buffett loves it when stocks he owns or is buying fall, which is somewhat strange since it's the complete opposite of what we're taught when becoming investors. When we buy something, the last thing we want to see is any sort of red ink in the profit/loss column. But that's not how Buffett thinks. A solid company that's entered a period of temporary problems represents the perfect opportunity for a long-term investor like Buffett to add to his position. Best of all, since it's unlikely we're going to invest a huge amount of money at any one time, a falling stock allows us to wade into our position, which can improve our cost basis.</p> <p>A perfect example of this thesis in action has been Buffet's incremental purchases of technology giant IBM . Even though Buffett has been quite frank that his bullishness could be misplaced, he's not been shy about adding to IBM since his first purchase during Q1 2011. He views IBM's languishing stock price as an opportunity, and he's counting on Big Blue making a slow but steady transition into the cloud. Based on Berkshire's 13-F filed in mid-February, his company owned just over 81 million shares of IBM, equal to $11.9 billion, or 8.3% of all outstanding shares.</p> <p>Stocks that'll have you investing like BuffettHowever, we don't have to stick within the confines of Buffett's portfolio to find solid businesses that have fallen on perceived-to-be temporary hard times and look ripe for the picking by long-term investors.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Take biotech giant Gilead Sciences as a good example -- a company Buffett himself would be unlikely to buy, since biotech companies require constant observation because of clinical trial data.</p> <p>Two weeks ago Gilead Sciences reported first-quarter results that had investors running for the exit. Despite delivering modest sales and EPS growth, sales of its blockbuster hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug Harvoni fell 14% from the prior-year quarter to $3.01 billion. With Harvoni viewed as Gilead's main recent growth driver, investors knocked Gilead's share price down by double-digits on the news.</p> <p>But this is more than likely an instance of temporary problems rather than something for long-term investors to worry about. Pricing pressures on Harvoni were to be expected as new once-daily HCV entrants hit the market, and Gilead responded by offering bigger gross-to-net discounts during the first quarter. Despite these challenges, Gilead didn't lose HCV market share, and its primary rival in convenience, Zepatier, a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late January, sold just $50 million.</p> <p>Looking ahead, Gilead could have a pan-genotypic HCV therapy approved before the end of June, which could reignite its already dominant HCV sales, and it recently had the FDA approve its next-generation oral HIV medication Genvoya. Genvoya contains a new formulation of tenofovir that's designed to increase its concentration in infected cells while reducing its concentration throughout the remainder of the bloodstream. This has few, if any, markings of a broken stock.</p> <p>Image source: Flickr user Karlis Dambrans.</p> <p>The same could be said of technology giant Apple , another stock Buffett probably wouldn't buy since he generally has an aversion to tech stocks.</p> <p>Apple reported its second-quarter results a few days prior to Gilead, and the reaction was pretty similar (save for the fact that Apple's valuation tumbled by more than the worth of 477 of 500 S&amp;amp;P 500 companies). Apple announced Q2 sales of $50.6 billion, a 13% decline from the prior-year quarter and its first year-over-year sales decline in 13 years; it delivered $1.90 in EPS, missing Wall Street's estimates by a mile; and it reported its first iPhone sales decline ever! You can certainly see why skittish investors ran for cover.</p> <p>Yet for long-term investors, Apple's decline could represent the perfect opportunity to wade into the water and build, or add to, a position. Apple still has the world's most valuable brand according to Interbrand in 2015, and it undoubtedly has some of the most loyal customers of any company. When it introduces new products and services, and expands its Apple brand platform, chances are very good that its loyal customers will be buyers. Whether it be the iPhone, the recently launched Apple Music, or the highly anticipated iCar by the end of the decade, Apple has products to inspire growth.</p> <p>Long-term investors can also take solace in the fact that Apple has substantial cash flow. Apple ended Q2 with roughly $230 billion in cash, and it's capable of tacking on $40 billion-plus in cash every year, including its generous share repurchase and dividend return. Thus, by the end of the decade Apple could be sporting in excess of $400 billion in cash! Again, this is hardly what I'd call a broken stock.</p> <p>These are just two examples of downtrodden stocks that could have you investing like Buffett. What solid companies in your portfolio are you thrilled to see falling?</p> <p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/15/warren-buffetts-best-nugget-of-wisdom-is-somewhat.aspx" type="external">Warren Buffett's Best Nugget of Wisdom Is Somewhat Strange Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, track every pick he makes under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/trackultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TrackUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TMFUltraLong" type="external">@TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Gilead Sciences. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Warren Buffett's Best Nugget of Wisdom Is Somewhat Strange

http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/05/15/warren-buffett-best-nugget-wisdom-is-somewhat-strange.html

2016-05-15

0right

Warren Buffett's Best Nugget of Wisdom Is Somewhat Strange <p /> <p>Among investors, Warren Buffett, the CEO of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway , is arguably the most famous -- and with good reason. Over the past six-plus decades, Buffett has grown his personal wealth from just shy of $10,000 to $68 billion. Although Buffett may not be correct on every investment he's made throughout the years, his overwhelming growth in net worth, coupled with his willingness to share what the stock market has taught him over multiple decades, has transformed him into the face of long-term investing.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Best of all, Buffett makes his thoughts readily available via an annual shareholder letter, as well as through Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, which typically draws around 40,000 shareholders and is set up as a multi-day event. Buffett also isn't shy about doing interviews with a host of financial news agencies. In other words, we don't have to look far to find the next great nugget of wisdom from Buffett.</p> <p>Warren Buffett's best nugget of wisdom is somewhat strange Previously, I've listed some of my <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/02/22/the-25-smartest-things-warren-buffett-ever-said-.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">favorite Buffett quotes Opens a New Window.</a>, as well as some of the reasoning behind why they're so meaningful. However, with Buffett regularly talking to the media and his shareholders, <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/07/13-brand-new-warren-buffett-quotes-youve-got-to-se.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">new nuggets of wisdom Opens a New Window.</a> emerge quite frequently. But if my arm were twisted and I needed to choose one particular Buffett quote that stands out, this might be it:</p> <p>In other words, Warren Buffett loves it when stocks he owns or is buying fall, which is somewhat strange since it's the complete opposite of what we're taught when becoming investors. When we buy something, the last thing we want to see is any sort of red ink in the profit/loss column. But that's not how Buffett thinks. A solid company that's entered a period of temporary problems represents the perfect opportunity for a long-term investor like Buffett to add to his position. Best of all, since it's unlikely we're going to invest a huge amount of money at any one time, a falling stock allows us to wade into our position, which can improve our cost basis.</p> <p>A perfect example of this thesis in action has been Buffet's incremental purchases of technology giant IBM . Even though Buffett has been quite frank that his bullishness could be misplaced, he's not been shy about adding to IBM since his first purchase during Q1 2011. He views IBM's languishing stock price as an opportunity, and he's counting on Big Blue making a slow but steady transition into the cloud. Based on Berkshire's 13-F filed in mid-February, his company owned just over 81 million shares of IBM, equal to $11.9 billion, or 8.3% of all outstanding shares.</p> <p>Stocks that'll have you investing like BuffettHowever, we don't have to stick within the confines of Buffett's portfolio to find solid businesses that have fallen on perceived-to-be temporary hard times and look ripe for the picking by long-term investors.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Take biotech giant Gilead Sciences as a good example -- a company Buffett himself would be unlikely to buy, since biotech companies require constant observation because of clinical trial data.</p> <p>Two weeks ago Gilead Sciences reported first-quarter results that had investors running for the exit. Despite delivering modest sales and EPS growth, sales of its blockbuster hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug Harvoni fell 14% from the prior-year quarter to $3.01 billion. With Harvoni viewed as Gilead's main recent growth driver, investors knocked Gilead's share price down by double-digits on the news.</p> <p>But this is more than likely an instance of temporary problems rather than something for long-term investors to worry about. Pricing pressures on Harvoni were to be expected as new once-daily HCV entrants hit the market, and Gilead responded by offering bigger gross-to-net discounts during the first quarter. Despite these challenges, Gilead didn't lose HCV market share, and its primary rival in convenience, Zepatier, a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late January, sold just $50 million.</p> <p>Looking ahead, Gilead could have a pan-genotypic HCV therapy approved before the end of June, which could reignite its already dominant HCV sales, and it recently had the FDA approve its next-generation oral HIV medication Genvoya. Genvoya contains a new formulation of tenofovir that's designed to increase its concentration in infected cells while reducing its concentration throughout the remainder of the bloodstream. This has few, if any, markings of a broken stock.</p> <p>Image source: Flickr user Karlis Dambrans.</p> <p>The same could be said of technology giant Apple , another stock Buffett probably wouldn't buy since he generally has an aversion to tech stocks.</p> <p>Apple reported its second-quarter results a few days prior to Gilead, and the reaction was pretty similar (save for the fact that Apple's valuation tumbled by more than the worth of 477 of 500 S&amp;amp;P 500 companies). Apple announced Q2 sales of $50.6 billion, a 13% decline from the prior-year quarter and its first year-over-year sales decline in 13 years; it delivered $1.90 in EPS, missing Wall Street's estimates by a mile; and it reported its first iPhone sales decline ever! You can certainly see why skittish investors ran for cover.</p> <p>Yet for long-term investors, Apple's decline could represent the perfect opportunity to wade into the water and build, or add to, a position. Apple still has the world's most valuable brand according to Interbrand in 2015, and it undoubtedly has some of the most loyal customers of any company. When it introduces new products and services, and expands its Apple brand platform, chances are very good that its loyal customers will be buyers. Whether it be the iPhone, the recently launched Apple Music, or the highly anticipated iCar by the end of the decade, Apple has products to inspire growth.</p> <p>Long-term investors can also take solace in the fact that Apple has substantial cash flow. Apple ended Q2 with roughly $230 billion in cash, and it's capable of tacking on $40 billion-plus in cash every year, including its generous share repurchase and dividend return. Thus, by the end of the decade Apple could be sporting in excess of $400 billion in cash! Again, this is hardly what I'd call a broken stock.</p> <p>These are just two examples of downtrodden stocks that could have you investing like Buffett. What solid companies in your portfolio are you thrilled to see falling?</p> <p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/15/warren-buffetts-best-nugget-of-wisdom-is-somewhat.aspx" type="external">Warren Buffett's Best Nugget of Wisdom Is Somewhat Strange Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, track every pick he makes under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/trackultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TrackUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TMFUltraLong" type="external">@TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Gilead Sciences. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> <p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>A few weeks ago, drummer Philip Peeples was injured before a show.</p> <p>&#8220;It was a fluke deal,&#8221; Miller says while walking around Eugene, Ore. &#8220;He fell down before we taped &#8216;Conan,&#8217; &#8221; got rushed to the hospital and remained there for a while. He will be OK, but he&#8217;s missing out on the tour. He plans to join us in a couple weeks, and we will be a whole band again.&#8221;</p> <p>Having a pinch-hitter drummer has also made the set lists a little more simple.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>With 11 albums under their belt, the Old 97&#8217;s enjoy going deep into their catalog for shows.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re working it out,&#8221; Miller says. &#8220;We found a drummer to fill in, and he&#8217;s been learning a new song each day from our older stuff. This gives us some flexibility.&#8221;</p> <p>The Old 97&#8217;s have been making music for more than 20 years.</p> <p>The band broke through with its 1997 album, &#8220;Too Far to Care,&#8221; its major-label debut.</p> <p>In recording the album, the band strayed away from Los Angeles and New York and recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, just outside El Paso.</p> <p>And so when it came time for the band &#8211; which still consists of the same four members: Miller, guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond, and Peeples &#8211; to record their newest endeavor, producer Vance Powell brought up the idea of returning to Tornillo.</p> <p>&#8220;We knew instantly that it was the perfect move,&#8221; Miller says. &#8220;We weren&#8217;t trying to remake &#8216;Too Far to Care,&#8217; but to make something where fans would say, &#8216;This band hasn&#8217;t lost a step in 20-some years.&#8217; It&#8217;s been one of the best decisions that we&#8217;ve made.&#8221;</p> <p>Returning to Tornillo was more than just a gimmick and proved key to the album&#8217;s direction.</p> <p>The studio has been expanded and updated, but the band members went back into the same recording space. They even stayed in the same bedrooms &#8211; Miller opened the drawer of his nightstand and found a note that he had written 20 years earlier.</p> <p>&#8220;The time-travel element can&#8217;t be overstated,&#8221; the singer says. &#8220;It was a beautiful feeling of completing a circle &#8211; we&#8217;re the same people, but we had grown so much as bandmates and friends. It really made me believe in the power of experience and that you do get better with time. We&#8217;re capable of so much more now than we were two decades prior, but it also felt like we just took a coffee break in 1996 and now here we were, sitting back down to make a new record.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p />

Roots renewal: Old 97’s returns to studio

https://abqjournal.com/978809/roots-renewal.html

2least

Roots renewal: Old 97’s returns to studio <p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>A few weeks ago, drummer Philip Peeples was injured before a show.</p> <p>&#8220;It was a fluke deal,&#8221; Miller says while walking around Eugene, Ore. &#8220;He fell down before we taped &#8216;Conan,&#8217; &#8221; got rushed to the hospital and remained there for a while. He will be OK, but he&#8217;s missing out on the tour. He plans to join us in a couple weeks, and we will be a whole band again.&#8221;</p> <p>Having a pinch-hitter drummer has also made the set lists a little more simple.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>With 11 albums under their belt, the Old 97&#8217;s enjoy going deep into their catalog for shows.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;re working it out,&#8221; Miller says. &#8220;We found a drummer to fill in, and he&#8217;s been learning a new song each day from our older stuff. This gives us some flexibility.&#8221;</p> <p>The Old 97&#8217;s have been making music for more than 20 years.</p> <p>The band broke through with its 1997 album, &#8220;Too Far to Care,&#8221; its major-label debut.</p> <p>In recording the album, the band strayed away from Los Angeles and New York and recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, just outside El Paso.</p> <p>And so when it came time for the band &#8211; which still consists of the same four members: Miller, guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond, and Peeples &#8211; to record their newest endeavor, producer Vance Powell brought up the idea of returning to Tornillo.</p> <p>&#8220;We knew instantly that it was the perfect move,&#8221; Miller says. &#8220;We weren&#8217;t trying to remake &#8216;Too Far to Care,&#8217; but to make something where fans would say, &#8216;This band hasn&#8217;t lost a step in 20-some years.&#8217; It&#8217;s been one of the best decisions that we&#8217;ve made.&#8221;</p> <p>Returning to Tornillo was more than just a gimmick and proved key to the album&#8217;s direction.</p> <p>The studio has been expanded and updated, but the band members went back into the same recording space. They even stayed in the same bedrooms &#8211; Miller opened the drawer of his nightstand and found a note that he had written 20 years earlier.</p> <p>&#8220;The time-travel element can&#8217;t be overstated,&#8221; the singer says. &#8220;It was a beautiful feeling of completing a circle &#8211; we&#8217;re the same people, but we had grown so much as bandmates and friends. It really made me believe in the power of experience and that you do get better with time. We&#8217;re capable of so much more now than we were two decades prior, but it also felt like we just took a coffee break in 1996 and now here we were, sitting back down to make a new record.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p />

<p>Obama&#8217;s Regret</p> <p>: What does President Obama believe is his biggest failure during his first term in the Oval Office? Immigration reform. That&#8217;s by his own admission during a Univision event in Miami on Thursday. &#8220;My biggest failure is that we haven&#8217;t gotten comprehensive immigration reform done,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;but it&#8217;s not for lacking of trying or desire.&#8221; ( <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/obama-calls-immigration-reform-biggest-failure/story?id=17281401#.UFurkxiwp1M" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>Romney Changes Course: Let&#8217;s face it. At this point, there&#8217;s very little Mitt Romney can do to win the election other than hope for a big slip-up from President Obama. Regardless, Romney appears to be shifting tactics again just days after his campaign announced its candidate would alter his strategy. The new message emerging from the campaign: Romney will change Washington, D.C., from the inside. That&#8217;s the exact opposite position of what he took when he campaigned against John McCain in 2007. ( <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/mitt-romney-change-washington_n_1901523.html" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>He Who Must Not Be Named: Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., could not be coaxed to say Mitt Romney&#8217;s name during a debate Thursday night with Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. However, Brown &#8212; who is locked in a tough battle with Warren to retain his Senate seat &#8212; did offer praise for Hillary Clinton. &#8220;I think Secretary Clinton is doing a great job,&#8221; Brown said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve told her that and I think she&#8217;s really a bright star in that administration. And I appreciate all of her hard work, especially with what&#8217;s been happening in Libya and throughout that region. She&#8217;s a tireless worker.&#8221; ( <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/09/20/886961/scott-brown-doesnt-endorse-or-mention-romney-in-debate-with-warren/" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p /> <p>Another Rape Debate? Republicans are continuing their efforts to redefine rape and effectively limit in scope what constitutes sexual assault. In New Mexico, for example, Gov. Susana Martinez supports legislation that would require women to prove they were &#8220;forcibly raped&#8221; in order to obtain financial assistance for children that were conceived because of rape. In essence, the GOP is working to ensure that some rapes are considered more or less &#8220;legitimate&#8221; than others. As Jezebel noted, &#8220;Time to woefully set the giant &#8220;DAYS SINCE SOMEONE IN THE GOVERNMENT SAID SOMETHING ASININE ABOUT RAPE&#8221; sign back to 0.&#8221; ( <a href="http://jezebel.com/5945084/want-welfare-in-new-mexico-better-be-ready-to-prove-you-were-forcibly-raped" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>Video of the Day: &#8220;The Daily Show&#8221; offered one of its best critiques yet of Fox News (aka &#8220;Romney campaign headquarters&#8221;) in host Jon Stewart&#8217;s scathing look at the conservative cable news channel&#8217;s coverage of Mitt Romney&#8217;s &#8220;47 percent&#8221; remark. It&#8217;s today&#8217;s must-watch:</p> <p /> <p><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-19-2012/chaos-on-bulls--t-mountain" type="external">The Daily Show</a>Get More: <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/" type="external">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>, <a href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/" type="external">Political Humor &amp;amp; Satire Blog</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow" type="external">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></p> <p />

Mitt's New Message, Obama's 'Biggest Failure,' and More

https://truthdig.com/articles/mitts-new-message-obamas-biggest-failure-and-more/

2012-09-21

4left

Mitt's New Message, Obama's 'Biggest Failure,' and More <p>Obama&#8217;s Regret</p> <p>: What does President Obama believe is his biggest failure during his first term in the Oval Office? Immigration reform. That&#8217;s by his own admission during a Univision event in Miami on Thursday. &#8220;My biggest failure is that we haven&#8217;t gotten comprehensive immigration reform done,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;but it&#8217;s not for lacking of trying or desire.&#8221; ( <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/obama-calls-immigration-reform-biggest-failure/story?id=17281401#.UFurkxiwp1M" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>Romney Changes Course: Let&#8217;s face it. At this point, there&#8217;s very little Mitt Romney can do to win the election other than hope for a big slip-up from President Obama. Regardless, Romney appears to be shifting tactics again just days after his campaign announced its candidate would alter his strategy. The new message emerging from the campaign: Romney will change Washington, D.C., from the inside. That&#8217;s the exact opposite position of what he took when he campaigned against John McCain in 2007. ( <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/mitt-romney-change-washington_n_1901523.html" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>He Who Must Not Be Named: Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., could not be coaxed to say Mitt Romney&#8217;s name during a debate Thursday night with Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. However, Brown &#8212; who is locked in a tough battle with Warren to retain his Senate seat &#8212; did offer praise for Hillary Clinton. &#8220;I think Secretary Clinton is doing a great job,&#8221; Brown said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve told her that and I think she&#8217;s really a bright star in that administration. And I appreciate all of her hard work, especially with what&#8217;s been happening in Libya and throughout that region. She&#8217;s a tireless worker.&#8221; ( <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/09/20/886961/scott-brown-doesnt-endorse-or-mention-romney-in-debate-with-warren/" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p /> <p>Another Rape Debate? Republicans are continuing their efforts to redefine rape and effectively limit in scope what constitutes sexual assault. In New Mexico, for example, Gov. Susana Martinez supports legislation that would require women to prove they were &#8220;forcibly raped&#8221; in order to obtain financial assistance for children that were conceived because of rape. In essence, the GOP is working to ensure that some rapes are considered more or less &#8220;legitimate&#8221; than others. As Jezebel noted, &#8220;Time to woefully set the giant &#8220;DAYS SINCE SOMEONE IN THE GOVERNMENT SAID SOMETHING ASININE ABOUT RAPE&#8221; sign back to 0.&#8221; ( <a href="http://jezebel.com/5945084/want-welfare-in-new-mexico-better-be-ready-to-prove-you-were-forcibly-raped" type="external">Read more</a>)</p> <p>Video of the Day: &#8220;The Daily Show&#8221; offered one of its best critiques yet of Fox News (aka &#8220;Romney campaign headquarters&#8221;) in host Jon Stewart&#8217;s scathing look at the conservative cable news channel&#8217;s coverage of Mitt Romney&#8217;s &#8220;47 percent&#8221; remark. It&#8217;s today&#8217;s must-watch:</p> <p /> <p><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-19-2012/chaos-on-bulls--t-mountain" type="external">The Daily Show</a>Get More: <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/" type="external">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>, <a href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/" type="external">Political Humor &amp;amp; Satire Blog</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow" type="external">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></p> <p />

<p /> <p>In an interview published Monday at <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-in-conversation.html" type="external">NY Mag</a>, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio went full Communist, arguing against private property rights while saying the state should decide who gets to live in what buildings.</p> <p>&#8220;In 2013, you ran on reducing <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/report-income-inequality-worse-under-mayor-de-blasio.html" type="external">income inequality</a>. Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools?&#8221; Chris Smith asked.</p> <p>&#8220;What&#8217;s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property,&#8221; de Blasio said. &#8220;I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be.&#8221;</p> <p>Wait a second &#8212; de Blasio thinks residents of New York want the city to decide who gets to live in what buildings? &amp;#160;No wonder we like to refer to him as &#8220;Comrade&#8221; de Blasio. &amp;#160;But there&#8217;s more.</p> <p>&#8220;I think there&#8217;s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs,&#8221; he added, apparently drawing from the Communist maxim of &#8220;from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.&#8221;</p> <p>He then admitted his desire for central planning: &#8220;And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that&#8217;s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.&#8221;</p> <p>He added:</p> <p>I&#8217;ll give you an example. I was down one day on Varick Street, somewhere close to Canal, and there was a big sign out front of a new condo saying, &#8220;Units start at $2 million.&#8221; And that just drives people stark raving mad in this city, because that kind of development is clearly not for everyday people. It&#8217;s almost like it&#8217;s being flaunted. Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That&#8217;s a world I&#8217;d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They&#8217;d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not reachable right now. And it leaves this friction, and this anger, which is visceral. I try to explain the things we can do. It&#8217;s a little bit of a Serenity Prayer &#8212; let&#8217;s talk about the things we can fix. The rent freeze we did reached over 2 million people.In 2015 and 2016, the mayor&#8217;s appointees ruled that new one-year leases on rent-stabilized units could not increase. I&#8217;ve talked to people who were going to be evicted, and we stopped the eviction by giving them a free lawyer. And I&#8217;ve talked to people who got affordable housing under our plan for 200,000 apartments.</p> <p><a href="https://americarisingpac.org/in-interview-bill-de-blasio-comes-out-against-private-property-andrew-cuomo/" type="external">America Rising PAC</a> said de Blasio &#8220;channeled Vladimir Lenin and Fidel Castro in his comments about private property.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Mayor de Blasio has long been anti-capitalism,&#8221; America Rising added. &#8220;With his latest incendiary comments to New York Magazine, it&#8217;s clear he&#8217;s <a href="http://pagesix.com/2017/08/13/mayor-bill-de-blasio-may-be-running-for-president/" type="external">serious</a> about challenging Bernie Sanders in 2020 for the title of most out-of-touch leftist running for president.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;This is today&#8217;s Democrat Party,&#8221; Jim Hoft said at the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-goes-full-commie-argues-private-property-rights/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a>. &#8220;Open Communism.&#8221;</p> <p>Sadly, a growing number of people actually <a href="" type="internal">support this nonsense</a>, despite the fact that socialism has never worked and Communism has killed some 100 million people.</p> <p>Maybe de Blasio should go live in Venezuela for a few years&#8230; Maybe he&#8217;ll have a change of heart. &amp;#160;Or not&#8230;</p> <p>H/T <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-goes-full-commie-argues-private-property-rights/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a></p> <p>Related:</p> <p>If you haven&#8217;t checked out and liked our&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>&amp;#160;page, please go&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a>&amp;#160;and do so.</p> <p>And if you&#8217;re as concerned about online censorship as we are, go&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Banned-Facebook-Enables-Militant-Islamic/dp/1944212221/" type="external">here</a>&amp;#160;and order this book (Remember, half of what we earn will be <a href="" type="internal">donated to Hurricane Harvey relief</a>):</p>

Bill de Blasio goes full Communist, argues against private property, says state should determine who lives where

http://conservativefiringline.com/bill-de-blasio-goes-full-communist-argues-private-property-says-state-determine-lives/

2017-09-06

0right

Bill de Blasio goes full Communist, argues against private property, says state should determine who lives where <p /> <p>In an interview published Monday at <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-in-conversation.html" type="external">NY Mag</a>, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio went full Communist, arguing against private property rights while saying the state should decide who gets to live in what buildings.</p> <p>&#8220;In 2013, you ran on reducing <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/report-income-inequality-worse-under-mayor-de-blasio.html" type="external">income inequality</a>. Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools?&#8221; Chris Smith asked.</p> <p>&#8220;What&#8217;s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property,&#8221; de Blasio said. &#8220;I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be.&#8221;</p> <p>Wait a second &#8212; de Blasio thinks residents of New York want the city to decide who gets to live in what buildings? &amp;#160;No wonder we like to refer to him as &#8220;Comrade&#8221; de Blasio. &amp;#160;But there&#8217;s more.</p> <p>&#8220;I think there&#8217;s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs,&#8221; he added, apparently drawing from the Communist maxim of &#8220;from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.&#8221;</p> <p>He then admitted his desire for central planning: &#8220;And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that&#8217;s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.&#8221;</p> <p>He added:</p> <p>I&#8217;ll give you an example. I was down one day on Varick Street, somewhere close to Canal, and there was a big sign out front of a new condo saying, &#8220;Units start at $2 million.&#8221; And that just drives people stark raving mad in this city, because that kind of development is clearly not for everyday people. It&#8217;s almost like it&#8217;s being flaunted. Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That&#8217;s a world I&#8217;d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They&#8217;d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not reachable right now. And it leaves this friction, and this anger, which is visceral. I try to explain the things we can do. It&#8217;s a little bit of a Serenity Prayer &#8212; let&#8217;s talk about the things we can fix. The rent freeze we did reached over 2 million people.In 2015 and 2016, the mayor&#8217;s appointees ruled that new one-year leases on rent-stabilized units could not increase. I&#8217;ve talked to people who were going to be evicted, and we stopped the eviction by giving them a free lawyer. And I&#8217;ve talked to people who got affordable housing under our plan for 200,000 apartments.</p> <p><a href="https://americarisingpac.org/in-interview-bill-de-blasio-comes-out-against-private-property-andrew-cuomo/" type="external">America Rising PAC</a> said de Blasio &#8220;channeled Vladimir Lenin and Fidel Castro in his comments about private property.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Mayor de Blasio has long been anti-capitalism,&#8221; America Rising added. &#8220;With his latest incendiary comments to New York Magazine, it&#8217;s clear he&#8217;s <a href="http://pagesix.com/2017/08/13/mayor-bill-de-blasio-may-be-running-for-president/" type="external">serious</a> about challenging Bernie Sanders in 2020 for the title of most out-of-touch leftist running for president.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;This is today&#8217;s Democrat Party,&#8221; Jim Hoft said at the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-goes-full-commie-argues-private-property-rights/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a>. &#8220;Open Communism.&#8221;</p> <p>Sadly, a growing number of people actually <a href="" type="internal">support this nonsense</a>, despite the fact that socialism has never worked and Communism has killed some 100 million people.</p> <p>Maybe de Blasio should go live in Venezuela for a few years&#8230; Maybe he&#8217;ll have a change of heart. &amp;#160;Or not&#8230;</p> <p>H/T <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/bill-de-blasio-goes-full-commie-argues-private-property-rights/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a></p> <p>Related:</p> <p>If you haven&#8217;t checked out and liked our&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>&amp;#160;page, please go&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a>&amp;#160;and do so.</p> <p>And if you&#8217;re as concerned about online censorship as we are, go&amp;#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Banned-Facebook-Enables-Militant-Islamic/dp/1944212221/" type="external">here</a>&amp;#160;and order this book (Remember, half of what we earn will be <a href="" type="internal">donated to Hurricane Harvey relief</a>):</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) &#8212; Universal Music Group's pre-Grammy brunch featured performances by its top-selling stars, Sam Smith and Iggy Azalea, and a sneak peak at the upcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.</p> <p>The record company on Saturday debuted a close-to-complete trailer of "Amy," which is due in theaters later this year. The minute-long video featured photos and video of the late singer as well as audio from an interview where she talked about becoming famous.</p> <p>Universal Music UK CEO and Chairman David Joseph said the trailer would be released in a month or so, but he wanted to debut it ahead of the Grammys because the 2008 awards show marked history when Winehouse won five honors, including song and record of the year.</p> <p>Winehouse died in 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning at age 27.</p> <p>"About two years ago we decided to make a movie about her &#8212; her career and her life," he said. "It's a very complicated and tender movie. It tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an amazing person and a true musical genius."</p> <p>Joseph said the film would be in theaters in July or September.</p> <p>Winehouse was signed to Republic Records, one of the many labels that are part of the UMG umbrella. Its other labels include Def Jam, Island, Capitol and Interscope Records, and its roster includes Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Eminem.</p> <p>Azalea, who is nominated for four Grammys, kicked off the artists showcase with a performance of "Fancy," and Smith followed with "Nirvana" and "Stay With Me." Smith is the top nominee with six nominations heading into Sunday's ceremony, along with Beyonce and Pharrell.</p> <p>"I'm so happy to be singing today," Smith told the crowd. "It's good to keep my mind off of what's going to happen tomorrow by singing, so thanks for having me."</p> <p>His nominations include album, song and record of the year.</p> <p>The Weeknd performed his new single, "Earned It," from the "Fifty Shades of Grey" soundtrack, while Maroon 5 closed the event held at The Theatre at Ace Hotel.</p> <p>The brunch, hosted by UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, is in its third year. Other performers included Keith Urban, Fall Out Boy, Shawn Mendes, Tori Kelly, James Bay, Ryn Weaver, Maddie &amp;amp; Tae, and the mother-and-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Online:</p> <p><a href="http://www.universalmusic.com" type="external">http://www.universalmusic.com</a></p> <p>LOS ANGELES (AP) &#8212; Universal Music Group's pre-Grammy brunch featured performances by its top-selling stars, Sam Smith and Iggy Azalea, and a sneak peak at the upcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.</p> <p>The record company on Saturday debuted a close-to-complete trailer of "Amy," which is due in theaters later this year. The minute-long video featured photos and video of the late singer as well as audio from an interview where she talked about becoming famous.</p> <p>Universal Music UK CEO and Chairman David Joseph said the trailer would be released in a month or so, but he wanted to debut it ahead of the Grammys because the 2008 awards show marked history when Winehouse won five honors, including song and record of the year.</p> <p>Winehouse died in 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning at age 27.</p> <p>"About two years ago we decided to make a movie about her &#8212; her career and her life," he said. "It's a very complicated and tender movie. It tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an amazing person and a true musical genius."</p> <p>Joseph said the film would be in theaters in July or September.</p> <p>Winehouse was signed to Republic Records, one of the many labels that are part of the UMG umbrella. Its other labels include Def Jam, Island, Capitol and Interscope Records, and its roster includes Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Eminem.</p> <p>Azalea, who is nominated for four Grammys, kicked off the artists showcase with a performance of "Fancy," and Smith followed with "Nirvana" and "Stay With Me." Smith is the top nominee with six nominations heading into Sunday's ceremony, along with Beyonce and Pharrell.</p> <p>"I'm so happy to be singing today," Smith told the crowd. "It's good to keep my mind off of what's going to happen tomorrow by singing, so thanks for having me."</p> <p>His nominations include album, song and record of the year.</p> <p>The Weeknd performed his new single, "Earned It," from the "Fifty Shades of Grey" soundtrack, while Maroon 5 closed the event held at The Theatre at Ace Hotel.</p> <p>The brunch, hosted by UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, is in its third year. Other performers included Keith Urban, Fall Out Boy, Shawn Mendes, Tori Kelly, James Bay, Ryn Weaver, Maddie &amp;amp; Tae, and the mother-and-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Online:</p> <p><a href="http://www.universalmusic.com" type="external">http://www.universalmusic.com</a></p>

Trailer of Amy Winehouse doc debuts at pre-Grammy brunch

https://apnews.com/amp/2a4615edfa274470a1fce641c0ae0f9e

2015-02-08

2least

Trailer of Amy Winehouse doc debuts at pre-Grammy brunch <p>LOS ANGELES (AP) &#8212; Universal Music Group's pre-Grammy brunch featured performances by its top-selling stars, Sam Smith and Iggy Azalea, and a sneak peak at the upcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.</p> <p>The record company on Saturday debuted a close-to-complete trailer of "Amy," which is due in theaters later this year. The minute-long video featured photos and video of the late singer as well as audio from an interview where she talked about becoming famous.</p> <p>Universal Music UK CEO and Chairman David Joseph said the trailer would be released in a month or so, but he wanted to debut it ahead of the Grammys because the 2008 awards show marked history when Winehouse won five honors, including song and record of the year.</p> <p>Winehouse died in 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning at age 27.</p> <p>"About two years ago we decided to make a movie about her &#8212; her career and her life," he said. "It's a very complicated and tender movie. It tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an amazing person and a true musical genius."</p> <p>Joseph said the film would be in theaters in July or September.</p> <p>Winehouse was signed to Republic Records, one of the many labels that are part of the UMG umbrella. Its other labels include Def Jam, Island, Capitol and Interscope Records, and its roster includes Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Eminem.</p> <p>Azalea, who is nominated for four Grammys, kicked off the artists showcase with a performance of "Fancy," and Smith followed with "Nirvana" and "Stay With Me." Smith is the top nominee with six nominations heading into Sunday's ceremony, along with Beyonce and Pharrell.</p> <p>"I'm so happy to be singing today," Smith told the crowd. "It's good to keep my mind off of what's going to happen tomorrow by singing, so thanks for having me."</p> <p>His nominations include album, song and record of the year.</p> <p>The Weeknd performed his new single, "Earned It," from the "Fifty Shades of Grey" soundtrack, while Maroon 5 closed the event held at The Theatre at Ace Hotel.</p> <p>The brunch, hosted by UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, is in its third year. Other performers included Keith Urban, Fall Out Boy, Shawn Mendes, Tori Kelly, James Bay, Ryn Weaver, Maddie &amp;amp; Tae, and the mother-and-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Online:</p> <p><a href="http://www.universalmusic.com" type="external">http://www.universalmusic.com</a></p> <p>LOS ANGELES (AP) &#8212; Universal Music Group's pre-Grammy brunch featured performances by its top-selling stars, Sam Smith and Iggy Azalea, and a sneak peak at the upcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.</p> <p>The record company on Saturday debuted a close-to-complete trailer of "Amy," which is due in theaters later this year. The minute-long video featured photos and video of the late singer as well as audio from an interview where she talked about becoming famous.</p> <p>Universal Music UK CEO and Chairman David Joseph said the trailer would be released in a month or so, but he wanted to debut it ahead of the Grammys because the 2008 awards show marked history when Winehouse won five honors, including song and record of the year.</p> <p>Winehouse died in 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning at age 27.</p> <p>"About two years ago we decided to make a movie about her &#8212; her career and her life," he said. "It's a very complicated and tender movie. It tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an amazing person and a true musical genius."</p> <p>Joseph said the film would be in theaters in July or September.</p> <p>Winehouse was signed to Republic Records, one of the many labels that are part of the UMG umbrella. Its other labels include Def Jam, Island, Capitol and Interscope Records, and its roster includes Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Eminem.</p> <p>Azalea, who is nominated for four Grammys, kicked off the artists showcase with a performance of "Fancy," and Smith followed with "Nirvana" and "Stay With Me." Smith is the top nominee with six nominations heading into Sunday's ceremony, along with Beyonce and Pharrell.</p> <p>"I'm so happy to be singing today," Smith told the crowd. "It's good to keep my mind off of what's going to happen tomorrow by singing, so thanks for having me."</p> <p>His nominations include album, song and record of the year.</p> <p>The Weeknd performed his new single, "Earned It," from the "Fifty Shades of Grey" soundtrack, while Maroon 5 closed the event held at The Theatre at Ace Hotel.</p> <p>The brunch, hosted by UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, is in its third year. Other performers included Keith Urban, Fall Out Boy, Shawn Mendes, Tori Kelly, James Bay, Ryn Weaver, Maddie &amp;amp; Tae, and the mother-and-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Online:</p> <p><a href="http://www.universalmusic.com" type="external">http://www.universalmusic.com</a></p>

<p>Romenesko LettersNew York Times City Hall bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer says Rick Bragg has the constitutional right to tell any reporter that he's being punished for engaging in standard practices of stringer abuse at the New York Times. "But I for one am not going to sit by and let those statements go unchecked," she writes. "I have never, in the time I have been here, heard of a case of another reporter at this paper relying on extensive stringer work for feature stories, major works of enterprise or even daily localized coverage in the manner in which the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/23/pageoneplus/corrections.html" type="external">editor's note</a> on Mr. Bragg's article addressed." PLUS: Times business reporter Alex Berenson has a few words about Bragg, too. &amp;gt; <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/919205.asp" type="external">Seth Mnookin says Tim Egan wrote to NYT colleagues:</a> "The problem is we&#8217;ve had a two-tier system that has allowed Bragg to carve out one system for him, (cutting corners, using a huge stringer network, telling people he can&#8217;t be edited) and another for everyone else." (Newsweek) &amp;gt; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46063-2003May27.html" type="external">Investors Business Daily uses fabricator John R. Lott to spank NYT (WP)</a></p>

NYT-ers: We're not letting Bragg's remarks go unchecked

https://poynter.org/news/nyt-ers-were-not-letting-braggs-remarks-go-unchecked

2003-05-28

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NYT-ers: We're not letting Bragg's remarks go unchecked <p>Romenesko LettersNew York Times City Hall bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer says Rick Bragg has the constitutional right to tell any reporter that he's being punished for engaging in standard practices of stringer abuse at the New York Times. "But I for one am not going to sit by and let those statements go unchecked," she writes. "I have never, in the time I have been here, heard of a case of another reporter at this paper relying on extensive stringer work for feature stories, major works of enterprise or even daily localized coverage in the manner in which the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/23/pageoneplus/corrections.html" type="external">editor's note</a> on Mr. Bragg's article addressed." PLUS: Times business reporter Alex Berenson has a few words about Bragg, too. &amp;gt; <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/919205.asp" type="external">Seth Mnookin says Tim Egan wrote to NYT colleagues:</a> "The problem is we&#8217;ve had a two-tier system that has allowed Bragg to carve out one system for him, (cutting corners, using a huge stringer network, telling people he can&#8217;t be edited) and another for everyone else." (Newsweek) &amp;gt; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46063-2003May27.html" type="external">Investors Business Daily uses fabricator John R. Lott to spank NYT (WP)</a></p>