Tags: Nation / Stories

Richard Grenell,US envoy to Germany,wants to 'empower' Europe's right

- Monday, June 04, 2018

The US ambassador to Germany has said he wants to "empower" Europe's right.

Richard Grenell, who was appointed by President Donald Trump last year, made the highly unusual comments for a diplomat to right-wing Breitbart News.

"I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left," he said.

Mr Grenell's comments follow several other controversial remarks by Trump-appointed diplomats.

In the interview, the ambassador, who only took office last month, said President Trump's election had energised people to take on the "political class". Mr Grenell said he had been contacted by people throughout Europe about a conservative "resurgence".

He attacked the perceived bias of the media and politicians against Mr Trump as "the group-think of a very small elitist crowd", and praised Austria's conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz as a "rock star".

Mr Kurz's party formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party in 2017.

Right-wing populists have won support across Europe, with recent electoral success for parties in Italy and Slovenia that espouse strict immigration policies.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy described the interview as "awful".

In a tweet, he said he had previously spoken to Mr Grenell about "politicising this post".
What's his background?

Formerly the longest serving US spokesperson at the United Nations, Mr Grenell is under contract with Fox News as a contributor on world affairs and the media.

He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, Politico, the Washington Times, Al Jazeera, CBS News and CNN.

A Senate vote in May confirmed him as US ambassador to Germany after President Trump's nomination in September 2017.

But only an hour after he officially began his role, Mr Grenell provoked controversy for tweeting that German companies should "wind down operations immediately" in Iran, following Mr Trump's announcement that the US was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

Is 'diplomatic language' dying out?

Mr Grenell's comments are the most recent case of controversial language from a US diplomat.

The US state department's guide, Protocol for the Modern Diplomat, states that "each country will be respected uniformly and without bias", and includes the instruction "that as a guest, one is expected to respect the host's culture".

However, former US ambassador to Germany John Kornblum told the BBC there is "no lexicon" for ambassadors.

"There is no such thing as diplomatic language," he said. "The language diplomats use is attuned to their needs."

For example, during the negotiations for the Dayton Agreement in 1995, Mr Kornblum says there was "incredibly undiplomatic" language used to criticise heads of government, in particular Serbia.

He also believes that in Europe there is a greater degree of "self-censorship" among diplomats that does not apply anywhere else in the world, saying "Europeans are especially sensitive".

However, he agrees that President Trump has changed things.

"Mr Trump has taken political language in the US to new depths," said Mr Kornblum. And he thinks diplomats abroad could be trying to emulate their president.

President Trump has infamously dubbed Mexicans "drug dealers" and "rapists", reportedly used derogatory language to describe some African countries and claimed knife crime in London had left a hospital there "like a war zone".



Undiplomatic diplomats:Are there more?

Yes.

In October 2017, US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa Scott Brown said he was under investigation for telling a woman at a Peace Corps event she was "beautiful" and could "make hundreds of dollars" if she worked as a waitress in the US.

In a video statement to New Zealand media, Mr Brown admitted he had made the comments, but only did so because the people he saw before the event "were all dirty and grungy, and when we walked in, they were all dressed to the nines; they looked great".

And US ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra was recently caught out over his claims about "no-go zones" in the country due to Islamic extremism.

Tags: Blog / Nation

Dancing FBI agent drops gun during backflip and shoots man in leg

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An off-duty FBI agent accidentally shot a bystander in the leg when his gun fell from its holster as he cavorted on the dance-floor of a bar in Denver, Colorado, police said.

Video widely shared on Twitter shows the agent strutting his stuff and then performing a backflip.

The gun falls to the floor and, as the agent goes to grab it, fires a shot.

The fellow customer hit by the bullet was taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

It is unclear if the agent, who has not been named, will face charges or disciplinary action.

The video shows that his wild moves on the dance-floor had attracted an appreciative crowd at the Mile High Spirits and Distillery bar on Saturday night.

But the mood quickly changed when the gun went off. As shocked patrons look on, the agent retrieves his weapon, holds up his hands and leaves the floor.

Denver Police Department said the agent "was dancing at a nightclub when his firearm became dislodged from its waistband holster and fell on to the floor. When the agent retrieved his handgun an unintended discharge occurred".

The statement added: "The victim was transported to the hospital with a good prognosis."

Police spokeswoman Marika Putnam said the agent was taken to a police station and later released to an FBI supervisor.

The Denver District Attorney's office said the incident remained under investigation.

Tags: Blog / Nation

The United Nations says Trump is making life harder for the poor

- Sunday, June 03, 2018

Donald Trump Is "Punishing, Imprisoning The Poor", Says United Nations

The US has one of the highest youth poverty rates in the developed world.

About 41 million Americans live in poverty,according to government data.

The United Nations has never been shy about attacking the United States.

In recent years, U.N. officials accused the Obama administration of failing to address police brutality and sexual assault in the military. After a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, the U.N. team tasked with monitoring the implementation of the global convention against discrimination called on high-level U.S. politicians and public officials to unequivocally reject racial hate speech.Also last year, the world body called President Donald Trump's attacks on the media "dangerous."

Now, a top human rights investigator is criticizing the United States for failing the poor.

Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, has spent the past several months visiting impoverished communities across the United States. In one visit to Alabama, he met a family struggling to maintain their home on an income of $958 a month.

On the day of his visit, he said, sewage was visible inches from the family's house - a reflection of their county's failing infrastructure - and mildew and mold were growing inside. Alston said he had never seen sewage problems like it in the developed world.

"There is a human right for people to live decently," he said at the time, according to AL.com, an Alabama news outlet.

Alston, a New York University law professor, also paid visits to slum areas in downtown Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

Now, ahead of a presentation to the U.N. later this month, he is criticizing the Trump administration for gutting the United States' safety net by slashing welfare benefits and access to health insurance.

"If food stamps and access to Medicaid are removed, and housing subsidies cut, then the effect on people living on the margins will be drastic," he told the Guardian, saying the loss of those protections would lead to "severe deprivation."

Alston also lambasted the administration over its recent tax cut, saying that legislation will offer "financial windfalls" to the rich and large corporations, leading to even more inequality.

The government should think harder about how to help those in need rather than "punishing and imprisoning the poor," he said.

"The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned, rather than a right of citizenship," Alston said.

About 41 million Americans live in poverty, according to government data, about 12.7 percent of the population. One in three of those are children. The United States has one of the highest youth poverty rates in the developed world.

Critics of Alston point out that those statistics are from 2016, before Trump took office. On Twitter, Alston explained his reasoning this way:

"...The poverty figures for 2017 won't be published until Sept 2018. Poverty is a structural problem, but I strongly believe, backed up by extensive evidence, that a 1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich and the hollowing out of welfare benefits, will make things worse, not great."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. A U.S. official in Geneva disputed Alston's claims, saying that "the Trump Administration has made it a priority to provide economic opportunity for all Americans."

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Giuliani:Trump ‘Probably Does’ Have The Power To Pardon Himself,But Won’t

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Giuliani: Trump ‘Probably Does’ Have The Power To Pardon Himself, But Won’t

The president’s lawyer also defended Trump’s shifting explanations for a 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

President Donald Trump doesn’t intend to pardon himself, Rudy Giuliani said on Sunday ― but he “probably does” have the power to do so.

“He has no intention of pardoning himself ... not to say he can’t,” Giuliani, a lawyer and adviser to Trump on the Russia probe, told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. He characterized the question of a self-pardon as a “really interesting constitutional argument.”

“I think the political ramifications of that would be tough,” he said. “Pardoning other people is one thing. Pardoning yourself is another.”

In another Sunday interview, this one on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Giuliani took a stronger stand on both the unlikeliness of such a move, and the possibility for political fallout.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said, arguing that Trump had done nothing wrong that would require him to pardon himself.

He added that “the president of the United States pardoning himself is unthinkable... it would probably lead to immediate impeachment.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also weighed in against the idea. “I don’t think a president should pardon themselves,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney fired by Trump, said on the same program that the idea of the president deciding to pardon himself as “almost self-executing impeachment.”

Giuliani said on “Meet The Press” that Trump has the power to terminate any federal investigation, although he described such a move as “a very unrealistic thing.”

“The Department of Justice is a creature of the president,” he said. “I know based on presidential rulings... [the] Justice Department is given a certain amount of independence. I am tremendously in favor of it, but that’s all the president’s decision.”

The president’s lawyer defended Trump’s shifting explanations about a meeting with Russians at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign that included his son, Donald Trump Jr. “This is the reason you don’t let the president testify” as part of the special counsel probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Giuliani told ABC. “Our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption.”

He predicted that special counsel Robert Mueller would wrap up his investigation by the start of this September. “He’s as sensitive as everybody to not doing another Comey and interfering horribly in the election,” Giuliani said.

He was referring to then-FBI Director’s Jim Comey announcement less than two weeks before the 2016 vote that the agency was reopening aspects of its probe into Democratic candidate’s Hillary Clinton’s private use of email when she served as secretary of state. Although days later Comey said the probe was again being closed without charges being filed, Clinton has blamed his initial announcement as a key reason Trump went on to defeat her.
Source

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Giuliani:Trump Could Have Shot Comey And Still Couldn’t Be Indicted For It

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Giuliani:Trump Could Have Shot Comey And Still Couldn’t Be Indicted For It

Congress would have to impeach Trump first before any criminal prosecution could move forward, the president’s lawyer says.


 Candidate Donald Trump bragged that he could shoot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose any support, and now President Donald Trump’s lawyer says Trump could shoot the FBI director in the Oval Office and still not be prosecuted for it.

“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday, claiming a president’s constitutional powers are that broad. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”

Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.

“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”

Norm Eisen, the White House ethics lawyer under President Barack Obama and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the silliness of Giuliani’s claim illustrates how mistaken Trump’s lawyers are about presidential power.

“A president could not be prosecuted for murder? Really?” he said. “It is one of many absurd positions that follow from their argument. It is self-evidently wrong.”

Eisen and other legal scholars have concluded that the constitution offers no blanket protection for a president from criminal prosecution. “The foundation of America is that no person is above the law,” he said. “A president can under extreme circumstances be indicted, but we’re facing extreme circumstances.”

Giuliani’s comments came a day after The New York Times revealed that Trump’s lawyers in January made their case to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump could not possibly have obstructed justice because he has the ability to shut down any investigation at any time.

“He could,if he wished,terminate the inquiry,or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired,” Jay Sekulow and John Dowd wrote in a 20-page letter. Dowd has since left Trump’s legal team, replaced by Giuliani.

The letter also admits that Trump “dictated” a statement that was then released by his son, Donald Trump Jr., regarding a meeting held at Trump Tower in June 2016 between top Trump campaign officials and Russians with links to that country’s spy agencies.

That meeting was scheduled after the Russians said they had damaging information about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that would be of use to the Trump campaign. The Trump-dictated statement falsely claimed the meeting was primarily about the adoption of Russian children by American families ― the same topic that Trump claimed had been the substance of a conversation he had had with Russian leader Vladimir Putin the previous evening in Germany.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded during the 2016 campaign that not only was Russia interfering in the U.S. election, but was actively trying to help Trump win.

Both Sekulow and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders claimed, falsely, that Trump had not dictated the statement, but had merely offered his son suggestions. Sanders on Sunday referred questions about the matter to Trump’s outside legal team.

Giuliani said Sekulow was misinformed about the Trump Tower meeting, which in any case was not that significant. “In this investigation, the crimes are really silly,” he said, arguing that the firing of Comey last year could not be construed as obstruction of justice because Trump had the right to fire him at any time and for any reason. “This is pure harassment, engineered by the Democrats.”

Comey had been leading the FBI probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence until his dismissal, which led to the appointment of Mueller to take it over. Within two days of the firing, Trump told both NBC News and Russian officials visiting him in the Oval Office that he had done it because of the investigation.

Eisen said Giuliani’s assertion, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that a mob boss under investigation by the FBI could give Trump a bribe to fire the FBI director, Trump could explain on television that he had done so “because of this Mafia thing,” and then not face criminal charges.

“Well, of course it would be appropriate to initiate a prosecution,” he said. “I think the legally correct answer is, as usual, the opposite of Giuliani’s answer.”

Giuliani, once the mayor of New York City and prior to that the U.S. attorney there, took charge of Trump’s outside legal team in April, saying then that he planned to wrap the whole thing up within a few weeks. Now he said he is not sure when it will end because Mueller is taking too long and not turning over material to Giuliani ― such as a report of what was learned from an FBI informant who made contact with several members of the Trump campaign with links to Russia.

Giuliani said he has so far met with Trump about 10 times and spoken to him on the phone another 40 or so times, totaling at least 75 hours of conversation. “I’m not billing by the hour, otherwise I could tell you exactly,” he joked about the case he has taken on for free.

Mueller’s investigation has so far resulted in the guilty pleas of five people, including three former Trump campaign staffers, and the indictment of 14 other people and three companies. That total includes 13 Russians, Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” that was used to create and disseminate propaganda to help Trump win.

A related investigation by Giuliani’s former U.S. attorney’s office is examining the dealings of longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. A former business partner has agreed to cooperate in that probe and plead to New York state charges.
Source

Tags: Destination / Stories / Travel

Women no longer pay more for health care just for being women

- Saturday, January 07, 2017

Women No Longer Pay More For Health Care Just For Being Women.

Birth control and preventative care aren’t considered luxuries.

Before President Barack Obama took office, being a woman came with a surcharge.

Most women had to pay out of pocket for birth control, even though preventing pregnancy saves money for everyone ― including insurance companies, men and the federal government. And women were charged more than men for the same health insurance plans because they tend to have babies, visit the doctor more often and live longer.

The Obama administration was the first to treat women’s preventative health care, including birth control, as a necessity instead of a luxury. The Affordable Care Act banned insurance companies from the practice of “gender rating” and required all insurance plans to cover the full range of contraception methods and well-woman visits, without a co-pay.

“It has really revolutionized how the health care system deals with reproductive health care, particularly family planning,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, told The Huffington Post. “Women now expect that birth control is a part of regular health care. We had to fight to get that done, but it’s been a sea change.”

Obama’s signature health care law saved women $1.4 billion on birth control pills alone in 2013, the year after it went into effect. More than 55 million women now get their contraception and well-woman visits for free, and unintended pregnancy in the United States is at a 30-year low. But those benefits may be short-lived, as Republicans are threatening to repeal Obamacare once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Richards said Planned Parenthood had a “flood of women” calling in the days after Trump was elected, trying to get intrauterine devices and other long-term forms of birth control while their insurance is still required to cover them.

“We had historic numbers of people calling, because women understood this is a benefit they got under Obama that’s now at risk,” Richards said.

This piece is part of a series on Obama’s legacy that The Huffington Post will be publishing over the next week. Read other pieces in the series here.

Even if they decide to keep some aspects of Obamacare, the incoming Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress will probably not be friendly to the birth control access provisions. Republicans see the birth control coverage rule as an affront to religious freedom, arguing that employers who morally oppose birth control shouldn’t have to provide it in their health plans. And Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), said in 2012 that birth control does not need to be covered because women have never had trouble paying for it.

“Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one,” Price said at the time. “The fact of the matter is this is a trampling on religious freedom and religious liberty in this country.” 

It’s a real risk for this new administration to try to take women back to the 1950s ― particularly young women who have grown up under this administration.Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood

Republicans have also repeatedly tried to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest family planning provider in the country, because of some of its clinics provide abortions. Planned Parenthood receives about $70 million a year in Title X federal family planning funds to provide birth control, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing to low-income patients. But nearly half the states in the country have attempted to withhold money from Planned Parenthood, and Republicans in Congress plan to spend $1.6 million in taxpayer dollars this year to investigate the family planning provider.

Senate Democrats are prepared to battle for Planned Parenthood funding and the birth control benefit under the new administration.

“It would be truly appalling and a grave mistake for Republicans in Congress and the incoming administration to attempt to force women to pay more for the preventative health care they need,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “If they do try, they should know that I, together with millions of women across the country, will be ready to fight back as hard as we can against any attempt to roll back women’s health care and to protect the progress we’ve made.”

The Obama administration issued a rule in December that prevents states from defunding Planned Parenthood for political reasons. But that rule probably won’t last under Trump.

Still, Republicans may find that it’s much more difficult to take away access to preventative care now that women have now come to expect it. Even if they repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, eliminate birth control coverage and roll back abortion rights, Obama has already shown women what equitable health care feels like and has motivated a new generation of women to fight for it.

“It’s a real risk for this new administration to try to take women back to the 1950s ― particularly young women who have grown up under this administration,” Richards said. “It’s like lighting a match and dropping it on dry tinder.”

Source

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Demolition Team Tears Down Wrong House.

- Friday, March 25, 2016

 A Texas woman has been left fuming after a demolition team accidentally tore down her home.

Tornadoes had caused widespread damage to homes in Rowlett in December, leaving some in need of repair or even unsafe to live in.

Lindsay Diaz was relieved after engineers said her home was structurally sound and she and begun making repairs to the property.

On Tuesday, she returned home to find her duplex had been reduced to rubble.
 She told CBS Dallas: "Boom. Just like the tornado came through again."

Ms Diaz said when she went to speak to the demolition supervisor, he realised that his team should have torn down a duplex one block further along the street.

She claims the president of the demolition company - Billy L Nabors Demolition - has been unhelpful since the mix-up.

She told CBS Dallas: "I was hoping for an apology, I'm sorry my company did this. We'll make it better, and instead he's telling me how the insurance is going to handle it and telling me that it's going to be a nasty fight."

Speaking to WFAA,she added: "How do you make a mistake like this? I mean,this is just the worst."

The demolition company declined to comment to media news.

Tags: Destination / Nation / Travel / US

Training for the End of the World as We Know It

- Saturday, October 18, 2014

A shot rings out in the Orchard Lake Campground. The crack ricochets off of evergreens and elms and oaks.  No one hits the ground, screams, or ducks for cover. None of the 600 campers even seems fazed by the blast piercing through the stagnant humidity.After all,it’s just target practice.

Welcome to prepper camp.

For four days last month, the campground—nestled in a remote part of the foggy Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina—hosted a crash course in survival. Organized by “Prepper Rick” Austin and his wife, a blogger who goes by “Survivor Jane,” the weekend attracted participants from Tennessee, California, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia. When the sole Yankee outs herself, one person jokingly threatens to lynch her with a paracord.

Preppers have their own language.  They carry “BOBs,” or “bug-out bags,” knapsacks stuffed with provisions necessary to “get out of dodge” when “TSHTF” (the shit hits the fan). “TEOTWAWKI” is instantly recognizable as shorthand for “the end of the world as we know it.” But that “end” means something different to everyone. They’re not all anticipating a rapture. Preoccupations range from super-viruses like Ebola to natural disasters (solar flares, hurricanes) to man-made catastrophes (an ISIS attack, socioeconomic collapse leading to utter mayhem).

Ultimately, preppers are united by the goal of not going down without a fight. Some, like Rick and Jane, fled self-described “cushy, corporate lives” after a traumatic incident—in their case, getting roughed up in a parking garage. They left Florida for a 53-acre homestead in North Carolina, where they’ve planted “gardens of survival” designed to look like overgrown underbrush. Others come from a long line of live-off-the-land folk who want to continue the lineage and become less dependent on store-bought, prepackaged foods. Most distrust the political climate here and abroad.

If a disaster happens, they fear that neighbors will turn on each other. For most preppers, densely populated areas are nightmare scenarios. “Get you a paintball gun with pepper-spray balls, then get to New Jersey, steal a car, and head for the mountains,” suggests Doug, a potbellied, disheveled man staffing the Carolina Readiness Supply tent, peddling how-to manuals and dehydrated foods. There’s a sense of righteousness, of arrogance, of smug pity for people who don’t share the same certainty about the impending descent into anarchy. Many people are proudly wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “I’ll Miss You When You’re Gone.” One presenter sums up the preppers’ rallying cry: “If someone from the city tries to come to the rural areas we’ve settled, we’ll stand on the county line with our shotguns and tell them no.”

But the people at prepper camp are rational, reasoned, and eager to share their knowledge and skills, swapping tips about purchasing things like German surplus military phones—untraceable by the NSA—or night-vision goggles for spotting a sentry standing guard in a tree. They trade tips for stockpiling antibiotics without tipping off doctors or law-enforcement officials. These preppers are impassioned, but not hysterical or anxiously raving about the end of days—very different from the sensationalized caricatures portrayed on National Geographic’s hit TV show Doomsday Preppers. And they’re not so rare as you might think: In a 2012 nationally representative survey by Kelton Research, 41 percent of respondents said they believed stocking up on resources or building a bomb shelter was a more worthwhile investment than saving for retirement.

Six white tents are lined with folding chairs set up for rapt lecture audiences. In one, the lecturer keeps his dark sunglasses on. He’s not trying to conjure an air of mystery: Dale Stewart recently burned his retinas while kayaking in South Africa and shooting footage for an upcoming IMAX movie. It’s hard to imagine this calm man with a congenial Southern drawl, beatnik white beard, black tunic, and neckerchief grappling with hippos in the Nile or tagging vicious polar bears on ice floes. Although he has a homestead in Asheville, the former rodeo clown—who also happens to have a master’s in physics—spends much of his time on solo kayaking expeditions or teaching fear-inoculation tactics to the military.

Here, Stewart is lecturing about emergency conditioning. “You can have all the great gear, but if you don’t have the right mindset, you’re not gonna make it,” he says. He poses a question that preppers reiterate again and again: How far would you go to keep your family safe? The key is figuring out what will motivate you to fight, imagining every possible horrific scenario, and fantasizing about it in lurid detail until you’ve overridden your flight-or-fight response and replaced it with a carefully choreographed plan. This method of visualizing the worst altercation is called “battle-proofing.” Stewart’s rationale: If you play the scenario out in your head, it becomes part of your retinue of experiences, and you can practice reacting.

It’s not about tuning fear out. "I hope I never lose fear," he says. "Fear is a warning that something is about to happen." Instead, Stewart wants to teach people how to harness fear as a catalyst for action. Stewart wants to teach people how to combine physical prowess with thoughtful rationality. “You can drop me pretty much anywhere on the planet, and I’d be fine,” he says. “My wife would get lost in a parking lot.”

One observer’s cell phone keeps ringing. In an ironic ode to self-reliance and resilience, the sound is the Mockingjay’s song from TheHunger Games films, which imagine what it would be like to flourish in a post-apocalyptic world.

Thunder rolls gently in the distance as two dozen attendees walk through the rain to meet Richard Cleveland at the edge of the pond. Unsurprisingly, preppers aren’t fazed by a little drizzle. Most continue to stroll the knolls as though it’s 80 degrees and sunny. Cleveland has angry, red wounds on his knees—probably a result of enthusiastic off-road foraging. The founder of the Earth School in Asheville, North Carolina, has been teaching programs about wild edibles for more than two decades. His slate-blue eyes blaze when he complains that Big Pharma won’t subsidize studies about herbal medicines—he claims that he has a number of friends who have cured their prostate cancers by infusing their diet with dandelion leaves, something the University of Windsor is looking into. The group follows his lead, scanning the ground for trampled herbs. He stoops every few feet to scoop and chomp on a plant like jewelweed, after which he elicits a jovial whoop. “Luscious!” he exclaims.

The foragers tromp past the pond, where kids in bright bathing suits splash in the shallow water or drift in kayaks, their yellow paddles and orange life vests popping against a sea of khaki, army fatigues, and black t-shirts bearing the phrase, “It Wasn’t Raining When Noah Built The Ark.” Richard points to an evergreen, encouraging people to guess its medicinal use. Turns out the tree is tsuga canadensis, or eastern hemlock: The needles can be steeped in boiled water for an emergency dose of vitamin C as a way of preventing scurvy.

At its core, prepping is about wanting to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. The preppers aren’t all brawny men whose quick-twitch muscles appear ready to activate at a moment’s notice. Some are elderly, like a well-coiffed woman in her eighties with manicured nails and wrinkled fingers stacked with onyx-and-gold costume jewelry. It’s hard to envision her swinging a gun, but she carries one in her tasteful leather purse. Others are wheelchair bound, unable to navigate the grounds’ hilly terrain on their own.

On the final evening, people bundle up in heavy sweaters and coats and pack into the main tent for the keynote lecture by Dr. William R. Forstchen, a 63-year-old novelist and professor of history at Montreat College. His novel One Second After tracks the hypothetical aftermath of a fictional electromagnetic-pulse event in a sleepy American town. The gathering has the feeling of a sermon, with an impassioned question-and-answer session conjuring an evangelical call and response. There’s a sense of solemnity, responsibility, and chosen-ness hanging in the air. There’s also a feeling of painful loneliness—ostracism from other family members, the awkwardness of explaining your cache of semi-automatic weapons to a prospective lover—temporarily assuaged by this community, where everyone understands, and agrees. “Forget about political correctness,” Dr. Forstchen begs. “You are the future of America, and America is worth fighting for.”

As the fog rolls in again and lightning crackles higher up in the mountain, the crowd retreats to tents, trailers, and cars. Suddenly, the parking lot is empty and dark, the beam of a flashlight revealing just a swath of grass at the end of a dirt road in a small Southern town.

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/welcome-to-prepper-camp/381351/

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KKK neighborhood watch proposal makes Pennsylvania townsfolk uneasy

- Thursday, May 08, 2014

When a Missouri-based Ku Klux Klan affiliate dropped leaflets on residents' lawns in a southern Pennsylvania township to announce the start of a neighborhood watch, the idea of a hate group patrolling their neighborhoods made many townspeople uneasy.

But researchers from the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Policy Law Center who study the group contend the Klan's move over the last few weeks may have been more flash than substance, a last-gasp bid for relevancy by the 150-year-old white supremacist group in a nation that is leaving its movement behind.

The type of angry white men who swelled the Klan's ranks after the abolition of slavery and returned during the civil rights era of the 1960s today may instead prefer the paramilitary trappings of newer hate groups to the KKK's infamous white robes and hoods, according to the ADL.

The targeted towns in suburban Pennsylvania south of the capital Harrisburg, are hardly hotbeds of crime. FBI data from 2013 shows 19 homicides reported across the county of 437,000 residents, a rate well below the national average.

But the Klan affiliate Traditionalist American Knights contends it was called in to establish a neighborhood watch after a wave of car break-ins.

"We'll send some of our people out to train them to make sure that they are doing things properly, that they're doing everything in a law-abiding manner, not acting like vigilantes or anything," said Frank Ancona, imperial wizard of the group based in Park Hills, Missouri, some 850 miles west of the Pennsylvania communities.

Ancona said members of the watch do not wear the white robes and hoods that Klan members did in the 19th and 20th centuries when they launched terrifying attacks on black Americans, Jewish Americans and others targeted for ethnic or religious persecution.

"That's part of the strength of the Klan," Ancona said. "Criminals don't know who the people on patrol are or the number of them."

But Mark Pitcavage, who studies the Klan for the Anti-Defamation League, suggested that there may be another factor that could make it hard for criminals to spot the neighborhood watch: It may not exist.

"Frankly, I don't buy it," Pitcavage said. "They have no real presence in the region. They may have a few members; they may have enough members to scrape together a small Klan rally, but not enough to operate a neighborhood watch patrol."

Ancona says the group has 1,000 members in the Pennsylvania area, a number that Pitcavage views as exaggerated: True membership may be less than 50, he estimated based on his years of tracking the activities of the KKK and similar organizations.

While the number of hate groups active in the United States increased to about 1,096 in 2013 from 708 in 2002, according to Mark Potok, senior fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center, researchers say KKK membership has decreased in recent years.

The ADL estimates that the KKK now has some 3,500 members nationwide, down from about 8,000 members 10 years ago, while the SPLC contends the number of chapters currently stands at about 163, down from 221 in 2009.

LAW ENFORCEMENT CONCERNS

Local law enforcement officials said they had not been contacted about the KKK affiliate's plans. In Camp Hill, where the group also plans to set up a watch, Police Chief Douglas Hockenberry urged residents to call 911 rather than a Missouri-based hotline if they see any criminal activity.

"We do not have a high crime rate," Hockenberry said.

While neighborhood watch groups, civilians who report crimes to police, generally serve a useful purpose and get the community involved, problems can sometimes arise. George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012, was a neighborhood watch member.

The Klan has long been linked to violent attacks, most recently last month when 73-year-old former KKK leader Frazier Glenn Cross shot dead three people at two Jewish community centers near Kansas City, according to prosecutors.

That image of KKK members as aging may be a factor in the group's decline, said Pitcavage, who added that disaffected white Americans looking to join hate groups have other options, including neo-Nazi groups and militias.

"The Klan is not the only option or the coolest option either," Pitcavage said.

Moves like the Pennsylvania neighborhood watch may be an attempt to recruit new members, Pitcavage said, although Ancona, the KKK leader, denied that was a motivation.

"We don't necessarily need the publicity," Ancona said. "Best recruiting occurs person-to-person. I don't know where they get their numbers from. We have members in every state except Alaska and Hawaii."

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Cuba arrests four Miami-based exiles suspected of attack plot

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Cuba has arrested four Miami-based exiles suspected of planning attacks on military installations with the goal of promoting anti-government violence on the communist-run island, the Interior Ministry said.

Anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles attends a ceremony to recognize opponents of the Castro government in Miami, Florida, May 22, 2009.

Labeling the suspects as "terrorists," it said in a statement late on Tuesday they were linked to Luis Posada Carriles, 86, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative living in Miami who for many years sought to overthrow former President Fidel Castro.

The April 26 arrests could antagonize the already poor relations between Washington and Havana, and the case recalled a series of plots from the exile community in Miami against Cuba.

Cuba said it would contact U.S. officials about the investigation and that the four suspects had admitted to planning the attacks. By reaching out to U.S. authorities, Cuba said it hoped to "avoid acts by terrorist organizations or elements located in that country."

The State Department said it had seen the Cuban statement but had no further information.

"The Cuban government has also not been in touch with us yet on these cases," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

The suspects were identified as Jose Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodriguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Felix Monzon Alvarez, relative unknowns among Miami exiles.

Cuba said they were working for three others in Miami, who are well known, and who had close ties to Posada Carriles, a polarizing figure seen as a terrorist in Cuba but a hero to some anti-Castro exiles.

A lawyer for Posada Carriles denied any connection to the allegations. "No basis at all," attorney Arturo Hernandez said.

At least two of the three other so-called masterminds, Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, have been active in the militant, anti-Castro exile movement. Both pleaded guilty in 2006 to criminal conspiracy in a plea deal to avoid more serious charges of possessing machine guns, a grenade launcher and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Alvarez denied any link, saying he had never heard of the men who were arrested.

"This is just a bunch of lies," Santiago Alvarez said. "They need to shift the blame from the economic situation they are in and entertain people with stories about Miami terrorists."

Another man linked by Cuba to the plot, a well-known Miami area doctor, Manuel Alzugaray, went on Spanish-language TV in Miami on Wednesday night to deny any link to the arrested men. "I don't recognize any of their names," he told the Mega TV show, Ahora Con Oscar Haza.

The president of a local charity, Miami Medical Team Foundation, Alzugaray said he had been dedicated to humanitarian work for three decades, including sending medicines to Cuba.

A man who identified himself as Raibel Pacheco was listed as director of a short-lived and previously unknown Florida non-profit, the Fuerza Cubana de Liberacion Inc, which was created to "help the people of Cuba reconquer their democracy and their lost liberties," according to the Florida state records.

Reuters could not confirm if he was the same Raibel Pacheco named by Cuba as one of the arrested suspects.

Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela in relation to the bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet in 1976 that killed 73 people. He is also suspected of involvement in hotel bombings in 1997 aimed at destabilizing Cuba and scaring away tourists.

Cuba has recently intensified its criticism of the United States for what it considers efforts to destabilize the country. It has also railed against the State Department for once again naming Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in an annual report on April 30.

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Syrian TV: 'Huge explosion' levels Aleppo hotel

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A "huge explosion" Thursday in northern Syria leveled a hotel that government troops used as a military base, along with several other buildings in a government-held area, state television and activists reported.




Syrian state television said the explosion struck on the edge of a contested old neighborhood in Aleppo. The television report identified the hotel as the Charlton hotel.

A local activist group called the Sham News Network also reported the blast, saying that President Bashar Assad's troops were based in the hotel.

Another activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the explosion struck Aleppo's Old City, where rebels have been holed up from months. The Observatory said the rebels belonging to the Islamic Front group planted a huge amount of explosives in a tunnel they dug below the Charlton hotel, detonating it remotely.

It said the hotel was completely destroyed in the blast and that there were casualties among the troops.

Aleppo, the country's largest city and former commercial hub, is carved up into rebel-held and government-held areas since the rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2010, capturing territory along Syria's northern border with Turkey.

In recent months, government aircraft relentlessly has bombed rebel-held areas of the city and the opposition fighters have hit back, firing mortars into government-held areas. The rebels also have detonated car bombs in residential areas, killing dozens of people.

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At U.S. college, Irish militant archive becomes diplomatic time bomb

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The arrest of Irish politician Gerry Adams may have its roots in a closed archive of taped interviews with former paramilitaries in Northern Ireland that researchers now fear could be used to charge others over sectarian violence from decades ago.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams looks down during a meeting in Dublin, January 28, 2007, to vote on whether to support policing arrangements in Northern Ireland.

U.S. and British authorities last year won a court battle against Boston College in Massachusetts to obtain interviews from the oral history archive. They said the records were needed to investigate the 1972 killing of a widowed mother by the IRA, a notorious incident from the period known as "The Troubles."

The legal victory created a diplomatic time bomb. Material previously made public from the archive has linked Adams to the death of the woman, Jean McConville. Adams has always denied membership of the IRA and involvement in the murder.

The success of police from Northern Ireland in gaining access to the material now means that other interviews could in theory also be obtained from the archive and form the basis of new prosecutions, said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist now living in New York who helped oversee the oral history project that ran from 2001 to 2006.

The interview subjects included 26 IRA members and 20 members of the opposing Ulster Volunteer Force. All were promised confidentiality until their deaths.

"The American government has to make it clear this is not a repository of evidence the PSNI can come raid at will," Moloney said, referring to Northern Ireland's police force.

Moloney and another researcher, former-IRA-member-turned-historian Anthony McIntyre, say the U.S. government offered too much help to Northern Ireland's authorities without regard to the impact that it could have on peace agreements that were negotiated to end the decades long sectarian violence.

Adams' arrest has led to threats against McIntyre, his wife, said. He had been labeled an informer on Twitter, Carrie Twomey said in a telephone interview. McIntyre lives in the Republic of Ireland, in the district that Adams represents as a member of Ireland's parliament.

Boston College declined on Thursday to discuss the archive, a collection of digital and analog recordings and printed transcripts still kept by the institution, whose leafy campus sits just outside the city.

Moloney said some interviewees have sought to have their material from the archive returned. A college representative said he could not immediately comment on that point. Government officials had not sought more archive material, he added.

EARLIER THAN EXPECTED

The archive was begun just after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement ended fighting in Northern Ireland. Its academic sponsors envisioned it being opened to the public decades later as an academic resource on the conflict that killed thousands.

Two events thrust the material onto the public stage sooner. First was a 2010 book by Moloney, "Voices from the Grave," that drew on interviews given for the archive by IRA commander Brendan Hughes and David Ervine, a UVF militant and later a political figure. Both had died, allowing their stories to be told under the terms of their agreements with the project.

In the book Moloney quotes Hughes connecting Adams to McConville's death and ordering her burial as an informer. Adams has always vigorously denied being involved in her death.

Separately, Irish newspapers in 2010 published reports about Dolours Price, an IRA member imprisoned for a 1973 London bombing, that tied Adams to McConville's death and other incidents.

The publications drew new police attention and led to the subpoenas, which Boston College sought to limit in what became a test of academic freedom.

Whatever confidentiality the interviewees expected, the researchers "made promises they could not keep: that they would conceal evidence of murder and other crimes until the perpetrators were in their graves," U.S. prosecutors said in a 2011 court filing.

They called the Belfast project "laudable" but added that "the promise of absolute confidentiality was flawed."

In 2012 a federal appeals court in Boston upheld the subpoenas, citing a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that journalists have no privilege against being forced to testify in a criminal proceeding.

The court later cut from 85 to 11 the number of interviews the college had to turn over. The interviews were given by seven individuals whose identities were kept secret and were referred to by a single letter.

ACADEMIC SPLIT

The legal battle by the researchers and Boston College drew support from some academics who worried the process could have a chilling effect on how historians study conflicts.

Without more protection, researchers face "potentially crippling uncertainty for those who gather information from confidential sources, including academic researchers," stated one amicus brief filed by a group of social scientists.

Others, however, felt the Boston College project fell outside the bounds of the usual academic practices.

Mary Marshall Clark, director of Columbia University's Center for Oral History Research, said professional oral historians should have strict guidelines to follow and aim to make their interviews public rather than keeping them secret for decades, as the Belfast Project planned.

"We cannot protect people," she said. If controversial subjects come up, she said, "we would tell them in the interview, when they talk about that, they better think about that and call their lawyers."

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Government says no need to park recalled GM cars

- Wednesday, May 07, 2014

There's no need to tell owners of recalled General Motors small cars to stop driving them, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Wendi Kunkel faced ignition switch issues on her 2010 Chevy Cobalt in Rockwall, Texas. Kunkel was instructed to pull everything off her keychain, which GM contends will solve the problem. But she’s still nervous about driving her car on her 30-minute one-way commute.

In a written response to two senators who asked for such an order, Foxx said engineers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have determined it's not necessary.

GM is recalling 2.6 million small cars worldwide to replace ignition switches that suddenly can slip out of the run position and shut off the engine. That can knock out power-assisted steering and cause drivers to lose control and crash. It also disables the air bags. GM says at least 13 people have died in crashes linked to the problem. The company has admitted knowing about the problem for at least a decade, yet failing to recall the cars until this year.

The company has told owners to remove everything from their key chains, and the reduced weight will stop the switches from slipping into the "accessory" or "off" positions.

Foxx, responding to a letter from Democratic Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said NHTSA engineers have examined the geometry and physics of the key, ignition switch and steering column of the GM vehicles, and they have reviewed GM's testing data.

The ignition switch of a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt.

"NHTSA is satisfied that for now, until the permanent remedy is applied, the safety risk posed by the defect in affected vehicles is sufficiently mitigated by GM's recommended action," the letter says.

The safety agency, which is part of Foxx's department, has taken measures above and beyond normal procedures in the GM case, Foxx wrote.

The recalled cars include mainly Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions that are no longer being made. GM is in the process of shipping parts to dealers but has said it won't be done with that until October. The company is offering loaner cars to any owners with safety concerns and so far has provided about 45,000.

But Blumenthal and Markey disagree and say all the cars should be parked until the switches are replaced.

"We remain extremely concerned that GM and NHTSA are not doing enough to convey the seriousness of this defect to owners of the affected cars, unnecessarily putting more lives at risk," the senators said in a statement Wednesday.

They also questioned why GM's initial recall notice to car owners said the ignition switches could malfunction while driving over rough terrain "regardless of additional weight on the key ring."

Both senators are members of a subcommittee that is looking into GM's actions involving the switches. NHTSA and the Justice Department are also investigating, and criminal charges are possible.

GM has said it has done 80 different tests at high speeds and on rough roads, and that with just the key in the ignition, the switches don't move out of the run position.

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House votes to hold ex-IRS official in contempt

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House Republicans voted Wednesday to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a pair of committee hearings about her role in the agency's tea party controversy.

In this May 22, 2013, photo, then-IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Oversight Committee hearing to investigate the extra scrutiny the IRS gave to tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

The House also passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS.

Lois Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. A year ago this week, Lerner publicly disclosed that agents had improperly singled out tea party applications for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny.

An inspector general's report blamed poor management but found no evidence of a political conspiracy. Many Republicans in Congress believe otherwise.

"Who's been fired over the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS? No one that I'm aware of," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. "Who's gone to jail for violating the law? When is the administration going to tell the American people the truth?"

House Democrats said Wednesday's voting was little more than an election-year ploy to fire up the GOP base.

"Instead of passing bipartisan legislation to create more jobs, reform immigration, raise the minimum wage or address any number of issues that affect our constituents every single day, House Republicans are spending this entire week trying to manufacture scandals for political purposes," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

"Welcome to witch hunt week," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

The vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress was 231 to 187, with all Republicans voting in favor and all but a few Democrats voting against.

Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions at a pair of hearings by the Oversight Committee. House Republicans say she waived her constitutional right by making an opening statement in which she proclaimed her innocence.

The matter now goes to Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Federal law says Machen has a "duty" to bring the matter before a grand jury. But a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said it was unclear whether the duty is mandatory or discretionary. Machen was appointed to his job by President Barack Obama.

"We will carefully review the report from the speaker of the House and take whatever action is appropriate," Machen's office said in a statement.

The vote calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel was 250 to 168, with all Republicans voting in favor and most Democrats voting against.

Attorney General Eric Holder has denied previous requests to appoint a special counsel, saying it was unwarranted.

Three congressional committees and the Justice Department have spent much of the past year investigating the IRS over its handling of applications for tax-exempt status.

So far, the congressional investigations have revealed that IRS officials in Washington were more involved in handling the applications than the agency initially acknowledged.

However, the investigations have not publicly established that anyone outside the IRS knew about the targeting or directed it.

Cummings released a report this week saying House Oversight Committee investigators have interviewed 39 witnesses, and found no involvement by the White House and no political conspiracy by IRS officials. Instead, many IRS witnesses said they lacked clear guidance from management on how to handle tea party applications, the report said.

"Who told Lois Lerner to target conservative Americans?" Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., said at a news conference sponsored by several tea party groups. "That's what we don't know. That's what we need to know."

Lerner sat for a lengthy interview with Justice Department investigators, said her lawyer, William W. Taylor III. The interview was done "without conditions," he said.

Lerner wouldn't answer questions before the Oversight Committee because, Taylor said, committee Republicans were only looking to vilify her in front of TV cameras.

"It was clear that the majority would conduct the hearing without any sense of decorum or fairness," Taylor told reporters in March.

On Wednesday, Taylor said in a statement: "Today's vote has nothing to do with the facts or the law. Its only purpose is to keep the baseless IRS `conspiracy' alive through the midterm elections."

"Ms. Lerner has not committed contempt of Congress. She did not waive her Fifth Amendment rights by proclaiming her innocence," Taylor added.

On May 10, 2013, Lerner was speaking at a Washington law conference when she made the agency's first public acknowledgment of the tea party controversy. At the time, Lerner publicly apologized on behalf of the agency.

Most of the groups were applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations. Agents were scrutinizing the applications to measure how much the groups were involved in politics.

IRS regulations say social welfare groups may engage in electoral politics, but it may not be their primary mission.

About two weeks after Lerner's public revelation, she was subpoenaed to appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing. Lerner read an opening statement, saying she did nothing wrong, broke no laws and never lied to Congress. Then she refused to answer lawmakers' further questions, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.


The next day Lerner was placed on paid leave. She retired from the IRS last fall, ending a 34-year career in the federal government, including work at the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission.

The Oversight Committee later ruled in a party-line vote that Lerner forfeited her constitutional right not to testify by making an opening statement. All Republicans voted in favor while all Democrats voted against.

Committee Democrats have compiled a list of constitutional experts who say the contempt case is weak. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., countered with a memo from the House general counsel's office saying there is a legal foundation for holding Lerner in contempt.

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This Email Shows Google And NSA's Close Working Relationship

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If Google wasn't cooperating with the National Security Agency's spying program, as the company has vehemently claimed again and again, why were the guys in charge of each organization emailing so much in 2011 and 2012?

That's the question raised by a series of emails between then-NSA director Keith Alexander and Google chairman Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin starting in late 2011. The emails were published by Al Jazeera America on Tuesday.

The correspondence suggests a close relationship between the NSA and Google before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden ever leaked documents detailing the agency's online spying efforts. One of the two email chains describe a meeting between the NSA director and Google executives near an airport in San Jose, Calif.

"When we reach this point in our projects we schedule a classified briefing for the CEO’s of key companies to provide them a brief on the specific threats we believe can be mitigated and to seek their commitment for their organization to move ahead," Alexander wrote in June 2012 email to Schmidt. "Google’s participation in refinement, engineering and deployment of the solutions will be essential.”

When Schmidt wasn't able to attend, he enthusiastically responded, "Would love to see you another time. Thank you !" See the entire message below:

You can read the full email exchanges over at Al Jazeera

"We work really hard to protect our users from cyber attacks and we talk to outside experts, including occasionally in the US government, to ensure we stay ahead of the game," a Google spokesperson told The Huffington Post. The company provided the same comment to Al Jazeera America.

Google executives have maintained since the Snowden revelations that the search giant does not give the U.S. government access to its servers and the personal information of its users unless it is legally compelled to. If the government does have such access, Google does not know about it, Schmidt publicly stated in November.

These emails don't directly contradict that claim by Google. But they do suggest a cozier relationship between Silicon Valley and the state than the Googling public should be comfortable with.

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Colorado lawmakers approve plan for pot banking

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Colorado lawmakers approved the world's first financial system for the marijuana industry Wednesday, a network of uninsured cooperatives designed to give pot businesses a way to access basic banking services.

The plan seeks to move the marijuana industry away from its cash-only roots. Banks routinely reject pot businesses for even basic services such as checking accounts because they fear running afoul of federal law, which considers marijuana and its proceeds illegal.

The result: Pot shop owners deal in large amounts of cash, which makes them targets for criminals. Or they try to find ways around the problem, like drenching their proceeds in air freshener to remove the stink of marijuana and try to fool traditional banks into accepting their money.

"This is our main problem: Financial services for marijuana businesses," said Sen. David Balmer, R-Centennial. "We are trying to improvise and come up with something in Colorado to give marijuana business some opportunity, so they do not have to store large amounts of cash."

Colorado became the first state to allow recreational pot sales, which started Jan. 1. Washington state will follow suit, with retail sales expect to start in July.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in February that banks could serve the marijuana industry under certain conditions. With the industry emerging from the underground, states want to track marijuana sales and collect taxes. It's a lot easier to do that when the businesses have bank accounts.

But most banks have shrugged at the Treasury guidelines, calling them too onerous to accept marijuana-related clients. The result is a marijuana industry that still relies largely on cash, a safety risk for operators and a concern for Colorado's pot regulators.

"This is not something that we can wait for any further," said another banking sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont.

The bill approved Wednesday would allow marijuana businesses to pool money in cooperative s, but the co-ops would on take effect if the U.S. Federal Reserve agrees to allow them to do things like accept credit cards or checks.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper supports the pot bank plan and is expected to sign it into law, though a spokesman said Wednesday the governor had yet to review the final language.


Lawmakers from both parties supported the banking co-ops as a way to properly audit marijuana shops and to make sure they're paying all their taxes. Dispensary owners came to the Capitol this session to tell of their difficulties paying taxes and utilities in cash and the dangers of dealing in cash.

Robin Goldfarb smokes
 marijuana in Denver on April 19, 2014.

"It is very easy to see somebody get killed over this issue," Marijuana Industry Group Director Michael Elliott testified last month.

The plan had bipartisan support, though some Republicans said that the effort won't pass federal muster.

A few banks are accepting marijuana clients in light of the federal regulations.

Numerica Credit Union in eastern Washington state is accepting limited business from marijuana growers and processors, The Spokesman-Review reported Wednesday.

Colorado pot shop owners say a small number of credit unions will do business with them, too, though no banks or credit unions have said so publicly.

Countries that don't ban marijuana don't have banking systems unique to the drug.

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US court upholds ban on race decisions

- Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the state of Michigan's ban on using race as a factor in college admissions.

The justices said in a 6-2 ruling that Michigan voters had the right to change their state constitution in 2006 to prohibit public colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions. The justices said that a lower federal court was wrong to set aside the change as discriminatory.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters chose to eliminate racial preferences, known as affirmative action, presumably because such a system could give rise to race-based resentment.

Kennedy said nothing in the U.S. Constitution or the court's prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.

"This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," Kennedy said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision tramples on the rights of minorities, even though the amendment was adopted democratically. "But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups," said Sotomayor, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Sotomayor in dissent.

At 58 pages, Sotomayor's dissent was longer than the combined length of the four opinions in support of the outcome.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Kennedy.

Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the case, presumably because she worked on it at an earlier stage while serving in the Justice Department.

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the consideration of race among many factors in college admissions in a case from Michigan.

Three years later, affirmative action opponents persuaded Michigan voters to change the state constitution to outlaw any consideration of race.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the issue was not affirmative action, but the way in which its opponents went about trying to bar it.

In its 8-7 decision, the appeals court said the provision ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment because it presents an extraordinary burden to affirmative action supporters who would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign to repeal the constitutional provision.

Similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education are in place in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies.

Black and Latino enrollment at the University of Michigan has dropped since the ban took effect. At California's top public universities, African-Americans are a smaller share of incoming freshmen, while Latino enrollment is up slightly, but far below the state's growth in the percentage of Latino high school graduates.

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E-cig industry awaits looming federal regulation

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RICHMOND, Va.-Smokers are increasingly turning to battery-powered electronic cigarettes to get their nicotine fix. They're about to find out what federal regulators have to say about the popular devices.

The Food and Drug Administration will propose rules for e-cigarettes as early as this month. The rules will have big implications for a fast-growing, largely unregulated industry and its legions of customers.

Regulators aim to answer the burning question posed by Kenneth Warner, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health: "Is this going to be the disruptive technology that finally takes us in the direction of getting rid of cigarettes?"

The FDA faces a balancing act. If the regulations are too strict, they could kill an industry that offers a hope of being safer than cigarettes and potentially helping smokers quit them. But the agency also has to be sure e-cigarettes really are safer and aren't hooking children on an addictive drug.

Members of Congress and several public health groups have raised safety concerns over e-cigarettes, questioned their marketing tactics and called on regulators to address those worries quickly.

Here's a primer on e-cigarettes and their future:

WHAT ARE E-CIGARETTES?

E-cigarettes are plastic or metal tubes, usually the size of a cigarette, that heat a liquid nicotine solution instead of burning tobacco. That creates vapor that users inhale.

Smokers like e-cigarettes because the nicotine-infused vapor looks like smoke but doesn't contain the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. Some smokers use e-cigarettes as a way to quit smoking tobacco, or to cut down.

The industry started on the Internet and at shopping-mall kiosks and has rocketed from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide who can choose from more than 200 brands. Sales are estimated to have reached nearly $2 billion in 2013.

Tobacco company executives have noted that they are eating into traditional cigarette sales. Their companies have jumped into the business.

There's not much scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes help smokers quit or smoke less, and it's unclear how safe they are.

WHAT IS THE FDA LIKELY TO DO?

The FDA is likely to propose restrictions that mirror those on regular cigarettes.

The most likely of the FDA's actions will be to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to people under 18. Many companies already restrict sales to minors, and more than two dozen states already have banned selling them to young people.

Federal regulators also are expected to set product standards and require companies to disclose their ingredients and place health warning labels on packages and other advertising.

Where the real questions remain is how the agency will treat the thousands of flavors available for e-cigarettes. While some companies are limiting offerings to tobacco and menthol flavors, others are selling candy-like flavors like cherry and strawberry.

Flavors other than menthol are banned for regular cigarettes over concerns that flavored tobacco targets children.

Regulators also must determine if they'll treat various designs for electronic cigarettes differently.

Some, known as "cig-a-likes," look like traditional cigarettes and use sealed cartridges that hold liquid nicotine. Others have empty compartments or tanks that users can fill their own liquid. The latter has raised safety concerns because ingesting the liquid or absorbing it through the skin could lead to nicotine poisoning. To prevent that, the FDA could mandate child-resistant packaging.

The FDA also will decide the grandfather date that would allow electronic cigarette products to remain on the market without getting prior approval from regulators — a ruling that could force some, if not all, e-cigarettes to be pulled from store shelves while they are evaluated by the agency.

The regulations will be a step in a long process that many believe will ultimately end up being challenged in court.

WHAT ABOUT MARKETING?

There are a few limitations on marketing. Companies can't tout e-cigarettes as stop-smoking aids, unless they want to be regulated by the FDA under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices. But many are sold as "cigarette alternatives."

The FDA's proposals could curb advertising on TV, radio and billboards, ban sponsorship of concerts and sporting events, and prohibit branded items such as shirts and hats. The agency also could limit sales over the Internet and require retailers to move e-cigarettes behind the counter.

WHAT DOES THE INDUSTRY THINK?

The industry expects regulations, but hopes they won't force products off shelves and will keep the business viable.

E-cigarette makers especially want the FDA to allow them to continue marketing and catering to adult smokers — some of whom want flavors other than tobacco. They believe e-cigarettes present an opportunity to offer smokers an alternative and, as NJOY Inc. CEO Craig Weiss says, make cigarettes obsolete.

"FDA can't just say no to electronic cigarettes anymore. I think they also understand it's the lesser of the two evils," said James Xu, owner of several Avail Vapor shops, whose wooden shelves are lined with vials of liquid nicotine flavor, such as Gold Rush, Cowboy Cut and Forbidden Fruit.

WHAT DO PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS THINK?

Some believe lightly regulating electronic cigarettes might actually be better for public health overall, if smokers switch and e-cigarettes really are safer. Others are raising alarms about the hazards of the products and a litany of questions about whether e-cigarettes will keep smokers addicted or encourage others to start using e-cigarettes, and even eventually tobacco products.

"This is a very complicated issue and we must be quite careful how we proceed," said David Abrams, executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at the American Legacy Foundation, in a recent panel discussion. "I call this sort of the Goldilocks approach.

The regulation must be just right. The porridge can't be too hot, and it can't be too cold."

In this Jan. 17, 2014 file photo, a smoker demonstrates an e-cigarette in Wichita Falls, Texas. Soon, the Food and Drug Administration will propose rules for e-cigarettes. The rules will have big implications for a fast-growing industry and its legions of customers.

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School Stabbing Spree: 20 Hurt in Pittsburgh-Area Bloodbath

- Wednesday, April 09, 2014

 A student went on a stabbing rampage through the classrooms and halls of a high school outside Pittsburgh on Wednesday morning, authorities said. As many as 20 students were hurt, some with life-threatening injuries.





The student was in custody and being questioned by police, said Dan Stevens, a Westmoreland County emergency management spokesman. The student is a sophomore, the county confirmed to NBC News. Stevens said that the motive was unclear.

The attack happened at Franklin Regional High School, in the suburb of Murrysville, just after doors opened for the day. A student described panic in the halls.

“I was walking into the school and a stampede of people were running after me,” said the student, Kari Lee, who said several of her friends had been knifed. “They were screaming, ‘Go to your cars! Go to your cars! Someone is stabbing people!’”

Seven teenagers and an adult were taken to Forbes Regional Hospital, Dr. Chris Kauffman, the trauma director there, told NBC News. The seven were stabbed in the chest, back and abdomen, he said. He characterized some of the injuries as life-threatening but said everyone was expected to live.

At least two of the students were in surgery. Others were undergoing CT scans and X-rays and could require surgery later.

“These are quite serious injuries,” Kauffman told CNN. “These are not superficial in nature.”
Reese Jackson, president and CEO of the hospital, said that one of the victims may have saved the life of another.

“A surgeon came out and congratulated one of the victims by saying she had saved the person’s life by applying pressure to the person’s wound,” Jackson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

One hospital reported that it had a patient as old as 60.

Stevens told WPXI, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, that the first call for help from the school came at 7:13 a.m. The situation was under control by 7:30 to 7:40, he said.

Ambulances swarmed the parking lot of the high school, and nearby streets were sealed off.

The school district said that high school students and middle school students nearby were “secure,” and that elementary school had been canceled for the day. Parents were asked to report to an elementary school to pick up their children.

Students who drove to school were not allowed to drive home without a parent, according to the district.

The high school has about 1,200 students. Murrysville, about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh, is a city of 21,000. Renatta Signorini, a reporter for the Tribune Review newspaper, told MSNBC that it is a city with low crime.

She said that the schools there do not have metal detectors but have been updating their security procedures.

Gov. Tom Corbett said that he was shocked and saddened. He said he had directed the Pennsylvania State Police to help and would make other state resources available.