Breaking News Events [Archive] - Page 13?login=1

Kobi

03-04-2013, 08:17 AM

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Obama administration slammed the unusual legal argument now key in the movement against gay marriage: that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need access to marriage.

The argument has become the centerpiece of two major cases addressing gay marriage that the Supreme Court will consider at the end of March, Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban, and United States v. Windsor, which seeks to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

"Only a man and a woman can beget a child together without advance planning, which means that opposite-sex couples have a unique tendency to produce unplanned and unintended offspring," wrote Paul Clement, a prominent attorney representing congressional Republicans in the DOMA case.

Clement added in his brief to the Supreme Court arguing to uphold that law that the government has a legitimate interest in solely recognizing marriages between men and women because it encourages them to form stable family units.

"Because same-sex relationships cannot naturally produce offspring, they do not implicate the State’s interest in responsible procreation and childrearing in the same way that opposite-sex relationships do," attorneys who are seeking to uphold Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California in 2008, argued in their brief.

In the administration's friend of the court brief, the Justice Department took a dim view of the argument.

"Marriage is far more than a societal means of dealing with unintended pregnancies," the Justice Department wrote. The brief also argued that preventing gay couples from marrying would not help or hurt the quest to encourage straight couples to marry when they have children.

The argument for the government's right to ban gay marriage has evolved over the years. When the Supreme Court was first asked to address the issue in the 1970s—when a gay couple sued Minnesota for the right to legally wed—the justices replied that the request did not even raise a federal question worth answering. Those who wanted to prevent gay marriage argued that the federal government was not discriminating against anyone in adhering to a definition of marriage that had prevailed for centuries.

That was by and large enough of a legal argument to win the day every time, until the Massachusetts state Supreme Court became the first court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003. The court ruled that the government had no legitimate reason to deny the recognition of marriage to its residents based on sexual orientation.

The one justice who dissented in the ruling, Robert Cordy, is credited with introducing the unintended pregnancy concept in his dissent, when he explained that the government does have a stake in defining marriage as only between men and women. Cordy argued that providing the benefit of legally recognized marriage coaxes straight couples into forming stable family relationships when they have children, which helps society as a whole.

An "orderly society requires some mechanism for coping with the fact that sexual intercourse [between a man and a woman] commonly results in pregnancy and childbirth. The institution of marriage is that mechanism," he wrote. The institution of marriage sends a message to men that they must help rear children, and thus the state has an interest in encouraging it so that fewer children are raised with only one parent. The state has no such obligation to encourage same-sex couples to wed, however, since they can only procreate together by making a decision to adopt or to use reproductive technology.

Since 2003, Cordy's reasoning has been cited in nearly every gay marriage case, and an evolved version of it is seen in the Proposition 8 case and the challenge to the DOMA law, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Gay marriage is recognized in nine states and the District of Columbia.

One of many potential pitfalls of the argument is whether it follows that the government could pass a law saying that only fertile people are allowed to wed, for example. Or whether the state could ban marriage between elderly people.

"I think there are going to be some justices who are extremely skeptical of it," said Doug NeJaime, a professor at Loyola Law School.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/argument-against-gay-marriage-california-hinges-accidental-pregnancies-095158941--election.html
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:seeingstars:
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Kobi

03-05-2013, 05:15 AM

MEDFORD (CBS) – Schools across Massachusetts are facing new guidelines regarding students and gender identity. “I had all of these problems and everyone kept telling me that they couldn’t help me,” said Logan Ferarro, now on staff at BAGLY, Inc., The Boston Alliance of Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Youth. Logan transitioned from female to male as a senior in High School in Wilmington.

“It ended up being harder than it was because they had no idea what to prepare for they had no idea what was coming,” said Logan. “They had no idea what even transgender was.”

Last summer, Logan and other supporters applauded a change in state law which added nondiscrimination in schools based on gender identity. That led to a recent memo from Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester offering guidance on what the changes mean. In it, schools are required to accept the gender a student recognizes as their own including bathroom and locker room access.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/03/04/new-transgender-student-guidelines-raise-questions-at-mass-schools/

NorCalStud

03-05-2013, 10:36 AM

A Transgender Bill is being introduced in California to protect students rights.

I do not know the particuliars of the bill. I am just glad that there will be some protection.

In Other news a security guard in a San Jose, Ca. mall made a young male couple..asian and latino... leave the mall. They were walking holding hands.

UofMfan

03-05-2013, 05:27 PM

Hugo Chavez Dead: Venezuela's President Dies At 58 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/05/hugo-chavez-dead_n_2296423.html)

LeftWriteFemme

03-06-2013, 10:47 AM

LGBT people in Cornwall encouraged to consider adoption

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21655901

Kätzchen

03-08-2013, 03:47 AM

President Obama signed the Violence Against Women Act (2013) on March 7th, 2013.

News article & video (here (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/obama-signs-violence-against-women-act-88582.html))

Items of interest from the National Network to End Domestic Violence
(webpage here (http://www.nnedv.org/policy/issues/vawa.html)):
What will this renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) change?

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has improved our nation's response to violence. However, not all victims have been protected or reached.

VAWA 2013 will close critical gaps in services and justice.

--VAWA 2013 reauthorized and improved upon lifesaving services for all victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking - including Native women, immigrants, LGBT victims, college students and youth, and public housing residents.
--VAWA 2013 also authorized appropriate funding to provide for VAWA's vitally important programs and protections, without imposing limitations that undermine effectiveness or victim safety.

Justice and safety for Native American Women: Native American victims of domestic violence often cannot seek justice because their courts are not allowed to prosecute non-Native offenders -- even for crimes committed on Tribal land. This major gap in justice, safety, and violence prevention must be addressed. VAWA 2013 includes a solution that would give Tribal courts the authority they need to hold offenders in their communities accountable.

Justice and safety for LGBT survivors: Lesbian, gay, bisexul and transgender survivors of violence experience the same rates of violence as straight individuals. However, LGBT survivors sometimes face discrimination when seeking help and protection. VAWA 2013 prohibits such discrimination to ensure that all victims of violence have access to the same services and protection to overcome trauma and find safety.

Safe housing for survivors: Landmark VAWA housing protections that were passed in 2005 have helped prevent discrimination against and unjust evictions of survivors of domestic violence in public and assisted housing. The law, however, did not cover all federally subsidized housing programs. VAWA 2013 expands these protections to individuals in all federally subsidized housing programs, explicitly protects victims of sexual assault and creates emergency housing transfer options.

Protections for immigrant survivors: VAWA 2013 maintains important protections for immigrant survivors of abuse, while also making key improvements to existing provisions including by strengthening the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act and the provisions around self-petitions and U visas.

Justice on campuses: College students are mong thos emost vulnerable to dating violence. Provisions in VAWA 2013 add additional protections for students by requiring schools to implement a recording process for incidences of dating violence, as well as report the findings. In addition, schools would be required to create plans to prevent this violence and educate victims on their rights and resources.

Maintaining VAWA grant programs: VAWA grants are effectively meeting the needs of millions of victims across the country. VAWA 2013 includes many important improvements to these grant programs, including allowing state domestic violence coalitions to be the lead applicant on the Grants to Encourage Arrest program; ensuring that specific stakeholders, including domestic violence coalitions, play a meaningful role in developing state STOP plans; and providing a formal process for the Office on Violence Against Women to receive coalition and other key domestic violence and sexual assault community input.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is effective and important:
VAWA creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to the pervasive and insidious crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since its enactment in 1994, VAWA programs, administered by the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), have dramatically improved federal, tribal, state, and local responses to these crimes.

LeftWriteFemme

03-08-2013, 05:11 AM

Man ‘guilty’ of fraud for not telling girlfriend he was trans
Scottish transgender man admitted to 'obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud' in two cases, meaning he will face jail time

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/man-%E2%80%98guilty%E2%80%99-fraud-not-telling-girlfriend-he-was-trans070313

LeftWriteFemme

03-08-2013, 05:38 AM

Canada funding opponents of ‘abhorrent’ anti-gay bill in Uganda

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/06/canada-funding-opponents-of-abhorrent-anti-gay-bill-in-uganda/

Martina

03-08-2013, 12:05 PM

UofMfan

03-12-2013, 02:00 PM

IRS revokes ‘Pray away gay’ group’s tax-exempt status (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/12/irs-revokes-pray-away-gay-groups-tax-exempt-status/)

Kobi

03-12-2013, 04:59 PM

*trigger warning*

The nation's eyes will be focused this week on what happens inside a tiny Steubenville, Ohio, courthouse. The juvenile trial set to begin there is every parent's nightmare and a cautionary tale for teenagers living in today's digital world.

Steubenville is a town used to having media attention lavished on a much different building. In the middle of this city of 18,000 nestled on the Eastern border of Ohio stands Harding Stadium, the crown jewel of this former steel town. Nicknamed Death Valley, the 10,000-seat structure is home to the Big Red football team, one of Ohio's most storied high school programs.

Steubenville is a place where football is more than just a past time; it's a religion. And residents here worship on Friday nights.

Every time Big Red scores, a sculpture of a stallion named Man O' War breathes a 6-foot stream of fire into the night sky over Harding Stadium. But this past season, the team's second-round playoff defeat was overshadowed by a very different firestorm that engulfed the team and the entire town.

Just as the season was gearing up late last summer, two Big Red football players were accused of participating in the rape of a 16-year-old intoxicated girl with friends documenting the alleged crime through cellphone pictures and video. The social media frenzy took on a life of its own, with reports going as far as calling the incident a "gang-rape" of an unconscious girl. In reality, prosecutors contend that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, used their hands to penetrate her while she was too drunk to consent, By Ohio law, such a crime constitutes rape, as it does in many places.

At least three other Steubenville students say they witnessed the alleged encounters, and still others heard about them and posted messages, photographs and videos about the incident on social media sites.

The news soon spread beyond Steubenville, leading both hacker-activists and women's advocacy groups to blow the lid off the story nationally, questioning why people who knew about the allegations weren't also charged under an Ohio law requiring people to report crimes of which they're aware.

The uproar surrounding the case soon split the town into two furious camps; one that firmly believes there's a conspiracy to cover up a "rape culture" among the football team, and the other believing that the town's once-stellar reputation is being unfairly tarnished by outsiders who don't know all the facts.

Now, documents and photographs obtained exclusively by "20/20," along with never-before-seen taped police interviews with many of the teenage party goers, are shedding light on many of the facts of the case for the first time.

On the night of Aug. 11, 2012, Big Red ran a scrimmage to show off the team's newest talent. Trent Mays was a quarterback and honors student from a town 15 minutes outside of Steubenville. With a football coach for a father, Trent had the sport in his DNA. Ever since he could remember, he shared a dream that so many boys in this corner of the Ohio Valley do; to one day hear the roar of Big Red fans from the field.

A favorite target for Trent that night was wide receiver Ma'lik Richmond.

Ma'lik came from the rougher side of Steubenville. His earliest memories involve dodging stray bullets in his living room and watching most of his male role models being killed or incarcerated. He had turned to sports early in life as an escape from the realities around him.

That night, Trent and Ma'lik helped propel Big Red to victory. For the faithful who filled the stands, it was tempting to fantasize about winning a 10th state championship. For the players, it was an excuse to party.

Hours after the game, Trent, still relishing his role in Big Red's win, was receiving text messages from a girl he had been flirting with over social media, according to his lawyer. She was from just over the Ohio River in Weirton, W.Va., and, his lawyer says, persuaded him to come to a party where she was with several girlfriends.

Party No. 1:

When Trent and Ma'lik arrived, the narrow street outside the house of the party was crammed with cars. By some estimates, there were as many as 40 to 50 teenagers there and no adults. What was in abundance was alcohol, according to Ma'lik and several of the attendees. Witnesses said the girl who invited Trent was one of the more tipsy teens there.

"She had her arm wrapped around me and one hand on my chest. It just felt like she was coming on to me," Ma'lik told ABC News' Elizabeth Vargas in an exclusive interview for "20/20."

After midnight, the party was breaking up. The intoxicated girl, who would soon be at the center of a rape investigation, made it clear she wanted to leave with Trent, according to the police interviews with several of her friends. They also said she resisted their pleas for her not to leave with a car full of boys.

Nevertheless, the girl got into a car with Trent, Ma'lik and two other boys and drove off. In her interview with police exclusively obtained by ABC News, the alleged victim says there is little she remembers from the time between the first party and waking up the next morning.

"I remember everything that happened at the girl's house I was at but I don't remember anything past the point of me walking off the porch with him," she told them.

Party No. 2:

When the five teenagers arrived at the next house, the group was much smaller. There are contradictory accounts about whether the girl was able to walk into the house on her own or needed help from Ma'lik and Trent.

Feeling ill, the girl was taken to the bathroom where she threw up. When she emerged, a photo of her was taken that would become a flashpoint in the case. The photo shows Trent and Ma'lik's holding the girl by her arms and legs with her head hanging back. It is unclear from the picture whether her eyes are open and witness accounts conflict on the exact context of this photo.

The boy who took it, and ultimately uploaded it to his Instagram account, was another football player for Big Red and an ex-boyfriend of the intoxicated girl in the picture.

"She was just like laughing, we were all talking, just clowning around and that's when her ex-boyfriend was like, 'Let me get a picture of this drunk B. And that's when we took the picture," Ma'lik told ABC News.

The picture, Ma'lik maintains, was intended as a joke; he says the girl was conscious, was playing along and was not carried out of the house that way. The girl's civil attorney, Bob Fitzsimmons, calls this characterization "bizarre."

"It's common sense as to what's going on in that picture," he said.

Adds Fitzsimmons: "My client was unconscious that night. She doesn't have any memory of what happened."

Several witnesses said that once outside, the girl needed to stop in the street because she was sick again. "She throws up on her blouse and takes her blouse off," Ma'lik said. "And then she asked for something to drink and I gave her my jacket to cover her up."

After several minutes, the girl got back into the car with those same four boys. It is during this ride that prosecutors contend Trent raped the alleged victim. One of Trent's teammates, who was seated in the backseat, told police that he used his phone to videotape Trent exposing the girl's breasts and penetrating her vaginally with his fingers. The girl was talking but he could not decipher her slurred speech, he told police.

But Ma'lik, who was seated in the front passenger seat, told ABC News that she was participating. "I turned around and I can see the flash on his phone. Trent was rubbing on her breasts and she was kissing his neck. And then he was trying to unbutton her pants," Ma'lik said.

Police would never see the video because, by the next morning, he had deleted it from his phone.

Party No. 3

That same boy who videotaped the alleged rape in the car, and who is now a key prosecution witness, testified that when the car arrived at his home, the alleged victim was again taken to the bathroom to throw up.

When the girl emerged, prosecutors say, a second alleged rape occurred. The eyewitness told police that he saw Trent trying to get the girl to perform oral sex on him while she was lying on the floor. Next, he says he saw both Trent and Ma'lik's lying beside her, sexually touching the girl's groin area with their hands. At least one other witness claims to have seen the alleged rape.

"I wouldn't say she was completely passed out but she wasn't in any state to make a decision for herself," one of the eyewitnesses told police.

A defense attorney for Ma'lik told Vargas of "20/20" that the alleged victim was conscious enough to provide the pass codes for her cellphone at some point after the second alleged assault.

"That doesn't sound like a person that's incapacitated to the point where they cannot answer a question, let alone consent," defense attorney Walter Madison said.

The girl's civil attorney challenges such an assessment, saying, "The mere fact that someone presents an argument doesn't make it true."

The Steubenville rumor mill was already beginning to churn with speculation about what happened to the intoxicated girl. Naked photos of the girl that were circulated that night fueled a series of tweets and also one YouTube video of an 18-year-old former Steubenville baseball player named Michael Nodianos. In the rambling 12-minute rant, Nodianos, who wasn't present during the alleged rapes, made jokes about the incident, repeatedly referring to the victim as "dead."

When the sun finally rose over Steubenville the next morning, the 16-year-old alleged victim woke up naked in a home she had never been to before. Her girlfriends, who spent much of the previous night trying to contact her and anxiously reading tweets posted about her, soon were summoned to pick her up.

ABC News has learned that one of the girls who picked up the alleged victim told police, "She and Trent were just lying on the couch together as if nothing happened. She looked hung over but then she got up and was completely fine."

By the next day, so much had been written and uploaded to social networking sites that the town was abuzz with rumors and innuendo. Even the girl's parents found out by word of mouth.

They brought her to the hospital Aug. 13, more than 24 hours after the incident. By then, she had already showered and her clothes from that night had been washed. No physical evidence of a rape was recovered.

Nevertheless, 10 days after the alleged assault, on the strength of the witness accounts, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays were arrested in the middle of the night and charged with rape and kidnapping (the kidnapping charge was later dropped.) Trent was also charged with disseminating child pornography for texting naked photos of the underage alleged victim.

"They sent three or four police cars," Trent's mom, Linda Mays, told ABC News. "They surrounded the house and it was surreal."

By this time, many of the social media posts and pictures had been deleted. But not all were lost. ABC News has learned that, in addition to the picture of the defendants' carrying the alleged victim, they also recovered two additional photos from Trent's phone. One of the photos shows the alleged victim lying naked and face down on the floor and the other shows her naked on the couch seemingly asleep.

The intersection of idolized athletes, social media over-sharing and reckless teen behavior proved an explosive combination and the story soon went national. In December, the Nodianos video was re-posted by an offshoot of the Internet hacking group Anonymous called Knight Sec.

The video quickly went viral and appeared to be proof to online activist groups and even the National Organization for Women that other athletes either witnessed or knew of the alleged assault and were never charged with a crime.

Such sentiments have fueled much speculation of a cover up in Steubenville. Nodianos, who until this winter was attending Ohio State University on an academic scholarship, told police he only saw the alleged victim in passing that night as she left the second location. The details he talked about in the video came from viewing one photo of the alleged victim and talking to the other boys who were with her that night, he said.

His lawyer has since issued an apology on his behalf for the shameful comments he made on the video posted on YouTube.

Prosecutors have not commented on the specifics of the case but at the probable cause hearing in October, prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said, "She was a toy to them that night and the bottom line is we don't have to prove that she said no. All we have to prove is when she's being penetrated that she was unresponsive and not in a position to consent and they knew it."

Attorneys for Trent and Ma'lik insist that their clients are not guilty of any crime, claiming that she was sober enough throughout the night to consent.

"What we believe we will be able to support is that she voluntarily proceeded throughout the night with our client," Trent's attorney, Brian Duncan, told ABC News. "There is no indication that she was somehow so intoxicated that she could not have consented to any of the contact that occurred."

Ma'lik's attorney, Walter Madison, is equally confident in his client's innocence. He questions the prosecution's dependence on testimony from the three teenage witnesses.

"They all have immunity and have been granted deals not to be prosecuted for their involvement," he said. "When you give a child an option to have a seat at the trial table or tell us what we need to know and in exchange we won't prosecute you, they're probably going to tell you what you want to hear."

Attorney General DeWine denied that any deals have been made and won't rule out future charges for those witnesses.

The alleged victim is slated to take the stand, but because she says she has little memory of the night in question, her testimony is not expected to clarify the events of Aug. 11-12. Defense attorneys say the intense scrutiny the case has garnered is creating another challenge for them.

"We have found it very difficult to find people willing to talk to us," Duncan, Trent's attorney, said. "People have either not returned calls or they have lawyers that are involved. We have material subpoenas that have been issued."

A West Virginia judge Friday refused to enforce those subpoenas for three juveniles who reside just outside of Ohio. The judge cited a lack of legal precedence for compelling an underage witness to testify in a juvenile proceeding out of state.

When the trial commences Wednesday, there will be no jury involved. Instead, a juvenile judge will decide the fates of Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, who face incarceration in a detention center until their 21st birthdays and the almost-certain demise of their dreams of playing football.

http://gma.yahoo.com/steubenville-rape-case-havent-heard-050751050--abc-news-topstories.html

CherylNYC

03-12-2013, 10:26 PM

*trigger warning*

Just as the season was gearing up late last summer, two Big Red football players were accused of participating in the rape of a 16-year-old intoxicated girl with friends documenting the alleged crime through cellphone pictures and video. The social media frenzy took on a life of its own, with reports going as far as calling the incident a "gang-rape" of an unconscious girl. In reality, prosecutors contend that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, used their hands to penetrate her while she was too drunk to consent, By Ohio law, such a crime constitutes rape, as it does in many places...

"She was just like laughing, we were all talking, just clowning around and that's when her ex-boyfriend was like, 'Let me get a picture of this drunk B. And that's when we took the picture," Ma'lik told ABC News...

They brought her to the hospital Aug. 13, more than 24 hours after the incident. By then, she had already showered and her clothes from that night had been washed. No physical evidence of a rape was recovered.

Nevertheless, 10 days after the alleged assault, on the strength of the witness accounts, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays were arrested in the middle of the night and charged with rape and kidnapping (the kidnapping charge was later dropped.) Trent was also charged with disseminating child pornography for texting naked photos of the underage alleged victim.

When the trial commences Wednesday, there will be no jury involved. Instead, a juvenile judge will decide the fates of Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, who face incarceration in a detention center until their 21st birthdays and the almost-certain demise of their dreams of playing football.

http://gma.yahoo.com/steubenville-rape-case-havent-heard-050751050--abc-news-topstories.html

This is why this case and the discussions around it disgust me so deeply. The scare quotes around "gang rape" in the bolded section above set the tone for the rest of the article. By law, any nonconsensual penetration is rape. Period. But in this POS article it's just a little harmless fingering of an unconscious girl. By a few football players. Who would call that "gang rape"?

One of the rapists goes on to say that the ex who took one of the most damning photos called her a drunk B. He later contends that she was consenting. How does she get to consent when she's a drunk B? I'm really touched that he claims to have given her his coat to "cover her up".

And besides some very damning photos and videos, there's no physical evidence of rape. Because rape only happens when semen is deposited in a vagina. Let's put more scare quotes around "rape" again. It was just fingering. And those poor boys were charged "nevertheless".

The final paragraph ratchets up even more sympathy for the rapists. They face the almost certain demise of their football playing dreams. Those poor boys. What a pity!

Kobi

03-13-2013, 10:43 AM

A youth baseball league in Illinois is raffling off an AR-15 military-style assault weapon to raise money for its kids.

The Atwood-Hammond group partnered with the local armory for the raffle, which launched on Tuesday. "It has been going gangbusters," Charidy Butcher, co-owner of the Atwood Armory, told RawStory.com. “My phone has been ringing nonstop since 4:30 this morning. It’s just been crazy."

The winner of the rifle—a Rock River Arms Tactical Operator AR-15—will have to go through a standard background check, Butcher added. The rifle is similar to the one used in the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

According to Atwood-Hammond commissioner Steven McClain, the league is in desperate need of new equipment. "When you don't have enough stuff to even practice with, it's hard to run a team," McClain told WAND-TV.

It's not the first gun fundraiser for the Atwood Armory. Earlier this month, the shop raised more than $7,000 for a cancer charity with a similar raffle.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/little-league-gun-raffle-ar-15-133837381.html

Kobi

03-14-2013, 10:59 PM

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - An 11-year-old girl won her fight to play football with boys in the Philadelphia-area Roman Catholic youth leagues when the Archdiocese reversed an earlier decision and said on Thursday it would permit co-ed play.

The case of Caroline Pla, of suburban Buckingham Township, drew international attention when an online petition on her behalf drew 108,000 supporters, according to her mother, Seal Pla.

The girl's family was told last fall that Caroline could no longer play on the team, as she had done for two seasons. She was the only girl on the team.

But on Thursday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, headed by Archbishop Charles Chaput, told the family it changed its mind.

"At the direction of the Archbishop, the Archdiocese will allow for co-ed participation in CYO football, effective in the 2013 season," the church said in a statement.

The decision was made despite the recommendation of a panel drawn up by the church of parents, clergy, coaches and other experts which studied the issue and said it believed that the Catholic Youth Organization should continue to ban girls' participation.

Chaput opted to override that recommendation, the statement from the archdiocese said.

The girl's mother said the family was notified of the change of heart at the archdiocese by email.

"She was jumping up and down, she was so happy," Seal Pla said. "Issues relating to how the church treats its young people are really important right now, and this is a huge positive step forward.

"For Caroline, this was never about just her, but about all girls who want to play the sports they love. It was about allowing kids like Caroline the opportunity to grow physically and spiritually."

According to the church statement, the old policy reflected the church's thoughts on the importance of gender differences and the development of mature male and female identities.

Caroline was not available for comment Thursday night. She was attending a banquet for her basketball team.

Other archdioceses, such as those in Cleveland and Wilmington, Delaware, have no gender exclusion like the one that was in effect in Philadelphia.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/philadelphia-church-reverses-decision-let-girls-play-football-023921195--spt.html

Ginger

03-15-2013, 05:38 AM

(Link originally posted by LeftRightFemme)

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/m...as-trans070313

The underage thing is not okay. But I don't know. Do transpeople have an obligation to tell partners they were once presenting as a different sex? How do we arbitrate how much of a person's history is subject to compulsory sharing? Interested to hear other people's opinions.

LeftWriteFemme

03-15-2013, 04:53 PM

Appointment of Pope Francis "a bad sign for LGBTI rights": Argentina LGBT Federation

http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/2013/03/15/12268.appointment-of-pope-francis-a-bad-sign-for-lgbti-rights-argentina-lgbt-federation

I'm not surprised, but I am horribly disappointed. They had a chance to turn the church around and ease the suffering of over a billion people, but instead they chose this.....it's just so sad.

LeftWriteFemme

03-16-2013, 08:09 AM

Settlement, Payout Announced in Air Force Major’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Discharge Case

http://www.queerty.com/settlement-payout-announced-in-air-foce-majors-dont-ask-dont-tell-discharge-case-20130315/

puddin'

03-16-2013, 09:38 PM

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10871821

we don't normally have earthquakes in da north island, it's a south island thang. if anathnag, we have volcaonoes. what da hey...

Kobi

03-17-2013, 10:25 AM

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community's athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile jail, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, to be served after his rape sentence is completed.

The two teens broke down in tears after the verdict was read and later apologized to the victim and to the community. Both were emotional as they spoke, and Richmond struggled at times to talk through his sobs. Richmond's father, Nathaniel, also asked that the victim's family "forgive Malik and Trent for the pain they put you through."

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house.

The case roiled the community amid allegations that more students should have been charged — accusations that Ohio's attorney general pledged to look into — and led to questions about the influence of the local football team, a source of a pride in a community of 18,000 that suffered massive job losses with the collapse of the steel industry. Their arms linked, protesters who sought guilty verdicts stood outside the courthouse Sunday morning, some wearing masks.

The trial opened last week as a contest between prosecutors determined to show the girl was so drunk she couldn't have been a willing participant that night, and defense attorneys soliciting testimony from witnesses that would indicate that the girl, though drunk, knew what she was doing.

The teenage girl testified Saturday that she could not recall what happened the night of the attack but remembered waking up naked in a strange house after drinking at a party. The girl said she recalled drinking, leaving the party holding hands with Mays and throwing up later. When she woke up, she said she discovered her phone, earrings, shoes, and underwear were missing, she testified.

"It was really scary," she said. "I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything."

The girl said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages among friends and saw a photo of herself taken that night, along with a video that made fun of her and the alleged attack. She said she suspected she had been drugged because she couldn't explain being as intoxicated as defense witnesses have said she was.

"They treated her like a toy," said special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter.

Evidence introduced at the trial included graphic text messages sent by numerous students after the night of the party, including by the accuser, containing provocative descriptions of sex acts and obscene language. Lawyers noted during the trial how texts have seemed to replace talking on the phone for contemporary teens. A computer forensic expert called by the state documented tens of thousands of texts found on 17 phones seized during the investigation.

In sentencing the boys, Judge Thomas Lipps urged everyone who had witnessed what happened in the case, including parents, "to have discussions about how you talk to your friends, how you record things on the social media so prevalent today and how you conduct yourself when drinking is put upon you by your friends."

The girl herself recalled being in a car later with Mays and Richmond and asking them what happened.

"They kept telling me I was a hassle and they took care of me," she testified. "I thought I could trust him (Mays) until I saw the pictures and video."

In questioning her account, defense attorneys went after her character and credibility. Two former friends of the girl testified that the accuser had a history of drinking heavily and was known to lie.

"The reality is, she drank, she has a reputation for telling lies," said lawyer Walter Madison, representing Richmond.

The two girls testified they were angry at the accuser because she was drinking heavily at the party and rolling around on the floor. They said they tried unsuccessfully to get her to stop drinking.

Nathaniel Richmond urged during the sentencing that parents speak to their children about "the dangers of alcohol and how it can lead to bad decisions that will affect the rest of your life." He said he himself was an alcoholic.

The accuser said that she does not remember being photographed as she was carried by Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond, an image that stirred up outrage, first locally, then globally, as it spread online. Others have testified the photo was a joke and the girl was conscious when it was taken.

The photograph led to allegations that three other boys, two of them members of Steubenville High's celebrated Big Red team, saw something happening that night and didn't try to stop it but instead recorded it.

The three boys weren't charged, fueling months of online accusations of a cover-up to protect the team, which law enforcement authorities have vehemently denied.

Instead, the teens were granted immunity to testify, and their accounts helped incriminate the defendants. They said the girl was so drunk she didn't seem to know what was happening to her and confirmed she was digitally penetrated in a car and later on a basement floor.

After Mays and Richmond were taken into custody Sunday, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he planned to convene a grand jury next month to investigate whether anyone else should be charged in the case.

Noting that 16 people refused to talk to investigators, many of them underage, DeWine said possible crimes to be investigated include failure to report a felony and failure to report child abuse.

"This community desperately needs to have this behind them, but this community also desperately needs to know justice was done and that no stone was left unturned," he said.

Mays and Richmond were determined to be delinquent, the juvenile equivalent of guilty, Lipps ruled in the juvenile court trial without a jury.

The length of their sentence beyond the minimum one year will be determined by juvenile authorities; they can be held until they're 21. Lipps said that "as bad as things have been for all of the children involved in this case, they can all change their lives for the better."

http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-teens-guilty-rape-face-plus-jail-145306028--spt.html

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

The misogyny and sexism through this case has been deplorable. Blaming the victim, questioning her character, innuendo about what determines consent vs no vs incapable of giving consent etc.

Am also not happy that message people seem to want to focus on is be careful when posting or using social media. The message should be rape is not ok period.

meridiantoo

03-18-2013, 04:40 PM

This is not necessarily breaking news, but this was news to me. There are several factors that have led to the depletion of the ozone layer, specifically the thinning/hole over the arctic region:

http://www.weather.com/news/science/arctic-ozone-hole-cause-20130313

Sun

03-19-2013, 01:44 AM

Michelle Shocked Homophobic Rant @ Yoshi's San Francisco (http://www.sfbg.com/noise/2013/03/18/alt-folk-singer-michelle-shocked-goes-homophobic-rant-yoshis-says-she-wont-be-back)

thedivahrrrself

03-19-2013, 08:31 AM

Michelle Shocked Homophobic Rant @ Yoshi's San Francisco (http://www.sfbg.com/noise/2013/03/18/alt-folk-singer-michelle-shocked-goes-homophobic-rant-yoshis-says-she-wont-be-back)

I was really taken aback by this. First, because I thought she was a lesbian. If not, though, she certainly knew much of her fan base was. Do you think this was deliberate career suicide? Shows have already been cancelled in 4 states, with more to follow.

Nat

03-19-2013, 09:57 AM

meridiantoo

03-19-2013, 10:06 AM

The rape victim from Steubenville has received threats and harassment:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/19/174728448/two-steubenville-girls-arrested-after-allegedly-threatening-rape-victim

Nat

03-19-2013, 10:18 AM

It just seems so out of character with her lyrics. I'm sad about this one.

Okay so she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the 80s and received electroshock treatment which led to her stage name. I'm not going to worry too much what she thinks of gay people - just hope she gets some help.

starryeyes

03-19-2013, 02:45 PM

Girls not allowed to wear tuxedos to prom at a high school in San Bernadino.

:|

http://m.nbcsandiego.com/nbcsandiego/pm_107843/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Rk4d8RSJ

Kobi

03-20-2013, 03:19 PM

Okiebug61

03-20-2013, 04:13 PM

When I worked for OfficeMax they changed their policy where you had to sign off as a non smoker living in a non smoking house with no children at home or away at college that were smokers. If you didn't sign off your insurance rates were much higher. The company actually provided smokers with whatever help and supplies they needed to stop smoking. As an ex smoker I didn't have any problems with it. I do though have major problems with the route CVS is taking. Since they are publically owned I would want to see the reports of the Executive level health made public.

Kätzchen

03-20-2013, 05:42 PM

Kelt

03-20-2013, 09:14 PM

<snip>

Health profiling?

A preview of our upcoming national policies?

LeftWriteFemme

03-21-2013, 08:41 AM

Pediatrics Group Backs Gay Marriage, Saying It Helps Children

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/health/american-academy-of-pediatrics-backs-gay-marriage.html?hp&_r=1&

Kobi

03-21-2013, 11:47 AM

Two high school football players are accused of sexual assault. Their fellow students take to social media to defend the pair, taunting and blaming the victims.

An athletic director brushes aside the allegations—along with separate hazing, felony robbery and assault charges against the school's athletes—as "not any different than any other community."

Administrators are reluctant to immediately address the accusations and make it appear like a cover-up.

The online hacktivist group Anonymous pledges to expose the truth and publicly shame those who engage in cyberbullying and victim-blaming.

Except this isn't Steubenville, Ohio—it's Torrington, Conn., where two 18-year-olds, Edgar Gonzalez and Joan Toribio, stand accused of second-degree sexual assault of two 13-year-old girls. The investigation has led to the arrest of a 17-year-old male for an alleged assault on one of the 13-year-old girls last fall, police say, and more arrests could be forthcoming.

Gonzalez and Toribio, who live in the same Torrington apartment complex, were arrested last month on the sexual assault charges stemming from separate incidents that occurred around the same time period in February, a Torrington police official said on Wednesday. Both pleaded not guilty.

The investigation is ongoing, Torrington police say, and more arrests could be forthcoming.

"It's very involved," Torrington Police Lt. Mike Emanuel told reporters on Wednesday. "It's very difficult to follow, even for us."

The victims and their alleged attackers knew one another, Emanuel said. "The reason that this is a sexual assault is that there is more than a three-year age difference. That's what we have to keep in mind."

When asked if the sexual contact was consensual, Emanuel said, "Statutorily it is not consensual."

Gonzalez, who had already been facing felony robbery charges related to a March 2012 incident, is being held at a New Haven correction center. Toribio, who was charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault, was released on $100,000 bond and is being electronically monitored.

Sealed by a Litchfield court, the case had been kept under wraps by school officials until this week, when the Register Citizen reported that "dozens of athletes and Torrington High School students, male and female," taunted the victims on Twitter:

Students flocked to social media in the days surrounding the arrests of Gonzalez and Toribio, with several students offering support for the two football players and others blaming the victims for causing the incident. References included calling a 13-year-old who hangs around with 18-year-olds a “whore,” and claiming the victims “destroyed” the lives of the players.

"Even if it was all his fault," Mary J. Ramirez, whose Twitter handle is @LoryyRamirez, wrote, "what was a 13 year old girl doing hanging around 18 year old guys[?]"

“I wanna know why there’s no punishment for young hoes,” Twitter user @asmedick wrote, according to the paper.

Torrington school officials said on Wednesday that they would investigate the apparent cyberbullying.

"We’re doing everything we can to provide the safety [the alleged victims] need in schools,” Kenneth Traub, Torrington's Board of Education chairman, said on Wednesday.

As was the case in Steubenville, Anonymous has gotten involved, launching "Operation Raider," a reference to the nickname of the Torrington High School football team.

“#OpRaider is the new #OpRollRedRoll," the group tweeted late Wednesday. "Torrington better take note of #Steubenville because they’re about to go on blast. #endrapeculture"

High school football takes on elevated importance in Torrington, a small town in northwest Connecticut. "Like Steubenville," Doug Barry wrote on Jezebel.com, the case in Connecticut "hinges in large part on the seemingly disproportionate influence a school’s football program has on the surrounding community."

Despite the felony robbery charges, Gonzalez was allowed to play football last fall.

“I reeled the kid in after that, and he walked the line," Dan Dunaj, Torrington's former head football coach, told the Register Citizen. "As a coach I was doing something right.”

Dunaj resigned in December amid an ongoing investigation into a hazing incident involving four football players last fall.

"If you think there's some wild band of athletes that are wandering around, then I think you're mistaken," Torrington High School Athletic Director Mike McKenna told the Register Citizen. "If you look at crime statistics, these things happen everywhere and we're not any different than any other community."

In an editorial published on Thursday, the Register Citizen blasted "the posture of denial and defensiveness" Torrington school officials have taken in response to the case:

The first step in recovering from this is admitting you have a problem. And after reading the social media accounts of average, "good" students at Torrington High School, it's clear that Torrington students need an urgent education about blaming the victim, bullying and harassment, what "consent" means, why statutory rape is rape, period, and where football should stand in relation to their education and the rest of life. Let's hope that starts today.
.

Sun

03-21-2013, 11:57 PM

I was really taken aback by this. First, because I thought she was a lesbian. If not, though, she certainly knew much of her fan base was. Do you think this was deliberate career suicide? Shows have already been cancelled in 4 states, with more to follow.

I am not sure what is going on but it was a very upsetting event for many who were in the audience.

It just seems so out of character with her lyrics. I'm sad about this one.

Okay so she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the 80s and received electroshock treatment which led to her stage name. I'm not going to worry too much what she thinks of gay people - just hope she gets some help.

A medical diagnosis from the 80's may have little or nothing to do with her political statement and outburst. She was able to book events, negotiate the contracts (no small task), show up, perform. This may just be who she is now.

Kelt

03-22-2013, 09:08 AM

new policy by CVS Pharmacy requires every one of its nearly 200,000 employees who use its health plan to submit their weight, body fat, glucose levels and other vitals or pay a monthly fine.

Employees who agree to this testing will see no change in their health insurance rates, but those who refuse will have to pay an extra $50 per month - or $600 per year - for the company's health insurance program. All employees have until May 1, 2014, to make an appointment with a doctor and record their vitals.

"The approach they're taking is based on the assumption that somehow these people need a whip, they need to be penalized in order to make themselves healthy," Patient Privacy Rights founder Dr. Deborah Peel said.

Critics are calling the policy coercion, and worrying that CVS or any other company might start firing sick workers.

"It's technology-enhanced discrimination on steroids," Peel said.

The policy change was introduced to employees in a memo highlighting the change in the health insurance plan.

CVS, which is based in Rhode Island, said the health screening was voluntary and the company would never see the test results. In an email to ABC News, CVS explained that its "benefits program is evolving to help our colleagues take more responsibility for improving their health and managing health-associated costs.

"The goal of these kinds of programs is to end up with a healthier work force. If your employees are healthy they're going to work better and they're going to cost the employer a lot less money," ABC News' chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser said.

CVS insists that the use of health screenings by employer-sponsored health plans is a common practice. A quick search of the Internet shows many websites and message boards filled with questions from families asking if similar programs and policies are legal.

Brad Seff, a former Broward County, Fla., employee, learned the hard way that it is legal, according to one court. Seff sued the county in April 2011 after it charged him an extra $40 per month for health insurance after he refused health screenings.

In the suit, Seff said the wellness program violated the Americans With Disabilities Act because the county was making medical inquires of its employees. Seff lost his suit.

----------

Health profiling?

I don't want to derail things, but this one really stuck in my craw. I did a little look around, no deep research or anything, in fact all I did was google the line I bolded above. I came up with a summary report from 2011 that hits on the high points of what companies of various sizes are doing to prepare for national health care.

This is the Mercer's National Survey (http://benefitcommunications.com/upload/downloads/2011MercerSurvey.pdf) I ran across. I am still going through it. Pages 4 and 9 show the ramp up to national care. Page 33-34 is a clearly stated objective. Starting on page 51 are the plan incentive ideas. Page 87 is interesting as well from a retirement point of view. Page 92 and on show the already in place ramifications of the national health policy coming. Page 94 confirms these 'incentives' are here to stay.

A couple of terms tossed around in the report are CDHP: "The concept of a CDHP is to return control of health care dollars to the person who uses them, the consumer. The consumer is given a financial incentive to control costs and as a result tend to become more directly involved in the selection and usage of health care services."

And PPACA: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act

If anyone is interested in this approach to health care that we are seeing, you might want to have a glance, it certainly opened my eyes. This report is a couple of years old and the emphasis is on using positive reinforcement. It would seem that CVS has decided to take the carrot and turn it into a stick. I have seen some plans where a person could protect their privacy for a one time lost discount of maybe $50-100 per year, but at $600 per year as mentioned in the article, I don't think the majority of CVS employees are going to see that as a viable option.

While I agree with the concept of making healthy lifestyle education available to all people (something to counter the current marketing of crap food and latest drugs model), I really don't see forcing it down someones throat as making it somehow more effective. On the contrary, I see it as an effective way to create resentment on a large scale.

I can't wait to see what will be on the table for non-corporate yet required insurance programs for those not currently insured.

Just my .02

Derail/rant over, carry on.

Kobi

03-22-2013, 02:42 PM

I don't want to derail things, but this one really stuck in my craw. I did a little look around, no deep research or anything, in fact all I did was google the line I bolded above. I came up with a summary report from 2011 that hits on the high points of what companies of various sizes are doing to prepare for national health care.

This is the Mercer's National Survey (http://benefitcommunications.com/upload/downloads/2011MercerSurvey.pdf) I ran across. I am still going through it. Pages 4 and 9 show the ramp up to national care. Page 33-34 is a clearly stated objective. Starting on page 51 are the plan incentive ideas. Page 87 is interesting as well from a retirement point of view. Page 92 and on show the already in place ramifications of the national health policy coming. Page 94 confirms these 'incentives' are here to stay.

A couple of terms tossed around in the report are CDHP: "The concept of a CDHP is to return control of health care dollars to the person who uses them, the consumer. The consumer is given a financial incentive to control costs and as a result tend to become more directly involved in the selection and usage of health care services."

And PPACA: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act

If anyone is interested in this approach to health care that we are seeing, you might want to have a glance, it certainly opened my eyes. This report is a couple of years old and the emphasis is on using positive reinforcement. It would seem that CVS has decided to take the carrot and turn it into a stick. I have seen some plans where a person could protect their privacy for a one time lost discount of maybe $50-100 per year, but at $600 per year as mentioned in the article, I don't think the majority of CVS employees are going to see that as a viable option.

While I agree with the concept of making healthy lifestyle education available to all people (something to counter the current marketing of crap food and latest drugs model), I really don't see forcing it down someones throat as making it somehow more effective. On the contrary, I see it as an effective way to create resentment on a large scale.

I can't wait to see what will be on the table for non-corporate yet required insurance programs for those not currently insured.

Just my .02

Derail/rant over, carry on.

I understand your frustration.

There is a pervasive need in this country to shift blame whenever possible. Health care is no different. And, the above, has nothing to do with Obamacare. This type of strategy was going on well before Obama took office. He is just the convenient scapegoat.

Big business wants us to believe that if people were just healthier, chose healthier, lived healthier then they would need less care and this would cause costs to drop.

They also want us to believe that their stock piling of our health information is for our own good and will somehow turn us into better, more informed consumers. This too will drive down costs.

They need us to believe whatever cockamamie scheme they cook up i.e. incentives work! justify the potential and real discriminatory practices that they employ.

They need us to believe that WE ARE THE PROBLEM and they are only looking to help us fix OUR problem.

They need to divert attention from the way our economic system works, how the health industry works, how the different costs negotiated by different providers and insurers which is so convoluted I'm not even sure if anyone knows what the actual costs are, how the fallacies about their "research" and production costs justify their exorbident prices in this country while they somehow mange to drop the price to a mere fraction of the supposed cost in other countries where costs are set by the government, the fallacy behind how people overuse or misuse services, the ways in which the food industry has created addicts for their lucrative and specially chosen product lines, etc.

It is a very paternalistic, simplistic, and blaming approach to a very complex and interrelated problem. The makers of statin drugs would be out of business if the food industry didnt provide addictive products that make us walking cholesterol time bombs. We're not even gonna address how both industries are associated with a single parent company. Create both the problem and the solution? Hello? And, you want us to believe your overall goal is to put yourself out of business? Yeah right.

Ok, now my blood pressure is in the dangerous level LOL. Thanks Kelt. ;)

LeftWriteFemme

03-22-2013, 05:35 PM

Meet The 83-Year-Old Taking On The U.S. Over Same-Sex Marriage

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/21/174944430/meet-the-83-year-old-taking-on-the-u-s-over-same-sex-marriage

Lady Pamela

03-22-2013, 09:18 PM

http://now.msn.com/arizona-bathroom-bill-could-require-birth-certificate

Kätzchen

03-23-2013, 06:09 PM

So, it's not 'breaking news' yet; but just as recently as before the Christmas holidays in December, I got this very large post-card mailer from the state of Oregon (as did other households, region-wide) about what to do in the case of a catastrophic emergency - such as an earthquake, not to mention the possibility of Mt. Hood blowing up.

Yesterday, a librarian friend of mine posted on her page at FB that she spent a fortune in upgrades to her house to make it safe if an earthquake of catastophic magnitude should happen in the near future. With emphasis on... "near future."

Ever since I got that post card mailer in the mail, I've struggled with what engineers and developers and state-appointed law makers know that the general, wider public here in Oregon seem to not be 'in-the-know' about.

I've lived here for the last twenty-some-odd years and have observed how our state has tried to address transportation issues, water issues (rivers, watershed areas, etc), and emergency management issues. And quite frankly, the threat of the unimaginable - either an earthquake or Mt. Hood blowing up - causes me to worry because if something of this nature happens, water and food supplies would be lost and telephone and celltower lines would automatically be affected (trans: you couldn't call for help fast enough or even have some reasonable way to call family members to let them know your plight in an emergency, etc).

Here's the link to the article in The Oregonian (link (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/02/cascadia_earthquake_and_tsunam.html)).

Lady Pamela

03-23-2013, 06:18 PM

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays Iraqi militias infiltrate internet gay chatrooms to hunt their quarry – and hundreds are feared to be victims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/iraq-gays-murdered-militias

Nat

03-23-2013, 10:52 PM

Nat

03-24-2013, 10:12 PM

Mississippi state Representative Jessica Upshaw was found dead Sunday morning at the home of another Mississippi politician (http://gawker.com/5992201/mississippi-lawmaker-found-dead-from-gunshot-wound-to-head?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow). Simpson County Sheriff Kenneth Lewis said Upshaw died from a single gunshot wound to the head, though he noted it's too early in the investigation to know if the wound was self-inflicted or if foul play was involved.

Nat

03-26-2013, 09:44 PM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298204/Sherry-West-identifies-De-Marquise-Elkins-teen-shot-baby.html

This is an awful story (teenager shoots baby when mom refuses to hand over purse) and I'm wondering if anybody else is following it.

It just doesn't add up to me. I'm trying to keep track of it to find out if any actual evidence is revealed regarding the named suspect. He has an alibi. As far as I can tell from the news stories, the only thing they have is the eye-witness ID from the mom. Something just feels off about it.

First off: WARNING - Both the below linked articles start playing a loud news video without prompting. I recommend turning your volume down if you click on them.

So, the named suspect's mom and aunt were arrested (http://www.firstcoastnews.com/topstories/article/305715/483/Baby-murder-suspects-mother-and-aunt-arrested?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Cbc%7Clarge)

"The pair is facing felony charges for allegedly providing false statements or writings; concealing facts or fraudulent documents in matters of government."

But, the daughter of the woman whose baby was shot is questioning her story (http://www.firstcoastnews.com/brunswicktoddlermurder/article/305674/634/Daughter-of-Brunswick-victim-questions-mothers-story)

The daughter of Sherry West, Ashley Glassey, said she does not want to falsely accuse anyone but she wants the truth.

Glassey, 21, lives in New Jersey and said her mother lost custody of her when she was 8. She said she has forgiven her mom and has spoken to her every day since Thursday's shooting but said some of her mother's responses have her concerned.

Glassey said she started to have her doubts after receiving a phone call from her mother telling her that her brother, Antonio Santiago, had been killed. She claims the night of the shooting her mother asked, "How soon do you think life insurance policy will send me a check?"

Glassey tells First Coast News she hopes her suspicions are wrong but based on conversations with her mother she's not sure. Glassey described their discussions by saying her mother is crying one minute and then sounds fine the next.

"I spoke with the detectives and investigators and the evidence leads to many witnesses, not just me," said Sherry West, mother of the 13-month-old that was killed last Thursday morning.

Glassey says her mother is bipolar and has schizophrenic tendencies. She believes her mother is on medication but could not tell me any prescriptions specifically.

"She changed her story she told me the baby was shot first and then she told me she was shot first," said Glassey.

Sherry West maintains her story.

"They shot my baby in the head and I had to watch him die and I want that boy to die."

Glassey said she has contacted the Brunswick Police Department and no one has called her back. First Coast News contacted police to ask why, buy have yet to receive a response.

Police have not suggested that Sherry West is a suspect in this case.

Two teens are currently facing the murder charges

Daktari

03-27-2013, 10:01 AM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/mar/22/richard-littlejohn-transgender?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/26/lucy-meadows-death-not-in-vain

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/03/27/lancashire-inquest-opened-into-death-of-lucy-meadows/

Anyone following the Lucy Meadows story?

It's no surprise that the columnist who wrote so disparagingly about Lucy writes for the well known homophobic/transphobic/misogynistic/nimby-type reactionary Daily Wail (Mail).

How many more need to die in turmoil?

LeftWriteFemme

03-27-2013, 11:10 AM

Courting Cowardice

As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday’s case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky.

Things were moving too fast for them.

How could the nine, cloistered behind velvety rose curtains, marble pillars and archaic customs, possibly assess the potential effects of gay marriage? They’re not psychics, after all.

“Same-sex marriage is very new,” Justice Samuel Alito whinged, noting that “it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.” If the standard is that marriage always has to be “a good thing,” would heterosexuals pass?

“But you want us to step in and render a decision,” Alito continued, “based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cellphones or the Internet? I mean, we do not have the ability to see the future.”

Swing Justice Anthony Kennedy grumbled about “uncharted waters,” and the fuddy-duddies seemed to be looking for excuses not to make a sweeping ruling. Their questions reflected a unanimous craven impulse: How do we get out of this? This court is plenty bold imposing bad decisions on the country, like anointing W. president or allowing unlimited money to flow covertly into campaigns. But given a chance to make a bold decision putting them on the right, and popular, side of history, they squirm.

“Same-sex couples have every other right,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, sounding inane for a big brain. “It’s just about the label in this case.” He continued, “If you tell a child that somebody has to be their friend, I suppose you can force the child to say, ‘This is my friend,’ but it changes the definition of what it means to be a friend.”

Donald Verrilli Jr., the U.S. solicitor general arguing on the side of same-sex marriage, told the justices, “There is a cost to waiting.” He recalled that the argument by opponents of interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 was to delay because “the social science is still uncertain about how biracial children will fare in this world.”

The wisdom of the Warren court is reflected two miles away, where a biracial child is faring pretty well in his second term in the Oval Office.

The American Academy of Pediatrics last week announced its support for same-sex marriage, citing evidence that children of gays and lesbians do better when the couples marry. It may take another case, even another court, to legitimize same-sex marriage nationally, but the country has moved on. An ABC/Washington Post poll showed that 81 percent of Americans under 30 approve of gay marriage. Every time you blink, another lawmaker comes out of the closet on supporting the issue.

Charles Cooper, the lawyer for the proponents of Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, was tied in knots, failing to articulate any harm that could come from gay marriage and admitting that no other form of discrimination against gay people was justified. His argument, that marriage should be reserved for those who procreate, is ludicrous. Sonia Sotomayor was married and didn’t have kids. Clarence and Ginny Thomas did not have kids. Chief Justice Roberts’s two kids are adopted. Should their marriages have been banned? What about George and Martha Washington? They only procreated a country.

As Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out to Cooper, “Couples that aren’t gay but can’t have children get married all the time.”

Justice Elena Kagan wondered if Cooper thought couples over the age of 55 wanting to get married should be refused licenses. Straining to amuse, Justice Antonin Scalia chimed in: “I suppose we could have a questionnaire at the marriage desk when people come in to get the marriage — you know, ‘Are you fertile or are you not fertile?’ ”

Scalia didn’t elaborate on his comment in December at Princeton: “If we cannot have moral feeling against homosexuality, can we have it against murder?”

Cooper replied that a 55-year-old man would still be fertile, which was a non sequitur, given that he hails marriage as a bulwark against “irresponsible procreative conduct outside of marriage.”

He said that California should “hit the pause button” while “the experiment” of gay marriage matures. And he urged that we not refocus “the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults.” Did he miss the last few Me Decades?

The fusty legal discussion inside was a vivid contrast with the lusty rally outside. There were some offensive signs directed at gays, but the vibrant crowd was overwhelmingly pro same-sex marriage. One woman summed it up nicely in a placard reading “Gays have the right to be as miserable as I make my husband.”

The only emotional moment in court was when Justice Kennedy brought up the possible “legal injury” to 40,000 children in California who live with same-sex parents. “They want their parents to have full recognition and full status,” he told Cooper. “The voice of those children is important in this case, don’t you think?”

While Justice Alito can’t see into the future, most Americans can. If this court doesn’t reject bigotry, history will reject this court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/opinion/dowd-courting-cowardice.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130327&_r=0

Nat

03-27-2013, 02:21 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE92Q15D20130327

NBC "Today" show's Jenna Wolfe expecting baby with gay partner

CA_BabyCakes

03-28-2013, 04:43 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/health/oklahoma-dental-warning/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Who can you trust! Geez!

JustBeingMe

03-29-2013, 04:31 PM

Judge rejects divorce for transgender pregnant man
By PAUL DAVENPORT and FELICIA FONSECA | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago
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PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona judge on Friday refused to grant a divorce for a transgender Arizona man who gave birth to three children after beginning to change his sex from female.
Maricopa County Family Court Judge Douglas Gerlach ruled that Arizona's ban on same-sex marriages prevents Thomas Beatie's 9-year union from being recognized as valid.
Thomas Beatie was born a woman and later underwent a double-mastectomy, and began testosterone hormone therapy and psychological treatment to become a man, but he retained female reproductive organs and gave birth to three children.
Gerlach said he had no jurisdiction to approve a divorce because there's insufficient evidence that Beatie was a man when he married Nancy Beatie in Hawaii. He said the Beaties never provided records to fully explain what Thomas Beatie actually had done and not done to become a man.
"The decision here is not based on the conclusion that this case involves a same-sex marriage merely because one of the parties is a transsexual male, but instead, the decision is compelled by the fact that the parties failed to prove that (Thomas Beatie) was a transsexual male when they were issued their marriage license," he wrote in Friday's ruling.
A spokesman for Beatie, Ryan Gordon, said the judge's comments came as a shock and that Beatie plans to appeal the ruling. He said Beatie legally was married as a man and never was required to disclose that he retained female reproductive organs when applying for and being granted a new birth certificate in Hawaii as a man. He said Beatie halted testosterone treatments so that he could give birth to his children.
"It's unfortunate that the judge out here doesn't recognize marriage in another state," Gordon said.
Beatie is eager to end his marriage, but the couple's divorce plans stalled last summer when Gerlach said he was unable to find legal authority defining a man as someone who can give birth.
Gerlach's ruling didn't address whether Arizona law allows a person who was born female to marry another female after undergoing a sex change operation.
A separate ruling issued Friday by Gerlach sets guidelines on how the Beaties will co-parent their three children and grants them joint authority in making legal decisions. Thomas Beatie is required to pay nearly $240 a month to Nancy Beatie for child support, but she won't get alimony because the marriage was declared invalid.
Nancy Beatie's attorney, David Higgins, praised Gerlach for the thoroughness of the decision on the marriage, although it wasn't the one she had hoped for.
"He still sees a same-sex marriage, but he gave us all the rulings that we're asking for as far as the children," Higgins said.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights, which isn't involved in the Beatie divorce case, has said courts have declared marriages involving a transgender person invalid in a handful of cases across the country, but that those cases had different factual and legal issues than those in the Beatie case.
Thomas Beatie, known as "The Pregnant Man," was born Tracy Lehuanani Lagondino in Oahu, Hawaii. He began testosterone treatments in 1997 and underwent double mastectomy and chest reconstruction surgery in 2002. He changed his Hawaii driver's license to say he was a man and had a Hawaiian court approve his name change to Thomas.
Gerlach's ruling noted that Thomas Beatie halted the testosterone treatments and that he didn't provide documentation for any additional non-surgical efforts.
Thomas Beatie married his partner Nancy in early 2003 in Honolulu and became pregnant because Nancy was unable to have children. Thomas Beatie conceived with donated sperm and gave birth to children who are now 4, 3 and 2 years old. The couple eventually moved to Arizona.
Beatie has garnered a range of media attention, making the rounds on talk shows such as Larry King and Oprah Winfrey and winning a spot on Barbara Walters' list of "10 Most Fascinating People" in 2008, alongside President Barack Obama, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh and swimmer Michael Phelps. He also published a book, "Labor Of Love: The Story of One Man's Extraordinary Pregnancy," the cover displaying an image of a shirtless Thomas sporting facial hair and holding a hand over his bare pregnant belly.
___
Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Ariz. Associated Press Writer Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Greyson

03-30-2013, 12:06 AM

I remember after Thomas Beatie did the Oprah interview there was much discussion in this community about our thoughts about the "Pregnant Man." I was not terribly kind in my thoughts and comments. I thought a lot about the privacy of the yet unborn child, and in my mind Beatie's decision to do the Oprah interview reeked of "I see a book in this somewhere." My sense was that Beatie was motivated by financial gain in his decison to come out with his story.

I will never know if my insticts were correct about Beatie. But here is what I do know. After Beatie came out with his story, many states and some countries made the requirments to become a man legally, much more restrictive. Now it took more than T shots and psychological counselling. Now to become a male legally, it also required a surgery. (For the record, years before Beatie in the media I had a hystorectomy. For me I felt it was the first step to take in my transition.)

I met quite a few Transmen who could not finacially afford a surgery such at top surgery or a hystorectomy to meet these new surgical requirements to transtion.

For better or for worse, Beaties actions and decisions are not done in a vacum where there has been no impact on the fate of many others. In all fairness it is not only Beatie's actions and decisions that can impact a great deal of people, it really is a possibility for many of us to have the same or similar impacts.
__________________________________________________ ___________

Judge Rejects Divorce for Transgender Pregnant Man

By PAUL DAVENPORT and FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press
PHOENIX March 29, 2013 (AP)

Gerlach said he had no jurisdiction to approve a divorce because there's insufficient evidence that Beatie was a man when he married Nancy Beatie in Hawaii. He said the Beaties never provided records to fully explain what Thomas Beatie actually had done and not done to become a man.

"The decision here is not based on the conclusion that this case involves a same-sex marriage merely because one of the parties is a transsexual male, but instead, the decision is compelled by the fact that the parties failed to prove that (Thomas Beatie) was a transsexual male when they were issued their marriage license," he wrote in Friday's ruling.

Beatie is eager to end his marriage, but the couple's divorce plans stalled last summer when Gerlach said he was unable to find legal authority defining a man as someone who can give birth.

Gerlach's ruling didn't address whether Arizona law allows a person who was born female to marry another female after undergoing a sex change operation.

A separate ruling issued Friday by Gerlach sets guidelines on how the Beaties will co-parent their three children and grants them joint authority in making legal decisions. Thomas Beatie is required to pay nearly $240 a month to Nancy Beatie for child support, but she won't get alimony because the marriage was declared invalid.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-blocks-divorce-transgender-pregnant-man-18840262

Kobi

04-01-2013, 07:01 AM

TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. — Sheri Farley walks with a limp. The only job she could hold would be one where she does not have to stand or sit longer than 20 minutes, otherwise pain screams down her spine and up her legs.

For about five years, Ms. Farley, 45, stood alongside about a dozen other workers, spray gun in hand, gluing together foam cushions for chairs and couches sold under brand names like Broyhill, Ralph Lauren and Thomasville. Fumes from the glue formed a yellowish fog inside the plant, and Ms. Farley’s doctors say that breathing them in eventually ate away at her nerve endings, resulting in what she and her co-workers call “dead foot.”

A chemical she handled — known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB — is also used by tens of thousands of workers in auto body shops, dry cleaners and high-tech electronics manufacturing plants across the nation. Medical researchers, government officials and even chemical companies that once manufactured nPB have warned for over a decade that it causes neurological damage and infertility when inhaled at low levels over long periods, but its use has grown 15-fold in the past six years.

Such hazards demonstrate the difficulty, despite decades of effort, of ensuring that Americans can breathe clean air on the job. Even as worker after worker fell ill, records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that managers at Royale Comfort Seating, where Ms. Farley was employed, repeatedly exposed gluers to nPB levels that exceeded levels federal officials considered safe, failed to provide respirators and turned off fans meant to vent fumes.

But the story of the rise of nPB and the decline of Ms. Farley’s health is much more than the tale of one company, or another chapter in the national debate over the need for more, or fewer, government regulations. Instead, it is a parable about the law of unintended consequences.

It shows how an Environmental Protection Agency program meant to prevent the use of harmful chemicals fostered the proliferation of one, and how a hard-fought victory by OSHA in controlling one source of deadly fumes led workers to be exposed to something worse — a phenomenon familiar enough to be lamented in government parlance as “regrettable substitution.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/us/osha-emphasizes-safety-health-risks-fester.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

UofMfan

04-02-2013, 03:09 PM

‘Illegal immigrant’ no more. (http://blog.ap.org/)

Nadeest

04-03-2013, 10:57 PM

This is an interesting article. I do think that it is wrong in a lot of respects, though. IF the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA completely, rather then just partially striking it down, then the portion of the Constitution that states that each state has to respect each other's laws and rulings, should come into effect. That would force states that do not allow same sex marriages to take place, to recognize a same sex marriage that has taken place in a state that allows that, if that couple moves to the first state. I would think so, anyhow. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gay-couples-employers-could-face-legal-maze-supreme-094406233--politics.html

Kobi

04-04-2013, 10:38 AM

It was 45 years ago today that civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis. The world has changed greatly since 1968, but King’s message survives intact.

King was in Tennessee to help support a sanitation workers’ strike. At the age of 39, King was already an internationally known figure. Starting with the Montgomery boycott in 1955, King had led a series of nonviolent protests against discrimination.

When King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, at the time he was the youngest Peace Prize winner ever, at the age of 35.

His acceptance speech in Norway included the famous statement, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.” King also donated his prize money of $54,123 to the civil rights movement.

http://news.yahoo.com/day-dr-martin-luther-king-102031289.html

Kobi

04-04-2013, 11:14 AM

http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/550x/ab/7d/9a/ab7d9ae05079f6e472a53828578846d6.jpg

Kobi

04-04-2013, 11:38 AM

By TOM CANAVAN
AP Sports Writer

April 04, 2013

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Once the video went viral, Mike Rice's coaching days at Rutgers were over.

Now the question is whether anyone else will lose their jobs - including the athletic director who in December suspended and fined Rice for the abusive behavior, and the university president who signed off on it.

Rice was fired Wednesday, one day after a video surfaced of him hitting, shoving and berating his players with anti-gay slurs. The taunts were especially troubling behavior at Rutgers, where freshman student Tyler Clementi killed himself in 2010 after his roommate used a webcam to spy on him kissing another man in his dorm.

It also came at an especially embarrassing time for the NCAA, with the country focused on the Final Four basketball tournament this weekend.

Athletic Director Tim Pernetti was given a copy of the tape by a former employee in November and, after an independent investigator was hired to review it, Rice was suspended for three games, fined $75,000 and ordered to attend anger management classes. University President Robert Barchi agreed to the penalty.

Pernetti initially said Tuesday he and Barchi viewed the video in December. The president issued a statement Wednesday, saying he didn't see it until Tuesday and then moved to fire the 44-year-old coach for repeated abusive conduct. Through a school spokesman, Pernetti backed up his president and said Barchi did not view the video until this week.

"Yesterday, I personally reviewed the video evidence, which shows a chronic and pervasive pattern of disturbing behavior," Barchi said in a statement. "I have now reached the conclusion that Coach Rice cannot continue to serve effectively in a position that demands the highest levels of leadership, responsibility and public accountability. He cannot continue to coach at Rutgers University."

Later Wednesday, 13 faculty members posted a letter on the internet to the school's trustees and Board of Governors demanding the resignation of Barchi. It says his handling of the "homophobic and misogynist abuse" was inexcusable.

The video shows numerous clips of Rice at practice during his three years at the school firing basketballs at players, hitting them in the back, legs, feet and shoulders. It also shows him grabbing players by their jerseys and yanking them around the court. Rice can also be heard yelling obscenities and using gay slurs.

Several college coaches said they had never seen anything like the Rutgers video and it broke a cardinal rule: Never put your hands on a player.

"Don't tell me that's the old way. That's the wrong way," said John Thompson Jr., the Hall of Famer who led Georgetown to the 1984 national title. Thompson, the father of current Hoyas coach John Thompson III, called the images "child abuse."

UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma, winner of seven national titles, said "there is no line that could be drawn that would make that behavior acceptable."

The most famous case of a coach accused of abusing a player is the one involving Bob Knight of Indiana. The university put him on a zero-tolerance policy in 2000 after an investigation into a former player's allegations that the coach had choked him during a practice. When a student alleged that Knight grabbed him later that year, Knight was fired. Knight, who now works for ESPN, couldn't be reached Wednesday.

The Rice video drew outrage on campus and all the way to the capital in Trenton, with lawmakers and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie supporting the firing at the state's flagship public university.

This was a regrettable episode for the university, but I completely support the decision to remove Coach Rice," Christie said in a statement. "It was the right and necessary action to take in light of the conduct displayed on the videotape.

"Parents entrust their sons to the Rutgers athletic department and the men's basketball program at an incredibly formative period of their lives. The way these young men were treated by the head coach was completely unacceptable and violates the trust those parents put in Rutgers University. All of the student-athletes entrusted to our care deserve much better."

Clementi's family applauded the firing in a statement issued by the foundation named after their son.

"All students require safe environments to learn and reach their full potential, and Coach Rice's conduct has no place on a campus that is devoted to learning and fostering a sense of community," it said. "We know Rutgers is such a place, and, like all colleges and universities, it must not tolerate that kind of behavior."

State lawmakers want explanations from both Pernetti and Barchi on the initial decision not to fire Rice.

Pernetti took responsibility for trying to rehabilitate Rice instead of firing him.

"Dismissal and corrective action were debated in December and I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to rehabilitate, but I was wrong. Moving forward, I will work to regain the trust of the Rutgers community," he said.

Rice, who helped Robert Morris to two NCAA tournament appearances, was one of the hot coaching candidates in the spring of 2010. But he wasn't able to push Rutgers into the upper echelon of the Big East Conference, and went 44-51. Rice was 16-38 in the Big East, after going 73-31 in three seasons at Robert Morris. The Scarlet

Knights went 15-16 this season and 5-13 in the league.

The firing means Rutgers has now seen its last four coaches dismissed for poor decisions and controversy, rather than simply wins and losses.

Rice was Pernetti's first major hire after getting the AD's job.

Pernetti, who has a year left on his contract, said his decision to only suspend Rice was made in part because the coach was remorseful.

The videotape was given to Pernetti by former director of player development, Eric Murdock, who was hired by Rice in 2010. The two had a falling out over Murdock's appearances at a camp, and Pernetti said Murdock's contract was not renewed for last season.

Murdock, who said he was fired, compiled the video after losing his job.

Pernetti said about 60 percent of the incidents happened in Rice's first season.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130404/NEWS11/130409864/0/NEWS

Kobi

04-05-2013, 04:15 PM

Women in the World Summit .... transcript of her remarkable keynote speech.

When one thinks about this annual conference it really is intended to, and I believe has, focused attention on the global challenges facing women from equal rights and education, to human slavery, literacy, the power of the media and technology to affect change in women’s futures and so much else. I know that this is an occasion as well as for so many friends and colleagues to come together and take stock for where we stand and what more needs to be done in advancing the great unfinished business of the 21st century—advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls.

Now this is unfinished around the world, where too many women are still treated at best as second-class citizens, at worst as some kind of subhuman species. Those of you who were there last night saw that remarkable film that interviewed men primarily in Pakistan, talking very honestly about their intention to continue to control the women in their lives and their reach. But the business is still unfinished here at home in the United States, we have come so far together but there’s still work to be done.

Now, I have always believed that women are not victims, we are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace—all we need is a fighting chance.

And that firm faith in the untapped potential of women at home and around the world has been at the heart of my work my entire life, from college and law school, from Arkansas to the White House to the Senate. And when I became Secretary of State, I was determined to weave this perspective even deeper into the fabric of American foreign policy.

But I knew to do that, I couldn’t just preach to the usual choir. We had to reach out, not only to men, in solidarity and recruitment, but to religious communities, to every partner we could find. We had to make the case to the whole world that creating opportunities for women and girls advances security and prosperity for everyone. So we relied on the empirical research that shows that when women participate in the economy, everyone benefits. When women participate in peace-making and peace-keeping, we are all safer and more secure. And when women participate in politics of their nations they can make a difference.

But as strong a case as we’ve made, too many otherwise thoughtful people continue to see the fortunes of women and girls as somehow separate from society at large. They nod, they smile and then they relegate these issues once again to the sidelines. I have seen it over and over again, I have been kidded about it I have been ribbed, I have been challenged in boardrooms and official offices across the world.

But fighting to give women and girls a fighting chance isn’t a nice thing to-do. It isn’t some luxury that we get to when we have time on our hands to spend. This is a core imperative for every human being in every society. If we do not continue the campaign for women’s rights and opportunities, the world we want to live, the country we all love and cherish, will not be what it should be.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries that threaten regional and global peace are the very places where women and girls are deprived of dignity and opportunity. Think of the young women from northern Mali to Afghanistan whose schools have been destroyed. Or of the girls across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia who have been condemned to child marriage. Or of the refugees of the conflicts from eastern Congo to Syria who endure rape and deprivation as a weapon of war.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries where the rule of law and democracy are struggling to take root are the same places where women and girls cannot participate as full and equal citizens. Like in Egypt, where women stood on the front lines of the revolution but are now being denied their seats at the table and face a rising tide of sexual violence.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries making the leap from poverty to prosperity are places now grappling with how to empower women. I think it is one of the unanswered questions of the rest of this century to whether countries, like China and India, can sustain their growth and emerge as true global economic powers. Much of that depends on what happens to women and girls.

None of these are coincidences. Instead, they demonstrate—and your presence here confirms—that we are meeting at a remarkable moment of confluence.

Because in countries and communities across the globe where for generations violence against women has gone unchecked, opportunity and dignity virtually unknown, there is a powerful new current of grassroots activism stirring, galvanized by events too outrageous to ignore and enabled by new technologies that give women and girls voices like never before. That’s why we need to seize this moment. But we need to be thoughtful and smart and savvy about what this moment really offers to us.

Now many of us have been working and advocating and fighting for women and girls for more decades than we care to remember. And I think we can be and should proud of all that we’ve achieved. Conferences like this one have been part of that progress. But let’s recognize much of our advocacy is still rooted in a 20th century, top-down frame. The world is changing beneath our feet and it is past time to embrace a 21st century approach to advancing the rights and opportunities of women and girls at home and across the globe.

Think about it. You know, technology, from satellite television to cell phones from Twitter to Tumblr, is helping bring abuses out of the shadows and into the center of global consciousness, Think of that woman in a blue bra beaten in Tahrir Square, think about that 6-year old girl in Afghanistan about to be sold into marriage to settle a family debt.

Just as importantly, technological changes are helping inspire, organize, and empower grassroots action. I have seen this and that is where progress is coming from and that’s where our support is needed. We have a tremendous stake in the outcome of these metrics.

Today, more than ever, we see clearly that the fate of women and girls around the world is tied up with the greatest security and economic challenges of our time.

Consider Pakistan, a proud country with a rich history that recently marked a milestone in its democratic development when a civilian government completed its full term for the very first time. And it is no secret that Pakistan is plagued by many ills: violent extremism, sectarian conflict, poverty, energy shortages, corruption, weak democratic institutions. It is a combustible mix. And more than 30,000 Pakistanis have been killed by terrorists in the last decade.

The repression of women in Pakistan exacerbates all of these problems.

More than 5 million children do not attend school—and two-thirds of them are girls. The Taliban insurgency has made the situation even worse.

As Malala has said and reminded us: “We live in the 21st century. How can we be deprived from education?” She went on to say, “I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up.”

How many of us here today would have that kind of courage? The Taliban recognized this young girl, 14-year at the time, as a serious threat. You know what? They were right— she was a threat. Extremism thrives amid ignorance and anger, intimidation and cowardice. As Malala said, “If this new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns.”

But the Taliban miscalculated. They thought if they silenced Malala, and thank god they didn’t, that not only she, but her cause would die. Instead, they inspired millions of Pakistanis to finally say, “Enough is enough.” You heard it directly from those two brave young Pakistani women yesterday. And they are not alone. People marched in the streets and signed petitions demanding that every Pakistani child—girls as well as boys—have the opportunity to attend school. And that in itself was a rebuke to the extremists and their ideology.

I’m well aware that improving life for Pakistan’s women is not a panacea. But it’s impossible to imagine making real progress on the country’s other problems—especially violent extremism—without tapping the talents and addressing the needs of Pakistan’s women, including reducing corruption, ending the culture of impunity, expanding access to education, to credit, to all the tools that give a woman or a man make the most of their life’s dreams. None of this will be easy or quick. But the grassroots response to Malala’s shooting gives us hope for the future.

Again and again we have seen women drive peace and progress. In Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant women like Inez McCormick came together to demand an end to the Troubles and helped usher in the Good Friday Accords. In Liberia, women marched and protested until the country’s warlords agreed to end their civil war, they prayed the devil back to hell, and they twice elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the first woman president in Africa. An organization called Sisters Against Violent Extremism now connects women in more than a dozen countries who have risked their lives to tell terrorists that they are not welcome in their communities.

So the next time you hear someone say that the fate of women and girls is not a core national security issue, it’s not one of those hard issues that really smart people deal with, remind them: The extremists understand the stakes of this struggle. They know that when women are liberated, so are entire societies. We must understand this too. And not only understand it, but act on it.

And the struggles do not end. Struggles do not end when countries attempt the transition to democracy. we’ve seen that very clearly the last few years.

Many millions including many of us were inspired and encouraged by the way women and men worked together during the revolutions in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. But we know that all over the world when the dust settles, too often women’s gains are lot to better organized, more powerful forces of oppression.

We see seeing women largely shut out of decision-making. We see women activists believe they are being targeted by organized campaigns of violence and intimidation.

But still, many brave activists, women and men alike, continue to advocate for equality and dignity for all Egyptians, Tunisians, and Libyans. They know the only way to realize the promise of the Arab Spring is with and through the full participation of half the population.

Now what is true in politics is also true economics.

In the years ahead, a number of rapidly developing nations are poised to reshape the global economy, lift many millions out of poverty and into the middle class. This will be good for them and good for us—it will create vast new markets and trading partners.

But no country can achieve its full economic potential when women are left out or left behind… a fact underscored day after day and most recently to me a tragedy in India.

Concerning the young 23-year-old woman, brutally beaten and raped on a Delhi bus last December she was from a poor farming family, but like so many women and men she wanted to climb that economic ladder. She had aspirations for her life. She studied all day to become a physical therapist, then went to work at call centers in the evening, she sleep two hours a night. President Mukherjeeof described her as a “symbol of all that New India strives to be.”

But if her life embodied the aspirations of a rising nation, her death and her murder, pointed to the many challenges still holding it back. The culture of rape is tied up with a broader set of problems: official corruption, illiteracy, inadequate education, laws and traditions, customs, culture, that prevent women from being seen as equal human beings. And in addition, in many places, India and China being the leaders, in skewed gender balance with many more men than women, which contributes to human trafficking, child marriage, and other abuses that dehumanize women and corrode society.

So millions of Indians took to the streets in 2011, they protested corruption. In 2012, came the Delhi gang rape, and the two causes merged. Demands for stronger measures against rape were joined by calls for better policing and more responsive governance, for an India that could protect all its citizens and deliver the opportunities they deserve. Some have called that the “Indian Spring.”

Because, as the protesters understood, India will rise or fall with its women. Its had a tradition of strong women leaders, but those women leaders like women leaders around the world like those who become presidents or prime ministers or foreign ministers or heads of corporations cannot be seen as tokens that give everyone else in society the chance to say we’ve taken care of our women. So any country that wants to rise economically and improve productivity needs to open the doors.

Latin America and the Caribbean have steadily increased women’s participation in the labor market since the 1990s, they now account for more than half of all workers. The World Bank estimates that extreme poverty in the region has decreased by 30 percent as a result.

(continued in next post)

Kobi

04-05-2013, 04:17 PM

Here in the United States, American women went from holding 37 percent of all jobs forty years ago to nearly 48 percent today. And the productivity gains attributable to this increase account for more than $3.5 trillion in GDP growth over those four decades. Similarly, fast-growing Asian economies could boost their per capita incomes by as much as 14 percent by 2020 if they brought more women into the workforce.

Laws and traditions that hold back women, hold back entire societies, creating more opportunities for women and girls will grow economies and spread prosperity. When I first began talking about this using rape data from the World Bank and private sector analyses there were doubters who couldn’t quite put the pieces together. But that debate is over. Opening the doors to one’s economy for woman will make a difference.

Now, I want to conclude where I began, with the unfinished business we face here at home. The challenges and opportunities I’ve outlined today are not just for the people of the developing world. America must face this too if we want to continue leading the world.

Traveling the globe these last four years reaffirmed and deepened my pride in our country and the ideals we represent. But it also challenged me to think about who we are and the values we are supposed to be living here at home in order to represent abroad After all, our global leadership for peace and prosperity, for freedom and equality, is not a birthright. It must be earned by every generation.

And yes, we now have American women at high levels of business, academia, and government—you name it. But, as we’ve seen in recent months, we’re still asking age-old questions about how to make women’s way in male-dominated fields, how to balance the demands of work and family. The Economist magazine recently published what it called a “glass-ceiling index” ranking countries based on factors like opportunities for women in the workplace and equal pay. The United States was not even in the top 10. Worse, recent studies have found that, on average, women live shorter lives in America than in any other major industrialized country.

Think about it for a minute. We are the richest and most powerful country in the world. Yet many American women today are living shorter lives than their mothers, especially those with the least education. That is a historic reversal that rivals the decline in life expectancy for Russian men after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Now there is no single explanation for why this is happening. Prescription drug overdoses have spiked: obesity, smoking, lack of health insurance, intractable poverty. But the fact is that for too many American women, opportunity and the dream of upward mobility—the American Dream— remains elusive.

That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. I think of the extraordinary sacrifices my mother made to survive her own difficult childhood, to give me not only life, but opportunity along with love and inspiration. And I’m very proud of my own daughter and I look at all these young women I’m privileged to work with or know through Chelsea and it’s hard to imagine turning the clock back on them. But in places throughout America large and small the clock is turning back.

So, we have work to do. Renewing America’s vitality at home and strengthening our leadership abroad will take the energy and talents of all our people, women and men.

If America is going to lead, we need to learn from the women of the world who have blazed new paths and developed new solutions, on everything from economic development to education to environmental protection.

If America is going to lead, we need to catch up with so much of the rest of the world and finally ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women.

If America is going to lead, we need to stand by the women of Afghanistan after our combat troops come home, we need to speak up for all the women working to realize the promise of the Arab Spring, and do more to save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of mothers who die every year during childbirth from preventable causes and so much more.

If America is going to lead, we need to stand by the women of Afghanistan after our combat troops come home, we need to speak up for all the women working to realize the promise of the Arab Spring, and do more to save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of mothers who die every year during childbirth from preventable causes and so much more.

But that’s not all.

Because if America is going to lead we expect ourselves to lead, we need to empower women here at home to participate fully in our economy and our society, we need to make equal pay a reality, we need to extending family and medical leave benefits to more workers and make them paid, we need to encourage more women and girls to pursue careers in math and science.

We need to invest in our people so they can live up to their own God-given potential.

That’s how America will lead in the world.

So let’s learn from the wisdom of every mother and father all over the world who teaches their daughters that there is no limit on how big she can dream and how much she can achieve.

This truly is the unfinished business of the 21st century. And It is the work we are all called to do. I look forward to being to be your partner in all the days and years ahead. Lets keep fighting for opportunity and dignity, let’s keep fighting for freedom and equality, let's keep fighting for full participation. And let's keep telling the world over and over again that yes, women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights once and for all.

Nadeest

04-06-2013, 07:40 AM

If Hillary Clinton runs for President, I'm voting to elect her, on the basis of that speech, her work as Secretary of State, and all that she has seen and experienced, living with 'Slick Willie' Clinton.

Nat

04-06-2013, 07:41 AM

The kid from who's the boss got engaged to his partner and they plan to move the California "once prop 8 is overturned." http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2013/04/m-danny-pintauro-of-whos-the-boss-engaged-to-wil-tabares.html

Not big news but I just like seeing another person I grew up watching be happy and gay :) Alyssa Milano had so much potential but I'll take what I can get.

UofMfan

04-06-2013, 02:31 PM

Pablo Neruda Exhumation Set For Monday As Chile Searches For Answers In Legendary Poet's Death (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/06/pablo-neruda-to-be-exhumed-chile_n_3029120.html)

Sparkle

04-08-2013, 06:07 AM

Baroness Thatcher has died (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155)

...ironically Thatcherism is alive and well in the UK today.

Kobi

04-08-2013, 06:34 AM

Baroness Thatcher has died (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155)

...ironically Thatcherism is alive and well in the UK today.

This woman always intrigued me. More so after I learned that Thatcherism was based on the philosophy and beliefs of Milton Friedman and his colleagues at The U of Chicago. Amazing how the thoughts and philosophy of one man and his group of cronies influenced and continue to influence world leaders even when their planned and actual implementation in unsuspecting countries failed miserably. Works good on paper. Not so good when humanness and human greed come into play.

In case you are wondering, all the economic bullcrap the tea party is spouting is classic Friedmanism.

Sparkle

04-08-2013, 06:42 AM

This woman always intrigued me. More so after I learned that Thatcherism was based on the philosophy and beliefs of Milton Friedman and his colleagues at The U of Chicago. Amazing how the thoughts and philosophy of one man and his group of cronies influenced and continue to influence world leaders even when their planned and actual implementation in unsuspecting countries failed miserably. Works good on paper. Not so good when humanness and human greed come into play.

In case you are wondering, all the economic bullcrap the tea party is spouting is classic Friedmanism.

She doesn't intrigue me, she repulses me; much like Ann Coulter repulses me.

I can't watch all the "tributes" to her life today.

The fact that she was the first (and only) woman to rise to the post of PM doesn't impress me, not after having lived with/amidst the consequences of her "reign".

She was not a good leader and not a good person.

She was especially classist and homophobic.

But she was a mother and a grandmother and I am sorry for their loss, I hope she was kind and loving to them.

lusciouskiwi

04-08-2013, 06:46 AM

She doesn't intrigue me, she repulses me. Much like Ann Coulter repulses me.

I can't watch all the "tributes" to her life today.

The fact that she was the first (and only) woman to rise to the post of PM doesn't impress me, not after having lived with/amidst the consequences of her "reign".

She was not a good leader and not a good person.

She was especially classist and homophobic.

But she was a mother and a grandmother and I am sorry for their loss, I hope she was kind and loving to them.

Do you mean the first and only in The UK? Because NZ has had two women PMs (the second one, Helen Clark, was elected, the first one, Jenny Shipley (a Thatcher wannabe), wasn't).

I hope she was good to her family, because she wasn't good to the average person from The UK from what we saw in NZ.

Sparkle

04-08-2013, 06:52 AM

Do you mean the first and only in The UK? Because NZ has had two women PMs (the second one, Helen Clark, was elected, the first one, Jenny Shipley (a Thatcher wannabe), wasn't).

I hope she was good to her family, because she wasn't good to the average person from The UK from what we saw in NZ.

Yes, I'm sorry, the first and only woman to rise to the post of Prime Minister in the UK.

Kobi

04-08-2013, 11:45 AM

She doesn't intrigue me, she repulses me; much like Ann Coulter repulses me.

I can't watch all the "tributes" to her life today.

The fact that she was the first (and only) woman to rise to the post of PM doesn't impress me, not after having lived with/amidst the consequences of her "reign".

She was not a good leader and not a good person.

She was especially classist and homophobic.

But she was a mother and a grandmother and I am sorry for their loss, I hope she was kind and loving to them.

I don't know much about Thatcher per se. I am curious as to why you see her as a poor leader and not a good person who was classist and homophobic.

Most politicians are classists - they are the only ones who can afford to run for office. And most people of her era were homophobic. I don't know much about her leadership except as I mentioned as to the economics of Friedman who advocated breaking unions, making people disappear, selling off the infrastructure which threw millions of people out of work all over the world etc.

I'm also wondering if we hold female politicians and leaders to a different standard than male politicians. Seriously, Churchill did some shitty stuff, Nixon did, Reagan did. I don't ever remember anyone saying anything like - "he was a father and a grandfather and I am sorry for their loss, I hope he was kind and loving to them."

Greyson

04-08-2013, 12:01 PM

Stopping Unsolicited Mail, Phone Calls, and Email

This may not be "Breaking News" but it could be new and useful information to you. I recieved this from an emailist that I subscribe to from the FTC. Hope it can help.

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email

Sparkle

04-08-2013, 01:31 PM

I don't know much about Thatcher per se. I am curious as to why you see her as a poor leader and not a good person who was classist and homophobic.

Most politicians are classists - they are the only ones who can afford to run for office. And most people of her era were homophobic. I don't know much about her leadership except as I mentioned as to the economics of Friedman who advocated breaking unions, making people disappear, selling off the infrastructure which threw millions of people out of work all over the world etc.

I'm also wondering if we hold female politicians and leaders to a different standard than male politicians. Seriously, Churchill did some shitty stuff, Nixon did, Reagan did. I don't ever remember anyone saying anything like - "he was a father and a grandfather and I am sorry for their loss, I hope he was kind and loving to them."

I think this editorial in the Guardian is quite a good and fair summary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-editorial

Her Homophobia

I agree almost all politicians of her era were also homophobic, especially the gay ones. But Margaret Thatcher, as leader of her party and PM of the UK, instituted laws that made the LGBT community second class citizens, it enshrined that status in to law. Read up on Section 28 (also known as clause 28), it took 15 years to undo that piece of pernicious legislation, alone. I didn't live in the UK during her leadership, but I did work alongside my peers to undo Section 28.

Do I hold her to a higher standard because she's a woman - in regards to her homophobia? No. I hold Bill Clinton to the same high standard and I find him just as lacking. His decision to sign DOMA and DADT, nearly 10 years later, were equally damaging and we continue to try to undo that here.

Her Classism

snip/

"I don't know much about her leadership except as I mentioned as to the economics of Friedman who advocated breaking unions, making people disappear, selling off the infrastructure which threw millions of people out of work all over the world etc. "

She did all of that and then some, including supporting the Pinochet government who did a great job of making people disappear.

She did her very best to institute Friedman's economic philosophies/strategies, actually a much better than Ronald Reagan did.

She created the economic hole the UK is still digging out of.

She decimated the National Health Service, and all other socialized services. She created economic chasms between "classes"; chasms that were deeper than had existed before (and that's sayin' something). She divided and destroyed communities. She did irreparable damage to the most vulnerable sections of the population. People suffered and people died because of her policies: the elderly, the working poor, unionized workers, children...and that was just at home.

I'm going to quote Ken Loach (the film director) who summed up some of the "highlights" of Margaret Thatcher's career today:

"Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and destructive Prime Minister of modern times. Mass Unemployment, factory closures, communities destroyed – this is her legacy. She was a fighter and her enemy was the British working class. Her victories were aided by the politically corrupt leaders of the Labour Party and of many Trades Unions. It is because of policies begun by her that we are in this mess today. Other prime ministers have followed her path, notably Tony Blair. She was the organ grinder, he was the monkey. Remember she called Mandela a terrorist and took tea with the torturer and murderer Pinochet.

How should we honour her? Let’s privatise her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It’s what she would have wanted."

Women in Politics

To the question of whether "we" hold female politicians to a higher standard, my answer is: maybe.

Maybe, I do.

I certainly hold members of this community (the B-F community, the Queer community) to a higher standard. I believe that you and I, and everyone here, should be "better": smarter, kinder, more compassionate; better educated, more self-aware, more philanthropic, more politically active.

I hold women (regardless of their profession) to the same set of elevated standards.

I believe that because we come from a place of oppression and silencing, because we must overcome the hurdles and challenges (both internal and external) that arise from being "less than", because we must work harder and longer to rise the ranks; because we must be louder and bolder to be heard; I believe we must be better listeners, better managers, better politicians - -- better human beings in whatever realm we live and work.

So yes, I do expect more, from myself and from all of you.
And yes, with that expectation comes disappointment, sometimes.

Regardless, my feelings about Margaret Thatcher have nothing to do with her gender.

In fact, to me, her gender is only notable because she was the first woman to rise to that position of power in the UK. But her gender became secondary to her legacy. And her legacy is not one I am proud of.

And the people who are extolling their admiration for MargaretBloodyThatcher because she was a "strong woman" are driving me 'round the bend because they are correlating "strong woman" with "good leader". And the truth is she was not a good leader. Not by anyone's standards (except the most conservative).

Edited to add a link:

A piece entitled "Not all socialists want to dance on Margaret Thatcher's grave" written last year, it reflects much of what I wish people knew and understood about her legacy. And for the record, I don't want to dance on her grave either. I don't find joy in celebrating anyone's death. Not even Maggie Thatcher's. Or Bin Ladens. Or W.'s when it comes to that.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/not-all-socialists-want-to-dance-on-margaret-thatchers-grave-i-want-her-to-go-on-and-on-8143089.html

Daktari

04-08-2013, 02:21 PM

Sparkle

04-08-2013, 05:05 PM

Here is a piece from political activist Peter Tatchell:

http://www.petertatchell.net/politics/Margaret-Thatcher-Extraordinary-but-heartless.htm

snip/

“Margaret Thatcher was an extraordinary woman but she was extraordinary for mostly the wrong reasons. So many of her policies were wrong and heartless. Nevertheless, I don’t rejoice in her death. I commiserate, as I do with the death of any person. In contrast, she showed no empathy for the victims of her harsh, ruthless policy decisions,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

“Thatcher initiated policies that paved the way for the current economic crisis: the decimation of Britain’s manufacturing base, the get-rich-quick business mentality, the promotion of the free market and the poorly regulated banking sector. This led to imbalances in the economy. The financial sector gained undue influence, with few checks and balances. These distortions were exacerbated by Blair and Brown but Thatcher began the train of events that led to the present economic meltdown.

“In 1988, the Thatcher government legislated Britain’s first new anti-gay law in 100 years: Section 28. At the 1987 Conservative party conference she mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right. During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murder. Gay men were widely demonised and scapegoated for the AIDS pandemic and Thatcher did nothing to challenge this vilification.

“To her credit, she shattered the sexist glass ceiling in politics and got to the top in a man’s world. However, on becoming Prime Minister she did little for the rights of women. She was a macho, testosterone-fuelled right-wing politician.

“Her political agenda was almost entirely divisive and destructive, including mass unemployment and urban decay. She emasculated local government and boosted police powers to the detriment of civil liberties. The striking miners and their families were ruthlessly crushed on her orders. She oversaw the use of police state methods. Baton-wielding police struck down peaceful miners. People travelling to support the strikers were pre-emptively arrested. Protesting miners at Orgreave were framed on false police evidence."

And another summation of the highlights of Thatcher's career

Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and polarising politic leader of the last century. This is an incomplete list of why many of us fall on the side that does not regard her with anything other than odium…

1. She supported the retention of capital punishment
2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren ("Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher")
5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_(United_Kingdom)) in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands
10. The poll tax
11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad
12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War
13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years
14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS
15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits
16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA
17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control
18. Section 28 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28)
19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"
20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers
21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population
22. She opposed the reunification of Germany
23. She invented Quangos
24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%
25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister
26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech
27. The Al Yamamah contract
28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet
29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike
30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%
31. BSE
32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession
33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process
34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa
35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin
36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher
37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion
38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage
39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education
41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions
42. 21.9% inflation

Kobi

04-08-2013, 06:13 PM

As a social scientist, I am as concerned not only with what people do but why they do it. Thatcher fascinates me because she is the embodiment of Friedman economics. She demonstrated how economic beliefs can permeate every aspect of life and influence every policy decision.

What is unique in the Thatcher situation is she was a non-military leader of a nation implementing these beliefs. Prior "Friedman social experiments" came in countries where the USA overthrew the existing government, installed a military regime, and orchestrated Friedmanomics. The results were consistent. The rich became filthy rich, the poor became filthy poor, and it all fell apart pretty damn fast.

History repeats itself. The tea party, the GOP, and even some democrats are thinking in Friedmanomics. This is not new stuff. It has been slowly and steadily creeping in the consciousness of the country since before Nixon.

Check out this perspective on Thatcher and take a look at why she did the things she did. Sound familiar?

-----------------------------------
LONDON (AP) - Love her or loathe her, one thing's beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain.

The Iron Lady who ruled for 11 remarkable years imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation - breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing Street.

For admirers, Thatcher was a savior who rescued Britain from ruin and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary economic renaissance. For critics, she was a heartless tyrant who ushered in an era of greed that kicked the weak out onto the streets and let the rich become filthy rich.

"Let us not kid ourselves, she was a very divisive figure," said Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's press secretary for her entire term. "She was a real toughie. She was a patriot with a great love for this country, and she raised the standing of Britain abroad."

Thatcher was the first - and still only - female prime minister in Britain's history. But she often found feminists tiresome and was not above using her handbag as a prop to underline her swagger and power. A grocer's daughter, she rose to the top of Britain's snobbish hierarchy the hard way, and envisioned a classless society that rewarded hard work and determination.

She was a trailblazer who at first believed trailblazing impossible: Thatcher told the Liverpool Daily Post in 1974 that she did not think a woman would serve as party leader or prime minister during her lifetime.

But once in power, she never showed an ounce of doubt.

Like her close friend and political ally Ronald Reagan, Thatcher seemed motivated by an unshakable belief that free markets would build a better country than reliance on a strong, central government. Another thing she shared with the American president: a tendency to reduce problems to their basics, choose a path, and follow it to the end, no matter what the opposition.

She formed a deep attachment to the man she called "Ronnie" - some spoke of it as a schoolgirl crush. Still, she would not back down when she disagreed with him on important matters, even though the United States was the richer and vastly stronger partner in the so-called "special relationship."

Thatcher was at her brashest when Britain was challenged. When Argentina's military junta seized the remote Falklands Islands from Britain in 1982, she did not hesitate even though her senior military advisers said it might not be feasible to reclaim the islands.

She simply would not allow Britain to be pushed around, particularly by military dictators, said Ingham, who recalls the Falklands War as the tensest period of Thatcher's three terms in power. When diplomacy failed, she dispatched a military task force that accomplished her goal, despite the naysayers.

"That required enormous leadership," Ingham said. "This was a formidable undertaking, this was a risk with a capital R-I-S-K, and she demonstrated her leadership by saying she would give the military their marching orders and let them get on with it."

In deciding on war, Thatcher overruled Foreign Office specialists who warned her about the dangers of striking back. She was infuriated by warnings about the dangers to British citizens in Argentina and the difficulty of getting support from the U.N. Security Council.

"When you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them," she said in her memoir, "Downing Street Years." "And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister."

The relatively quick triumph of British forces revived Thatcher's political fortunes, which had been faltering along with the British economy. She won an overwhelming victory in 1983, tripling her majority in the House of Commons.

She trusted her gut instinct, famously concluding early on that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev represented a clear break in the Soviet tradition of autocratic rulers. She pronounced that the West could "do business" with him, a position that influenced Reagan's vital dealings with Gorbachev in the twilight of the Soviet era.

It was heady stuff for a woman who had little training in foreign affairs whe n she triumphed over a weak field of indecisive Conservative Party candidates to take over the party leadership in 1975 and ultimately run as the party's candidate for prime minister.

She profited from the enormous crisis facing the Labour Party government led by Harold Wilson and later James Callaghan. Britain was near economic collapse, its currency propped up by the International Monetary Fund, and its once defiant spirit seemingly broken.

The sagging Labour government had no Parliamentary majority after 1977, and the next year it suffered through a "winter of discontent" with widespread strikes disrupting vital public services, including hospital care and even gravedigging. The government's effort to hold the line on inflation led to chaos in the streets.

Britain seemed adrift, no longer a credible world power, falling from second- to third-tier status.

It was then, Thatcher wrote in her memoirs, that she came to the unshakable, almost mystical belief that only she could save Britain. She cited a deep "inner conviction" that this would be her role.

Events seemed to be moving her way when she led the Conservative Party to victory in 1979 with a commitment to reduce the state's role and champion private enterprise.

She was underestimated at first - by her own party, by the media, later by foreign adversaries. But they all soon learned to respect her. Thatcher's "Iron Lady" nickname was coined by Soviet journalists, a grudging testament to her ferocious will and determination.

Thatcher set about upending decades of liberal doctrine, successfully challenging Britain's welfare state and socialist traditions, in the process becoming the reviled bete noire of the country's leftwing intelligentsia.

She is perhaps best remembered for her hardline position during the pivotal strike in 1984 and 1985 when she faced down coal miners in an ultimately successful bid to break the power of Britain's unions. It w as a reshaping of the British economic and political landscape that endures to this day.

It is for this that she is revered by free-market conservatives, who say the restructuring of the economy led to a boom that made London the rival of New York as a global financial center. The left demonized her as an implacably hostile union buster, with stone-cold indifference to the poor. But her economic philosophy eventually crossed party lines: Tony Blair led a revamped Labour Party to victory by adopting some of her ideas.

Thatcher's personality, like that of so many of her contemporaries, was shaped in part by the traumatic events during her childhood. When World War II broke out, her hometown was one of the early targets for Luftwaffe bombs. Her belief in the need to stand up to aggressors was rooted in the failure of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to appease Adolf Hitler rather than confront him.

Thatcher said she learned much about the world simply by studying her father's business. She grew up in the family's apartment just above the shop.

"Before I read a line from the great liberal economists, I knew from my father's accounts that the free market was like a vast sensitive nervous system, responding to events and signals all over the world to meet the ever-changing needs of peoples in different countries, from different classes, of different religions, with a kind of benign indifference to their status," she wrote in her memoirs.

"The economic history of Britain for the next 40 years confirmed and amplified almost every item of my father's practical economics. In effect, I had been equipped at an early age with the ideal mental outlook and tools of analysis for reconstructing an economy ravaged by state socialism."

Margaret Thatcher first won election to Parliament in 1959, representing Finchley in north London. She climbed the Conservative Party ladder quickly, joining the Cabinet as education secretary in 1970.

In that post, she earned the unwanted nickname "Thatcher the milk snatcher" because of her reduction of school milk programs. It was a taste of battles to come.

As prime minister, she sold off one state industry after another: British Telecom, British Gas, Rolls-Royce, British Airways, British Coal, British Steel, the water companies and the electricity distribution system among them. She was proud of her government's role in privatizing some public housing, turning tenants into homeowners.

She ruffled feathers simply by being herself. She had faith - sometimes blind faith - in the clarity of her vision and little use for those of a more cautious mien. Success in the Falklands War set the stage for a pivotal fight with the National Union of Miners, which began a 51-week strike in March 1984 to oppose the government's plans to close a number of mines.

The miners battled police on picket lines but couldn't beat Thatcher, and returned to work without gaining any concessions.

Thatcher won a third term in another landslide in 1987, but may have become overconfident.

She trampled over cautionary advice from her own ministers in 1989 and 1990 by imposing a hugely controversial "community charge" tax that was quickly dubbed a "poll tax" by opponents. It was designed to move Britain away from a property tax and instead imposed a flat rate tax on every adult except for retirees and people who were registered unemployed.

That decision may have been a sign that hubris was undermining Thatcher's political acumen. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in London and other cities, leading to some of the worst riots in the British capital for more than a century.

The shocking sight of Trafalgar Square turned into a smoldering battleground on March 31, 1990, helped convince many Conservative figures that Thatcher had stayed too long.

"How could a leader who was wise make 13 million people pay a tax they had never paid before? It just showed that she was no longer thinking in a rational way," one of her junior ministers, David Mellor, said in a BBC documentary.

For Conservatives in Parliament, it was a question of survival. They feared vengeful voters would turn them out of office at the next election, and for many that fear trumped any gratitude they might have felt for their longtime leader.

Eight months after the riots, Thatcher was gone, struggling to hold back tears as she left Downing Street after being ousted by her own party.

It was a bitter end for Thatcher's active political career - her family said she felt a keen sense of betrayal even years later.

In 1992, she was appointed in the House of Lords, taking the title Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

imperfect_cupcake

04-08-2013, 06:21 PM

Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette (http://gu.com/p/3fxmd)

I do not celebrate her death because I do not care if she is alive or dead. I grieve all of the harm, crueltly and starvation she inflicted on her own country because of her tory politics and greed.

I personally know people who are scarred from their families suffering in poverty in their youth because of her. Neglectful, cruel, greedy leader with no concern and launguishing in her own comfort.

NEVER FORGET.

Her and Regan should be put in a glass box, arms around each other to rot in public and a list of all their human rights crimes listed underneath.

jac

04-09-2013, 05:34 PM

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1556628/annette-funicello-mickey-mouse-club-actress-and-singer-dies-at-70

The passing of Annette Funicello...

This news is so saddening to me. :( I grew up with the Mousketeers and loved her Skippy commercials... well, and the Beach Blanket Bingo movies!! I have been wondering where she was when the first bit of news about her multiple sclerosis came out in the 80s and there was no more news on her.

Awwww.... rest easy Annette. - My sister was named after you... but you know this now. :flowers:

Andrea

04-09-2013, 06:06 PM

100 Amazing Trans Americans You Should Know

The inaugural Trans 100 List celebrates groundbreaking work being done by trans people across the country.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/saeedjones/100-amazing-trans-americans-you-should-know?sub=2135553_1056531 (http://www.buzzfeed.com/saeedjones/100-amazing-trans-americans-you-should-know?sub=2135553_1056531)

LeftWriteFemme

04-10-2013, 03:31 PM

WATCH: Elizabeth Taylor’s Grandson Continues Fight Against HIV/AIDS

http://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/wp/docs/2013/04/quinn-tivey-amfar-3rd-annual-inspiration-gala-01-360x370.jpg

http://www.queerty.com/watch-elizabeth-taylors-grandson-continues-fight-against-hivaids-epidemic-20130410/#tIRqREFt4s0MIC0X.99

Kobi

04-12-2013, 04:52 AM

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Eight days after allegedly being sexually battered while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, "worst day ever," and hanged herself.

For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not bely a struggling soul.

And then on Thursday, seven months after the tragedy, a Northern California sheriff's office arrested three 16-year-old boys on charges of sexual battery.

"The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable," said family attorney Robert Allard.

"After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious."

Allard said students used cell phones to share photos of the attack, and that the images went viral.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Lt. Jose Cardoza said it arrested two of the teens at Saratoga High School and the third, a former Saratoga High student, at Christopher High School in Gilroy on Thursday. The names of the suspects were not released because they are minors.

Cardoza said the suspects were booked into juvenile hall and face two felonies and one misdemeanor each, all related to sexual battery that allegedly occurred at a Saratoga house party.

The lieutenant said the arrests were the result of information gathered by his agency's Saratoga High School resource officers. He said the investigation is ongoing, and Los Gatos police also continue looking into the girl's September suicide.

The Associated Press does not, as a rule, identify victims of sexual assault. But in this case, Pott's family wanted her name and case known, Allard said. The family also provided a photo to the AP.

The girl's family members did not comment and have requested privacy until a planned news conference Tuesday. Her father and step-mother Lawrence and Lisa Pott, along with her mother Sheila Pott, have started the Audrie Pott Foundation (audriepottfoundation.com) to provide music and art scholarships and offer youth counseling and support.

The foundation website alludes to the teen's struggles, but until now neither law enforcement, school officials nor family have discussed the sexual battery.

"She was compassionate about life, her friends, her family, and would never do anything to harm anyone," the site says. "She was in the process of developing the ability to cope with the cruelty of this world but had not quite figured it all out.

"Ultimately, she had not yet acquired the antibiotics to deal with the challenges present for teens in today's society."

The Pott family is not alone.

In Canada on Thursday, authorities said they are looking further into the case of a teenage girl who hanged herself Sunday after an alleged rape and months of bullying. A photo said to be of the 2011 assault on 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons was shared online.

No charges initially were filed against four teenage boys being investigated. But after an outcry, Nova Scotia's justice minister appointed four government departments to look into Parsons' case.

Sparkle

04-12-2013, 06:08 AM

http://jezebel.com/sweden-introduces-new-gender-neutral-pronoun-makes-bei-472492079 (http://jezebel.com/sweden-introduces-new-gender-neutral-pronoun-makes-bei-472492079)

/snip from the Jezebel article:

"But the ever-progressive nation of Sweden has introduced a new gender-neutral pronoun—hen (neither the masculine han nor the feminine hon)—into its official National Encyclopedia. It's a heartening step in broadening the concept of gender and giving institutional validation to those for whom gender is more complicated than the stiff old male/female dichotomy."

Chancie

04-12-2013, 06:37 AM

Sparkle

04-13-2013, 04:21 PM

http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/dazzling_northern_lights_antic_1/10107004

snip/

A solar flare that occurred around 2 a.m. Thursday morning may create a spectacular display of northern lights Saturday evening.

The flare is also expected to cause vibrant northern lights from the Arctic as far south as New York, the Dakotas, Washington and Michigan, with a smaller possibility of it going into Pennsylvania and Iowa, even Kansas. The lights are currently estimated for 8 p.m. EDT Saturday arrival, with a possible deviation of up to seven hours. If the radiation hits much after dark settles on the East Coast the lights may be missed and will instead only be visible for the West.

Viewing conditions will be best in the mid-Atlantic, specifically for parts of Pennsylvania and the Delmarva. Most of the country will have poor to fair views as a result of cloud cover, with areas further south not experiencing the aurora at all. A pocket of fair conditions sits over parts of Oregon into Washington and southern Idaho. A swath of partly cloudy conditions will also spread over a section of the Ohio Valley for parts of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Ohio will experience fair to good viewing conditions. For the rest of the country conditions will be poor.

maps included in the link

I'm quite excited!!!

Hollylane

04-13-2013, 04:32 PM

Andrea

04-17-2013, 07:45 AM

Boston bombings: Two men speaking Arabic escorted off American Airlines flight

http://www.firstpost.com/world/boston-bombings-two-men-speaking-arabic-escorted-off-american-airlines-flight-704164.html (http://www.firstpost.com/world/boston-bombings-two-men-speaking-arabic-escorted-off-american-airlines-flight-704164.html)

Passengers were afraid of someone speaking another language? And so the airline kicked them off the plane?

What next? Kicking gay men off because they might have AIDS? /end sarcasm

puddin'

04-17-2013, 12:38 PM

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10878200

MsTinkerbelly

04-17-2013, 10:48 PM

West Texas fertilizer plant explodes...hundreds injured...going on now.

MsTinkerbelly

04-17-2013, 10:50 PM

Just outside of Waco, felt for 50 miles.

MsTinkerbelly

04-17-2013, 10:51 PM

Sorry, on CNN now

Bèsame*

04-17-2013, 10:52 PM

Texas..

Entire town asked to evacuate. 60-70 dead. Four blocks on fire. It was a fertilizer plant with toxic fumes. Parts of Dallas thought they were having an earthquake. This will go on all night.

Kobi

04-18-2013, 12:35 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Thomas Herndon, a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's doctoral program in economics, spotted possible errors made by two eminent Harvard economists in an influential research paper, he called his girlfriend over for a second look.

As they pored over the spreadsheets Herndon had requested from Harvard's Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, which formed the basis for a widely quoted 2010 study, they spotted what they believed were glaring errors.

In the world of economic luminaries, it doesn't get much bigger than Reinhart and Rogoff, whose work has had enormous influence in one of the biggest economic policy debates of the age.

Both have served at the International Monetary Fund. Reinhart was a chief economist at investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1980s, while Rogoff worked at the Federal Reserve, passing through Yale and MIT before landing at Harvard.

Their study, which found economic growth slows dramatically when a government's debt exceeds 90 percent of a country's annual economic output, has been cited by policymakers around the world as justification for slashing spending.

Former U.S. vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, is one influential politician who has cited the report to justify a budget slashing agenda.

Using the two professors' data, Herndon found that instead of a dramatic fall in growth, the decline was much milder, slowing to about 2.2 percent, instead of the slump to minus 0.1 percent that Reinhart and Rogoff predicted.

Herndon's paper began life as a replication exercise for a term paper in a graduate econometrics class. He expected to replicate Reinhart and Rogoff's results, then challenge the idea that high public debt caused growth to slow.

But he never got that far. Repeated failures to replicate the results roused his interest.

Herndon said only 15 of the 20 countries in the report had been used in the average. He also said Reinhart and Rogoff used only one year of data for New Zealand, 1951, when growth was minus 7.6 percent, significantly skewing the results.

Reinhart and Rogoff have admitted to a "coding error" in the spreadsheet that meant some countries were omitted from their calculations. But the economists denied they selectively omitted data or that they used a questionable methodology.

For Ash, the findings mean the claim that high public debt causes growth to stall no longer holds water.

"Their central thesis has been substantially weakened," he said.

Reinhart and Rogoff, however, say their conclusion that there is a correlation between high debt and slow growth still holds.

It is sobering that such an error slipped into one of our papers despite our best efforts to be consistently careful," they said in a joint statement. "We do not, however, believe this regrettable slip affects in any significant way the central message of the paper or that in our subsequent work."

Now that Herndon has ably crossed swords with some of the most eminent figures in his field, he is thinking about expanding his work into a Ph.D. thesis.

http://news.yahoo.com/student-took-eminent-economists-debt-issue-won-095347790--business.html

*Anya*

04-18-2013, 05:01 PM

According to data released last month by the Children’s Defense Fund, each day in America:
2 mothers die in childbirth.
4 children are killed by abuse or neglect.
5 children or teens commit suicide.
7 children or teens are killed by firearms.
67 babies die before their first birthdays.
892 babies are born at low birth weight.
914 babies are born to teen mothers.
1,208 babies are born without health insurance.
1,825 children are confirmed as abused or neglected.
2,712 babies are born into poverty.
2,857 high school students drop out.
4,475 babies are born to unmarried mothers.

That is a supremely sad list of numbers, and it’s only a small sample.

This says nothing of the violent society that we have created for our children. We have the third highest homicide rate among developed countries, according to Unicef. And according to a December Gallup poll, a third of parents fear for their children’s physical safety at school, and most believe it’s likely that a shooting like the one in Newtown, Conn., could happen in their communities.

That only makes sense in a country with nearly as many guns as people, where nearly half of all households have guns in them and where extending federal background checks — while supported by the vast majority of the American public — can’t make it through the Senate.

We hear so much about what we’re leaving behind for future generations, but not nearly enough about how we are failing them today. It is a failure of parenting, a failure of society, a failure of politicians.

We need smart and courageous parenting, as well as policies that invest time and money, love and understanding in our children.

UofMfan

04-18-2013, 05:25 PM

Excellent cover, well deserved recognition.

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/UCpeIwHvCeZXPenvbH_lDg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thelookout/time-100-malala.jpg

Allison W

04-18-2013, 05:48 PM

Excellent cover, well deserved recognition.

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/UCpeIwHvCeZXPenvbH_lDg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thelookout/time-100-malala.jpg

A bunch of violent and hateful grown men with guns couldn't kill this girl by shooting her square in the face at point-blank range. They didn't even scare her into capitulation. They hardly slowed her down. We mere mortals need to find the Sword of Truth quick so that we can present her with it when she grows up and learns of her destiny to fell the patriarchy.

She's pretty badass and totally earned that cover is what I'm sayin'.

thedivahrrrself

04-18-2013, 06:46 PM

A bunch of violent and hateful grown men with guns couldn't kill this girl by shooting her square in the face at point-blank range. They didn't even scare her into capitulation. They hardly slowed her down. We mere mortals need to find the Sword of Truth quick so that we can present her with it when she grows up and learns of her destiny to fell the patriarchy.

She's pretty badass and totally earned that cover is what I'm sayin'.

^^^^
What she said!

Teddybear

04-19-2013, 05:06 AM

Update......

Reports r that one suspect in the marathon bombing is dead and a man hunt under way for the othe suspect. Seems they were two forgein nationals ages 20 & 19.

They have shut down public transportation and alot of the colleges r closed today also

Kobi

04-20-2013, 06:23 AM

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea’s newest batch of future soldiers — scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads — punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they’re studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.

Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting ‘‘the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers,’’ a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea’s economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea’s decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.

At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as ‘‘The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father,’’ classwork is infused with conflict.

‘‘Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that’s how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class,’’ one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press.

‘‘It’s my revolutionary duty,’’ Jo said. ‘‘I'm working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting.’’

The uptick in anti-American sentiment comes on the heels of international condemnation and U.N. sanctions for North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in December and its underground nuclear test in February, which Pyongyang accuses Washington and Seoul of instigating. Joint U.S.-South Korean military drills south of the border also have incensed Pyongyang.

The anti-American campaign also comes as North Korea prepares to mark the 60th anniversary in July of the close of the Korean War. The three-year conflict pitting North Korea and China against U.S.-led U.N. troops ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The continued division of the Korean Peninsula, and the presence of 28,500 American troops in South Korea, has rankled North Korea’s leadership.

For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul say they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials say the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile capable of reaching the American territory of Guam.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2013/04/19/young-nkoreans-train-seek-revenge/syE8WZlMolvevvfhOOw9vL/story-1.html

Kobi

04-20-2013, 09:43 PM

Since 2001, the month of April has been observed to raise awareness of sexual violence and help educate the public about prevention.

Sexual assault and abuse includes any type of non-consensual sexual activity and can be verbal, visual or anything that forces unwanted sexual contact or attention. According to the National Institute for Justice, most victims know their offender and a majority of assaults go unreported each year.

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

On Rape Culture, Masculinity and Reproductive Justice

Kierra Johnson.

Executive Director, Choice USA

Sexual assault is a reproductive justice issue. The threat of sexual violence affects the way we experience sex, relationships and even our own bodies. Real and effective organizing for reproductive justice requires an understanding of the intersectional impacts of rape culture (how race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability and myriad other identities affect the way we perceive the perpetrators and victims of rape) and the ways that systems of privilege and oppression work together to make rape acceptable and even normal.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, but the reality of sexual assault has been inescapable lately. The long saga in Steubenville and recent tragic suicides of rape victims have shown up in Twitter feeds, blogs, and mainstream media. In a culture with an attention span that seems to max out at 140 characters, it's rare, and telling, that these stories are holding our national attention.

The real question, of course, is whether our society is learning anything from these high profile cases -- and whether the conversation around rape and the culture of sexual violence is changing.

Campus approaches to rape prevention are slowly evolving -- we're moving on from "girls shouldn't drink/wear short skirts/leave their dorms after dark because you might get raped" to what's commonly known as Bystander Intervention Training. The target of this training is neither the victim nor the perpetrator, but the other people at the party or bar who might see a really drunk girl being assaulted and could, theoretically, intervene to make sure she gets home safely.

Bystander intervention and programs raising awareness for women are great steps in the right direction, but the obvious limit to these approaches is that they hold everyone but the rapist responsible for rape. Teaching men about consent and healthy relationships -- how not to rape -- is where we need to go next if we want to bring down the rates of sexual assault. This seems like it should not be a controversial idea, but it is. Ask Zerlina Maxwell, a rape survivor herself, who made this very point on Sean Hannity's show on women and guns in March. Her idea was dismissed by Hannity as ludicrous and she was attacked viciously on social media.

The idea that it would be more practical to arm every woman than to teach men about rape is depressing -- and it's insulting to men.

It's an extreme manifestation of the classic "boys will be boys" mentality -- and everyone but the "boys" are responsible. That's why two young students in Steubenville saw no problem posting their drunken exploits on social media for all the world to see. So much of our culture tells young boys that those actions are okay, they are natural, they are what makes you a man. That aggression and violence becomes the currency of manhood and anyone weaker is subject to domination and exploitation.

These messages can have tragic consequences for women, as seen in Steubenville and so many other places, but these low expectations hurt men too. What effect does it have on young men when they are seen as potential perpetrators when walking at night? Does living under that societal expectation remove some of the shock value when an assault takes place in front of them? What happens when this assumption of violence is amplified by racist stereotypes of men and boys of color?

What does it mean to be a man entrenched in rape culture?

Men who would never commit assault still live with the weight of these expectations imposed by masculinity. Men deserve better than that. They deserve to be able to call out the actions of their peers without the fear of emasculation. They deserve to be free of the gender policing that limits their actions and emotions -- and can have harsh and sometimes dangerous consequences for trans and gender non-conforming folks. They deserve to have their own victimization of sexual assault taken seriously, whether in church, in prison, or in a frat house.

That's why we're launching the Bro-Choice campaign. Because creating healthy visions of masculinity is a reproductive justice issue. Because stopping rape is a reproductive justice issue. Because supporting everyone's gender identity and expression is a reproductive justice issue. And because making men genuine stakeholders in fighting for sexual health, reproductive rights, and the eradication of violence means true justice for everyone.

It's not going to be easy. These are big challenges that address ideas so deeply ingrained in our culture that they are invisible to most. But it's time to stop hinting at these problems and start tackling them head on.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kierra-johnson/on-rape-culture-masculini_b_3112809.html?utm_hp_ref=college

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

Toughy

04-25-2013, 06:12 PM

Brittney Griner, Phoenix Mercury Player And Gay WNBA Draft Pick, Signs Deal With Nike

The Huffington Post | By Glennisha Morgan
Posted: 04/25/2013 5:38 pm EDT | Updated: 04/25/2013 5:41 pm EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/brittney-griner-nike-deal-_n_3157164.html?ref=topbar&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=4459093,b=facebook

I guess coming out did not hurt her at all.........go Brittney!

Kobi

04-26-2013, 06:54 AM

We Americans entered a new phase in our history – the era of integration–in 1954.

–Constance Baker Motley

When Constance Baker Motley, lawyer, judge, activist, and author of the original complaint filed in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, wrote those words, she could likely not have imagined that the issue of integration would still be a battle for students in public high schools almost exactly 60 years later.

This Saturday will mark the first time in the history of Georgia’s Wilcox County High School that an integrated prom, open to students of all races, will take place.

Until 2013, Wilcox County High School held two proms: one for white students and one for African-American students. It comes as a surprise to many that a tradition of racially segregated proms still exists—and leaves many with questions about the legality of the segregation.

In 1954, the Supreme Court was asked whether it was legal to segregate students in public school based on race.

The school district in Topeka, Kansas, as in other districts in the South, separated white students from African-American students into different elementary schools.

The NAACP sponsored a lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, claiming that the segregated facilities violated the African-American students’ constitutional rights.

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and as a result, the practice of segregation by a public school was held unconstitutional.

About 10 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making it illegal for a place of public accommodation—an establishment that serves members of the public—to deny service or accommodation to a person on the basis of his race, color, religion, or national origin.

How can it be, then, that almost 60 years after the Supreme Court found that separate public schools to be unconstitutional and almost 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 making segregation in all public accommodations illegal, can separate proms still take place?

The answer lies in the sponsorship of the prom.

In many school districts, it is the school and its administration that organizes and monitors the school dances and the prom. In such cases, it is the public school that is responsible to ensure that it extends civil rights to all participants in school-sponsored events.

Similarly, a hotel or other public accommodation cannot prevent a person from entering the venue based on his or her race, color, religion, or national origin.

But the Wilcox County High School doesn’t organize the prom. It does not provide funding or space, it does not send chaperones, and it is not responsible for the event.

Nor does the accommodation at which the prom is held have a rule that says that students of a given race may not enter. Instead, the prom is a private event, organized by some parents and some students who decide who will be invited.

Just as the government doesn’t regulate to whom a student sends an invitation to a birthday or graduation party, neither does it regulate who is invited to a dance organized by private parties.

So while laws have eliminated segregation based on race in public education and public events, the laws do not prevent the students at the schools—or the parents of those students—from hosting segregated private events.

This year, students in the school have organized a third prom. There is a prom for white students, a prom for African-American students, and an integrated prom to which all students are invited, sponsored by current students at Wilcox County High School.

According to the statement on the district’s website, “The Board and Superintendent not only applauded the idea, but passed a resolution requesting that all activities involving WCS students be inclusive and non-discriminatory.”

The board plans to put the issue of having the high school officially sponsor an integrated prom next year on its agenda.

Further Reading
•Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Read online at oyez.org.

http://news.yahoo.com/segregated-prom-still-exist-102048415.html

Tommi

04-27-2013, 09:48 AM

Malala Yousafzai

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/21/10/30/4490765/3/628x471.jpg

Activist, 15
By Chelsea Clinton

MARK SELIGER FOR TIME
People whose courage has been met by violence populate history. Few, though, are as young as Malala was when, at 15, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus in northwestern Pakistan and shot her and two other girls, attempting to both kill Malala and, as the Taliban later said, teach a “lesson” to anyone who had the courage to stand up for education, freedom and self-determination, particularly for girls and women. Or as young as 11, when Malala began blogging for the BBC’s Urdu site, writing about her ambition to become a doctor, her fears of the Taliban and her determination to not allow the Taliban — or her fear — to prevent her from getting the education she needed to realize her dreams.

Malala is now where she wants to be: back in school. The Taliban almost made Malala a martyr; they succeeded in making her a symbol. The memoir she is writing to raise awareness about the 61 million children around the world who are not in school indicates she accepts that unasked-for responsibility as a synonym for courage and a champion for girls everywhere. However Malala concludes her book, her story so far is only just beginning.

http://time100.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/2013_time100_yousafzai.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1

Read more: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/malala-yousafzai/#ixzz2Rg9XOadj
___________________
What a brave young person, everyday of her life, moving forward in her own special way. Makes me really appreciate our country.
http://www.malalaijoya.com/dcmj/images/malalaijoya/sm_joya1.jpg

Kobi

04-27-2013, 02:28 PM

*trigger warning*

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co has been forced to apologise for an advertisement that sought to promote the zero carbon emissions of one of its cars by featuring a man failing to commit suicide using a hose attached to the exhaust.

The YouTube ad for Hyundai's hydrogen-powered car ix35 featured a middle-aged man attempting to commit suicide by sitting in his car with a hose connected to its exhaust pipe feeding into the car's interior.

He failed to kill himself because the car had "100 percent water emissions," according to the advert.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hyundai-motor-suicide-ad-draws-ire-korean-company-065445098.html

-------

smh

Kobi

04-29-2013, 11:41 AM

http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4821170472486409&pid=15.1

April 29 (Reuters) - Jason Collins, a veteran center in the National Basketball Association (NBA), announced on Monday that he was gay, becoming the first active player from any U.S. professional sports league to publicly reveal his homosexuality.

Collins, a free agent who played with the Washington Wizards and Boston Celtics during the NBA's 2012-13 regular season, made the announcement inan interview with Sports Illustrated that was published on Monday.

"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation," he said.

"I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, 'I'm different.' If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."

In the ultra-scrutinized world of U.S. professional sports, there had never been an openly gay player in any of America's major professional sports leagues, although some had revealed their sexual orientation after retiring.

In a country with openly gay politicians, entertainers and even soldiers, professional sports had become a final frontier and questions were being asked why sports, which helped play a key role in changing public opinion on racial discrimination, was out of step with the rest of American society.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea was a classmate of Collins at Stanford University, applauded Collins for coming out.

"Jason's announcement today is an important moment for professional sports and in the history of the LGBT community," Clinton said in a statement.

"It is also the straightforward statement of a good man who wants no more than what so many of us seek: to be able to be who we are; to do our work; to build families and to contribute to our communities. For so many members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community, these simple goals remain elusive.

"I hope that everyone, particularly Jason's colleagues in the NBA, the media and his many fans extend to him their support and the respect he has earned."

NBA Commissioner David Stern also praised Collins for breaking the barrier.

"Jason has been a widely respected player and teammate throughout his career and we are proud he has assumed the leadership mantle on this very important issue," Stern said in a statement.

Collins, 34, has played for six NBA teams since entering the league in 2001 and twice appeared in the playoffs. He said he wants to continue playing and hopes to find a new team.

It had seemed like only matter of time until an active player said he was gay after the issue had become one of the hottest topics in North America, no more so than in the National Football League (NFL), the most macho of America's pro sports.

In the days leading up to this year's Super Bowl in New Orleans, San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver told reporters he would not welcome a homosexual teammate into the locker room.

He later retracted his comments but reports have since emerged of NFL teams asking college players about their sexuality at a scouting combine in February.

This prompted the New York State attorney general to send a letter to the NFL, urging the league to take action and adopt a formal policy of sexual discrimination.

Culliver's comments are not typical of the attitude of all professional sportsmen. Indeed, there are several high-profile NFL players, most notably Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, who have advocated for gay rights.

Both believe it was only a matter of time before a professional player came out publicly.

Wolfsong

04-29-2013, 05:14 PM

Soon

04-29-2013, 06:15 PM

Cops Barge Into California Parents’ Home, Take Their Baby After They Seek 2nd Medical Opinion (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/29/im-going-to-grab-your-baby-and-dont-resist-cops-barge-into-cali-parents-home-take-their-baby-after-they-seek-2nd-medical-opinion-and-its-on-video/)

FYI for all those interested: This online "news" source was founded by Glenn Beck.

I'm not saying the story isn't true, but I do like to know from whence my news is originating.

Take a gander around the site -- their agenda is loud and clear.

Wolfsong

04-30-2013, 04:49 AM

FYI for all those interested: This online "news" source was founded by Glenn Beck.

I'm not saying the story isn't true, but I do like to know from whence my news is originating.

Take a gander around the site -- their agenda is loud and clear.

Well I totally agree with what you are saying, I should have grabbed the story from a different source, like the area local news channel that is carrying it. Looks like Fox (cough cough) is carrying it too

Kobi

04-30-2013, 09:08 AM

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — Two billboards in which images of Native Americans are used to make a gun rights argument are causing a stir with some Colorado residents who say the image is offensive and insensitive.

The billboards in this northern Colorado city show three men dressed in traditional Native American attire and the words "Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you."

Matt Wells, an account executive with Lamar Advertising in Denver, said Monday that a group of local residents purchased the space.

"They have asked to remain anonymous," he said.

He also refused to disclose the cost but said the billboards are only appearing in the Greeley area. Wells said he has not received any complaints so far.

"I think it's a little bit extreme, of course, but I think people are really worried about their gun rights and what liberties are going to be taken away," Wells told the Greeley Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/cdtkgj2).

Greeley resident Kerri Salazar, who is of Native American descent, said she was livid when she learned about it. She said she doesn't have a problem with the gun rights message, but she's offended the Native American people were singled out, apparently without their consent.

"I think we all get that (Second Amendment) message. What I don't understand is how an organization can post something like that and not think about the ripple effect that it's gonna have through the community," she said.

Irene Vernon, a Colorado State University professor and chairwoman of the ethnic studies department, said the message on the billboard is taking a narrow view of a much more complicated history of the Native American plight. She said it's not as if Native Americans just gave up their guns and wound up on reservations.

"It wasn't just about our guns," said Vernon, a Native American.

Greeley resident Maureen Brucker, who has worked with Native American organizations and who frequents the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as an honorary family member, said she thinks the billboards are making light of atrocities the federal government committed against Native Americans.

She said the billboard brings to her mind one of the most horrendous examples of that, the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890. Historical accounts say the 7th Cavalry had detained a band of Native Americans and asked them to give up their weapons. Troops began firing after a shot rang out. Death toll estimates of Native American men, women and children range from 150 to 300.

Brucker said she thinks those who put up the billboards should come forward to discuss their viewpoints.

"I thought it was pretty cowardly that someone would put something like that up and spend the money for a billboard but didn't have the courage to put their name on it," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/pro-gun-native-american-billboard-draws-criticism-163833535.html

Kobi

05-01-2013, 11:02 AM

In Kathryn Bigelow’s movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” Jessica Chastain played Maya, a young CIA operative whose stubborn pursuit of Osama bin Laden played a major role in the al-Qaida leader’s death.

The film garnered both awards (including a Golden Globe for Chastain) and controversy—largely because of graphic scenes depicting the CIA’s use of torture on suspected terrorists. But an undisputed—and to some, surprising—revelation in the film was its disclosure of the key role a female CIA agent played in the search for bin Laden.

Now a new documentary goes further—making clear it wasn’t just one female CIA operative relentlessly searching for bin Laden, as Bigelow’s dramatization suggests, but rather a whole team of women who began sounding the alarm about the al-Qaida leader almost a decade before the 9/11 attacks made bin Laden a household name.

“Manhunt,” which premieres Wednesday on HBO, tries to tell what director Greg Barker describes as “the real story” behind the 20-year hunt for bin Laden. It includes interviews with several members of the so-called Sisterhood, as the team of female analysts assigned to track bin Laden came to be known within the CIA.

Many of those interviewed, including retired agents Nada Bakos, Cindy Storer and Barbara Sude, speak on camera for the first time about their role in the bin Laden pursuit. And all, in some ways, appear to have inspired the female heroine of “Zero Dark Thirty,” from their headstrong efforts to convince colleagues that bin Laden was a serious threat to their fight to be taken seriously by male colleagues amid job pressures that came to dominate their lives.

Storer began tracking bin Laden in the early 1990s—“when al-Qaida was denying its existence even to its friends,” she says in the film. With tears in her eyes, she recalls how she was criticized in a performance review for “spending too much time working on bin Laden.”

“They said we were obsessed crusaders, overly emotional,” Storer recalls. The difference between her and her male colleagues, she says, is “Men throw chairs, women cry.” Still, she admits, “We were borderline obsessed, but I thought it was for a good reason.”

She recalls how she and her colleagues passed around large containers of Tums as they watched increasingly disturbing videos that suspected members of bin Laden’s network posted online—cataloging details in what was becoming a large dossier on al-Qaida.

“It wasn’t the sexiest job,” Bakos said in an interview with Yahoo! News. But she said it was a position that showed how important women are to the CIA. As analysts, she said, “women have patience and perseverance.” She added: “They weren’t looking for the sexy payoff. This wasn't a job people were being promoted to. They were really looking at it as in the defense of our country.”

Only after bin Laden began to be more explicit in his threat to attack the United States was their intelligence taken seriously. But despite clues analysts had that “something big” was coming, they weren’t able to prevent the 9/11 attacks. And the film details the guilt that Storer and her colleagues felt in the aftermath, as they trudged forward in their search.

Bakos, a veteran CIA analyst sent to Iraq at the height of the war to track down al-Qaida leaders there, seems to be a major inspiration for the Maya character in “Zero Dark Thirty”—though she said in an interview she never talked to Bigelow or anyone else associated with the film.

As part of her duties, Bakos was required to go on raids in search of her target, Abu Musab Zarqawi, then the leader of al-Qaida. It was a role that made her uncomfortable, as she recounts in the film, leading viewers to believe she, like Maya, struggled with seeing the sometimes brutal results of intelligence-gathering in the field.

But the film does not take a moral position on the CIA's interrogation efforts—and Bakos says that’s one reason she decided to speak out about her history as part of the bin Laden hunt. The film, she said, keeps it “politically agnostic and lets the audience decide for themselves” about the CIA’s tactics.

Bakos praised “Zero Dark Thirty” for portraying the “moments of intensity” that came during the CIA’s search for bin Laden and described the film’s depiction of “bureaucratic frustrations” as accurate. But she said Bigelow’s film did not fully communicate the “nuances of intelligence” that she and other analysts on the al-Qaida trail dealt with—and continue to deal with today. And she said it failed to focus on how much of the search was conducted by a "whole team of people" working together under the intense pressure of preventing another terrorist attack.

Asked what she hopes viewers will take away from “Manhunt,” Bakos said she hopes people will gain a better understanding about national security and how the CIA works.

“Intelligence is only as good as the information gathered," Bakos said. "There’s no crystal ball. And there’s no 100 percent. ... You cannot, 100 percent of the time, prevent or predict everything that will happen.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hbo-documentary-focuses-women-searched-bin-laden-124822316.html
---------------------------

This looks interesting. Note the sexism that was going on in the CIA.

Kobi

05-02-2013, 04:43 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A few dozen words rushed into law days after the September 11, 2001, attacks have been used to justify U.S. counterterrorism efforts from the war in Afghanistan to warrantless wiretapping and drone strikes, all on orders of the White House - and with little congressional oversight.

Now, as criticism grows that the law has been stretched well beyond its original intent to go after militant groups that did not even exist on 9/11, some Democrats and Republicans have begun writing legislation to update the nearly 12-year-old resolution.

That could restoke tensions between Congress and the White House over executive power, which were on display when Republican Senator Rand Paul staged a 13-hour filibuster in March to protest President Barack Obama's use of unmanned aircraft to conduct targeted killings.

"If you look back at the 60-word authorization that was put in place on September 18, 2001, and look at where we are today, there's a very, very thin thread, if any, between that authorization and what is occurring today," said Senator Bob Corker, a leader of the effort to examine the 2001 resolution. Its formal title is the Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF.

The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker said he wanted to spell out the kind of counterterrorism activities that could be authorized, and to bring Congress back into the equation.

"Congress has totally outsourced its foreign policy oversight," he said in an interview. "And a lot of people like it that way. Congress can take credit if things go well, criticize if things don't go well, but in essence Congress has no ownership over what we are carrying out right now. That's not an appropriate place for Congress to be."

The AUMF gives the president authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any further acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons."

It has no geographic limits or expiration date and, as such, has been the legal justification for drone campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen that have sometimes killed civilians and increased tensions among local populations.

In recent days, debates over U.S. national security policies have been roiled again by the Boston Marathon bombings, and a spreading hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected foreign militants, which Obama pledged - and has failed - to close.

While opponents want the AUMF repealed, a group of more moderate legislators wants it adjusted to account for a changing world and to set precedent as other countries build their own counterterrorism - especially drone - programs.

It is not yet clear what a revised AUMF would look like. Some members of Congress want to spell out policies for conducting drone strikes. Many want its scope expanded to include militant groups not directly tied to or found to be "harboring" al Qaeda, including some operating in Africa, and to groups that target U.S. allies in its fight against terrorism.

Some say a "Son of AUMF" should include more controls, such as defining who can be detained and for how long, including U.S. citizens. Others said there should be some definition of when hostilities under the AUMF would end.

"The current AUMF is too broad, too narrow and too vague," Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March.

Most presidents, Obama included, guard their war-making powers jealously. White House officials have suggested they are open to changes in the AUMF, congressional aides said. Publicly at least, they have not offered specifics.

Obama, who has pledged more transparency over U.S. drone operations, said in October, "One of the things we've got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president's reined in in terms of some of the decisions that we're making."

White House officials had no immediate comment.

'GETTING OLD'

John Bellinger, then a legal adviser to Republican President George W. Bush's National Security Council, helped draft the AUMF "almost on the back of an envelope" when the ruins of the World Trade Center were still smoldering. Congress passed it three days after the attacks, and Bush signed it on September 18.

Bellinger said the measure needed an update. He noted, for example, that it was now being used to justify going after targets who were only 8 or 9 years old when the September 11 attacks occurred.

"It really is getting old," he said. "It was drafted extremely rapidly after September 11 and has covered a whole variety of different activities over the last 12 years that were not originally contemplated."

Bellinger, now a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter, said there was a tension between those on the left - an important part of Obama's base - who want to cut the law back or repeal it and those who would revise it to provide authority to engage in more activities.

"If people ... were to delve into the legal theories, I think they would find that the administration is probably either really stretching the boundaries of the AUMF to cover some of the individuals or groups that they're targeting, or, without telling anyone, simply relying on the president's constitutional authority," Bellinger said.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said any effort to change the AUMF should be done carefully.

"It's a huge subject and there's not an easy answer to it. It takes a lot of thought and I myself have thought a lot about it, but I don't have an answer to (the question) if I could write a new AUMF, what would I say?" he said.

Democratic U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF in September 2001, said the intervening years had only underscored her original concerns and intensified her desire for repeal.

"This has been I think a very dangerous resolution and it's given the executive branch just such broad authority that it has eroded our system of democracy and our system of checks and balances," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/amid-security-threats-congress-look-9-11-law-051151977.html

Nat

05-15-2013, 06:53 AM

Pablo Pantoja Turns Democrat: RNC Florida Hispanic Director Cites GOP 'Intolerance' In Making Party Switch
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2013/05/13/pablo-pantoja-democrat_n_3269977.html)

Full letter:

From: Pablo Pantoja

Subject: From Republican to Democrat

Date: May 13, 2013 5:57:11 PM EDT

Friend,

Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.

Studies geared towards making – human beings – viewed as less because of their immigrant status to outright unacceptable claims, are at the center of the immigration debate. Without going too deep on everything surrounding immigration today, the more resounding example this past week was reported by several media outlets.

A researcher included as part of a past dissertation his theory that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ.” The researcher reinforces these views by saying “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.”

Although the organization distanced themselves from those assertions, other immigration-related research is still padded with the same racist and eugenics-based innuendo. Some Republican leaders have blandly (if at all) denied and distanced themselves from this but it doesn’t take away from the culture within the ranks of intolerance. The pseudo-apologies appear to be a quick fix to deep-rooted issues in the Republican Party in hopes that it will soon pass and be forgotten.

The complete disregard of those who are in disadvantage is also palpable. We are not looking at an isolated incident of rhetoric or research. Others subscribe to motivating people to action by stating, “In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.” The discourse that moves the Republican Party is filled with this anti-immigrant movement and overall radicalization that is far removed from reality. Another quick example beyond the immigration debate happened during CPAC this year when a supporter shouted ““For giving him shelter and food for all those years?” while a moderator explained how Frederick Douglass had written a letter to his slave master saying that he forgave him for “all the things you did to me.” I think you get the idea.

When the political discourse resorts to intolerance and hate, we all lose in what makes America great and the progress made in society.

Although I was born an American citizen, I feel that my experience, and that of many from Puerto Rico, is intertwined with those who are referred to as illegal. My grandfather served in an all-Puerto Rican segregated Army unit, the 65th Infantry Regiment. He then helped, along my grandmother, shatter glass ceilings for Puerto Rican women raising my aunt to become the first Puerto Rican woman astronomer with a PhD in astrophysics (an IQ of a genius as far as I’m concerned). Puerto Ricans, as many other Americans still today have to face issues of discrimination in voting and civil rights.

Regardless of what political affiliation people choose, my respect for some remains. I don’t expect all Hispanics to do the same (although I would hope so) but I’m taking a stand against this culture of intolerance.

I am also making a modest contribution (here: http://bit.ly/12uf3g8) to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the efforts in helping protect the rights of immigrants and civil liberties in general.

With warm regards,

-pablo

Kobi

05-15-2013, 06:45 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Columbia University, one of the nation's Ivy League schools, has joined an effort to have restrictions removed from a decades-old scholarship offered only to white students.

The Lydia C. Roberts Fellowship, established in 1920, requires that Columbia students who receive funding must be from Iowa, must not study law or several other fields, and must return to Iowa for two years after graduation.

It also stipulates that the fellowship "shall be awarded only to persons of the Caucasian race," a requirement now being challenged in a New York court by the scholarship's administrator, JPMorgan Chase.

"It should go without saying that a university rightly known for the great diversity of its student body is as offended as anyone by the requirements of these fellowships," Columbia University spokesman Robert Hornsby said on Wednesday.

Columbia filed an affidavit last week in state Supreme Court in Manhattan supporting JPMorgan's effort to have the whites-only provision removed from the fellowship. A court order is required to change the fellowship's guidelines.

"Columbia long ago ceased awarding the fellowships in question and does not follow gift conditions that violate anti-discrimination laws," Hornsby added.

The trust was designed to provide a stipend for Columbia University graduate students, as well as provide for the cost of a single round trip from Iowa to New York City. Roberts died in 1920 and the trust was created as directed in her will.

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

1920? And they are just getting around to change the stipulations? Really?

Kobi

05-17-2013, 10:42 AM

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Twenty-three youths have died in the past nine days at initiation ceremonies that include circumcisions and survival tests, South African police said Friday.

Police have opened 22 murder cases in the deaths in the northeastern province of Mpumalanga, according to spokesman Lt. Col. Leonard Hlathi. He said an inquest is being held into the 23rd death, of a youth who complained of stomach pains and vomited.

Initiation ceremonies are common in South Africa, where youths partake in various activities as a rite of passage into adulthood, usually over the course of three weeks. Some 30,000 youths signed up for initiation this year.

In addition to being circumcised, the boys and young men are put through a series of survival tests which sometimes include exposure to South Africa's chilly winter conditions with skimpy clothing. Their faces are painted with red clay and they also are given herbal concoctions to drink.

Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa, described the experience in his autobiography as "a kind of spiritual preparation for the trials of manhood."

Hlathi said that all the deaths occurred at government-registered initiation sites where medical practitioners usually are present. The government became involved to prevent such unnecessary deaths.

Mathibela Mokoena, chairman of the House of Traditional Leaders in Mpumalanga, says the Department of Health was alerted before the initiation ceremonies began, but only showed up after the first few deaths were reported. He said the department has now agreed to have officials present for the remainder of the ceremony.

Popo Maja, head of communications at the Health Dpartment, said: "We would want to find out why they were done without the supervision of medical personnel.

The deaths are the highest recorded in Mpumalanga, surpassing the previous highest toll of eight some years ago, Mokoena said. He said early investigation by the House of Traditional Leaders showed some schools were negligent, leaving the youths in the care of young men instead of experienced adults.

Mokoena said some of the initiates were not in ideal health when they enrolled. He said new legislation is being introduced outlining procedures to be followed, and including a punishment of a life ban for those found negligent.

The suspected causes of the deaths were not released pending the results of post-mortems. Most deaths in the past have been caused by infection and loss of blood after circumcision.

Government spokeswoman Phumla Williams said the government is sending condolences to the families and urged creation of "better and safe initiation schools that will ensure the safe passage of young initiates to manhood and prevent the unfortunate loss of lives."
-----

http://news.yahoo.com/23-dead-initiation-rites-south-africa-131938573.html

starryeyes

05-20-2013, 02:41 PM

This is the epitome of bravery. This article did not elaborate that there were 20,000 Religous freaks against 50 gay activists. 20,000 against 50. It's mind boggling. The article also doesn't state the religous freaks were carrying some kind of whip or plant (stinging plant) to hit the gay activists for immoral behavior. This is so sickening. :(((

By Margarita Antidze and Liza Dobkina

TBILISI/ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Large crowds of anti-gay protesters broke up homosexual rights rallies in Georgia and Russia on Friday, underlining deep hostility in the former Soviet bloc.

Priests and thousands of Georgians pushed their way through police barriers protecting around 50 people marking International Day Against Homophobia in a square in capital Tblisi.

Waving banners marked with the slogans "Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia" and "Not in our city", they forced the small groups of campaigners to flee in buses.

In the Russian city of St Petersburg, an aggressive, mostly male crowd threw smoke bombs over police barriers and shouted "Death to Faggots" and other insults.

A hugely outnumbered band of gay rights campaigners also had to pile into buses minutes after the start of their rally.

"Stalin would have showed you and exiled all these," a man dressed in urban camouflage shouted as activists hurried away.

Attitudes towards gay people in Russia and former Soviet states are largely shaped by repressive Stalin-era policies, when sodomy was punishable by up to five years in jail.

The resurgent Christian Orthodox Church, which says homosexuality is a sin, also holds great sway.

"The rally... had a funeral-like atmosphere since homophobic crimes in Russia are on the rise... by the kind of people who view Jews as abnormal, blacks as abnormal and gays and lesbians as second-class citizens," Yuri Gavrikov, head of the Russian LGBT-rights organization Ravnopravo, or Equal Rights, said.

CHURCH URGES BAN

In Georgia, around 28 people including policemen and journalists, suffered slight injuries in the clashes, government officials said.

"We won't allow these sick people to hold gay parades in our country ... It's against our traditions and our morals," said Zhuzhuna Tavadze, brandishing a bunch of nettles and adding that she was ready to fight.

Later in the evening, rowdy crowds took to the streets in the capital of the former Soviet republic, shouting and roughing up anyone they thought might be homosexual.

Amnesty International called for the perpetrators to be punished, saying in a statement that impunity for such acts was becoming a "dangerous trend in Georgia".

The head of Georgia's influential Orthodox Church in the mostly Christian nation of 4.5 million condemned the violence, but called on authorities to ban gay-rights rallies.

"We don't approve of violence, but propaganda of this (homosexuality) must not be allowed. It is a sin," said Patriarch Ilia II.

While support for same-sex marriage and other forms of equality increases in the West, in Russia and several other former Soviet states gay people say they are facing increasing discrimination.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union broke up. But the stigma remains strong and much of the gay community is underground.

A survey by independent pollster Levada last year found that nearly 50 percent of Russians believe homosexuals should be given medical or psychological treatment.

Gay and lesbian groups in Russia say a recent law banning gay "propaganda" encourages prejudice.

A 23-year-old man in the southern city of Volgograd was tortured and killed in May after revealing he was gay during a drinking session.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze and Liza Dobkina; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Kobi

05-22-2013, 09:22 AM

As the Boy Scouts of America prepares to vote tomorrow on a proposal that would change its long-standing policy of excluding gay boys from Scout units, the executive director of Scouts for Equality, a gay rights advocacy group, is hopeful that the proposal will pass--but says this is just the first step.

“This is a good step in the right direction, we want youth protection throughout the entire program, and it looks we'll be able to see that on the 23rd,” executive director Zach Wahls tells Top Line. “But after that, we have to make sure that we are telling Scouts that when you turn 18 you are still welcome in the program.”

The proposal up for vote will not change the BSA's policy of banning gay adult leaders. To Wahls, changing that policy is not just political, it's personal.

“As the straight Eagle Scout son of a lesbian couple, I know exactly how important lifting the ban on adults is," he says. "I got to see first-hand when I was growing up in Iowa the impact that great, wise, loving parents could have in the lives of my Scouters.”

In addition to advocating for policy changes, Wahls says a big focus of his organization’s mission is to increase understanding around LGBT issues, one conversation at a time.

"What we are seeing is the effect of people having conversations and moving past fear," Wahls says. "When we talk about homophobia, literally the fear around this, is people can have person-to-person conversations...and understand that there isn't anything to be afraid of."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/scout-honor-gay-rights-advocate-seeks-overturn-ban-105915412.html?vp=1

Hollylane

05-22-2013, 09:57 AM

Kobi

05-22-2013, 02:41 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City is seeing a spike in anti-gay attacks, with two assaults coming within days of the fatal shooting of a gay man over the weekend, the city's police commissioner said on Tuesday.

Two men in their early 40s were attacked on a street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood early on Tuesday morning by two men who shouted anti-gay slurs in Spanish and English and left one victim with a minor eye injury, police said.

Late on Monday night, a 45-year-old man was beaten unconscious after spending the evening at bars in Manhattan's East Village with a man he met at a homeless shelter where they both were staying, police said.

The attacks followed the killing on Friday of Mark Carson, 32, who was shot in the head in what police are calling a hate crime in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood often described as the cradle of the gay-rights movement in the United States.

Carson, who was openly gay, was shot by a gunman shouting anti-gay slurs, police say. A suspect identified as Elliot Morales, 33, was arrested on a charge of second degree murder as a hate crime shortly afterward.

The police commissioner said 29 anti-gay attacks have been reported in New York City this year, up from 14 in the same period last year, even as hate crimes overall have declined almost 30 percent.

Kelly said officials did not believe the anti-gay crimes were connected. He said there was no simple explanation for the apparent spike, but suggested it may be the result of more victims coming forward.

"We don't really see patterns in hate crimes," Kelly said. "We believe they are underreported generally, so when we have a particularly heinous crime like we had on Friday night, people are perhaps more likely to report it."

Two men, Fabian Ortiz, 32, of Manhattan, and Pedro Jimenez, 23, of Brooklyn, were arrested soon after the SoHo attack and charged with assault as a hate crime.

The victim in the East Village attack spoke to police after being released from a hospital on Tuesday, telling them he had chatted in a friendly way with the man who would later attack him.

"Suddenly, according to the victim, his assailant just snapped and became enraged," Kelly said.

Police are seeking Roman Gornell, 39, who has been arrested about 20 times, mostly on drug-related charges, in connection with that attack, Kelly said.

http://news.yahoo.com/york-city-seeing-spike-anti-gay-crime-officials-223749300.html

Kobi

05-24-2013, 12:00 AM

DALLAS – The Boy Scouts of America, one of the country’s largest and oldest youth organizations, decided on Thursday to break 103 years of tradition by allowing openly gay members into its ranks.

The controversial move was approved by more than 60 percent of the approximate 1,400 votes cast by the BSA’s national council. According to the new resolution, beginning Jan. 1, 2014, “no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”

“The resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting,” the BSA stated in a press release.

Lifting the organization’s ban on gay adult volunteer leaders and paid staff was not considered and remains in place.

Texas Governor Rick Perry told the Texas Tribune, “While I will always cherish my time as a Scout ... I am greatly disappointed with this decision.”

The emotionally charged issue has seen those for and against it wage costly public relations campaigns, and has fostered intense debate from coast to coast.

In a statement, John Stemberger, an Eagle Scout and leader of a coalition of people who opposed the change, accused the BSA of caving to polls, politics and public opinion.

“It is with great sadness and deep disappointment that we recognize on this day that the most influential youth program in America has turned a tragic corner,” Stemberger stated in a press release. “The vote today to allow open and avowed homosexuality into Scouting will completely transform it into an unprincipled and risky proposition for parents. It is truly a sad day for Scouting.”

Stemberger, founder of On My Honor, stated his group and other like-minded organizations will meet in Louisville, Ky., next month to discuss creating a new character-development organization for boys.

The historic change comes 13 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that BSA is a private club that is allowed to set its own rules for membership. Since then, public pressure has mounted for the Texas-based organization to change the exclusion, especially last year, when a gay California teen was denied his Eagle Scout award and an Ohio lesbian was removed as a den mother from her son’s troop.

Still, just 10 months ago, the Scouts reaffirmed their stance, saying a two-year confidential review revealed a majority of the organization’s parents wanted to keep the policy. The about-face to put it to a vote came “out of respect for the diverse beliefs of Scouting's chartered organizations,” according to the BSA website.

After the vote, the Scouts stated there would be no plans to revisit the issue.

“While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting,” they stated in a press release. “ … America’s youth need Scouting, and by focusing on the goals that unite us, we can continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/boy-scouts-vote-end-ban-openly-gay-youth-221438621.html

Kobi

05-25-2013, 04:51 AM

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Legislators in Puerto Rico on Friday approved a heavily debated bill that outlaws employment discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

Opponents of the bill prayed on the steps of the seaside Capitol building as lawmakers voted on a simplified version of the measure, which was widely rejected by religious organizations in the conservative U.S. territory.

The original version was broader and would have also banned such discrimination when it comes to commercial transactions, property rentals and public transportation, as well as in other circumstances. About half of U.S. states have approved similar bills.

Legislators on Friday also approved a separate bill that extends a domestic violence law to gay couples.

Both bills are to go back to the Senate, which is expected to approve them. The governor has said he would sign both measures.

Supporters of the bill waved rainbow flags and loudly chanted ‘‘Equality!’’ as they crowded around legislators who approved the bills.

‘‘A decade ago, (we) were criminals under a sodomy law. Today, we’re second-class citizens,’’ said Pedro Julio Serrano, spokesman for the U.S.-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. ‘‘When this measure becomes law, we will be closer to obtaining the first-class citizenship we deserve.’’

The new measures come as the U.S. territory begins to debate gay rights more seriously in the Caribbean region, where sodomy laws and harassment of gays is common.

Earlier this year, Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla signed an order extending health insurance coverage to the domestic partners of workers in his executive branch of government, regardless of gender. The island’s Justice Department also is prosecuting its first hate crime case for the killing of a hairstylist who was set on fire.

But the push toward more gay rights in Puerto Rico remains widely debated.

The island’s House of Representatives approved the anti-discrimination bill 29-22 after a 10-hour debate that ended overnight Thursday without a consensus.

The proposal did not have full support from the governor’s Popular Democratic Party, which controls the island’s House and Senate. The governor had met with members of his party late Thursday and urged them to vote for the bill.

‘‘The country has a social obligation, a historic obligation and also a Christian obligation to fight all types of discrimination,’’ he said.

The island’s Senate approved the original measure 15-11 last week, but the House of Representatives sought to changes in the bill.

Rep. Javier Aponte Dalmau was among those who opposed the measure. He said all types of discrimination are wrong, but considered the original bill’s wording to be too far reaching, and there are other judicial means to address potential discrimination.

Other legislators voted against the measure saying they believe the island’s Constitution already addresses discrimination.

A local Christian organization, Puerto Rico for Family, said the bill was unnecessary because the gay and lesbian community has not proved it faces greater employment discrimination than other groups.

‘‘This law creates a base to promote homosexuality and other conducts in schools,’’ the organization said in a statement.

Most government agencies in Puerto Rico already have their own anti-discriminatory policies, but human rights activists say they are often not enforced.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/caribbean/2013/05/24/puerto-rico-approves-anti-discrimination-bill/JyV6GjhqcBzWLMyCuA5WYL/story.html

Wolfsong

06-03-2013, 05:06 AM

School says deaf boy's name sign looks too much like a gun (http://now.msn.com/school-says-deaf-boys-name-sign-looks-too-much-like-a-gun)

Kobi

06-03-2013, 10:12 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a major victory for law enforcement agencies, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that police can take a DNA sample from someone who has been arrested and charged but not convicted of a crime.

By a 5-4 vote the court reversed a decision last April by Maryland's highest court that overturned the 2010 conviction and life sentence of Alonzo Jay King for a rape committed seven years earlier.

The court, in an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, handed a victory to the state of Maryland by saying taking of DNA samples was similar to taking fingerprints

DNA samples can be taken if police have probable cause to detain a suspect facing charges relating to a serious offense, Kennedy said.

Taking a sample using a swab of the cheek is "like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure," Kennedy said.

King's right under the U.S. Constitutional Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable search and seizure had therefore not been violated, he added.

Like fingerprints, DNA is used for identification, and is not by itself evidence of a crime, Kennedy said. There is a legitimate government interest in knowing the identity of the person arrested, he added.

Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative, joined three liberal justices in dissenting from the decision.

The Maryland court had concluded that King's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was required to provide his DNA upon being arrested.

CHECKS WITH DNA DATABASES

Under Maryland law, samples can be taken from anyone arrested for a serious offense without police needing to get a warrant. Police can then submit those samples to a national database to see if the suspect is linked with any other crimes.

Monday's ruling will leave that law and others like it around the nation intact.

The case focused purely on samples taken after a suspect is arrested and charged with a crime, but not convicted of it.

Samples taken from convicted felons are routinely submitted to the national database and that practice was not an issue in the case.

Every other state in the country, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, signed on to a brief in support of Maryland's position.

The case is Maryland v. King, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 207.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-says-police-dna-samples-upon-arrest-141958322.html

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

Further erosion of our constitutional right to privacy. This is disturbing.

Allison W

06-03-2013, 10:38 AM

police can take DNA upon arrest

Further erosion of our constitutional right to privacy. This is disturbing.

I dunno, I can understand the comparison to fingerprinting. If you're OK with fingerprinting, DNA sampling for identification isn't far from it--it's an identifier that can be used to determine presence at the scene of a crime. I mean, is it bad for cops to be able to take and keep fingerprints?

Kobi

06-03-2013, 01:41 PM

I dunno, I can understand the comparison to fingerprinting. If you're OK with fingerprinting, DNA sampling for identification isn't far from it--it's an identifier that can be used to determine presence at the scene of a crime. I mean, is it bad for cops to be able to take and keep fingerprints?

My concern is with the ways in which basic rights are being undermined with the culture of fear the war on terrorism spurned. This ruling is just an extension of the forfeiting of rights that began under the Patriot Act.

The issues of concern, as per The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324063304578523123337256566.html?m od=WSJ_myyahoo_module) highlight the following:

"Most states and the federal government authorize the taking of such samples from arrestees, and they typically are matched against a nationwide database of DNA evidence from unsolved crimes."

"The Maryland court said that because people merely arrested for crimes—in contrast to those already convicted—are entitled to a presumption of innocence, the DNA matching amounted to a fishing expedition to solve open cases. "

"Justice Antonin Scalia delivered an impassioned dissent, signaling his concern by reading it aloud from the bench. He likened the DNA law to the "despised" British practice of issuing general warrants in colonial days, authorizing royal officers to conduct blanket searches of the public."

"The Fourth Amendment, he wrote, forbade general warrants by requiring that authorities demonstrate specific reasons to suspect an individual of a crime before they could search him or her. The DNA-sampling law was a suspicionless search used only to solve open cases, he wrote, calling that a worthy objective but one outweighed by the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches."

"Justice Scalia contended that because authorities already possessed the power to take DNA samples from those ultimately convicted of crimes, only people who are wrongly arrested or later acquitted will have their privacy violated."

As far as I know, people still have rights when it comes to self incrimination. We require Miranda rights to inform people of their rights. Yet it is ok for us to take their DNA to confirm their identity, and prosecute them based on this?

And, it is ok for someone who has not been convicted of a crime to have their DNA put through the DNA database of unsolved crimes so we can nail them for something else while we are at it? Is that like a secondary gain kind of thing?

I understand the rationale. However, it violates the logic of innocent before proven guilty and the rights against self incrimination.

To me, this is police state logic where the "protection of the public" is the new mantra enabling law enforcement to trample on peoples right to due process.

Allison W

06-03-2013, 01:51 PM

Serious question: do you believe the police should be forbidden from taking fingerprints from people accused of crimes but not convicted? If you do, then the stance against taking DNA from people accused of crimes but not convicted is consistent. Do you believe police should be forbidden from entering the fingerprints of people accused of crimes but not convicted into a database? If you do, then the stance against entering the DNA of people accused of crimes but not convicted into a database would be consistent. If you have no problem with fingerprinting in either case, then I am forced to wonder why you consider one worse than the other, aside from simply being new and useful.

Kobi

06-03-2013, 02:29 PM

*Anya*

06-04-2013, 07:23 PM

BBC World News tonight:

French newscaster Laurent Fabius reported "independent tests showed the Syrian government used Sarin gas on protesters".

Test results were given to the UN. The UN stated that they can't verify the results because they have not been given visa's to enter Syria.

The United States reportedly stated that "they need more evidence" (per the BBC).

Additionally, the BBC reported that children are possibly being used by the Syrian government to "get their parents to talk and also as executioners".

Andrea

06-06-2013, 06:31 AM

Andrea

06-06-2013, 06:33 AM

Prescription Drugs Now Kill More People In The US Than Heroin And Cocaine Combined

http://www.businessinsider.com/painkillers-kill-more-americans-than-heroin-and-cocaine-2012-9 (http://www.businessinsider.com/painkillers-kill-more-americans-than-heroin-and-cocaine-2012-9)

"Prescription opioid painkillers are responsible for more fatal overdoses in the U.S. than heroin and cocaine combined, according to a new study out of Brandeis University."

Tommi

06-06-2013, 09:47 AM

FDA works Fast-3-D Printed Tracheal Splint

Researchers at the University of Michigan used 3-D printing technology to create bioresorbable device that proved to be lifesaving for Kaiba Gionfriddo, a 20-month old baby. The scientists received emergency permission from the FDA to create and implant the tracheal splint pictured here, which was made from polycaprolacton.

O82nC9ro6Io

Tommi

06-06-2013, 09:52 AM

FDA Investigates Multistate Outbreak of Hepatitis A Illnesses Potentially Associated with a Frozen Fruit Blend
Posted June 6, 2013
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (http://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm354698.htm) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials are investigating a multi-state outbreak of Hepatitis A illnesses potentially associated with a frozen food blend. We are moving quickly to learn as much as possible and prevent additional people from becoming ill. We recognize that people will be concerned about this outbreak, and we will continue to provide updates and advice.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm354698.htm

Nearly 50 reported cases of Hepatitis A in California and other states may be linked to contaminated Townsend Farmers Organic Anti-Oxidant frozen berries sold at Costco markets, according to the CDC. If you have consumed this product, or if you experience any signs or symptoms (http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/A/aFAQ.htm) of Hepatitis, contact your personal physician immediately for treatment. Read the latest information from the CDC (http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Pages/CommunicableDiseaseOutbreaks.aspx) as well as what you should do if you've eaten these berries.

Kätzchen

06-06-2013, 03:17 PM

Report: Secret court order forces Verizon to turn over telephone records of millions

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/05/politics/nsa-verizon-records/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/05/politics/nsa-verizon-records/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)

"The U.S. government has obtained a top secret court order that requires Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency on an "ongoing daily basis," the UK-based Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday."

Similar to you, Andrea, I wonder about things of this nature: For example, I read the article as the media characterizing the subject (secret court order) as information being withheld from the general American populace in American media. I wonder about the decision making behind this type of 'court order' and why it was leaked in the British press, rather than the American press.

Prescription Drugs Now Kill More People In The US Than Heroin And Cocaine Combined

http://www.businessinsider.com/painkillers-kill-more-americans-than-heroin-and-cocaine-2012-9 (http://www.businessinsider.com/painkillers-kill-more-americans-than-heroin-and-cocaine-2012-9)

"Prescription opioid painkillers are responsible for more fatal overdoses in the U.S. than heroin and cocaine combined, according to a new study out of Brandeis University."

During my graduate studies, I did a six month long intense study of such things because there's a methadone clinic in my neighborhood, which the clinic has been a controversial chess piece in neighborhood wars, county funding wars or city project wars. What I learned by in-dept field interviews with constituents recieving services at the particular methadone clinic in my neighborhood was that doctors of patients were prescribing pain remedies (oxycontin, et al) and the vast majority of people I interviewed said that although they followed their doctors orders to a 'T' - when their pain remedy trajectory outweighed the expected outcome percieved by doctor treatment plans, they were catagorized as not having followed their doctors treatment plan; which landed them in outpatient programs, such as the methadone clinic, to address the unexpected outcome of a pain remedy treatment (a causation of dependency outcome, an not-expected/unanticipated outcome). My heart went out to a good number of people I interviewed because people relegated to a methadone clinic were not the type of people expected to be visiting a methadone clinic and I would say that most of the people I interviewed were very upset with the outcome of having explicity followed their doctors advice and treatment plan to the 'T', only to suffer a more compounded, unfortunate outcome. But I can totally understand the study results in the aformentioned study that you linked us to in your post, due to the results of the study I conducted at a graduate level.

FDA Investigates Multistate Outbreak of Hepatitis A Illnesses Potentially Associated with a Frozen Fruit Blend
Posted June 6, 2013
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (http://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm354698.htm) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials are investigating a multi-state outbreak of Hepatitis A illnesses potentially associated with a frozen food blend. We are moving quickly to learn as much as possible and prevent additional people from becoming ill. We recognize that people will be concerned about this outbreak, and we will continue to provide updates and advice.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm354698.htm

Nearly 50 reported cases of Hepatitis A in California and other states may be linked to contaminated Townsend Farmers Organic Anti-Oxidant frozen berries sold at Costco markets, according to the CDC. If you have consumed this product, or if you experience any signs or symptoms (http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/A/aFAQ.htm) of Hepatitis, contact your personal physician immediately for treatment. Read the latest information from the CDC (http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Pages/CommunicableDiseaseOutbreaks.aspx) as well as what you should do if you've eaten these berries.

Thank you for posting about the Hepatitis A outbreak, Tommi.
I wonder if epidemiology experts will soon be working toward narrowing in on other factors pertinent to this case.

Kobi

06-07-2013, 09:18 AM

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — With every phone call they make and every Web excursion they take, people are leaving a digital trail of revealing data that can be tracked by profit-seeking companies and terrorist-hunting government officials.

The revelations that the National Security Agency is perusing millions of U.S. customer phone records at Verizon Communications and snooping on the digital communications stored by nine major Internet services illustrate how aggressively personal data is being collected and analyzed.

Former NSA employee William Binney told The Associated Press that he estimates the agency collects records on 3 billion phone calls each day.

The NSA and FBI appear to be casting an even wider net under a clandestine program code-named "PRISM" that came to light in a story posted late Thursday by The Washington Post. PRISM gives the U.S. government access to email, documents, audio, video, photographs and other data belonging to foreigners on foreign soil who are under investigation, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper said it reviewed a confidential roster of companies and services participating in PRISM. The companies included AOL Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Skype, YouTube and Paltalk.

Like pieces of a puzzle, the bits and bytes left behind from citizens' electronic interactions can be cobbled together to draw conclusions about their habits, friendships and preferences using data-mining formulas and increasingly powerful computers.

It's all part of a phenomenon known as a "Big Data," a catchphrase increasingly used to describe the science of analyzing the vast amount of information collected through mobile devices, Web browsers and check-out stands. Analysts use powerful computers to detect trends and create digital dossiers about people.

The Obama administration and lawmakers privy to the NSA's surveillance aren't saying anything about the collection of the Verizon customers' records beyond that it's in the interest of national security. The sweeping court order covers the Verizon records of every mobile and landline phone call from April 25 through July 19, according to The Guardian.

The location information is particularly valuable for cloak-and-dagger operations like the one the NSA is running, said Cindy Cohn, a legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that has been fighting the government's collection of personal phone records since 2006. The foundation is currently suing over the government's collection of U.S. citizens' communications in a case that dates back to the administration of President George W. Bush.

"It's incredibly invasive," Cohn said. "This is a consequence of the fact that we have so many third parties that have accumulated significant information about our everyday lives."

It's such a rich vein of information that U.S. companies and other organizations now spend more than $2 billion each year to obtain third-party data about individuals, according to Forrester Research. The data helps businesses target potential customers. Much of this information is sold by so-called data brokers such as Acxiom Corp., a Little Rock, Ark. company that maintains extensive files about the online and offline activities of more than 500 million consumers worldwide.

In a sign of the NSA's determination to vacuum up as much data as possible, the agency has built a data center in Bluffdale, Utah that is five times larger than the U.S. Capitol —all to sift through Big Data. The $2 billion center has fed perceptions that some factions of the U.S. government are determined to build a database of all phone calls, Internet searches and emails under the guise of national security. The Washington Post's disclosure that both the NSA and FBI have the ability to burrow into computers of major Internet services will likely heighten fears that U.S. government's Big Data is creating something akin to the ever-watchful Big Brother in George Orwell's "1984" novel.

"The fact that the government can tell all the phone carriers and Internet service providers to hand over all this data sort of gives them carte blanche to build profiles of people they are targeting in a very different way than any company can," Khatibloo said.

Full Story (http://news.yahoo.com/big-data-turning-government-big-brother-071009613.html)
--------

Speechless.

Glenn

06-07-2013, 09:40 AM

There are some remarkably foresighted people behind this with a plan, and that plan has an end/goal/aim that is gaining control of people and resources. I believe a one world government with a one world currency is on it's way.

Greyson

06-11-2013, 06:40 PM

Nike’s Pro-LGBT #BeTrue Shoes And The Fashion Of Acceptance In Sports

By Travis Waldron on Jun 11, 2013 at 2:34 pm

The world’s foremost name in sporting apparel isn’t just dipping its toe in the waters of expression and acceptance. It’s diving in headfirst. After signing the WNBA’s Brittney Griner to a contract that has her market and wear men’s clothing as well as women’s apparel, and makes her the company’s first openly gay athlete.....

Griner and other female athletes are donning men’s suits and jeans, bow ties and button-downs. All this experimentation is pushing and redefining traditional gender norms, and while that’s still drawing negative responses from some, it’s drawing admiration and enjoyment from most. It’s also causing fans and admirers to experiment alongside them, giving Nike and other companies further incentive to ignore the norms to which they once felt they had to adhere.

http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2013/06/11/2135391/nike039s-pro-lgbt-betrue-shoes-and-the-fashion-of-acceptance-in-sports/

Kobi

06-12-2013, 01:42 PM

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In private remarks to the leadership of a key Latin American church group, Pope Francis lamented that a "gay lobby" was at work at the Vatican.

It was an apparent reference to allegations in the Italian media that blackmail was taking place within the Vatican against high-ranking prelates who are gay.

The Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious — the regional organization for priests and nuns of religious orders — confirmed Tuesday that its leaders had written a synthesis of Francis' remarks after their June 6 audience. The group, known by its Spanish acronym CLAR, said it was greatly distressed that the document had been published and apologized to the pope.

In the document, Francis is quoted as saying that while there were many holy people in the Vatican, there was also a current of corruption. "The 'gay lobby' is mentioned, and it is true, it is there ... We need to see what we can do ..." the synthesis reads.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Tuesday the audience was private and that as a result he had nothing to say.

In the days leading up to Pope Benedict XVI's Feb. 28 resignation, Italian media were rife with reports of a "gay lobby" influencing papal decision-making and Vatican policy through blackmail, and suggestions that the scandal had led in part to Benedict's decision to resign.

The unsourced reports, in the Rome daily La Repubblica and the news magazine Panorama, said details of the scandal were laid out in the secret dossier prepared for Benedict by three trusted cardinals who investigated the leaks of papal documents last year. Benedict left the dossier for Francis.

At the time, the Vatican denounced the reporting as defamatory, "unverified, unverifiable or completely false."

The initial reporting has never been precise on what exactly was meant by a "gay lobby," but Repubblica and Panorama went beyond saying there was merely a homosexual subculture at the Vatican. Rather, they raised allegations that high-ranking prelates were being blackmailed because they were gay.

On Wednesday, Italian gay rights groups denounced the reporting of the entire affair as insensitive and homophobic.

"That priests have sex with other men doesn't authorize anyone to speak about a gay lobby, because we're not talking about a group that represents the interests of the homosexual community but rather a group that is an integral part of a power structure — the Vatican — which is violently homophobic," said Franco Grillini, president of Gaynet rights group.

Francis' remarks on the matter, as reported by the CLAR leadership, were published Tuesday in Spanish on the progressive Chilean-based website "Reflection and Liberation" and picked up and translated by the blog Rorate Caeli, which is read in Vatican circles.

In the synthesis, Francis was quoted as being remarkably forthcoming about his administrative shortcomings, saying he was relying on the group of eight cardinals he appointed to lead a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The document quoted him as saying: "I am very disorganized, I have never been good at this. But the cardinals of the commission will move it forward."

In its statement, CLAR said no recording had been made of Francis' remarks but that the members of its leadership team — a half-dozen men and women — together wrote a synthesis of the points he had made for their own personal use.

"It's clear that based on this one cannot attribute with certainty to the Holy Father singular expressions in the text, but just the general sense," the statement said.

___

Text of the CLAR synthesis is at http://www.reflexionyliberacion.cl/articulo/2729/papa-francisco-dialoga-como-un-hermano-mas-con-la-clar.html

Text of the CLAR apology is at http://www.clar.org/clar/index.php?module=Contenido&func=viewpub&tid=2&pid=659

UofMfan

06-13-2013, 09:03 AM

Supreme Court DNA Ruling: Court Says Human Genes Cannot Be Patented (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/supreme-court-dna-ruling_n_3435274.html)

Allison W

06-13-2013, 09:26 AM

Supreme Court DNA Ruling: Court Says Human Genes Cannot Be Patented (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/supreme-court-dna-ruling_n_3435274.html)

Hell yeah. Finally something that isn't just kowtowing to wealthy corporate interests.

Greyson

06-13-2013, 02:27 PM

UCD Health System to include sexual orientation, gender identity in e-records

By Mark Glover
mglover@sacbee.com

The UC Davis Health System said today that it will become the first academic health system in the nation to incorporate sexual orientation and gender identity as standard demographic elements within the electronic health records of its patients.

Officials said the move was prompted in part by a 2011 Institute of Medicine report that noted a meager amount of research data about the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/13/5494639/ucd-health-system-to-include-sexual.html

Toughy

06-13-2013, 06:35 PM

Supreme Court DNA Ruling: Court Says Human Genes Cannot Be Patented (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/supreme-court-dna-ruling_n_3435274.html)

It was 9-0......unanimous decision......

They did rule that the company can patent a piece of DNA (like the BRAC) if they change it enough that it does not occur in nature and is being used for other purposes.

I cannot remember when there was a unanimous decision on the Court.....and with this Court, which is so divided, it borders on a miracle..

Andrea

06-13-2013, 08:17 PM

Governor Terry Branstad, Iowa’s New Abortion Decider-In-Chief

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/governor-terry-branstad-iowas-new-abortion-decider-in-chief/news/2013/06/13/68582 (http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/governor-terry-branstad-iowas-new-abortion-decider-in-chief/news/2013/06/13/68582)

"Iowa is about to become a one-of-a-kind state – the only state with it’s own abortion arbiter. From here on out, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad will be personally signing off on each and every request for a Medicaid-covered abortion in his state. In Iowa, that means victims of rape. Victims of incest. Women whose lives are endangered by a pregnancy. Women who are carrying a fetus so malformed it won’t survive. The Governor says he plans “to be thoughtful.”

*Anya*

06-15-2013, 08:39 AM

Student kicked out of college for being a lesbian, now must repay over $6K for her revoked academic scholarship.

Danielle Powell was close to getting her bachelor's degree when she was kicked out of her university for being gay in 2012, and now says the only way the school will transfer her credits to another school is if she agrees to pay $6,300. In response, Powell has launched an online petition to pressure the school to forgive the debt.

Powell was a student at Grace University in early 2011 when she began her first same-sex relationship. Up until that point, neither she nor her then-girlfriend identified as lesbian. When Grace, a religious university in Omaha, Neb., found out about the relationship through a spiritual adviser at the school, they brought Powell before a judiciary board to decide whether she should be allowed to stay enrolled.

"At that time, my family had no idea, so I had to come out to my family sooner than I would've wanted," Powell told The Huffington Post.

Michael James, executive vice president at Grace, told The Huffington Post that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents them from discussing any student's particular case. But he did confirm the student handbook states that "Any student involved in sexually immoral behavior, including premarital sex, adultery, and homosexual acts, is at minimum placed on University probation and may be subject to a Judiciary Hearing."

Powell said the board asked her why she did what she did and whether she was remorseful, treating her, in her words, "like a sexual predator." The university ultimately decided in March 2011 to suspend her and not allow her to finish the semester. Powell said she was also told she now owed Grace just over $6,000 after an academic scholarship she'd been awarded was revoked.

Powell said that the university told her she could participate in a restoration program, involving counseling and regular church attendance, to get readmitted, but she would have to live off campus and could not stay overnight in the dorms. She began the restoration process in the summer of 2011, so as not to jeopardize work that she was afraid she might lose by transferring to another institution.

But shortly before the start of the spring 2012 semester, Grace decided not to readmit her because she was still dating women.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/danielle-powell-grace-university_n_3428514.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Jesse

06-16-2013, 11:36 PM

Andrea

06-19-2013, 07:21 AM

Princess

06-19-2013, 08:07 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/westboro-baptist-church-lemonade_n_3444490.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1193174/thumbs/r-WESTBORO-BAPTIST-CHURCH-LEMONADE-large570.jpg?10

This is less than a mile from my home, and I could not be happier. This little girl is awesome, and she has raised nearly 20,000 dollars! Way to Go Jayden!

Kobi

06-19-2013, 08:25 AM

S. 744
Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act
As reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on May 28, 2013,
including the amendments made in the star print of June 6, 2013

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/s744.pdf (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/s744.pdf)

"The report estimates that in the first decade after the immigration bill is carried out, the net effect of adding millions of additional taxpayers would decrease the federal budget deficit by $197 billion. Over the next decade, the report found, the deficit reduction would be even greater -- an estimated $700 billion, from 2024 to 2033."

Bolding mine....

I always take these government projections with a grain of salt, seeing the figures are based on arbitrary and incalculable variables resulting in the "new math" of governmental illusionary thinking in an absolutely perfect world that doesn't exist.

Adding 10 million new people to the workforce would be terrific if there were jobs. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) there are already 11 million unemployed Americans as of May 2013. This doesn't include those who are no longer bothering to look for work.

So, if you have 11 million unemployed already, just how many of the new 10 million are likely to find gainful employment so they provide more disposable revenue for the government to misuse?

In the same vein, 10 million more people need to be added to an infrastructure that is not equipment to even handle the current loads. 10 million more accessing education, health care, housing, social security and other benefits. There is no reasonable way to calculate the cost of adding new numbers or of how the infrastructure, (federal, state and local) needs to expand to accommodate increased demand.

I'm not dissing the bill btw. I am dissing the way government tries to sell us an illusionary bill of goods and promises that defy basic logic and math.

Greyson

06-19-2013, 03:40 PM

WEDNESDAY JUNE 19 2013

OP-ED: Murkowski Shares Thoughts on Marriage Equality with Alaskans
The Pursuit of Happiness – Without Government Interference

Not too long ago, I had the honor of nominating an Alaskan family as “Angels in Adoption,” a celebration of the selflessness shown by foster care families and those who adopt children. They arrived in Washington, DC, a military family who had opened their doors to not one child but four siblings to make sure that these sisters and brother had the simplest gift you can give a child: a home together. We had lunch together, and they shared their stories with me. All the while, the children politely ate lunch and giggled as content youngsters do. Given my daily hectic Senate schedule, it’s not often that I get to sit down with such a happy family during a workday – and I think of them often, as everything our nation should encourage.

I bring them up because the partners were two women who had first made the decision to open their home to provide foster care to the eldest child in 2007. Years later – and after a deployment abroad with the Alaska National Guard for one of them – they embraced the joy and sacrifice of four adopted children living under the same roof, with smiles, laughter, movie nights, parent-teacher conferences and runny noses.

Yet despite signing up and volunteering to give themselves fully to these four adorable children, our government does not meet this family halfway and allow them to be legally recognized as spouses. After their years of sleepless nights, after-school pickups and birthday cakes, if one of them gets sick or injured and needs critical care, the other would not be allowed to visit them in the emergency room – and the children could possibly be taken away from the healthy partner. They do not get considered for household health care benefit coverage like spouses nationwide. This first-class Alaskan family still lives a second-class existence.

The Supreme Court is set to make a pair of decisions on the topic of marriage equality shortly, and the national conversation on this issue is picking back up. This is a significant moment for our nation when it comes to rethinking our society’s priorities and the role of government in Americans’ private lives and decisions, so I want to be absolutely clear with Alaskans. I am a life-long Republican because I believe in promoting freedom and limiting the reach of government. When government does act, I believe it should encourage family values. I support the right of all Americans to marry the person they love and choose because I believe doing so promotes both values: it keeps politicians out of the most private and personal aspects of peoples’ lives – while also encouraging more families to form and more adults to make a lifetime commitment to one another. While my support for same sex civil marriage is something I believe in, I am equally committed to guaranteeing that religious freedoms remain inviolate, so that churches and other religious institutions can continue to determine and practice their own definition of marriage.

With the notion of marriage – an exclusive, emotional, binding ‘til death do you part’ tie – becoming more and more an exception to the rule given a rise in cohabitation and high rates of divorce, why should the federal government be telling adults who love one another that they cannot get married, simply because they happen to be gay? I believe when there are so many forces pulling our society apart, we need more commitment to marriage, not less.

This thinking is consistent with what I hear from more and more Alaskans especially our younger generations. Like the majority of Alaskans, I supported a constitutional amendment in 1998 defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, but my thinking has evolved as America has witnessed a clear cultural shift. Fifteen years after that vote, I find that when one looks closer at the issue, you quickly realize that same sex unions or civil marriages are consistent with the independent mindset of our state – and they deserve a hands-off approach from our federal policies.

First, this is a personal liberty issue and has to do with the most important personal decision that any human makes. I believe that, as Americans, our freedoms come from God and not government, and include the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What could be more important to the pursuit of happiness than the right to choose your spouse without asking a Washington politician for permission? If there is one belief that unifies most Alaskans – our true north – it is less government and more freedom. We don’t want the government in our pockets or our bedrooms; we certainly don’t need it in our families.

Secondly, civil marriage also touches the foundation of our national culture: safe, healthy families and robust community life. In so many ways, sound families are the foundation of our society. Any efforts or opportunity to expand the civil bonds and rights to anyone that wants to build a stable, happy household should be promoted.

Thirdly, by focusing on civil marriage -- but also reserving to religious institutions the right to define marriage as they see fit -- this approach respects religious liberty by stopping at the church door. As a Catholic, I see marriage as a valued sacrament that exists exclusively between a man and a woman. Other faiths and belief systems feel differently about this issue – and they have every right to. Churches must be allowed to define marriage and conduct ceremonies according to their rules, but the government should not tell people who they have a right to marry through a civil ceremony.

I recently read an interview where Ronald Reagan’s daughter said that she believes he would have supported same-sex marriage, that he would think “What difference does it make to anybody else’s life? I also think because he wanted government out of peoples’ lives, he would not understand the intrusion of government banning such a thing. This is not what he would have thought government should be doing.”

Like Reagan, Alaskans believe that government works best when it gets out of the way. Countless Alaskans and Americans want to give themselves to one another and create a home together. I support marriage equality and support the government getting out of the way to let that happen.

http://www.murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=OpEds&ContentRecord_id=8295b7c7-e504-4b32-bc25-354b3aef41dc

Greyson

06-19-2013, 10:14 PM

Secrets piling up faster than government can declassify some

By Anita Kumar
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Last Modified: Wednesday, Jun. 19, 2013 - 8:00 pm

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- In the darkened stacks of a nondescript building in the suburbs outside Washington, dozens of federal employees wearing protective gloves spend day after day sifting through millions of pages of secret documents, some of them nearly a century old.

The 70 staffers of the National Declassification Center are charged with deciding – anonymously and quietly – which of the nation’s old secrets can be laid bare for the world to see.

“We’re treading water,” said Sheryl Shenberger, a former CIA officer who’s the center’s director.

She later added that there’s some confusion about the exact parameters of the president’s goal but that she thinks that examining all the documents once – but not necessarily releasing them – would meet the goal, though she knows other people do not.

Obama acted on several longtime recommendations when he created the declassification center in December 2009 to conduct “automatic” reviews while implementing revised rules for classifying and declassifying documents.
But an automatic review is anything but automatic.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/19/5508858/secrets-piling-up-faster-than.html

__________________________________________________ _____________

I encourage you to read the entire article. It gets "better" and more in depth.
I had never heard of the "National Declassification Center." In all fairness some of these recommendations were created before Obama was elected president. However, in my opinion Obama is tepid when it comes to transparency. FYI, I did vote for Obama, twice. My first choice was Hillary Clinton.

*Anya*

06-22-2013, 08:50 AM

CLOSING TIME: "EX-GAY" GROUP REALIZES THEY'RE WRONG

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 - 11:55pm by Ross Murray, Director of News and Faith Initiatives at GLAAD

The leadership of Exodus International has announced that they are shutting their doors after 3 decades of practicing so-called ‘ex-gay’ ministry.

According to a statement on the group’s web site, the board of directors was finding ‘ex-gay’ work more and more difficult, given their anti-gay words and actions.

“Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus. “For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.”

The president of Exodus, Alan Chambers, was a well-documented figure on GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project for previous anti-gay statements. However, his tone and words began shifting over the course of the past two years. Today, Chambers posted an apology on the Exodus web site for the harm that he had caused LGBT people and their families in his quest to make them match an anti-gay view of God.

"I am sorry for the pain and hurt that many of you have experienced. I am sorry some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents.

I am sorry I didn’t stand up to people publicly ‘on my side’ who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him, I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine."

The timing comes as Exodus opened what is now to be their last conference. It also comes just one day before an episode of Our America with Lisa Ling, in which Chambers offers an apology (part of which is printed above) to a group of ex-gay survivors. This is a follow-up for Ling, who two years ago did an episode on so-called ‘ex-gay’ programs that featured Chambers and other ‘ex-gay’ practitioners.

"Alan Chambers, and the rest of the Exodus leadership, has fully and completely come to the realization that their so-called 'ministry' has done harm to thousands of people,” said Ross Murray, Director of News and Faith Initiatives. “They are coming to the right decision to end that harm now."

http://www.glaad.org/blog/closing-time-ex-gay-group-realizes-theyre-wrong

Gráinne

06-22-2013, 07:28 PM

http://www.thejimani.com/thehistoryof/theupstairslounge.html *WARNING* Graphic pictures

I'd never heard of this tragedy before now. I was 10 when it happened, so this wasn't in some dim pages of history. It feels like a different world, though.

I know we have a lot farther to go and a lot of work to do yet, but how far we have come in 40 years since. The Supreme Court is deciding on a case about gay marriage, which will have the same ramifications as the Loving decision of 1967. And instead of a tiny club hidden upstairs and sneaking around in shame, over 100 of us are about to descend on a fancy hotel in the heart of a Deep South city and get our groove on (fairly) openly in that ballroom.

Tommi

06-26-2013, 08:12 AM

BREAKING: Supreme Court strikes down federal provision requiring benefits to legally married gay couples.

Defense of Marriage Act struck down by Supreme Court OTUS
Breaking news

Updated: Wednesday, 26 Jun 2013, 10:05 AM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 26 Jun 2013, 7:11 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is meeting to deliver opinions in two cases that could dramatically alter the rights of gay people across the United States.

The justices are expected to decide their first-ever cases about gay marriage Wednesday in their last session before the court's summer break. Hours before the court was to issue its rulings, crowds began lining up outside the Supreme Court building in hopes of getting a seat inside the courtroom.

The issues before the court are California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies legally married gay Americans a range of tax, health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.

The broadest possible ruling would give gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. But several narrower paths also are available, including technical legal outcomes in which the court could end up saying very little about same-sex marriage.

If the court overturns California's Proposition 8 or allows lower court rulings that struck down the ban to stand, it will take about a month for same-sex weddings to resume for the first time since 2008, San Francisco officials have said.

http://www.wwlp.com/dpps/news/politics/supreme_ct/high-court-gay-marriage-decisions-june-26-nd13-jos_6309251

Tommi

06-26-2013, 08:41 AM

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Wednesday it will not take up a challenge to California's voter-approved Prop 8 -- a ban on same-sex marriage that landed before the Justices after years of legal battles.

The ruling states the people who brought this case had no legal standing to bring the case to the Supreme Court

MsTinkerbelly

06-28-2013, 05:34 PM

Same-sex marriages resume in California after court gives go-ahead

By CNN Staff

updated 7:16 PM EDT, Fri June 28, 2013

California lifts same-sex marriage ban

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A federal appeals court lifts an order banning same-sex marriages
It takes effect "immediately," according to the court order
The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the move with a ruling Wednesday

(CNN) -- The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that same-sex marriages can resume in California, a move that the Supreme Court paved the way for on Wednesday.

Three judges on the appeals court made it possible for local governments to issue marriage certificates for gay and lesbian couples with a few words: "The stay in the above matter is dissolved effective immediately."

Very soon after, California Attorney General Kamala Harris was already at San Francisco's city hall marrying couples, according to her office.

"I am thrilled that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its stay to allow same-sex couples to legally marry in California," Harris said in a statement. "Gay and lesbian couples have waited so long for this day and for their fundamental right to marry. Finally, their loving relationships are as legitimate and legal as any other."

California's Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage in May 2008, ruling that the state's constitution gives "this basic civil right to (marry to) all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

But months later, 52% of voters backed Proposition 8 to once again restrict marriages so that they can only be between a man and a woman.

The measure put gay and lesbian marriages on hold in the state, but a federal appeals court later rule Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of that federal court ruling on jurisdictional grounds. That meant that Friday's news -- and the resumption of same-sex marriages in the Golden State -- was expected, even if the timing wasn't fully known

Greyson

06-29-2013, 03:47 PM

Hollylane

06-29-2013, 04:01 PM

Is the U.S. Turning Into a Nation of Temps? Depends on Where You Live

RICHARD FLORIDA

JUN 27, 2013

Our new dependence on temp jobs is much greater in some metro areas than others. The table below, based on EMSI data, shows the 10 large metros (those with more than one million people) where temp jobs have made up the largest share and smallest share of total employment growth since 2009.

Large Metros with Where Temp Jobs Make Up
the Largest and Smallest Shares of Job Gains, 2009-2013
Metros with the Largest Increases Percent of all job growth
(2009-2013)

Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas* 116%
Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama 66%
Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana 65%
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut 58%
Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin 51%
Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas 46%
Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio 44%
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Delaware 41%
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin 40%
Tucson, Arizona 37%

Metros with Smallest Increases Percent of all job growth
(2009-2013)

Washington, D.C. 2%
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 3%
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California 4%
Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas 5%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California 6%
Salt Lake City, Utah 6%
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, New York 6%
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, California 6%
San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas 7%
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington 7%

Read More:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/06/us-turning-nation-temps-depends-where-you-live/5997/

I think and talk about this subject a lot. My theory about the main reason for our economy being in the toilet, is outsourcing to other countries, hiring workers from other countries to come work in the states when so many Americans are unemployed (I don't blame foreign workers, they are just taking advantage of a good opportunity, for themselves and their families), and temporary workers.

How can any American feel truly secure in investing in a home/vehicle or purchasing other high dollar items, when so very few people have a reliable source of income? It seems that very few jobs are safe from outsourcing or from layoffs. Laid off employees are replaced with temporary employees, and companies even find that giving a severance to an employee that is a long way from retirement, is cheaper than keeping them employed. The appeal of the temporary worker is that they have little to no expectation of monetary increases or advances in employment, and the young temp workers have few thoughts about pension or health benefits (unless they have small children). The thing that bothers me the most about the replacement of our aging workforce with younger employees, is that the age for retirement is going up and up, with no viable jobs to retire from.

I could go on and on...and it just keeps getting worse.

*Anya*

07-01-2013, 01:05 PM

NY TIMES TODAY 7/1/13

By JULIA PRESTON
An American man in Florida and his husband, who is from Bulgaria, have become the first same-sex married couple to be approved for a permanent resident visa, an immigration milestone that comes after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law against same-sex marriage.

The notice of approval of a permanent visa, known as a green card, was issued by e-mail late Friday to Traian Popov, a Bulgarian immigrant who lives with his American spouse, Julian Marsh, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The approval was evidence that the Obama administration was acting swiftly to change its visa policies in the wake of the court’s decision on Wednesday invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

The approval came so fast that it took the couple’s immigration lawyer, Lavi Soloway, by surprise. Mr. Soloway, who represents many same-sex couples, said he received the official message while he was attending the annual conference in San Francisco of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“I thought, ‘Am I reading this wrong?’ ” Mr. Soloway said in an interview on Saturday. Although it was a professional setting, he said, he began to weep with emotion when he realized the significance of the notice.

Speaking by telephone on Sunday from the couple’s home, Mr. Marsh said that he turned 55 on Friday and that he and Mr. Popov were celebrating with dinner at a Red Lobster restaurant when they received news of the unprecedented green card.
“It was just kind of a shock, like winning the lottery,” said Mr. Marsh, a music producer. “The amazing overwhelming fact is that the government said yes, and my husband and I can live in the country we chose and we love and want to stay in.”

Mr. Popov, 41, said he had been living legally in the United States for 15 years with a series of student visas. He has completed three master’s degrees, he said, and is working on a doctorate in social science at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. The couple married in New York last year, and they applied for a green card in February.

Immigration officials said the visa agency, United States Immigration and Citizenship Services, would announce new procedures early this week for same-sex binational couples seeking green cards. The first approval was also supposed to be issued this week, officials acknowledged, but eager officers at the agency pressed the button on the notice on Friday.

LeftWriteFemme

07-10-2013, 01:36 PM

Employment Non-Discrimination Act Passes Senate Committee

http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/292625/slide_292625_2350648_free.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/employment-non-discrimination-act_n_3572902.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Wolfsong

07-12-2013, 06:29 AM

Women pinned against a car, taunted and beaten by 10 men, for being gay in a westside Chicago neighborhood. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-hate-crime-woman-girlfriend-attacked-in-south-austin-20130711,0,2505444.story)

You know I feel pretty free walking around here. We have 1 large predominantly gay neighborhood with another growing (Boystown & Andersonville) quickly. We have a Pride that drew more than 1 million people this year. Andi and I live in the Bridgeport neighborhood. While I wouldn't term this as gay friendly nobody bothers us or treats us badly. We're just one of the neighbors.

Then something like this happens and it jerks me back into reality.

Funny, Illinois just passed concealed carry (it is lawful to carry a gun(s) in public on your person) this week. Andi and I talked about it a lot and pretty much had decided that we didn't need these permits. They are $150 each and really that's $300 that we didn't need to spend. I've lived here all my life and never needed to carry a gun around before so why would I now just because it's legal? I had just said last night that anything that might happen to cause us to need to carry a gun was pretty bad and if it got to that point nobody would be looking at permits anyway. Should we be re-thinking this? I've yapped long and hard about not buying a gun out of fear......and now I'm talking about carrying one for that very reason. It's just wrong.

This really isn't about carrying or not carrying guns anyway (although it would have likely changed the outcome of this interaction). This is about two of us that got beat up simply for existing. This is about the bravery of one woman stepping between real danger and her lover, this is about the anguish of not being able to protect your loved one, this is about hate and fear and frustration. We as a community ought to be able to do something about this. Many of us are much stronger than 2 alone on the street surrounded by angry men. Aren't we?

Kobi

07-12-2013, 06:45 AM

LONDON (AP) — You can ditch your computer and leave your cellphone at home, but you can't escape your DNA.

It belongs uniquely to you — and, increasingly, to the authorities.

Countries around the world are collecting genetic material from millions of citizens in the name of fighting crime and terrorism — and, according to critics, heading into uncharted ethical terrain.

Leaders include the United States — where the Supreme Court recently backed the collection of DNA swabs from suspects on arrest — and Britain, where police held samples of almost 7 million people, more than 10 percent of the population, until a court-ordered about-face saw the incineration of a chunk of the database.

The expanding trove of DNA in official hands has alarmed privacy campaigners, and some scientists. Recent leaks about U.S. surveillance programs by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden have made people realize their online information and electronic communications may not be as secure as they thought. Could the same be true of the information we hold within our genes? DNA samples that can help solve robberies and murders could also, in theory, be used to track down our relatives, scan us for susceptibility to disease, or monitor our movements.

Earlier this year Yaniv Erlich, who runs a lab at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, published a paper in the journal Science describing how he was able to identify individuals, and their families, from anonymous DNA data in a research project. All it took was a computer algorithm, a genetic genealogy website and searches of publicly available Internet records.

"It was a very weird feeling — a 'wow' feeling," Erlich told The Associated Press. "I had to take a walk outside just to think about this process."

Erlich says DNA databases have enormous positive power, both for fighting crime and in scientific research. But, he said, "our work shows there are privacy limitations."

Ethical qualms have done little to stop the growth of genetic databases around the world.

The international police agency Interpol listed 54 nations with national police DNA databases in 2009, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany and China. Brazil and India have since announced plans to join the club, and the United Arab Emirates intends to build the world's first database of an entire national population.

The biggest database is in the United States — the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which holds information on more than 11 million people suspected of or convicted of crimes.

It is set to grow following a May Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of police forces to take DNA swabs without a warrant from people who are arrested, not just those who are convicted. (Policies on DNA collection vary by state; more than half of the states and the federal government currently take DNA swabs after arrests.)

The court's justices were divided about implications for individuals' rights. Justice Anthony Kennedy, for the five-judge majority, called the taking of DNA a legitimate and reasonable police booking procedure akin to fingerprinting.

But dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia argued that it marked a major change in police powers. "Because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason," he said.

A similar note of caution has been struck by Alec Jeffreys, the British geneticist whose 1984 discovery of DNA fingerprinting revolutionized criminal investigations. He has warned that "mission creep" could see authorities use DNA to accumulate information on people's racial origins, medical history and psychological profile.

Erlich agreed that scenario was possible, if not likely.

"If it's not regulated and the police can do whatever they want ... they can use your DNA to infer things about your health, your ancestry, whether your kids are your kids," he said.

Police forces have already tracked down criminals through the DNA of their innocent relatives, a practice that is both a goldmine for investigators and, according to skeptics, an ethical minefield. Charles Tumosa, a clinical assistant professor in forensic studies at the University of Baltimore who is wary of the potential for genetic surveillance, says relatives of suspects could be identified through DNA and leaned on for information about their family members.

And yet familial DNA searches have helped solve terrible crimes. In Britain, a sex attacker known as the "shoe rapist" was caught after 20 years through DNA from his sister, who was in the database due to a drunken-driving arrest. In Kansas in 2005, police identified Dennis Rader as a serial killer known as "BTK" through his daughter's DNA obtained, without her knowledge, from a pap smear in her medical records.

"There's got to be a debate," said Tumosa. "Nobody has talked this out.

"At what point do you say, enough is enough? Do we want to have a society where 5 percent of the crime is unsolved, or do we want to have a society where 100 percent of the crime is solved" but privacy is compromised. "What's the trade-off?"

Both supporters and critics of DNA databases point to Britain, where until recently, police could take the DNA of anyone 10 or older arrested for even the most minor offense — and keep it forever, even if the suspect was later acquitted or released without charge.

Police say the database has helped solve thousands of crimes, including murders and rapes. On the other side of the coin are hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including children, who feel shamed and tainted by inclusion on a database of criminal suspects — a status some legal experts say undermines the presumption of innocence.

"A lot of British people were very shocked to find themselves or their children ending up on the database for minor alleged offenses such as throwing a snowball at a car," said Helen Wallace, director of the privacy group GeneWatch, which campaigns for restrictions on collection of DNA and other personal information.

After a long legal battle — waged in part by a youth who was arrested at 11 on suspicion of attempted robbery and had his DNA retained despite being acquitted — the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2008 that Britain's "blanket and indiscriminate" storage of DNA violated the right to a private life.

The U.K. was forced to trim its huge database. Under a law passed last year known as the Protection of Freedoms Act, the government is destroying the DNA profiles — strings of numbers derived from DNA samples that are used to identify individuals — of a million people who were arrested for minor offenses but not convicted. People acquitted of serious crimes have their DNA profiles kept for up to five years.

Britain also has incinerated more than 6 million physical DNA samples — mostly swabs of saliva — taken from suspects. Samples, which could previously be kept indefinitely, must now be destroyed after six months.

Destroying the samples is seen as key to limiting DNA databases to crime-fighting rather than snooping, because it means stored DNA cannot be used to trace relatives or susceptibility to disease.

The U.K. government says the curbs have restored a sense of proportion to Britain's database, but some aspects of the country's genetic monitoring remain murky.

The U.K. DNA ethics watchdog has expressed concerns about a secret counterterrorism database, which, according to the Metropolitan Police Authority, contains "DNA obtained through searches, crime scenes and arrests in relation to counterterrorism" — including samples from people stopped and questioned at ports and borders, even if they are not arrested.

The Home Office, which oversees police and the DNA database, said there was a "robust regulatory framework" for the counterterrorism database. But it would not disclose how large it is, who has access to it or whether the information is shared with other countries.

Some authorities on DNA say fears of genetic intrusion are misplaced.

Chris Asplen, a former assistant U.S. attorney who now heads the Global Alliance for Rapid DNA Testing, argues that DNA is not dramatically different from other information the authorities already hold about millions of people, such as fingerprints, social security numbers or automobile registrations.

But he does see avenues for abuse.

"There is an argument to be made that because that biological sample exists, the government could go back and do other things with it that are not authorized by the law," he said. "It's a constant tension between government and people, particularly when technology is applied."

http://news.yahoo.com/spread-dna-databases-sparks-ethical-concerns-072535306.html

Kobi

07-17-2013, 12:05 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chances are, your local or state police departments have photographs of your car in their files, noting where you were driving on a particular day, even if you never did anything wrong.

Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate, according to a study published Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, uploading that information into police databases. Departments keep the records for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely.

As the technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and federal grants focus on aiding local terrorist detection, even small police agencies are able to deploy more sophisticated surveillance systems. While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge's approval is needed to track a car with GPS, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver's location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions. The ACLU says the scanners assemble what it calls a "single, high-resolution image of our lives."

"There's just a fundamental question of whether we're going to live in a society where these dragnet surveillance systems become routine," said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the ACLU. The civil rights group is proposing that police departments immediately delete any records of cars not linked to a crime.

Law enforcement officials said the scanners can be crucial to tracking suspicious cars, aiding drug busts and finding abducted children. License plate scanners also can be efficient. The state of Maryland told the ACLU that troopers could "maintain a normal patrol stance" while capturing up to 7,000 license plate images in a single eight hour shift.

"At a time of fiscal and budget constraints, we need better assistance for law enforcement," said Harvey Eisenberg, chief of the national security section and assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland.

Law enforcement officials also point out that the technology is legal in most cases, automating a practice that's been done for years. The ACLU found that only five states have laws governing license plate readers. New Hampshire, for example, bans the technology except in narrow circumstances, while Maine and Arkansas limit how long plate information can be stored.

"There's no expectation of privacy" for a vehicle driving on a public road or parked in a public place, said Lt. Bill Hedgpeth, a spokesman for the Mesquite Police Department in Texas, which has records stretching back to 2008, although the city plans next month to begin deleting files older than two years. "It's just a vehicle. It's just a license plate."

In Yonkers, N.Y., just north of the Bronx, police said retaining the information indefinitely helps detectives solve future crimes. In a statement, the department said it uses license plate readers as a "reactive investigative tool" that is only accessed if detectives are looking for a particular vehicle in connection to a crime.

"These plate readers are not intended nor used to follow the movements of members of the public," the department's statement said.

But even if law enforcement officials say they don't want a public location tracking system, the records add up quickly. In Jersey City, N.J., for example, the population is only 250,000 but the city collected more than 2 million plate images on file. Because the city keeps records for five years, the ACLU estimates that it has some 10 million on file, making it possible for police to plot the movements of most residents depending upon the number and location of the scanners, according to the ACLU.

The ACLU study, based on 26,000 pages of responses from 293 police departments and state agencies across the country, also found that license plate scanners produced a small fraction of "hits," or alerts to police that a suspicious vehicle has been found. In Maryland, for example, the state reported reading about 29 million plates between January and May of last year. Of that amount, about 60,000 — or roughly 1 in every 500 license plates — were suspicious. The No. 1 crime? A suspended or revoked registration, or a violation of the state's emissions inspection program accounted for 97 percent of all alerts.

Eisenberg, the assistant U.S. attorney, said the numbers "fail to show the real qualitative assistance to public safety and law enforcement." He points to the 132 wanted suspects the program helped track. They were a small fraction of the 29 million plates read, but he said tracking those suspects can be critical to keeping an area safe.

Also, he said, Maryland has rules in place restricting access for criminal investigations only. Most records are retained for one year in Maryland, and the state's privacy policies are reviewed by an independent board, Eisenberg noted.

At least in Maryland, "there are checks, and there are balances," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/driving-somewhere-theres-govt-record-140052644.html

Daktari

07-17-2013, 02:46 PM

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/07/17/breaking-equal-marriage-bill-for-england-and-wales-given-royal-assent-and-is-now-law/

The equal marriage bill for England and Wales was today given Royal Assent, and is now officially law.

:cheerleader:

*Anya*

07-17-2013, 02:58 PM

Groups Condemn Threats Against Haiti’s Gay Society

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 17, 2013 at 3:49 PM ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Watchdog groups in Haiti on Wednesday condemned what they say has been a series of threats targeting the Caribbean nation's small gay community.

Attorney Mario Joseph and gay rights advocate Charlot Jeudy told a news conference that people who are gay or lesbian should be able to live freely without being harassed or attacked.

Jeudy, president of a gay rights group named Kouraj, Haitian Creole for courage, said he recently received several threats, including a call from someone who told him to shut his mouth, or have it shut for him. The same caller threatened to burn down his home and office.

The news conference came three weeks after several Protestant leaders from a group calling itself the Haitian Coalition of Religious and Moral Organizations said on national television that they disagreed with recent laws in other countries supporting gay marriage. The group announced it would hold an anti-gay demonstration in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Friday, a gathering that worries rights leaders.

"Haitian society needs tolerance," said Joseph, the lawyer. "Whatever sexual orientation you are, you have rights."

Haiti's small gay and lesbian community has long remained largely underground because of a strong social stigma that sparks fears of physical violence and loss of employment.

Gay rights groups in Haiti say that members of the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community often don't report rights violations to authorities out of fear of reprisal. Those people also have suffered overt discrimination from law enforcement and judicial authorities, particularly in Port-au-Prince, the U.S. State Department said in a 2012 report on human rights in Haiti.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/07/17/world/americas/ap-cb-haiti-gay-rights.html?ref=world

Kobi

07-18-2013, 02:48 PM

The presidents of 93 Catholic colleges and universities are calling on Catholic members of the House of Representatives to pass immigration reform that would put most of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country on a path to citizenship.

“Catholic teaching values the human dignity and worth of all immigrants, regardless of legal status,” the Catholic leaders say in a letter sent to all 163 Catholic member of Congress, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker John Boehner. “We remind you that no human being made in the image of God is illegal.”

The Senate passed a comprehensive bill last month but, so far, the Republican-controlled House has not touched it.

The presidents represent 290,000 students at Catholic colleges and universities. They noted that 10 percent of House and Senate members graduated from Jesuit colleges.

“One thing immigrants do for the American Catholic Church is they enrich the church,” said John Garvey, president of the Catholic University of America. “They’re keeping the Catholic Church fresh and the churches full. More and more they're the backbone of parish life.”

“It would be a failure if we miss the opportunity to make the nation more welcoming,” said Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame.

Garvey joked that the only way to influence members of Congress to vote for the legislation would be “revoking their degrees.” He said that “apart from that we don't have a lot of authority over them” and acknowledged that presidents' advocacy might not sway representatives opposed to the bill. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has also backed reform legislation.

Religious leaders from some evangelical churches — including conservatives such as Liberty University Law School Dean Mat Staver — have joined their Catholic colleagues in advocating for reform. Evangelical and Catholic churches are increasingly filled with immigrants and their children, and Christian doctrine commands followers to “welcome the stranger,” these leaders argue. It remains to be seen if they can mobilize their followers — about half of Americans self identify as Catholic or evangelical — to pressure lawmakers to pass reform.

Some lawmakers have objected to the Christian argument for reform. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has argued that the immigration reform boosters play “fast and loose” with Scripture, which frequently emphasizes the importance of following the law.

Garvey addressed these concerns on a conference call with reporters. He said that even though unauthorized immigrants have broken civil immigration laws, they do not deserve to be punished their whole lives.

“We don't pursue people for all of their lives for something they may have done to find a better life for their families,” Garvey said. “At some point we have to let those transgressions go in our search for working things out.”

http://news.yahoo.com/religious-colleges-to-catholic-members-of-congress--pass-immigration-reform--191440814.html

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

Hey, church people, how about we apply those same rules and values to the queer community? Queers can fill your failing churches too.

SMH.

Kobi

07-18-2013, 03:03 PM

Social Security and Medicare benefits — two cornerstones of retirement planning long enjoyed by most married Americans — will be a bonanza for couples in the 13 states that recognize gay marriage. Gay and lesbian couples will be eligible for valuable spousal and survivor benefits that could be worth tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars to each household.

President Barack Obama has promised that all relevant federal benefits and obligations will be implemented "swiftly and smoothly," including retirement and health benefits, according to the Social Security Administration.

Once they are, gay couples married in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C., will be able to incorporate Social Security and Medicare benefits into their post-career planning. Minnesota and Rhode Island join that roster Aug. 1.

Men (or women) married to each other, even if divorced, for example, will be able to collect up to half of each other's Social Security benefits if certain conditions are met. If one is widowed, even if divorced, he can receive up to 100% of the deceased spouse's benefit if it's less than his own benefit, and a spouse or divorced spouse may qualify for half of a worker's disability benefits. Medicare benefits also are available to spouses who haven't contributed.

For those living in states that accept only same-sex civil unions, the federal benefits will not be so generous. The Obama administration will not extend federal-worker benefits to domestic partners who are not legally married.

That applies to civil unions in Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey. Oregon, Nevada and Wisconsin have domestic-partnership laws on the books. Activists hope to eke out a legislative or court victory for gay-marriage laws in Illinois and New Jersey by the end of the year. Other pivotal states in the near term include Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon.

The first known legal test to overturn bans on gay marriage emerged last week when civil-rights lawyers, representing 23 men, women and children, challenged Pennsylvania's law.

The Supreme Court did not touch a DOMA provision that states need not recognize same-sex marriages performed by other states. Because the Social Security Act relies on where you were "domiciled when you filed for benefits," Congress will have to address changing the law to apply to couples who get married in states where gay marriages are legal but move to states where they're not. Thirty states outlaw same-sex unions.

"States have all kinds of rules about what is marriage, but at this point if your state of residence says you're not married, you're not married," says John Olivieri, a partner at White & Case law firm.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/same-sex-couples-can-get-social-security-benefits-2013-07-18

UofMfan

07-18-2013, 04:05 PM

Detroit Bankrupt: Kevyn Orr Asks Federal Judge To Place City Under Chapter 9 Bankruptcy Protection (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/detroit-bankruptcy-keyn-orr-federal-chapter-9_n_3619099.html)

Kobi

07-22-2013, 07:37 AM

Alan Turing, a genius codebreaker who helped the Allies defeat the Nazis only to be chemically castrated by his own country for homosexuality, will be posthumously pardoned by the UK, almost 50 years after he took his own life.

Turing, considered one of the fathers of computer science, was instrumental in cracking the German ciphers and helping the Allies listen in on German communications. After being found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration, Turing committed suicide only two years after his sentence was carried out.

The government has up until this point refused to pardon Turing.

Liberal Democrat Lord Sharkey has rallied on behalf of Turing to get the government to change its mind. "The government knows that Turing was a hero and a very great man," he said, announcing the pardon. "They acknowledge that he was cruelly treated. They must have seen the esteem in which he is held here and around the world."

Over 49,000 gay men, all of them now dead, were convicted under Britain's 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. Many of them were chemically castrated. Last year, the government refused to pardon any of them.

http://gawker.com/genius-who-helped-beat-nazis-only-to-be-castrated-by-uk-862795188

UofMfan

07-31-2013, 06:47 PM

MLB prepared to ban A-Rod for life, suspend eight others (http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/07/31/alex-rodriguez-suspended-lifetime-suspension-biogenesis/2606319/)

Wolfsong

08-01-2013, 04:51 AM

MLB prepared to ban A-Rod for life, suspend eight others (http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/07/31/alex-rodriguez-suspended-lifetime-suspension-biogenesis/2606319/)

As a former A-Rod fan I completely support this......additionally I believe that the home run record should be rescinded and returned to the guy that it belongs to......Roger Maris. I believe this would be the first genuine gesture that MLB can provide the fans that they acknowledge the problem, have culpability in it, and are committed to fixing it. Anything else is really just lip service.

girl_dee

08-01-2013, 04:58 AM

i agree.. Not just because i can't stand A-rod but i feel it's cheating!!

If that record was mine and it was broken by someo e doped up on performance drugs i wouldbe pissed!

Wolfsong

08-01-2013, 05:15 AM

i agree.. Not just because i can't stand A-rod but i feel it's cheating!!

If that record was mine and it was broken by someo e doped up on performance drugs i wouldbe pissed!

It IS cheating.....and Mark McGwire fondling Maris's 61* home run bat and getting fake teary-eyed talking about how much it meant to him, hugging Mari's wife and kids makes me ill as a baseball fan. Maris hit 61 home runs smoking about 2 packs of cigarettes a day with most Yankee fans wanting him off the team and gone. They hated him. So much so that he got hate mail regularly suggesting that he go kill himself before someone did it for him. Maris didn't drink, run around on his wife, or do anything really but play some really good baseball. In all that he endured he still broke Babe Ruth's record fair and square.

Kobi

08-01-2013, 03:17 PM

Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

Catalano (who is a professional writer) describes the tension of that visit.

[T]hey were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked. ...

Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.

The men identified themselves as members of the "joint terrorism task force." The composition of such task forces depend on the region of the country, but, as we outlined after the Boston bombings, include a variety of federal agencies. Among those agencies: the FBI and Homeland Security.

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

Update, 3:40 p.m.: It is still not clear which agency knocked on Catalano's door. The Guardian reported this morning that an FBI spokesperson said that "she was visited by Nassau County police department … working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department." (Catalano apparently lives on Long Island, most likely in Nassau County.)

Detective Garcia of the Nassau County Police, however, told The Atlantic Wire by phone that his department was "not involved in any way." Similarly, FBI spokesperson Peter Donald confirmed with The Atlantic Wire that his agency wasn't involved in the visit. He also stated that he could not answer whether or not the agency provided information that led to the visit, as he didn't know.

Local and state authorities work jointly with federal officials on terror investigations similar to the one Catalano describes. Both Suffolk and Nassau County's police departments are members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), Donald confirmed. Suffolk County is also home to a "fusion center," a regionally located locus for terror investigations associated with the Department of Homeland Security. It wasn't the JTTF that led to the visit at Catalano's house, Donald told us. The task force deputizes local authorities as federal marshals, including some in Suffolk and Nassau, who can then act on its behalf. But, Donald said, "officers, agents, or other representatives of the JTTF did not visit that location."

Calls asking for a response from the Suffolk Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security have not been returned.

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

Ever since details of the NSA's surveillance infrastructure were leaked by Edward Snowden, the agency has been insistent on the boundaries of the information it collects. It is not, by law, allowed to spy on Americans — although there are exceptions of which it takes advantage. Its PRISM program, under which it collects internet content, does not include information from Americans unless those Americans are connected to terror suspects by no more than two other people. It collects metadata on phone calls made by Americans, but reportedly stopped collecting metadata on Americans' internet use in 2011. So how, then, would the government know what Catalano and her husband were searching for?

It's possible that one of the two of them is tangentially linked to a foreign terror suspect, allowing the government to review their internet activity. After all, that "no more than two other people" ends up covering millions of people. Or perhaps the NSA, as part of its routine collection of as much internet traffic as it can, automatically flags things like Google searches for "pressure cooker" and "backpack" and passes on anything it finds to the FBI.

Or maybe it was something else. On Wednesday, The Guardian reported on XKeyscore, a program eerily similar to Facebook search that could clearly allow an analyst to run a search that picked out people who'd done searches for those items from the same location. How those searches got into the government's database is a question worth asking; how the information got back out seems apparent.

It is also possible that there were other factors that prompted the government's interest in Catalano and her husband. He travels to Asia, she notes in her article. Who knows. Which is largely Catalano's point.

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. I don’t know what happens on the other 1% of visits and I’m not sure I want to know what my neighbors are up to.

One hundred times a week, groups of six armed men drive to houses in three black SUVs, conducting consented-if-casual searches of the property perhaps in part because of things people looked up online.

But the NSA doesn't collect data on Americans, so this certainly won't happen to you.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

Kobi

08-02-2013, 04:58 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Postal Service takes pictures of every piece of mail processed in the United States — 160 billion last year — and keeps them on hand for up to a month.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the photos of the exterior of mail pieces are used primarily for the sorting process, but they are available for law enforcement, if requested.

The photos have been used "a couple of times" by to trace letters in criminal cases, Donahoe told the AP on Thursday, most recently involving ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"We don't snoop on customers," said Donahoe, adding that there's no big database of the images because they are kept on nearly 200 machines at processing facilities across the country. Each machine retains only the images of the mail it processes.

"It's done by machine, so there's no central area where any of this information would be," he said. "It's extremely expensive to keep pictures of billions of pieces of mail. So there's no need for us to do that."

The images are generally stored for between a week and 30 days and then disposed of, he said. Keeping the images for those periods may be necessary to ensure delivery accuracy, for forwarding mail or making sure that the proper postage was paid, he said.

"Law enforcement has requested a couple of times if there's any way we could figure out where something came from," he said. "And we've done a little bit of that in the ricin attacks."

The automated mail tracking program was created after the deadly anthrax attacks in 2001 so the Postal Service could more easily track hazardous substances and keep people safe, Donahoe said.

"We've got a process in place that pretty much outlines, in any specific facility, the path that mail goes through," he said. "So if anything ever happens, God forbid, we would be able very quickly to track back to see what building it was in, what machines it was on, that type of thing. That's the intent of the whole program."

Processing machines take photographs so software can read the images to create a barcode that is stamped on the mail to show where and when it was processed, and where it will be delivered, Donahoe said.

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was cited by the FBI on June 7 in an affidavit that was part of the investigation into who was behind threatening, ricin-tainted letters sent to Obama and Bloomberg. The program "photographs and captures an image of every piece of mail that is processed," the affidavit by an FBI agent said.

Mail from the same mailbox tends to get clumped together in the same batch, so that can help investigators track where a particular item was mailed from to possibly identify the sender.

"We've used (the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program) to sort the mail for years," Donahoe said, "and when law enforcement asked us, 'Hey, is there any way you can figure out where this came from?' we were able to use that imaging."

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-usps-takes-photos-mail-072949079.html

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

Interesting.

Cin

08-02-2013, 05:07 AM

Kobi

08-02-2013, 05:35 AM

I don’t know if this is a breaking news event or not but it is happening currently and it is news, so in that way I guess it’s breaking news. I doubt if large numbers of people will be as fascinated with the story as I am, but it fully captured my attention. I just can’t get my head around it. I feel like I’ve stepped into a time warp.

Here is an excerpt:

“Only one of the six students that a university committee or administrator found guilty of nonconsensual sex was suspended, according to a semi-annual report on Yale sexual misconduct. That student was excluded from Yale for two semesters and was placed on probation for the remainder of his time at Yale. Four students who were found guilty of nonconsensual sex were given written reprimands, with one required to attend gender sensitivity training. One student received probation.”

HELP!

WTF is nonconsensual sex? Isn’t that rape? :seeingstars:

It’s like saying that murder is nonconsensual death. Instead of charging people with murder they can charge them with causing nonconsensual death in someone else. I doubt that would never be acceptable. But rape as nonconsensual sex, sure.

I mean here we are again with rape being called sex. Rape is not a form of sex, even if you add nonconsensual in front of it. It is violence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/yale-sexual-assault-punishment_n_3690100.html

Another twilight zone moment.

Nonconsensual sex is rape. Rape is about power. Sexism and misogyny run rampant in the halls of higher education.

I was particularly struck by:

One result of this commitment to confidentiality is that the descriptions in the report do not fully capture the diversity and complexity of the circumstances associated with the complaints or the factors that determined the outcomes and sanctions," Peart said. "Nonetheless, the range of penalties described in the semi-annual report reflects our readiness to impose harsh sanctions when the findings warrant them."

According to my Indiana Jones decoder ring, that means there are degrees of rape i.e. acceptable rape, unacceptable rape, and a host of other things along the way.

SMH.

Cin

08-02-2013, 06:16 AM

I was particularly struck by:

One result of this commitment to confidentiality is that the descriptions in the report do not fully capture the diversity and complexity of the circumstances associated with the complaints or the factors that determined the outcomes and sanctions," Peart said. "Nonetheless, the range of penalties described in the semi-annual report reflects our readiness to impose harsh sanctions when the findings warrant them."

According to my Indiana Jones decoder ring, that means there are degrees of rape i.e. acceptable rape, unacceptable rape, and a host of other things along the way.
SMH.

Well considering the relatively non existent penalties, I am hard pressed and frankly a little scared to imagine just what kind of diverse and complex circumstance would need to occur for harsh sanctions to be warranted.

Nonconsensual sex, really, the games people play with language is amazing. It is interesting how much power you can remove from something by changing the language. Rape is a charged word and they succeeded in defusing it. The question that needs to be asked and the answer that needs to be examined is WHY. What are the short and long term payoffs.

Kobi

08-02-2013, 06:49 AM

Well considering the relatively non existent penalties, I am hard pressed and frankly a little scared to imagine just what kind of diverse and complex circumstance would need to occur for harsh sanctions to be warranted.

Nonconsensual sex, really, the games people play with language is amazing. It is interesting how much power you can remove from something by changing the language. Rape is a charged word and they succeeded in defusing it. The question that needs to be asked and the answer that needs to be examined is WHY. What are the short and long term payoffs.

It is about what is it has always been about. Misogyny, sexism, power and privilege. Now, new and improved, with the added power adding marketing concepts and image make overs thru reconceptualization.

It is about gaslighting i.e. making women ( and the general public) question their perceptions and truth about what they experienced. It is about blaming the victim. It is about perpetuating the boys will be boys mentality. It is about casting reasonable doubt by the use of mitigating circumstances i.e. alcohol/drug use. It is about avoiding responsibility for ones actions.

So much for my well controlled blood pressure. ;)

CherylNYC

08-02-2013, 09:49 AM

It is about what is it has always been about. Misogyny, sexism, power and privilege. Now, new and improved, with the added power adding marketing concepts and image make overs thru reconceptualization.

It is about gaslighting i.e. making women ( and the general public) question their perceptions and truth about what they experienced. It is about blaming the victim. It is about perpetuating the boys will be boys mentality. It is about casting reasonable doubt by the use of mitigating circumstances i.e. alcohol/drug use. It is about avoiding responsibility for ones actions.

So much for my well controlled blood pressure. ;)

Sign the Credo petition.

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/rape_on_campus/?akid=8537.283188.EzHWg-&rd=1&t=1

Andrea

08-06-2013, 07:50 AM

Cin

08-06-2013, 09:36 AM

Cin

08-06-2013, 01:51 PM

I really wish the government would stop declaring war on inanimate objects, various nouns or the fiscal condition of certain groups of people. It’s just dumb. But anyway in keeping with what Andrea posted, here is an article about ways the war on terror has changed our lives.

“From having your phone and internet data collected to the militarization of the police, the war on terror is having a major affect on American lives.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-ways-war-terror-impacting-you

Cin

08-07-2013, 10:31 AM

Cin

08-07-2013, 10:43 AM

HELP END THE WAR ON DRUGS

Edgy New “Breaking Bad” Video Reveals the Truth About the Drug War

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/edgy-new-breaking-bad-video-reveals-truth-about-drug-war-0

Kätzchen

08-07-2013, 12:33 PM

10 Reasons Lawyers Say Florida's Law Enforcement Threw Away George Zimmerman's Case
A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts say Zimmerman didn't face anything like a serious trial.
August 6, 2013 |

Florida law enforcement, from the local police to the special prosecutor overseeing the Trayvon Martin case, did not want to see George Zimmerman convicted of murder and deliberately threw away the case, allowing their prosecution to crumble. A growing chorus of attorneys and analysts who know jury trials and courtroom procedure say this is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the parade of otherwise incoherent missteps by George Zimmerman’s prosecutors.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/10-reasons-lawyers-say-floridas-law-enforcement-threw-ryan-zimmermans-case-away

Thank you Miss Tick for supplying the article written by Steven Rosenfeld.

As I read the article, I kept nodding my head in unison with the logic presented in how the case was a huge miscarriage of justice.

So here's what crossed my mind after reading that article: How long will it be before justice is served - not only in the case of Trayvon Martin but for countless other miscarriages of justice in cases such as the Martin Case? I can't help but wonder what Thurgood Marshall would do. Obviously, I believe Thurgood Marshall would take that case in a heartbeat and make sure justice for all could be served. I'm hoping that the "chorus of attorneys" grows to a mighty fevered pitch that of Thurgood Marshall, so that egregious miscarriages of justice will end.

LeftWriteFemme

08-07-2013, 03:07 PM

Stephen Fry calls for Olympics ban over Russia's anti-gay laws

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69162000/jpg/_69162434_69159116.jpg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23603870

Cin

08-11-2013, 09:48 AM

Reuters: Drug Enforcement Agency Using Domestic Spying to Launch Secretive Criminal Investigations

https://www.ijreview.com/2013/08/70825-reuters-drug-enforcement-agency-using-domestic-spying-to-launch-secretive-criminal-investigations/ (https://www.ijreview.com/2013/08/70825-reuters-drug-enforcement-agency-using-domestic-spying-to-launch-secretive-criminal-investigations/)

Wasn't the spying to be about terrorism only?

More on this.

The NSA-DEA police state tango
This week's DEA bombshell shows us how the drug war and the terror war have poisoned our justice system

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/the_nsa_dea_police_state_tango/
Excepts:
…this is a genuinely sinister turn of events with a whiff of science-fiction nightmare, one that has sounded loud alarm bells for many people in the mainstream legal world. Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law professor who spent 18 years as a federal judge and cannot be accused of being a radical, told Reuters she finds the DEA story more troubling than anything in Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. It’s the first clear evidence that the “special rules” and disregard for constitutional law that have characterized the hunt for so-called terrorists have crept into the domestic criminal justice system on a significant scale. “It sounds like they are phonying up investigations,” she said. Maybe this is how a police state comes to America: Not with a bang, but with a parallel construction.

Millions of people have been sent to prison on drug-war convictions over the last 20 years. Most of those people have been poor and black. We will never know how many of those cases resulted from secret evidence collected by spy agencies, but it might not be a small number. One of the Reuters articles that broke this story quotes DEA officials as saying that the “parallel construction” tactic had been used by the agency “virtually every day since the 1990s.” Legal scholar Michelle Alexander, author of the recent bestseller “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” sent me an email from her family vacation to say that these revelations “certainly lead one reasonably to wonder how many people — especially poor people of color, who have been the primary targets in the drug war — have been spied on by the DEA in the name of national security.” Michelle Alexander’s book depicts the mass imprisonment of African Americans as a new system of racial control that is more efficient than the old one precisely because it is veiled by official colorblindness. In the recent documentary “How to Make Money Selling Drugs,” David Simon of “The Wire” and “Treme” describes the United States as a society that “hunts down and incarcerates poor people.”

From the outset, there have been moral, philosophical and technological connections between the war on drugs and the war on terror. Both campaigns involve the unprecedented expansion of executive power and the use of high-tech paramilitary policing. Both involve “adjusting” our supposedly cherished constitutional rights and privileges in the name of protecting us from evil. Both involve targets that are easy to demonize and marginalize, and both embody troubling questions about race, class and power. Most important of all, both conflicts are immensely expensive and shockingly self-destructive. If these parallel wars had been designed to fail – designed to create a state of permanent crisis, empower and enrich a caste of warrior-bureaucrats and undercut constitutional democracy – they could hardly have been designed more perfectly.

All this underscores, of course, that while drug-war prosecutions are supposed to be just like other kinds of criminal cases, in practice they have a special status and are treated differently. But one may still ask, given that this administration and the last one (and quite likely the one before that) have repeatedly misled the public about the existence, extent and scope of surveillance programs, whether there is any reason to believe that the pipeline of secret data and the manipulation of the justice system is limited to drug cases. Should we be confident that NSA intercepts and foreign-intelligence wiretaps and “parallel construction” will never be used to build criminal cases against hackers, leakers, Occupy activists, investigative journalists, unfriendly pundits and any other dissidents on the left or the right whom the government decides to persecute?

In theory, the DEA disclosures could and should have outraged Americans across the political spectrum, especially when added to all the other bad things we’ve learned about our government this year. Except that blind partisan loyalty now trumps everything in national politics, and almost nothing about our country’s slide toward soft police state still shocks anybody. Conservatives only care about civil liberties when they affect rich and/or rural white folks, and support any degree of tyranny when it comes to conducting the drug war and locking up poor people. As Bruce A. Dixon of Black Agenda Report notes, liberals of all races would have howled about this stuff under Bush-Cheney, but with a black Democrat in the White House they make excuses or pretend it isn’t happening.

Maybe we’re all just dazed by the tide of NSA revelations, distracted by celebrity sex scandals and the idiotic infighting of Washington, and insulated by the techno-workaholic bubble of ordinary life, in which America still seems like a calm and normal place. If I had to break it down, I would guess that half the population clings to the optimistic belief that reasonable people are in charge and things will work out for the best, while the other half has become entirely cynical. I mean, who still thinks that drug dealers have rights? That’s so 20th century!

Cin

08-11-2013, 09:59 AM

Speaking of the war on drugs here are just a few of the things that are ludicrously devastating about it.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/17/top-10-unhealthy-side-effects-of-the-war-on-drugs/#ixzz2bfC6ITUx

Seventy-six million Americans suffer from chronic, daily pain, and at least nine million have daily pain that is severe enough to interfere significantly with their jobs and relationships. As baby boomers continue to age, the proportion of the population suffering from pain will only increase. Already, undertreated pain is estimated to cost the country $61 billion a year in lost productivity, according to the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Even among patients who are dying, half are not given adequate pain relief. Yet virtually all the news about opioid pain medication is focused on drug abuse and addiction and how to reduce prescribing of the only drugs that show effectiveness for the worst pain. Research finds that the vast majority of people who misuse opioids have never even been in pain treatment, and more than 97% of pain patients without prior drug problems do not develop addictions if treated with prescription painkillers. Nonetheless, because of the war on drugs, pain patients are treated with skepticism and pain doctors live in fear of being prosecuted for "overprescribing." The end result is that addicts still get their opioids without much trouble, while genuine patients often can't find treatment. Those who do must typically be tracked in a database and must schedule frequent, expensive doctor visits for surveillance like urine testing. Further, those whose pain is best treated with marijuana still face arrest in many states, even those that have legalized it for medical purposes.

In recent years, prescription drug overdose has overtaken homicide on the list of leading causes of preventable death in the U.S. Overdose now comes in second only to car accidents, having killed more than 35,000 people in 2007. The problem has been blamed on increased prescribing of pain medications. However, most of the deaths involve people who were not prescribed these drugs; the deaths have largely occurred in the context of drug abuse, with victims mixing painkillers (mainly obtained without a legitimate prescription) with alcohol or illegal drugs. There is a safe, nontoxic drug called naloxone that can instantly reverse opioid overdose and prevent most of these deaths. But the drug war interferes with saving overdose victims in two ways: first, because witnesses to overdose fear prosecution, they often don't call for help until it's too late. Second, because the drug war supports the belief that making naloxone available over-the-counter or with opioid prescriptions would encourage drug use, the antidote is available only through harm reduction programs like needle exchanges or in some state programs aimed at drug users.

There are many dedicated professionals who treat people with addiction compassionately, but the American addiction treatment system on the whole remains highly dysfunctional: • Research has long shown that treatment that employs confrontation and humiliation increases drug use rather than fighting addiction, but the majority of rehab programs still include these elements. • Tough-love boot camps, wilderness programs and emotional growth or therapeutic boarding schools — programs aimed mainly at teens who take drugs — remain unregulated at the federal level and continue to use harsh, counterproductive tactics. • Ninety percent of addiction counselors focus on getting people to attend 12-step programs for addiction, even though they are not the only way to recover and don't work for many people. • Methadone and buprenorphine maintenance are the most effective treatments for opioid addiction, yet methadone treatment is exiled from mainstream health care and ghettoized in clinics; as for buprenorphine, any one doctor is not allowed to treat more than 100 patients with the drug. What do these facts have to do with the drug war? If addiction were seen as a disease like any other — not as a problem for the criminal justice system — addiction treatment would have been integrated into ordinary medicine long ago, and the extreme disrespect that many patients still endure would not have been tolerated. Much more treatment could be funded, of course, if the states and federal government combined weren't spending $50 billion annually on law enforcement and prisons.

Although many assume that the popularity of more potent stimulants like crack and crystal meth was a cause of drug war crackdowns, some research suggests that it is actually a result of the war on drugs. When law enforcement targets the drug supply, the most powerful and highly concentrated forms of substances become more attractive to sellers and users, since smaller quantities are generally easier to hide. A similar effect was seen during Prohibition in the U.S., with stronger liquors like moonshine displacing weaker drinks like beer. More potent drugs increase the risk for overdose and often addiction.

In Mexico alone, nearly 35,000 people have been killed in violence related to the drug trade since the Mexican government decided to go to war, literally, with traffickers. Just in 2010, there were 15,273 drug-related murders. Many of those killed were innocent bystanders. While people tend to think that drug use itself leads to violent behavior, studies show that the vast majority of drug-related violence is connected to drug-trade disputes, not drug highs. Ironically, alcohol is the drug that is pharmacologically most likely to increase violence, but we haven't seen much violence related to the alcohol trade since the end of Prohibition.

When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have 2.3 million prisoners: 743 people per 100,000 in the population. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. As Senator Jim Webb once put it, "Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different — and vastly counterproductive." This rise has been driven by the war on drugs: more than half of all federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses, while about 25% of jail inmates and 21% of state prisoners are drug offenders. The U.S. incarcerates more people for drug offenses today than it did for all offenses combined before the drug war. "It's far beyond anything any other country has done and beyond any other civilization in the history of mankind," says Dr. Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine at Brown University, who wrote a recent editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine on the incarceration epidemic. Incarceration is harmful to mental and physical health — increasing risk for virtually all diseases and disorders — and does not treat addiction.

The most egregious health effects of the drug war have hit black Americans. The rate of incarceration for drug crimes is 10 times higher in blacks than in whites, even though drug use and dealing rates are the same or even higher for whites. More African Americans today are under criminal justice supervision — in prison, on parole or probation — than were enslaved 10 years before the Civil War, according to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. And more than 10% of black men between the ages of 20 and 35 are in prison, which keeps them from their families and children. Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University (full disclosure: he and I are currently writing a book together), notes that the real rise in incarceration occurred under President Reagan and later presidents, not Nixon. "The damage was done after 1986," he says. "And even Reagan wasn't incarcerating as many as Bush and Clinton did." Update [1 p.m.]: The impact of the prison explosion has been devastating. President Jimmy Carter writes today in an impassioned op-ed in the New York Times, calling for an end to the global drug war:
In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."

The war on drugs has since done more to harm the black family and, consequently, the entire American family than ... any other drug.

Cin

08-11-2013, 10:34 AM

More on the war on drugs.

The war on drugs has failed. By making drugs illegal, this country has:
1) Put half a million people in prison : $10 Billion a year
2) Spent billions annually for expanded law enforcement
3) Fomented violence and death (in gang turf wars, overdoses from uncontrolled drug potency & shared needles/AIDS)
4) Eroded civil rights (property can be confiscated from you BEFORE you are found guilty; search and wiretap authority has expanded.)
5) Enriched criminal organizations.

The street price of a single ounce of pure cocaine is several thousands of dollars, yet the cost to produce the drug is less than $20. The difference is the amount we are willing to pay to criminals for the privilege of keeping the drug illegal. Not only that, but such a high markup is strong incentive for people to enter into the sales and trafficking of these drugs. The stiff penalties we assess against drug dealers only makes the price higher and the criminals more desperate to escape capture, more determined to protect their market from encroachment. If drugs were legalized, the price would drop by to a tiny fraction of their current street values and the incentive to push drugs would vanish.

Recall that during prohibition, bootleggers and police used to shoot it out over black market 'shine. Illegal speakeasies did a booming trade, the profits of which went to organized crime. With the end of prohibition, alcohol has been taxed and provides a revenue stream to the State. Would drug use go up? Maybe. But it might well go down, since there would be no profit in getting new users to try drugs.

Protecting drug users against themselves costs the rest of us too much: in dollars, in safety and in freedom.

read the rest of the excerpt:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/paradox/htele.html

Logic of War

The War on Drugs has been going on for so long that most people can no longer imagine a world without it. And the rhetoric of war has been effective: there is an unspoken—and unquestioned—assumption that the alternative to fighting this war is defeat.
The unexamined logic goes something like this. Right now,
· we're fighting as hard as we can
· we're spending billions and billions of dollars
· we're locking up drug users as fast as we can build prisons
and still we have drugs, and drug dealers, and drug users. Obviously, if we stop fighting, the country will be overrun with drugs
· everyone will be addicted
· the Mafia will take over the government
· there will be pushers on every street corner
· the United States will turn into one big crack house

Force of Nature

Such is the logic of war.
Of course, it's not really a war: that's just a metaphor. But metaphors have power. They express implicit assumptions. They frame discussion, and constrain possibilities.
Here's a different metaphor. Drugs are a force of nature, like the tide. The tide comes in; the tide goes out. You can't stop the tide, and if you're smart, you don't try. If you're smart,
· you build bridges to span the water
· you build boats that float on the water
· you teach your children to swim, so that they don't drown if they fall in the water

And if someone declares war on the tide, you don't question their judgement; you question their sanity. If drugs are a force of nature, then we need to call off the war and start building bridges.

http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/rants/future.html

Cin

08-12-2013, 03:39 PM

I guess this isn't a breaking news event, but it's a news story online today so I guess that qualifies. I found the article so interesting I'm posting it in it's entirety. Well maybe interesting isn't quite the word :|

8 Signs the Rich Have WAY Too Much Money
Our country is increasingly being turned into a plaything for the ultra-rich.

The statistics about wealth inequality in this country are both astonishing and alarming. But statistics can’t tell the entire story if they’re presented in isolation. Our country is increasingly being turned into a plaything for the ultra-rich.

Here are seven signs that the ultra-wealthy Americans have way too much money.

1. Jeff Bezos bought the second most influential newspaper in the country—and it barely dented his net worth.

Two things always get a lot of coverage from reporters in this country—what billionaires do with their money, and anything that affects reporters. When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, we got both.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what the Amazon founder might do with his new personal acquisition. Here’s an aspect of the story that’s gotten much less attention: The Post’s $250 million sale price is roughly 1/100th of Bezos’ reported net worth, which is said to be in excess of $22 billion.

That’s a lot of net worth for one individual. Granted, Bezos is much smarter than most of his peers. He’s got skills and he’s worked hard. Why shouldn’t he be rich? It’s the American way, after all. But does he need to be that rich? He didn’t get all that money on merit alone. Bezos has accumulated his massive fortune in part because tax policy has coddled him and his fellow billionaires, while most of the country is mired an ongoing financial struggle.

2. They literally don’t know what to do with their money.

A new study shows that the wealthy are holding on to far more of their money than before: 37 percent of their income goes unspent, a figure which is three times as large as it was in 2007. What’s more, they have more cash on hand, and 60 percent say they don’t plan to spend or invest it.

In other words, they’re getting more of out national income than ever before—and they’re hanging on to it, which means it isn’t creating jobs or economic growth.

3. Corporate profits and wealthy income.

Corporate profits are capturing more of the nation’s income than they have for more than half a century. They stood at 14.2 percent as of the third quarter of 2012, which is higher than they’ve been since 1950, and their after-tax performance has stayed just as robust since then.

At the same time, the portion of our national income which goes to employees is the lowest it’s been in nearly half a century. (More here.)

Wall Street greed and criminality caused the crisis of 2008, but government efforts since then have concentrated on rescuing banks, and on boosting stock market performance and other forms of profitability for corporations. And it shows: Corporate earnings have risen by more than 20 percent each year on average since then, while disposable income has only risen by a meager 1.4 percent on average.

And even that isn’t equitably distributed. A recent study showed that the top 1 percent of earners has capture 121 percent of income gains since 2008, while the rest of the country fell behind. The top 10 percent’s share of income is the highest it’s been since 1917—and maybe longer. This imbalance isn’t an act of God or a force of nature. It’s the result of a series of bad policy decisions, about workplace rights, taxation, and where we expend our government’s resources.

4. Internet billionaire Sean Parker had a multimillion-dollar “Lord of the Rings”-style wedding, and trashed a beautiful public glade to do it.

Sean Parker is the Internet tycoon who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, probably to his everlasting regret. He was recently married, and wedding party caused quite a stir after it was written up on the Atlantic’s website as “the perfect parable for Internet excess.”

The Atlantic piece came after the California Coastal Commission wrote a scathing report claiming that Parker trashed an ecologically sensitive campground with a multi-million-dollar fantasy bash. The report said that bulldozers flattened part of the area, fake ruins were built, and other irreversible damage was done to the area, including a space that was set aside for public use.

Parker makes some decent points in his rebuttal, reminding people of his charitable good works and claiming that great care was taken to preserve the site. But what’s not in dispute is that Parker spent $4.5 million on the party and paid $2.5 million in fines as the result of the party’s environmental impact. (“We made some mistakes,” Parker acknowledges.)

It’s also not in dispute the party’s design was intended to “evoke” the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, that Parker sang a song from The Little Mermaid to his bride—“Look at this trove, treasures untold / How many wonders can one cavern hold?”—which is actually kind of sweet, when you think about it, or that Sting stood up to sing one of his songs a capella. The costume designer for Lord of the Rings designed outfits for all 354 guests at the party.

What Sean Parker doesn’t seem to understand is that, at its heart, this wasn’t about trashing Sean Parker. People were reacting about the unreal – and often deeply insensitive – world in which Sean Parker lives.

As Andrew Leonard wrote in an excellent piece, this “extravagant wedding was a slap in the face to anyone struggling to make ends meet in the United States. It was the perfect snapshot of 1 percent entitlement, as is the shock and anger that anyone would dare criticize it.”

Sean, best wishes to you and your bride on the occasion of your wedding. But you need to understand that other people fall in love, too, and have kids, and do all the things you do—but lots of them are struggling just to survive. They’re going to be a little touchy about something like this. So seriously, man: Have a little empathy—and a lot of gratitude.

5. Just 400 families have more money than 60 percent of the entire country.

Sean Parker and his friends might do well to ponder the inequality which allows them to live so well while so many suffer. They could start by considering this:

A mere 400 households have more net worth among them than is held by more than 60 percent of all US households. That comes to more than 60 million households, who among them possess less than these few families.

Americans are accustomed to feeling horrified at South American countries or medieval principalities in which a few powerful families rule over a struggling population. Guess what? In today’s USA, ancient feudalism lives again.

6. Billionaires frequently aren’t ‘the best and the brightest.’

Billionaires love to believe our society is a meritocracy, where the most talented become the most wealthy and successful. Of course, they would say that.

There’s no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg or the guys who created YouTube are smart and energetic. But do their accomplishments really deserve billions in compensation? Consider:

Zuckerberg didn’t foresee what Facebook would become. If he had, it wouldn’t be called “Facebook,” which is what they called the printed books Ivy League colleges used to print up with students’ pictures so they could get to know one another. Facebook.com was going to do that digitally—a cute idea, but not an especially profound one.

The users were the ones who turned it into a more flexible type of "social media." It’s true that Zuckerberg & Co. were aggressive in capitalizing on that, but they weren’t visionaries.

The same is true of YouTube. While its three founders don’t entirely agree about its origin, the most plausible story is that it’s called “YouTube” because they thought people would make videos of themselves and upload them – a lame idea which pretty much nobody wanted to do. Instead they figured out how to grab other media and put them up. (Another founder says it was supposed to be a video dating service.) The billions followed shortly thereafter.

You can list on one hand the Internet billionaires who have truly combined both vision and execution: Google. Amazon. eBay … we’re not even out of fingers yet.

There’s “You didn’t build that,” and now we can add “You didn’t think of that.” And even the brightest billionaire’s success includes a lot of lucky accidents. (And we haven’t even begun to talk about the heirs and heiresses yet.) So why do they have all that money?

We’re not saying they can’t be rich. But how much money do a few people need—or deserve?

7. Lucky or not, they’ve got a lot of control over our government.

“Of the people, by the people, and for the people”? That’s still true—for a few very rich people. The Sunlight Foundation offers these staggering statistics:

A mere 31,385 people – less than 0.01 percent of the nation’s population – contributed 28 percent of the country’s total political contributions. Nobody was elected to the House or Senate without their money.

As the Sunlight Foundation also notes, this elite group contributed at least $1.62 billion to political campaigns in 2012. (They probably also contributed the lion’s share of the $350 million in “dark money” which was spent that year.) Their median donation of $26,584 is larger than the average household income in this country.

84 percent of Congress took in more from the 0.01 percent than they did from all other donors combined.

They’re also spending like crazy at the state level. State candidates collected nearly $2.8 billion in 2012. It’s money well-spent, and not just for the influence it gives donors at the state level. This spending has also allowed them to gerrymander Congressional districts.

Gerrymandering has turned the House of Representatives into such an unrepresentative body that Republicans now control it despite a 1.4 million loss to Democrats in the popular vote. It’s like they say: You get what you pay for.

8. They control the media, too, which means they control what we see and hear as 'news.'

The sale of the Washington Post barely scratches the surface of our media problem. There’s a reason why revolutionaries from 1919 onward have always gone for the radio stations (and later, the television stations) first. They understand that the media hold enormous power.

Thirty years ago, 50 companies controlled 90 percent of all the media in this country. Today it’s six companies.

Those six companies include GE, owner of serial corporate criminal GE Capital, and Newscorp, owned by the scandal-plagued Rupert Murdoch. (The others are Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS)

Americans rightfully despise totalitarian nations’ “state-controlled media.” But what happens when the same few people hold undue influence over the state and the media?

The ultra-rich don’t even understand why people resent them or think they’re detached from real-world problems.

The ultra-rich have used the wealth and political influence to promote policies which allow them to capture an ever-increasing share of our national income. That’s an unjust but self-perpetuating spiral that endangers our democracy, our financial security, even the free exchange of news and information.

And yet, one of their defining characteristics is their deep and abiding rage at the rest of the country. They resent the resentment of others. This fury was exemplified by Mitt Romney’s bitter but heartfelt “47 percent” rant, an outburst that echoed others from the group we’ve called “the radical rich.”

Even a relatively benign billionaire like Sean Parker isn’t immune to this affliction, as his angry rebuttals to the wedding criticism attest. Parker wrote of his wedding, "Our guests reached a beautiful gate in a clearing, just prior to entering the forest. Through that threshold, they left the ordinary world behind and entered an extraordinary world imagined as a kind of collaborative art project between me and my wife-to-be, Alexandra.”

That’s pretty much the problem in a nutshell: Billionaires increasingly control our world. But they don’t live here. They dwell in a Hobbit-like fantasy, far from our worries and fears, where our nation is becoming “a collaborative art project,” a media-made myth, a post-middle-class theme park – call it “AmericaLand” – complete with a make-believe middle class and an animatronic democracy.

But the rest of us are suffering the effects of growing wealth inequality: joblessness, soaring poverty rates, lack of access to education or municipal services. The ultra-wealthy may have passed through “a beautiful gate in clearing,” but the rest of us stand on the “threshold” of an increasingly grim world.

Forgive us for not willingly joining in the make-believe, but we have a nation to rebuild.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/8-signs-rich-have-way-too-much-money?page=0%2C1&paging=off

UofMfan

08-13-2013, 07:56 PM

Google: Gmail Users Can't Legitimately Expect Privacy (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/gmail-privacy_n_3751971.html)

Cin

08-14-2013, 10:43 AM

Shocking Numbers of Sex Trafficking Victims Come Out of Foster Care
LA Congresswoman Karen Bass is leading push for supportive services for teen age victims, instead of pushing them into the criminal justice system, where they can be twice victimized.

Every year, federal and state governments pour millions of dollars into combating sex trafficking through local and federal law enforcement agencies. But the emerging link between the child welfare system and child sex trafficking in the United States underscores the need for a new tactic, one that addresses the social origins of child sex trafficking.

At the end of July, the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative, the wing of the agency tasked with addressing domestic child sex trafficking, conducted its annual three-day Operation Cross Country. During these 72 hours, federal agents across the country “recover” juvenile victims from sexual exploitation and arrest their exploiters. This year, the agency boasts that it saved 105 children and arrested 152 pimps. According to U.S. law, anyone under 18 and involved in the sex trade is considered sexually trafficked.

However, what happens to those who are "rescued” is unclear. Whether the children are placed in juvenile justice proceedings or the Department of Social Services, the story of the rescue mission as the FBI tells it ends when the handcuffs go on—often both on the exploited young person as well as his or her exploiter.

Julianne Sohn, spokesperson for the San Francisco division of the FBI, explained to AlterNet that the agency couldn’t account for what happens to the youth after they are “recovered” because local law enforcement agencies have varying policies on how to handle teens.

“It's shocking to believe that you could be trafficked and for the rest of your life you have a prostitution record," DeBoise said. "It is shocking.”
These FBI sweeps also result in the netting of adult sex workers. The data for Operation Cross Country in the Bay Area reveals that while its ostensible focus is to rescue child victims, the program results in a markedly higher arrest rate for adult sex workers: for the 12 children rescued, 65 sex workers were arrested in the Bay Area alone. During Operation Cross Country in 2008, the FBI recovered 47 juveniles while arresting 518 prostitutes.

Prioritizing criminal justice proceedings to combat child sex-trafficking has resulted in a paucity of services devoted to helping children most vulnerable to sexual exploitation: those in foster care. Depending on the city, 50 to 80 percent of child victims are or have been involved in this part of the child welfare system. The correlation has led many advocates to argue that funding needs to be redirected away from law enforcement and toward social services that are designed to work with traumatized children.

Paraphrasing from article …juvenile justice (system) is not appropriate to serve sexually exploited children. It’s frustrating that those kids are going to the criminal justice system and came from the foster care system…

Southern California Congresswoman Karen Bass has proposed legislation to the House of Representatives that she hopes will address the cyclical relationship between foster care and child sexual exploitation.

Complete article here: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/shocking-numbers-sex-trafficking-victims-come-out-foster-care?paging=off

Cin

08-17-2013, 02:05 PM

Chomsky: The U.S. Behaves Nothing Like a Democracy, But You'll Never Hear About It in Our 'Free Press'
In a powerful speech, Chomsky lays out how the majority of US policies are practically opposite of what wide swathes of the public wants.

Excerpt from speech:
In the United States, one of the main topics of academic political science is the study of attitudes and policy and their correlation. The study of attitudes is reasonably easy in the United States: heavily-polled society, pretty serious and accurate polls, and policy you can see, and you can compare them. And the results are interesting. In the work that's essentially the gold standard in the field, it's concluded that for roughly 70% of the population - the lower 70% on the wealth/income scale - they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They're effectively disenfranchised. As you move up the wealth/income ladder, you get a little bit more influence on policy. When you get to the top, which is maybe a tenth of one percent, people essentially get what they want, i.e. they determine the policy. So the proper term for that is not democracy; it's plutocracy.

Inquiries of this kind turn out to be dangerous stuff because they can tell people too much about the nature of the society in which they live. So fortunately, Congress has banned funding for them, so we won't have to worry about them in the future.

The following is a transcript of a recent speech delivered Noam Chomsky in Bonn, Germany, at DW Global Media Forum, Bonn, Germany.

http://www.alternet.org/visions/chomsky-us-poses-number-threats-future-humanity-our-youll-never-hear-about-it-our-free-press

Tangle

08-18-2013, 02:44 AM

Germany gives 'third gender' option on birth certificates
16 hrs ago
Good news for new parents in Germany: You can paint the new baby's room pink, blue or a totally neutral beige. As of Nov. 1, Germany becomes the first European country to let parents assign their baby a "third gender" on its birth certificate if the infant's sex cannot be clearly identified. A court decision led to the change, finding that if a person "deeply feels" they belong to a certain gender, they should be able to choose how to identify themselves. The law is intended to help intersexuals, also known as hermaphrodites, who are people born with both male and female physical attributes.

Cin

08-22-2013, 04:19 PM

Poverty Prison: Columbia SC Demands Homeless People Go Away or Go To Jail, Police Not So Sure

In what critics say is the most comprehensive anti-homeless measure ever passed, Columbia SC's City Council has unanimously approved an "Emergency Homeless Response" plan under which patrolling police will remove unsightly homeless people from downtown under the aegis of the city's "quality of life" laws - complete with a hotline so business owners can report the presence of any aforementioned unsightly etc - and take them to a shelter on the outskirts of town where more patrolling police will ensure they don't up and wander back downtown. If they refuse to be taken, they will be arrested and taken to jail. If they try to leave the shelter, they will be returned to pseudo-jail. To justify this grotesque criminalizing of homelessness, business leaders explained in lengthy impact statements that the presence of homeless people in the city center made it "virtually impossible to create a sustainable business model," which you'd think would be enough to throw all those people into jail or at least pseudo-jail. Still, there are problems. The shelter only has 240 beds, and there are over 1,500 homeless people. The shelter would only operate in winter. Both homeless advocates and the ACLU are considering bringing lawsuits. Courts are increasingly ruling against similar measures against the homeless. And even Columbia's acting police chief is balking by inexplicably and admirably noting that “homelessness is not a crime."

“I think there are some misconceptions out there that police are going to go out there and scoop up the homeless...I’ve got to have the legal right (to question or arrest anyone.) We can’t just take people to somewhere they don’t want to go. I can’t do that. I won’t do that."

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/08/22

afemmenatalie

08-23-2013, 08:08 PM

Linda Ronstadt Has Parkinson's Disease
Posted by Dan Gibson on Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 3:52 PM

Details are apparently forthcoming as part of an extended interview set to run next week, but the unfortunate news for the day is that AARP.com announced that Tucson legend Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson's disease, which has robbed her of the ability to sing and needs assistance to walk:

Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt, 67, told AARP today that she “can’t sing a note” because she suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Diagnosed eight months ago, Ronstadt began to show symptoms as long as eight years ago. But she ascribed her inability to sing to a tick bite (“my health has never recovered since then”), and believed the shaking in her hands resulted from shoulder surgery.

In a wide-ranging interview with AARP’s music writer Alanna Nash to be published on aarp.org next week, Ronstadt revealed how she discovered that “there was something wrong” with her voice.

“I couldn’t sing,” she told Nash, “and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but I thought it might have also had something to do with the tick disease that I had. And it didn’t occur to me to go to a neurologist. I think I’ve had it for seven or eight years already, because of the symptoms that I’ve had. Then I had a shoulder operation, so I thought that’s why my hands were trembling.

“Parkinson’s is very hard to diagnose, so when I finally went to a neurologist and he said, ‘Oh, you have Parkinson’s disease,’ I was completely shocked. I wouldn’t have suspected that in a million, billion years.

“No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease,” Ronstadt said. “No matter how hard you try.”

Ronstadt walks with the aid of poles when on uneven ground, and uses a wheelchair when she travels.

Cin

08-23-2013, 09:52 PM

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country
Much of philanthropy today has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1 percent.

A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same.

The Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, together worth $35 billion, have perfected this philanthropic misanthropy perhaps better than anyone else. Their Kansas-based Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the country after Cargill, with annual revenues estimated to surpass $100 billion. Together they control thousands of miles of oil pipelines from Alaska to Texas; fertilizers, minerals and biofuels; Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Lycra.

A research team at American University found that from 2007 to 2011, Koch foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofits and sponsored an annual libertarian conference. The report details how Koch Industries’ $53.9 million federal and state lobbying budget routinely goes hand-in-glove with Koch-affiliated nonprofits’ “public advocacy” for reasons having little to do with the public and everything to do with the brothers’ sprawling business interests. Koch lobbyists advocate for bills like the Energy Tax Prevention Act — which sought to roll back the Supreme Court ruling allowing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases — that are then supported in congressional testimony by “experts” from Koch-funded nonprofits.

http://http://www.alternet.org/economy/philanthropy-trouble

Kätzchen

08-23-2013, 10:19 PM

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country

Much of philanthropy today has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1 percent.

A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same.

The Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, together worth $35 billion, have perfected this philanthropic misanthropy perhaps better than anyone else. Their Kansas-based Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the country after Cargill, with annual revenues estimated to surpass $100 billion. Together they control thousands of miles of oil pipelines from Alaska to Texas; fertilizers, minerals and biofuels; Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Lycra.

A research team at American University found that from 2007 to 2011, Koch foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofits and sponsored an annual libertarian conference. The report details how Koch Industries’ $53.9 million federal and state lobbying budget routinely goes hand-in-glove with Koch-affiliated nonprofits’ “public advocacy” for reasons having little to do with the public and everything to do with the brothers’ sprawling business interests. Koch lobbyists advocate for bills like the Energy Tax Prevention Act — which sought to roll back the Supreme Court ruling allowing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases — that are then supported in congressional testimony by “experts” from Koch-funded nonprofits.

http://http://www.alternet.org/economy/philanthropy-trouble

Thanks for this post, Miss Tick. And, once again, it is articles like the one above which illustrate the timeless concept of Hegemony (by Antonio Gramsci):

"...the rule of one class over another is not dependent on economic or physical power alone but on persuading the ruled to accept a system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class (James Joll, UK, 1977).

Cin

08-23-2013, 10:23 PM

Thanks for this post, Miss Tick. And, once again, it is articles like the one above which illustrate the timeless concept of Hegemony (by Antonio Gramsci):

"...the rule of one class over another is not dependent on economic or physical power alone but on persuading the ruled to accept a system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class (James Joll, UK, 1977).

I love that quote.

Kobi

08-25-2013, 10:37 AM

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As a lobbyist in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:

Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.

He's among hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states who get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should qualify for such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight of their activities, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers. New Jersey and Illinois are among the states considering legislation that would end their inclusion.

"It's a question of, 'Why are we providing government pensions to these private organizations?'" said Illinois Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz.

Acquario, executive director and general counsel of the New York State Association of Counties, argues that his group gives local government a voice in the statehouse, and the perk of a state pension makes it easier to hire people with government expertise.

"We want the people that work in local governments to continue to be part of the solution," he said. "We represent the same taxpayers."

The debate is more about principle than big money, since the staffs of such organizations are relatively small and make barely a ripple in huge state retirement systems. The eight New York associations, for example, have fewer than 120 total employees out of 633,100 current workers in the state's $158.7 billion pension system.

Still, the issue raises a public policy question as many states and taxpayers struggle to fund their pension obligations required by law.

"There is liability for taxpayers," said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. "Providing a pension benefit involves some amount of risk for the state and when you provide access to employees of entities that are not in control of the state."

Unlike state government, for example, these groups aren't bound by salary restrictions — significant salary increases would result in increasing pension benefits.

New York Conference of Mayors Executive Director Peter Baynes, who makes $196,000 a year and gets a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, argues that his and other associations have been at the fore of pushing to reduce taxpayers' costs, including reducing the costs of the pension system they share.

New York lawmakers recently acted to reduce benefits for future government hires and are proposing 401(k) savings programs for employees instead of traditional pensions.

But such cuts won't affect Baynes. Under the New York Constitution and that of most states, the benefits of those already in the pension system are protected from future cuts.

"It's clear that there's a big problem with hypocrisy when these lobbyists have been pushing austerity and benefit cuts for other government workers while they themselves enjoy solid state pensions," said Michael Kink of the progressive group Strong Economy for All Coalition. "'Do as I say, not as I do' seems to be their approach on retirement cuts."

"Workers who have faced cuts in pay and pensioners have a right to be angry — as do voters," Kink said.

In many states, lobbying groups for states and counties take positions that could conflict with taxpayer interests, such as advocating to weaken caps on property tax increases and boosting state school aid.

But associations of cities, counties and school boards argue that a plausible case can be made for allowing them to get state pensions. These quasi-government organizations operate mostly or solely on dues from their members — local governments or school boards typically — which are paid out of taxpayer-funded budgets. They argue they pool their resources to give a voice to government entities that serve taxpayers.

"It's a technical truism that lobbying groups are not supposed to be in the system," said Richard Brodsky, a former New York assemblyman. "But what they are doing is carrying out missions assigned to them by public officials in the public interest as they understand it."

Which groups get the pension benefit vary widely across the nation.

In Colorado, the list includes the Colorado High School Activities Associations, which runs state sports tournaments. Alabama gives it to the state affiliate of the National Education Association teachers' union. Washington state includes the Washington Apple Commission, which operates like a trade group. North Carolina's state Athletic Coaches Association is included, as is Tennessee's private Industry Council.

New York lawmakers decided years ago to bar any more lobbying and nonprofit groups in the pension system, grandfathering in eight groups.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who supports legislation to cut future hires from such groups out of his state's pension, issued an executive order this month creating a Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit. Among its mandates is to look at "claims of improper participation in the retirement systems."

http://news.yahoo.com/private-lobbyists-public-pensions-20-states-140450550.html
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Greyson

08-25-2013, 10:50 AM

DapperButch

08-25-2013, 11:13 AM

Cin

08-27-2013, 02:59 PM

Our Banks Own Airports, Control Power Plants and Much More -- How Can We Stop Them from Controlling the Lifelines of the Economy?
Aren’t there rules against that? And where are the banks getting the money?

Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy. How have they pulled this off, and where have they gotten the money?

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dated June 27, 2013, US Representative Alan Grayson and three co-signers expressed concern about the expansion of large banks into what have traditionally been non-financial commercial spheres. Specifically:

[W]e are concerned about how large banks have recently expanded their businesses into such fields as electric power production, oil refining and distribution, owning and operating of public assets such as ports and airports, and even uranium mining.

After listing some disturbing examples, they observed:

According to legal scholar Saule Omarova, over the past five years, there has been a “quiet transformation of U.S. financial holding companies.” These financial services companies have become global merchants that seek to extract rent from any commercial or financial business activity within their reach. They have used legal authority in Graham-Leach-Bliley to subvert the “foundational principle of separation of banking from commerce”. . . .

It seems like there is a significant macro-economic risk in having a massive entity like, say JP Morgan, both issuing credit cards and mortgages, managing municipal bond offerings, selling gasoline and electric power, running large oil tankers, trading derivatives, and owning and operating airports, in multiple countries.

A “macro” risk indeed – not just to our economy but to our democracy and our individual and national sovereignty. Giant banks are buying up our country’s infrastructure – the power and supply chains that are vital to the economy. Aren’t there rules against that? And where are the banks getting the money?

Entire article here:http://www.alternet.org/economy/banks-are-buying-essential-lifelines-our-economy-and-jacking-costs-max-profits

Cin

08-27-2013, 03:18 PM

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty
Pete Peterson & Co. kindly want to take your Social Security away to prevent you from imagining a dignified future.

Somehow, I’ve wound up on the mailing list for a group of oligarchs campaigning to swindle Americans out of their hard-earned retirement insurance. Hedge fund billionaire Pete Peterson, the budget buffoons Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, and the rest of their merry band of hustlers over at the hilariously named Committee for a Responsible Budget have asked me to consider their latest proposal.

So I thought I’d oblige them, what the heck.

Judging from the shrill headline in their mailing [full text here], these men (and a token woman or two) wish to sell me on the idea of “Social Security Reform and the Cost of Delay.”

The cost of delay? Boys, I hear you on that. Any delay in ripping me off must be very costly — for you.

Social Security, the most prudently managed and economically sound retirement program the country has ever seen, and with the very lowest costs, is preventing you from piling up even more money in your bank accounts. Trust me, I really do understand how you feel: Financiers desperately wish to get their mitts on American retirements so they can charge all sorts of outrageous fees. And you hate the prospect of having to pay higher taxes in the future if you don’t “fix” Social Security.

I know how diligently you've tried to privatize America's best-loved program in order to get this show going. You must be bone tired! And I also fully get that as rich people interested far more in the size of your bank accounts than anything so trifling as, say, the strength and health of your country, you hate paying taxes of any kind. You deeply resent such citizen responsibilities, and so you want to cut Social Security as quickly as possible (calling your cutting “reform,” you clever marketing devils!) because doing so will lessen your already minuscule tax burden. Your aim is to hurt America’s retirement program to the point where you can bring up your privatization hustle again. Does that about sum it up?

The thing is, though, cutting Social Security does not make any economic sense for the other 99 percent of the country. The program is in very good shape, hard-working Americans have paid into it, and if (and that’s a big if) any adjustments need to be made a decade or two down the road, we can talk about it then. For now, the only real justification for cutting seems to be the prospect of fattening your bank accounts. Sorry, not sold. I know that's one less yacht for you but I think you can live with it.

Your fear-mongering pitch to me is filled with all sorts of extraordinary economic predictions, which are all the more amazing as none of you had so much as the ghost of an idea that the financial crisis was coming. But never mind, you in your infinite wisdom know that based on your calculations, if you don’t rob me by cutting Social Security now, I will lose benefits in the future. You may not realize I actually read economic projections written by legitimate economists, who inform me that your predictions are worth about as much as those of a carnival fortune-teller. Probably less.

In their paper, “Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession,” Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson, both of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, write:

“Current discussions of Social Security [fall] into two groups: One rails on about how ‘runaway entitlements’ are leading to a deficit explosion; while the other advises patronizingly that Social Security can be saved in the long run by timely changes, typically involving a mix of taxes and benefit cuts, including, notably, yet another rise in the age of eligibility for the program. Neither point of view is persuasive.”

The authors explain how the “deficit explosion” story can be immediately dismissed, but you’re probably aware that that particular line isn’t really working anymore, since more Americans have figured out that 1) Social Security has nearly nothing to do with the deficit; and 2) the deficit is rapidly shrinking. Bummer for you!

So you’ve turned to the old lie about Social Security solvency. Unfortunately for you, economists who have looked closely at the issue do not buy it. Ferguson and Johnson write:

"It is true that Social Security tax receipts declined during the Great Recession, so that for the first time since 1983, the program’s outlays exceeded revenues by a small amount. But this in no way threatens the program’s basic solvency. In 1983, Congress enacted into law recommendations of the Greenspan Commission to raise Social Security taxes to cover the retirement bulge coming from baby boomers. Since then, the program has piled up enormous surpluses. These have been invested in government bonds, thus helping to finance the rest of the government.

As the baby boomers mature, the surplus funds will be drawn down. The 2010 Report of the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund projects that the Trust Fund and interest earnings from it will suffice to cover all benefit payments until 2037. Even then, the Fund will not be empty – the Trustees Report projects that the Trust Fund would still cover 75% of all benefits due.” [The latest report from 2012 says more or less the same thing].

So listen up, fellas, if we do need to make a little tweak down the road, let’s make a deal. Since taxpayers like me funded the bank bailouts, how about raising the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security tax, which is currently just a little over $100,000? Wait, what’s that you say? You don’t like that because it means that you would pay your share and I would not get screwed. Well, that's not very sporting of you, is it? Seems like the 1 percent has done pretty well over the last few decades.

Overall, though, I must say I am impressed by the consistency of your crystal-ball reading, because your predictions always point miraculously to the same conclusion: “We’ve got to take your money now, because the future is going to be very bad!”

I appreciate your concern. Mugging me now allows me to better plan ahead for a bleak and ill-funded future. Thanks to your consideration, I could go ahead and start purchasing cat food now and perhaps develop a taste for it. But I think I’d rather just hold on to my Social Security if it’s all the same to you. I kind of think that robbing me of a dignified retirement (which, frankly, looks pretty paltry compared to the rest of the civilized world) is not going to do much for the health of the economy or the cohesion of society.

I have this funny feeling that young people forced to take time away from their jobs to care for poverty-stricken parents and more strain on disability rosters (which you are always complaining about, remember?!?) and less money in the pockets of elderly consumers to pay for healthcare and food doesn’t really sound like a good idea.

Let’s be real, boys. You already got away with murder with your swindles leading up to the Great Recession, and you’ve sucked a lot more money out of the pockets of regular folks in the years since then, spreading your embarrassingly discredited austerity messages (how funny was that Stephen Colbert bit on your favorite debunked economists, Reinhart and Rogoff!). You've triumphed in getting teachers laid off and pensions stripped and whatnot. You have been very successful, and you can raise a glass of bubbly to the financial coup you’ve pulled off. There’s not really much more left to rob, in case you haven’t noticed.

But there are limits. A look at history might suggest to you that pillaging too many people of too much for too long may actually result in said people deciding they have had enough of you. Occupy was a hint.

Yet despite the fact that survey after survey reveals Americans do not want to see cuts to Social Security, and in the face of studies by political scientists who prove that such policy views as yours only reflect the designs of the wealthy, you are undeterred. Time, you warn me, is running out if I don’t start playing your tune and ask policy makers to enact these “changes” you insist upon to make you richer.

Here’s a warning from me: With profits for the wealthy at Gilded Age levels, the population looks to be waking up. Time may be running out for you.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/pete-peterson-and-social-security?paging=off

Cin

08-28-2013, 09:25 AM

In the spirit of solidarity with the Nationwide Low-Wage Worker Strike scheduled for tomorrow here's an interesting article.

http://www.alternet.org/labor/other-nra-how-insidiously-powerful-restaurant-lobby-makes-sure-fast-food-workers-get-poverty

The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick

Fast-food workers feed their families on a pittance while the big corporations resist fair pay and sick leave.

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/shutterstock_72334363-cropped.jpg

Cin

08-28-2013, 10:57 AM

Soon enough, given our imminent attack on Syria, there will be increased demands for us to Support Our Troops. A particularly meaningless mantra if ever there was one. Well, not meaningless exactly, Inigo Montoya's line from Princess Bride comes to mind, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." But really I should say it does not mean what those in power want you to think it means.

Pretty much the government, the corporate sector and the very rich who control it all, never support the troops. They support the war. But the importance of the troops vanishes as soon as they are no longer engaged in fighting their corporate wars.

Here are excerpts from an interesting article and a link to said article in its entirety in preparation for the upcoming increase in our exposure to the support the troops meme.

Mindless and Extravagant "Support Our Troops" Display Doesn't Help Soldiers, But Does a Lot for Those Who Profit From War

It's time to examine the "support our troops" rhetoric and understand it does little for those whose lives are at risk.

http://www.alternet.org/culture/mindless-and-extravagant-support-our-troops-display-doesnt-help-soldiers-does-lot-those-who?paging=off

In recent years I’ve grown fatigued of appeals on behalf of the troops, which intensify in proportion to the belligerence or potential unpopularity of the imperial adventure du jour.

In addition to donating change to the troops, we are repeatedly impelled to “support our troops” or to “thank our troops.” God constantly blesses them. Politicians exalt them. We are warned, “If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.” One wonders if our troops are the ass-kicking force of P.R. lore or an agglomeration of oversensitive duds and beggars.

Such troop worship is trite and tiresome, but that’s not its primary danger. A nation that continuously publicizes appeals to “support our troops” is explicitly asking its citizens not to think. It is the ideal slogan for suppressing the practice of democracy, presented to us in the guise of democratic preservation.

I returned to the car, wondering if it will ever be possible to escape the inveterate branding of war as a civic asset in the United States.

The troops are now everywhere. They occupy bases and war zones throughout the Arab world and Central Asia and have permanent presence in dozens of countries. They also occupy every tract of discursive territory in the United States. The troops are our omnipresent, if amorphous, symbols of moral and intellectual austerity.

No televised sporting event escapes celebration of the troops. Networks treat viewers to stars and stripes covering entire football fields, complementing the small-but-always-visible flags the studio hosts sport on their lapels. The national anthem is often accompanied by fighter jets and cannon blasts. Displays of hypermasculine prowess frame the reciprocal virtues of courage and devotion embedded in American war mythology.

Corporate entities are the worst offenders. On flights, troops are offered early boarding and then treated to rounds of applause during the otherwise forgettable safety announcements. Anheuser-Busch recently won the Secretary of Defense Public Service Award and in 2011 “Budweiser paid tribute to America’s heroes with a patriotic float in the Rose Parade®.” The Army’s website has a page dedicated to “Army Friendly Companies”; it is filled with an all-star lineup of the Forbes 500 as well as dozens of regional businesses.

I do not begrudge the troops for availing themselves of any benefits companies choose to offer, nor do I begrudge the companies for offering those benefits. Of greater interest is what the phenomenon of corporate charity for the troops tells us about commercial conduct in an era of compulsory patriotism.

It tells us, first of all, that corporations care far less about the individuals who happen to have served in the military than they do about “the troops” as an exploitable consumer category. Unthinking patriotism, exemplified by support of the troops (however insincere or self-serving), is an asset to the modern business model, not simply for good P.R., but also for the profit it generates.

Multinational corporations have a profound interest in cheerleading for war and in the deification of those sent to execute it. For many of these corporations, the U.S. military is essentially a private army dispatched around the world as needed to protect their investments and to open new markets. Their customers may “support our troops” based on sincere feelings of sympathy or camaraderie, but for the elite the task of an ideal citizenry isn’t to analyze or to investigate, but to consume. In order for the citizenry to consume an abundance of products most people don’t actually need, it is necessary to interject the spoils of international larceny into the marketplace.

Support the troops” is the most overused platitude in the United States, but still the most effective for anybody who seeks interpersonal or economic ingratiation. The platitude abounds with significance but lacks the burdens of substance and specificity. It says something apparently apolitical while patrolling for heresy to an inelastic logic. Its only concrete function is to situate users into normative spaces.

Clichés aren’t usually meant to be analyzed, but this one illuminates imperialism so succinctly that to think seriously about it is to necessarily assess jingoism, foreign policy, and national identity. The sheer vacuity and inexplicability of the phrase, despite its ubiquity, indicates just how incoherent patriotism is these days.

Who, for instance, are “the troops”? Do they include those safely on bases in Hawaii and Germany? Those guarding and torturing prisoners at Bagram and Guantánamo? The ones who murder people by remote control? The legions of mercenaries in Iraq? The ones I’ve seen many times in the Arab world acting like an Adam Sandler character? “The troops” traverse vast sociological, geographical, economic and ideological categories. It does neither military personnel nor their fans any good to romanticize them as a singular organism.

And what, exactly, constitutes “support”? Is it financial giving? Affixing a declarative sticker to a car bumper? Posting banalities to Facebook? Clapping when the flight attendant requests applause?

Ultimately, the support we’re meant to proffer is ideological. The terms we use to define the troops — freedom-fighters, heroic, courageous — are synecdoche for the romance of American warfare: altruistic, defensive, noble, reluctant, ethical. To support the troops is to accept a particular idea of the American role in the world. It also forces us to pretend that it is a country legitimately interested in equality for all its citizens. Too much evidence to the contrary makes it impossible to accept such an assumption.

In reality, the troops are not actually recipients of any meaningful support. That honor is reserved for the government and its elite constituencies. “Support our troops” entails a tacit injunction that we also support whatever politicians in any given moment deem the national interest. If we understand that “the national interest” is but a metonym for the aspirations of the ruling class, then supporting the troops becomes a counterintuitive, even harmful, gesture.

The government’s many appeals to support the troops represent an outsourcing of its responsibility (as with healthcare, education and incarceration). Numerous veterans have returned home to inadequate medical coverage, psychological afflictions, unemployment and increased risk of cancer. The free market and corporate magnanimity are supposed to address these matters, but neither has ever been a viable substitute for the dynamic practices of communal policymaking. A different sort of combat ensues: class warfare, without the consciousness.

As in most areas of the American polity, we pay taxes that favor the private sector, which then refuses to contribute to any sustainable vision of the public good. The only serious welfare programs in the United States benefit the most powerful among us. Individual troops, who are made to preserve and perpetuate this system, rarely enjoy the spoils. The bonanza is reserved for those who exploit the profitability of warfare through the acquisition of foreign resources and the manufacture of weapons.

Supporting the troops is a cheerful surrogate for enabling the friendly dictators, secret operations, torture practices and spying programs that sustain this terrible economy.

Cin

08-29-2013, 11:31 AM

Obama vs. History
by Imara Jones

On the very site of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the nation’s first black president told America yesterday that African-Americans and other people of color carry a substantial portion of the blame for the persistence of economic inequality. Sadly, his speech employed the very stereotypes that were used to legitimate racial discrimination and economic injustice 50 years ago. But like those caricatures of historically marginalized people, the president’s analysis of where America veered off course in its long walk toward freedom is simply ahistorical and factually inaccurate.

Twenty minutes into his commemorative address, President Obama shockingly declared that the fight for freedom had “lost its way” because historically marginalized Americans had instigated “self-defeating riots” in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. He added that if progressives and communities of color were “honest” they’d be compelled to admit that their “call for equality of opportunity” had devolved into “a mere desire for government support.” Obama wrapped up his examination of this period of American history by saying that blacks and Latinos had often acted “as if we had no agency in our liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child.”

What makes the president’s remarks so troubling is that it’s impossible to fix problems that are mislabeled and misdiagnosed. Consequently, the president’s erroneous assessment of the continuation of racial and economic inequity may provide insight as to why his administration has not pushed coherent policies to end the racial aspects of economic unfairness. From his talk, Obama indicates that he sees them as character flaws rather than structural ones.

In a sign of begrudging progress however, yesterday’s address was one of the rare occasions—if not the first time—that President Obama has used the words “black” and “unemployment” together in the same sentence.

He also acknowledged, though somewhat tepidly, that the racial wealth gap had expanded. Yet this is a vast understatement. The wealth gap between whites and blacks, as well as whites and Latinos, is the highest on record. And there’s no clear Obama proposal to begin to close it. Nor is there a clear proposal for homeownership in communities of color, which has also plummeted to new historic lows.

The organizers of the original March on Washington, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, didn’t share the president’s reticence in identifying the systemic unfairness that allowed racial and economic injustice to thrive. That’s why the 1963 march called for fundamental structural changes to America’s economic system, such as a program to find work for everyone without a job, equal access to decent housing, and a minimum wage that in today’s dollars would be the equivalent of $15 an hour.

And that’s why after the march, Rustin took the lead in developing a blueprint for economic equity in the country. That plan, called The Freedom Budget, would form the basis for President Lyndon Johnson’s War Against Poverty and Great Society programs, now-familiar initiatives that advanced economic opportunities in communities of color in particular. These include the dramatic expansion in educational access through Head Start, help for struggling school districts, and financial support to college students; guaranteed health care for the nation’s poor and working poor through Medicaid; food security through food stamps; and an increased minimum wage.

But the War Against Poverty inspired by Rustin’s work never fully got off the ground and it remains unfinished. That’s because funds earmarked for economic justice here at home were eventually diverted to wage war abroad. Though Obama believes that the programs of the 1960s were halted by the bitterness and self-defeating actions of people of color, the Vietnam conflict is what actually drove a stake through the heart of these efforts.

Sergeant Shriver, who led President Johnson’s anti-poverty effort, told PBS’ American Experience, “The War Against Poverty was killed by the war in Vietnam—first of all, because of the lack of money.” King in 1967 echoed the same point more dramatically, “We spend approximately $500,000 to kill every enemy soldier in Vietnam, while we spend only $53 per person in the so-called ‘War Against Poverty.’”

Moreover, the electoral backlash by many whites against these programs did not help.

In 1968, Richard Nixon swept to office on a wave of Southern discontent centered on the belief that things had gone too far. Though President Nixon cranked up certain initiatives that would help curb racial and economic injustice, such as affirmative action, the electoral blueprint he laid out set the stage for the next 25 years.

In fact, Ronald Reagan rode white resentment to capture the White House in 1980. Speaking in the exact same Mississippi town where four civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, he launched his campaign by promising to “reorder these priorities” and restore “states’ rights.” Once in office, President Reagan worked diligently to fulfill his promise.

Reagan rolled back domestic spending and funneled the money into tax cuts that disproportionately benefitted wealthy whites at the expense of everyone else. It was during Reagan’s presidency that the racial wealth gap took off. More recently, President George W. Bush expanded Reagan’s tax cuts and put them on steroids. The Bush tax cuts and the two unfunded wars began in his presidency piled up debt—a debt that conservatives are using right now to justify underinvesting in black and brown communities.

So in the five decades since the original gathering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, war and economic policies, fueled by political backlash, have made America’s march towards jobs and freedom more arduous. But instead of telling this truth, President Obama treated his audience to an assessment that declared violence and laziness in communities of color as the actual cause of inequity. The evidence points clearly in a different direction.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/08/obama_vs_history.html

Cin

08-29-2013, 11:42 AM

Dream Defenders and DREAMers Were Cut From ‘I Have a Dream’ Ceremony

People attending the “Let Freedom Ring” ceremony yesterday, featuring President Obama, were expecting to hear from Philip Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders in Florida, and Sofia Campos, chairperson of the immigrant rights youth-led organization United We Dream. Both names were listed on the ceremony’s program. But as Agnew was about to take the stage, he was told that he could not speak. Campos was also told she could not speak.

Talk about civil rights action interrupted, the Dream Defenders camped out in the Florida capitol building in Tallahassee for a full month in protest of the George Zimmerman verdict, and to demand new laws that would dismantle school-to-prison pipelines, racial profiling and Stand Your Ground gun laws. Campos, 24, is helping lead a movement demanding humane immigrant rights reform, which has called out Obama on his record-setting deportations.

Agnew is now calling for people to publish their own dream speeches on video and post them on Twitter and Facebook. The Dream Defenders are releasing today a video of the speech Agnew was going to deliver at the ceremony yesterday.

“This is about more than the speech,” said Agnew. “It’s about the voices of hundreds of thousands of people across the country that have been silenced for too long. Our generation’s dreams have been deferred for too long. While the words spoken amidst the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday may have reverberated throughout the nation, the actions, energy and love of the rising generation will resound in history books for centuries to come, like those of giants before us.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/08/dream_defenders_and_dreamers_were_cut_from_i_have_ a_dream_ceremony.html

MsTinkerbelly

08-29-2013, 02:20 PM

Same-sex couples can file joint tax returns, IRS says

Reuters

All legal same-sex marriages will be recognized for U.S. federal tax purposes, regardless of where the couple lives, government says.

WASHINGTON — All legal same-sex marriages will be recognized for U.S. federal tax purposes, the Obama administration said on Thursday, allowing gay couples to claim the same tax benefits that heterosexual couples do.

As expected after a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June, the U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service said:

"The ruling applies regardless of whether the couple lives in a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage or a jurisdiction that does not recognize same-sex marriage."

Kelt

08-29-2013, 09:31 PM

This is not really Breaking News, but certainly contemporary. It is a longish article so I will link it out.

http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/cover0916-tilt.jpg

How to Become a Part-Time Worker Without Really Trying

How corporate America used the Great Recession to turn good jobs into bad ones.

Barbara Garson August 20, 2013

Watch closely: I’m about to demystify the sleight-of-hand by which good jobs were transformed into bad jobs, full-time workers with benefits into freelancers with nothing, during the dark days of the Great Recession.

First, be aware of what a weird economic downturn and recovery this has been.From the end of an “average” American recession, it ordinarily takes slightly less than a year to reach or surpass the previous employment peak. But in June 2013—four full years after the official end of the Great Recession—we had recovered only 6.6 million jobs, or just three-quarters of the 8.7 million jobs we lost.

Here’s the truly mysterious aspect of this “recovery”: 21 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession were low wage, meaning they paid $13.83 an hour or less. But 58 percent of the jobs regained fall into that category. Rest of article... (http://www.thenation.com/article/175834/how-become-part-time-worker-without-really-trying?page=full#axzz2dPKf6VD4)

Cin

08-30-2013, 06:15 AM

Stopping the War in Syria

http://www.alternet.org/visions/stopping-war-syria-and-much-more

Cin

08-30-2013, 06:36 AM

Are We Being Ruled by Self-Centered Jerks? What New Studies Reveals About the Ultra Wealthy
And why increasing economic disparities will make it worse.

Two studies released last week confirmed what most of us already knew: the ultra-wealthy tend to be narcissistic and have a greater sense of entitlement than the rest of us, and Congress only pays attention to their interests. Both studies are consistent with earlier research.

In the first study, published in the current Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Paul Piff of UC Berkeley conducted five experiments which demonstrated that “higher social class is associated with increased entitlement and narcissism.” Given the opportunity, Piff also found that they were more likely to check themselves out in a mirror than were those of lesser means.

Piff looked at how participants scored on a standard scale of “psychological entitlement,” and found that those of a high social class — based on income levels, education and occupational prestige — were more likely to say “I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others,” while people further down the social ladder were likelier to respond, “I do not necessarily deserve special treatment.”

In an earlier study, published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Piff and four researchers from the University of Toronto conducted a series of experiments which found that “upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals.” This included being more likely to “display unethical decision-making,” steal, lie during a negotiation and cheat in order to win a contest.

In one telling experiment, the researchers observed a busy intersection, and found that drivers of luxury cars were more likely to cut off other drivers and less likely to stop for pedestrians crossing the street than those behind the wheels of more modest vehicles. “In our crosswalk study, none of the cars in the beater-car category drove through the crosswalk,” Piff told The New York Times. “But you see this huge boost in a driver’s likelihood to commit infractions in more expensive cars.” He added: “BMW drivers are the worst.”

Summing up previous research on the topic, Piff notes that upper-class individuals also “showed reduced sensitivity to others’ suffering” as compared with working- and middle-class people.

"Lower-class individuals are more likely to spend time taking care of others, and they are more embedded in social networks that depend on mutual aid. By contrast, upper-class individuals prioritize independence from others: They are less motivated than lower-class individuals to build social relationships and instead seek to differentiate themselves from others."

These findings may appear to represent a bit of psychological trivia, but a study to be published in Political Science Quarterly by Thomas Hayes, a scholar at Trinity University, finds that U.S. senators respond almost exclusively to the interests of their wealthiest constituents – those more likely to be unethical and less sensitive to the suffering of others, according to Piff.

Hayes took data from the Annenberg Election Survey — a massive database of public opinion representing the views of 90,000 voters — and compared them with their senators’ voting records from 2001 through 2010. From 2007 through 2010, U.S. senators were somewhat responsive to the interests of the middle class, but hadn’t been for the first 6 years Hayes studied. The views of the poor didn’t factor into legislators’ voting tendencies at all.

As Eric Dolan noted for The Raw Story, “The neglect of lower income groups was a bipartisan affair. Democrats were not any more responsive to the poor than Republicans.” Hayes wrote that his analysis “suggests oligarchic tendencies in the American system, a finding echoed in other research.”

Hayes’ study is consistent with earlier research, including Princeton University scholar Larry Bartels’ 2005 study of “Economic Inequality and Political Representation.”

There are a few of ways of looking at these findings. They could be the result of genuinely held ideological beliefs which happen to justify inequality and privilege.

According to OpenSecrets, the average net worth of senators in 2011 was $11.9 million, so it could be a matter of legislators advancing their own interests and those of the people with whom they socialize and associate.

But MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, who co-authored Why Nations Fail with Harvard’s James Robinson, says that this kind of political inequality is a product of widening economic disparities. “It’s a general pattern throughout history,” he told Think Progress. “When economic inequality increases, the people who have become economically more powerful will often attempt to use that power in order to gain even more political power. And once they are able to monopolize political power, they will start using that for changing the rules in their favor. And that sort of political inequality is the real danger that’s facing the United States.”
http://www.alternet.org/economy/are-we-being-ruled-self-centered-jerks-what-new-studies-reveals-about-ultra-wealthy?paging=off

Well I might be poor and I may be looking at a very financially problematic old age but at least I'm part of a group less likely to display unethical behavior, who individually do not believe they deserves special treatment and has empathy for the suffering of others. Unfortunately one can't take that to the bank, use it to keep warm or eat it when your hungry. Viva la revolución!

*Anya*

08-30-2013, 07:24 AM

US Won't Block States' Legalization of Marijuana

By ASHLEY SOUTHALL and JACK HEALY
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday said it would not sue to block laws legalizing marijuana in 20 states and the District of Columbia, a move that proponents hailed as an important step toward ending the prohibition of the drug.
In a memo to federal prosecutors nationwide on Thursday, James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, erased some uncertainty about how the government would respond to state laws making it legal to use marijuana for medical or recreational purposes.
Citing “limited prosecutorial resources,” Mr. Cole explained the change in economic terms. But the memo also made clear that the Justice Department expects states to put in place regulations aimed at preventing marijuana sales to minors, illegal cartel and gang activity, interstate trafficking of marijuana, and violence and accidents involving the drug.
“A system adequate to that task must not only contain robust controls and procedures on paper; it must also be effective in practice,” he wrote.
Voters in Washington and Colorado recently approved measures decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana, while 18 other states and the District of Columbia permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
In a phone call on Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. explained the government’s “trust but verify” approach to Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Justice Department official said.
Marijuana advocates praised the decision as a potentially historic shift in the federal government’s attitude toward a drug it once viewed as a menace to public health. By allowing states to legalize and regulate marijuana, advocates said, the federal government could reduce jail populations and legal backlogs, create thousands of jobs, and replenish state coffers with marijuana taxes.
“This is a historic day,” said Ean Seeb, a co-owner of a marijuana dispensary called Denver Relief. “This is the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition.”
But the prospect that marijuana could be legalized after a ban of decades drew criticism from law enforcement and drug policy officials. They warned that the Justice Department’s decision would have unintended consequences, like more impaired driving and more criminal marijuana operations.
“This sends the wrong message,” said former Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, who is a recovering prescription drug addict and a founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a policy group. “Are we going to send up the white flag altogether and surrender and say ‘have at it’? Or are we going to try to reduce the availability and accessibility of drugs and alcohol? That should be our mission.”
Under the new guidance, a large scale and a for-profit status would no longer make dispensaries and cultivation centers a potential target for criminal prosecution.
However, prosecutors have broad discretion in determining, for instance, whether drug laws exacerbate “adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use.”
If federal prosecutors believe that a state’s controls are inadequate, “the federal government may seek to challenge the regulatory structure itself in addition to continuing to bring individual enforcement actions, including criminal prosecutions,” Mr. Cole wrote.
The Justice Department official said the guidance was mandatory and did not apply retroactively.
In Colorado and Washington, the passage of ballot measures left the states’ drug laws in sharp opposition to federal drug policy, and raised questions about how federal law enforcement agents would respond to new retail marijuana stores. Some members of Congress sought to have the administration clarify whether state officials risked federal criminal prosecution while carrying out their duties under the state laws.
“It’s a relief,” said Representative Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat. “It’ll get the criminal element out of the marijuana trade. It’ll provide legitimate business opportunities for everything from farmers to processors to retail store owners.”
Mr. Cole is scheduled to testify on Sept. 10 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on clarifying the administration’s stance.
The White House said last week that President Obama did not support changing federal laws regulating marijuana, which treat the drug as a dangerous substance with no medical purpose.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said the president believed it was best to focus on high-level offenders like kingpins and traffickers.
The decision on Thursday followed Mr. Holder’s announcement this month that federal prosecutors would no longer seek federal mandatory minimum sentences for certain low-level nonviolent drug offenders.
The announcement did not address the financial hurdles facing marijuana dispensaries and growing operations, like their access to loans and other banking services. Many banks are reluctant to do business with marijuana growers and sellers, for fear of violating federal laws. ■

Ashley Southall reported from Washington, and Jack Healy from Denver.

New York Times
PUBLISHED AUGUST 29, 2013

Cin

09-01-2013, 01:49 PM

The Return of Direct Action

http://colorlines.com/assets_c/2013/08/dream%20defenders-thumb-640xauto-8917.png

Curtis Hierro speaks into the phone like he’s talking into a bullhorn. The passion the 26-year-old Dream Defenders field director has used to get himself and fellow occupiers through more than four weeks in the Florida statehouse is evident in his voice. He’s ready for their 30th (and what will turn out to be their final) night there, despite an announcement that the state will test the building’s fire alarms from 8 p.m. to midnight. That’ll make it hard to get a moment’s peace, let alone sleep. But Hierro takes it in stride, as he did when the “Star Wars” theme went blaring at dawn, the weekends when getting access to a shower was tough, and other challenges that make putting one’s body on the line to achieve a political goal a test of endurance.

“That’s expected in this work, and we’ve made sure that everyone who comes in this space knows our norms and that we’re nonviolent,” Hierro said. “They’re trying to provoke us so they can discredit us and kick us out.”

Since July 16—three days after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced—Hierro and between a dozen and 60 other Dream Defenders had camped out in Gov. Rick Scott’s office, demanding a special legislative session and the consideration of Trayvon’s Law, a bill crafted in collaboration with state legislators and the NAACP. The young Floridians are using the direct action tactics its founders honed in a previous takeover of the statehouse and in a march they organized after Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin in an effort to turn this post-verdict moment into a movement.

In doing so, they joined others around the country who are turning to civil disobedience and strategic protest as a way to force change, or at least create the conditions for a new conversation about issues ranging from racial profiling to the death penalty, workers’ rights, long term solitary confinement and immigration policy. A spirit similar to the one that motivated 250,000 people to converge on Washington, D.C. 50 years ago this month is moving today. And much of that spirit is being harnessed and directed by millennials.

Young people are filling a role they’ve held in organizing throughout history, says Cathy Cohen, a University of Chicago political science professor and founder and director of the Black Youth Project. The students who led sit-ins at lunch counters and boarded buses to challenge segregation were part of that vanguard during the civil rights era. Today’s organizers who use direct action, from the Dream Defenders to the Dream 9, are part of that legacy.

“Young people don’t always have to think about mortgages and jobs and childcare and are freer to engage in a certain kind of risk that as you get older you’re less likely to get involved in,” Cohen says.

People in their 20s and early 30s also backed Barack Obama by more than a two-to-one ratio in 2008, and now they’re frustrated by the pace of progress through institutional channels. But if North Carolina is any indication, that frustration hasn’t led them to stop believing in the power of the ballot box. Young people were at the forefront of some of the Moral Mondays demonstrations there, particularly those that called out the state GOP’s efforts to restrict access to the polls through a new law that requires photo ID, shortens the early voting period and ends the same-day registration option. More than 900 North Carolinians were arrested during the 13 weeks that Moral Mondays protests took place at the Raleigh statehouse, drawing attention to conservative attacks on abortion rights, wages and jobs. The intergenerational group of protestors had a clear effect, and approval ratings for the Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature are down.

Black Youth Project’s Cohen said the 24-hour news cycle and the speed at which information travels via social networks has given young people a new understanding and sense of urgency of how high the stakes are.

“Given that reality that’s in their faces and the infrastructure for mobilization that’s developing, there’s an opportunity for young people to engage in direct action in a way that is hopeful for all of us,” she said.

Much of this infrastructure is dependent on what Daniel Maree, the 25-year-old lead organizer of last year’s Million Hoodies March in New York City, refers to as the democratization of technology. Using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and design techniques normally seen in corporate advertising, Maree and collaborators got thousands of people to Union Square in just two days. Despite the near absence of mainstream news stories about Martin’s death, images from the rally and Maree’s subsequent push of a petition demanding Zimmerman’s arrest helped get the incident onto the national stage.

In the days following the March 21st march, coverage of and Twitter conversations about the killing as well as signatures on a Change.org petition that had been started earlier that month skyrocketed. In June, the Pew Research Center reported that in the five years that it’s tracked weekly news coverage, Martin’s killing received more sustained coverage than any other story that was largely about race.

Maree, a digital strategist at an ad agency, worked with people such as Andrea Ciannavei, 38, a writer and Occupy Wall Street participant who offered up InterOccupy.net to help coordinate the mobilization. He hadn’t set out to position himself as a leader in the wake of the tragedy, but he saw a vacuum that needed to be filled.

“Every time I Googled Trayvon’s name, I didn’t see anything coming from any organization,” Maree said. “I thought, ‘Nobody’s doing anything about this so I have to do something.’ “

This pattern—an expectation that an established progressive or legacy civil rights organization would already be responding to a crisis, a realization that those groups didn’t have a game plan or were being slow to implement, followed by a quick pivot to take the reins and a willingness to work with (but not for) whoever then shows up—came up again and again as I spoke with young organizers. For many, the first wakeup call came with an acknowledgment of the Obama Administration’s limitations.

Nelini Stamp, an advisor to Dream Defenders who also participated in Occupy said that she’d had high hopes that the president would use the power of his office to address issues like racial profiling and police brutality. As her expectations have shifted, she’s put her hopes in the power of young people, especially young people of color, to bring about change.

“Now you have a movement that is really strong,” Stamp, 25, said. “We should push this man and this country to do better because that’s what we thought we were getting.”

One characteristic of how these younger organizers push is a willingness to move at a fast pace, abandoning what’s not working and moving on to new tactics when demands aren’t met.

“I think people are escalating a lot quicker and a lot earlier,” Stamp said.

No group demonstrates this fearlessness and righteous impatience like the Dream 9, the transnational activists who until August 7 had been held for more than two weeks at a detention center in Eloy, Ariz. In an effort to bring attention to the 1.7 million deportations that have taken place since Obama has been in office, the group of undocumented immigrants traveled to Mexico, then turned themselves in at the U.S. border seeking reentry on humanitarian grounds. This border crossing was broadcast via a Ustream live feed that attracted more than 10,000 viewers who cheered them on from around the world.

While the hashtag and rallying cry “Bring them home” shot around the Internet, the Dream 9 waited to learn whether they’d be granted return to the country they’ve known as home since they were children. Members of the group were isolated in solitary confinement, participated in a hunger strike and organized deportees inside the detention center, all in an effort to highlight the plight of many.

It’s necessary action that people at negotiating tables aren’t taking, said 27-year-old Mohammad Abdollahi, a member of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA) and a coordinator of the action. Abdollahi said the NIYA maintains a broad view of what undocumented immigrants and their families actually need, and he echoes the sentiments of other organizers who see their work as the nimble and envelope-pushing counterpart to more plodding, bureaucratic processes that legacy organizations are often confined to.

“Our goal has always been for the greater immigration rights movement to catch up,” he said. “Folks can have a trajectory of what’s possible in the movement and hopefully replicate or come up with more creative ways to do things themselves.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/08/message_from_the_millennials.html

Cin

09-02-2013, 08:36 AM

The 8 Types of Americans Who Suffer the Most Economic Pain
Are political and corporate leaders even remotely aware of the conditions of society beneath the wealthiest 10% or so?

We live in a society that allows one man to make $15 million a day while a low-income mother gets $4.50 a day for food, and much of Congress wants to cut the $4.50.

Are political and corporate leaders even remotely aware of the conditions of society beneath the wealthiest 10% or so?

The following are some of the victims of an economic system that has forgotten the majority of its people.

Children

One out of every five American children now lives in poverty, and for black children it's nearly one out of TWO. Almost half of food stamp recipients are children.

UNICEF places us near the bottom of the developed world in the inequality of children's well-being, and the OECD found that we have more child poverty than all but 3 of 30 developed countries. It's rather embarrassing to view the charts.

Students

Over the last 12 years, according to a New York Times report, the United States has gone from having the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among large, wealthy economies to having among the lowest. The number of college grads working for minimum wage has doubled in just five years.

Higher education was cut by nearly $17 billion in the years leading up to 2012-13. Through those same years large corporations were avoiding about $14 billion annually in taxes. To make up the difference, students face tuition costs that have risen almost ten times faster than median family income, leading them into their low-wage post-college positions with an average of $26,000 in student loan debt.

The Elderly

Three-quarters of Americans approaching retirement in 2010 had an average of less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The percentage of elderly (75 to 84) Americans experiencing poverty for the first time doubled from 2005 to 2009.

The folly of cutting Social Security is reflected in two facts. First, even though Social Security provides only an average benefit of $15,000, it accounts for 55 percent of annual income for the elderly. And second, seniors have spent their working lives paying for their retirement. According to the Urban Institute the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in. Same for single males. Almost the same for single females. (the fact that it's only almost for single females reflects the lower wages for most women relative to men)

Wage Earners

Workers have 30% LESS buying power today than in 1968. If the minimum wage had kept up with employee productivity, it would be $16.54 per hour instead of $7.25.

Almost unimaginably, conditions for workers have gotten even worse since the recession. While 21 percent of job losses since 2008 were considered low-wage positions, 58 percent of jobs added during the recovery were considered low-wage.

As for members of Congress who say "get a job," only one of them was present at the start of a recent unemployment hearing.

The Sick and Disabled

Over 200 recent studies have confirmed a link between financial stress and sickness. In just 20 years America's ranking among developed countries dropped on nearly every major health measure. Victims suffer both physically and mentally. A recent study found that unemployment, whether voluntary or involuntary, can significantly impact a person's mental health. Even grimmer, from 1999 to 2010 the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 increased by almost 30 percent.

In the long run, the only Americans to increase their life expectancy have been seniors covered by Medicare.

Women

Recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that women earn just 80% of men's pay. In Washington, DC and California, Hispanic women make only 44 cents for every dollar made by white men. The only deviation from the norm is that in 47 of 50 large metropolitan areas, well-educated single childless women under 30 earn more than their male counterparts.

But the overall disparities have worsened since the recession, with only about one-fifth of new jobs going to women, and with median wealth for single black and Hispanic women falling to a little over $100. And there's no respite with advancing age. The average American woman's retirement account is 38 percent less than a man's, and women over 65 have twice the poverty rate of men.

Minorities

The Economist states: Before the 1960s...most blacks were poor, few served in public office and almost none were to be found flourishing at the nation's top universities, corporations, law firms and banks. None of that is true today.

Wrong. Much of that is true today. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), median wealth for black families in 2009 was $2,200, compared to $97,900 for white families. (Pew Research reported $5,677 for blacks, $113,149 for whites). EPI said median financial wealth (stocks, etc.) was $200 for blacks, compared to $36,100 for whites.

Since the recession, black and Hispanic wealth has dropped further, by 30 to 40 percent, while white family wealth dropped 11 percent.

Blacks and Hispanics, with 29% of the population, are also severely under-represented on corporate boards and in higher education.

One of the reasons it's so hard for young blacks to be successful is that they're viewed as criminals by many white authority figures. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander documents the explosion of the prison population for drug offenses, with blacks and Hispanics the main targets even though they use drugs at about the same -- or lesser -- rate as white Americans.

The Homeless

The super-rich want homeless people to get jobs. But they don't want to pay taxes to support job creation. If the richest Americans - the Forbes 400 - had paid a 5% tax on their 2012 investment earnings, enough revenue would have been generated to provide a full-time minimum wage job for every person who was homeless in America on a January night in 2012.

Instead, it keeps getting worse for the homeless. North Carolina made it a crime to feed them. Columbia, South Carolina approved a plan to remove them. Tampa, Florida passed a law that makes it a crime for them to sleep in public.

So who's left after all this? Oh yes, rich white men.

Cin

09-02-2013, 08:51 AM

Where Labor Day Comes from, and Where It's Headed
We are in the grasp of oligarchs who think they owe nothing to a public that has made them so wealthy.

Webster's dictionary tells us that Labor Day was "set aside for special recognition of working people."

That's nice, but "set aside" by whom? It certainly wasn't the Wall Street corporate and political powers that be. They nearly swallowed their cigars when the idea of honoring labor's importance to America's economy and social well-being was first proposed in 1882. Rather, this holiday was created by the workers themselves, requiring a 12-year grassroots struggle that finally culminated with an act of Congress in 1894.

The campaign helped coalesce unions into a national movement. And its message of labor's essential role also countered the haughty insistence of the robber barons of that time. The barons insisted they were America's "makers"—the invaluable few whose monopolistic pursuits should be unfettered. For they claimed that they and their corporations were the God-ordained creators of wealth.

Despite their bloated sense of self-importance, notice that the American people do not celebrate a CEO Day. Indeed, as Abraham Lincoln put it, the real makers are the many ground-level workers who actually do the making: "Labor is prior to and independent of capital," Abe declared in his first state of the union address. "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Yet on Labor Day 2013, robber barons are again ascendant, declaring that they owe nothing—not even a shared prosperity—to the workers, consumers, taxpayers, and other American people who sustain them. Quite the opposite, they and their political henchmen are blithely shredding America's social contract and again insisting that the corporate elite must be unfettered, unions eliminated, and middle-class jobs Wal-Marted.

This intentional hollowing out of our middle class is not just ignorant, but also immoral

Yet today's establishment economists are asking: Why are so many people so glum? The Great Recession ended in 2009, they note, and even job creation is picking up. So come on people—get happy!

Maybe Labor Day is a good time to clue them into one big reality behind this so-called "recovery:" Most Americans haven't recovered. Not by a long shot. In June, median household income was still $3,400 less than in 2007, when Wall Street's crash started the collapse of our real economy.

Why are working people still so far down? Take a peek at those new jobs the economists are hailing. They're really "jobettes," paying only poverty-level wages, with no benefits or upward mobility. In the recession, about 60 percent of the jobs we lost were middle-wage positions, paying approximately $14 to $21 an hour. Most of those jobs have not come back. Instead, of the jobs created since the recovery began, nearly six out of 10 are low-wage, paying less than $14 an hour. A central fact of the new American economy is that working-class people are increasingly unable to make a living from their jobs.

To grasp this widening inequity, befuddled economists might bite into a burger or pizza. Seven of the 12 biggest corporations that pay their workers the least are fast-food giants. Yum! is one. It's a conglomerate that owns Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell. Workers don't find these chains so yummy; for pay averages $7.50 an hour, with no health care, pensions, etc. In contrast, Yum!'s CEO hauls off about $20 million a year, even as he dispatches lobbyists to oppose any hike in our nation's miserly minimum wage.

This is no way to run a business, an economy, or a society. Fast-food giants are hugely profitable. (Yum! quaffed down $1.3 billion in profits last year alone.) They are more than able to pay living wages and decent benefits, as many local, independently-owned fast-food businesses do. Deliberately and unnecessarily holding down an entire workforce by funneling rightful wages into the coffers of a few ultra-rich executives and big investors is shameful—and dangerous. After all, even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over ... and being kicked.

At last, workers are beginning to kick back. All across the country, broad coalitions of religious leaders, unions, civil rights groups, community supporters, and others are joining thousands of fast-food workers in a rolling series of one-day strikes against particular chains, publicly shaming them for profiting through gross exploitation of employees. As one Baptist church leader said of his presence in these protests, "It's a matter of justice."

Yes—and that's what Labor Day has always been about.

Cin

09-02-2013, 09:09 AM

http://media.salon.com/2013/08/NSA-Listens-Shirtmock-620x412.jpg

Somebody should put this on a T-shirt.

Somebody did, but The National Security Agency did not think it was funny.

Quelle surprise; I always thought they had a great sense of humor.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/30/the_parody_shirt_the_nsa_doesnt_want_you_to_wear_p artner/

CherylNYC

09-02-2013, 05:33 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/02/diana-nyad-swim-cuba-florida-complete_n_3856821.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices

KEY WEST, Fla. -- Looking dazed and sunburned, U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad walked on to the shore Monday, becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the help of a shark cage.

Nyad swam up to the beach just before 2 p.m. EDT, about 53 hours after she began her journey in Havana on Saturday. As she approached, spectators waded into waist-high water and surrounded her, taking pictures and cheering her on.

"I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you're never too old to chase your dream. Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team," she said on the beach...

*Anya*

09-04-2013, 03:16 PM

VA To Provide Benefits to Gays, says Administration

NY Times September 4, 2013

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday escalated its effort to dismantle federal barriers to same-sex marriages, announcing that the Department of Veterans Affairs would immediately begin providing spousal benefits to gay men and lesbians despite a federal statute that limits such benefits to veterans’ spouses who are “of the opposite sex.”

In letters to Congressional leaders, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that President Obama had directed the executive branch to stop obeying the statute because it had decided that it was unconstitutional in light of a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down a similar law, a part of the Defense of Marriage Act.

“Decisions by the Executive not to enforce federal laws are appropriately rare,” Mr. Holder wrote. “Nevertheless, for the reasons described below, the unique circumstances presented here warrant nonenforcement.”

The move will allow the same-sex spouses of service members to receive health care benefits, and widows and widowers from same-sex marriages to receive survivor benefits, among other matters.

After the Supreme Court ruling, many agencies — the Pentagon and the Internal Revenue Service among them — have been rewriting their regulations to define marriage in gender-neutral terms. Last month the military announced that the same-sex spouses of active-duty personnel would receive similar family and spousal benefits, including housing allowances.

But the V.A. is in a different situation because Congress codified its definition of who was eligible for spousal benefits as a statute, and lawmakers have not changed it.

Eric K. Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, said last month in a letter released by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, that his agency was struggling with the question of providing benefits to surviving spouses because the statutory language defining “spouse” was slightly different from the law that the court had struck down.

In the letter, Mr. Shinseki said that although the Department of Veterans Affairs could recognize a same-sex marriage that is valid under state law, “nonetheless, a same-sex spouse whose marriage to a veteran was valid in the state where the parties resided at the time they entered the marriage would not meet the definition of ‘spouse’ ” under the federal statute for the purpose of veterans benefits.

Should Congress approve legislation revising the spousal definitions statute or should a court strike the law down, Mr. Shinseki added, the V.A. would swiftly adjust its policy.

Last week, a Federal District Court judge ruled that the veterans spouse statute was unconstitutional, but that ruling has not been reviewed by a higher court. But in his letters on Wednesday, Mr. Holder said there was no point in waiting for such a definitive result.

“In the meantime, continued enforcement would likely have a tangible adverse effect on the families of veterans and, in some circumstances, active-duty service members and reservists, with respect to survival, health care, home loan and other benefits,” he wrote.

The Obama administration’s decision to stop obeying the law without a definitive court ruling is a new step in its increasingly aggressive approach to providing same-sex marriage rights.
■

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 4, 2013

Cin

09-09-2013, 11:08 AM

Elizabeth Warren assails Supreme Court as too far right

LOS ANGELES — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka denounced the United States Supreme Court on Sunday as a right-wing panel that serves the interests of corporate America, previewing a theme that is likely to rise in prominence with the approach of the 2016 election.

On the opening day of the AFL-CIO’s convention, Warren — the highest-profile national Democrat to address the gathering here — warned attendees of a “corporate capture of the federal courts.”

In a speech that voiced a range of widely held frustrations on the left, Warren assailed the court as an instrument of the wealthy that regularly sides with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She cited an academic study that called the current Supreme Court’s five conservative-leaning justices among the “top 10 most pro-corporate justices in half a century.”

“You follow this pro-corporate trend to its logical conclusion, and sooner or later you’ll end up with a Supreme Court that functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business,” Warren said, drawing murmurs from the crowd.

Speaking to reporters earlier Sunday, Trumka sounded a similar note on the Supreme Court, calling the current panel “the best champion of corporate America” and raising the prospect of a constitutional amendment to reverse the court’s rulings against campaign finance regulation.

“If may take a constitutional amendment, because this Supreme Court, as currently constituted, equates money with free speech,” Trumka said.

The heated rhetoric about judicial power underscores a simmering anxiety within the Democratic coalition: that only a slight change in the balance of power on the Supreme Court could shift the balance sharply in Democrats’ favor, or create a more conservative majority that would have struck down the narrowly upheld Affordable Care Act, and other liberal legislation in the future.

Warren’s reception in Los Angeles also underscored her core appeal to the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Her entrance into the convention hall was greeted was effusive applause; Trumka hailed her as “an honest-to-God champion, the real deal” and a senator who stands up to “billion-dollar corporations and Wall Street on behalf of working people.”

And indeed, the former Harvard Law professor’s speech was a populist paean to the role of labor in fighting “powerful interests [that] have tried to capture Washington and rig the system in their favor.”

In particular, Warren took aim at the financial services industry, touting the importance of the Dodd-Frank banking regulation law and calling for new separation between commercial and investment banking.

“The big banks and their army of lobbyists have fought every step of the way to delay, water down, block or strike down regulations,” Warren said. “When a new approach is proposed — like my bill with John McCain, Angus King and Maria Cantwell to bring back Glass-Steagall — you know what happens — they throw everything they’ve got against it.”

Departing from her prepared remarks, Warren alluded to the long-delayed confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and told the crowd: “That’s your work.”

Warren drew some of the loudest applause of her precisely worded, sharply enunciated speech with a statement of skepticism about upcoming trade deals — debates that may pit Big Labor and liberal members of the Senate against the Obama administration.

“Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters and outsourcers are all salivating at the chance to rig upcoming trade deals in their favor,” Warren said. “I’ve heard people actually say that [trade deals] have to be secret because if the American people knew what was going on, they would be opposed.”

She continued: “I believe that if people would be opposed to a particular trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not happen.”

If the overall tone of Warren’s speech was relatively grim — not the kind of podium-pounding, emotive address that brings crowds to their feet — she closed with a riff that drew a standing ovation, proclaiming to the audience the good news that they have an electoral mandate to enact their agenda.

“I am proud to stand with you, to march with you, to fight with you,” she said. “Our agenda is America’s agenda and if we fight for it, we win.”

Returning to the stage after Warren concluded, Trumka sighed into the microphone: “Ah, if we could only clone her.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/elizabeth-warren-supreme-court-far-right-96449.html

Cin

09-12-2013, 09:35 AM

5 Years Later, Wall Street Still Sucking Life Out of America Like Vampires at a Blood Drive
Only massive reform and no-holds-barred prosecutorial assault will drive a stake into the heart of this monster.

On Sept. 15, 2008, the Lehman Brothers collapse became the 9/11 of the financial world, sending the global economy into panic. Stocks plunged, credit dried up and working people were forced out of their homes. Jobs and pensions were wiped out in the ugliest financial episode since the Great Depression—mostly because the financial sector had gotten out of control..

Five years later, the big banks continue the most expansive crime spree in the history of capitalism, getting bigger, richer and bolder every day. Like undead creatures from a horror film, financial predators have spread themselves into every corner of society, preying and feeding and making us weaker. In an epic fail on the part of federal prosecutors and the SEC, no one at Lehman was ever prosecuted for financial shenanigans that included shady accounting practices former CEO Dick Fuld claims he didn't know about. As the five-year anniversary approaches and the statute of limitations runs out, we can be sure that no one will ever pay for Lehmans' crimes—except for us.

You could wallpaper your house with the list of dirty deals that have gone down since the financial crisis. JPMorgan sent $6 billion up in smoke in a bad bet, then lied about it to regulators. HSBC laundered money for drug cartels. Big banks manipulated the world’s benchmark interest rates. Every day, bankers defraud municipal and state finances with rigged deals that enrich them as schools crumble and children go without healthcare. There’s insider trading, racketeering, tax evasion, usury, and creative financial products set to explode in your face. Everything you can think of, and, alas, much that you can’t.

Oh, well, say the regulators. Stuff happens.

It’s perfectly obvious that if ginormous Wall Street banks don’t fear prosecution— and Attorney General Eric Holder told us flat-out they needn’t—then the cheating, lying, casino games, and law-breaking will continue. Jim Chanos, an early detector of the Enron fraud, warns that today’s Wall Street executives have even embraced the perverse logic that they have a fiduciary duty to cheat — if everybody else is doing it, says the executive, then I have an obligation to get in on the action.

Nothing but massive reform and no-holds-barred prosecutorial assault will drive a stake into the heart of this monster.

Yet on Tuesday, the smart financial reformer Eliot Spitzer lost his bid for NYC comptroller, a role in which he could keep public money out of the hands of financial predators, whose scams he understands. It can't escape notice that NYC is the home of several of the most powerful banking institutions on Earth: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Or that newspapers, presumably on different sides of the political spectrum, melted into one giant anti-Spitzer bullhorn; ignoring positive polls, running biased stories and denouncing him on their editorial pages.

Economist and former regulator Bill Black noted in an email that “Wall Street was obsessed with defeating Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary election for Comptroller" and pointed out that his anti-financial fraud prosecution was extremely effective when he served as New York's attorney general: "An economic study found that victims of financial frauds received a substantially greater recovery of their losses when Spitzer's office was involved in cases compared to securities fraud cases where only the SEC brought an action." Clearly Wall Street doesn't like that kind of outcome.

It's not easy to find potent weapons against Wall Street predators, and in the meantime, we’re still waiting for reform. We wanted it so badly that we pitched tents in city parks during the Occupy movement to send the message, but the politicians wouldn’t hear us, because their ears were stuffed with Wall Street money. Thanks to an army of lobbyists unleashed in Washington, we can’t even seem to get the relatively timid Dodd-Frank rules designed to stop bankers from playing casino games with our savings.

The Federal Reserve could rein in the banks by splitting them up through antitrust laws, as economist Robert Reich has suggested. But we’d need someone at the Fed who is actually willing to take on this project. Unfortunately, over at the White House, we have Obama pushing crony capitalist poster boy Larry Summers for Fed chair—a man who played a key role in deregulating the financial sector, who has gleefully gorged himself on Wall Street money, and who, while in the White House, opposed even the weak Volcker Rule to curb risky trading contained in Dodd-Frank.

The banks continue to bigfoot their way around our legal and political systems, buying up whatever support they require to keep the show going.

If you think things have gotten pretty ugly, just stick around. Another financial crisis is likely. Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson just told a group of bankers and economists in Manhattan to expect it, and he has a unique perspective on the topic, having helped bring on the last one.

Paulson knows something else: This time the Democrats will likely be held responsible.

Kelt

09-12-2013, 04:34 PM

Cin

09-12-2013, 06:01 PM

Miss Tick

I notice the last three articles you have shared about economics do not have links to the original articles or any attribution/citation. I see you have provided them for other articles. Could you please provide them for these?

You are bolding and highlighting portions, were they originally written and published this way?
I like to know sources/have context since this is a news thread.

Thanks

No they were not originally written and published bolded or highlighted. I bolded and highlighted certain portions for emphasis. Although the emphasis is mine, they are otherwise written exactly as I posted.

Sorry for forgetting the links to the original articles. It was not purposeful. It's caused by my rushing through what I'm doing so I can be doing something else. A recurring issue of mine. I promise to watch more carefully in the future. And thank you for your interest. Here are the links in order of first to last.

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/8-groups-america-are-most-screwed-over-predatory-capitalism

http://www.alternet.org/labor/where-labor-day-comes-and-where-its-headed

http://www.alternet.org/economy/lehman-brothers-anniversary

Oh wait, I forgot this. The part in blue in the first article "8 groups most screwed over" is mine. It is this part "(the fact that it's only almost for single females reflects the lower wages for most women relative to men)" but it is referenced later in the article in the section entitled Women, "The average American woman's retirement account is 38 percent less than a man's, and women over 65 have twice the poverty rate of men." I should be more clear that when I post articles I put anything I have to say in blue. Like in post 3205. I should maybe add that whenever I post something in my own words near or in an article. Sorry.

Kelt

09-12-2013, 07:08 PM

No they were not originally written and published bolded or highlighted. I bolded and highlighted certain portions for emphasis. Although the emphasis is mine, they are otherwise written exactly as I posted.

Sorry for forgetting the links to the original articles. It was not purposeful. It's caused by my rushing through what I'm doing so I can be doing something else. A recurring issue of mine. I promise to watch more carefully in the future. And thank you for your interest. Here are the links in order of first to last.

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/8-groups-america-are-most-screwed-over-predatory-capitalism

http://www.alternet.org/labor/where-labor-day-comes-and-where-its-headed

http://www.alternet.org/economy/lehman-brothers-anniversary

Oh wait, I forgot this. The part in blue in the first article "8 groups most screwed over" is mine. It is this part "(the fact that it's only almost for single females reflects the lower wages for most women relative to men)" but it is referenced later in the article in the section entitled Women, "The average American woman's retirement account is 38 percent less than a man's, and women over 65 have twice the poverty rate of men." I should be more clear that when I post articles I put anything I have to say in blue. Like in post 3205. I should maybe add that whenever I post something in my own words near or in an article. Sorry.

All good. Thanks for the clarification.

Most threads and posts it doesn't matter as it is our own voice. When using another persons writing I like to give attribution.

Cin

09-13-2013, 01:55 AM

Why Do We Spend Billions on the National Security State While We Let Detroit Go Bankrupt?
During a peace-time economy, the budgets of the five intelligence agencies have grown exponentially while urban cities and social services have dwindled.

By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
September 12, 2013 |

The existence of a secret US budget, amounting to a well-financed shadow government, used to spy on American citizens and monitor their daily activities, was always derisively consigned to insane conspiracy theorists. After recent revelations by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, called a traitor and being forced to hide from the Obama Administration in Russia, the existence of this budget is no longer in question. Snowden has smoked out the details of the secret budgets used by the intelligence community, known as the “Black Budget.”

The reported amount of this budget is approximately $52.6 billion. These funds are in addition to the congressionally-approved budgets of the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense of $526.6 billion dollars for a total of more than half a trillion dollars. According to the National Priorities project:

“In the Obama administration 2014 fiscal year, the administration is seeking a $526.6 billion budget for the Department of Defense, not including war funding or nuclear weapons activities at the Department of Energy.”

According to the Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) receive nearly 68% of the black budget. During a peace-time economy, the budgets of the five intelligence agencies have grown exponentially while urban cities and social services have dwindled. For example, the CIA budget was increased to $14.7 billion dollars, a 56% increase since 2004. The NSA budget for domestic and international spying has increased to $10.8 billion dollars or 53% since 2004. The NRO, the office purportedly responsible for designing, building and operating the country’s imagery satellites increased its budget to $10.3 billion dollars or 12% increase since 2004. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA) that provides imagery and map-based intelligence increased its budget to $4.9 billion dollars or an increase of 108% since 2004. Finally, in 2004 the General Defense Intelligence Program that conducts, collects and documents human and technical intelligence and media management within the DoD increased its budget to $4.4 billion dollars.

“Snowden has smoked out the details of the secret budgets.”

These kinds of intelligence organizations have operated in every repressive government to control populations, such as East Germany’s Stasi organization that deterred dissent, free speech and basic civil liberties of its people. In recent BAR articles, I explored “Big Brother” programs instituted and operated within the U.S. Federal government, such as the “Insider Threat Program,” created by President Obama under Executive Order 13587. This program is designed to predict any behavior by an employee in the government that could lead to blowing the whistle on corruption and abuse, contradicting his campaign promises to protect whistleblowers, enshrine government transparency, combat activities inimical to the very tenets of our basic democratic principles and rights under the law. (See BAR here, here and here.) Edward Snowden’s revelations continue to inform and illuminate the American media and public about a government operating in the shadows without accountability to the people or any pretense of adhering to democratic principles. We can only assume that there are additional funds unreported within these secrecy organizations. Yet, the country suffers from high structural unemployment, sky rocketing poverty rates, inferior education for low-income communities, infrastructure decline and environmental degradation.

The recent 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington reminds us of the FBI surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s that escalated after the march under the pretext that he was affiliated with communist organizations. This FBI surveillance earned King the label of “the most dangerous Negro in America.”

Had the US civil rights movement that was celebrated on the National Mall with pomp and presidential ceremony occurred today, the $56.2 Billion dollar budget and its thousands of foot soldiers would have left no stone unturned to undermine and destroy the movement and its leaders leaving some to face life in prison, like Bradley Manning, or others to seek refuge in foreign lands like Edward Snowden.

We now have a glimpse into the biology of the US shadow government that is stunning in depth, detail and viciousness. It allows cities and populations like Detroit to decay while exhorting the rich culture of Motown and the African heritage that gave rise to the music that became a global anthem. Dead children, particularly dead black children, perishing for lack of basic nutrition, disproportionate exposure to environmental toxins, a lack of access to quality education and an over exposure to societal violence continues while the national security state demands more power and money.

This week, the Huffington Post reports that, based on internal US government documents, “the NSA in partnership with the British government, has secretly been unraveling encryption technology that billions of Internet users rely upon to keep their electronic messages and confidential data safe from prying eyes.”

Welcome to the insane and violent world of the US national security state.

Licious

09-13-2013, 03:56 AM

I consider Economic Violence to be the single most critical issue of our time. I feel that other ills spring forth in some way from this vile root. Power as economic force, implemented by dominating and keeping less advantaged persons powerless seems to be the name of the game.

Miss Tick, I appreciate the posts you have made regarding economic injustice.

Thanks so much!

I quote a portion of one of your posts...

Instead, it keeps getting worse for the homeless. North Carolina made it a crime to feed them. Columbia, South Carolina approved a plan to remove them. Tampa, Florida passed a law that makes it a crime for them to sleep in public.

How about all three?

Where I live, it is illegal to feed homeless without a permit, illegal for people to sleep in any public space, day or night. Even a harmless afternoon nap on the library lawn is illegal, and you will be ticketed. Any type of camping or sleeping day or night night in bushes/vacant lots is illegal of course.

Police patrol every night trying to find the poor sleeping in vehicles on the street, car, van, anythings... as it is illegal to sleep in a vehicle on city and county streets, day or night.

My city was caught putting homeless on buses and sending them to Los Angeles skid row, but stopped doing it.

Three years ago, my city had proposed a system for rounding up homeless and restricting them to a "zone". The first attempt failed. The zone was one small portion of town, near the industrial section, where most of the homeless shelters and several rehab centers are located.

Homeless people would have actually been ID'd and confined to a 7 block ghetto of sorts. (Anyone smell Nazi Germany here, or is that just me?) The first attempt failed. As I heard it... city counsel reviewed it and found the California State Constitution might be at odds, so got dropped. Rumor has it they may be working on a second version of this "law".

Oh, did I mention? In my City, two of the council members are heavily invested in local rehab centers and receive funds for consulting and admin fees, directly related to the number of clients in their facilities.

That takes me back to the first line of my post.

Cin

09-13-2013, 07:40 AM

Cin

09-13-2013, 07:58 AM

*Anya*

09-13-2013, 08:22 AM

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ca-sues-nv-dumping-mental-patients

Now we will shuffle our most needy and vulnerable from state to state like a demented game of hot potato. A society without a social conscious is barely a society at all. These kinds of behaviors we are seeing more and more in our country is the fruit of the pathological fear of socialism planted in us by the controlling elite. When we even hear social programs, welfare, universal healthcare, we hear socialism. And somehow somewhere in our collective psyche we have come to accept the meme that a society that compassionately cares for all its people is a bad thing. But the rich controlling 98% of the wealth and all the power, well that's very very good for us.

Yes! When I worked on an inpatient behavioral health unit years ago, this was happening back then, too.

Staff would call it "Greyhound therapy" or "bus therapy" whenever we would get an admit from out of state.

The poor, severely mentally ill patient would think that they were getting a free bus ride home and would wind up in CA.

Absolutely tragic. So sorry to read it is still going on. The severely and persistently mentally ill are the most vulnerable population of all.

Cin

09-13-2013, 08:44 AM

Forgot the link to the article in post 3218. I really don't want it to look like I'm trying to pass these articles off as my own writing. I'm just forgetful.

http://www.alternet.org/why-do-we-spend-billions-national-security-state-while-we-let-detroit-go-bankrupt

Cin

09-16-2013, 09:24 AM

We've Got a Billionaire Bailout Society—And the 99% May Never Recover From It In Our Lifetimes
Our financial system is sucking up the wealth of the nation and using it to cover its losses.
By Les Leopold

The odds are that we in the bottom 99 percent may never see a recovery in our lifetimes. That's because our nation has evolved into something entirely new: a billionaire bailout society.

We are entering a disastrous new era in which all the economic gains go to the top 1 percent, according to data from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. They report that, "Top 1% incomes grew by 31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012. Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery.... In sum, top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover." (In 2012, $394,000 is the cutoff to make it into the top 1 percent.)

We see in vivid detail what the new American order looks like. The top 1 percent live in another economic universe of high finance that sucks the wealth from the rest of us. In their world, banks (owned by and for the top 1%) are able to grow larger and larger so there is no chance they will be allowed to fail, even after these same banks took down the economy. (In 1965 they had assets equal to 17% percent of the U.S. economy. Today it's more than 65% percent.)

Free from any meaningful controls, financial gambling (called proprietary trading in polite circles) is now the dominant activity within our largest banks. In fact, in these too-big-to-fail banks, more money goes to financial gambling than to loans for businesses and consumers. These are not banks—they are rigged casinos for the rich. The upside from these corrupt pursuits are kept by the top fraction of the 1 percent, while the 99 percent hold the bag when those phony bets crash the economy.

And who among us doesn't think that will happen again?

Regulation is hapless as billions of dollars slosh through the political troughs. Serious enforcement is virtually non-existent because the enforcers fear that the entire financial system will fail should these criminal banks be prosecuted. Every national policy from the bailouts to "quantitative easing" has further funneled money to the super-rich. Meanwhile, the rest of us are told to plod along until jobs miraculously appear and our incomes finally rise. Dream on.

In sum, our new economic era is characterized by the supremacy of financial capital which vacuums up the productive wealth of the nation, and then uses the nation's wealth as an insurance policy to pay for its inevitable losses.

Entering Uncharted Territory

The billionaire bailout society is quite different than previous gilded ages. This can be seen clearly in comparing the aftermath of the recent Great Recession to what took place during the Great Depression. We need to remember that after the crash of 1929, America went on a crusade to rescue the economy by controlling Wall Street, supporting unions, and fundamentally rebuilding our physical and educational infrastructure. As Harvard economist Claudia Golden put it, a Great Compression took place during which the gap between the rich and the rest of us came down—not by destroying wealth but by making sure working people got their fair share. In 1929, the top 1% grabbed 23 percent of the nation's income. By the late 1960s it was below 9 percent.

During the Great Compression we had our feet planted firmly on the neck of Wall Street. Financial gambling was held to a minimum. Incomes were no higher on Wall Street than in the productive economy. Finance and production more or less were in balance. But after deregulation set in the late 1970s, the income gap began to accelerate yet again, returning to the unconscionable levels of the late 1920s.

Here's the frightening news contained in the Saez/Piketty data: There is no Great Compression emerging this time around. We're not heading toward greater income equality. We're not building up the middle class or supporting unionization. We're not eradicating poverty and hunger. We're not expanding educational opportunity. We're not rebuilding infrastructure. Nothing we're doing looks anything like the society we built from the New Deal through the 1960s. We're not doing any of the things that would lead to a more stable and just economy. In fact, we're doing just the opposite, which means the billionaire bailout society will become even more firmly entrenched.

How do we dismantle the billionaire bailout society?

It starts with recognizing that the political circus in Washington has no chance at all in altering our pell-mell descent into crippling inequality. The Republicans are so blinded by nonexistent big government socialism that they fail to realize, yet alone acknowledge, that the capitalism they so love is long gone. Wall Street ate it for lunch.

While we could single out a handful of decent Democrats who more or less get the picture, the party as a whole is enthralled with Wall Street, many hoping to join the world of high finance after they serve their time in public service. There is no chance whatsoever that these two parties will tame high finance or undermine the growing billionaire bailout society.

But much can still be done, especially on the state and local level. That's where Wall Street is vulnerable to a strong counterattack. And that attack must be aimed at building public banks that can one day replace the Wall Street behemoths. (Many thanks to Ellen Brown and her new book, The Public Bank Solution for opening my eyes to this possibility.)

Here are some key facts we all should know about banks and public banks:

1. There is only one public state bank in the country—the Bank of North Dakota—and it's phenomenally successful. A relic from the Populist era, the BND invests in the people of North Dakota. It doesn't play with derivatives or high-risk mortgages so it didn't get burned during the crash. It doesn't pay its executives high salaries (which are lower than what chauffeurs get on Wall Street). It just builds the state's economy and returns a profit year after year to the people of North Dakota. As a result, the state has the lowest unemployment rate in the country (even after taking into account their oil boom). And this so-called socialist bank resides in one of the most conservative states in the country.

2. Right now, we taxpayers funnel over $1 trillion of our money into Wall Street banks when we pay our state and local taxes and fees. That money does not go into vaults in city hall or the state capital. It goes to Wall Street banks which at the moment are the only ones large enough to provide all the services required...except in North Dakota. There state revenues run through the state bank which in turns supports 80 community banks. If that happened in the other 49 states, we could create more than 10 million additional domestic jobs. Remember, a state bank invests in its state. Wall Street has no allegiance to any state or country.

3. State banks are the answer to funding infrastructure projects. Right now Wall Street preys upon state and local governments that need to borrow money to build schools, roads and other critical public projects. Those loans comes with enormous fees and interest rates that often double and triple the cost of these projects. Not so with public banks, whose job it is to build up the state rather than rip it off.

What will it take to win?

There are some positive signs popping up all over the country. Low-wage workers are organizing. The AFL-CIO is finally coming out of its defensive crouch and opening up to non-traditional worker organizations. More and more co-ops are forming. And more than 20 states are seriously considering moves toward public banks.

But we'll need much more to dent the billionaire bailout society. We will need nothing less than a broad movement that connects all these efforts and many more into a coherent force aimed at high finance. The money labor squanders on meaningless elections should be funding the attack on Wall Street.

It's time we looked more seriously at the last time Americans rose up against Wall Street. That was during the Populist Era of the late 19th century. Then, urban working people and farmers demanded an alternative financial system to the one run by Wall Street. It was a clear-cut struggle pitting private banking against public banking.

Then, like now, the American people were disgusted by the domination of high finance. Then, like now, the two parties were corrupted by concentrated wealth. Then, like now, the modest prosperity of the working people was collapsing. It took great courage and resilience for Americans to rise up. It took thousands of dedicated organizers and educators who believed in the justice of their cause.

Even though the movement was ultimately defeated, it left its indelible mark on America. Many of its policies and programs formed the constructive politics of the New Deal that ultimately tamed Wall Street for nearly a half a century. And it gave North Dakota its public bank.

We will need that kind of massive upheaval again if we hope to undo the billionaire bailout society.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/weve-got-billionaire-bailout-society-and-99-may-never-recover-it-our-lifetimes?paging=off

Cin

09-17-2013, 10:15 AM

Well, now I understand why people will continue to say “well that’s my opinion”, regardless of overwhelming proof to the contrary. Facts mean little when compared to a person’s personal belief system. This is the most depressing fact I’ve heard about the brain. I mean where can you possibly go from here. If logic, facts and truth have no power over what people believe, then what is the point. I think I will talk to my wife about selling all our worldly possessions and going to live on a sparsely inhabited island somewhere.

The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever
Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, or reason can provide the tools that people need in order to make good decisions.

Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece about it in Grist: “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.”

Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.

For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?

The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.
Here’s some of what Nyhan found:

People who thought WMDs were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.
People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.
People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.

In Kahan’s experiment, some people were asked to interpret a table of numbers about whether a skin cream reduced rashes, and some people were asked to interpret a different table – containing the same numbers – about whether a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns reduced crime. Kahan found that when the numbers in the table conflicted with people’s positions on gun control, they couldn’t do the math right, though they could when the subject was skin cream. The bleakest finding was that the more advanced that people’s math skills were, the more likely it was that their political views, whether liberal or conservative, made them less able to solve the math problem.

I hate what this implies – not only about gun control, but also about other contentious issues, like climate change. I’m not completely ready to give up on the idea that disputes over facts can be resolved by evidence, but you have to admit that things aren’t looking so good for a reason. I keep hoping that one more photo of an iceberg the size of Manhattan calving off of Greenland, one more stretch of record-breaking heat and drought and fires, one more graph of how atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen in the past century, will do the trick. But what these studies of how our minds work suggest is that the political judgments we’ve already made are impervious to facts that contradict us.

Maybe climate change denial isn’t the right term; it implies a psychological disorder. Denial is business-as-usual for our brains. More and better facts don’t turn low-information voters into well-equipped citizens. It just makes them more committed to their misperceptions. In the entire history of the universe, no Fox News viewers ever changed their minds because some new data upended their thinking. When there’s a conflict between partisan beliefs and plain evidence, it’s the beliefs that win. The power of emotion over reason isn’t a bug in our human operating systems, it’s a feature.

http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever?paging=off

DMW

09-17-2013, 11:48 AM

Kobi

09-17-2013, 12:19 PM

Cin

09-17-2013, 04:15 PM

The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever
Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, or reason can provide the tools that people need in order to make good decisions.

This made me chuckle and think of the old saying...."my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts."

Human cognitive process and decision making processes are fascinating studies in the use of applied implausibility.

Cyn, I found a link to the work book for that course I told you about eons ago on The Art Of Critical Decision Making. Remove all sharp objects from the immediate vicinity before reading this: The Art of Critical Decision Making (http://anon.eastbaymediac.m7z.net/anon.eastbaymediac.m7z.net/teachingco/CourseGuideBooks/DG5932_G2N3I9.pdf)

I do remember you telling me about this. Thanks for finding it. I am wading through it now. I'm glad I took your advice about sharp objects though. You know I always think it's purposeful this refusal to look at the facts, but after reading the chapter that picks apart that fateful climb up Mt. Everest I will have to reevaluate. There are other factors at play surely. Nobody purposely makes choices that are lethal. Well nobody who isn't planning suicide that is.

Martina

09-20-2013, 06:21 PM

It's a weird news cycle when the most liberal message is the one coming from the Vatican.

Cin

09-22-2013, 12:44 PM

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/7-vile-and-ridiculous-moments-countrys-right-wing-fringe-week

this is my favorite (so to speak)

3. Koch brothers: Cervical cancer is a small price to pay to defeat Obamacare.

In their abject desperation to forestall the implementation of Obamacare, right-wing zealots released some ads this week that are bound to go down in history as some of the most absurd pieces of political video ever created.

The ad campaign created by Generation Opportunity, which is funded by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, specifically targets young people with the rather irresponsible message that they really don’t need health insurance. Better to “opt out,” pay the fine, it’s cheaper. Also, for young women, it avoids those uncomfortable gynecological exams, the ones that might save you from cervical cancer. The somewhat deranged looking advertisement features the legs of a woman in stirrups, presumably ready for her potentially life-saving pap smear, when all of sudden a wooden marionette Uncle Sam pops up between her legs. Uncle Sam apparently wants her. In the final scene, Uncle Sam is shown holding a speculum.

I clicked on the link "Generation Opportunity" and I didn't see the ad, but I was so disturbed by the site I will admit I didn't look very hard. I did find this on the bottom:1,502,194 people like this.

It's just too damn depressing. After that article on the brain I read recently I realize there really isn't much point...

maybe i just need some chocolate.

Jesse

09-22-2013, 01:41 PM

Cin

09-22-2013, 02:35 PM

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has ordered the National Guard to stop processing requests for military benefits for same-sex couples, her office confirmed Tuesday, despite a Pentagon directive to do so.

Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz said the governor was following the wish of Oklahoma voters, who approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 that prohibits giving benefits of marriage to gay couples...

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/09/18/oklahoma-governor-tells-guard-to-deny-same-sex-benefits.html?ESRC=dod.nl

Besides Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana are also going against a federal directive requiring agencies to grant same sex married couples the same benefits as any married couple.

And Louisiana is also refusing to recognize same sex marriage on its tax forms, even though state law requires the same filing status on state and federal tax forms. Sounds like even though the IRS will allow same sex married couples to file jointly, they won’t be able to do that in Louisiana because they must use the same filing status and the state won't allow them to file jointly.

Some fucked up shit.

Cin

09-23-2013, 05:04 PM

The Republican Vote to Cut Food Stamps is Really a Decision to Kill the "Useless Eaters"

15 million Americans were “food insecure” in the United States during 2012. The Great Recession has increased the number of Americans who do not have sufficient food by 30 percent. The fastest growing group of people who need some assistance with obtaining sufficient food to maintain a basic standard of living is the elderly. Hunger in America is estimated to cost the U.S. economy 167 billion dollars.

Approximately 20 percent of American children live in poverty. Food insecurity and hunger leads to a long-term decline in life spans and a diminished standard of living for whole communities.

Last week, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to cut 39 billion dollars from federal food assistance programs. Their vote is more than just the next act in the ongoing politics of cruelty by the Republican Party in the Age of Obama.

It is a decision to kill poor people.

In America, discussions of poverty are linked in the public imagination to stereotypes about race, class, and gender. The face of poverty is not white (the group which in fact comprises the largest group of recipients for government aid). Instead, it is the mythical black welfare queen, or an “illegal” immigrant who is trying to pilfer the system at the expense of “hard working” white Americans.

Discussions about poverty are also easily transformed into claims about morality and virtue. Consequently, while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is very efficient and involves very little if any fraud on the part of its participants, stereotypes about the poor can be used to legitimate the policing and harassment of Americans in need of food support through mandatory drug testing and other unnecessary programs.

Here, the long-term end goal for Republicans is revealed for what it is—a desire to make being a poor person into a crime.

Such a project serves a broader effort by conservatives to further transfer resources upward to the 1 percent from the American people. The decision by Republicans to further punish the poor, while the United States is in the midst of one of the greatest economic calamities in recent memory, also exists in the context of a Republican Party whose last presidential nominee suggested that 47 percent of the American public are human leeches and parasites.

Their vote to cut food assistance programs (as well as the social safety net more broadly) exists in a bizarre political moment when the Republican Party is possessed by a radical and destructive ideology, one that is a mix of Ayn Randian fantasies, austerity and neoliberalism run amok, and libertarianism processed through the carnivalesque freak show performance and eliminationist shtick of Right-wing talk radio.

The Republican Party’s hatred of poor people overlaps with its use of white racial resentment and symbolic racism to win over white voters in the post civil rights era.

For decades, conservatism and racism have been political intimates in the United States. The Great Recession and the rise of austerity politics have facilitated a frightening union of those forces on the American Right.

With the introduction of the “Southern Strategy” during the Nixon era, and now spurred on by the election of the country’s first black president, The Tea Party GOP has been fully transformed into what is best described as a “Herrenvolk” political organization.

“Herrenvolk”--what literally means “the Master Race” or “chosen people”--is a description of a society where citizenship is tiered and hierarchical along lines of “race”. As such, the dominant group receives the full benefits of social services, transfer payments, and other supports from the State. The out-group, marked as the Other, is viewed as not deserving of such resources.

South Africa and Nazi Germany were Herrenvolk societies. The United States during its centuries-long slave regime, and then the many decades of Jim and Jane Crow, was also a society organized along similar principles of racialized citizenship.

In this arrangement, the poor and others among the out-group are stigmatized as “useless eaters” who should be separated from the body politic if some other use cannot be found for them.

I use this powerful phrase with great care. While originally used by the Nazis and the American eugenics movement to describe the handicapped, as well as the physically and mentally disabled, “useless eaters” can also be understood in the context of a Herrenvolk society to include those “surplus” people who are not “properly” contributing to society.

History echoes. For example, during the 2012 election (and through to the present) Republicans have used the language of “makers” and “takers” to describe their view of American society in which the former are “productive” citizens, and the latter are “drains” on society and “surplus” people.

The Republican Party demonstrates its Herrenvolk ethic in a number of other ways too.

Most importantly, the Republican Party’s Herrenvolk value system is enabled by its voting base where 95 percent of its voters in the 2012 presidential election were white.

The policies which result will almost by necessity serve “white” political interests, however perceived or defined by the Republican leadership and its media apparatus. This claim is buttressed by Eric Knowles of New York University whose recent research details how the Tea Party serves as a white identity organization for its members.

It is also important to call attention to how the Tea Party is both older and whiter than the nation as a whole. The country which they yearn for and “want to take back” is an appeal to the world of Jim and Jane Crow, unapologetic white male privilege, and where white people were subsidized and protected by the State at the expense of others.

As highlighted by Ira Katznelson’s essential book When Affirmative Action was White, the white middle class in the post-World War 2 era was a creation of the federal government.

The VA and FHA home loan programs were not equally accessible by blacks and other people of color. The G.I. Bill, a stepping stone to education and middle class identity, was also practically limited for African-American veterans and other people of color.

Those and other similar programs made the white American middle class and constituted one of the single greatest moments of wealth creation in the history of the United States. Such policies were examples of racially tiered citizenship in practice as day-to-day government policy.

Herrenvolk America is the dreamland and formative political and social experience that the Tea Party, as the beating heart of the Republican Party, yearns to create.

In chasing the dream of a conservative political Whiteopia, the Republican Party has also succeeded in rolling back the voting rights of racial minorities, young people, the elderly, and the poor across the country.

It also uses the racially incendiary language of “secession” and “nullification” that is drawn directly from the American Civil War and the “States Rights” movement.

This is a practical embrace of the white supremacist politics of Jim and Jane Crow, the neo Confederacy, and a rejection of the victories of the Civil Rights Movement.

The faux populist language of “real Americans” deployed by Sarah Palin for example, is a clear signal to a sense of “us” and “them”, a divide that cannot neatly be separated from a sense of a shared racial identity on the part of the speaker and its intended audience where to be “American” is to be “white”.

Birtherism is predicated on racial bigotry and the idea that for many white Americans a black man is de facto not a “real” citizen. Thus, Barack Obama is symbolically unfit to be President of the United.

The use of coded and overt racial appeals by Republicans to attack President Barack Obama is further evidence of how white racial resentment has triumphed as a type of common sense language for the Right in this political moment.

All white people do not benefit from being members of a Herrenvolk society in the same way. Anticipating this arrangement, activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois famously described white skin privilege as a type of “psychological wage” that does not always translate into equal material gains or rewards for its owners. In many cases, Whiteness and white racism actually hurt white people.

Thus, the following puzzle: the Republican Party is cutting food stamps under the cover of punishing the black and brown poor; in reality, white people in the heart of Red State America will be hurt the most by such a policy.

In the Tea Party GOP’s dream of Herrenvolk America all white people are equal—and borrowing from the Orwell’s classic book Animal Farm—but some white people are more equal than others.

The Republican Party has voted to kill the “useless eaters” by cutting food assistance programs. But, data on food stamp use from the USDA suggests that such a policy will cause great pain to Republican voters.

How do we reconcile this contradiction?

Ultimately, populist conservatives and the Tea Party base are so drunk on white identity politics that they are unable to realize that the plutocrats and the 1 percent have just as much disdain for them, regardless of their common racial identity and skin color, as they do the black and brown poor.

Class trumps race. Unfortunately, the common good is betrayed again by how too many poor and working class white conservatives cling to white identity politics instead of seeking shared alliances of mutual interest, aid, and support across the color line.

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/chaunceydevega/republican-vote-cut-food-stamps-really-decision-kill-useless-eaters?page=entire

Cin

09-24-2013, 10:07 AM

My words are in Blue, the article excerpts are in Black

You may wonder (or not) how Congress can vote to cut food stamps in a time when so many people are food insecure (interesting terminology that). When so few have so much and so many must make do with so little, how can logic dictate that even more be taken from the segment of society that has the least.

Well as it turns out there is a kind of convoluted thought process that makes what has just been done to those people who need help getting enough to eat understandable, acceptable, even just.

I read a few articles that mention there is little if any cheating going on with food programs. Nobody is getting food assistance who doesn’t need it, as if that might be the impetus for the wealthy literally taking the food right out of the mouths of the poor. I understand their confusion. They are grasping at straws trying to understand the logic of Congress cutting food assistance. Well corruption isn’t the story they are using at the moment. What they are selling about the poor is much more sinister.

Apparently there is no position that is indefensible. The reasoning the oligarchy is using and spreading amongst us now is that there are no poor here and the poverty rate in the US is actually ZERO.

Here is a particularly misleading excerpt from one article. Not so much misleading as out right lying actually:

“Way back when, poverty alleviation was almost entirely done by simply giving poor people cash money. This obviously made them less poor so it was a very effective strategy. However, it was felt that this wasn’t quite the right thing to do and therefore the system has changed over the years to one of sometimes giving money, but not very often, plus giving benefits in kind (Section 8, Medicaid, SNAP) and aid through the tax system (EITC). The US is now spending a great deal more on poverty alleviation (after inflation of course) than it used to but by the official measurement of poverty pretty much nothing seems to have changed.

The reason for this is that we don’t actually count benefits in kind or aid through the tax system in our definition of poverty: although we do count just giving poor people cash money. The upshot of this is that in the old days what the poverty line was really measuring is the number of people who were poor after the things we did to reduce poverty. Today that same poverty line is measuring the number of people who are poor before all the things we do to reduce poverty.

It’s worth noting that the four major poverty reduction programs are Medicaid, SNAP, EITC and Section 8 vouchers. And we include none of them, not one single groat of that money spent, in our current estimates of poverty”

This is such a crock of shit. To the best of my knowledge we never did include them in estimates of poverty, except in that one must be a certain degree of poor to qualify for the particular programs. The article says “way back when poverty alleviation was almost entirely done by giving poor people cash”. When parsed and examined this statement is a blatant falsehood, it’s just not true. There has never been a time like that. There has been some kind of food assistance since 1932 when statistics on poverty were not even recorded. Food assistance went from food surplus distribution, food stamps that you had to pay for, free food stamps and then the debit card system . There has been Medicaid, fuel assistance and Section 8 for many, many years. Not to mention EIC, but the thing with Earned Income Credit, is you actually have to have an income to get it. Since statistics were not kept during the Great Depression let alone the 1800’s I don’t understand how this article gets printed filled with such bullshit. Before 1932 there were poorhouses and local governments provided food, fuel and sometimes cash to poor residents. Cash relief to the poor depended on local property taxes. But relief outside of poorhouses was discriminatory at best. And no poverty rates were recorded. Since poverty rates have been recorded there have always been other programs that help the poor with assistance apart from handing them cash money. So that blows that out of the water.

However according to an article in Forbes, to help its non-existent poor the US is “now spending a great deal more on poverty alleviation (after inflation of course) than it used to.” So it does makes sense to cut a bit off now doesn’t it?

Again blatant lies. And it's such a ridiculous lie it doesn't even need to be debunked. It disproves itself.

The belief is that the country’s real concern should be consumption poverty and that is about zero. So no worries. Unfortunately it is the top percentile, the over rich, the beyond wealthy, who are doing all the consuming. But that seems to be beside the point. Here is an excerpt from an article in Forbes:

“The second chart takes us into another one of my pet little ideas. We don’t actually care whether people have jobs or not, we don’t even care whether people have incomes or not: we really only care that people have the opportunity to consume. Therefore it’s not income poverty that is the real concern, it’s consumption poverty that ought to be. And as chart 2 shows us this is around and about zero now in the US.

So, I think it perfectly justifiable to insist that the correct US poverty rate is around and about zero.”

The Forbes article goes on to explain that the reason the US fairs so badly when compared to the poverty rates of other advanced nations is because
“almost everyone other than the US measures poverty as a relative thing, not against some hard and fast standard…this measurement of relative poverty is not in fact a measurement of poverty at all. It’s a measure of inequality.”

So now we are at the crux of it. It is not poverty that people suffer from in the US. They are not hungry or without heat in the winter. They are jealous of inequity, the unfair distribution of wealth. They are trying to get the 1% to loosen their purse strings. People in India, China and Brazil know what it means to be poor. Even the so called poorest of the poor in the US are infinitely better off than the real poor. As explained here:

“What this tells us is that the very poorest of the poor in the US, the bottom 5% (and thus very definitely below that poverty line) are in fact richer than 95% of all Indians. And 85% of all Chinese and 55% of all Brazilians.
Sure, the US is a more unequal country than most others in the OECD, the rich countries’ club. But the real poverty rate, the number of people living in absolute poverty, is around and about zero in the US all the same.”

So I guess if you are hungry, jobless, without shelter and medical care and happen to be standing on US soil you’re not really poor. It’s all beginning to make sense now. A kind of scary freaking me out type of sense. I think this is a kind of softening approach meant to help guide us into our new future. The one where the rich 2% have everything and the rest of us become rather superfluous. Well, more than just nonessential. Unnecessary annoyances that keep whining about being hungry or cold or sick. These bizarre lies are the lube to help the coming austerity measures initially slide through without too much fuss. It has certainly worked so far. The underlying message, the song beneath the song is clear. They are saying since there are no poor what do we need social programs for? Oh those losers? Just ignore those homeless derelicts you see wandering around the streets. We are trying to figure out how best to remove them from sight. It’s not like they are actual normal people like you and I. Normal people don't become homeless. Nor are they unable to feed their children. Oh, you want safe affordable housing? Get rid of the immigrants. Not to mention its all the fault of PoC, that’s why it’s unsafe. You don’t like living with vermin, roaches and bed bugs? What a bunch of wimps. Everybody in India has bed bugs.

So now the party line is there are no really poor people in the US. It’s not like being invisible. You just don’t exist. So it stands to reason the ruling elite can continue to cut social spending. Not only that, but they can take more and more away from you. They can squeeze you long time. Austerity genocide is coming to a town near you. It will take awhile until you reach the degree of poverty the oligarchy will recognize (if that even exists). Until then Congress will continue cutting social spending perhaps until you bleed out.

Here are a couple of articles that explain how there are no poor people in the US.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/21/the-correct-us-poverty-rate-is-around-and-about-zero/

http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.pt/2013/09/the-poverty-rate-income-and-consumption.html

Cin

09-24-2013, 04:22 PM

Losing the War to Criminalize Gay Sex in the US, Religious-Right Groups Are Taking Their Fight Abroad
A legal contest in Belize over non-heterosexual sex laws is only the latest in a wider struggle being waged in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/losing-war-criminalize-gay-sex-us-religious-right-groups-are-taking-their-fight

Cin

09-25-2013, 04:41 AM

DC Republicans in Full Panic Mode: Obamacare Will Be Hugely Popular and There's Little the GOP Can Do to Stop It
The money is already moving down the pipeline, and Americans are about to get much cheaper healthcare.

There’s a bottom line behind Congress’ latest Obamacare gyrations that is easy to miss as the most desperate Republicans keep threatening to kill the health insurance law by defunding it. They can’t stop it from taking effect, just as they haven’t been able to repeal or defund it in every federal budget fight since it passed in 2009—including their latest rants.

Moreover, there’s billions already in the fiscal pipeline to states to implement the health insurance market reforms, whether or not there’s a federal government shutdown. Thus, their posturing, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest bill for complete defunding and his Tuesday filibuster, needs to be seen as the old cliché it is: a desperate measure for their desperate time.

What’s scaring Republicans is that the president’s most significant domestic initiative is about to hit prime time. Starting October 1, it is poised to start delivering on its central promise, which is giving millions of Americans more and cheaper choices to buy health insurance. These policies would be obtained from state-run insurance pools, or by a federal-run pool that would be accessed in person or online, and will take effect January 1. Poor people get tax refunds to buy insurance, although those won’t be seen until after next year’s taxes.

Republicans fear the law will find more supporters than critics. That’s why Democrats should be excited, because an often centrist president has enlarged the safety net for the poor and created a new system to get healthcare at a cheaper price than the insurance industry was willing to provide.

“There’s a ton of money for an indefinite time for the grants to the states to create and run the [insurance-buying] exchanges,” said C. Stephen Redhead, a Congressional Research Service analyst who has authored numerous reports about funding Obamacare in recent budget cycles. “A lot will depend on the effort that the state itself is willing to make.”

Redhead is referring to what states are and aren’t doing to publicize the government-run health insurance marketplaces. But whether your state has embraced the reforms, such as California, which received nearly $1 billion from Washington to get started, or has done next to nothing, such as in Virginia and Florida (meaning federal agencies will fill that void) is a separate issue from whether the insurance reforms are coming.

Redhead’s Congressional Research Service reports describe all of this in great detail. It’s true that Republicans have been able to chip away around edges of the law. But they have not stopped it. Perhaps their biggest dent was taking a $6.25 billion bite out of FY2013-FY2021 appropriations for a big healthcare fund to extend a payroll tax cut in 2012. However, that came from $16.75 billion the law gave the federal Prevention and Public Health Fund for that period, which is distributed among dozens of programs.

The Affordable Care Act is so big and so much of it is funded in perpetuity—like other federal entitlements—that the Obama administration has been able to move around piles of money to get it started, Redhead said. He compared Obamacare’s launch to how Medicaid, the state-run program for low-income and disabled people, began in 1965.

“Lots of states grumbled and complained,” he said. “It was optional for states. But they all did it eventually. The last holdout was Arizona. It joined in 1982, 17 years later.”

In recent federal budget fights, House Republicans have repeatedly tried to defund the so-called discretionary funding items in the law, such as all kinds of demonstration projects to develop new models for preventative care, community-based care, as well as projects to track and cut costs, and to experiment with new payment systems.

“Most of that stuff is largely irrelevant or completely incidental to the core premises of the Affordable Care Act,” Redhead said, adding that many of those projects were added by individual members for their home districts. “The ACA is like the Bible. Calling it a law is like calling the Bible a book. You have lots of books in the Bible, including stuff on the Old Testament that no one ever looks at.”

The heart of the ACA concerns a handful of core ideas about restructuring private health insurance markets, he said. There’s the creation and introduction of new government-run exchanges where individuals can buy insurance, where in the past they would be denied coverage or have had to pay higher rates. There is the coverage mandate, or requirement that every adult have health insurance. There also is the expansion of Medicaid to give lower-income people access to subsidized insurance. There also are new pathways to access care, such as community clinics and other patient-centered options.

When Washington insiders look at the many ways the Obama administration has moved money around to implement the cornerstones of the ACA, they see an executive branch that has not been deterred by GOP protests, Redhead said. Some of his colleagues say the administration has taken too many liberties, he said; however, those kinds of administrative acrobatics are nothing new in government.

As has been the case in every budget fight since Obamacare passed, the Republican-led House hasn’t gotten anywhere with defunding or repealing it, as CRS reports note in detail. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld it, although they did say states not implementing the expansion of Medicaid would not be penalized.

That means Americans will soon see what Obamacare is about and what impact it has in their lives, regardless of the GOP’s continuing noise about crippling or killing the law.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/republicans-panic-over-obamacare?paging=off

DMW

09-25-2013, 07:29 AM

Didn't JPMorgan Chase just get a slap on the wrist? Hummmm

Anyhow, bail out the banks on the backs of tax payers without penalties
such as bankruptcy. And then, let the banks make money off of the We the People tax dollars to feed those who already paid into the system for those
(soon to be nonexistent social services) and give the banks a check free
and clear. There is no fiscal policy that is conducive for the masses.
It is an oligarchy that the masses are supporting and subsidizing.

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/food-stamps-jpmorgan-banking-industry-profit-misery

FOOD STAMPS: JPMORGAN & BANKING INDUSTRY PROFIT FROM MISERY

This week’s credit check: A record 43.6 million Americans are using food stamps. JPMorgan’s segment that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010.

You might think that if you’re on food stamps, big banks won’t be very interested in you. What could they possibly want with someone who’s struggling just to put food on the table? But it turns out that you’re actually part of a profitable business for big bank JPMorgan. While the money to pay for the stamps comes from the government, the technology to access it lies in private hands. Food stamps used to be literally stamps — that is, pieces of paper — but in this day and age paper is so old fashioned. Now you get your food stamps with a debit card, and JPMorgan knows all about creating plastic credit products.

As the head of this division at JPMorgan, Christopher Paton, told Bloomberg, “They act and feel very much like a debit card. A lot of stores increasingly take food stamps.” What convenience! And Paton points out that his bank is the largest processor of food stamps in the country. These are boom times for such services — a new report from the US Department of Agriculture reports that 43.6 million Americans are now using food stamps, nearly 14% of the population, which is a record number. Paton notes this trend himself: “Volumes have gone through the roof in the last couple of years,” he says. “This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.” And the numbers bear him out. According to the company’s most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010.

Sign up for weekly ND20 highlights, mind-blowing stats, event alerts, and reading/film/music recs.

Paton’s quick to point out that this isn’t just about profit at JPMorgan — it’s also serving a “useful social function.” And department execs don’t have to sit around hoping for unemployment to skyrocket so they can make a buck — more than 40% of food stamp recipients have a job, as Paton notes. Even if you get a job, you still have an almost one in two chance of still not being able to buy groceries, so JPMorgan can continue to make its profits as unemployment falls (someday).

But it does show a misalignment between what the banks want and what’s good for the rest of us. It turns out that JPMorgan also provides unemployment benefit debit cards in some states on top of the food stamp cards. Talk about marketing off of misery — the profit made from these cards shoots up as workers lose their jobs and can’t pay for food. Whether or not they’re providing a needed service, you would be hard pressed to find a way in which the business interest of this segment is not aligned with further economic ruin for America’s workers. Instead of profiting when we all do well, they profit off of our misery.

And the decision to place card creation in private hands can turn out to be complicated for the actual users. While the government outsourced its card creation needs to JPMorgan, the bank in turn outsourced the customer service end to India. So if you’re a food stamp user who has a problem or a question, don’t expect to actually get someone in your own country to help you out. They can’t be bothered to actually deal with the people they’re giving such a necessary service to.

Bryce Covert is Assistant Editor at New Deal 2.0.

DMW

09-25-2013, 07:42 AM

Now, God forbid we use tax payer dollars to pay for healthcare. Privatization of
the medical system is a must so that the oligarchy can fill their pockets.
Obamacare will take away a booming money making industry!
We don't need Medicare or Medicare or social security. Do we?
Nah, let them keep taking our homes and keep subsidizing the banks every time they bulldoze one of those taxpayers homes. Now, even the hospitals are laying people off because of the lack of taxpayer funds. So, we all suffer.
Great fiscal policy by the Repubs. Better watch out...without the masses having their health...
We the People can't line your pockets.
45k people die a year in the US from lack of healthcare.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2013/09/20/is-obamacare-to-blame-for-hospital-layoffs-is-obamacare-to-blame-for-hospital-layoffs

Is Obamacare to Blame for Hospital Layoffs?
Hospitals are cutting costs and laying off employees, citing Obamcare as the main reason. But is health care reform really to blame?

By KIMBERLY LEONARD
September 20, 2013 RSS Feed Print

Cleveland Clinic officials announced this week that they would be offering 3,000 buyouts in an effort to cuts costs, citing financial pressures from health care reform as one of the reasons for their decision. More than a dozen hospitals across the country are taking similar measures, due in part to health care reform requirements, but also because of the $9.9 billion in government sequester cuts to Medicare, hospital debt and states' refusal to expand Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for the poor.

[READ: Obamacare Affect Medicare: Myths and Facts]

"For hospitals in general this is kind of the new normal," says Eileen Sheil, executive director of corporate communications for the Cleveland Clinic. According to most recent estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hospital sector lost about 4,400 jobs in July. In May, hospitals shed 9,000 jobs, the worst month for the industry in a decade.

[READ: Hospital of Tomorrow: How the Industry is Facing the Future]

Ron Stiver, senior vice president of engagement and public affairs for Indiana University Health, which plans to cut 800 employees, says the assertion that health care reform is the reason behind hospital cuts is "overly simplified." IU Health is making cuts partially because of the health law, he says, but also because the state has not expanded Medicaid, the hospital system has fewer inpatient volumes, and payment rates for its services have been declining.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., plans to cut 1,000 positions, citing an aging population, lower reimbursement rates, a reduction in National Institutes of Health grant funding and a lack of Medicaid expansion in Tennessee.

In 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that state legislatures could opt out of increasing the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid, and North Carolina is one of 22 states that has done so, a decision that resulted in Vidant Pungo Hospital in Belhaven, N.C., closing down, according to hospital officials.

Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel from New York, the main sponsor of the health reform bill, says organizations have several other tools they could use to reduce costs, and that many businesses are blaming health reform for actions for which they don't want to take responsibility. "U.S. health costs have been the highest in the world, yet our quality measures were middling at best," he says. "While there is no doubt that [health reform] has helped slow health care cost growth, which is beneficial to both national and household budgets, there is nothing in the law that tells hospitals to reduce staff. The fact is that patients are paying less, not more, as a result of the [health law]."

The Office of the Actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services predicted that decreases like these would occur, stating in a 2010 memo that by 2019 it expected hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies would undergo a 15 percent reduction.

For a sector that employs more than 5.5 million people, according to the American Hospital Association, the numbers are likely to get worse. The pattern of layoffs and buyouts has already begun. SouthCoast Hospital Group in Florida cited federal health reform when it laid off 100 employees in mid-September. John Muir Health in California is offering staff voluntary buyouts. NorthShore University HealthSystem in Illinois will lay off 1 percent of its workforce, and Covenant Health in Texas laid off 49 employees.

The requirements that hospitals must meet in order to receive full Medicare reimbursements are having a large impact. Hospitals once were able to bill insurance companies and the federal government for services rendered, but now they have to demonstrate that those services help keep patients healthy.
The government is capping reimbursement rates for specific diagnoses and having hospitals pay to fix their own medical errors, including hospital-acquired infections. The plan is to lower inefficiencies, thereby lowering costs. "We want hospitals to do things more efficiently," says Dr. Ross Koppel, professor of sociology and affiliate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "We don't want to redo tests or subject people to hideous radiation because exam records have been lost, for example. There may be some inefficient practices that were money makers, but with a more efficient system hospitals can't get away with them."

Hospitals with excessive numbers of readmissions for Medicare patients will face large penalties, and hospitals that serve the poor will be particularly vulnerable.

Still, hospitals are not responsible for a significant amount of the recidivism they see, according to research published in 2011 by the University of Toronto, which revealed that only a quarter of hospital readmissions were preventable.

"Hospitals have very little control over what patients do when they leave the hospital, so in that case there is an unfairness in penalizing hospitals," Koppel says. "The hospitals may do a good job and tell patients what to do when they get home, but then the patient goes back to drinking, smoking and eating cupcakes all day."

Sheil said hospitals will be getting paid less and still have to do more. "Nobody is immune to that, not even Cleveland Clinic," she says.

The news appeared to be particularly devastating to a hospital system that President Barack Obama applauded only four years before for delivering exceptional care at costs well below the national norm. Still, Cleveland Clinic officials were attributing its most-recent cuts to a number of factors, and pointed out that it was continuously developing ways to be more efficient. "There are many factors, and any one isn't going to tip us over," Sheil says.

"We're not blaming health care reform. We think it is very necessary," she adds. "Something had to give because costs are going to continue to rise and it's unsustainable."

DMW

09-25-2013, 08:07 AM

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2013/09/house-republicans-take-aim-hungry

House Republicans take aim at the hungry.
Submitted by Thom Hartmann A... on 19. September 2013 - 9:39
Live Blog Thom's Blog
The United States House of Representatives is in the midst of a food stamp showdown. House Republicans want to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by nearly $40 billion dollars, and House Democrats are fighting it with all their might. The drastic cuts are almost ten times the amount approved by the U.S. Senate in June as part of the farm bill. At that time, House Republicans stripped food assistance out of the their version of the farm bill, and approved about $200 billion in subsidies for big corporate farms.

While the drastic cuts proposed by the House would never be approved by the democratically-controlled Senate, they show just how little some lawmakers care about their fellow Americans. If these harsh cuts were ever enacted, the House plan would eliminate SNAP benefits for 3.5 million hungry Americans, and eliminate states' ability to wave work requirements during times of high unemployment. In other words, no matter how bad our economy ever got, the House plan would force millions of people to go hungry.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the cuts “a new low” for Republicans, and said that all 200 House democrats plan to vote against the proposal. If House Republicans manage to pass these drastic cuts, they will still have to negotiate a compromise with Senate Democrats. And, the upper chamber has sharply criticized the House's cuts as inhumane. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow said, “What the House Republicans are saying is this: Get a good-paying job or your family will just have to go hungry.” As this debate heats up, millions of Americans are calling Congress, and telling lawmakers to protect this vital program that so many rely on.

Andrea

09-27-2013, 06:45 AM

NSA: Some used spying power to snoop on lovers

http://us.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 (http://us.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)

The National Security Agency's internal watchdog detailed a dozen instances in the past decade in which its employees intentionally misused the agency's surveillance power, in some cases to snoop on their love interests.

*Anya*

09-27-2013, 07:03 AM

California to raise minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2016

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO | Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:15pm EDT
(Reuters) - California has become the first state in the nation to commit to raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour, with the increase to take place gradually through the start of 2016, under a bill Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Wednesday.

The law raises minimum pay in the most populous U.S. state from its current rate of $8 per hour to $9 by July 2014, and $10 by January 2016, well above the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

The measure won support from Democrats, who wanted to help low-wage workers in a state where the cost of living is among the highest in the nation, passing the California state Senate by a vote of 26-11 and the Assembly by a 51-25 vote. But it was opposed by many Republicans, who said it would hurt small businesses and ultimately cost some low-wage workers their jobs.

Democrats in California control large majorities in both houses of the state legislature. But the party has charted a more centrist path than many expected, fearing backlash from voters in moderate and conservative districts, and the minimum wage hike did not initially seem poised to pass.

Brown, protective of the state's tenuous economic recovery, initially opposed the bill but then agreed to support it after leaders of both houses of the legislature agreed to put off the effective date of the increase until 2016.

Raising wages for the poorest workers is a "wonderful thing," Brown said at a bill-signing ceremony in Los Angeles.

"It's my goal and it's my moral responsibility to do what I can to make our society more harmonious, to make our social fabric tighter and closer and to work toward a solidarity that every day appears to become more distant," he said.

INCOME GAP

State Assemblyman Luis Alejo, the bill's author, said it would help working people pay for necessities in a state where rising costs have long outpaced wage increases for the poor and working class.

"We have created a system where we pay workers less but need them to spend more," said Alejo in a statement. "That causes middle-class families to fall down the economic ladder. It's the reason our middle class is shrinking and the reason we are facing the largest gap between upper- and lower-income Californians in at least 30 years."

No state currently pays $10 per hour to minimum-wage workers, and California had been among a number of states looking to increase minimum wages to at least that level, according to the National Employment Law Project. The minimum hourly wage in the state had stagnated after rising to $8 in 2008.

Republican Brian Jones, who represents the San Diego County community of Santee, said the increase will make California even more unfriendly to business than he believes it already is.

"I'm afraid the intentions of the author will backfire, and this will hurt the middle class and working poor the most," Jones said in a statement on Wednesday.

The U.S. enacted its first minimum wage in 1938, during the last years of the Great Depression. Today, debate continues on whether government should mandate increasing pay for low-wage workers.

"To cover the costs of this increase, employers will have to cut hours and hire fewer workers," said Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway. "Our state unemployment is still higher than the national average. The legislature should be taking steps to create more high-paying jobs, not penalizing the people who need the help the most."

The state that currently has the highest minimum wage is Washington, where employers must pay at least $9.19 per hour. That could rise to above $10 an hour by 2016, because it is set to increase with certain indicators of inflation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/25/us-usa-california-minimumwage-idUSBRE98O0U920130925

*Anya*

09-27-2013, 07:10 AM

Barilla Pasta Chairman: ‘I Would Not Do A Commercial With A Homosexual Family’
by DAVID BADASH on SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

Guido Barilla has some explaining to do. The chairman of the $5.25 billion worldwide Italian food monolith says he would never show a gay family in his advertising — and if gay people don’t like it they can go eat someone else’s pasta.

In an interview yesterday with an Italian radio talk show, Barilla made clear he considers the “traditional family” and women “sacral.”

“I would never do a commercial with a homosexual family,” Barilla said, according to a Google translation. “We will not be advertising with homosexuals, because we like the traditional family. If the gays do not agree, they can always eat pasta from another manufacturer. Everyone is free to do whatever they want provided it does not annoy others.”

“We have a slightly different culture,” Barilla said, via a Huffington Post translation of the interview. “For us, the ‘sacral family’ remains one of the company’s core values. Our family is a traditional family. If gays like our pasta and our advertisings, they will eat our pasta; if they don’t like that, they will eat someone else’s pasta. You can’t always please everyone not to displease anyone.

“The women are crucial in this,” Barilla added.

“I respect same-sex marriage because that concerns people who want to contract marriage, but I absolutely don’t respect adoptions in gay families, because that concerns a person who is not the people who decide,” Barilla also said.

Of course, after a great deal of criticism and calls for a boycott, Barilla tried to apologize.

“With reference to statements made yesterday,” a Buzzfeed translation notes, “I apologize if my words have generated controversy or misunderstanding, or if they have hurt the sensibilities of some people. In the interview I simply wanted to highlight the central role of the woman in the family.”

Apparently, in Italy, gay people don’t have families and women are never lesbian.

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/barilla-pasta-chairman-i-would-not-do-a-commercial-with-a-homosexual-family/news/2013/09/26/75757#.UkWCque9KK0

DMW

10-01-2013, 12:18 PM

http://us.stormsmart.org/2013/07/15/video-overview-of-changes-to-nfip-from-biggert-waters-act/

Biggert Waters Act and flood insurance increases at least 25 %
Flood insurance bills will be coming in the mail.

Taking over a coastal community near you. Or any other area that suits
the oil business. Nice.
La, Nj, Ny, Tx, ND, some other states.

Cin

10-02-2013, 06:41 AM

What is the most effective way to destroy Obamacare?

It's not to defund it, as there's really no such thing as defunding it. Individuals are mostly funding it by buying insurance policies, and the rest of it as a whole bunch of other separate and individual pieces – things like rules against pre-existing conditions, which require no funding whatsoever.

The way to destroy Obamacare is to make sure that young, healthy people don't sign up for it.

That's because of something known in the insurance industry as the "death spiral."

A "death spiral" happens when an insurance company gets more and more older and sicker customers, which raises their costs, which in turn forces them to raise their rates. When they raise the rates, fewer and fewer young and healthy people sign up, and their proportion of older and sicker people gets even worse, and their expenses go up.

Eventually, the health insurance program dies.

The only way to prevent a death spiral is to have a large pool of young, healthy people making up most of the income to the health insurance company, so that it can pay out for what has to be a relatively small fraction of its customer base who are older, sicker or both.

So, if you want to kill Obamacare, prevent young people from signing up.

The Koch brothers tried to prevent young people from signing up with their creepy "Uncle Sam with a speculum" ad, but it was widely ridiculed.

Time for Plan B. Here's how they did it.

First, remember that midnight of September 30 was the moment when Obamacare exchanges across the nation opened for enrollment.

Every news organization in the country had prepared detailed packages and reports on what Obamacare is, how to sign up for it, how he exchanges are going public right now, and all the details.

Obamacare experts were being lined up as guests for September 30 and October 1 on radio and television networks and stations across the country. Local stations planned their local versions of this, talking about their state programs.

Those two days we're going to be a big deal, programming wise. I know. I'm in the industry. We were planning it, too.

These were going to be major programs – in some cases major features – on September 30, and October 1.

This massive news coverage, provided to Obamacare for free, would make up for the millions in advertising to promote Obamacare that Republicans had stripped out of the legislation.

All those programs on radio and television would have given the equivalent of millions of dollars worth of advertising to Obamacare, and caused tens of millions of young people to learn about the program, get excited about the program, and begin signing up right away.

Again, the way to destroy Obamacare is to make sure that young, healthy people don't sign up for it. Because if they don't, it will die. Just simple economics.

So what could the Koch brothers and other billionaire funders of the Tea Party do to make sure that every television network in America did not do a special feature the night of September 30 about how to sign up for the new Obamacare program?

And to make sure that on October 1 there weren't big news and feature stories on radio and television about how the health exchanges were offering cheaper insurance than anybody imagined?

How could they make sure that the starting date of Obamacare got buried in the news cycle so deeply that it was lost?

Under normal circumstances, that kind of story-killing would take a hurricane, or a massive earthquake, or a crazed mass-murderer gunman. But those things are pretty hard to control or predict.

So instead, the billionaires turned to the politicians they own, and told them to pull off such a radical stunt that it would seize the attention, continuously, of all the television networks and newspapers throughout the entire news cycle of September 30 and October 1.

They shut down the government.

It's just that simple.

Come up with the biggest story you possibly can – shut down the government – and run it through at the very moment Obamacare is going into effect. It seizes the new cycle, and hardly a mention is made that, "Starting tomorrow morning you, too, can sign up on a healthcare exchange for your Obamacare plan."

It was a brilliant strategy, and it worked.

The night of September 30, and all both wall-to-wall reporting, often had reporters asking the question, "Why this and why now?" It was right in front of their faces and they missed it.

But wait, there's more! This is also the week that the IPCC is rolling out the details of their new major report on climate change.

Again, networks and news organizations were preparing specials, packages, and wall-to-wall coverage of climate change and the IPCC. All of that is now buried in a closet someplace, along with the feature specials on how to find your local Obamacare exchange.

For the oil billionaires like the Koch brothers, people who make money dumping carbon dioxide waste into the atmosphere that we have to pay for, and hold to a political ideology that says the middle class should not have health insurance, this was an absolute twofer.

We've been conned. The media has been conned. And libertarian billionaires who want America to be a "me" society and not a "we" society won.

You can thank the Supreme Court for this, by the way. In their Citizens United decision, they gave corporations and billionaires the power to own politicians more than they ever have before, and that's just what they've done. Welcome to the brave new world of American politics.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/obamacare-such-serious-threat-right-wing-project-theyve-shut-down-govt-try-stop-it?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

MsTinkerbelly

10-03-2013, 12:40 PM

U.S. Capitol placed on lockdown

By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

The United States Capitol was placed on lockdown mid-Thursday afternoon following reports of shots fired in the vicinity of the chamber.

The reports of gunshots were unconfirmed. The House recessed shortly after indications of gunshots. The Senate went into a quorum call -- that is, dispensed momentarily with its official business -- shortly thereafter.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill tweeted: Shots fired outside the Capitol. We are in temporary lock down.

Colorado Rep. Jared Polis tweeted: There had been some short of shooting here at the capital, we r on lockdown awaiting more info

Congress has been locked for the past week and a half in a contentious debate over funding the government, a disagreement in which contributed to a government shutdown that came to pass at the end of Monday.

Last night, Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy, R, was the victim of a "minor incident" outside of the Capitol complex.

"A random individual, unknown to the Congressman, began screaming at him and grabbed his arm," a spokesperson for Duffy said in describing the incident. "Mr. Duffy was unharmed. He reported the incident in compliance with House security procedures. Congressman Duffy has requested no further action be taken and there will be no further comment on the matter at this time."

On September 16, a deadly shooting occurred blocks south of the U.S. Capitol complex which contributed to a partial lockdown of the Capitol at that time

Cin

10-07-2013, 07:57 AM

Another Killer Using 'Stand Your Ground' to Defend Shooting a Black Teenage Boy

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/another-killer-using-stand-your-ground-defend-shooting-black-teenage-boy

Cin

10-07-2013, 08:48 AM

It’s quite a long article so I will just post a bit of the article. It can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/tea-party-radicalism-misunderstood-meet-newest-right?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Tea Party Radicalism Is Misunderstood: Meet the “Newest Right”
Our sense of the force currently paralyzing the government is full of misconceptions — including what to call it.

To judge from the commentary inspired by the shutdown, most progressives and centrists, and even many non-Tea Party conservatives, do not understand the radical force that has captured the Republican Party and paralyzed the federal government. Having grown up in what is rapidly becoming a Tea Party heartland–Texas–I think I do understand it. Allow me to clear away a few misconceptions about what really should be called, not the Tea Party Right, but the Newest Right.

The first misconception that is widespread in the commentariat is that the Newest Right can be thought of as being simply a group of “extremists” who happen to be further on the same political spectrum on which leftists, liberals, centrists and moderate conservatives find their places. But reducing politics to points on a single line is more confusing than enlightening. Most political movements result from the intersection of several axes—ideology, class, occupation, religion, ethnicity and region—of which abstract ideology is seldom the most important.

The second misconception is that the Newest Right or Tea Party Right is populist. The data, however, show that Tea Party activists and leaders on average are more affluent than the average American. The white working class often votes for the Newest Right, but then the white working class has voted for Republicans ever since Nixon. For all its Jacksonian populist rhetoric, the Newest Right is no more a rebellion of the white working class than was the original faux-populist Jacksonian movement, led by rich slaveowners like Andrew Jackson and agents of New York banks like Martin Van Buren.

The third misconception is that the Newest Right is irrational. The American center-left, whose white social base is among highly-educated, credentialed individuals like professors and professionals, repeatedly has committed political suicide by assuming that anyone who disagrees with its views is an ignorant “Neanderthal.” Progressive snobs to the contrary, the leaders of the Newest Right, including Harvard-educated Ted Cruz, like the leaders of any successful political movement, tend to be highly educated and well-off. The self-described members of the Tea Party tend to be more affluent and educated than the general public.

The Newest Right, then, cannot be explained in terms of abstract ideological extremism, working-class populism or ignorance and stupidity. What, then, is the Newest Right?

The Newest Right is the simply the old Jeffersonian-Jacksonian right, adopting new strategies in response to changed circumstances.

The political strategy of the Newest Right, then, is simply a new strategy for the very old, chiefly-Southern Jefferson-Jackson right. It is a perfectly rational strategy, given its goal: maximizing the political power and wealth of white local notables who find themselves living in states, and eventually a nation, with present or potential nonwhite majorities.

Although racial segregation can no longer be employed, the tool kit of the older Southern white right is pretty much the same as that of the Newest Right

The Solid South. By means of partisan and racial gerrymandering—packing white liberal voters into conservative majority districts and ghettoizing black and Latino voters–Republicans in Texas and other Southern and Western states control the U.S. Congress, even though in the last election more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans. The same undemocratic technique makes the South far more Republican in its political representation than it really is in terms of voters.

The Filibuster. By using a semi-filibuster to help shut down the government rather than implement Obamacare, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is acting rationally on behalf of his constituency—the surburban and exurban white local notables of Texas and other states, whom the demagogic Senator seems to confuse with “the American people.” Newt Gingrich, another Southern conservative demagogue, pioneered the modern use of government shutdowns and debt-ceiling negotiations as supplements to the classic filibuster used by embattled white provincial elites who prefer to paralyze a federal government they cannot control.

While each of the Newest Right’s proposals and policies might be defended by libertarians or conservatives on other grounds, the package as a whole—from privatizing Social Security and Medicare to disenfranchising likely Democratic voters to opposing voting rights and citizenship for illegal immigrants to chopping federal programs into 50 state programs that can be controlled by right-wing state legislatures—represents a coherent and rational strategy for maximizing the relative power of provincial white elites at a time when their numbers are in decline and history has turned against them. They are not ignoramuses, any more than Jacksonian, Confederate and Dixiecrat elites were idiots. They know what they want and they have a plan to get it—which may be more than can be said for their opponents.

*Anya*

10-07-2013, 09:42 AM

My comment: Note the use of pepper spray on a grossly psychotic inmate! That borders on torture to me. An IM antipsychotic would be far more humane. I have been in a team of mental health professionals to take down an assaultive patient, without harming that patient, using Management of Assaultive behavior techniques. Are these guards that manage a unit of mentally ill inmates not trained?

U.S. NEWSOctober 4, 2013, 7:17 p.m. ET

Fight Over Inmate Mental Care in California Sharpens

By ZUSHA ELINSON

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—A decadeslong legal battle over mental-health care in California prisons returned to the spotlight this past week, with graphic videos showing confrontations between guards and mentally ill inmates as the latest point of contention.

In the videos, presented for the first time in a civil trial that began in federal court here Tuesday, guards can be seen dousing prisoners with pepper spray. The footage provides evidence of continued unconstitutional treatment of California inmates, according to lawyers seeking an order limiting the use of force and punishment against prisoners with mental issues.

Lawyers for the state counter that the videos are being shown out of context, and that inmate care has improved to the point where court oversight of the prison mental-health program is no longer needed.

The trial is the latest chapter in litigation between prisoners and the state, initiated in 1991, that led to a 2009 ruling by a panel of federal judges to trim the state prison population. California has until Jan. 27 to shed about 8,500 inmates to reach the court-mandated 137.5% capacity. About 26% of state inmates, or more than 34,000, have mental-health issues. The overcrowding has made a solution to the problem of care for mentally ill prisoners all the more difficult.

In the current dispute, lawyers for the inmates want U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton to force prison officials to restrict the use of pepper spray and batons. State officials say such changes aren't needed because the state has a strict policy governing the use of force, including pepper spray.

One of the videos showed guards in white suits and gas masks repeatedly pepper-spraying an inmate through the food slot of his cell as he paced around naked, raving and screaming in between coughing. According to testimony from plaintiffs' expert witnesses who reviewed prison records, the guards were trying to remove the man, diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, from a cell in a mental-health unit after he refused medication.

Edward Kaufman, a psychiatrist serving as an expert witness, said the inmate was so psychotic he was smearing feces on himself. "There appears to be no awareness of the mental illness that the individual has," he said.

Patrick McKinney, an attorney for the state of California, said there was no pattern or practice of excessive force. He said the inmates' lawyers were focusing on the force and not the events that led up to it, which in many cases included hours of clinical intervention and cooling-off periods. "In each of the cases, the inmate refused a lawful order to come out of the cell," he said.

The state fought the release of the videos. Judge Karlton ruled they could be shown, but only in the courtroom and with the names of the guards and prisoners stricken from the record.

State prisons spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said the department "is committed to the proper care and treatment of every inmate and has a strict use of force policy."

Write to Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com

Cost of Custody
Projected mental-health spending in the California prison system for the current year includes:

$15,728 per inmate

$140 million on inmates admitted to state hospitals

$62 million on medications for inmate mental-health treatment

$519 million overall

— Source: California Department of Corrections

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303492504579113660064443026.html

Allison W

10-07-2013, 05:42 PM

Cin

10-09-2013, 09:53 AM

My comment on this article: They seem to believe that this purposeful dumbing down of America is stupidity on the part of the GOP and the elite and is simply a by product of the desire to take from the poor and give to the rich by cutting social programs. I think it is not a by product. I think it is part of a purposeful, systematic plan to keep control as a minority of rich white and powerful individuals standing up against an ever changing demographic that is destined to shift to a non white majority.

Are American's Dumb? No, It's the Inequality, Stupid
Huge disparities in education between the rich and the poor are at the root of all stupidity.

Are Americans dumb? This is a question that has been debated by philosophers, begrudging foreigners and late night TV talk show hosts for decades. Anyone who has ever watched the Tonight Show's "Jaywalking" segment in which host Jay Leno stops random passersby and asks them rudimentary questions like "What is Julius Caesar famous for?" (Answer: "Um, is it the salad?") might already have made their minds up on this issue. But for those of you who prefer to reserve judgement until definitive proof is on hand, then I'm afraid I have some depressing news. America does indeed have a problem in the smarts department and it appears to be getting worse, not better.

On Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the results of a two-year study in which thousands of adults in 23 countries were tested for their skills in literacy, basic math and technology. The US fared badly in all three fields, ranking somewhere in the middle for literacy but way down at the bottom for technology and math.

This shouldn't be all that surprising as there is a well documented pattern of American school kids failing to keep up with their tiger cub counterparts in other countries. But these results are the first concrete proof that this skill gap is extending well beyond school and into adulthood. The question is, do the study's results imply, as the New York Post so delicately put it, that "US adults are dumber than your average human"? Hardly, but it does suggest that many Americans may not be putting the smarts they have to good use, or, more likely, that they are not getting the opportunity to do so. Put another way: it's inequality, stupid.

Just a quick scan of the countries that fared really well in all three categories (Norway, Sweden, Japan, Finland and the Netherlands) compared to the countries that fared really badly (America and Britain) gives a pretty good indication that the inequality that is rampant in the (allegedly) dumber nations might have something to do with their pitifully low scores. A closer look at the results is also revealing. The incomes of Americans who scored the highest on literacy tests are on average 60% higher than the incomes of Americans with the lowest literacy scores, who were also twice as likely to be unemployed. So broadly speaking, the better off the American, the better they did on the tests.

Now this is just a wild guess, but could this possibly have something to do with the fact that the kind of schools a poor American kid will have access to are likely to be significantly inferior to the kinds of schools wealthier kids get to attend? Or that because of this, a poor kid's chances of getting into a good university, even if she could manage to pay for it, are also severely compromised? And let me go one step further and suggest that the apparent acceleration of America's dumbing down might be directly connected with the country's rising poverty rates.

Before I go on, I should say that even I can see some holes in the above theory. You only have to look at certain members of congress (read Republicans who forced the government to shutdown last week), for instance, many of whom attended some of the finest universities (and make bucket loads of money), to see that even an Ivy League education may be of little use to a person who is simply prone to stupidity. I should add also that many people believe that it's the large immigrant population (of which I'm a member) who are responsible for bringing down the nation's IQ, which further complicates the dumb American narrative. Indeed one could argue all day about the reasons Americans are falling behind, (Woody Allen blames fast food), but we should at least be able to agree on the remedies.

Here's the thing, most economists agree that in this technology driven age, a highly skilled workforce is key to any real economic recovery. It doesn't bode well for the future then that so many American students, particularly low-income and minority students, are graduating high school without basic reading or math skills. Nor does it inspire confidence that students who leave school without basic skills are not acquiring them as adults. So America's alleged dumbness has a lot to do with inadequate schooling for (poor) children and teenagers and a dearth of continuing education opportunities for low-income adults. By contrast, the OECD study found that in (more equal) countries that fared better in the tests, like Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands, more than 60% of the adult population have engaged in continuing education programs or on the job training.

The smart thing to do then surely would be to pour resources into early and continuing education opportunities so that American adults will be equipped with the necessary skills to compete in the global economy. This is where the dumb argument really gets a boost, however, because the opposite is happening. Those same congressional geniuses I alluded to earlier are also responsible for forcing through the cuts known as sequestration, which among other things cut 5% from the federal education budget. Because federal education funding is doled out according to the number of low-income students in a given school, it is poor children, the ones who most need the help, who are being disproportionately impacted by the cuts. Furthermore since 2010, almost $65m, over one-tenth of the entire budget, has been cut from adult education grants.

So are Americans dumb? The answer appears to be yes, some are. The dumb ones are not the poor minorities or low skilled adults who fared badly on the OECD tests, however, but a certain privileged and selfish elite, who have suffered from no want of opportunities themselves, yet seem to think that denying millions of struggling Americans an equal (or indeed any) opportunity to get ahead is a sensible way forward. The results are in now and clearly it isn't. The question is will enough Americans be smart enough to do something about it?

http://www.alternet.org/education/are-americans-dumb-no-its-inequality-stupid?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark