Thursday, October 23, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-ukraine-crisis-poland-sikorski-idUSKCN0I92A720141020

Polish ex-minister quoted saying Putin offered to divide Ukraine with Poland
WARSAW 
Mon Oct 20, 2014

(Reuters) - Poland's parliamentary speaker, Radoslaw Sikorski, has been quoted as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to Poland's then leader in 2008 that they divide Ukrainebetween themselves.

Sikorski, who until September served as Poland's foreign minister, was quoted telling U.S. website Politico that Putin made the proposal during Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's visit to Moscow in 2008 - although he later said some of the interview had been "overinterpreted".

"He wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine... This was one of the first things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, when he visited Moscow," he was quoted as saying in the interview dated Oct. 19. 

"He (Putin) went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don't we just sort it out together," Sikorski was quoted as saying.

Before World War Two, Poland's territory included parts of today's western Ukraine, including some major cities such as Lwow, known as Lviv in Ukraine.

Sikorski, who accompanied Tusk on his trip to Moscow, was quoted as saying Tusk did not reply to Putin's suggestion, because he knew he was being recorded, but Poland never expressed any interest in joining the Russian operation.

"We made it very, very clear to them - we wanted nothing to do with this," Sikorski was quoted as saying.

After publication of the interview, Sikorski said it was not entirely accurate.

"Some of the words have been overinterpreted," Sikorski wrote on his Twitter account late on Monday, adding that Poland does not take part in annexations.

The interview could further aggravate tension between Poland and Russia, already at odds over the Ukrainian crisis and Poland's arrest of two men suspected of spying for Moscow.

Neither Poland's Foreign Ministry nor Russian officials were immediately available to comment.

"If such a proposal was made by Putin then that's scandalous," Ewa Kopacz, who replaced Tusk as prime minister after his departure for a top job in Brussels, said late on Monday in an interview with public broadcaster TVP.

"No Polish prime minister will participate in such a disgraceful activity like partitioning another country", she said, adding she had not heard about such a proposal before.

Sikorski's account is not the first suggestion that Russia was seeking Poland's support in partitioning Ukraine.

Following the annexation of Crimea, Russian parliamentary speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent a letter to the governments of Poland, Romania and Hungary, proposing a joint division of the country.

(Reporting by Wiktor Szary; Editing by Alison Williams)




“Poland's parliamentary speaker, Radoslaw Sikorski, has been quoted as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to Poland's then leader in 2008 that they divide Ukrainebetween themselves. Sikorski, who until September served as Poland's foreign minister, was quoted telling U.S. website Politico that Putin made the proposal during Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's visit to Moscow in 2008 - although he later said some of the interview had been 'overinterpreted'.... 'He (Putin) went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don't we just sort it out together,' Sikorski was quoted as saying. Before World War Two, Poland's territory included parts of today's western Ukraine, including some major cities such as Lwow, known as Lviv in Ukraine.... 'We made it very, very clear to them - we wanted nothing to do with this,' Sikorski was quoted as saying. After publication of the interview, Sikorski said it was not entirely accurate.... The interview could further aggravate tension between Poland and Russia, already at odds over the Ukrainian crisis and Poland's arrest of two men suspected of spying for Moscow. Neither Poland's Foreign Ministry nor Russian officials were immediately available to comment.... Following the annexation of Crimea, Russian parliamentary speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent a letter to the governments of Poland, Romania and Hungary, proposing a joint division of the country.”

I hope the CIA and all of our societal guardians are paying close attention to this situation. Putin didn't make a public statement of his intention to obliterate the nation of Ukraine in this fashion, he did it undercover to the leaders of three former Soviet nations, hoping that they would join him. As far as I know, however, though they may have a large Russian population living within their borders, none of these nations is sympathetic with Russia and desiring to live under the old Soviet thumb again.

On the subject of Romania's relations with Russia, Wikipedia says “Historical relations have oscillated between grudging cooperation, neutrality and open hatred and hostility.” Of Hungary Wikipedia made a similar comment, and Poland has since joined NATO and the EU, so I don't see them moving back toward Russian influence. I think Mr. Putin is attempting a failing goal – the reconstruction of the old Soviet Union. He is trying to make a permanent mark on history, and I think Western forces will engage him in a real war if he destabilizes the balance of power in the world too much.





http://www.ibtimes.com/ebola-cure-canada-ship-800-vials-experimental-vsv-bov-vaccine-who-1707388#.VETO_0qliE4.google_plusone_share

International Business Times
Ebola Cure: Canada To Ship 800 Vials Of Experimental VSV-BOV Vaccine To WHO
By Charles Poladian 
October 18 2014

Canada will ship 800 vials of its experimental Ebola virus disease vaccine, VSV-EBOV, to the World Health Organization, Ottawa announcedSaturday. The Ebola vaccine will be sent in three shipments. Human clinical trials of VSV-EBOV began Monday after previously being shown effective in other primates.

“This vaccine, the product of many years of scientific research and innovation, could be an important tool in curbing the outbreak. We will continue to work closely with the WHO to address some of the ethical and logistical issues around using this experimental vaccine in the fight against Ebola,” Gregory Taylor, Canada’s chief public health officer, said in a statement.
Each shipment of VSV-EBOV will be packed in a special container with dry ice, at a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius, or -112 degrees Fahrenheit. The vaccine was developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The government has licensed the NewLink Genetics Corp. to produce VSV-EBOV in an attempt to help stop the spread of Ebola in West Africa.
The vaccine is a combination of a weakened version of the vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, found in animals including cattle and horses, and protein from the Ebola virus. VSV is zoonotic, meaning it can be transferred from animals to humans. Infected humans develop flulike symptoms, according to the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. The VSV-EBOV vaccine triggers an immune system response that produces antibodies against the Ebola protein, similar to the way a flu shot works.

Clinical trials are under way at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, headquartered in Silver Spring, Md. Results will not be available until December. Canada has been at the forefront of Ebola drug development, with TKM-EBOLA and ZMapp also being developed in Canada with the help of U.S. funding and partnerships. The latter was recently used on the Spanish nurse Teresa Romero, who contracted the virus Oct. 6. Meanwhile, a second vaccine is also in the works in Canada.

“Canada views this experimental Ebola vaccine as a global resource, and, in the interest of global public health, we are sharing it with our international partners to help address the Ebola outbreak in West Africa,” Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose said in a statement.
The first shipment of the VSV-EBOV vaccine to WHO in Geneva will be made Monday.




“The Ebola vaccine will be sent in three shipments. Human clinical trials of VSV-EBOV began Monday after previously being shown effective in other primates.... Each shipment of VSV-EBOV will be packed in a special container with dry ice, at a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius, or -112 degrees Fahrenheit. The vaccine was developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The government has licensed the NewLink Genetics Corp. to produce VSV-EBOV in an attempt to help stop the spread of Ebola in West Africa.... The vaccine is a combination of a weakened version of the vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, found in animals including cattle and horses, and protein from the Ebola virus. VSV is zoonotic, meaning it can be transferred from animals to humans. Infected humans develop flulike symptoms, according to the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. The VSV-EBOV vaccine triggers an immune system response that produces antibodies against the Ebola protein, similar to the way a flu shot works.... The first shipment of the VSV-EBOV vaccine to WHO in Geneva will be made Monday.”

Eight hundred doses isn't enough to make a real difference in the epidemic, but if it prevents the spread of the disease it will help; or perhaps the doctors can use it as a treatment in those who are already showing symptoms, to give their bodies a boost for fighting it off. Zmapp was given to those who had symptoms already and it helped. For other new vaccine experiments, see the next article.




Ebola Vaccine Could Start Testing In Africa By January – NPR
by RICHARD HARRIS
October 21, 2014

The World Health Organization says that efforts are on track to distribute an experimental Ebola vaccine in West Africa in January.

Two potential vaccines are now being tested for safety in people, and Russia is developing another one. While quantities will be limited, scientists say even a relatively small supply of vaccine can help bring the epidemic under control.

There's no guarantee that any vaccine will be effective, so it's good that several are in the pipeline. That includes an Ebola vaccine being developed by GlaxoSmithKline, which has already been tested in a small number of volunteers in the U.S., Europe and Africa.

Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation at the World Health Organization, says a Canadian vaccine licensed to NewLink Genetics in Ames, Iowa, is now being tested in people as well, at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health, near Washington, D.C.

Next month, those trials will be expanded to include several hundred volunteers in Europe. Those tests will involve 250 doses of each of these two front-running vaccine candidates, "and these data are absolutely crucial to allow decision-making on what dose level should go into the testing in Africa," Kieny says.

That's a critical question at the moment, because nobody now knows whether a tiny dose or a large dose would be required to protect someone from the Ebola virus. The largest dose in these tests will be nearly 1,000 times larger than the smallest dose.

"Everybody would like to have the lowest dose because, of course, you could have so much more vaccine than if it's the highest dose," Kieny says.

Health officials are hoping to have tens of thousands of doses available starting in January. But that could present a major manufacturing challenge, especially if each shot needed to contain a huge dose of the vaccine.

And while these two potential vaccines are the farthest along, they aren't alone. Three others are in earlier development stages at U.S. companies, and "some vaccines are also in development in Russia," Kieny told a WHO news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. "So we are in contact with Russians to see when they could be available for testing in Africa, and what type of doses, in terms of quantity, could be available in the months to come."

She says it's not clear whether the Russian scientists have already started safety testing in people.

Until quite recently, public health officials figured that a vaccine would come along too late to be of any use in controlling the current Ebola outbreak. But that attitude is changing.

"We could use a strategy similar to the ring vaccination strategy that was used in the smallpox eradication program," says Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The concept of ring vaccination is that you wouldn't need to immunize the many millions of residents in the affected West African countries. Instead, if health officials can see where the disease is heading next, they can focus on immunizing people who will soon be in harm's way.

That of course includes health care workers, who are at highest risk right now.

"That would not require large amounts of vaccine," Morse says, "but it probably would limit the spread of the epidemic considerably."

Using this strategy, the vaccine wouldn't have to be perfectly effective, and you wouldn't even need to vaccinate all people who are at risk in order to put brakes on the epidemic.

Drugs to treat Ebola would help as well.

Kieny says the French government plans to test a Japanese antiviral drug called Favipiravir in Guinea. And there's an international partnership coordinated by England's Oxford University to bring a half-dozen other potential drugs into the region as well.

She says the partnership is now visiting sites in the three African countries to identify which treatment centers would be adequate and would also be willing to participate in the testing of drugs.

Of course, public health officials responsible for stopping Ebola are still relying most heavily on the tried-and-true method: finding people who are sick and isolating them so the disease stops spreading.




“Two potential vaccines are now being tested for safety in people, and Russia is developing another one. …. That includes an Ebola vaccine being developed by GlaxoSmithKline, which has already been tested in a small number of volunteers in the U.S., Europe and Africa.... Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation at the World Health Organization, says a Canadian vaccine licensed to NewLink Genetics in Ames, Iowa, is now being tested in people as well.... 'We could use a strategy similar to the ring vaccination strategy that was used in the smallpox eradication program,' says Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The concept of ring vaccination is that you wouldn't need to immunize the many millions of residents in the affected West African countries. Instead, if health officials can see where the disease is heading next, they can focus on immunizing people who will soon be in harm's way.... Kieny says the French government plans to test a Japanese antiviral drug called Favipiravir in Guinea. And there's an international partnership coordinated by England's Oxford University to bring a half-dozen other potential drugs into the region as well.”

Russia, Japan, Canada, the US are all working on drugs, and an interesting comment in the article is that using the “ring vaccination strategy” the amount of vaccine wouldn't have to stretch to all people in the three countries to “limit” the epidemic. The good news is that a sizable amount of vaccine may be available in January. See the following article on an effective antiviral drug that could be used for more than just one virus type. Another online report specifies that this is true. “ the experimental broad-range antiviral favipiravir, currently being trialled for influenza and Ebola viruses, effectively reduced - and in some cases eliminated - norovirus in mice. See “http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284316.php” for that article. I think there will soon be several effective ways to fight Ebola if all these studies pan out. I feel greatly relieved.



http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e03679

Favipiravir elicits antiviral mutagenesis during virus replication in vivo - See more at: http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e03679#sthash.VFNQ5OIa.dpuf
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Published October 21, 2014

Lethal mutagenesis has emerged as a novel potential therapeutic approach to treat viral infections. Several studies have demonstrated that increases in the high mutation rates inherent to RNA viruses lead to viral extinction in cell culture, but evidence during infections in vivo is limited. In this study, we show that the broad-range antiviral nucleoside favipiravir reduces viral load in vivo by exerting antiviral mutagenesis in a mouse model for norovirus infection. - See more at: http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e03679#sthash.VFNQ5OIa.dpuf
Increased mutation frequencies were observed in samples from treated mice and were accompanied with lower or in some cases undetectable levels of infectious virus in faeces and tissues. Viral RNA isolated from treated animals showed reduced infectivity, a feature of populations approaching extinction during antiviral mutagenesis. These results suggest that favipiravir can induce norovirus mutagenesis in vivo, which in some cases leads to virus extinction, providing a proof-of-principle for the use of favipiravir derivatives or mutagenic nucleosides in the clinical treatment of noroviruses. - See more at: http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e03679#sthash.VFNQ5OIa.dpuf





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/21/1338197/-White-SC-High-School-Football-Team-Celebrates-Win-by-Making-Monkey-Sounds-and-Smashing-Watermelons?detail=email

Daily Kos

Coby DuBose on Criminal Injustice, Race, and Poverty
White SC High School Football Team Celebrates Win by Making Monkey Sounds and Smashing Watermelons
By Grizzard
TUE OCT 21, 2014

Meet the football team at Academic Magnet High School, a public school near Charleston, South Carolina. As you can see here, they're almost entirely white, with the exception of a single teammate. Recently, they've played a number of games against teams that look like this:

On the left, you see the Raptors of Academic Magnet. On the right, North Charleston High School, a team that's made up almost entirely of black players.

During a recent winning streak, Academic Magnet has developed what you might call an odd tradition. They smash watermelons on the ground, then eat them. This alone might be offensive after defeating a mostly black team, but the fine folks at Academic Magnet have added something extra to their little celebratory routine - making "monkey noises."

A parent of an opposing team took issue with this practice and complained to the local school board. After investigating, the school took action against the coach, firing him, despite what many people claim is a prolonged run of success.

As you might suspect, some people have really taken issue with the "sensitive" and "overly PC" response to this incident. Just to provide some picture of what we're dealing with:

On local radio this morning, broadcaster Emerson Phillips, who has been honored by the SC Broadcasters' Association with awards, went on a prolonged rant in which he bemoaned the fact that "some people" - namely, black people and Jewish people - "see racism or anti-Antisemitism in everything.” According to him, those people "let racism effect everything they do."

These are typical refrains from racists and those who look to cover for racists in all parts of the country, but especially in the Deep South. This event has been met with incredulity on the part of many white people, who seemingly cannot understand how something as innocuous as a watermelon and "monkey noises" could ever be viewed as racist. These people, of course, are either extremely disingenuous or have been living in a cave.

It's in this light that a "Dear White People" lesson is needed.

As white people, we do not get to tell black people what they can and cannot be offended by. Offense is the province of the offended, especially when such offense is objectively reasonable.

More than that, we inherit - and in fact, occupy - the actual world, complete with its full history. We do not occupy a world where watermelons are neutral fruits in the context of a white person speaking to a black person. Likewise, we don't occupy a space in which one group making monkey noises toward the other constitutes a signal of mutual appreciation for the local zoo.

Rather, we occupy a world in which white people have used symbols - be they the confederate flag, watermelons, fried chicken, nooses, or anything else - to intimidate, de-humanize, and otherwise demean black people. And black people cannot be blamed for learning and understanding that history. When black people understand that in the early 1900s, white people dressed in blackface in order to highlight the "simplicity" of the black man by showing that black man content with just having his fill of watermelon, then we have a duty to moderate our use of those symbols.

When black people understand that even today, the president of the United States is depicted as a simpleton after a juicy watermelon treat, we must understand that the context in which they view, and receive, messages about things like watermelon are through the context of that distant and not-so-distant history. For centuries, watermelons have been used to demonstrate that the black man is so stupid that he would be content with his lot in life - that of the oppressed, the enslaved, and the downtrodden - if a white man would only give him some watermelon. Understanding that, it becomes very easy to understand why a black person today would take great offense at a nearly all white football team celebrating a win over a nearly all black football team by smashing watermelon and ripping a few primate noises.

I don't buy that the Academic Magnet team engaged in its little ritual without nefarious intent. There are few contexts in which young, white boys would use monkey sounds and eat watermelon on the same field as young, black boys that do not suggest the intention of racial subjugation. But even if one gives these boys a benefit of the doubt they have not earned, it is still the responsibility of white folks to understand history and to avoid those symbols which will rightly be offensive to black people or any other ethnic group.
And when those people speak up about the offense, it is incumbent upon us not to tell them that they are wrong - another form of racism in which we elevate our judgment over theirs - but rather, to listen to what they have to say, to study the history behind it, and to understand how, given the hundreds-years context, black people would be angered at the suggestion of their simplicity.

Updated: To add this nugget from News 4 Charleston:

"Further, the students also drew a face on each watermelon and named them, according to McGinley. She said the investigation revealed the students also named the watermelons Junior and Bonds Wilson.

Bonds Wilson is the name of the formerly predominantly-black school in North Charleston where Academic Magnet now sits."

The above image was uncovered in the investigation. It's a sketch that administrators believe the students used to draw faces on the watermelons. It doesn't take a history scholar to see that that picture is a really poor high school artist's rendering of some of the old sambo "art" that was produced in the early 1900s. The overdone smiles. The red eyes. The overdone nose. I know that racists will deny it, but I've seen enough of those types of illustrations to know what these students intended.

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO COBY DUBOSE ON CRIMINAL INJUSTICE, RACE, AND POVERTY ON TUE OCT 21, 2014 AT 01:18 PM PDT.
ALSO REPUBLISHED BY COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT.




“Meet the football team at Academic Magnet High School, a public school near Charleston, South Carolina. As you can see here, they're almost entirely white, with the exception of a single teammate. Recently, they've played a number of games against teams that look like this: On the left, you see the Raptors of Academic Magnet. On the right, North Charleston High School, a team that's made up almost entirely of black players.... During a recent winning streak, Academic Magnet has developed what you might call an odd tradition. They smash watermelons on the ground, then eat them. This alone might be offensive after defeating a mostly black team, but the fine folks at Academic Magnet have added something extra to their little celebratory routine - making 'monkey noises.' A parent of an opposing team took issue with this practice and complained to the local school board. After investigating, the school took action against the coach, firing him, despite what many people claim is a prolonged run of success.... On local radio this morning, broadcaster Emerson Phillips, who has been honored by the SC Broadcasters' Association with awards, went on a prolonged rant in which he bemoaned the fact that 'some people' - namely, black people and Jewish people - 'see racism or anti-Antisemitism in everything.' According to him, those people 'let racism effect everything they do.'... More than that, we inherit - and in fact, occupy - the actual world, complete with its full history. We do not occupy a world where watermelons are neutral fruits in the context of a white person speaking to a black person. Likewise, we don't occupy a space in which one group making monkey noises toward the other constitutes a signal of mutual appreciation for the local zoo....When black people understand that even today, the president of the United States is depicted as a simpleton after a juicy watermelon treat, we must understand that the context in which they view, and receive, messages about things like watermelon are through the context of that distant and not-so-distant history.... And when those people speak up about the offense, it is incumbent upon us not to tell them that they are wrong - another form of racism in which we elevate our judgment over theirs - but rather, to listen to what they have to say, to study the history behind it, and to understand how, given the hundreds-years context, black people would be angered at the suggestion of their simplicity.”

When I hear a story like this one I am ashamed of the deeply racist culture that still exists in the South, and I must say, in the North and West as well. Hispanic people and American Indians have also been treated as badly in too many cases. Texas Sheriff Arpaio is just one case in point. We shouldn't forget that the Indians were forced off their lands across the country into reservations, mainly in the West, and those was the survivors whom the US Army and white settlers didn't kill.

About anti-black humor, I grew up hearing racist comments and jokes. I was too young and inexperienced to complain about it, and I didn't consider myself to be a part of the problem because I didn't make the ugly comment. I was too young to even understand it to be a problem. My father and mother had their share of racist views, but I must say I never heard either of them refer to black people as an animal or even rant against them. Most Southerners were to some degree tainted in their attitudes by those things, though again, most wouldn't have joined a KKK rally. The KKK started in the reconstruction days and continued up to the 1970's when a wave of liberal thought invaded even the South. There has been an upsurge, though mainly sotto voce now, of KKK activity in places like even Northern suburbs, along with the “white backlash” to the Civil Rights movement which is now fueling the Tea Party and various other radicals who make the news every few months. This behavior by the high school football players probably is an echo of what their parents have to say at home.

I am delighted to see, however, that the School Board, when informed of this issue, did fire the team's coach immediately, though they incurred backlash from locals who say the decision is too “PC.” I've always hated that term, because it is the outgrowth of bullying and abuse becoming an accepted thing. There are still schools where bullying and race baiting go unpunished, especially if it comes from members of the football team or kids whose parents are wealthy, and therefore they are “popular.” “Politically Correct” is not an accurate description of polite and respectful conduct, and fear of punishment is not the only cause of kind and decent behavior. Good people do it because it is the right thing to do. Minds have to be changed to improve this situation. The racists and other abusive people need to listen closely to the words Jesus said rather than just “believe” the miracle aspects of the Christian religion. Most of these young kids who caused this scandal are undoubtedly Christians and will probably say that they are “saved.” To me being saved probably has something to do with what we actually do and say, not just a faith. It will surprise some people, I suspect, when they reach the Pearly Gates and find that they aren't allowed in.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/21/1338210/-Forty-Thousand-Mostly-Minority-Voter-Registration-Forms-Lost-And-Now-Found-In-Georgia?detail=email

Daily Kos

40K (Mostly Minority) Voter Registration Forms Lost And Now Found In Georgia; SOS Denies Any Problem
By librarisingnsf
TUE OCT 21, 2014

We've all heard the stories of the voter registrations forms that seemed to disappear in the state of Georgia. Well, guess what? They have now reappeared! Well, at least 40, 000 of them Imagine that?!

It should be mentioned, however, that the number that went missing is actually about 56,000. So …

From Generation Progress:

Upwards of 40,000 new voter registrations went on the lamb in Georgia for a brief period a few weeks ago, as voting rights groups scrambled to find out where more than half of the newly registered voters’ records had gone. Amidst the confusion, some groups came to the conclusion that Secretary of State Brian Kemp was somehow connected to the disappearance of the predominantly black and Hispanic voter registrations. However, following the filing of a lawsuit on October 10 against Secretary Kemp, as well as county officials, the missing registrations were finally accounted for.

The controversy over voter registration began with the New Georgia Project (NGP), an organization seeking to register new and critical voting populations in the state. The NGP outlines on its website that it seeks to target specific populations in its voter registration efforts.

“Over the past decade, the population of Georgia increased 18%. The Rising American Electorate (RAE) – people of color, those 18 to 29 years of age, and unmarried women – is a significant part of that growth,” the NGP said.

The group hoped to mobilize that population in Georgia to get out and vote.

Update 1:

I found this news report about the issue. It seems that the two sides are in court this week. SOS Kemp denies any wrong-doing or that any voter registration forms were lost.

http://www.11alive.com/...
Here is another article about the dispute:
http://www.tiftongazette.com/...
From commenter whl below, here is another site with info:
http://nymag.com/...

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO LIBRARISINGNSF ON TUE OCT 21, 2014 AT 01:59 PM PDT.
ALSO REPUBLISHED BY KOS GEORGIA.
TAGS



http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/10/22/357998924/concern-over-new-voter-registration-in-georgia-ahead-of-election

Concern Over New-Voter Registration In Georgia Ahead Of Election – NPR
by HANSI LO WANG
October 22, 2014

This election season is proving to be tough for Democrats, but many believe they can turn the red state of Georgia blue with the help of new voters.

One voter registration campaign led by the New Georgia Project, a "nonpartisan effort" according to its website, has targeted black, Latino and Asian-American residents.

The organization's parent group, Third Sector Development, is currently engaged in a legal battle with election officials over more than 40,000 voter registration applications that, the group says, are missing from Georgia's voter logs. This month, that organization, along with the NAACP and other civil rights groups, filed a lawsuit against five counties and Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who oversees elections in the state.

"These are voters who deserve to have their voices heard," says Stacey Abrams, founder of the New Georgia Project. "This is a critical election — an election that will not only speak to what happens in the state of Georgia this cycle but ... speaks to the future of the Georgia that we want to have."

The issue has been resolved in Georgia's DeKalb County, located outside Atlanta. But four other counties, including Fulton, Chatham, Muscogee and Clayton, still face the lawsuit.

A Call For Transparency

Abrams, a Democrat who serves as Georgia's House minority leader, says it's unclear whether the 40,000 applications in question have been processed, based on the state's public lists of registered voters.

"The reality may be that the voters are in the process, and they will appear on the rolls. But we don't know," she says. "This is about information. It's about transparency."

The Georgia secretary of state's office did not respond to requests for comment by deadline, but during a press conference on Oct. 16, Kemp said the lawsuit is "totally without merit."

"The claim that there are over 40,000 unprocessed voter registration applications is absolutely false," he said. "The counties have processed all the voter registration applications that they have received for the general election."

In September, Kemp launched an investigation into the New Georgia Project's voter registration campaign after forged and other invalid applications were submitted to county offices. The New Georgia Project says it is legally required to submit all voter registration applications it collects — even invalid ones.

Resolution In DeKalb County

Earlier this week, DeKalb County was released from the lawsuit after confirming that the county had processed all of its applications. Maxine Daniels, director of voter registration and elections in DeKalb County, says she was upset by the lawsuit's allegations.

"We understand that what we do is the very basis for our democracy, and so we take it very seriously," she explains. "For someone to say that we're not doing it, it's just very disconcerting."

Daniels says the lawsuit may come down to failures in communication between the New Georgia Project and county election offices. She says she wishes the group had reached out to her office about missing applications earlier in the process. But Daniels still supports outreach to new voters.

"Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water," she says. "We have to keep in mind that there still were some 7,000 voters that as a result of their project got registered [in DeKalb County]. And so we applaud that effort."

NPR contacted the four other counties named in the lawsuit. All asserted that they currently have no unprocessed applications. A hearing about the case is set to take place in Atlanta on Friday.




FROM DAILY KOS – “We've all heard the stories of the voter registrations forms that seemed to disappear in the state of Georgia. Well, guess what? They have now reappeared! Well, at least 40, 000 of them Imagine that?! It should be mentioned, however, that the number that went missing is actually about 56,000. So … Upwards of 40,000 new voter registrations went on the lamb in Georgia for a brief period a few weeks ago, as voting rights groups scrambled to find out where more than half of the newly registered voters’ records had gone. Amidst the confusion, some groups came to the conclusion that Secretary of State Brian Kemp was somehow connected to the disappearance of the predominantly black and Hispanic voter registrations. However, following the filing of a lawsuit on October 10 against Secretary Kemp, as well as county officials, the missing registrations were finally accounted for.... 'Over the past decade, the population of Georgia increased 18%. The Rising American Electorate (RAE) – people of color, those 18 to 29 years of age, and unmarried women – is a significant part of that growth,' the NGP said. The group hoped to mobilize that population in Georgia to get out and vote.... It seems that the two sides are in court this week. SOS Kemp denies any wrong-doing or that any voter registration forms were lost.”

FROM NPR – “The organization's parent group, Third Sector Development, is currently engaged in a legal battle with election officials over more than 40,000 voter registration applications that, the group says, are missing from Georgia's voter logs. This month, that organization, along with the NAACP and other civil rights groups, filed a lawsuit against five counties and Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who oversees elections in the state.... The issue has been resolved in Georgia's DeKalb County, located outside Atlanta. But four other counties, including Fulton, Chatham, Muscogee and Clayton, still face the lawsuit.... Abrams, a Democrat who serves as Georgia's House minority leader, says it's unclear whether the 40,000 applications in question have been processed, based on the state's public lists of registered voters.... 'The reality may be that the voters are in the process, and they will appear on the rolls. But we don't know,' she says. 'This is about information. It's about transparency.'... 'The claim that there are over 40,000 unprocessed voter registration applications is absolutely false,' he said. 'The counties have processed all the voter registration applications that they have received for the general election.'... NPR contacted the four other counties named in the lawsuit. All asserted that they currently have no unprocessed applications. A hearing about the case is set to take place in Atlanta on Friday.”

The deadline for registrations must be soon. Abrams, Georgia's Minority Leader said, “'The reality may be that the voters are in the process, and they will appear on the rolls. But we don't know,'” All four Georgia counties spoke to NPR and stated that they have processed all the voter registrations that they received, though Dekalb County's Maxine Daniels acknowledges receiving only 7,000 new registrations. At present the situation remains murky, definitely not “transparent.”

There is an apparent pattern at every election in the South: whenever Democrats successfully mobilize new voters the Republicans cry fraud. The Republicans just hate a free election. Unsuppressed Democratic votes are un-American. Right? This time, however, they didn't only allege fraud, they tried to eliminate the new registrations completely. They backed down though when they were sued and produced them, according to the Daily Kos article, but the NGP has been unable to verify that the names have been added to the voter rolls. The following article from Newsweek gives some background information on the alleged voter fraud situation and the New Georgia Project.


http://www.newsweek.com/mass-vote-registration-georgia-brings-accusations-voter-fraud-272358

Mass Vote Registration in Georgia Brings Accusations of Voter Fraud
By Pema Levy
Filed: 9/23/14

There’s something fishy going on in Georgia. On the eve of the midterm elections—with high profile Senate and gubernatorial races on the line—a group undertaking a historic effort to register tens of thousands of minority voters is all of a sudden under investigation by Georgia’s Republican secretary of state’s office. And the crime doesn’t quite match the punishment.

Georgia Democrats’ chance to win this year hinges on registering and turning out new voters on Election Day. Namely, Democrats need to draw from the Peach State’s swelling black, Hispanic and Asian populations, communities that largely support Democrats and are slowly turning Georgia from a red state to a purple one.

These new voters will be critical if Democrat Michelle Nunn (daughter of former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn) is to stand a chance at winning this year’s Senate contest against Republican candidate David Perdue (cousin of former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue), and the only hope of state Senator Jason Carter (grandson of former President Jimmy Carter) to unseat the Republican governor, Nathan Deal.

Enter the New Georgia Project, a group spearheaded by the minority leader in the Georgia state House, Representative Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party. So far, her group has collected 85,000 voter registration applications. Together with around 20,000 registration forms collected by smaller partner groups, Democrats are close to registering 120,000 new voters—mostly black, Hispanic, Asian and young people—before the November elections.

But on September 9, the group received a broad subpoena from the office of the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brian Kemp, as part of an investigation into the group stemming from evidence of fraudulent registration applications. Kemp’s office also sent a letter to county election officials in Georgia’s 159 counties warning that a  “preliminary investigation has revealed significant illegal activities.” At an emergency meeting of the State Board of Elections last Wednesday, the deadline for the subpoena was extended to Friday.

Abrams is quick to point out, however, that her group is required by law to turn in every application they collect, even if it contains errors. “If the form says Mickey Mouse registered in Anaheim, California, we have to turn that form in,” Abrams said in an interview with Newsweek last week.

That’s why she’s calling the investigation a witch hunt. ”There was no way to win. And that’s what this really resembles,” Abrams said. “We were being told if you follow the law, you were wrong. And if you didn’t follow the law, you’re wrong.”  
At the the State Elections Board meeting, Kemp’s office stated that there were 25 forms that are not valid and another 26 that are suspect. Kemp’s chief investigator, Chris Harvey, acknowledged that the New Georgia Project has been helpful in identifying the problematic forms.

“Essentially, there could be 51 out of 85,000 forms that were turned in by law that could be invalid. That’s the story,” Abrams said. “Our reaction has been fairly aggressive because to suggest as he did in that letter that we were engaged in something that was nefarious was not only wrong on its face, it had the very real effect of trying to stymie registration through our organization.”
That’s what has Georgia Democrats up in arms. They feel a few inevitable errors are being used as a pretext to attack an organization that is registering large numbers of Democratic voters.

“The irregularities that they have found have actually been a fraction of a percent of the overall number of voter registration forms that the New Georgia Project put in,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “It would seem as though the tenor of the investigation so far doesn’t necessarily match the scope of the problem.”

Gillespie, an expert in African-American voter participation, says she fears the “chilling effect” an investigation might have on voter registration groups. “The attitude that one can infer from this is that if somebody makes one mistake, or if somebody makes a few mistakes, then all of a sudden you get labeled as potential scammers,” she said. “And that might be the type of thing that would actually deter people from registering folks to vote. And that would actually be very, very unfortunate.”

Abrams made the same argument: “If we were to allow ourselves to be bullied in the way that the subpoena initially sought to do, we would be setting a precedent for any other group in the state,” she said. The New Georgia Project says it is currently negotiating the scope of the subpoena with the secretary of state’s office.
In response to requests for comment, Kemp’s spokesman Jared Thomas pointed Newsweek to a fact sheet the office put together about the investigation. “The confirmation of 25 forged voter registration applications warranted an expansive investigation and that is why a subpoena was issued to the New Georgia Project,” it reads. “The claim that the New Georgia Project has submitted 85,000 voter registration applications has no bearing on this investigation. Each instance of forgery can result in multiple felonies and the Office of the Secretary of State has a constitutional obligation to pursue every illegal act to the full extent of the law.”

In a state where party politics often break down along racial lines, the fact that a group that aims to register minority voters is being targeted by Republicans two months before a big election raises red flags. Just two weeks ago, a Republican Georgia state senator lambasted a local official on Facebook for deciding to hold Sunday voting in an Atlanta suburb with a large black population. The lawmaker, Fran Millar, defended his comments saying, “This is politics. It’s not about race.” Racist or not, it is in Republicans’ political interest to make it harder for black citizens to vote.

Abrams and Warnock have attacked Kemp, claiming that 51,000 new voter registration forms have not yet been processed. If they don’t go through by the October 6 deadline, then tens of thousands of voters could be disenfranchised. Kemp has pushed back by stressing that his office is on schedule and the backlog is taking place at the county level. The New Georgia Project says that as the top official in charge of elections in the state, the buck stops with Kemp.






http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/21/1338275/-Paul-LePage-s-New-Idea-Indentured-Servants?detail=email

Daily Kos
Paul LePage's New Idea: Indentured Servants
Cross-posted from
The Last Days of Paul LePage
By Bruce Bourgoine
TUE OCT 21, 2014

One drawback in Maine to having a Governor whose entire background is in business and who repeatedly promises to bring business sense to government is that outlook is not always in the best interests of all people. Government does not exist to make a profit or outsource for profitbut it is supposed to undertake the non-profitable work to help prevent or mitigate that which may costs lives and decent livelihoods. It has a responsibility to serve the "general welfare."

Paul LePage's first instinct is always about costs and profits in a business sense only. Recently he has been talking about selling student loans to workers' employers in part because "I think we can make it sort of a very profitable operation."

Setting aside the creepy overtones of indentured servitude, this first instinct of Paul LePage is a bad one because this is clearly an area that a "very profitable operation" has no place in either serving those receiving the service or the greater common good. Maine people will profit in the non-financial sense of the word by replacing him with Mike Michaud.



Paul LePage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Richard LePage (born October 9, 1948) is an American businessman and Republican Party politician who serves as the 74thGovernor of Maine. He was the mayor of Waterville from 2003 to 2011, and was a city councilor prior to that. He worked as general manager of the 14-store discount chain Marden's Surplus and Salvage from 1996 until 2011.

Early life and education[edit]

LePage was born in Lewiston, the eldest son of eighteen children of Theresa (née Gagnon) and Gerard LePage, both of French-Canadian descent.[3] He grew up speaking French in an impoverished home with an abusive father who was a mill worker.[4] His father drank heavily and terrorized the children; and his mother was too intimidated to stop him.[5] At age eleven, after his father beat him and broke his nose, he ran away from home and lived on the streets of Lewiston, seeking shelter wherever he could find it, including in horse stables and at a "strip joint".[4][6] After spending roughly two years homeless, he began to earn a living shining shoes, washing dishes at a café, and hauling boxes for a truck driver. He later worked at a rubber company, a meat-packing plant, and was a short order cook, and bartender.[7]

LePage applied to Husson College in Bangor, but was rejected due to a poor verbal score on the SAT, a result ofEnglish being his second language. He has said that Peter Snowe – the first husband of former U.S. Senator from Maine Olympia Snowe – persuaded Husson to give LePage a written exam in French, which allowed LePage to show his comprehension and be admitted.[7][8] At Husson, LePage improved his English skills and became editor of the college newspaper.[7] He graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration in Finance and Accounting, and later earned an MBA from the University of Maine.[7]

Business career[edit]

LePage worked for a lumber company in New Brunswick, Canada that was owned by his first wife's family from 1972 to 1979, and later for Scott Paper in Winslow, Maine.[9] He later founded his own business consulting firm, LePage & Kasevich Inc., which specialized in aiding floundering companies.[10] In 1996, LePage became general manager of Marden's Surplus and Salvage, a Maine-based discount store chain.[8][11]

Local politics[edit]

LePage served two terms as a Waterville city councilor before becoming mayor in 2003, retaining that post until resigning in January 2011. During his time as mayor, LePage reorganized city hall, lowered taxes, and increased the city's rainy day fund balance from $1 million to $10 million.[12]

Governor of Maine[edit]

2010 election[edit]

On September 22, 2009, LePage announced that he would be seeking the 2010 Republican nomination for Governor of Maine.[13] He won 38% of the vote in a seven-way primary election, despite being outspent ten-to-one by his closest challenger.[14] John Morris, LePage's campaign chief-of-staff, credited LePage's win with a campaign strategy (devised by chief strategist Brent Littlefield) that he referred to as the "three onlys" theme before the June primary election. This theme focused on particular aspects of LePage's biography that supposedly set him apart from the other candidates. These were, according to Morris, LePage being: the "only" candidate with a compelling life story; the "only" candidate with successful experience as a chief executive officer of a government entity; and, the "only" candidate who was the executive of a prosperous Maine business.[15]

In the general election, LePage was backed by local Tea Party activists and faced Democratic state Senator Libby Mitchell, and three independents -- Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody, and Kevin Scott.[16] During the campaign, he told an audience that when he became governor, they could expect to see newspaper headlines stating, "LePage TellsObama To Go to Hell". He was subsequently criticized by Libby Mitchell's campaign as being disrespectful towards the Office of the President.[17]

With 94% of precincts reporting on the day after the election, the Bangor Daily News declared LePage the winner, carrying 38.1% of the votes.[21] independent Cutler was in second place with 36.7% of the votes (fewer than 7,500 votes behind LePage), while Democrat Mitchell was a distant third with 19%. Moody and Scott had 5% and 1%, respectively. LePage is the first popularly elected, Franco-American governor of Maine and the first Republican sinceJohn R. McKernan, Jr.'s re-election in 1990. In his victory speech, LePage promised he would shrink government, lower taxes, decrease business regulation, and put "Maine people ahead of politics." [4]

LePage was the first Maine Governor to use social media to promote the annual State of the State Address, when he used Twitter to send several Tweets previewing his February 5, 2013 speech.[27]

LePage has vetoed 182 bills as Governor, which broke the record of 118 set by Gov. James B. Longley. Most of LePage's vetoes have come since 2013 when Democrats regained the Legislature from the Republicans. Democrats got the votes to override 20 of the vetoes. Five, including an override of the 2013–2014 state budget, came in the 2013 session of the Legislature, while 15 came in the 2014 session.[28][29][30]



This Wikipedia article is fascinating reading all the way through, so I suggest you look it up and read it. LePage has made many truly outrageous statements, sometimes very crudely, and is becoming very unpopular. His political ideas are as wild as his language. He is not only a radical rightist, he has no idea of what would be constitutional if enacted. As outrageous as his endentured servitude idea is, it will not come into being, I'm sure. I think it is important to highlight LePage, as one of the more crack-brained people who have come into political power under the umbrella of the Tea Party, because he may later make his way into the US Congress, though I pray not. He did have a very hard time as a child and young man growing up, and clawed his way up to the governorship, so I give him credit for strength and perseverance.





15-year-old ISIS fighter describes atrocities
By HOLLY WILLIAMS CBS NEWS October 21, 2014, 6:53 PM

SYRIA - In the basement of a prison in northern Syria, men accused of being ISIS terrorists were led in one by one.

The guards holding them are part of a Kurdish group fighting against the Islamic extremists and don't want to be identified.

One of the prisoners was clearly terrified. He was asked why he was so frightened.

"Because I thought I was about to be beaten," said Suleiman Mohammed, who's accused of plotting to detonate a car bomb.

He denies it and so does Jaber Sabah Habash, his alleged accomplice.

But 15-year-old Kareem Mufleh freely admits that he fought with ISIS.

"They captured my village and gave me a choice," he said. "Either join ISIS, or be beheaded."

ISIS has embarked on a reign of fear. Mufleh told us he was a witness to massacres when ISIS seized villages in Syria.

"I even saw them kill a woman because her wedding dress showed her neck and bare arms," Mufleh said.

He claims that ISIS gave him the anti-anxiety drug Zolam before he went in to battle.

"That drug makes you lose your mind," he said. "If they give you a suicide belt and tell you to blow yourself up, you'll do it."

He showed us his wounds -- caused, he said, by three bullets to his stomach.

The group now holding Mufleh captured him during a firefight nine months ago -- and also saved his life.

The public face of ISIS is the masked gunmen who slaughter those that don't agree with their violent interpretation of Islam.

But behind that façade, is a frightened 15-year-old who says he was drugged, and forced to witness atrocities.




“But 15-year-old Kareem Mufleh freely admits that he fought with ISIS. 'They captured my village and gave me a choice,' he said. 'Either join ISIS, or be beheaded.'... He claims that ISIS gave him the anti-anxiety drug Zolam before he went in to battle. 'That drug makes you lose your mind,' he said. 'If they give you a suicide belt and tell you to blow yourself up, you'll do it.'.”

I wonder how many times ISIS fighters have been drugged to enable them to perform atrocities and face the enemy unafraid. Our American and European youths who are going to join ISIS have no idea what they are going to have to deal with. Young people are sometimes drawn to “causes” and, let's face it, to fighting and killing. I think those people are mentally unbalanced to a man, however. I don't believe an intelligent, emotionally well-balanced, mentally healthy person will drop their reasonably comfortable life in the West to join an army that is known for mass murder and enslavement or rape of women as a basic tactic of war. Mental illness does often start in the teens and early twenties, and the hysteria inducing influence of an emotional crowd of religious extremists or a charismatic leader in a radical mosque can give young people who don't have a sense of acceptance and fulfillment at home “something to live for.” It can cause them to convert to any number of way out groups. I can't be convinced that a suicide bombing will be carried out by a healthy and normal person. This article gives a better picture of the ISIS organization than I had seen before.





Wastebook 2014: Government's questionable spending
CBS NEWS October 22, 2014, 7:05 AM

Washington is often accused of doing nothing, and the current Congress is on track to be one of the least productive in history.

However, as CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports, there is one area where Congress has stayed busy -- spending money.

One government program spent $190,000 to study compost digested by worms. Another $856,000 went to train mountain lions to walk on treadmills, $10,000 for an Oregon children's theater production of "Zombie in Love" and $46,000 for a snowmobile competition in Michigan. Also, $414,000 was spent to update an Army video game meant to spur recruitment, a project already more than $25 million over budget.

All this, plus rabbit massages at Ohio State University, butterfly farms on Oklahoma tribal lands and an Iron Man suit under development at the Department of Defense.

These expenses all feature in Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn's annual "Wastebook," a ranking of 2014's top 100 worst examples of government waste, including out-of-this-world spending on research projects designed by grade school students to be sent to the International Space Station.

"Laughing classes -- we're paying people to understand -- to teach people how to laugh, there's a lot of serious problems in this country, well maybe the reason people aren't laughing is because the government's so inept," Coburn said.

Coburn, who's retiring, has been producing the Wastebook for five years. He said it's making a difference.

"We should be ashamed that we're wasting money the way that we are," Coburn said. "So if we're watching and we're holding people accountable, we'll get better value for the taxes that we pay and we won't risk the future of our kids."




“One government program spent $190,000 to study compost digested by worms. Another $856,000 went to train mountain lions to walk on treadmills, $10,000 for an Oregon children's theater production of "Zombie in Love" and $46,000 for a snowmobile competition in Michigan. Also, $414,000 was spent to update an Army video game meant to spur recruitment, a project already more than $25 million over budget. All this, plus rabbit massages at Ohio State University, butterfly farms on Oklahoma tribal lands and an Iron Man suit under development at the Department of Defense.... a ranking of 2014's top 100 worst examples of government waste, including out-of-this-world spending on research projects designed by grade school students to be sent to the International Space Station. 'Laughing classes -- we're paying people to understand -- to teach people how to laugh, there's a lot of serious problems in this country, well maybe the reason people aren't laughing is because the government's so inept,' Coburn said.”

Coburn is a Republican, but this list of scientific projects don't sound very useful or likely to produce new knowledge to me, so I would agree with him that we shouldn't be paying for them. I would have to judge each research project one by one, however, so the Wastebook would probably be good reading. I would like to see the butterfly farms continued, as we are on the verge of losing most of our butterflies to extinction, and they are one of the first things I remember from my childhood, along with fireflies in the summer evenings and cicadas shrilly calling to their love.

Laughing classes have been in the news in the past 10 years or so led by a medical doctor, whose name I don't remember, but laughter supposedly improves the health. I would like to say, however, that the cruel laughter teenagers engage in when a mentally impaired schoolmate is abused will only make the laugher more negative and cruel, so that isn't good for anyone. Teach the gentle art of laughing with rather than laughing at, which has no “butt of the joke,” but an introduction to joyous and surprising new thoughts or lighthearted tomfoolery. Study the comedy of Robin Williams for that type of humor. Even so, I don't know that I would want to pay for government research on the subject. We need Ebola research instead.