Breaking News Events

[Nat]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/politics/walker-survives-wisconsin-recall-effort.html?_r=1

Scott Walker and fellow repubs kept their jobs in Wisconsin, though exit polls showed the race would've much closer than they were.

(Republicans outspent dems 8 to 1)

[Nat]

Guilt In Depression Has Different Brain Response (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/246224.php)

[Nat]

Senate Republicans block equal pay for women bill
(http://www.petoskeynews.com/news/nationworld/pnr-senate-republicans-block-equal-pay-for-women-bill-20120606,0,7090910.story)

[Andrea]

Dead bacteria to be used to test T sensors

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/17/homeland_security_to_release_bacteria_in_subway_st ations_during_testing_of_sensors_in_cambridge_and_ somerville/ (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/17/homeland_security_to_release_bacteria_in_subway_st ations_during_testing_of_sensors_in_cambridge_and_ somerville/)

This did not give me the warm and fuzzies: "Authorities do not believe the small amounts being used pose threats to anyone, regardless of their health condition."

[AtLast]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/politics/walker-survives-wisconsin-recall-effort.html?_r=1

Scott Walker and fellow repubs kept their jobs in Wisconsin, though exit polls showed the race would've much closer than they were.

(Republicans outspent dems 8 to 1)

I am sickened by the amounts of money going into elections post the Citizens United decision.

[Cin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/politics/walker-survives-wisconsin-recall-effort.html?_r=1

Scott Walker and fellow repubs kept their jobs in Wisconsin, though exit polls showed the race would've much closer than they were.

(Republicans outspent dems 8 to 1)

From the article:

“Tonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions,” Mr. Walker said.”

The result raised broader questions about the strength of labor groups, who had called hundreds of thousands of voters and knocked on thousands of doors. The outcome also seemed likely to embolden leaders in other states who have considered limits to unions as a way to solve budget problems, but had watched the backlash against Mr. Walker with worry.

Well no worries now.

It’s impossible to help those individuals who consistently vote/make decisions that are in total opposition to their own best interests. If this sort of occurrence was an aberration or perhaps just a few misguided souls with alarmingly poor judgment one could understand. But it isn’t. These kinds of insane self-injuring political decisions are being made by people everywhere. It is as though people have gone mad. Despite evidence to the extreme contrary the majority of people insist on voting into office individuals who act in the best interest of the rich and the powerful to the detriment of the rest of society and call it good and sane voting judgment. We all act as though there are two political ways to go, liberal and conservative, and that they are equal just different ways to handle the same issues. This is so far from the truth it is frightening. Liberal and conservative are not two ways to think about and deal with the same issues and goals. Liberal and conservative political parties have two completely distinct and separate goals. They are not different versions of the same politic. They are not just benign but different political choices concerned with the same ends. But the reality of politics, finance and government in the world today is so purposely convoluted and obscured that shedding any lasting light on the truth of it is as likely as catching a leprechaun. That’s why I’ve decided to just play video games.

[Kobi]

Dead bacteria to be used to test T sensors

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/17/homeland_security_to_release_bacteria_in_subway_st ations_during_testing_of_sensors_in_cambridge_and_ somerville/ (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/17/homeland_security_to_release_bacteria_in_subway_st ations_during_testing_of_sensors_in_cambridge_and_ somerville/)

This did not give me the warm and fuzzies: "Authorities do not believe the small amounts being used pose threats to anyone, regardless of their health condition."



Wish I could say I felt Homeland Security was acting in the best interests of the country. My gut tells me this is just more of the governmental experiments that have been conducted on the military, the disabled, minorities etc over the years. Only difference is those were cloaked in secrecy, while this stuff is meant to give us the false illusion of transparency.

Still think Homeland Security and TSA and all those folks looking to protect us pose a greater risk to us than terrorists ever will.


Well no worries now.

It’s impossible to help those individuals who consistently vote/make decisions that are in total opposition to their own best interests. If this sort of occurrence was an aberration or perhaps just a few misguided souls with alarmingly poor judgment one could understand. But it isn’t. These kinds of insane self-injuring political decisions are being made by people everywhere. It is as though people have gone mad. Despite evidence to the extreme contrary the majority of people insist on voting into office individuals who act in the best interest of the rich and the powerful to the detriment of the rest of society and call it good and sane voting judgment. We all act as though there are two political ways to go, liberal and conservative, and that they are equal just different ways to handle the same issues. This is so far from the truth it is frightening. Liberal and conservative are not two ways to think about and deal with the same issues and goals. Liberal and conservative political parties have two completely distinct and separate goals. They are not different versions of the same politic. They are not just benign but different political choices concerned with the same ends. But the reality of politics, finance and government in the world today is so purposely convoluted and obscured that shedding any lasting light on the truth of it is as likely as catching a leprechaun. That’s why I’ve decided to just play video games.

Agree with you here. Amazing the reasons people use to decide on the candidate of their choice even when the choice is clearly not in their best interest. Women voting for republicans who have mounted the war on women astounds me. Female republicans waging a war on other females confounds the heck out of me.

For the first time in this election year, I am getting antsy about Obama being able to win reelection. And, I am antsy because voters focus on weird shit.

There is, it seems, another economic downturn coming before the election. Has nothing to do with Obama and his policies. It was a forced and subsidized recovery to begin with not a market recovery. To expect it to last would be kind of nutty to me.

I am worried about how voters will deal with Obama and his stances on queers. I am fearful they will focus on doma and his support for gay marriage while conveniently forgetting Romney was the governor of Massachusetts when gay marriage became law here.

I am worried people are still stuck on Obamacare even tho Obamacare is just
Romneycare implemented on a nationwide scale. The only difference was Obama did it to help people have access to insurance and care while Romney made health insurance mandatory in Massachusetts so health care providers didnt have to provide free care.

Scary times. Unpredictable voters. Tick plays video games. I just go to the beach. LOL.

[AtLast]

Wish I could say I felt Homeland Security was acting in the best interests of the country. My gut tells me this is just more of the governmental experiments that have been conducted on the military, the disabled, minorities etc over the years. Only difference is those were cloaked in secrecy, while this stuff is meant to give us the false illusion of transparency.

Still think Homeland Security and TSA and all those folks looking to protect us pose a greater risk to us than terrorists ever will.




Agree with you here. Amazing the reasons people use to decide on the candidate of their choice even when the choice is clearly not in their best interest. Women voting for republicans who have mounted the war on women astounds me. Female republicans waging a war on other females confounds the heck out of me.

For the first time in this election year, I am getting antsy about Obama being able to win reelection. And, I am antsy because voters focus on weird shit.

There is, it seems, another economic downturn coming before the election. Has nothing to do with Obama and his policies. It was a forced and subsidized recovery to begin with not a market recovery. To expect it to last would be kind of nutty to me.

I am worried about how voters will deal with Obama and his stances on queers. I am fearful they will focus on doma and his support for gay marriage while conveniently forgetting Romney was the governor of Massachusetts when gay marriage became law here.

I am worried people are still stuck on Obamacare even tho Obamacare is just
Romneycare implemented on a nationwide scale. The only difference was Obama did it to help people have access to insurance and care while Romney made health insurance mandatory in Massachusetts so health care providers didnt have to provide free care.

Scary times. Unpredictable voters. Tick plays video games. I just go to the beach. LOL.




I agree- what goes on in one's voting decisions these days for far too many voters does not resemble democratic processes and the underpinnings of our Constitution at all. It's all about social and moral judgement about issues that are simply one's own personal calls. With all of the problems that exist in the US and disenfranchised populations and poverty, yes poverty- you would think our voting populace would be better informed and willing to make change for the greater good.

These are scary times and I was around for the McCarthy era.

[Cin]

Chicago cops Taser 8-months-pregnant woman during parking dispute (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/06/chicago-cops-taser-8-months-pregnant-woman-during-parking-dispute/)

Apparently tasers are not less lethal weapons for cops to use to protect themselves, they are instruments of torture that the police can use whenever they want, on whomever they choose, for any reason whatsoever.

Rather than deal with any potential problems from upset or angry citizens, just taser them into submission. Scary shit that.

[Kobi]

As if the Vatican weren’t already knee-deep in scandals, the Holy See is now at odds with a group of American nuns over one sister’s book on sexuality.

Demurely titled Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 treatise has nevertheless drawn the ire of the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, which said Monday that the work poses “grave harm” to the Catholic flock for its comparatively progressive positions on homosexuality and masturbation, among other issues.

Farley told the Associated Press that she never meant for the book to reflect official Catholic teaching but, instead, wanted to explore sexuality across religions, theological doctrines and human experience.

A prominent theologian and professor emeritus at Yale’s School of Divinity, Farley is a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order, a group represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) — the largest organization of American nuns.

The indictment is the latest flashpoint in a years-long conflict between the Vatican and the LCWR—a group that the church has characterized as “radically feminist”—and comes just days after the LCWR publicly challenged a recent two-year-long investigation of its activities by the Vatican.

In April, the Vatican declared it had found the organization guilty of contradicting the church’s teachings on sexuality while failing to publicly espouse “the right to life,” and announced it would task three bishops with overhauling the organization. The nuns have been less than happy about the prospect of three men taking control of a group for women, and have called the church’s accusations “unsubstantiated” and its investigation “flawed”, arguing that the crackdown has only “caused scandal and pain throughout the church community.”

The LCWR’s struggle has garnered the sympathy of many American Catholics and provoked nationwide vigils and protests in defense of the nuns. In the latest retort to Rome, the New York Times reports that a group called Network — a Washington-based social justice lobby not formally affiliated with the LCWR — is organizing a bus tour across nine U.S. states this summer, stopping at homeless shelters, food pantries, schools and healthcare clinics run by nuns, in order to highlight the importance of their good works.

Farley’s book isn’t the first to stir up trouble in Rome recently. The Holy See has been up to its elbows in scandal since the May publication of Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book, Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, in which he exposes Vatican corruption and mismanagement, as evidenced by dozens of letters, memos and cables leaked from within the office of the Pope.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/06/a-nuns-guide-to-sex-the-latest-vatican-scandal/

--------------


How the heck did I miss this book?

[LeftWriteFemme]

BREAKING: Another Federal Judge Strikes Down DOMA



http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/06/06/495904/another-federal-judge-strikes-down-doma/?mobile=nc

[Kobi]

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) — A jury dominated by people with Penn State loyalties was selected Wednesday to decide Jerry Sandusky's fate in the child sexual abuse scandal that rocked the university and led to football coach Joe Paterno's downfall.

The seven women and five men who will hear opening statements on Monday include an engineering administrative assistant at Penn State, a dance teacher in the continuing education program and a professor who has been on the faculty for 24 years.

Also: a Penn State senior, a retired soil sciences professor with 37 years at the university, a man with bachelor's and master's degrees from the school and a woman who has been a season ticketholder since the 1970s.

Picking the jury took less than two days, moving along more swiftly than some had expected, given that the rural area is rich with Penn State employees, alumni and fans, many of whom have strong opinions about the case. Bellefonte is 12 miles from Penn State's main campus in State College.

The judge, however, said Penn State connections would not automatically disqualify potential jurors as long as they could pledge to be impartial. Eight of the 12 jurors and two of the four alternates have ties to Penn State.

Some legal experts said jurors with Penn State connections might be inclined to come down hard on Sandusky, blaming him for Paterno's firing and the damage to the school's reputation. Or they might take their frustrations out on prosecutors for bringing the case in the first place.

http://news.yahoo.com/penn-state-heavy-jury-picked-sexual-abuse-case-210428148--spt.html

[AtLast]

Chicago cops Taser 8-months-pregnant woman during parking dispute (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/06/chicago-cops-taser-8-months-pregnant-woman-during-parking-dispute/)

Apparently tasers are not less lethal weapons for cops to use to protect themselves, they are instruments of torture that the police can use whenever they want, on whomever they choose, for any reason whatsoever.

Rather than deal with any potential problems from upset or angry citizens, just taser them into submission. Scary shit that.

What the fuck is the matter with these jackasses? This just makes me sick! Obviously, it is time for "regulations" (standardized, hopefully) specific to just when and under what circumstances tasers can be used by police. As if there were not other options to calm this situation down. Craziness!!! Police officers are supposed to be trained in verbal conflict resolution in situations like this. They are taught ways to get things more calm without using any kind of weapon- so, I guess that training went down the drain due to the introduction of "non-lethal" weapons (which is untrue- tasers can be lethal and I don't think electrical charges are very good for a developing fetus).

Of course, we live in a country with 25 states that have Stand Your Ground laws and regular citizens can shoot and kill 17 year old kids based upon racial profiling in a situation in which lethal force was not indicated whatsoever. And we know police racially profile all of the time as well as well as use more force than is indicated in many instances no matter the race of a citizen.

[Cin]

Apparently law enforcement is willing to fight any restrictions on the use of Tasers. And they will take this fight to the state Supreme Court. Here is an excerpt from an article about the police winning a case concerning using a Taser on a 7 month old pregnant woman, once again because of a traffic violation. Even though they won, the police made the decision to take the case to the Supreme Court ostensibly for emphasis. The police will not brook any interference with their use of Tasers on citizens of their choice. They are not one bit ashamed of Tasering pregnant women, quite the opposite. Seemingly they believe using a Taser on cranky late term pregnant women, especially pregnant women of color, is not only warranted but exactly what the government should order:

TASERS. Not just a last resort alternative to lethal force, but also for use on unruly schoolchildren, rowdy sports fans, a person “acting strangely” at a theme park (that one died), suspects in handcuffs at police stations, tourists who don't speak English and can't understand what police are telling them, college students who don't produce identification on command and pregnant women who are driving 32 mph in a 20 mph zone. (http://www.alternet.org/rights/155487/tasing_a_pregnant_woman_in_front_of_her_kid_the_ou trageous__and_dangerous__abuse_of_tasers_by_police ?page=entire)

"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals let the officers off the hook for the incident, finding that while the force they used was excessive, they couldn't be held accountable “because the law on the question was not clear in 2004.” And then a strange thing happened: the cops, after winning, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which will decide shortly whether to hear the case.

Why appeal a case the cops had basically won? According to the Times, it was because the decision “put them and their colleagues on notice that some future uses of Tasers would cross a constitutional line and amount to excessive force.” Tasers have become such an integral tool in forcing citizens to comply that police agencies consider constraints on their use to be a bridge too far – a fight worth taking to the highest court in the land.

The city of Seattle filed a brief with the court asking that it not hear the case. City attorneys criticized what they called the cops' “sky is falling” take on the decision, adding that “three applications of a Taser in drive-stun mode in less than a minute on a pregnant woman who does not pose a safety threat” is the kind of excessive force that is likely to lead to liability for the city.

The most telling part of the story may be the unexamined assumption that police, faced with a very pregnant, nonviolent, non-threatening woman, had to resort to some sort of force to deal with the situation. In an ostensibly neutral news story, Adam Liptak wrote, “The situation plainly called for bold action.” One judge, dissenting from the ruling, said that Brooks had invited the assault by being “defiant” and “deaf to reason.” He added that the cops “deserve our praise, not the opprobrium of being declared constitutional violators. The City of Seattle should award them commendations for grace under fire.”

But the cops weren't “under fire” – they were simply dealing with a confused citizen and they were unable or unwilling to resolve the situation without violence. (Another dissenting justice claimed that “tasing was a humane way to force Brooks out of her car.”)"

[Kobi]

Used to be a time when law enforcement was good at diffusing potentially dangerous situations. Now, it seems, they are pro's at creating dangerous situations.

At this rate, I expect it might not be long before they are tazering wandering old demented people, unruly children on airplanes and in restaurants, the unfortunate person between the cop and the counter at dunkin donuts, etc.

The new world order people just keep taking away our freedoms under the guise of protecting us from terrorists. Who is protecting us from them?

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"

-- Thomas Jefferson,

[BrownEyedAngel]

The refusal by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the Proposition 8 case means the Supreme Court could rule on marriage equality within the year.


Here's a link to the article in The Advocate:

Prop. 8 Again Loses With Judges; Next Up Supreme Court?
(http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2012/06/05/court-will-not-rehear-proposition-8-case)

[*Anya*]

I, personally, do not hope the cases go to the Supreme Court at this time. There is a conservative majority on the court now (and possibly for some time to come).

There is no way in hell that this Supreme Court will agree with marriage equality.

They will side with the Ninth Circuit or in some way hold that federal law "DOMA" is the law of the land.

I am very worried it will set us back years if it goes to the Court while the right-wing is the majority.

What if, god forbid, Obama loses and Ruth Bader Ginsberg retires? Yet one more conservative will be appointed.

"Let us not forget that it was again a 5-4 right wing Supreme Court that gave us Bush v. Gore and the horrific presidency of GeorgeW. Bush which then spawned the appointment of two right wing judges Alito and Roberts. This Supreme Court is one of the most conservative since reconstruction and its already bearing similar fruit.

The Roberts led Supreme Court is determined to be a political factor. This is why they decided to take on the Affordable Care Act Obamacare in an election year, why they decided to hear an affirmative action case during an election year, a redistricting case that favors Republican districts. Does anyone really think that Clarence Thomas whose wife has worked to overturn the Affordable Care Act is ready to hear oral arguments with an open mind. The strength of the Supreme Court is one that relies on the people recognizing its legitimacy. With each and every 5-4 right wing decision, their legitimacy decreases."

http://blackstate.com/obamacare8572923.html

[Hollylane]

NEWPORT, Ore. - A large dock that washed up on Agate Beach in Newport floated all the way to Oregon after Japan's earthquake and tsunami, experts confirmed Wednesday.


The Japanese Consulate's Office in Seattle and Portland have both confirmed the match. The 66-foot-long concrete and steel floating dock was traced to a manufacturer in Japan. The consulate confirmed it had been in use when the tsunami hit, in Misawa, an area of Japan slammed by giant waves.

On Tuesday in Oregon, the dock was spotted sitting at the high tide line on Agate Beach. A photo of it was immediately sent to the Japanese consulate in Seattle. The dock is 7 feet tall, 19 feet wide and 66 feet long. Shortly after it made landfall, it was checked for radiation and the tests were negative.

A placard on the dock was written in Japanese. A translator hired by NBC said it listed information about the construction date, a company name, the specifications for this type of dock, a phone number and the name of a harbor.


http://media.kgw.com/images/agate+beach+dock+tsunami.jpg

"It belonged to local government in Honshu, the main island of Japan. It was part of a floating pontoon," said Portland consulate Takamichi Okabe. "The outside surface is made of concrete but inside a kind of Styrofoam. That's why it floated and it came so early to the shore of the West Coast."

http://media.kgw.com/images/newport+dock.JPG

Scientists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport verified that there was evidence of marine life specific to Japan attached to the dock. In particular, a starfish found by a scientist among the marine life clinging to the dock was said to be native to Japan, according to Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation spokesman Chris Haven, who helped to confirm the information with the consulate.

There was some concern about potential invasive species exposure. OPRD was working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to contain this threat, Haven said.

OPRD was also working on developing disposal options. Two possibilities were salvage or demolition; both were being evaluated.

Park staff posted warning tape and signs instructing the public to stay off the structure. On Wednesday, dozens of onlookers had gathered on the beach to take photos of the dock.

"I can't believe the journey it's made, without anything pulling but the ocean," said beach visitor Sandie Fink. "It's just absolutely amazing to me."

[Andrea]

Developing: Nuclear Cover-Up? Extreme Radiation Levels Prompt EPA Censorship, DHS Hazmat Team

http://naturalsociety.com/nuclear-cover-up-radiation-levels-epa-geiger-counter-dhs-hazmat-team/ (http://naturalsociety.com/nuclear-cover-up-radiation-levels-epa-geiger-counter-dhs-hazmat-team/)

Anyone see anything more about this?

[LeftWriteFemme]

News :: National
N.J. School: Parents of Straight Bullied Son Should ’Enroll Him in Sports’
by Jason St. Amand

A New Jersey school has been slammed with a federal lawsuit by parents who say their son was constantly physically assaulted and verbally harassed by classmates and even a school volunteer because they all thought he was gay, the New Civil Rights Movement reported.

The family, who is unnamed (most likely to protect the student’s identity), spoke to school officials a number of times about the daily bullying their child was allegedly enduring. The parents talked to administrators and two school district superintendents who told them that their son should "make new friends," "enroll in sports," or move out of the school district.

The family eventually took the officials’ advice, sold their home and moved out of the district.

"In Newark, plaintiffs D.O. and D.O. say they noticed problems with their child, C.O., who came home each day from Pine Lake Elementary School bruised crying and depressed," according to the Courthouse News Service.

The complaint says that the child "indicated to his parents that his classmates were bullying him both at school and after school due to the perception that C.O. was ’gay."

"On a daily basis during this time C.O. was called ’gay,’ ’fag’ and ’girl’ by his classmates. C.O. was also completely ostracized and shunned by his classmates and was forced to spend all time at school alone due to his classmates’ perception that C.O. was gay," the document says. "During the aforementioned time period, C.O., was asked by numerous classmates, often many times in a single day as to whether he was ’gay.’ The other students’ contempt for C.O. would often be displayed before large groups of his peers and he was constantly laughed at and demeaned due to his perceived sexual orientation."

After the parents witnessed the harassment occur from their own front lawn, they asked the school’s principal to handle the situation. But the bullying still continued, the parents claim. After phone calls and several meetings the principal "advised D.O. that he should consider taking C.O. to ’another school district.’"

The parents were "desperate to stop the harassment and abuse of their son at Pine Lakes, D.O. and D.O. met with Director of Elementary Schools for the District, [defendant] Maryrose Caulfield-Sloan," the complaint says.

"At this meeting D.O. and D.O. complained that their son was being subject to relentless harassment and bullying due to his perceived sexual orientation. In response to their concerns, Dr. Caulfield-Sloan advised D.O. and D.O. to enroll C.O. in sports in an area away from the district so that his classmates would not have the opportunity to harass and abuse him. Dr. Caulfield-Sloan also advised D.O. and D.O. that C.O. should attempt to ’make new friends.’"

The parents say that the assaults still continued and their son was physically assaulted on a school bus with a metal seatbelt.

New Jersey has some of the strictest laws in the country when it comes to school bullying. Anti-LGBT bullying is strictly prohibited in state schools. Officials are required to post and distribute their anti-bullying policies to all of their students.

In an incident that mirrors the New Jersey student’s situation, parents of an 18-year-old Florida student say bullying lead to their son’s attempted suicide.

Zachery Gray endured nonstop anti-gay bullying even though he was straight and had a girlfriend. He was called "fag," "queer" and a number of other homophobic slurs.

"He couldn’t walk down the hallways without somebody saying something toward him," said his father, Tony Gray.

In May of last year Gray, 17 at the time, tried to hang himself with a dog chain in a shed behind his home. Neighbors, his mother and paramedics were able to save him, however. Now the teen, who was supposed to graduate high school this year, suffers from brain damage, requires constant medical care, and can no longer walk or talk.

Like the parents from New Jersey cited above, Gray’s mother and father claim that the school did not do enough to prevent the bullying. An investigation into the situation found that students also made fun of Gray’s weight and a teacher (who no longer is with the school) did nothing to help him after Gray informed her that he was being bullied.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Love and survival through Khmer Rouge years


http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/2012/06/07/11737.love-and-survival-through-khmer-rouge-years

[Andrea]

Public Swearing In Middleborough, Mass. Now Subject To Fine

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/public-swearing-middleborough-fine_n_1587270.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/public-swearing-middleborough-fine_n_1587270.html)

[Nat]

Georgia blocks KKK from Adopting a stretch of highway (http://m.smh.com.au/world/roadblock-for-kkk-20120613-20at4.html)

The US state of Georgia has turned down an offer by the Ku Klux Klan to adopt a stretch of highway to keep it tidy, saying the sight of the group's name on a sign would be distressing.

Members of the white supremacist organisation applied to the Adopt-A-Highway program last month. The program enlists the help of volunteers to remove rubbish from the sides of roads. ''The impact of erecting a sign naming an organisation which has a long-rooted history of civil disturbance would cause a significant public concern,'' Georgia transportation commissioner Keith Golden wrote.

Missouri rejected a similar request in 1997, but a federal appeals court later ruled in favour of the Klan.

[Kent]

QjY1-2Qoucc

[UofMfan]

Apple iOS 6 'Emojis' Will Include Gay And Lesbian Emoticons (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/apple-ios-6-emojis-gay-lesbian-emoticons_n_1597642.html)

[Kobi]

Pentagon To Mark Gay Pride Month (http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-mark-gay-pride-month-081049426.html)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Last summer, gays in the military dared not acknowledge their sexual orientation. This summer, the Pentagon will salute them, marking June as gay pride month just as it has marked other celebrations honoring racial or ethnic groups.

In the latest remarkable sign of change since the military repealed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the Defense Department will soon hold its first event to recognize gay and lesbian troops. It comes nine months after repeal of the policy that had prohibited gay troops from serving openly and forced more than 13,500 service members out of the armed forces.

Details are still being worked out, but officials say Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to honor the contributions of gay service members.

[DapperButch]

Pentagon To Mark Gay Pride Month (http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-mark-gay-pride-month-081049426.html)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Last summer, gays in the military dared not acknowledge their sexual orientation. This summer, the Pentagon will salute them, marking June as gay pride month just as it has marked other celebrations honoring racial or ethnic groups.

In the latest remarkable sign of change since the military repealed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the Defense Department will soon hold its first event to recognize gay and lesbian troops. It comes nine months after repeal of the policy that had prohibited gay troops from serving openly and forced more than 13,500 service members out of the armed forces.

Details are still being worked out, but officials say Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to honor the contributions of gay service members.

Wow. This is great!

[AtLast]

Apple iOS 6 'Emojis' Will Include Gay And Lesbian Emoticons (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/apple-ios-6-emojis-gay-lesbian-emoticons_n_1597642.html)

Way Kewl!!!

[Nat]

Penneys shows modest profit :) (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577476830407027186.html?m od=googlenews_wsj)

[Hollylane]

China warns its rare earth reserves are declining (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18516461)




China has warned that the decline in its rare earth reserves in major mining areas is "accelerating", as most of the original resources are depleted.

In a policy paper, China's cabinet blamed excessive exploitation and illegal mining for the decline.

China accounts for more than 90% of the world's rare earth supplies, but has just 23% of global reserves.

It has urged those with reserves to boost production of the elements, which are used to make electrical goods.

"After more than 50 years of excessive mining, China's rare earth reserves have kept declining and the years of guaranteed rare earth supply have been reducing," China's cabinet said in the paper on the rare earth industry published by the official Xinhua news agency.
'Willing to cooperate'

The term rare earth refers to a group of 17 elements that are used to make a range of hi-tech gadgets.

These elements are used in products ranging from MP3 players to mobile phones, flatscreen TVs and hybrid batteries.

With those products becoming increasingly popular, the demand for rare earths has been rising.

But China has imposed export quotas on these elements. It says it has done so to prevent excessive mining of these elements, which also causes damage to the environment.

The US, Japan and the European Union have called the quotas illegal and dragged Beijing to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the matter.

However, Gao Yunhu, deputy chief of the Rare Earth Office at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said China's policies were in compliance with the WTO rules and that Beijing was keen to settle the dispute with its trading partners.

"We're willing to cooperate with the parties involved to solve the dispute as soon as possible," Mr Gao was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

"At the same time, we will actively use WTO rules to defend China's legitimate rights and interests."

In the policy paper, China added that it would implement "stricter standards" and "protective exploitation policies" to ensure sustained growth of the sector.

[Novelafemme]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/greece-school-district-bullied-footage-causes-outrage_n_1612925.html

Let's discuss.

I for one am so appalled I want to fly to Greece, NY and smack the ever-loving snot out of those "kids".

[Kobi]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/greece-school-district-bullied-footage-causes-outrage_n_1612925.html

Let's discuss.

I for one am so appalled I want to fly to Greece, NY and smack the ever-loving snot out of those "kids".

I will go with you. And when you are done smacking the kids, can we go smack their parents as well? This is learned behavior and they didnt learn it in a vacuum.

[Kobi]

Just hours after the sex abuse trial of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky wrapped up on Thursday, his adopted son revealed that he had been "a victim of Jerry Sandusky's abuse" and had offered to testify against his father.

It is unclear whether prosecutors were prepared to put Matt Sandusky on the stand. But NBC News reports that Jerry Sandusky's defense team decided against having the former coach testify on his own behalf after they learned that prosecutors planned to call a new witness -- believed to be Matt Sandusky.

Earlier Thursday, the jury of seven women and five men began their deliberations on the 48 charges levied against Sundusky. They are sequestered and there have been no indication when they might deliver a verdict. Those jurors heard both Jerry Sandusky's defense attorney and the lead prosecutor in the case deliver pointed closing arguments. Defense attorney Joe Amendola painted the former coach as a man victimized by overagressive cops, social works and even the media. In response, Deputy Attorney General Joseph E. McGettigan III dismissed the concept that Jerry Sandusky was targeted by anyone - an idea that would have required dozens of people to conspire of more than a decade.

The explosive disclosure that Matt Sandusky had offered to testify came following the release of a statement from lawyers Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, who represent two alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky.

"During the trial, Matt Sandusky contacted us and requested our advice and assistance in arranging a meeting with prosecutors to disclose for the first time in this case that he is a victim of Jerry Sandusky's abuse," the statement reads. "At Matt's request, we immediately arranged a meeting between him and the prosecutors and investigators."

The statement continued: "This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt and he has asked us to convey his request that the media respect his privacy."

Matt Sandusky moved into the Sandusky home when he was 11, having been involved in Second Mile, the charity for troubled children founded by Jerry Sandusky in 1977. Prosecutors have said Jerry Sandusky used Second Mile to find his abuse victims. Earlier in the trial, it was disclosed that Matt Sandusky's former wife, Jill Jones, sought a restraining order in 2011 to prevent her former father-in-law from hosting sleep-overs with the couple's three young children. The Associated Press also reported that Matt Sandusky attempted to commit suicide in 1995, several months after he moved into the Sandusky home. Matt Sandusky's biological mother, Debra Long, has claimed that Jerry Sandusky effectively 'stole' her son, and told a grand jury considering the charges against the former coach that Matt was upset about staying with his adoptive father.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/matt-sandusky-says-abused-father-jerry-sandusky-214145968.html

[Soon]

ICE asks public's help identifying 'endangered' boy in video (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/21/justice/ice-endangered-child/)

.....

The images show a boy between 13 and 19 years old and in a basement, the agents believe. Neudauer would not say what the boy is doing in the video.
"We believe there's an adult involved in all of this," Neudauer said from Minneapolis, Minnesota. "If we can identify the young person involved, we suspect that we'll be able to remove a couple of young people from a dangerous environment and also, perhaps, identify an adult."

pictures of boy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163276/Do-know-boy-Federal-agents-ask-publics-help-risk-mystery-teen.html

[Corkey]

Sandusky guilty of 45 out of 48 counts.
He will never see the light of day again. As it should be.

[DapperButch]

Sandusky guilty of 45 out of 48 counts.
He will never see the light of day again. As it should be.

Sentencing in 3 months.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-06-21/sandusky-verdict-guilty-jerry-sandusky-trial-guilty-verdict?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D172657

[Kobi]

Pa. Catholic official convicted of child endangerment


PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic church official was convicted Friday of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial, becoming the first U.S. church official convicted of a crime for mishandling abuse claims.

Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said.

Lynn, 61, had faced about 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted of all three counts he faced — conspiracy and two counts of child endangerment. He was convicted only on one of the endangerment counts, leaving him with the possibility of 3 1/2 to seven years in prison.

Full Story (http://http://news.yahoo.com/pa-catholic-official-convicted-endangerment-181337029.html)

[Jett]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/greece-school-district-bullied-footage-causes-outrage_n_1612925.html

Let's discuss.

I for one am so appalled I want to fly to Greece, NY and smack the ever-loving snot out of those "kids".

I will go with you. And when you are done smacking the kids, can we go smack their parents as well? This is learned behavior and they didnt learn it in a vacuum.
Truth, I watched the entire video this morning... it's appalling to say the least. My disbelief and disgust in these "kids" is only trumped by my sadness over the state of humanity that this is too often what we are turning out now.
There is not only what's in them that shouldn't be, there is what is missing that should have stopped them from a natural standpoint... a heart, a conscience... compassion... on and on. It's a scary testiment to the decay of our society...

[Greco]

Penn. Attorney General Speaks About Sandusky's Conviction

q8p5XZjgqMA&feature=relmfu

Thank you Corkey for posting your earlier update.

Sharing this video in addition and in support of the young
men/survivors, and all of those who, "believe the kids."

Greco

[Kobi]

Been thinking about the convictions of Sandusky and Lynn and how both of these will be ushering in a new era of criminal accountability within hierachial structures.

Sandusky's conviction gives further credibility to the charges brought against administrators of university for failing to report, for covering up, and perpetuating the conspiracy of silence that allowed this behavior to go on. This is huge.

Same with Lynn's conviction. Individual priests have been criminally convicted. The catholic church has been held accountable in civil suits and trials. But, this is the first time, I believe, that the actual hierarchy of the church has been held criminally responsible for enforcing church policy.

Will be interesting, in case law, to see if this prosecution will continue up the chain of command to the place it needs to reach - the person or people who instituted the policy others were beholden to enforce.

Kind of blows my mind to think of the amazing change in collective consciousness that was required for these cases to be successful. It's mind boggling to think of the far reaching implications of both cases both in terms of organizational accountability and for individual accountability within these organizations. Hopefully, there will not be appeals threatening to derail the progress.

One can only hope we will continue recreating this in such a way that doctrine and policy will no longer be a valid excuse for not doing the right thing.

It may certainly usher in a new era of protection for children. But, it also can be expanded to protect other vulnerable groups. And, it will force each of us, as individuals and as employees, to confront the fact that we are responsible for one another - morally, ethically, and now legally.

That is just fucking amazing. Kind of like the universe saying...."hey people, I keep telling ya you are all one. Now, I'm gonna force you to act like it."

[UofMfan]

Arizona Immigration Law Ruling: Supreme Court Delivered Split Ruling (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/arizona-immigration-law-ruling_n_1614067.html)

[*Anya*]

Arizona Immigration Law Ruling: Supreme Court Delivered Split Ruling (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/arizona-immigration-law-ruling_n_1614067.html)

Be prepared for more conservative decisions, including upholding DOMA, if Obama loses, Ginsberg retires and Romney appoints another right/winger!

[Kobi]

Be prepared for more conservative decisions, including upholding DOMA, if Obama loses, Ginsberg retires and Romney appoints another right/winger!



Did I misunderstand the ruling? Allergies are messing with my brain cells today.

Seems to me the only part of the radical Arizona law that was let stand is a police officer can ask about immigration status and report such to federal immigration. They cant arrest them for their status, they cant detain them, they can only report them. It is up to the feds to decide what to do.

For the rest, the court upheld that Arizona cannot impose its own immigration policy. That federal immigration law cannot be subverted by the states.

So, how does essentially maintaining the status quo make for a conservative decision?

[LeftWriteFemme]

heXZTMHG88Y&feature

[*Anya*]

Did I misunderstand the ruling? Allergies are messing with my brain cells today.

Seems to me the only part of the radical Arizona law that was let stand is a police officer can ask about immigration status and report such to federal immigration. They cant arrest them for their status, they cant detain them, they can only report them. It is up to the feds to decide what to do.

For the rest, the court upheld that Arizona cannot impose its own immigration policy. That federal immigration law cannot be subverted by the states.

So, how does essentially maintaining the status quo make for a conservative decision?



Hi Kobi,

I may be wrong but based on the portion they upheld, they are still allowing police officers to ask for "papers please" to what, prove if they are not legal immigrants? Then they get to check with the Feds?

How about probable cause to stop them in the first place? Asking for papers, to me, smacks of a police state.

I could be wrong but that's what I read when I read your link. If I am incorrect in how I read "papers please" (and of course the police will say please); then mea culpa.

"WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a split decision in the Obama administration's challenge to Arizona's aggressive immigration law, striking multiple provisions but upholding the "papers please" provision.

Civil rights groups argue the latter measure, a centerpiece of S.B. 1070, invites racial profiling.
Monday's decision on "papers please" -- Section 2(B) in S.B. 1070 -- rested on the more technical issue of whether the law unconstitutionally invaded the federal government's exclusive prerogative to set immigration policy. The justices found that it was not clear whether Arizona was supplanting or supporting federal policy by requiring state law enforcement to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state who officers reasonably suspect is in the country without authorization.

The provision that was upheld -- at least for now -- also commands police to check all arrestees' immigration status with the federal government before they are released."

[Kobi]

Hi Kobi,

I may be wrong but based on the portion they upheld, they are still allowing police officers to ask for "papers please" to what, prove if they are not legal immigrants? Then they get to check with the Feds?

How about probable cause to stop them in the first place? Asking for papers, to me, smacks of a police state.

I could be wrong but that's what I read when I read your link. If I am incorrect in how I read "papers please" (and of course the police will say please); then mea culpa.

"WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a split decision in the Obama administration's challenge to Arizona's aggressive immigration law, striking multiple provisions but upholding the "papers please" provision.

Civil rights groups argue the latter measure, a centerpiece of S.B. 1070, invites racial profiling.
Monday's decision on "papers please" -- Section 2(B) in S.B. 1070 -- rested on the more technical issue of whether the law unconstitutionally invaded the federal government's exclusive prerogative to set immigration policy. The justices found that it was not clear whether Arizona was supplanting or supporting federal policy by requiring state law enforcement to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state who officers reasonably suspect is in the country without authorization.

The provision that was upheld -- at least for now -- also commands police to check all arrestees' immigration status with the federal government before they are released."



Ok, I hear you now. But, I am not sure my fuzzy brain is seeing it in quite the same way.

It seems to me, police checking peoples immigration status, has become commonplace around these parts i.e. New England.

I have known people in Rhode Island, who were deported after they were found to be driving without a license. They were stopped for a traffic violation, no license, check immigration database, call immigration, immigration makes decision to hold or release, pursue deportation or let it go.

The newspapers here on the Cape ran a series of articles back when Arizona enacted their law, focusing on how police routinely checked on immigration status on people they stopped, arrested, and/or charged with a crime. They could not stop them just to ask for immigration status but once stopped they could pursue this. Apparently the police have access to the immigration database system and check it routinely. The police here cannot not hold you for immigration violations. They can only report it to immigration and immigration has to decide whether the person gets held and transferred to their custody for the immigration issue. Police here were ticked off that they would call immigration only to be told thanks but we arent interested.

Under homeland security, a lot of questionable stuff has become customary and routine. We sanctioned a police state the moment the Patriot Act was signed.

So, the provision left untouched, really seems like a hollow conservative victory to me. But, I can be naive like that. Just seems to me, Arizona is not going to be wanting to foot the huge bill for doing these checks on a widespread basis, when in reality, their hands are tied. It is still immigrations ballgame.

Be interesting to read up on the potential implications of the decision as more and more pundits weigh in on it.
---------
Might have to disregard this entire post. Just realized I tried to inflict logic in relation to potential governmental behavior and bigotry. Silly me.

[Soon]

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402620-teen-lesbian-couple-found-shot-in-texas-park?lite)

[*Anya*]

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402620-teen-lesbian-couple-found-shot-in-texas-park?lite)

This makes my heart ache.

[Blade]

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402620-teen-lesbian-couple-found-shot-in-texas-park?lite)

this is messed up...breaks my heart. I am anxious to hear the rest of the story. The results of the investigation, please

[Kobi]

Arizona began implementing the piece of its anti-illegal immigration law that survived the Supreme Court's ruling on Monday, requiring police officers to verify immigration status during routine stops if they have a "reasonable" suspicion that someone may be in the country illegally.

Arizona tells police officers to look for specific signs that indicate they should ask for immigration papers when stopping a person. These signals include lack of a license, driving a car with foreign plates, difficulty speaking English and seeming nervous. Officers must be careful not to stop someone for more than a "reasonable" amount of time while verifying his or her status, however, or the inquiry could violate the stopped person's rights. Gov. Jan Brewer says officers have been trained not to racially profile while implementing the new law.

But Tucson police Chief Roberto Villasenor told the Los Angeles Times he worries his department will be flooded by lawsuits from people who say they were improperly questioned about their status, or held for too long. Under the law, Villasenor estimates that Tucson will make 50,000 additional calls to the federal government each year to verify status. Officers will have to hold people whom they would usually just cite and let go while they verify immigration statuses, he added.

These extra calls will present "operational challenges," an Obama administration official who declined to be named told reporters on Monday. But the federal government has no plans to change how it operates in any way due to the law, he added. "We will not allow a state to dictate our priorities," the official said.

When an Arizona police officer calls to verify a suspect's immigration status, the federal government will decide to hold someone only if the person has committed serious crimes or is a recent or repeat border crosser. An Arizona officer will be forced to let that person go if the federal government doesn't want him or her and if the officer doesn't have a crime to charge the person with.

In a rebuke to Arizona, the Obama administration also ended an agreement Monday that allowed some specially trained local police in the state to enforce immigration laws.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/arizona-implements-immigration-law-feds-push-back-154346200.html

----------------------------


Anya, you were right. The nightmare begins in Arizona.

[*Anya*]

Arizona began implementing the piece of its anti-illegal immigration law that survived the Supreme Court's ruling on Monday, requiring police officers to verify immigration status during routine stops if they have a "reasonable" suspicion that someone may be in the country illegally.

Arizona tells police officers to look for specific signs that indicate they should ask for immigration papers when stopping a person. These signals include lack of a license, driving a car with foreign plates, difficulty speaking English and seeming nervous. Officers must be careful not to stop someone for more than a "reasonable" amount of time while verifying his or her status, however, or the inquiry could violate the stopped person's rights. Gov. Jan Brewer says officers have been trained not to racially profile while implementing the new law.

But Tucson police Chief Roberto Villasenor told the Los Angeles Times he worries his department will be flooded by lawsuits from people who say they were improperly questioned about their status, or held for too long. Under the law, Villasenor estimates that Tucson will make 50,000 additional calls to the federal government each year to verify status. Officers will have to hold people whom they would usually just cite and let go while they verify immigration statuses, he added.

These extra calls will present "operational challenges," an Obama administration official who declined to be named told reporters on Monday. But the federal government has no plans to change how it operates in any way due to the law, he added. "We will not allow a state to dictate our priorities," the official said.

When an Arizona police officer calls to verify a suspect's immigration status, the federal government will decide to hold someone only if the person has committed serious crimes or is a recent or repeat border crosser. An Arizona officer will be forced to let that person

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/arizona-implements-immigration-law-feds-push-back-154346200.html

----------------------------


Anya, you were right. The nightmare begins in Arizona.


Oh how wrong I wished I had been.

Some may call me pragmatic, some may call me a cynic but unfortunately, I saw this a mile away.

Absolutely nothing surprises me anymore about this country.

Aaron Sorkin's new show Newsroom on HBO Sunday night had some profoundly sad statistics about the USA, compared to other countries:

We are #7 in literacy
#7 in math
#22 in science
#49 in life expectancy
#178 in infant mortality
#4 in exports
#4 in labor force

However, we are #1 in the number of incarcerated citizens per capita
#1 in the number of adults that believe angels are real

[Arwen]

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402620-teen-lesbian-couple-found-shot-in-texas-park?lite)

I'm so angry about this. Here is a page (https://www.facebook.com/HonorMollieOlginMaryChapa?filter=1) where you can do something no matter where you are. Maybe we can let them know our community will not be quiet about this. They were just too young.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Supreme Court upholds health care lawBy Tom Curry, msnbc.com National Affairs Writer
Updated at 11:55 a.m. ET: In a dramatic victory for President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the 2010 health care law Thursday, preserving Obama’s landmark legislative achievement.

The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who held that the law was a valid exercise of Congress’s power to tax.

Roberts re-framed the debate over health care as a debate over increasing taxes. Congress, he said, is “increasing taxes” on those who choose to go uninsured.

Poll: Do you agree with Supreme Court ruling on health care law?

Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUS blog breaks down the Supreme Court's ruling on health care. Also, when asked why Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the law, Goldstein said, "I think he believed it."


The 2010 law, the Affordable Care Act, requires non-exempted individuals to maintain a minimum level of health insurance or pay a tax penalty.

The essence of Roberts’s ruling was:

• “The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part,” Roberts wrote.

• “The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it.”

• But “it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but (who) choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.”

Click here for Twitter reactions to the ruling

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court upholds President Obama's national health-care insurance act. NBC's Pete Williams reports. TODAY's Matt Lauer discusses the ruling with NBC's Savannah Guthrie and David Gregory, host of "Meet the Press."


The law, Roberts wrote, “makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.”


Jason Reed / Reuters

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the centerpiece of Obama's signature healthcare overhaul law that requires that most Americans get insurance by 2014 or pay a financial penalty.
He said “The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a ‘fairly possible’ one.”

He said the Supreme Court precedent is that “every reasonable construction” of a law passed by Congress “must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.”

Dems cheer high court as galvanized GOP vows 'full repeal'

Veteran Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein told NBC’s Pete Williams that “the Affordable Care Act was saved by Chief Justice John Roberts.”

Goldstein said the Obama administration “got the one vote they really needed in Chief Justice John Roberts.”

When he served in the Senate in 2005, Obama voted against confirming Roberts as chief justice, arguing that he lacked empathy for underdogs and “he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.”

(Twenty-one other Democratic senators, including Joe Biden, also voted against confirming Roberts. Twenty-two Democratic senators voted to confirm him.)

The four justices joining Roberts in upholding the law were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The dissenting justices were Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

For individuals who choose to not comply with the individual insurance mandate, Congress deliberately chose to make the penalty fairly weak: only $95 for 2014; $325 for 2015; and $695 in 2016.

After 2016, that $695 amount is indexed to the consumer price index.

Congress specifically did not allow the use of liens and seizures of property as methods of enforcing the penalty.

Non-compliance with the mandate is also not subject to criminal or civil penalties under the Tax Code and interest does not accrue for failure to pay the penalty in a timely manner, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.




Chief Justice Roberts announces the Supreme Court's opinion in health care law
NBC's Pete Williams reported that Roberts reasoned that “there’s no real compulsion here” since those who do not pay the penalty for not having insurance can’t be sent to jail. “This is one of the scenarios that administration officials had considered that if the court did this they would consider it a big victory,” Williams said.

But in a major victory for the states who challenged the law, the court said that the Obama administration cannot coerce states to go along with the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people.

The financial pressure which the federal government puts on the states in the expansion of Medicaid “is a gun to the head,” Roberts wrote.

“A State that opts out of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion in health care coverage thus stands to lose not merely ‘a relatively small percentage’ of its existing Medicaid funding, but all of it,” Roberts said.

Congress cannot “penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding,” Roberts said.

The Medicaid provision is projected to add nearly 30 million more people to the insurance program for low-income Americans -- but the court’s decision left states free to opt out of the expansion if they choose

[*Anya*]

I am beyond floored that this conservative Supreme Court upheld the Healthcare law!!

I am speechless.

Yes, I know this is surprising (me speechless and all) but I am personally very happy about this!

[AtLast]

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12402620-teen-lesbian-couple-found-shot-in-texas-park?lite)

When will it stop?

[Kobi]

I am beyond floored that this conservative Supreme Court upheld the Healthcare law!!

I am speechless.

Yes, I know this is surprising (me speechless and all) but I am personally very happy about this!



Surprised me as well.

Have mixed feelings about the implications of the decision tho. On the one hand, it is a tremendous victory for the health care for all and especially for women.

On the other hand, I am fearful it will escalate the attacks on womens reproductive rights and womens sexuality in general.

From the Center for Reproductive rights: "Not surprisingly, the opponents of reproductive rights are furious about today's decision. The anti-choice group Americans United for Life just launched an alert rallying their supporters to "sustain the attack against tax-payer funded abortion." They've created the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act"—which eight states have already used to block insurance plans currently covering abortion from receiving federal funding in their state exchanges."

Sigh.

[Hollylane]

Surprised me as well.

Have mixed feelings about the implications of the decision tho. On the one hand, it is a tremendous victory for the health care for all and especially for women.

On the other hand, I am fearful it will escalate the attacks on womens reproductive rights and womens sexuality in general.

From the Center for Reproductive rights: "Not surprisingly, the opponents of reproductive rights are furious about today's decision. The anti-choice group Americans United for Life just launched an alert rallying their supporters to "sustain the attack against tax-payer funded abortion." They've created the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act"—which eight states have already used to block insurance plans currently covering abortion from receiving federal funding in their state exchanges."

Sigh.





Vomit. That is the word that came to mind, but the sound I uttered while reading that alert was more like...Phfttt!!!

[*Anya*]

Surprised me as well.

Have mixed feelings about the implications of the decision tho. On the one hand, it is a tremendous victory for the health care for all and especially for women.

On the other hand, I am fearful it will escalate the attacks on womens reproductive rights and womens sexuality in general.

From the Center for Reproductive rights: "Not surprisingly, the opponents of reproductive rights are furious about today's decision. The anti-choice group Americans United for Life just launched an alert rallying their supporters to "sustain the attack against tax-payer funded abortion." They've created the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act"—which eight states have already used to block insurance plans currently covering abortion from receiving federal funding in their state exchanges."

Sigh.



What scares me the most are the young women of pregnancy age in the USA that have no memory of what it was like when abortion was illegal and unsafe abortions were the only way to terminate, unless they had money and could find a licensed physician willing to perform a "D&C".

Of course there are countries in the world where there is not access to legal abortions and/or due to stigma, even if abortion is legal, do not seek them.

Some sobering facts below:

There are over 1.7 billion young people aged 10-24 in the world (PRB 2006).

This is the largest population of young people in history. Their sociocultural environment and circumstances are changing, which can affect the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy and abortion:

• Girls are reaching puberty earlier now than in previous decades (WHO et al. 2006).

• Due to global efforts to broaden opportunities for young women, many are now staying in school longer, migrating further away from their birth place, entering the workforce in larger numbers and marrying later.

• Pregnancy and motherhood outside of marriage are stigmatized in many societies, which may cause young, unmarried pregnant women to seek abortion. Other reasons that are independent of marital status include a desire to continue education; an unsupportive or absent partner; inadequate resources; the pregnancy resulted from violence or abuse; health risks; or the woman does not want to become a mother at that time, or at all.

There are many social, economic, logistical, policy and health system barriers to safe abortion care for young women, including:
stigma and negative attitudes, fear of negative repercussions, lack of access to comprehensive sexuality education, limited financial resources, cost of care, transportation, involvement laws and concerns over privacy and confidentiality.

http://www.ipas.org/~/media/Files/Ipas%20Publications/ACYTKE11.ashx

Almost two dozen states in the USA have passed or are considering, laws that would make birth control and abortion harder to access. And results of a recent national poll kicked up even more dust.

The Gallup Poll suggests that the percentage of Americans who call themselves "pro-choice" is at its lowest point since the survey first asked in 1995.

Back then, 56% identified as "pro-choice" and 33% as "pro-life." Today, more than half of those surveyed say they are "pro-life," and only 41% claim to be "pro-choice."

The percentage of Americans who think abortion should be outlawed has remained steady for years at around 20%.

But more than half of those polled this year pronounced abortion "morally wrong."

Planned Parenthood's Serena Josel blames semantics: "The terms 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' are such packed shorthand.

"They work in the political sphere to put people in categories. But these are intensely personal issues," she said. "Those labels don't leave much room for the complicated realities of people's lives."

The young women that Josel works with "have concerns that go beyond abortion, to contraception access, cancer screenings, healthcare they can trust and afford," she said.

"A lot of them see themselves as pro-life and pro-choice. They would never choose in their lives to have an abortion. But they don't think it's right to restrict someone else's choice."

The movement has to engage those women. That's where sharing stories comes in.

Our recollections are a way to educate a generation that can't imagine being ashamed to ask for a pregnancy test just because there is no wedding ring.

Young women have grown up in California with the expectation of reproductive freedom — with mothers who put them on the pill at 16 and drugstore access to the morning-after Plan B. There are so many ways to not get pregnant, some see abortion as a consequence of carelessness, rather than a reprieve from misfortune.

Our values might match, but our language differs: They don't recognize the shorthand Roe vs. Wade.

Choice to them translates to consumer options, like whole milk or soy with that latte.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/02/local/la-me-banks-20120602/2

[AtLast]

Surprised me as well.

Have mixed feelings about the implications of the decision tho. On the one hand, it is a tremendous victory for the health care for all and especially for women.

On the other hand, I am fearful it will escalate the attacks on womens reproductive rights and womens sexuality in general.

From the Center for Reproductive rights: "Not surprisingly, the opponents of reproductive rights are furious about today's decision. The anti-choice group Americans United for Life just launched an alert rallying their supporters to "sustain the attack against tax-payer funded abortion." They've created the "Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act"—which eight states have already used to block insurance plans currently covering abortion from receiving federal funding in their state exchanges."

Sigh.





I am concerned over the portion of the decision concerning Medicaid too- most certainly can have an adverse effect on women overall.

The Teavangelical-publicans will continue the attacks on reproductive rights no matter what, however, I agree that this is going to be more fuel on the fire.

Oh, and I wonder if Rush Limbaugh is going to make good on his promise to move to Costa Rica if the SC did not find the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Just shows how sure the idiot was that it would be deemed so.

Have to share this-

https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/173601_100001105888822_2132933147_n.jpg

[Prudence]

I dont like the supreme courts decission.. I think it has found a loop hole in what apears to me a movement almost toward dictatorship. Im sure the taxation point was argured quite well on the floor of the supreme court and it won out. Ok .. so we can be taxed.. got it.. how about if at the end of the year.. the medical community has to turn over its billing to the federal govenment(see where this is still going) so that each who files income tax is matched up to that list to see if they have any outstanding medical bills .. if they do then tax them....Either way the federal govenment is "dictating" something as individual as your privite health care issues.. be it from the consumer or the provider.. They want that informantion. If this is truly upheld.. you will find that there will be limits then placed on procedures and recovery times for indivuals, services will be cut, it will eventually be that you will have to go through a governmental process to see if your condition is even worth addressing by the health care community. They will be dictating what meds can be dispensed .. at what cost and rate.. because they can only tax a certian precentage Heath care is not a one size fits all. I do understand that privite insurance will still exsit.. until it doesnt. The most basic of human instint is survival..What would you do for a person who is standing over you holding the very pill that would enable you to take your next breath. Its a wolf in sheeps clothing yall.

[Prudence]

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention I dont like the way he passed the bill to begin with.. it was underhanded without congressional approval, thats why it ended up on the surpreme court floor to begin with. That is not how this country is run. You dont go into a debat room in the middle of the night and come out with new laws while the lawmakers slept. I dont see this as a conservative or democrat issue.. its a process issue. And thats scarry to me.

[Kobi]

I dont like the supreme courts decission.. I think it has found a loop hole in what apears to me a movement almost toward dictatorship. Im sure the taxation point was argured quite well on the floor of the supreme court and it won out. Ok .. so we can be taxed.. got it.. how about if at the end of the year.. the medical community has to turn over its billing to the federal govenment(see where this is still going) so that each who files income tax is matched up to that list to see if they have any outstanding medical bills .. if they do then tax them....Either way the federal govenment is "dictating" something as individual as your privite health care issues.. be it from the consumer or the provider.. They want that informantion. If this is truly upheld.. you will find that there will be limits then placed on procedures and recovery times for indivuals, services will be cut, it will eventually be that you will have to go through a governmental process to see if your condition is even worth addressing by the health care community. They will be dictating what meds can be dispensed .. at what cost and rate.. because they can only tax a certian precentage Heath care is not a one size fits all. I do understand that privite insurance will still exsit.. until it doesnt. The most basic of human instint is survival..What would you do for a person who is standing over you holding the very pill that would enable you to take your next breath. Its a wolf in sheeps clothing yall.

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention I dont like the way he passed the bill to begin with.. it was underhanded without congressional approval, thats why it ended up on the surpreme court floor to begin with. That is not how this country is run. You dont go into a debat room in the middle of the night and come out with new laws while the lawmakers slept. I dont see this as a conservative or democrat issue.. its a process issue. And thats scarry to me.




I can understand your concerns. The act is not without its flaws. And, it is somewhat different from what we are used to. Change can be scary and worrisome. Plus, anything that is government propelled makes me twitch.

There is both good stuff and bad stuff in this act, tho I am thinking the good is outweighing the bad....at the moment.

What I like about this act is that it levels the playing field, somewhat, for everyday people who do not have access to insurance or the care it provides. This affects an estimated 250 million people in this country. Most of those people are the "working poor", minorities, women, children, immigrants, the unemployed etc.

It also eliminates caps on lifetime dollar limits which is good for people with catastropic illnesses including premies. Doesnt take much for medical bills to send you into bankruptcy.

It also stops insurances from denying coverage to those with pre-existing illness or for jacking up the price of their policy to some exorbitent amount. Insurers have tried to be more and more creative in defining pre-exisitng to absolve themselves from the costs including stupid shit like denying coverage for newborns who have congenital or genetic problems, trying to deny coverage for genetic cancers in adults etc. That's kind of sick in my book.

It extends coverage for young adults under their parents policies, for early retirees in limbo between private coverage and medicare, for those who want to change jobs but have been reluctant to do so because of the loss of insurance etc.

It requires free preventative coverage for the general population plus specific stuff for women and children. See full list here: http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2010/07/preventive-services-list.html

It will do some good stuff. Like everything else in life, good stuff has trade offs of not so great stuff.

I was not fond of mandated health care when Romney enacted it here in this state. I was not fond of the cost of the program to taxpayers and the new taxes it generated. I was not happy when businesses started dropping their health insurance because it was way cheaper to pay the fines than it was to provide the coverage.

Being one of those privileged little fuckers, I was not fond of any of it....until I needed it. My $700 a month COBRA was running out. I needed insurance. I jumped thru all the hoops and got my insurance, pretty close to the same coverage tho with limited providers for under $50 a month.

With the economic meltdown, the loss of jobs and the insurance they provide, million of people in this state were unable to afford the COBRA payments on their family plans - over $1000 a month. But, they could get affordable and relatively equal care for considerably less.

Without mandated health care and the options it provides here in Massachusetts, I and a shitload of other people would have been up the creek without a paddle.

I am also old enough and worked in health care when Nixon introduced HMO's and PPO's as a cost effective alternative to major medical policies back in 1973. The reaction of the general public and of many people in congress was much like we hear now i.e. death committees, people dying in the streets because they would be denied care or medication, limited care, limited access, a path to socialized medicine, etc. There were glitches of course but none of the doomsday projections ever materialized, and we managed not to convert to socialized medicine in the process either. Having successfully negotiated this path before, I am hopeful we can do it again.

The biggest deterrent we have to things going too wonky is the sheer power and economics of the health care industry itself. They are not going to give up their obscene profits without a damn good and very public fight.

The way this bill was passed didnt surprise me too much. Two sides unable to come to an agreement leading one to force the issue. Seems like typical politics to me. The republicans holding congressional hearings on contraceptives and only inviting male and male religious leaders to testify about the appropriate use of my vagina and uterus was much more disturbing to me. :)

I hear your concerns tho. Have a few of my own. I am hoping we, as a country, still have some of the ideals of a republic our forefathers set forth to guide our actions in stuff like this.

[Kobi]

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 30, 2012
BOSTON — A new law anti-discrimination law protecting transgender individuals in Massachusetts is coming into force.

The Transgender Equal Rights Bill will take effect Sunday — just over seven months after Gov. Deval Patrick signed it into law.

Gender identity will also be added to the protected categories under the state's hate crimes law.

Attorney General Martha Coakley called the law a “much needed update,” saying it will help ensure that transgender individuals feel secure at home, work and in their communities.

[Kobi]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four New York seventh graders whose bullying of a bus monitor grandmother went viral on YouTube have been suspended from school for a year, a school district official said on Friday.

The students will be sent to a non-school facility where they will be tutored academically.

They will be required to complete 50 hours of community service with senior citizens and will receive formal behavioral training, according to a statement from the head of the Greece Central School District in upstate New York.

The four students involved, whose last names have not been released, do not face criminal charges. Their families have agreed to allow the school district to publicly announce the results of an internal investigation.

"Each of the students involved admitted wrongdoing, accepted the recommended consequences and agreed to permit the district to publicly release the terms of the disciplinary action,'' Greece Central School District Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams said in the statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/students-viciously-bullied-bus-monitor-suspended-022634219.html

------------------------


Doesnt seem like enough to me.

[UofMfan]

Jerry Sandusky Cover Up: More Disturbing Emails Released (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/30/penn-state-emails-jerry-sandusky-cover-up-report_n_1640000.html)

"The only downside for us is if message isn't `heard' and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it, but that can be assessed down the road," the email said, according to CNN.

Appalling!

[Soon]

http://js-kit.com/blob/qyNrYF06slprebDA7RbC8s.png

[dreadgeek]

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention I dont like the way he passed the bill to begin with.. it was underhanded without congressional approval, thats why it ended up on the surpreme court floor to begin with. That is not how this country is run. You dont go into a debat room in the middle of the night and come out with new laws while the lawmakers slept. I dont see this as a conservative or democrat issue.. its a process issue. And thats scarry to me.

May I ask how a bill became law 'without congressional approval'? The President cannot pass a law without Congress. In fact, the President cannot even bring a law to the floor of Congress!

On 24 Dec 2009, it passed the Senate 69 - 30
On 21 March 2010 it passed the House 219 - 212. So how are clear majorities in both houses passed without the approval of Congress?

The reason why the law ended up in the Supreme court was about the individual mandate NOT because it wasn't passed through Congress but somehow became law even though no Federal law can come into existence without the consent of Congress.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Anya:

Actually, that part of the law wasn't upheld. It simply hasn't been implemented yet and so they couldn't rule it un-Constitutional because there's nothing to base the decision on. Regardless of what we might think of that provision (and I think it is both stupid and wrong-headed) it is not on its face un-Constitutional. So once there's a test case then that, too, will go up to the SCOTUS and they'll likely strike it down as well.

Cheers
Aj

Hi Kobi,

I may be wrong but based on the portion they upheld, they are still allowing police officers to ask for "papers please" to what, prove if they are not legal immigrants? Then they get to check with the Feds?

How about probable cause to stop them in the first place? Asking for papers, to me, smacks of a police state.

I could be wrong but that's what I read when I read your link. If I am incorrect in how I read "papers please" (and of course the police will say please); then mea culpa.

"WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a split decision in the Obama administration's challenge to Arizona's aggressive immigration law, striking multiple provisions but upholding the "papers please" provision.

Civil rights groups argue the latter measure, a centerpiece of S.B. 1070, invites racial profiling.
Monday's decision on "papers please" -- Section 2(B) in S.B. 1070 -- rested on the more technical issue of whether the law unconstitutionally invaded the federal government's exclusive prerogative to set immigration policy. The justices found that it was not clear whether Arizona was supplanting or supporting federal policy by requiring state law enforcement to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state who officers reasonably suspect is in the country without authorization.

The provision that was upheld -- at least for now -- also commands police to check all arrestees' immigration status with the federal government before they are released."

[dreadgeek]

I dont like the supreme courts decission.. I think it has found a loop hole in what apears to me a movement almost toward dictatorship.

Then the bar for dictatorship has been lowered quite a bit.


Im sure the taxation point was argured quite well on the floor of the supreme court and it won out. Ok .. so we can be taxed.. got it.. how about if at the end of the year.. the medical community has to turn over its billing to the federal govenment(see where this is still going) so that each who files income tax is matched up to that list to see if they have any outstanding medical bills .. if they do then tax them..

Actually, that's not how it works. The individual mandate is an elegant solution to the free rider problem. This might take a bit to explain so bear with me. Imagine you could avoid carrying insurance coverage until you actually *needed* insurance coverage? Imagine that you then only buy insurance coverage when you're sick and drop it when you're well. If that were the case, then the entire model of insurance breaks down because it only works because young workers (who use their health insurance less often) pay in more than they take out and older workers (who use it more often) take out more than they put in. Any person who 'opts-out' of insurance coverage when they are healthy and takes it up when they are ill is a free rider (meaning they are gaining the benefit without the attendant cost). ALL the individual mandate does--ALL IT DOES--is dictate that you carry health insurance and if you choose *not* to you are assessed a tax penalty (meaning that there's a tax break you do *not* get).


..Either way the federal govenment is "dictating" something as individual as your privite health care issues.

No, they are not.


. be it from the consumer or the provider.. They want that informantion. If this is truly upheld.. you will find that there will be limits then placed on procedures and recovery times for indivuals, services will be cut,

Not only is this not the case but we have that already, it's called--wait for it--health insurance. Why is it the very essence of dictatorship if there are limits placed on procedures and recovery times if it is the government (which isn't happening under this law by the way) but it is the very essence of freedom if Aetna or Kaiser or Blue Cross does the very same thing? Please don't say "you can always buy health insurance on the private market". Ask someone with rheumatoid arthritis or MS or breast cancer how the tender mercies of the private insurance market has been toward them.


it will eventually be that you will have to go through a governmental process to see if your condition is even worth addressing by the health care community. They will be dictating what meds can be dispensed .. at what cost and rate..

Again, we have that already it's called health insurance and it is done NOT out of some calculus of medical necessity but out of profit. Aetna, United Healthcare, Blue Cross are not systems for providing health care, they are systems for *denying* medical claims. The idea is for Aetna to pay as few claims and as little money on those claims as the law will allow. If Aetna could take what my employer pays for my health insurance and deny every single claim legally, they would absolutely do so.


because they can only tax a certian precentage Heath care is not a one size fits all. I do understand that privite insurance will still exsit.. until it doesnt.

Private insurance will be with us for the foreseeable future.


The most basic of human instint is survival..What would you do for a person who is standing over you holding the very pill that would enable you to take your next breath. Its a wolf in sheeps clothing yall.

Ummm, when I had my appendix out I went into the hospital on Tuesday morning, they took my appendix out late Tuesday/early Wednesday (I was in the recovery room around 2:30 in the morning or so) and I was *home* Wednesday afternoon. I spent more time in the hospital waiting to get into surgery than I spent in the hospital *after* surgery. When I told my boss that Thursday I would be in on Monday she told me that wasn't happening because I'd just had a serious surgery. I said "that's not possible, if it were major surgery I'd still be in the hospital". My boss' husband was a doctor and he called me and let me know that the reason I was home was my *insurance* company demanded that I be sent home not because it was medically advisable. So, again, I return to the question: why is it a Bad Thing if the government has any cost controls on health care but it is the very essence of Freedom and Love of Mother for my insurance provider to send me home 12 hours after my appendix ruptured on the operating table?

Cheers
Aj

[Okiebug61]

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention I dont like the way he passed the bill to begin with.. it was underhanded without congressional approval, thats why it ended up on the surpreme court floor to begin with. That is not how this country is run. You dont go into a debat room in the middle of the night and come out with new laws while the lawmakers slept. I dont see this as a conservative or democrat issue.. its a process issue. And thats scarry to me.

Here is a link that shows the step by step process of how a bill becomes a law.

http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/legprocessflowchart.pdf

[Corkey]

Heres my story.
In for a hernia repair. Outpatient in surgery 45 minutes, in recovery about an hour released to home. Recovery estimated time 6 weeks.


Total hysterectomy with fibroid removal, be there 2 hours for pre surgical, surgery 2.5 hours, recovery 3 days instead of the 4-5 Dr. thought.
Home care I pay for out of my Medicare payments and supplemental insurance. Recovery time estimated ?

At no point in time was there any milking of the system, padding of hospitalization, or misuse of Medical polices and procedures.
I pay out of pocket copay of $400.00 for hospital stay and copays to specialists of $30.00

Total of aprox $530.00 for major surgery. This is the way it is supposed to work, I don't know what system Prudence is under, but it isn't factual.

[Nat]

For anybody who would like to donate toward the medical care of the surviving (uninsured) member of the young lesbian couple shot last week near Corpus: https://www.wepay.com/donations/127673

Mary Kristene Chapa, Texas Lesbian Shot in Head, Regains Consciousness
Monday, Jul 2, 2012 at 3:36 PM
By Erin Sherbert
Comments (3)

www.wepay.com/donations/127673

A week after 18-year-old Mary Kristene Chapa and her girlfriend Mollie Olgin were shot in the head at a South Texas park, Chapa has opened her eyes and started to communicate, using writing and sign language.

According to media reports, Chapa's brother and sister could hardly recognize her when they arrived at the hospital the day she was discovered; doctors say it's almost unheard of for someone to survive this type of gunshot wound.

But the girl 's brother, Hilario Chapa, says his little sister has started asking questions about her condition and recovery. She has even written down "Mollie" several times, inquiring about her girlfriend, who was also shot in the head but did not survive.

Hilario Chapa says he has not told his sister, who goes by her middle name, Kristene, that Olgin was killed. "I'm kind of afraid," he told NBC. "She is in such a fragile state right now."


Kristene and Mollie
No word on whether police have started to interview her, but Hilario Chapa says he thinks Kristene remembers what happened, but is not ready to talk about it. "I'm under the impression that she doesn't know" who did it, he said.

Police told reporters that an eyewitness described the shooter as a white man with dark hair in his 20s. He was 5-foot-8 and weighed about 140 pounds, according to press reports.

Police are not yet investigating the shooting as a hate crime; however, LGBT communities across the nation, including San Francisco, rallied around the two girls, who had been involved in a same-sex relationship since February.

At this point, family and friends are just focused on Chapa's recovery, which will take both a lot of time and money. Her father had just taken a new job and does not yet have health insurance. As the hospital bills mount, the family is welcoming all donations to help with Kristene's recovery.

[Kobi]

California, the battleground state for the arguments for and against same-sex marriage, is now considering an unconventional law that would allow children to be legally granted more than two parents.

The bill -- SB1476 -- would apply equally to men and women, and to homosexual or heterosexual relationships. Proposed by State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, it has passed the Senate and awaits an Assembly vote.

Leno cites the evolving American family, which includes surrogacy arrangements, same-sex marriages and reproductive techniques that involve multiple individuals.

"The bill brings California into the 21st century, recognizing that there are more than 'Ozzie and Harriet' families today," Leno told the Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco."

http://news.yahoo.com/three-daddies-california-eyes-multiple-parenting-law-180202060--abc-news-health.html

[Nat]

This actually is on the main google new page right now:

Mermaids do not exist. (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/04/155005/feds-mermaids-do-not-exist.html)

:'(

[*Anya*]

Time Healthland

Drug Giant GlaxoSmithKline and the
Billion-Dollar Wrongdoing
July 5, 2012
By Alexandra Sifferlin

In the largest settlement involving a pharmaceutical company, the U.S. Justice Department announced on July 2 that GlaxoSmithKline LLC will pay $3 billion in fines and plead guilty to marketing drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report drug safety information to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The criminal charges involved the illegal marketing of the antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin and the withholding of data on the health risks of the diabetes medication Avandia.

For these charges, Glaxo will pay a criminal fine of $1 billion. The other $2 billion will go toward fines for a civil settlement involving the sales and marketing of several of the company’s other drugs, including the asthma drug Advair. Glaxo did not admit to any wrongdoing in the civil case.

The company had already set aside $3 billion in cash in November, when the terms of the settlements were initially announced. The sum sounds large, but it is only a portion of the drug maker’s profits from the drugs involved. The Wall Street Journal reports that prosecutors are unsure how much Glaxo made specifically from marketing its drugs for unapproved uses — an illegal practice known as off-label marketing — but it’s possible that its profits exceeded the $3 billion fees. The New York Times reports also that the fines represent a fraction of what Glaxo made from the drugs overall:

Avandia, for example, racked up $10.4 billion in sales, Paxil brought in $11.6 billion, and Wellbutrin sales were $5.9 billion during the years covered by the settlement, according to IMS Health, a data group that consults for drugmakers.

“So a $3 billion settlement for half a dozen drugs over 10 years can be rationalized as the cost of doing business,” [Patrick Burns, spokesman for the whistle-blower advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud] said.

The settlement covers improper Glaxo practices from the late-1990s to mid-2000s. Based on claims by whistle blowers — four Glaxo employees — prosecutors said the company tried to get doctors to prescribe drugs off-label by buying them spa treatments and lavish trips, and in the case of Paxil, helping to publish a paper in a medical journal that misreported clinical trial data.

Here’s how the company broke the law:

Paxil
Although the antidepressant Paxil is not approved for patients under 18, Glaxo illegally marketed the drug for use in children and teens, offering kickbacks to doctors and sales representatives to push the drug.

A government probe was launched in 2002, and it was discovered that Paxil, as well as several other antidepressants, were no more effective than placebo in treating depression in kids. Indeed, between 1994 and 2001, Glaxo conducted three clinical trails of Paxil’s safety and efficacy in treating depression in patients under 18, and all three studies failed to pass muster.

One clinical trial, known as Study 329, found that teens who took the drug for depression were more likely to attempt suicide attempt than those receiving placebo pills. Glaxo hired a company to prepare a medical journal article that downplayed Paxil’s safety risks, including increased risk of suicide, and misrepresented data to trump up the positive results of the study. The article was published in 2001, falsely reporting that Paxil was an effective treatment for child depression.

Prosecutors accused Glaxo sales representatives of then using the article to promote the use of the drug for depressed youth. Sales reps invited prescribing psychiatrists to luxury resorts for “Paxil forum meetings” where they were treated to fancy dinners and free entertainment like sailing trips and balloon rides.

Reports of teens committing suicide while taking Paxil began surfacing in 2003, and the FDA discovered that 10 of the 93 Paxil patients in Study 329 had attempted suicide or thought about it, versus one out of the 87 patients on placebo. In 2004, the FDA added a black-box warning on the drug’s label about the increased risk of suicidal thoughts in teens who take it.

Wellbutrin
Glaxo used the help of PR firms and the appeal of lavish vacations to convince medical professionals to prescribe the antidepressant Wellbutrin for weight loss, sexual dysfunction, drug addiction and ADHD, even though the drug is FDA approved only to treat depression. Tavy Deming, an attorney for one of the whistle blowers, told the AP that during a regional meeting of sales representatives in Las Vegas in 2000, the reps were told to promote Wellbutrin as the drug that makes patients “happy, horny and skinny,” as part of a national slogan repeated to doctors.

Among several physicians accused of taking payments from Glaxo to push Wellbutrin is celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky, who was named in court documents for accepting $275,000 for “services for Wellbutrin.” Pinsky allegedly took the money in two payments in 1999 for “extolling the virtues of the antidepressant ‘in settings where it did not appear that [he] was speaking for GSK,’ according to the Justice Department,” the New York Daily News reports.

Company employees who successfully included unapproved uses of Wellbutrin in their pitches got bonuses. Employees who had a problem with giving doctors kickbacks to prescribe Wellbutrin improperly were put on leave, prosecutors said.

Avandia
For seven years, Glaxo failed to report data to the FDA showing that its blockbuster diabetes drug, Avandia — approved in 1999 — increased heart risks in patients. In 2007, Dr. Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist and a longtime critic of Avandia, published an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that the drug increased the risk of heart attack by more than 40% in people with Type 2 diabetes.

It was early public evidence that the Glaxo-sponsored data on which the government based its safety review for approval were flawed and minimized the heart risks to diabetes patients.

Nissen’s study used the drug maker’s own data, from trials that had been conducted but never reported. By the time Nissen’s study came out, the drug was a bonafide blockbuster, earning billions of dollars and being taken by millions of patients.

The heart risks were by this time becoming clearer, and Glaxo reviewed the data in 2005 and 2006; internal analyses showed 29% and 31% increases in heart risks in Type 2 diabetes patients. In 2006, Glaxo reported the data to the FDA — but it was only a portion of the data Glaxo had, from 15 tests of Avandia before the end of 2006; the agency didn’t make the information public immediately either, instead asking one of its own statisticians to review the findings.

The public remained largely uninformed, and Glaxo continued to promote the drug’s benefits while its sales reps denied the heart risks.

Then, as part of a settlement with New York over Glaxo’s failure to disclose the suicide risks of its antidepressant drug Paxil (see above), the company agreed to put all of its recent clinical trials on its website. Nissen downloaded the available data on Avandia — 42 trials — wrote up his paper and in May 2007 sent it the New England Journal.

In 2007, the drug was banned in Europe. The European Medicines Agency concluded that the heart risks of Avandia did not justify its blood sugar benefits, and since alternatives were available, there was no need to prescribe it.

In 2010, an FDA advisory panel voted on whether to pull the drug from the U.S. market. Ultimately, the agency decided to allow continued sales of Avandia, but severely restricted its use: to prescribe the drug, doctors must now be certified to do so, and they may give it only to patients who have been treated safely with it before, have been made aware of the risks of the drug and have failed to control their blood sugar with other medications.

Dr. Nissen described the FDA’s move as “a decade-long nightmare coming to an end.”

However, Glaxo says the civil settlement is not an does not admission of any liability or wrongdoing in the selling and marketing of Avandia and they dispute some of the claims.

http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/05/breaking-down-glaxosmithklines-billion-dollar-wrongdoing/

[Andrea]

Parents charged in UAE after hidden baby found in carry-on

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/meast/uae-baby-discovered-airport/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 (http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/meast/uae-baby-discovered-airport/index.html?hpt=hp_c2)

An Egyptian couple has been charged with putting their child at risk and attempted smuggling after security officers at an airport in the United Arab Emirates found their 5-month-old boy hidden in a small handbag.

[Kobi]

This is something that happened to a friend of mine in her own words.

“So, on Friday night my friend and I were at her house and wanted to get out and do something for the evening. We brainstormed ideas and she brought up the idea of seeing a show at the Laugh Factory. I’d never been, I thought it sounded fun, so we went. We saw that Dane Cook, along some other names we didn’t recognize we’re playing, and while we both agree that Cook’s style is not really our taste we were opened-minded about what the others had to offer. And we figured even good ol’ Dane can be funny sometimes, even if it’s not really our thing. Anyhoo, his act was actually fine, but then when his was done, some other guy I didn’t recognize took the stage. Of course, I would find out later this was Daniel Tosh, but at the time I thought he was just some yahoo who somehow got a gig going on after Cook. I honestly thought he was an amateur because he didn’t seem that comfortable on stage and seemed to have a really awkward presence.


So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”

I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.

Now in the lobby, I spoke with the girl at the will-call desk, and demanded to see the manager. The manager on duty quickly came out to speak with me, and she was profusely apologetic, and seemed genuinely sorry about what had happened, but of course we received no refund for our tickets, but instead a comped pair of tickets, although she admitted she understood if we never wanted to come back. I can imagine the Laugh Factory doesn’t really have a policy in place for what happens when a woman has to leave in a hurry because the person onstage is hurling violent words about sexual violence at her. Although maybe I’m not the first girl to have that happen to her.

I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.”

Please reblog and spread the word.

http://breakfastcookie.tumblr.com/post/26879625651/so-a-girl-walks-into-a-comedy-club

[Kobi]

Former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and other top university officials acted with "total disregard" for the children sexually abused by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky because of their fear of "bad publicity," a report by the university's internal investigation said today.

The report was released at the conclusion of the investigation led by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who was hired to find out why officials who knew of child molestation accusations failed to stop Sandusky or report him to police.

The report said that Paterno, along with officials Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and former president Graham Spanier, "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities," and it blamed those four men for failing to stop Sandusky and protect other chidlren from his harm. Read the full report.

The four officials showed a "striking lack of empathy" for the victims of Sandusky's abuse and empowered the former assitant coach to continue abusing, the report said.

The report was released after eight months of investigation, launched in November by the university's Board of Trustees after the arrest of Sandusky, Curley, and Schultz, and the firing of Paterno and resignation of Spanier.

Report (http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page/free-report-psu-16760826)

[Hollylane]

Will Congress Let Monsanto Write Its Own Rules? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/will-congress-let-monsant_b_1663890.html)

Co-Authored by Colin O'Neil, Regulatory Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety

The agricultural biotech industry -- well, let's call it what it really is: the chemical industry -- has gone on the offensive as never before with a set of slippery policy riders to the House Farm Bill. It's a new low even for an industry that has spent years and tens of millions of lobbying dollars trying to dismantle the basic safeguards that stand between a regulated, healthy food supply and the profit margins chemical industry executives pine for. If passed, these riders would undermine the few laws that are currently in place to protect farmers' rights, our health and our environment from the many adverse impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Waking to the news this morning that the bill reported out of committee late last night with this suite of riders perfectly intact should give everyone interested in a safer, more secure food supply (and U.S. economy, for that matter) a definite chill, even during these incredibly hot July days. Why? Because one important question has become very real: Will Congress let the chemical industry write its own rules?

Deliberately buried in the House Agriculture Committee's voluminous discussion draft of the 2012 Farm Bill, these significant changes to the Plant Protection Act (PPA) -- one of the few statues that regulate GE crops -- will counter the gains that have been made to protect our food supply and the farmers who grow it. The provisions (Sections 10011, 10013 and 10014) would force the rushed commercialization of GE crops, create a backdoor approval for Dow's "Agent Orange" corn (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/enlist-dow-agent-orange-corn_n_1456129.html) and eliminate any meaningful review of the impacts of these novel crops.

Science and time have shown that GE crops cause significant harm to agriculture and the environment. The overwhelming majority of these novel crops are engineered to be resistant to herbicides, such as Monsanto's Roundup, and have dramatically increased overall herbicide use by 382 million lbs (http://truefoodnow.org/2009/11/17/new-report-reveals-dramatic-rise-in-pesticide-use-on-genetically-engineered-ge-crops-due-to-the-spread-of-resistant-weeds/). This spike has, in turn, caused an epidemic scourge of herbicide-resistant superweeds. And they have caused repeated transgenic contamination of non-biotech crop, costing farmers and businesses billions of dollars, as well as permanent contamination of the wild.

Federal courts have ruled for farmers, businesses and public interest plaintiffs numerous times, holding that USDA had violated federal law when approving GE crops by failing to adequately consider and regulate their harms. But rather than address these continued failures, the chemical industry's allies in Congress are trying to change the law via the Farm Bill. The logic being: if you can't win the game, change the rules.

These changes, if allowed to become law, would have numerous negative impacts and outlaw responsible governance. For example, one proposed rider would outlaw any review of GE crops' impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and other environmental laws. This suite of "biotech riders" would have a devastating impact on our country's protection of endangered species. It would also outlaw review by any agency other than the USDA. As a result, the potential impacts of GE crops, including increased pesticide use, on endangered species and other wildlife would not be assessed by our expert wildlife agencies, allowing a GE crop approval to go forward, even if it would cause the extinction of a protected species. Such changes in regulation leave our protected wildlife populations in severe jeopardy and undermine the agencies working hard to ensure their survival. Instead, USDA would only be required to perform narrow, newly established cursory environmental analysis. It even goes so far as to prohibit the Department from using any funds to conduct any additional environmental analyses, even if a federal judge deems such analyses necessary.

To make matters worse, the proposed riders include several means for "backdoor" approvals of GE crops. One rider would allow potentially dangerous GE crops to be commercialized without necessary safety assessments by establishing deliberately impossible deadlines for USDA to meet. Under this provision, if USDA fails to review and approve a GE crop within the short agency deadline, an immediate "default" approval and commercialization would be granted. Thus commercialization of novel GE crops could occur without any agency analysis, let alone any approval, taking place. This new one-year deadline to approve or deny an application (with an optional 180-day extension) will put unreasonable pressure on the Department and will undoubtedly impact its willingness to even attempt rigorous risk assessments.

It's no secret -- our federal agencies are underfunded and already swamped with the important task of reviewing and assessing new industry products, including GE crops. To suggest that approval of new crops that are resistant to toxic pesticides -- like 2,4-D and Dicamba -- should occur "automatically," without a thorough environmental and economic analysis, is absurd. It flies in the face of farmers' basic rights to grow their crop of choice, be protected from transgenic contamination and not be subjected to chemical drift from the use of ever-increasingly higher levels of toxic herbicides.

But it doesn't stop there. The riders also open up a proposed second backdoor approval opportunity for GE crops that have gone through an initial public comment period and are currently under review by the USDA. Under this condition, if USDA is unable to approve or deny a crop application within 90 days of the Farm Bill passage, then the crop would be deemed approved. That's right. If USDA can't get through the process on schedule -- a schedule created to make sure they won't -- then all the safeguards come down and a new GE crop enters the public sphere without a regulatory roadblock in its way.

And if that doesn't sound serious enough for you, consider the fact that one of the crops that this could apply to is Dow's 2,4-D corn. Some know it better as "Agent Orange" corn, a GE crop engineered to withstand exposure to one of the chemicals in the infamous Vietnam-era herbicide. There's no doubt about it, the deadlines would be impossible to meet given the volume of public and scientific comments the Department receives (the agency received over 350,000 on the proposed Dow corn approval alone) (http://truefoodnow.org/2012/04/26/usda-receives-over-365000-public-comments-opposing-approval-of-24-d-resistant-genetically-engineered-corn/) and the number of applications currently being considered.

Conventional (non-biotech) and organic farmers, as well as grain handlers, grain millers and processors (http://www.nasdaq.com/article/environmental-grain-groups-object-to-farm-bill-changes-on-seed-regulation-20120710-01403) have already suffered substantial economic losses in the past due to transgenic contamination from GE crops. If these proposed provisions become law, the Secretary of Agriculture may be unable to prevent costly contamination episodes, like Starlink corn (http://www.organicconsumers.org/Corn/starlink.cfm) or Liberty Link rice (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/09/100122123/index.htm), which result in market rejection, loss of foreign and domestic markets and untold millions of dollars in lost revenue to farmers and the food industry.

But the chemical interests thought of that, too. They've inserted a rider that would compel USDA to establish an extremely controversial national policy for the "low-level presence" of GE material in crops, setting for the first time an acceptable level of GE contamination in non-GE crops in the U.S. The disassociation of the chemical industry's priorities from reality is almost inexplicable. Consumer demand for GE-free foods is higher than ever, both in the U.S. and abroad. Any policy that intentionally allows for GE material in crops and does nothing to prevent contamination of conventional and organic crops poses serious and irreversible economic harm to thousands of farmers, handlers, food processors and manufacturers. And beyond that, this illogical and unreasonable policy would severely impact the capability to export U.S. agricultural products to vital foreign markets that have restrictions on GE material in food.

American agriculture is at a crossroads. The mere fact that these riders are actually under discussion in today's House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill mark-up session is a testament to the changed reality we are facing. Far from moving closer to a safer, healthier and better regulated food supply, we're all witness to an attempted shift away from those principles -- delivering our regulatory and decision-making powers over U.S. agriculture into the hands of industry. It's a scary scenario.

So, will Congress let the chemical industry write its own rules? For the sake of all American farmers, consumers and the environment, let's hope the House Agriculture Committee and other members of Congress will see the true intent of these riders and strike them from the Farm Bill before more damage is done.

[Hollylane]

Is the US caught in the slow lane? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18713267)

People living in bankrupt Stockton give their verdict on the US economy
US Economy.


At a California racetrack the souped-up cars that have been revving their way around the circuit stop and fall silent.

Their roar is replaced by a deeply soulful rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner as a gigantic American flag is unfurled across the course as part of 4 July celebrations.

The race commentator, Wild Wayne, gives a patriotic pep talk emphasising that Independence Day means more than an opportunity to eat hot dogs and sink a few Buds.

For a nation so geographically isolated from any rivals and for a people so brimming with self-confidence it still amazes me how much emphasis is placed on the very word "American", whether it is placed before "hero" or "race car", as an affirmation of identity.

Mind you, when I observe that America must be the most showily patriotic country in the world, an American friend points out the celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in Britain was hardly discreet and muted.

Still, I think there is a nostalgic nuance to our patriotism, whereas America has traditionally looked to the future.
Unstoppable damage

But the US is changing and at the moment there is an uneasy edge to the pride and the patriotism.

There have been a whole host of books about American decline. There is also a more general malaise, a worry that America, still the biggest economic and military power in the world, has lost its place and its way.
Race cars Only a few people at the race track felt happy with the direction the country was moving in

Such fretting is not exactly new, but there are differences between today and the Sputnik moment, or of fears of Japan's rise, or of post-Vietnam angst.

For a start, conservatives argue that President Barack Obama has embraced decline, and made America less forceful on the world stage and less successful at home.

Some of those I spoke to at the racetrack thought the country was coming back up, and going in the right direction, but they were a small minority.

More typical were these comments:

"It's going in the toilet. The economy is shot, the government sucks. I think America is still number one but it won't be if they carry on this way"
"The direction is going down, we're starting to struggle"
"I'm not really happy, I want my old America back. I think we're slowly dropping, we've lost our edge and need to be the dominant force again."

But others argue it is the right who are to blame, by allowing for no compromise, and so giving the impression that politics itself is broken and useless.

The British journalist Ed Luce, whose book Time To Start Thinking is subtitled America In The Age Of Descent, argues that its failure to invest in infrastructure, research and education has been hugely damaging.

He told me: "The American dream no longer exists. If you compare income mobility, for example, you're twice as likely to move up an income group - up a class - in Canada or Germany as you would in the US.

"You're as likely to move up a class in Britain, and Britain's at the bottom of the league. It's got to stop these trends; otherwise it'll cease to be the America we admire; and I think it's to a large extent already ceasing, or has ceased, to be the America we admire.

"That foundational creed of a country that offers equality of opportunity, of a country that has great class mobility, that's much more seriously that soft power you'd associate with America, its universal attractiveness.

"That's really in headlong decline and I think that is a far more serious sense of concern than the relative economic decline that we should expect anyway with China and India and others lifting themselves out of poverty."
'Sense of loss'

Luce says that middle class income has been hollowed-out and unless there is a return to a more pragmatic politics the damage will be unstoppable.
Race cars Experts say America will look and feel strong for decades to come

"This deepens all the time, this trend; to go from a third of the world economy just 12 years ago to under a quarter now is unprecedented in any historic comparison. This is a headlong relative decline that America is in; and that's likely to accelerate unless America regains its sense of pragmatism.

"Pragmatism is a word coined in this country, it's the American philosophy; it's about repairing your faults and it's missing in action, and it's been missing in action for quite a long time, and unless Washington can regain it, this is going to steepen this decline, it's going to get more accelerated."
Limited influence

Not everyone agrees. Most Americans think decline can be halted, if it even exists in the first place.

Robert Kagan, author of The World America Made, says that the world would be a different - a worse place - without a strong America. But he feels the worries about decline have been overdone.

"I think at any time when you have a deep economic recession, which the US has been in, people tend to get pessimistic. The US has repeatedly gone through periods of declinism, concern that other countries were passing it, whether it was Japan, the Soviet Union, and now China.

"But I think if you look at it analytically and from a historical perspective I don't think there is any reason to think America really is in decline.

"Now people have a mythical sense of the past, today people say the US can't get what it really wants anymore, can't tell other countries what to do, it doesn't seem to be able to solve the Middle East peace crisis and my answer is: when could it? When did the United States have all this power?

"American influence is always more limited than people think. Nevertheless, America is still the most influential power in the world today."

Kagan says that part of the problem is that people lump together America's challengers abroad as the Brics.

He argues a rising Brazil or India is not a threat to America, and the focus is really China. He says the rise of that country has actually made others in the region need America more.

"I subscribe to the theory that what goes up must come down and eventually the US will lose influence, I just am not convinced we're there yet.

"I'm not saying there is nothing to worry about, the US has significant fiscal problems that it has to address and we have not addressed it so far and I hope in the future we will. But the idea that the Americans are worried about the state of the country is deep in the DNA.

"You can look at practically every 10 or 20 years throughout American history, there's been this sense of loss, of something lost, of a decline. Eventually it'll be right, I just don't think its right now."

At the racetrack a gleaming red car, which had been flying a large stars and stripes out of a back window is at the back of the pack, overtaken by all the others. It eventually has to limp off the track and give up the game.

That is not going to happen to America. Even if decline in relative power is inevitable, it has such economic influence and military might that it will look and feel strong for decades to come.

The notion of "decline" lumps together questions about the domestic economy, power abroad, political direction and simply the mood of the people - so no simple conclusion is likely to be correct.

Indeed, it is possibly more important to ask the right questions than have the right answers.

And the real question is whether there is a trend, and whether sharp political divisions at home and the problems they leave unsolved undermine America's quest to find its rightful place in a changing world.

[Kobi]

FONTANA, Calif.—In the foreclosure-battered inland stretches of California, local government officials desperate for change are weighing a controversial but inventive way to fix troubled mortgages: Condemn them.

Officials from San Bernardino County and two of its cities have formed a local agency to consider the plan. But investors who stand to lose money on their mortgage investments have been quick to register their displeasure.

Discussion of the idea is taking place in one of the epicenters of the housing crisis, a working-class region east of Los Angeles where housing prices have plummeted. Last week brought another sharp reminder of the crisis when the 210,000-strong city of San Bernardino, struggling after shrunken home prices walloped local tax revenues, announced it would seek bankruptcy protection.

Now -- and amid skepticism on many fronts -- officials from the surrounding county of San Bernardino and cities of Fontana and Ontario have created a joint powers authority to consider what role local governments could take to stem the crisis. The goal is to keep homeowners saddled by large mortgage payments from losing their homes -- which are now valued at a fraction of what they were once worth.

"We just have too much pain and misery in this county to call off a public discussion like this," said David Wert, a county spokesman.

The idea was broached by a group of West Coast financiers who suggest using the power of eminent domain, which lets the government seize private property for public use. In this case, they would condemn troubled mortgages so they could seize them from the investors who own them. Then the mortgages would be rewritten so the borrowers would have significantly lower monthly payments.

Steven Gluckstern, chairman of the newly formed San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners, says his main concern is to help the economy, which is being held back by the mortgage crisis.

"This is not a bunch of Wall Street guys sitting around saying, `How do we make money?'" he said. "This was a bunch of Wall Street guys sitting around saying, `How do you solve this problem?'"

Typically, eminent domain has been used to clear property for infrastructure projects like highways, schools and sewage plants. But supporters say that giving help to struggling borrowers is also a legitimate use of eminent domain, because it's in the public interest.

Under the proposal, a city or county would sign on as a client of Mortgage Resolution Partners, then condemn certain mortgages. The mortgages are typically owned by private investors like hedge funds and pension funds.

Under eminent domain, the city or county would be required to pay those investors "fair value" for the seized mortgages. So Mortgage Resolution Partners would find private investors to fund that.Continued...

Mortgage Resolution Partners will focus on mortgages where the borrowers are current on their payments but are "under water," meaning their mortgage costs more than the home is worth. After being condemned and seized, the mortgages would be rewritten based on the homes' current values. The borrowers would get to stay, but with cheaper monthly payments. The city or county would resell the loans to other private investors, so it could pay back the investors who funded the seizure and pay a flat fee to Mortgage Resolution Partners.

The company says that overall, all parties will be happy. The homeowners, for obvious reasons. The cities, for stemming economic blight without using taxpayer bailouts. And even the investors whose mortgage investments are seized. Mortgage Resolution Partners figures they should be glad to unload a risky asset.

Rick Rayl, an eminent domain lawyer in Irvine, Calif., who is not connected to the company, isn't so sure.

"The lenders are going to be livid," he said. He thinks the plan could have unintended consequences, like discouraging banks and other lenders from making new mortgage loans in an area.

The company says that focusing on borrowers who are current on their loans is a smart way to do business, rewarding those who are already working hard to keep their homes. But, Rayl pointed out, those are also the exact mortgages that investors are eager to keep.

Already, the outcry was heard at the first meeting of the joint powers authority on Friday, even as chairman and San Bernardino County chief executive Greg Devereaux said the entity -- which was inspired by Mortgage Resolution Partners' proposal -- has not yet decided on a specific course of action.

Timothy Cameron, managing director of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's asset managers group, told the authority that residents of the region would find it harder to get loans and investors -- including pensioners -- would suffer losses. He also said such a move would invite costly litigation.

"The use of eminent domain will do more harm than good," he said. "We need mortgage investors and lenders to come back to these fragile markets -- but this plan will force both groups to avoid them."

But Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor who serves as an unpaid adviser to Mortgage Resolution Partners, was unsympathetic. He likes how the plan forces the hand of uncooperative investors, who have sometimes stifled plans to reduce mortgage payments.

"It's kind of like saying a loan shark objects to anti-predatory lending laws," Hockett said.

Theodore Woodard, a 62-year-old retired air conditioner installer, said he'd welcome the help on his five-bedroom home in Fontana. So far, he and his wife have kept up with monthly $3,100 payments, plus taxes and insurance, but it hasn't been easy, and they have watched several neighbors in the well-manicured neighborhood some 50 miles east of Los Angeles lose their homes to foreclosure.

"We've been making our monthly payments, barely making them, but we just pay them and try to survive off what's left," said Woodard, who estimates his house has lost a third of its value since 2004.

In San Bernardino County, the problem is clear. The median home price has plunged to $150,000 from $370,000 in five years. The combined San Bernardino-Riverside metro area has the highest foreclosure rate of any large metro area in the country, at four times the national average, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure properties.

Devereaux, who has seen other plans to fix the housing crisis peter out, is cautious.

"I don't know whether this will work or not," he said. "But we do think we have a responsibility to explore it."

----

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/07/15/calif_cities_eye_plan_to_seize_mortgages/?page=1

[Kobi]

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/dAVDltzxCTV3JfX0Kn.m5A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thelookout/jenntyrrell.jpg


IRVING, Texas—Booted from being a den leader three months ago, a lesbian mother on Wednesday brought her fight to the Boy Scouts of America's backyard.

Flanked by her partner and two young sons, Jennifer Tyrrell of Ohio delivered a massive petition to the youth organization's national headquarters. More than 300,000 signatures she collected call for the group to reinstate her and end its controversial policy prohibiting gay Scouts and troop leaders.

"It's insane and needs to change," said Tyrrell, who at times became tearful. "It's sad."

The Boy Scouts welcomed Tyrrell into their Texas offices but gave her no answers as to why a secret committee recently decided to reaffirm the organization's long-standing rule of excluding gays.

"I don't know how this 11-member committee can decide that 300,000 Americans don't matter, that their opinions don't matter," Tyrrell said after her 15-minute meeting with a Scouts spokesman and another unidentified official.

While it wasn't forthcoming, the 32-year-old said the conversation was civil.

"I did a lot of talking, I did a lot of crying," she said. "I'm not here to bash the Scouts. I'm not here to say anything negative necessarily. I just can't tell you the heartbreak that I felt when I got the phone call telling me that I wasn't good enough ... because I'm gay."

Tyrrell launched her petition on Change.org after being notified in April that she could no longer be the den mother for her 7-year-old's Scout pack in Bridgeport, Ohio. Her online campaign includes signatures from numerous celebrities and thousands of Scouts, Scout leaders and former Scouts.

The site received 2,000 new signatures in the last 24 hours, and Tyrrell said her fight won't stop with Wednesday's visit to the headquarters.

"I told them we weren't going anywhere," she said.

Tyrrell had volunteered for nearly a year, leading her troop to earn multiple Scout badges for their service and skills. She and her son Cruz wore their Boy Scouts gear on Wednesday, despite the fact that she has pulled him out of the program.

"We love the Scouts," said Tyrrell, who also wore gay-pride colors painted on her toes. "We love everything the Scouts stand for. We just don't love this policy. So let's stop teaching our kids to discriminate."

In a statement on Tuesday, the 102-year-old leadership organization said, "This policy reflects the beliefs and perspectives of the BSA's members, thereby allowing Scouting to remain focused on its mission and the work it is doing to serve more youth."

"The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers, and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," said Bob Mazzuca, BSA's chief scout executive.

Tyrrell's visit drew three protesters from a local church. They waved "Fear God" signs and shouted about morality as she spoke to reporters.

"I think God has been pretty good to us, and we have a great family," Tyrrell said. "Everyone is entitled to their beliefs."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/ousted-boy-scouts-leader-won-t-gay-rights-170445583.html

[Kobi]

One of the hardest hit groups: Those aged 75 and older, according to a report by AARP based on mortgage data from 2007 through 2011.

All told, more than 1.5 million Americans aged 50 and older lost their homes in the five years from 2007 through 2011.

While the percentage of foreclosures was higher among younger Americans, the rate for homeowners age 50 and older grew faster in recent years.

And in that over-50 group, the 75+ crowd had the highest foreclosure rate in 2011, according to the AARP report, which cited data from CoreLogic, a provider of mortgage-loan data, and other sources.

Among homeowners age 75 and older, 3.2% lost their house to foreclosure in 2011, up from the 0.33% in that age group who faced foreclosure in 2007.

That compares to 3.5% among homeowners under age 50 in 2011, up from 0.42% in 2007.

The foreclosure rate was 2.9% in 2011 among all homeowners 50 and older, up from 0.3% in 2007.

While the AARP report does not pinpoint precisely why older Americans faced this predicament, it cites data that helps explain why so many more people had trouble paying their mortgage bill.

For one, older Americans greatly increased their mortgage-debt load in the two decades preceding the housing-market crash, with the 75+ age group notching the greatest increase in mortgage debt over the past 20 years.

While financial planners often advise people to pay off their mortgage before they retire, fully 24% of households headed by a 75-year-old or older person had mortgage debt in 2010, up from 6% in 1989, according to the AARP report, which cited the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

Mortgage debt also increased among other 50+ Americans: 54% of families headed by a 55- to 64-year-old had mortgage debt in 2010, up from 37% in 1989. And 41% of families headed by a 65- to 74-year-old owed money on a mortgage, up from 22% two decades earlier.

“This increase partly reflects increased borrowing that was spurred by historically low interest rates and high home values prior to the housing market collapse,” the report said. “It may indicate that the oldest borrowers have tapped their home equity to finance their needs in retirement.”

Combine that outstanding debt with lower incomes, rising property-tax bills and health-care costs — and you get homeowners facing a severe financial crunch.

“America’s oldest homeowners have been struggling to maintain their financial security as their incomes are falling, and as mortgage payments, property taxes and health-care costs are increasing.”

The ATM is empty
And tapping home equity is no longer a cash-flow solution for the some 3.5 million older Americans, who are now “underwater” on their homes (they owe more than the house is worth).

About 23% of loans nationwide — borrowers of all ages — were underwater in December. That figure rises to 28% among younger homeowners, those under age 50, versus 16% for borrowers over age 50, the report said.

Still, “While it was expected that older homeowners would have accumulated more home equity than younger people, the fact that 3.5 million borrowers age 50+ have no equity at all is alarming,” the report said. “Research has shown that negative equity is an important predictor of default, even more so than unemployment.”

Meanwhile, for borrowers over age 50, 600,000 loans were in foreclosure and 625,000 were 90 or more days delinquent as of December, the report said. The delinquency rate for borrowers age 50 and over is now 6%, up from about 1% in 2007.

To help homeowners of all ages, AARP called for policy and program changes, including greater use of loan-principal reduction as a tool when modifying loans, mediation programs for borrowers and lenders that provide specific timelines and a framework for meeting and for exchanging documents, loan-servicing standards that apply to all lenders, and a greater emphasis on programs that maintain foreclosed properties, such as the FHFA’s “REO-to-rental” program.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/retirees-hit-hard-by-foreclosures-2012-07-19?pagenumber=2

[Kobi]

MINNEAPOLIS—Four years ago, Frank Schubert was a well-paid political consultant for what he jokingly calls "the forces of evil" -- tobacco, timber and pharmaceutical companies -- when he agreed to lead the 2008 campaign to repeal gay marriage in California.

What started as a professional challenge has now become a personal crusade. And Schubert, a specialist in political messaging, has become the central figure in a major effort to stop gay marriage from becoming legal across the country.

Part Karl Rove and part Pat Robertson, Schubert is managing four statewide campaigns where the issue is on the ballot in the fall -- in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. He's trying to preserve a winning streak in which conservatives have put anti-gay marriage laws on the books in 31 states since 1998.

Schubert said his mission is to make voters understand what's at stake.

"Five thousand years have shown that marriage between a man and a woman serves us well," he said, adding that it is "fundamental to our nature as people." The alternative, he said, is a culture based on personal desires.

Gay rights organizers begrudgingly admire Schubert's ability as much as they detest what he's doing.

"Whether we like it or not, he's done a very good job of tapping into fears people have about homosexuality that are still very real," said Julie Davis, a San Francisco-based GLBT activist.

Full article here:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/07/19/strategist_is_central_figure_against_gay_marriage/?page=1

[*Anya*]

Business Week

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A hospital worker accused of injecting himself with stolen drugs and contaminating syringes that infected at least 30 patients with hepatitis C was charged Thursday with federal drug crimes.

David Kwiatkowski, a former technician at Exeter Hospital, was arrested Thursday morning at a Massachusetts hospital where he was receiving treatment. U.S. Attorney John Kacavas called Kwiatkowski a "serial infector" who worked in at least six other states, including one in which he is a suspect in a similar incident involving a hospital operating room. Kacavas declined to name any of the other states but said they are not clustered in one part of the country.

"We are closer to the beginning of our investigation than the end," Kacavas said.

Kwiatkowski, originally from Michigan, worked at Exeter's cardiac catheterization lab from April 2011 through this past May, when he was fired. He told investigators that he learned he had hepatitis C in May, but Kacavas said there is evidence he had the liver-destroying disease since at least June 2010.

"This serial infector has been contained, and the menace he posed to public health and safety has been removed," Kacavas said.

Authorities didn't say in what hospital Kwiatkowski was being treated so he couldn't be contacted for comment.

Investigators believe Kwiatkowski, 33, stole syringes containing fentanyl, a powerful anesthetic more potent than morphine, and injected himself with them. They said he then put another liquid, such as saline, into the syringes, which were later used for patients. They said a search of his vehicle found an empty fentanyl syringe and several needles.

According to an affidavit, Kwiatkowski sometimes left the lab sweating profusely and attended procedures on his off days. One witness said he appeared to be "on something." At least once, he was sent home for the day after a colleague told a supervisor that he was unfit to perform medical care, Kacavas said.

Kwiatkowski was what is known as a "traveler," a technician hired by hospitals for temporary stints around the country. In a statement, Exeter Hospital said he underwent drug testing and a criminal background check when he was hired.

"It is deeply disturbing that the alleged callous acts of one individual can have such an impact on so many innocent lives. As a result of his alleged actions, people in our community, who in many cases are the friends and neighbors of the 2,300 people who work here, now face the challenge of a potentially chronic disease," hospital president Kevin Callahan said.

The hospital declined to comment further about Kwiatkowski, citing the ongoing investigation.

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne viral infection that can cause liver disease and chronic health issues. Altogether, 31 people, including Kwiatkowski, have tested positive for the same strain of the disease since the investigation began in late May, including an 89-year-old woman who was treated for a heart valve problem in February.

The woman lives with her niece, who also got tested for hepatitis C because she was exposed to the woman's blood while helping her after she suffered a deep cut on her leg in April. The niece's test was negative, but she will get tested again in six months, she said Thursday.

The niece, who asked not to be publicly identified because of the stigma associated with the disease and because she wants to protect her aunt from the media, said she hopes the criminal charges will deter others from similar schemes. She said she was happy to hear that Kwiatkowski had been arrested.

She said the ordeal has turned her family's life upside down.

"We should be able to go into a hospital, put our lives in their hands and know that we're going to be OK," she said.

State and local health departments aren't required to report such outbreaks to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but in a report released in June, the agency said it was notified of 13 outbreaks nationwide between 2008 and 2011. Of those, seven occurred in outpatient facilities; most were traced to unsafe injection practices.

At least two have resulted in criminal charges, including a Colorado woman who was convicted of stealing syringes filled with painkillers from two hospitals where she worked and replacing them with used syringes. The syringes were later used on surgical patients, and up to three dozen patients were found to have hepatitis C after being exposed.

Kacavas said New Hampshire is working with the CDC, law enforcement and departments of public health in other states where Kwiatkowski worked.

"I'm unaware of such a scheme with such reach," he said. "This one has the potential for very far-reaching implications."

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-07-19/hospital-worker-charged-in-nh-hepatitis-c-outbreak

[Kobi]

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/rfZHhheYq1o5qRgDFsO_YA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD00MzY7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/3e48e83d6f690414160f6a70670007a5.jpg

For the first time ever, U.S. service members marched in a gay pride event decked out in uniform Saturday, after a recent memorandum from the Defense Department to all military branches made an allowance for the San Diego parade - even though its policy generally bars troops from marching in uniform in parades.

http://news.yahoo.com/troops-march-san-diego-gay-parade-uniform-204528956.html

[Kobi]

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.) — The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn State football stadium Sunday, eliminating a key piece of the iconography surrounding the once-sainted football coach accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against a retired assistant.

Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it “has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.”

“I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,” Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.

He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it “symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.”

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/22/statue-of-famed-penn-state-coach-paterno-taken-down/#ixzz21MqqOJYz

[The_Lady_Snow]

I'll rest better at night knowing his statue no longer stands there. To bad he's not around to be held accountable.



STATE COLLEGE, Pa.) — The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn State football stadium Sunday, eliminating a key piece of the iconography surrounding the once-sainted football coach accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against a retired assistant.

Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it “has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.”

“I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,” Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.

He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it “symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.”

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/22/statue-of-famed-penn-state-coach-paterno-taken-down/#ixzz21MqqOJYz

[UofMfan]

NCAA Hits Penn State With $60 Million Fine, Vacates Wins, Postseason Ban (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/penn-state-ncaa-punishment-fines-vacate-ban_n_1694219.html)

[Soon]

NCAA Hits Penn State With $60 Million Fine, Vacates Wins, Postseason Ban (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/penn-state-ncaa-punishment-fines-vacate-ban_n_1694219.html)

The $60M fine will be used to create a fund for the victims of sexual abuse.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Chick-Fil-A gets dumped by Kermit the Frog




http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/chick-fil-a-gets-dumped-by-kermit-the-frog/politics/2012/07/22/44290

[Kobi]

The $60M fine will be used to create a fund for the victims of sexual abuse.


I was thinking 60 million was excessive until I saw this on the NCAA website. Now that I know this is equivalent to 1 year of gross revenue for the football program, 60 million is not enough.


"The NCAA imposes a $60 million fine, equivalent to the approximate average of one year's gross revenues from the Penn State football program, to be paid over a five-year period beginning in 2012 into an endowment for programs preventing child sexual abuse and/or assisting the victims of child sexual abuse. The minimum annual payment will be $12 million until the $60 million is paid. "


I like that there were both sanctions and corrective actions involved here. And, that they arent finished yet.


"Individual penalties to be determined. The NCAA reserves the right to initiate a formal investigatory and disciplinary process and impose sanctions on individuals after the conclusion of any criminal proceedings related to any individual involved."


Very interesting reading to see the actual report.


http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/20120723/21207232

[Kobi]

Companies have been paying hefty fines and negotiating high-profile settlements, among them GlaxoSmithKline's $3 billion charge — the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. HSBC, which just copped to money laundering, might see a $10 billion penalty.

These are staggering figures to an ordinary person. A $22.5 million charge may be a Federal Trade Commission record, yet Google can pay that with five hours of work.

Check out how many work days it takes to pay off these fines:


http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/B1nmzjn0LwqSBG55x95irA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/the-exchange/Screen-Shot-2012-07-23-at-1-11-38-PM-png_171313.png



Check the article to see if these fines actually alter business practices.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/big-fines-business-usual-170402105.html

[Kobi]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The first U.S. church official convicted of covering up sex-abuse claims against Roman Catholic priests was sentenced Tuesday to three to six years in prison by a judge who said he "enabled monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children."

Lynn, who handled priest assignments and child sexual assault complaints from 1992 to 2004, was convicted last month of felony child endangerment for his oversight of now-defrocked priest Edward Avery. Avery is serving a 2½- to five-year sentence for sexually assaulting an altar boy in church in 1999.

The judge said Lynn enabled "monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children, to whom you turned a hard heart."

She believed he initially hoped to address the sex abuse problem and perhaps drafted a 1994 list of accused priests for that reason. But when Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua instead had the list destroyed, Lynn chose to remain in the job and obey his bishop — by keeping quiet — as children suffered, she said.

Prosecutors who spent a decade investigating sex abuse complaints kept in secret files at the archdiocese and issued two damning grand jury reports argue that Lynn and unindicted co-conspirators in the church hierarchy kept children in danger and the public in the dark.

"He locked away in a vault the names of pedophile priests. He locked in a vault the names of men that he knew had abused children. He now will be locked away for a fraction of the time he kept that secret vault," District Attorney Seth Williams said of Lynn.

Defense lawyers have long argued that the state's child endangerment statute, revised in 2007 to include those who supervise abusers, should not apply to Lynn since he left office in 2004. They also insist he did more than anyone at the archdiocese to meet with victims, get pedophile priests into treatment and send recommendations to the cardinal.

Lynn was the first U.S. church official convicted for his handling of abuse claims in the sex scandal that's rocked the Catholic church for more than a decade. But he might not be the last.

Bishop Robert Finn and the Kansas City diocese face a misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse. Both Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty and are set to go on trial next month.

http://news.yahoo.com/pa-monsignor-gets-3-6-years-sex-abuse-154117156.html

------------------------



As mentioned in an earlier posting, this is the first conviction of a member of the church hierarchy for following church policy. Still wondering if this is going to stop with him or if they plan to follow it up the chain of command.

The potential implications of this still kind of astound me.

I like that this is like an in your face corrective thing for the Catholic church. I hope it will go up the chain of command, and not stop at this rather low step of the ladder. God knows the Church needs a little more education seeing, back in 2009, they issued new psychological testing in seminaries by equating pedophilia with homosexuality. Sigh. Story here. (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-4558243.html)

As a survivor, I am thankful for this beginning change in the collective consciousness to hold those with the power to stop it accountable for enforcing hierarchial policy.

Yet, there is also a part of me that is very aware that like AIDS "didnt exist" until Rock Hudson, sexual abuse "didnt exist" until it affected males. Then, it took on an entirely different meaning with entirely different strategies, and a shitload of lawyers with a new specialty.

No child should be subjected to sexual abuse or exploitation by anyone, in any position, or with any affliation. The gender of the child involved should not influence the vigor with which the problem is acknowledged or addressed.

[Kobi]

The Boy Scouts of America's stance of not allowing openly gay people to serve as troop leaders or members has inspired several Eagle Scouts to return their hard-earned medals and renounce their membership.

Boing Boing writer Maggie Koerth-Baker first posted a story about how her husband, Christopher Baker, a former Eagle Scout, returned his medal to the Boy Scouts of America. The post, which included Baker's letter to the BSA, drew a strong reaction from the Boing Boing community. So much so, that other former Eagle Scouts began returning their medals as well.

This is no small sacrifice on the part of the Scouts. Becoming an Eagle Scout is serious business that involves years of hard work, at a time in a person's life when goofing off is often more of a priority. In Baker's letter, he wrote, "Today I am returning my Eagle Scout medal because I do not want to be associated with the bigotry for which it now stands. I hope that one day BSA stands up for all boys. It saddens me that until that day comes any sons of mine will not participate in the Boy Scouts."

Koerth-Baker said that the strong reaction wasn't much of a surprise. Over email she said, "I had seen, over the past week, individual letters having a huge impact on Facebook. But they weren't connected to one another. I wanted to do something that linked all these men and made their decisions something bigger than just individual choices."

She continued: "When I posted Baker's (her husband's) letter, I had hoped it would have the kind of impact that it seems to be having. I'm really gratified to know that this is something people connect with so strongly." It is perhaps worth noting that Baker is not gay, nor are any of the other men who have submitted their resignation letters to be posted on Boing Boing.

Koerth-Baker said she is continuing to get more letters from men who have resigned from the Eagle Scouts. "I actually have another half-dozen letters that I'm going to post later this week," she said. The men, she writes, are "doing something really honest, and really respectable, and really brave. And I wanted to support them. I wanted to show them that this wasn't something they were alone in ... lots of other men felt this way."

Earlier this month, spokesperson Deron Smith said that a committee of Scout executives and adult volunteers was unanimous in its decision to keep the anti-gay policy. The committee, Smith said, represented "a diversity of perspectives and opinions."

We reached out via email to the Boy Scouts of America for a comment. Spokesman Smith responded: "Scouting represents millions of youth and adult members in diverse communities across the nation, each with a variety of beliefs about this issue. While a majority of our membership agrees with our policy, no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society. Although we are disappointed to learn of anyone who feels compelled to return his Eagle rank, we fully understand and appreciate that not everyone will agree with any one position or policy."

Smith continued: "The BSA values the freedom of everyone to express their opinion. We expect all members to respect all other viewpoints and opinions....The BSA does not have an agenda on this matter, and its membership policy is not meant to be a blanket statement or a social commentary. The BSA is a voluntary, private organization that sets policies that are best for the organization. We welcome all who share its beliefs but do not criticize or condemn those who wish to follow a different path."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/eagle-scouts-return-medals-over-organization-anti-gay-184508093.html

[Kobi]

BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a recent appeals court decision striking down parts of the federal law that defines marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman.

The request sets up a potential first consideration of a gay marriage case by the Supreme Court.

"The Defense of Marriage Act is a discriminatory and unconstitutional law that harms thousands of families in Massachusetts and takes away our state's right to extend marriage equality to all couples," Coakley said in a statement.

"It is our firm conviction that in order to truly achieve marriage equality, all couples must enjoy the same rights and protections under both state and federal law."

Coakley's 37-page brief asked the nation's highest court to uphold the decision that found denying federal benefits to married same-sex couples was unconstitutional.

The brief said that the state "normally would oppose further review in order to ensure that the judgment takes effect as soon as possible" but added that "the Commonwealth recognizes that DOMA's unconstitutionality is a question of national significance."

"It is important that the Court address the matter in a case that presents the full complement of DOMA's constitutional infirmities," the brief said.

Coakley's move was a response to a brief filed June 29 by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), appointed by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, which wants the court to reverse the lower court ruling.

That brief said the appeals court ruling "invalidated a duly enacted Act of Congress."

Same-sex marriages were legalized in Massachusetts in 2004. In 2009, the state became the first state to file a complaint alleging that DOMA, which affects more than 1,100 federal statutory provisions, violated the Constitution.

DOMA was ruled unconstitutional by a district court in Massachusetts in 2010, a ruling that was upheld by the First Circuit Court of Appeals' three-judge panel in a unanimous ruling on May 31.

Plaintiffs, including seven married same-sex couples and three widowers, said the law, which among other things prevents them from filing joint federal tax returns or collecting survivor benefits from the Social Security retirement system, denied them equal protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Among the plaintiffs was Dean Hara, the widower of former U.S. Congressman Gerry Studds, who died in 2006. Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress, and Hara were married one week after same-sex marriages became legal in Massachusetts. Hara is not eligible to receive the pension provided to surviving spouses of former members of Congress.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/massachusetts-asks-u-high-court-gay-marriage-case-214956117.html

[Nat]

Angry crowd forms after Dallas police shooting

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Angry-crowd-forms-after-Dallas-police-shooting-3732025.php

DALLAS (AP) — Dozens of angry residents gathered on a sweltering southeast Dallas street after reports of a police shooting of a suspect spread through the neighborhood.

The incident happened sometime after 5 p.m. Tuesday in a residential neighborhood about a mile southeast of Fair Park and about three miles southeast of downtown Dallas.

Details are sketchy as to what prompted the confrontation with police in riot gear. Aerial video showed some fist fights breaking out among onlookers as temperatures hovered around 100 degrees. No arrests have been reported as tactical squad officers arrived to support dozens of officers standing riot shield to riot shield.

[Nat]

Man shot by police in southeast Dallas (http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Police-involved-shooting-in-southeast-Dallas-163619046.html)

DALLAS -- Gunfire erupted in southeast Dallas late Tuesday afternoon as police confronted a suspect. The tense situation escalated when hundreds of people converged on the crime scene.
At least one person was shot and wounded by Dallas police at a location in the 5200 block of Barber Avenue at around 5:15 p.m., according to initial reports.
No officers were wounded. A police source told News 8 the suspect was dead.
That report triggered emotional outbursts from a number of onlookers.
Sandra Harper, who identified herself as the mother of James Harper, said her 31-year-old son was dead, and had been shot in the back.
"My son didn't have no gun, whatever the police said," Mrs. Harper said.

There has been no official statement from police, although one was expected at some point Tuesday evening.
The crowd was urged to move to a nearby church to attend a community meeting to discuss what happened. Dallas City Council member Dwaine Caraway was at the scene to gather facts.
"This is beyond Southeast, this is the Dallas Police Department and the City of Dallas," Caraway said. "The police are moving and doing what they need to do to clear the neighborhood so we can bring peace."
Rev. Kyev P. Tatum of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference issued this statement:
"The fair minded people in South Dallas need to remain calm; peaceful and allow justice to take her course. We will make sure a full investigation is conducted and we are confident that Chief Brown and DA Watkins will seek truth in this case. Violence in the community is not the answer. As Dr. King once said, 'An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.' The SCLC is praying for the peace in South Dallas."
According to unofficial reports, police had received a report of a man being dragged into a house shortly before 5 p.m. It was not clear whether police had been fired upon.
Dozens of police units -- some in riot gear -- converged on the scene to provide crowd control. The department's SWAT team arrived after 6:30 p.m.
There appeared to be several emotional people and at one point, at least one officer was seen firing what appeared to be pellets into the pavement that left marks on the surface in an effort to disperse the crowd.
Later, several fist fights broke out in the street among onlookers.
A woman was taken away in an ambulance.
News 8 observed at least three top police officials at the scene, including Assistant Chief Charles Cato. Two "companion officers" were requested at the scene to provide assistance to any police personnel who were involved in firing their weapons.
Rev. Earnest Freeney, a pastor in the community, was helping police to try and calm down the crowd. He said he was worried that people from other parts of the city and even from other cities would come to this neighborhood, increasing problems for public officials.

Sources said police were familiar with the residence where the shooting occurred as a place where illegal drugs were sold.

Mother of man shot by Dallas police says he wasn't armed (http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Mother-of-man-shot-by-Dallas-police-says-he-wasnt-armed-163632686.html)

DALLAS — Sandra Harper, who identified herself as the mother of James Harper, said her 31-year-old son was dead, and had been shot in the back by Dallas police.
"My son didn't have no gun, whatever the police said," Mrs. Harper said during an emotional interview broadcast live on WFAA. She said her son had his arms raised in the air to surrender when he was shot.
"Whatever the police say, it's their word against ours," Mrs. Harper said. "They're always right; we're always wrong."

Live Feed Here (http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Possible-Officer-Involved-Shooting-in-Dallas-163617666.html)

[Kobi]

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday placed the New Orleans Police Department, which has been accused of widespread abuses, under the scrutiny of a federal monitor for at least four years.

Holder issued a sweeping decree that he said resulted from "one of the most extensive investigations" of a law enforcement agency the Justice Department has ever conducted.

The 170-page agreement, which must receive federal court approval before it can be finalized, resulted from months of negotiations between the federal government and New Orleans officials.

The Justice Department's 2011 report cited dozens of problems in New Orleans police training, recruiting, supervision and interrogation practices, and identified "a troubling racial disparity" in the use of force.

Increased federal attention to the city's problems helped produce more than a dozen convictions during the past year in a series of federal civil rights cases in which local police officers were charged with killing unarmed civilians and covering up the crimes during the violent aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The New Orleans consent decree is the latest in a string of such orders the federal government has imposed on police departments in cities including Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Los Angeles, to provide blueprints for reform. Failure to comply could subject a city to contempt of court charges and possible penalties.

The order, in the form of a lawsuit by the United States against the City of New Orleans, alleges that police have routinely violated citizens' constitutional rights and engaged "in a pattern or practice of intentional discriminatory conduct."

The order requires the police department to conduct use-of-force training; improve investigations of officer-involved shootings; make Spanish and Vietnamese translators available to handle emergency calls; and improve investigation of sexual assaults and domestic violence.

http://news.yahoo.com/attorney-general-orders-sweeping-reforms-orleans-police-231756919.html

[Kobi]

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Triple jumper Voula Papachristou was expelled from Greece's Olympic team Wednesday for her comments on Twitter mocking African immigrants and expressing support for a far-right party.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee said Wednesday that Papachristou is "placed outside the Olympic team for statements contrary to the values and ideas of the Olympic movement."

Papachristou's Twitter account contains several retweets and postings of YouTube videos promoting the views of Golden Dawn, a formerly marginal extreme right party that entered the Greek Parliament in the recent two national elections - in May and June this year - by polling almost 7 percent of the vote.

Commenting on the widely reported appearance of Nile-virus-carrying mosquitoes in Athens, Papachristou wrote: "With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting home food!!!". Her tweet prompted thousands of negative comments that snowballed Wednesday.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/greece-expels-olympic-athlete-over-133231136--oly.html

[Okiebug61]

This may have already been posted but in case it hasn't

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/amazon-founder-bezos-donates-2-5-million-gay-132350086.html

[Hollylane]

The FDA Is Spying on Its Own Scientists... (http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/08/fda-spying-on-scientists)

[DapperButch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/papa-johns-obamacare-pizza_n_1752126.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D189663

Hmmmm, I wonder if Schnatter shared with Romney his plan to announce this at the fund raiser he threw for Romney a few months ago? :sarcasmalert:

[*Anya*]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/papa-johns-obamacare-pizza_n_1752126.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D189663

Hmmmm, I wonder if Schnatter shared with Romney his plan to announce this at the fund raiser he threw for Romney a few months ago? :sarcasmalert:

Less profit too. My heart bleeds.

Like many Americans, some of Aurora’s 58 wounded did not have health insurance, and now face huge medical bills. No one knows the exact number of how many of the shooting victims lack health insurance, but nearly one in three Coloradans have inadequate or no health insurance at all.

[Kätzchen]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/papa-johns-obamacare-pizza_n_1752126.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D189663

Hmmmm, I wonder if Schnatter shared with Romney his plan to announce this at the fund raiser he threw for Romney a few months ago? :sarcasmalert:

My thoughts exactly.
(Excellent observaton)

[The_Lady_Snow]

FBI says gunman in Sikh shooting killed himself


The FBI says Wade Michael Page, the gunman in Sunday's deadly shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, died of a self-inflicted gun wound after being hit by police.

FBI special agent Teresa Carlson tells reporters in Milwaukee today that the 41-year-old gunman shot himself in the head after the second police officer responding to the scene shot him in the stomach.

Page killed six people in the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, a Milwaukee suburb, on Sunday.

Carlson says authorities still do not have a motive for the shootings.

Page had been active in white supremacist groups, police say.

[Semantics]

Fischer calls for ‘Underground Railroad’ to kidnap children of LGBT parents

The director of issues analysis of a conservative fundamentalist Christian organization is backing the idea of an “Underground Railroad” to kidnap children from same sex couples.

In tweets posted on Tuesday night, the American Family Associations’s Bryan Fischer cited the need for an “Underground Railroad” in defense of a Mennonite minister who helped an “ex-gay” woman flee to Nicaragua after a court ordered that her former lesbian partner was allowed to visit their 10-year-old daughter.

Jury selection began on Tuesday for the trial of Kenneth Miller, who was charged with aiding and abetting the kidnapping of the daughter.


“Head of Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households goes on trial,” Fischer wrote in the first tweet.

“Why we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households,” he added several minutes later, with a link to a column by a conservative California man who claims that his mother’s same sex relationship is responsible for all of problems in life.

“Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors,” Robert Lopez explained in his column. “I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to exist as a social outcast.”

Think Progress’ Zack Ford pointed out that Fischer’s “Underground Railroad” idea was “incredibly dangerous rhetoric that has the potential to do great harm.”

“How much destruction could self-declared ‘Harriet Tubmans’ do to same-sex families, motivated by Fischer’s claims?” Ford wrote. “More than ever, the ‘culture war’ is a direct attack on the lives of LGBT and their families.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/08/fischer-calls-for-underground-railroad-to-kidnap-children-of-lgbt-parents/

The American Family Association runs 200 radio stations, has a monthly paper publication that goes to several hundred thousand people, and the email list has 3.4 million subscribers who receive their "action alerts". This isn't a small group.

I don't understand why it's acceptable for these groups to openly advocate crimes and get away with it just because they're right wing and Christian. They rile up their followers with crosshairs stamped on pictures of politicians and action alerts about kidnapping children, and when it really happens they act all indignant and say "we didn't really mean that literally!"

[dreadgeek]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/08/fischer-calls-for-underground-railroad-to-kidnap-children-of-lgbt-parents/

The American Family Association runs 200 radio stations, has a monthly paper publication that goes to several hundred thousand people, and the email list has 3.4 million subscribers who receive their "action alerts". This isn't a small group.

I don't understand why it's acceptable for these groups to openly advocate crimes and get away with it just because they're right wing and Christian. They rile up their followers with crosshairs stamped on pictures of politicians and action alerts about kidnapping children, and when it really happens they act all indignant and say "we didn't really mean that literally!"

In current day America it is acceptable *because* they are right-wing, Christian and white. If a black person, an atheist or a liberal suggested anything *remotely* like that, the GOP would pass a law that very day mandating the rounding up and incarceration of every single member of that group.

[Jesse]

http://www.ceo.com/flink/?lnk=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB100 00872396390443295404577547043705374610.html

[Tommi]

WASHINGTON - An Army officer being promoted to brigadier general openly acknowledged her homosexuality on Friday by having her wife pin her star to her uniform, thus becoming the first openly gay officer of flag rank in the United States military.
http://cdn04.cdn.pinkisthenewblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/13/081312_gensmithphoto.jpg
The officer, Brig. Gen. Tammy S. Smith, 49, a 26-year veteran of the Army, was promoted in a ceremony at the women's memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The star was affixed by Tracey Hepner, who was a co-founder last year of the Military Partners and Families Coalition, which "provides support, resources, education and advocacy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military partners and their families," according to its Web site.
The couple married in March 2011 in the District of Columbia.
The military dropped its "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay service members on Sept. 20, 2011, after a change in federal law.
The Army said that General Smith was not available for an interview on Sunday. However, she said in a statement that the Defense Department had made sexual orientation a private matter, but that "participating with family in traditional ceremonies such as the promotion is both common and expected of a leader."
Sue Fulton, a spokeswoman for OutServe, a two-year-old organization of lesbians and gay men in the military, said Sunday that it was "highly unlikely" that General Smith was the only gay officer of her rank. She called General Smith's public acknowledgment significant.
"I would say that it's important to recognize 'the first,' because then the next person doesn't have to be first," said Ms. Fulton, a 1980 West Point graduate. "Once we get over each 'first,' each hurdle of 'Well, that's never been done before,' it makes it a nonissue going forward."
Ms. Fulton, who was honorably discharged as a captain in 1986, said she left the Army because of the strains of maintaining a secret lesbian relationship. She called the promotion ceremony in which General Smith acknowledged being gay part of the best in Army tradition. Ms. Fulton quoted a speech last September in which the Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, said that "the strength of our Army is our soldiers; the strength of our soldiers is our families."
Ms. Fulton said she had no doubt that General Smith's superiors knew of her sexual orientation when they selected her for promotion.
As a colonel, General Smith was deployed in Afghanistan from December 2010 to October 2011 as the chief of Army Reserve Affairs. She currently serves in Washington as the deputy chief of the Army Reserve.

[Kobi]

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday ordered state agencies to deny driver’s licenses and other taxpayer-funded public benefits to young undocumented immigrants applying for temporary work permits under the new Obama administration policy.

In an executive order, Brewer said President Obama’s deferred action policy does not concede “legal status on illegal immigrants and won’t entitle them to Arizona public benefits.” The order added that an estimated 80,000 deferred action recipients would have “significant and lasting impacts on the Arizona budget, its health care system and additional public benefits that Arizona taxpayers fund.”

On Wednesday, scores of young undocumented immigrants across country began applying federal work permits under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The executive order will allow immigrants under age 31 who arrived in the United States before age 16 to apply for a two-year work permit. Eligible applicants must have lived in the country for at least five consecutive years and must a clean criminal record. The permits do not provide lawful status, nor do they create a pathway toward citizenship.

But the federal policy change, according to Brewer, could result in “public benefits contrary to the intent of Arizona voters and lawmakers who enacted laws expressly restricting access to taxpayer funded benefits and state identification.” Brewer ordered state agencies to initiate an emergency rulemaking process, if needed, to carry out her order.

Immigration advocates pounced on Brewer’s order, calling it a shortsighted decision that further blurs immigration policy while denying the economic potential that undocumented immigrants provide. “Deferred action does not grant access to any sort of public benefit,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tells TIME. “The policy creates a new set of taxpayers for the economy when we sorely need it, but it seems like Governor Brewer wants to keep people who have the potential of starting small businesses in Arizona from doing so.”

Arizona, under Brewer’s leadership, has spearheaded the state-level push to deny benefits to undocumented immigrants. In 2010, the state approved SB 1070, which challenged federal immigration policy by giving local police the power to engage in a range of immigration enforcement actions. The law spurred a flurry of copycat legislation across the country, with five states—Alabama, Utah, Indiana, South Carolina and Georgia—approving similar laws in 2011.

This June, however, the Supreme Court ruled against most of the provisions in the Arizona law. It upheld the “papers please” provision, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop. But an injunction from separate legal case is currently blocking the provision from being enacted.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/16/arizona-gov-defies-obama-denies-benefits-to-undocumented-immigrants/#ixzz23mB03slQ

[LeftWriteFemme]

Pussy Riot Trial: Feminist Punk Band Guilty Of Hooliganism, Motivated By Religious Hatred


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/pussy-riot-trial-guilty_n_1795570.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=081712&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeaturePhoto&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

[Hollylane]

This makes me laugh. I have spent time with the band members of Rage Against the Machine, and I love the politics in their lyrics...So, Paul Ryan saying he is a fan...HA HA HA!

http://i45.tinypic.com/egpmc9.jpg

[Kobi]

MOSCOW -- Some Russian activists have sued Madonna for millions of dollars, claiming they were offended by her support for gay rights during a recent concert in St. Petersburg.

Anti-gay sentiment is strong in Russia. In St. Petersburg, a law passed in February makes it illegal to promote homosexuality to minors, and the author of that law has pointed to the presence of children as young as 12 at Madonna's concert on Aug. 9.

Russian news agencies quote Alexander Pochuyev, a lawyer representing the nine activists, as saying the suit was filed Friday against Madonna, the organizer of her concert, and the hall where it was held, asking for damages totaling 333 million rubles, or nearly $10.5 million.

Responding to criticism that the plaintiffs were stuck in the Middle Ages, the lawyer said they were using civilized, modern methods to defend their rights. "No one is burning anyone at the stake or carrying out an Inquisition," Pochuyev was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. "Modern civilization requires tolerance and respect for different values."

The complaint includes a video taken at the concert showing Madonna stomping on an Orthodox cross and asking fans to raise their hands to show the pink armbands in support of gays and lesbians that were distributed among the audience, the new agency reported.

Madonna also has angered conservative Russians with her support for Pussy Riot. Three members of the punk band were sentenced Friday to two years in prison for a protest inside Moscow's main cathedral against Vladimir Putin and his cozy relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Madonna spoke out in support of the group during her concert in St. Petersburg and two days earlier in Moscow. After the verdict was issued, Madonna called on "all those who love freedom to condemn this unjust punishment."


http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120819/NEWS11/120819741/-1/NEWS

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON DC (Reuters) - A U.S. health panel may soon make HIV testing as standard a practice as checking cholesterol levels, a move that would fundamentally change how the virus is detected and treated.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task force, a government-backed group of clinicians and scientists, is expected to make a new recommendation on HIV screening available for public comment before the end of the year.

Health officials close to the panel see it making a positive recommendation for routine screening, updating their current position, issued in 2005, which leaves the decision up to doctors.

Nearly 60,000 new cases of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS are reported nationally every year.

The CDC and other prominent groups have already called for routine HIV screening as a way to reach a much broader population and reduce the stigma some associate with showing up at an HIV clinic. But a recommendation from the task force would carry greater weight, as the U.S. health reform law of 2010 will require insurers to cover preventive services it endorses.

Global health officials have also stepped up the call for earlier treatment of people infected with HIV. New studies show that the latest HIV medications not only can extend the lives of patients for decades but are also one of the most potent ways of preventing their sexual partners from contracting the disease. Early treatment of HIV has been reported to cut transmission risk to uninfected partners by 96 percent.

"All healthcare providers have a responsibility to find cases of HIV because we don't know where they are," said Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, who directs the United Medical Center, an HIV clinic in Washington DC. While doctors in the past focused on higher risk groups such as men who have sex with men, she said, "HIV is in the general population now."

Full story here:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/health-panel-likely-hiv-tests-routine-140156382.html

----------------------------


Hm. As a former HIV test site coordinator, this is making me twitch a bit.

[Kobi]

Sen. Claire McCaskill is probably having a pretty good Sunday. Her opponent in the Missouri Senate race, Republican Rep. Todd Akin, has spent most of the day backtracking after saying that victims of "legitimate rape" cannot biologically become pregnant and thus do not need access to legal abortions.

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy after rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in defense of his stand that rape victims should not be allowed to access abortions. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even if a rape victim does somehow become pregnant, "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

Akin said in a statement that he "misspoke" in the interview. "In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it's clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year," he said. He later wrote on Twitter that "all of us understand that rape can result in pregnancy & I have great empathy for all victims. I regret misspeaking." (Indeed, a study in the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that rapes result in more than 32,000 pregnancies each year.)

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gop-senate-candidate-says-misspoke-legitimate-rape-005818070.html

[Corkey]

Sen. Claire McCaskill is probably having a pretty good Sunday. Her opponent in the Missouri Senate race, Republican Rep. Todd Akin, has spent most of the day backtracking after saying that victims of "legitimate rape" cannot biologically become pregnant and thus do not need access to legal abortions.

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy after rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in defense of his stand that rape victims should not be allowed to access abortions. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even if a rape victim does somehow become pregnant, "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

Akin said in a statement that he "misspoke" in the interview. "In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it's clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year," he said. He later wrote on Twitter that "all of us understand that rape can result in pregnancy & I have great empathy for all victims. I regret misspeaking." (Indeed, a study in the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that rapes result in more than 32,000 pregnancies each year.)

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gop-senate-candidate-says-misspoke-legitimate-rape-005818070.html

It won't help him, it has gone viral.

[Soon]

Here's the donation page for Claire McCaskill (D) the incumbent in Missouri who is fighting Akin to keep her Senate seat.



https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/8/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=309&track=StaffContrib_rd

[weatherboi]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/story/2012-08-20/masters-admits-female-members-condoleezza-rice-darla-moore/57160252/1

After three quarters of a century, women will be included on the membership rolls of Augusta National Golf Club, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world and the host of the Masters.


By Martin E. Klimek, for USA TODAY
"I am delighted and honored to be a member of Augusta National Golf Club," Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
Enlarge
By Martin E. Klimek, for USA TODAY
"I am delighted and honored to be a member of Augusta National Golf Club," Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
Sponsored Links

Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne announced Monday that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore will be the first female members of the club.
The news was first reported by the Associated Press.
COLUMN: Brennan: Augusta National gets it right at last
"This is a joyous occasion as we enthusiastically welcome Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore as members of Augusta National Golf Club," Payne said in a statement. "We are fortunate to consider many qualified candidates for membership at Augusta National. Consideration with regard to any candidate is deliberate, held in strict confidence and always takes place over an extended period of time. The process for Condoleezza and Darla was no different.
"These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership. It will be a proud moment when we present Condoleezza and Darla their Green Jackets when the Club opens this fall.
"This is a significant and positive time in our Club's history and, on behalf of our membership, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome them and all of our new members into the Augusta National family."
Rice, 57, was the national security adviser under former President George W. Bush and became secretary of state in his second term. The first black woman to be a Stanford provost in 1993, she now is a professor of political economy at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
"I am delighted and honored to be a member of Augusta National Golf Club," she said. "I have visited Augusta National on several occasions and look forward to playing golf, renewing friendships and forming new ones through this very special opportunity.
"I have long admired the important role Augusta National has played in the traditions and history of golf. I also have immense respect for the Masters Tournament and its commitment to grow the game of golf, particularly with youth, here in the United States and throughout the world."
Moore, 58, is vice president of Rainwater, Inc., a private investment company, and founder and chair of the Palmetto Institute, a nonprofit think tank aimed at bolstering per capita income in South Carolina. She also is the founder and chair of The Charleston Parks Conservancy, a foundation focused on enhancing the parks and public spaces of Charleston, S.C.
The business school at the University of South Carolina is named in honor of Moore.
"Augusta National has always captured my imagination, and is one of the most magically beautiful places anywhere in the world, as everyone gets to see during the Masters each April," Moore said. "I am fortunate to have many friends who are members at Augusta National, so to be asked to join them as a member represents a very happy and important occasion in my life.
"Above all, Augusta National and the Masters Tournaments have always stood for excellence, and that is what is so important to me."
Augusta National, which opened in December 1932 and did not have a black member until 1990, is believed to have about 300 members. While the club until now had no female members, women were allowed to play the golf course as guests, including on the Sunday before the Masters week began in April.
Monday's announcement marked a significant departure for Augusta National, which had always declined comment about membership issues. Most recently in April, when Payne was questioned at length about the lack of female members in his annual news conference the day before the Masters.
The most recent debate was sparked because one of the Masters' sponsors, IBM, had recently promoted Virginia "Ginni" Rometty as its first female CEO, and Augusta National traditionally had offered memberships to the CEO of IBM.
Payne deflected the questions with the statement, "Once again, that deals with a membership issue, and I'm not going to answer it."
Monday's announcement also comes 10 years after activist Martha Burk sent a letter to Hootie Johnson, Payne's predecessor as chairman, about admission of female members.
Johnson responded that Augusta would not be forced to change its policies "at the point of a bayonet."
Johnson pulled television advertising for the broadcast to spare Masters sponsors unwanted attention.
In 2003, Burk staged protests outside the grounds that mostly fizzled.

[Hollylane]

ejYoV_UzGFk

[Andrea]

ejYoV_UzGFk

Very powerful. Thank you for posting this.

[Kobi]

*Triggery warning*


Police in Dallas are conducting an internal investigation after discovering that a 32-year-old woman who was found murdered on Sunday had called 911 two days before.

The woman, Deanna (Cook) Patrick, was "found deceased in the bathtub of her residence," police said. Delvecchio Patrick, her 35-year-old ex-husband, was arrested and charged with murder.

The department "is currently conducting a comprehensive review of an August 17, 2012 911 call from the victim," the Dallas Police Department wrote on its Facebook page on Monday:

The Department's preliminary review has determined that the 911 call originated from a cell phone. As a result, the 911 call-taker did not know the exact address of the caller. The 911 call taker attempted to obtain the address from the caller, while simultaneously conducting a search of previous calls from the same cell phone number to determine an associated address. The call taker also notified the 911 on-duty supervisor of the ongoing issue. The call was forwarded to the dispatcher but could not be dispatched to field officers until an address was determined. Once the address was confirmed, the 911 call taker updated the call information so the call could be dispatched. The process of obtaining the address and updating the call information took approximately 9 minutes.

Once obtaining an address, the dispatcher gave the call to the first available police field element. The officers that received the call arrived at the location and knocked at the door. When no one answered, they requested a call-back of the caller which went to voicemail. They also checked the perimeter windows of the home and spoke with neighbors who reported that they had not heard any disturbance.

The Department is seeking to determine if the nature of the call was sufficiently communicated through each step of the process to the responding officers and the appropriateness of their response based on the information provided.

Dallas police did not release the contents of the 911 call, saying it could interfere with the ongoing investigation. But according to The Dallas Morning News' crime blog, Patrick called 911 to report her husband was attacking her:

According to police records, Deanna Cook called 911 about 10:54 a.m. Friday. She could be heard screaming for her ex-husband to stop attacking her. "Delvecchio, why are you doing this?" Cook yelled, according to police records.

"Red, please stop, I didn't do anything to you," she said, referring to him by his nickname. ...

Two days later, as Cook's family grew concerned about her well-being, they went to the home and found her dead.

Delvecchio Patrick, the blog noted, "has a history of alleged domestic violence against his wife, Dallas County court records show."

Patrick's bail was set at $500,000. He is currently being held in the Dallas County Jail.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/woman-murder-911-dallas-police-two-days-151010771.html?_esi=1

[DMW]

ejYoV_UzGFk


This is really powerful. I agree. Thank you for posting it. I am going to send
it to all of the women i know, who know women, who are republican.
Honestly, no ruling government should be able to tell a woman how or what they can do with their own bodies. It is a crime. I walked through the streets with the NOW people carrying coat hangers. I was in a video and i can't stand that attention. But, i did it because i have taken women(actually young high school and college aged women) and helped those women to have abortions because they did not have access to contraceptives. It is an awful, horrible, terrifying experience to live through. And i wasn't even the poor soul who had to make such a decision. But, i helped. I bear that burden. I bear it because i didn't want her to bear it alone. Cause the dudes weren't there. How messed up is that. Honestly, i don't know how a woman or even men that love the women in their lives can vote republican. I remember watching the committee on cspan and how no woman was invited. And then weren't going to allow her to speak. Sickening. Thank you for posting it. I put a link to it so that people can email it out.

The GOP War on Women's Health is Real - YouTube

What is even more screwed up....those girls fathers had no idea the pain that they lived and never will. Ah, and they were republican.

[Nomad]

*Triggery warning*


Police in Dallas are conducting an internal investigation after discovering that a 32-year-old woman who was found murdered on Sunday had called 911 two days before.

The woman, Deanna (Cook) Patrick, was "found deceased in the bathtub of her residence," police said. Delvecchio Patrick, her 35-year-old ex-husband, was arrested and charged with murder.

The department "is currently conducting a comprehensive review of an August 17, 2012 911 call from the victim," the Dallas Police Department wrote on its Facebook page on Monday:

The Department's preliminary review has determined that the 911 call originated from a cell phone. As a result, the 911 call-taker did not know the exact address of the caller. The 911 call taker attempted to obtain the address from the caller, while simultaneously conducting a search of previous calls from the same cell phone number to determine an associated address. The call taker also notified the 911 on-duty supervisor of the ongoing issue. The call was forwarded to the dispatcher but could not be dispatched to field officers until an address was determined. Once the address was confirmed, the 911 call taker updated the call information so the call could be dispatched. The process of obtaining the address and updating the call information took approximately 9 minutes.

Once obtaining an address, the dispatcher gave the call to the first available police field element. The officers that received the call arrived at the location and knocked at the door. When no one answered, they requested a call-back of the caller which went to voicemail. They also checked the perimeter windows of the home and spoke with neighbors who reported that they had not heard any disturbance.

The Department is seeking to determine if the nature of the call was sufficiently communicated through each step of the process to the responding officers and the appropriateness of their response based on the information provided.

Dallas police did not release the contents of the 911 call, saying it could interfere with the ongoing investigation. But according to The Dallas Morning News' crime blog, Patrick called 911 to report her husband was attacking her:

According to police records, Deanna Cook called 911 about 10:54 a.m. Friday. She could be heard screaming for her ex-husband to stop attacking her. "Delvecchio, why are you doing this?" Cook yelled, according to police records.

"Red, please stop, I didn't do anything to you," she said, referring to him by his nickname. ...

Two days later, as Cook's family grew concerned about her well-being, they went to the home and found her dead.

Delvecchio Patrick, the blog noted, "has a history of alleged domestic violence against his wife, Dallas County court records show."

Patrick's bail was set at $500,000. He is currently being held in the Dallas County Jail.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/woman-murder-911-dallas-police-two-days-151010771.html?_esi=1

i called 911 this morning about a domestic dispute in the neighborhood i'm staying in. fortunately things went the way they needed to but this post has me thinking about the safety net i thought cell phones provided me. i've always assumed that the E911 locator on my phone would keep me safe if i needed to dial but couldnt finish the call for some reason. this article makes it sound as though that's not so. what a sobering reality check.

[Kobi]

BOSTON — A Boston-based legal group on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Connecticut lawsuit challenging a key portion of a federal law that denies tax, health and other benefits to married gay couples.

A federal judge in Connecticut ruled last month that Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The ruling came in the case of six married gay couples and a widower from Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont who sued after being denied federal benefits.

DOMA defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. Section 3 of the law restricts federal marriage benefits to heterosexual married couples.

Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders filed a petition Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to review the ruling.

A Congressional group and the U.S. Justice Department have asked the Supreme Court to review a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts striking down the same provision of the law in two separate lawsuits.

GLAD argues that the Connecticut lawsuit is a particularly good case for the high court to review because it demonstrates DOMA's impact on a range of federal programs, including federal income tax, Society Security, and federal employee and retirement benefits.


http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120822/NEWS11/120829923

[Kobi]

The Ukraine is considering a move to censor several children's shows after a new study from a conservative commission labeled the shows "a real threat" to the country's youth and detrimental to the country

The Ukrainian paper Ukraínskaya Pravda reported on Thursday that some of the shows under fire include "Family Guy," "Futurama," "Pokemon," "The Simpsons" and "Teletubbies," which the report says are, "projects aimed at the destruction of the family, and the promotion of drugs and other vices."

While the accusations sound a bit silly, a 2011 study by a University of Virginia professor claimed that watching just nine minutes of SpongeBob could adversely affect the attention span and learning abilities of 4-year-olds.

Some of the accusations leveled against the programming in the study:

SpongeBob Squarepants: "gay"
Teletubbies: "Deliberately aims to create subnormal (men), who spend all day in front of the television with their mouths open swallowing all types of information," and promotes the "psychology of losers."
Shrek: "containing sadism"
South Park: "reincarnation propaganda"
Japanese Anime: "A clear example of sexist propaganda"

The study concluded that the programming represents "a large-scale experiment on Ukrainian children" to "create criminals and perverts."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ukrainian-commission-wants-ban-gay-spongebob-teletubbie-losers-204737552.html?_esi=1

[Kobi]

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.

The patients' immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn't known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.

The disease develops around age 50 on average but does not run in families, which makes it unlikely that a single gene is responsible, Browne said. Some patients have died of overwhelming infections, including some Asians now living in the U.S., although Browne could not estimate how many.

This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn't spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

She helped lead the study with researchers in Thailand and Taiwan where most of the cases have been found since 2004. Their report is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

http://news.yahoo.com/aids-disease-asians-not-contagious-211424263.html

[Kobi]

BOSTON (Reuters) - A resort in northern Vermont has settled a lawsuit brought after it refused to host a lesbian couple's wedding reception, citing the innkeepers' "personal feelings."

The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville declined to host an event for Kate Linsley (nee Baker) and Ming Linsley, both of New York, saying innkeepers Mary and Jim O'Reilly did not host "gay receptions."

As part of the settlement, the resort will pay $10,000 to the Vermont Human Rights Commission and place $20,000 in a charitable trust to be disbursed by the Linsleys, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Vermont.

It also agreed to no longer host wedding receptions.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/lesbian-brides-win-settlement-vermont-inn-201458939.html

[Corkey]

BOSTON (Reuters) - A resort in northern Vermont has settled a lawsuit brought after it refused to host a lesbian couple's wedding reception, citing the innkeepers' "personal feelings."

The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville declined to host an event for Kate Linsley (nee Baker) and Ming Linsley, both of New York, saying innkeepers Mary and Jim O'Reilly did not host "gay receptions."

As part of the settlement, the resort will pay $10,000 to the Vermont Human Rights Commission and place $20,000 in a charitable trust to be disbursed by the Linsleys, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Vermont.

It also agreed to no longer host wedding receptions.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/lesbian-brides-win-settlement-vermont-inn-201458939.html

So instead of inclusion they chose to not do receptions for anyone. Smart business acumen there folks. Snark included at no charge. One business I hope fails in epic proportions.

[Toughy]

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.

The patients' immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn't known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.

The disease develops around age 50 on average but does not run in families, which makes it unlikely that a single gene is responsible, Browne said. Some patients have died of overwhelming infections, including some Asians now living in the U.S., although Browne could not estimate how many.

This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn't spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

She helped lead the study with researchers in Thailand and Taiwan where most of the cases have been found since 2004. Their report is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

http://news.yahoo.com/aids-disease-asians-not-contagious-211424263.html

Interesting .........will have to go look at the actual articles........

I do know big pharma did extensive HIV vaccine testing in Thailand....mmmmmm

[Kobi]

A group of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents filed a lawsuit against their own agency Thursday, arguing that the Obama administration is not letting them fully identify and deport illegal immigrants.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says her department does not have the manpower or money to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA, so she issued a memorandum last year ordering immigration officials to focus their efforts on dangerous illegal immigrants. In June, Obama announced a program that will allow up to 1.7 million illegal immigrants brought to the USA as children to have deportations deferred for at least two years.

The 10 ICE agents suing Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton say those directives violate the Constitution and federal immigration law. "We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law," said Chris Crane, an ICE agent and president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, a union for ICE employees. "This directive puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position."

The suit is funded by NumbersUSA, a group that proposes lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, and the attorney is Kris Kobach, the secretary of State of Kansas who has helped Arizona and Alabama craft strict anti-illegal-immigration laws. His work on this lawsuit is not part of his official state duties.

http://news.yahoo.com/ice-agents-sue-own-agency-over-deferred-deportations-231136683.html

[The_Lady_Snow]

5 people shot in front of Empire State Building

[Novelafemme]

5 people shot in front of Empire State Building

I just saw this on Huffington. WTF??

[clay]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/multiple-people-hit-shooting-near-empire-state-building-133611266.html


My heart & prayers go out to everyone in NY!

[Kobi]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/multiple-people-hit-shooting-near-empire-state-building-133611266.html


My heart & prayers go out to everyone in NY!

"Along 35th street, hundreds of people stood photographing the scene with iPhones and iPads. Television producers roamed the crowd looking for guests. "Was anybody here when this happened? Was anybody here when this happened?" one NBC producer yelled."



iPhones, iPads = the new iPaparazzi

[Leigh]

i have an iPad and i'd NEVER do that with mine! geez that's nuts :blink:

[Toughy]

A group of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents filed a lawsuit against their own agency Thursday, arguing that the Obama administration is not letting them fully identify and deport illegal immigrants.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says her department does not have the manpower or money to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA, so she issued a memorandum last year ordering immigration officials to focus their efforts on dangerous illegal immigrants. In June, Obama announced a program that will allow up to 1.7 million illegal immigrants brought to the USA as children to have deportations deferred for at least two years.

The 10 ICE agents suing Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton say those directives violate the Constitution and federal immigration law. "We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law," said Chris Crane, an ICE agent and president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, a union for ICE employees. "This directive puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position."

The suit is funded by NumbersUSA, a group that proposes lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, and the attorney is Kris Kobach, the secretary of State of Kansas who has helped Arizona and Alabama craft strict anti-illegal-immigration laws. His work on this lawsuit is not part of his official state duties.

http://news.yahoo.com/ice-agents-sue-own-agency-over-deferred-deportations-231136683.html

This is just bullshit especially because under President Obama there have been MORE deportations than under Daddy and Jr Bush, Bill, Reagan and Carter. The deportations have been of (as Sec Napolitano says) undocumented folks with criminal records.

Why do these guys think deporting children makes any sense at all? (this question does not require an answer....the answer is they are ignorant)

[Kobi]

From WORD (Women Organized to Resist and Defend) (http://www.defendwomensrights.org/)

On Women’s Equality Day, August 26 – on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, which will be immediately followed by the Democratic National Convention - women and their allies will take to the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and other cities across the country in defense of women's rights.

Women’s rights are under severe attack. Access to healthcare – including contraception and abortion – childcare, housing, welfare and other benefits are being slashed across the country. We are tired of politicians playing political football with our lives. It’s time we take action. It’s time we organize and fight back.

August 26th - Women’s Equality Day - commemorates the 1920 passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. Winning the right to vote was an important victory, but the struggle for full equality continues. Celebrate Women’s Equality Day by taking to the streets and demanding full equality now. Honor the women who fought for the rights we’ve won and continue the struggle for full equality.

sEZ_Tta6AEY

Events planned for:

Chicago, IL
Daley Plaza, 11 am

Denver, OC
16th Street Mall, (meet at 16th St and California), 11 am
Die-in to raise awareness women who have died as a result of inequalities.
Organized by We are Women Colorado

Lexington, KY
Robert F Stevens Courthouse, E. Main st, 3 pm
Organized by Kentuckians Against the War on Women

Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood & Vine, 1pm

Milwaukee, WI
Pere Marquette Park, 12pm
Organized by Code Pink and Vets for Peace

New Paltz, NY
Peace Park (next to Village Hall @ 25 Plattekill Ave.), 1pm
New York, NY
47th St & 6th Ave, 1pm

San Francisco, CA
24th & Mission, 12 noon

[Andrea]

Texas High School students to be used in a RFID trail program.

http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/ (http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/)

"Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose “smart” ID card."

Are you ready for your chip???

I find it interesting that we are so complacent about this type of thing that it isn't even in the news. Really? This is okay with everyone?

[Kobi]

Texas High School students to be used in a RFID trail program.

http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/ (http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/)

"Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose “smart” ID card."

Are you ready for your chip???

I find it interesting that we are so complacent about this type of thing that it isn't even in the news. Really? This is okay with everyone?



Hm. Never heard of this before. Wonder if our educational people here are familiar with or involved in other schools with this or something similar.

On the surface, they justify its use well to parents. Who wouldnt want the school to know where their kid is? Who wouldnt want something that is supposed to increase kids security?

Yet, one could easily poke holes in their rationale when looking at the bigger picture.

Thank you for posting this.

Kobi waves to big brother, ever watching, ever wanting to be helpful and useful. I miss privacy.

[Rook]

Neil Armstrong Passed away today @ 82, R.I.P. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19381098)

[Leigh]

I also just saw the story about Neil Armstrong ~ crazy! R.I.P.

[UofMfan]

49ers first NFL team to record anti-gay-bullying spot (http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000055038/article/49ers-first-nfl-team-to-record-antigaybullying-spot)

[Tommi]

Two People In Louisiana Killed By Amoeba Infection Traced To Tap Water. Fox News (8/24, Crees) reports, “Following the deaths of two people from Louisiana who contracted brain-eating amoeba infections from their own home water systems the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration are warning people to follow appropriate guidelines when using” neti pots or other nasal-rinsing devices.

The victims died from “primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) — an almost universally fatal infection — after using neti pots filled with tap water to irrigate their sinuses.” The amoeba in question is Naegleria fowleri (N. Fowleri) described as “a climate-sensitive amoeba found in warm freshwater lakes and rivers” which “has over a 99 percent fatality rate.” The CDC and FDA recommend use of “boiled, distilled or filtered water when using neti pots or other nasal-rinsing devices” to avoid risk of infection. PAM infections are usually “associated with swimming in warm, untreated water.”

[Jesse]

9 shooting bystander victims hit by police gunfire.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/24/multiple-people-shot-near-empire-state-building-in-manhattan-police-say/#ixzz24f0kDmHe

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court on Thursday rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.

A three-judge panel in Washington unanimously ruled that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors' offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.

Republicans are aggressively seeking the requirements in the name of stamping out voter fraud. Democrats, with support from a number of studies, say fraud at the polls is largely non-existent and that Republicans are simply trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students — all groups that tend to back Democrats.

In the Texas case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all of them Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the voter ID law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal effect on turnout. Republican lawmakers testified that the legislation was the result of a popular demand for more election protections.

http://news.yahoo.com/federal-court-rejects-texas-voter-id-law-161316144.html

[Corkey]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court on Thursday rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.

A three-judge panel in Washington unanimously ruled that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors' offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.

Republicans are aggressively seeking the requirements in the name of stamping out voter fraud. Democrats, with support from a number of studies, say fraud at the polls is largely non-existent and that Republicans are simply trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students — all groups that tend to back Democrats.

In the Texas case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all of them Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the voter ID law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal effect on turnout. Republican lawmakers testified that the legislation was the result of a popular demand for more election protections.

http://news.yahoo.com/federal-court-rejects-texas-voter-id-law-161316144.html

I can only hope the PA SC does the same.

[Tommi]

http://ourpoetrycorner.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/blue-moon-2012.jpg

[Kobi]

A federal court judge has ordered state officials to provide a sex-reassignment surgery for a transsexual prison inmate, convicted of murdering his wife, after finding that the treatment is the only adequate care for his serious mental illness, gender identity disorder.

US District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf also noted that the treatment for Michelle Kosilek had been prescribed by Department of Correction doctors, and that the only justifications for denying the treatment were based on public opinion.

“This fact that sex reassignment surgery is for some people medically necessary has recently become more widely recognized,” Wolf wrote in a landmark, 129-page ruling issued today.

Kosilek first sued the Department of Correction in 2000, arguing that its refusal to pay for a sex-change violates her Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.

The department has consistently opposed Kosilek’s request.

Today, Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said the state agency has received Wolf’s ruling.

“We are reviewing the decision and exploring our appellate options,’’ Wiffin said.

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/09/04/federal-judge-rules-state-must-provide-sex-reassignment-surgery-for-michelle-kosilek-who-was-convicted-murdering-his-wife-man/MlZBqancRyv1BK2pwviV5N/story.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Southern Decadence Arrests: 9 Anti-Gay Preachers Nabbed For Disrupting New Orleans Celebration



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/southern-decadence-arrests-anti-gay-preachers_n_1854356.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

[Rockinonahigh]

I read on yahoo yesterday that the fedral judge was going to alow an inmate to have sexual reasingment surgery while in prison.The tax payer will be footing the bill no doubt.

[Kobi]

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday that a controversial Arizona "show-your-papers" immigration provision that has been upheld by the Supreme Court may go into effect, but in a split ruling blocked another measure making it a crime to harbor illegal immigrants.

The measure that was upheld, part of a broader law to combat illegal immigration in the state bordering Mexico, home to an estimated 360,000 undocumented immigrants, requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop and suspect are in the country illegally.

In allowing that measure to proceed, District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled the law's challengers had failed to show they were likely to prevail on the merits of the case, but noted that the top court had left open the possibility of contesting the provision "after it goes into effect."

In a mixed ruling, Bolton also issued a preliminary injunction blocking a part of the state law, known as SB 1070, that made it a crime to transport, shield or harbor an illegal immigrant within Arizona's borders.

Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer, a major White House foe in the battle over illegal immigration, signed the state crackdown on illegal immigrants into law in April 2010, complaining that the federal government had failed to secure the state's border with Mexico.

Brewer welcomed the ruling, which she said brought Arizona "one big step closer to implementing the core provision of SB 1070."

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-upholds-arizona-show-papers-measure-mixed-ruling-000045097.html

[Kobi]

BOSTON (CBS) – In a letter to the state Department of Correction, 50 Massachusetts lawmakers say they are “greatly troubled” by a federal judge’s ruling that ordered prison officials to provide sex-reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate.

The lawmakers are urging that the DOC appeal the judge’s ruling.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf made the ruling in the case of Michelle Kosilek, who was born as a man but has received hormone treatments and lives as a woman in an all-male prison.

Kosilek is serving a life sentence for murdering his wife, Cheryl.

“The nature of his punishment – life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – sheds light on the heinousness of the crime,” the letter reads.

In his ruling Tuesday, Wolf found that surgery is the “only adequate treatment” for Kosilek’s “serious medical need.”

The lawmakers responded, saying, “We find such a suggestion to be unjustifiable, against the better judgment of the citizens of this state, and offensive to the family of Cheryl McCaul.”

Cheryl’s family is grateful that the lawmakers are urging an appeal.

“I think this is a great letter,” says Cheryl’s niece Susan Ohannessian. “It needs to happen. The fight is on and we are not going to back down on this.”

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON—A Latino civil rights group is asking the Supreme Court to stop Texas from using congressional districts drawn by a lower federal court in the November election because they discriminate against minorities.

The League of United Latin American Citizens filed the request Friday. The group says the court-drawn map, intended for use only in this year's election, has the same flaws identified by federal judges in Washington who last month rejected political boundaries drawn by Texas lawmakers as discriminatory.

The interim congressional map was used in Texas' primaries in May and was devised to let the state hold elections while courts considered challenges to redistricting plans adopted by the legislature following the 2010 census. Last week, the judges who drew the interim map declined to change it.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/09/07/latino_group_asks_court_to_stop_texas_voting_map/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news

--------------------------------------------------


Does anyone know the history behind or the criteria for drawing voting districts? I used to know this.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Not sure this is breaking news, but it didn't feel right putting it in the good news thread...not that I'm not in total agreement, I am, but....well, you know what I mean, I'm sure.




Barney Frank Torches Log Cabin Republicans: 'Many Of Them Are Nice. So Was Uncle Tom'




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/barney-frank-log-cabin-republicans-uncle-tom_n_1875373.html

[Martina]

Not breaking news, but Yahoo has posted an article from Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/) (never heard of it) about how Obama has made and invested his own money. LINK (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-barack-obama-made-his-fortune.html)

ANYWAY, he donated all the Nobel Prize money, and 100k of it went to the Central Asia Institute, which has been accused of lying and misusing donations. The Greg Mortenson/Three Cups of Tea scandal. ANYWAY, I got burned by them too -- for a considerably smaller donation. So I felt better when I read that people with considerably more informed advisors than I have made the same mistake.

Hopefully some of that money went for schools in Afghanistan. :(

[Kobi]

When the heck did this happen?


SOMERVILLE - Despite Gov. Deval Patrick’s concerns that it might be used to “identify and police” undocumented immigrants, the Registry of Motor Vehicles will be able by January to implement a new law requiring that vehicles be registered only by someone with “proof of legal residence,” according to Registrar Rachel Kaprielian.

Gov. Deval Patrick unsuccessfully sought to amend and then vetoed legislation with the new requirement, but the Legislature rejected his amendment and then overrode his veto, 24-10 in the Senate and 135-19 in the House. The plan was inserted into the fiscal 2013 state budget and while proponents said that it was a common sense safety measure, Patrick said it veered too far into stringent immigration enforcement.

The law says anyone registering ownership of a motor vehicle at the Registry of Motor Vehicles must have “proof of legal residence” though Kaprielian will be empowered to write “exemptions for out-of-state students, military personnel, senior citizens and disabled persons,” as well as other exemptions.

Under the law, people seeking to register a motor vehicle or trailer would need to provide a driver’s license, a state identification card, Social Security number or “other proof of legal residence.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061160197&srvc=rss

[Spirit Dancer]

No Good Samaritan: Swedes Shocked by Subway Thief
By KARL RITTER Associated Press

STOCKHOLM September 12, 2012 (AP)


A drunk, middle-aged man falls off a subway platform and is knocked unconscious as his head hits the tracks.

A bystander who witnessed the accident jumps down after him — but not for a daring rescue before the train arrives.

Instead, the witness steals the man's valuables, climbs back on the platform and leaves his victim to be hit by a train.

The man — who was on his way home from a party — survived, but was seriously injured and doctors had to amputate half his left foot, Sweden's TV3 channel reported.

Swedish police now hope that surveillance camera footage of the disturbing incident at a Stockholm subway station early Sunday will help them find and arrest the unscrupulous thief.

Police said Thursday they have received several tips after the video was shown on TV3 this week on Sweden's equivalent to "America's Most Wanted."

It was also shown by several other TV stations.

"To me it's incredible that one could steal or rob from somebody who is lying in such a place where you know that, if I don't do something, then this person will, in a worst-case scenario, get killed by the train that is coming. Because the train is going to come," police inspector Dan Ostman told TV4.

The thief had short, dark hair and was wearing a blue jacket and dark pants. He was described as being between 35 and 40 years old and about 5-foot-9 (175 centimeters).

He calmly walked out of the subway station, waving to the ticket vendor, as a train ran over the victim on the tracks below.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/swedish-man-robbed-subway-tracks-hit-train-17220739

(--The drunk guy falls at :13, the thief jumps down to rob him at :28, and leaves him on the tracks at :49. Then the train runs the guy over at 1:16.)

Read more: http://www.wpapfm.com/pages/shane.html#ixzz26SlimyXN

/zKfD-_R10zU

[Tommi]

r-BoIiSdpMQ
The giant panda Mei Xiang gave birth to a cub at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C
Panda-monium! Panda born at National Zoo; panda cam overwhelmed (http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91002&sitesection=selatimes&VID=23814243),

WASHINGTON -- The capital region's newest celebrity is no bigger than a stick of butter.

The National Zoo's female giant panda gave birth Sunday night, generating panda-monium in a city that has adored the rare creatures since the first pandas arrived in the wake of President Richard Nixon's 1972 groundbreaking trip to Beijing.

Zoo officials think they caught a glimpse, via panda cam, of the unnamed cub being clutched tightly by its mother, Mei Xiang (pronounced may-SHONG), but got confirmation of its arrival via loud squealing.

[Kätzchen]

Not breaking news, but Yahoo has posted an article from Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/) (never heard of it) about how Obama has made and invested his own money. LINK (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-barack-obama-made-his-fortune.html)

ANYWAY, he donated all the Nobel Prize money, and 100k of it went to the Central Asia Institute, which has been accused of lying and misusing donations. The Greg Mortenson/Three Cups of Tea scandal. ANYWAY, I got burned by them too -- for a considerably smaller donation. So I felt better when I read that people with considerably more informed advisors than I have made the same mistake.

Hopefully some of that money went for schools in Afghanistan. :(

Back in 2010, Carly Simon came out publicly that she and other wealthy clients (of celebrity, too) were taken to the cleaners by Kenneth I Starr (a ponzi scheme very similar to the Madoff debacle).

Starr was a former CPA, and is now a dis-barred attorney; plus from what I could find, is due to get out of prison soon - they only gave him a short sentence, who knows if he reconciled the terrible crime financially to people who got burned by him.

I don't think you or myself or others who invest and are burned by schemes like this have technically made a 'mistake'. It appears obvious to me that Starr made mistakes in judgement though (Madoff, et al, too).

[Andrea]

When the heck did this happen?


SOMERVILLE - Despite Gov. Deval Patrick’s concerns that it might be used to “identify and police” undocumented immigrants, the Registry of Motor Vehicles will be able by January to implement a new law requiring that vehicles be registered only by someone with “proof of legal residence,” according to Registrar Rachel Kaprielian.

Gov. Deval Patrick unsuccessfully sought to amend and then vetoed legislation with the new requirement, but the Legislature rejected his amendment and then overrode his veto, 24-10 in the Senate and 135-19 in the House. The plan was inserted into the fiscal 2013 state budget and while proponents said that it was a common sense safety measure, Patrick said it veered too far into stringent immigration enforcement.

The law says anyone registering ownership of a motor vehicle at the Registry of Motor Vehicles must have “proof of legal residence” though Kaprielian will be empowered to write “exemptions for out-of-state students, military personnel, senior citizens and disabled persons,” as well as other exemptions.

Under the law, people seeking to register a motor vehicle or trailer would need to provide a driver’s license, a state identification card, Social Security number or “other proof of legal residence.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061160197&srvc=rss

This does not bode well.....

[Andrea]

California man accused of ESPN post about killing kids arrested

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/18/california-man-accused-espn-post-about-killing-kids-arrested/#ixzz270tbMneE

"A California man accused of posting comments on ESPN's website that claimed he was watching kids and wouldn't mind killing them is in jail on $1 million bail after he was arrested for investigation of making terrorist threats."

Stupid: YES
Scary person: YES
Troll: YES
Terrorist: NO

I don't like it and the posting scares me but we can't lock up people for this type of thing. Think if the precedence it sets.

[Kobi]

California man accused of ESPN post about killing kids arrested

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/18/california-man-accused-espn-post-about-killing-kids-arrested/#ixzz270tbMneE

"A California man accused of posting comments on ESPN's website that claimed he was watching kids and wouldn't mind killing them is in jail on $1 million bail after he was arrested for investigation of making terrorist threats."

Stupid: YES
Scary person: YES
Troll: YES
Terrorist: NO

I don't like it and the posting scares me but we can't lock up people for this type of thing. Think if the precedence it sets.




I am suspecting there is more to this story than is being reported at the moment.

I thought it was odd myself and went looking for other stories on it. Seems there was more than one posting but there is no elaboration on the content aside from this headline grabber.

I am more concerned as to what ESPN's criteria is for reporting postings on their web site to authorities.

[Corkey]

Actually we can lock people up for this, it's called a credible threat of bodily harm. We have no way of knowing if it's a stunt, or if he means it. If he truly meant to kill children, and the investigators find evidence that he had means to carry out his threat, then yep they can arrest him and charge him as they did. I think they are using the legal meaning of terroristic threat for the charge.

[macele]

espn forums, comments, etc. ... the outlets they give for people to express their thoughts, are abused. tremendously. this sort of threat and so many others ... just meanness, are done on a daily basis ... on the boards/comments. espn doesn't police very well.

[Andrea]

Actually we can lock people up for this, it's called a credible threat of bodily harm. We have no way of knowing if it's a stunt, or if he means it. If he truly meant to kill children, and the investigators find evidence that he had means to carry out his threat, then yep they can arrest him and charge him as they did. I think they are using the legal meaning of terroristic threat for the charge.

If evidence was found, I would agree but I don't see anywhere that evidence was found. As Kobi said there may be more to the story.

I do find it interesting that the bail is $100,000 for a threat but someone with actual evidence of child porn has bail at $50,000. http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/09/12/tsa-worker-charged-with-possession-of-child-porn/

[Corkey]

If evidence was found, I would agree but I don't see anywhere that evidence was found. As Kobi said there may be more to the story.

I do find it interesting that the bail is $100,000 for a threat but someone with actual evidence of child porn has bail at $50,000. http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/09/12/tsa-worker-charged-with-possession-of-child-porn/

We aren't always privy to the case, and that is for good reason.

[Kobi]

Reuters) - Three U.S. states have joined a lawsuit against federal regulators, challenging the constitutionality of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that overhauled U.S. financial oversight and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The attorneys general of Michigan, Oklahoma and South Carolina are challenging a portion of Dodd-Frank that empowers the Treasury secretary to order the liquidation of failing financial institutions, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday.

The states joined a suit filed in June by conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Texas bank and a senior citizens group.

Dodd-Frank, passed by Congress in response to the 2007-2009 U.S. financial crisis, gives regulators broad authority to oversee financial institutions.

It has since drawn criticism from Republicans and industry groups who say the new regulations go too far and could strangle businesses and restrict credit. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal Dodd-Frank, but few see that promise turning into a reality.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/three-states-join-lawsuit-challenging-dodd-frank-financial-160129633--sector.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Minister's email to gay community sparks privacy complaints




http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/24/iran-refugee-gay-lesbian-email.html

[Canela]

U.S. immigration to recognize same-sex partners
September 29, 2012 Ronnie Cohen


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Obama administration has directed immigration officials to recognize same-sex partners as family members in deportation cases, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Pelosi in a letter that she had ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to notify its field offices "that the interpretation of the phrase â??family relationships' includes long-term, same-sex partners."

To read the entire article click link below...


http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-29/news/sns-rt-us-usa-immigration-gaysbre88s02h-20120928_1_lesbian-couples-immigration-equality-immigration-officials

[MsTinkerbelly]

California governor signs ‘ex-gay’ therapy ban into law
By Jacob Combs

California is now the first state to prohibit the use of so-called gay ‘conversion’ therapy on minors after Governor Jerry Brown signed a ban into law this Saturday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. From the Chronicle:

The bill, SB1172 by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County), bars mental health practitioners from performing so-called reparative therapy, which professional psychological organizations have said may cause harm. Gay rights groups have labeled them dangerous and abusive.

“This bill bans non-scientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide. These practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery,” Brown said in a statement to The Chronicle.

Brown approved the ban after the public release of two other lists of bills signed and vetoed earlier Saturday. Lieu’s bill is expected to appear on a new list to be released Sunday.

The new law will take effect on January 1 and will prohibit mental health providers from practicing therapy with an aim “”to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

The Courage Campaign, which sponsors P8TT, was among the groups spearheading the push to pass SB 1172 through the legislature and encourage Governor Brown to sign the bill. Rick Jacobs, Courage’s founder and chair, issued the following statement the bill was signed:

“Governor Brown has shown courage for enacting the first law in the nation to ban ‘conversion therapy’ for gay people. The Governor’s action will protect thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth of California. This law will save lives here and across the nation by ending the torture of young people through the quackery that suggests that gay people can decide somehow not to be gay, which is akin to white people deciding not to be white. Once again, California is a model for the nation.”

[Okiebug61]

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/overweight-news-anchor-takes-fat-shaming-bully-task-193700343.html

[Kobi]

When Jennifer Livingston, the morning news anchor for WKBT-TV in La Crosse, Wisconsin, got the email last week, she was stunned.

"Now those of us in the media get a healthy dose of critiques from our viewers throughout the year, and we realize that it comes with having a job in the public eye," she said. "But this email was more than that."

Tuesday morning, when she took a took a deep breath and, her voice was trembling just a little, read the email out loud. On air.

"Hi, Jennifer," she read. "It's unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for a very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical conniption hasn't improved for many years. Surely you don't consider yourself a suitable example for this community's young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you'll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle."

She didn't identify the writer of the email, saying only that she received it on Friday from a La Crosse Man, and that the subject was "Community Responsibility."

October is National Anti-Bullying month, she pointed out to her viewers. "It is a major issue in the lives of young people today, and as the mother of three young girls, it scares me to death," she said. While the cruel words "mean nothing to me," what angers her is the fact that kids are bullied, in person and via email and social media, every day.

"This behavior is learned. It is passed down from people like the man who wrote me that email," she pointed out. "If you are at home and you are talking about the 'Fat News Lady,' guess what? Your children are probably going to go to school and call someone fat."

"We need to teach our kind to be kind, not critical, and we need to do that by example," she added, thanking viewers and Facebook fans for taking a stand against a bully. "We are better than that email. We are better than the bullies which try to take us down."

She wrapped up her editorial with a word to kids who find themselves facing bullies of their own.

"To all of the children out there who feel lost, who are struggling with your weight, with the color your skin, your sexual preference, your disability, even the acne on your face. Listen to me right now: Do not let your self-worth be defined by bullies," she said. "Learn from my experience that the cruel words of one are nothing compared to the shouts of many."

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/overweight-news-anchor-takes-fat-shaming-bully-task-193700343.html

[Okiebug61]

http://news.yahoo.com/court-wont-hear-anti-gay-marriage-group-appeal-135227504.html

[Nat]

Married Lesbian Soldier Killed in Afghanistan (http://www.advocate.com/politics/military/2012/10/05/married-lesbian-soldier-killed-afghanistan)

[Kobi]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark (Reuters) - Republicans in Arkansas are struggling to get past the controversy generated by a state lawmaker who wrote that slavery might have benefited blacks and a candidate who has advocated expelling Muslims from the United States.

The Republican politicians' comments have been roundly criticized and have created an opportunity for Democrats ahead of the November 6 election. Arkansas has a Democratic governor but has voted Republican in the past three presidential elections.

In his self-published 2009 book titled "Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative," state Representative Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro, Arkansas, writes that "the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise."

Hubbard, a retired teacher and Vietnam veteran who was elected to the statehouse in 2010, also wrote, "Wouldn't life for blacks in America today be more enjoyable and successful if they would only learn to appreciate the value of a good education?"

His book also says that blacks "are likely much better than they ever would have enjoyed living in sub-Saharan Africa."

Charles Fuqua of Batesville, Arkansas, is currently seeking a House of Representatives seat. His e-book "God's Law: The Only Political Solution" came out in April on Amazon.

"I see no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States," he writes in his book, according to The Arkansas Times newspaper.

Fuqua, an attorney, served as a state representative from 1995 to 1998 before losing a state senate race.

Neither Hubbard nor Fuqua could be reached for comment. Both are running for election in November.

The Republican Party of Arkansas denounced their comments and distanced itself from the two candidates.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/arkansas-republicans-comments-slavery-muslims-stir-controversy-235129440.html

[Kobi]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Debate about the idea of creating a separate budget for euro zone countries is intensifying in the run-up to an EU summit later this month, with less opposition to the proposal than many officials first expected, diplomats say.

While conceptually it may make sense for the countries that share one currency to also create a single budget, it immediately raises thorny questions about sovereignty, budget discipline and long-term ambitions.

Germany's precise ideas about how a single budget would be financed, managed and employed are likely to be vastly different from Portugal's, Estonia's, Italy's or France's once leaders and finance ministers get into the nitty-gritty of the concept.

Yet there are already some broad proposals doing the rounds, including the idea -- backed by France -- that the budget could be financed by revenue from a financial transactions tax (FTT).

Germany and France are already driving an initiative to establish an FTT among nine euro zone, the minimum number permitted to do it alone. There is already support from eight countries and a ninth could come on board as soon as next week, giving added impetus to the plan.

But other euro zone countries that might like a single budget, such as Finland, are lukewarm on the idea of an FTT, underscoring just how complex negotiations could become.

There are also differences of opinion about why a single budget is desirable. Germany sees it as a means of building solidarity and tightening budget rules without moving to the more extreme suggestion of mutualising all euro zone debt.

France sees a single budget more as a means of ironing out divergences in social and employment policy, arguing that it could be used to help underwrite unemployment benefits in a country suffering from much higher joblessness than the rest.

While many countries are voicing quiet support for the idea, it is also clear that most have a conflicting take on what it would involve if it were ever to become a reality.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/single-euro-zone-budget-gains-momentum-ahead-summit-060830562--finance.html
-----------------------


This is scary news. One the one hand it can be seen as desperate times call for desperate measures. On the other hand, it can be seen as advancing the new world order of one currency and one economy.

[Kobi]

According to a new report in The Washington Post, the median net worth of the current Congress rose 5% during the recession while it fell 39% for the average American. The wealthiest one-third of lawmakers saw their net worth rise 14%.

The Washington Post disclosed these statistics in a recent story on the wealth gap between Congressional members and the American public.

"These are supposed to be our representatives," says The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task. "If they're not living the same lives or understanding the lives that the average American is living, how can they really represent our interests?"

The Post analyzed the financial disclosure forms and public records for all Congressional members from 2004 to 2010. Some key findings of the report are:

By 2010, the median estimated wealth for members of the House of Representatives was $746,000; for senators it was $2.6 million.
There was virtually no difference between the wealth of Republicans and Democrats in 2010. Just six years earlier, the net worth of Republicans was 44% higher than the net worth of Democrats.
28% of Congress, or 150 members, reported earning more income from outside jobs and investments than from their Congressional salary of $174,000.
27% of Congressional members saw a decline in their net worth between 2004 and 2010.
Lawmakers acquired their wealth in a variety of ways but real estate, institutional funds and the wealth of their spouses were the top three sources.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi increased her wealth by an estimated $60 million between 2004 and 2010. The gains primarily came from the commercial real estate holdings of her husband, according to The Post. Representative Darrell Issa made his reported $448 million in commercial real estate as well as other financial investments.

"We have this huge disparity that's only getting worse in terms of inequality in this country," says The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget. "If it continues, the country will begin to break apart and get more and more antagonistic class warfare. It's something we have got to solve not only in Congress but in the American public at large."

Is Congress pursuing policies that benefit middle and lower income Americans? The Washington Post found that 73 lawmakers sponsored or co-sponsored legislation that could benefit businesses or industries that involved those Congressional members or their families.

"It's just outrageous that our legislators could be profiting directly from the legislation that they're making," says Aaron Task.

Top 10 Wealthiest Members of Congress (by household assets, 2010) according to The Washington Post:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) $448.1M
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) $380.4M
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) $231.7M
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) $143.2M
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) $136.2M
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) $101.1M
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. VA) $99.1M
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) $85.6M
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) $73.2M
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) $69.0M

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/wealth-gap-between-congress-average-americans-164000800.html

[Toughy]

According to a new report in The Washington Post, the median net worth of the current Congress rose 5% during the recession while it fell 39% for the average American. The wealthiest one-third of lawmakers saw their net worth rise 14%.

The Washington Post disclosed these statistics in a recent story on the wealth gap between Congressional members and the American public.

"These are supposed to be our representatives," says The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task. "If they're not living the same lives or understanding the lives that the average American is living, how can they really represent our interests?"

The Post analyzed the financial disclosure forms and public records for all Congressional members from 2004 to 2010. Some key findings of the report are:

By 2010, the median estimated wealth for members of the House of Representatives was $746,000; for senators it was $2.6 million.
There was virtually no difference between the wealth of Republicans and Democrats in 2010. Just six years earlier, the net worth of Republicans was 44% higher than the net worth of Democrats.
28% of Congress, or 150 members, reported earning more income from outside jobs and investments than from their Congressional salary of $174,000.
27% of Congressional members saw a decline in their net worth between 2004 and 2010.
Lawmakers acquired their wealth in a variety of ways but real estate, institutional funds and the wealth of their spouses were the top three sources.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi increased her wealth by an estimated $60 million between 2004 and 2010. The gains primarily came from the commercial real estate holdings of her husband, according to The Post. Representative Darrell Issa made his reported $448 million in commercial real estate as well as other financial investments.

"We have this huge disparity that's only getting worse in terms of inequality in this country," says The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget. "If it continues, the country will begin to break apart and get more and more antagonistic class warfare. It's something we have got to solve not only in Congress but in the American public at large."

Is Congress pursuing policies that benefit middle and lower income Americans? The Washington Post found that 73 lawmakers sponsored or co-sponsored legislation that could benefit businesses or industries that involved those Congressional members or their families.

"It's just outrageous that our legislators could be profiting directly from the legislation that they're making," says Aaron Task.

Top 10 Wealthiest Members of Congress (by household assets, 2010) according to The Washington Post:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) $448.1M
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) $380.4M
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) $231.7M
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) $143.2M
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) $136.2M
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) $101.1M
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. VA) $99.1M
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) $85.6M
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) $73.2M
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) $69.0M

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/wealth-gap-between-congress-average-americans-164000800.html

The only way to solve this is to get private money out of political campaigns. Public financing of all campaigns and all elections. That way the regular man or woman of any socioeconomic class can run for office and get elected.........

You always hear that the Republicans are the filthy rich ones.........yet the top 10 is 7 Democrats and 3 Republicans.......mmmmmm

[LeftWriteFemme]

'Every trip is unique': Expedia releases groundbreaking same-sex marriage advert
Find Your Understanding advert has been watched more than a million times on YouTube
Poignant advert shows a father travelling across the U.S. to attend his daughter's same-sex wedding
Some viewers have branded the clip 'sinful' and 'sexually deviant'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2215045/Every-trip-unique-Expedia-releases-groundbreaking-sex-marriage-advert.html



ThzdsnXeE28

[Kobi]

There is an article in this months AARP magazine about how hospitals are able to classify patients sitting in their beds in different ways i.e. an "under observation" or as an "inpatient". The difference can be crucial to the coverage of aftercare services to Medicare patients.

To be eligible for inpatient aftercare services under Medicare for "rehab", recipients must be classified as an inpatient for 3 consecutive days. If not, they are bearing the full cost of their aftercare services running into the thousands of dollars.

Apparently, hospitals are not notifying people of their status classification or how this can affect their aftercare costs. Hospitals are also increasing the use of observation status to counteract medicare penalties for readmissions.

The Center for Medicare Advocacy has filed a class action suit againt the US Health and Human Services Department.

The Centers breakdown of the practice can be found here:

http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/medicare-info/observation-status/

[Andrea]

Charlie Fuqua says Death Penalty an Option for Rebellious Children

Charlie Fuqua, Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, supports the death penalty for rebellious children.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2012/10/charlie-fuqua-says-death-penalty-an-option-for-rebellious-children/ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2012/10/charlie-fuqua-says-death-penalty-an-option-for-rebellious-children/)

:seeingstars:

[Kobi]

Charlie Fuqua says Death Penalty an Option for Rebellious Children

Charlie Fuqua, Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, supports the death penalty for rebellious children.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2012/10/charlie-fuqua-says-death-penalty-an-option-for-rebellious-children/ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2012/10/charlie-fuqua-says-death-penalty-an-option-for-rebellious-children/)

:seeingstars:


Kind of scares me when I remember the names of candidates that arent even from my neck of the country.

On the previous page I posted an article containing Fuqua's thoughts:



"Charles Fuqua of Batesville, Arkansas, is currently seeking a House of Representatives seat. His e-book "God's Law: The Only Political Solution" came out in April on Amazon.

"I see no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States," he writes in his book, according to The Arkansas Times newspaper.

Fuqua, an attorney, served as a state representative from 1995 to 1998 before losing a state senate race."

[Kätzchen]

I guess shares/stocks are not only traded during drunker benders: Gasoline/Oil trading while in an alcoholic blackout, as reported a few days ago in England; but it appears that shares/stocks (or any commodity) can be traded by computer programming issues gone awry (algorithm's).


(See news article here, LINK (http://www.cnbc.com/id/49333454))

[LeftWriteFemme]

Anoka, Minnesota's 'Halloween Capital Of The World,' Turns Away LGBT Youth Group


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/anoka-minnesota-halloween-parade-gay-youth-group_n_1954498.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

[Nat]

Pakistani teen blogger / first Pakistani recipient of Nobel Peace Prize Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and the neck by the Taliban and is in critical condition. (http://www.kcentv.com/story/19795773/14-year-old-pakistani-girl-who-speaks-against-militants-shot-by-taliban)

7Y30Axj4RdQ

[Novelafemme]

It's not breaking news, but I couldn't find the Michael Vick thread and I'm not sure how I feel about this...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/michael-vick-owns-a-dog_n_1959606.html?utm_hp_ref=sports

[Toughy]

As a child of the 60's, because JFK was President and said we would put a man on the moon in 10 years......I am a space/NASA junkie.....I have hours of video tape (yes vcr tape still have it) of the first Mars landing and the journey of Sojourner on the surface... ...

so the Endeavor journey to it's resting place in LA has had my attention. She flew overy the Bay Area........

there is a bunch of video of her trip through LA......

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/13/us/shuttle-endeavour/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

just click on the video links.....hell you can probably just go to UTube and search Endeavor and LA and find more.........I really like the pic of the wing and a tree........

[Kobi]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union sued Morgan Stanley on Monday, alleging racial discrimination over packaging subprime mortgage loans into securities.

The suit is the first to directly accuse an investment bank, rather than a lender, over loans that violate federal civil rights laws, the group said at a press conference.

Morgan Stanley encouraged a unit of now-bankrupt New Century Financial Corp to target black borrowers disproportionately with loans that had a strong possibility of foreclosure and unjustifiably high costs, the suit alleges. The investment bank received significant fees from packaging and selling these loans as securities to institutional investors, while the borrowers faced high risks of default, the ACLU said.

"It is literally the first case of Main Street holding Wall Street accountable" for the financial crisis that led millions of Americans to lose their homes and that devastated the U.S. economy, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said at a news conference.

Morgan Stanley rejected the accusations. "We believe these allegations are completely without merit and plan to defend ourselves vigorously," spokeswoman Mary Claire Delaney said in an email.

The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of five Detroit residents. It alleges that Morgan Stanley went beyond the traditional role of an investment bank by helping to fund loans made by New Century, setting loan volume goals and establishing terms of the loans.

The ACLU asked the court to certify the case as a class action. It said as many as 6,000 black homeowners in the Detroit area may have suffered similar discrimination as a result of being offered loans that many could not afford.

The alleged practice is a twist on claims that banks engaged in "red-lining," or refusing to provide loans and other services in low-income areas.

"It's reverse red-lining. It violates the Fair Housing Act," said Elizabeth Cabraser, a co-counsel for the plaintiffs. "These loans were mass produced and they were built to order, not to serve homeowners."

Discriminatory practices connected to the securitization process were endemic during the last decade throughout the financial services industry and across the nation, the ACLU said.

Critics of securitization, in which banks package loans into securities for sale to sophisticated investors, say it encourages recklessness in bank credit policies because banks do not end up holding loans they originate.

Advocates say that by removing loans from their balance sheets, banks can stimulate the economy by making additional loans.

Trillions of dollars of mortgage, credit card, automobile and other consumer loans have been securitized and sold to investors. Many of the home loans bought by the banks are insured by agencies such as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac, and the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae.

Some lawyers and economists who work with the securities industry described the lawsuit as "novel" in seeking damages for the borrowers since investment banks are several steps removed from loan origination. Morgan Stanley was chosen because it is among the few remaining "deep pockets" in the financial industry now that so many direct subprime lenders have been shut down, they said.

Anticipating an argument that the statute of limitations has passed for actions leading up to the financial crisis, the suit says Morgan Stanley's concealment of its role in the loan process and its deviation from "true underwriting standards" for the loans it purchased invalidate any legal deadlines.

MANY RECENT LAWSUITS

The ACLU lawsuit follows a spate of new litigation against Wall Street by U.S. federal and state authorities over banks' roles in triggering the financial crisis that began more than four years ago.

JPMorgan was sued last week by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for alleged subprime mortgage abuses at an investment bank that it purchased during the financial crisis. The U.S. attorney in Manhattan filed fraud charges against Wells Fargo Corp two weeks ago for a "reckless pattern" of making questionable home loans that allegedly cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance settlements.

Massachusetts earlier sued Morgan Stanley for securitizing home loans, alleging violations of a state consumer protection law. The ACLU said that case did not address the issue nationwide nor link the alleged abusive practices to discriminatory policy.

Thomas Deutsch, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, a trade group for investment banks, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include five borrowers and Michigan Legal Services.

The case is Beverly Adkins et al v Morgan Stanley, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-7667.

http://news.yahoo.com/civil-liberties-group-sues-morgan-stanley-over-discrimination-124417365--sector.html

About time someone did this.

[Martina]

Malala was flown to England for treatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/asia/malala-yousafzai-taliban-shooting-victim.html?hp

[Kätzchen]

I hope the ACLU goes after them like a rabid animal on steroids and sets a Stare Decisis (a legal precedent) that not even the Supreme Court of the United States can ignore or set aside.

I get so upset over the criminal mindset of the banking and financial industry, that will do anything at the expense to people who are marginalized by institutions, who will steal for profit! That alone, in my opinion, is a core issue of the national demise over our current (present) and future financial woes; not to mention corporate law and how these sets of law are loosely designed at holding these kinds of powers accountable and leaving all sectors of the public without a way to seek full remedy under constitutional provisions, designed to meet redress in specific ways, so that red-lining any population is prosecutable to the high heavens and with formidable punishment, should this kind of crime transpire on any watch in America.

And, on top of that, a presidential contender (Romney) is probably one of the biggest abusers and users of profit gained under loosely written law pertaining to both market industrial giants (monsters): Corporate institutional thievery masked as law-abiding ways for making a profit.

[Kobi]

I hope the ACLU goes after them like a rabid animal on steroids and sets a Stare Decisis (a legal precedent) that not even the Supreme Court of the United States can ignore or set aside.

I get so upset over the criminal mindset of the banking and financial industry, that will do anything at the expense to people who are marginalized by institutions, who will steal for profit! That alone, in my opinion, is a core issue of the national demise over our current (present) and future financial woes; not to mention corporate law and how these sets of law are loosely designed at holding these kinds of powers accountable and leaving all sectors of the public without a way to seek full remedy under constitutional provisions, designed to meet redress in specific ways, so that red-lining any population is prosecutable to the high heavens and with formidable punishment, should this kind of crime transpire on any watch in America.

And, on top of that, a presidential contender (Romney) is probably one of the biggest abusers and users of profit gained under loosely written law pertaining to both market industrial giants (monsters): Corporate institutional thievery masked as law-abiding ways for making a profit.


To your thoughts I would add.....remember, after the crash of 1929, Congress put a boatload of rules and regulations in place to stop the banking industry from gambling with peoples money ever again. These have been systematically dismantled since the Reagan era leading to more and more risky behavior and totally incomprehensible products in the name of profit.

Unfortunately, many many everyday people, not just the top 1% and corporations, made a lot of money during this period. It seems once people, in general, get a taste of easy wealth using investment instruments that are lacking in logic and common sense, it is hard to reign in their appetite for risk and its potential rewards.

We need people with gonads to deal with the systemic problem of greed in this country. In the current hierarchy of power, I'm not sure such people exist anymore.

[Martina]

Very sad. I was too young to vote for him, but I campaigned like crazy.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82435.html

[MissItalianDiva]

Kind of scary...

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/10/19/banana-boat-recalls-sunscreen-after-users-catch-on-fire/


Banana Boat Recalls Sunscreen After Some Users Catch on Fire

By The Associated Press


Posted 2:45PM 10/19/12
Posted under: Company News, Consumer Ally


1319996680


By MATTHEW PERRONE

WASHINGTON (AP) - The maker of Banana Boat sunscreen is recalling some of its spray-on products after reports that a handful of people have caught on fire after applying the lotion and coming in contact with an open flame.

Energizer Holdings (ENR) said Fridaythat it is pulling 23 varieties of UltraMist sunscreen off store shelves due to the risk of the lotion igniting when exposed to fire.

The recall includes aerosol products like UltraMist Sport, UltraMist Ultra Defense and UltraMist Kids.

A company spokesman said there have been five reports of people suffering burns after using the sunscreen in the last year. Four burn cases were reported in the U.S. and one in Canada.

More than 20 million units have been sold since UltraMist launched in 2010, the spokesman said.

Energizer said in a statement that the problem appears to be caused by UltraMist's spray valve, which is over applying the product. As a result the lotion is taking longer to dry, which raises the flammability risk.

"If a consumer comes into contact with a flame or spark prior to complete drying of the product on the skin, there is a potential for the product to ignite," the company said.

UltraMist's label warns users: "Do not use in the presence of a flame or spark. Keep away from sources of ignition - no smoking."

But dermatologists say most people don't read such labels.

"So many people put this on outside, while they're on their way to activities, so I just don't think people are aware of that," said Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital.

Green said aerosol sunscreens have become popular in recent years because they're faster and easier to apply, but not necessarily more effective.

"I think the old-fashioned creams apply better and seem to protect you better - the sprays just don't seem to work as well," Green said.

The company said it has notified the Food and Drug Administration about the voluntary recall.





Consumers who purchased the products are being told not to use them. More information is available from the manufacturer at 1-800-SAFESUN.

Burn experts said Friday the problem appears to be extremely rare.

"We've found no evidence of this happening before the incidents that came to our attention," said Dan Dillard, executive director of the Burn Prevention Network. Dillard's group was contacted earlier in the year about two burns related to UltraMist. One case involved a man who was standing near a barbecue grill, the other case involved a woman working with welding equipment. Both cases resulted in second and third degree burns.

Dillard pointed out that the ingredients used in aerosol sprays are known to be flammable.

"The alcohol and petroleum products listed on the containers are flammable, so the only thing you're missing in the heat triangle is an ignition source," Dillard said.

__

On the Web: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/energizer-holdings-inc-announces-the-voluntary-nationwide-market-withdrawal-of-several-banana-boat-sun-care-products-174970081.html

[Nat]

Malala Yousafzai was able to stand with assistance today and is able to communicate via writing (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-malala-20121020,0,1385561.story)

[morningstar55]

Tragedy hits Texas.
Big Tex burned ...... :(

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17519238

[Nat]

Tragedy hits Texas.

Big Tex burned ...... :(


http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17519238


:/ i didn't realize I'd ever have to be sad about Big Tex - he seemed like the kind of thing that would last forever. I don't know why I thought that. He was just so iconic in his way.

[LeftWriteFemme]

DOMA Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Appeals Court In New York



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/doma-defense-of-marriage-act_n_1980197.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[Kobi]

Reuters) - The United States filed a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit against Bank of America Corp, accusing it of selling thousands of toxic home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that went into default and caused more than $1 billion of losses.

Wednesday's case, originally brought by a whistleblower, is the U.S. Department of Justice's first civil fraud lawsuit over mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

It also compounds the problems that the Bank of America, second-largest U.S. bank, has faced since its disastrous 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp, once the nation's largest mortgage lender.

According to a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Countrywide in 2007 invented a scheme known as the "Hustle" designed to speed up processing of residential home loans.

Operating under the motto "Loans Move Forward, Never Backward," mortgage executives tried to eliminate "toll gates" designed to ensure that loans were sound and not tainted by fraud, the government said.

This resulted in "defect rates" that were roughly nine times the industry norm, but Countrywide concealed this from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and even awarded bonuses to staff to "rebut" the problems being discovered, it added. The scheme ran through 2009 and caused "countless" foreclosures, it added.

"The fraudulent conduct alleged in today's complaint was spectacularly brazen in scope," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement. "This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated."

Bank of America did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Since paying $2.5 billion for Countrywide on July 1, 2008, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has lost nearly $40 billion on mortgage litigation and requests by investors to buy back soured loans, Credit Suisse estimated on October 5.

Some of these costs related to Merrill Lynch & Co, which Bank of America bought at the beginning of 2009.

WHISTLEBLOWER

According to court records, the case had been filed under seal in February by Edward O'Donnell, a Pennsylvania resident and former executive vice president at Countrywide Home Loans who had worked there between 2003 and 2009.

The United States later joined the case. It seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act, as well as civil penalties.

It is unclear whether O'Donnell has hired a lawyer. O'Donnell could not immediately be reached for comment.

Federal regulators seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on September 7, 2008 and put them into a conservatorship.

Bharara's office has in the last 1-1/2 years brought five civil fraud lawsuits against other lenders under the False Claims Act over alleged reckless residential mortgage lending, involving loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

In February, Citigroup Inc settled its case for $158.3 million and Flagstar Bancorp Inc settled for $132.8 million, while Deutsche Bank AG settled in May for $202.3 million. Cases are pending against Wells Fargo & Co and Allied Home Mortgage Corp, Bharara said.

On Monday, Congressman Barney Frank, who chaired the House Financial Services Committee in 2008, said Bank of America should probably be shielded from government lawsuits over Merrill, which it bought in part at federal officials' urging, but he said he knew of no such urging to buy Countrywide.

Bank of America shares were up 2 cents at $9.38 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The case is U.S. ex rel. O'Donnell v. Bank of America Corp et al, U.S, District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-01422.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-sued-bank-america-over-alleged-mortgage-fraud-162731567--sector.html

-----------------------


About freakin time.

[Greyson]

Maybe this should be in the Science thread but I could not find it. If the insurance companies are taking notice, there must be some truth to it.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/30/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane-sandy/


Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled “Severe Weather in North America.” According to the press release that accompanied the report, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.”

[Greyson]

“This is not about accommodating families,” said Ms. Doruk, the owner of Bright Kids NYC. “It is about creating a fair gifted and talented system for all families, giving every family a fair shot at being in a gifted and talented program.”

This article caught my attention today because it has similar parallels to things we talk about here in this community. It looks like many of these parents may be of a group of people that are not familiar with getting turned down, an answer of No.

The perspective changes when any of us are wearing the "other shoe" on our own feet.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/nyregion/new-york-ends-sibling-preference-for-gifted-program-admissions.html?nl=nyregion&emc=edit_ur_20121030

[Kobi]

Maybe this should be in the Science thread but I could not find it. If the insurance companies are taking notice, there must be some truth to it.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/30/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane-sandy/


Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled “Severe Weather in North America.” According to the press release that accompanied the report, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.”


This is interesting even tho I dont get all the science.

And, anytime insurance companies are doing "studies" it seems to be to reevaluate the actual and preceived risks so they can either orchestrate a shift of responsibility to the government for coverage i.e. specific hurricane and flood policies, or figure how to rewrite the coverage while upping the premiums to sufficient levels as to mitigate their potential losses while maintaining the expected profit margin.

I swear when it comes to trends that threaten the profit margins of insurance companies, they are 20 steps ahead of the science.

Living on the coast, I can tell you there are only a handful of insurers who will issue policies to coastal homeowners. Their reason? A catastrophic event here is inevitable. Thus, IF you can get a private policy, coverage is structured differently and the cost is astronomical.

And here is where the FAIR plan comes in. To make property insurance more readily available to people who can't obtain it from private insurers, the federal government established the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plans in the late 1960s, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III). The plans are operated by the insurance industry and make home insurance available to property owners in the "high risk" category.

FAIR plans often cost more than private insurance and offer less coverage, but for some they offer the only home insurance available. All FAIR plans cover losses due to fire, vandalism, riot and windstorms, according to III.

The FAIR Plan, which typically serves as an insurer of last resort, became a major insurer of Cape properties after insurance companies opted in recent years to stop writing policies in Barnstable County. More than 60,000 homeowners on the Cape and Islands are insured through the FAIR Plan, which is formally known as the Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association. That represents 46.6 percent of homeowners in the area. The association is made up of all companies writing basic property insurance.

After hurricanes heavily damaged areas of the Gulf Coast and Florida in the past decade, many private insurers raised rates or did not renew policies for coastal homeowners. Insurers defended their decisions based on hurricane models and geographical history used by reinsurance companies, which basically insure insurance companies.

[Okiebug61]

http://m.dallasvoice.com/dallas-county-approves-health-insurance-vouchers-domestic-partners-10130389.html

Yeah!

[DMW]

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/31/164006216/sandy-underscores-debate-over-governments-role

Every American should ask who is on my side?
Claire McCaskill and all of the others like her....and Obama...
Who brought the Guard home to protect our own people and our own
country in times of an emergency...seriously...and who fought the asbestos and Femma etc...
can i get a YEAH.
Rock On and do it right this time.

[DMW]

[QUOTE=DMW;688924]http://www.npr.org/2012/10/31/164006216/sandy-underscores-debate-over-governments-role

Every American should ask who is on my side?
Claire McCaskill and all of the others like her....and Obama...
Who brought the Guard home to protect our own people and our own
country in times of an emergency...seriously...and who fought the asbestos and Femma etc...
can i get a YEAH.
Rock On and do it right this time.[/QUOTE

God i have been too damn busy...had no idea it was that bad in NJ
NYC....just checkin text on friends and family..


My Point...
Point is....Obama is on our side and he and Gov..Christie...working together
proves that Obama isn't going to put partisanship before the peoples common good and welfare....of course..can't call him out on that.


BUSH had the Guard and didn't use it soon enough pre Katrina for DAYS...Didn't fix the levies when he could have and had known about that risk for years!...etc...Post Katrina ...didn't get in there fast enough...People died. People suffered. Women were raped in the football dome etc..it was ugly....people didn't even have water...wonder why the looted for
water...well, they NEED water ...and then it got really bad..
The guard numbers where so low...the place was dangerous...

But at least there was a FEMA even if Bush didn't use it....

Obama Will Use FEMA and we do have more Troops here to help Now
because of him...
He should bring in more NOW...I hope they do....

Obama did save our car industry also...

Romney...was gonna let Henry Ford the God Father of American manufacturing go....including Jeep

Romney...plans to GET RID OF FEMMA ALL TOGETHER...


BEST news...Obama can declare marshall law to delay the election....:tea:

[tonaderspeisung]

[QUOTE=DMW;688924]

BEST news...Obama can declare marshall law to delay the election....:tea:

i actually find that power and sections of the ndaa (in spite of a heartfelt press release full of promises not to use it) the biggest con for either candidate

[Corkey]

I do not believe the President will use martial law to postpone the election. He's already told FEMA director to do what ever is necessary so folks in the effected area can vote on Nov 6th. He has given his word, I'll take him at it.

[DMW]

I do not believe the President will use martial law to postpone the election. He's already told FEMA director to do what ever is necessary so folks in the effected area can vote on Nov 6th. He has given his word, I'll take him at it.

I take him at his word also. thanks for the info..I just read some of the press release after i posted. But your info was concise. appreciate it. I am more concerned about ...
Electricity and voting. and the heavily populated democratic districts and the electoral college count etc....
Ohio...cuyahoga county
Philly....have no power
Just for starters...To big ones.

Putting my mind at ease if he has to call it ...he should...Too bad he said that
he wouldn't..Probably trying to keep people calm. However, again, if there is no power there...he has the option. Thank God

[Corkey]

I take him at his word also. thanks for the info..I just read some of the press release after i posted. But your info was concise. appreciate it. I am more concerned about ...
Electricity and voting. and the heavily populated democratic districts and the electoral college count etc....
Ohio...cuyahoga county
Philly....have no power
Just for starters...To big ones.

Putting my mind at ease if he has to call it ...he should...Too bad he said that
he wouldn't..Probably trying to keep people calm. However, again, if there is no power there...he has the option. Thank God

I think that the FEMA director will get paper ballots out to precincts that have no power. Show up and see is the only way to know for sure.

[Corkey]

Nj will be voting from military trucks.

[Greyson]

I have posted links and studies from here before. I think it is a great resource. They have just posted another study about Teens, Young Adults who have been parented by Lesbians.


Adolescents with Lesbian Mothers Describe Their Own Lives

If interested in law and policy regarding LGBTQ stuff, I highly recommend you subscribe to their news letter.



http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/

[DMW]

Ironically, the paper ballots may be more precise and true than the electronic.

Always blows my mind when i think back to iraq and the hegemony of
the US spouting democracy and free elections...at the same time...
our election was not really democratic...because of the inaccurate
vote counts...blah etc..etc...blows me away. and Gore 2000 ...blows
me away.


Thanks for the info Corkey



I think that the FEMA director will get paper ballots out to precincts that have no power. Show up and see is the only way to know for sure.

[LeftWriteFemme]

I don't know what to do or what to say about this, but I thought I would post it anyhow...

Newspaper Uncovers Nightmare Scenario for Gay Teen in Foster Care

http://www.advocate.com/youth/2012/11/01/newspaper-tells-nightmare-scenario-gay-teen-foster-care

[*Anya*]

Please, if you can, donate to the Red Cross to help the victims of the devastation of Hurricaine Sandy.

It is so simple: either Tweet #SandyHelp; text Redcross 90999; 800-435-7669 or go to www.RedCross.org.

Any amount, no matter how small, helps.

Your money provides water, hot meals and shelter for those that have lost everything.

My tweet to donate took less than one minute.

:rrose:

[*Anya*]

HURRICANE SANDY FACTS NEW YORK:
*41 storm-related deaths in the city
*176,540 city Con Ed customers without power Saturday
*Nearly 1 million Con Ed customers without power statewide
*57 city schools — home to 30,000+ students — closed due to storm damage until at least Wednesday
*178 city schools with no electricity as of Friday
*More than 80% of subway service restored as of Saturday
*1,541 serious crimes committed in the city from Monday through Friday, down 31% from the same period last year
*1 New York City Marathon canceled
*8 million gallons of gas delivered to the city as of Saturday
*23 million gallons of gas on the way
*More than $18 billion in estimated economic losses statewide
*More than 290,000 meals and 500,000 bottles of water distributed to storm victims
*More than $10 million raised in donations for storm relief
*17,000 tons of trash and debris picked up by city Sanitation crews
*728 pieces of equipment used by Sanitation Department to clear debris, including 270 collection trucks, 234 mechanical brooms and 114 front-end loaders
*$100 million state funds pledged to help reconstruction
*36 state parks closed from storm damage, including 30 on Long Island
*$100 million in damage to Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Park
*30 joint state/FEMA response teams to fan out in storm impacted regions Monday

http://m.nydailynews.com

[Kobi]

ejYoV_UzGFk

-------------------

[NJFemmie]

The Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization chaired by First Lady Mary Pat Christie to help New Jersey communities rebuild and aide in the relief effort. Thank you for your support. We are strong and resilient. We are proud New Jerseyans.

https://sandynjrelieffund.org/index.html

https://www.facebook.com/sandynjrelief

[Corkey]

http://statenisland.ny1.com/content/top_stories/171855/cuomo-signs-executive-order-letting-nyers-vote-at-any-polling-place

Gov. Cuomo signs executive order letting voters vote at ANY polling place.

[morningstar55]

information!
---------------------
4 Things you might not have known about your Cell Phone
For all the folks with cell phones. (This should be printed and kept in your car, purse, and wallet. Good information to have with you.)
There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.
Check out the things that you can do with it:
FIRST (Emergency)
The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an Emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly, this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.
SECOND (Hidden Battery Power)
Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#. Your cell phone will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell phone next time.
THIRD (How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? )
To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following Digits on your phone:
*#06# .
A 15-digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.
If your phone is stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
And Finally....
FOURTH (Free Directory Service for Cells)
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial:
(800) FREE411 or (800) 373-3411
without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.
This is sponsored by McDonald's.
This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends.

[Arwen]

information!
---------------------
4 Things you might not have known about your Cell Phone


Always check SNOPES.COM before forwarding or sharing this type of thing. Some of this information is true. Some is not.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/cellphones.asp

[Greyson]

'Innocence of Muslims' filmmaker gets a year in prison




http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/innocence-muslims-filmmaker-sentenced.html

[Greyson]

POLITICO Breaking News
-------------------------------------------------
Speaker John Boehner on Friday pressured President Barack Obama to take the lead on a deal to avert tax increases, saying “this is an opportunity for the president to lead. This is his moment to work on a solution that can pass both chambers.”

But Boehner remained unyielding on raising taxes on upper income Americans – a top priority for Obama – saying that “raising tax rates will slow down our ability to create the jobs that everyone says they want.” Boehner instead called for lowering tax rates while eliminating certain deductions and loopholes as part of a larger tax reform bill.

http://www.politico.com/

[Miss Scarlett]

CNN just announced that Petraeus has resigned from the CIA citing an extra marital affair as the reason...

And the CNN talking heads are already questioning the timing of his resignation trying to connect it to the election...

[Okiebug61]

I have a friend I worked with years ago that has gone all right winged radical. He made the following statement, that God let Obama win because we have turned our backs on God therefore we are reaping what we sow. I swear if I had the time to travel to where my friend is I'd go just to thump his ass. Ughhh!

[MissItalianDiva]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57547934/s.f-health-care-to-cover-sex-reassignment-surgery/
S.F. health care to cover sex reassignment surgery

SAN FRANCISCO A panel has voted to cover the cost and provide sexual reassignment surgery for transgendered people as part of San Francisco's universal health care plan.


The city's Health Commission approved on Tuesday the creation a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.


The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco's 5-year-old universal health care plan.
San Francisco plans to provide transgender surgeries

At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.


But Garcia described the move as "a symbolic process" for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.


"The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step," she said.


Currently, Healthy San Francisco provides medical care for uninsured residents below a certain income level, regardless of citizenship, immigration, employment or health status. Participants must have an income at or below 500 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, which means $54,480 for one person and $111,720 for a family of four. The program is paid for by federal funds, city business fees and participant co-payments.


Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.


"Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It's one service that some transgender people want and some don't," she said. "We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered."


San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.


"There's been a consensus the last three to five years that transition related surgeries are in fact a medical necessity for people who have been properly diagnosed with gender dysphoria," Theresa Sparks, head of the Human Rights Commission, said to CBS station KPIX in San Francisco.


Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city's latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.


"I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community," Steuerman said.
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Okiebug61]

http://news.yahoo.com/official-uganda-pass-anti-gay-bill-113424830.html

[starryeyes]

I bought a 2012 Kia Soul and am getting a nice debit card as a result of this program. Also, Kia/Hyundai is reimbursing mileage for as long as you own your car, every year. If you have a 2011-2013 Kia or Hyundai... Check it out!

http://www.webpronews.com/hyundai-kia-overstated-mileage-to-cost-millions-2012-11

[Greyson]

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) was elected House Republican Conference chair, assuring that there will be a female in House GOP leadership. McMorris Rodgers topped Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who was backed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), for the position as the party’s chief messenger.


http://www.politico.com

[LeftWriteFemme]

Accuser Recants Allegation Against Elmo Puppeteer
http://akirathedon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/elmo-is-innocent.jpg

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/accuser-recants-allegation-against-elmo-puppeteer/

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama walked a narrow path between ambition and realism, defiance and accommodation when he addressed reporters for the first time since winning a hard-fought election that gives him four more years to carve his place in history.

While he avoided terms like ‘‘transformational,’’ Obama signaled that he still hopes to accomplish big things in spite of Congress’ almost paralyzing partisanship. That could include an overhaul of immigration laws, which could become a coveted bookend to his 2010 health care revision.

There was a bounce in Obama’s step Wednesday in the White House East Room. But there was no dancing in the end zone, no taunting of defeated opponents. He jokingly claimed he forgot about the election the day after it ended, so eager is he to plunge into his second-term agenda.

Obama said he is willing to work with Republicans to head off the worrisome package of big tax hikes and program cuts scheduled to hit in less than seven weeks. But he reiterated that wealthy households must pay higher tax rates, something GOP lawmakers fiercely oppose.

But he stopped short of mimicking past presidents who have claimed wide-ranging mandates. He avoided the newly re-elected George W. Bush’s 2004 boastful vow to start spending ‘‘political capital.’’ Obama is well aware that Bush quickly suffered a stinging setback when Americans rejected his bid to partly privatize Social Security.

‘‘I've got one mandate,’’ Obama said. ‘‘I've got a mandate to help middle-class families and families that have been working hard to try to get into the middle class.’’

The president, a history student who reportedly ponders where he might rank among presidents, said: ‘‘I'm more than familiar with all the literature about presidential overreach in second terms. We are very cautious about that.’’

‘‘On the other hand,’’ he said, ‘‘I didn’t get re-elected just to bask in re-election.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/president/candidates/obama/2012/11/15/analysis-obama-aims-high-but-doesn-gloat/qqKuApBP0xIj4JkeV2PK9K/story.html

---------------------------



This guy is becoming the epitome of diplomacy as the years go by. I like it.

[Kobi]

Women's rights and health activists are outraged after reports that a pregnant woman in Ireland died after she was denied an abortion that might have saved her life.

Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she showed up at a hospital in Galway last month, complaining of back pain. Doctors quickly determined that she was having a miscarriage and chose to let it run its course.

After spending a full day in "severe pain" and understanding that the baby could not be saved, Halappanavar asked for the pregnancy to be terminated. The hospital refused, reportedly telling the couple that "this is a Catholic country" and there was nothing it could do as long a heartbeat could be detected.

It was another two and half days before the heartbeat stopped and the fetus was removed, but by then the damage had been done. Halappanavar had developed septicemia and E. coli infections. She spent another four days in intensive care and died a week after entering the hospital.

Abortion is completely illegal in Ireland, but can technically be allowed if "there is a real and substantial risk to the life (as distinct from the health) of the mother." In other words, it's not enough for the mother to be in pain or at risk of complications. They have to reasonably believe that she will die without it. Now an investigation is underway as to whether the hospital acted properly and Halappanavar's family is considering legal action.

There are also already calls being made for the Republic of Ireland to back off what is are some of the strictest anti-abortion rules in the world. Just days before Halappanavar's ordeal, the first legitimate women's health clinic to offer abortions opened across the border in Northern Ireland, which operates under different laws, but faces an equally strident pro-life opposition. (Abortion has been legal in the UK since the 1960s, but Northern Ireland has never enacted the law that allows it.) The tough rules lead as many 4,000 women to leave the country in search of abortions each year.

One writer called the treatment of Halappanavar "cruelty disguised as piety, cowardice misrepresented as principle," saying that even if she hadn't died, the pain alone should have justified the procedure. Arguments over just these kinds of abortion exemptions—and the often foolish comments made by some conservatives—were part of a major debate the helped swing several key election in the U.S. this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/woman-ireland-dies-being-denied-abortion-during-miscarriage-142152823.html

[Greyson]

"She also, aptly again, pointed out that you had failed to ask the same of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), who's 72, or minority leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) He is 70."


http://www.nextavenue.org/blog/nancy-pelosi-too-old-serve?utm_campaign=Nov.15.12.Newsletter_NA&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua

[Greyson]

"The Federal Communications Commission just released its report on the ownership of commercial broadcast stations which reveals that as of 2011, whites own 69.4% of the nation's 1,348 television stations. That's up from 63.4% in 2009, when there were 1,187 stations.

"While white ownership increased, most minority ownership decreased. Blacks went from owning 1% of all commercial TV stations in 2009 to just 0.7% in 2011. Asian ownership slipped from 0.8% in 2009 to 0.5% last year. Latino ownership increased slightly from 2.5% to 2.9%.

"Females owned 6.8% of all commercial TV stations in 2011, compared to 5.6% in 2009.

"It is a similar story in radio. Whites own almost 80% of all AM and FM radio stations, with more than 70% being owned by men."


http://www.theroot.com/blogs/blacks-own-just-10-1348-tv-stations?wpisrc=root_lightbox

[Sun]

"Reportedly over 1,500 clear plastic boxes with ballots are stacked six feet high in the Maricopa County Recorder's office, and statewide some 600,000 ballots remain to be counted. In Maricopa County alone some 115,000 voters had to cast provisional ballots and 344,000 early votes remain to be counted, adding to the question about just how serious elections officials are about guaranteeing that all Latino citizens exercise their voting rights.

The national media should feature this situation as a classic case study of the voter suppression network in high gear."

Huffington Post Article: Latino Politics - Last Gasp for Arizona's Voter Suppression (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-gonzalez/last-gasp-for-arizonas-vo_b_2102562.html)

[Kobi]

DECLO, Idaho (AP) — A fourth-grade teacher in southern Idaho is being criticized after having her students use permanent markers to draw on the faces of classmates who failed to meet reading goals.

Some parents and administrators say the punishments given to nine students in Summer Larsen’s class were inappropriate and left the children feeling shamed.

The students were allowed to choose their own incentive to meet the reading goal, but instead of a reward, the class chose a punishment: Students who failed to meet the goal could either stay inside at recess until it was met, or have their faces written on by classmates who met the goals.

Nine students didn’t meet the goals, the paper reported Friday. Three chose to forgo recess, and the other six chose to have their faces marked on.

‘‘Although all the students in the class agreed to the incentive, once it occurred it was not so well received. Nor should it have been,’’ Smyer said.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/2012/11/16/fourth-graders-who-flunk-reading-have-faces-marked/c3M8DUR8JVJRhM3IoyGhVK/story.html

--------------------------------------

[DMW]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171299/walmart-strike-takes-texas-organizers-promise-massive-black-friday-protest#

[Greyson]

Episcopalians break away from U.S. church over gay issues



"It's similar to the Articles of Confederation," Hunter said. "The states were sovereign states before they were in the United States."




http://news.msn.com/us/episcopalians-break-away-from-us-church-over-gay-issues

[Sachita]

Anti-Gay Christian Lawyer Arrested For Possession Of Child Pornography (http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/2790496-95/biron-charges-lawyer-manchester)


Manchester lawyer facing federal child pornography charges arrested by FBI at courthouse


A Manchester lawyer took a teenage girl to Canada, had her engage in sexual activity and convinced her to let it be filmed, according to federal indictments.

FBI agents swiftly arrested Lisa Biron yesterday morning as she awaited a hearing on child pornography charges at Manchester’s district court. About 9 a.m. FBI agents entered the courtroom, told Biron to leave her belongings and took her into an adjoining conference room where she remained for several minutes before coming out in handcuffs.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/2790496-95/biron-charges-lawyer-manchester


Karma is a bitch. These stories just kill me. Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves

[Greyson]

Gay Marriage Opponents Lost the Election, But They Have Lots of Excuses
By William Saletan | Posted Monday, Nov. 19, 2012, at 7:59 AM ET
| Posted Monday, Nov. 19, 2012, at 7:59 AM ET



http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/11/gay_marriage_ballot_measures_2012_why_did_same_sex _marriage_opponents_lose.2.html

[CherylNYC]

http://radicalhub.com/2012/03/09/southern-poverty-law-center-names-mens-rights-activists-mras-as-hate-group/


In its latest quarterly publication “The Year in Hate and Extremism” (Issue 45, Spring 2012) the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, names Men’s Rights Activists as a hate group, citing the MRAs’ — alternately known as “Father’s Rights Activists” — virulent misogyny, spreading of false anti-woman propaganda and applauding and even encouraging acts of domestic terrorism and extreme violence against women and children, up to and including murder. In the same issue, the SPLC reports on the activities of other hate groups with headlines such as Georgia Militia Members to be Tried Later this Year in Movement’s Latest Murder Plot; Son of Holocaust Memorial Shooter Discusses Family History of Racial Hate; and Animal Rights Extremist Camille Marino Calls for Violence.

[Sun]

So I rant about the evil Sheriff of Maricopa County AZ, Joe Arpaio who is the curator of "Tent City" and spent $100,000 to go to Hawaii to search for Obama's birth certificate. The hateful Sheriff who has his own civilian posse to hunt for "illegals" in the desert so that they can be shot, or tortured while dehydrated, and already suffering..is on a roll. Now he wants to arm his deputies with automatic weapons to shoot "illegals" (side note: I despise the term "illegals" these are human beings many who have expired visa's and are backlogged in paperwork in a very slow immigration system) and the local community is furious that this maniac is allowed to stay in power.

To illustrate just how sick this guy is, here is one of his weapons of mass destruction, paid for by our tax dollars:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KgBT8kIRgBo/SW-W8LM8vtI/AAAAAAAAE0Y/ZsxUPzJwOxM/s320/Arpaio+Drug+Tank.JPG


http://ipsnews-net.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/Library/2012/08/Mexico-small1.jpg

[Kobi]

The Twinkie, it turns out, was introduced way back in 1930. In our memories, however, the iconic snack will forever be identified with the 1950s, when Hostess popularized the brand by sponsoring “The Howdy Doody Show.” And the demise of Hostess has unleashed a wave of baby boomer nostalgia for a seemingly more innocent time.

Needless to say, it wasn’t really innocent. But the ’50s — the Twinkie Era — do offer lessons that remain relevant in the 21st century. Above all, the success of the postwar American economy demonstrates that, contrary to today’s conservative orthodoxy, you can have prosperity without demeaning workers and coddling the rich.

Consider the question of tax rates on the wealthy. The modern American right, and much of the alleged center, is obsessed with the notion that low tax rates at the top are essential to growth. Remember that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, charged with producing a plan to curb deficits, nonetheless somehow ended up listing “lower tax rates” as a “guiding principle.”

Yet in the 1950s incomes in the top bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91, that’s right, 91 percent, while taxes on corporate profits were twice as large, relative to national income, as in recent years. The best estimates suggest that circa 1960 the top 0.01 percent of Americans paid an effective federal tax rate of more than 70 percent, twice what they pay today.

Read more here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/krugman-the-twinkie-manifesto.html?_r=1&)

---------------------------------


Good stuff.

[Sun]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pq1CgWMPbGM/UKJbd6e8PJI/AAAAAAAAhT8/rhlyX00SjCI/s1600/TDOR+remembrance.jpg

[Angeltoes]

Sun, thank you so much for encouraging me to go to my local UU church last Sunday. They held an incredible Day of Remembrance. There were many tears when they lit candles for those killed this year because of transphobia.

[Greyson]

Police crack down on designer deceit in Orange County


"Up to 80 percent of the counterfeit merchandise is manufactured in China and Hong Kong, federal authorities say. India and Pakistan are other hot spots for manufacturers and suppliers."


http://www.ocregister.com/news/counterfeit-377983-agents-merchandise.html

[ruffryder]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Management at Hostess Brands and leaders of the Bakery Workers union may agree on only one thing heading into mediation Tuesday -- neither expected to be there.

The results of the mediation, scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday., will determine if the company and its 18,500 jobs can be saved. If not, Tuesday's session will prove to be only a slight detour on the way to liquidation for the maker of such iconic products as Twinkies, Wonder Bread and Drake's snacks.


The mediation session was essentially ordered by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain, who will also oversee the meeting. He said he wanted to try to do everything he could to try to find a deal before he ruled on the company's motion to liquidate.

"My desire to do this is prompted primarily by the possibility of the loss of 18,000 jobs," he said during the hearing Monday afternoon.

Related: Don't expect a different outcome for Hostess

Hostess is on the brink of closing after years of losses and a strike started on Nov. 9 by the Bakery Workers, which represents 5,000 workers at the company. The union insists that membership voted 90% against the concessions imposed on them by the company as part of its bankruptcy, concessions other workers agreed to accept.

The Bakery Workers union held the votes on the concessions during public meetings at union halls. But the Teamsters union let its 6,700 members vote using a secret ballot, and members voted 53% to accept the concessions. Last week, as the company threatened liquidation, the Teamsters asked that the Bakery Workers hold a secret ballot vote on the concessions, in the hopes that the bakers might be more willing to accept management's terms in private to avoid a shutdown.


On Monday after the mediation was ordered, the Teamsters union said it would do everything it could to help the two sides reach a deal to save the company

"We are hopeful that the bakers' union and the management team can find common ground during this mediation and avert liquidation," said Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall. "It is in the best interest of all parties involved that we remember what is at stake -- the future of 18,500 workers and their families. This is not only about a brand or a product, it is also about real people that just want to work hard every day to provide for their families."

[ruffryder]

No mediation was met for Hostess and employees. They will liquidate. Whatever will happen to the twinkie?

[Kobi]

No mediation was met for Hostess and employees. They will liquidate. Whatever will happen to the twinkie?


Twinkie will become the Steelers new fill in (or filling) quarterback.

[Sun]

Sun, thank you so much for encouraging me to go to my local UU church last Sunday. They held an incredible Day of Remembrance. There were many tears when they lit candles for those killed this year because of transphobia.

Really glad that you liked the congregation and I hope that you will go back. More religious communities should be doing TDOR services, this is a tragic reality and vigils of remembrance are one way to bring awareness to this issue while also giving people a space to grieve.

[Angeltoes]

No mediation was met for Hostess and employees. They will liquidate. Whatever will happen to the twinkie?


I have never bought a box of twinkies for my kids and the other day my 5-year-old was devastated that the 'winkie dogs' were gone. It took me a few minutes to figure out that he was talking about twinkies. He's never had one, but he's so sad they're gone. I'm one of those mean moms who won't buy stuff like that.