China on Monday signaled it would again block an Indian request at the United Nations to blacklist the head of a Pakistan-based militant group because there was no consensus, a move likely to cause recrimination in New Delhi. India, backed by the United States, has been trying to get Maulana Masood Azhar on a U.N. list of groups with ties to Al Qaeda, blaming his group for a series of attacks in India, including one on its parliament in 2002 and another last year on an airbase. But China, a member of the U.N. Security Council, has repeatedly put a technical hold on the Indian request, the latest of which is due to end this week. Such decisions must be based on cast-iron evidence and fully backed by members of the U.N. panel charged with implementing resolutions relating to sanctions on militant groups and individuals, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. China proposed a technical hold, the aim of which was to give more time for the committee members to discuss it and for relevant parties to have further consultations, Hua told a daily news briefing. But regrettably, the committee has yet to reach consensus. The wrangling over Masood Azhar, a longtime Indian foe, has become a thorny issue in ties between China and India, which fears Beijing is disregarding its concerns over terrorism. It has also fueled worries that China will stick to its all-weather friend, India s arch-foe Pakistan, no matter the weight of evidence against Islamabad. Pakistan denies giving material support to militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir besides carrying out attacks elsewhere. It said it interrogated Azhar and his associates in the Jaish-e-Mohammad group after the January 2016 attack on the Pathankot air base but found no evidence linking him to it. Hua said there were clear rules for listing a person or group as a terrorist, and that China has always believed the relevant U.N. committee should operate on the principles of objectivity, fairness and professionalism on this matter. Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been blacklisted by the 15-nation Security Council, but not Azhar, an Islamist hardliner.


November 10, 2016 French privacy row over mass ID database  A French state watchdog has called for the suspension of a database that could end up holding the biometric details of 60 million people. The aim of a single "mega-database" is to fight identity fraud and improve efficiency. But, as Paul Kirby explains, there are fears the database could be abused not only by hackers but by state intelligence too, What's the database for? The single database would not be used in judicial investigations, ministers insist. Rather, it would help tackle identity fraud by comparing one set of digital fingerprints with another. France's interior ministry wants the Secure Electronic Documents (TES) to collect all the information on an individual held on two separate databases that have details of people's passports and national ID cards. Only children under 12 would be exempt. It would include an individual's name, address, marital status, eye colour, weight, photograph and fingerprints. It's merely an administrative register, argues Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas. Its only legal use would be when data need to be requisitioned.


Donald J. Trump was introduced to millions of Americans in prime time through reality TV. In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump tried to show, after a tumultuous first month, that he could also do scripted. The content of the president's speech — on trade, terrorism and other issues — was much like what we'd heard from him in the campaign. But Mr. Trump's goal seemed to be about his tone more than his text: to reassure America that he could simply keep control for an hour. Since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has, for starters, picked a fight on Twitter over Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Celebrity Apprentice" ratings, declared that negative polls and news are fake, raged against his own intelligence agencies over leaks and spun a tale that millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote. On Tuesday night, even his neckwear was more muted: a striped tie, not a blazing red one, as if to signal that he was putting away his bullfighter's cloth for one night. During the campaign, Mr. Trump was known for going on furious improv tears, throwing belligerent verbiage against the turbine fan of his aggression. On Tuesday night, he had a script. He largely stuck to it. He performed a version of his campaign persona — the circles, little riffs. ("Great wall" in his prepared remarks became "great, great wall" he added a joke about executives trying to get him to ride one of their motorcycles.) The character he was playing this night was not the angry boss who might fire someone, but the executive who needed to reassure his shareholders. Although Mr. Trump won office by running an unconventional campaign, his address used many of the conventional tools of past presidents. He created moments by inviting guests — a tradition that goes back to Ronald Reagan — including the widow of Chief Petty Officer William Owens of the Navy SEALs, who drew a very long, emotional round of applause. (Afterward, Mr. Trump said that the fallen soldier was "looking down" and "very happy because I think he just broke a record. ") The father of Chief Owens earlier refused to meet with Mr. Trump, insisting on an investigation into the death. But Mr. Trump also used those he invited to send a darker message. In a passage on immigration, he pointed out four relatives of people murdered by undocumented immigrants he had invited the victims' families to sit in the box with his wife, Melania. This was showmanship, too, but of a much darker kind, meant to whip up fear against undocumented immigrants by implying that they're more dangerous than Americans. Study after study shows that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than Americans. But if you skew the publicity, you skew the impressions. Put "immigrants" and "kill" in the same sentence often enough and people hear, "Immigrants kill. " That familiar from his campaign, was a reminder that he still had an obligation to throw red meat to the passionate voters who got him elected. He deployed the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism," which his new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, had reportedly asked him not to use, but which he had made a verbal totem in the campaign. Above all, Mr. Trump used the theater and scale naturally built into the event to show his status. The Democrats, in their televised response by former Gov. Steven Beshear of Kentucky, a champion of Obamacare, tried to make a virtue of the difference in grandeur by having it take place in a diner. Mr. Trump had used his speech for some damage control, beginning it by denouncing hate crimes he had been criticized for avoiding: the murder of an Indian technology worker in Kansas, blamed on a man who is said to have thought his victim was Middle Eastern, and the rash of bomb threats against Jewish community centers and desecration of Jewish cemeteries. "We are a country," Mr. Trump said, "that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms. " But not that united. The health care issue was one of many that demonstrated the divide in the room: When Mr. Trump promised to repeal Obamacare, Republicans stood and cheered, Democrats booed and gave thumbs down on camera. For at least a year, pundits have been like forlorn scanning the sky for the appearance of the Great American Pivot. Judging by the pundit round tables after his speech, Mr. Trump gave them, for a while, reason to think it had returned. That has happened before. "At the right time," he told NBC's "Today" during the campaign, "I will be so presidential, you will be so bored. " Since then, America has been a lot of things, but not bored. On Tuesday night, however, Mr. Trump declared, "The time for trivial fights is behind us. " True enough: Mr. Schwarzenegger's "Celebrity Apprentice" broadcast its finale two weeks ago. But history suggests we wait to declare the pivot achieved, at least until the congressional crowd has cleared and Mr. Trump has gotten his phone back for a while.


An elderly, disabled couple in New Hampshire is suffering thanks to the United States ridiculous classification of marijuana. Lorraine Sevigny, 61, and Brian Cardinale,59, may be evicted from their apartment after police raided their home and found a tiny amount of marijuana that the couple uses for medicinal purposes in a jar.On May 10, Lebanon police carried out a search warrant on the apartment, discovered the marijuana and issued them a citation. Police say they conducted the search after some busy-body an anonymous source provided them with drug intel. Sevingy told officers that she uses the plant to relieve pain from a traumatic brain injury suffered in a car accident forty years ago. Cardinale smokes pot, in addition to taking 18 other drugs, to treat multiple sclerosis (MS). His debilitating illness, which attacks the central nervous system, has forced him to walk with a cane. Stairs are my mortal enemy, said Cardinale. I m lucky. I m not in a wheelchair. Medical marijuana is legal in the state of New Hampshire, but Cardinale is unable to get a prescription for it because technically he does not have an address. His apartment was destroyed in a fire in February, so he moved in with Sevingy; unfortunately, the paperwork to put his name on the lease has not been processed yet.Ordinarily someone would not be evicted from an apartment for a misdemeanor drug citation but the type of complex and federal drug laws makes this case extremely frustrating. The couples landlord, Twin Pines Housing Trust, is a non-profit organization that provides the elderly with low-rent places to live. The organization purchased Sevigny s apartment building in November with the help of a $6.8 million U.S. Department of Agriculture loan and that loan is the problem.When Twin Pines accepted the USDA loan they agreed to a zero-tolerance drug policy. After police searched the couples home they notified Twin Pines about the marijuana they found and that triggered eviction proceedings. Andrew Winter, executive director of Twin Pines, said: While we recognize that state policies on marijuana are rapidly evolving, we still need to comply with federal restrictions that govern the financing of our properties. And therein lies the problem. The federal government still has marijuana listed as a schedule 1 narcotic. A schedule 1 drug is one that could lead to severe psychological or physical dependence. MDMA (ecstasy) is considered a schedule 1 narcotic. LSD (acid) is considered a schedule 1 narcotic.In February 2015, Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), tried to change the classification of marijuana with bill H.R. 1013, the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act. In November 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced its companion bill to the Senate, unfortunately, like every bill introduced by Democrats in the Republican-controlled Congress, the bills never saw the light of day. Had Congress acted and declassified the plant as a schedule 1 drug, this couple would not be worried about their future because the police would have never raided their apartment. But here we are, all thanks to the GOP s inability to do their job.


Dan Kahan and his team at the Yale Law School's Cultural Cognition project have been doing a bunch of research recently on: That's of obvious interest to Monkey Cage readers and students of politics more generally. To what extent are our attitudes on hot-button issues simple products of our political leanings? The question is important because political decisions are in part driven by public opinion. The answer can't be simple. We know that the correlations between issue attitudes, partisanship, and ideology have changed over time. For example, conservatives are more likely than liberals and moderates to believe that vaccines cause autism. Our beliefs about science and ideology are themselves often rigid. One trick that Kahan uses to shake us up is what he calls the MAPKIA (Make a prediction, know it all!) challenge, in which he describes an experiment on public opinion, but without revealing the results, and then asks the reader to guess what will happen. For his latest MAPKIA challenge, Kahan brings up a question from a 2015 Pew Research survey on Public and Scientists' Views on Science and Society. Here's the survey item: How powerfully (if at all) will responses to the Pew Malthusian Worldview item predict beliefs and attitudes toward technological and environmental risks like climate change, fracking, nuclear power, and GM foods? Will it be a stronger predictor than political partisanship? Will responses interact with — or essentially amplify — the explanatory power of political ideology and party identification? What will the relationship be between the Malthusian Worldview item and science literacy? Will responses be correlated with it — and if so in which direction? Will higher science literacy magnify the correlation between responses to the Malthusian Worldview and opposing perceptions of environmental and technological risks, just as higher science comprehension magnifies cultural polarization on climate change, nuclear power, fracking, and the like? If you're interested in political polarization and attitudes toward science and policy, this is a great question. And as Kahan writes, "Perhaps my framing of the question implies an answer. But if you think I have one, then obviously mine could be wrong!" As sociologist Duncan Watts has written, everything is obvious (once you know the answer). That's why it's a good exercise to commit first on this one before learning the answer. Here's an example from the Monkey Cage a couple of years ago of researchers who jumped to conclusion about public opinion which turned out not to be borne out by the data. As I wrote at the time: [Alfred Moore, Joseph Parent and Joseph Uscinski] write, "When science means nuclear weapons, innovation and winning the space race, conservatives love it." Actually, when I last looked at the data, I found that "support for the space program does not seem particularly associated with conservative or Republican positions." There is indeed a logic to the idea that conservatives should support the space program (see my last paragraph here) but the data don't seem to bear this out. My quick understanding of this is that political ideologies are interesting but ultimately you can't make sense of them: any given person's views are a tangle with many possibilities. To return to the Malthusian worldview challenge: My point here is that political ideology and issue attitudes are tangled. Attitudes are not always carefully thought through, nor are they the pure product of political ideology or partisanship. The Malthusian worldview seems like it might be a proxy for a simple liberal/conservative dimension, at least in the United States, but maybe it aligns with other aspects of people's worldviews. In this post, I'm purposely not giving the answer (or, to be precise, I'm not giving data that would address this question) but am rather following Kahan by leaving it unresolved, to remind us of the uncertainty we should hold before seeing hard data on the relevant public opinion questions.


This is a shocking story of corruption and collusion even for a Clinton. Hillary should ve been locked up for this one but instead, her campaign finance director takes the fall. How ironic that Hillary would admit to a top donor that she doesn t do emails because of being under so many investigations. That must be a badge of honor for a Democrat .No matter the size of the scandal, Hillary and Bill always find some magical way to escape prosecution. The scandal seen in the undercover video below shows movie producer Peter Paul discussing emails with Hillary Clinton. Paul claims he spent $2 million to produce a major fundraising event for Hillary. Peter Paul admits he hosted the event in order to gain access to the Clintons. The campaign laws that were in effect at that time limited campaign gifts to $2,000.Watch Peter Paul s stunning story below:Peter Paul s whistleblower site explains the timeline and the significance of the smoking gun video.After [Paul] began to blow the whistle in March, 2001, to four US prosecutors on Hillary s role in the false FEC reports filed by her campaign that hid more than $1.2 million in his expenditures, the Attorney General[ s office ] launched a four year investigation leading to the indictment and trial of Hillary s finance director, David Rosen, in May 2005, for election law fraud. Rosen was solely indicted for providing information that only he knew was false, to Hillary s treasurer for reporting to the FEC The Federal Judge, Howard Matz, (appointed by the Clintons in 1998) who officiated over the subsequent trial of Rosen in Los Angeles, made ethically questionable statements to the jury, prior to the commencement of the trial, stating unequivocally that Hillary Clinton was not involved in any direct way whatsoever in the illegal fundraiser On Fox News in 2005, Doug Schoen, a former Clinton adviser, said that, The prosecutors and defense attorneys said she is not involved Prosecutors made the decision that Mr. Rosen should be tried, it s a fact-based case. It has nothing to do with Senator Clinton. The video appears to directly counter these assertions and instead links Hillary and her aide to the planning of the fundraiser. Hillary Clinton is not a part of this case In fact, if Clinton participated in the planning of the fundraising event, it: would make Paul s substantial contributions a direct donation to her Senate campaign rather than her joint fundraising committee, violating federal statutes that limit hard money contributions to a candidate to $2,000 per person. Knowingly accepting or soliciting $25,000 or more in a calendar year is a felony carrying a prison sentence of up to five years In the tape, Clinton is heard via speakerphone thanking Paul, business partner Stan Lee and other colleagues for their efforts in putting together the fundraiser She also describes the role of longtime aide Kelly Craighead as assisting in day-to-day involvement in preparation for the event as her liaison with Paul and his producers Craighead, Clinton says, talks all the time with Paul, so she ll be the person to convey whatever I need. The aide s hands-on role is significant, because the law also implicates a candidate if any of his or her agents are involved in coordinating expenditures with a donor In another portion of the tape, Clinton is heard discussing her direct solicitation of a large contribution from the entertainer Cher. Paul s legal team, the U.S. Justice Foundation, argues the value of Cher s performance alone vastly exceeded the FEC limits The Hillary Clinton Felony Video The video itself is fascinating. The preface to the tape states that it shows Hillary Clinton in the process of committing at least four or five felonies under federal election law -Via: Doug Ross JournalPeter Paul filed and won a civil suit against the Clinton s in 2010. The segment below is from the Supreme Court precedent setting film Hillary The Movie by Citizens United, shows the polygraph test taken by Hillary s largest donor, Peter Paul, corroborating his claims the Clintons promised to have Bill Clinton work with his public company in exchange for Paul paying more than $1.2 million to elect Hillary to her first political office. This video supports the allegations in the civil fraud suit filed by Paul in 2003 and settled with the Clintons in 2010.


The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against the Houthi movement in Yemen has reopened a land border crossing, easing a blockade imposed on the country earlier this week, a Yemeni official and witnesses said on Friday. The coalition said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports in Yemen to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran, after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward its capital Riyadh. The al Wadea border crossing, linking Saudi Arabia with territory in eastern Yemen controlled by the Saudi-backed government, was reopened on Thursday, the official and witnesses said, letting food and other supplies enter Yemen. The United Nations has said that a total blockade could cause a famine that could kill millions. The southern port of Aden was reopened on Wednesday. The Houthis, drawn mainly from Yemen s Zaidi Shi ite minority and allied to long-serving former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, control much of the country including the capital San aa. Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies have been waging war against them on behalf of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, based in Aden. United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Wednesday that if the coalition did not allow humanitarian aid access to Yemen, it would cause the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims. The Saudis and their allies say the Houthis get weapons from their arch-foe, Iran. Iran denies arming the Houthis and blames the conflict in Yemen on Riyadh.


The new leader of Italy s anti-establishment 5-Star movement says it is not a populist party and will make cutting waste and reducing debt its priority. 5-Star, which leads most opinion polls ahead of national elections due early next year, has been trying to shed its maverick, populist image and reassure foreign capitals that it can be trusted with power. Luigi Di Maio, the 31-year-old lawmaker picked on Saturday to lead the movement, told Reuters on Sunday that 5-Star stood for post ideological common sense, and was opposed to right-wing and left-wing extremism. I reject populism as a label for 5-Star, he said in an interview on the sidelines of the party s annual gathering in Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. 5-Star, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo nine years ago as a protest movement, bases its appeal mainly on opposition to corruption and vested interests. Boyish-looking and usually immaculately turned out in suit and tie, Di Maio presents a more moderate image than Grillo, who is famous for raucous tirades against the ruling elite. He had been groomed for the leadership by Grillo, who is 69 and now plans to withdraw gradually from his figurehead role. Di Maio said many of the party s proposals, such as a public bank to fund investments, had been adopted with success by mainstream parties in Northern Europe which he wanted to emulate. He said that, if 5-Star won next year s election, due by May, he would try to negotiate changes to European Union fiscal rules to allow Italy to invest more to boost its stagnant economy. However, he said he would also cut waste, arguing that this was the best way to bring down Italy s huge public debt, forecast to be just under 132 percent of GDP this year, the highest in the euro zone after Greece s. We have brought down debt in every town and city where 5-Star governs. We will do that at the national level too, he said. 5-Star has rowed back from a pledge to hold a referendum on Italy s membership of the euro and now says this would only be a last resort if the EU rejects any reforms to current budget rules. Di Maio, who comes from Italy s poor south and entered parliament at 26 five years ago, after mostly doing odd jobs and internet marketing, dismissed the suggestion that he was too inexperienced to be prime minister. I came from a part of Italy with 60 percent youth unemployment, and people who sneer at my background are sneering at thousands of young Italians who are trying to create a future for themselves, he said. The ability to build a competent team was the most important quality for a prime minister, Di Maio said, vowing to present a full cabinet line-up before the election. Asked to name three priorities that would mark his leadership of the party, Di Maio listed universal income support for the poor, cutting wasteful public spending and increasing forms of direct democracy.


Over three generations, the Michael family forged a deep bond with the University of California, dating back nearly 50 years to when Jay Dee Michael Sr. was the university system's vice president and chief lobbyist. Family members proudly displayed degrees from the campuses in Los Angeles, Davis, Berkeley and Santa Barbara. And when Mr. Michael died last year, his family asked that memorial donations go to a U. C. Davis institute. Recently, though, the relationship has soured, a victim of the economic forces buffeting public universities. Jay Dee Michael Jr. said he might never feel the same again after his son was rejected from several U. C. campuses. "I have blue and gold running through my blood," Mr. Michael told a State Assembly hearing here in March. "But I can tell you that when I get calls now from U. C. Davis, as an alum, I'm not giving a dime. " A state audit in March reinforced what many California parents already suspected: On a constant hunt for more revenue, the prestigious University of California system gave favorable admissions treatment to thousands of and foreign students, to the detriment of Californians. As a result, admissions to the system have become a bipartisan political issue in California, where the Legislature recently moved to link university funding to enrolling additional California residents. But at its core, the discontent in California, which is also developing in other states, reflects a broader, fundamental breakdown in the traditional operation of the public university. And it highlights troubling questions about affordability and access, much of the impetus behind the announcement by Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that she was embracing a large part of Bernie Sanders's proposal to provide free tuition at public colleges. Since the 2008 recession, states have reduced spending on public higher education by 17 percent, while tuition has risen by 33 percent, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The University of California system relied on state money for almost a quarter of its budget as recently as 2002, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Now, that figure is 9 percent, after $1 billion in cuts. Students who once could afford educations at their state public universities now pay nearly twice what they used to pay, part of the driving force behind a $1. 27 trillion student debt bill. According to the College Board, the average cost of attending a public university, including room and board, increased from $11, 655 in 2000 to $19, 548 in 2015, in dollars. In the City University of New York system, tuition at colleges is now $6, 330, having increased by $300 each year since 2011, when it was $4, 830. Mrs. Clinton's proposal — which would use federal funds to make public tuition free for students with family incomes of up to $125, 000 — would also require states to pay matching dollars. Public higher education advocates generally agree that a federal effort to reverse the long disinvestment by states is overdue. "What Sanders figured out — it's not the $65, 000 cost of attendance at some of our pricier privates driving the debt bubble, but rather the disinvestment and privatization of public higher ed," said Barmak Nassirian, the director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Univerities. For more than a century, the public university has been viewed as the proverbial ticket to the American dream, assuring a pathway to better jobs and a more comfortable lifestyle for generation after generation. With generous state subsidies, the public university operated on the idea that even a poor or student could acquire a education. That egalitarian notion was expressed in Michigan through the phrase "an uncommon education for the common man," coined by the university's former president, James B. Angell. In Wisconsin, the university's former president, Charles Van Hise, declared that he would "never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state. " That became known as the Wisconsin Idea. Funding cuts have also changed the demographic makeup of the public universities as they seek revenues from outside the state, admitting more and more and foreign students. In California, even Mrs. Clinton weighed in. "We have got to get back to using public colleges and universities for what they were intended," Mrs. Clinton said during a California campaign stop. "If it is in California, for the children in California. If it is in New York, for the children in New York. " In California, nonresident enrollment has been about 15. 5 percent on U. C. campuses over all, but as high as 29 percent at the marquee Berkeley. Yet California's enrollment is low compared with flagship universities in a number of other states. On Monday, Berkeley announced that it had offered admission to 14, 400 high school students for this fall, including 1, 000 more California residents than last year. Defending her university system after the audit's release in March, President Janet Napolitano wrote that because of budget cuts, nearly every state in the nation had been forced to make a "Hobson's choice, and they all have reached the same decision: Open doors to students to keep the doors open for students. " Ms. Napolitano reeled off a list of more than a dozen big public universities whose enrollment exceeds California's. Some, like the University of Alabama, where the student body of 37, 000 is more than 50 percent nonresident, have resorted to aggressive marketing aimed at luring including distributing million of dollars in merit aid to nonresidents, much of it to students from affluent families, not only improving its bottom line but also raising average test scores, metrics used by commercial ratings groups to rank colleges. But it is a ratings and financial game, some worry, that means university student bodies will increasingly become alienated from their state's population. "It seems like all the incentives are going after wealthy students and leaving the students in the dust," said Stephen Burd, a senior policy analyst with the New America Foundation who has studied the increased use of merit aid to attract nonresident students. A study found that as enrollment increases, universities admit fewer minority and students. "When you grow the share of students, you're making the student body richer, more white and Asian and less black and Latino," said one of the study's Ozan Jaquette, an assistant professor of education at U. C. L. A. William Deary, who has made a fortune in the home health care business in Jackson, Mich. put himself through Michigan State by working nights in a door factory, making $28 an hour. Since then, hourly jobs have disappeared in Michigan, but tuition at Michigan State has risen sharply, Mr. Deary said, so much so that the university has become out of reach for many students. It is part of the impetus for his first political campaign — for Michigan State's board. He is also concerned that and foreign students are squeezing out Michiganders. "Our sons and daughters should come first," Mr. Deary's campaign literature urges. Michigan State's enrollment of about 50, 000 includes 7, 568 international students, placing it in the top 10 colleges for foreign student enrollment. At the nearby University of Michigan, the student body of 43, 625 is nearly 37 percent and nearly 14 percent international students. The New York Times reported in 2004 that more freshmen at the Ann Arbor campus came from families with annual income of $200, 000 or more than from families with less than the median national income of $53, 000. The university has pointed out that its admissions rate for Michigan students is higher than for . In Massachusetts, enrollment has increased by nearly 85 percent at University of Massachusetts campuses since 2008, while enrollment grew by only 19 percent, said a recent critical report by the Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts think tank. UMass officials responded denying that students had been adversely affected. At the University of Wisconsin's flagship campus in Madison, officials last fall lifted a cap on the enrollment of . The Wisconsin student newspaper, The Badger Herald, predicted that the university would transform into a bourgeois playground for wealthy Chicagoans, who can afford the luxury private dormitories near campus. The newest offering, Hub Madison, offers amenities including a rooftop swimming pool, sauna, a golf simulator, arcade games and billiards tables. "Rich kids value amenities — luxury recreation facilities and luxury dorms," said Mr. Jaquette, of U. C. L. A. "These are the things that resident students or students don't care about. " Among concerns voiced by Mr. Jaquette, Mr. Burd and other experts is that public university campuses, often among the more elite settings in states, will become even more alienated from their state population as a whole. Elliot Spillers, from Pelham, Ala. was student body president at the University of Alabama last year — the first black student in 40 years to have held that position. He said he doubted he would have been elected if the student body, which is mostly white, had been homegrown. The university's enrollment is now more than half . "It's definitely shifting the culture here on campus, which is a positive thing," Mr. Spillers said, echoing the views of many students. Others see a less positive side to the change. Of the undergraduates at Alabama's Tuscaloosa campus, more than 3, 000 receive merit aid in the form of free or discounted tuition — an average of $19, 000 per student. In 2015, the university gave $100 million in merit aid. Mr. Burd, of the New America Foundation, wonders if that money could be better used to help needy students, particularly in a state with a poverty rate among the highest in the country. In essence, he said, some colleges have adopted the enrollment tactics of private colleges to increase revenues and enhance prestige. Devin Thompson of St. Paul, Minn. had a SAT score and realized he could save $200, 000 over four years by not attending a private college in Virgina and instead accepting the free tuition offered by Alabama, automatic to anyone with his record. The son of college professors, he will be attending this fall. By enrolling Mr. Thompson, Alabama will elevate its average SAT score, one of the metrics used in the U. S. News and World Report rankings. That, in turn, education experts say, will attract other affluent students, many of whom will get smaller merit packages from Alabama — just enough to make the college enticing compared with its peers. Meanwhile, the number of entering freshmen from Alabama high schools has declined steadily, from 3, 122 in 2009 to 2, 458 in 2015, records show. University officials say the acceptance rate for those students — 63 percent — has remained the same. About half a mile away and just across the railroad tracks from the University of Alabama's manicured campus sits the mostly black Central High School. Few Central High students attend the University of Alabama. Ernestine Tucker, a Tuscaloosa school board member, wonders whether the university is working hard enough to recruit them. "You would think their first priority would be the local students," Ms. Tucker said. Mr. Michael, whose son attends the University of Washington, was one of thousands of California residents who complained about admissions practices at U. C. From 2010 to 2014, the number of California residents enrolled declined by 1 percent, or 2, 200 students, while nonresidents increased by 82 percent, or 18, 000 students, the audit found. In 2015, nonresident students paid $37, 000, compared with $12, 240 for . "Over the past several years, the university has failed to put the needs of residents first," the audit said. One of those residents was Priyanka Krishnamurthi, a math wiz from Saratoga with a SAT score. She ended up at Yale after being turned down by her desired program at Berkeley. In debating a bill in June over enrollment at the University of California, Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown told colleagues about her granddaughter, who recently graduated from high school in Sacramento, but did not bother to apply to U. C. schools. That is because a college admissions adviser told her she would be a good candidate only if she were from out of state. To Mr. Michael's way of thinking, when it came to his son, the University of California had reneged on an unwritten contract. "In my case, three generations of Michaels have supported and funding the U. C. and the same is true for my wife's family," he said. "And then, when it comes time for our children to go, there's no room. "


The White House on Tuesday said it strongly opposes a House bill to fight the Zika virus, saying its funding is "woefully inadequate" to support the public health response that is needed. The Obama administration has urged Congress to pass legislation that would direct $1.9 billion to fighting the Zika virus that is linked to birth defects including microcephaly.


Russia is within its rights to restrict the operations of U.S. media organizations in Russia in retaliation for what Moscow calls U.S. pressure on a Kremlin-backed TV station, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Sunday. Russian officials have accused Washington of putting unwarranted pressure on the U.S. operations of RT, a Kremlin-funded broadcaster accused by some in Washington of interfering in domestic U.S. politics, which it denies. The foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the full weight of the U.S. authorities was being brought to bear against RT s operations in the United States, and that Moscow had the right to respond. We have never used Russian law in relation to foreign correspondents as a lever of pressure, or censorship, or some kind of political influence, never, Zakharova said in an interview with Russia s NTV broadcaster. But this is a particular case. She cited a 1991 Russian law which, she said, stated that if a Russian media outlet is subject to restrictions in a foreign country, then Moscow has the right to impose proportionate restrictions on media outlets from that country operating inside Russia. Correspondingly, everything that Russian journalists and the RT station are subject to on U.S. soil, after we qualified it as restriction of their activities, we can apply similar measures to American journalists, American media here, on Russian territory, Zakharova said. She did not identify any specific U.S. media outlets that would be targeted. She said it made no difference from the Russian government s point of view if those outlets were backed by the U.S. state, or privately-funded. Late last month, Russia s state communications regulator accused U.S. TV channel CNN International of violating its license to broadcast in Russia and said it had summoned the broadcaster s representatives in connection with the matter. The watchdog did not publicly disclose the nature of the violation. The head of the regulator said it was a technical matter and denied that politics was involved. U.S. intelligence officials, in a report in January this year into allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, said RT was part of a state-run propaganda machine that supported a Kremlin campaign to influence U.S. politics. Russia Today, and Russian officials, have denied any attempt to interfere in U.S. politics. They say that political forces in the United States are whipping up hysteria about Russia s influence to discredit President Donald Trump.


It pays well to be a failed right-wing candidate. Sarah Palin, who served a half term as Alaska s governor and made a halfhearted attempt to become vice president next to John McCain, has profited quite nicely from her place in the conservative universe.After losing the 2008 election, Palin quickly quit being governor of Alaska and became a pundit on Fox News Channel. She signed a book deal and pumped out several tomes (her most recent book is Sweet Freedom: A Devotional), likely ghostwritten by writers who will be forever anonymous, and set up a political action committee, SarahPAC, that went to work buying thousands of her own books helping to send them up the bestseller charts.While her deal with Fox was ended by the network (after they built her a custom studio at her Alaska home, she rarely appeared on the network outside of goofy appearances on Sean Hannity s program), she ran an online subscription TV service for a while before that abruptly ended, and now appears on the fringe One America News Network. That network has promoted itself as the conservative alternative to Fox News, but does not have mainstream satelitte or cable tv coverage.In 2011 Palin purchased a mansion in Arizona for $1.695 million, and is now selling the property for $2.499 million. She ll make a profit on the home, thanks in part to the Obama agenda she opposed improving the economy and the real estate market.While Palin styles herself as just a hockey mom who loves her country, the 8,000 square foot home is not exactly a humble home on the range.The nearly 8,000-square-foot home was built in 2001. Some of its features include high ceilings, chandeliers and wrought-iron railings.The home also boasts a media room/theater, a wine cellar, six bedrooms and six and a half bathrooms. One of the two master suites includes a rooftop deck.The outdoor area features a built-in grill station, a fire pit, a pool, a spa, a water-saving synthetic lawn and a lighted sports court complete the more than four-acre equestrian-zoned grounds. There s also a six-car garage.The home is inside a gated community, so not just anyone can come inside to pal around with the Palins.Here s how the realtor sells the property to prospective buyers:This pristine gated estate is sure to impress as you enter from a wraparound drive to access the private gated entrance. Masterfully designed & built this 7971 sqft home showcases 6 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, a 6 car garage & breathtaking mountain views from virtually every room! Quality & care echoes throughout, with beautiful finishes, fixtures, fireplaces, chandeliers, soaring ceilings, media theater, wine cellar & more. Craftsmanship extends to the resort themed backyard with fireplaces off the covered patio, veranda & rooftop deck off of the master suite. Luxury abounds with a built-in grill station, fire-pit, sparkling blue pool, spa, synthetic grass & a lighted sports court. This 4.9 acre equestrian estate offers opulence at it s finest.Here are some photos of Palin s mansion, are you in the market?


Donald Trump took his first official actions as U.S. president on Friday, sending his Cabinet nominations to the Senate and calling for a national day of patriotism, his spokesman said. Trump, who was sworn into office earlier on Friday, also signed into a law a waiver to allow Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general, to serve, Sean Spicer said.


After Donald Trump watches this ad he ll probably start saying that he likes people who weren t wounded in combat.During his presidential campaign, Trump smeared Vietnam veteran John McCain by saying that he likes people who weren t captured by the enemy. McCain is a war hero who was a prisoner of war. He was brutally tortured after being shot down during a mission. As a result, McCain can no longer lift his arms above his shoulders.Ever since the election, Trump has been whining about not being treated like a legitimate president. Of course, that s because Trump lashes out at anyone who criticizes him like a petulant child who isn t getting his way. It s also because Russia helped him win the election and because he has done nothing but hurt people across the nation and all around the world with his policies.For instance, Trump s assault on Obamacare threatens the healthcare of 30 million Americans, including veterans.Well, one veteran had a message for Trump in an amazing ad released on Monday.As a bearded man lifts weights, the camera pulls away to reveal that he only has one leg. He lost the other leg fighting for our country. President Trump, I hear you watch the morning shows, he began. Here s what I do every morning. He then tells Trump that if he wants to be considered a legitimate president he should act like one by not killing Obamacare and banning Muslims from entering the nation. Look, you lost the popular vote. You re having trouble drawing a crowd. And your approval rating keeps sinking. But kicking thousands of my fellow veterans off the health insurance by killing the Affordable Care Act and banning Muslims won t help. That s not the America I sacrificed myself for. You wanna be a legitimate president, sir? Then act like one. Here s the video via Twitter.New TV ad running today: Wounded veteran tells Trump: You wanna be a legitimate president, sir? Then act like one. pic.twitter.com/GiL5X62Dx5 Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 6, 2017Donald Trump will never be legitimate. Because he is totally incapable of acting presidential. He is a selfish bully who only cares about himself and his rich friends. It s only been a little over two weeks since he took over the White House and he is already destroying the very foundation of this country while alienating our allies. His decisions are ruining lives. And he has even gotten a Navy SEAL killed in response to a video that is several years old, proving that he is completely inept. At some point, the military will have to refuse to follow Trump s orders, especially if he continues to escalate confrontations with Iran and China. This country cannot afford to lose more blood and treasure because a madman is obsessed with absolute power.


Legendary journalist Dan Rather says that Robert Mueller s ongoing Russia investigation has Donald Trump seized with fear. Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, Rather explained that the investigation into Trump s possible collusion with Russia has Trump scared out of his mind. Donald Trump is afraid. He s trying to exude power and strength. He s afraid of something that Mueller and the prosecutors are going to find out. A political hurricane is out there at sea for him, we ll call it Hurricane Vladimir if you will, the whole Russian thing. It s still pretty far out at sea, but each day this hurricane, this political hurricane is building in intensity. Mueller s investigation has been steadily picking up steam. It was reported on Wednesday that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is now working with Mueller to take an even deeper look at Trump s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has also found himself under a microscope and has even tried to cut deals for immunity to flip on Trump. So far, neither Mueller nor Congress (who is conducting their own simultaneous investigation) has taken him up on the offer. This is presumably because they don t need to let Flynn off the hook in exchange for his testimony to nail Trump s hide to the wall.Publicly, Trump still claims that the investigation is nothing more than a witch hunt. However, those close to him say that behind closed doors, Trump has become increasingly distraught over the intensifying investigation into his shady Russian ties.Trump should be afraid, very afraid. In fact, being terrified of what Mueller may find is probably the smartest thing he has done so far. Sooner or later, the truth is going to come out just like it always does. And when that finally happens, Trump is going to be beyond screwed. It s only a matter of time.You can watch Rather s interview below:


Let this sink in The word has been out for some time now that the US borders are open. Now we have the President of Panama giving an even bigger free pass to ANYONE to come to America. We are going to be Europe soon Obama is making sure of it Panama promised to help hundreds of migrants who have crossed its jungle border from Colombia to carry on toward the United States.President Juan Carlos Varela on Tuesday said Panama would make an exception to its immigration restrictions for migrants who have recently crossed into Panama s Darien jungle. The border will remain closed to irregular migrants, but those that are using these points to cross and have already reached our territory will be given humanitarian assistance so they can continue on their way, he said. Panama will not allow anyone who has crossed into our country to die on our territory, he added, in a public speech.Around 800 US-bound migrants, most of them from Haiti, Africa, Asia and Cuba, are in dense jungle on the Panama-Colombia border, Varela said Friday.He described it as another migration crisis. A further 2,500 are stranded in Panama s northern neighbor, Costa Rica, since the next country on the trail, Nicaragua, has tightened immigration controls.Colombian authorities say they have deported thousands of migrants trying to reach Panama from its northern territory.Varela said last week that many of the migrants were Haitians who had gone to Brazil after a 2010 earthquake devastated their country.Brazil s current deep recession has driven them to try to get to the United States through Central America.


President Obama on Monday made an impassioned argument for his administration's decision to instruct public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, saying that society must protect the dignity and safety of vulnerable children. The remarks were the president's first public comments on a directive released Friday that has added fuel to a searing national debate over transgender rights. Mr. Obama said the guidance, issued by the Education and Justice Departments, represented "our best judgment" on how to help schools wrestling with the issue. "We're talking about kids, and anybody who's been in school, been in high school, who's been a parent, I think should realize that kids who are sometimes in the minority — kids who have a different sexual orientation or are transgender — are subject to a lot of bullying, potentially they are vulnerable," Mr. Obama said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "I think that it is part of our obligation as a society to make sure that everybody is treated fairly, and our kids are all loved, and that they're protected and that their dignity is affirmed. " The White House has said little about Mr. Obama's role in the release of the guidance, which had been under development for months, other than to say that he had been kept apprised of its progress and that it was broadly consistent with his values. It has drawn condemnations from many Republican lawmakers who call it an example of presidential overreach. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, said on Monday that the guidance violated the principle of separation of powers, and state officials there have signaled that they will seek to challenge it in court. "The president is turning the Constitution on its head," Mr. Abbott told Fox News. "He's trying to cram down as many parts of his liberal agenda on the United States of America as he possibly can" before leaving office in January. The clash comes as the Obama administration is battling North Carolina over a law that says transgender people must use restrooms and changing facilities that correspond to their sex at birth. The Justice Department sued the state this month, arguing that the law is discriminatory. "There's no denying that there has been a significant uptick in public consideration of these kinds of questions" because of North Carolina's measure, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday, before the president's comments were published online. "The White House was not just aware of these policy deliberations but in the loop as the decisions were being made to ensure that the guidance reflected the president's values and the president's preferences," he added. Mr. Obama said he would not comment on the North Carolina suit, to avoid intervening in a pending case. But he said that he expected the courts to eventually resolve the issue of how schools should treat transgender students, and that, in the meantime, his administration wanted to respond to inquiries from schools on how to proceed. "We said, 'It is our view that you should try to treat these kids with dignity,' " Mr. Obama said, adding that the administration had sought to help educators and administrators by including a set of "best practices" from school districts that have enacted similar transgender policies. "There are school districts who have been wrestling with this problem and have, we think, done a good job in accommodating them in a way that is good for everybody, and so you can learn from these best practices. This is what we are advising. " But the directive represents more than just a suggestion. While it does not carry the force of law, it signals how the administration interprets federal statutes, bringing with it an implied threat that schools that act otherwise could lose federal funding. "Ultimately, depending on how these other lawsuits go, courts will affirm or reject how we see the issue," Mr. Obama said.


Many Americans view Islam unfavorably, and supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are more than twice as likely to view the religion negatively as those backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos online poll of more than 7,000 Americans. It shows that 37 percent of American adults have a "somewhat unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" view of Islam. This includes 58 percent of Trump supporters and 24 percent of Clinton supporters, a contrast largely mirrored by the breakdown between Republicans and Democrats. By comparison, respondents overall had an equally unfavorable view of atheism at 38 percent, compared with 21 percent for Hinduism, 16 percent for Judaism and 8 percent for Christianity. Spokespeople for Trump and Clinton declined to comment. The poll took place before an attacker on Thursday drove his truck into a holiday crowd in Nice, France, killing more than 80 people in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act. Police sources said the driver, while linked to common crimes, was not on a watch list of intelligence services and no Islamist militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The race for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election has put a spotlight on Americans' views of Muslims with Trump proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. He repeated the proposal after Omar Mateen, a New York-born Muslim armed with an assault rifle, killed 49 people in an attack on a Florida gay nightclub last month. The ideological divide between Trump and Clinton supporters is set against a backdrop of increasing violence and discrimination against Muslims in the United States. The poll shows 78 percent of Trump supporters and 36 percent of Clinton supporters said that when compared to other religions, Islam was more likely to encourage acts of terrorism. Trump supporters were also about twice as likely as Clinton supporters to say that Islam was more encouraging of violence toward Americans, women and gay people. Polling on none of the other belief systems and their perceived connection to terrorism or violence came close to matching those numbers. Clinton has called for a more inclusive environment within American society and for a joint effort between the U.S. government and Muslim countries to battle the spread of Islamist militancy. She has criticized Trump's harsh statements about Muslims and Mexicans while Trump has bemoaned what he calls American society's devotion to political correctness. Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/29IPJ6l Party affiliation accounted for the deepest division among Americans where their views on Muslims were concerned. Respondents' status as rich or poor, young or old, or male or female did not offer as pronounced an overall view as did their identification as Democrats or Republicans. "If it was true that Trump did not represent Republicans broadly defined, you would think Republicans would look different; they don't," said Douglas McAdam, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies American politics. "It goes against the claims of the (former presidential candidate) Mitt Romneys of the world, that Trump is not really a Republican, that he doesn't represent the Republican party. He seems to be resonating with Republicans generally." According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, attacks on American Muslims and on mosques in the United States rose in 2015 to their highest level ever recorded. The group said 31 incidents of damage or destruction of mosques were reported; there were 11 incidents in which a Muslim person was the target of a slur or another kind of harassment. The Reuters/Ipsos poll ran in all 50 states from June 14 to July 6. It included 7,473 American adults and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 1 percentage point.


by PAUL FASSA  Allowing and encouraging domestic hemp cultivation would be a boon for small farmers, especially organic farmers. I'm talking only about industrial hemp, not medical cannabis/marijuana, which continues to prove its merits and gain acceptance  Industrial hemp's use should be a no-brainer. But it's a complex boondoggle of legal and bureaucratic nonsense even without THC, the molecule that leads to "Reefer Madness" . Industrial hemp commercial cultivation is legal in Canada. But the USA hemp industry was pushed to the side by government connected industry insiders whose monopolies were threatened when it appeared hemp may boom and compete for the very products of their monopolist concerns.  Circa 1937, the hemp industry had been given a mechanical invention gift known as the decoricator machine was invented. It was a machine that was to hemp what the 19th Century cotton gin was. It replaced hand shredding of hemp to glean its fibers, fibers that could be used for textiles, clothing, paper, and plastic.  With the advent of the decoricator, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries in paper, textiles for clothing and other applications, fuel, and plastics. Growing hemp in abundance was easy, and it's plant to harvest time was no more than six months.  According to Popular Mechanics during that time, "10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land." Then a small number of large businesses with competition concerns used high level government connections to push through the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.  The ensuing marijuana scares hyped by movies such as "Reefer Madness" brought about more legislation that would prohibit all hemp cultivation, even hemp without THC.  Prior to this, even without the high speed decoricator, hemp was an easy cash crop for small farmers, some of whom were recruited to continue cultivating hemp during WW II to provide hemp fibers for U.S. Naval ships' ropes as well as other military applications.  And prior to that, hemp was so important during colonial and early American times that farmers were virtually required to cultivate it along with their other crops.  George Washington –"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere."  Thomas Jefferson –"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country."  Hemp for Nutrition  Hulled hemp seeds, their powders and cold pressed oils provide all the essential amino acids for easily digested high protein. Hemp is not only very high in omega-3, but it provides an almost perfect ratio of omega-3 to omega-6.  It is truly a super food that you can buy in health food stores or online. The seeds come from Canada, where industrial hemp is legal . Hemp is so nutritionally dense that one could survive on hemp seeds alone during extreme food shortages. If hemp were legal, you could easily grow your own. Hemp Improves Farming  Hemp plants don't need pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, which rely mostly on the phosphate industry. A phosphate industry byproduct is the sodium fluoride that is sold to municipality water works for our poisoned tap water.  The runoff from fields of phosphate fertilizers into waterways that merge with seawater is causing all sorts of nitrogen and phosphorous excesses and imbalances, leading to algae that stifles the water's ecological support systems.  Hemp's thick roots ward off weeds, and growing hemp improves the soil's nitrogen, making that soil better for other crops. They would be useful and lucrative rotation crops for organic farmers.  Hemp plants have a growth cycle of only four months. In mild climates, harvesting hemp two times in one year would create an annual cash cow for farmers. The marijuana taboo is eliminated by allowing the male plants to continually pollinate the female plants. This reduces psychotropic THC to legal levels.  Eliminating Toxic Petrochemical Plastics  There is a clump of plastic waste residue larger than the state of Texas floating in the middle of the Pacific. A lot of it is expected to decompose, creating a plastic soup in the ocean. The toxins from this plastic soup spread out into other oceanic regions and are hazardous to fish and bird wildlife. This soup could find its way into our kitchens as well!  All kinds of plastics are produced with hemp, from clear wraps for foods to automobile parts. Hemp plastics are durable and heat resistant. And they are bio-degradable. Recently the French auto industry use hemp to manufacture some of its automobile parts. Henry Ford pioneered this in 1941 when he built his "vegetable car" with hemp and flax. It was stronger and lighter than steel cars.  Ford's hemp-mobile also used hemp bio-diesel fuel, which creates very little pollution. The petroleum industry didn't want to see or hear that. Hemp seeds were even used to make paints and lacquers in the mid-1930s.  Petrochemical plastics for all purposes could be replaced with hemp plastics that are non-toxic and bio-degradable. Bye-bye BPA!  Construction Materials for Housing  Amazingly, housing construction materials made from hemp fibers have been discovered to be superior to most cheap materials used in housing construction these days. Ever see a house under construction after its initial framing?  What you'll usually see before whatever exterior coating is used are sheets of wood substitutes, either pasteboard or particle board or pressboards, some of which are processed and bound with toxic chemicals that can off-gas into interior quarters. It's cheaper than other materials and used abundantly.  Inexpensive hemp can be made into various different building materials, hempcrete, fiberboard, carpet, stucco, cement blocks, insulation, and plastic. Those materials are stronger and much longer lasting than what's being used currently. They are also mold and rot free and more fire resistant. And they are environmentally and ecologically friendly and non-toxic. More Trees for Tree Huggers  Pulp from trees is used to make paper. But anything wood pulp can do, hemp fibers can do better. It's said that the original Constitution and Bill of Rights were on hemp paper.  Paper from trees can be recycled maybe three times. Hemp paper can be recycled eight times. Since hemp was effectively banned in the USA since 1937, 70% of the USA's forests have been eliminated. It takes years for trees to grow. Hemp can be gown and harvested within six months.  It's estimated that one acre of hemp produces more oxygen from CO2 and methane than 25 acres of forest. One idea presented by hemp advocates is to have inner city hemp plots to improve urban air quality. We wouldn't need bogus carbon tax legislation.  Pulping trees for paper creates more waste, pollution, and consumes more energy than most enterprises. This industry consumes more water than almost all others. It is the fifth largest industry consumer of energy, and it emits a good deal of toxicity in the process.  "Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?" — Henry Ford  Anything the petrochemical industry can produce, hemp can do better without toxic environmental and human consequences. Deforesting could be a thing of the past if hemp became the major source of construction materials and paper. Heavily pesticide and herbicide sprayed or GMO cotton wouldn't be necessary, nor would toxic synthetic fibers.  Amazing how such an easily cultivated plant with so many beneficial applications has been so efficiently suppressed by the one or two percent for their purposes while too many among the 98% agreed with that suppression.  Paul Fassa is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. His pet peeves are the Medical Mafia's control over health and the food industry and government regulatory agencies' corruption that harms more than most realize. Visit his blog by following this link and follow him on Twitter here .


Rameshwar Natholi received an unexpected gift from the government recently when workmen descended on his modest home in this rural village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and built a brand-new toilet in his front yard. Natholi, a farmworker, said he never wanted one. Most people in his village have been relieving themselves in the open fields for years. But as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Clean India" campaign to provide new sanitary toilets to more than 60 million homes by 2019, Mukhrai has been in the midst of a toilet-building boom since April. More than 53 percent of Indian homes — about 70 percent in the villages — lack toilets. Poor sanitation and contaminated water cause 80 percent of the diseases afflicting rural India, and diarrhea is a leading killer of children younger than 5, UNICEF says. Modi says that this is a shame for a country that has global aspirations and that the lack of sanitary conveniences is demeaning to women. But building toilets is the easy part. Getting people to use them is the real challenge, officials say. "We never asked for a toilet. Now we are stuck with it," said Natholi, 22, as he opened the squat toilet to show that it has not been used. His 62-year-old father peered in and shook his head. "Having a toilet so close to the house is not a good idea. The pit is too small; it will fill up quickly. I don't want the bother of cleaning it up frequently. Going out to the open field is healthier. The open breeze outside is better than sitting inside this tiny room." Modi has made toilet-building and sanitation a rallying cry since October. He has enlisted large companies to help. In the past year, his government has built more than 5.8 million toilets — up from 4.9 million the previous year. But reports show that many of them have gone unused or that they are being used to store grain or clothes or to tether goats, thwarting Modi's sanitation revolution. "Even as we accelerate toilet construction now, much more needs to be done to persuade people to use them," said Chaudhary Birender Singh, India's minister for rural development, sanitation and drinking water. "For long, we assumed that if the toilets are built, people will automatically use it. But we have to diligently monitor the use over a period of time and reward them with cash incentives to the village councils at every stage. Only then will it become a daily habit." The government budget for raising awareness largely remained unspent for years. Thousands of villages were declared to have ended open defecation since 2006, but many have since returned to the practice. Critics also say that the government's great toilet race has turned into a vortex of corruption in which villagers and middlemen siphon money by creating fake ledger entries about toilet construction. After years of promoting toilet use by advocating the health benefits, many regions of India began using women as toilet ambassadors. Prospective brides were urged to shun potential grooms whose villages did not have toilets. Now, the campaign has begun to promote toilets as key to women's security. Numerous television ads and signs on village walls ask families to forbid their daughters and daughters-in-law to defecate in the open. But an unintended consequence of this campaign has been the perception that toilets are just for women. "Men can go out to the open fields, but for women who wear veils all day, a toilet in the home is a good idea," said Sarvesh Sharma, 28, speaking with her face covered in Mukhrai, in front of her half-built toilet. In the southern state of Karnataka, a film about responsible fathers of adolescent daughters was used to get men to build toilets in their villages. "Whether you like it or not, it's the men who make the decisions. And sanitation is just not a priority for the men. So we had to convey a message about toilets that enhances their manliness," said Jayamala Subramaniam, chief executive of Arghyam, a group in Bangalore that works on sanitation and water projects. In many villages, the new toilets are being used by women and the elderly. Researchers say that families use toilets sparingly because they do not want the pits to fill up quickly. Natholi said he wants a toilet pit so large that he can forget about emptying it for 20 years. India's poor toilet habits have little to do with income or limited access to water. They are influenced more by India's centuries-old caste system, in which members of the lowest group — formerly called "untouchables" — would clear away human waste. "The act of emptying the pit latrine is associated with the socially degrading caste system," said Sangita Vyas, managing director at Rice, a New Delhi-based research group that studies sanitation issues. "People fear a situation when their pit fills up and there is nobody willing to clean it because of the social stigma. That fear discourages sustained use of toilets. " A Rice survey in 300 villages last year showed that more than 40 percent of homes with working toilets still showed evidence of open defecation. The report said that toilets built by the government, typically smaller, are least likely to be used. But conversations about caste are not part of the government's toilet and sanitation campaign, activists say. "How can you speak about toilets for everyone without first freeing certain caste groups from the degrading work of cleaning human waste?" said Bezwada Wilson, founder of the Sanitation Workers Movement. "For any sanitation program to be successful in India, the government has to first mechanize the entire cleaning activities of the pit latrines, sewer lines and septic tanks." Sanitation is not just a rural problem in India. Even in big cities, only 30 percent of sewage is treated and disposed of. "If all of us begin to use toilets in India tomorrow, India will still not be in a position to solve the public health problem," said Madhu Krishna, senior program officer for sanitation at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation based in Delhi. Meanwhile in Mukhrai, Man Pal Chaudhury, the Mukhrai village chief, said the 114 new toilets will bring change, but slowly. "The goal is to free my village of open defecation. But for that, each and every person has to fall in line," he said. "That is several years away. For a new American ambassador, India is a kind of homecoming India's Narendra Modi completed one year in power. Here's how he did. India's roads are among the deadliest in the world. Can new laws tame drivers? Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world


Good morning. Here's what you need to know: • Donald J. Trump questioned whether the U. S. must remain bound to its longstanding One China policy "unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade. " He also disparaged the American spy agencies that he will count on as commander in chief, dismissing a C. I. A. assessment that Russian hacking had influenced the presidential campaign as "ridiculous. " Mr. Trump is expected to name as secretary of state Rex W. Tillerson. The chief executive of Exxon Mobil, he has made extensive deals around the globe and has close ties to Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin. Above, Mr. Trump at the football game over the weekend. _____ • Prime Minister Hwang is now South Korea's acting president, after Park 's powers were suspended last week when the National Assembly vote to impeach her. If the Constitutional Court decides to remove her, here are some contenders to fill the presidency, including Ban the outgoing United Nations secretary general. Our reporter looks at how the scandal and the election of Mr. Trump might be affecting North Korea. _____ • Thousands of readers in the Philippines responded to the photographer Daniel Berehulak's gruesome documentation of scores of homicides committed as part of President Rodrigo Duterte's antidrug campaign. Some expressed horror, but most applauded Mr. Duterte's approach. "Slaughter might be harsh but I guess for drug peddlers, they deserve it," one said. _____ • Syrians are streaming out of eastern Aleppo as government forces continue to hammer neighborhoods with airstrikes, but some are staying. "We are dead either way," one man told a nurse. The Islamic State appeared to take advantage of the government's focus on Aleppo, retaking the ancient city of Palmyra. _____ • Turks massed in mourning after twin suicide bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and wounded scores. A Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of that have crushed the city's spirit and economy. "This is the new norm," one Turk said. _____ • Our columnist Roger Cohen managed to get into one of Australia's island detention centers for refugees. The world, he writes, "knows no more sustained, sinister or surreal exercise in cruelty than the South Pacific Australia has established for its trickle of the migrant flood. " • An informal lending network administered through smartphone apps and online platforms is allowing investors in China to make American deals — sometimes inflating prices. • An investigation by The New York Times into the financial maneuvering at Hostess as the Twinkie was reintroduced found a blueprint for how private equity executives have amassed some of the greatest fortunes of the modern era. • Iran's national airline and Boeing signed a $16. 6 billion deal for 80 airplanes, but its future under a Trump administration is uncertain. • A lawyer for Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is expected to try to delay her criminal trial today on charges of fiscal negligence in a 2007 arbitration case, when she was France's finance minister. • The U. S. Federal Reserve Bank has all but announced it will raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time since December 2015. • Here's a snapshot of global markets. • Jakarta is preparing for the possibility of more terrorist threats after the Indonesian police foiled a major bomb plot over the weekend. [Jakarta Post] • The race for Hong Kong's next chief executive has become more complicated. Leung the unpopular incumbent, said he would not seek a second term. [The New York Times] • And John Tsang, Hong Kong's financial secretary, is hinting at a run. [South China Morning Post] • A pioneer is one of the most successful wine growers in China. [Hong Kong Free Press] • A church in southern Nigeria whose construction had been rushed collapsed onto worshipers at an ordination, killing at least 160 people. [Associated Press] • The movement in the United States is trying to improve its image, but its core message of racial separation and white supremacy is still the same. [The New York Times] • David Hallberg, the first American dancer to join the Bolshoi Ballet, returns to the stage two and a half years after an ankle injury. He performs in Sydney with the Australian Ballet on Tuesday, Friday and Dec. 19 and 21. • China has plans to recreate a model American farm, and possibly an entire Midwestern community, in Hebei Province, inspired by President Xi Jinping's visit to Iowa in 2012. • And in our Daily 360 video, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei takes us on a stroll through Tompkins Square Park in New York, his old stamping grounds from 1983 to 1993. Four exhibitions of his work are currently in the city. Last week, the Pizzagate case escalated when a man fired a rifle inside a Washington restaurant falsely accused in fake news stories of ties to a child abuse ring. The history of the " " suffix begins with the 1970s Watergate scandal that led to President Richard M. Nixon's resignation. Since then, the suffix has been synonymous with political wrongdoing. The Times columnist William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, popularized the practice. He introduced readers to Nannygate, Scalpgate, and Troopergate during the Clinton administration. Mr. Safire later admitted that he might have been trying to minimize Nixon's crimes. But " " scandals have not been limited to the United States. Britain has had its share, and in Germany, there was the 1987 Waterkantgate, a scandal around a West German politician that resulted in his mysterious death. India had snoopgate, and Malaysia had cowgate. Argentina and Venezuela's relations soured over Valijagate — which, if you speak Spanish, you'd have guessed turned on the contents of a suitcase. The unoriginal suffix even gets recycled now. Pizzagate was previously used to describe a soccer player's use of the food as a weapon, and when New York's mayor committed a : using silverware to eat a slice. Evan Gershkovich contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com.


Paul Ryan is in a little bit of hot water. Not because he s establishment, not because he s proposing a giant cut to Medicare or Medicaid, and not because he s thwarting the RNC.No, he s in hot water because he seems to think that lack of diversity is a good thing!The Speaker recently posted a picture on his Instagram page celebrating the new interns for the Republican Party on Capitol Hill. The picture, taken with a selfie stick, shows the smiling Speaker with an entire whites-only workforce, with the majority of them being men. No diversity, no color, nothing but lily-white college kids.The Speaker wrote, I think this sets a record for the most number of #CapitolHill interns in a single selfie. #SpeakerSelfie. Needless to say, Speaker Ryan and the Republicans faced backlash.But it was the Democrats who had the best response.Everyone knows the Democratic Party is the party of inclusiveness. Everyone, no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation is welcome, in all capacities. While the Republicans seem to have a whites only policy when hiring interns, the Democrats like to broaden their horizons.Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, posted on her Twitter page a picture of the Democratic interns. And, well, there is a big difference:Can anyone tell me what the difference is? Well, for starters, there s more women. There s also individuals of all different races and ethnicities.The difference could not be more stark. As Republicans (yet again) struggle to appeal to minority voters, it should come as no surprise to them why those who aren t white males have a hard time trusting them.Just take a look at their convention. Out of the 2,400 delegates at the RNC (who nominated Trump to be their candidate), only 18 were people of color, which amounts to approximately 0.0075 percent.Of the 71 prime-time speakers who will be addressing the convention over the four days, 80 percent are white. Only seven speakers are black, and three are Latino.When 100 percent of your interns are white, more than 99 percent of your delegates are white, and 80 percent of your speakers are white, you don t deserve the minority vote. You cannot be trusted nor taken seriously if you refuse to have them represented in your most official capacities.No wonder this year s RNC was branded RNC so White. This year s GOP is the least diverse. It really is now the party of Donald Trump. They learned absolutely nothing from their 2012 autopsy report, and they may suffer irreparable damage in November.


PLEASE LISTEN TO LINDA SARSOUR SPEAK ABOUT HOW DISSAPOINTED SHE IS THAT 22 STATES HAVE VOTED AGAINST SHARIA LAW: HAHA! Leader and organizer of Washington #WomensMarch is annoyed that 22 US states don t allow Sharia laws. Blames Islamaphobia! pic.twitter.com/fjN3WQ7p7P Onlinemagazin (@OnlineMagazin) January 23, 2017 Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers behind Saturday s Women s March, being held in Washington, D.C., was recently spotted at a large Muslim convention in Chicago posing for pictures with an accused financier for Hamas, the terrorist group. Sarsour, the head of the Arab American Association of New York and an Obama White House Champion of Change, was speaking at last month s 15th annual convention of the Muslim American Society and Islamic Circle of North America.


Donald Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, on Saturday first blamed "thugs" for his decision to cancel a rally in Chicago over alleged security concerns and then said supporters of his Democratic rivals caused disruptions there. "It is (Hillary) Clinton and (Bernie) Sanders people who disrupted my rally in Chicago - and then they say I must talk to my people," Trump tweeted. "Phony politicians!" "Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump's rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests," the Vermont senator said in a statement. "What caused the violence at Trump's rally is a campaign whose words and actions have encouraged it on the part of his supporters." The Chicago Police Department said on that four men and a woman were arrested at the rally after brief scuffles broke out at the event at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion. Four of the individuals were still in police custody on Saturday morning but had not yet been charged, said Officer Jose Estrada, a department spokesman. One individual was given an ordinance citation and released. However, CBS News said its reporter, Sopan Deb, was detained by law enforcement while covering the scene. Another man, activist William Calloway, said he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing. Calloway said police told him they arrested him because he failed to immediately exit the arena after the rally was canceled and guests were ordered to exit. The police department, however, said he was not among the five they had taken into custody. Calloway said that he was arrested by UIC campus police. Calloway played a prominent role in the court-ordered release of a police video of a white officer fatally shooting a black teenager, which triggered months of protests in the city. Calloway said he believes that his role in the McDonald case may have factored into police detaining him. He said police released him about three hours after taking him into custody. "They knew who I was," Calloway said in a phone interview Saturday. Anthony Guglielmi, a police department spokesman, said the Trump campaign did not consult the police department before canceling. "The decision was made by the campaign on its own," Guglielmi said. Trump held a rally in the Dayton suburb of Vandalia Saturday afternoon and planned an event in Cleveland ahead of primary voting in Ohio on Tuesday. Trump denied some media reports that a rally in Cincinnati on Sunday had been canceled. On Twitter, Trump blamed the protesters for Friday's canceled rally. "The organized group of people, many of them thugs, who shut down our First Amendment rights in Chicago, have totally energized America!" he said on Twitter. At the Dayton rally, Trump said some of the people taunting and harassing his supporters in Chicago "represented Bernie, our communist friend." "With Bernie, he should really get up and say to his people, 'stop, stop.' Not me," Trump said. Chaos ensued after organizers announced at 6:30 p.m. that Trump, who never arrived at the pavilion, had scrubbed the event. Some protesters rushed the arena floor in celebration, many shouting, "Bernie, Bernie" and "We stopped Trump!" Police ejected at least a half dozen anti-Trump demonstrators, including one man who got onto the stage and approached the podium. Joe Fritz, 20, who came to hear Trump speak, said a woman punched him outside the arena after the rally was canceled. He said the woman, who was with a girl about 10 years old, landed a glancing blow to his chin after he questioned her for yelling epithets toward police and about Trump. "I told her, 'What kind of example are you setting?'" Fritz said. Fritz said he and his friend were then surrounded by other anti-Trump protesters who screamed at them before police pulled them out of the crowd. Still, the pushing and shoving was brief, and some protesters said security concerns were overstated. "(Trump) felt us tonight and felt our power tonight," said Angelica Salazar, 30, of West Chicago, Ill. Salazar, who went to speak out against Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric, said she did not feel unsafe. Matthew Ross, a Chicago activist, said suggestions from Trump that protesters presented a security risk don't hold up. "Have you seen what his supporters have incited at their rallies?" asked Ross, who said a Trump supporter threw water on him after it was announced that the rally was canceled. "I think what [Trump] is doing is inciting violence." Afterward, Trump spoke by phone with several news networks and described many anti-Trump protesters, including those at previous rallies, as violent. "I just don't want people hurt," he told MSNBC. Trump has been criticized about violent comments he and his supporters have made on the campaign trail. When attendees at an event in November kicked a Black Lives Matter activist, Trump said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up." Another supporter, John McGraw, sucker-punched a protester at a rally Wednesday in North Carolina. McGraw later told Inside Edition that "we might have to kill him" next time the protester shows up. Trump insisted that anti-Trump protesters were instigating incidents at his events. "I certainly don't incite violence," he said. "If a protester is swinging a fist at a man or a group of men, and if they end up going back," he said, "I'm not looking to do him any favors." Trump's rivals for the GOP nomination quickly weighed in on the uproar. Sen. Marco Rubio, speaking Saturday in Florida, blamed the rhetoric of the front-runner for the violence, and the media for ignoring his "offensive" statements for too long. "This is what happen when a leading presidential candidate goes around feeding into a narrative of anger and bitterness and frustration," Rubio said. Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival in the race, noted that "in any campaign, responsibility starts at the top." "When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that it escalates," Cruz told reporters in Illinois. "Today is unlikely to be the last such incidence." "Some let their opposition to his views slip beyond protest into violence, but we can never let that happen," the Ohio governor said in a statement. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said the "divisive rhetoric" of the Trump campaign should be of "grave concern." "We all have our differences, and we know many people across the country feel angry," Clinton said in a statement. "We need to address that anger together."


The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level. Norman MailerBernie Sanders has raised a lot of money during the 2016 Democratic primary. In fact, his supporters often brag about his fundraising as proof of his viability as a candidate, just like Obama supporters did back in 2008.With all that in mind, you ll never guess what most of Bernie s donors have in common.The Los Angeles Times reports:Who gives money to Bernie Sanders?Small-dollar contributions have been the fuel that has propelled Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential bid, making it one of the most successful insurgent campaigns in Democratic party history, but little has been known about those donors because campaigns don t have to publicize the names of people who give $200 or less.Now, a Times analysis of nearly 7 million individual contributions has provided unprecedented detail about the army of people behind the $27 donations Sanders mentions at virtually every campaign stop.Many resemble Emily Condit, 40 of Sylmar, who has contributed three times $5 each to the Vermont senator s campaign.Condit, who has several physical disabilities, is among the largest single group of Sanders donors those who don t have a job. Of the $209 million given to the Vermont senator s campaign, about one out of every four dollars came from those not in the workforce, who include the unemployed or retired.Here s a handy chart that puts things in perspective:So the free stuff candidate is being bankrolled mostly by people who aren t working.Anyone surprised?


President Trump was sporting a Commemorative Stetson hat today when he introduced the Made in America week starting with Omaha Steaks. He has a great one-liner in the video below this one about opening the beef trade again with China: The gentleman who was in charge of Omaha Beef. They do beef. He hugged me and he wanted to kiss me so badly. OPENING REMARKS:President Trump says Omaha Steaks CEO wanted to kiss me so badly for opening beef trade in China https://t.co/LQEanwTWY8 NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump admiring a Made in America baseball bat:President Trump admires a baseball bat during Made in America event: It s so beautiful I love to play baseball https://t.co/zvYjE7EG1e NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump mentioned Senator John McCain: We hope John McCain gets better very soon. We miss him. He s a crusty voice in Washington, plus we need his vote. https://t.co/ZSpibzJlG2 NBC News (@NBCNews) July 17, 2017


Pop icon Cher left little to the imagination while performing some of her biggest hits at Sunday night's Billboard Music Awards, the singer's first awards show concert in 15 years. [The icon performed her smash hits "Believe" and "If I Could Turn Back Time" Sunday night before accepting the ceremony's Icon Award for her career in the music industry. The and danced on stage wearing a silver diamante dress, with her chest covered up by nipple pasties. The sparkling dress, which consisted of multiple hanging diamond strips, barely covered the singers chest and groin area. She later returned to the stage in a black catsuit and a large wig, a throwback to her early 80s look. "So, I wanted to do what I do since I was 4 years old, and I've been doing it for 53 years," Cher said in accepting the Icon Award. "That is not an applause thing, I'm 71 yesterday! And I can do a plank, okay? Just saying. " The singer steered clear of politics in her acceptance speech, focusing instead on the advice she received when she was younger and on something her mother told her before she became famous, that she would never be the "smartest," the "prettiest," or the "most talented," but she would be "special. " "I think luck has so much to do with with my success," she continued. "I think it was mostly luck and a little bit of something thrown in. " Cher's outfit drew plenty of commentary on social media and on television, including on Good Morning Britain, where host Piers Morgan said he was not a fan. "At what point do Cher's outfits become inappropriate? She's 70," he said. "That one in particular, come on, Cher, for goodness' sake, love. " Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com


The human rights debacle that is being referred to as the Flint water crisis has just been summed up perfectly by political cartoonist Matt Wuerker, who found a brilliant way to express the true underlying issues behind this massive issue in one powerful image:Cartoon by Matt WuerkerThanks to the irresponsible, neglectful actions of Republican governor Rick Snyder and Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, a city with over 100,000 residents the majority of which are African American has been poisoned. Almost a dozen people have died from Legionnaire s Disease as a result, with dozens more becoming seriously ill.As more evidence surfaces, Snyder s disturbing role in the crisis has become crystal clear, adding to the outrage as many call for Snyder to resign and be held accountable for allowing this to happen to Flint. Among those speaking out is filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore, who called Snyder out for having knowingly poisoned a black city and racial killing. Flint homeowners have been lied to and were told that their tap water which in some areas is polluted enough to meet the EPA s standards for toxic waste was safe to drink, even though it was discolored.Twitter TwitterThe damage that Snyder s carelessness has caused is irreversible, and it will take 10-15 years for the real damage of the lead-poisoned, highly corrosive water to be calculated. For the children of Flint, this could be deadly. It s not just homeowners that have been affected either even hospitals are without safe water.TwitterWe cannot ignore the fact that Flint is a predominately black city with a large low-income population.Even as more evidence is gathered, many GOPers in Michigan (aside from Snyder) are calling the water crisis a hoax. Republican L. Brooks Patterson has even called reputable reports of the lead poisoning false . Earlier today, Snyder said that race played no role in the water crisis when asked a question from a New York Times article that asked, If Flint were rich and mostly white, would Michigan s state government have responded more quickly and aggressively to complaints about its lead-polluted water? He s lying through his teeth.


Democrats face years of work, focusing on "kitchen table" economic issues over several election cycles, if they want to regain ground lost to Republicans, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Wednesday. The Democratic mayor of the nation's third largest city also said Republican President Donald Trump's legal and political troubles give Democrats a chance to regain a large slice of the more than 1,000 seats Democrats have lost in Congress and state legislatures since 2008. With Democrats controlling cities and Republicans dominating rural areas, the battle will be fought among swing suburban voters, he added. "It's not going to be done in a singular election," Emanuel told Reuters in a wide-ranging, exclusive interview. "The real crux question to me as a party is what I call kitchen table economics," Emanuel said. Home ownership, affordable college, job security, retirement savings and health care are key issues, he said. Chicago has faced fiscal problems and untamed street violence since Emanuel first was elected mayor in 2011. The release in 2015 of a dashcam video showing a Chicago police officer fatally shooting an unarmed teenager led to street protests that hurt the mayor's standing with voters. Black Lives Matter sued the city Wednesday, seeking to force Emanuel to agree to federal oversight of proposed police reforms. Emanuel said the Justice Department under President Trump will not participate. "I can't wish a different Justice Department," Emanuel said. Instead, he is focused on police body cameras, more training and the hiring of new cops in supervisory roles, he added. Emanuel cited improvements under his leadership, public transportation in particular. "Eighty-five percent of our people in the city are happy with our public transportation system. In New York, I don't think you could get 85 people, let alone 85 percent," he said, citing not-yet-published data from an annual ridership survey for the Chicago Transit Authority. Emanuel blamed Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner for gridlock that has put the state's credit rating near "junk" status and helped bring the Chicago Public Schools to the brink of insolvency. "There is a fundamental flaw here in the inability to find a way to say, 'Yes,'" Emanuel said. Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said the mayor and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan are to blame for the state's budget stalemate and "saying no at every turn." In national politics, Emanuel is positioned to play a role as a leader of Democratic Party efforts to recover from the 2016 electoral defeat. He has served as White House adviser to President Barack Obama and President Bill Clinton and led the 2006 mid-term campaign that returned Democrats to a majority in Congress. With a 38 percent approval rating in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump's unpopularity figures to be a dominant issue during the 2018 mid-term elections, Emanuel said. He declined to predict whether Trump will finish his term. "It's a parlor game right now," he said.


Suspected cartel gunmen killed another journalist. This year, reporters exposing drug cartels and their ties to Mexican politicians have become targets with five murders taking place in 2017. [Mexico's Rio Doce confirmed the murder of its founder, Javier Valdez, an investigator and author who had been reporting on Mexico's organized crime. Valdez was driving a red Toyota Corolla along a city street in Culiacan, Sinaloa, when unidentified gunmen shot him, Rio Doce reported. The local print weekly and online publication is one of the few news outlets that continues to carry out investigations in Mexico exposing the deep ties between Mexican politicians and drug cartels. Valdez's murder comes just weeks after cartel gunmen murdered respected journalist Maximino Rodriguez Palacios in Baja California Sur as he drove with his wife to a shopping center, Breitbart Texas reported. The murder remains unsolved. Just days before the murder of Rodriguez, cartel gunmen from the La Linea faction of the Juarez Cartel killed journalist Miroslava Breach, Breitbart Texas reported. Breach's death occurred after her work exposed how the of one of the La Linea leaders was going to be running for mayor in the state of Chihuahua. Mexico's Network of Journalists from the Northeast expressed their condemnation and demanded that Mexico's government stop turning a blind eye to the escalating violence. "We come once again and as many times as necessary to harshly demand that authorities carry out their duty of protecting citizens from criminals and punish criminals according to the Rule of Law," a prepared statement from the network revealed. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. This article has been updated to reflect the correct first name spelling for the murdered journalist, Javier Valdez.