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phroyd · 5 years ago

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And that's simply all that is happening here, political use of The Justice Department before a difficult election, to get PR leverage. - Phroyd

" ... The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. ... Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. ... "

WASHINGTON — For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began.

Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election.

Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.

The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself.

Mr. Barr’s reliance on Mr. Durham, a widely respected and veteran prosecutor who has investigated C.I.A. torture and broken up Mafia rings, could help insulate the attorney general from accusations that he is doing the president’s bidding and putting politics above justice.

It was not clear what potential crime Mr. Durham is investigating, nor when the criminal investigation was prompted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Trump is certain to see the criminal investigation as a vindication of the years he and his allies have spent trying to discredit the Russia investigation. In May, Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Sean Hannity that the F.B.I. officials who opened the case — a counterintelligence investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Moscow’s election sabotage — had committed treason.

“We can never allow these treasonous acts to happen to another president,” Mr. Trump said. He has called the F.B.I. investigation one of the biggest political scandals in United States history.

Federal investigators need only a “reasonable indication” that a crime has been committed to open an investigation, a much lower standard than the probable cause required to obtain search warrants. However, “there must be an objective, factual basis for initiating the investigation; a mere hunch is insufficient,” according to Justice Department guidelines.

When Mr. Barr appointed Mr. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, to lead the review, he had only the power to voluntarily question people and examine government files.

Mr. Barr expressed skepticism of the Russia investigation even before joining the Trump administration. Weeks after being was sworn in this year, he said he intended to scrutinize how it started and used the term “spying” to describe investigators’ surveillance of Trump campaign advisers. But he has been careful to say he wants to determine whether investigators acted lawfully.

“The question is whether it was adequately predicated,” he told lawmakers in April. “And I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t adequately predicated. But I need to explore that.”

Mr. Barr began the administrative review of the Russia investigation in May, saying that he had conversations with intelligence and law enforcement officials that led him to believethat the F.B.I. acted improperly, if not unlawfully.

The F.B.I. opened the investigation in late July 2016, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, after receiving information from the Australian government that a Trump campaign adviser had been approached with an offer of stolen emails that could damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

F.B.I. agents discovered the offer shortly after stolen Democratic emails were released, and the events, along with ties between other Trump advisers and Russia, set off fears that the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russia’s interference.

The F.B.I. did not use information from the C.I.A. in opening the Russia investigation, former American officials said. But agents’ views on Russia’s election interference operation crystallized by mid-August, after the C.I.A. director at the time, John O. Brennan, shared intelligence with Mr. Comey about it.

The C.I.A. did contribute heavily to the intelligence community’s assessment in early 2017 that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and tried to tip it in Mr. Trump’s favor, and law enforcement officials later used those findings to bolster their application for a wiretap on a Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The special counsel who took over the Russia investigation in 2017, Robert S. Mueller III, secured convictions or guilty pleas from a handful of Trump associates and indictments of more than two dozen Russians on charges related to their wide-ranging interference scheme.

In his report, Mr. Mueller said that he had “insufficient evidence” to determine whether Mr. Trump or his aides engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russians but that the campaign welcomed the sabotage and expected to benefit from it.

Mr. Barr is closely managing the Durham investigation, even traveling to Italy to seek help from officials there to run down an unfounded conspiracy that is at the heart of conservatives’ attacks on the Russia investigation — that the Italian government helped set up the Trump campaign adviser who was told in 2016 that the Russians had damaging information that could hurt Clinton’s campaign.

But Italy’s intelligence services told Mr. Barr that they played no such role in the events leading to the Russia investigation, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said in a news conference on Wednesday. Mr. Barr has also contacted government officials in Britain and Australia about their roles in the early stages of the Russia investigation.

Revelations so far about Mr. Durham’s investigation have shown that he has focused in his first months on the accusations that Mr. Trump’s conservative allies have made about the origins of the Russia inquiry in their efforts to undermine it. Mr. Durham’s efforts have prompted criticism that he and Mr. Barr are trying to deliver the president a political victory, though investigators would typically run down all aspects of a case to complete a review of it.

Mr. Durham is running the investigation with a trusted aide, Nora R. Dannehy, and a pair of retired F.B.I. agents. Other prosecutors are also assisting, people familiar with the investigation said.

In interviewing more than two dozen former and current F.B.I. and intelligence officials, Mr. Durham’s investigators have asked about any anti-Trump bias among officials who worked on the Russia investigation and about one aspect of the investigation that was at the heart of highly contentious allegations that they abused their powers: the secret application seeking a court order for a wiretap on Mr. Page.

Law enforcement officials suspected Mr. Page was the target of recruitment by the Russian government, which he has denied.

Mr. Durham has also asked whether C.I.A. officials might have somehow tricked the F.B.I. into opening the Russia investigation.

Mr. Durham has indicated he wants to interview former officials who ran the C.I.A. in 2016 but has yet to question either Mr. Brennan or James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence. Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked them as part of a vast conspiracy by the so-called deep state to stop him from winning the presidency.

Some C.I.A. officials have retained criminal lawyers in anticipation of being interviewed. It was not clear whether Mr. Durham was scrutinizing other former top intelligence officials. Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the former director of the National Security Agency, declined to say whether he had spoken with Mr. Durham’s investigators.

Mr. Durham also has yet to question many of the former F.B.I. officials involved in opening the Russia investigation.

As Mr. Durham’s investigation moves forward, the Justice Department inspector general is wrapping up his own inquiry into aspects of the F.B.I.’s conduct in the early days of the Russia investigation. Among other things, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is scrutinizing the application for a warrant to wiretap Mr. Page.

Mr. Barr has not said whether Mr. Durham’s investigation grew out of the inspector general’s findings or something that prosecutors unearthed while doing interviews or reviewing documents. But the inspector general’s findings, which are expected to be made public in coming weeks, could contribute to the public’s understanding of why Mr. Durham might want to investigate national security officials’ activities in 2016.

Though the inspector general’s report deals with sensitive information, Mr. Horowitz anticipates that little of it will be blacked out when he releases the document publicly, he wrote in a lettersent to lawmakers on Thursday and obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Durham has delved before into the secret world of intelligence gathering during the Bush and Obama administrations. He was asked in 2008 to investigate why the C.I.A. destroyed tapes depicting detainees being tortured. The next year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appointed Mr. Durham to spearhead an investigation into the C.IA. abuses.

Career prosecutors had already examined many of the same cases and declined to bring charges, and in an echo of the Russia investigation, they fumed that Mr. Holder was revisiting the issue. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, then the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the abuses had been “exhaustively reviewed” and that a new inquiry could put national security at risk.

After nearly four years, Mr. Durham’s investigation ended with no charges against C.I.A. officers, including two directly involved in the deaths of two detainees, angering human rights activists.

Phroyd

#trump #barr #rusia #criminal

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thetens-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Save the Children Recruitment for MEAL Officer – OFDA, July 2017

Save the Children Recruitment for MEAL Officer – OFDA, July 2017 Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries, including the United States. We aim to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives by improving their health, education and economic…

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captain-ciro-blog1 · 5 years ago

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other in california festival attack

1 other in california festival attack (2) Spokane Fire Department personnel were able to use an air bag system to lift the SUV from the male and female riders. He allegedly told police he was not displaying the inspection and emissions stickers because he recently had his windshield replaced, but could not provide the original stickers from his previous windshield, police say.. Has for many years been the destination for students and teachers to get the gear they want for the school year at the prices they need, and that's still at the top of our list," said Scott Bayles, vice president of merchandising at Walmart. Monica says the new registrations reflected both coach outlet online political parties and a few independents. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. This contest is void where prohibited by law and outside the contest area set forth below. 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Some of the contributions by SMEs towards Malaysian economy are; providing value added activities in the manufacturing sector, expanding output, creating employment opportunities especially in the services sector and contributing to broadening Malaysia's export base.However, because SMEs are often small and inexperienced as compared to many other larger and well established multinational companies, banks are usually reluctant to lend money to them. "We can take any team for granted," Westview junior first baseman Ananya Koneti. The process that led up to his mysterious recruitment is becoming clear, and it started with the Department of Justice announcing Tuesday that it filed charges against 10 men who played a role in bribing the families of multiple basketball recruits in exchange for college commitments. He said the woman told police she was the one driving. "You've got years, no one finishes." 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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years ago

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Accenture, the silent partner cleaning up Facebook for $500 million a year

In 2019, Julie Sweet, the newly appointed chief executive officer of global consulting firm Accenture, held a meeting with top managers. She had a question: Should Accenture get out of some of the work it was doing for a leading client, Facebook?

For years, tensions had mounted within Accenture over a certain task that it performed for the social network. In eight-hour shifts, thousands of its full-time employees and contractors were sorting through Facebook’s most noxious posts, including images, videos and messages about suicides, beheadings and sexual acts, trying to prevent them from spreading online.

Some of those Accenture workers, who reviewed hundreds of Facebook posts in a shift, said they had started experiencing depression, anxiety and paranoia. In the United States, one worker had joined a class-action lawsuit to protest the working conditions. News coverage linked Accenture to the grisly work. So Sweet had ordered a review to discuss the growing ethical, legal and reputational risks.

At the meeting in Accenture’s Washington office, she and Ellyn Shook, head of human resources, voiced concerns about the psychological toll of the work for Facebook and the damage to the firm’s reputation, attendees said. Some executives who oversaw the account argued that the problems were manageable. They said the social network was too lucrative a client to lose.

The meeting ended with no resolution.

Facebook and Accenture have rarely talked about their arrangement or even acknowledged that they work with each other. But their secretive relationship lies at the heart of an effort by the world’s largest social media company to distance itself from the most toxic part of its business.

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For years, Facebook has been under scrutiny for the violent and hateful content that flows through its site. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly pledged to clean up the platform. He has promoted the use of artificial intelligence to weed out toxic posts and touted efforts to hire thousands of workers to remove the messages that AI doesn’t.

But behind the scenes, Facebook has quietly paid others to take on much of the responsibility. Since 2012, the company has hired at least 10 consulting and staffing firms globally to sift through its posts, along with a wider web of subcontractors, according to interviews and public records.

No company has been more crucial to that endeavor than Accenture. The Fortune 500 firm, better known for providing high-end tech, accounting and consulting services to multinational companies and governments, has become Facebook’s single biggest partner in moderating content, according to an examination by The New York Times.

Accenture has taken on the work — and given it a veneer of respectability — because Facebook has signed contracts with it for content moderation and other services worth at least $500 million a year, according to The Times’ examination. Accenture employs more than a third of the 15,000 people whom Facebook has said it has hired to inspect its posts. And while the agreements provide only a small fraction of Accenture’s annual revenue, they give it an important lifeline into Silicon Valley. Within Accenture, Facebook is known as a “diamond client.”

Their contracts, which have not previously been reported, have redefined the traditional boundaries of an outsourcing relationship. Accenture has absorbed the worst facets of moderating content and made Facebook’s content issues its own. As a cost of doing business, it has dealt with workers’ mental health issues from reviewing the posts. It has grappled with labor activism when those workers pushed for more pay and benefits. And it has silently borne public scrutiny when they have spoken out against the work.

Those issues have been compounded by Facebook’s demanding hiring targets and performance goals and so many shifts in its content policies that Accenture struggled to keep up, 15 current and former employees said. And when faced with legal action from moderators about the work, Accenture stayed quiet as Facebook argued that it was not liable because the workers belonged to Accenture and others.

“You couldn’t have Facebook as we know it today without Accenture,” said Cori Crider, a co-founder of Foxglove, a law firm that represents content moderators. “Enablers like Accenture, for eye-watering fees, have let Facebook hold the core human problem of its business at arm’s length.”

The Times interviewed more than 40 current and former Accenture and Facebook employees, labor lawyers and others about the companies’ relationship, which also includes accounting and advertising work. Most spoke anonymously because of nondisclosure agreements and fear of reprisal. The Times also reviewed Facebook and Accenture documents, legal records and regulatory filings.

Facebook and Accenture declined to make executives available for comment. Drew Pusateri, a Facebook spokesperson, said the company was aware that content moderation “jobs can be difficult, which is why we work closely with our partners to constantly evaluate how to best support these teams.”

Stacey Jones, an Accenture spokesperson, said the work was a public service that was “essential to protecting our society by keeping the internet safe.”

Neither company mentioned the other by name.

Pornographic Posts Much of Facebook’s work with Accenture traces back to a nudity problem.

In 2007, millions of users joined the social network every month — and many posted naked photos. A settlement that Facebook reached that year with Andrew Cuomo, who was New York’s attorney general, required the company to take down pornographic posts flagged by users within 24 hours.

Facebook employees who policed content were soon overwhelmed by the volume of work, members of the team said. Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, and other executives pushed the team to find automated solutions for combing through the content, three of them said.

Facebook also began looking at outsourcing, they said. Outsourcing was cheaper than hiring people and provided tax and regulatory benefits, along with the flexibility to grow or shrink quickly in regions where the company did not have offices or language expertise. Sandberg helped champion the outsourcing idea, they said, and midlevel managers worked out the details.

By 2011, Facebook was working with oDesk, a service that recruited freelancers to review content. But in 2012, after news site Gawker reported that oDesk workers in Morocco and elsewhere were paid as little as $1 per hour for the work, Facebook began seeking another partner.

Facebook landed on Accenture. Formerly known as Andersen Consulting, the firm had rebranded as Accenture in 2001 after a break with accounting firm Arthur Andersen. And it wanted to gain traction in Silicon Valley.

In 2010, Accenture scored an accounting contract with Facebook. By 2012, that had expanded to include a deal for moderating content, particularly outside the United States.

That year, Facebook sent employees to Manila, Philippines, and Warsaw, Poland, to train Accenture workers to sort through posts, two former Facebook employees involved with the trip said. Accenture’s workers were taught to use a Facebook software system and the platform’s guidelines for leaving content up, taking it down or escalating it for review.

‘Honey Badger’ What started as a few dozen Accenture moderators grew rapidly.

By 2015, Accenture’s office in the San Francisco Bay Area had set up a team, code-named Honey Badger, just for Facebook’s needs, former employees said. Accenture went from providing about 300 workers in 2015 to about 3,000 in 2016. They are a mix of full-time employees and contractors, depending on the location and task.

The firm soon parlayed its work with Facebook into moderation contracts with YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and others, executives said. (The digital content moderation industry is projected to reach $8.8 billion next year, according to Everest Group, roughly double the 2020 total.) Facebook also gave Accenture contracts in areas like checking for fake or duplicate user accounts and monitoring celebrity and brand accounts to ensure they were not flooded with abuse.

After federal authorities discovered in 2016 that Russian operatives had used Facebook to spread divisive posts to U.S. voters for the presidential election, the company ramped up the number of moderators. It said it would hire more than 3,000 people — on top of the 4,500 it already had — to police the platform.

“If we’re going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly,” Zuckerberg said in a 2017 post.

The next year, Facebook hired Arun Chandra, a former Hewlett Packard Enterprise executive, as vice president of scaled operations to help oversee the relationship with Accenture and others. His division is overseen by Sandberg.

Facebook also spread the content work to other firms, such as Cognizant and TaskUs. Facebook now provides a third of TaskUs’ business, or $150 million a year, according to regulatory filings.

The work was challenging. While more than 90% of objectionable material that comes across Facebook and Instagram is removed by AI, outsourced workers must decide whether to leave up the posts that the AI doesn’t catch.

They receive a performance score that is based on correctly reviewing posts against Facebook’s policies. If they make mistakes more than 5% of the time, they can be fired, Accenture employees said.

But Facebook’s rules about what was acceptable changed constantly, causing confusion. When people used a gas station emoji as slang for selling marijuana, workers deleted the posts for violating the company’s content policy on drugs. Facebook then told moderators not to remove the posts, before later reversing course.

Facebook also tweaked its moderation technology, adding new keyboard shortcuts to speed up the review process. But the updates were sometimes released with little warning, increasing errors.

As of May, Accenture billed Facebook for roughly 1,900 full-time moderators in Manila; 1,300 in Mumbai, India; 850 in Lisbon; 780 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 300 in Warsaw; 300 in Mountain View, California; 225 in Dublin; and 135 in Austin, Texas, according to staffing records reviewed by The Times.

At the end of each month, Accenture sent invoices to Facebook detailing the hours worked by its moderators and the volume of content reviewed. Each U.S. moderator generated $50 or more per hour for Accenture, two people with knowledge of the billing said. In contrast, moderators in some U.S. cities received starting pay of $18 an hour.

Psychological Costs Within Accenture, workers began questioning the effects of viewing so many hateful posts.

Accenture hired mental health counselors to handle the fallout. Izabela Dziugieł, a counselor who worked in Accenture’s Warsaw office, said she told managers in 2018 that they were hiring people ill-prepared to sort through the content. Her office handled posts from the Middle East, including gruesome images and videos of the Syrian war.

“They would just hire anybody,” said Dziugiel, who previously treated soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. She left the firm in 2019.

In Dublin, one Accenture moderator who sifted through Facebook content left a suicide note on his desk in 2018, said a mental health counselor who was involved in the episode. The worker was found safe.

Joshua Sklar, a moderator in Austin who quit in April, said he had reviewed 500 to 700 posts a shift, including images of dead bodies after car crashes and videos of animals being tortured.

“One video that I watched was a guy who was filming himself raping a little girl,” said Sklar, who described his experience in an internal post that later became public. “It was just awful.”

If workers went around Accenture’s chain of command and directly communicated with Facebook about content issues, they risked being reprimanded, he added. That made Facebook slower to learn about and react to problems, he said.

Facebook said anyone filtering content could escalate concerns.

Another former moderator in Austin, Spencer Darr, said in a legal hearing in June that the job had required him to make unimaginable decisions, such as whether to delete a video of a dog being skinned alive or simply mark it as disturbing. “Content moderators’ job is an impossible one,” he said.

In 2018, Accenture introduced WeCare — policies that mental health counselors said limited their ability to treat workers. Their titles were changed to “wellness coaches” and they were instructed not to give psychological assessments or diagnoses, but to provide “short-term support” like taking walks or listening to calming music. The goal, according to a 2018 Accenture guidebook, was to teach moderators “how to respond to difficult situations and content.”

Accenture’s Jones said the company was “committed to helping our people who do this important work succeed both professionally and personally.” Workers can see outside psychologists.

By 2019, scrutiny of the industry was growing. That year, Cognizant said it was exiting content moderation after tech site The Verge described the low pay and mental health effects of workers at an Arizona office. Cognizant said the decision would cost it at least $240 million in revenue and lead to 6,000 job cuts.

Internal Debate More than one Accenture chief executive debated doing business with Facebook.

In 2017, Pierre Nanterme, Accenture’s chief at the time, questioned the ethics of the work and whether it fit the firm’s long-term strategy of providing services with high profit margins and technical expertise, three executives involved in the discussions said.

No actions were taken. Nanterme died of cancer in January 2019.

Five months later, Sweet, a longtime Accenture lawyer and executive, was named chief executive. She soon ordered the review of the moderation business, three former colleagues said.

Executives prepared reports and debated how the work compared with jobs like an ambulance driver. Consultants were sent to observe moderators and their managers.

The office in Austin, which had opened in 2017, was selected for an audit as part of Sweet’s review. The city was also home to a Facebook office and had large populations of Spanish and Arabic speakers to read non-English posts. At its peak, Accenture’s Austin office had about 300 moderators parsing through Facebook posts.

But some workers there became unhappy about the pay and viewing so much toxic content. Organizing through text messages and internal message boards, they called for better wages and benefits. Some shared their stories with the media.

Last year, a worker in Austin was one of two from Accenture who joined a class-action suit against Facebook filed by U.S. moderators. Facebook argued that it was not liable because the workers were employed by firms like Accenture, according to court records. After the judge in the case ruled against Facebook, the company reached a $52 million settlement with the workers in May 2020.

For Sweet, the debate over the Facebook contracts stretched out over several meetings, former executives said. She subsequently made several changes.

In December 2019, Accenture created a two-page legal disclosure to inform moderators about the risks of the job. The work had “the potential to negatively impact your emotional or mental health,” the document said.

Last October, Accenture went further. It listed content moderation for the first time as a risk factor in its annual report, saying it could leave the firm vulnerable to media scrutiny and legal trouble. Accenture also restricted new moderation clients, two people with knowledge of the policy shift said. Any new contracts required approval from senior management.

But Sweet also left some things untouched, they said.

Among them: the contracts with Facebook. Ultimately, the people said, the client was too valuable to walk away from.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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‘Is This Worth My Life?’: Traveling Health Workers Decry COVID Care Conditions

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

David Joel Perea called from Maine, Vermont, Minnesota and, ultimately, Nevada, always with the same request: “Mom, can you send tamales?” Dominga Perea would ship them overnight.

That’s how she knew where her 35-year-old son was.

The traveling nurse had “a tremendous work ethic,” routinely putting in 80 hours a week, said his brother, Daniel.

But when Perea took a job at Lakeside Health & Wellness Suites — a Reno nursing home that has received dozens of safety citations since 2017 from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Dominga was “scared silly.”

During Perea’s stint, nearly one-fifth of Lakeside’s residents were infected with COVID-19, according to state health records. Lakeside’s “top priority is the safety of those who live and work in our facility,” a spokesperson said.

When her son didn’t respond to her text on April 6, Dominga knew something was wrong. Perea had COVID-19. He died days later.

As COVID-19 surges across the country, health care systems continue to suffer critical shortages, especially among non-physician staff such as nurses, X-ray technicians and respiratory therapists.

To replenish their ranks, facilities have relied on “travelers” like Perea. Staff agencies have deployed tens of thousands nationally since March outbreaks in the Northeast.

Now the virus is tearing through rural areas — particularly in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states — stressing the limited medical infrastructure.

Rural hospitals have relied largely on traveling nurses to fill staffing shortages that existed even before the pandemic, said Tim Blasl, president of the North Dakota Hospital Association. “They find staff for you, but it’s really expensive labor,” he said. “Our hospitals are willing to invest so the people of North Dakota get care.”

The arrangement presents risks for travelers and their patients. Personnel ping-ponging between overwhelmed cities and underserved towns could introduce infections. As contractors, travelers sometimes feel tensions their full-time colleagues do not. Frequently employed by staffing agencies based thousands of miles away, they can find themselves working in crisis without advocates or adequate safety equipment.

In 2020, the upsides of their jobs — freedom and flexibility — have been dwarfed by treacherous conditions. Now the ranks of travelers are thinning: The work is exhausting, bruising and dangerous. Thousands of front-line health workers have gotten the virus and hundreds have died, according to reporting by KHN and The Guardian.

On April 17, Lois Twum, a 23-year-old traveling nurse from New Orleans, was one of four passengers on a flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

When the self-described “adventure-seeking adrenaline junkie” arrived for her first shift at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, she said, she was assigned four patients on a COVID-19 unit. (Intensive care nurses typically care for two or three patients.) As these “constantly crashing” patients required resuscitations and intubations, “there was practically no one to help,” Twum said, because “everyone’s patient was critical.” The hospital did not respond to requests for comment on the workplace conditions and treatment of travelers.

Meanwhile, as hospital employees got sick, quit or were furloughed amid budget cuts, travelers picked up the slack. They were redeployed, Twum said, assigned more patients as well as the sickest ones.

“It was like we were airdropped into Iraq,” Twum said. “Travelers, we got the worst of it.”

On social media and in email groups, recruiters for travelers circulate photos of sun-splashed skylines or coastlines emblazoned with dollar signs, boasting salaries two or three times those of staff nurses. They promise signing bonuses, relocation bonuses and referral bonuses. They make small talk, ask about travelers’ families and suggest restaurants in new cities.

But when it comes to navigating workplace issues, “these people can just disappear on you,” said Anna Skinner, a respiratory therapist who has traveled for over a decade. “They are not your friends.”

Caught between the hospitals where they report for duty and remote staffing agencies, their worker protections are blurred.

For instance, under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, providing protective equipment is the agency’s responsibility — but the travelers who spoke with KHN said agencies rarely distribute any.

Perea’s family said they believe David did not have adequate PPE. His employer said it was the nursing home’s responsibility to provide it. “It is up to each of our clients to provide PPE to our staff while they are working assignments through MAS,” said Sara Moore, a spokesperson for Perea’s agency, MAS Medical Staffing.

Sometimes travelers are assigned to emergency rooms or intensive care units with which they have little experience. Skinner, a pediatric specialist, said she landed in adult ICUs when deployed to the University of Miami Health System in April. She received an hour of orientation, she said, but “nothing could have prepared me for what I had to deal with.”

Over five weeks, she said, she intubated one patient after another; suctioned the blood pouring into patients’ lungs and out of their noses and mouths; and dealt with families who were aghast, angry and afraid. Under the stress, Skinner said, she couldn’t sleep and lost weight. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment on workplace conditions for travelers.

Travelers often face “incredibly onerous” hurdles to the overtime, sick leave or workers’ compensation they are entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act, said Nathan Piller, a lawyer at Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky, an employment and business litigation firm.

Even the number of hours they can count on working is out of their control, Skinner said. Contracts reviewed by KHN authorize travelers to work a set number of hours, but only a fraction of those hours are guaranteed, and must be approved by on-site managers. The guaranteed hours may be compensated at rates hovering around minimum wage, and may require working holidays, which are not uniformly recognized.

The terms can be “modified from time to time during employment,” according to the contracts.

In 2018, AMN Healthcare, one of the country’s largest travel nursing agencies, agreed to a $20 million settlement for wage violations involving nearly 9,000 travelers. Violations “appear fairly commonplace across the industry,” said Piller, who worked on the settlement.

Travelers, Skinner said, are left to advocate for themselves to managers they might have just met — and “complaining just isn’t an option.”

KHN reviewed travel nursing contracts issued by Aya Healthcare, a large staffing agency, and found that any disputes — wrongful termination claims; claims of discrimination, harassment or retaliation; wage claims; and claims for violation of federal, state or other laws or regulations — must be settled out of court, in arbitration.

Officials at the Service Employees International Union, the American Nurses Association and National Nurses United said their constituents have been suspended or fired from traveling worker agencies for speaking to the news media, posting on social media or otherwise voicing concerns about unfair practices.

Matthew Wall, a longtime traveling nurse, knows this all too well. In July, two days into his assignment at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, Wall said, he reported to hospital administrators “undeniably unsafe” conditions for himself and patients, including inadequate PPE, long hours and high patient-to-staff ratios.

Instead of addressing his concerns, Wall said, the hospital — which is under investigation by the federal government for workplace safety issues after another traveling nurse died of COVID-19 in mid-March — canceled his contract. “Travelers are treated like dog chow,” Wall said. “The second you become a liability, they dispose of you.”

“We continue to closely follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines paired with our best practices in patient care and safety for all,” said John Manasso, a hospital spokesperson, who declined to comment on Wall’s case.

Some see an impossible choice. “We all know, if not for us, these patients would have no one,” Twum said, “but watching each other get sick left and right, it makes you wonder, is this worth my life?”

Skinner, for her part, took a job as a staff nurse in Aspen, Colorado. After his current contract in New Orleans ends, Wall is planning a break from nursing.

It was like we were airdropped into Iraq.

Lois Twum

Dominga Perea finally received a text back the night of April 6: “Don’t panic, Mama, I have the COVID.

“Pray for me.”

She saw David over FaceTime on Easter. “He struggled even eating mashed potatoes” she said, “because he couldn’t breathe.” The next morning he went on a ventilator and never woke up.

Months later, Lakeside hadn’t filled Perea’s position. “Ideal candidate must be a caring individual dedicated to providing high quality care,” the job listing read, and “able to react to emergency situations appropriately when required.”

KHN Mountain States editor Matt Volz contributed to this report.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

‘Is This Worth My Life?’: Traveling Health Workers Decry COVID Care Conditions published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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‘Is This Worth My Life?’: Traveling Health Workers Decry COVID Care Conditions

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

David Joel Perea called from Maine, Vermont, Minnesota and, ultimately, Nevada, always with the same request: “Mom, can you send tamales?” Dominga Perea would ship them overnight.

That’s how she knew where her 35-year-old son was.

The traveling nurse had “a tremendous work ethic,” routinely putting in 80 hours a week, said his brother, Daniel.

When her son didn’t respond to her text on April 6, Dominga knew something was wrong. Perea had COVID-19. He died days later.

As COVID-19 surges across the country, health care systems continue to suffer critical shortages, especially among non-physician staff such as nurses, X-ray technicians and respiratory therapists.

To replenish their ranks, facilities have relied on “travelers” like Perea. Staff agencies have deployed tens of thousands nationally since March outbreaks in the Northeast.

Now the virus is tearing through rural areas — particularly in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states — stressing the limited medical infrastructure.

On April 17, Lois Twum, a 23-year-old traveling nurse from New Orleans, was one of four passengers on a flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

“It was like we were airdropped into Iraq,” Twum said. “Travelers, we got the worst of it.”

Caught between the hospitals where they report for duty and remote staffing agencies, their worker protections are blurred.

The terms can be “modified from time to time during employment,” according to the contracts.

Travelers, Skinner said, are left to advocate for themselves to managers they might have just met — and “complaining just isn’t an option.”

Skinner, for her part, took a job as a staff nurse in Aspen, Colorado. After his current contract in New Orleans ends, Wall is planning a break from nursing.

It was like we were airdropped into Iraq.

Lois Twum

Dominga Perea finally received a text back the night of April 6: “Don’t panic, Mama, I have the COVID.

“Pray for me.”

She saw David over FaceTime on Easter. “He struggled even eating mashed potatoes” she said, “because he couldn’t breathe.” The next morning he went on a ventilator and never woke up.

KHN Mountain States editor Matt Volz contributed to this report.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

‘Is This Worth My Life?’: Traveling Health Workers Decry COVID Care Conditions published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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dinafbrownil · 4 years ago

Text

‘Is This Worth My Life?’: Traveling Health Workers Decry COVID Care Conditions

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

David Joel Perea called from Maine, Vermont, Minnesota and, ultimately, Nevada, always with the same request: “Mom, can you send tamales?” Dominga Perea would ship them overnight.

That’s how she knew where her 35-year-old son was.

The traveling nurse had “a tremendous work ethic,” routinely putting in 80 hours a week, said his brother, Daniel.

When her son didn’t respond to her text on April 6, Dominga knew something was wrong. Perea had COVID-19. He died days later.

As COVID-19 surges across the country, health care systems continue to suffer critical shortages, especially among non-physician staff such as nurses, X-ray technicians and respiratory therapists.

To replenish their ranks, facilities have relied on “travelers” like Perea. Staff agencies have deployed tens of thousands nationally since March outbreaks in the Northeast.

Now the virus is tearing through rural areas — particularly in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states — stressing the limited medical infrastructure.

On April 17, Lois Twum, a 23-year-old traveling nurse from New Orleans, was one of four passengers on a flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

“It was like we were airdropped into Iraq,” Twum said. “Travelers, we got the worst of it.”

Caught between the hospitals where they report for duty and remote staffing agencies, their worker protections are blurred.

The terms can be “modified from time to time during employment,” according to the contracts.

Travelers, Skinner said, are left to advocate for themselves to managers they might have just met — and “complaining just isn’t an option.”

Skinner, for her part, took a job as a staff nurse in Aspen, Colorado. After his current contract in New Orleans ends, Wall is planning a break from nursing.

It was like we were airdropped into Iraq.

Lois Twum

Dominga Perea finally received a text back the night of April 6: “Don’t panic, Mama, I have the COVID.

“Pray for me.”

She saw David over FaceTime on Easter. “He struggled even eating mashed potatoes” she said, “because he couldn’t breathe.” The next morning he went on a ventilator and never woke up.

KHN Mountain States editor Matt Volz contributed to this report.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/article/is-this-worth-my-life-traveling-health-workers-decry-covid-care-conditions/

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amtwarranty · 6 years ago

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Six Real Risks Facing Small Businesses in 2019

A slow sales month. An income tax increase. Changing vendors. While challenges like these can slow the momentum of your small business, they probably won’t bring it to a screeching halt.

Whether your business is brand new or a fixture in the community, here are six potentially damaging risks that should be on your radar as we continue to fly through 2019:

1. Business Interruption

Whether caused by Mother Nature, a break in the supply chain or a cyberattack, an abrupt business stoppage can spell doom for a small business. More than 40 percent of small businesses hit by a disaster – from fires to floods – never reopen their doors, per the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Just as dangerous, cyber intrusions such as denial of service and ransomware attacks can cost small businesses tens of thousands of dollars, sensitive data and, ultimately, their customers. Despite the risks, less than a quarter of small businesses have a standalone cyber insurance policy, per a report featured in Insurance Journal. Safeguarding your small business against an unexpected shutdown, business interruption insurance compensates you for lost income during the work stoppage. To help small businesses reduce the impact of a disruptive or catastrophic event, FEMA has links to a variety of resources on its website.

2. Cyber Scares

From spear phishing to malware infestation, cyber and ransomware attacks present a very real threat to today’s small businesses. In fact, over 40 percent of all cyberattacks target small businesses. Besides causing a major disruption, cybercrimes leave their victims with an expensive mess to clean up. For example, in 2018 the average cost of a data breach per compromised record was $148, according the Ponemon Institute (meaning 100 hacked files would cost $14,800 to recover/clean up). On average, it took organizations 196 days to detect a breach, per a 2018 study. Because of the steady growth of connected devices and the digitalization of supply chains, small businesses are more vulnerable to cyberattacks than ever. An advocate for cyber safety, the National Cyber Security Alliance launched CyberSecure My Business, a national program designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses. Because data is today’s commercial currency, a cybersecurity plan should be a part of your small business toolkit. Besides putting the proper safeguards in place, having cyber liability insurance will help protect your business against cyber-related risks.

3. Changes in Legislation and Regulation

Over the past year, our country saw the introduction of groundbreaking legislation in response to a myriad of hot-button issues, from sexual harassment and legalized marijuana to paid leave benefits and the rights of independent contractors. Last spring, California passed legislation limiting the definition of an independent contractor. Under California law, nearly all gig-economy workers – from Instagram marketers to home health care providers – are now considered employees, entitling them to the same rights and protections their traditional counterparts enjoy, including workers’ compensation and health care benefits. The falling of this legal domino has prompted gig employers across the U.S. to revisit their current business models and coverage plans. While proven to improve employee retention, paid leave has been a flashpoint for debate. As of January 2019, more than 40 state and local jurisdictions had implemented paid leave laws, with a number of others planning to introduce policies this year. Besides improving retention, paid leave reduces unplanned employee absenteeism; in 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that almost three percent of an employer’s workforce was absent on any given day. Although paid leave programs benefit both employees and their employers, only 10 states currently require paid sick leave and just five states have paid family-leave programs. To recruit and retain top talent in a tight labor market, many small businesses are enhancing their benefits offerings. Also on the radars of small business owners is the legalization of medical marijuana. As demand for cannabis continues to grow, employers will need to stay current on evolving marijuana laws. Understanding your employees’ rights and having the right employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) can help protect your company against a costly lawsuit. Another catalyst for change is the #MeToo movement, ignited by the news about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and a number of A-list celebrities. By mid-2018, 32 states had introduced more than 125 pieces of sexual harassment legislation. That same year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recovered nearly $70 million for victims of sexual harassment, up from $47.5 million in fiscal year 2017. Awareness, education, training and EPLI coverage are all valuable safeguards for your business.

4. A Shortage of Skilled Employees

Comprising 99.9 percent of the nearly 5.8 million companies in the U.S., small businesses employ nearly half of the nation’s workforce. Thanks to a thriving economy, the number of small businesses planning to create new jobs reached a 45-year high last August, per the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Unfortunately, there were not enough qualified candidates to go around. According to the NFIB’s July 2018 jobs report, 37 percent of small business owners had job openings they could not fill. The construction, manufacturing and wholesale trades had the most frequent job openings, per the report. In 2019, the talent crunch continues.

5. Employee Injuries

According to the National Safety Council, a worker is injured on the job every seven seconds. When a business loses an employee to an injury or illness, both the employee and the employer suffer. Like their larger counterparts, small businesses are responsible for indemnifying their employees who are injured or become ill at work. Having a safety-minded team and a safe work environment will significantly reduce the risk of injury and keep your workers’ compensation costs in check. An experienced loss control team can help you create and implement an effective workplace safety plan that works for everyone. Read AmTrust Financial Associate Vice President Robert Schiller’s article on how to develop a successful return to work program for injured employees.

6. New Technologies

If you’re like many small business owners, you’re using technology to level the playing field between your business and your much larger competition. From accounting and e-commerce software to e-mail marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) tools, there is an array of tech-driven tools to help you market and manage your business. However, if you’re like many small business owners, the choices can be overwhelming. According to a Forbes Insights study, nearly one-third of small business owners surveyed said they were not sure which technology would be best suited for their business. While picking the right technology can be a challenge, not understanding the technology you’ve chosen can put your business at risk. Before making any decisions, ask yourself if the new technology can be implemented seamlessly. If it doesn’t complement – or work with – your key processes, you could be in for an operations nightmare. In other words, your payment software should work with the accounting software. Your digital accounting tools should complement your CRM tools. CRM should work with marketing, and so on. Additionally, thanks to new technology and the IoT, businesses are able to collect and store huge amounts of data. Therefore, backing up and protecting your data is paramount. Opening the door to invasion of privacy lawsuits, a a data breach could do irreparable damage to your business’s reputation. Ongoing employee training, encrypting all company data and archiving (or deleting) old data are all ways to guard against costly cyber risks.

A Strong Focus on Small Businesses

Once a small business ourselves, AmTrust understands the unique challenges they face. Through the years, we have evolved into a multinational property and casualty insurer, one that today serves over 400 classes of business. As the nation’s number one carrier in the small workers’ comp market, AmTrust has been a trusted partner for small businesses like yours since 1998. Today, we are stronger than ever. Offering a suite of customized risk management solutions, we can help you build a coverage plan that best meets the needs of your business.

Article Source:- https://amtrustfinancial.com/blog/small-business/top-risks-small-business-2019

#AMT Warranty #AMT Service Corp #AMT Warranty Corp #Amtrust Warranty

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sociologyquotes · 8 years ago

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It's time to admit police have a history of connections with the KKK

“Larrissa Moore skipped the typical law school summer vacation at a beach. Instead, she spent her summer break holed up inside a Presbyterian church in Georgia, reviewing unsolved murder cases from the civil-rights era.The Mississippi College School of Law student says she wants to be a federal judge, but until that day comes she’s figuring out how to serve justice any way she can.

Moore, 24, spent 10 weeks reviewing old police records looking for clues to help her close unresolved civil-rights era killings, including suspicious cases that may have involved officers pulling the trigger. But the enthusiasm Moore had when she arrived to her internship quickly turned to anger. Moore said she quickly realized many of the officer shootings she was looking at from the 1950s and 1960s sounded a lot like the cases she was seeing in the news in 2015.

“The Michael Browns and Walter Scotts, they’re all repeated,” said Moore, who grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and got her undergraduate degree from Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women.

Moore is still hopeful about what she can achieve in the criminal justice system but says it’s frustrating “to go back and read these newspaper headlines and see that the exact same thing is happening today, that we really haven’t progressed in over 60 years.”

The other scary phenomenon that Moore sees repeating itself over and over: police officers with ties to white supremacist groups.

Moore and four other law school students interned with the Cold Case Justice Initiative (CCJI), a Syracuse University program that investigates unsolved civil rights murders. This year the students were hosted by the Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia.

The students looked at cases from as early as 1946 all the way to 1969, the period allowed by the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. Congress passed the act in 2008 and provided $10 million annually for the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate unresolved racially motivated killings.

And although CCJI was founded to review civil rights cases the small group still gets calls from people looking for help in more recent suspicious murders. In July, Moore started assisting with the case of Rexdale Henry, 53-year-old Native American man who was found dead in a Mississippi jail cell.

Henry was found dead just a day after Sandra Bland was found dead in her Texas jail cell. Henry’s cellmate has been charged with murder. Texas officials said Bland’s autopsy found injuries consistent with suicide. But questions still remain in both cases.

Larrissa Moore focused her research on police officers with ties to the KKK and found one of the group’s first orders was to infiltrate the police department—“because the laws don’t apply to them if they are the law,” she said.

“If you think about the history with the police department, they were pretty much set up to continue white supremacy,” said Moore, who noted the first black law enforcement officials in Georgia were hired in the mid 1940s.

“We had black officers but they could not arrest white people,” said Moore, who said this illustrated that blacks were still inferior in the eyes of the law.

Law enforcement connections with white supremacist groups have continued into present day.

Last year a Florida deputy police chief resigned after the FBI reported that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. No criminal wrongdoing was found for the former police chief of Fruitland Park, a town about 40 miles northwest of Orlando.

"It's not a crime to hate people. It may be despicable, it may be immoral, but it's not a crime," Chief Deputy State Attorney Ric Ridgway told the Orlando Sentinel in July 2014.

A year after he resigned the former deputy police chief was hired in a food service position at a local elementary school. He only lasted in the new job for three days before parents who recognized him pushed him out.

In September a Louisiana police detective was fired after pictures surfaced of him at a KKK rally giving a Nazi salute. A few months earlier the civil-rights group The Southern Poverty Law Center exposed an Anniston, Alabama, police officer for speaking at a rally of the known hate group League of the South.

Law enforcement ties to white supremacist groups have been uncovered outside of the South as well.

A federal judge in 1991 described a clique of deputies at the Lynwood Sheriff's station in Los Angeles as a "neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang." The judge’s finding came after more than 70 Lynwood residents filed a lawsuit alleging deputies engaged "in systematic acts of shooting, killing, brutality, terrorism, house-trashing and other acts of lawlessness and wanton abuse of power," especially against Latinos and blacks, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"There is a direct link between departmental policy makers, who tacitly authorize deputies' unconstitutional behavior, and the injuries suffered by the plaintiffs," wrote U. S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. The county of Los Angeles agreed to a settlement in 1996, promising to retrain deputies and pay $7.5 million to compensate victims of alleged abuses.

Years later in 2012 the L.A. Times reported the L.A. county undersheriff, the department’s second in command, had a Lynwood Vikings tattoo, the name of the group the judge referred to as a "neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang." Former undersheriff Paul Tanaka admitted to having a Vikings tattoo on an ankle and told a local radio station that “it was no big thing. [The viking] was a mascot."

Tanaka left the department in 2013 and is now the mayor of Gardena, a Los Angeles suburb with a population of 60,000 residents. His office did not respond to Fusion’s request for comment.

In an October 2006 report the FBI reported that “white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement” is a “concern” because it can lead to "investigative breaches and can jeopardize the safety of law enforcement sources and personnel."

The FBI report noted the First Amendment's freedom of association provision can protect law enforcement officials’ rights to join white supremacist groups for the purposes of lawful activity. However, the government can limit employment opportunities of hate group members if their "memberships would interfere with their duties."

While noting that the threat still exists, the FBI acknowledged the same findings that Larrissa Moore found in her research: white supremacists groups and leaders “have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement communities."

In many of the cases the law students reviewed, they say if police investigations had “done more there could have been justice for some of these families,” explained Mandisa Styles, a Mercer School of Law student.

The FBI so far has not reviewed any of the 37 cases sent to them by The Cold Case Justice Initiative, according to the group’s founders. The FBI did not respond to several requests for comment. And the extension that allows the interns to review these unsolved cases is running out of time—the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act expires in 2017.

“We have discovered hundreds of killings that aren’t on the FBI’s list that no one’s ever done a full accounting of all the people who have been killed either by Klan or by suspicious police shootings,” said Janis McDonald, a law professor at Syracuse University who co-founded CCJI with law professor Paula Johnson.

Earlier this year the co-directors formed a working group within the United Nation's Human Rights Council Network called Accountability of U.S. for Inaction on Racist Killings, which will examine civil-rights era killings and lynchings and suspicious police killings from the era of slavery until today. McDonald and Johnson went to the U.N. with hopes of requiring the U.S. to respond to these killings.

“Young people today need to put this in context of what happened in the recent past that really has helped contribute to what is going on today,” said Janis McDonald, a law professor at Syracuse University, who co-founded CCJI with law professor Paula Johnson.

This year at least 909 people have been killed by law enforcement officials, according to KilledByPolice.net, a website that tracks police killings by collecting corporate news reports.

A white police officer killed a black person nearly two times a week during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to a USA Today analysis of the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI.

“This work is so important, because history is repeating itself,” said Larrissa Moore.

“If we don’t go back and address these old cases and get accountability for them, it’s going to keep happening.”

---from the article It's time to admit police have a history of connections with the KKK by Jorge Rivas

#sociology #racism #law enforcement #police brutality #police #kkk #neo nazis #united states #black #white #cold cases #White Supremacy #white supremacism #white supremacists #racial discrimination #discrimination #racial bias #racial profiling

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yeskraim · 5 years ago

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Crane season, corporal punishment, Common Core: News from around our 50 states

Alabama

Mobile: A vote by the Mobile City Council has moved the northern Gulf Coast one step closer to resumption of regular Amtrak service for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. Members voted 6-1 to approve a grant application for restoring passenger train service to the city, news outlets report. The train would link New Orleans and Mobile twice daily with stops in Mississippi in Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis. Mobile would be asked to pay about $3 million over three years beginning in 2023, and the state could be asked to help. The states of Louisiana and Mississippi have already committed millions. The Southern Rail Commission said it is applying for nearly $8 million in federal grant money for the project, and Mobile’s commitment was needed to move forward. Actual train service is still likely years away, officials said.

Alaska

Kaktovik: An overnight fire destroyed the only school in this North Slope village early Friday morning, Anchorage television station KTUU reports. The school, part of the North Slope Borough School District, was a total loss, Kaktovik Mayor Amanda Kaleak says. Kaktovik resident Melvin Kayotuk captured video of the fire. “We woke up then heard the school was on fire,” Kayotuk says. The official cause of the fire hasn’t been determined. Pipes had frozen in the school, Kayotuk says, and heaters were attempting to thaw them out. “I feel sad for our kids that are gone right now,” Kayotuk says. “They went to play a ball game in another village, and they’re going to come home, and they’re going to have no more school.” No injuries were reported. Kaktovik is an Inupiat village of 250 on the Beaufort Sea about 75 miles northeast of the Canada border.

Arizona

Phoenix: Legislators are proposing a new law to block airports across the state from raising fees on ride-sharing services, like Uber and Lyft. Rep. Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, says House Bill 2817 rolls back the fees on rides to and from airports to the same levels as at the end of 2017. That would cut existing fees and block an increase that Phoenix Sky Harbor is planning for ride-sharing services, says Grantham, who is sponsoring the measure. Phoenix already charges a fee of $2.66 for ride-share companies picking up passengers at the airport. But the city had planned on a new fee of $4 for picking up passengers as well as $4 for dropping off passengers. The fee would then increase by 25 cents each year, reaching $5 each way in 2024. Uber threatened to stop operating at Sky Harbor if Phoenix implemented the new fees.

Arkansas

El Dorado: Officers on Friday shot and injured a man who authorities say struck a deputy with his vehicle outside the sheriff’s office and threatened to shoot officers inside. The El Dorado News-Times reports multiple deputies were placed on paid administrative leave while the Union County Sheriff’s Office and Arkansas State Police investigate the incident. Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts told the newspaper that officers approached the man who was in the parking lot of the sheriff’s office after he made the threats. The man drove toward the approaching officers and struck Chief Deputy Charlie Phillips, Roberts said. Deputies fired at the man and struck him in the arm, causing him to crash into a sheriff’s office employee’s vehicle in the lot. Roberts declined to release the man’s name but said he had been treated and was in custody.

California

Sacramento: Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to pause physical education tests for students for three years due to concerns over bullying and the test discriminating against disabled and nonbinary students. The move also comes after annual test results show a growing percentage of students scoring not healthy. H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Department of Finance, said the state has received complaints that the current examination’s measurement of body mass index is discriminatory to nonbinary students. A measurement calculated from weight and height, BMI screenings require students to select “male” or “female,” he said. Annual state reports of the fitness test since the 2014-2015 school year show a steady decline in the share of students scoring healthy, according to a review by the Associated Press. Students’ scores have particularly dropped in the category of the fitness test that measures “aerobic capacity.”

Colorado

Denver: A bill that aims to boost immunization rates and make it more difficult for parents to opt their children out of vaccinations is expected to be introduced soon at the Capitol, and Gov. Jared Polis says he’ll support it. The proposal – sure to heat up the discussion on immunizations, protecting public health and parents’ rights – would require parents who want to opt out to get a signed document from a medical professional or watch an online video, produced by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Right now, parents simply submit a form to a child’s school. The proposal would not eliminate non-medical or personal belief exemptions. Polis’ office said as it stands, he backs the measure. “The governor is encouraged by the conversations he has had with the bill sponsors and appreciates their hard work,” said a statement from his office.

Connecticut

Hartford: Initial testing has failed to identify two victims of the 1944 Hartford circus fire whose bodies were exhumed from a cemetery, the state’s chief medical examiner said Friday. Dr. James Gill also announced that anthropological examination and dental comparisons excluded a Vermont woman as being one of the two people whose remains were exhumed. The bodies were removed in October from two of five graves of unidentified circus fire victims at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor. A state judge approved the exhumations in hopes of determining whether one of them was Grace Fifield, a 47-year-old woman from Newport, Vermont, who was never seen again after attending the circus on the day of the fire. The fire at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus on July 6, 1944, killed 168 people and injured 682 others.

Delaware

Wilmington: University of Delaware President Dennis Assanis has told a legislative committee that a lack of qualified students is to blame for low in-state enrollment at the school. During a hearing Thursday before the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, Assanis was asked why less than 40% of the school’s students come from Delaware. “I am not the one holding back the kids in Delaware to come into the university,” Assanis said. “We need better-qualified students who come out of our K-12. Because we don’t want to put them into a first-class environment and then lead them to having mental health problems.” Legislators quizzed Assanis about the university’s enrollment of Delawareans and underrepresented students, groups the school has long struggled to recruit. Assanis said a slowdown in population growth and a lack of qualified students coming out of Delaware high schools are to blame.

District of Columbia

Washington: The white nationalist group Patriot Front marched near Union Station on Saturday afternoon, WUSA-TV reports. Members of Patriot Front shouted “reclaim America!” as they moved down the streets of D.C. The group ended its march at a Walmart in the Union Station area, as some onlookers called them cowards, witnesses say. Dressed in similar long-sleeved clothing with hats, masks, sunglasses and American flags, the group was trailed and surrounded by police officers who were there to de-escalate any issues that arose. The group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is an image-obsessed organization that rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism. The SPLC says Patriot Front focuses on “theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country.”

Florida

Tallahassee: Common Core is over in the Sunshine State. The state Department of Education said in a statement Friday that the controversial set of academic standards “has been officially eradicated from Florida classrooms.” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said he is recommending that the state Board of Education adapt Common Core’s successor, Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking. The Common Core standards were first proposed a decade ago by associations of governors and state education chiefs, and they were embraced in Florida by former Gov. Jeb Bush. The standards were adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia but have come under criticism in the past decade. A broad coalition of conservatives, liberals, parents and teachers found fault with Common Core for different reasons. After taking office last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis promised to get rid of Common Core.

Georgia

Atlanta: The state could soon loosen safety standards for dams that sit above newly built homes, under a proposal unanimously passed by a state Senate committee. Senate Bill 319 would allow for homes and other inhabitable structures to be built in a dam’s inundation zone – the area that would be flooded if the dam fails – without causing the dam to be recategorized and required to meet higher safety standards. The structures would have to be built to withstand a breach of the dam and receive certification from an engineer approved by the state Environmental Protection Division’s Safe Dams Program. The bill’s sponsor, Republican State Sen. Frank Ginn of Danielsville, said it would protect dam owners from having to choose between taking on costly upgrades or removing a dam. The proposal, passed Tuesday by the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee, could soon go to the full state Senate for a vote.

Hawaii

Honolulu: A bill before the City Council proposes to reduce the long-term carbon footprint of Oahu’s buildings, but the measure has encountered opposition from the island’s gas utility and construction industry, Hawaii Public Radio reports. The changes to the building codes would be the first in more than a decade. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports almost 40% of energy consumed in the United States is used to power buildings. That has led many state and local lawmakers to modify building codes in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Honolulu’s Bill 25 includes provisions such as mandating more efficient insulation and lighting in buildings. But other parts of the bill have generated opposition. The state’s construction industry opposes the bill’s proposed ban on gas water heaters in new single-family homes and a requirement for more electric vehicle charging infrastructure in apartments and commercial buildings.

Idaho

Boise: Former gubernatorial candidate and Democratic state lawmaker Paulette Jordan announced Friday that she’s challenging two-term Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Risch. “I’m running because we need a senator who will work to reengineer our government to prioritize American prosperity, protect our precious land and resources, fight for affordable, quality health care, and ensure a world-class education for our children,” Jordan said. In 2018 she became the first woman to become the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Idaho but lost in the general election to Republican Brad Little. The 40-year-old Jordan is a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. She’s a former two-term state representative with a long history of working on the tribal council. Jordan said she’ll fight for the rights of rural Idahoans and Native Americans while focusing on the environment and justice.

Illinois

Peoria: A thrift-store find has prompted its buyer to find the person to whom it rightfully belongs – and might not know it’s even gone. A bargain-hunting Robert Ray spotted what was labeled a figurine in a Peoria Goodwill store. Upon closer inspection, he recognized it was actually an urn, with ashes still inside, The (Peoria) Journal Star reports. Ray said he bought the $2.99 jar, decorated with a military-style flag and eagle, with the intention of finding the owner. He bought it in late December, just a day or two after it arrived in the store. Goodwill officials say they don’t know the source of the donation. Ray hopes someone realizes the urn is mistakenly donated and contacts the newspaper. “I’m shooting in the dark and hoping the best,” he said.

Indiana

West Lafayette: Purdue University will offer free tampons and other feminine hygiene products in the campus’ bathrooms in response to student advocates who have been pushing for the move for three years. University President Mitch Daniels on Thursday credited the University Senate, a faculty-led body, for proposing the initiative in a resolution that described feminine hygiene products as a basic necessity that should be in campus restrooms free of charge. The measure was set to be voted on later this month, but Daniels obtained permission from the University Senate to go ahead and implement it. Alison Rickert, a junior studying neurobiology and physiology at Purdue, founded The Period Project – an initiative aimed at providing menstrual products to those who need them both in and out of university walls. She said Purdue’s decision resulted from her and other students advocating for the issue.

Iowa

Cedar Rapids: Staffers at a winter homeless shelter are working with police to reduce problems that have led to complaints from neighbors. Since the Fillmore Center opened in mid-November to offer a warm place to sleep, police have received 82 calls for service, according to The Gazette. Those calls include 41 for disturbances and 31 for medical needs, as well as others for theft, a warrant and other issues. Police said there have been 10 arrests, including seven for public intoxication. That led to neighborhood complaints and an effort by staff to take a firmer stance with rule-breakers and plan more activities in the center, which can house up to 70 people. “I am not sure what all helped the most, but we have seen a decline since we made all of these changes,” said Phoebe Trepp, of Willis Dady Homeless Service, which staffs the shelter.

Kansas

Lawrence: Douglas County law enforcement officials are undergoing training and planning to coordinate investigations and prosecutions of sexual assault cases after facing criticism last year for charging women with making false sexual assault complaints. Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said last week that other changes planned in the county include a task force and continuing education on handling trauma and sexual assault cases, The Lawrence Journal-World reports. In October, Branson dismissed a case against a woman who was charged with filing a false rape report, after a Lawrence police detective said in an affidavit that he thought the woman reported the rape because she was angry the man involved was seeing another woman. Advocates for sexual violence victims criticized Branson and investigators, saying filing such charges would make victims reluctant to report sexual assaults. Two similar cases were dismissed in December.

Kentucky

Frankfort: The state would ban the paddling of students under a bill that won House passage Friday after a couple of state lawmakers recalled being on the receiving end of disciplinary swats. The measure, which would prohibit schools from using corporal punishment, cleared the House on a 65-17 vote. It now goes to the Senate. Kentucky is among 19 states that still allow corporal punishment as a form of school discipline. Republican Rep. Steve Riley, the bill’s lead sponsor, said corporal punishment fails to change behavior in a positive way. Another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Kevin Bratcher, said he was paddled in high school after being caught sneaking out with some classmates to chew tobacco. “All it really did was make us set up a guardsman the next time,” said Bratcher, who voted for the bill. The paddling, he said, was delivered by a longtime school principal who is now his House colleague, Democratic Rep. Charles Miller.

Louisiana

New Orleans: The Mississippi River was below 15 feet at a key gauge in the city Friday, leading the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to end, for now, a “flood fight” protocol calling for daily levee inspections. The corps said in a news release that it was moving from a “Phase II” flood fight, implemented when the river hits 15 feet at New Orleans’ Carrollton Gauge, to a “Phase I,” maintained as long as the river is between 11 and 15 feet. Phase I calls for twice-weekly levee inspections. And it requires special waivers for certain types of construction or other work on or near the levees. Phase II is implemented when the river hits 15 feet at the Carrollton Gauge. It calls for daily inspections and no waivers for the prohibited work.

Maine

Bath: The state has been the site of more than a half-dozen attacks on people by foxes in the past few months, prompting one city to try trapping the animals. Foxes are common in Maine and are typically skittish around humans, but the state’s mid-coast region has been the site of numerous attacks in the past six months. One man, Norman Kenney of Bath, was attacked twice by a rabid fox on separate occasions and had to undergo treatment for the dangerous disease. The Bath City Council voted unanimously Feb. 5 to spend $26,000 to lay out traps to catch foxes. The city is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the effort, WGME-TV reports. Maine is also in the midst of its annual season for fox hunting. The season starts in October and runs until the end of February.

Maryland

Annapolis: Foods made of animal tissues cultured from cells outside of the original animal, or made from plants or insects, could not be labeled “meat” in the state under a Republican-backed bill in the General Assembly. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Jason Gallion, R-Harford and Cecil, who called it “truth in advertising.” Eleven other GOP senators are co-sponsoring the legislation. “Laboratory-grown meat will become more prevalent in the future, and this bill will proactively prevent these ‘franken-meat’ alternatives from being labeled as meat,” Gallion said at a bill hearing Thursday. Meanwhile, Dan Colgrove with the Plant Based Foods Association told lawmakers that “we just think it’s unnecessary. … These products have to be very clearly marked as veggie, vegetarian or plant-based. That’s sort of the point, to offer alternatives to meat products.”

Massachusetts

Boston: One of the largest unions in the city has filed a lawsuit against Mayor Marty Walsh’s administration alleging repeated violations to the union’s collective bargaining agreement. The lawsuit filed by Boston Fire Fighters Local 718 names the city and Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn and cites three instances in which a firefighter’s status was changed from injured leave to sick leave or light duty, the Boston Globe reports. This change forced firefighters to either work or use up sick time. The union alleges that the city acted “in an arbitrary manner and without justification or cause” in changing three firefighters’ status. The union has asked in the suit for a judicial ruling to prevent the city from taking similar action until the matter is solved through arbitration. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court.

Michigan

Lansing: A major figure in the Michigan Republican Party whose Lake Michigan property is eroding suggested that political donations would fall unless GOP lawmakers do something to help, according to a memo. Peter Secchia, a Grand Rapids businessman, has been a Republican donor and activist for decades. His name is on the state party headquarters in Lansing, and he served as U.S. ambassador to Italy when George H.W. Bush was president. Secchia sent a letter in November to Republican leaders in the Legislature, noting a $6 million property loss in Ottawa County due to extraordinarily high lake levels eroding the shore and threatening homes. “There seems to be little interest in the Michigan House of Representatives or the Michigan Senate,” Secchia’s memo said. “This lack of concern mystifies me. Our property values will diminish greatly … hence, our donations will also diminish.”

Minnesota

Minneapolis: The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota called Friday for an investigation into the conviction of a black teenager who is serving life in prison, after the Associated Press uncovered serious flaws and inconsistencies in the police probe. Myon Burrell was found guilty in the 2002 shooting of an 11-year-old girl, who was killed by a stray bullet while doing homework at her dining room table. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was the top prosecutor in Hennepin County at the time, has highlighted that case throughout her political career as an example of getting justice for victims. ACLU-MN Executive Director John Gordon says not only was there no physical evidence tying Burrell to the scene, but the AP investigation also showed police made no attempt to speak to Burrell’s key alibi and discredited co-defendants who said he was not at the scene. One of them, Ike Tyson, has for years insisted he himself was the triggerman. Police also relied heavily on jailhouse informants, who were given reduced sentences for coming forward.

Mississippi

Purvis: A court ruling is ending a legal fight over the voluntary merger of two school districts in south Mississippi. The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that opponents waited too long to file a lawsuit. In April 2017, the Lumberton Public School District and the Lamar County School District voted to consolidate. The plan included some territory and affected some students in Pearl River County. The Mississippi Board of Education approved the plan in June 2017, and the two districts consolidated in July 2018. Lamar County schools officials agreed to keep Lumberton schools open and have Lumberton students attend those schools. The officials also hired Lumberton teachers. Pearl River County officials filed a lawsuit to oppose the merger, arguing that students who live in Pearl River County should attend school in Pearl River County.

Missouri

St. Louis: Two local black educators have formed a support group to inspire more black students to go into teaching and to give them a place to network with one another. Darryl Diggs, a 37-year-old assistant principal at Parkway South High School, co-founded Black Males in Education-St. Louis in 2019 along with Howard Fields, the principal at Givens Elementary in Webster Groves. The men created the organization for other black people, particularly men, to feel secure in their professional roles in urban or suburban schools. The group on Friday hosted the State of Black Educators Symposium at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. About 1,300 people signed up. Among the speakers was Kelvin Adams, superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, who says recruiting teachers of color is a top priority for the district, where 79% of students are black compared with 37% of educators.

Montana

Kalispell: A one-eyed hawk that went missing after a weekend windstorm knocked over its enclosure at a rehabilitation facility in western Montana has been found safe. Bird rehabilitator Kari Gabriel climbed the ladder of a Kalispell Fire Department bucket truck with a firefighter who used a net to capture the bird in a tree Thursday, NBC Montana reports. In a Facebook post, Gabriel said Hawkeye was dining on her favorite food – beef heart. Gabriel realized Hawkeye was missing when she found her cage overturned Feb. 1. Gabriel, who runs a program called the Montana Bird Lady, asked the public for help searching for the hawk. The bird was spotted several times, and after several chases Thursday, Hawkeye stayed in one spot long enough to be captured. Gabriel took in Hawkeye after the bird was hit by a car in 2014. The hawk could not be released back into the wild because she is missing an eye and is partly blind in the other.

Nebraska

Lincoln: Sandhill crane watchers are getting ready for a new season in central Nebraska after a prolonged cold spell and flooding last year that kept some people from seeing them in person. Everything is on track this year for the Crane Trust to open as scheduled March 1, said Chuck Cooper, the group’s president and CEO. As many as half a million sandhill cranes converge on the Platte River in central Nebraska from mid-February through mid-April, according to the Grand Island Independent. The cranes fly in from their winter grounds in Texas and New Mexico and stop for about a week or more to fatten up on loose corn in the surrounding agricultural fields. During their time here, the cranes roost at night along the Platte River, congregating on sandbars for safety from predators.

Nevada

Las Vegas: The state Department of Motor Vehicles has eliminated the parallel parking portion of the driving skills test. The test still meets the national standards set by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators even without the parallel parking element, department public information officer Kevin Malone said. The changes took effect Jan. 13. Nevada joins several other states – including California, Colorado and Florida – that have removed parallel parking from their driving skills exams. “Testing of the parking skills needed is met by the requirements of entering, and backing out of, a perpendicular parking space and by other vehicle control requirements,” Malone said. The changes are expected to reduce the number of repeat visits by drivers who can pass everything but parallel parking, officials said. Some driving schools have since stopped teaching parallel parking unless a student requests it, officials said.

New Hampshire

Concord: The state Senate has passed a bill that would let qualified patients grow their own medical marijuana. The measure approved by senators Thursday allows designated caregivers or patients to grow up to three mature plants, three immature plants and 12 seedlings each. Although the state legalized medical cannabis in 2013, growing the plant for personal use is currently a felony offense. Rep. Tom Sherman, a Democrat from Rye, said dispensary costs can be prohibitive for patients and caregivers, and that dispensaries sometimes don’t carry the type of medical cannabis patients need to treat their conditions. The bill now heads to the House. A similar bill cleared the House and Senate last year. Republican Governor Chris Sununu vetoed it, citing public safety concerns.

New Jersey

Trenton: Lying on applications to get tax breaks should open companies up to prosecution, and the state should create an inspector general post to watch over the agency handing out incentives, according to a report published Friday by a legislative committee probing the credits. Those were just two of more than two dozen recommendations in the Special Committee on Economic Growth’s final report, issued after nearly a year of looking into the now-expired tax incentives and holding four public hearings. The Chris Christie-era tax break program expired June 30, meaning that new applications aren’t being considered, though previously approved awards could still be paid out. The committee’s report comes about a year after Gov. Phil Murphy put tax breaks in the spotlight, citing state auditor and comptroller reports that raised questions about how the awards were handed out as the rationale for the creation of his own task force.

New Mexico

Santa Fe: The state Senate on Friday endorsed a red-flag gun bill prompted by concerns about a mass shooting last year in El Paso, Texas, and suicide prevention efforts. The bill won Senate approval on a 22-20 vote, with Republicans and four Democrats voting against it. The proposal moves to the House, which last year approved a similar measure that languished. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has urged the Democrat-led Legislature to provide new avenues for law enforcement to prevent gun violence and better secure the safety of schools. “The extreme risk protection order is part of an effort to give law enforcement every single tool,” she said after the Senate vote. The bill as currently written would allow law enforcement officers to petition a state district court to order the temporary surrender of firearms.

New York

Albany: The state will require manufacturers to disclose the use of potentially dangerous chemicals in children’s products under a new law signed Friday. The law, which goes into effect March 1, also creates a children’s product safety council that will advise state environmental regulators about which chemicals to restrict and how. Currently, New York prohibits the use of dangerous chemicals on an individual basis. But child safety advocates for years have pushed for more comprehensive regulations over concerns that children can be more sensitive than adults to small amounts of chemicals. The new law requires manufacturers to phase out the use of certain chemicals including asbestos. It also creates a process for state environmental regulators to ban other chemicals down the road. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the bill into law Friday.

North Carolina

Raleigh: Thousands of people took to the streets Saturday in an annual march and rally designed to call for action on social and economic justice issues in the state. The 14th annual Mass Moral March on Raleigh drew support from the state NAACP, more than 200 other organizations and their supporters. Participants marched to the old Capitol building for a 14-point “People’s Agenda” that includes laws that expand health care coverage, create livable wages, redress racial wrongs and grant collective bargaining for government employees. The event began in 2007 with the leadership of then-state NAACP president the Rev. William Barber of Goldsboro, who is now president of the national organization Repairers of the Breach. From the dozens of signs and banners people carried during the march, a clear message emerged: Change starts at the ballot box.

North Dakota

Fargo: Move over, meat. An agriculture research center on the North Dakota State University campus is plugging plants as an alternative protein source. The Northern Crops Institute is planning a three-day course this spring to provide information on the basics of plant-based foods and show participants how to produce the best products. The seminar is targeting foodies, restaurateurs, food bloggers and “pretty much anyone with an interest in it,” institute spokesman Grant Christian said. Many restaurants and fast food chains have recently bolstered their menus with vegetarian offerings. That includes the introduction of meatless tacos, meatless burgers and meatless wings. The course is scheduled for May 19-21 at the Northern Crops Institute. It will feature crops such as soy, wheat and pulses and include hands-on training in using raw ingredients and developing final products.

Ohio

Columbus: Opponents of a bill that would repeal the ban on using fireworks on private property are warning the legislation could lead to dangerous consequences. Current law allows consumers to legally buy fireworks in Ohio but requires they be taken out of the state within 48 hours of purchase. Critics of the law have noted for years that it’s widely ignored. The bill before the House Commerce and Labor Committee would repeal the transport requirement and allow individuals to buy and use consumer fireworks in Ohio. Roughly 1 in 5 of the 10,000 serious consumer fireworks injuries each year are to the eye, Sherill Williams, president and CEO of the Ohio affiliate of Prevent Blindness, testified Wednesday. Other opponents include firefighters, the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and veterans concerned about fireworks’ impact on vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: A group that wants to change how the state’s legislative and congressional district lines are drawn has refiled an initiative petition in hopes of bringing the issue before voters. People Not Politicians refiled a new version of its petition Thursday, two days after its original petition was struck down by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. In that ruling, the court said that the proposal itself was constitutional but that a shorthand description of the measure, called a gist, didn’t adequately describe the proposal. The group needs to gather about 178,000 signatures in 90 days to qualify for the ballot. The plan calls for an end to partisan gerrymandering of Oklahoma’s legislative districts by creating an independent, bipartisan commission to draw district lines. The commission would include an equal number of Republicans, Democrats and members unaffiliated with either party, selected by a group of retired state Supreme Court and appellate judges.

Oregon

Salem: The cost to hike and camp in three of the state’s most popular wilderness areas won’t be as high as expected. The U.S. Forest Service announced Thursday that it would cost $1 for a day permit and $6 for an overnight permit to enter the Three Sisters, Mount Jefferson and Mount Washington wilderness areas beginning this summer. That’s a drop from the $4 to $11 per person, per day, that was proposed earlier this year and received an overwhelmingly negative response from over 13,000 public comments. The permit system is intended to limit overcrowding and environmental damage in 450,000 acres of Oregon’s most beautiful but fragile backcountry. Permits will go on sale at Recreation.gov beginning April 7 and be required from May 22 to Sept. 25, even though some key questions about the system still need to be finalized.

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia: The last jailed member of the radical group MOVE was released from prison Friday, according to an attorney who represented the members in their parole appeals. Brad Thomson, an attorney for Chuck Sims Africa, posted on Twitter that the man had been released. Africa was the last of the so-called MOVE 9 to be paroled after being convicted of third-degree murder in the 1978 shooting death of Officer James Ramp in Philadelphia. The nine members of the anti-establishment, back-to-nature group were each sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison. The 1978 standoff with police came after officers tried to evict the group from its Philadelphia headquarters, saying they received noise and sanitation complaints from neighbors. The members barricaded themselves inside and have said they believe Ramp was killed by friendly fire. Police contended there was gunfire exchanged from both sides, but MOVE members have denied returning gunfire.

Rhode Island

Providence: The City Council has introduced a resolution to rename a bridge to honor a local civil rights leader. The Providence Journal reports the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge could be renamed after Michael Van Leesten, who died last year. Van Leesten helped co-found and served as CEO of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Rhode Island, a nonprofit that provides job training, career counseling and other programs for people from underserved communities. “Michael Van Leesten was a dear friend of mine and a ray of inspiration and hope to many,” Ward 3 City Councilwoman Nirva LaFortune said. “He was also a bridge builder and architect of connections, and that is why so many of us believe it would be appropriate to name the bridge after him.” Council members voted Thursday to send the resolution to the Committee on Urban Redevelopment, Renewal and Planning for approval.

South Carolina

Charleston: College students will help archaeologists map the walls used to defend the city more than 250 years ago. Students from Clemson University and the College of Charleston will use ground-penetrating radar in downtown Charleston’s Marion Square to find exactly where the fortification called the Hornwork was built, the American Battlefield Trust said. The 30-foot-tall wall built in 1758 stretched for three city blocks and also had a ditch or moat. The wall was made from tabby, which was a mix of seashells, sand and lime, the organization said. The Hornwork played a vital part in Charleston’s defense over the next several decades, including during the British siege of the city in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. Some of the wall remains visible in Marion Square, and archaeologists have an approximate location of the fortifications, but the radar will help pinpoint exactly where it was built.

South Dakota

Pierre: Democrats called foul Friday after the Republican-dominated state House shot down their efforts to allow Native Americans use their tribal IDs to register to vote. The defeat prompted several Democrats to level accusations of voter suppression. Republicans say their resistance is all about keeping voter registration secure. “The way our voting system is set up does disenfranchise in particular Native American voters,” said Rep. Ryan Cwach, a Yankton Democrat. In the 2018 general election, tribal communities reported some of the lowest voter turnout figures in the state. Native Americans make up 9% of the state’s total population. Rep. Shawn Bordeaux, a Mission Democrat who is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said tribes in the state have improved the quality of their IDs in recent years. They include addresses, holographics and other security measures; are recognized by federal agencies; and can be used to take flights.

Tennessee

Lawrenceburg: A tornado that hit this southern Tennessee city has damaged several headstones in the community’s second-oldest cemetery, where the actor and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson is buried. Lawrenceburg City Administrator Chris Shaffer said officials won’t know how many headstones were damaged by Wednesday’s EF-1 tornado at Mimosa Cemetery until several large oak trees are cleared away, WTVF-TV reports. WTVF says the trees narrowly missed Thompson’s headstone. One of Tennessee’s senators from 1994 to 2003, Thompson was also an actor who appeared in at least 20 motion pictures and the TV series “Law & Order.” He died in 2015. Local resident Jennifer May told told WTVF she was driving nearby when she noticed something different about the cemetery. “Walking through here and seeing this breaks my heart because these are loved ones,” May said.

Texas

Houston: The Texas Legislative Black Caucus has announced it’s working on a bill that would ban discrimination based on hair textures and styles commonly associated with race following the suspension of a black high school student near Houston. State lawmakers, accompanied by black officials and advocates, introduced the CROWN Act at a press conference Thursday, the Texas Tribune reports. CROWN stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, and the measure would protect against “unjust grooming policies that have a disparate impact on black children, women, and men” in workplaces and public schools, CROWN Coalition advocate Adjoa Asamoah said. The coalition is a national alliance of organizations working to end hair discrimination. The bill is a show of support for students like Deandre Arnold, who was suspended from Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and won’t be able to attend graduation unless he cuts his dreadlocks.

Utah

Provo: Residents getting married in the state can now get their marriage licenses online, officials say. The state auditor’s office has already launched the digital application process on its website, KUTV-TV reports. Most states require the couple to appear in person, fill out paperwork and present identification, a process some clerks have called labor-intensive. “You and your significant other handed that to one of our clerks, who then retyped everything you had just handwritten,” clerk Amelia Powers Gardner said, citing the possibility of human error. Utah County issues about 10,000 marriage licenses each year, county officials said. The 10-minute online process requires both people to use one smartphone or computer to fill out a form and take pictures of themselves and their IDs so the system can verify identities, officials said. The couple is then emailed a PDF document with the marriage license, officials say.

Vermont

St. Johnsbury: A guinea pig found on the street was taken to the local police department for safekeeping, and firefighters and police are already clamoring to keep it if an owner doesn’t come forward. The furry creature was found Wednesday by a pedestrian walking down Railroad Street, Cpl George Johnson told the Caledonian Record. Firefighter Phil Hawthorne said that if no owner comes forward, the guinea pig should become a resident of the firehouse. Det. Daniele Kostruba also volunteered to take the creature home as a pet. The animal, dubbed Harvey by dispatcher Karen Montgomery, was given food, water and a box to stay in. Police asked that the owner of the guinea pig go to the public safety building on Main Street to confirm ownership of the animal and take it home.

Virginia

Richmond: Democratic state lawmakers are advancing legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons and the possession of high-capacity magazines despite fierce opposition from gun owners. A state House committee on Friday advanced legislation backed by Gov. Ralph Northam to ban the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15-style rifles, and silencers and to prohibit the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds. It’s the most ambitious measure proposed by Northam and one that’s met the most pushback, including from members of his own party. Gun owners packed the committee room Friday and erupted in protest when the measured passed. Capitol Police cleared the committee room of almost every spectator after the vote. Heated debates over guns have dominated this year’s legislative session, as Virginia has become ground zero in the nation’s raging debate over gun control and mass shootings.

Washington

Olympia: Lawmakers have passed a bill that would change a tax that’s supposed to make it easier for the state to pay for the Legislature’s promise to make college more affordable. The Seattle Times reports that initially, the 2019 package planned to use a business-and-occupation tax to pay for a measure making higher education more accessible, starting in the 2020-2021 school year. The new bill, sponsored by Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, replaces the tax lawmakers approved last year with a different version of the levy. In addition to worries that there wouldn’t be enough funding, lawmakers were concerned last year’s version was so complicated that there could be trouble collecting it. The new measure, which has passed the Senate, now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee. If he signs it, the law would take effect April 1.

West Virginia

Charleston: Gov. Jim Justice says he has committed $1 million in state funds to encourage participation in the 2020 census, saying federal officials have told him the state is “behind” in the effort. “We need to get cranking,” he said at a press conference Thursday with Census Bureau officials who encouraged residents to apply for temporary jobs helping with the count. An estimated 74% of West Virginians responded to the previous census in 2010, according to the governor’s office. Justice said a lack of participation in the count has led to the state missing out on “tens and tens of millions of dollars” in federal grant funding. Justice said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has twice told him that “West Virginia’s behind” in the census.

Wisconsin

Madison: The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved tuition increases Friday for nonresident and graduate students at six institutions. Increases will range between 1.5% and 25% at UW-Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point and Whitewater starting this fall. The schools say they need more money to cover instruction, raises, recruiting faculty, technology and training clinical professionals. Republican lawmakers have kept tuition frozen for in-state undergraduates since 2013. System officials have long complained that the freeze has hamstrung them financially and have tried to compensate by raising out-of-state and graduate tuition over the years. The board approved the plan unanimously during a meeting at UW-Madison. There was no discussion.

Wyoming

Rock Springs: A public comment period has started for a draft resource management plan amendment and associated draft environmental impact statement for wild horse management in southern Wyoming, land agency officials say. The Bureau of Land Management has made the draft amendment and related documents available for review and comment until April 30, the Rocket-Miner reports. The draft amendment would update wild horse management direction within the White Mountain, Great Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek herd management areas, officials say. The analysis considers strategies for the herd management areas, which encompasses about 4,400 square miles, agency officials say. The Bureau of Land Management hopes to protect wild horses and burros on public land through its wild horse and burro program, agency officials say.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

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11/2

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w16fpv5svQThlUIvWe_aI6y38b0vlcxp

Campo is huge b/c yrs pres - xa blankenship - site is at "blankenship"This site is a good picture of link from yrs to po - blankenship runs ipi Blankenship is exec dir of ipi - huge - xa rauners hires 2018 2017 scso report lists tru and deputies - xa rushton art it - 11/1 - koester - and see colin bruce for cdil judges rel to usattys - note also isp alj narup - landlord jurkanin - wes barr sembler tr - bull moose - bully - whigs - semper vigilans - wide awakes - ierc - xa team lift - rosemarie long - res - barr x2 yes - barr y barr - bob marley - precinct 10 - x - reticle 24/7 - 123 oclock rock - happy days are here again - bob gray has a gavel collection - chamber ic - 233 mp and links to spd - scso - gillette - steil - timm and lopian - fuel specialists - note vanhoos does fleet vehicles - Cando site is good - note prola is chamber pres and roa pres - other po links - but see esp dragoo - 912 crossroads - brahler - mccann - For the scso dirt specifically see site "dirt" this site is imp - "shgcoaches" link to leonard - and see "shgfootball" site - and note madonia at security bank - prola link - shg football names at that site - xa caths in general - at caths site - note esp kcs - vala and link to cravens and cellini - xa spk usccb hk spkattys - hecla nethercutt - clute - prince - preston - mitchell jessen - riverside - zeman - addiction frame - spfld links - ak hanson - cifa - hefferon - xa lam usattys - op cunningham - top gun - note also that spk has bunn link - bunn is the - sembler - nam - baiseball - geo w bunn - cofer black - kofi anon - wide awakes - whigs 2p - ipi - bunnhad warehouse ibt and trucks hit me w/ chem - xa bressan on the dirt links this site also is links from scrp to po and ing - house I stayed was on boone - that place was really bad - note also that guy that broke my nose to link up the fibromyalgia to bacterial coinfection in nostrils - sleep deprivation weakens immunity and creates conditions nec for pain - other infection may be in gut or anywhere else - xa mcds poison - henkel - kjell ama - carlyle - crabtree - franchises terminix chemlawn - ffa - fs - farm bureau - zito has franchises - xa celnet ovp - lon chainey - terr frame - 953 - Noonan blankenship - noonan is scb - kcs -see "dash" site -llcc soccer coach & pres of panther homeowners - hart link - panther also has swimmers - xa riggle - gray is bdmbr of llcc - xa ibhe alzina - bobandbill are teachers at shs - ioicc islinked to doe - xa noonan capranica comcast carlyle - dutton bonilla - tx hou - ports hanson - cleat - gal veston - wal - deps and recruiters - "Teaparty" talks about links from dragoo and pols - rove crossroads - to the the po - Xa brahler - Gillette page - links dukett to gillette - gillette is ing and scso -

Scso

Boes - dragoo - steil - durr - karhliker -

Xa ing - gillette - ROyER - erve - keen - xa spd links to ing - celletti - cl&e - vala/gray - mrt - wal badgers - nsa - schweska - yrs - caths -

Scso -

Those guys that won’t work w/ koester - trouble - the po is not an uninterested party in this thing - they got busted talking about hitting me w/ chem - sleep deprivation - “wide awakes” - glyphosates - glu - they are not impartial - and they “disagree” w/ the court ? -

Ilfop pres is karhliker -xa royer - karl kemme - 404 chem btn cl&e - cletus - kjell - scb irve - ierc - karhliker info is at "scsodefendants" site and see ilfopngaoi - note esp link from dragoo to the po - 912 group rove - roddavis - and see isp gnuteck - "ilfopngaoi" site is link from scso to ing - lots there - "spddefendents"

Linkage b/t pols - scso - ing - dod - recruiters -

Boes - auburn - eric hall - roddavis - mrt - shriners - xa hawrelak - denzler - chamber - lumber - mta - jasmon - boes -

Xa steil - sfd - iema - irve - busted for 3d shift sleep deprivation and still on the job -

Police unions - ron stone - pbpa - xa dia - foia request - 2006 retirees -

Hayes

I think hayes is the pedophile frame

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCORMDJjM2VkZTEtMzVkYS00OGY0LWE4ZDYtOWQzYWI4ZDhkMGQ2/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCOROTFlYjE4NjktNGY3Yy00NmU4LTk4ZTktYWVjYzRkNDlkM2Jm/view?usp=sharing

Manci - moriconi - gambling -

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCORZGQ4NmVlOTYtYmJkNi00MmFiLTk3YjYtNGQ2NGExMmJmODVi/view?usp=sharing

Boes -

Auburn

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GB0L5AsG5PSFTVaFvYeLDu5SQN83Fn2EVlHwuh1jfKk/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCORNmU0YjhjMmItYTk4ZC00MDMyLThmODctYWFlN2NhMTcwMzk4/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCORNDQ2Y2MwMTAtMTMwNi00NzM2LTgzNGUtNjI2N2QxMDkzYmVj/view?usp=sharing

Dinardo link - illini cc swimmers

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzk8QhyFwCORMjc0ZWVkYjctOWM0OC00YTE3LTg1ODItMjMyYTMyZGY3OTQz/view?usp=sharing

Steil is at “steilextensions” page

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17D6CpX_qZQKSXaVNPOeNG1UT2hGQFHLBEJ541D_NxNQ/edit?usp=sharing

OPERATIONS DIVISION Captain Cheryllynn Williams

In 2017, there were 41,344, incidents in Sangamon County where deputies either initiated a law enforcement service or were dispatched to a call.

There was a lot of movement in the operations division in 2017. In April, Will Brooks, Jordan Cox, and Ryan Kuntzi were hired as a Sangamon County Deputies. Deputy Brooks began the Field Training Program immediately due to prior law enforcement training, and Deputies Cox and Kuntzi began the Illinois State Police Recruit Class. Sergeant Andy Danes was transferred from second shift to the Investigations Division in August. Detective Nancy Finley was promoted to Sergeant and transferred to second shift. Deputy Travis Dalby was transferred from second shift to Crime Prevention in March. Deputy Andrew Brashear was transferred from first shift to the Investigations Division in November.

In June, Deputy Knox retired after 25 years of service. His humor and kindness will be missed.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 (law enforcement motto)

SUPERVISORS:

Lt. E. Knowski

Sgt. J. Tapscott

Lt. R. Steil

Sgt. A. Mayfield Lt. W. Cearlock Sgt. W. Wooden

Sgt. N. Finley

Sgt. J. Boesdorfer

Sgt. D. Miller

DEPUTIES:

S. Butterfield

D. Timm

D. Howse C. Law T. Koester B. Baughman

T. Roderick

A. Cline D. Dickason M. Garst A. Womack J. Bartello M. Long

S. Wieland

J. Budd B. Stapleton G. Harney B. Tweryon

D. Guernsey

B. Fleck A. Robinson Ja. Hayes M. Wilkin

N. Campo

J. Hanson A. Smith A. Jahns J. Smith E. Maulding S. Matli M. Powell M. Tudoreanu

T. Sommer

A. Henton A. Finigan

Deputies listed in bold text are Identification Technicians, and in italic are Accident Reconstructionist.

11/7

Saw that there is a sommer thats ilga

Sommer - is keith sommer 91 dist - il house dem - naperville - related to tim sommer scso tru - and see sommer fa vs as brandt mgr - aux police - link from sommer fam to homer - note also sommer as harper mgmt - cronister ipma - gop coalition - perrt pierce

NYmag JEFF SESSIONS 4:52 P.M.Attorney General Jeff Sessions Resigns at Trump’s RequestBy Eric Levitz@EricLevitz Out of Session. Photo: Pat Greenhouse/Boston Globe via Getty Images

Jeff Sessions has tendered his resignation, at the president’s request. Less than 24 hours after the 2018 midterms drew to a close, Donald Trump has forced his first attorney general out of his administration, clearing the way for a man who has publicly accused Robert Mueller of taking the Russia investigation “too far” — and mused that a new attorney general could thwart his probe by denying it funding — to become the Justice Department’s interim leader.

We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well....

....We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.

As a member of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation of ties between that campaign and the Russian government. The president has long decried Sessions for refusing to subordinate this ethical obligation to his (imaginary) duty to immunize the commander-in-chief from legal liabilities. But Matthew Whitaker has no conflict of interest in the Russia case. And although he will not (immediately) inherit direct supervision of the Mueller investigation, he will have the power to seal records, withhold funding, and disrupt the probe by other means — as Whitaker himself once explained in his capacity as a CNN talking head:

Appearing on CNN in July 2017 — before he was in his current position as Sessions’s chief of staff —

Whitaker mused about a scenario in which Trump might fire Sessions and replace him with a temporary attorney general.

Whitaker noted that federal regulations still gave the attorney general power over the budget for a special counsel.

That temporary replacement,

he then said,

could move to choke off Mueller’s funding.

“So I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment,” Whitaker said, “and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt.”

Whitaker is a former U.S. Attorney and 2014 Senate candidate in Iowa who joined the Justice Department last fall. Here are a few other things that he has publicly claimed to believe:

• Robert Mueller has no legitimate authority to investigate the Trump Organization’s finances, and if he does (which, he has), “then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt.”

• Donald Trump was right to fire James Comey — because James Comey should have prosecuted Hillary Clinton:

Comey’s announcement last July that he would not recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for violations of the Espionage Act were a shock to many in law enforcement both inside the FBI and out…[H]is pronouncement that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case was just wrong, and I said so publicly at the time. I was a federal prosecutor for five years and was proud to serve in the Department of Justice, and I would’ve brought that case.

Clinton set up an entire secret, unsecured communications structure outside of the government she was charged with serving at the highest level; she was the Secretary of State. Classified information that, in the wrong hands, could potentially bring harm to our country – and many in service to our country — was available to be appropriated.

(Whitaker has never called for any investigations into — let alone prosecutions of — the Trump administration’s many, many, many violations of information security protocol.)

• All federal judges should be “people of faith” who take “a biblical view of justice.”

• There shouldn’t have been an independent counsel’s investigation into Russian interference because there wasn’t such an investigation into the Obama administration’s many scandals:

Calls for an independent counsel or commission to investigate allegations that Russia tried to interfere with our elections ring hollow when similar calls for special counsels during the scandals of the Obama administration were dismissed out of hand by the same people making these demands now.

So, clearly, Matthew Whitaker would make a sober, fair-minded, and trustworthy overseer of the Justice Department’s transformation into Donald J. Trump’s private detective agency.

11/10

Saw this today at the library

"Just trying to help me out" ?

Search TextNov. 9, 2018

MAGAZINE

OCTOBER 1, 2018, ISSUE

Cory Booker’s 911 CallsBy

ROB LONG

September 13, 2018 10:49 AM

Sen. Cory Booker at a Senate Judiciary hearing, March 2018 (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Tuesday

Start Call

911 Operator: This is the 911 operator, what is your emergency?

Cory Booker: This is Senator Cory Booker. I want to report a crime. No, wait, a series of crimes. I want to report nothing less than an entire criminal enterprise that has the tri-state area in its grip.

911 Operator: Sir, is this an emergency?

Cory Booker: I can’t believe you’re asking me that question. Is it an emergency? Yes!

911 Operator: Sir, what is your location?

Cory Booker: I understand why you’re asking that question. That’s the procedure, right? The rules and regulations of the whole 911 power dynamic. But you have to understand. I am in danger here. My life is in danger, just by dropping this stunning bombshell. I am exposing a vast and violent criminal organization — I call it “organized crime,” and sidebar: If you use that phrase please credit me — and despite the danger — and I’ll admit it, the fear — of paying the ultimate price, I am willing to stand up and speak the truth.

NOW WATCH: 'Trump Supporters Fired Up For Midterms

911 Operator: Sir, is this an emergency?

Cory Booker: There is an organized group of criminals in the tri-state area, some call it “the Mafia,” and they control illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution, drug peddling — though to be fair, one of the heads of the so-called “Five Families” has resisted entering into this arena — and they are about to move west, to the sleepy cowboy town of Las Vegas, Nevada — are you writing this down?

911 Operator: Sir, is this an emergency?

Cory Booker: Well, it’s not an emergency emergency.

911 Operator: The 911 line is reserved for actual emergencies, sir.

End Call

Thursday

Start Call

911 Operator: This is the 911 operator, what is your emergency?

Cory Booker: This is Senator Cory Booker. I have reason to believe that the class of medications known as “opioids” are currently being abused throughout the country, with special concentration in post-industrial areas in the Rust Belt and the Appalachian Valley.

911 Operator: Sir, is this an emergency?

Cory Booker: People don’t want to talk about it. It’s something you don’t hear about. Maybe because the people currently suffering under the crisis — and yes, I call it a “crisis” and I’m aware that fashionable pundits will call me crazy or delusional — but because the victims of this crisis are poor and working-class, the entire problem is being ignored and swept under the rug. No longer!

911 Operator: Again, sir, is this an emergency?

Cory Booker: You’re not listening. I am going to blow the lid off this thing! Consequences be damned!

End Call

Sunday

Start Call

911 Operator: This is the 911 operator, what is your emergency?

Cory Booker: This is Senator Cory Booker. I want to report that the Twin Towers in Manhattan’s downtown financial district have been struck by what appear to be two passenger jets that have been hijacked by terrorists.

911 Operator: Sir, what is your current location?

Cory Booker: It doesn’t matter where I am, don’t you see? The point is, the buildings are burning. And I am racing there to rescue whoever I can.

911 Operator: Sir, are you reporting a current fire emergency?

Cory Booker: Will I be in personal danger? Yeah, sure, I guess. Does that matter to me? Are you kidding? I don’t even think that way. I am going to run into those burning buildings and save every life I can, and if people call me “hero” or “brave,” so be it.

911 Operator: Sir, please give me your current location and the location of the emergency.

Cory Booker: Downtown Manhattan. Twin Towers.

911 Operator: Sir, the Twin Towers were destroyed 17 years ago. Currently at that location is what is called the Freedom Tower, a high-end retail mall, and a moving memorial to the victims of the terror attack and the first responders who lost their lives during the rescue.

Cory Booker: Yes. Yes, I knew that. But I don’t think any of that lessens my personal heroism. And if I could just add, at this juncture —

End Call

Monday

Start Call

911 Operator: This is the 911 operator, what is your emergency? Wait a minute. Is this Cory Booker?

Cory Booker: Maybe. Why do you ask?

911 Operator: Sir, you have been asked to stop making 911 calls.

Cory Booker: Can I just — this one — I’m serious about this one — look, I know, okay, that sometimes I’ve been a little late with some of this stuff —

911 Operator: Sir, there are emergencies waiting to —

Cory Booker: Can I finish? Seriously. This is a real one.

911 Operator: Okay. Fine. What is your emergency?

Cory Booker: Tropical Storm Katrina is building into a Category 5 hurricane off the Gulf Coast. If it hits the levees along Lake Pontchartrain, just above New Orleans’ Ninth Ward —

911 Operator: Sir, stop.

Cory Booker: I am heading down there to personally reinforce those levees and save the city.

911 Operator: Stop.

Cory Booker: Is my life in danger? Yes. Am I quote unquote a hero for doing this? Those are your words, not mine.

End Call

11/10

11/11

You mean youre not just trying to help me out?

11/11

noll links to milhiser - doj

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-c3ElzUYfYLe90yv9sMXr-n8APRhyqDhghzwT5VaBh4/edit?usp=sharing

11/12

Bunn

Bunn - owns things

Airport - utils - bunn capitol - sysco - coffee - coffee link is baise - denzler - mark denzler - richet audio network - natl rev - re & re - moo - curtright - co springs - federated - denver - dobie - aussie - op - cunningham - baseball - hic - top gun - joker - academies - ecole - sylvanus - pompeo - elotes - expo book store - identity theft - credit report - cifa - heffe ron - bradley bunn - natsec personell - nsa - dm - bunn is chigop - and sd - oc lincs - ridgely farmers - trash talk - bizcon - nix - san clemente - loft girl - loft as radicalization frame - oclincs chris cox - house on pch - ala - xa sd mitrovich - ibt - sangamo - watches meters - celnet - lanphier - bioluminescence - zinc finger protocol - sangamo bioscience - icc - elec hou/ca - sempra - the tanned guy - drives the bus - the crash - wachovia - chris cox - oclincs - they get away w/ things you can't even imagine - theyre good - there brand is fear - thats whos doing this to me -

Sent from Fast notepad

11/13

Mental illness frame This was used as an excuse to hit me w/ chem - it was argued that stimulants that kept me from getting sleep - were simply misapplied "medication" the amount was wrong - stim was said to have antidepressant qualities - according to the scso scb chosen md - note esp cit scso - xa danger to myself - suicide frame - they put me jail for two reasons - they hit w/ pain and cocaine and said I could leave if I went to the hosp - otherwise I had to stay in jail - they kept me in hosp for another month so they could diagnose me paranoid schizophrenic - and keep me ever buying a gun

Sent from Fast notepad

They lost this arg bdly - not fooling anyone

Gail noll was cdil div chief civil - during schock - w/ bruceD

Dennis Delaneyto me

9 minutes agoDetails

Gail noll was cdil div chief civil - during schock - w/ bruce Thats why the bruce interest - they pull his crim stuff - emails bt bruce & usatty - cringed during cross x - was right about first trial - used to undermine real effort at trial - xa request for documents by us house comte re mueller - xa timeline - Bernard Schoenburg: Sgro to seek 8th four-year term as Park Board president Posted Nov 10, 2018 at 5:01 PM New job for Noll GAIL NOLL, who is married to JOHN MILHISER, the new U.S attorney for the Central District of Illinois, still works for the Department of Justice, but has changed jobs. The move was required so Noll is not working for her husband, said SHARON PAUL, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office. Effective at the end of October, Noll began a temporary duty detail to the department's Office of Legal and Victim Programs as a financial litigation and bankruptcy program specialist. Her office is now in the federal courthouse in downtown Springfield — next door to the capital city office of the U.S. attorney. Noll became an assistant U.S. attorney in 2011 and has been chief of the district's civil division since 2015. DAVE HOFF, who is based in Urbana and is a longtime assistant U.S. attorney in the civil division, has taken over duties as acting civil chief for the district. aron schock judge - colin bruce - linked to cdil usatty Maybe they never wanted to go after that guy - trial used to destroy chance of prosecution later by feds - Why are they looking at this guy Sun-Times Shop DOWNSTATE ILLINOIS 08/21/2018, 02:52pm ByAssociated Press CHICAGO — A federal judge in two of the highest profile criminal cases in Illinois has been removed from hearing all his cases after it was revealed that he had exchanged emails with a paralegal at the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield in which he commented on a trial he was overseeing. Colin Bruce has been presiding over former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock‘s corruption case

Sent from Fast notepad

11/17

Cit - mental illness frame - is true

Glu - glyphosate - have stimulant properties -

Argued that used as antidepressants - suicide frame comes from siuc alums - spfld people - I was represented by mental illnes P&A - beret - po uses arg that I might be mental to justify chem - it becomes an issue that sets a precedent - even if I was mentally ill - and im not - I dont think - they shouldn't be able to do that - you cant let them do that - thats why the beret

11/21

The thing about the 15 yr old is true - coal trucks - and the train chem - is that atrain horn - and see ecole - military academies - hammer - consent gavel - ldrshp

And note gonet at airport - bunn fbo - garrett landmark - noll - lincoln as surveyor- xa lincoln site - lincoln capitol airport - terr frame - garrett exraordinary rendition - 33rd -233 mp - knights - horacemann - homeier- airport fd - redpath - 183 fw pilots - mechs - fuel specialists timm lopian - and see generally coal site peabody blankenship - reliant -

Search That long art - w/ the high prices - aug 2018 p46 D Dennis Delaney to me 6 minutes agoDetails That long art - w/ the high prices - aug 2018 p46 Art supposed to be based on mannafort link Xa drywall - eagle skin gloves -- Sent from Fast notepad

Colin bruce Hes an obama pick but sides w/ scrp cdil uatty Schock trial hangs - cringed during cross x -- Sent from Fast notepad

Esgr - grease - john travolta - lightning - mi - civaff - res - eminence gris - eminence front - caths - pope - usccb - paprocki - ipi - a civil affair - comida - 53 - consent - green light - go - p - op - organophosphates - heffe ron - cunningham - bass - ima - mark dennis lure - -- Sent from Fast notepad

Airport - cap 115 - bunn - garrett - landmark - carlyle - xa gillette - terr frame - follows - turn signal late - professional courtesy - link from airport - ing - scso - 233 mp - spd - glu - 24/7 - airport security - names - xa 183 fw - fuel specialists - and see landmark extraordinary - xa landmark skube - noll ford - romney - mi - prince - lincoln 33rd - celletti - see esp airport fd - names - gleason - lgpd chtham - landmark is next to meier - 183 myer - golda - metro goldwyn - meier security - panther off duty - landmark emps - mechs and honda - iam - xa links to ing - landmark do our does glu when on west side - bunn Lincoln was surveyor - landmark - kingtech next to surveyer museum on downtown square - landmark -- Sent from Fast notepad

Fbuckley notes - 2017 - the rock is on the cover w/ a big thumbs up "Tutti frutti" founding rockers - little richard wop bop alloo bop a wop bam boom -- Sent from Fast notepad

7/7/2014 nr - long view - lost emails - destruction of evidence -- Sent from Fast notepad

The thing about some 15 yr old is true? Terry white - sc repub network - dcfs investigtors - clearance - vigilantism - swatting - chem - xa pedophile on phone - red hair lady guard - and see generally -trophies - arson - terr - homicidal threats & public officials - note also caci in spfld wordplay and so 2nd st - gina larkin city hr - hamburger dans - prescott bloom bldg - This stuff is right - pedophile frame mobilizes chem from kcs - shriners - caths - link b/t caci and caci - ever vigilant wide awakes - sleep deprivation - ierc -- Sent from Fast notepad

Gonet - dir icc - dep c/s thompson - ad cms - il coal assoc - house gop aprop - cwlpdir - xa coal trucks - trains - black beauty softball team - -- Sent from Fast notepad

Gonet He was education analyst before house staff aprop dir And was bd of regents fical officer / analyst 83-87 then aprop then gov depty c/s thompson - note esp network chair/pres and dcfs dir - and education links - xa ift/aft - ibhe - bob and judy - ioicc is education linked and see judy as iep - gavel tiempo - ecole - xa shs cellini - el simpsones - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WUq2ot38bjhG4P2HtnqkaAJVx6gQhco5lH-jhOJnaRQ/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=101614704637656207566 Gonet is coal trucks Coal trucks do chem - cwlp - coal - landes is mta - xa jasmon - scrp - renfrow - awoi - vince - elzea - boesdorfer - see esp jasmon and scrp links and note generally - mta is chamber - gray - see also sempra scambo gonet is icc and cwlpdir reliant - "timing the market" and note generallybunn owned - literally owned outright - cilco - if im not mistaken - sold to ameren stl - cwlp is one of the very few cities that generates its own power - contract out the dist to ameren now - ibew and forestry guys do chem - ruby elec - b&b - lightning - tcb - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dkFDT5UJCvRwbl0QjCN8mqJ6s7A4cSWDtRtf9r6Eaw4/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=101614704637656207566 League bowler spring field https://docs.google.com/document/d/17x6S2S86Ko43NGeHWE0IUfqO6N4uEQNC5Uszpi1c-_4/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=101614704637656207566 Blankenship wife works at mines and minerals - blankenship works at il employees retirement system - is this like trs for state workers? Xa blankenship and ipi link - dir - and pres scyrs - and chair scb scrp - -- Sent from Fast notepad

Stovepipe - categorizing intel - segmenting and separation - ala - gop - xa faux hat - alplm - pt barnum - -- Sent from Fast notepad

Black beauty coal jacket - softball team - coal trucks - mood indigo coltrane - atl - norfolk & way - is that a train horn - trains put out chem moved to park - sidetrack outside town - hit me anywhere in town - im the only one hurt b/c im hypersensitive - b/c exposure for decades and mcds poison - black knight - horacemann - centaurs - acherman - like coal trucks - ibt grievance documents emps coerced to chem - xa boes - lippold - landes - mta jasmon - coal cwlp security - ecole - consent - military academies - terr frame - partisans - ierc - doj burkhardt - kohl bros - just trying to help me out - helping people mostly - clockwork - vala - mandarians - intel - academics ift - Guy in spfld on bus to meijer - chest pain big - black beauty coal -- Sent from Fast notepad

Started reading national review a couple days agoSite is at fbuckley

11/22

Steve martin - iron balls mcginty - honore debalzac - denny hastert - tony sacco - defs argue that at some point in my life I was given some drug that reduces the pain caused by organophosphates and other chem - possibly a trip my family took to el paso when I was a child - they dont argue that I knew about this - at the time or even later in my life - I still have no reason to believe it could be true - its possible that a legal judgement based on my pain caused by poison/op etc - could be limited by some pain killing substance introduced into my body without me knowing anything about it - this is where I say - I have a lot of people trying to tell me a lot of things - most of them are hard to believe - including this - this is also where I would point out that I have also been led to believe that the defs or agents sympathetic to them - have had access to my thought process for about 20 years - thats why the homelessness - outdoors homeless - so they can talk to me while I sleep - and maybe ask me questions - this makes sense to me b/c I notice that sometimes things change after I sleep - I have things that are bad and that reach top of mind in ways that others - hard to describe - I could be wrong - if it is true - they have had a long time to determine whether I was being truthful - see also andy gillespie - uncle drew - gilligan - aussie - dobie - xa

And see bio krebs cycle - res - team lift -

11/23

epa dir was Pruitt - xa Pruitt - spfld - Williamson - mechanicals - ac - and see ruyle - guy from library - radio - note esp Pruitt is man in the middle - intercepts 911 calls - he marries sheriffs daughter - neil - see williamsonvicari site - ac - operant cond - hou - epa - hou pd complaint - homicide complaint - tx22 - and see perry homicidal threats frame - swatting - and perry in cabinet - Sangamon county - ierc - scrp - steil esda - cocaine - swensons - vanellope - Charlie - chocolate - gold - they say its consent - gold - training - fuck you - raccoon - garbage panda - they want to kill my pandas - they say I consent - but want to keep me from saying I don't -

re grandparents - rico - the thing that seems to be important is that in order for that to be true - the people doing this to me would know that - they would have to know that - and then they still do this to me - they would have to be unrealistically evil - I know some people that are republicans - they aren't much different than dems - they wouldn't allow the murder of my grandparents and not want something done about it - I think its a prank that cost too much and it they keep doubling down - and they think they just don't want to admit how this thing started

11/25

Boes

Coal trucks - gonet - the thing about the 15 yr old is true - scrn - coal trucks mta - jasmon - jasmon scyrs - jasmon sportstalk - cwlpdir - cwlp security fuiten -

Shriners - hawrelak - vigilantism - clown cars - laffers - xa boes auburn -eric hall - mrt scso - isp - gnteck - roddavis - curtright - mu - blount - nethercutt - clute - hecla - spkattys burkhardt - winston - henhouse - spfldconsulting - expo bookstore - goodlatte - irv scrp - ierc - dragoo - steil - iema - krusteil - terr frame - hershel - ailes fox - theyre not fooling anyone w/ that nonsense - radio dispatch evidence - truck driver grievance - coal - train horn - mood indigo - amb kurt - deployment -

11/27

Arlen - nelson - laffers - ghs - edgar classmates -

King of the hill - dale patterson - ssc - army surplus - henkle - joe fibro - abdvocate for spfld kindred - curtright - mu - blount - co springs - roddavis - mood indigo - herb henkel is dale - dang ol - arlen is dfw area - fudd - big d - xa perry and trump cabinet - was right about homicidal threats frame - and see gwb homicidal threats frame - swatting - they used pols - and see galv deps - under the radar - received job categories in return for ops - and money - signing bonus - never underestimate the power of people that hand out money - xa galv halliburton cheney - midland - wal - cc wal - moo - interstate aggravated battery - mgmt directed - smiley - sparky - ache - bunn - wally world - soul train - xa scyrs schweska - yale - tx ed smith spfld - furman milburn - industrial chem - grandview - klutzo - remember what happened to klutzo - rose long - team lift - wide awakes - mrt - xa dutton bonilla - rock - charles s dutton - fbuckley - celebrity they can get from behind - noonan capranica - kcs - vala - sportstalk - gray usccb - h/k spfldconsulting - chigop - huizenga fla - ackerman terry nelson - duane gibson - duane johnson - swift blessing - pac man - kjell bc04 - chigop - precinct 10 - caths - baseball - winston - bugabego - jim and tammy - jab - tx law - judges courts - alberto gonzales - agag - laffers - xa cleat - ports - hanson - gal veston -

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go-redgirl · 7 years ago

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Weekly Update: New Lawsuit on Clinton Pay-to-Play Judicial Watch ^ | March 23, 2018 | Tom Fitton

Judicial Watch Files New Lawsuit on Clinton Pay-to-Play Issues McCabe Firing Only the Beginning Nearly 200 Busted in $3.7-Million Food-Stamp Fraud Operation

Judicial Watch Files New Lawsuit on Clinton Pay-to-Play Issues

Judicial Watch meticulously documented Hillary Clinton’s use of the State Department to take care of donors to the Clinton Foundation. She and Bill are the poster children for pay-to-play.

Now we’re looking into a potential linchpin of that operation.

We just sued the State Department for emails, calendar entries and other information in the electronic file of Dennis Cheng, who was deputy chief of protocol for two years under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ( Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-00221)).

Cheng was deputy chief of protocol of the United States from July 2009-July 2011. Following his tenure at the State Department, Cheng joined the Clinton Family Foundation as director of development, and then in April 2015 became finance director of the Hillary for America presidential campaign.

Prior to joining the Clinton State Department, Cheng was finance director in New York for Mrs. Clinton’s successful campaign for Senate.

Judicial Watch filed the complaint after the State Department failed to respond to a December 21, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for:

[T]he PST file of Dennis Cheng. Mr. Cheng served as Deputy Chief of Protocol of the United States from July 20, 2009 to July 2011. A PST file is a Personal Storage Table, an open proprietary file format used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within Microsoft software such as Microsoft Exchange Client, Windows Messaging, and Microsoft Outlook.

While at the Clinton Foundation, Cheng raised $246 million in just over three-and-a-half years, July 2011-February 2015. A separate FOIA lawsuit by Citizens United found that Cheng communicated with Huma Abedin about a major Clinton Foundation dinner and other issues.

Our previous FOIA litigation uncovered the Clinton email scandal and ethics scandal , Bill Clinton’s conflicts of interest issues, and the pay-to-play scandal involving the Clinton State Department and donors to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaigns.

We have proved that the Clinton State Department became a corrupt arm of the Clinton Foundation. Outrageously, the Justice and State Departments seem to be still protecting Hillary Clinton. We’re stepping into the gap and, though this and other ongoing FOIA lawsuits, we aim to expose and hold the Clinton cash machine accountable to the rule of law.

McCabe Firing Only the Beginning

Attorney General Sessions did the right thing in firing Andrew McCabe last week for repeatedly making statements to investigators that “lack candor.” The FBI is not above the law. Mr. McCabe’s dishonesty taints both the Clinton email inquiry and Russia collusion investigation targeting President Trump, including the Mueller operation.

Mr. McCabe should have been ousted from the FBI many months ago, when Judicial Watch first revealed a clear conflict of interest scandal involving his wife’s political campaign.

Judicial Watch recently uncovered that McCabe, despite massive contributions from Clinton ally Terence McAuliffe to his wife’s 2015 political campaign, did not recuse himself from the Clinton email investigation until just a week before the 2016 presidential election. Judicial Watch also forced out documents that show that McCabe used FBI resources for his wife’s campaign. These Judicial Watch finds spurred irresistible public pressure for accountability for McCabe.

Unfortunately, the FBI and DOJ are still withholding McCabe’s text messages . The McCabe firing further shows the need for a full investigation of the numerous anti-Trump and other outrageous FBI abuses under Obama and McCabe’s mentor, James Comey.

We’ve done quite a bit of media on the issue this past week. You can see two recent Fox News interviews here and here .

The question now is whether the Clinton and Russia investigations, which are now tainted because of McCabe and other Obama/Deep State operatives’ misconduct, are going to reevaluated. In the case of the Clinton email matter, it needs to be reopened. As for the Mueller anti-Trump investigation, the McCabe taint is yet another reason to shut it down.

Nearly 200 Busted in $3.7-Million Food-Stamp Fraud Operation

What is the result when the federal government opens the floodgates for freebies and the unscrupulous sense an opportunity? Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the startling details of how your tax dollars fared in President Obama’s massive food stamp program.

More than a year after the Obama administration slammed American taxpayers with a record-high tab to provide an unprecedented number of people with food stamps, the fraud continues full-throttle in the bloated welfare program. Authorities in north Florida arrested nearly 200 people for operating a sophisticated ring in which millions of dollars in food stamps were fraudulently exchanged for cash and drugs. Keep in mind that food stamps—renamed by the Obama administration Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to eliminate stigma—are designed to help nourish the nation’s most needy.

For years Judicial Watch has reported extensively on the rampant fraud in the program that cost U.S. taxpayers a bewildering $80.4 billion in one year to provide a record 46 million people with the welfare benefit during the Obama tenure. Even then, a federal audit revealed that many who didn’t qualify for food stamps received them under a special “broad-based” eligibility program that disregards income and asset requirements. The expansion was part of the former president’s mission to eradicate “food insecure households” in the U.S. To accomplish it, the administration spent millions of dollars on ad campaigns to recruit more food-stamp recipients, even doling out hefty cash rewards to local governments that signed up the most people. One state even bragged about a $5 million performance bonus it got from the feds for its “swift processing of applications.”

Not surprisingly, the food stamp program became a hotbed of fraud and corruption. Recipients use social media to illegally sell and buy food stamps online and others use the welfare benefit to buy drugs, weapons and other contraband from unscrupulous vendors, according to a federal audit that also says some trade food stamps for reduced amounts of cash. The fraud costs the government hundreds of millions of dollars, the audit discloses. This was back in 2012 when the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency that distributes food stamps, told Congress about the serious issues plaguing the program. Things got so out of control that the Obama administration dedicated $7 million to crack down on food-stamp fraud in 2014. Among the anti-fraud initiatives that the money funded were strategies to identify and successfully investigate attempts to buy or sell SNAP benefits online using social media such as Facebook, Twitter or ecommerce websites like Craigslist and eBay.

More than a year after Obama left the USDA program in disarray, the scams continue. In the recently busted Florida operation, more than 22,000 fraudulent transactions totaling $3.7 million were documented by a task force of local and federal authorities. It has been coined Operation Half-Back and a Jacksonville news report says undercover officers personally observed 115 individuals commit 390 fraudulent transactions involving food stamps. In most cases the food-stamp recipient took 50 cents per $1 in benefit. Some of the corrupt vendors were stores but many were mobile businesses that sell food and have USDA approval to accept food stamps as payment. Among the biggest offenders are a produce business that recorded 7,164 fraudulent transactions for $1.1 million, another that had 7,390 transactions totaling $1 million, a seafood store that recorded 3,958 transactions for $1.2 million and a mobile meat vender that had 3,958 fraudulent transactions for $572,282.

The undercover sting started back in 2012, the year the Obama administration shattered food-stamp records. Law enforcement agencies created fictitious businesses, according to the Florida Attorney General’s office, which disclosed last week that more than 115 individuals have been charged with felonies and 61 others with misdemeanors. Though the federal government doles out food stamps, in Florida a state agency called Department of Children and Families administers it to provide nutrition assistance to vulnerable populations such as children, senior citizens and families in economic distress. “Food stamp trafficking steals from Florida’s hardworking taxpayers,” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement . “The SNAP/EBT program is designed to provide services to the most vulnerable among us and for anyone to take advantage of this system is shameful.”

Florida seems to be a hotbed of food-stamp rackets. Less than two years ago the feds busted the largest food-stamp fraud operation in U.S. history in south Florida. Twenty-two defendants in the largely black and Hispanic areas of Miami-Dade County known as Opa-Locka and Hialeah swindled the government out of $13 million by fraudulently trading food stamps for cash. The crooked vendors operated food and produce stands at a local flea market as part of then-First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to eradicate “food deserts,” common in poor, minority communities where fresh, healthy food is tough to find or often unavailable. The feds say the business owners and their employees let food-stamp recipients use their welfare benefit to get cash in exchange for a cut of the money.

President Trump has proposed that food stamp recipients be given actual food instead of dollars. Let’s see what, if any, reforms ultimately emerge but something needs to be done to address this uncontrolled government program.

Until next week …

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections KEYWORDS: cheng; clintonfoundation; comey; fbi; foodstamps; hillaryclinton; judicialwatch; jw; mccabe; obama; paytoplay; snap; statedept; tomfitton; trump; usda; weeklyupdate

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thetens-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Recent Jobs in a State -Licensed Micro-finance Bank for Recovery Officers, July 2017

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pedromogna-blog · 7 years ago

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RYAN TEAGUE BECKWITH and ASHLEY HOFFMAN January 18, 2018

President Donald Trump’s critics have long argued whether his tweets are a distractionfrom the more important policy decisions being made behind the scenes.

But some of Trump’s tweets as president have been just as consequential, if not more so.

In Trump’s first year in office, tweets from @realdonaldtrump have cut the cost of an Air Force contract, undermined White House messaging, forced federal agencies to rebuke them, stoked a congressional investigation, spurred the former director of the FBI to leak a damaging memo, possibly led to the appointment of a special counsel, created new legal trouble for the White House, announced a new military policy to the surprise of the Pentagon, upended a Republican plan to gut an ethics office, nearly derailed two bills the White House backed and been cited by multiple judges ruling against the Administration on several issues.

That seems entirely appropriate, as then-spokesman Sean Spicer said in June that Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the President of the United States.”

To be sure, not all of Trump’s tweets have consequences. Some do little more than spur a cable news segment or throw some red meat to his supporters. And others simply repeat the same arguments he’s making at White House events and campaign rallies. But the ones that have mattered have had real-world results.

Here’s a look at some of Trump’s most consequential tweets as president.

Air Force One

Shortly before taking office, Trump tweeted that Boeing’s projected cost for a new Air Force One was “out of control.” “Cancel order!” he wrote. Though not entirely accurate, the tweet sent chills through the defense industry, which feared the president-elect’s bully pulpit, and the U.S. Air Force eventually reduced the price by buying a pair of 747s abandoned by a bankrupt Russian airline.

Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016

As with Boeing, similar Trump tweets attacking Lockheed Martin, General Motors and Toyota led the companies’ stock prices to dip immediately, though most recovered after a while, but his criticism of Nordstrom actually led its stock value to climb. When the official White House @potus account retweeted the Nordstrom attack, ethics experts expressed concern, but no action was taken.

Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016

General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Travel ban

The White House repeatedly tried to avoid calling its executive orders restricting entry to the U.S. for citizens of some countries as “travel bans,” in order to avoid legal complications. “This is not a travel ban,” said then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, according to Business Insider. “It’s not a travel ban,” added then-White House spokesman Sean Spicer. Then, early in the morning on June 5, Trump tweeted that it was a travel ban after all.

People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017

In a second tweet just minutes later, Trump undermined the White House messaging in a different way, calling the second version of the travel ban “watered down,” a remark which opened the door to judges comparing it to the first.

The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court – & seek much tougher version!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017

Wiretapping

In March, Trump charged that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower before the 2016 election, calling him a “bad (or sick) guy.” The tweets prompted Obama to issue a rare rebuke of his successor, saying through a spokesman that the claim was “simply false.” The White House and the Republican chairman of a House intelligence committee sought to bolster the unsubstantiated allegation, and eventually the FBI and the Justice Department were forced to declare in court that they have no records of a wiretapping.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

James Comey tapes

Frustrated by news accounts of his firing of former FBI director James Comey, Trump intimated in a May tweet that he may have recorded their conversations.

James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

That led to weeks of speculation over a secret White House taping system, bringing up comparisons with President Richard Nixon. The House Intelligence Committee eventually set a deadline for the White House to clarify whether such tapes existed, and Trump revealed in two subsequent tweets that they did not.

With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017

…whether there are “tapes” or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017

James Comey memo

Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the U.S. Senate Select Committee in Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2017. AFP

The “tapes” tweet also led Comey to leak memos describing his interactions with Trump, as he explained later to the Senate intelligence committee.

“The President tweeted on Friday, after I got fired, that I better hope there’s not tapes,” Comey said. “I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape.”

Comey’s leak led directly to a story in the New York Times on May 16 recounting that Trump asked him to end the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to misleading federal agents.

Special counsel Robert Mueller

Photograph by Marco Grob for TIME

As Comey told the Senate committee, he hoped the leak of his memo would prompt the appointment of a special counsel to look into various legal issues raised by his firing and the Russia investigation.

It’s hard to definitively say whether that happened, because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the decision on his own, but former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, the day after the Times story on the memo ran.

Michael Flynn and the FBI

After Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in December, Trump tweeted that he had to fire him because he had “lied to the FBI.” That prompted Trump critics to question whether the president knew that Flynn had lied, with some even speculating that it amounted to an admission of obstruction of justice.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

THIS IS OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. @POTUS now admits he KNEW Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. Yet Trump tried to influence or stop the FBI investigation on #Flynn. https://t.co/8JqGBxgou0

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 2, 2017

That led Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, to step forward to say that he drafted the tweet, which only raised more questions.

Transgender military recruits

In July, Trump took to Twitter to announce that he would not allow transgender individuals to serve in the military, ending years of high-level discussion on the issue.

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

Top military leaders from all four service branches were reportedly blindsided by the tweets, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, were not aware of the decision ahead of time, according to CNN.

Pentagon leaders said the next day that they would not change the policy until they received detailed guidance from the White House on how to implement the tweeted policy change.

In October, a U.S. District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction on the ban and transgender recruits were allowed to enlist starting Jan. 1.

Office of Congressional Ethics, FISA Act, CHIP

A few weeks before taking office in January of 2017, Trump tweeted that Congress should not curtail the Office of Congressional Ethics, just one day after House Republicans had voted to do so. The ensuing uproar led GOP lawmakers to scrap the plan within a day.

With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

……..may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

In January of 2018, Trump took to Twitter to criticize the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, again citing his unfounded concerns that he was wiretapped by the Obama Administration. There was just one problem: The White House was pushing for the bill.

“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018

The tweet, which may have been based on a Fox New segment, briefly threw a vote on the bill into chaos, with some in Congress calling for a delay on the bill until the White House position could be clarified. In the end, the vote was held and the bill passed after Trump tweeted a clarification.

With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018

That happened again later in the month when Trump tweeted that a renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program should be part of a “long term solution,” seemingly contradicting the strategy behind Republicans’ continuing resolution, which included long-term funding for the program in an attempt to woo Democratic support.

CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018

Travel ban, transgender recruits, DACA

The travel ban faced repeated court challenges over its constitutionality, especially because Trump had called on the campaign trail for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, a move that most judges would find violates religious freedom protections.

In a decision blocking the first travel ban, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson cited one of Trump’s tweets about “bad dudes,” saying it should be taken as an official statement by the president.

If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad “dudes” out there!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017

George Conway, husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne and a one-time candidate for a legal post in the White House, warned that the president’s tweets could come back to haunt him if the case ever went before the Supreme Court.

These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won’t help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad. https://t.co/zVhcyfm8Hr

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) June 5, 2017

Conway was right. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cited one of Trump’s tweets in a ruling against the second version of the travel ban.

That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some politically correct term that won’t help us protect our people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

In October, U.S. District Court Judge Theodore D. Chuang also cited Trump’s tweetswhen ruling against the third version of the travel ban, including the “watered down” tweet, another which cited a fake story about General John J. Pershing and another that mentioned political correctness.

The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court – & seek much tougher version!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017

The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2017

Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

During questioning on a case involving the third version of the travel ban in a federal court in December, members of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit also voiced concern about some of Trump’s tweets, including the Pershing tweet and another instance in which Trump retweeted videos about purported Muslim violence from a far right British group.

It’s not just the travel ban either. In October, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly cited Trump’s tweets announcing a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military in a decision granting a temporary injunction against it.

And in January of 2018, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup cited Trump’s tweetsabout the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in a decision blocking the Administration from phasing it out.

Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017

Donald Trump’s Tweets Really Matter. These 27 Examples Prove It RYAN TEAGUE BECKWITH and ASHLEY HOFFMAN January 18, 2018 President Donald Trump’s critics have long argued whether his

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uniteordie-usa · 7 years ago

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How Facebook’s Secret Unit Created India’s Troll Armies For Digital Propaganda To Influence Elections

http://uniteordie-usa.com/how-facebooks-secret-unit-created-indias-troll-armies-for-digital-propaganda-to-influence-elections/ http://uniteordie-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Mark-Zuckerberg-Internet-laser-drones-for-good-or-for-evil-2-600x400.jpg How Facebook’s Secret Unit Created India’s Troll Armies For Digital Propaganda To Influence Elections Just days after GreatGameIndia exposed how American and Japanese companies could be hacking Indian elections, a recent Bloomberg report has revealed how a secret unit of Facebook has helped create troll armies for governments around the world including India for digital propaganda to influence e...

Just days after GreatGameIndia exposed how American and Japanese companies could be hacking Indian elections, a recent Bloomberg report has revealed how a secret unit of Facebook has helped create troll armies for governments around the world including India for digital propaganda to influence elections. Under fire for Facebook Inc.’s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship.

But Facebook, it turns out, is no bystander in global politics. What he hasn’t said is that his company actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition—sometimes with the aid of “troll armies” that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies.

The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as well as 2014 Indian elections.

Since Facebook hired Harbath to run their secret global goverment and politics unit three years later, her team has traveled the globe (including India helping political clients use the company’s powerful digital tools to create troll armies for digital propaganda.

In India (many other countries as well) the unit’s employees have become de facto campaign workers. And once a candidate is elected, the company in some instances goes on to train government employees or provide technical assistance for live streams at official state events.

In the U.S., the unit embedded employees in Trump’s campaign. In India, the company helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who now has more Facebook followers than any other world leader.

At meetings with political campaigns, members of Harbath’s team sit alongside Facebook advertising sales staff who help monetize the often viral attention stirred up by elections and politics. They train politicians and leaders how to set up a campaign page and get it authenticated with a blue verification check mark, how to best use video to engage viewers and how to target ads to critical voting blocs. Once those candidates are elected, their relationship with Facebook can help extend the company’s reach into government in meaningful ways, such as being well positioned to push against regulations.

That problem is exacerbated when Facebook’s engine of democracy is deployed in an undemocratic fashion. A November report by Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for political and human rights, found that a growing number of countries are “manipulating social media to undermine democracy.” One aspect of that involves “patriotic trolling,” or the use of government-backed harassment and propaganda meant to control the narrative, silence dissidents and consolidate power.

In 2007, Facebook opened its first office in Washington. The presidential election the following year saw the rise of the world’s first “Facebook President” in Barack Obama, who with the platform’s help was able to reach millions of voters in the weeks before the election. The number of Facebook users surged around the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East around 2010 and 2011, demonstrating the broad power of the platform to influence democracy.

Subramanian Swamy

I am writing a letter soon to PM detailing how compulsory Aadhar is a threat to our national security. SC will I am sure strike it down.

Julian Assange

See http://gginews.in/cia-spies-access-aadhaar-database/ …

How CIA Spies Access India’s Biometric Aadhaar Database | GGI News

Read UIDAI and Cross Match’s reply to this story and our response to them here Foreign Firms Given Access To Your Unencrypted Aadhaar Data. Our international readers can read this story in French…

By the time Facebook named Harbath, the former Giuliani aide, to lead its global politics and government unit, elections were becoming major social-media attractions. Facebook began getting involved in electoral hotspots around the world.

Facebook has embedded itself in some of the globe’s most controversial political movements while resisting transparency. Since 2011, it has asked the U.S. Federal Election Commission for blanket exemptions from political advertising disclosure rules that could have helped it avoid the current crisis over Russian ad spending ahead of the 2016 election.

The company’s relationship with governments remains complicated. Facebook has come under fire in the European Union, including for the spread of Islamic extremism on its network. The company just issued its annual transparency report explaining that it will only provide user data to governments if that request is legally sufficient, and will push back in court if it’s not.

Facebook Troll Armies In India

India is arguably Facebook’s most important market recently edging out the U.S. as the company’s biggest. The number of users here is growing twice as fast as in the U.S. And that doesn’t even count the 200 million people who use the company’s WhatsApp messaging service in India, more than anywhere else on the globe.

By the time of India’s 2014 elections, Facebook had for months been working with several campaigns. Modi relied heavily on Facebook and WhatsApp to recruit volunteers who in turn spread his message on social media. Since his election, Modi’s Facebook followers have risen to 43 million, almost twice Trump’s count.

Within weeks of Modi’s election, Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg both visited India as it was rolling out a critical free internet service that was later curbed due to massive protests. Harbath and her team have also traveled here, offering a series of workshops and sessions that have trained more than 6,000 government officials.

As Modi’s social media reach grew, his followers increasingly turned to Facebook and WhatsApp to target harassment campaigns against his political rivals. India has become a hotbed for fake news, with one hoax story this year that circulated on WhatsApp leading to mob beatings resulting in several deaths. The nation has also become an increasingly dangerous place for opposition parties and reporters.

GreatGameIndia@GreatGameIndia

Replying to @GreatGameIndia

Shouldn’t SPG have tightened PM’s security when #seaplane he flew in came from Pakistan whose ownership details are mysteriously tied to Bank Trust involved in registering aircrafts for anonymous clients via shell companies one of whom is Russian oligarch? http://gginews.in/seaplane-shared-sovereignty/ …

5:40 AM – Dec 13, 2017

Seaplane Of Shared Sovereignty | GGI News

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ें – जलविमान में “सहभाजीत संप्रभुता” की सवारी Unrolled thread from @GreatGameIndia #seaplane #HomiBhabha #NewNormal #ParadisePapers

However its not just Modi or the Bharatiya Janata Party who has utilize Facebook’s services. The company says it offers the same tools and services to all candidates and governments regardless of political affiliation, and even to civil society groups that may have a lesser voice.

What is interesting is that Mark Zukerberg himself wants to be the President of US and has already employed in succession David Plouffe (campaign adviser to Barack Obama in 2008) and then Ken Mehlman (George Bush Jr.’s campaign adviser in 2004). He is currently employing Amy Dudley (Senator Tim Kaine’s former advisor), Ben LaBolt (Barack Obama’s former press adviser) and Joel Benenson (Hillary Clinton’s former campaign adviser in 2016).

Facebook’s Emotion Manipulation

A 2014 study titled “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks” manipulated the balance of positive and negative messages seen by 689,000 Facebook users. The paper details the experiment running from January 11 to 18, 2012, in an attempt to identify emotional contagion effects by altering the amount of emotional content in the targeted users’ news feed. The researchers concluded that they had found “some of the first experimental evidence to support the controversial claims that emotions can spread throughout a network, [though] the effect sizes from the manipulations are small”.

The study was criticized for both its ethics and methods/claims. As controversy about the study grew, Adam Kramer, a lead author of both studies and member of the Facebook data team, defended the work in a Facebook update. A few days later, Sheryl Sandburg, Facebook’s COO, made a statement while travelling to India. While at an Indian Chambers of Commerce event in New Delhi she stated that: “This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was. It was poorly communicated and for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.”

So what was this new revolutionary product for which Facebook was conducting psychological experiments on emotion manipulation of its users? These revolutionary products are called digital propaganda Troll Armies that spread Fake News like wildfire assisting its clients during elections.

Shortly thereafter, on July 3, 2014, USA Today reported that the privacy watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade claiming that Facebook had broken the law when it conducted the study on the emotions of its users without their knowledge or consent. In its complaint the EPIC alleged that Facebook had deceived it users by secretly conducting a psychological experiment on their emotions: “At the time of the experiment, Facebook did not state in the Data Use Policy that user data would be used for research purposes. Facebook also failed to inform users that their personal information would be shared with researchers.” Most of the guinea pigs for these emotion manipulation experiments were Indians.

Most of us don’t give much thought to what we post on social media, and a lot of what we see on social media is pretty innocuous. However, it only seems that way at first glance. The truth is that what we post online has a frightening potential. According to recent research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Washington, the things we post on social media could be utilized by software to predict future events – maybe even the next Prime Minister of India.

In a paper that’s just been published on Arxiv, the team of researchers found that social media can be used to “detect and predict offline events”. Twitter analysis can accurately predict civil unrest, for instance, because people use certain hashtags to discuss issues online before their anger bubbles over into the real world.

The most famous example of this came during the Arab Spring, when clear signs of the impending protests and unrest were found on social networks days before people took to the streets.

The reverse of this is also true. Meaning that anger can also be manufactured on social media & once it reaches an optimum level be targeted on to real life events on the streets as we have been witnessing since atleast a couple of years in India with cases of mob lynchings and such.

How India’s Fake News Ecosystem Work

In India a massive fake news industry has sprung up exercising influence over traditional discourse of politics and has a potential in becoming a security challenge like the Arab Spring if not kept in check. As the debate over mob lynching in India is raging it should be understood that such incidents would not have had such a rapid and massive effect if the youth had not had access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media that allowed the fake news industry to organise and share made-up videos and information. The mob lynching since the past years are a direct result of the fake news industry spilling over from social media to the real world.

This takes a totally new dimension now that it has been revealed that Facebook & WhatsApp itself colluded with the establishment in creating such “troll arimes” for digital propaganda, resulting directly into violence on Indian soil. This is a clear textbook case of terrorism. Terrorism is defined as ‘the systematic use of terror or violence by any individual or group to achieve political goals’. In this case this terrorism is perpetrated by a foreign company Facebook on Indian soil using digital information warfare. What more are we waiting for to respond to such an act?

Fake News was used very effectively during US Presidential elections. It was part of the official campaign itself run in collaboration with tech companies and it is also being alleged that even the Russians also ran their own network. The same method was used to shape the Brexit debate as well. As we write this the fake news industry is spreading its tentacles in India as well. Many of India’s leading sportsmen, celebrities, economists, politicians have already fallen victim to this by disseminating such fake content. This is a dangerous trend and should be kept in check by our intelligence agencies to avert future disaster.

The way it works in short is like this. Numerous websites and portals of varying degree of legitimacy and funding are floated. Specific news contents are generated for different groups based on their region, ideology, age, religion etc. which is mixed with a heavy dose of soft porn to slowly blend in with their objective. These fake contents are than peddled in social media and specific groups targeted via analytics tools developed by tech companies. As a lot of such fake content is generated slowly it starts getting a momentum of itself and somewhere down the line it is picked up by any unsuspected person of influence – celebrities, politicians and even journalists themselves. What happens after this point is sheer madness.

Whether by choice or by ignorance even the mainstream media starts peddling this nonsense, dedicating their entire primetime news shows in analyzing the fake news, who said what and why and blah blah… instead of identifying where the fake content was generated in the first place and getting it shut. Due to the nature and sensationalism of the generated content and also because its echoed by persons of influence with time this fake worldview has the potential to spill over in the real world with physical casualties, as we have seen in so many lynching cases. If not kept in check it could capture and take over the entire national discourse. We will reach a point where it will be very difficult to keep track of what is fact or fiction and the entire society would be radicalized into different opposing camps all based on lies.

Facebook & Indian Elections

Around the time of the Indian election in May 2014 a serious-headlined story began spreading which asked “Did Google affect the outcome of the Indian election?” Beneath the headline was an iceberg – If Facebook can tweak our emotions and make us vote, what else can it do?

Surprisingly, the Election Commission of India itself has partnered with Facebook for voter registration during election process. Dr.Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India, said “I am pleased to announce that the Election Commission of India is going to launch a ‘Special Drive to enrol left out electors, with a particular focus on first time electors. This is a step towards fulfilment of the motto of ECI that ‘NO VOTER TO BE LEFT BEHIND’. As part of this campaign, Facebook will run a voter registration reminder in multiple Indian languages to all the Facebook users in India. I urge all eligible citizens to enrol and VOTE i.e. Recognize your Right and Perform your Duty. I am sure Facebook will strengthen Election Commission of India’s enrolment campaign and encourage future voters to participate in the Electoral Process and become responsible Citizens of India.”

GreatGameIndia@GreatGameIndia

Replying to @GreatGameIndia

Why did EC shared secret #EVMs code with foreign manufacturers Microchip & Renesas to have it fused onto microprocessors. BEL & ECIL could have done it in their own premises in a secure manner. Why did they do this in a foreign country USA/Japan? Threadhttp://gginews.in/hack-indian-evms-electronic-voting-machines-dummies/ …

4:47 AM – Dec 19, 2017

Are Indian Elections Hacked By Foreign Companies?

Just days after we reported this story on how American and Japanese companies could be hacking Indian elections, it has been revealed how a secret unit of Facebook has helped create troll armies for…

All 17 American Intelligence agencies have raised serious concern about the impact of this fake news industry on their election process and their society. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center a majority of Americans (a whopping 88%) believe that completely made-up news has left Americans confused about even the basic facts. And we in India are heading towards a worst scenario than this. Why? Because unlike India, the US Government and Intelligence community has publicly addressed this issue and are working towards resolving this menace. Will Indian govt address such meddling by Facebook in India’s internal affairs?

Committees after committees are being setup, senate hearings are being convened to reach to the bottom of this and new Units are being created to effectively counter this threat to their society. While Facebook is being investigated for meddling in US Presidential elections not much focus has been given to how Facebook’s secret unit has influenced elections in India. In light of these revelations Facebook’s interference in India’s elections should be thoroughly investigated. Ofcourse in order to do so first the Govt should have to acknowledge the existence of this fake news industry in order to take action against it.

Along with Facebook, American Microchip Inc and Japanese Renesas contracted by Election Commission for fusing secret EVM code should also be investigated for interfering in India’s elections and all those who colluded with them. It will be a grave mistake to take this threat of foreign companies interfering in India’s elections lightly.

Read More: http://gginews.in/facebooks-secret-unit-created-indias-troll-armies-digital-propaganda-influence-elections/

#Facebook #fake news industry #Great Game India #Mark Zuckerberg #political propaganda #troll armies

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junker-town · 7 years ago

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College basketball corruption fallout tracker: Scandal leaves players ineligible everywhere

Follow the fallout from the FBI’s bombshell investigation into college basketball corruption.

It may take months or even years for the total impact of the FBI’s expansive investigation into wide-spread corruption throughout college basketball to be clear. But it took only hours after corruption and fraud schemes involving coaches at prominent programs were detailed by a U.S. Attorney on Tuesday for the immediate aftershocks to be felt.

Here are the key developments related to the players and programs involved in the scandal:

NCAA rules Auburn’s Austin Wiley ineligible for season

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Auburn center Austin Wiley has been ruled ineligible until the 2018-19 season following the program’s self-reported violations on recruiting, extra benefits, and agent-related activity, the NCAA has announced.

Wiley is arguably the biggest recruit in the history of Auburn basketball. The Tigers haven’t missed the five-star center early in the season. Auburn became ranked for the first time in 15 years following a 15-1 start to the season.

USC will hold De’Anthony Melton out all season

The Trojans have held out sophomore guard De’Anthony Melton all season while investigating his role in the FBI scandal. Now USC has decided Melton will not play for them this season.

Melton’s family friend reportedly received $5,000 to direct him to use a certain agent and financial service advisor when he turned pro. Melton was considered a possible first round NBA draft pick heading into the season.

Auburn suspends Danjel Purifoy indefinitely

This was supposed to be the year Bruce Pearl got Auburn back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003. Now the FBI scandal has provided a tangible hit to the Tigers’ roster: starting forward Danjel Purifoy have been suspended indefinitely because of their ties to corruption allegations against Auburn assistant Chuck Person.

Person, who was arrested in the FBI probe, allegedly gave more than $18,000 to the families of two Auburn players. Purifoy averaged 11.5 points per game as a redshirt freshman last season.

Rick Pitino out at Louisville

Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Louisville interim president Greg Postel announced Wednesday that head basketball coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on administrative leave. Pitino's attorney, Steve Spence, told the Courier-Journal that Louisville had “effectively fired” the coach. Louisville has named David Padgett as the interim head coach.

Pitino was officially fired from Louisville on Monday:

ULAA has voted to terminate Rick Pitino's employment "for just cause."

— Jeff Greer (@jeffgreer_cj) October 16, 2017

How was Louisville involved?

Louisville acknowledged it was a part of the scandal on Tuesday. The program allegedly worked with Adidas to funnel $100,000 to an unnamed recruit who appears to be McDonald’s All-American shooting guard Brian Bowen. A coach was also caught on tape discussing a payment to a future recruit.

Louisville names David Padgett interim head coach

David Padgett will be “acting” Louisville coach. Played for Cards from 2005-08. Only been on staff for a couple years, one as an assistant.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) September 29, 2017

Louisville is staying in-house with its next head coach, promoting assistant David Padgett to the top job on an interim basis. Padgett is only 32 years old and was a fan favorite for the Cardinals as a three-year starting center.

Brian Bowen transfers to South Carolina

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Bowen has transferred to South Carolina.

He was the Louisville recruit widely believed to be the unnamed player in the investigation who allegedly received a $100,000 payment to commit to the Cardinals in June. The FBI cleared Bowen in November, saying he had no knowledge of the bride accepted by his family.

What does this mean for Louisville basketball?

Bowen was supposed to be Donovan Mitchell’s replacement in the backcourt. He was also the type of three-point shooter the roster desperately needed.

Anfernee Simons and Courtney Ramey decommit from Louisville

Top prospects Anfernee Simons and Courtney Ramey on Wednesday announced they would no longer be attending Louisville , shortly after Pitino was placed on administrative leave:

THANK YOU LOUISVILLE #L1C4 http://pic.twitter.com/UQSRWa7OHK

— Anfernee Simons (@AnferneeSimons) September 27, 2017

What does this mean for Louisville basketball?

It means Louisville has already lost its entire 2018 recruiting class just one day after the scandal broke. Simmons was a five-star guard ranked No. 8 overall in the class, while Ramey was a top-50 overall point guard. These are two elite prospects who are now reopening their recruitments.

5-star guard Romeo Langford no longer considering Louisville

Langford, ESPN’s No. 5 overall recruit in the country, has cut Louisville from his list, according to his father. We predicted the elite shooting guard would pick the Cardinals earlier this month before the scandal broke.

Auburn suspends assistant coach Chuck Person

John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

In the wake of Person’s arrest, Auburn suspended him without pay on Tuesday.

"This morning's news is shocking. We are saddened, angry and disappointed," university president Steven Leath wrote in a series of tweets posted to Twitter. "We are committed to playing by the rules, and that's what we expect from our coaches. In the meantime, Auburn is working closely with law enforcement, and we will help them in their investigation in any way we can."

How was Person involved?

Person allegedly collected $91,500 in bribes to push college athletes to work with Rashan Michel, the owner of an Atlanta-based clothing store.

What does this mean for Auburn basketball?

Head coach Bruce Pearl already has one show-cause penalty from the NCAA. This puts his program, which had been recruiting at an incredibly high level, under the microscope of the NCAA.

E.J. Montgomery decommits from Auburn

E.J. Montgomery, a four-star recruit from Georiga, decommitted from Auburn, his father told Scout.com Wednesday. Montgomery, a 6’10 power forward, had initially committed to Auburn Sept. 22.

What does this mean for Auburn basketball?

Montgomery was Auburn’s only recruit in the 2018 class, but he was a good one. He would have given Pearl a versatile lefty forward who would create with the ball in his hands. Montgomery’s commitment was more proof that Pearl was recruiting at a high level since going to Auburn. You have to wonder if that changes going forward.

Auburn is offering basketball ticket refunds

In addition to suspending Person, Auburn is offering season ticket holders full refunds for the upcoming basketball season. The school had previously announced that all season tickets had beens sold out for the fourth straight season.

Alabama’s director of basketball operations resigns

Alabama AD Greg Byrne announced he accepted the resignation of Kobie Baker, the school’s director of basketball operations, after an internal review of the program. Here’s the catch: The same statement said Alabama “has not identified any NCAA or SEC rules violations nor the involvement of any other coach or staff member,”.

Arizona suspends assistant coach Book Richardson

Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

How was Richardson involved?

Richardson, an assistant coach under head coach Sean Miller since 2009, allegedly accepted $20,000 in bribes from agency “runner” Christian Dawkins and financial adviser Muhish Sood for steering a top Arizona point guard recruit to work with them. The recruit in question is believed to be five-star floor general Jahvon Quinerly.

What does this mean for Arizona basketball?

Richardson has been arrested and could face up to 60 years in federal prison. He has been suspended and relieved of all duties at Arizona. Quinerly also could be suspended or decide to play professionally overseas instead of honoring his commitment.

NBA players flee from ASM agency after ties to probe

The office of NBA agent Andy Miller was raided by the FBI this week after ties to the federal probe. Christian Dawkins, one of 10 men arrested in the investigation, used to work for Miller before being fired in May for racking up $42,000 in Uber expenses.

Now athletes are fleeing the agency, including first round draft pick Justin Patton (formerly of Creighton, now with the Timberwolves) and second rounder Edmond Sumner (formerly of Xavier, now with the Pacers).

Willie Reed has gone even further. The veteran big man filed a $13.5 million arbitration claim after alleging he was defrauded, according to ESPN.

Dawkins, sources say, advised Reed to turn down a preliminary three-year, $15 million deal by the Miami Heat early in the free-agency juncture with the promise of a larger market opening up for his services.

That never occurred.

Reed terminated his contract with Miller on the evening of July 11, sources say. Sources say Dawkins represented Reed and others well after he was believed to have been fired from the company over two months ago for racking up $42,000 in Uber charges on an unnamed NBA player's credit card.

Alabama five-star Collin Sexton suspended 1-game, then eligible

Alabama announces that Collin Sexton will sit out tomorrow's game as a one-game suspension -- but will be eligible for Tuesday's game.

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) November 10, 2017

Sexton, arguably the best freshman guard in the country, missed Alabama’s exhibition games, sparking speculation that he could be ineligible this season. Turns out he’ll only miss the Crimson Tide’s opener.

College basketball fans should be happy to be able to watch him play.

Oklahoma State fires assistant Lamont Evans

Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images for ESPN

Lamont Evans was fired by Oklahoma State on Thursday. He had previously been suspended with pay on Tuesday afternoon.

“We have been in contact with the NCAA and will provide additional information as it becomes available,” the university said in a statement obtained by Tulsa World. “OSU takes seriously the high standards of conduct expected in our athletic department and does not tolerate any deviation from those standards.”

How was Evans involved?

Evans allegedly accepted $22,000 in bribes during his time at South Carolina, as well as Oklahoma State, to influence athletes toward business advisory and investment management services from Munish Sood.

What does this mean for Oklahoma State basketball?

The Cowboys could face an investigation from the NCAA. South Carolina and Frank Martin might be in the same boat after the indictment named the program in connection with Evans’ bribes. The same could go for new Illinois coach Brad Underwood, who hired Evans as an assistant during his one year as Cowboys coach.

USC assistant Tony Bland placed on administrative leave

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

USC placed associate head basketball coach Tony Bland on administrative leave on Tuesday after learning of his arrest and involvement in the FBI investigation.

How was Bland involved?

Bland allegedly accepted $13,000 in bribes to steer players to an agent. Bland also allegedly worked with agents and financial advisers to send $9,000 to families of two current USC basketball players.

What does this mean for USC basketball?

USC was about to start one of its most anticipated seasons ever as a consensus top-15 team. The NCAA is likely to investigate the players referenced in the report, which could leave them suspended or ineligible.

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