Tuesday, March 25, 2014


News Clips For The Day



Civilian Fatally Shoots Sailor Aboard U.S. Navy Destroyer – NBC

Jim Miklaszewski, Alexander Smith and David Wyllie
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
First published March 25 2014


A civilian fatally shot a sailor aboard a docked U.S. Navy destroyer in Virginia on Monday night before he was shot dead by security forces, officials said.

The suspect had authorized access to Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base, where he was able to wrestle a handgun from a security guard, U.S. Navy officials told NBC News.

He shot dead a sailor aboard USS Mahan, which was docked at Pier 1, before being fatally gunned down by security forces, the officials said. Both the victim and suspect were male.

The shooting happened at about 11:30 p.m. and the base was put on lockdown until around 1 a.m. while security forces responded. The Navy officials said it was not clear what sparked the incident.

To get on the base, civilians must be escorted or have a pass. Each base entrance is guarded, and all 13 piers have additional security forces. As part of ongoing security efforts, handheld ID scanners were implemented this year at Navy bases in the region, including the Norfolk station.

Capt. Robert Clark, commanding officer of Naval Station Norfolk, told an earlier press conference that he was not prepared to discuss how the suspect obtained the weapon as it was still under investigation.

"We are investigating it, it's a crime scene as we speak," he said. "We will preserve the scene until investigation is complete."

He said the sailors were not being prevented from going back to work but that it would be a "trying day."

"Will make sure sailors aboard ship have the counselors they need and the people they can talk to," he said.

Clark added that the incident was being investigated by U.S. Navy security forces as well as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), the Navy's primary law enforcement agency.

The USS Mahan is a 505-foot Arleigh Burke-class destroyer commissioned for service in 1998. The ship has a crew of approximately 275 sailors.

The base covers more than 6,000 acres and is the home port for 64 ships, according to information the Navy provided in February. About 46,000 military members and 21,000 civilian government employees and contractors are assigned to the base and its ships, according to the Navy figures.




I do hope this will not turn out to be a terrorist killing. Probably the shooter would have killed more people if it had been, though the security forces probably shot him down almost immediately and he may have had no chance to do more. The security forces, according to this article, do use hand-held ID scanners, so it should soon be known what he was doing on the ship at 11:30 PM and if he had a grudge against the sailor he killed or just wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. At least he didn't carry the gun aboard the ship with him. That would be a serious breach of security. If it turns out that terrorism is suspected, I'm sure there will be more articles about it. I'll be looking for them.




Obama to Propose End to NSA Bulk Phone Data Collection – NBC
- Andrea Mitchell and Alastair Jamieson
First published March 25 2014

The Obama administration is to propose a law banning the systematic collection of Americans’ phone records by the National Security Agency.

The legislation would prevent the spy agency from bulk-harvesting calling records from phone companies. Instead, companies would keep the data and the NSA would have to request it using a new kind of court order, according to The New York Times.
President Barack Obama announced in January that he wanted to end intelligence-gathering practices that involved the government storing broad collections of phone and electronic communication data.

The move is a political response to last year’s disclosures – based on information leaked by former defense contractor Edward Snowden – that the NSA was operating a clandestine program that collected vast amounts of data about the calling habits of private citizens.

A senior Obama administration official told NBC News that the ban on bulk data collection was the leading proposal under consideration, but it would still face a very tough vote in Congress.

The official said that the proposal was intended to satisfy some critics that the president has attempted impose limits on NSA surveillance while not compromising the effectiveness of the agency’s work.

The New York Times report said that a plan to make phone companies to keep calling records for longer than 18 months had been rejected as unworkable.




I am so glad to see this. When the CIA and FBI suspect terrorist activity there should be plenty of time for them to get a court order for that particular case and then collect the data. Will the phone records that have been collected already be destroyed? Of course, the conservatives in Congress may oppose this bill, and of course Edward Snowden will still be subject to a stiff penalty for uncovering the matter, but I have hope for a better future for our government.




Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over Obamacare and Religion – NBC
By Pete Williams

The Supreme Court on Tuesday takes up the most closely watched issue of its term: Does the Obamacare law violate the religious freedom of private employers by requiring them to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives?

To answer that question, the justices must first decide whether the companies challenging the law, three for-profit corporations, even have religious views in the first place. The Obama administration says they do not, arguing that freedom of religion is an individual right, not a corporate one.

At issue is a provision of the healthcare law that requires companies with more than 50 employees to cover preventive care services, which include such contraceptives as morning-after pills, diaphragms, and IUDs.

The law was challenged by the Hobby Lobby, a chain of 500 craft stores employing 13,000 people; Mardel Christian bookstores, with 35 outlets and 400 employees; and Conestoga Wood Specialties, whose 950 employees make doors and other parts for kitchen cabinets.

The Obama administration says freedom of religion applies only to the owners of companies challenging the law, not to the companies themselves.

Hobby Lobby and Mardel are owned and operated by an Oklahoma family, David and Barbara Green and their children. Hobby Lobby's official statement of purpose commits it to "honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles."

Norman and Elizabeth Hahn of Pennsylvania, who own Conestoga Wood with their three sons, are Mennonite Christians.

Both the Greens and the Hahns believe that the use of some contraceptives amounts to abortion, destroying a human life by interfering with a fertilized egg.

"This case is entirely about whether the government can coerce families of faith to buy these life-destroying products and coverage for other people," Matt Bowman, a lawyer for Conestoga Wood, said in an interview.

The Obama administration argues that the freedom of religion applies only to the Greens and the Hahns individually, not to the for-profit corporations they run. It's the corporations, not the family members themselves, who are required to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives under Obamacare, the government says.

And because the Supreme Court has never said that a for-profit corporation can claim it has freedom of religion, the government says, the law does not violate the Constitution.

The administration also says the law serves an important public purpose.
"Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrelli said in a court filing. He said contraceptives "reduce the risk of adverse outcomes of pregnancies that are too closely spaced." Women's groups say oral contraceptives also reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 50 percent.
But the owners of the three companies challenging the contraceptive coverage law say they are not required to check their religious beliefs at the corporate door.

Paul Clement, a lawyer for Hobby Lobby, said in a filing that the Supreme Court "has never suggested that free exercise rights are purely personal, or that individuals could not exercise religion when in engaged in particular activities like making money or when using particular means like a corporation."

It can't be, he says, that the First Amendment singles out religious exercise as the only right that cannot be exercised while earning a living.

The companies are among more than three dozen for-profit corporations that challenged the contraceptive mandate in federal courthouses nationwide. Hobby Lobby and Mardel prevailed in the lower courts, but Conestoga Wood lost its claim.

The companies rely not only on the Constitution but also on a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the federal government cannot "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion," even if the burden results from a general law intended to apply to everyone.

They have the support of friend-of-court briefs from religious groups as well as 21 states and 107 members of the U.S. House and Senate. Neither the Constitution nor federal laws, they argue, can deprive a group — even a for-profit corporation — of religious freedom.

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups line up on the other side. Julian Bond, former chairman of the NAACP, warns that while religious motivations have inspired reforms toward social justice, "religion has frequently played the opposite role in our nation's history, invoked by those who sought to perpetuate discrimination based on race or gender."

Slavery and Jim Crow laws, Bond says, were once defended on religious grounds.
The Supreme Court will issue its decision sometime before the term ends in late June.




Julian Bond states that “slavery and the Jim Crow laws were defended on the basis of religious freedom.” Those laws have done considerable harm to many people. There was an instance recently of several businesses denying service to gay people on grounds of religious freedom – for instance a wedding cake was denied for a gay marriage. Slavery was defended on the claim that according to the Bible Black people are naturally inferior to whites and don't deserve full rights under the law. As to whether or not a for-profit corporation can claim religious rights, we will hear the Supreme Court decision on that within a few months.

The classifying of corporations as though they were individuals has never made any sense to me. Businesses are too big and too powerful in general these days. They often act as the overweening bullies on the block. Walmart in its massive growth, driving numerous kinds of smaller businesses out of the marketplace, has power enough without being viewed as an individual, giving it tax breaks and undoubtedly “religious freedom” also since the Walton family are strong Evangelical Christians.

The last point in this article concerns the great need for birth control, since it prevents families from have many more children than they can afford. According to the article, also, women's groups say the birth control pills reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, a major killer of women partly because it has few overt symptoms until the woman's death is near. I hope the court will rule against the church-based claim against birth control. Abortion is one thing – though I support it as opposed to having an unwanted baby – but if happily married couples don't use birth control the US and world population will skyrocket, and many more babies will be getting subsidies from state and local government. This usually offends Republicans due to the cost that it involves. Why are they fighting birth control?





Woman, 74, freed after 32 years in prison for murder she didn't commit – CBS
CBS News March 25, 2014

LOS ANGELES -- A 74-year-old woman was released from prison late Monday evening after serving 32 years for a murder committed by her abusive boyfriend.

Mary Virginia Jones walked out of Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just before midnight to the tears and cheers of family and friends, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Jones was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery in a 1981 shooting death, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan set aside those convictions on Monday, reports CBS Los Angeles.

The district attorney's office has agreed to accept a plea of no contest to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for Jones' release. Jones has already served 11,875 days, which exceeds the 11-year maximum sentence for voluntary manslaughter.

Jones' case was taken up by the University of Southern California's Post-Conviction Justice Project. It contends Jones' boyfriend, Mose Willis, kidnapped two drug dealers and forced the woman to drive to an alley, where he shot both men. One of them was killed.

"She ran down the alley fully expecting him to shoot and kill her, too," said Heidi Rummel, co-director of the Post-Conviction Justice Project and the supervising defense attorney on the case.

Willis, who was sentenced to death, died while on death row.
For years Jones maintained that she "did not willingly participate in the crime."
A week before the shooting, Willis shot at Jones''s daughter, Denitra Jones-Goodie, and threatened to kill both of them if they contacted police, according to defense attorneys.

"He pulled a gun on me and shot at me, and my mother witnessed that," said Jones-Goodie. "And he threatened to not only kill me but to kill her and anybody else that came to our aid."

Law students at USC's Post-Conviction Project argued Jones would not have been convicted if the jury had heard testimony on the effects of intimate partner battery, previously known as "Battered Women's Syndrome."




This was a case of “intimate partner battery”, previously known as "Battered Women's Syndrome." Willis had threatened her and her daughter with their lives just a week before the killing. At least they did convict Mose Willis and sentence him to death. These various justice projects are doing a great deal of good in our society. It is inevitable that, even with the best lawyers and judges, some people will be convicted of a crime they didn't commit. All too often that person will be poor and black. I'm so glad this woman was finally set free. I hope she will also be awarded a monetary fine for the wrongful conviction. She probably will have to sue to get that, of course.





Poll: Most say U.S. doesn’t have a responsibility in Ukraine
CBS News March 25, 2014
By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus

Most Americans don't think the U.S. is obliged to intervene in the recent annexation by Russia of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. A majority of 61 percent of Americans do not think the U.S. has a responsibility to do something about the situation between Russia and Ukraine, nearly twice as many as the 32 percent who think it does. There is widespread bipartisan agreement on this.

Public opinion about U.S. responsibility in Ukraine is similar to views about U.S. responsibility in other international conflicts. Majorities of Americans did not think the U.S. had a responsibility to intervene in Syria (68 percent), in the fighting and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia (65 percent) or in the mass killings in Rwanda (51 percent). In contrast, 54 percent of Americans believed the U.S. did have a responsibility to intervene in Kosovo, a situation where the U.S. began a bombing campaign against Serbian forces in cooperation with NATO.

More specifically, 65 percent of Americans do not think the U.S. should provide military aid and equipment to Ukraine in response to Russia's actions, while only 26 percent think the U.S. should. Majorities of Republicans (59 percent), Democrats (67 percent), and independents (69 percent) are opposed to providing military aid and equipment to Ukraine.

Air Travel Safety
As the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, most Americans rate the overall safety record of commercial airline travel positively. Seventy-three percent describe it as excellent or good, while only a quarter (24 percent) rate it as fair or poor.

Even though majorities of both men and women have positive views of air travel safety, 45 percent of men rate it as excellent, compared to just 24 percent of women.
Americans rate the safety record of air travel more positively today than they did after domestic incidents such as the crash of American Airlines flight 587 (56 percent), which occurred in November 2001, just months after the 9/11 attacks, and the 1996 crash of TWA 800 (66 percent).

CBS News last asked about the safety record of commercial air travel in January 2002, just weeks after the thwarted attempt by "the shoe-bomber" to detonate a bomb aboard an American Airlines flight. Back then, 61 percent of Americans said the safety record of air travel was excellent or good; that percentage is 73 percent today.

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This poll was conducted by telephone March 20-23, 2014 among a total of 1,097 adults nationwide. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by Social Science Research Solutions of Media, Pa. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points.




Well, I do think the US should intervene under the auspices of NATO, because if Russia starts whacking out Eastern European nations which used to be in the Soviet Union, there may be no limit to what they will do. The fact that many of the Russian population within Russia are celebrating Putin's actions. It is a matter of basic national security for us to help and protect the European countries which are oriented toward the West and not toward the overly aggressive Russia. China also is potentially a threat as long as they try to sell nuclear weapons to smaller countries or support rogue nations like North Korea. Russia, too, backs such countries, in particular Syria. We can help Ukraine materially without declaring war on Russia, and I think we should. NATO and the EU would probably be our partners and if they are I have little doubt that Russia would simply back down.





Possible Ebola case in Canada in man who traveled to West Africa
CBS/AP March 25, 2014

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan -- A possible Ebola case is being investigated in Canada in a man who recently traveled to West Africa where an outbreak is taking place.

The man is seriously ill and being kept in isolation in a Canadian hospital with symptoms of a hemorrhagic fever resembling Ebola, Saskatchewan health officials said.
The man fell ill after returning from the West African nation of Liberia, Dr. Denise Werker, Saskatchewan Province's deputy chief medical health officer, said Monday. She said tests have been sent to the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Results are expected Tuesday, but Werker said they may be inconclusive.
"All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who traveled from a country where these diseases occur," Werker said. "There is no risk to the general public at all about this."

Ebola is a deadly virus that is characterized by symptoms including fever, headaches, joint and muscle aches, diarrhea, vomiting, rashes, difficulty breathing and swallowing, and bleeding inside and outside the body.

The disease has no specific treatment or vaccine. Those at highest risk for the hemorrhagic fever are health care workers and family and friends of infected individuals.

Hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.

In West Africa, health workers are trying to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus which is believed to have infected 80 people killing 59 in a remote forest region in the south of Guinea.

Doctors Without Borders, said Wednesday it is trying to contain the outbreak by setting up two such quarantine sites in southern Guinea.

The first outbreak of the Ebola virus since 1994 in this part of West Africa has raised alarm in neighboring countries as well.

Across the border in Liberia, health officials are investigating five deaths after a group of people crossed the border from Guinea in search of medical treatment.
Werker said health workers caring for the man at a hospital in the city of Saskatoon were taking precautions by wearing masks, gowns, gloves and boots. She said hemorrhagic fevers are not easily spread.

Werker said the man showed no signs of illness while he was traveling. The incubation period for hemorrhagic fever is up to 21 days, she said.

"Viral hemorrhagic fever is a generic name for a number of rather exotic diseases that are found in Africa," Werker said. This class of diseases includes Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and yellow fever.
Previous Ebola outbreaks have been reported in Congo and Uganda, most recently in 2012 when 24 people were infected, including 17 deaths.

Outside of three laboratory-confirmed cases in England and Russia, all human illness and death has occurred in Africa, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.




The good news is, “There is no risk to the general public at all about this." Ebola is like rabies, it is almost universally fatal and the symptoms that the patient has to endure are horrific. Unlike rabies, there is no vaccine, and according to this article, there is no specific treatment. When I read The Hot Zone, though, one African hospital had some success when they transfused the blood of a nurse who spontaneously recovered from the disease into other patients. 7 out of 8 ebola patients who were treated in that way did contract the disease, but they survived it. See the article below.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9988160 states the following:
Treatment of Ebola hemorrhagic fever with blood transfusions from convalescent patients. International Scientific and Technical Committee.

Mupapa K1, Massamba M, Kibadi K, Kuvula K, Bwaka A, Kipasa M, Colebunders R, Muyembe-Tamfum JJ.
Author information

1Kinshasa University, Ministry of Public Health, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Abstract

Between 6 and 22 June 1995, 8 patients in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, who met the case definition used in Kikwit for Ebola (EBO) hemorrhagic fever, were transfused with blood donated by 5 convalescent patients. The donated blood contained IgG EBO antibodies but no EBO antigen. EBO antigens were detected in all the transfusion recipients just before transfusion. The 8 transfused patients had clinical symptoms similar to those of other EBO patients seen during the epidemic. All were seriously ill with severe asthenia, 4 presented with hemorrhagic manifestations, and 2 became comatose as their disease progressed. Only 1 transfused patient (12.5%) died; this number is significantly lower than the overall case fatality rate (80%) for the EBO epidemic in Kikwit and than the rates for other EBO epidemics. The reason for this low fatality rate remains to be explained. The transfused patients did receive better care than those in the initial phase of the epidemic. Plans should be made to prepare for a more thorough evaluation of passive immune therapy during a new EBO outbreak.