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<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Trader Vincent Quinones works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. Stocks were mixed in early trading Wednesday ahead of a European Central Bank meeting where further stimulus is expected to be announced as well as a speech by the head of the Federal Reserve. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>NEW YORK - Stocks sank Wednesday as a sharp drop in the price of oil dragged down energy companies. U.S. crude closed below $40 a barrel for the first time since August.</p> <p>Investors continue to weigh the implications of potential changes in interest rate policy around the world. The European Central Bank meets Thursday to discuss increasing its stimulus program, and the Federal Reserve is likely to raise rates for the first time in nine years at its next policy meeting in mid-December.</p> <p>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 158.67 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,729.68. The Standard &amp;amp; Poor's 500 index fell 23.12 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,079.51 and the Nasdaq composite lost 33.08 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,123.22.</p> <p>Oil and gas stocks fell far more than the rest of the market. Energy stocks in the S&amp;amp;P 500 sank 3.1 percent compared with a 1.1 percent decline in the broader market.</p> <p>The price of oil was lower all day, and the losses accelerated in the afternoon after the Energy Department reported that U.S. crude inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels last week, while analysts had expected a decline.</p> <p>Benchmark U.S. crude dropped $1.91, or 4.6 percent, to $39.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, fell $1.95, or 4.4 percent, to $42.49 a barrel in London.</p> <p>Exxon Mobil fell $2.34, or 3 percent, to $79.55, Chevron lost $2.33, or 2.5 percent, to $90.25 and drilling rig operator Transocean fell 37 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $13.83.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>In other trading, Yahoo jumped $1.94, or 6 percent, to $35.65 on reports that the company was considering selling its core Internet businesses in order to avoid a big tax bill on the eventual sale of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Yahoo has struggled for years to re-energize its business model.</p> <p>Outside the drop in oil prices, and its impact on energy companies, investors remain focused on what the world's central banks plan to do at their upcoming policy meetings.</p> <p>The consensus among investors is that the Fed will raise rates at its December 15-16 meeting. That thesis was reinforced Wednesday, when Fed Chair Janet Yellen indicated that the U.S. economy is on track for an interest rate hike this month, though she was careful to point out that the Fed will need to review any upcoming data before making a final decision.</p> <p>Government bond prices fell after Yellen's comments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.18 percent from 2.15 percent late Tuesday.</p> <p>The data Yellen is referring to includes the November jobs report, which comes out Friday. Economists forecast that U.S. employers created 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate remained steady at 5 percent.</p> <p>"It's becoming more and more likely that the Fed is going to rate rates," said Kristina Hooper, Head of U.S. Investment Strategies at Allianz Global Investors.</p> <p>Unless the November employment figures are extraordinarily weak, investors believe the Fed will raise interest rates this month, from record low levels, for the first time since the financial crisis. Some preliminary jobs data out Wednesday supported the prediction that the U.S. jobs market continued to improve last month. The payroll processor ADP said the private sector created 217,000 jobs in November.</p> <p>In Europe, investors expect the European Central Bank will move in the opposite direction and expand its stimulus program when policymakers meet on Thursday, either by expanding its bond purchases or by cutting interest rates further. ECB head Mario Draghi signaled that action is coming this week as the bank seeks to support growth and push inflation higher.</p> <p>The U.S. dollar strengthened to 123.24 yen from 122.84 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0613 from $1.0631.</p> <p>In other energy futures trading in New York, wholesale gasoline fell 7 cents, or 5.1 percent, to close $1.293 a gallon, heating oil fell 6.4 cents, or 4.7 percent, to $1.305 a gallon and natural gas declined 6.6 cents, or 3 percent, to $2.165 a gallon.</p> <p>In metals, gold fell $9.70, or 1 percent, to $1,053.80 a troy ounce, silver fell seven cents to $14.01 an ounce and copper fell four cents to $2.033 a pound.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

A slump in the price of crude oil sinks energy stocks

https://abqjournal.com/684445/stocks-are-mixed-in-early-trade-oil-price-slips.html

2015-12-02

<p>Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson &#8212; the duo who host &#8220; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCug1cL7vmUvYooOjXyHjsxQ" type="external">The Viewers View</a>&#8221; &#8212; didn&#8217;t think much of the lone protester who sought to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/22/politics/donald-trump-black-lives-matter-protester-confrontation/" type="external">disrupt</a> Donald Trump&#8217;s Alabama rally Sunday.</p> <p>&#8220;So I&#8217;m a little pissed off today. I&#8217;m beyond pissed, I&#8217;m mad as hell,&#8221; Hardaway said in the duo&#8217;s latest video.</p> <p /> <p>&#8220;So (Sunday), Donald Trump was at a rally and you had one little lone protester like the lone wolf go and stand up and I don&#8217;t know what the heck he was shouting, but they had to escort his behind out of the rally,&#8221; Hardaway said.</p> <p>&#8220;So now they&#8217;ve got it all over the news that a Black Lives Matter movement protester was roughed up as they got him out of the building.</p> <p>&#8220;Now, here&#8217;s my deal. When you bring your behind to a Donald Trump rally, you sit your behind down, you shut up and you listen. Had you sat there and listened, you would have learned that this man is looking out for you. This man wants to bring a job back for you where you can thrive again in this country.&#8221;</p> <p>She added, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if he was shouting &#8216;Black Lives Matter&#8217; or what, but what he should have done is &#8212; if you think that your life matters just that much, why weren&#8217;t you out there in Chicago with (the boy) in that alley trying to find his killers, letting him know that his black life matters?&#8221;</p> <p>Hardaway was referring to 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, who was killed in early November.</p> <p>CNN <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/us/chicago-tyshawn-lee-shooting/" type="external">reported</a> police suspect the boy was killed over his father&#8217;s alleged &#8220;relationship with a member of a gang.&#8221;</p> <p>Hardaway continued, &#8220;Or how about shouting that in your own neighborhood, because I&#8217;m quite sure a crime took place while you were at that rally. You should have been there protesting that your black life matters there.</p> <p>&#8220;Or how about going to that White House, standing in front of that White House and shouting Black Lives Matter to our black president who seems unconcerned about you?</p> <p>&#8220;So when you come to a Donald Trump rally, don&#8217;t get it twisted, baby. You sit down and you shut up and you take notice and you listen, okay, because at his rally, it&#8217;s all lives matter!&#8221;</p> <p>Hardaway and Richardson &#8212; who also go by Diamond and Silk &#8212; shot to Internet stardom when they gave an impassioned defense of Trump after the first Republican presidential debate.</p>

VIDEO: Black women slam Trump protester: Go to Chicago, White House

http://theamericanmirror.com/video-black-women-protest-obama-instead-of-trump/

2015-11-24

<p>WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - A former Dover Air Force Base airman been sentenced to 30 months in prison for sexually abusing a teenage runaway.</p> <p>Twenty-one-year-old Akeem Beazer of Pompano Beach, Florida, had faced up to 15 years in prison at Wednesday's sentencing, but sentencing guidelines called for 24 to 30 months behind bars. Beazer pleaded guilty in September to sexual abuse of a minor.</p> <p>Another former airman, 25-year-old Dalian Washington of Philadelphia, will be sentenced Feb. 21. He faces at least 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to child sex trafficking.</p> <p>The two were arrested in April after a young teen, who officials say had a troubled home life and often lived on the street, told a social worker that she had stayed on the military base and had sex with service members.</p> <p>WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - A former Dover Air Force Base airman been sentenced to 30 months in prison for sexually abusing a teenage runaway.</p> <p>Twenty-one-year-old Akeem Beazer of Pompano Beach, Florida, had faced up to 15 years in prison at Wednesday's sentencing, but sentencing guidelines called for 24 to 30 months behind bars. Beazer pleaded guilty in September to sexual abuse of a minor.</p> <p>Another former airman, 25-year-old Dalian Washington of Philadelphia, will be sentenced Feb. 21. He faces at least 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to child sex trafficking.</p> <p>The two were arrested in April after a young teen, who officials say had a troubled home life and often lived on the street, told a social worker that she had stayed on the military base and had sex with service members.</p>

Ex-airman sentenced for child sex abuse

https://apnews.com/6f19c2c860274c77a16194367518ddf8

2018-01-03

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) &#8212; War is hell for wildlife, too. A new study finds that wartime is the biggest threat to Africa's elephants, rhinos, hippos and other large animals.</p> <p>The researchers analyzed how decades of conflict in Africa have affected populations of large animals. More than 70 percent of Africa's protected wildlife areas fell inside a war zone at some point since 1946, many of them repeatedly, they found. The more often the war, the steeper the drop in the mammal population, said Yale University ecologist Josh Daskin, lead author of a study in Wednesday's journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature" type="external">Nature</a> .</p> <p>"It takes very little conflict, as much as one conflict in about 20 years, for the average wildlife population to be declining," Daskin said.</p> <p>The areas with the most frequent battles &#8212; not necessarily the bloodiest &#8212; lose 35 percent of their mammal populations each year there's fighting, he said.</p> <p>Although some animals are killed in the crossfire or by land mines, war primarily changes social and economic conditions in a way that make it tough on animals, said study co-author Rob Pringle, an ecologist at Princeton University.</p> <p>People in and near war zones are poorer and hungrier. So they poach more often for valuable tusks or hunt protected animals to eat, Pringle said. Conservation programs don't have much money, power or even the ability to protect animals during wartime, Pringle said.</p> <p>Most of the time, some animals do survive wars. Researchers found animal populations completely wiped out only in six instances &#8212; including a large group of giraffes in a Ugandan park between 1983 and 1995 during two civil wars.</p> <p>Other studies have looked at individual war zones and found animal populations that shrink and others that grow. For example, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea is great for wildlife because it has "acted almost as a de facto park for almost seven decades," Daskin said.</p> <p>The new study covered the entire continent over 65 years. The researchers looked at 10 different factors that could change population numbers, including war, drought, animal size, protected areas and human population density.</p> <p>The number of wars had the biggest effect on population while the intensity of the wars &#8212; measured in human deaths &#8212; had the least.</p> <p>By looking at the big picture, the research supports what many experts figured, that "war is a major driver of wildlife population declines across Africa," said Kaitlyn Gaynor, an ecology researcher on war and wildlife at the University of California, Berkeley. She was not part of the study.</p> <p>Greg Carr, an American philanthropist and head of a nonprofit group working in and around Mozambique's Gorongosa National <a href="http://www.gorongosa.org/" type="external">Park</a> , said the findings are not surprising. The park's wildlife populations plunged during the country's civil war, but Carr attributes it more to poverty than war.</p> <p>"With or without war, poverty is the threat to wildlife in Africa going forward," Carr said in an email.</p> <p>Gorongosa is an example of how bad war is for wildlife, but also how quickly animals can recover, the researchers said.</p> <p>The civil war that ended in 1992 decimated the area with both rebel and government soldiers hunting "their way through the wildlife in the park," Daskin said. Species came close to "blinking out," but not quite. Now wildlife is back to 80 percent of prewar levels, Daskin said.</p> <p>"The effect of war on wildlife is bad," Pringle said. "But it's not apocalyptic."</p> <p>___</p> <p>AP reporter Christopher Torchia contributed to this report from London.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external">@borenbears</a> . His work can be found <a href="" type="internal">here</a> .</p> <p>WASHINGTON (AP) &#8212; War is hell for wildlife, too. A new study finds that wartime is the biggest threat to Africa's elephants, rhinos, hippos and other large animals.</p> <p>The researchers analyzed how decades of conflict in Africa have affected populations of large animals. More than 70 percent of Africa's protected wildlife areas fell inside a war zone at some point since 1946, many of them repeatedly, they found. The more often the war, the steeper the drop in the mammal population, said Yale University ecologist Josh Daskin, lead author of a study in Wednesday's journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature" type="external">Nature</a> .</p> <p>"It takes very little conflict, as much as one conflict in about 20 years, for the average wildlife population to be declining," Daskin said.</p> <p>The areas with the most frequent battles &#8212; not necessarily the bloodiest &#8212; lose 35 percent of their mammal populations each year there's fighting, he said.</p> <p>Although some animals are killed in the crossfire or by land mines, war primarily changes social and economic conditions in a way that make it tough on animals, said study co-author Rob Pringle, an ecologist at Princeton University.</p> <p>People in and near war zones are poorer and hungrier. So they poach more often for valuable tusks or hunt protected animals to eat, Pringle said. Conservation programs don't have much money, power or even the ability to protect animals during wartime, Pringle said.</p> <p>Most of the time, some animals do survive wars. Researchers found animal populations completely wiped out only in six instances &#8212; including a large group of giraffes in a Ugandan park between 1983 and 1995 during two civil wars.</p> <p>Other studies have looked at individual war zones and found animal populations that shrink and others that grow. For example, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea is great for wildlife because it has "acted almost as a de facto park for almost seven decades," Daskin said.</p> <p>The new study covered the entire continent over 65 years. The researchers looked at 10 different factors that could change population numbers, including war, drought, animal size, protected areas and human population density.</p> <p>The number of wars had the biggest effect on population while the intensity of the wars &#8212; measured in human deaths &#8212; had the least.</p> <p>By looking at the big picture, the research supports what many experts figured, that "war is a major driver of wildlife population declines across Africa," said Kaitlyn Gaynor, an ecology researcher on war and wildlife at the University of California, Berkeley. She was not part of the study.</p> <p>Greg Carr, an American philanthropist and head of a nonprofit group working in and around Mozambique's Gorongosa National <a href="http://www.gorongosa.org/" type="external">Park</a> , said the findings are not surprising. The park's wildlife populations plunged during the country's civil war, but Carr attributes it more to poverty than war.</p> <p>"With or without war, poverty is the threat to wildlife in Africa going forward," Carr said in an email.</p> <p>Gorongosa is an example of how bad war is for wildlife, but also how quickly animals can recover, the researchers said.</p> <p>The civil war that ended in 1992 decimated the area with both rebel and government soldiers hunting "their way through the wildlife in the park," Daskin said. Species came close to "blinking out," but not quite. Now wildlife is back to 80 percent of prewar levels, Daskin said.</p> <p>"The effect of war on wildlife is bad," Pringle said. "But it's not apocalyptic."</p> <p>___</p> <p>AP reporter Christopher Torchia contributed to this report from London.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/borenbears" type="external">@borenbears</a> . His work can be found <a href="" type="internal">here</a> .</p>

African elephant, hippo, rhino populations shrink in wartime

https://apnews.com/amp/7af09be963e3494e878a74906fb1412d

2018-01-10

<p><a href="" type="internal" />There&#8217;s a saying that goes, &#8220;If you can&#8217;t win, cheat like hell&#8221; and it&#8217;s apparently the motto that the GOP has taken to heart across the country in their latest attempts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act.</p> <p>What does their newest attempt involve? Creating fake websites with misinformation that look like state insurance exchanges in order to confuse consumers trying to find out what their new insurance options are under Obamacare.</p> <p>First off we have Kentucky, where <a href="http://www.kyforward.com/our-health/2013/12/03/third-website-ordered-removed-deceptively-similar-to-states-health-insurance-exchange/" type="external">3 different websites</a> were set up to mislead people as well as collect their personal information to send harassing emails and phone calls:</p> <p>Attorney General Jack Conway said some consumers attempting to locate the official site through search engines were being deceptively steered to the kynect101.com website instead of kynect.ky.gov, where they were provided false information about their options under the federal Affordable Care Act, including being informed that there were no plans with federal subsidies available to offset a portion of their insurance premiums.</p> <p>The AG&#8217;s Office of Consumer Protection contacted the owners of the website on Nov. 26, demanding that the site be taken down. The letter also noted that kynect is a copyrighted term and that the copycat site infringed on the state&#8217;s copyrights.</p> <p /> <p>Why Kentucky? Kentucky is the currently the only Southern state that is participating fully in the Affordable Care Act and has had <a href="http://governor.ky.gov/healthierky/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">success</a> with their enrollment numbers. Even while the federal Healthcare.gov site had rollout issues, <a href="http://kynect.ky.gov" type="external">Kentucky&#8217;s site</a> only had <a href="http://www.kentucky.com/2013/10/21/2887763/kentucky-health-care-enrollment.html" type="external">minor glitches</a> when it was launched on October 1st, 2013 &#8211; and hasn&#8217;t had issues since. If you were running a sabotage campaign, why not run it in a state with a fully functional health insurance exchange site and (not coincidentally) a GOP Senator who is facing a battle for re-election both from Democrats as well as <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/mitch-mcconnell-2014-kentucky-senate-100-million" type="external">from within</a> his own party?</p> <p>Then there&#8217;s California with a website (coveringhealthcareca.com) which has a URL that resembles the state&#8217;s actual exchange web address (CoveredCa.com), but is used to only <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-underhanded-20131202,0,1592466.story#ixzz2mRhjoGVk" type="external">highlight criticisms</a> of the Affordable Care Act while doing nothing to actually inform people of their new options. Oh yeah &#8211; it was created by <a href="http://arc.asm.ca.gov/inc/article.aspx?id=256191" type="external">California Republicans</a> and paid for with California tax dollars. Why California? Just like Kentucky, California has a successful state exchange and people are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/22/heres-how-all-the-states-stack-up-on-obamacare-enrollment/" type="external">signing up</a>. How do you create confusion and fear and then redirect that back toward the President and his party in 2014 and beyond? Keep people from enrolling in the subsidized healthcare plans now available to them, or in <a href="" type="internal">the case</a> of my state and many others run by the GOP &#8211; block a Medicaid expansion that would benefit millions of people living near the poverty line.</p> <p>I guess when Congress has single-digit approval rating and the healthcare law you opposed is slowly beginning to show its worth, perhaps your only choice is to cheat &#8211; and cheat like hell.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Rick Scott Being Mean-Spirited and Hypocritical about Obamacare? Say It Ain't So!</a></p> <p><a href="" type="internal">House Republicans Mask Obamacare Sabotage in Bill that Would Extend Existing Policies</a></p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Georgia Republican Brags About Sabotaging Obamacare as Governor Gets Paid by Health Care Industry</a></p> <p>0 Facebook comments</p>

The Newest GOP Tactic Against Obamacare? Fake Websites

http://forwardprogressives.com/the-newest-gop-tactic-against-obamacare-fake-websites/

2013-12-04

<p>A unanimous Supreme Court says investors can't sue companies for making misleading statements of opinion prior to a public stock offering just because those statements ultimately turn out to be wrong.</p> <p>But the ruling Tuesday said some opinions in registration documents might omit important facts that could mislead investors, giving them a right to sue for securities fraud.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The narrow ruling offered a limited victory to nursing home pharmacy Omnicare Inc., which was sued by investors who bought stock when it went public. A federal appeals court ruled that Omnicare offered "objectively false" opinions by saying it "believed" contracts with other companies were legal.</p> <p>The high court said that wasn't the right standard. The justices said lower courts must decide if Omnicare omitted facts that were material to investors.</p>

Supreme Court limits investor lawsuits over company comments that may be misleading

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/24/supreme-court-limits-investor-lawsuits-over-company-comments-that-may-be.html

2016-03-06

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) &#8212; State police have charged a 61-year-old New York woman with causing more than $350,000 in damage to artwork, antiques and other personal property at her ex-husband's home.</p> <p>Troopers say Ana Rockman, of Elmont, on Long Island, was charged Monday after surrendering herself to state police in Kingston.</p> <p>Police say in August 2015 they started investigating a burglary and the destruction of items in a home just outside the village of Woodstock. Troopers say someone had forced their way into the house and damaged expensive artwork, antiques, electronics, appliances, musical instruments and other personal items.</p> <p>Authorities say the home is owned by Rockman's ex-husband.</p> <p>She was arraigned in Woodstock and freed after posting $5,000 bail. A message left with her attorney wasn't returned.</p> <p><a href="#617c73db-279b-4cc5-9006-ef5e04a2e4ac" type="external">&#169; 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Police: Woman caused $350K in damage at ex-husband's home

https://abqjournal.com/1007537/police-woman-caused-350k-in-damage-at-ex-husbands-home.html

2017-05-23

<p /> <p>Lowe&#8217;s (NYSE:LOW) slightly missed Wall Street expectations for third-quarter earnings, despite 26% profit growth and stronger-than-expected sales.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The home improvement retailer raised its full-year view, calling for earnings of $2.15 a share and sales growth of 6%. Lowe&#8217;s previously expected $2.10 a share and 5% sales growth. Same-store sales are now projected to climb 5%, up from a prior estimate of 4.5%.</p> <p>In the latest quarter, Lowe&#8217;s net income climbed to $499 million from $396 a year earlier. Per-share earnings checked in at 47 cents versus 35 cents, falling short of estimates by a penny.</p> <p>Revenue jumped 7.3% to $12.96 billion, which beat calls for $12.72 billion.</p> <p>Comparable sales widened 6.2%, but Lowe&#8217;s continues to lag behind Home Depot (NYSE:HD). On Tuesday, the larger rival said its same-store sales were up 7.4% in the third period.</p> <p>Both retailers have benefited from an uptick in housing activity, which drives sales of tools, lumber, appliances and other products sold at the stores.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>CEO Robert A. Niblock said the home improvement industry is &#8220;poised for persisting growth in the fourth quarter and further acceleration in 2014.&#8221;</p> <p>Shares of Lowe&#8217;s slipped 3.9% to $48.47 in early trading, cutting into their 42% gain so far this year.</p>

Lowe’s 3Q Profit Misses But Sales Continue to Rise

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/11/20/lowes-posts-3q-profit-miss.html

2016-03-05

<p /> <p>Businesses trying to attract and retain employees with high-quality benefits shouldn't focus only on health care and vacation days, new research shows.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>A study by job and career site <a href="http://www.glassdoor.com" type="external">Glassdoor Opens a New Window.</a> revealed that more than 20 percent of employees think perks &#8212; like free food and drinks, casual dress codes and pet-friendly offices &#8212; are among the most important workplace benefits.</p> <p>Specifically, the research shows that <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3238-employees-want-nonfinancial-benefits-and-money.html" type="external">office perks Opens a New Window.</a> are more important to women than men, as well as to employees in certain regions of the country, like the Midwest and the South.</p> <p>Overall, more than 70 percent of workers rate medical coverage and holiday, <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4690-work-vacation-problems.html" type="external">vacation and sick time Opens a New Window.</a> as the two most important benefits employers offer.</p> <p>Glassdoor workplace and career expert Rusty Rueff said the research offers valuable insight into which benefits matter most to employees.</p> <p>"While it's no surprise to see that medical coverage is an important benefit to the majority of employees, some employers may find it interesting to note that office perks, like free food or pet-friendly offices, are valuable, particularly to those in the Midwest and South, where employees report greatest interest &#8212; likely because they do not receive as many perks as those in the West and Northeast," Rueff told BusinessNewsDaily. "Bottom line is, if employers are looking for ways to attract or retain employees as the employment market tightens, [the &amp;#160;study] sheds light on what employees want and what is top of mind."</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Other benefits employees view as valuable include <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4152-401k-plan.html" type="external">401(k), retirement and pension plans Opens a New Window.</a>; employee development training; wellness programs; and tuition reimbursement.</p> <p>When it comes to job security, employees have mixed opinions, the research shows. While more than 20 percent of employees are concerned about being laid off in the next six months, more than 40 percent are confident in their ability to find another job that fits their skill sets.</p> <p>Rueff said employers should be aware that their employees are starting to feel better about their chances of finding a job elsewhere than they are about their current employment situation.</p> <p>"Two in five employees feel they could find a job matched to their experience and compensation levels in the next six months &#8212; the highest confidence reported in nearly four years," Rueff <a href="http://#_msocom_2" type="external">Opens a New Window.</a>said. There is still some concern that another shoe could drop, as one in five employees are concerned they could be laid off &#8212; a high since the second quarter of 2011."</p> <p>He said these are important warning signs for employers to note as the job market steadily improves.</p> <p>The study was based on surveys of nearly 1,200 full-time, part-time and self-employed workers.</p> <p>Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @ <a href="http://www.twitter.com/cbrooks76" type="external">cbrooks76</a> or BusinessNewsDaily @ <a href="http://twitter.com/BNDarticles" type="external">BNDarticles Opens a New Window.</a>. We're also on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/BusinessNewsDaily" type="external">Facebook</a> &amp;amp; <a href="https://plus.google.com/113390396142026041164/posts" type="external">Google+ Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

The Top Job Benefits For Retaining Workers

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/07/10/top-job-benefits-for-retaining-workers.html

2016-03-23

<p>EIGHT SEASONS of the HBO show&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;ended on a predictably happy note on September 11. All four of the guys (Vince,&amp;#160;Eric, &#8220;Drama&#8221; and Turtle) flew off in private jets&#8211;rich and happy&#8211;into the sunset. Even Ari, the agent, seemed happy in self-imposed exile on an Italian villa, with his wife by his side. Stay tuned for a probableEntourage&amp;#160;movie that will bring the whole gang&amp;#160;back together.</p> <p>One of the longest-running shows on television during the last decade,&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;followed the&amp;#160;antics of four working-class friends from Queens, N.Y., who try to &#8220;make it&#8221; in Hollywood.&amp;#160;There&#8217;s Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier), the superstar; his older brother, Johnny Chase, also known&amp;#160;as &#8220;Drama&#8221; (Kevin Dillon), the mediocre actor; Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), Vince&#8217;s gopher; and Eric,&amp;#160;or &#8220;E&#8221; (Kevin Connolly), Vince&#8217;s manager.</p> <p>They spend a lot of their time sparring and partying with Vince&#8217;s Hollywood super-agent Ari Gold&amp;#160;(Jeremy Piven), who resents competing with Eric for Vince&#8217;s attention. Women are largely&amp;#160;peripheral to the show, appearing as sexual conquests, bossy public relations managers, or&amp;#160;unsympathetic girlfriends or wives who don&#8217;t &#8220;get&#8221; the friendship between the boys.</p> <p>Entourage&amp;#160;was inspired by the real-life early experiences of the Boston-born and raised actor Mark Wahlberg, one of the show&#8217;s&amp;#160;producers. The series attempted to be a satire on Hollywood from the vantage point of &#8220;regular&#8221; guys and a study of &#8220;male&amp;#160;friendship.&#8221;</p> <p>How did it do? There&#8217;s little doubt that&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;could be hilariously funny and entertaining, but the show was also marred from&amp;#160;the beginning by an unrelenting sexism and homophobia, and riddled with ethnic slurs that were all played for laughs. There were&amp;#160;many times when it was just hard to watch. But the real selling point of the show was a highly unrealistic if not almost juvenile&amp;#160;concept of &#8220;friendship.&#8221;</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>RIGHT FROM the beginning, I thought there was something off about the four friends from Queens. They seemed to be straight&amp;#160;out of central casting&#8211;fairly bland, stock-in-trade characters, products more of the imagination (or lack of imagination) of&amp;#160;Hollywood writers and producers than of the real world.</p> <p>Here were four guys from New York who didn&#8217;t seem to know anyone impacted by September 11. They didn&#8217;t know or have any&amp;#160;relatives who were sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, or know anyone who returned home sick, dead or disabled. The wrenching&amp;#160;economic crisis that has so devastated people&#8217;s lives was only worth a fleeting mention in the last season.</p> <p>They&#8217;re just a bunch of &#8220;happy-go-lucky guys&#8221; with few cares in the world. This was particularly true of Vince Chase. Despite being&amp;#160;raised by a single mother (his father disappeared years ago), he seemed untouched by the real world. He has no past and few&amp;#160;friends or relatives beyond his entourage.</p> <p>This is in sharp contrast to Wahlberg&#8211;whose troubled early life is not a secret&#8211;and who inspired the creation of the Chase&amp;#160;character. Wahlberg was a violent racist bigot as a teenager. When he was 15, he harassed a group of Black school children on a&amp;#160;field trip by throwing rocks and shouting racial slurs.</p> <p>A year later, he attacked two middle-aged Vietnamese men on the street, clubbing one of them unconscious while shouting that he&amp;#160;was a &#8220;Vietnam fucking shit.&#8221; Wahlberg left the other man permanently blind in one eye. He was charged with attempted murder,&amp;#160;but pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to two years in prison. He did 45 days before being released&#8211;he got off easy.</p> <p>The young Wahlberg was not a likeable guy, but in the 25 years since, he has morphed into a different person.</p> <p>It was decided early on by the producers of&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;that the Vince Chase character wasn&#8217;t going to have a criminal record.&amp;#160;Whether it would have even hinted at Wahlberg&#8217;s real record, I couldn&#8217;t say, but if it did, the Vince Chase character would have&amp;#160;been a far more interesting person.</p> <p>Entourage&amp;#160;could have been about an aspiring actor coming to terms with his racism and that of his agent Ari Gold. One of our&amp;#160;earliest introductions to Gold was driving his car, and he shouts out the window &#8220;Do they drive that way in Tiananmen Square&#8211;BITCH!&#8221; Instead, Vince Chase is an ambitious but mediocre actor and narcissist&#8211;a person who doesn&#8217;t have an opinion about the&amp;#160;world except what he may want for lunch.</p> <p>The Ari Gold character was modeled on the real-life Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel, one of the most notorious and powerful&amp;#160;figures in Hollywood as well as the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Ari Emanuel settled a 2002 lawsuit by one his&amp;#160;employees for $2.25 million for making racist and antigay remarks in the workplace, and stopped her from sending a script about&amp;#160;the Navy SEALs to African American actor Wesley Snipes, declaring, &#8220;That is the dumbest thing I&#8217;ve ever heard. Everyone knows&amp;#160;that Blacks don&#8217;t swim.&#8221;</p> <p>Ari Gold was the guy you love to hate because underneath all of the money-grubbing scheming and power plays, he was suppose to&amp;#160;have a heart of gold. The truth is that we should just hate him. It was only Jeremy Piven&#8217;s superior comic acting skills that made&amp;#160;Gold bearable to watch. Gold&#8217;s special punching bag is Lloyd Lee (played by Korean-American actor Rex Lee), the only openly gay&amp;#160;regular character on&amp;#160;Entourage, who was subject to a constant tirade of antigay abuse and ethnic slurs.</p> <p>The abuse that Lloyd suffered onscreen was matched by off-camera abuse on the set from the crew. In 2009, Lee went public and&amp;#160;spoke out about the derisive jokes aimed at his sexuality and ethnicity, saying, &#8220;I try not to let it bother me.&#8221;&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;creator&amp;#160;Doug Ellin claimed that he was &#8220;shocked and horrified&#8221; to learn this and promised act swiftly action to deal with it. &#8220;It&#8217;s not&amp;#160;something condoned or acceptable,&#8221; Ellin said.</p> <p>But if antigay and ethnic slurs are okay on onscreen, is it a surprise that it blows back off screen? To make matters worse, the final&amp;#160;season of&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;featured in a recurring role Andrew Dice Clay, the same old misogynist ignoramus, who was banned for 20&amp;#160;years from MTV.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>BUT&amp;#160;ENTOURAGE&amp;#160;was also supposed to be story about the enduring friendship of four guys through the treacherous waters of&amp;#160;Hollywood&#8211;and, for three of them, the end of their youth. The Hollywood myth of friendship is that it is something that is both&amp;#160;mystical and fixed at the same time.</p> <p>&#8220;We will always be friends&#8221; is one of Hollywood&#8217;s more overused lines. Friendship, however, is far more complex than that. Despite&amp;#160;all of the experiences and changes that a person goes through in life&#8211;especially from the ages of 20 to 30&#8211;does one really believe&amp;#160;that childhood friendships endure as opposed to other kinds of friendships or relationships? That may explain why there was so&amp;#160;little to zero character development during the eight seasons of&amp;#160;Entourage. One could skip many episodes or even seasons of the&amp;#160;show, and find so little was different.</p> <p>Why was&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;so popular? Part of it, I think, did have to do with looking at Hollywood through the eyes and experience of&amp;#160;supposedly regular people. Many people who watched the show saw part of themselves and their friends in the show&#8217;s characters.</p> <p>During the show&#8217;s run, I asked a lot people who watched it what they liked about it, and many would say that many of the character&amp;#160;reminded them of the people they grew up with. It is also tapped into one of those &#8220;what if&#8221; questions in the back of people&#8217;s minds.&amp;#160;What if my friends and me ended up in Hollywood? What would we do?</p> <p>While this was the hook,&amp;#160;Entourage&amp;#160;was a throwback in many ways. A raunch culture of sexism and homophobia has been&amp;#160;mainstream for a long time in the U.S., and I can&#8217;t help but think that was also part of its appeal. Hopefully, the next version of&amp;#160;Entouragewill have no tolerance for bigotry&#8211;that would make it a more interesting show.</p> <p>Joe Allen&amp;#160;is the author of&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">People Wasn&#8217;t Made to Burn: A True Story of Race, Murder, and Justice in Chicago</a>, about the 1947 Hickman case, and&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931859493/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost</a>, a history of the Vietnam era from an unapologetically antiwar standpoint. He is also a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review.</p>

The Hollywood Myth of Male Bonding

https://counterpunch.org/2011/09/23/the-hollywood-myth-of-male-bonding/

2011-09-23

<p /> <p>There is nothing about Mukanday Moore&#8217;s business story that doesn&#8217;t make me feel all is right with the world.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>A stay-at-home mother turned entrepreneur, she runs <a href="http://www.neworleanswinecake.com/" type="external">Miss Bea&#8217;s New Orleans Wine Cake Opens a New Window.</a>, part cake business and part sustaining a love connection with the grandmother who lived in her home growing up.</p> <p>When I ask Moore in our recent interview what she finds satisfying about starting this business prompted partly because her youngest of three children is now 12 years old and she has a bit more time, she laughs from a place that is organic and melodic and joyful.</p> <p>&#8220;The aroma in my kitchen,&#8221; she says. Then, upon further thought, adds, &#8220;This is a vehicle for me to just be as bold and vivacious as I want to. As I am.&#8221;</p> <p>Her personality is the piece that comes in handy when she is working her regular table--and selling it out -- at the local farmers&#8217; market in Lexington, Va. Her ability to interact and engage is a dynamic complement to the quality product she is offering.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>&#8220;Even if they take a sample and a business card, that&#8217;s cool,&#8221; Moore says.</p> <p>So there is the farmers&#8217; market component of her business and, since last spring, a web-based mail order component that has been steady since she launched.</p> <p>&#8220;[Wine cake] presents like a simple pound cake,&#8221; Moore says. &#8220;But the taste is a sophisticated, grownup one.&#8221;</p> <p>When I ask her how this all went from hobby to business in the last couple of years, Moore begins by talking about the nest becoming closer to empty and how her children&#8217;s paths were becoming more clear. It was time to think about hers. She was at a crossroads.</p> <p>&#8220;I thought, what am I supposed to do with these talents I have?&#8221; she says.</p> <p>Passionate about gardening, knitting, dancing and cooking, Moore has also been a kundalini teacher for 13 years and currently teaches three classes a week. While she had been enjoying baking wine cakes primarily for the holidays, the demand had grown enough where she sat up and paid attention.</p> <p>&#8220;I wondered, which one should I pick and develop?&#8221; she says. &#8220;I sat in patience and meditation every day and asked for guidance.&#8221;</p> <p>The answer came &#8211; cake. Do it more, and do it bigger.</p> <p>After taking care of holiday orders, Moore used down time in January 2009 to begin voraciously researching marketing. She signed up for a &#8220;slew&#8221; of telemarketing classes and one happened to be with an entrepreneurial success coach.</p> <p>&#8220;I was mesmerized by her language,&#8221; Moore says. &#8220;I did her 12-week program and then I let things sit.&#8221;</p> <p>Moore had also sent the coach a wine cake and the following January she found out just how much she&#8217;d liked it.</p> <p>&#8220;I call it the day the universe called my cell phone,&#8221; Moore says. &#8220;She had her assistant call and order 125 wine cake cupcakes for goody bags for an event at the end of February. I said yes.&#8221;</p> <p>Again, Moore laughs that laugh, the kind that comes from someone who knows she&#8217;s walking through doors that are flying open. She got a confidence boost from the call and signed up for the coach&#8217;s one-year program, still in progress.</p> <p>&#8220;I had all those self doubts,&#8221; Moore says. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t go to college. What do I know about business? I&#8217;m a stay-at-home mom, how can I manage advertising?&#8221;</p> <p>But by educating herself and being alert to signs of encouragement that she stay her course, she started to realize how her experience as a stay-at-home mother was a valuable resource in areas like time management, logistics, multi-tasking and even negotiating. With a supportive husband and children behind her, she started to see it wasn&#8217;t either/or, but a blending of her two worlds. Plus, an important insight showed itself.</p> <p>&#8220;As simple as this cake is, it is of value,&#8221; Moore says.</p> <p>Moore knows value or, shall we say, values. There is a special page on her website about sending a cake to thank someone, but it goes into great, lovely detail about the benefits and impact of gratitude. The tagline for the business &#8211; The cake infused with Spirit &#8211; was carefully chosen to reflect that there is wine in the cake but also that there is a process involved in acknowledging her grandmother&#8217;s presence and gift of the cake.</p> <p>&#8220;Every time I set to baking, I invoke my honoring love for her,&#8221; Moore says. &#8220;Therefore, my loving intentions are infusing the cakes. That's part of the &#8216;essence&#8217; of the Miss Bea&#8217;s New Orleans Wine Cake, the feeling of love, the prana of grandmotherly love. It fills people when they enjoy and share this cake.&#8221;</p> <p>When I inquire about where she sees her business five years from now, Moore is clear and sure footed in response.</p> <p>&#8220;Where I live in mid-southern Virginia, there is a large focus on the local economy and local agriculture systems,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I have a vision of generating enough business that I need a small factory. I&#8217;d like to keep it in a rural area, focusing on the economy and well-being of rural people. I can set up a business wherever a <a href="" type="internal">FedEx</a> truck can reach me &#8230; and use the Internet.&#8221;</p> <p>Bold and vivacious. A family tradition continues. The holidays, followed by Mardi Gras, and so on, with birthdays in between.</p> <p>&#8220;There&#8217;s always an opportunity to enjoy cake,&#8221; Moore says.</p> <p>And she&#8217;s happy to provide it.</p> <p>Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is <a href="http://www.nancola.com" type="external">www.nancola.com Opens a New Window.</a> and you can follow her on <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> @nancola. Please direct all questions/comments to <a href="http://mailto:FOXGamePlan@gmail.com" type="external">FOXGamePlan@gmail.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Ever Ask Yourself What You're Supposed to do With Your Talents?

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/12/09/selling-cakes-infused-with-spirit.html

2016-03-04

<p>The chairman of the Republican National Committee did a surprisingly good job <a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/14.html#a8707" type="external">ducking and parrying the jabs</a> that the &#8220;Daily Show&#8221; host launched at him over the Bush administration&#8217;s record of lies and deceit. (Stewart got in a few zingers, but Mehlman is as good as they come.)</p> <p>Crooks and Liars:</p> <p>Stewart: You&#8217;re the guy&#8211;I have sympathy for you because you&#8217;re the guy who has to spray perfume on these turds. You know what I mean? You&#8217;re the guy that has to go out and like no matter what (garbled) It&#8217;s not an easy job. I mean what happened to these guys&#8230;</p> <p><a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/14.html#a8707" type="external">Link</a></p> <p />

Ken Mehlman Holds His Own Against Jon Stewart

https://truthdig.com/articles/ken-mehlman-holds-his-own-against-jon-stewart/

2006-06-14

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>NEW YORK &#8212; The latest on sexual-harassment allegations at Fox News (all times local):</p> <p>12:20 p.m.</p> <p>Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s latest book has a few words on how men should treat women.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8220;Old School,&#8221; published last week and in the top 10 on Amazon.com&#8217;s best-seller list, includes a section titled &#8220;No means no&#8221; and urged those on dates to abide &#8220;the Old School tenets of respect and responsibility.&#8221;</p> <p>The book came out around the time of a New York Times report that five women were paid $13 million to settle allegations O&#8217;Reilly mistreated them. The Fox News host, whose show has been abandoned by dozens of advertisers, hasn&#8217;t admitted any wrongdoing. His defenders include President Donald Trump.</p> <p>11:30 a.m.</p> <p>The former anchor whose sexual harassment lawsuit led to the firing of Fox News chief Roger Ailes says harassment is pervasive and women have to all agree that &#8220;we&#8217;re not going to take it anymore.&#8221;</p> <p>Gretchen Carlson said Thursday that thousands of women have shared their stories with her since her lawsuit became public last summer.</p> <p>Carlson and the attorney who represented her, Nancy Erika Smith, spoke at the Women in the World conference in New York City.</p> <p>Smith criticized President Donald Trump for defending Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly from new allegations of sexual harassment. She said Trump &#8220;just called a bunch of women liars,&#8221; adding that&#8217;s designed &#8220;to shut us up.&#8221;</p> <p>Fox News has not responded to comment requests.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>___</p> <p>8:45 a.m.</p> <p>U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters says Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly &#8220;needs to go to jail&#8221; over sexual harassment allegations.</p> <p>The Democratic congresswoman from California told MSNBC&#8217;s Chris Hayes during a Wednesday appearance that it&#8217;s &#8220;all catching up with O&#8217;Reilly&#8221; and described the situation at Fox News as a &#8220;sexual harassment enterprise.&#8221; The New York Times has reported that five women were paid $13 million to settle allegations O&#8217;Reilly mistreated them. O&#8217;Reilly hasn&#8217;t admitted any wrongdoing.</p> <p>Waters also criticized President Donald Trump for defending the Fox News star, saying his words of support are &#8220;coming out of the mouth of someone who has said some terrible things about women.&#8221; She calls O&#8217;Reilly and Trump &#8220;two of a kind.&#8221;</p> <p>O&#8217;Reilly apologized last week for a glib remark about Waters&#8217; hair.</p> <p>Fox News didn&#8217;t immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>

O’Reilly book offers tips on how to treat women

https://abqjournal.com/983785/the-latest-former-fox-anchor-harassment-is-pervasive.html

2017-04-06

<p>With just over two weeks until the California primary, statewide campaigns for Senate, Assembly and Congress are accelerating at full speed, preparing for what will likely be a very close election.</p> <p>Of particular interest is Senate District 27,&amp;#160;a seat currently held by Republican&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Tony Strickland</a>.&amp;#160;Strickland, however, has decided not to run in the district and has instead opted for a run in the incumbent-free&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Congressional District 26</a>.</p> <p>This leaves the race open to Democrat Fran Pavley and Republican Todd Zink, who are the sole competitors in the district.</p> <p>Known for her environmental work, Pavley&amp;#160;has served three terms in the State Assembly and in 2008 was elected Senator of California&#8217;s 23rd district,&amp;#160;encompassing&amp;#160;parts of Los Angeles and Ventura County.&amp;#160;Zink, on the other hand, is a former Marine with a background in public service and safety. The first line on his campaign website reads &#8220;Sacramento is broken, and it needs to be fixed,&#8221; a message resonating deeply with voters tired of partisan politics.</p> <p>Because this seat is currently held by a Republican, it would be a big win for Democrats, who are tirelessly fighting for the 27 member seats they need to maintain a majority. Reversely, it would produce a net loss for Republicans, forcing the party to snatch a Senate seat from a Democratic district elsewhere.</p> <p>Amid talk of a possible run in the district, former Assembly Speaker&amp;#160;Bob Hertzberg described the district:</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a moderate district. It&#8217;s a district with a lot of small business that are interested in the jobs and the economy.&#8221;</p> <p>So while there are only two candidates vying for this seat, both of which will surely advance to November, the role of independent voters makes this race interesting.&amp;#160;In order to beat Pavley in the general election, Zink will have to win the majority of Decline to State votes in November, a strategy he must start now. If he doesn&#8217;t begin to attract the DTS vote now, he will not have the resources to target them in November.</p> <p>For Zink, money will be an obstacle. Pavley, as the incumbent, has a big advantage in fundraising, with almost $694,931 on hand (reports&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/districts/SD27/" type="external">Around the Capitol</a>).</p> <p>Voter registration presents another obstacle for Southern California Republican, with roughly 35% of the district registered Republican. In comparison, 41% of voters have registered as Democrats and 20% are without a party affiliation. This 6 point lead by Democrats makes the &#8220;No Party Preference&#8221; voters absolutely crucial for Republicans if they want to hang on to this seat.</p> <p>The pressure mounted on the Democratic Party to reach the magic number 27 will lead to a fierce battle for the independent vote, one that will force both candidates to step outside their party affiliation in order to appeal to the independent voice.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

The Battle for CA Senate District 27

https://ivn.us/2012/05/18/the-battle-for-ca-senate-district-27/

2012-05-18

<p /> <p>Socially-conscious adults helping to create global citizens in our youth. Yes, I&#8217;ll take a dose of that this holiday season.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Check it out.</p> <p>Students at Central Cabarrus High School in Concord, N.C., created a chain reaction of kindness. It&#8217;s chronicled in a video that shows their chain reaction team and plan -- visiting assisted living centers, being taught by the residents there to knit and crochet, using the panels they were creating to beautify a park for special needs children, and then throwing a party for those children.</p> <p>Meanwhile, second graders at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary in Lexington, Ky., were enthusiastically collecting pull tabs from beverage cans for Ronald McDonald House. And Arrowhead Elementary School in Broken Arrow, Okla., executed &#8220;Operation Get Connected, Honoring Our Heroes&#8221; by assembling care packages for men and women in the military and creating a blog about it.</p> <p>Those schools and five more were just awarded $25,000 each for technology through a program called <a href="http://schoolswin.windstream.com/post/1084" type="external">Classroom Connections Opens a New Window.</a>-- part of SchoolsWIN -- courtesy of Windstream, one of the largest providers of telecommunications services in rural communities in the U.S.</p> <p>The idea of SchoolsWIN was to give away $250,000 to schools, so a challenge was issued in the beginning of the school year. <a href="http://skadaddlemedia.com/" type="external">Skadaddle Media, Opens a New Window.</a> a Sausalito-based creative development studio, created a campaign with two key elements. The first suggested that schools in Windstream areas use email, <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Facebook</a> to request that the Classroom Caravan visit their school; those picked received $1,000 cash, delivered in person.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The second component stemmed from a Classroom Connections program that was already in place, but was tweaked by Skadaddle. Originally, schools posted videos asking for $25,000 in tech upgrades. The new model called for a community service piece and a video about how they executed it.</p> <p>&#8220;We wanted them to own it and come up with it instead of it being, &#8216;OK kids, we&#8217;re going to the food bank,&#8217;&#8221; said Skadaddle Media co-founder Jon Wank in our recent interview. &#8220;This is theirs.&#8221;</p> <p>That ownership is the compelling thread running through the eight videos that distinguished themselves from the pack of over 200 entrants. A team at Windstream narrowed it to 30, but from there the finalists came down to voting. In addition to the three mentioned above, these schools earned a $25,000 tech upgrade through their creative giving: George Walton Academy in Monroe, Ga.; Irving Middle in Lincoln, Neb.; Lakeside Intermediate in Ashtabula, Ohio; Newton Christian in Newton, Iowa; and West Fork Middle in West Fork, Ark.</p> <p>What&#8217;s striking is not just the community service provided by the students, but the planning of that service and the camaraderie that came with it. In addition, one can&#8217;t help but be reminded of, and appreciative of, quality teachers as they shepherded the students and participated themselves.</p> <p>&#8220;We added community service for a higher level of impact,&#8221; Wank said. &#8220;We wanted them to show us what&#8217;s important to them.&#8221;</p> <p>For example, the aforementioned chain reaction of kindness was important to students at Central Cabarrus High. It was part of <a href="http://www.rachelschallenge.org/" type="external">Rachel&#8217;s Challenge Opens a New Window.</a>, a program named for Rachel Scott, the first student killed at <a href="" type="internal">Columbine</a> High on April 20, 1999; its mission is to &#8220;inspire, equip and empower every person to create a permanent positive culture change in their school, business and community by starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion.&#8221; It is a nationwide, ongoing program.</p> <p>The spirit of that melded perfectly with the Classroom Connections challenge for community service.</p> <p>&#8220;To me, it was amazing how much emotion was in the videos, how much personality,&#8221; Wank said, noting that about 170 of them were submitted in the last month. &#8220;These are the lessons we are teaching our kids. I was a lot more touched than I anticipated.&#8221;</p> <p>So touched, in fact, that he&#8217;s engaged his 6-year-old twin daughters in the idea of coming up with a way to give back in the community. Who would they want to help? How can they do it?</p> <p>&#8220;We had a meeting the other day about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We came up with helping animals.&#8221;</p> <p>That would be a fine addition to a list that already includes helping the elderly, special needs children, servicemen and women, the Special Olympics, Ronald McDonald House, disabled adults, and cleanup at parks and beaches.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s amazing, the diversity of projects,&#8221; Wank said.</p> <p>Nice way to kick start a holiday season. Or any season, for that matter.</p> <p>Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is <a href="http://www.nancola.com" type="external">www.nancola.com Opens a New Window.</a> and you can follow her on Twitter @nancola. Please direct all questions/comments to <a href="http://mailto:FOXGamePlan@gmail.com" type="external">FOXGamePlan@gmail.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>

Schools Getting High Marks for Social Consciousness

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/11/30/schools-getting-high-marks-for-social-consciousness.html

2016-03-04

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>RE LETTER &#8220;Impeach Obama over prisoner swap&#8221;</p> <p>I can see why Charles Johnson wants to impeach President Obama for trading five terrorists to the enemy. Really. That incompetent Obama probably should have done like Ronald Reagan and traded arms instead.</p> <p>CHRIS MART&#237;N</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Albuquerque</p> <p /> <p>Obama loyalist questions Mideast policy</p> <p>THINGS ARE bad when even the sycophants are critical of the president. Richard Cohen, one of the Journal&#8217;s most unabashedly loyal Obama columnists, who never criticizes the White House nor compliments the opposition, actually broke with his own protocol by presenting some lukewarm criticism of Obama regarding his lack of Middle East policy.</p> <p>Of course, to get there he had to first endorse Obamacare, criticize the response to the Bergdahl fiasco and blame as much as he could on Obama&#8217;s White House predecessor. Then, with his loyalist bases covered, and in a significant departure from his repetitive pro-Obama views, (he) actually suggested that he didn&#8217;t know what the president&#8217;s Middle East policy was and that some of the responsibility for the current situation, should be placed &#8220;where the buck stops.&#8221; Wow, when that happens things must really be dire.</p> <p>MICHAEL B. STERN</p> <p>Bernalillo</p> <p>Doctor waits not just a problem for vets</p> <p>I&#8217;VE HEARD over and over again about how disappointed we all are about the fact that veterans have to wait for months to see a doctor. Now it&#8217;s even being blamed on Obamacare. Appointment wait times are nothing new. It is part of our culture. We, not only veterans, have to at times wait several months to get an appointment.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>I am very grateful to the veterans who served our country and some died for our freedoms, but we need to tell our politicians not to use this as a jumping board for their political gains. They should be looking at the entire health care system to make it better for all of us. So all of us can get in to see a doctor more timely.</p> <p>It is a country-wide problem, not just a VA Hospital problem. The government should be providing financial assistance to help more students become health care providers. N.M. alone is about 240 primary care providers below where we need to be to reduce wait times, to see more patients in a clinic (or) office instead of the emergency room.</p> <p>So providing a benefit where VA patients can go to other hospitals is not the solution. Once they go to other clinics or doctors&#8217; offices they too will find out how long the waits are there, too.</p> <p>J. CIPRIANO LUCERO</p> <p>Albuquerque</p> <p /> <p>Grateful for dedicated VA doctors, staff</p> <p>RE: Dan Shelton&#8217;s op-ed &#8220;VA does good work, but has become overwhelmed&#8221; is right on the mark.</p> <p>I&#8217;m a Vietnam combat veteran who is grateful for the excellent care I have received at the Albuquerque VA Hospital &#8211; and the VA hospitals in Tucson and Fort Wayne. Congress is now about to approve billions of dollars to fix the shortage of doctors, nurses and facilities for the VA system &#8212; and that proves Congress admits it has been underfunding the VA even while blowing VA problems out of proportion for political reasons.</p> <p>I couldn&#8217;t afford my medical care through the private hospital system. But the VA came to my rescue and has taken care of me for several years. Every doctor and nurse I&#8217;ve met in VA hospitals has shown a special devotion to serving veterans. They treat privates right alongside generals.</p> <p>That&#8217;s true of the staff, too. Once, when I was having trouble breathing while holding onto a rail in an Albuquerque VA Hospital corridor, two office employees stopped within seconds to ask if I needed help and then escorted me to the emergency room.</p> <p>Some supervisors in Phoenix might have gone rogue. But the Albuquerque VA is filled with dedicated and caring doctors, nurses, and staffers.</p> <p>And Dan Shelton is right. His friend and all other veterans who died of their wounds, even if decades later, deserve special honor.</p> <p>DENNIS HERRICK</p> <p>Rio Rancho</p> <p /> <p>Paleontological, not &#8216;archaeological gem&#8217;</p> <p>RE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL MASTODONS?</p> <p>From <a href="http://Dictionary.Reference.com" type="external">Dictionary.Reference.com</a>:</p> <p>Archaeology: The scientific study of historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures.</p> <p>Paleontology: The science of the forms of life existing in former geologic periods/</p> <p>On page A1 of the June 13 edition of the Journal, your caption for the photo of the prehistoric elephant skull at Elephant Butte was incorrect. It was a paleontological gem, not an archaeological one.</p> <p>Peace.</p> <p>ADELE E. ZIMMERMANN</p> <p>Embudo</p> <p /> <p>Time for public input on Cibola Forest</p> <p>AS A RESIDENT of Los Lunas, I am able to visit and enjoy the Cibola National Forest every week. I love to hike up the Pino Trail to the spring, where I have seen a hummingbird fly down and drink out of it. My husband and I have seen different kinds of snakes, a bear in the distance and strawberries as well as bountiful flowers this year. We have seen many hikers whenever we hike up there, some from other countries such as Ireland and Sweden, so we know we are not alone in enjoying this area.</p> <p>Many folks in our area do not realize that the Cibola National Forest&#8217;s future &#8211; how it will be managed and protected for the next 20 years &#8211; will be determined by planning decisions the Forest Service makes in the next few months. The Forest Service has asked to hear from us about our needs concerning safeguarding wildlife, water quality, special places and high quality recreation. The new plans need to reflect the needs and interests of our communities.</p> <p>Please join me in attending a public meeting for the Cibola Forest on Thursday from 6 p.m. &#8212; 9 p.m. at the UNM Continuing Education Bldg., Room C, 1634 University Blvd. NE in Albuquerque.</p> <p>The forest belongs to all of us and we can all help safeguard it.</p> <p>PATRICIA DUNCAN</p> <p>Los Lunas</p> <p /> <p>Christian jailed in Sudan needs rescue</p> <p>MERIAM IBRAHIM is jailed in Sudan for professing her faith. She is a Christian! She is married to a U.S. citizen and has two children, a boy of 2 and a 1-month-old baby girl. She is committed to her faith even if it means death, as this is her sentence.</p> <p>I ask, where in this Christian nation are the leaders of our churches, why are they not exhorting their congregations to speak out &#8211; email, call (their) representatives, the White House &#8211; to demand the release of this woman. How as Christians can we be so indifferent to a fellow Christian. Our voices should be so loud as to break the prison bars. Please get up and put on the armor God has given you. Demand her release before she dies there in that ungodly prison.</p> <p>JOANNE MELCHER</p> <p>Tularosa</p> <p /> <p>Martinez education reforms are working</p> <p>A RECENT STUDY showed that graduation rates have increased more in New Mexico than in any other state. I can think of no better proof that &#8211; despite what naysayers assert &#8211; Gov. Susana Martinez&#8217;s education reforms are working. By improving education, Martinez is creating a better future for our kids and our state. With Martinez in the Roundhouse, I feel our state government focuses on real problems and solves them.</p> <p>JIM LEVESQUE</p> <p>Albuquerque</p> <p /> <p>Gov.&#8217;s work in NM deserves appreciation</p> <p>IN A RECENT column, Ned Cantwell unfairly slammed Gov. Susana Martinez.</p> <p>What he failed to mention, however, is that Martinez has begun to move our state forward from the days of Bill Richardson. She eliminated the deficit without cutting classroom spending &#8211; and without raising taxes. She has even managed to cut taxes 24 times, helping small businesses create jobs and diversify our economy. Martinez&#8217;s economic policies are beginning to build a private sector economy that will end our reliance on Washington.</p> <p>She has been a breath of fresh air to New Mexico compared to the mess she had to attempt to straighten out. She has done good work here that should be appreciated, not slammed.</p> <p>Furthermore, her education reforms are preparing New Mexico&#8217;s kids for the future. They have already brought increased reading proficiency and a meteoric rise in graduation rates.</p> <p>Governor Martinez is leading us into a better future and we need to support her.</p> <p>RON ROSS</p> <p>Albuquerque</p> <p /> <p>PED responsible for faulty teacher evals</p> <p>AS A TEACHER, the slew of stories about the flawed teacher evaluation system is of great interest to me. Clearly this system was rushed and done poorly. There is little reason to believe the results &#8211; even when revised.</p> <p>In every story the Public Education Department is very quick to blame the districts for bad data. As confusing as the system is, I have to believe the districts did their very best to comply with the plethora of PED requests.</p> <p>The PED is ultimately responsible for the evaluations. It&#8217;s time for the PED to admit that it did not perform its due diligence with the evaluations. If there were faulty or incomplete data, then the PED should have requested complete data before issuing the evaluations.</p> <p>This is a bit like doing one&#8217;s taxes on TurboTax. You run the error check before submitting it to the IRS. If there are problems, you take the responsibility to fix them. Don&#8217;t blame the bank for the missing 1099 form.</p> <p>The PED needs to put on its big-boy pants and admit that the responsibility for the accuracy of evaluations belongs solely to the PED. To use a term in the evaluation, I would rate the PED &#8220;ineffective.&#8221;</p> <p>STEVE BRUGGE</p> <p>Albuquerque</p> <p /> <p>NM should give fair deals to all ventures</p> <p>&#8220;State leaders need to be proactive in luring Tesla&#8221; and &#8220;NM&#8217;s Economy is worst in nation&#8221;</p> <p>How appropriate that these two articles appear on the same page. The first article reports that some leaders want to give a special deal to lure a particular business to the state while the other news item reports on our earlier efforts. Message to state government &#8211; stop giving special deals to special folks, give flat and reasonable rates to all. Quit trying to choose winners. You efforts at &#8220;home runs&#8221; have been strike outs. Rail Runner &#8211; a giveaway to government employees living in Albuquerque while the rest of us pay through the nose. The Space Port -millions spent and no flights, and special deals for movie makers while the rest of us struggle under a super complex and basically unfair tax system.</p> <p>MICHAEL DALY</p> <p>Gallup</p> <p /> <p>Focus on fixing NM&#8217;s low-rated economy</p> <p>SO AREA DEVELOPMENT magazine that rates cities&#8217; economic potential has slammed Albuquerque (Journal, June 14) as well all of our other major towns as among the worst places to start or expand a business. Well, this was no news flash to most of us out here.</p> <p>New Mexico is a place that is good for retirees from other states, government workers, government retirees, people whose businesses thrive on government contracts and anyone else who otherwise receives a government check. Now, I have mentioned a lot of categories here but honestly it is not a majority of New Mexicans. It is a significant minority of people with enough money and influence to stop any progress in New Mexico from happening.</p> <p>Businesses have been unable to expand for decades and their employees, for the most part, remain stuck at minimum wage, or a little above that. Even those who rode the lucrative wave of the tech industry in New Mexico are scrambling now.</p> <p>However, if you bring this up as an issue, our local spoken media and our politicians begin to extol the beauty of our mountains and deserts and the excitement of the balloon fiesta. The average New Mexican will stick his head in the sand when New Mexico&#8217;s economic deficiencies are mentioned. Some, as I found out, will get downright mad at you for thinking that we have problems. No one, however, will say, &#8220;What do we do to fix it?&#8221;</p> <p>That is why this state is emptying itself of businesses and employees and of college grads who catch the first train out of here they can get a ticket on. The rest of you, who don&#8217;t have to make a living, can sit on your patios and gawk at the mountains and wait for the balloon fiesta to roll around.</p> <p>Forbes magazine said a couple of years ago that New Mexico was a state in a death spiral. New Mexicans laughed and scoffed. But Forbes was right. All that is left to do with New Mexico&#8217;s economy, unless we wake up and get busy, is to throw the dirt in over it and plant the headstone.</p> <p>There is an election coming up. I will vote for the person who can show me how they are going to fix this and how they are going to get New Mexicans involved in fixing it. Either we dig in or we get buried &#8211; or we catch that train outta town.</p> <p>ALFRED V. PUGLISI</p> <p>Rio Rancho</p> <p />

Talk of the town

https://abqjournal.com/420048/talk-of-the-town-132.html

2014-06-24

<p>WL Ross &amp;amp; Co. Chairman Wilbur Ross on the future of Greece.</p> <p>Greece's combative finance minister resigned on Monday, removing one major obstacle to any deal to keep Athens in the euro zone after Greeks voted resoundingly to back the government in rejecting the austerity terms of a bailout.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Greece would bring a proposal for a cash-for-reforms deal to an emergency summit of euro zone leaders on Tuesday, a Greek official said. It was unclear how much it would differ from other proposals rejected in the past.</p> <p>Gloomy officials in Brussels and Berlin said a Greek exit from the currency area now looked ever more likely.</p> <p>But they also said talks to avert it would be easier without Yanis Varoufakis, an avowed "erratic Marxist" economist who infuriated fellow euro zone finance ministers with his casual style and indignant lectures. He had campaigned for Sunday's 'No' vote, accusing Greece' creditors of "terrorism".</p> <p>"I was made aware of a certain 'preference' by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my... 'absence' from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement," Varoufakis said in a statement.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>His sacrifice suggested Tsipras was determined to try to reach a last-ditch compromise with European leaders.</p> <p>Greece's political leaders, more accustomed to screaming abuse at each other in parliament, issued an unprecedented joint statement after a day of talks at the president's office backing efforts to reach a deal with creditors.</p> <p>They called for immediate steps to reopen banks and said any deal must address debt sustainability - code for reducing Athens' crushing debt - but gave no hint of concessions from the Greek side towards lenders' demands for deep spending cuts and far-reaching reforms of pensions and labour markets.</p> <p>The chief negotiator in aid talks with international creditors, Euclid Tsakalotos, a soft-spoken academic economist, was appointed finance minister.</p> <p>Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said publicly what other euro zone players had said in private: "Varoufakis was someone who massively destroyed trust through his name-calling and by repeatedly criticizing the institutions ... that's why I hope that the basis for talks will now be better."</p> <p>To win any new deal, Greece will have to overcome deep distrust among partners, above all Germany, Greece's biggest creditor and the EU's biggest economy, where public opinion has hardened in favour of cutting Greece loose from the euro.</p> <p>Varoufakis had a particularly acrimonious relationship with Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said the new Greek minister would not have an easy task.</p> <p>German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said conditions were not yet in place for a resumption of negotiations with Greece.</p> <p>DEFIANCE</p> <p>While jubilant Greeks celebrated their national gesture of defiance late into the night, there was gloom in Brussels.</p> <p>European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said there was no easy way out of the crisis and the referendum result had widened the gap between Greece and other euro zone countries.</p> <p>Tsipras has also spoken by telephone to French President Francois Hollande, who is trying to broker an agreement ahead of Tuesday's Brussels summit.</p> <p>Hollande was due to meet later on Monday with Merkel in Paris to seek a joint response from the euro zone's two leading powers, whose positions have drifted apart.</p> <p>An EU source said barring some major Greek concession, euro zone leaders were more likely to discuss on Tuesday how to cope with a Greek exit, and how to reinforce the remaining currency union, than any new aid programme for Athens.</p> <p>While France and Italy have emphasised the importance of more talks, a big majority of the 19 euro zone government favour taking a hard line with Greece, diplomats said, and German public opinion is running out of patience.</p> <p>Merkel's vice-chancellor, Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel, told a news conference: "If Greece wants to stay in the euro, the Greek government must quickly make a substantive offer that goes beyond its willingness thus far."</p> <p>A German Finance Ministry spokesman brushed aside Greek demands for a big debt write-down, which the International Monetary Fund said last week may be necessary. He said the IMF was promoting its traditional stance but Europe had opted for solutions other than debt cuts to put countries back on track.</p> <p>The Greek bank association chief said an eight-day-old bank closure that has crippled the economy will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday and the daily cash machine withdrawal limit of 60 euros would be maintained. There were long lines at ATMs, where 20-euro banknotes have largely run out.</p> <p>In one bright spot for Greece's dismal economy, travel associations in Britain, Germany and France said tourists remain undeterred and bookings for peak season Greek vacations were strong, with no cancellations so far.</p> <p>Greece's immediate fate is in the hands of the European Central Bank, which has kept Greek banks open with a trickle of emergency cash. The ECB's policymaking governing council began a conference call in late afternoon to decide how long to go on keeping Greek banks afloat.</p> <p>Several people familiar with ECB policy said it would probably reject a Greek request to raise a cap on emergency liquidity assistance and leave the limit unchanged, slowly tightening the noose but giving banks a few more days' air.</p> <p>"BRAVE CHOICE"</p> <p>After five years of economic crisis and mass unemployment, Greek electors voted 61.3 percent 'No' to the bailout conditions already rejected by their radical leftist government, casting Greece into the unknown.</p> <p>"You made a very brave choice," Tsipras said in a televised address as jubilant supporters thronged Athens' central Syntagma Square to celebrate the act of defiance of Europe's political and financial establishment.</p> <p>The euro slid against the dollar after the setback for Europe's monetary union, and European shares and bonds took a hit when markets opened after the weekend. But the losses were contained and there was no sign of serious contagion to other weaker euro zone sovereigns.</p> <p>Analysts with several international banks including Citi, Barclays, BNP Paribas and J.P. Morgan said a "Grexit" from the euro zone was now their most likely scenario.</p> <p>British finance minister George Osborne told parliament in London: "The prospects of a happy resolution of this crisis are sadly diminishing."</p> <p>EU officials said it would be hard to give Greece easier terms, not least because its economy has plunged back into recession since Tsipras' Syriza party won power in January. Public finances were now in a far worse position than when the rejected bailout deal was put together.</p> <p>But on the streets of Athens, citizens were unrepentant at their vote.</p> <p>"I voted 'No' to austerity; I want this torture to end," said Katerina Sarri, 42, a mother of two running a kiosk in Athens.</p> <p>"I'm aware that we will suffer for years but I'm still hopeful. I need to know that there is light at the end of tunnel, that the lives of my children will be better," she said. (Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou, Deepa Babington, Lefteris Karagiorgiannis and Angeliki Koutantou in Athens, Paul Carrel and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Julien Ponthus in Paris; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Peter Graff and Giles Elgood)</p>

Euclid Tsakalotos to be Greece's New Finance Minister

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/07/06/report-greece-new-finance-minister-to-be-sworn-in.html

2016-03-04

<p><a href="https://www.funko.com/" type="external">Funko's</a> Pop! figures are a runaway hit. But for those of you less familiar with the company, here's a quick summary: Funko started in 1998, and they create merchandise and collectibles for pop culture, television, movies, video games, and just about anything else you might want to express love and fandom for.</p> <p>There's only one official brick-and-mortar store in the world, and it's located just outside of Seattle, in Everett, Washington.</p> <p /> <p>Funko's flagship product is called Pop! It's a vinyl figure with a very specific look that was inspired a little by Japanese Anime. Funko's Marketing Director Mark Robben explained that Funko licenses everything from DC Comics to "Harry Potter" to "Star Wars" to other television shows like "Game of Thrones," "Stranger Things" and "Supernatural."</p> <p>In addition to the Funko Pop! dolls, they have licensed merchandise such as home goods, lights and fashion accessories as well.</p> <p>You can also hand make a custom Pop! figure at the store. As part of the Pop! Factory, you can select the head and body style, create monsters and different versions of their mascot they call Freddy with a plethora of accessories such as hats, crowns and weapons. It costs $15 and you walk away with a collectible that no one else in the world has.</p> <p>"We started a feature on our website called Pop! Yourself several months back which allows people to create a digital avatar version of themselves so they can create themselves in the Pop! vinyl style and we decided we wanted to build something similar in our store," Robben said.</p> <p>Since launching the Pop! line in 2010 at San Diego's Comic Con, it's become a pop culture phenomenon. "It's become something that I'm not sure we ever really expected it to be but we have such amazing fans all around the world and great retail partners that it has just really blown up and become a pop culture force," Robben said.</p> <p>Here's some more stories on Circa: <a href="" type="internal">Take a peek into some of Jim Henson's groundbreaking work including the muppets</a> <a href="" type="internal">The 'Twin Peaks' revival is upon us so we went to grab a damn fine cup of coffee</a> <a href="" type="internal">The 'city that burnt down' still exists today and you can see the remains on this tour</a></p>

At Funko HQ, you can build your own Pop! figures and live your fandom dreams

https://circa.com/story/2017/12/11/products/funko-pop-build-your-own-figure-at-the-pop-factory-in-washington

2017-12-11

<p>BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ These Idaho lotteries were drawn Thursday:</p> <p>Lucky For Life</p> <p>11-12-19-28-46, Lucky Ball: 4</p> <p>(eleven, twelve, nineteen, twenty-eight, forty-six; Lucky Ball: four)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $418 million</p> <p>Pick 3 Day</p> <p>8-0-6</p> <p>(eight, zero, six)</p> <p>Pick 3 Night</p> <p>5-2-0</p> <p>(five, two, zero)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p> <p>BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ These Idaho lotteries were drawn Thursday:</p> <p>Lucky For Life</p> <p>11-12-19-28-46, Lucky Ball: 4</p> <p>(eleven, twelve, nineteen, twenty-eight, forty-six; Lucky Ball: four)</p> <p>Mega Millions</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $418 million</p> <p>Pick 3 Day</p> <p>8-0-6</p> <p>(eight, zero, six)</p> <p>Pick 3 Night</p> <p>5-2-0</p> <p>(five, two, zero)</p> <p>Powerball</p> <p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>

ID Lottery

https://apnews.com/b0d9e0ff5f1c4d78ae7235be4145540e

2018-01-05

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>WASHINGTON &#8212; Long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week to their lowest levels of the year. The benchmark 30-year rate dipped below the key 4 percent mark.</p> <p>Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate home loans tumbled to 3.95 percent from 4.02 percent last week. The rate stood at 3.64 percent a year ago and averaged 3.65 percent in 2016, the lowest level in records dating to 1971.</p> <p>The rate on 15-year mortgages slipped to 3.19 percent from 3.27 percent last week.</p> <p>U.S. stock prices climbed for the sixth day in a row Thursday, following steep drops last week amid concern over political turmoil in Washington.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Absorbing the earlier market declines, bond prices rose this past week and pushed down yields on long-term Treasury bonds &#8212; which mortgage rates tend to follow.</p> <p>To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday each week. The average doesn&#8217;t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.</p> <p>The average fee for a 30-year mortgage was unchanged this week at 0.5 point. The fee on 15-year loans also held steady at 0.5 point.</p> <p>Rates on adjustable five-year loans dropped to 3.07 percent from 3.13 percent last week. The fee declined to 0.4 point from 0.5 point.</p>

Average US 30-year mortgage rate falls to 3.95 pct, 2017 low

https://abqjournal.com/1008510/average-us-30-year-mortgage-rate-falls-to-3-95-pct-2017-low.html

2017-05-25

<p>Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/grynold</p> <p>Feeling anxious about life in a broken-down society on a stressed-out planet? That&#8217;s hardly surprising: Life as we know it is almost over. While the dominant culture encourages dysfunctional denial&#8212;pop a pill, go shopping, find your bliss&#8212;there&#8217;s a more sensible approach: Accept the anxiety, embrace the deeper anguish&#8212;and then get apocalyptic.</p> <p>We are staring down multiple cascading ecological crises, struggling with political and economic institutions that are unable even to acknowledge, let alone cope with, the threats to the human family and the larger living world. We are intensifying an assault on the ecosystems in which we live, undermining the ability of that living world to sustain a large-scale human presence into the future. When all the world darkens, looking on the bright side is not a virtue but a sign of irrationality.</p> <p>In these circumstances, anxiety is rational and anguish is healthy, signs not of weakness but of courage. A deep grief over what we are losing&#8212;and have already lost, perhaps never to be recovered&#8212;is appropriate. Instead of repressing these emotions we can confront them, not as isolated individuals but collectively, not only for our own mental health but to increase the effectiveness of our organizing for the social justice and ecological sustainability still within our grasp. Once we&#8217;ve sorted through those reactions, we can get apocalyptic and get down to our real work.</p> <p>Perhaps that sounds odd, since we are routinely advised to overcome our fears and not give in to despair. Endorsing apocalypticism seems even stranger, given associations with &#8220;end-timer&#8221; religious reactionaries and &#8220;doomer&#8221; secular survivalists. People with critical sensibilities, those concerned about justice and sustainability, think of ourselves as realistic and less likely to fall for either theological or science-fiction fantasies.</p> <p>Many associate &#8220;apocalypse&#8221; with the rapture-ranting that grows out of some interpretations of the Christian Book of Revelation (aka, the Apocalypse of John), but it&#8217;s helpful to remember that the word&#8217;s original meaning is not &#8220;end of the world.&#8221; &#8220;Revelation&#8221; from Latin and &#8220;apocalypse&#8221; from Greek both mean a lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something hidden, a coming to clarity. Speaking apocalyptically, in this sense, can deepen our understanding of the crises and help us see through the many illusions that powerful people and institutions create.</p> <p>But there is an ending we have to confront. Once we&#8217;ve honestly faced the crises, then we can deal with what is ending&#8212;not all the world, but the systems that currently structure our lives. Life as we know it is, indeed, coming to an end.Let&#8217;s start with the illusions: Some stories we have told ourselves&#8212;claims by white people, men, or U.S. citizens that domination is natural and appropriate&#8212;are relatively easy to debunk (though many cling to them). Other delusional assertions&#8212;such as the claim that capitalism is compatible with basic moral principles, meaningful democracy, and ecological sustainability&#8212;require more effort to take apart (perhaps because there seems to be no alternative).</p> <p>But toughest to dislodge may be the central illusion of the industrial world&#8217;s extractive economy: that we can maintain indefinitely a large-scale human presence on the earth at something like current First-World levels of consumption. The task for those with critical sensibilities is not just to resist oppressive social norms and illegitimate authority, but to speak a simple truth that almost no one wants to acknowledge: The high-energy/high-technology life of affluent societies is a dead end. We can&#8217;t predict with precision how resource competition and ecological degradation will play out in the coming decades, but it is ecocidal to treat the planet as nothing more than a mine from which we extract and a landfill into which we dump.</p> <p>We cannot know for sure what time the party will end, but the party&#8217;s over.</p> <p>Does that seem histrionic? Excessively alarmist? Look at any crucial measure of the health of the ecosphere in which we live&#8212;groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, increased toxicity in our own bodies, the number and size of &#8220;dead zones&#8221; in the oceans, accelerating extinction of species, and reduction of biodiversity&#8212;and ask a simple question: Where are we heading?</p> <p>Remember also that we live in an oil-based world that is rapidly depleting the cheap and easily accessible oil, which means we face a major reconfiguration of the infrastructure that undergirds daily life. Meanwhile, the desperation to avoid that reconfiguration has brought us to the era of &#8220;extreme energy,&#8221; using ever more dangerous and destructive technologies (hydrofracturing, deep-water drilling, mountaintop coal removal, tar sands extraction).</p> <p>Oh, did I forget to mention the undeniable trajectory of global warming/climate change/climate disruption?</p> <p>Scientists these days are talking about tipping points and planetary boundaries, about how human activity is pushing Earth beyond its limits. Recently 22 top scientists warned that humans likely are forcing a planetary-scale critical transition &#8220;with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience,&#8221; which means that &#8220;the biological resources we take for granted at present may be subject to rapid and unpredictable transformations within a few human generations.&#8221;</p> <p>That conclusion is the product of science and common sense, not supernatural beliefs or conspiracy theories. The political/social implications are clear: There are no solutions to our problems if we insist on maintaining the high-energy/high-technology existence lived in much of the industrialized world (and desired by many currently excluded from it). Many tough-minded folk who are willing to challenge other oppressive systems hold on tightly to this lifestyle. The critic Fredric Jameson has written, &#8220;It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism,&#8221; but that&#8217;s only part of the problem&#8212;for some, it may be easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of air conditioning.</p> <p>We do live in end-times, of a sort. Not the end of the world&#8212;the planet will carry on with or without us&#8212;but the end of the human systems that structure our politics, economics, and social life. &#8220;Apocalypse&#8221; need not involve heavenly rescue fantasies or tough-guy survival talk; to get apocalyptic means seeing clearly and recommitting to core values.</p> <p>First, we must affirm the value of our work for justice and sustainability, even though there is no guarantee we can change the disastrous course of contemporary society. We take on projects that we know may fail because it&#8217;s the right thing to do, and by doing so we create new possibilities for ourselves and the world. Just as we all know that someday we will die and yet still get out of bed every day, an honest account of planetary reality need not paralyze us.</p> <p>Then let&#8217;s abandon worn-out clich&#233;s such as, &#8220;The American people will do the right thing if they know the truth,&#8221; or &#8220;Past social movements prove the impossible can happen.&#8221;</p> <p>There is no evidence that awareness of injustice will automatically lead U.S. citizens, or anyone else, to correct it. When people believe injustice is necessary to maintain their material comfort, some accept those conditions without complaint.</p> <p>Social movements around race, gender, and sexuality have been successful in changing oppressive laws and practices, and to a lesser degree in shifting deeply held beliefs. But the movements we most often celebrate, such as the post-World War II civil rights struggle, operated in a culture that assumed continuing economic expansion. We now live in a time of permanent contraction&#8212;there will be less, not more, of everything. Pressuring a dominant group to surrender some privileges when there is an expectation of endless bounty is a very different project than when there is intensified competition for resources. That doesn&#8217;t mean nothing can be done to advance justice and sustainability, only that we should not be glib about the inevitability of it.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s another clich&#233; to jettison: Necessity is the mother of invention. During the industrial era, humans exploiting new supplies of concentrated energy have generated unprecedented technological innovation in a brief time. But there is no guarantee that there are technological fixes to all our problems; we live in a system that has physical limits, and the evidence suggests we are close to those limits. Technological fundamentalism&#8212;the quasi-religious belief that the use of advanced technology is always appropriate, and that any problems caused by the unintended consequences can be remedied by more technology&#8212;is as empty a promise as other fundamentalisms.&amp;#160;If all this seems like more than one can bear, it&#8217;s because it is.&amp;#160;We are facing new, more expansive challenges. Never in human history have potential catastrophes been so global; never have social and ecological crises of this scale threatened at the same time; never have we had so much information about the threats we must come to terms with.</p> <p>It&#8217;s easy to cover up our inability to face this by projecting it onto others. When someone tells me &#8220;I agree with your assessment, but people can&#8217;t handle it,&#8221; I assume what that person really means is, &#8220;I can&#8217;t handle it.&#8221; But handling it is, in the end, the only sensible choice.</p> <p>Mainstream politicians will continue to protect existing systems of power, corporate executives will continue to maximize profit without concern, and the majority of people will continue to avoid these questions. It&#8217;s the job of people with critical sensibilities&#8212;those who consistently speak out for justice and sustainability, even when it&#8217;s difficult&#8212;not to back away just because the world has grown more ominous.</p> <p>Adopting this apocalyptic framework doesn&#8217;t mean separating from mainstream society or giving up ongoing projects that seek a more just world within existing systems. I am a professor at a university that does not share my values or analysis, yet I continue to teach. In my community, I am part of a group that helps people create worker-cooperatives that will operate within a capitalist system that I believe to be a dead end. I belong to a congregation that struggles to radicalize Christianity while remaining part of a cautious, often cowardly, denomination.</p> <p>I am apocalyptic, but I&#8217;m not interested in empty rhetoric drawn from past revolutionary moments. Yes, we need a revolution&#8212;many revolutions&#8212;but a strategy is not yet clear. So, as we work patiently on reformist projects, we can continue to offer a radical analysis and experiment with new ways of working together. While engaged in education and community organizing with modest immediate goals, we can contribute to the strengthening of networks and institutions that can be the base for the more radical change we need. In these spaces today we can articulate, and live, the values of solidarity and equity that are always essential.</p> <p>To adopt an apocalyptic worldview is not to abandon hope but to affirm life. As James Baldwin put it decades ago, we must remember &#8220;that life is the only touchstone and that life is dangerous, and that without the joyful acceptance of this danger, there can never be any safety for anyone, ever, anywhere.&#8221; By avoiding the stark reality of our moment in history we don&#8217;t make ourselves safe, we undermine the potential of struggles for justice and sustainability.</p> <p>As Baldwin put it so poignantly in that same 1962 essay, &#8220;Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.&#8221;</p> <p>It&#8217;s time to get apocalyptic, or get out of the way.</p>

Get Apocalyptic - The Case for the New Radical

http://alternet.org/activism/get-apocalyptic-case-new-radical

2013-05-28

<p>DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) &#8212; Thisara Perera came up with stellar all-round performance as Sri Lanka stayed alive in the tri-nation one-day tournament, securing a five-wicket win against Zimbabwe on Sunday.</p> <p>Perera's 4-33 wrapped up Zimbabwe innings for 198 before his fluent 26-ball 39 not out helped Sri Lanka race to 202-5 in 44.5 overs. He hit one four and three sixes, the last of which sealed the game.</p> <p>Opener Kusal Perera was the highest scorer with 49 while captain Dinesh Chandimal was not out on 38.</p> <p>"Thisara is performing as a batsman and bowler. It is crucial; we missed the most senior player after the first game so Thisara stood as up as a performer," Chandimal said. "As I said, once you get a start in the top four you need to bat long. That's what we need to do, and we will have three more days to come up with a good plan."</p> <p>Despite losing opener Upul Tharanga cheaply, Sri Lanka cruised to victory as Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis kept the side untroubled, rotating the strike intelligently.</p> <p>Zimbabwe, however, briefly appeared to turn the game in their favor, courtesy to paceman Blessing Muzarabani who moved the ball admirably on a helpful surface to strike three times in three overs.</p> <p>He broke through with the wicket of Kusal Perera who scored 49 and shared a 70-run stand with Mendis. Muzarabani followed it up with the wicket of Mendis (36) and Niroshan Dickwella (7) to raise the prospect of another victory over Sri Lanka.</p> <p>Chandimal resisted but Kyle Jarvis further troubled Sri Lanka with the wicket of Asela Gunratne (9).</p> <p>Perera's effort with the ball gave Sri Lanka a relatively easy target to chase. Fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep played a strong supporting role, claiming a career best 3-28.</p> <p>Brendan Taylor who returned to the Zimbabwe national team following his three-year stint with Nottinghamshire, was the highest scorer with 58.</p> <p>He held together the innings after Perera had Zimbabwe wobbling at 56-3.</p> <p>Left arm spinner Lakshan Sandakan then dismissed the in-form Sikandar Raza, leaving Zimbabwe on 73-4 but Taylor was unfazed by the spirited Sri Lanka side, which needed to win the game to have any chance of joining Bangladesh in the final.</p> <p>Taylor and Malcolm Waller combined for a 63-run stand for the fifth wicket to resurrect the innings before Sandakan again struck to get rid of Waller on 24.</p> <p>Perera then returned for his second spell to take the prized scalp of Taylor after he had brought up his 33rd half-century, which included six fours.</p> <p>Taylor's dismissal effectively ended Zimbabwe's hopes of setting a big total.</p> <p>Pradeep joined the party to clean up the tail, as Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer provided the resistance reaching 34 before seeing his leg-stump uprooted.</p> <p>"We were probably 30 runs short with the bat. We need one of the top four to bat through the innings," Cremer said.</p> <p>"Taylor played well, but we need one to bat till 45 overs. The seamers did quite well, maybe a bit inconsistent with the length."</p> <p>Playing for the first time in the tournament, Sandakan returned figures of 2-57.</p> <p>DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) &#8212; Thisara Perera came up with stellar all-round performance as Sri Lanka stayed alive in the tri-nation one-day tournament, securing a five-wicket win against Zimbabwe on Sunday.</p> <p>Perera's 4-33 wrapped up Zimbabwe innings for 198 before his fluent 26-ball 39 not out helped Sri Lanka race to 202-5 in 44.5 overs. He hit one four and three sixes, the last of which sealed the game.</p> <p>Opener Kusal Perera was the highest scorer with 49 while captain Dinesh Chandimal was not out on 38.</p> <p>"Thisara is performing as a batsman and bowler. It is crucial; we missed the most senior player after the first game so Thisara stood as up as a performer," Chandimal said. "As I said, once you get a start in the top four you need to bat long. That's what we need to do, and we will have three more days to come up with a good plan."</p> <p>Despite losing opener Upul Tharanga cheaply, Sri Lanka cruised to victory as Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis kept the side untroubled, rotating the strike intelligently.</p> <p>Zimbabwe, however, briefly appeared to turn the game in their favor, courtesy to paceman Blessing Muzarabani who moved the ball admirably on a helpful surface to strike three times in three overs.</p> <p>He broke through with the wicket of Kusal Perera who scored 49 and shared a 70-run stand with Mendis. Muzarabani followed it up with the wicket of Mendis (36) and Niroshan Dickwella (7) to raise the prospect of another victory over Sri Lanka.</p> <p>Chandimal resisted but Kyle Jarvis further troubled Sri Lanka with the wicket of Asela Gunratne (9).</p> <p>Perera's effort with the ball gave Sri Lanka a relatively easy target to chase. Fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep played a strong supporting role, claiming a career best 3-28.</p> <p>Brendan Taylor who returned to the Zimbabwe national team following his three-year stint with Nottinghamshire, was the highest scorer with 58.</p> <p>He held together the innings after Perera had Zimbabwe wobbling at 56-3.</p> <p>Left arm spinner Lakshan Sandakan then dismissed the in-form Sikandar Raza, leaving Zimbabwe on 73-4 but Taylor was unfazed by the spirited Sri Lanka side, which needed to win the game to have any chance of joining Bangladesh in the final.</p> <p>Taylor and Malcolm Waller combined for a 63-run stand for the fifth wicket to resurrect the innings before Sandakan again struck to get rid of Waller on 24.</p> <p>Perera then returned for his second spell to take the prized scalp of Taylor after he had brought up his 33rd half-century, which included six fours.</p> <p>Taylor's dismissal effectively ended Zimbabwe's hopes of setting a big total.</p> <p>Pradeep joined the party to clean up the tail, as Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer provided the resistance reaching 34 before seeing his leg-stump uprooted.</p> <p>"We were probably 30 runs short with the bat. We need one of the top four to bat through the innings," Cremer said.</p> <p>"Taylor played well, but we need one to bat till 45 overs. The seamers did quite well, maybe a bit inconsistent with the length."</p> <p>Playing for the first time in the tournament, Sandakan returned figures of 2-57.</p>

Sri Lanka beats Zimbabwe tri-nations ODI

https://apnews.com/amp/213472c2d0cb4df989c6fc963e859053

2018-01-21

<p>Photo: Wikimedia Commons</p> <p /> <p>When was the last time you saw the headline, &#8220;Cost of [Pentagon-weapons-system-of-your-choice] halved&#8221;?&amp;#160; Probably never.&amp;#160; Still, the thought came to mind when this recent <a href="http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/03/11/pentagon-f-35-fighter-jet-cost-doubles/" type="external">Associated Press headline</a> caught my eye: &#8220;Pentagon: F-35 fighter jet cost doubles.&#8221;&amp;#160;</p> <p>Here&#8217;s the story behind it:&amp;#160; Since 2001, when an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was expected to cost an already hefty $50 million, the plane&#8217;s cost has soared into the stratosphere (despite the fact that the aircraft itself has barely left the ground).&amp;#160; The estimated cost today is $113 million per plane.&amp;#160; Yes, that&#8217;s per plane.&amp;#160; This supposed future workhorse of the US military is now priced like the planet&#8217;s most precious gem.&amp;#160; It&#8217;s also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031102462.html?hpid=moreheadlines" type="external">2 &#189; years behind schedule</a>.&amp;#160; Keep in mind that the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy are planning to buy a combined 2,450 of them for what&#8217;s now an eye-popping $323 billion.&amp;#160; And if you think the costs are likely to stay in the $113 million range, given the history of Pentagon cost overruns, then I have a nice little national security bridge to Brooklyn I think the US public might love.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&amp;#160; &amp;#160;&amp;#160;</p> <p>In other words, if all goes well from here (an unlikely possibility), a single future weapons system is now estimated to cost the American taxpayer almost one-third of what the Obama administration&#8217;s health-care plan is expected to cost over a decade.&amp;#160; You could even think of the Pentagon&#8217;s weapons procurement process as the health-care system of the national security state.&amp;#160; Its costs just never stop rising.&amp;#160; In fact, the Government Accountability Office pegs major weapons systems cost overruns since 2001 at <a href="http://amconmag.com/article/2010/apr/01/00030/" type="external">$295 billion</a>, another near third of the cost of the health-care bill supposedly coming to a vote this week.</p> <p>And here&#8217;s what&#8217;s remarkable:&amp;#160; You barely hear about such overruns.&amp;#160; They&#8217;re almost never front-page headline news, even though the money&#8217;s being taken from not-so-deep taxpayer pockets.&amp;#160; And when truly terrible news, as with the F-35, comes in, all that happens in Washington is that a few politicians mutter a little.&amp;#160; John McCain, for example, <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/03/f35-fighters-now-double-the-cost-.html" type="external">offered this</a> less than stirring quote on the F-35: &#8220;The taxpayers are a little tired of this. I can&#8217;t say that I can blame them&#8221;; and an irritated Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/super-stealth-plane-breaks-through-cost-barrier/" type="external">said</a>: &#8220;We cannot sacrifice other important acquisitions in the DOD [Department of Defense] investment portfolio to pay for this capability.&#8221;&amp;#160; (Bet you didn&#8217;t even know that future weapons were part of a Pentagon &#8220;investment portfolio.&#8221;)&amp;#160; In the case of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, he&#8217;s planning to hold back $614 million in &#8220;performance bonuses&#8221; from the plane&#8217;s lead contractor Lockheed Martin.&amp;#160; (And you thought only bankers and financial wheeler-dealers got performance bonuses!)&amp;#160; But it&#8217;s striking that there are no tea party movements out in the streets of America demanding our money back or claiming that we&#8217;re going to be broken by this.&amp;#160;</p> <p>Here&#8217;s an American reality: the Pentagon is our true welfare state, the weapons makers our real &#8220;welfare queens,&#8221; and we never stop shoveling money their way.&amp;#160; Somebody should raise a few tough questions about the Pentagonization of our country and its finances.&amp;#160; Fortunately, TomDispatch has retired Lt. Col. William Astore <a href="" type="internal">to take on</a> the task.</p> <p />

You Have No Say About Your Military

https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/you-have-no-say-about-your-military/

2010-03-18

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Texas&#8217; attorney general immediately appealed to the state Supreme Court, which later agreed to block other gay couples from obtaining marriage licenses but didn&#8217;t address the Austin marriage of Suzanne Bryant and Sarah Goodfriend.</p> <p>Attorney General Ken Paxton said he considers their marriage void, but a court hasn&#8217;t ruled on that issue. Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir, whose office issued the license, said she still considers the marriage valid.</p> <p>Cynthia Meyer, a spokeswoman for Paxton&#8217;s office, said Thursday night that the state would file additional paperwork Friday &#8220;that explains why the order and resulting marriage license are void.&#8221; But it was unclear if the attorney general or his staff had the standing to make such a declaration unilaterally.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The women were granted a one-time license in the liberal-leaning county after basing their request on a ruling issued earlier this week by a local probate judge who deemed the ban unconstitutional in an unrelated estate case.</p> <p>Bryant said Thursday that being legally married to Goodfriend, who has ovarian cancer, would ensure inheritance and allow the couple to make medical decisions for each other should one of them become critically ill.</p> <p>&#8220;Financially, now we&#8217;re intertwined, and we will have community property that we will share,&#8221; Bryant said shortly after the marriage ceremony outside the county clerk&#8217;s office, where the couple was flanked by a rabbi, friends and their two teenage daughters, whom they both legally adopted years ago.</p> <p>State District Judge David Wahlberg sided with the couple Thursday morning, directing DeBeauvoir to stop relying on &#8220;the unconstitutional Texas prohibitions against same-sex marriage as a basis for not issuing a marriage license.&#8221;</p> <p>Courts in Indiana made a similar exception for a lesbian couple in April because one of the women was dying of cancer and wanted her partner&#8217;s name on her death certificate. A federal appeals court overturned Indiana&#8217;s ban in September.</p> <p>Paxton, a Republican who took office in January, argued that the Supreme Court&#8217;s emergency stay was needed to &#8220;to make clear to all county clerks that Texas marriage law remains enforceable until there has been final appellate resolution.&#8221; A federal judge last year overturned the ban, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in the fiercely conservative state in 2005 &#8212; but the judge put the ruling on hold while the state appeals to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.</p> <p>&#8220;We are all waiting for a final decision on marriage equality,&#8221; Debeauvoir said. &#8220;However, this couple may not get the chance to hear the outcome of this issue because one person&#8217;s health.&#8221;</p> <p>Goodfriend, policy director for state Rep. Celia Israel, said during a news conference that her last chemotherapy treatment was 4 &#189; months ago. But, she added: &#8220;All of us wonder if the cancer grows back along with the hair growing back.&#8221;</p> <p>Bryant, an Austin lawyer who works on adoptions for same-sex couples, said she and her wife couldn&#8217;t control what the attorney general did but believed they had a valid marriage license. They hoped other couples would follow their lead, saying their advice would be: &#8220;Have hope and have faith.&#8221;</p> <p>Mark Phariss, who along with his partner are among those fighting the ban in federal court, said he was &#8220;thrilled&#8221; by news of the nuptials even though it&#8217;s unlikely to impact the federal lawsuit. He said Bryant and Goodfriend&#8217;s case &#8220;is evidence of the harm the ban is having on the state.&#8221;</p> <p>Before the state Supreme Court ruling, two same-sex couples had inquired about getting a marriage license in Travis County, chief deputy clerk Ronald Morgan Jr. said.</p> <p>But after the ruling, some gay rights activists predicted that couples wouldn&#8217;t flood courts with similar requests for exemptions. Equality Texas Executive Director Chuck Smith said &#8220;it would seem that the window for that has again temporarily closed.&#8221;</p>

Lesbian couple marries in Texas under one-time order

https://abqjournal.com/544034/lesbian-couple-marries-in-texas-under-one-time-order.html

<p>Now that Senate Republican leaders have released the latest version of their health bill, here's a closer look at how it diverges from the House-passed version and from the 2010 Affordable Care Act.</p> <p>Helping the Uninsured</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>What the ACA does: People who don't get insurance on the job can get tax credits to offset their premiums, and in some cases to lower their out-of-pocket costs, for plans purchased on the insurance exchanges. The credits take into account income, age and the local cost of insurance.</p> <p>What the House bill would do: People without employer-sponsored coverage can get tax credits, but they would vary largely based on age. For many people, the credits would be smaller than under the ACA. Individuals can use the credits for plans sold anywhere, not just on the exchanges.</p> <p>What the Senate bill would do: The Senate's approach is closer to the ACA's. The tax credits would be larger for people with low incomes, those who live in areas with high medical costs, or older Americans. As in the House bill, many people would get smaller tax credits than under the ACA. People could also use the tax credits to buy catastrophic health plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles that mainly pay for three primary care visits a year. People could also for the first time use health savings accounts to pay for premiums.</p> <p>In addition, the bill allows insurers to sell cheaper health plans that don't comply with any ACA requirements if they also separate plans on ACA marketplaces that do comply. The bill sends funding to insurance companies that would help keep prices on the marketplaces down.</p> <p>Medicaid</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>What the ACA does: The law provides enhanced federal funding to states that expand Medicaid eligibility for residents up to 133% of the poverty level. About 14 million new enrollees have been added as 31 states and the District of Columbia expanded that eligibility, with states picking up very little of the cost.</p> <p>What the House bill would do: The Medicaid expansion would freeze in 2020, becoming limited to current enrollees. States would have to make up the difference in cost if they wanted to maintain the expansion for new enrollees.</p> <p>Funding for the broader Medicaid program would change from a guaranteed matching-fund system to either a block grant or a per capita cap. The result would be 14 million fewer Medicaid beneficiaries through 2026, compared with the ACA, according to the Congressional Budget Office.</p> <p>What the Senate bill would do: Enhanced federal funding for the expansion would roll back over three years, beginning in 2021. States could choose between block grants or per capita caps, but both options would curb their overall federal Medicaid funding. States could add a requirement that some people must work to get Medicaid. States could also get exemptions from the spending limits during certain public health emergencies. A separate $45 billion fund will also be created specifically to fund opioid treatment programs.</p> <p>Taxes</p> <p>What the ACA does: Obamacare, as it is known, imposed a number of taxes to help fund health-insurance subsidies. These include a tax on health insurers, a so-called Cadillac tax on generous employer health plans (which has been delayed), a medical-device tax and a tax on individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year.</p> <p>What the House bill would do: The majority of the ACA's taxes would be repealed, amounting to more than $590 billion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. The bill does retain the much-debated Cadillac tax, but delays its implementation until 2026.</p> <p>What the Senate bill would do: The bill retains several of the ACA's taxes, including a 3.8% tax on investment income and a 0.9% tax on wealthy individuals. The Cadillac tax would be retained but wouldn't go into effect until 2026. It would knock down the ACA's other taxes, including taxes on indoor tanning, repeal limits on contributions to flexible-spending accounts and health-insurance premiums. The tax on medical devices would also be repealed.</p> <p>Insurance Rules</p> <p>What the ACA does: Most health-insurance plans in the small group and individual market must cover 10 benefit categories that include hospitalization, maternity care and mental health. People with pre-existing health conditions can't be denied coverage or charged higher premiums. Insures can't charge older adults more than three times the premium amount charged to younger people.</p> <p>What the House bill would do: States could get waivers allowing them to roll back the 10 required benefits. States could also use waivers to let insurers charge older adults premiums five times higher than younger people. Other waivers would let insurers temporarily charge people with pre-existing health conditions higher premiums if they let their coverage lapse. At the same time, states would get $138 billion over 10 years for policies that help people with expensive conditions afford premiums.</p> <p>What the Senate bill would do: Insurers would still have to cover people with pre-existing conditions without charging them higher premiums, though people who let their coverage lapse would have to wait six months before getting coverage. The bill sets aside money for states that pursue waivers through the Department of Health and Human Services. These waivers would let them roll back ACA regulations, including the 10 required health benefits.</p> <p>Write to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com and Michelle Hackman at Michelle.Hackman@wsj.com</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>July 13, 2017 13:18 ET (17:18 GMT)</p>

How the Senate Health Bill Compares to House Bill, Obamacare

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/13/how-senate-health-bill-compares-to-house-bill-obamacare.html

2017-07-13

<p>The long snouts of anti-aircraft guns are again protruding from the tops of tall buildings in Iraq. Tank units have been deployed around oilfields. Special committees drawn from local leaders of the army, security forces and the ruling Baath party will try to ensure that any rebellion is quickly crushed. President Saddam Hussein himself has told people to store food in case of a new American air war as prolonged as that of 1991.</p> <p>President Saddam says that war with the US will come, but he knows that it is likely to be delayed until next year. Washington is no longer in quite the confident mood that it was after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan in December.</p> <p>The differences between the situations in Kabul and Baghdad have become more apparent in the past few months. Britain, hitherto America&#8217;s sole ally in its bid to overthrow President Saddam, is becoming increasingly nervous of the political opposition at home to military adventures with the US against Iraq.</p> <p>Above all, Ariel Sharon&#8217;s bloody invasion of Palestinian cities on the West Bank has made it more difficult for the US to recreate the alliance that drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait more than a decade ago.</p> <p>&#8220;Saddam knows that Washington does not have the appetite for a war this year,&#8221; said one Iraqi source.</p> <p>It is a very different situation from the Gulf War. Then the alliance against President Saddam was surprisingly easy to create. The Arab states were terrified by his conquest of Kuwait. The rest of the world was never going to let Iraq become the dominant power in the Gulf. The problem seemed to be overcoming the military strength of the Iraqi army, tested by eight long years of war with Iran.</p> <p>Today nobody doubts that the Iraqi army is a shadow of its former self. Aside from its losses in the Gulf War, it has not been able to import tanks and other heavy equipment. But politically it is a far harder task now to create an alliance with the aim of overthrowing the Iraqi leader than it was 12 years ago.</p> <p>Then, the purpose of the US-led coalition was to restore the status quo by evicting Iraq from Kuwait. It was a conservative war. What Washington intends today is far more radical. It is in fact the first attempt to replace a government by armed force in the Middle East since President Saddam took the disastrous decision to send his troops across the Kuwaiti border.</p> <p>Baghdad will do its best to ensure that it does not provide the US administration with a pretext for war. It has softened its line over the return of UN weapons inspectors, who left in December 1998 just before the US and Britain last bombed Iraq. In talks with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, in New York last week, Iraqi officials were notably conciliatory. Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, did not rule out the return of the inspectors but wanted other issues, such as the no-fly zones and sanctions, to be discussed.</p> <p>It is all very frustrating for militant members of the US administration, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who would like to overthrow President Saddam immediately. They do not want to become caught up in a diplomatic minuet in which they have to dance to the same tune as the UN.</p> <p>Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence and an impatient hawk, even instructed the CIA to investigate Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who is the chief UN arms inspector. Mr Wolfowitz was visibly enraged when the CIA came back with nothing that would have discredited Mr Blix and, by extension, the UN weapons inspection team.</p> <p>These diplomatic manoeuvres are important because the US task is far more difficult than it was in Afghanistan. It needs to be able to launch not only a prolonged air offensive but to build up an army estimated to number between 70,000 and 250,000 troops. In Afghanistan, the Taliban was overthrown by the opposition Northern Alliance, US air strikes and the defection of many commanders. The Taliban was also gravely weakened by the withdrawal of Pakistani and Saudi Arabian support.</p> <p>The situation is different in Iraq. It has a powerful centralised state. Only the Kurds, controlling the three northern provinces of Iraq, would be able to play the role of the Northern Alliance. Betrayed by the US twice in the past, in 1975 and again in 1991, the Kurds will not want to go to war against Baghdad unless there is a US army in place to protect them.</p> <p>There are two other ways of removing Saddam Hussein, but Washington has concluded that neither is likely to work effectively. It could, as it often has in the past, hope that a coup led by by dissident army officers in Baghdad will remove the Iraqi leader. But President Saddam has shown that he is a master at detecting and eliminating such plots, with horrific consequences for those involved.</p> <p>A further option might be to build a guerrilla army, supported by US air power and special forces. Something like this worked in southern Afghanistan, but President Saddam is likely to counter-attack more effectively than the Taliban.</p> <p>Washington is shifting towards the idea of a ground invasion, with an army based in Kuwait and Turkey. An attack would be preceded by a prolonged bombardment by bombs and missiles. The Iraqi army is still strong enough to fight the Kurdish or Iraqi guerrillas, but it is even less capable of stopping the US army than it was in 1991. Even confirmed fence-sitters such as the Kurds do not want to be marginalised by failing to join an American effort to get rid of President Saddam which succeeds.</p> <p>It is becoming increasingly difficult for President George Bush to walk away from his militant rhetoric about toppling President Saddam. If he does not overthrow the Iraqi leader then his failure will damage him in the next presidential election. But already Mr Bush is discovering how much more complicated it is to change a government in Baghdad than it was in Kabul.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Bombing Iraq

https://counterpunch.org/2002/05/10/bombing-iraq/

2002-05-10

<p>This is a different kind of love story.</p> <p>When Kristy Jackson is not cranking out chart-topping songs, she donates her time volunteering with Children &amp;amp; Family Services and Greensboro Urban Ministry, performing her 9/11 hit single, &#8220;Little Did She Know,&#8221; free for people at 9/11 memorial events, and even helping to save lives as a member of a disaster action team responding to house fires.</p> <p>But recently, Jackson donated something more than her time and experience. By donating her wedding gown to the Angel Gowns Project, she helped bring healing to families who have lost babies.</p> <p>The project transforms wedding dresses into tiny burial gowns.</p> <p>Jackson says the minute she saw a Facebook post about</p> <p>the nonprofit Real Imprints&#8217; gown project, she knew she was going to donate.</p> <p>&#8220;I thought it was such a precious idea,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I had my wedding dress professionally packaged in 1978 after my wedding. My two sons obviously had no use for their mother&#8217;s wedding dress. I couldn&#8217;t think of a more thoughtful way of repurposing and honoring this sweet dress than to have it turned into angel gowns.&#8221;</p> <p>So Jackson signed up on the Real Imprints Angel Gowns Project website and sent her dress to volunteer seamstresses, who cut and sewed the material into gowns. When they were finished, Jackson donated the gowns to the Comfort Committee at Cone Health to bring some relief to grieving parents.</p> <p>Ginger Penley, director of volunteer services at Cone Health, says the gowns made out of wedding dresses or prom dresses become a legacy to others in their loss.</p> <p>&#8220;To be able to meet the family&#8217;s needs is a godsend for our staff,&#8221; she says. &#8220;These gowns answer the question of &#8216;What do I bury my baby in?&#8217; and relieves the family of making yet another hard decision at a most vulnerable time.&#8221;</p> <p>Over the past five years, about 200 gowns have been given to bereaved families. In addition to the Angel Gown Project, gowns come from the <a href="http://www.smocking.org/chapter_detail.php?id=223" type="external">Piedmont Smocking Guild,</a> Special Occasion Dresses and <a href="http://www.wcnc.com/news/features/woman-transforms-wedding-dresses-into-gowns-for-angel-babies/482467587" type="external">Heavenly Oats</a> in Concord, Penley says.</p> <p>There is no cost to the families who receive the gowns. If someone donates a dress, Real Imprints requests a $25 donation to clean, prepare, cut, sew and embellish the gowns to be delivered to local hospitals. If the gowns are requested to go back to the donor, a minimum donation of $35 is requested to cover shipping costs.</p> <p>A typical wedding dress provides four to six gowns, depending on the size. White prom dresses and flower girl dresses are gladly accepted, as are buttons, lace and ribbons.</p> <p>As staff chaplain at Women&#8217;s Hospital, Kathryn Claussan has found that grieving families are so grateful to be offered a hand-sewn outfit for their baby. That the gown comes from someone&#8217;s sacred ritual adds another layer of meaning to their own sacred experience with their baby.</p> <p>Claussan brings a selection of a few gowns so the family can choose the one that feels right for their baby. Each one is unique.</p> <p>&#8220;One mother looked through several choices of gowns before our bereavement photographer came to do a photo session with her baby,&#8221; Claussan says. &#8220;She had tears in her eyes when she found the one she felt matched her baby&#8217;s spirit and personality.&#8221;</p> <p />

Volunteer: Kristy Jackson's wedding dress transformed into Angel Gowns

http://greensboro.com/volunteer-kristy-jackson-s-wedding-dress-transformed-into-angel-gowns/article_a634640f-cd08-5d89-b6e7-a9688e4e7b69.html

2018-01-26

<p>NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - The winter storm has put a dent in hard liquor sales in Virginia.</p> <p><a href="https://pilotonline.com/business/consumer/article_77cda407-dc10-5b7a-b8f8-832f2be011f9.html" type="external">The Virginian-Pilot reports</a> that more than 100 state-owned liquor stores closed because of the blizzard conditions on Thursday.</p> <p>The difference in sales between Jan. 4 this year and last year was about $260,000.</p> <p>Virginia had closed all 64 of its stores in the state's Hampton Roads region, which was hardest hit by the weather. But the manager of one store in Williamsburg briefly opened for about 90 minutes before getting the memo to close.</p> <p>The store had three customers. It sold a half-gallon of Carstairs White Seal Whiskey, a half-gallon of Tenure Vodka and a pint of Senator's Club Whiskey.</p> <p>The state stores will probably make up for the loss in revenue in the days to come.</p> <p>NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - The winter storm has put a dent in hard liquor sales in Virginia.</p> <p><a href="https://pilotonline.com/business/consumer/article_77cda407-dc10-5b7a-b8f8-832f2be011f9.html" type="external">The Virginian-Pilot reports</a> that more than 100 state-owned liquor stores closed because of the blizzard conditions on Thursday.</p> <p>The difference in sales between Jan. 4 this year and last year was about $260,000.</p> <p>Virginia had closed all 64 of its stores in the state's Hampton Roads region, which was hardest hit by the weather. But the manager of one store in Williamsburg briefly opened for about 90 minutes before getting the memo to close.</p> <p>The store had three customers. It sold a half-gallon of Carstairs White Seal Whiskey, a half-gallon of Tenure Vodka and a pint of Senator's Club Whiskey.</p> <p>The state stores will probably make up for the loss in revenue in the days to come.</p>

Snowstorm closed state liquor stores, smothering sales

https://apnews.com/amp/7ac9fe8ef9c5463b85b3aa0cc1ec5494

2018-01-06

<p>Chanelle Helm of Black Lives Matter Louisiana has issued ten <a href="" type="internal">demands</a> to hard-working honkies which will help balance the scales of social justice and combat white privilege.&amp;#160;</p> <p>LANGUAGE WARNING:</p> <p /> <p>Watch as I run though some of those demands which essentially come down to this:</p> <p>Surrender your valuables to black and brown people as soon as possible.</p> <p>Chanelle&#8217;s summer Christmas Wish List shows, yet again, the <a href="" type="internal">delusional</a> nature of Black Lives Matter and also shows they&#8217;re <a href="" type="internal">guilty</a> of cultural appropriation.</p> <p>After all, she just wants black people and brown people to get all of honky&#8217;s stuff, but isn&#8217;t the whole land reparations shtick the file that native people dine out on?</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">Excluding indigenous people</a> from her wealth redistribution masterplan is incredibly insensitive.</p> <p>Maybe even <a href="" type="internal">racist</a>.</p>

Black Lives Matter issues ten demands to hard-working honkies: Hand over your valuables

https://therebel.media/black_lives_matter_issue_10_demands_to_hard_working_honkies_hand_over_your_valuables

2017-09-04

<p /> <p>Artemivsk, Ukraine February 2, 2015 A Ukrainian soldier wounded during clashes with pro-Russian separatists near Debaltseve lies on a stretcher as he arrives at a hospital in the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region. Pro-Russian separatists vowed to mobilize as many as 100,000 fighters for their latest east Ukraine offensive as the United States mulled sending weapons to Kiev's outgunned forces after the latest truce bid collapsed.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Paris February 3, 2015 French President Francois Hollande pays his respect near the flag-draped coffins of the nine French air force personnel in the Invalides courtyard. The nine died in an accident at a NATO training base in Spain, where a Greek F-16 fighter plane crashed after taking off.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Donetsk, Ukraine February 5, 2015 A municipal official looks through the window of a residential block that was damaged by shelling, according to local authorities.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Anzere, Switzerland February 3, 2015 An artificially triggered avalanche thunders down a mountainside at the Vallee de la Sionne near Sion.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Germering, Germany February 3, 2015 A biker ride a snowy path during cold and foggy winter weather, with temperatures by minus 10 degrees.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Akqi County, China February 1, 2015 Herdsmen from the Kyrgyz ethnic group hold their falcons as they ride on horses during a hunting competition in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Damascus, Syria February 2, 2015 A man gives medical assistance to an injured man as two wounded children wait nearby at a field hospital after what activists said was an airstrike by forces of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the Duma neighborhood.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Moscow February 3, 2015 Employees adjust an electronic transparent screen that shows social advertising.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Calgary, Alberta February 4, 2015 Calgary Flames left wing Lance Bouma (17) checks into the boards San Jose Sharks defenseman Matt Irwin (52) during the second period at Scotiabank Saddledome.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates February 3, 2015 Emirati men pose with their falcons after an evening training session. Traditionally a way of obtaining food, falconry today has become more of a national sport and a rite of passage for many young Emirati men. Groups of friends regularly come together in the evenings to meet and train their birds where the practice becomes more about camaraderie and sharing knowledge than subsistence.</p> <p />

The Week in Pictures: February 7, 2015

https://thedailybeast.com/the-week-in-pictures-february-7-2015

2018-10-06

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Meanwhile, though a cloud of sadness hovers over Paris, world leaders have still convened there to seek an agreement on preventing the worst consequences of climate disruption.</p> <p>Though past climate talks have failed, this time around leaders have come to Paris with a particular urgency. They have come with commitments in hand that can move the conference toward the required unanimous ratification of the agreement. Although the outcomes of Paris won't do everything needed to protect our children and theirs, it is an important start.</p> <p>President Obama has committed to reducing global-warming gases that we all emit 17 percent by 2020. To do this he has proposed a portfolio of actions that will help move our country toward a sustainable energy future. A major part of the package seeks to reduce methane emissions throughout the country. These reductions will occur through implementation of rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).</p> <p>Today marks the end of the comment period on rules the EPA has proposed to control methane escape from oil and gas production.</p> <p>I attended a September EPA public hearing in Denver with 10 other New Mexicans who for an array of reasons are concerned about methane pollution and want EPA and BLM rules implemented as soon as possible.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Our delegation included members of the Navajo Nation concerned about the impacts of oil and gas extraction on Chaco Canyon and Navajo residents impacted by oil and gas leasing on their lands. Our group included kids as young as 12 who testified, concerned about the suffering global warming could impose on their generation. Residents of Farmington expressed concern about the respiratory health impacts of extraction, while a former oil and gas worker described being kept in the dark from the dangers of toxic pollutants like methane.</p> <p>We all concurred (that) controlling methane in our state is beneficial in a number of ways. First, it will stimulate a growing business around methane capture. Eleven New Mexico companies already exist to do this work. Second, it will help capture a resource held in trust by all of us that has value, that can be sold and used, but should never be wasted, especially when companies are pressing to build more wells all the time on public lands. And, finally, capturing methane is something we can do right now, in the short term, with existing tools to curb global climate disruption. Global warming can feel like an insurmountable issue, but this is something that can make a difference now.</p> <p>While these regulations won't fix the global warming, they are a step in the right direction to reducing the impacts of methane and will be part of New Mexico's contribution to building climate hope for the future. It's not too late to comment on the EPA methane rules. You have today and can do so at: <a href="http://www.sc.org/CutMethane" type="external">www.sc.org/CutMethane</a>.</p> <p />

EPA methane regulations concern us all

https://abqjournal.com/685725/epa-methane-regulations-concern-us-all.html

<p>In an interesting twist, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is under fire from his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, for &#8220;personally&#8221; taking &#8220;$600,000 from anti-coal groups.&#8221; But where did most of this alleged &#8220;anti-coal&#8221; money come from? Wells Fargo. The bank.</p> <p>McConnell&#8217;s wife, Elaine Chao, the former secretary of labor under President George W. Bush, sits on the Wells Fargo board of directors &#8212; for which she has been paid $684,000 over the last three years &#8212; and Wells Fargo has initiated a policy to limit its involvement with coal companies that do mountaintop removal.</p> <p>But to call Wells Fargo an anti-coal group is a huge stretch. For one, it still lends billions to coal companies. The environmental Sierra Club gave it a &#8220;D&#8221; rating this year for its involvement in financing coal-fired power plants in 2013.</p> <p>Moreover, the decision to limit involvement with companies that do mountaintop removal was made five years before Chao joined the Wells Fargo board, and company officials say the board of directors had nothing to do with that decision.</p> <p>Although McConnell and Grimes have both been vocal proponents of the coal industry, and highly critical of proposed Obama administration regulations of coal, the McConnell campaign has repeatedly accused Grimes of paying lip service to the coal industry while taking campaign contributions from anti-coal individuals and groups. The Grimes ad begins with just such an attack, a clip from a woman in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drTVvto7od4" type="external">McConnell ad</a> claiming Grimes &#8220;takes big money from people who want to destroy coal.&#8221;</p> <p>Grimes has, in fact, been <a href="http://www.kentucky.com/2013/10/29/2900801/grimes-raises-money-with-san-francisco.html" type="external">criticized</a> for raising campaign money from environmentalists who oppose coal-fired power, but as we noted in our story, &#8220; <a href="" type="internal">Correcting Kentucky Claim on Coal</a>,&#8221; Grimes has been consistently outspoken in her opposition to Obama administration regulations on the coal industry,</p> <p>The Grimes ad attempts to turn the tables on this McConnell attack, claiming that he&#8217;s the only one who&#8217;s personally &#8220;pocketing big money from people who want to destroy coal.&#8221;</p> <p>&amp;lt;iframe style="width: 500px; height:300px;" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen src="https://video.factcheck.org/play/173aa607817"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/iframe&amp;gt;</p> <p>&#8220;What Mitch McConnell doesn&#8217;t want you to know is that he and his wife personally took $600,000 from anti-coal groups, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s anti-coal foundation,&#8221; the narrator says. &#8220;The only candidate pocketing big money from people who want to destroy coal is Mitch McConnell.&#8221;</p> <p>The claim about involvement with &#8220;Bloomberg&#8217;s anti-coal foundation&#8221; refers to Chao serving on the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.org/about/board-of-directors/" type="external">board of directors</a> of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Prior to Chao joining the board in 2012, the foundation awarded $50 million over four years to the Sierra Club&#8217;s Beyond Coal initiative. The Bloomberg&amp;#160;Philanthropies <a href="http://www.bloomberg.org/program/environment/beyond-coal/#overview" type="external">website</a> on Beyond Coal touts its agenda of &#8220;ending the coal era&#8221; and its commitment to &#8220;retire one-third of the nation&#8217;s aging coal fleet by 2020.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;They do a lot of good things,&#8221; McConnell told the <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/story/life/events/statefair/2014/08/14/beshear-chao-mcconnell-conflict-coal/14063849/" type="external">Courier Journal</a> in August about Bloomberg Philanthropies. &#8220;They do some things [Chao] does not approve of, and she does not approve of their efforts in the coal industry.&#8221; (Of course, one could argue the same for Grimes &#8212; that despite taking campaign money from some environmentalists that oppose coal, she still opposes them on that particular issue.)</p> <p>A spokesperson for Bloomberg Philanthropies sent us an email saying, &#8220;The decision to provide funding to Sierra Club&#8217;s Beyond Coal initiative took place before Elaine Chao joined the Bloomberg Philanthropies board. Bloomberg Philanthropies&#8217; board members do not vote on individual initiatives or program spends.&#8221;</p> <p>Besides, Chao&#8217;s compensation from Bloomberg Philanthropies makes up just a fraction of the $600,000 highlighted in the ad. Records <a href="" type="external">show</a> Chao receives $9,400 annually for serving on the advisory board.</p> <p>Not mentioned in the ad is that the lion&#8217;s share of the $600,000 in question relates to Chao&#8217;s compensation for serving on the Wells Fargo board of directors. Proxy reports from <a href="https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/invest_relations/wf2012proxy.pdf" type="external">2012</a>, <a href="https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/invest_relations/2013-proxy.pdf" type="external">2013</a> and <a href="https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/invest_relations/2014-proxy.pdf" type="external">2014</a> show that Chao received fees and stock awards totaling more than $684,000 for her role as a company director starting in 2011.</p> <p>In its annual report on <a href="https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/about/csr/reports/environmental_lending_practices.pdf" type="external">Environmental and Social Risk Management</a>, the company said it recognizes the &#8220;controversy&#8221; surrounding coal mining through mountaintop removal.</p> <p>Wells Fargo Report on Environmental and Social Risk Management, 2013: Mining of coal and metals can generate significant economic benefits to local communities by providing jobs in rural areas, or in developing countries, where few other employment or economic development opportunities are available. However, coal and metal mining present significant concerns and impacts. In particular, the surface mining practice known as mountaintop removal (MTR) mining has drawn considerable attention and controversy.</p> <p>As a result, the company has said it &#8220;will not extend credit to individual MTR mining projects or to a coal producer that receives a majority of its production from MTR mining.&#8221;</p> <p>Wells Fargo Report on Environmental and Social Risk Management, 2013: We carefully consider companies who are engaged in surface mining in the Appalachian region of the United States. We recognize the significant concerns associated with this practice and we also acknowledge the significant investments made by our coal customers in their mine operations, which were entered into in good faith and in accordance with applicable regulations. As a result of our deliberate approach and the broader movement of the industry toward other mining methods, our involvement with the practice of MTR is limited and declining. Wells Fargo will not extend credit to individual MTR mining projects or to a coal producer that receives a majority of its production from MTR mining.</p> <p>Does that make Wells Fargo an &#8220;anti-coal group&#8221;?</p> <p>In the <a href="http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/rainforestactionnetwork/legacy_url/3979/ran_extreme_investments_2014.pdf?1402698174" type="external">2014 Coal Finance Report Card</a> published by Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club, and BankTrack, the groups applaud Wells Fargo for taking &#8220;steps to reduce their exposure to the coal industry by phasing out financing relationships with the largest producers of mountaintop removal coal.&#8221; Due to that, Wells Fargo was one of two U.S. banks to receive a &#8220;B&#8221; grade for its policies and practices with regard to financing mountaintop removal (even as the report noted that in 2013 Wells Fargo &#8220;provided $81 million in financing as a lead arranger or lead manager in transactions with MTR coal producers profiled in this report&#8221;).</p> <p>However, with regard to financing coal-fired power plants, the group gave Wells Fargo a &#8220;D&#8221; rating, and listed Wells Fargo sixth among lenders to coal-fired power plants. The report claims Wells Fargo &#8220;provided $1.9 billion in financing as a lead arranger or lead manager in transactions with coal-fired power companies.&#8221;</p> <p>Wells Fargo spokeswoman Jennifer G. Dunn told us via email that the policy of phasing out involvement with mountaintop removal dates back to 2006, five years before Chao came to the board, and that the decision was &#8220;developed by the lines of business and did not involve members of Wells Fargo&#8217;s Board of Directors.&#8221; Moreover, she said, the company&#8217;s continued significant financing of coal companies contradicts the ad&#8217;s claim that Wells Fargo is &#8220;anti-coal.&#8221;</p> <p>Dunn, Oct. 6: In 2006, Wells Fargo adopted a credit policy that provided guidance related to financing coal and metal mining. While we continue to finance coal companies, as a result of our deliberate approach and the broader movement of the industry toward other mining methods, our involvement with the practice of MTR is limited and declining. This policy was developed by the lines of business and did not involve members of Wells Fargo&#8217;s Board of Directors. Given that we still finance coal companies, we would certainly not characterize ourselves as &#8220;anti-coal.&#8221; And it should be noted that we reached this decision five years before Ms. Chao joined our Board.</p> <p>So the ad&#8217;s claim that McConnell and his wife &#8220;personally took $600,000 from anti-coal groups&#8221; is tenuous indeed. But even if it were true, one might ask what it has gotten them from McConnell. Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, has <a href="" type="internal">told us:</a> &#8220;Senator McConnell and his staff have done everything they can to support Kentucky&#8217;s coal miners and coal production.&#8221; Bissett told us only about 2 percent to 3 percent of Kentucky&#8217;s coal production comes from mountaintop removal, and a permit hasn&#8217;t been issued for new mountaintop removal in Kentucky since 2002.</p> <p>Moreover, McConnell has received more political contributions from coal mining interests &#8212; <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?Ind=E1210&amp;amp;cycle=2014&amp;amp;recipdetail=S&amp;amp;Mem=Y&amp;amp;sortorder=U" type="external">more than $202,000</a> &#8212; than any other senator, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.</p> <p>And for the record, the photo in the ad that appears to show McConnell, Chao and Bloomberg hobnobbing together in formal wear was digitally altered. Here&#8217;s <a href="https://binaryapi.ap.org/7c0b71ecaca5484daf1d96857e2ddd2b/460x.jpg" type="external">the original</a>, with just McConnell and Chao.</p> <p>&#8212; Robert Farley</p>

Kentucky Coal Connections

https://factcheck.org/2014/10/kentucky-coal-connections/

2014-10-07

<p>By Marv Knox</p> <p>The crisis on our southern border is complicated. Except when it&#8217;s not.</p> <p>Surely you know the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/07/14/233102/an-explainer-on-unaccompanied.html" type="external">story</a>:&amp;#160;Since last fall, 52,000 unaccompanied Latin American children have flooded the U.S. border with Mexico, most of them along the lower Rio Grande.</p> <p>They have flowed out of Honduras (15,000), Guatemala (12,500), Mexico (12,000) and El Salvador (11,500). Most are teenagers, but many are younger than 10 years old. They&#8217;re fleeing gang violence, abysmal education systems, staggering unemployment, crushing poverty and sexual abuse.</p> <p>Imagine you&#8217;re a parent of any of those children. How awful must their lives be for you to send them on such a long and dangerous journey? How pathetic must their lives be for you to turn them and all your savings over to a coyote &#8212; a smuggler of human beings?</p> <p>Maybe you can answer. I can&#8217;t even begin to comprehend.</p> <p>Unspeakable conditions turned on the tap of this stream of children. They&#8217;re swamping our nation&#8217;s ability to receive them. The vast majority aren&#8217;t sneaking into the country. They voluntarily surrender after they cross the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection detains them up to 72 hours. Then, Health and Human Services houses them in shelters while it attempts to reunite them with parents in the United States, places them in foster care or begins deportation proceedings. Officials cannot process them as rapidly as they arrive, so their numbers are escalating.</p> <p>Since American politics has degenerated to perpetual finger-pointing and name-calling, our government is ill-equipped to respond. Americans know that. A new <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-obama-republicans-face-broad-disapproval-over-handling-of-migrant-crisis/2014/07/14/3c2a1bcc-0b8e-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html?wpisrc=nl_eve" type="external">poll</a> shows 58 percent disapprove of how President Obama is managing the crisis. The same survey reveals 66 percent disapprove of how Republican lawmakers are responding.</p> <p>So, yes, this humanitarian crisis is complicated.</p> <p>It involves international relations, public policy, organized crime, federal and state budgets, election-year politics, economics, the judicial system and race relations. Any one of those factors would be sufficient to snarl a solution. Altogether, they comprise a catastrophic mess.</p> <p>It&#8217;s so catastrophic, we tend to overlook a single simplifying factor: We&#8217;re talking about children.</p> <p>Why can&#8217;t we start by agreeing nothing like this ever should happen to children? Then, why can&#8217;t we work out from there? Treat them with love and respect and nurture, as if they were our very own. Secure their safety, both now and going forward.</p> <p>You&#8217;d think Christians would be leading the way. After all, God created these children in God&#8217;s own image. Jesus said, &#8220;Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these&#8221; (Matthew 19:14). Jesus told us we will be judged by how we treat &#8220;the least of these,&#8221; and nobody in this hemisphere is more vulnerable than these children.</p> <p>But we&#8217;re hearing Christians, even a <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/10/pastor-robert-jeffress-tells-fox-jesus-would-have-wanted-a-border-fence/?onswipe_redirect=no&amp;amp;oswrr=1" type="external">preacher</a>&amp;#160; <a href="http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/dallas-preacher-says-jesus-would-seal-the-border/" type="external">who should know better</a>,&amp;#160;express more concern for the sanctity of our borders than the safety of children.</p> <p>The problem is our society &#8212; Christians included &#8212; has made an idol of our nation. We think more highly of what happens within our borders than we do of what happens to people created in God&#8217;s image. We worry more about the economy than the ebola virus ravaging western Africa. We care more about the price of gas than the value of a Middle Eastern human life. We fret more about the next election than we do about the fate of women in India.</p> <p>We have taken something good &#8212; patriotic love for and appreciation of a blessed nation &#8212; and have perverted it to think our comfort and exceptionally high standard of living are of more concern to God than the grave travesty and injustice suffered by the world&#8217;s most vulnerable.</p> <p>If a prophet on the order of Amos or Isaiah were alive today, what would he say about America? Perhaps he would say the fear and anguish and rage that keeps so many Americans&#8217; veins bulging and hands wringing is God&#8217;s punishment for failing to care for the millions of people who live on the world&#8217;s fringe.</p> <p>Of course, the situation on our southern border can&#8217;t continue like this. So what do we do?</p> <p>First, we care for the children. The government will follow due process &#8212; following laws implemented by both parties. But that process could take years. Warehousing those children that long is deplorable. What if America&#8217;s Christian churches volunteered to provide foster care in the meantime? How would the future of Central America change if its children were exposed to redemptive gospel in loving homes?</p> <p>Second, we stop the flow. This means helping improve conditions for children and their families in Central America. We&#8217;re lousy at nation-building, and we can&#8217;t take over their countries. But we can help those governments restore order. We can support their efforts to make their neighborhoods and communities safe.</p> <p>Similarly, we block the pipeline that fuels the violence. We must cut off the flow of money from illegal drugs and illegal arms. If the Central American cartels went bankrupt, the lives of people there would improve. And if the United States put anywhere near the emphasis on stopping that illicit trade as many in Congress want to put into closing the borders, the people fleeing violence wouldn&#8217;t have reason to leave.</p> <p>Fourth, we spread the word. Central American parents must know the danger facing their children on a trip north. They also must know the end result is not a panacea. They must know their children are far better off staying home in the first place. And that must be true.</p> <p>Fifth, we reform immigration. Our system doesn&#8217;t work &#8212; for immigrants, for their families, for states and communities on the border, for U.S. employers.</p> <p>Not only can we afford to fix the problem; we can&#8217;t afford not to fix it.</p>

What are we going to do about all those children?

https://baptistnews.com/article/what-are-we-going-to-do-about-all-those-children/

<p /> <p>Oil markets will begin to tighten in the second half of 2016 but the process will be slow and painful as global demand growth declines and non-OPEC supplies rebound, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The IEA, in its monthly report, forecast a healthy draw in global oil stocks in the next few months that would help ease a glut that has persisted since 2014 on the back of rising OPEC and non-OPEC supply.</p> <p>Oversupply helped send oil prices from $115 a barrel in June 2014 to as low as $27 in January this year. Crude later recovered to around $50 but fell again towards $40 in July.</p> <p>"Oil's drop ... has put the "glut" back into the headlines even though our balances show essentially no oversupply during the second half of the year. Moreover, our crude oil balance indicates a hefty draw in the third quarter after a lengthy stretch of uninterrupted builds," the Paris-based IEA said.</p> <p>"The resulting product stock draw will increase refiners' appetite for crude oil and help pave the way to a sustained tightening of the crude oil balance," it added.</p> <p>The rebalancing will be slow, however, with inventories in developed economies reaching a record-high 3.093 billion barrels in June.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>Meanwhile, global demand growth is expected to slow from 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2016 to 1.2 million bpd in 2017, the IEA said.</p> <p>The forecast for 2017 - although still above trend - was cut by 0.1 million bpd from last month's report following a revision to the global economic outlook by the International Monetary Fund after Britain voted in June to leave the European Union.</p> <p>Lower oil prices have forced high-cost producers such as the United States to slash spending and reduce drilling, resulting in an expected drop in non-OPEC output of 0.9 million bpd this year.</p> <p>But next year, the IEA said, output from producers that are not part of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will rebound by 0.3 million bpd - an upward revision of 0.2 million bpd from last month's report.</p> <p>It cited the start-up of the giant Kazakh Kashagan field as a factor.</p> <p>As a result of lower demand growth and higher non-OPEC output, the IEA cut its call on OPEC crude for 2017 by 0.2 million bpd to 33.5 million bpd.</p> <p>That is close to OPEC's production of 33.39 million bpd in July when output from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reached record levels, pushing total OPEC supply to an eight-year high.</p> <p>Post-sanctions Iran and Iraq have made the biggest gains so far this year, adding 560,000 and 500,000 bpd to their output respectively, the IEA said.</p> <p>Cash-strapped Venezuela and Nigeria - beset by militant attacks - have each racked up year-to-date declines of roughly 150,000 bpd versus 2015.</p> <p>(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)</p>

IEA Sees a Slow Tightening of Oil Markets

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/11/iea-sees-slow-tightening-oil-markets.html

2016-08-11

<p>Dyeing eggs has long been an Easter family tradition, along with egg hunts and the mass consumption of neon-colored, animal-shaped marshmallows.</p> <p>Animal rights groups are up in arms about another kind of dyeing... dyeing live chicks.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/dyeing-easter-chicks-raises-concerns.html?partner=rss&amp;amp;emc=rss%3f" type="external">The New York Times reported</a> that Florida recently passed a bill overturning a 45-year-old ban on dyeing animals, causing outrage among animal rights groups.</p> <p>Don Anthony of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/dyeing-easter-chicks-raises-concerns.html?partner=rss&amp;amp;emc=rss%3f" type="external">told The Times</a>, "Humane societies are overflowing with these animals after Easter every year," referring to little chicks that are dyed pastel and jewel shades, either by injecting the dye into an incubating egg or spraying the hatchling. Poultry farmers claim the practice is safe and doesn't harm the chick, whereas critics say the dyes are toxic and the process is stressful.</p> <p>The retired legislator who proposed the ban in Florida in 1967, Elton Gissendanner, said he did so because many animals were not surviving the dyeing process, <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-19/news/fl-dyed-bunny-ban-folo-20120317_1_animal-activists-dyeing-animals" type="external">according to The Sun Sentinel</a>.</p> <p>"Since 1967, I've never had one complaint about this law. It has not been touched till now," he said.</p> <p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/florida-man-reginald-owen-sear-get-2-years-killing-bunny-" type="external">Florida man Reginald Owen Sear to get 2 years for killing bunny rabbits with his hands</a></p> <p>The Republican state senator, Ellyn Bogdanoff, who tacked an amendment lifting the ban on to an agriculture bill did not realize it would also allow bunnies and chicks to be sold when they were just days old, <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-19/news/fl-dyed-bunny-ban-folo-20120317_1_animal-activists-dyeing-animals" type="external">according to The Sun Sentinel</a>. Her legislative aide said, "Oops. That's an unintended consequence. We had no clue."</p> <p>Daphna Nachminovitch, the vice president of cruelty investigations at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said, "The fact that these animals are going to be dyed like Easter eggs makes them more likely to be bought on impulse and then discarded," <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-19/news/fl-dyed-bunny-ban-folo-20120317_1_animal-activists-dyeing-animals" type="external">according to The Sun Sentinel</a>.</p> <p>At least 19 states, including New York and California, have outlawed the dyeing of animals, according to PETA officials.</p> <p>It is undeniable, they are adorable.</p> <p>Do you think people should be allowed to dye chicks and bunnies if it's proven to be safe? Is it fun or cruel?</p> <p /> <p />

Easter: Animal rights groups protest dyeing chicks (VIDEO)

https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-02/easter-animal-rights-groups-protest-dyeing-chicks-video

2012-04-02

<p /> <p>Hostess Brands, which is emerging from bankruptcy after the sale of its snack and bread brands, said Monday it plans to resume the sale of its iconic Twinkies and other snacks next month.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Private equity firms Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO) and C. Dean Metropoulos &amp;amp; Co. partnered to buy some of the bakery&#8217;s snack cakes for $410 million. The scaled-down Hostess Brands LLC includes Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, CupCakes and others.</p> <p>When Twinkies went out of production and store shelves ran empty, boxes of the spongy yellow cake were the subject of bidding wars on auction sites like eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY).</p> <p>In March Daren Metropoulos, principal of Metropoulos &amp;amp; Co., calmed fears of a long-term Twinkies shortage by saying the firm expected to have the cakes back on U.S. store shelves by the summer.</p> <p>Hostess now expects to have its brands back on sale nationwide on July 15, calling it &#8220;the sweetest comeback in the history of ever.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;America wanted Hostess back&#8212;they wanted the original. Very soon consumers will once again be able to enjoy Twinkies, CupCakes and other great Hostess snack cakes,&#8221; Daren Metropoulos said in a statement. &#8220;A comeback by any other name could never be as sweet.&#8221;</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p><a href="http://hostesscakes.com/" type="external">On its website Opens a New Window.</a>, Hostess has a digital clock counting down until the return of its &#8220;American snack icons that the people decided they just couldn&#8217;t live without.&#8221;</p> <p>Prices for the cakes will remain the same, company spokeswoman Hannah Arnold said. A box of 10 Twinkies was previously sold for $3.99.</p> <p>The company filed for bankruptcy in January 2012, less than three years after emerging from Chapter 11 protection a first time.</p> <p>Earlier this year, Hostess sold off various brands and other assets, including the $27.5 million sale of &amp;#160;Drake&#8217;s to McKee Foods. Another well-known brand, Wonder bread, was sold along with Nature&#8217;s Pride to Georgia-based Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) for $360 million.</p>

Twinkies, Other Hostess Snacks Set for July 15 Return

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/06/24/twinkies-other-hostess-cakes-set-for-july-15-return.html

2016-01-25

<p>(Breitbart) &#8211; Ronnie Dunn &#8212; one half of Grammy-winning country music duo Brooks and Dunn &#8212; ripped President Obama&#8217;s gun control-focused response to Sunday&#8217;s terror attack in Orlando in a series of bitingly sarcastic messages posted to social media.</p> <p>Speaking from the White House on Sunday afternoon after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since September 11, President Obama avoided mentioning radical Islam and instead&amp;#160;focused his response on the killer&#8217;s ability to obtain a gun.</p> <p>Calling the attack an &#8220;act of terror and an act of hate,&#8221; Obama said that identified gunman Omar Mateen was a &#8220;person filled with hatred.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Over the coming days, we&#8217;ll uncover how and why this happens and we&#8217;ll go wherever the facts lead us,&#8221; Obama vowed.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal">LISTEN UP: It&#8217;s now or never &#8211; the very fabric of the 2nd Amendment hangs in the balance. Donate today and support the Tea Party&#8217;s fight against Obama&#8217;s war on guns!</a></p> <p>But that response apparently wasn&#8217;t enough for Dunn, 63, who took to Facebook Sunday to blast the president for failing to mention the terrorist&#8217;s suspected ties to radical Islam. Mateen, who&amp;#160;slaughtered 50 people inside the Pulse nightclub and injured at least 53 more, reportedly dialed 911 and&amp;#160;pledged allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS&amp;#160;either before or during the attack.</p> <p>&#8220;The worst mass murder in American history attributed to Isis and Obama steps up to the microphone and implies that it will stop if guns are taken away,&#8221; Dunn&amp;#160;wrote&amp;#160;in the first of a series of messages on Facebook.</p> <p>&#8220;So, a law is passed and we are ordered to turn our guns in (billions of them)&#8230;&#8221; Dunn wondered. &#8220;I bet criminals and &#8216;terrorists&#8217;/Jihadists will rush to turn their guns in. &#8230;now that&#8217;s leadership. UNBELIEVABLE.&#8221;</p> <p>But Dunn didn&#8217;t stop there. He continued to defend gun ownership&amp;#160;by engaging with his fans in the comments section of his initial post.</p> <p>&#8220;Research the number of &#8216;shooters&#8217; who have been on or were at some time on SSRI (prozac etc.) prescribed drugs. It&#8217;s not the gun Julie,&#8221; Dunn wrote in response to another commenter. &#8220;Next, assign the number of deaths to radical ideology. . 75% of ALL gun deaths in America are suicides. FACT.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;What would&#8217;ve happened if the nations leader had walked up and said&#8230;.&#8217;America, we are now going to offer public national anti terrorism seminars. After you take the courses and pass the tests you will be allowed to attain a carry permit&#8230;,&#8221; the musician added in another post. &#8220;Arm yourselves. We are OFFICIALLY, at war with a global, radical ideology.&#8221;</p> <p>Dunn also wrote that Obama&#8217;s response was likely rooted in the fact that the president is a &#8220;liberal lawyer,&#8221; but stressed that&amp;#160;he did not blame Obama for the attack, as some of his fans suggested in comments.</p> <p>&#8220;Political preference doesn&#8217;t influence my opinion,&#8221; Dunn wrote. &#8220;I&#8217;m not selling politics, I&#8217;m making an observation.&#8221;</p> <p>Brooks and Dunn is currently headlining a residency at the Colosseum at Caesar&#8217;s Palace in Las Vegas through the end of March, 2017.</p> <p>http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/06/13/country-legend-ronnie-dunn-blasts-obamas-response-orlando-terror-bet-jihadists-will-rush-turn-guns/</p>

Country Legend Ronnie Dunn Blasts Obama’s Response to Orlando Terror: I Bet Jihadists ‘Will Rush to Turn Their Guns In’

http://teaparty.org/country-legend-ronnie-dunn-blasts-obamas-response-orlando-terror-bet-jihadists-will-rush-turn-guns-170585/?utm_source%3Drss%26utm_medium%3Drss%26utm_campaign%3Dcountry-legend-ronnie-dunn-blasts-obamas-response-orlando-terror-bet-jihadists-will-rush-turn-guns

<p>The official illegal immigrant deportation numbers for <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/dhs-releases-end-fiscal-year-2016-statistics" type="external">Fiscal Year 2016</a> are in and they prove what President Barack Obama's critics on the right, most notably President-elect Donald Trump, have been saying for some time: his administration has utterly failed to do its job when it comes to illegal immigration.</p> <p><a href="http://www.mrctv.org/blog/ice-deported-less-1-percent-all-illegal-aliens-fy2016" type="external">Brittany Hughes</a> provides some highlights from the 2016 report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that show just how "erroneous" Obama's false moniker of "Deporter-in-Chief" truly is. As has been noted by critics for a few years, the Obama administration has inflated its deportation numbers by redefining deportations, lumping together deportations from the interior of the country with simple "returns" of those caught at the border attempting to enter the country illegally. No previous administration has defined the latter as a true deportation.</p> <p>A closer look at the numbers provided by ICE show that only 65,332 (14 percent) of the 450,954 illegal immigrants "deported" in FY2016 were from the interior. The other 385,622 were simply caught attempting to illegally cross into the United States and sent back. Hughes notes that the 65,332 total true deportations is less than 1 percent of the estimated <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/03/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/" type="external">11 million</a> (some say it's far higher) illegal immigrants currently living in the country.</p> <p>Of the total of interior deportations, 94 percent of them were criminal illegals who were convicted of a violent felony or deemed a threat to national security ("Priority 1" category criminal illegals). While removing such clear threats to American lives is welcome news, a report by the Center for Immigration Studies over the summer found there are about 179,000 criminal illegal aliens in the country, thus the administration at best removed only a third of the highest priority criminal illegals.</p> <p>As for the other categories of illegal aliens, the Obama administration all but ignored them. "Only five percent of all removals (less than 23,000) were Priority 2 cases, which includes people who unlawfully crossed into the U.S. since 2014," notes Hughes. "An even smaller one percent (less than 5,000) were aliens who&#8217;d been given a final order of removal in the last 2-3 years." The Center for Immigration Studies report from this summer estimated about 925,000 illegal aliens who have received the final order of removal.</p> <p>Overall, ICE made "nearly 11,000 fewer interior arrests in FY2016 than the year before, down from 125,211 in FY2015 to 114,434 last year."</p> <p><a href="http://www.mrctv.org/blog/ice-deported-less-1-percent-all-illegal-aliens-fy2016" type="external">Read the full report here</a>.</p>

'Deporter-in-Chief' Deported Less Than 1% of All Illegal Immigrants in 2016

https://dailywire.com/news/12157/report-deporter-chief-deported-less-1-all-illegal-james-barrett

2017-01-05

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The town of Elida filed a lawsuit last week against Roosevelt County Sheriff Malin Parker to prevent him from further interfering with town ordinances or law enforcement.</p> <p>According to the lawsuit, Parker has interfered with Elida police business on at least three occasions.</p> <p>When Elida Mayor Durward Dixon attempted to ask Parker about the interference, court documents say Parker challenged the Dixon to a fist fight.</p> <p>Dixon told the Portales News-Tribune (https://goo.gl/z8s6WL) he tried twice to reconcile with the sheriff and filed the lawsuit as a last resort.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Parker said in a statement the fight challenge was &#8220;completely false.&#8221;</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Portales News-Tribune, <a href="http://www.pntonline.com" type="external">http://www.pntonline.com</a></p>

Lawsuit: New Mexico sheriff challenged mayor to fist fight

https://abqjournal.com/875249/lawsuit-new-mexico-sheriff-challenged-mayor-to-fist-fight.html

2016-10-26

<p>BRAS&#205;LIA -- Brazil's central bank reduced its overnight lending rate Wednesday for the seventh time since August, bringing the country's notoriously high interest rates into the single digits for the first time in nearly four years.</p> <p>The bank's monetary policy committee said Wednesday it cut the benchmark Selic rate to 9.25% from 10.25%, the third consecutive cut of a full percentage point.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Enabled by the lowest inflation since 1999, monetary policy makers are moving fast to rekindle Brazil's economy after the worst recession in more than a century of records.</p> <p>Annual inflation fell to 2.78% through mid-July, from 8.93% a year earlier. The central bank's target is 4.5%, with a tolerance range of 1.5 percentage points in either direction.</p> <p>The monetary easing is expected to continue. Economists polled weekly by the central bank forecast the Selic ending this year at 8%.</p> <p>Write to Paulo Trevisani at paulo.trevisani@wsj.com and Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com</p> <p>BRAS&#205;LIA -- Brazil's central bank cut borrowing costs to single-digit levels for the first time in nearly four years, as a sluggish economic recovery has kept a lid on consumer prices.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The bank's monetary policy committee said Wednesday it cut the benchmark Selic rate to 9.25% from 10.25%, the third consecutive cut of a full percentage point.</p> <p>In the postmeeting statement, the bank indicated further cuts remain likely but that their size will depend on economic indicators.</p> <p>"The pace of easing will continue to depend on the evolution of economic activity, the balance of risks, possible reassessments of the extension of the cycle, and on inflation forecasts and expectations," the bank said.</p> <p>The language is leading some pundits to believe another full-point cut is possible on Sept. 6 and that the central bank could trim rates more than they previously expected.</p> <p>"They are now saying it will all depend on certain conditions," said Jankiel Santos, chief economist at Haitong bank. "This lets us imagine that they may keep the pace given slow activity and low inflation."</p> <p>Brazil's annual inflation fell to 2.78% in June, from 8.93% a year before. That was lower than the bank's target range of 4.5%, plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.</p> <p>As a result, monetary easing is expected to continue. Economists polled weekly by the central bank forecast the Selic will end this year at 8%.</p> <p>Lower rates, however, have done little to jump-start Brazil's economy, which is struggling to recover from its worst recession in more than a century of data. Brazil's output is projected to grow just 0.3% this year, after contracting 3.8% in 2015 and another 3.6% last year.</p> <p>Economists say the potential benefits of reduced borrowing costs have been muddled by a large budget deficit. As of May, government spending was outstripping tax revenue at a pace equal to 9.2% of gross domestic product. Bras&#237;lia is struggling to meet fiscal targets and tame public debt that stood in May at 72.5% of GDP, up from 67.7% a year earlier.</p> <p>Most government spending is mandatory, leaving policy makers with few options to tackle the deficit aside from cutting public investments or raising the already high tax burden.</p> <p>"The government is spending too much. But it is basically payments, not investment," said Paulo Nepomuceno, a fixed-income analyst at Coinvalores brokerage firm. He said public outlays are fueling demand while anemic activity can't boost supply, in a recipe for higher inflation. "A lot of taxpayer money is thrown on the economy and production can't keep up," he said.</p> <p>Last week, the government raised fuel taxes to meet its already low fiscal targets. The measure is being challenged in court and criticized by economists who say it only worsens the economy.</p> <p>President Michel Temer is pushing legislation meant to reduce mandatory public spending in a bid to free up funds for public investment. But the president's efforts are hampered by a 94% disapproval rating and charges that he took bribes as part of a massive corruption scandal, which he denies.</p> <p>Economists worry that escalating public debt could lead to a currency devaluation that would pressure consumer prices upward. Those concerns haven't materialized so far, thanks mainly to tame conditions in international markets and high unemployment in Brazil.</p> <p>Prices for raw materials like oil and some food items have been stable at relatively low levels since the commodity boom ended earlier this decade. Brazil's currency also has recovered ground over the past year or so.</p> <p>"The international scenario has been benign for Brazil," said Fernando Gon&#231;alves, a senior economist at Ita&#250; Unibanco bank. Noting a 13.3% unemployment rate, he added that the labor market has been a "deflationary pressure."</p> <p>Write to Paulo Trevisani at paulo.trevisani@wsj.com and Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com</p> <p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> <p>July 26, 2017 18:28 ET (22:28 GMT)</p>

Brazil's Central Bank Cuts Selic Rate Another Percentage Point -- Update

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/26/brazils-central-bank-cuts-benchmark-rate-by-another-percentage-point.html

2017-07-26

<p>The mayhem at the White House is continuing as Donald Trump&#8217;s behavior gets ever more frantic and irrational. in the past few hours he has fired his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, the State Department&#8217;s top diplomacy aide, Steve Goldstein, and his personal assistant, John McEntee. There are rumblings from insiders that Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Veterans Administration director David Shulkin are also on the chopping block.</p> <p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2073754415972676" type="external" /></p> <p>As these vacancies open up, Trump will have the opportunity to name new appointees that will be better supplicants to his will. That has already played out with his nomination of current CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace Tillerson. And the news on Wednesday is that Trump has picked CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow to succeed the fired Gary Cohn as his chief economic advisor.</p> <p>By selecting Kudlow, Trump is continuing a pattern of bringing television personalities into his administration. Mostly they have been from Fox News and include K.T. McFarland, Ben Carson, Sebastian Gorka, Richard Grennell, and Jonathan Wachtel. Former Fox and Friends co-host, Heather Nauert, was also tapped by Trump to be the State Department spokesperson last year. And now she has already been promoted to replace Goldstein. Her entire career has been with Fox News and she has no diplomatic experience whatsoever.</p> <p>The departure of Trump&#8217;s communications director, Hope Hicks, last month has set off a flurry of speculation as to who would fill her shoes. Among those being considered is Fox News co-host of The Five, Kimberly Guilfoyle. She has been on deck for a Trump slot for quite a while. And another Fox and Friends host, Pete Hegseth, is reportedly being wooed to lead the Veterans Administration should Shulkin get tossed. Prior to joining Fox, Hegseth headed up a Koch brothers front group that pretended to advocate for veterans. But he has zero experience running a massive bureaucracy like the VA, nor has he ever worked in the health services field that comprises much of what the VA does.</p> <p>Trump&#8217;s National Security Advisor, McMaster, is also teetering on the brink. His successor is rumored to be another Fox News contributor, John Bolton. He served in George Bush&#8217;s state department and as Ambassador to the United Nations. Consequently Bolton played a major role in the fabricated weapons of mass destruction excuses to invade Iraq, as well as in the disastrous administration of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p> <p>Obviously Trump is most comfortable working with TV personalities. It seems like his entire pool of possible job applicants come from the ranks of people he&#8217;s seen on Fox or other programs. His experience is so bereft of substance that he can&#8217;t possibly know anyone that has actual credentials in the jobs he needs to fill. And he wouldn&#8217;t want them anyway because they might not be photogenic. As a result, America will be burdened with shallow, unqualified amateurs running government agencies whose work affects us all. But at least they&#8217;ll look good when they sit down for softball interviews with Sean Hannity.</p> <p>This is what Fox&#8217;s Laura Ingraham considers Trump &#8220;hitting his stride,&#8221; and &#8220;getting a really strong team in place.&#8221; And coincidentally, that&#8217;s exactly how Trump sees it. On Tuesday he explained to reporters that these White House shake-ups were just the normal fine tuning of personnel. &#8220;I&#8217;m really at a point,&#8221; he said, &#8220;where we&#8217;re getting very close to having the Cabinet, and other things, that I want.&#8221; That&#8217;s after a year in office where all of his original appointments were also his choices, but apparently not what he wanted. Ironically, not having the leadership one wants is something most Americans can relate to right now.</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 />

Larry Kudlow is the Latest Contestant on Trump’s Reality TV Game Show Presidency

http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D20200

<p>The first general election presidential debate of 2016 will take place on Monday night at Hofstra University in New York. It&#8217;s slated to be one of the most watched debates in American history. You can probably guess why. With Donald Trump set to face off against Hillary Clinton there will certainly be no shortage of reality-show moments.</p> <p>As people around the world speculate endlessly about what may or may not happen during the much-anticipated debate, very little has been said about this year&#8217;s debate moderators.</p> <p>Lester Holt will be up first as he&#8217;s scheduled to moderate the debate this Wednesday. Here&#8217;s what you need to know about Holt.</p> <p>1. Holt replaced disgraced &#8220;NBC Nightly News&#8221; anchor Brian Williams after it came out that Williams had repeatedly lied about his experiences in Iraq while covering the 2003 invasion. &#8220;Williams recounted the story several times over the past 12 years, exaggerating his role in the incident over time,&#8221; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-brian-williams-has-lied-about-2015-2" type="external">reports</a> Business Insider. &#8220;Most recently, he said he was traveling in a helicopter that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, but after a veteran involved in the event questioned his story, Williams admitted he was actually riding in another helicopter that was about 30 minutes behind the one that was hit.&#8221;</p> <p>2. Holt is a Republican. This may come as a shock to most people, especially those used to a markedly liberal press. But according to <a href="http://time.com/4501616/donald-trump-debate-lester-holt-democrat/" type="external">Time Magazine</a>, Holt is actually a registered Republican. &#8220;New York State voter registration documents show that Holt has been a registered Republican in the state since 2003,&#8221; confirms Time.</p> <p>This fact directly contradicts Trump&#8217;s baseless allegations that Holt is a Democrat. &#8220;By the way, Lester is a Democrat,&#8221; Trump <a href="http://time.com/4501616/donald-trump-debate-lester-holt-democrat/" type="external">told</a> Fox News&#8217; Bill O&#8217;Reilly last week. &#8216;It&#8217;s a phony system. They are all Democrats. It&#8217;s a very unfair system,&#8221; Trump said of the debate moderators.</p> <p>3. Holt has moderated political debates before. Although Monday&#8217;s debate will be Holt&#8217;s first general election presidential debate, it won&#8217;t be his first time interacting with mendacious politicians. In January, Holt moderated a Democratic primary debate alongside his NBC colleague Andrea Mitchell.</p> <p>4. Holt is the first African-American to moderate a presidential debate in two and a half decades. Carole Simpson was the last African-American to moderate a general election presidential debate. The year was 1992 and Bill Clinton was facing off against then-President George HW Bush. Socially-adept and charismatic, Clinton appeared more &#8220;likeable&#8221; in juxtaposition to Bush, opening the door for an election victory that year.</p> <p>5. Holt rarely talks about his race. Holt&#8217;s parents are from Jamaica, and he considers himself a black man, but he doesn&#8217;t usually bring up his racial identity. Despite the scourge of identity politics infecting public discourse today, Holt would rather emphasize his professional contributions to the profession of broadcast news over his personal background. Here&#8217;s what he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/25/5-things-to-know-about-presidential-debate-moderator-lester-holt/" type="external">told</a> the Chicago Tribune back in 1995:</p> <p>Everyone knows I'm black. I am who I am. This is the person that Lester Sr. and June Holt raised, and I make no apology for it. At the same time, I'm never going to pull a race card to get what I want. You can't have it both ways.</p> <p>6. Holt is well respected as a serious journalist across the political spectrum. Despite NBC&#8217;s obvious and self-identified liberal bias, Holt is not known for his partisan rants. While NBC sets the (partisan) agenda of news items to cover in any given broadcast, Holt usually addresses contentious topics without over-editorializing or hyperbolizing. Unlike his colleagues at MSNBC (ie Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow etc), Holt at least tries to maintain a veneer of objectivity, respecting the seat of the anchor chair.</p> <p>7. Holt maintains a low-profile outside of work. Resistant to social media and self-promotion, Holt only tweets periodically. When he does post things online, it&#8217;s usually related to a major sporting event like the Olympics.</p>

7 Things You Need To Know About Debate Moderator Lester Holt

https://dailywire.com/news/9451/7-things-you-need-know-about-debate-moderator-michael-qazvini

2016-09-25

<p>OCEAN RIDGE, Fla. (AP) &#8212; It&#8217;s been nearly two years since Darryl Fornatora disappeared during a surfing trip to the Dominican Republic, and authorities appear no closer to finding out what happened to the West Palm Beach resident than they did the day he vanished.</p> <p>For his family, frustration accompanies their grief. Not only has there been no trace of Fornatora, but there&#8217;s no certainty anybody &#8212; not U.S. authorities, not Dominican Republic police &#8212; is even looking for him.</p> <p>&#8220;How does this happen that a citizen of the United States goes on a six-day vacation, disappears and nobody seems to give a damn?&#8221; said Gilbert Fornatora, Darryl&#8217;s 88-year-old father.</p> <p>Darryl Fornatora, who was director of the Lake Park Tennis Center at the time he went missing, flew with a friend to the Caribbean island on Jan. 25, 2016, for a surfing vacation in the northern coastal town of Cabarete.</p> <p>Fornatora was last seen two days later.</p> <p>Dominican authorities close Fornatora case, rule it a drowning</p> <p>Security officials with the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo wrote to Gilbert and Nancy Fornatora of Ocean Ridge in April 2016 referring to an &#8220;active criminal investigation&#8217; into their son&#8217;s disappearance and promising the embassy was &#8220;working closely&#8221; with the Dominican government on the matter.</p> <p>But more than 20 months later, the probe appears to have produced few, if any, results. Whether the investigation is even active is anyone&#8217;s guess.</p> <p>Fornatora&#8217;s family says it&#8217;s had no communication in nearly a year with the U.S. embassy. Robin Bernstein, a Palm Beach-based insurance agent and a charter member of the Mar-a-Lago club who was President Trump&#8217;s controversial pick to be U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, has yet to receive a confirmation hearing.</p> <p>Private investigators hired by the family provided clues and promising leads, but no resolution. A $50,000 reward for information leading to Fornatora has gone unclaimed.</p> <p>The family is under no illusion that Fornatora, who would be 47, is still alive.</p> <p>&#8220;There are dozens of possible scenarios, and all of them end violently,&#8221; said Christina Hendrex, Darryl&#8217;s sister. &#8220;I think that my brother was murdered. No doubt in my mind. The why, I&#8217;m not sure of.&#8221;</p> <p>VIDEO ONLINE: Darryl Fornatora&#8217;s parents talk about his disappearance</p> <p>Hendrex and her parents say the one person who might know is Matthew Rigby, the friend who accompanied Fornatora to the Dominican Republic. They haven&#8217;t spoken since a meeting shortly after Darryl disappeared and Rigby returned to Palm Beach County without their brother and son, and they say his recollections about what happened only left them with questions.</p> <p>Multiple attempts by The Post to reach Rigby, a harbor pilot at the Port of Palm Beach, since Fornatora vanished have been unsuccessful.</p> <p>The surfing trip was supposed to last until Jan. 31, but Rigby cut his visit short and returned to Florida on Jan. 28. The Fornatoras and Hendrex say Rigby said he did so because the waves around Cabarete were &#8220;flat&#8221; &#8212; but followed that by saying Fornatora had remained behind to do more surfing.</p> <p>Gilbert Fornatora also said Rigby told him that he didn&#8217;t see Darryl again after his friend became &#8220;nervous&#8221; and &#8220;paranoid&#8221; while claiming that someone was after him and that he had been &#8220;set up.&#8221; An analysis of Darryl Fornatora&#8217;s computer revealed he searched the term &#8220;Colombian drug cartels&#8221; on Google the day he disappeared, according to Hendrex.</p> <p>Despite that, the Fornatoras and Hendrex say Rigby left Cabarete without alerting authorities either on the island or in the U.S. about Fornatora&#8217;s behavior and didn&#8217;t contact Fornatora&#8217;s family until Jan. 29, two days after Darryl went missing.</p> <p>Rigby and Fornatora were &#8220;best friends&#8221; for around five years and had gone on surfing trips before, according to family members. Rigby and his wife had previously been to Thanksgiving dinner at the Ocean Ridge home of Fornatora&#8217;s parents.</p> <p>&#8220;I feel this is a giant jigsaw puzzle and we have all the border pieces &#8212; the outline is there &#8212; but we&#8217;re missing all the pieces that make the picture come together &#8212; and Matt holds all of them,&#8221; said Hendrex, who took two fact-finding missions to the Dominican Republic after her brother disappeared.</p> <p>Michael Dutko, a criminal lawyer retained by Rigby, told People magazine in May 2016, that Rigby had spoken to the FBI and a representative from U.S. Department of State and that his client &#8220;is not withholding anything.&#8221;</p> <p>Dutko told the Post this week that he hasn&#8217;t spoken to Rigby recently, &#8220;so I&#8217;m not comfortable answering questions at this point . but as far as I&#8217;m concerned, there are no new developments worth reporting.&#8221;</p> <p>The Fornatoras say they are in a state of limbo. Communication with the U.S. embassy has ceased and the FBI won&#8217;t return their calls. An FBI spokesman told The Post last week that any questions regarding Fornatora&#8217;s case must go through the embassy. Multiple calls to the embassy were not returned.</p> <p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t understand why, as Darryl&#8217;s parents, we can&#8217;t get anybody to talk with us,&#8221; said Nancy Fornatora, 70.</p> <p>The Dominican national police officially closed the case in 2016, labeling the disappearance a drowning. Fornatora&#8217;s family say Dominican authorities have appeared keen on &#8220;sweeping this under the rug&#8221; since the beginning so that it doesn&#8217;t affect the island nation&#8217;s tourism industry.</p> <p>Sen. Marco Rubio&#8217;s office reached out to the Fornatoras in 2016 after reading about Darryl&#8217;s case in The Post. The family was slated to meet with the senator in late November but a scheduling conflict caused the gathering to be postponed.</p> <p>Olivia Perez-Cubas, Rubio&#8217;s spokeswoman, said the meeting is being re-scheduled and that the senator has requested an update from the State Department. Fornatora&#8217;s family said they received assurances that Rubio will question Bernstein about the Fornatora case whenever her confirmation hearing takes place.</p> <p>The Fornatoras have not stood by idly. Besides hiring a string of private eyes and attorneys and Hendrex&#8217;s fact-finding trips to the Dominican Republic, the family has compiled a thick binder filled with investigative reports, time lines and interview transcripts they have turned over to the embassy security officials in the Dominican Republic.</p> <p>&#8220;Nothing is going to bring him back, but the least we can do is push this forward and find out what the hell happened,&#8221; Gilbert Fornatora said.</p> <p>Hendrex said the anguish of Darryl&#8217;s disappearance &#8220;has eaten (her parents) alive.&#8221; Nancy Fornatora has developed Parkinson&#8217;s disease, she said, and Gilbert Fornatora &#8220;doesn&#8217;t sleep&#8221; and is struggling with his health.</p> <p>&#8220;The grieving process gets stuck because you don&#8217;t have answers and no closure,&#8221; Hendrex said. &#8220;There is no moving on. It&#8217;s like you&#8217;re frozen in time. Every day might as well be January 29, 2016 &#8212; the day we found out he was missing &#8212; because you&#8217;re stuck.</p> <p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t move past it.&#8221;</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, <a href="http://www.pbpost.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.pbpost.com" type="external">http://www.pbpost.com</a></p> <p>OCEAN RIDGE, Fla. (AP) &#8212; It&#8217;s been nearly two years since Darryl Fornatora disappeared during a surfing trip to the Dominican Republic, and authorities appear no closer to finding out what happened to the West Palm Beach resident than they did the day he vanished.</p> <p>For his family, frustration accompanies their grief. Not only has there been no trace of Fornatora, but there&#8217;s no certainty anybody &#8212; not U.S. authorities, not Dominican Republic police &#8212; is even looking for him.</p> <p>&#8220;How does this happen that a citizen of the United States goes on a six-day vacation, disappears and nobody seems to give a damn?&#8221; said Gilbert Fornatora, Darryl&#8217;s 88-year-old father.</p> <p>Darryl Fornatora, who was director of the Lake Park Tennis Center at the time he went missing, flew with a friend to the Caribbean island on Jan. 25, 2016, for a surfing vacation in the northern coastal town of Cabarete.</p> <p>Fornatora was last seen two days later.</p> <p>Dominican authorities close Fornatora case, rule it a drowning</p> <p>Security officials with the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo wrote to Gilbert and Nancy Fornatora of Ocean Ridge in April 2016 referring to an &#8220;active criminal investigation&#8217; into their son&#8217;s disappearance and promising the embassy was &#8220;working closely&#8221; with the Dominican government on the matter.</p> <p>But more than 20 months later, the probe appears to have produced few, if any, results. Whether the investigation is even active is anyone&#8217;s guess.</p> <p>Fornatora&#8217;s family says it&#8217;s had no communication in nearly a year with the U.S. embassy. Robin Bernstein, a Palm Beach-based insurance agent and a charter member of the Mar-a-Lago club who was President Trump&#8217;s controversial pick to be U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, has yet to receive a confirmation hearing.</p> <p>Private investigators hired by the family provided clues and promising leads, but no resolution. A $50,000 reward for information leading to Fornatora has gone unclaimed.</p> <p>The family is under no illusion that Fornatora, who would be 47, is still alive.</p> <p>&#8220;There are dozens of possible scenarios, and all of them end violently,&#8221; said Christina Hendrex, Darryl&#8217;s sister. &#8220;I think that my brother was murdered. No doubt in my mind. The why, I&#8217;m not sure of.&#8221;</p> <p>VIDEO ONLINE: Darryl Fornatora&#8217;s parents talk about his disappearance</p> <p>Hendrex and her parents say the one person who might know is Matthew Rigby, the friend who accompanied Fornatora to the Dominican Republic. They haven&#8217;t spoken since a meeting shortly after Darryl disappeared and Rigby returned to Palm Beach County without their brother and son, and they say his recollections about what happened only left them with questions.</p> <p>Multiple attempts by The Post to reach Rigby, a harbor pilot at the Port of Palm Beach, since Fornatora vanished have been unsuccessful.</p> <p>The surfing trip was supposed to last until Jan. 31, but Rigby cut his visit short and returned to Florida on Jan. 28. The Fornatoras and Hendrex say Rigby said he did so because the waves around Cabarete were &#8220;flat&#8221; &#8212; but followed that by saying Fornatora had remained behind to do more surfing.</p> <p>Gilbert Fornatora also said Rigby told him that he didn&#8217;t see Darryl again after his friend became &#8220;nervous&#8221; and &#8220;paranoid&#8221; while claiming that someone was after him and that he had been &#8220;set up.&#8221; An analysis of Darryl Fornatora&#8217;s computer revealed he searched the term &#8220;Colombian drug cartels&#8221; on Google the day he disappeared, according to Hendrex.</p> <p>Despite that, the Fornatoras and Hendrex say Rigby left Cabarete without alerting authorities either on the island or in the U.S. about Fornatora&#8217;s behavior and didn&#8217;t contact Fornatora&#8217;s family until Jan. 29, two days after Darryl went missing.</p> <p>Rigby and Fornatora were &#8220;best friends&#8221; for around five years and had gone on surfing trips before, according to family members. Rigby and his wife had previously been to Thanksgiving dinner at the Ocean Ridge home of Fornatora&#8217;s parents.</p> <p>&#8220;I feel this is a giant jigsaw puzzle and we have all the border pieces &#8212; the outline is there &#8212; but we&#8217;re missing all the pieces that make the picture come together &#8212; and Matt holds all of them,&#8221; said Hendrex, who took two fact-finding missions to the Dominican Republic after her brother disappeared.</p> <p>Michael Dutko, a criminal lawyer retained by Rigby, told People magazine in May 2016, that Rigby had spoken to the FBI and a representative from U.S. Department of State and that his client &#8220;is not withholding anything.&#8221;</p> <p>Dutko told the Post this week that he hasn&#8217;t spoken to Rigby recently, &#8220;so I&#8217;m not comfortable answering questions at this point . but as far as I&#8217;m concerned, there are no new developments worth reporting.&#8221;</p> <p>The Fornatoras say they are in a state of limbo. Communication with the U.S. embassy has ceased and the FBI won&#8217;t return their calls. An FBI spokesman told The Post last week that any questions regarding Fornatora&#8217;s case must go through the embassy. Multiple calls to the embassy were not returned.</p> <p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t understand why, as Darryl&#8217;s parents, we can&#8217;t get anybody to talk with us,&#8221; said Nancy Fornatora, 70.</p> <p>The Dominican national police officially closed the case in 2016, labeling the disappearance a drowning. Fornatora&#8217;s family say Dominican authorities have appeared keen on &#8220;sweeping this under the rug&#8221; since the beginning so that it doesn&#8217;t affect the island nation&#8217;s tourism industry.</p> <p>Sen. Marco Rubio&#8217;s office reached out to the Fornatoras in 2016 after reading about Darryl&#8217;s case in The Post. The family was slated to meet with the senator in late November but a scheduling conflict caused the gathering to be postponed.</p> <p>Olivia Perez-Cubas, Rubio&#8217;s spokeswoman, said the meeting is being re-scheduled and that the senator has requested an update from the State Department. Fornatora&#8217;s family said they received assurances that Rubio will question Bernstein about the Fornatora case whenever her confirmation hearing takes place.</p> <p>The Fornatoras have not stood by idly. Besides hiring a string of private eyes and attorneys and Hendrex&#8217;s fact-finding trips to the Dominican Republic, the family has compiled a thick binder filled with investigative reports, time lines and interview transcripts they have turned over to the embassy security officials in the Dominican Republic.</p> <p>&#8220;Nothing is going to bring him back, but the least we can do is push this forward and find out what the hell happened,&#8221; Gilbert Fornatora said.</p> <p>Hendrex said the anguish of Darryl&#8217;s disappearance &#8220;has eaten (her parents) alive.&#8221; Nancy Fornatora has developed Parkinson&#8217;s disease, she said, and Gilbert Fornatora &#8220;doesn&#8217;t sleep&#8221; and is struggling with his health.</p> <p>&#8220;The grieving process gets stuck because you don&#8217;t have answers and no closure,&#8221; Hendrex said. &#8220;There is no moving on. It&#8217;s like you&#8217;re frozen in time. Every day might as well be January 29, 2016 &#8212; the day we found out he was missing &#8212; because you&#8217;re stuck.</p> <p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t move past it.&#8221;</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, <a href="http://www.pbpost.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.pbpost.com" type="external">http://www.pbpost.com</a></p>

Family fears no one searching for surfer missing since 2016

https://apnews.com/47c3c3ffb99e405396941f726db6464a

2017-12-31

<p /> <p>Need to buy chicken, rice and peppers to cook for dinner tonight? No need to get off of your couch - filling that grocery list is just a click away. &amp;#160;According to a Nielsen survey, one-quarter of global respondents say they are already ordering grocery products online for home delivery and more than half are willing to use it in the future. &amp;#160;Sales from the online grocery business are expected to jump more than 16% to $13 billion this year according to market research firm IBIS World.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The growth is being powered by the rise in wireless devices and broadband connections, as well as sophisticated and speedy delivery channels. &amp;#160;&#8220;Place a grocery order by 10 a.m. and get items by dinner, or order by 10 p.m. and get items by breakfast,&#8221; says Nell Rona, spokesperson for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). If you sign up for Amazon&#8217;s Prime Fresh membership, you get the benefits of both Amazon Prime and AmazonFresh for an annual fee of $299. The program is being offered in select cities.</p> <p>While the tech giant was among the first to apply its online shopping models to the grocery business, more traditional retailers have started chasing that success. Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT), the world&#8217;s largest retailer, announced it is testing an online grocery in five U.S. cities: including its hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. For a $3 to $7 fee, you can purchase over 30,000 grocery items; including produce, meat, dairy and common household products. The retailer says its delivery trucks are equipped with three temperature controlled compartments to ensure that all items you ordered will arrive at your door fresh. Walmart is also expanding its footprint in grocery delivery by offering a free curbside pickup service. The program is available in eight new cities, including Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte.</p> <p>Some of the nation&#8217;s other large retailers are partnering with niche delivery companies such as Instacart to capture a piece of the growing delivery business. Instacart allows you to order groceries online by connecting you with personal shoppers. The shoppers handpick the items at the stores near you and deliver them right to your door. The company currently serves 18 metropolitan areas including Minneapolis through a recently announced partnership with Target (NYSE:TGT). In addition to Target, Instacart&#8217;s retail partners include national chains Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFM), Costco (NASDAQ:COST) and Petco. The first delivery is free and future orders cost $3.99 for two-hour delivery or $5.99 for one-hour delivery for orders over $35.</p> <p>Technology such as that used by Postmates maximizes supply chain logistics which is giving the consumer more choices beyond just groceries. &#8220;The customer just chooses the store that they'd like to order from,&#8221; says April Conyers, spokesperson for Postmates. &#8220;Once submitted, a Postmate will go to the store that was requested and pick up the items on the list.&#8221; Delivery starts at $5 and goes up depending on distance. &amp;#160;The service is currently available in 40 metropolitan markets including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Phoenix and St. Louis.</p> <p>While the recent growth of the industry is being driven by the expansion of the wireless world its roots can be traced to technology&#8217;s early days. &#8220;We operated using a dial-up modem and a DOS software designed by our co-founder, and by filling a grocery order by hand in a local grocery store and then delivering that order to a customer&#8217;s doorstep,&#8221; says Carrie Bienkowski, Chief Marketing Officer at Peapod. Brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson pioneered the online grocery concept when they founded Peapod in 1989. The company, which operates as a separate entity, is now part of grocery chain Stop &amp;amp; Shop, which is owned by Ahold USA, a unit of global retail giant Royal Ahold.</p>

The Explosion of the Online Delivery Business

http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/10/05/explosion-online-delivery-business.html

2016-03-06

<p>(Repeats with PIX tag in slug, no changes to text)</p> <p>* Government consultation ends Tuesday</p> <p>* Lower stake limit on fixed terminals would hit revenue</p> <p>* Price of GVC&#8217;s Ladbrokes purchase depends on outcome of review</p> <p>By Kate Holton and Rahul B</p> <p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - British gambling firms William Hill and Ladbrokes Coral, which run retail betting shops, reacted with dismay on Monday as their shares plunged on a report that Britain will slash the stake limit on in-shop terminals to 2 pounds ($2.78).</p> <p>The government said in October it would reduce the top stake on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) to between 2 and 50 pounds from 100 to help tackle problem gambling after a consultation ending on Tuesday.</p> <p>The Sunday Times newspaper cited an ally of Culture Secretary Matt Hancock as saying the limit would be set at the bottom of that range.</p> <p>&#8220;We are very clear that stake cuts will fail to adequately address any issue of problem gambling,&#8221; said Ladbrokes Coral, which is being bought by the online gambling firm GVC for a cash-and-share sum that depends on the outcome of the review. Ladbrokes took about 800 million pounds of revenue from gaming machines in 2016.</p> <p>Ladbrokes shares were down 8.7 percent at 166.45 pence at 1220 GMT and rival William Hill was down 11.4 percent at 297.9 pence, the biggest loser on the FTSE mid-cap index. Paddy Power was off 0.5 percent at 8,400p.</p> <p>&#8220;The impact of this rumour on our share price this morning illustrates the drastic impact such a move would have on the retail betting sector&#8221;, William Hill Chief Executive Philip Bowcock said in a emailed statement.</p> HIGH STREET PRESENCE <p>There are almost 8,800 betting shops in the UK and companies are allowed to install a maximum of four machines per shop.</p> <p>The terminals have helped to keep betting shops going when many younger gamblers have switched to betting on sports events using their smartphones or tablets. But they have come under fire for leaving gamblers with big losses.</p> <p>The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport declined to confirm the report, saying in a statement that it would make a final decision &#8220;in due course once all the evidence has been considered&#8221;.</p> <p>Ladbrokes Coral Group, currently Britain&#8217;s largest bookmaker, has more than 3,500 betting shops employing over 25,000 people. William Hill has 2,376 shops employing more than 12,500.</p> <p>Bookmakers say that if they lose the income from the machines, they will be forced to close stores.</p> <p>&#8220;There is also no evidence that machine customers will switch their spend to sports betting such as horse racing, and our experience is that they won&#8217;t,&#8221; Ladbrokes added in the market announcement.</p> <p>GVC is to spend up to 4 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) to secure a high street presence with Ladbrokes, but the terms mean the price will be cut if projected FOBT income falls. GVC declined to comment on the Sunday Times report.</p> <p>The reduction of the maximum stake is set to be the biggest regulatory change in the industry since the 2005 Gambling Act, and is seen as likely to set off a new round of acquisitions. ($1 = 0.7196 pounds) (Reporting by Rahul B in Bengaluru; Editing by Kevin Liffey)</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore&#8217;s competition watchdog said it had reasonable grounds to suspect competition had been infringed by Uber Technologies Inc&#8217;s [UBER.UL] deal to sell its operations in Southeast Asia to rival ride-hailing firm Grab.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Uber logo is seen on a screen in Singapore August 4, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/File Picture <p>In a rare move, the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) has begun an investigation into the deal and proposed interim measures that will require Uber and Grab to maintain their pre-transaction independent pricing, the watchdog said in a statement on Friday.</p> <p>The proposal also requires Uber and Grab not to take any action that might lead to the integration of their businesses in Singapore, a move likely to pose a major hurdle to the U.S. company&#8217;s attempt to improve profitability by exiting the loss-making Southeast Asian market.</p> <p>It is the first time the commission has issued interim measures on any business in the country.</p> <p>&#8220;To address consumer concerns, we have voluntarily committed to maintaining our fare structure and will not increase base fares. This is a commitment we are prepared to give the CCS, and to the public,&#8221; Lim Kell Jay, head of Grab Singapore, told Reuters in a statement.</p> <p>Uber was not immediately available for comment.</p> <p>Uber and Grab announced the deal on Monday, marking the U.S. company&#8217;s second retreat from an Asian market.</p> <p>Under the deal, Uber will take a 27.5 percent stake in Grab, which is valued at around $6 billion, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the Singapore-based company&#8217;s board.</p> <p>CCS proposals also require both Grab and Uber not to obtain from each other any confidential information including pricing, customers and drivers.</p> <p>The two firms will be given an opportunity to make written representations to the CCS upon receipt of the proposed interim measures, it said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Grab vehicle is pictured in Singapore March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su <p>Singapore has a voluntary merger notification regime, and CCS has yet to receive the notification from Uber and Grab as of Friday, although the companies have indicated their intention to file a formal merger notification, CCS said.</p> <p>&#8220;We had engaged with the CCS prior to signing and continue to do so,&#8221; Lim said.</p> <p>&#8220;We have informed the CCS that we are making a voluntary notification no later than 16 April 2018 to continue to cooperate and engage with the CCS,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>The deal is the industry&#8217;s first big consolidation in Southeast Asia, home to about 640 million people, and is widely expected to give Uber more firepower to focus on other markets including India, as it prepares for an IPO in 2019.</p> <p>Uber lost $4.5 billion last year and is facing fierce competition at home in the United States and across Asia, as well as a regulatory crackdown in Europe. The firm has invested $700 million in its Southeast Asian operations.</p> <p>Reporting by Miyoung Kim, additional reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Jacqueline Wong and Gareth Jones</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean trade officials braved snowstorms, ate instant noodles to save time and spent weeks hotel-hopping in Washington as they raced to overcome major trade hurdles with their U.S. ally ahead of high-stakes nuclear discussions with North Korea.</p> FILE PHOTO: Rolled steel are seen at a Hyundai Steel plant in Dangjin, about 130 km (81 miles) southwest of Seoul June 15, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won <p>What was meant to be a week-long trip to Washington stretched into a four-week marathon, as dozens of Seoul officials sought to wrap up talks aimed at amending the six-year-old U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement known as KORUS, according to several South Korean officials with direct knowledge of the matter.</p> <p>U.S. plans announced earlier this month to impose hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports added urgency to the trade negotiations. As the third-largest steel exporter to the United States, South Korea had a lot to lose from 25 percent tariffs.</p> <p>Seoul also felt it couldn&#8217;t afford a protracted trade dispute with its most important ally at a time when the two need to work together to contain a nuclear-armed North Korea, the officials told Reuters.</p> <p>&#8220;This had to work well,&#8221; a senior official at South Korea&#8217;s presidential Blue House told Reuters. &#8220;It was right to settle this as soon as possible because if this remains ahead of inter-Korean talks and U.S.-North Korea talks, it could unnecessarily complicate our relationship.&#8221;</p> <p>U.S. President Donald Trump initially welcomed the breakthrough as a &#8220;great deal for American and Korean workers&#8221;, a marked turnaround from a year ago when he told Reuters he would either renegotiate or scrap what he called a &#8220;horrible&#8221; trade deal.</p> <p>But Trump said on Thursday he may hold up signing it until after an agreement is reached with North Korea on denuclearisation, saying such a deal was &#8220;a very strong card&#8221; to ensure fairness on the new trade pact.</p> <p>Trump is expected to meet with North Korea&#8217;s Kim Jong Un in May after the two Koreas hold their first summit in more than a decade in late April. All parties are expected to discuss the denuclearisation of North Korea.</p> &#8220;FINALLY WITHIN REACH&#8221; <p>Whenever South Korean President Moon Jae-in had a phone call with Trump to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue in recent months, Moon also raised the trade agenda, the Blue House official said.</p> <p>In their latest call on March 16, while the two countries&#8217; trade representatives were holding a third round of trade talks in Washington, Moon asked Trump to have a &#8220;keen interest&#8221; in the matter and work toward a speedy trade agreement before their respective summit meetings Kim, the Blue House said at the time.</p> <p>Around that time, South Korean negotiators started to see a glimmer of hope they could save the trade pact, which has seen the U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea double since 2012 when it took effect.</p> <p>&#8220;The negotiations started to make progress around March 17, and that&#8217;s why our trade team decided to stay longer because they thought agreement was finally within reach,&#8221; said a South Korean senior trade ministry official.</p> <p>The official and another trade official said nearly 30 South Korean negotiators had to move hotels repeatedly in Washington when their trip took longer than expected, at times finding themselves crammed into one hotel room to work on their negotiation strategy for the next day.</p> <p>&#8220;We mostly lived off on instant noodles and quick seaweed rice wraps bought from Korean supermarkets to save time,&#8221; the official said.</p> <p>The efforts culminated in a revised pact the two countries announced this week that gives U.S. automakers and pharmaceuticals more access to the South Korean market.</p> <p>It also lifted the threat of a 25 percent U.S. tariff on South Korean steel in exchange for quotas that will cut imports of Korean steel by about 30 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;We swiftly removed potential conflicts between the two countries at a time when close cooperation between South Korea and the United States is more important than ever,&#8221; a second senior Blue House official said.</p> <p>All the South Korean officials interviewed by Reuters asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.</p> &#8220;AS COLD AS SIBERIA&#8221; <p>The talks didn&#8217;t get off to a good start as the United States &#8220;kept asking us to make concessions unilaterally,&#8221; South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong said in an interview broadcast live to the Blue House&#8217;s Facebook account on Thursday.</p> <p>&#8220;When we first met to talk, the mood was as cold as Siberia and our meeting only lasted for 21 minutes,&#8221; Kim said, referring to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. &#8220;Later on, we got closer and our relations developed to something like a bromance.&#8221;</p> <p>From the start, South Korea saw that for the deal to survive, concessions were inevitable in autos, which made up over 70 percent of its 2017 trade surplus with the United States.</p> <p>&#8220;If the free trade deal got terminated and 8 percent tariffs revived on South Korean auto exports, that would have been an absolute nightmare. Problem was, how do we sell a deal that doesn&#8217;t do anything good for us?,&#8221; a senior South Korean government official said.</p> <p>&#8220;The steel issue effectively provided an opening. We make concessions in autos that we saw as inevitable anyway, and in return become the first country to be exempt from steel tariffs. This suddenly became a win-win.&#8221;</p> <p>(GRAPHIC: Nuclear North Korea - <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2lE5yjF" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2lE5yjF</a>)</p> <p>Reporting By Jane Chung and Christine Kim. Additional reporting by Cynthia Kim. Editing by Soyoung Kim and Lincoln Feast</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Snap Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">SNAP.N</a>) on Friday said it cut 7 percent of its global workforce in March, as disclosed by it in a regulatory filing <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000156459018007282/0001564590-18-007282-index.htm" type="external">here</a>.</p> A woman stands in front of the logo of Snap Inc. on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) while waiting for Snap Inc. to post their IPO, in New York City, NY, U.S. March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson <p>The social media company said it would incur about $10 million of cash expenditure due to severance costs to be reflected in the current quarter ending March 31.</p> <p>As a result of the layoffs, primarily in its engineering and sales teams, the company said it sees savings of about $25 million in 2018.</p> <p>The company had said it had 3,069 employees as of Dec. 31, 2017, according to its annual filing <a href="https://bit.ly/2pScNbz" type="external">bit.ly/2pScNbz</a>.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">Snap Inc</a> 15.87 SNAP.N New York Stock Exchange -0.08 (-0.50%) SNAP.N <p>The Snapchat parent has been under pressure from investors to reduce costs after revenue fell short of analyst expectations during Snap&#8217;s first year as a publicly traded company.</p> <p>Earlier this month, a company memo had shown that the company would cut just over 120 engineers and reorganize its engineering team, Reuters reported.</p> <p>The Southern California-based company said the workforce reduction &#8220;is to align resources around our top strategic priorities and to reflect structural changes in our business.&#8221;</p> <p>Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> <p>(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBUX.O" type="external">SBUX.O</a>) and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, possibly exposing the companies to millions of dollars in fines.</p> <p>A little-known not-for-profit group sued some 90 coffee retailers, including Starbucks, on grounds they were violating a California law requiring companies to warn consumers of chemicals in their products that could cause cancer.</p> <p>One of those chemicals is acrylamide, a byproduct of roasting coffee beans that is present in high levels in brewed coffee.</p> <p>Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said in a decision dated Wednesday that Starbucks and other companies had failed to show there was no significant risk from a carcinogen produced in the coffee roasting process, court documents showed.</p> <p>Starbucks and other defendants have until April 10 to file objections to the decision.</p> <p>Starbucks declined to comment, referring reporters to a statement by the National Coffee Association (NCA) that said the industry was considering an appeal and further legal actions.</p> <p>&#8220;Cancer warning labels on coffee would be misleading. The U.S. government&#8217;s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle,&#8221; the NCA statement said.</p> FILE PHOTO - A woman holds a Frappuccino at a Starbucks store inside the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, United States, October 27, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson <p>In his decision, Berle said: &#8220;Defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health.&#8221;</p> <p>Officials from Dunkin&#8217; Donuts ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DNKN.O" type="external">DNKN.O</a>), McDonald&#8217;s Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MCD.N" type="external">MCD.N</a>), Peet&#8217;s and other big coffee sellers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</p> <p>The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT). It calls for fines as large as $2,500 per person for every exposure to the chemical since 2002 at the defendants&#8217; shops in California. Any civil penalties, which will be decided in a third phase of the trial, could be huge in California, which has a population of nearly 40 million.</p> <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBUX.O" type="external">Starbucks Corp</a> 57.89 SBUX.O Nasdaq -0.01 (-0.02%) SBUX.O DNKN.O MCD.N <p>CERT&#8217;s lawyer Raphael Metzger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p> <p>Starbucks lost the first phase of the trial in which it failed to show the level of acrylamide in coffee was below that which would pose a significant risk of cancer. In the second phase of the trial, defendants failed to prove there was an acceptable &#8220;alternative&#8221; risk level for the carcinogen, court documents showed.</p> <p>Several defendants in the case settled before Wednesday&#8217;s decision, agreeing to post signage about the cancer-linked chemical and pay millions in fines, according to published reports.</p> <p>Reporting by Nate Raymond; Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Richard Chang and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards: <a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>

RPT-UPDATE 3-British bookmakers dismayed as shares plunge on report of low stake limit Singapore watchdog says Uber-Grab deal may have infringed competition How Seoul raced to conclude U.S. trade deal ahead of North Korea talks Snapchat parent cuts 7 percent of its global workforce in March Starbucks coffee in California must have cancer warning, judge says

https://reuters.com/article/britain-gambling/rpt-update-3-british-bookmakers-dismayed-as-shares-plunge-on-report-of-low-stake-limit-idUSL8N1PH3VV

2018-01-22

<p /> <p /> <p /> <p>The plants and flowers that Henry David Thoreau <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&amp;amp;id=YXJbAAAAMAAJ&amp;amp;dq=thoreau+walden+pond+online&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;ots=tj_nM1smGe&amp;amp;sig=iEgJympu8dnnJnDLcv6o2ZBM1SQ&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;oi=book_result&amp;amp;resnum=7&amp;amp;ct=result" type="external">lovingly inventoried</a> around <a href="http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/walden/" type="external">Walden Pond</a> 156 years ago are disappearing due to climate change. Researchers from Harvard and Boston Universities have tracked how warming temperatures have shifted the flowering times of 473 plant species in the woods at Walden Pond and elsewhere in Concord. Orchids, dogwoods, lilies, and many sunflower relatives are declining more swiftly than other species.</p> <p>Climate-induced loss of plant diversity in Concord is alarming&#8212;especially since 60% of the area has been protected or underdeveloped since Thoreau&#8217;s time. But rapid temperature changes have led to changes in the timing of seasonal activities. Since Thoreau&#8217;s time, species now flower an average of seven days earlier&#8212;bad news for those dependent on pollinators, like bees, who have not responded in kind, or who are <a href="/blue_marble_blog/archives/2008/04/7934_flower_scent_de.html" type="external">suffering population declines</a> as well. The species in decline include anemones, buttercups, asters, campanulas, bluets, bladderworts, dogwoods, lilies, mints, orchids, roses, saxifrages, and violets.</p> <p>Sounds like a poem, doesn&#8217;t it? A poem falling silent. . . The mean temperature in the Concord area has risen 2.4 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years and is expected to climb between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius during the next 100 years. The paper is appearing in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/gca?gca=pnas%3B0806446105v1&amp;amp;submit=Get+All+Checked+Abstracts" type="external">Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/home" type="external">Julia Whitty</a> is Mother Jones&#8217; environmental correspondent, <a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/juliawhittylectures" type="external">lecturer</a>, and 2008 winner of the <a href="http://www.kiriyamaprize.org/pressroom/2008/pr_040108.html" type="external">Kiriyama Prize</a> and the <a href="http://www.research.amnh.org/burroughs/medal_award_list.html" type="external">John Burroughs Medal Award</a>.</p> <p />

Thoreau’s Wildflowers Wilt In Warming Climate

https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/10/thoreaus-wildflowers-wilt-warming-climate/

2008-10-28

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>A: Yes, you can deduct the interest, but you have a choice to make about reporting the interest.</p> <p>The tax law has different classifications of interest, some which are not deductible (e.g., personal), some which are deductible (e.g., business), and some which may be deductible, but only in years that you have qualifying income to offset (e.g., passive or investment).</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Even if deductible, the deduction may be claimed on the first page of the Form 1040 without regard to whether you itemize deductions, or may be reported as an itemized deduction on Schedule A.</p> <p>Interest expense is usually classified by "tracing" the use of the loan funds. That is, if the loan funds are used for a personal expense, the interest is personal, and so on.</p> <p>The one exception to the tracing rules is qualified residence interest. This is generally interest paid on a loan used to acquire, construct, or improve your principal residence or one other residence.</p> <p>Qualified residence interest also includes "home equity debt," which is debt not used to acquire, construct, or improve a residence, but which is secured by a residence. Interest on debt of as much as $100,000 can be deducted under this classification.</p> <p>Any interest paid on a loan classified as qualified residence debt is deductible as residence interest without regard to how the funds are used. That is, the normal tracing rules do not apply to qualified residence debt.</p> <p>Your proposed loan qualifies as home equity debt, and all interest would be classified as residence interest. This is deductible on Schedule A as an itemized deduction.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>There is a special election that allows you to ignore the classification of the debt as qualified residence debt, which would allow the normal tracing rules to apply. You might want to make this election.</p> <p>If you use the loan proceeds to fund your wife's business, the interest would be classified as business interest under the tracing rules. It would be fully deductible against her business income and would end up as a deduction even if you do not itemize.</p> <p>Taxpayers either claim itemized deductions or use the "standard deduction," whichever is greater. The 2014 standard deduction for a married filing joint return is $12,400.</p> <p>Without any other residence interest, it is possible that you may not itemize deductions or, even if you do, that some of the interest would be used to push you over the $12,400 threshold to itemize.</p> <p>In either case, you may not get the full tax benefit from treating the interest on your proposed loan as qualified residence interest.</p> <p>If you elect to ignore the qualified residence loan rules, the interest should be fully deductible and you will also leave a cushion of $100,000 of debt that could later be classified as home equity debt should you ever need to again borrow against the house.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>To elect to ignore the qualified residence debt classification, you should just attach a statement to your 2014 tax return that references Treasury Regulation 1.163-10T(o)(5) and says that you elect to treat the debt as not secured by a qualified residence.</p> <p>If you elect to treat the debt as not secured, it would not satisfy the qualified residence interest definition and would then be subject to the tracing rules. The election applies to the year it is made and all subsequent years.</p> <p>You would typically be better off tracing the debt to the business expenditures and deducting the interest as business interest. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to evaluate the result of the two classifications before making the election on the 2014 return to make sure your situation is "typical."</p> <p>James R. Hamill is the director of Tax Practice at Reynolds, Hix &amp;amp; Co. in Albuquerque. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:jimhamill@rhcocpa.com" type="external">jimhamill@rhcocpa.com</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p />

Using home equity for startup

https://abqjournal.com/346853/using-home-equity-for-startup.html

<p /> <p>The U.S. administration on Tuesday said it will not require employers to provide health insurance for their workers until 2015, in a move that delays a key provision of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law by a year.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The delay of part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the administration's response to widespread complaints about the reporting requirements for employers with more than 50 workers who are subject to the mandate.</p> <p>"We have been in a dialogue with businesses and we think we can simplify the new reporting. We want to give businesses who want to provide health insurance the time to get this right," a senior administration official said.</p> <p>The move could add to speculation about whether healthcare reform will be implemented by the time the law is scheduled to come into full effect on January 1.</p> <p>The administration has already delayed insurance offerings for small businesses that were to be made available through new online exchanges. A recent report by the watchdog Government Accountability Office also called into question whether new insurance marketplaces for millions of individuals would meet an October 1 deadline for open enrollment.</p> <p>Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to Obama, said in a blog post on Monday that the government was fully prepared to open the new insurance exchanges for individuals in October.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>(Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Prudence Crowther)</p>

White House to Delay ObamaCare Employer Mandate Until 2015

http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/07/02/white-house-to-delay-healthcare-law-employer-mandate-to-2015.html

2016-03-23

<p /> <p>Today&#8217;s Salon features a <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/29/missing_bees/index.html" type="external">round-table discussion</a> that&#8217;s the real bees&#8217; knees on the <a href="/blue_marble_blog/archives/2007/04/4189_are_cellphones.html" type="external">disappearing bee problem</a>. The scientists seem to agree that the precipitous drop-off in domesticated honeybee populations (no one keeps track of wild bee populations) was likely caused, at least in part, by the unavailability of nutritious pollen. (The theory that cellphones are doing it didn&#8217;t get much traction.) Jeffery Pettis, who heads the research program at the USDA&#8217;s honeybee lab, observes that &#8220;all pollinators &#8212; which rely on a diversity of flowers &#8212; are in decline.&#8221; Eric Mussen, of the Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California at Davis, explains:</p> <p /> <p>Honeybees rely on pollen for protein, vitamins, fats and minerals. &#8230;If we are having a typical year, and the rains come, there aren&#8217;t too many places in the United States where the bees cannot find their mix of pollens to meet their dietary needs. &#8230;What happens when&#8230;you get this blast of hot temperature [at] about the time the flower buds are forming and the pollen grains are beginning to form[?] &#8230;You get sterile pollen.</p> <p>Lack of sufficient food leaves honeybees with compromised immune systems, making them vulnerable to parasites. Honeybees play a major role in the agricultural production of fruit and nuts. Mussen puts it this way:</p> <p /> <p>Bees are a necessary part of our food production. If we don&#8217;t grow our own cherries and apples, can&#8217;t we just buy them somewhere else? The answer is yes. But do we want to become as dependent on foreign nations for our food as we are dependent on them for fuel?</p> <p>The disappearing bees also point to another problem, explains Wayne Esaias, a NASA climatologist and amateur beekeeper. We don&#8217;t have any idea how climate change will affect blooming trees:</p> <p /> <p>[E]cologists in general have not paid attention to the timing of blooming and nectar availability and quality of pollen.&#8230; As a kind of a climatologist, I&#8217;m getting paid to study the impact of potential global warming scenarios on our ecology. There&#8217;s a lot of research being done on carbon cycling, but without information about when the plants bloom and how the quality of the flora changes, we are in a poor position to assess the effect of changes in temperature and rainfall on our ecosystems.</p> <p>In other words, the models, which are already predicting disaster, aren&#8217;t even accurate because we have immense gaps in our knowledge of the interconnectedness of plants and animals. That spells <a href="http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0706/feature2/" type="external">serious</a> <a href="/news/feature/2007/05/gone.html" type="external">trouble</a>.</p> <p />

The Case of the Missing Bees: It’s the Flowers, Dummy

https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/05/case-missing-bees-its-flowers-dummy/

2007-05-29

<p /> <p>Tool company Stanley Black &amp;amp; Decker Inc. is buying Newell Brands' tools division for $1.95 billion in cash.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The unit includes the industrial cutting, hand tool and power tool accessory brands Irwin and Lenox.</p> <p>Newell Brands Inc. announced recently that it will be selling several divisions as part of a consolidation move. The move to sell businesses with annual sales of about $1.5 billion comes a year after the company bought Jarden Corp. for about $13 billion and Elmer's for $600 million.</p> <p>Newell Brands said that the consolidation move will transform it from a holding company to an operating company with a new set of investment priorities and a sharpened portfolio. It will consolidate its existing 32 business units to 16 operating divisions. Atlanta-based Newell Brands said that it hopes to complete the sales within the first half of 2017.</p> <p>The transaction between Newell Brands and Stanley Black &amp;amp; Decker is anticipated to result in annual cost savings of about $80 million to $90 million for Stanley Black &amp;amp; Decker by the third year after closing. The buyout is expected to add approximately 15 cents per share to earnings in the first year after the deal closes, rising to about 50 cents per share by the third year. This excludes about $125 million to $140 million of restructuring and other acquisition-related costs and approximately $40 million in inventory-related charges.</p> <p>This is Stanley Black &amp;amp; Decker's first major acquisition since 2013, President and CEO James Loree said in a written statement on Wednesday.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The transaction is targeted to close in the first half of 2017.</p> <p>Stanley Black &amp;amp; Decker is based in New Britain, Connecticut. Its stock edged up in premarket trading.</p>

Stanley Black & Decker buying Newell tools unit for $1.95B

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/12/stanley-black-decker-buying-newell-tools-unit-for-15b.html

2016-10-12

<p /> <p>Ecologists and economists have put a controversial dollar figure on biodiversity, but this week marks the first time the UN has ever put a price-tag on the climate. What would it cost to keep greenhouse gases close to their current levels? One estimate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is shockingly cheap.</p> <p>&#8220;The cheaper scenario would mean going out to dinner one time less a year, whereas the higher figure gets into the range of having or not having a car,&#8221; <a href="http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11795-costs-of-stabilising-global-warming-negligible.html" type="external">says Ralf Martin of the London School of Economics.</a> &#8220;The higher figure might be a hard sell. However, I would suggest that whether either figure is acceptable depends largely on how it will be sold to voters.&#8221;</p> <p>The problem is, this calls not for individual asceticism like scrimping on toilet paper, but new government policies like a carbon tax. Predictably, the White House had a knee-jerk response, saying the least ambitious target &#8220;would cause a global recession.&#8221; Well, what recession would catastrophic climate change bring? What dent would losing the Eastern seaboard put in the US GDP? The IPCC should estimate that too, if only as a talking point.</p> <p>Policy wonks have to speak the language of the economic growth. But what is that saying&#8211;you can&#8217;t solve a problem within the mindset that created it? Bill McKibben pointed out how we got stuck in this mindset and why wonks need to <a href="/news/feature/2007/03/reversal_of_fortune.html" type="external">look beyond the framework of the GDP</a> as a measure of progress. The GDP <a href="/news/featurex/2007/03/happiness_extra.html" type="external">doesn&#8217;t even correlate</a> with happiness among nations.</p> <p />

Putting a Pricetag on the Climate

https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/05/putting-pricetag-climate/

2007-05-04

<p>SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) &#8212; A federal judge has ruled that an Illinois woman's privacy wasn't violated when a South Dakota man sent her evidence that her husband was having an affair with his wife.</p> <p>Federal Judge Roberto Lange rejected Virginia Flaum's privacy claim against Richard Hylland, the <a href="http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2018/01/18/judge-text-messages-emails-alleging-affair-did-not-violate-womans-privacy/1042577001/" type="external">Argus Leader reported</a> .</p> <p>Hylland had sent Flaum printouts of romantic emails and text messages between his wife, Traci, and Flaum's husband, Russell. Hylland later sent the evidence to Flaum's children.</p> <p>Lange ruled that Virginia Flaum didn't have an expectation of privacy in the messages between her husband and Traci Hylland.</p> <p>"A reasonable person would not find that Richard committed a highly offensive intrusion into Virginia's seclusion by reading text messages and emails that Russell sent to Traci's electronic devices concerning Traci's alleged affair with Russell," Lange wrote.</p> <p>Lange also ruled that Virginia Flaum has the right to discover whether Traci Hylland sent her husband emails that would bolster her allegation that Traci alienated her husband's affections.</p> <p>Both Richard Hylland and Virginia Flaum sued their spouse's lover under South Dakota's alienation of affection law. South Dakota is among a half-dozen states that still allow lawsuits accusing a cheating spouse's lover of alienation of affection.</p> <p>The Hyllands were from South Dakota, while the Flaums were from Illinois. Both couples had homes in Indian Wells, California, where Traci Hylland and Russell Flaum first met. Traci and Russell met at a country club in late 2014, and began playing tennis together.</p> <p>Court records show Traci Hylland returned in 2015 to South Dakota, where she and Russell Flaum continued to communicate and discussed leaving their spouses.</p> <p>Both lawsuits are ongoing.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Argus Leader, <a href="http://www.argusleader.com" type="external">http://www.argusleader.com</a></p> <p>SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) &#8212; A federal judge has ruled that an Illinois woman's privacy wasn't violated when a South Dakota man sent her evidence that her husband was having an affair with his wife.</p> <p>Federal Judge Roberto Lange rejected Virginia Flaum's privacy claim against Richard Hylland, the <a href="http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2018/01/18/judge-text-messages-emails-alleging-affair-did-not-violate-womans-privacy/1042577001/" type="external">Argus Leader reported</a> .</p> <p>Hylland had sent Flaum printouts of romantic emails and text messages between his wife, Traci, and Flaum's husband, Russell. Hylland later sent the evidence to Flaum's children.</p> <p>Lange ruled that Virginia Flaum didn't have an expectation of privacy in the messages between her husband and Traci Hylland.</p> <p>"A reasonable person would not find that Richard committed a highly offensive intrusion into Virginia's seclusion by reading text messages and emails that Russell sent to Traci's electronic devices concerning Traci's alleged affair with Russell," Lange wrote.</p> <p>Lange also ruled that Virginia Flaum has the right to discover whether Traci Hylland sent her husband emails that would bolster her allegation that Traci alienated her husband's affections.</p> <p>Both Richard Hylland and Virginia Flaum sued their spouse's lover under South Dakota's alienation of affection law. South Dakota is among a half-dozen states that still allow lawsuits accusing a cheating spouse's lover of alienation of affection.</p> <p>The Hyllands were from South Dakota, while the Flaums were from Illinois. Both couples had homes in Indian Wells, California, where Traci Hylland and Russell Flaum first met. Traci and Russell met at a country club in late 2014, and began playing tennis together.</p> <p>Court records show Traci Hylland returned in 2015 to South Dakota, where she and Russell Flaum continued to communicate and discussed leaving their spouses.</p> <p>Both lawsuits are ongoing.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: Argus Leader, <a href="http://www.argusleader.com" type="external">http://www.argusleader.com</a></p>

Judge rejects privacy claim in South Dakota affair case

https://apnews.com/amp/31e8802154d443f7ada963a4b9c37371

2018-01-19

<p>It&#8217;s a milestone Warren Buffett probably wishes he weren&#8217;t approaching.</p> <p>Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate he&#8217;s run for more than five decades, reported Friday that it held just shy of $100 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter.</p> <p>While that figure highlights the staggering money-making ability of the businesses he&#8217;s collected over the years, it&#8217;s also a burden. Because Berkshire doesn&#8217;t pay a dividend and rarely buys back its own stock, Buffett is on the hook to find ways to invest those funds.</p> <p>&#8220;To put that money to work would be great,&#8221; said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners, a money manager overseeing about $6 billion including Berkshire stock. But the &#8220;list of companies that he would like to own is very, very small.&#8221;</p> <p>Buffett, 86, addressed the mounting cash pile at Berkshire&#8217;s annual meeting in May, saying he hadn&#8217;t put his &#8220;foot to the floor&#8221; on an acquisition for a while and shouldn&#8217;t keep so much money earning next to nothing for long periods. The war chest includes some cash-like securities, such as Treasuries.</p> <p>&#8220;The question is, &#8216;Are we going to be able to deploy it?&#8217;&#8221; he told the thousands of shareholders gathered at the CenturyLink Center in&amp;#160;Omaha, Nebraska. &#8220;I would say that history is on our side, but it&#8217;d be more fun if the phone would ring.&#8221;</p> <p>Buffett has been finding a few places to invest. He built a holding in Apple Inc. through the beginning of this year. Then, in June, Berkshire made two smaller equity investments. One was a stake in a real estate investment trust and the other propped up Home Capital Group Inc., an embattled Canadian mortgage lender.</p> <p>Most significantly, Berkshire&#8217;s utility arm struck a deal last month to buy Texas&#8217;s largest electric utility for about $9 billion. The transaction its being challenged by Paul Singer&#8217;s Elliott Management Corp., but completing it would make a sizable dent in the cash hoard.</p> <p>Lots more is bound to pour in. Berkshire posted $4.26 billion in net income for the second quarter. The results were down 15 percent from a year earlier, partly on an underwriting loss at insurance businesses. But a number of Berkshire&#8217;s other subsidiaries &#8212; from railroad BNSF to its collection of manufacturing businesses &#8212; posted gains.</p> <p>Bull Market</p> <p>Part of Buffett&#8217;s challenge in finding new investments may be the years-long bull market. With stocks regularly setting records, it&#8217;s simply harder to find attractive deals, said Jim Shanahan, an analyst at Edward Jones. The growing cash pile is also a sign of Buffett&#8217;s willingness to wait for the right opportunities.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not a cause for alarm,&#8221; Shanahan said. Over the next few years, &#8220;they&#8217;ll make some really interesting investments.&#8221;</p> <p>One thing that could accelerate Berkshire&#8217;s spending is a correction &#8212; or even a bear market, said Bill Smead,&amp;#160;who oversees about $2.2 billion including Berkshire shares at Smead Capital Management. In the past, Buffett has pounced when companies or the broader economy runs into trouble, making investments on favorable terms.</p> <p>If that happens, said Smead, &#8220;he&#8217;s in a perfect spot.&#8221;</p>

Buffett Nears a Milestone He Doesn't Want: $100 Billion in Cash

https://newsline.com/buffett-nears-a-milestone-he-doesnt-want-100-billion-in-cash/

2017-08-07

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>LIGHTNING DOES STRIKE TWICE: The decision by Albuquerque Public Schools to cancel two games on Thursday night brings up some interesting points.</p> <p>The game at Milne Stadium between La Cueva and Valley and the one at Wilson Stadium between Manzano and Cibola both had about a minute to go before halftime.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Lightning in the area necessitated a delay &#8211; the second of the night, as both started late because of inclement weather &#8211; around 9:15 p.m.</p> <p>At roughly 9:30, APS officials sent everyone home, and both games were canceled without a winner.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>There is blame to go around here. APS, from my chair, was dead wrong in not waiting out this second delay.</p> <p>These games were both so close to being official &#8211; by making it to halftime &#8211; that APS really should have showed some patience and given it a few more minutes before pulling the plug. They owed it to the teams, especially the two that were ahead &#8211; Manzano and La Cueva.</p> <p>If APS officials had simply waited until 9:45, even 10 p.m., when the weather had cleared out, they could have gotten in the final minute of the half and made sure that these games counted.</p> <p>If it had demonstrated more patience, then APS could have said, without argument from anyone, that it made every good-faith effort to complete two quarters. (By the way, it wouldn&#8217;t have made a lick of difference if these games ended at 10 p.m., or even a few minutes after. Even on a school night. That&#8217;s close to when everyone leaves the stadium on a normal weather night, anyway.)</p> <p>Having said that, both leading schools were somewhat complicit, as well. Manzano and La Cueva had comfortable leads. And even when the weather was clearly dicey, both teams continued to throw the ball late in the half when they didn&#8217;t have to. This led to some incomplete passes and unnecessary clock stoppages. The lightning caught up to them and burned them, so to speak, leaving both teams unhappy and unfulfilled.</p> <p>Had both simply just kept the ball on the ground, the clock would have reached halftime and both would have been official.</p> <p>It should be noted that it is extremely rare for lightning to impact games in Albuquerque this late into September.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Both La Cueva and Eldorado had road games impacted in recent years. The Bears trailed Clovis 8-7 after three quarters in 2008 at Leon Williams Stadium, but officials called that game after a second lightning delay and the fourth quarter was never played.</p> <p>In 2012, 45 minutes into a game at the Field of Dreams with Las Cruces, Eldorado and the Bulldawgs were canceled early in the second quarter and that game was never made up.</p> <p>As for this case, there is another issue: will the loss of a game harm Manzano or La Cueva down the road? Conceivably, but unlikely.</p> <p>If either one of these teams wins out, it has a strong chance at earning a first-week bye in the playoffs as the District 2-6A champion. That is far from a guarantee; there are a few schools in that mix for a top-four seed, like Rio Rancho and Cleveland, Mayfield and Las Cruces, and of course Eldorado.</p> <p>Manzano missing out on a certain win over Cibola would only harm the Monarchs if the Cougars surged in the second half and finished either first or second in their district. Same with La Cueva against Valley. If the Vikings win their district, that could hurt the Bears since a head-to-head win over a district champion &#8211; or district runner-up, for that matter &#8211; are part of the selection criteria for the playoffs.</p> <p>If neither Cibola nor Valley make much noise in the second half of the season, then the Monarchs and Bears shouldn&#8217;t feel any residual pain, because those wins won&#8217;t have been integral in applying playoff seeds, anyway.</p> <p>FIREWORKS SHOW: Probably, I&#8217;ve covered close to 1,000 high school football games in my career, but never have I witnessed a quarterback destroy a defense the way Eldorado&#8217;s Zach Gentry did Friday.</p> <p>Gentry combined, by my count, for 547 yards &#8211; 286 rushing, 261 through the air &#8211; in a 50-49 double-OT win over Mayfield.</p> <p>Gentry had 98 combined yards at halftime.</p> <p>Incidentally, this game featured 1,002 yards of total offense. Eldorado gained nearly 500 yards in the second half alone.</p> <p>MAYFIELD-ELDORADO, PART II: One of the most bizarre, and yet crucial plays, of Friday&#8217;s game, occurred when Trojans&#8217; QB Kavika Johnson inexplicably ran backwards to incur a 15-yard sack in the end zone. That fourth-quarter safety was enormous for Eldorado in its comeback.</p> <p>Johnson was simply trying to make a play, but it backfired in spectacular fashion.</p> <p>WINNING IN STYLE: Take it from someone who knows &#8211; you learn far more about yourself in times of adversity than you do in times of prosperity.</p> <p>About 49 months after last winning a game, Albuquerque High beat Highland on Friday, 47-8, to end that nasty 43-game losing streak. It was a great night for that program, and everyone in the prep football community feels joy for the Bulldogs. They&#8217;ve earned this celebration, and this praise.</p> <p>The players at AHS who have been a part of this streak should understand that those tough times can, and will, make them stronger when they grow into men.</p> <p>RECORD BREAKER: The Las Cruces Sun-News reported that Las Cruces High receiver Aeneas Reynolds caught 16 passes Friday in a 49-47 loss to Centennial. If so, that is a state record. The previous single-game record, as it appears on <a href="http://nmact.org" type="external">nmact.org</a>, is 14 by Taos&#8217; Max Suazo in 2011.</p> <p>The Sun-News amended Reynolds&#8217; number Saturday to 18 catches.</p> <p>As I have noted many times, the state record list reflects the marks that have been submitted. Countless top performances in various categories have likely gone unreported through the years.</p> <p>BITS AND PIECES: It has been almost three years, since the end of the 2011 season, since Las Cruces last dropped consecutive games, but the injury-ravaged Bulldawgs are reeling a bit after setbacks to Rio Rancho and then Friday. &#8230; Rio Rancho QB Easton Bruere had another stellar night, with three more touchdown passes on Friday at Clovis. That gives him 20 TDs through five games, and still without an interception. <a href="" type="internal" /></p> <p /> <p />

Lightning burns, Gentry fireworks and Dogs’ party

https://abqjournal.com/469743/lightning-burns-gentry-fireworks-and-dogs-party.html

<p><a href="" type="internal" />John Seiler:</p> <p>&#8220;No matter whether the country follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns,&#8221; is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finley_Peter_Dunne" type="external">famous saying by humorist Finley Peter Dunne</a>. He was speaking about the U.S. Supreme Court. But the it applies applies to the California Supreme Court.</p> <p>And California Supreme Court also follow the battles over pensions, because its own pensions are affected.</p> <p>So the following, <a href="http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/04/13/county-loses-fight-to-overturn-deputies-pension-boost/80407/" type="external">as reported in the Orange County Register</a>, is not surprising:</p> <p>The County of Orange&#8217;s years-long&amp;#160; <a href="http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/04/13/county-loses-fight-to-overturn-deputies-pension-boost/2011/02/08/county-takes-deputies-pension-fight-to-state-supreme-court/2011/01/19/county-takes-deputy-pension-fight-to-higher-court/72936/" type="external">fight to overturn the its generous &#8220;3 percent at 50&#8243; pension plan</a>for sheriff&#8217;s deputies came to an abrupt halt Wednesday when the California Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal.</p> <p>The contentious case had stretched into its third year of litigation. A win by the county could have saved as much as&amp;#160;$500 million, according to Supervisor&amp;#160;John Moorlach, who pushed the lawsuit to a final legal answer.</p> <p>Losing the fight means the county will now have to pay its own&amp;#160;$2 million-plus legal bill and may be on the hook for the deputies&#8217; legal bills as well.</p> <p>The deputies&#8217; union has pledged to &#8220;vigorously&#8221; pursue having the county pay their legal costs to fight the suit&amp;#160;&#8211; meaning the county could be liable for nearly $5 million in costs.</p> <p>&#8220;John Moorlach owes a lot of people apologies, starting with his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors for allowing&amp;#160;Mario Mainero to present a legal argument that was flawed from the start (and) that cost the taxpayers $2.5 million,&#8221; said&amp;#160;Wayne Quint, president of the&amp;#160;Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.</p> <p>Moorlach also owes the retired deputies who have had the legal challenge hanging over their heads for the past several years, Quint said. &#8220;Most importantly he owes an apology to the taxpayers.&#8221;</p> <p>Actually, it&#8217;s Quint and the other union bosses who owe taxpayers an apology for gouging them out of an incredible $500 million in undeserved pension costs that allow county workers to retire in <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Lucullan" type="external">Lucullan</a>luxury. The costs well could push Orange County into another bankruptcy should the national economy slam into another recession.</p> <p>The whole mess occurred a decade ago when the O.C. Board of Supervisors, all Republicans, goosed pensions an unsustainable amount to make happy local government-worker unions and their employees &#8212; the taxpayers be damned.</p> <p>One of the pension spikers was Supervisor Todd Spitzer, later an assemblyman, who now again is running for supervisor. He&#8217;s running against another former assemblyman, Chuck DeVore. <a href="" type="internal">As I noted last month</a>, DeVore is making the Spitzer pension-spiking vote the central campaign issue.</p> <p>Despite this obviously biased and venal state Supreme Court decision, the pension issue isn&#8217;t going away. These pensions will be cut &#8212; as will all other pensions, including those of the &#8220;justices&#8221; &#8212; because there simply isn&#8217;t enough money to pay for them.</p>

CA Court Rejects Pension Reform

https://calwatchdog.com/2011/04/14/ca-supreme-court-rejects-pension-reform/

2018-04-20

<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%3D30480

<p>PBS host Tavis Smiley -- who recently said data shows "black people lost ground in every single leading economic category during the Obama years" -- on Sunday compared Barack Obama to Jesus.</p> <p>Appearing on CBS's "Face The Nation," Smiley was asked about Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic candidate for Senate from Kentucky, continually refusing to say she voted for Obama.</p> <p>"Peter only denied Jesus three times," Smiley said.&amp;#160;</p> <p>"In Kentucky as was discussed earlier you have a candidate who four times in matter of minutes wouldn't even admit to voting for Barack Obama. You want his loyal base to support you, you give the president the Heisman, but you want his constituents to vote for you. I mean, Peter only denied Jesus three times.&amp;#160;</p> <p>"The fourth time denial in a matter of minutes -- but you want the black vote to come save you again. You want Hispanics to save you again. I'm not saying that blacks and browns ought to abandoned the Democratic Party, what I'm saying is you've got to hold them accountable and maybe the lessons about what happens this year ought to start being reviewed now in advance of 2016."</p> <p>Smiley also had some tough love for his Messiah. "There is a nothing to inspire African Americans to turn out in huge numbers, nothing to inspire Hispanics to turn out in huge numbers. When you have double the national unemployment average -- you have double that inside the African American community, triple it in some sectors -- there's a highway into poverty but barely a sidewalk out."</p>

Tavis Smiley Compares Obama to Jesus

http://truthrevolt.org/news/tavis-smiley-compares-obama-jesus

2018-10-02

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>DETROIT &#8212; Lured by Presidents Day deals, U.S. buyers snapped up pickups and SUVs in February, brightening what is usually a lackluster month for the auto industry.</p> <p>Overall sales of new vehicles fell 1 percent from last February to 1.3 million, according to Autodata Corp. But automakers made up the difference with strong sales of more profitable SUV and trucks. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup jumped 17 percent to more than 50,500 trucks. Ford sold nearly 69,000 SUVs &#8212; a February record. Nissan said sales of its Rogue SUV were up 54 percent.</p> <p>General Motors and Nissan both saw 4 percent sales gains over last February. Volkswagen&#8217;s sales were up 13 percent and Honda&#8217;s sales were up 2 percent.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>But those gains were offset by declines at other automakers. Fiat Chrysler&#8217;s sales fell 10 percent, hurt by declining sales of Jeeps. Toyota&#8217;s sales dropped 7 percent. Ford&#8217;s sales fell 4 percent. Hyundai&#8217;s sales were flat.</p> <p>Good deals reeled in buyers. Ford was offering $15,000 off on a 2016 Focus electric, while GM was offering zero-percent financing and up to $10,000 off certain GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickups, according to car shopping site Autotrader.com. Buyers could get $5,000 off a Nissan Altima sedan.</p> <p>Incentives per vehicle rose an estimated 13.5 percent to $3,443 last month, according to automotive forecasting firm ALG. GM was the biggest spender, at $4,547 per vehicle. Subaru spent the least, at $896 per vehicle, but Subaru&#8217;s spending was up 61 percent over last February.</p> <p>There were several reasons for the flurry of deals. After a seven-year stretch of sales increases &#8212; and record U.S. sales in 2016 &#8212; demand is starting to slow. Automakers want to hold on to their share of that market and avoid expensive cutbacks in auto production.</p> <p>&#8220;It is taking more effort and more money to move the metal this year than last,&#8221; said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with Autotrader.</p> <p>Automakers are also spending more because vehicles cost more. Consumers are rapidly shifting out of cars and into SUVs and trucks, which cost more money. Kelley Blue Book said the price people paid for a vehicle last month was up 2 percent from last February to an average of $34,352.</p> <p>Ford&#8217;s U.S. sales chief Mark LaNeve said cars made up 53 percent of new vehicle sales in 2010. In February, they were around 35 percent.</p> <p>&#8220;It is structural and in some ways breathtaking,&#8221; LaNeve said. &#8220;There&#8217;s going to be a car market, but where it eventually gets to, we don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The deals will likely continue in the coming months, says Alec Gutierrez, a senior market analyst with the car shopping site KBB.com. The industry has an 80-day supply of vehicles it needs to sell, which is about 20 days more than the level considered ideal. Even if automakers cut production, the deals will ramp down slowly, because automakers lose buyers if they pull back too much.</p> <p>Automakers said:</p> <p>&#8212; General Motors Co. said its sales rose 4 percent to 237,388. Cadillac and Buick brand sales were down, but Chevrolet and GMC saw increases on strong demand for trucks, SUVs and commercial vans. GM sold 952 Chevrolet Bolts, its new all-electric car.</p> <p>&#8212; Ford Motor Co.&#8217;s sales fell 4 percent to 208,440. Ford&#8217;s car sales plummeted 24 percent, but its best-seller, the F-Series pickup, saw a 9-percent sales gain. Ford brand sales dropped 4.5 percent while Lincoln sales were up 9 percent.</p> <p>&#8212; Toyota Motor Corp.&#8217;s sales dropped 7 percent to 174,339. Toyota&#8217;s SUV sales were strong, with the Highlander midsize SUV up 28 percent. But its full-size pickup and car sales were down. Lexus sales also dropped 21 percent.</p> <p>&#8212; Fiat Chrysler&#8217;s sales fell 10 percent to 168,326. Alfa Romeo and Ram sales were up, but Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat sales all saw double-digit percentage declines. Jeep should bounce back once the brand launches a new Compass small SUV later this spring.</p> <p>&#8212; Nissan Motor Co.&#8217;s sales rose 4 percent to 135,740. Nissan&#8217;s truck and SUV sales were up 21.5 percent, but the company also got a boost from its Infiniti luxury brand, which saw sales spike 32.5 percent as the new Q60 sedan went on sale.</p> <p>&#8212; Honda Motor Co.&#8217;s sales rose 2 percent to 121,686. Honda&#8217;s sales of trucks and SUVs jumped 15 percent, but Acura luxury sales fell by the same amount.</p> <p>&#8212; Hyundai Motor Co.&#8217;s sales were flat at 53,020. Sales of the Santa Fe SUV jumped 58.5 percent as the newly updated Santa Fe Sport hit the market, but Hyundai&#8217;s car sales fell 10 percent.</p> <p>&#8212; Volkswagen brand sales rose 13 percent to 25,145. The brand struggled last year after its diesel cheating scandal, but sales have been rising this year. One factor: Some diesel owners are selling their polluting models back to Volkswagen and using their settlement money to buy new VWs.</p>

Lured by deals, car buyers go for SUVs, pickups in February

https://abqjournal.com/959759/us-demand-for-trucks-suvs-helps-february-sales.html

2017-03-01

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>7:30 p.m.</p> <p>President Barack Obama has spoken with Tennessee&#8217;s governor to offer support for residents gravely affected by recent wildfires in the Great Smoky Mountains.</p> <p>A statement from the White House says Obama asked Republican Gov. Bill Haslam for an update on the ongoing response to the wildfires, which destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed seven.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The White House says Obama expressed his condolences for the lives lost in the fire. He also offered his sympathies to those residents who may have lost their homes or business.</p> <p>Obama also committed to providing the assistance necessary to combat this fire. The White House says FEMA approved a grant earlier this week to help mobilize the resources necessary for an effective response.</p> <p>___</p> <p>6 p.m.</p> <p>Three adult sons are hospitalized in critical but stable condition and their parents are missing after the family fled from wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.</p> <p>A statement from the Summers family through the Vanderbilt University Medical Center says Wesley, Jared and Branson remain in hospital care. They are asking for prayers that their parents, Jon and Janet, are found.</p> <p>Officials have said at least seven people died in the wildfires but they have not positively identified any of the dead.</p> <p>According to media reports, the family was vacationing in Gatlinburg and was separated while fleeing the fiery scene.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The statement says one of the sons talked briefly to share his feelings and concerns for his brothers and parents.</p> <p>The statement says the brothers are so grateful for the outpouring of love and support by so many people.</p> <p>___</p> <p>5:15 p.m.</p> <p>Federal prosecutors say a North Carolina man is accused of setting two wildfires.</p> <p>The U.S. Department of Justice says 49-year-old Keith Eugene Mann Franklin was arrested Wednesday on one count of destroying property by means of fire.</p> <p>According to an affidavit, a wildfire was reported on Oct. 27 inside the Nantahala National Forest in Macon County. Court documents say an investigation showed the fire was intentionally set, as were five other fires nearby.</p> <p>A second wildfire was reported on Nov. 22, and investigators say when they went back to the site the next day, they found a cardboard box with burned wooden matches next to it.</p> <p>Those wildfires are among dozens that have burned in the South over the past several weeks as the region has been parched by drought.</p> <p>Authorities say Mann admitted setting both fires. The charges against him carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.</p> <p>___</p> <p>4:10 p.m.</p> <p>A Tennessee mayor says three more bodies have been recovered after the wildfires in the Great Smoky Mountains, bringing the death toll to seven.</p> <p>Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said Wednesday that officials believe more than 400 buildings have been damaged in the county. He also noted that three people who were trapped after the wildfires Monday night have been rescued. He did not go into details about the rescue, and said authorities have not positively identified the dead.</p> <p>He says search-and-rescue missions are ongoing.</p> <p>___</p> <p>4 p.m.</p> <p>Authorities say the wildfire that spread embers and flames into Gatlinburg, igniting new blazes and forcing thousands to evacuate, is now 10 percent contained.</p> <p>Officials say it&#8217;s the third-largest ongoing fire in the Southeast.</p> <p>A Wednesday report from the federal team managing the blaze says the Chimney 2 Fire in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is more than 15,600 acres &#8212; about 25 times the size of the University of Tennessee&#8217;s main campus in Knoxville.</p> <p>Though rain has fallen Wednesday, fire officials say the wildfire threat isn&#8217;t over.</p> <p>Bonnie Strawser, with the team of fire officials working to suppress the blaze, said the fire &#8220;could still rear its head.&#8221; Strawser said rainfall reports Wednesday night or early Thursday should provide a better picture of how much rain has fallen on the fire.</p> <p>___</p> <p>3:10 p.m.</p> <p>The mayor of Gatlinburg says officials are discussing re-opening the city later this week after wildfires forced the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists.</p> <p>Gatlinburg Mayor Mike Werner said Wednesday that the resort mountain city may re-open Friday so business owners can assess the damage and hopefully begin paying their employees again.</p> <p>He says the evacuation orders must remain in place until then because there are still areas that haven&#8217;t been searched and places where power lines are down.</p> <p>The wildfires killed four people and injured dozens more.</p> <p>___</p> <p>11:15 a.m.</p> <p>A Tennessee mayor is confirming another fatality in the wildfires that swept through the Great Smoky Mountains, raising the death toll to four.</p> <p>Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters also said Wednesday that nearly four dozen people had been injured in the fires.</p> <p>The wildfires destroyed more than 150 buildings. Heavy rain fell early Wednesday, which is helping put out some of the wildfires, but officials say more than 200 firefighters are still out battling flames and hotspots.</p> <p>___</p> <p>10 a.m.</p> <p>Rain is moving through a Tennessee tourism region ravaged by wildfires, but officials say there are still active fires in the area.</p> <p>Tod Hyslop, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Morristown, Tennessee, says the Gatlinburg area got about &#190; of an inch to 1 inch of rain overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.</p> <p>He says rain will pick up midday Wednesday through the afternoon and taper off about 4 or 5 p.m. The system is moving slowly, which increases the chances of more rain.</p> <p>Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dean Flener said any rain will help, but the fires are still an &#8220;ongoing situation.&#8221;</p> <p>___</p> <p>2 a.m.</p> <p>A Tennessee tourist mecca is emerging from the smoke, charred and vacant.</p> <p>During wildfires Monday night, many buildings in Gatlinburg were burned to their foundation. Hotel fire alarms eerily echoed through empty streets lined with burned out cars Tuesday evening.</p> <p>Three people were killed. The fire destroyed at least 150 buildings, including iconic homes and a resort. Other buildings and attractions remained largely intact, including the Dollywood amusement park in nearby Pigeon Forge.</p> <p>Wildfires have been burning for several weeks across the drought-stricken South. But Monday marked the first time homes and businesses were destroyed on a large scale.</p> <p>Gatlinburg, a city that opens up to 11 million visitors annually, is facing a new reality. But Mayor Mike Werner, who lost his home, says his town will pull together and recover.</p>

Obama talks with Tennessee governor about fires

https://abqjournal.com/898488/the-latest-rain-hits-fire-ravaged-tennessee-tourism-town.html

2016-11-30

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>The Pimentel brothers guitar makers are, top, Robert, left, and Rick and bottom, Victor, left, and the late Augustin.</p> <p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. &#8212; Two members of Albuquerque&#8217;s Pimentel family will give a lecture-demonstration about what the family has been doing so famously for 64 years &#8211; crafting guitars.</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll talk about the history of the guitar within our company that my father Lorenzo Pimentel started in 1951 with the help of my mother, Josefina,&#8221; said Rick Pimentel, president of Pimentel Guitars.</p> <p>Brothers Rick and Robert Pimentel will make the presentation Saturday in Corrales.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll talk about what we&#8217;re doing today &#8230; about the growth of the company and the members of the company &#8211; the guitar makers and the musicians as well,&#8221; Rick Pimentel said.</p> <p /> <p>He specializes in acoustic steel-string guitars. Brother Robert, the vice president of the family business, specializes in acoustic nylon-string classical guitars.</p> <p>Brother Victor Pimentel focuses mostly on mandolins and ukuleles and some guitars.</p> <p>&#8220;(Brothers) Gustavo and Hector are the guitar performers in the family,&#8221; Rick Pimentel said. &#8220;But they are part of Pimentel Guitars company. What they do is teach, perform and entertain. They give concerts around the country.&#8221;</p> <p>The Pimentel company crafted a one-of-a-kind guitar for the Albuquerque Museum. It will be on display in the museum&#8217;s soon-to-open &#8220;Only in Albuquerque&#8221; history exhibit.</p> <p>That guitar is part museum commission and part Pimentel family gift. Rick Pimentel said the guitar is an excellent example of the company&#8217;s design innovations.</p> <p>&#8220;We came out with a dreamcatcher design in the sound hole area and there are a couple of stylized F holes on the body,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>Robert Pimentel said there are shell inlays around the sound box, the fretboard has a Zia symbol, and around that symbol there&#8217;s the outline of the state of New Mexico in mother of pearl with the letters &#8220;ABQ&#8221; in the middle.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>&#8220;The head stock has the Rio Grande flowing through it and a hot-air balloon above it,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>&#8220;This is very unique,&#8221; Rick Pimentel added. &#8220;There is nothing in the world like this guitar.&#8221;</p> <p>He, with brothers Robert and Victor, collaborated on the design of the guitar.</p> <p>&#8220;We made it in memory of my brother Agustin and my father,&#8221; Rick Pimentel said.</p> <p>The Pimentels&#8217; presentation &#8211; called &#8220;The Sound of Innovation&#8221; &#8211; is part of the Second Saturday program of the Historic Casa San Ysidro: The Guiterrez/Minge House.</p> <p>The Casa San Ysidro is open for free self-guided tours from 1-2 p.m. and from 3-4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14. It is across Old Church Road from the historic church.</p> <p />

Pimentel guitar makers give lecture-demonstration

https://abqjournal.com/538416/abq-guitar-makers-give-lecturedemo.html

<p>Approximately 30 Belfast men went to Spain in the 1930s to fight against the spread of fascism. It marked the first time since the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion that Laganside Catholics and Protestants came together to fight for a common cause. One of those was Liam Tumilson whose life expired March 14 1937 on the Jarama Front during the Aragon offensive.</p> <p>Tumilson arrived in Spain in 1936 on the Winter solstice December 21st. Back home in Belfast he worked as a Crane Driver, in Spain he was a driver of revolution.</p> <p>William James Tumilson was born and reared in the mainly Protestant East Belfast but religion didn&#8217;t matter to him, the only side he was interested in was the side of the working man.</p> <p>In 1929 he joined the Short Strand IRA and in 1934 followed the left wing of the organisation into the Republican Congress. That same year he was one of those who carried the banner of the &#8216;Shankill James Connolly Socialists&#8217; at the Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown. This caused controversy when some members of the east Tipperary IRA tried to grab the banner. There had been a rule on &#8216;no banners&#8217; at Bodenstown.</p> <p>Tumilson was a well known face to hold banners and flags at events and was seen at the annual May Day trade unionist rally in Belfast proudly holding up the banner with the words &#8216;break the connection with capitalism&#8217; emblazoned across it.</p> <p>In October 1932 10,000 unemployed men held a protest in Belfast against the low relief paid in distress schemes but the protest quickly turned into a riot which went down &amp;#160;in Belfast history as the Outdoor Relief Riots and of course, &amp;#160;Tumilson was in the thick of it! The Outdoor Relief Riots pushed many working class protestants towards socialism and would lay the foundations for many of them supporting the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.</p> <p>Tumilson emgrated to Australia where he joined the Communist party. His migration was a brief one and he would return to his home on Thurndyke street in Belfast.</p> <p>In 1933 Tumilson was in Dublin where he joined his fellow comrades in defending Connolly House from a contingent of rightwing blueshirts who were hell bent on besieging it. The defenders of Connolly House won out but this minor event would play out in a much larger scale three years later when opposing ideologies would clash in the Spanish Civil War.</p> <p>In early December 1936 Tumilson left his Belfast home for the last time and made his way to Dublin from where he departed to Liverpool on a ferry. His intended destination was Spain and the fight against Francos fascists. His comrades in Belfast had a slogan associated with him for years: &#8221; Wherever the fight is , Tumilson will be there.!&#8221;</p> <p>By the time he reached Liverpool Tumilson found he did not have enough of money to get to London and only had enough for his passage to Spain so he decided to hitchhike to London. Such was his determination!</p> <p>In Spain, Tumilson showed tremendous character on the battlefield, it was a hardy steadfast one built on the streets of working class &amp;#160;Belfast, and he rose to rank of adjutant in the famous Liam Mooney machine gun company.</p> <p>Tumilson had left a fianc&#233; back in Belfast, Kathleen Walsh, but wrote almost everyday to her. In his last letter, dated March 11, he informed Kathleen: &#8220;we are still driving the fascists back and still confident of victory.&#8221;</p> <p>Three days after writing his last letter home to Kathleen, Tumilson and his comrades entered &amp;#160;the hellfire of the Jarama front and would fall in the Aragon offensive. On March 14 1937 fierce &amp;#160;fighting occured between francos forces and the International brigades for possession of the Valencia Road. Supreme pressure was being put on the International brigades as the Francoists were closing in.</p> <p>In a break in machine gun fire Tumilson stood up on a hill to view the situation. He needed a clear view of where he could get his men out safely from the advancing enemy. As he turned to give orders a francoist sniper shot him in the head.</p> <p>The 33 year old Tumilson was buried in &amp;#160;Morata town, just south west of Madrid. By the time his last letter to his fianc&#233; Kathleen reached her, Tumilson was already dead and buried in Spanish soil. His last words written to his fianc&#233; eexudes his steadfast character: &#8220;I&#8217;m still determined to stay here until fascism is completely crushed. Impossible to do other than carry on with the slogan of Cathal Brugha&#8211; no surrender!&#8221;</p>

The Death of Liam Tumilson, an Irish Anti-Fascist in Spain

https://counterpunch.org/2017/03/14/the-death-of-liam-tumilson-an-irish-anti-fascist-in-spain/

2017-03-14

<p /> <p>BP&amp;#160;Plc plans to cut between 50 and 80 salaried positions at the company's 413,500-barrel-per-day refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Union-represented hourly and salaried employees at the refinery, which is&amp;#160;BP's largest in the United States, will not be affected by the layoffs, said spokesman Michael Abendhoff.</p> <p>The cuts come as U.S. refiners have weathered a sharp downturn in refining profits due to rising global oil prices.</p> <p>"We are always looking at our business to make sure that we have the right people in the right roles to operate efficiently, safely and reliably," Abendhoff said.</p> <p>Abendhoff did not say when the cuts, which are between 3 percent and 4 percent of the plant's total workforce of 1,800 employees and contractors, would take effect.</p> <p>(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)</p>

BP to Cut up to 80 Salaried Jobs at Indiana Refinery

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/16/bp-to-cut-up-to-80-salaried-jobs-at-indiana-refinery.html

2016-11-16

<p><a href="" type="internal" />John Seiler:</p> <p>Michigan has been mired in a Depression a lot longer than California. But late last year its unemployment rate, long the worst in the nation, dropped to third-worst. California moved up to second-worst, behind Nevada.</p> <p>Michigan and California both have new governors replacing highly unpopular governors who ran up deficits. In Michigan&#8217;s case, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder (pictured at right) replaced Democrat Jennifer Granholm. In California&#8217;s case, of course, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown replaced Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.</p> <p>Why is Michigan improving, but California isn&#8217;t? I think it&#8217;s because, during last fall&#8217;s election, businesses could look into the future. Snyder had an easy win and Michiganders thought he was serious about his pro-business reforms to create jobs. By contrast, Jerry Brown, who also had an easy win, was seen as a tool of the government-employee unions who paid for much of his campaign, and wouldn&#8217;t rock the status quo that has made California the most anti-business, anti-taxpayer state in the country.</p> <p>After the election, that has been borne out. Brown is pushing a $12 billion tax hike, instead of serious pension and other reform.</p> <p>Snyder, <a href="http://detnews.com/article/20110307/METRO/103070334/Michigan-has-company-in-budget-crisis" type="external">reports today&#8217;s Detroit News</a>, is working to create jobs:</p> <p>As other Midwest states face shortfalls in their upcoming budgets, Gov. Rick Snyder is charting an unusual path by slashing business taxes as a primary solution.</p> <p>Snyder&#8217;s plan employs deep cuts to education and localities, like that of Wisconsin&#8217;s governor, but he&#8217;s distinct in proposing a generous tax break for businesses in hopes of spurring economic growth while increasing the tax burden on seniors&#8217; pensions and low-income families.</p> <p>Well, I don&#8217;t like increasing taxes on anybody. Basically he&#8217;s ending exemptions for public pensions, including Social Security. He should have just skipped that part.</p> <p>Michigan&#8217;s top income tax rate, 4.25 percent, still will be less than half California&#8217;s top rate of 10.55 percent (under the Brown proposal). And it&#8217;ll even be less than half the second-highest California rate, 9.55 percent, which hits the middle class and kicks in at around $50,000 income.</p> <p>Michigan has nothing like California&#8217;s <a href="" type="internal">jobs-slaughtering AB 32</a>. And with the median price of a home well less than $100,000 even in some of the nicest neighborhoods, Michigan is set to take off.</p> <p>Of course, the auto industry will tank again if gas prices keep soaring. Detroit remains an rusted-out hulk of a once-great city. And then there are those winters.</p> <p>But at least Michigan is hitting the accelerator on economic growth. Gov. Brown has thrown California into reverse.</p> <p>March 7, 2011</p>

MI Cuts Taxes; Why Not CA?

https://calwatchdog.com/2011/03/07/mi-cuts-taxes-why-not-ca/

2018-03-20

<p>The other day, I was listening to the voice of &#8220;liberal&#8221; radio, NPR, and was surprised to hear its bizarre, and yet quite candid, report on what it apparently views to be one of the more hideous aspects of the Gadhafi years &#8211; a modern welfare state which looked after working people.</p> <p>Thus, without tongue in cheek, or any note of irony, NPR, in its November 14 report, entitled, &#8220;Libya&#8217;s Economy Faces New Tests After Gadhafi Era,&#8221; explained that the biggest impediment to the new economic era is the Libyan worker who was simply too coddled by Gaddafi.</p> <p>NPR thus cited a 2007 book on the Libyan economy by authors Otman and Karlberg who called &#8220;the Libyan worker under Gadhafi &#8216;one of the most protected in the world,&#8217;&#8221; receiving job tenure, government subsidies of around $800 a month for the average Libyan household, and gasoline at a mere 60 cents a gallon.&amp;#160; NPR, citing the same book, explained that workers now freed from such a tyrannical world by NATO bombs, have been left with a &#8220;&#8217;subsidy mentality&#8217;&#8221; and a &#8220;&#8217;job-for-life outlook which has ill-prepared Libyans for the more aggressive and cutthroat world of competition.&#8217;&#8221;</p> <p>However, lucky for them, Libya&#8217;s new acting finance and oil chief, Ali Tarhouni, is resolved to turn this situation around by disciplining Libya&#8217;s workers through &#8220;smaller government and a larger and freer private sector.&#8221;&amp;#160;&amp;#160; NPR describes that, Tarhouni, being the realist that he is, &#8220;has no illusions that it will be an easy transition.&#8221;&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&amp;#160; The report thus quotes Tarhouni who states that, &#8220;[t]he challenge here is that this is a welfare state,&#8221; with Libyan workers expecting too much from their government.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; I&#8217;m sure Tarhouni, with Western support, will show these workers a thing a two.</p> <p>Of course, had NPR gone further, they could have also explained that, according to the statistics of the United Nations Development Programme, Libya, at the time of the NATO invasion, had the highest human development indicators (which measure levels of health, education and income) in all of Africa, with a life expectancy of 74.5; undernourishment of the population at under 5%; and adult literacy at over 88%.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;&amp;#160; Libya was in fact ranked 53 in the world out of 169 comparable countries, ranking, for example, above Turkey, (post-Soviet) Russia, Brazil and Costa Rica in terms of the human development indicators.</p> <p>For NATO, its corporate allies, and its media mouthpieces, such prosperity for workers simply will not do.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; We live in a world where austerity for the workers is the order of the day &#8211; for those in Libya, Greece, Italy, Spain, Great Britain and the U.S. as well.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; And those who stand in the way of such austerity measures, whether they be a nationalist government in Libya, Communists in Greece or Occupiers in the U.S., must be dealt with accordingly &#8211; by violent reaction.</p> <p>Thankfully, once in a while, we have news sources such as NPR which will, albeit quite unwittingly and clumsily, tell us that this is indeed what our military and police actions are all about.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; You just have to be reading and listening between the lines to find out.</p> <p>Dan Kovalik&amp;#160;is Senior Associate General Counsel of the United Steelworkers of America.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Destroying Libya’s Welfare State

https://counterpunch.org/2011/11/23/destroying-libyas-welfare-state/

2011-11-23

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>A man who pleaded no contest to burning down much of the Hudson Street Plaza shopping center in Silver City more than a year ago will spend five years in prison, then be required to seek mental health treatment, the <a href="http://www.scsun-news.com/ci_16571510" type="external">Silver City Sun-News</a> reported.</p> <p>Caleb Joshua Gary, 25, who admitted starting the July 27, 2009, blaze that gutted much of the business complex, was sentenced Tuesday by state District Judge Henry Quintero, the Sun-News said.</p> <p>&#8220;I want to apologize for what I did. I meant no harm,&#8221; Gary told Quintero. &#8220;I&#8217;m willing to accept responsibility for my actions.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Under a plea agreement, Gary pleaded no contest to arson over $20,000, burglary, larceny over $500, and two counts of criminal damage to property uncder $1,000, the Sun-News said.</p> <p>He also faced additional charges of escape from jail and criminal damage to property for an attempted jail escape shortly after his arrest in July 2009, the paper reported.</p> <p>Gary was sent to the state psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas, N.M., for treatment so he could be deemed competent to stand trial, according to the Sun-News.</p> <p>Quintero on Tuesday imposed a 12-year sentence and suspended seven years so Gary could receive mental-health treatment, which the judge made mandatory on Gary&#8217;s release from prison, the paper reported.</p> <p>If Gary violates any part of his parole, he could be sent back to prison for the balance of the 12-year sentence, the Sun-News said.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>7:30am 7/28/09 &#8212; Silver City Arson Suspect Tries To Escape: Man, 24, caught after climbing into ductwork above holding cell at Grant County jail.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Caleb Joshua Gary, 24, who was arrested Friday in connection with a break-in and arson at Silver City&#8217;s Hudson Street Plaza, tried to make a getaway by climbing into the ductwork above a holding cell at the Grant County Detention Center Sunday morning, the <a href="http://www.scsun-news.com/ci_12927231" type="external">Silver City Sun-News</a> reported.</p> <p>&#8220;There were five other inmates in the cell at the time. Apparently none of the other inmates joined in the escape attempt,&#8221; jail administrator Jim Moffett told the Sun-News.</p> <p>Around 10:15 a.m. Sunday, Gary dropped from the ceiling of a radio storage room near the jail&#8217;s main control center, about 35 feet from the holding cell, still within the facility&#8217;s secure perimeter, Moffett told the paper.</p> <p>There were four officers on duty at the time of the incident, and 60 adult inmates and three juveniles were in custody at the jail at the time, Moffett said. Neither Gary nor jail staff were injured in the incident.</p> <p>Gary was arrested Friday in connection with damage to the Smoke Shop on Hudson Street and with the alleged break-in and arson at Music Express, which caused extensive damage to Hudson Street Plaza, the Sun-News said.</p> <p>He is being held on a $100,000 bond on two counts of criminal damage to property and one count each of burglary, larceny and arson, the paper reported.</p> <p>An investigation continues into Sunday&#8217;s incident, and Gary could face further charges of criminal damage to property and attempted escape, according to the Sun-News.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Updated at 8:45am — Silver City Man Gets 5 Years for 2009 Arson

https://abqjournal.com/10186/updated-at-845am-silver-city-man-gets-5-years-for-2009-arson.html

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Most Republican lawmakers cower before the freshman senator because they are afraid to offend his tea party followers. But not Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a second-term Republican from Illinois who as an Air Force pilot served three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, and is now in the Air National Guard.</p> <p>&#8220;That is a cheap line by some people to garner headlines and not a serious discussion about what is going on in Syria,&#8221; Kinzinger said at Wednesday&#8217;s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into President Obama&#8217;s request to use force against the Syrian regime.</p> <p>The next day Kinzinger told me the Cruz crack was &#8220;highly offensive&#8221; to his fellow warriors. &#8220;Look, I disagree with the president on a lot, but he&#8217;s the president of the United States and he&#8217;s made a decision which I think is important,&#8221; said Kinzinger, who supports a U.S. strike. &#8220;When it comes to foreign affairs, people shouldn&#8217;t be out there to give cheap-shot headlines. People&#8217;s lives are on the line and so is America&#8217;s reputation.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Kinzinger&#8217;s view makes him old school, a throwback to an earlier Republican Party that respected the balance of power and believed politics stopped at the water&#8217;s edge. But Kinzinger is 35 and charismatic &#8211; just the sort of anti-Cruz the Republicans need if they are again to be a party that does more than sabotage government.</p> <p>A couple of weeks before taking his Syria position, Kinzinger came out against the effort &#8211; another Cruz provocation &#8211; to shut down the government unless Obamacare is defunded. &#8220;You can&#8217;t come here and just say if we don&#8217;t get our way we&#8217;re going to burn the place down,&#8221; the young congressman told me. &#8220;If we respect the Constitution, and we do, we respect that we&#8217;re only one-third of the government and you&#8217;re not going to get your way all the time. &#8230; We&#8217;ve got to get away from being the guys that scream and yell on cable TV.&#8221;</p> <p>Conventional wisdom says Kinzinger&#8217;s heresies will cause him to be knocked out by a conservative challenger in a primary. Indeed, the conservative Club for Growth lists him among 10 House Republican targets on its &#8220; <a href="http://primarymycongressman.com" type="external">primarymycongressman.com</a>&#8221; website. Kinzinger&#8217;s response: Bring it.</p> <p>&#8220;The perception is if you do one thing out of line with what is considered hard-core conservatism, or what Glenn Beck says or what Mark Levin says, then you are a RINO,&#8221; Republican in Name Only, Kinzinger said.</p> <p>He thinks many colleagues agree with his positions but fear a primary &#8211; a worry he thinks is overstated. &#8220;Part of my view on my job comes from the fact that I had served in Iraq and I think every day about 18-, 19-year-old kids that have given their life for their country, so I have to be willing to give my career for the same cause,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m a believer, though, that no matter what you believe, what position you take, if it&#8217;s principled and you can explain it, then constituents will understand it and let you slide.&#8221;</p> <p>Kinzinger&#8217;s military service gives him a deeper perspective than many of his colleagues, something he shares with earlier generations of political leaders who wore the uniform in greater numbers. Having seen real bloodshed, he&#8217;s not interested in the petty squabbles that occupy his peers. It&#8217;s probably no coincidence that of the 10 &#8220;RINO&#8221;s targeted by the Club for Growth for being insufficiently hard-line, four are veterans. Cruz did debate competitions but no military service.</p> <p>Kinzinger is no RINO. Sarah Palin endorsed him in 2010. The tea party supported him. He joined the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House. He earned a 76 percent conservative rating last year from the American Conservative Union. But the tea party turned against him in 2012 when, because of redistricting, he ran against, and defeated, a far-right hero, Rep. Don Manzullo.</p> <p>Kinzinger has a safe Republican seat now, and the surest way for him to keep it is to avoid a primary challenge by being reflexively conservative. For that reason, what he is doing is more principled than those colleagues who guarantee themselves re-election by slavishly voting the way they are told by the Club for Growth and other purity enforcers.</p> <p>Cruz Republicans are about self-preservation. As he did in the skies over Iraq, Kinzinger is putting country before self.</p> <p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:danamilbank@washpost.com" type="external">danamilbank@washpost.com</a>. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>

Cowering before Cruz not an option

https://abqjournal.com/259730/cowering-before-cru-znot-an-option.html

2013-09-09

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>&#8220;Not a Family Man&#8221; is a 2011 cast-glass, glass powder, enamel and pigment sculpture by Elizabeth Fortunato. (courtesy of the artist and bullseye gallery, portland)</p> <p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. &#8212; Before the 1960s, teams of factory workers churned out tumblers and crystal from furnaces roiling with a thousand pounds of molten medium.</p> <p>Then the Toledo Museum of Art sponsored the first glass workshop in 1961, midwifing a new studio movement. By 1962, ceramics professor Harvey Littleton and chemist Dominick Labino jump-started contemporary glass blowing by making molten glass feasible for artists using a small furnace. The incendiary practice soon crossed borders, its flames sweeping into Europe, Australia and Asia.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The New Mexico Museum of Art is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the American studio glass movement with two companion exhibitions: &#8220;Chromatic Fusion: The Art of Fused Glass&#8221; and &#8220;Emerge 2012: A Showcase of Rising Talents in Kiln-Glass,&#8221; the seventh biennial juried show of early career artists. Instead of the showier, more recognized glass-blowing technique, the second-floor exhibits showcase the less dramatic but equally intriguing fused and kiln-formed glass. The latter term essentially means the glass was formed in a kiln rather than a furnace.</p> <p>Klaus Moje&#8217;s mammoth, multipaneled &#8220;The Portland Panels: Choreographed Geometry&#8221; (2007) is the exhibition centerpiece. This tour de force by the German-born artist consists of 6-foot panels jigsawed into a fused mosaic of more than 22,000 pieces of glass. He has described his approach as an attempt to depict &#8220;the destruction of geometry into chaos,&#8221; museum curator of contemporary art Laura Addison said.</p> <p>Born into a family of glass workers, in 1975 Moje began cutting glass rods into thin wafers, cut them again and re-fused them into rhythmic patterns of color. He eventually partnered with Portland&#8217;s Bullseye Glass, who developed a glass specifically for fusing. This compatible glass proved much more reliable and less liable to break. His &#8220;Portland Panels&#8221; piece was created at Bullseye and followed by a retrospective at the Portland Art Museum and at New York&#8217;s Museum of Arts and Design.</p> <p>Moje moved to Australia in 1982 when he was invited to develop the glass program at the Canberra School of Art. At the time, the flashy and fiery theatrics of glass blowing dominated contemporary glass, Addison said. Instead, Moje chose the meticulous fusing and finishing of glass powders, canes, rods and sheets into compositions of hard-edged abstraction, combined with painterly gestures. His work reflects his admiration for Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935), whose reductive geometric lines and shapes dominate &#8220;The Portland Panels.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />Catharine Newell&#8217;s &#8220;Presence of Absence: Louisiana III&#8221; piece marries photography with glass, combining the look of vintage photographs with glass fusion. She joined a fusible-film old photograph of a couple with a separate woman&#8217;s portrait after hand-painting the face with powdered glass. The ghostly effect creates a veil of dual imagery. The glass produces a conduit for memory &#8211; a moment captured in glass that can never be erased.</p> <p>Santa Fe&#8217;s Joanne Teasdale combined fusible film with antique compacts. The artist made molds of the compacts, cast them and slipped in photographs using fusible film. The effect is a double image. Even the seemingly weightless powder puffs are made of glass.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The French artist &#195;&#8240;milie Haman&#8217;s &#8220;Once Upon a Time&#8221; resembles a 19th-century laced boot designed for Miss Piggy on Halloween. Contoured to fit a pig&#8217;s bifurcated hoof and complete with satin laces, it won the competition&#8217;s Gold Award.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s exquisitely done,&#8221; curator and juror Addison said. &#8220;We love the narrative of it &#8211; it&#8217;s sort of this grotesque fairy tale.&#8221;</p> <p>The Japanese-born artist Sayaki Suzuki created a hyperrealistic kiln-formed feast of &#8220;Harvest Day,&#8221; complete with translucent onion skins and the crumbles of crust on a baguette. Suzuki&#8217;s glass-as-still-life won the Kilncaster Award. Spaniards Ester Luesma and Xavier Vega took the Design Award for their functional restaurant bowls in a fall palette of water lilies. Elizabeth Fortunato&#8217;s &#8220;Not a Family Man&#8221; resembles clouded antique liquor and medicine bottles unearthed from a riverbed. Seemingly crusted over with dirt and grime, they&#8217;re actually painted with powdered glass to create a weathering effect, Addison said.</p> <p>Albuquerque&#8217;s Karen Bexfield won Addison&#8217;s Juror&#8217;s Choice Award for her lacy, 41-inch-long &#8220;Oropendola Clara&#8221; (2011). &#8220;I thought the craftsmanship was very good,&#8221; <a href="" type="internal" />Addison explained. &#8220;And it was different from everybody else.&#8221;</p> <p>The artist attributes her inspiration to a trip to Costa Rica gazing at the forest canopy.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never seen anything like it,&#8221; Bexfield said. &#8220;There&#8217;s these 3-foot pendulous nests that are just dangling from the trees. It seemed like the trees were dangling earrings.&#8221;</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>The nests were the work of oropendola birds, a large species characterized by a yellow tail. They make woven basket nests of fiber and vines.</p> <p>&#8220;It was one of those things where there&#8217;s a call to action to you,&#8221; Bexfield said.</p> <p>She created the piece with custom-made Bullseye glass &#8211; specifically &#8220;frit&#8221; &#8211; comprised of broken glass particles ranging from powder to coarse. The piece took several firings. Bexfield bent and shaped the molten glass to fit a mold. She has been firing glass since 2005-06.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very fascinated by forms,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I am exceptionally curious and have a big background in science as a physical therapist. (Glass) is exceptionally tactile. The smallest variable will shift things immeasurably. There has to be an element of whimsy.&#8221;</p> <p>Bexfield shows her work in Santa Fe&#8217;s Winterowd Gallery and was selected to show in the Frank Seckler Gallery as part of the Taos Glass Art Invitational.</p>

Born of flame

https://abqjournal.com/138464/born-of-flame.html

2012-10-14

<p>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) &#8212; A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a Wasilla teenager.</p> <p>Anchorage television station <a href="http://www.ktva.com/story/37154203/man-pleads-guilty-to-manslaughter-in-mat-su-teens-shooting" type="external">KTVA reports</a> Damien Peterson changed his plea Thursday in the death of 16-year-old Frank Woodford.</p> <p>Prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree murder and criminally negligent homicide.</p> <p>Woodford was with Peterson and another teenager, Austin Barrett, at a Wasilla home when he was shot in the chest.</p> <p>Woodford before he died told responders that he had not shot himself as Peterson told investigators.</p> <p>Troopers initially found no conclusive signs of foul play but reopened the investigation after the murder of another local teen, David Grunwald. Barrett is charged with kidnapping and murder in that case.</p> <p>A prosecutor says Peterson faces presumptive sentencing range of five to nine years at his May 9 sentencing.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: KTVA-TV, <a href="http://www.ktva.com" type="external">http://www.ktva.com</a></p> <p>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) &#8212; A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a Wasilla teenager.</p> <p>Anchorage television station <a href="http://www.ktva.com/story/37154203/man-pleads-guilty-to-manslaughter-in-mat-su-teens-shooting" type="external">KTVA reports</a> Damien Peterson changed his plea Thursday in the death of 16-year-old Frank Woodford.</p> <p>Prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree murder and criminally negligent homicide.</p> <p>Woodford was with Peterson and another teenager, Austin Barrett, at a Wasilla home when he was shot in the chest.</p> <p>Woodford before he died told responders that he had not shot himself as Peterson told investigators.</p> <p>Troopers initially found no conclusive signs of foul play but reopened the investigation after the murder of another local teen, David Grunwald. Barrett is charged with kidnapping and murder in that case.</p> <p>A prosecutor says Peterson faces presumptive sentencing range of five to nine years at his May 9 sentencing.</p> <p>___</p> <p>Information from: KTVA-TV, <a href="http://www.ktva.com" type="external">http://www.ktva.com</a></p>

Man changes plea in 2016 shooting death of Wasilla teenager

https://apnews.com/amp/e9c538b767db48e795b6e2b5d05f16f4

2017-12-28

<p>The second presidential debate takes place Tuesday night. The topics are slated to be a mix of questions concerning both domestic and foreign policy matters. One issue that's almost certain to come up is the killing of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US diplomats in Benghazi, Libya last month.</p> <p>Within hours of the attack on the American consulate there, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was blaming President Obama for a failure of leadership. The Obama Administration fired back, criticizing Romney for politicizing the attack. And so it's gone, leading up to the Vice Presidential debate last week.</p> <p>Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said, "Our ambassador in Paris has a Marine detachment guarding him. Shouldn't we have a Marine detachment guarding our ambassador in Benghazi?"&#157;</p> <p>To which, Vice President Joe Biden responded, "The Congressman, here, cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for."&#157;</p> <p>So, was there enough security in Benghazi? And if not, could more have been provided?</p> <p>"It's extremely difficult to know what is necessary and what is proper in situations like this,"&#157; said Alan Henrikson, the director of diplomatic studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.</p> <p>Henrikson said under international law, the host country is responsible for security at embassies and consulates. If the host country, in this case, Libya, can't fulfill that responsibility, then it would fall to the country with the consulate, the United States.</p> <p>"So this is a very difficult balance for countries that have embassies and consulates overseas to strike,"&#157; said Henrikson. "This is a very serious problem that is affecting almost every country that has embassies and consulates abroad right now."&#157;</p> <p>Henrikson said it's unfair to exploit the situation in Benghazi for political reasons. But he added, in retrospect, more could and should have been done to protect Americans there.</p> <p>Max Boot agreed with that latter assessment. He's with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and is also a defense adviser to the Romney Campaign. Boot said Romney should talk tonight about the failure of the Obama administration in Libya.</p> <p>"You know it happened during the Obama Administration at a time when they're boasting about their achievements in the Middle East and in particular about the war against al-Qaeda. And I think what this shows is that al-Qadea and other jihadist groups are far from defeated, they remain a potent threat, and the administration has to take accountability for what happened,"&#157; said Boot.</p> <p>But if there was a security failure, who was ultimately responsible? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, she is. She told CNN last night, "I take responsibility."&#157;</p> <p>Alan Henrikson at Tufts said Clinton is not just trying to provide political cover for the president. "The protection of embassies, the negotiation of arrangements with the host country is a State Department responsibility."&#157;</p> <p>Romney adviser Max Boot, however, said Secretary Clinton shouldn't shoulder the blame. "As Harry Truman used to say, the buck stops here."&#157;</p> <p>The father of US Ambassador Chris Stevens also weighed in on the matter. He said it would be "abhorrent"&#157; to turn his son's death into a campaign issue.</p>

Criticizing Security in Libya Remains Romney Tactic

https://pri.org/stories/2012-10-16/criticizing-security-libya-remains-romney-tactic

2012-10-16

<p /> <p>T-Mobile Arena hidden behind New York-New York in Las Vegas. Image source: MGM Resorts.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>The NHL vote on adding another expansion team on Wednesday, and indications are that Las Vegas will be the team's new home. It's the largest city in the U.S. without a major sports franchise and leagues have been circling for years, looking for an opportunity.</p> <p>MGM Resorts created the right conditions this year when it completed T-MobileArena, which would become the home of the proposed hockey team. Hockey may be a strange fit for the middle of the desert, but it could also be a nice boon for the Strip as another entertainment attraction in the city.</p> <p>As Las Vegas has moved from a gambling-centric city to a place where people go for entertainment, there have been dozens of new attractions added. Cirque du Soleil, boxing matches, fountain shows, roller coasters, and day clubs are just a few of the ways gaming companies have expanded beyond the casino floor. And the key to keeping each going is having thousands of people streaming through the city day after day.</p> <p>What hockey could do is bring 17,500 people to The Strip at least 41 nights per year for home games. Some fans might be local and some may be from out of town, but having foot traffic on the Las Vegas Strip is good for everyone.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>The advantage for MGM Resorts is that it controls all of the resorts in close proximity to the arena. New York-New York, CityCenter, and MGM Grand will likely draw incrementally more people to their hotels as well as the casinos, restaurants, and shops. That means a boost for the company if the arena is filled with NHL fans. And this is on top of all of the other concerts and events that will take place at T-Mobile Arena.</p> <p>As the other large real estate owner in Las Vegas, Caesars Entertainment could be the next biggest beneficiary, with properties that could take advantage of the extra foot traffic. The question is: How much benefit would it be?</p> <p>In theory, having 17,500 people spending money at NHL games is a good thing, but that's assuming 17,500 people show up. Las Vegas isn't a natural hockey town for locals and I'm not sure visitors will want to watch a hockey game indoors when they have other options in close proximity on the Las Vegas Strip.</p> <p>Having more entertainment options in the city can only be a good thing for gaming companies, but the team's success will depend on people coming out to games.</p> <p>There's almost no downside for MGM Resorts if the NHL does decide to come to Las Vegas. It would be incremental revenue for the arena and neighboring resorts and adds another entertainment option for guests. It's not a reason to buy the stock on its own, but it could create a tailwind for the company in its hometown.</p> <p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/21/could-the-nhl-boost-las-vegas-fortunes.aspx" type="external">Could the NHL Boost Las Vegas' Fortunes? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p> <p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days 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>

Could the NHL Boost Las Vegas' Fortunes?

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/21/could-nhl-boost-las-vegas-fortunes.html

2016-06-21

<p>The stumbling of the Australian Labor Party into a realm of dark psychosis is being affirmed on an hourly basis.&amp;#160; With the party being torn apart in true civil war fashion (the enemy, in such wars, is always within the household), the blood is flowing onto the streets.&amp;#160; No one is caring to mop up as yet, though there are many willing to take snap shots.&amp;#160; The coverage of this entire bonanza began on many news networks at 5 in the morning.&amp;#160; Oh, the waffle!</p> <p>The Rudd-Gillard drama has come to its predicable conclusion &#8211; at least in terms of numbers.&amp;#160; Rudd garnered 29 votes to Gillard&#8217;s 73, a significant prod, but only a prod. Australian citizens will retain its unpopular, error-ridden Prime Minister.&amp;#160; Bodies will have to be buried.&amp;#160; Ministers who claimed they would not serve under a Rudd ministry will continue under Gillard&#8217;s leadership.&amp;#160; Pity, given the fact that they should have never served in any ministry.&amp;#160; Dissenters will be vanquished. Supporters will be rewarded.&amp;#160; In that sense, the ALP, far from a democratic organisation, resembles a squalid tribal collective, a heaving, puffing cosa nostra in action. Favours are factional and distributed accordingly.&amp;#160; Those who refuse to worship the party totem are ostracised.</p> <p>Rudd&#8217;s avoidance of that genetic tendency in the ALP doomed him from the start.&amp;#160; &#8216;I know I&#8217;m up against it in terms of the combined horsepower of the factions of the ALP. I knew that from the beginning&#8217; (Nine News, Feb 26).&amp;#160; His politics was clever and futile &#8211; playing to stalls outside the party; charming the non-partied electorate.&amp;#160; He has repudiated the blood line, the tribal line, in favour of the demos, the &#8216;people&#8217;.&amp;#160; As the Labor Party is not, by its nature, a democratic entity, such talk not only seems anathema, but dangerous to the members.&amp;#160; After all, they, not the broader electorate, select their representatives to be elected.&amp;#160; It&#8217;s a fact they reminded the Australian electorate when Rudd was knifed &#8211; democracy is too dangerous to be left to the public.</p> <p>His defenders, while they are unlikely to write sonnets for democracy, see Rudd as the only way to keep their party in government. This views would not have changed, even after this ballot.&amp;#160; Amongst them are the Emergency Management Minister Robert McClelland and the virtually unintelligible Resources Minister Martin Ferguson.&amp;#160; &#8216;We will rue the day, just as is occurring now, with respect to some of my colleagues and how they have conducted themselves over the last week&#8217; (ABC Online, Feb 27).</p> <p>Not only is Rudd not popular with the party machine, he is disliked by his colleagues for an assortment of personal characteristics that seem to violate the Australian book of behaviour.&amp;#160; The sense of the brute, the slave driver, the ruthless, flawed leader who rarely sleeps, does not fit well with the Australian character.&amp;#160; His work regime is fanatical, and no one wants it.&amp;#160; He is not &#8216;laid back&#8217;; he seems incapable of hedonistic excess.&amp;#160; He is also, at heart, a philistine.</p> <p>All of these characteristics have been subsumed under one title: &#8216;psychotic&#8217;.&amp;#160; In June, 2009, the Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce ventured, in the vernacular, to call the then prime minister a &#8216;psycho chook&#8217;. &#8216;Who in their right mind gets onto a plane and because he doesn&#8217;t get the right colour birdseed has a spack attack?&#8217; (Sydney Morning Herald, June 1, 2009).&amp;#160; His colleagues and Gillard&#8217;s supporters have milked this for all it&#8217;s worth.&amp;#160; Wayne Swan, who was Rudd&#8217;s not so loyal deputy and Treasurer, claimed the former prime minister was responsible for &#8216;dysfunctional decision making&#8217;.&amp;#160; Then, the telling remark that Rudd &#8216;does not hold any Labor values&#8217;.&amp;#160; (Where&#8217;s the knife, comrade?)&amp;#160;&amp;#160; All of this has made the shock jock columnist Andrew Bolt ask the question why they made a lunatic a Prime Minister to begin with.</p> <p>In the past, the ALP has won elections in spite of its factional handicaps.&amp;#160; This time, it&#8217;s defeat in the federal polls will be richly deserved.&amp;#160; Rudd, even in defeat, will still be there in the wings to be called upon as the Gillard machine approaches the cliffs.&amp;#160; This story of blood letting is far from done.</p> <p>BINOY KAMPMARK was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.&amp;#160; He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: <a href="mailto:bkampmark@gmail.com" type="external">bkampmark@gmail.com</a></p>

The Pettiness of Australian Politics

https://counterpunch.org/2012/02/27/the-pettiness-of-australian-politics/

2012-02-27

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Now that the panic is over about whether she will be allowed to speak, maybe the priority can be finding and creating jobs. Maybe. What has she done to create one, single job? Absolutely nothing.</p> <p>So far, the governor&#8217;s agenda consists of bringing up divisive social issues, blaming our teachers for failing schools, placing incompetent, discredited political hacks in charge of government agencies and allowing her chief political consultant to run a shadow government that is obsessed with furthering her political ambitions, whatever the cost.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the worst economic crisis in 80 years continues to destroy jobs as New Mexico working families struggle. After 20 months in office, they expect strong leadership from their governor, someone who will fight and work hard to create jobs. Sadly, the result is failed leadership, starting with the governor and continuing with do-nothing political appointees, while repeated excuses assigning blame play like a scratched, broken record.</p> <p>As a concerned citizen and proud New Mexican , I believe that state government can and must take the lead in promoting and encouraging job growth in the private sector as well as in government. We must have strong, committed leadership that reaches out to both parties and is willing to use every tool available to help New Mexicans.</p> <p>I have traveled thousands of miles throughout New Mexico and listened to voices in communities large and small, young and old, Democrats and Republicans. No one cares about personal political agendas or how to tear down your opponent in the next election &#8211; they care about providing a home to their children, good schools, safe streets and holding on to the American dream. They look to the future and want their governor to support them. Nothing else matters if you cannot provide economic security for your family.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Recently, the Republican National Committee sent out a press release quoting Martinez: &#8220;&#8230; Americans want to work. They want to build their businesses, compete and succeed in order to create more jobs and a secure future for their families.&#8221;</p> <p>Really? Could she start doing something that would create jobs and provide a secure future in the state that elected her governor?</p> <p>New Mexican working families are waiting for Martinez, her political appointees and consultants to stand up, provide leadership and fight for jobs in New Mexico, instead of looking for opportunities to tear down yet another opponent in the next election.</p> <p>Because hard work, a good job and hope for the future is the American dream. For New Mexico and the USA.</p> <p>Grassroots New Mexico is a New Mexico political action committee formed in support of Democratic candidates.</p>

We’ve Yet To See Gov. Create Any Actual Jobs

https://abqjournal.com/125351/weve-yet-to-see-gov-create-any-actual-jobs.html

2012-08-20

<p>European Union regulators on Tuesday approved Pfizer's $15.23 billion purchase of injectable drug and infusion device maker Hospira.</p> <p>The European Commission said Pfizer agreed to sell the European rights to experimental biosimilar version of the immune disorder drug Remicade and a few other products, including some chemotherapy drugs, in certain markets. The Commission said it was concerned the sale would have reduced competition for those drugs in in some countries or in the European Economic Area as a whole.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Pfizer, the second-largest drug company in the world in terms of revenue, agreed to buy Hospira of Lake Forest, Illinois, in February. The purchase will strengthen the New York company's position in the growing market for biosimilars, which are cheaper versions of biologic drugs. Pfizer has said it expects to complete the acquisition before the end of 2015.</p> <p>Pfizer plans to sell the rights to the Remicade biosimilar in the European Economic Area but will maintain ownership of the drug in other regions, the European Commission said. Other divestitures include the antifungal drug voriconazole throughout the EEA, and the chemotherapy drugs carboplatin, cytarabine, epirubicin, and irinotecan and the antibiotic vancomycin in a few countries.</p> <p>Shares of Pfizer Inc. lost 9 cents to $36.06 and Hospira Inc. shares rose 3 cents to $89.56 in afternoon trading.</p>

European antitrust regulators approve Pfizer's $15B purchase of Hospira

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/04/european-antitrust-regulators-approve-pfizer-15b-purchase-hospira.html

2016-03-05

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>WASHINGTON &#8212; President Donald Trump says that empowering and promoting women in business are priorities in his administration.</p> <p>In a round-table discussion, the president is telling a group of female business owners that his team will work on barriers women face. He says the administration is also trying to make childcare more affordable and accessible.</p> <p>The gathering comes on the first work day since the Republican-led plan to repeal and replace the nation&#8217;s health care law was pulled before a House vote, a major setback for the Trump administration.</p> <p>The White House is trying to focus this week on another campaign priority: creating jobs and economic issues.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Trump convenes panel on empowering women in business

https://abqjournal.com/976845/trump-convenes-panel-on-empowering-women-in-business.html

2017-03-27

<p>Aug. 3 (UPI) &#8212; Former Hawaii Five-0 stars <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Daniel_Dae_Kim/" type="external">Daniel Dae Kim</a> and Grace Park reunited this week.</p> <p>The 48-year-old actor and 43-year-old actress spent time together Wednesday in Vancouver, B.C., after leaving the CBS series ahead of Season 8.</p> <p>&#8220;#Cousins #reunited Until next time, #Vancouver!&#8221; Kim captioned a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BXTVW3JjJJM/" type="external">photo</a> on Instagram of himself with Park.</p> <p>CBS announced in June that Kim and Park, who played Chin Ho Kelly and Kono Kalakaua for seven seasons, were departing the show. Kim later addressed his exit amid rumors he and Park were offered 10 to 15 percent less than co-stars Alex O&#8217;Loughlin and Scott Caan.</p> <p>&#8220;I will not be returning to Hawaii Five-0 when production starts next week,&#8221; <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2017/07/05/Daniel-Dae-Kim-on-leaving-Hawaii-Five-0-The-path-to-equality-is-rarely-easy/2571499273874/" type="external">the actor confirmed</a> July 5. &#8220;Though I made myself available to come back, CBS and I weren&#8217;t able to agree to terms on a new contract, so I made the difficult choice not to continue.&#8221;</p> <p>CBS <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2017/07/06/CBS-tried-very-hard-to-keep-Daniel-Dae-Kim-Grace-Park-on-Hawaii-Five-O/7471499336149/" type="external">responded by saying</a> it &#8220;tried very hard&#8221; to keep Kim and Park on the series by offering &#8220;large and significant salary increases.&#8221; Network executive Kelly Kahl maintained as much in an interview <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/hawaii-five-0-daniel-dae-kim-grace-park-pay/" type="external">with The Wrap</a> at the Television Critics Association summer press tour this week.</p> <p>&#8220;We love both those actors and did not want to lose them,&#8221; Kahl said. &#8220;We made very, very strong attempts to keep them and offered them a lot of money to stick around. We wanted them to stick around.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of an unfortunate byproduct of having a successful, long-running show, that sometimes you lose cast members,&#8221; he added. &#8220;We tried our darndest to keep them.&#8221;</p>

'Hawaii Five-0' alums Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park reunite after exit

https://newsline.com/hawaii-five-0-alums-daniel-dae-kim-grace-park-reunite-after-exit/

2017-08-03

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>Vilsack had an urgent message and he sensed that in Biden he would find a receptive audience. The two politicians had served together throughout President Barack Obama&#8217;s eight years in office and had known each other for decades. Both are nearing the end of long and successful political careers, built on speaking to the ambitions and anxieties of white, working-class voters who turned decisively for Donald Trump in this election.</p> <p>&#8220;We need to speak more directly to our folks in rural America,&#8221; Vilsack recalled telling the vice president. &#8220;And we have to spend time there.&#8221;</p> <p>Biden nodded and Vilsack kept moving, unsure whether his message &#8211; one that he had been pressing for years now &#8211; had penetrated. Their hurried exchange is a small part of a broader reckoning that is happening among Democrats as they struggle to make sense of their election losses.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Democrats have pinned their recent failings on any number of causes: websites that fed fake news to an anxious electorate; Republican-backed voter-identification laws; a racist backlash aimed at a black president and an increasingly diverse country; a sexist bias against a female commander in chief.</p> <p>Others point to Hillary Clinton&#8217;s popular-vote victory, Obama&#8217;s high approval ratings and demographic trends projecting increases in pro-Democrat minority voters as proof that the party is healthier than it appears. &#8220;The American people agree with my world view on a whole bunch of things,&#8221; Obama said following the Democrats&#8217; defeat. &#8220;Sometimes people feel as if we want to try something to see if we can shake things up.&#8221;</p> <p>Vilsack is among a group of old-school Democrats who are offering a far more dire perspective on the party&#8217;s prospects.</p> <p>Even before the president-elect&#8217;s surprising victory this month, Vilsack was complaining, sometimes loudly and often with little effect, that his party had essentially given up competing in large swaths of the country that it needed to win Senate seats, governor&#8217;s races and state legislatures.</p> <p>&#8220;Democrats need to talk to rural voters,&#8221; Vilsack warned this summer. &#8220;They can&#8217;t write them off. They can&#8217;t ignore them. They actually have to spend a little time talking to them.&#8221;</p> <p>Today, the former Iowa governor compares Democrats to a tree that &#8220;looks healthy on the outside, but is in the throes of slow and long-term demise.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Basically, that&#8217;s the Democratic Party as we know it,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>To make his case, Vilsack focuses on his home state of Iowa, which is 95 percent white and shows in microcosm many of the problems that now plague Democrats in rural America. When Vilsack won his long-shot race for governor in 1998, it was the first time Iowa had elected a Democrat to the office in 32 years.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Eight years later, Vilsack was replaced by a Democrat who for the first time in four decades had a Democratic legislature. &#8220;I personally took over managing legislative races,&#8221; Vilsack said. &#8220;We won the House and the Senate and we had three of the of the five members of Congress.&#8221;</p> <p>Iowa voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, before flipping decisively to Trump in 2016.</p> <p>Today, Republicans dominate every facet of state government and control both Senate seats and three of the four House seats. To understand the depth of the problem that Democrats face, Vilsack pointed to the returns from Sioux County in the northwestern corner of the state. Trump took more than 80 percent of the vote in the sparsely populated county, giving him a 12,000 vote advantage over Clinton.</p> <p>Two years earlier, Sen. Joni Ernst (R) captured a stunning 87 percent of the vote in winning the open seat that had belonged to legendary Democrat Tom Harkin.</p> <p>The vast margins essentially erased Democratic gains in Des Moines and surrounding Polk County, which has a population of 434,000, more than ten times as large as tiny Sioux County. The pattern was repeated throughout rural areas of the state.</p> <p>&#8220;If Democrats show up in these places they are not going to win, but they are not going to get shellacked,&#8221; Vilsack said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s the key. It&#8217;s about not getting beat so badly.&#8221;</p> <p>Vilsack&#8217;s argument has an ally in Obama, whose victory in Iowa in the 2008 Democratic Party proved that he could attract the support of white Midwestern voters. Obama often talks about the Iowa caucuses as &#8220;the most satisfying political period&#8221; of his career.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s my view of what politics should be,&#8221; he said in an interview with Politico this year.</p> <p>After Trump&#8217;s victory, Obama pointed again to Iowa, but this time he used it as a lesson to Democrats and the Clinton campaign, which had focused heavily on urban, suburban and minority voters. &#8220;I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa,&#8221; Obama told reporters. &#8220;It was because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry. . . . And there were some counties where I might have lost, but maybe I lost by 20 points instead of 50 points.&#8221;</p> <p>Vilsack&#8217;s warning, based on his experience in Iowa and his eight years traveling rural America as agriculture secretary, is that Democrats will have to do more than simply show up. He said that Democrats must build organizations with loyal memberships and the ability to deliver in Washington. &#8220;Who would you rather have on your side [in Washington], the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association?&#8221; Vilsack asked. Such new groups, he added, could help offset losses in traditional Democratic bastions, such as unions.</p> <p>And he called on the party to retool its message so that it can better appeal to proud, rural voters who are skeptical of government regulation and help.</p> <p>&#8220;As Democrats, we tend to say we have a program. We have a program to retrain workers or help with health-care costs or reduce the costs of education,&#8221; Vilsack said. &#8220;Here&#8217;s how that is heard in some corners: &#8216;Man, you must really not be able to take care of yourself. You must be really dependent.&#8217; &#8220;</p> <p>A better message, Vilsack said, would be built around partnering with local communities to retool economies hurt by technological change or globalization. Such a partnership, he said, would emphasize the good of the country and &#8220;combine their challenges with the country&#8217;s challenges,&#8221; Vilsack said. &#8220;One part of the country is not stronger or weaker. Instead we are all in this together.&#8221;</p> <p>Vilsack said he tried out a version of his approach at a recent meeting with state agriculture secretaries and commissioners &#8211; an overwhelmingly Republican group.</p> <p>He pressed them to think about the consequences for farmers if the Trump administration followed through on campaign promises and triggered a trade war with China and Mexico.</p> <p>&#8220;That is our number one and number three agriculture customer,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>He warned that mass deportations of illegal immigrants could deprive farmers of essential workers needed to harvest, process and package their crops.</p> <p>The agriculture commissioners, meanwhile, had other priorities, such as curbing Environmental Protection Agency regulations on farming and eliminating the estate tax.</p> <p>&#8220;They get it. They know their sales are directly related to trade,&#8221; Vilsack said. &#8220;But we haven&#8217;t said, &#8216;Hey guys, here&#8217;s the problem.&#8217; We just haven&#8217;t connected with them.&#8221;</p> <p>vilsack</p>

Vilsack’s tough message for fellow Democrats: Stop writing off rural America

https://abqjournal.com/896943/vilsacks-tough-message-for-fellow-democrats-stop-writing-off-rural-america.html

2016-11-28

<p>Virtual reality&amp;#160;was once the province of science fiction book and movies &#8212; think of the holodeck on "Star Trek." But virtual reality is&amp;#160;becoming a practical, real-world technology, one that people are trying to find uses for&amp;#160;in a variety of fields, including international journalism.</p> <p>That's where&amp;#160;Nonny de la Pe&#241;a&amp;#160;comes in. She's&amp;#160;a former reporter and&amp;#160;documentary filmmaker who's now&amp;#160;a Ph.D. student in Media Arts at the University of Southern California. In her lab overlooking the USC swimming pool, de la Pe&#241;a <a href="http://immersivejournalism.com" type="external">meticulously recreates scenes</a> that occurred in the real world, scenes that she believes can one day help tell complex news stories.</p> <p>Using virtual reality, she&amp;#160;hopes to take&amp;#160;people to places&amp;#160;they otherwise might&amp;#160;never be able to&amp;#160;visit. Imagine for instance, "stepping" into&amp;#160;an Iraqi village attacked by ISIS or a hospital in Sierra Leone treating Ebola patients.</p> <p>De la Pe&#241;a&#8217;s latest work is called Project Syria. When visitors put on a virtual reality headset in her lab, they&#8217;re transported from a peaceful college campus in Los Angeles to the scene of&amp;#160;a mortar attack that occurred&amp;#160;in Syria in 2013. As they walk around the lab, they virtually&amp;#160;pass&amp;#160;three-dimensional buildings and people,&amp;#160;hearing the sounds of the place.</p> <p>De la Pe&#241;a believes recreating international news stories in virtual reality will give people a&amp;#160;visceral and personal connection to distant events in a way regular media can&amp;#160;not.&amp;#160;&#8220;Syria seems so far away from most people,&#8221; she says, &#8220;but when you can actually put them on scene, I think the impact is a lot stronger and no longer is it this thing that&#8217;s happening in another Middle Eastern country. It becomes much more visual, much more real.&#8221;</p> <p>Creating what she calls &#8220;verite virtuality,&#8221;&amp;#160;de la Pe&#241;a uses videos, photos and sounds of real places to recreate news events in the digital realm. To create the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlIvfa8NKQk&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=1m18s" type="external">virtual attack in Aleppo</a>, de la Pe&#241;a relied on a YouTube video that captured the real attack, including the sound of a young girl singing as the mortar round hit the crowded street.</p> <p>(NOTE: The video de la Pe&#241;a used claims the mortar round was fired by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The World cannot independently verify the source of the attack.)</p> <p /> <p /> <p>Of course,&amp;#160;there are some who might see de la Pe&#241;a&#8217;s work as just a fancy videogame, one that blurs the line between tragic news event&amp;#160;and entertainment.&amp;#160;There&#8217;s also a concern that virtual reality scenes could be created to twist the news, or even create incidents that never happened in reality.</p> <p>De la Pe&#241;a acknowledges that&amp;#160;virtual reality could be used as a propaganda tool,&amp;#160;especially as technology allows scenes to look ever more lifelike.&amp;#160;</p> <p>&#8220;Because, sometimes,&amp;#160;the realism is so strong, people will be willing to believe something is true when it isn&#8217;t," she says. "And so how do we give people the critical thinking to experience these things and understand when it is real and when it isn&#8217;t?&#8221;</p> <p>But de la Pe&#241;a believes immersive journalism will inevitably be part of the media landscape as the technology improves. She&#8217;s already thinking ahead to projects she&#8217;d like to tackle, such as creating virtual scenes from the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza.</p> <p>She's also taking her project on the road: She'll&amp;#160;show&amp;#160;it off early in 2015&amp;#160;to tastemakers&amp;#160;at the Sundance Film Festival.</p>

How to get right in the middle of the war in Syria — from thousands of miles away

https://pri.org/stories/2014-12-22/how-get-right-middle-war-syria-thousands-miles-away

2014-12-22

<p>Good morning, and happy Wednesday. Here are six of the top stories we are following this morning at NBC News:</p> <p>Two new pings were detected Tuesday in the southern Indian Ocean where ships are looking for black boxes &#8212; and any wreckage &#8212; of the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight, officials said Wednesday. They said the noises are coming from &#8220;a man-made device,&#8221; and have narrowed down the search field to a still staggering 46,000 square miles. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS</a>.</p> <p>Track star Oscar Pistorius took the stand for the third day in his murder trial as testimony continued to center around what happened in the hours before he fatally shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. &#8220;You killed Reeva Steenkamp ... Say it,&#8221; prosecutor Gerrie Nel said to the Olympian in a dramatic exchange. The court also saw pictures of the horrific gunshot injuries to Steenkamp. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS</a>.</p> <p>Tensions are rising in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian protesters have stormed government buildings and expressed hopes for a similar secession as in Crimea. Those protesters released 56 hostages who were being held in a government building early today. Former American ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said the Russians are &#8220;starting to put together the narrative to justify&#8221; military intervention. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS</a>.</p> <p>The University of Connecticut women&#8217;s basketball team followed the men by winning the NCAA crown on Tuesday night, defeating Notre Dame 79-58. While both teams were undefeated during the season, it was the Huskies who made history again. The UConn men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams both won the championship title in the same season &#8212; having done so previously in 2003-04. <a href="http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/08/uconn-completes-40-0-season-wins-geno-auriemmas-ninth-national-title/related/" type="external">Read more at NBC SPORTS</a>.</p> <p>ESPN analyst Jay Bilas declares UConn the hoops Mecca:</p> <p>Following <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/al-sharpton-764312" type="external">a report by The Smoking Gun</a> on Monday, the Rev. Al Sharpton came forward Tuesday to talk about his time in the 1980s as an FBI informant. Sharpton said he took on the role after he and other black concert promoters were receiving death threats from the Genovese crime family. Sharpton, who hosts a show on MSNBC, said he cooperated out of fear. &#8220;This is not &#8216;The Sopranos&#8217; on television,&#8221; he said. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in INVESTIGATIONS</a>.</p> <p>The famed wrestler &#8212; real name James Hellwig &#8212; began his career in 1987, and had just been inducted into the WWE&#8217;s Hall of Fame on Saturday. His cause of death wasn&#8217;t immediately known. Other pro wrestling icons shared their condolences via Twitter. <a href="" type="internal">Read more in NEWS</a>.</p> <p>Bet your selfie never looked this stellar.</p> <p>American astronaut Steven &#8220;Swanny&#8221; Swanson snapped a picture of himself aboard the International Space Station&#8217;s seven-window observatory overlooking the Earth. It was uploaded to the <a href="http://instagram.com/iss" type="external">space station&#8217;s Instagram account</a> on Monday &#8212; apparently the first Instagram pic from space &#8212; and prompted Swanson to write, &#8220;Back on ISS, life is good.&#8221;</p> <p />

KNOW IT ALL: Wednesday’s Top Stories at NBC News

http://nbcnews.com/news/know-it-all/know-it-all-wednesdays-top-stories-nbc-news-n75526

2014-04-09

<p>The average American family spent more money on taxes in 2016 than they did on food and clothing, according to a new analysis.</p> <p><a href="https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/bls-average-family-tax-bill-increased-411-4-years" type="external">CNSNews.com cites</a> a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics study that showed the following:</p> <p>President Donald Trump discussed his vision for reforming the nation&#8217;s tax system <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/tax-code-congress-speech-repatriation/2017/08/30/id/810759/" type="external">during a speech in Missouri on Wednesday.</a></p> <p>&#8220;This is our once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver real tax reform for everyday hard-working Americans,&#8221; Trump said.</p> <p>&#8220;I am fully committed to working with Congress to get this job done. And I don&#8217;t want to be disappointed by Congress.&#8221;</p>

Americans Spent More on Taxes in '16 Than Food, Clothing

https://newsline.com/americans-spent-more-on-taxes-in-16-than-food-clothing/

2017-08-30

<p /> <p>I discussed ways McCain might get back in the race <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/10/10307_can_mccain_get_back_in_the_race.html" type="external">below</a>, but if this report is to be believed, it&#8217;s a lost cause. These were the reactions a Republican consultant got from blue collar types in the upper Midwest after showing them the nastiest possible anti-Obama ads:</p> <p>54 year-old white male, voted Kerry &#8217;04, Bush &#8217;00, Dole &#8217;96, hunter, NASCAR fan&#8230;hard for Obama said: &#8220;I&#8217;m gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He&#8217;s gonna be a bad president. But I won&#8217;t ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President.&#8221;</p> <p>The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. &#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I&#8217;m sick of paying for health insurance at work and that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m supporting Barack.&#8221;</p> <p>The consultant, who gave this account to <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Voting_for_Obama_anyway.html" type="external">Ben Smith</a> over at Politico, called it &#8220;the two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups.&#8221;</p> <p />

Obama Is a Terrorist and I’ll Vote For Him

https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/10/obama-terrorist-and-ill-vote-him/

2008-10-15

<p /> <p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/26/barack-obama-condemns-tradition-women-second-class-citizens-nairobi" type="external">The Guardian</a></p> <p>President Obama continued his diplomatic visit to Kenya on Sunday with a speech focusing on gender issues including sexual violence, education and the forced marriage of minors.</p> <p>The president, whose father was from Kenya, got right to the point on the first topic, saying, &#8220;There&#8217;s no excuse for sexual assault or domestic violence.&#8221;</p> <p /> <p>He also spoke against genital mutilation practices still carried out in the country as part of long-standing tradition and warned that any country that fails to educate girls and provide employment opportunities for women &#8220;is doomed to fall behind in the global economy.&#8221;</p> <p>Making a more universal appeal, Obama argued, &#8220;These are issues of right or wrong in any culture.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/26/barack-obama-condemns-tradition-women-second-class-citizens-nairobi" type="external">The Guardian</a> relayed details of his speech in Nairobi:</p> <p>The US president, whose ancestry has at times been a politically awkward part of his identity, looked at ease as he embraced his status as a &#8220;Kenyan American&#8221; in a major speech that also condemned corruption, tribalism and terrorism.</p> <p>Obama earned vociferous applause from 4,500 Kenyans at a sports arena in the capital, Nairobi, by throwing down the gauntlet over the rights of women and girls. He gave short shrift to those in Africa who hide behind arguments defending tradition and culture against values they say are imposed by the west. Considering his heritage, it was a case he could make better than any previous US president.</p> <p>&#8220;Every country and every culture has traditions that are unique and help make that country what it is, but just because something is part of your past doesn&#8217;t make it right; it doesn&#8217;t mean it defines your future,&#8221; Obama said, citing the recent debate in America over the Confederate flag.</p> <p>Sunday&#8217;s event followed Obama&#8217;s <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/president-obama-praises-africa-in-kenya-summit-speech-1437820696" type="external">attempt</a> the day before to change the Kenyan government&#8217;s stance on gay rights, to which Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was not receptive.</p> <p>Watch Obama hold court in Nairobi below (via The Guardian):</p> <p>&#8211;Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Kasia Anderson</a></p>

VIDEO: Obama in Kenya: 'No Excuse' for Violence Against Women

https://truthdig.com/articles/video-obama-in-kenya-no-excuse-for-violence-against-women/

2015-07-27

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>Fresno State at New Mexico, 1:30 p.m.</p> <p>Read Rick Wright&#8217;s preview story&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">Improved Lobos&#8217; Defense Faces Big Test</a>, view the game on Comcast (77 in Albuquerque, 21 in Santa Fe) or tune in to 770-AM.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Lobo Football: Lobos face Fresno State Today

https://abqjournal.com/141888/lobo-football-lobos-face-fresno-state-today.html

<p /> <p>With the iPhone providing 64% of trailing 12-month revenue at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), the tech giant's business is still primarily driven by that segment. But it doesn't mean investors should overlook Apple's other business segments. One is standing out more than ever: the company's App Store, iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay, licensing, and other services.</p> <p>Continue Reading Below</p> <p>Apple's App Store drives the majority of services revenue. Image source: Apple.</p> <p>1. $7.2 billion: In Apple's most recent quarter, quarterly services revenue hit an all-time high of $7.2 billion -- up 18% year over year, handily exceeding Apple's overall revenue growth of 3% and beating growth in any other segment.</p> <p>But even this growth in Apple's services segment understates how rapidly services revenue is growing. Apple CFO Luca Maestri explained the discrepancy between reported growth and actual segment growth in the company's first-quarter earnings call:</p> <p>2. 9.2%: Apple's services segment is growing as a proportion of total revenue. In the company's most recent quarter, services accounted for 9.2% of total revenue, up from 8% in the year-ago quarter and 6.4% in the same quarter two years ago.</p> <p>Advertisement</p> <p>3. 43%: Adjusting for the extra week in Apple's first quarter this year, App Store revenue soared 43% year over year, shattering all previous records. This was driven by growth both in average revenue per paying account and in the total number of paying accounts.</p> <p>As Maestri was sure to mention, Apple's App Store revenue growth outpaced the overall app industry, and more than doubled 2016 revenue from Alphabet's Google Play store.</p> <p>Going forward, Maestri believes "the App Store is going to be a significant driver of growth."</p> <p>4. $3 billion: If you had any doubts about the importance of the App Store to Apple's services segment, wonder no longer: It's critical. Apple said fiscal first-quarter App Store revenue was $3 billion in December alone.</p> <p>5. $60 billion: Based on the trajectory of developer revenue in 2016, the business of apps is just getting started. Apple's developer community has now raked in $60 billion in earnings, garnering over $20 billion just in 2016.</p> <p>6. Over 150 million subscriptions: Between Apple's own subscription services and third-party content subscriptions offered through the App Store, the company has more than 150 million paid customer subscriptions.</p> <p>Apple Music. Image source: Apple.</p> <p>7. $51 billion: What kind of growth should investors expect from Apple's services segment? The business could double over the next four years, according to Apple management. This would bring annual services revenue to a staggering $51 billion in 2020.</p> <p>While these figures alone make a great case for investors to pay close attention to Apple's services segment, the very nature of Apple's services themselves justify the segment's importance. Unlike the unpredictable nature of focused product revenue from iPhone, Mac, and iPad, services revenue is more sustainable, stable, and predictable. Further, it's a solid measure of the degree to which a growing number of customers are becoming increasingly invested in Apple's powerful ecosystem of hardware, software, and services.</p> <p>10 stocks we like better than AppleWhen 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=087c1f80-20c2-41aa-8f60-506961b1aef2&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 Apple 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=087c1f80-20c2-41aa-8f60-506961b1aef2&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 February 6, 2017</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/TMFDanielSparks/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Sparks Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOG, GOOGL, and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. 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>

7 Surprising Metrics Highlight 1 Major Catalyst for Apple, Inc. Stock: Services

http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/16/7-surprising-metrics-highlight-1-major-catalyst-for-apple-inc-stock-services.html

2017-02-16

<p>Liu Xiaobo passed away. What is the &#8211; not so hidden &#8211; truth about him?</p> <p>Answer: His speeches and writings show enthusiasm for the 100-year English colonization of Hong Kong, wishing 300 years colonization of China, celebrating the US war in Afghanistan, hoping for atomic weapons. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for democratization of China, had the freedom of speech, but the prize communicated as a provocation. The prize could easily have been given to their Charter, not to Liu Xiaobo.</p> <p>Norway&#8217;s security &#8211; what are the threats?</p> <p>Answer: Given the location, an invasion by USA or Russia to prevent the other from doing so. The situation is reminiscent of the threat from England, Germany and USSR to prevent one of the other from doing so in 1940; what happened was England and Germany violating Norwegian neutrality, fighting a battle on Norwegian territory. USSR nothing till they fought German troops in the extreme North losing more soldiers to liberate Norway than Norway during the war, stopping when the Norwegian government in refuge in London told them to do so, thereby making it possible for Germany to destroy Northern Norway.</p> <p>Norway&#8217;s defense today &#8211; what is the story?</p> <p>Answer: A one-sided offensive capacity directed at Russia for a first or second strike, the coast and inland defenseless with 248 of 249 districts (&#8220;Heimevernet&#8220;, home land defense) incapable of their job.</p> <p>Why Russia as Chosen Enemy; the real story, the alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: The tradition dates from the 395 A.D. division of the Roman Empire into a Catholic and an Orthodox part, the former adopting the Latin script, the latter Greek and (derived) Cyrillic scripts (Russia, Serbia).</p> <p>Who is Vladimir Putin? Is there an untold truth? The End?</p> <p>Answer: A highly gifted former KGB official knowing the West better than West knows Russia, restoring Russia from CIA&#8217;s Yeltsin, harking back to the Orthodox roots of Russia, deeply religious, and beloved.</p> <p>Why the &#8220;Yellow Peril&#8221;; China past, future, present, alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: An old Western tradition: the West is Iberian and Anglo, the South Muslim-pagan, the East is dangerous and more so the further East. Ignorance of Chinese dynasties, 2,000 nationalities, China as a state only from 1912, Chinese civilization = Daoism-Confucianism-Buddhism.</p> <p>Who is Xi Jinping? Is there an untold truth? The End?</p> <p>Answer: Deeply religious Buddhist, tied to his theory and practice of &#8220;Win-Win deals&#8221; benefiting both parties, with China or not, weaving the state system together positively, convinced that such forces are stronger than negative forces. Multilateralism is missing; China soon with the world&#8217;s biggest economy comes on top with most deals.</p> <p>Why is USA so belligerent, the real story, the alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: Because of the idea of a divine mandate as &#8220;chosen people with a promised land&#8221;, Obama&#8217;s &#8220;exceptionalism&#8221; for the UN General Assembly, by Trump taken for granted, above international law. The Pentagon study, &#8220;American Empire is collapsing,&#8221; demands &#8220;massive expansion of military-industrial complex to maintain global &#8216;access to resources&#8217;&#8221;, not the normal way through trade, the American way.</p> <p>Who is Donald Trump? Is there an untold story? The End?</p> <p>Answer: The psychopathic, clinically autistic, narcissistic-paranoid president of a state suffering from exceptionalist narcissism and &#8220;us vs. them&#8221; paranoia. The dictatorial prerogatives of the US president, including the pardon institute &#8211; maybe even himself &#8211; can be very long-lasting if re-elected till 2024. He has changed from America First to Western civilization vs barbarism.</p> <p>Ending with Amendment 24[i] and declaring him unfit is unlikely. Isolation by Western countries?</p> <p>Why is Israel so belligerent; the reality, the alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: Because of the idea of a divine mandate as &#8220;chosen people with a promised land&#8221;, Genesis 15:18: repossessing what is theirs. By that theory there are many areas in the world some might like to repossess.</p> <p>An alternative would be for Jews to keep Israel by international law {&#8220;4 June 1967 Israel&#8221;) and live all over in Muslim lands as before, being people of The Book, the kitab, not constructing violent encounters. Conciliation needed.</p> <p>Who is Binyamin Netanyahu? Is there an untold story? The End?</p> <p>Answer: A gifted believer in the above, knowing that Israel needs US support to expand into nine countries, using AIPAC. More problems than ever:</p> <p>&#8211; Losing the war instigated in Syria to Iran, Shia, Hezbollah presence. &#8211; Losing particularly support of women in diaspora due to the conflict between the Orthodox Judaism adopted by Israel and the access of Jewish women to the Wailing Wall. &#8211; Also over general Holy Sites jurisdiction.</p> <p>This may be the end of Netanyahu rule.</p> <p>What is happening to the EU; the untold story, alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: &#8220;A dream come true&#8221; for France and Germany (&#8220;Communaut&#233; Europeenne, pens&#233;e par les Fran&#231;ais, pay&#233;e par les allemands&#8220;).</p> <p>They are now liberated from US pressure via UK and UK negativism, can do their own thing possibly multi-speed, and the &#8364; as common currency.</p> <p>What is happening to the West = USA + EU+, the untold story. The End?</p> <p>Answer: Some is due to trumpism, some to the proximity of the EU+ to Russia and the in-betweens, knowing them better and seeing options beyond limited US understanding. That may change; USA may come closer to EU+.</p> <p>What is happening to NATO? The untold story. The End?</p> <p>Answer: No longer as it was; most European members declaring that they will no longer fight US wars. USA remain in command. The USA could fight their own wars alone&#8211;that is currently happening&#8211;so could the Europeans with an EU army in the making. The end of NATO.</p> <p>Japan vs Russia-Two Chinas-Two Koreas over islands, what can be done?</p> <p>Answer: Joint ownership of Kurile lands with Russia, Senkaku-Diaoyu with the Chinas, Takeshima-Dokdo with the Koreas, sharing net profits.</p> <p>West vs Russia over and in Ukraine; the real story, what can be done?</p> <p>Answer: Very simple: for one state with two nations, Ukrainian and Russian, a &#8220;smart&#8221; federation, the Ukrainian part free trade with EU, the Russian part good access to Russian gas-oil (not fossil, deep).</p> <p>India vs China-Muslims in Kashmir; the real story, what can be done?</p> <p>Answer: The basic story is a Muslim majority that will never accept Indian rule; the solution may be an Indo-Pak condominium heading for independence and joint ownership &#8211; with China &#8211; of the contested glacier.</p> <p>Latin America-the untold story of the past. And future alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: Let Latin America be Latin America, there has been much too much West. The trend is toward Latin American-Caribbean unity, the general world regionalization for dialogue and cooperation on equal terms with Anglo-America; US efforts to stop or delay will not work. China should act less bilaterally, more with respect for the region.</p> <p>Africa-the untold story of the past. And the future alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: Let Africa be Africa, there has been much too much West. The trend has been for a long time toward African Unity, the general world regionalization. The key colonizers, England and France, should learn from Italy, apologize for their crimes, compensate, concile.</p> <p>Why so much inequality in so many countries, and what can be done?</p> <p>Answer: Positions with permanence and security were abolished in favor of jobs on a &#8220;hire and fire&#8221; basis. Except for those at the top who profit from products produced cheaply, exporting with enormous profits. Massive general strikes against &#8220;jobs&#8221;, for positions, are needed.</p> <p>Jurisprudence and the legal model; why not, and the alternatives?</p> <p>Answer: A deeply rooted model seeing social reality as actors, individual or collective, responsible for their acts, answerable to the law. An indispensable perspective to be enriched with a systemic perspective: action is not only conditioned by actor intention and capability, but also by good and bad structures; hence changing bad structures, not only punishing illegal actors, or restoring them.</p> <p>Note:</p> <p>[i] The Twenty-fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. [Wikipedia]</p> <p>Originally published by the Transcend Media Service&amp;#160; <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

The World, Where Are You Heading?

https://counterpunch.org/2017/09/26/the-world-where-are-you-heading/

2017-09-26

<p><a href="" type="internal" />Editor&#8217;s Note: Were these armed men trying to free the&amp;#160;quarantined&amp;#160;victims or intentionally spread the disease? Ebola-infected items could be used to spark an unbelievably powerful act of terror.</p> <p>Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital&#8217;s largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including blood-stained sheets and mattresses.</p> <p>Local witnesses told&amp;#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/AFP/status/500984920958062592" type="external">Agence France Presse</a>&amp;#160;that there were armed men among the group that attacked the clinic.</p> <p>As many as 29 potentially Ebola-infected patients fled, the news agency reported.</p> <p>&#8220;They broke down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled,&#8221; said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberian, George Williams.</p> <p>The violence in the West Point slum occurred late Saturday and was led by residents angry that patients were brought from other parts of the capital to the holding center, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant health minister, said Sunday.</p> <p>West Point residents went on a &#8220;looting spree,&#8221; stealing items from the clinic that were likely infected, said a senior police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press.</p> <p>The residents took mattresses, sheets and blankets that had bloodstains, which could spread the infection. Liberian police restored order to the West Point neighborhood, which is home to an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 poor Liberians. Health officials say they fear the looting incident will spread Ebola infections in the capital, Monrovia.</p> <p>The attack comes just one day after a report of a crowd of several hundred local residents, chanting, &#8216;No Ebola in West Point,&#8217; drove away a burial team and their police escort that had come to collect the bodies of suspected Ebola victims in a slum in the capital, Reuters reports. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took several patients out, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.</p> <p>The isolation center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian health ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus, Reuters reports. Some 10 patients had &#8220;escaped&#8221; the building the night before, according to a nurse, as the center had no medicine to treat them.</p> <p>While the armed attack is likely the most brazen attack on health workers trying to contain the deadly outbreak, it is far from the first in the region worst-hit by it.</p> <p>There have been&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-workers-battle-trust-issues-attacks-in-ebola-outbreak/" type="external">numerous reports of locals attacking those trying to stop the disease</a>&amp;#160;by throwing stones at aid workers, blocking aid convoys and forcibly removing patients from clinics. Many locals blame foreigners for bringing the disease, saying it had never been there before they arrived.</p> <p>The mistrust of central government and help from outside runs deep in this part of West Africa. All three countries worst-hit by the outbreak &#8212; Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea &#8212; are relatively fresh off decades of either brutal civil war or iron-fisted dictatorships.</p> <p>The Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people in West Africa could last another six months, the Doctors Without Borders charity group said Friday. One aid worker acknowledged that&amp;#160; <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-outbreak-likely-vastly-underestimated-who-says/" type="external">the true death toll is still unknown</a>.</p> <p>New figures released by the World Health Organization showed that Liberia has recorded more Ebola deaths &#8211; 413 &#8211; than any of the other affected countries.</p> <p>Tarnue Karbbar, who works for the aid group Plan International in northern Liberia, said response teams simply aren&#8217;t able to document all the erupting Ebola cases. Many of the sick are still being hidden at home by their relatives, who are too fearful of going to an Ebola treatment center.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-armed-men-attack-liberia-ebola-clinic-freeing-patients/" type="external">This article continues at&amp;#160;cbsnews.com</a></p>

Ebola At Large: Armed Men Attack Liberia Ebola Clinic, Freeing Ebola Patients

http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/ebola-large-armed-men-attack-liberia-ebola-clinic-freeing-ebola-patients/

<p>A thought experiment goes like this:</p> <p>Imagine a world, in which everyone was covered in blisters and boils. Every single human being, across the whole Earth, without exception, has a disease that causes these blemishes all over their skin. Everyone has this disease. What would you think? What would you see? What would you believe? The truth is, you would think it&#8217;s normal. You would be so thoroughly accustomed to it that you wouldn&#8217;t even see it. To you, the blisters and boils would be, effectively, invisible. If a human who had clear skin came, you would think them funny-looking. Even after being told blisters and boils aren&#8217;t normal, you wouldn&#8217;t accept it. You wouldn&#8217;t believe it. To you, people with clear skin are just not normal.</p> <p>If you&#8217;ve seen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtvON3Aifbk" type="external">this video</a>, you can glimpse the way this works. It appears as though in Algeria, a Muslim-majority country, a man beats his wife, and that&#8217;s just normal; he&#8217;s not a real man if he doesn&#8217;t.</p> <p>But flip this around. What many Americans fail to see is that for all our judgment rendered against Muslim-majority countries over their brutal suppression of women, those same people don&#8217;t see America &#8211; and by extension all of &#8220;Western&#8221; culture &#8211; as having any kind of moral high ground when it comes to women&#8217;s basic human rights.</p> <p>There&#8217;s a reason for that.</p> <p>In American culture, a woman has no value if she&#8217;s not sexually attractive. If she is sexually attractive, she has value. That&#8217;s all there is to it. Factors like intelligence, integrity, honesty, talent, skill, or basically anything else, are moot in that equation. She&#8217;s good if, and only if, she&#8217;s hot. This is a subtle, ubiquitous, psychological oppression of the lowest form, and it&#8217;s reinforced in every TV show, movie, music video, Instagram feed, or on the magazine rack at the grocery store when you&#8217;re about to check out. It&#8217;s present in the Disney &#8220;Classics,&#8221; like Snow White whose virtue was how fair she was, or Beauty and the Beast, and it manifests both in the way young girls dress and act, and in the way boys view girls, and in the way boys treat girls.</p> <p>Just ask yourself: is the reason you clicked on this article because of the pretty girl?</p> <p>On the surface, it may appear as though it&#8217;s changing. In the past, a woman had to be skinny, whereas now, we have &#8220;plus-sized,&#8221; and &#8220;thick&#8221; is no longer a bad thing. But is it really? The standard for beauty may change from one thing to another, but the problem isn&#8217;t the standard for beauty; it&#8217;s that she has to be hot in the first place.</p> <p>This disease is not innocuous. It&#8217;s had a devatsating impact on our culture, on our society, on our country, and it&#8217;s been like that for decades. We&#8217;ve seen some of the most grossly unhealthy industries pop up and grow into industrial powerhouses, and we&#8217;ve seen the incredibly ugly impact it&#8217;s had on our young girls as they try to grow up. Beyond that, it has destroyed the way men view women, the way men treat women, and I believe, has played a major role in the perpetuation of some of the most nefarious acts we see.</p> <p>Muslim women, by contrast, wear a hijab, a covering. Contrary to what most Americans believe, the Qur&#8217;an doesn&#8217;t give much in the way of specifics, beyond instructing women (and men) to dress modestly &#8211; basically &#8216;don&#8217;t try to get that kind of attention.&#8217; For them, the hijab is a liberation from the sexual objectification so pervasive in Western culture.</p> <p>For us, it&#8217;s oppression &#8211; it&#8217;s just not normal.</p> <p>Michael Patrick Lewis is a teacher, and bestselling author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Edge-God-Michael-Patrick-Lewis-ebook/dp/B016TSYNJA" type="external">Edge Of God</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Preferred-Rewards-Michael-Patrick-Lewis-ebook/dp/B00X43EPXI" type="external">Preferred Rewards</a>. You can also find him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/fakemikelewis" type="external">@fakeMikeLewis</a>.</p> <p />

We’re All Sick

http://natmonitor.com/2017/03/31/were-all-sick/

2017-03-31

<p /> <p>Weren&#8217;t we just having a discussion here on the Riff about the thin line satire walks, between being the opposite of a thing and an endorsement of a thing? Well, brace yourselves, because the New Yorker has jumped right into the middle of that argument with a cover that made my jaw actually drop. The July 21st issue features a be-turbaned Barack and an afroed, gun-toting Michelle Obama, celebrating their arrival in the White House with a good old terrorist fist-bump. They&#8217;ve also apparently done a little redecorating, tacking up a portrait of Osama bin Laden and tossing an American flag into the fireplace for good measure. The illustration, called &#8220;The Politics of Fear,&#8221; is described in a New Yorker press release as satirizing the &#8220;scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election&#8221;; as the Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/yikes-controversial-emnew_n_112429.html" type="external">put it</a>: &#8220;all that&#8217;s missing is a token sprig of arugula.&#8221;</p> <p>After the jump: the full cover, the campaigns&#8217; responses, and when did the New Yorker become America&#8217;s chaos-inducing art terrorist psycho?</p> <p>The campaigns aren&#8217;t laughing: Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Ya_cant_make_it_up.html" type="external">says</a> Senator Obama was asked about the cover earlier today and answered &#8220;I have no response to that.&#8221; The campaign followed up with a statement saying they understand it is a &#8220;satirical lampoon&#8221; of a right-wing caricature, but that they found it &#8220;tasteless and offensive.&#8221; The McCain campaign immediately said they &#8220;completely agree.&#8221;</p> <p>From Wikipedia&#8217;s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire" type="external">entry</a> on satire: &#8220;The purpose of satire is not primarily humor in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves&#8230; Because satire often combines anger and humor it can be profoundly disturbing &#8211; because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood.&#8221; Well, the cover&#8217;s already up on Drudge, so there you go. Is the New Yorker like the Joker in the upcoming Batman movie, treating America as if it&#8217;s their own radical art project? By pouring gasoline onto the tinderbox of this political season, the magazine is almost saying &#8220;I love chaos&#8221;: It&#8217;s impossible to predict how exactly this will play out, but you can almost guarantee somebody&#8217;s going to get hurt. Am I part of the chaos by posting a larger jpeg below? Who knows. I just hope those smart magazine people know what they&#8217;re doing.</p> <p>[Update: Artist Harry Britt <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/barry-blitt-addresses-his_n_112432.html" type="external">has responded</a> to the building brouhaha, saying he found the branding of the Obamas as unpatriotic or terrorists &#8220;ridiculous&#8221; and that &#8220;depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.&#8221; When asked if he is &#8220;glad he made the art,&#8221; he responds, &#8220;The magazine just came out ten minutes ago, at least give me a few days to decide whether to regret it or not.&#8221;]</p> <p>[Update #2: I&#8217;ve realized what the problem with this cover is and come up with a solution. Britt&#8217;s previous (and hilarious) illustrations (see three at HuffPo <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/barry-blitt-addresses-his_n_112432.html" type="external">here</a>) all mock the subject of the drawing through placing them in ironic positions to highlight their hypocrisy: the Bush administration&#8217;s handling of Katrina is satirized by flooding the White House, Ahmadinejad&#8217;s statements on homosexuality&#8217;s non-existence are disproven by a bathroom stall come-on. They&#8217;re wry and funny because there&#8217;s an element of comeuppance. The current cover doesn&#8217;t satirize the attacks on the Obamas so much as it merely combines them, and the real target of the supposed satire (Fox News?) is left unspoken. But here&#8217;s how it could have worked: the exact same drawing, except with John and Cindy McCain in place of the Obamas. Funny! Am I right?]</p> <p /> <p />

Holy Fist Bumps: New Yorker Obama Cover Features Turban, Afro, Flag Burning, bin Laden, Complete Lack of Concern for Humanity

https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/07/holy-fist-bumps-new-yorker-obama-cover-features-turban-afro-flag-burning-bin-laden-com/

2008-07-14

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>SANTA FE &#8211; Children can participate in a free fishing derby in Santa Fe sponsored by the city and the state Game and Fish Department.</p> <p>Saturday&#8217;s event runs from 7 a.m. until noon and is open to children under age 12, who don&#8217;t require a fishing license.</p> <p>There are prizes for the children catching the first 10 tagged fish.</p> <p>Fishing will be allowed on a section of the Santa Fe River between Don Gaspar Avenue near the state Supreme Court building to Old Santa Fe Trail near the State Land Office building.</p> <p>The department is stocking the river with 500 rainbow trout.</p> <p>Anyone 12 or older with a valid fishing license can fish for trout remaining in the river after the derby ends.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Free fishing derby in Santa Fe for kids

https://abqjournal.com/414871/free-fishing-derby-in-santa-fe-for-kids.html

<p>Disgraced former Wall Street baron Bernard Madoff might have made millions swindling others for profit during his heyday, but he doesn&#8217;t seem to have made much of a literary cottage industry for writers presumably looking to cash in on his downfall. Not even the &#8220;I-was-Bernie&#8217;s-mistress&#8221; angle is tempting book buyers at this point. Once again, Madoff just can&#8217;t share the wealth. &#8211;KA</p> <p>AP via <a href="http://gawker.com/5351616/madoff-sex-book-not-on-top" type="external">Gawker</a>:</p> <p>According to Nielsen BookScan, neither a much-discussed tell-all by alleged ex-mistress Sheryl Weinstein nor a recent wave of biographies about the imprisoned financier have caught on with the public.</p> <p>Weinstein&#8217;s &#8220;Madoff&#8217;s Other Secret,&#8221; a tabloid favourite published last month by St. Martin&#8217;s Press, has sold just 2,000 copies. As of Wednesday night, it ranked No. 3,506 on Amazon.com.</p> <p /> <p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=cp_h7nb8nm5a83&amp;amp;show_article=1&amp;amp;catnum=6" type="external">Read more</a></p>

Nobody Wants to Read About Bernie Madoff's Steamy Affair

https://truthdig.com/articles/nobody-wants-to-read-about-bernie-madoffs-steamy-affair/

2009-09-03

<p>Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) owes his job to gerrymandered maps. In 2012, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/dec/05/sandy-pasch/pasch-says-democrats-outpolled-republicans-statewi/" type="external">53 percent of Wisconsin&#8217;s voters cast a ballot for a Democratic member</a> of the state assembly. Nevertheless, Vos&#8217; Republicans hold a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_State_Assembly" type="external">massive 60&#8211;39 seat advantage</a>. The state&#8217;s legislative maps were <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_Wisconsin#Legislative_Maps" type="external">drawn by Republicans</a> and signed into law by Republican Gov. Scott Walker.</p> <p>Nevertheless, Vos claimed that &#8220; <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/jack_craver/robin-vos-on-redistricting-reform-nobody-cares/article_d21d646e-9045-11e3-8c6b-001a4bcf887a.html" type="external">nobody cares</a>&#8221; about redistricting during a meeting with the Wisconsin State Journal&#8217;s editorial board. He added that the &#8220;legislature are the people who are elected to draw the maps. We&#8217;re the ones that are accountable, [and] if people were upset about the way that the maps were drawn, we would not have won election.&#8221;</p> <p>Except, of course, for the fact that the voters of Wisconsin tried to vote Vos&#8217; Republicans out of office. Or, at least, 53 percent of them did.</p> <p>At the congressional level, Wisconsin was one of several states that President Obama won in 2012 that nonetheless sent a largely Republican delegation to Congress:</p>

Wisconsin Speaker Claims ‘Nobody Cares’ That He Owes His Job To Rigged Maps

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/12/3284091/wisconsin-assembly-speaker-cares-gerrymandered-districts-favoring-republicans/

2014-02-12

<p /> <p /> <p>The Florida Senate's Budget Chairman, Republican Jack Latvala, is being accused by six women who work in the Florida Capital building that he inappropriately touched them.</p> <p /> <p>For fear of losing their jobs, the women will remain anonymous, but in a long piece today in Politico, the allegations against Mr Latvala are described in detail.</p> <p /> <p>Asked for a reaction to the story, Mr Latvala said: "the Senate provided you with a letter that I have never had a complaint filed against me in 16 years. I'm sure that you have handpicked people and you are going to let anonymous people have this kind of impact on the career of a guy who has been there for 16 years. I've never had a complaint filed against me."</p> <p /> <p>However, when enquiries were made among his fellow republicans, stories do surface. Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz described Mr Latvala's behavior: "He's a hound. I mean, everyone in Tallahassee knows that Jack Latvala is an absolute hound. Jack believes that his power as a legislator gives him some special power with women. And, there are times when it's clearly unrequited."</p> <p /> <p>Many lobbyists and staffers came forward to Politico with stories about Mr Latvala's behaviour, whilst one fo the women, who works for a Republican-led firm, put it best when, she said that Latvala simply an extreme case of the "common culture of Tallahassee" where sex is ever-present.</p> <p /> <p>"Tallahassee is a place you go to break up your marriage," the female lobbyist explained "You see men who say they're of faith and values and the next thing you know they're chasing tail and getting divorced."</p> <p /> <p>Mr Gaetz expects Mr Latvala "to withdraw from the governor's race in fear that there will be a cascade of women coming forward" as there are pictures of him kissing a lobbyist ready to surface soon.</p> <p /> <p>One of Mr Latvala's closest allies in the Florida Senate, Mr Jeff Clemens, had resigning his seat earlier this year after he admitted to having an extramarital affair with a lobbyist.</p> <p /> <p>Source:</p> <p /> <p><a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/11/03/six-women-accuse-florida-senate-budget-chair-of-groping-sexual-harassment-115479" type="external">politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/11/03/six-women-accuse-florida-senate-budget-chair-of-groping-sexual-harassment-115479</a></p>

Six Women Accuse Florida Senator Jack Latvala Of Sexual Assault

http://thegoldwater.com/news/11116-Six-Women-Accuse-Florida-Senator-Jack-Latvala-Of-Sexual-Assault

2017-11-04

<p>Eight days after a gunman killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced legislation in Congress that he claimed would make Americans safer.</p> <p>The proposals, attached as riders to appropriations bills, had nothing to do with the Bluegrass state or federal gun laws. Instead, one of the provisions sought to restrict the District of Columbia from spending money to enforce its strict regulations on who may carry firearms, and another would eliminate many of the District&#8217;s gun-free zones. Loosening firearm restrictions, Massie said in an emailed statement to The Trace, would give residents and visitors to the capital city an opportunity to arm themselves and possibly prevent another terrorist attack.</p> <p>The measures &#8212; along with a third from Arizona Representative David Schweikert that would have made it easier for Washingtonians to obtain a concealed carry permit &#8212; died quickly in committee. But even in failure, they served a purpose for the lawmakers who introduced them, says Michael D. Brown, one of the <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/02/03/washington-dc-shadow-politics/" type="external">shadow senators</a> elected by Washingtonians solely to advocate for D.C. voting rights.</p> <p>Subscribe to receive The Trace&#8217;s newsletters on important gun news and analysis.</p> <p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re running for reelection in Alabama or Texas &#8212; somewhere with really loose gun laws &#8212; and you can&#8217;t curry favor there, you can come to Washington and do it here,&#8221; he says.</p> <p>Attempting to defang Washington&#8217;s tight restrictions is one way for a conservative legislator to score political points. And it isn&#8217;t just the home crowd some lawmakers are seeking to win over: Trying to roll back D.C.&#8217;s gun laws has proved an effective way for lawmakers to raise their ranking from the National Rifle Association.</p> <p>In March 2015, Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Jim Jordan of Ohio introduced a bill that would have gutted all of D.C.&#8217;s gun laws. That measure failed. But Rubio, who was weeks away from launching his presidential campaign, <a href="" type="internal">saw a bump</a> in his NRA rating after he introduced the legislation &#8212; from a B+ to an A.</p> <p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not even sure he was much interested in what happened to our gun laws, but he saw us as an inviting target,&#8221; says Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.&#8217;s nonvoting Congressional representative.</p> <p>Rubio&#8217;s office did not respond to requests for comment.</p> <p>The District of Columbia has some of the toughest gun restrictions in the U.S. All firearms must be registered, all sales must be conducted through a licensed dealer, and people applying for a concealed carry permit must show a &#8220;good reason&#8221; to obtain one, although that restriction is currently being challenged in court. As of November 2015, the D.C. police department <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/23/dc-police-chief-who-advocated-taking-down-mass-shooters-has-approved-few-gun.html" type="external">granted</a> only 48 of the 233 the concealed carry permit applications it received since applications opened in October 2014,&amp;#160;good for a denial rate of nearly 80 percent.</p> <p>Until 2008, handguns were banned from D.C. homes, but that law was overturned in the landmark Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed the individual right to own guns under the Second Amendment.</p> <p>The District&#8217;s&amp;#160;gun laws, like all of its other laws, are subject to Congressional review. That&#8217;s because Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over the District, and it may create new laws, do away with existing ones &#8212; or even dismiss the elected government.</p> <p>Typically, Congress does not interfere with Washington&#8217;s local governance in such a dramatic way. The exceptions tend to involve politically charged issues. In the late 1990s, Congress imposed a highly criticized ban on funding for needle exchange programs in the District that wasn&#8217;t lifted until 2007. More recently, Congress blocked D.C.&#8217;s efforts to establish a tax on marijuana, which it had decriminalized in 2014, angering local officials who saw the tax as an effective means of generating much-needed revenue.</p> <p>Gutting D.C.&#8217;s gun laws is the newest fad. Since 2010, members of Congress have introduced at least seven bills that tried to eliminate some aspect of D.C.&#8217;s strict gun laws, or remove funding from enforcing them.</p> <p>Norton says the repeated attempts to meddle in the District&#8217;s affairs distract from what should be the real priority: curbing the city&#8217;s gun violence problem.</p> <p>Last summer, D.C. saw its highest number of homicides in nearly a decade &#8212; up 54 percent from the year before &#8212; and there have been 85 homicides <a href="http://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance" type="external">so far</a> this year. Almost all of the killings were committed with guns.</p> <p>&#8220;When that kind of increase occurs in a big city like this, everybody ought to have hands off except those who are trying to make sure this spike, this increase, does not continue,&#8221; Norton said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not even sure that the members who&#8217;ve been interfering with our gun laws even know that there&#8217;s been a spike, or even care.&#8221;</p> <p>Norton says that when legislation that would ease gun restrictions are proposed, she has to scramble to make sure they don&#8217;t pass. In the most recent instance in June, the three measures failed within a week of their introduction &#8212; which Norton said may have to do with timing, as the riders were introduced just days after the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Along with lobbying her colleagues in the House and Senate, she says her team will sometimes reach out directly to the constituents of the representative who introduced the bill, by appearing on local and social media to let them know of their lawmaker&#8217;s actions.</p> <p>&#8220;The point we make in return is, &#8216;You got your members here paying attention to another member&#8217;s district, did you know that?&#8217;&#8221; Norton said.</p> <p>Along with the yearly attempts to unwind D.C.&#8217;s gun laws, the city is also locked in its legal battle with national gun rights groups who have sued to overturn its conceal carry ordinance. Two active lawsuits claim that D.C.&#8217;s &#8220;good reason&#8221; requirement violates Second Amendment rights. The cases are set to be heard later this year.</p> <p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been ground zero, in a real sense, for the gun battle in America,&#8221; Brown, the D.C. shadow senator, said.</p> <p>The only way for the District to shed Congressional oversight &#8212; and ensure that it can set its own gun policy &#8212; would be for it to achieve statehood. Making that idea a reality has been a steep climb for D.C.&#8217;s long-running self-governance movement.</p> <p>The closest proponents have come to achieving statehood through federal legislation came in 2009, when the Senate <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022601678.html" type="external">passed</a> the D.C. Voting Rights Act. Democratic leaders <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042004796.html?tid=a_inl" type="external">pulled</a> the bill the next year.</p> <p>The reason: Republicans had attached language that would have repealed most of D.C.&#8217;s gun laws and prevented the District from enacting new ones.</p> <p>[Photo:&amp;#160;AP/J. Scott Applewhite]</p>

How D.C. Laws Became a Target for Politicians Looking to Boost Their Pro-Gun Cred

https://thetrace.org/2016/08/dc-gun-laws-politicians-pro-gun-cred/

2016-08-18

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p>DENVER &#8212; A plan to explore passenger rail service along Interstate 25 in Colorado is on its way to the governor&#8217;s desk.</p> <p>The state House voted Tuesday to order a report on the feasibility of Front Range rail service by the end of the year. The study is part of a bill to extend the work of an existing panel looking at the Southwest Chief. That&#8217;s an Amtrak line that runs through southern Colorado.</p> <p>The measure already cleared the Senate and now awaits Gov. John Hickenlooper&#8217;s signature.</p> <p>Sponsors say Colorado should explore options for expanded rail service as the population increases.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>

Colorado moves toward Front Range rail study

https://abqjournal.com/989511/colorado-moves-toward-front-range-rail-study.html

2017-04-18

<p>The US isn&#8217;t doing enough to counter RT and Sputnik, media outlets which are powered by lavish Kremlin funding and the KGB, according to Ed Royce, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman.</p> <p>During a breakfast meeting last week at the Ripon Society in Washington, DC, Royce voiced his concerns over the rise of anti-American trends in Central and Eastern Europe, which he eagerly blamed on Russia.</p> <p>&#8220;If you remember back to the 1980s, the United States was very effective using Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It is now the case that Moscow is every bit that effective,&#8221; the California Republican said, as cited by the Ripon Society <a href="http:/www.riponsociety.org/2017/07/we-should-be-on-the-right-side-of-history-and-on-the-right-side-of-human-rights/" type="external">website</a>.</p> <p>According to Royce, the Russians &#8220;have become expert at supporting a certain pattern of thought &#8212; which is very authoritarian, very hard-edged, and which increasingly in Eastern Europe is moving an illiberal element into positions of power.&#8221;</p> <p>The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman said that he was mostly worried by &#8220;Sputnik and RT television and especially the social media that&#8217;s being deployed.&#8221;</p> <p><a href="https://www.rt.com/facts-vs-fiction/" type="external">READ MORE: Facts vs. Fiction &#8211; Setting the story straight about RT</a></p> <p>&#8220;You can monitor in all the former Soviet states the feelings about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and watch them increase arithmetically year after year in the Gallup polling. At the same time, you can also monitor the feelings about the UK and the United States and watch them plummet,&#8221; he told the guests at the Republican public policy organization.</p> <p>A Gallup <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/377828-four-nato-powers-prefer-russia/" type="external">poll</a> in February revealed that people in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovenia &#8211; all members of the US-led NATO bloc &#8211; opted for Russia, not America, when asked whom they felt they could count on if they felt under threat.</p> <p>Read more</p> <p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/377828-four-nato-powers-prefer-russia/" type="external" /></p> <p>The Russian campaign is &#8220;successful not only because they are putting a billion dollars a year into it, but also because the KGB has become so damn effective at it,&#8221; Royce explained. It is not quite clear which service he meant since the KGB ceased to exist back in 1991 together with the Soviet Union.</p> <p>The politician reiterated mainstream media claims of the lavish state funding received by RT, which the broadcaster has refuted on numerous occasions.</p> <p>RT&#8217;s budget in 2017 stands at roughly $300 million, which includes financing for all of its seven television channels and digital platforms, according to the organization&#8217;s press office. As for Sputnik news agency, it was funded by around $100 million this year.</p> <p>To put that into perspective, the <a href="https://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2017/05/FY2018Budget_CBJ_05-23-17.pdf" type="external">2017 budget</a> of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, among other outlets, is over $748 million.</p> <p>&#8220;Watching his [Putin&#8217;s] overhaul of Russia&#8217;s communications &#8212; and watching the increase in repression across Central and Eastern Europe &#8212; tells us that frankly we are not competing,&#8221; Royce said.</p> <p>&#8220;I know how effectively this can be countered. But we haven&#8217;t countered it,&#8221; he added.</p> <p>However, measures will be taken to effectively counter Russia&#8217;s influence on its neighbors, Royce promised.</p> <p>&#8220;Now we are putting in place an overhaul [of the Broadcasting Board of Governors], and we will drive that through Congress. It&#8217;s essential, because otherwise the power that Russia has over its former satellites will eventually metastasize into a situation where we see a real diminution of democracy in these countries,&#8221; he said.</p> <p>During the breakfast session, Royce was also addressed on claims of Russian hacking in the US election, with the politician saying that &#8220;there needs to be a Cyber Command.&#8221;</p> <p>He said that a US Cyber Command could be modeled on the Israeli Unit 8200, which mainly involves young specialists.</p> <p>&#8220;Many of these kids are still in high school. They have the same kind of reputation as our Marines, except they&#8217;re known more for their brains than their brawn. They&#8217;re working specifically on how to hack into Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and who knows where else. And they do it better than anybody I have seen,&#8221; he said.</p> <p><a href="https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318181-rt-budget-down-msm/" type="external">READ MORE: RT&#8217;s 2016 budget announced, down from 2015, MSM too stumped to spin?</a></p> <p>&#8220;What I suggest is that we set up the equivalent of this in Palo Alto, so that the sons and daughters of our IT greats and other Americans can join a unit established to keep America&#8217;s cyber networks secure,&#8221; the Republican added.</p> <p>RT&#8217;s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, ridiculed Royce over his comments, tweeting that he was &#8220;yet another US politician/fiction monger&#8221; who has everything mixed up in his head.</p> <p /> <p>&#1050;&#1043;&#1041;, &#1084;&#1080;&#1083;&#1100;&#1103;&#1088;&#1076; &#1073;&#1072;&#1082;&#1089;&#1086;&#1074;, RT &#1080; Sputnik &#8211; &#1074;&#1089;&#1105; &#1089;&#1084;&#1077;&#1096;&#1072;&#1083;&#1086;&#1089;&#1100; &#1074; &#1075;&#1086;&#1083;&#1086;&#1074;&#1077; &#1091; &#1086;&#1095;&#1077;&#1088;&#1077;&#1076;&#1085;&#1086;&#1075;&#1086; &#1072;&#1084;&#1077;&#1088;&#1080;&#1082;&#1072;&#1085;&#1089;&#1082;&#1086;&#1075;&#1086; &#1087;&#1086;&#1083;&#1080;&#1090;&#1080;&#1082;&#1072;-&#1092;&#1072;&#1085;&#1090;&#1072;&#1089;&#1090;&#1072;. <a href="https://t.co/kRDSenZUwN" type="external">https://t.co/kRDSenZUwN</a></p> <p>&#8212; &#1052;&#1072;&#1088;&#1075;&#1072;&#1088;&#1080;&#1090;&#1072; &#1057;&#1080;&#1084;&#1086;&#1085;&#1100;&#1103;&#1085; (@M_Simonyan) <a href="https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/889480839205191681" type="external">July 24, 2017</a></p> <p /> <p>In a separate comment, Simonyan said: &#8220;A California congressman has urged the creation of cyber forces by recruiting school kids and blamed the KGB for the success of RT and Sputnik. Let me remind you that California is one of the states where marijuana is legalized.&#8221;</p>

‘KGB & billion dollars a year’ fuel RT success, US not keeping up – politician

https://newsline.com/kgb-billion-dollars-a-year-fuel-rt-success-us-not-keeping-up-politician/

2017-07-25

<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p> <p /> <p>The Lobos (4-2, 1-1 MWC) opened the scoring on a three-run homer by Chris DeVito in the third inning, but the Falcons (1-5, 1-1) proceeded to score the final eight runs of the game.</p> <p>The teams are playing in Albuquerque due to adverse playing conditions in Colorado Springs.</p> <p><a href="" type="internal" />UNM had a golden opportunity to break the game open while leading 3-2 in the top of the fifth. Cory Voss singled, Aaron Siple walked, and Danny Collier&#8217;s sacrifice-bunt attempt rolled up the third-base line and stayed fair for a single to load the bases with no outs.</p> <p>Sam Haggerty had a check swing that resulted in a force at home, though, and the next two batters struck out to snuff the threat. The Lobos never truly threatened after that as Air Force reliever Jacob DeVries shut down UNM&#8217;s offense.</p> <p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> <p>Colton Thomson suffered the loss for the Lobos after allowing six runs on six hits in six innings. Voss finished 2-for-4, with a run, as he accounted for half of UNM&#8217;s hit total.</p> <p>NOTES: Haggerty made his 113th straight start, the seventh longest streak in UNM history. &#8230; Hayden Schilling made his debut for UNM and recorded two outs in the eighth. &#8230; Reece Weber pinch hit in the ninth and struck out in his first collegiate at bat.</p> <p /> <p />

Air Force downs Lobos, 8-3

https://abqjournal.com/545020/air-force-downs-lobos-83.html

<p /> <p>The Russian government has finally realized that it has no Western &#8220;partners,&#8221; and is complaining bitterly about the propagandistic lies and disinformation issued without any evidence whatsoever against the Russian government by Washington, its European vassals, and presstitute media.</p> <p>&amp;lt;img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-19646" src="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/paul-craig-roberts-alexander-hamilton1-300x210.jpg" alt="Paul Craig Roberts" width="300" height="210" /&amp;gt; Perhaps the Russian government thought that only Iraq, Libya, Syria, China, and Edward Snowden would be subjected to Washington&#8217;s lies and demonization.</p> <p>It was obvious enough that Russia would be next.</p> <p>The Russian government and Europe need to look beyond Washington&#8217;s propaganda, because the reality is much worst.</p> <p>NATO commander General Breedlove and Senate bill 2277 clearly indicate that Washington is organizing itself and Europe for war against Russia (see <a href="" type="internal">my previous column</a>).</p> <p>Europe is reluctant to agree with Washington to put Ukraine in NATO.&amp;#160; Europeans understand that if Washington or its stooges in Kiev cause a war with Russia Europe will be the first casualty.&amp;#160; Washington finds its vassals&#8217; noncompliance tiresome.&amp;#160; Remember Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland&#8217;s &#8220;fuck the EU.&#8221;&amp;#160; And that is just what Washington is about to do.</p> <p>The US Senate&#8217;s Russian Aggression Prevention Act, about which I reported in my previous column, does even more mischief than I reported.&amp;#160; If the bill passes, which it likely will, Washington becomes empowered to bypass NATO and to grant the status of &#8220;allied nation&#8221; to Ukraine independently of NATO membership. By so doing, Washington can send troops to Ukraine and thereby commit NATO to a war with Russia.</p> <p>Notice how quickly Washington escalated the orchestrated Ukrainian &#8220;crisis&#8221; without any evidence into &#8220;Russian aggression.&#8221;&amp;#160; Overnight we have the NATO commander and US senators taking actions against &#8220;Russian aggression&#8221; of which no one has seen any evidence.</p> <p>With Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Washington learned that Washington could act on the basis of bald-faced lies.&amp;#160; No one&#8212;not Great Britain, not France, not Germany, not Italy, not the Netherlands, not Canada, not Australia, not Mexico, not New Zealand, not Israel, nor Japan, nor S. Korea, nor Taiwan, nor (substitute your selection)&#8212;stepped forward to hold Washington accountable for its blatant lies and war crimes. The UN even accepted the package of blatant and obviously transparent lies that Colin Powell delivered to the UN.</p> <p>Everything Powell said had already been refuted by the UN&#8217;s own weapons inspectors.</p> <p>Yet the UN pussies gave the go-ahead for a devastating war.</p> <p>The only conclusion is that all the whores were paid off.&amp;#160; The whores can always count on Washington paying them off.&amp;#160; For money the whores are selling out civilization to Washington&#8217;s war, which likely will be nuclear and terminate life on earth.</p> <p>It is hardly surprising that Washington now targets Russia.&amp;#160; The world has given Washington carte blanche to do as it pleases.&amp;#160; We have now had three administrations of US war criminals welcomed and honored wherever the war criminals go. The other governments in the world continue to desire invitations to the White House as indications of their worth. To be received by war criminals has become the highest honor.</p> <p>Even the president of China comes to Washington to receive acceptance by the Evil Empire.</p> <p>The world did not notice Washington&#8217;s war crimes against Serbia and didn&#8217;t puke when Washington then put the Serbian president, who had tried to prevent his country from being torn apart by Washington, on trial as a war criminal.</p> <p>The world has made no effort to hold Washington responsible for its destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria and Gaza.&amp;#160; The world has not demanded that Washington stop murdering people in Pakistan and Yemen&#8212;countries with which Washington is not at war. The world looks the other way as Washington creates the US Africa Command. The world looks the other way as Washington sends deadly weapons to Israel with which to murder women and children in the Gaza Ghetto and then passes Senate and House Resolutions cheering on the Israeli murder of Palestinians.</p> <p>Washington is accustomed to its free pass, granted by the world, to murder and to lie, and now is using it against Russia.</p> <p>Russian President Putin&#8217;s bet that by responding to Washington&#8217;s aggression in Ukraine in a unprovocative and reasonable manner would demonstrate to Europe that Russia was not the source of the problem has not paid off.&amp;#160; European countries are captive nations.&amp;#160; They are incapable of thinking and acting for themselves.&amp;#160; They bend to Washington&#8217;s will. Essentially, Europe is a nonentity that follows Washington&#8217;s orders.</p> <p>If the Russian government hopes to prevent war with Washington, which is likely to be the final war for life on earth, the Russian government needs to act now and end the problem in Ukraine by accepting the separatist provinces&#8217; request to be reunited with Russia.&amp;#160; Once S.2277 passes, Russia cannot retrieve the situation without confronting militarily the US, because Ukraine will have been declared an American ally.</p> <p>Putin&#8217;s bet was reasonable and responsible, but Europe has failed him. If Putin does not use Russian power to bring an end to the problem with which Washington has presented him in Ukraine while he still can, Washington&#8217;s next step will be to unleash its hundreds of NGOs inside Russia to denounce Putin as a traitor for abandoning the Russian populations in the former Russian provinces that Soviet leaders thoughtlessly attached to Ukraine.</p> <p>The problem with being a leader is that you inherit festering problems left by previous leaders.&amp;#160; Putin has the problems bequeathed by Yeltsin.&amp;#160; Yeltsin was a disaster for Russia. He was Washington&#8217;s puppet. It is not certain that Russia will survive Yeltsin&#8217;s mistakes.</p> <p>If Washington has its way, Russia will survive only as an American puppet state.</p> <p>In a previous column I described the article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Washington foreign policy community, that makes a case that the US has such strategic advantage over Russia at this time that a &#8220;window of opportunity&#8221; exists for the US to remove Russia as a restraint on US hegemony with a preemptive nuclear attack.</p> <p>It is almost certain that Obama is being told that President John F. Kennedy had this window of opportunity and did not use it, and that Obama must not let the opportunity pass a second time.</p> <p>As Steven Starr explained in a guest column, there are no winners of nuclear war. Even if the US escapes retaliatory strikes, everyone will die regardless.</p> <p>The view in Washington of the neoconservatives, who control the Obama regime, is that nuclear war is winnable. No expert opinion supports their assumption, but the neocons, not the experts, are in power.</p> <p>The American people are out to lunch.&amp;#160; They have no comprehension of their likely fate.</p> <p>If Europeans know, they have decided to live for the moment on Washington&#8217;s money.</p> <p>What life is faced with is a drive for hegemony on the part of Washington and ignorant unconcern on the part of the rest of the world.</p> <p>Americans, worked into a lather about Washington&#8217;s unfunded liabilities and the viability of their future Social Security pension, won&#8217;t be alive to collect it.</p>

Does Russia (And Humanity) Have A Future?

http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/28/does-russia-and-humanity-have-a-future/

2014-07-28

<p>This special issue of Dissent devotes itself entirely to Africa today. In the past three years the world has altered fundamentally, and virtually everywhere across Africa there is a dialectic of crisis and change at work. Old regimes and ideas are being contested, new political voices are being heard, novel social and economic realities are in the making. Unhappily, the immediate prospects don't seem particularly bright; indeed, some are potentially devastating. A watchword among African intellectuals and informed observers nowadays is "Afro-pessimism."</p> <p>The Western press pays only modest attention to African developments (apart, of course, from the great drama of South Africa). However, a process is under way that draws on many ingredients at a time of rapid global transformation. Here is a preliminary list:</p> <p />

Introduction

https://dissentmagazine.org/article/introduction-3

2018-10-07

<p /> <p>The BBC&#8217;s Andrew Marr interviewed Clinton, and the video of their discussion was released today. She said she was &#8220;shocked&#8221; and &#8220;appalled&#8221; by the allegations, and deflected her personal connections to him by stating &#8220;he&#8217;s been a funder for all of us, for Obama, for me, for people who run for office in the United States.&#8221;</p> <p>She was then reminded of the adage about throwing stones in glass houses, after she tried to score a political point.</p> <p>After discussing Weinstein, Hillary quickly turned the conversation to Trump, in an attempt to compare him to Weinstein. &#8220;We need to recognize that this behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere, whether it is in entertainment, politics, after all, we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office,&#8221; she said.</p> <p>After she added that Americans must stand against such sexism and misogyny, and in support of women, Marr did not hesitate. He immediately turned to the women who accused her husband of sexual assault. Several of those women were guests of Donald Trump at one of the presidential debates.</p> <p>Clinton dismissed the comparison to her comparison. &#8220;That has all been litigated. That was subject of a huge investigation in the late 90s and there were conclusions drawn. That was clearly in the past.&#8221;</p> <p>Marr did not challenge Clinton&#8217;s assertion that Trump had admitted to sexual assault. Trump&#8217;s statements, though offensive, were about consensual sexual contact. Then-candidate Trump said the comments were &#8220;locker room talk.&#8221;</p> <p>Mrs Clinton is in the UK to promote her hand-wringing book about losing the presidential election.</p> <p>She told Marr: &#8216;I was really shocked and appalled because I&#8217;ve known him through politics as many Democrats have.</p> <p>&#8216;He&#8217;s been a supporter &#8211; he&#8217;s been a funder for all of us, for Obama, for me, for people who have run for office in the United States.</p> <p>&#8216;So it was just disgusting and the stories that have come out are heartbreaking.</p> <p>&#8216;But I think that it&#8217;s important that we not just focus on him and whatever consequences flow from these stories about his behavior but that we recognize this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere, whether it&#8217;s in entertainment, politics. After all, we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office. There has to be a recognition that we must stand against this kind of action that is so sexist and misogynistic. It is something that has to be taken seriously, for anyone not just in entertainment.&#8221;</p> <p>Here is a video excerpt of the interview, from the BBC.</p> <p /> <p /> <p>&amp;#160;</p>

Hillary Clinton Calls President Trump An ‘Admitted Sexual Assaulter,’ But Says Husband Bill’s Sex Crimes Are ‘In The Past’ (VIDEO)

http://silenceisconsent.net/hillary-clinton-calls-president-trump-admitted-sexual-assaulter-husband-bills-sex-crimes-past-video/

2018-05-04

<p>North Korea views the endless military drills on its borders and repeated &#8220;bellicose remarks&#8221; by top US officials as means to &#8220;provoke&#8221; a nuclear war in the region, in which the US itself will be &#8220;burnt to death by the fire.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;The large-scale nuclear war exercises conducted by the US in succession are creating touch-and-go situation on the Korean peninsula and series of violent war remarks coming from the US high-level politicians amid such circumstances have made an outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula an established fact. The remaining question now is: when will the war break out,&#8221;&amp;#160;a spokesperson for North Korea&#8217;s foreign ministry said Wednesday in commentary provided by state news agency KCNA.</p> <p>Read more</p> <p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/412062-us-bomber-korea-fly/" type="external" /></p> <p>The US and its regional allies are in the midst of a massive and unprecedented five-day joint air force Vigilant Ace exercise which kicked off Monday. In the latest provocative show of force, the US Air Force dispatched B-1B aircraft, F-22 Raptor fighter jets, as well as several F-35 stealth jets and F-16 fighter planes over the Korean peninsula Wednesday. While the drills are allegedly &#8216;defensive&#8217; in nature, top American and South Korean pilots are polishing their skills to carry out attacks on North Korean nuclear and missile installations in different war scenarios. A total of 12,000 personnel and over 230 military aircraft are engaged in the drills that will run until December 8.</p> <p>The ongoing military maneuvers are accompanied by aggressive warlike rhetoric from Washington. Over the weekend, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster warned that the possibility of war with Pyongyang is &#8220;increasing every day.&#8221; Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on Sunday, called for the evacuation of family members of US military stationed in the region. CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, on Saturday, said US intelligence agencies believe that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un does not have a clue how weak his position is.</p> <p>&#8220;Those around him are not feeding him the truth about the place that he finds himself &#8211; how precarious his position is in the world today. It&#8217;s probably not easy to tell Kim Jong-un bad news,&#8221; he said in Simi Valley, California.</p> <p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/411817-us-military-korea-graham/" type="external">READ MORE: Pentagon should move US military families from S. Korea ahead of possible war &#8211; Sen. Graham</a></p> <p>Pyongyang seems to be taking such warnings literally and is now preparing for war which the country is anxious can break out any moment.</p> <p>&#8220;These confrontational warmongering remarks cannot be interpreted in any other way but as a warning to us to be prepared for a war on the Korean peninsula,&#8221; the spokesman said. &#8220;The careless remarks of war by the inner circle of Trump and the reckless military moves by the US substantiate that the current US administration has made a decision to provoke a war on the Korean peninsula and is taking a step-by-step approach to get there.&#8221;</p> <p>Making clear that Pyongyang does not want a war, the spokesman said N. Korea &#8220;shall not hide from it.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;Should the US miscalculate our patience and light the fuse for a nuclear war, we will surely make the US dearly pay the consequences with our mighty nuclear force which we have consistently strengthened,&#8221; the foreign ministry said. &#8220;If the US does not want to be burnt to death by the fire it ignites, it would better behave with prudence and caution.&#8221;</p> <p>Pyongyang has repeatedly criticized the joint drills between the US and South Korea. Last month, the North&#8217;s ambassador to the UN ruled out negotiations with Washington, citing America&#8217;s &#8220;hostile policy&#8221; against his country, as well as the continuing drills between the Americans and South Koreans. Russia and China have long called for the US and North Korea to accept their proposed &#8220;double freeze&#8221; plan which would see Pyongyang suspend its nuclear and ballistic missile tests in exchange for a pause in joint US-South Korea drills. However, that proposal has firmly been rejected by the US.</p>

‘Not if, but when’: N. Korea claims US warmongering makes potential nuclear war inevitable

https://newsline.com/not-if-but-when-n-korea-claims-us-warmongering-makes-potential-nuclear-war-inevitable/

2017-12-06

<p>Thanks to the nomination of volatile reality television star Donald Trump, the first presidential debate between Trump and the soporific Hillary Clinton is widely expected to draw record numbers. With the polls knotted up and the swing states in heavy contention, conventional wisdom says that the debate will be exciting, a bloodletting between the staid Clinton and the aggressive Trump.</p> <p>But actually, it could be massively boring.</p> <p>Right now, Trump's agenda is simple: appear sane. Clinton has been attempting, somewhat successfully, to portray Trump as an escapee from a mental hospital, a madman on the loose, a man who would unleash nuclear war if handed the keys to the nuclear arsenal. In the past few weeks, Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, has apparently been able to get Trump under control. Like a pent-up movie monster chained to the wall of a dank dungeon, Trump's aggression waits -- lurks. But it has not reappeared since Trump's infamous attack on the gold star Khan family. Every so often, we've seen flashes of Crazy Trump (Vladimir Putin's a great guy! Do we really know whether Obama was born in the United States?). But he's been sticking to the teleprompter onstage and avoiding press scrums offstage. The man who once criticized Clinton for avoiding a press conference for well over 200 days has now gone over 50 days without a presser. Real Donald Trump is in hiding, @realdonaldtrump has been handed over to a blind trust, and Teleprompter Trump is on the loose.</p> <p>That means that Clinton's task during the first debate will be to break into the dungeon and free the monster. To that end, The New York Times reports that Clinton has been speaking with psychologists to explore where she can poke Trump, in order to prompt him to turn into the Hulk -- complete with purple pants. According to the Times, "They are undertaking a forensic-style analysis of Mr. Trump's performances in the Republican primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as trigger points that caused him to lash out in less-than-presidential ways."</p> <p>Trump's task: Avoid those pitfalls, take six Valium, and wake up president.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Clinton's main goal will be to appear lifelike. With questions swirling around her health and stamina, she'll be expected to flash energy and wit. She'll also be expected to not appear as a complete liar, which is an uphill task -- it's far easier for a seemingly crazy person to appear stable (every Hollywood actor) than for a serial liar to appear honest. She's got an uphill battle, but she'll mostly want to avoid controversy from Trump.</p> <p>This means that the debate will come to whether Trump can avoid being portrayed as a character from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," and whether Clinton can avoid being portrayed as the title player from "Weekend at Bernie's."</p> <p>Sounds riveting.</p> <p>This is what happens when the standards for our politicians finally hit rock bottom: We end up with a discussion between a guy who simply needs to act like a normal person and a woman who simply needs to act like a warm body. It would serve Americans right that after selecting candidates for entertainment value they end up with the season finale of "Joe Millionaire."</p> <p>COPYRIGHT CREATORS 2016</p>

What To Expect In The First Debate: Boredom

https://dailywire.com/news/9320/what-expect-first-debate-boredom-ben-shapiro

2016-09-21