Wednesday, January 7, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charlie-hebdo-french-satirical-magazine-paris-office-attack-leaves-casualties/

Gunmen attack French newspaper's office
CBS/AP
January 7, 2015

PARIS -- Paris police say three gunmen attacked the office of a French satirical newspaper in Paris on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and leaving at least as many more injured.

The terror alert in the metro Paris area was raised to its highest level following the attack. All media outlets, department stores, places of worship and transport were to receive reinforced security, the prime minister's office said in a statement. The statement added that all available civilian and military forces were being deployed, and that "all means" were being used to try and identify, track down, and apprehend the suspects.

CBS News' Elaine Cobbe reports that, according to witnesses, two armed and masked men walked into the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and opened fire in the entrance hallway, killing people as they saw them.

French President Francois Hollande appeared at the scene of the shooting quickly and confirmed that the hunt for the suspects was ongoing.

Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed 12 people were killed. Among the dead were two men who went by the pen names: Charb -- the editor and a cartoonist as well -- and the cartoonist Cabu, Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed.

Two police officers were also among the dead, including one assigned as Charb's bodyguard after prior death threats against him, a police official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Chilling video initially posted to a social media account shows two gunmen open fire on police in a small black car, and then appears to show them executing one officer as he lays on the sidewalk by shooting him at close range. The masked gunmen are then seen in the video getting into the black car and driving off.

They later abandoned the small black car and hijacked another vehicle, in which they are believed to have left central Paris. It was not clear where the third suspect went, as he was not seen making a getaway in the black car after the police officer was shot.

Calling the incident a "terrorist attack," Hollande said "we must show we are a united country," and vowed to respond with "firmness."

Without further explanation, Hollande said "several" attacks had been averted in "recent weeks," and added that France was a target for extremists "because we're a country committed to liberty."

Cobbe reported that, according to at least one witness, one of the gunman was heard asking for people by name.

The suspects managed to escape the scene in a hijacked vehicle and were being pursued by police into the Paris suburbs.

A reporter for Britain's Telegraph newspaper in Paris told Sky News that the first two officers to arrive, who were apparently unarmed, fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher.


The last tweet on Charlie Hebdo's account came less than an hour before the shooting. It was a picture depicting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), with a message sardonically wishing him, "Best wishes."

Charlie Hebdo's office was firebombed in 2011 after publishing a cartoon depicting an image of the Prophet Muhammad. Any depiction of the prophet is forbidden by Islam.
Ignoring the attack and the threat of further violence, Charlie Hebdo published more Muhammad pictures the following year.

"The motive here is absolutely clear; trying to shut down a media organization that lampooned the Prophet Mohammad," CBS News security consultant and former CIA deputy chief Mike Morell told "CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose. "What we have to figure out here is the perpetrators and whether they were self-radicalized or whether they were individuals who fought in Syria and Iraq and came back, or whether they were actually directed by ISIS or al Qaeda."

Morrell added a warning that law enforcement and intelligence agencies would need to "worry about copycat attacks, not only in France but in the rest of the world, and I would even say in the broader world to include the United States."

CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate also noted on "CBS This Morning" that "France has been dealing with the problem of French foreign fighters flowing into Syria and Iraq and coming back into France."

He says it may be more likely, however, that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was carried out by "self-radicalized individuals, individuals who take their prompt from the propaganda of these groups and took it upon themselves, perhaps, to attack."

Zarate pointed to the attack by young French Muslim man Mohamed Merah, who shot up a Jewish community center in the country's south in March 2012, as an example of this sort of violence.

"France is not new to this, and the perpetrators could be a wide spectrum of individuals who were inspired to attack fellow French citizens," said Zarate.

As recently as late December, French jihadists who have traveled to Syria to join ISIS on the battlefield have called on Muslims back in Europe to stage attacks.

In a video released the weekend after Christmas, a French fighter claiming to be with the group in Hassaka, northern Syria, urged fellow Muslims to "blow up France and tear it down to pieces."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Paris, but security officials across Europe have expressed concern for months that the hundreds of mostly young men who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight with jihadist groups could return to try and stage attacks at home.

There was one unconfirmed report that a survivor of the attack said the gunmen spoke fluent French, and that one of them said they were members of al Qaeda.

Cobbe reports that in one witness video aired on French television, gunfire could be heard along with one of the gunmen crying, "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic.

French internet users responded to the attack by showing solidarity with a social media profile image stating on a simple black background, "Je suis Charlie," or "I am Charlie."




“French President Francois Hollande appeared at the scene of the shooting quickly and confirmed that the hunt for the suspects was ongoing. Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed 12 people were killed. Among the dead were two men who went by the pen names: Charb -- the editor and a cartoonist as well -- and the cartoonist Cabu, Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed. Two police officers were also among the dead, including one assigned as Charb's bodyguard after prior death threats against him, a police official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.... They later abandoned the small black car and hijacked another vehicle, in which they are believed to have left central Paris. It was not clear where the third suspect went, as he was not seen making a getaway in the black car after the police officer was shot. Calling the incident a "terrorist attack," Hollande said "we must show we are a united country," and vowed to respond with "firmness." Without further explanation, Hollande said "several" attacks had been averted in "recent weeks," and added that France was a target for extremists "because we're a country committed to liberty." Cobbe reported that, according to at least one witness, one of the gunman was heard asking for people by name.... What we have to figure out here is the perpetrators and whether they were self-radicalized or whether they were individuals who fought in Syria and Iraq and came back, or whether they were actually directed by ISIS or al Qaeda." Morrell added a warning that law enforcement and intelligence agencies would need to "worry about copycat attacks, not only in France but in the rest of the world, and I would even say in the broader world to include the United States."... There was one unconfirmed report that a survivor of the attack said the gunmen spoke fluent French, and that one of them said they were members of al Qaeda. Cobbe reports that in one witness video aired on French television, gunfire could be heard along with one of the gunmen crying, "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic. French internet users responded to the attack by showing solidarity with a social media profile image stating on a simple black background, "Je suis Charlie," or "I am Charlie."

I hope these attackers will be identified and caught soon. The tweet seems to refer to ISIS, but a witness said that one onlooker claims to have heard them say they were from al-Qaeda. Whoever they are, they found out where to find the cartoonists and then called out the names of the people they wanted to kill. That's efficient, and doesn't require much organization. Likewise, they abandoned the car they came in and hijacked another one to flee the scene, driving to the outskirts of Paris. The openness of a free society has made the crime easier to commit than in a place like Israel. Hopefully Paris has some surveillance cameras on the streets like London and many US cities. I assume they have dispatched helicopters to follow the car and can shut down the traffic on outbound Paris streets. Perhaps the authorities can catch them in a few hours and take them into custody. I'll update this report as more news comes in today and tomorrow. 6:30 PM – Congratulations to the French government for identifying the criminals. Hopefully by tomorrow they will be caught and perhaps killed.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/06/372872870/the-russian-who-claims-credit-for-fanning-the-flames-in-ukraine

The Russian Who Claims Credit For Fanning The Flames In Ukraine
Corey Flintoff
JANUARY 06, 2015

Photograph – Igor Girkin, a Russian citizen who headed the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine last year, walks with his bodyguards in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk in July 2013.

Last spring, eastern Ukraine was a struggling, rust-belt region of mines and metal works. Now it's a battle zone where armies face off with heavy weapons, and where nearly 5,000 people have died.

In Russia, one man claims to have touched off the conflagration, and he says he's proud of what he did. His name is Igor Girkin, and he has a knack for turning up in tumultuous places.

In this instance, Girkin made his appearance in April of last year, shortly after Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after months of street protests.

Girkin arrived in the eastern city of Slovyansk, where a very different group of protesters were demonstrating against what they saw as a coup against Yanukovych in Kiev. Girkin says those protests might have peacefully fizzled out if he hadn't led a squad of armed men to seize government buildings and turned the situation into a violent confrontation.

He says he was acting in the best interests of Russia.

Girkin, 44, is a Russian citizen from Moscow and a former colonel in the Federal Security Service, or FSB. He prefers being called by a nickname he chose for himself — Strelkov, which is Russian for "shooter."

Analyst Boris Kagarlitsky says Girkin became an important figure in the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine because Kremlin planners didn't have a well-thought-out strategy for Russia's involvement there.

"They just wanted to control the situation," Kagarlitsky says, "especially when it dealt with people who were part of their own team, like Girkin, who definitely was sent to Ukraine by Russian Intelligence, and he doesn't deny that fact. And then, because of the lack of very clear ... plan, he started making decisions on his own."

Kagarlitsky, head of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements in Moscow, says Girkin's aim was to create a separatist region that would quickly be annexed by Russia, as Crimea had been just a few weeks earlier.

But Kagarlitsky believes Moscow just wanted to keep the region in turmoil, as a form of leverage against the Ukrainian government.

For his part, Girkin says he wanted to add the territory to Russia because he's devoted to the idea of restoring the czarist Russian Empire.

He told an interviewer on Gazeta TV, "I certainly consider myself a monarchist. Above all, I'm a patriot of the empire, though naturally I consider myself a patriot of the Russian people."

Looking To Be A 'Hero'

Girkin has a "very typical vision of a Russian monarchist from the 16th century," says Kagarlitsky. "What makes things a bit odd is that he is living in the 21st century."

"I think he's a very naive person," Kagarlitsky adds, "a man politically out of touch with reality, but at the same time, he's a very practical person in terms of things happening on the ground. It's a very interesting combination, and that's what makes him sometimes dangerous, both for Kiev and for Moscow."

Girkin's practical abilities led to some early military victories for the separatists.

He was named minister of defense in the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic.

Ukraine accused him of ordering the abduction, torture and murder of political opponents, and he was among the first separatist leaders to be sanctioned by the West.

Immediately after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July, Girkin made a post on a social media page suggesting that the separatists may have mistaken the plane for a Ukrainian military aircraft.

He boasted that separatists had just downed a military transport plane, and said, "We warned — do not fly in our skies."

Later, when it became apparent that the downed plane was a civilian jetliner, Girkin's posts were deleted.

In the summer, the separatist forces lost ground to an advancing Ukrainian army. Girkin pleaded for Russian help, but he was forced to abandon his headquarters in Slovyansk and retreat to Donetsk.

In mid-August, he was mysteriously dismissed as head of the separatist militia.

Girkin is now back in Moscow.

In media interviews, he has complained that Russia was too slow to send help to the separatists, but he insists that he is a loyal supporter of President Vladimir Putin.
Despite Girkin's popularity with nationalists, Boris Kagarlitsky says he doesn't think Girkin is a threat to Putin.

"I think he's really looking for the role of a hero, but not a politician," Kagarlitsky says. "He's not looking for power."

Just last month, Girkin married his personal assistant, and he posed with his bride in an orange-and-black striped suit, mimicking the colors of the Order of St. George, a decoration that has become a symbol of Russian patriotism.




“In Russia, one man claims to have touched off the conflagration, and he says he's proud of what he did. His name is Igor Girkin, and he has a knack for turning up in tumultuous places. In this instance, Girkin made his appearance in April of last year, shortly after Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after months of street protests. Girkin arrived in the eastern city of Slovyansk, where a very different group of protesters were demonstrating against what they saw as a coup against Yanukovych in Kiev. Girkin says those protests might have peacefully fizzled out if he hadn't led a squad of armed men to seize government buildings and turned the situation into a violent confrontation.... Analyst Boris Kagarlitsky says Girkin became an important figure in the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine because Kremlin planners didn't have a well-thought-out strategy for Russia's involvement there. "They just wanted to control the situation," Kagarlitsky says, "especially when it dealt with people who were part of their own team, like Girkin, who definitely was sent to Ukraine by Russian Intelligence, and he doesn't deny that fact. And then, because of the lack of very clear ... plan, he started making decisions on his own."... For his part, Girkin says he wanted to add the territory to Russia because he's devoted to the idea of restoring the czarist Russian Empire. He told an interviewer on Gazeta TV, "I certainly consider myself a monarchist. Above all, I'm a patriot of the empire, though naturally I consider myself a patriot of the Russian people."... "I think he's a very naive person," Kagarlitsky adds, "a man politically out of touch with reality, but at the same time, he's a very practical person in terms of things happening on the ground. It's a very interesting combination, and that's what makes him sometimes dangerous, both for Kiev and for Moscow."... Ukraine accused him of ordering the abduction, torture and murder of political opponents, and he was among the first separatist leaders to be sanctioned by the West. Immediately after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July, Girkin made a post on a social media page suggesting that the separatists may have mistaken the plane for a Ukrainian military aircraft. He boasted that separatists had just downed a military transport plane, and said, "We warned — do not fly in our skies." Later, when it became apparent that the downed plane was a civilian jetliner, Girkin's posts were deleted.”... In mid-August, he was mysteriously dismissed as head of the separatist militia. Girkin is now back in Moscow. In media interviews, he has complained that Russia was too slow to send help to the separatists, but he insists that he is a loyal supporter of President Vladimir Putin. Despite Girkin's popularity with nationalists, Boris Kagarlitsky says he doesn't think Girkin is a threat to Putin.”

It looks as though Putin doesn't have the tight control on Russian affairs that I would have thought. This article mentions “nationalists” who apparently want to bring in a monarchy. They used Girkin by sending him in immediately after Yanukovych was deposed to stir things up, but then they weren't willing to buck international opinion by sending in the full Russian army to take all of Ukraine over violently. I'm sure they're still messing with the situation with the aim of influence Ukrainian government, however. Somehow Girkin lost control of his Eastern Ukrainian forces and had to return to Russia. It would be interesting to know why. Maybe it was simply because he couldn't deliver the Russian troops to help them.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/naacp-seeks-new-grand-jury-in-ferguson-police-shooting/

NAACP seeks new grand jury in Ferguson police shooting
AP
January 6, 2015

ST. LOUIS -- A prominent civil rights organization, citing "grave legal concerns," is asking a Missouri judge to convene a new grand jury to consider charges against the white police officer who fatally shot unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund submitted a letter Monday to St. Louis County Circuit Judge Maura McShane. It also asks for a special prosecutor to oversee the case and an investigation of the grand jury proceedings that ended in November with a decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson.

Wilson fatally shot Brown on Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. The shooting led to sometimes-violent protests that escalated again on Nov. 24 after St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced the grand jury decision.

Protests also erupted following a similar grand jury decision in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed New York City black man. The demonstrations spread to cities around the country and stoked fierce debates about the relationship between law enforcement and black men in America.

Lawyers and other experts who analyzed the Missouri grand jury transcripts for the fund raised concerns about the decision to allow a witness to provide false testimony, erroneous legal instructions to grand jurors, and "preferential treatment of Mr. Wilson by the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office," said Sherrilyn Ifill, the fund's president.

Ed Magee, a spokesman for McCulloch, declined to comment Tuesday. Messages were left with Wilson's attorney and the clerk for McShane.

Nine white and three black jurors heard more than 70 hours of testimony from about 60 witnesses.

McCulloch said he assigned prosecutors in his office to present evidence, rather than doing it himself, because he was aware of "unfounded but growing concern that the investigation might not be fair."

McCulloch's father was a police officer killed by a black suspect. He did not recuse himself from the investigation despite some calls for him to do so.




“The demonstrations spread to cities around the country and stoked fierce debates about the relationship between law enforcement and black men in America. Lawyers and other experts who analyzed the Missouri grand jury transcripts for the fund raised concerns about the decision to allow a witness to provide false testimony, erroneous legal instructions to grand jurors, and "preferential treatment of Mr. Wilson by the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office," said Sherrilyn Ifill, the fund's president.... McCulloch said he assigned prosecutors in his office to present evidence, rather than doing it himself, because he was aware of "unfounded but growing concern that the investigation might not be fair." McCulloch's father was a police officer killed by a black suspect. He did not recuse himself from the investigation despite some calls for him to do so.”

The NAACP letter may make some progress. I'm surprised the DOJ hasn't had any more to say about the matter. There was one report that a US bill may be written to change procedure to a required special prosecutor rather than a grand jury in future cases of this sort. There were reports a month or so ago about Congressional efforts, but I haven't heard more since then. The following is on President Obama's recent comments.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/barack-obama/wake-police-shootings-obama-speaks-more-bluntly-about-race-n278616, In Wake of Police Shootings, Obama Speaks More Bluntly,  BY PERRY BACON JR., First published January 3rd 2015 –

“Casting aside some of his past wariness on the issue, President Barack Obama has spoken more bluntly about race in the wake of a group of police killings of African-American men.

In interviews and speeches the last several weeks, after grand juries declined to indict police officers in Ferguson or Staten Island for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the president hasinvoked the word "racism" — a term he has used sparingly in the past when describing conditions in America today — to describe the challenges blacks and other minorities face.

He has described racial discrimination as "embedded deeply in society."

And Obama, who in a 2012 interview told the magazine Black Enterprise "I'm not the president of Black America," is now embracing the role of guiding the country in a public debate about how minorities and the police interact. He told Fusion in an interview "nobody's going to be pushing harder than me" on these highly-charged issues.

"The president has essentially changed his racial rhetoric," said Paul Butler, a Georgetown Law professor and civil rights expert. "It has evolved from cultural critiques of African-Americans to his actually saying the word 'racism.'"

Butler, who has criticized Obama's racial policies in the past, added, "I give the president credit for this evolution. I think he understands that recent events illustrate the inadequacy of his signature racial justice initiative — 'My Brother's Keeper.' The problem isn't so much Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner needing to pull up their pants as it is systemic discrimination in criminal justice and other arenas."

Some conservatives have criticized Obama's comments, mostly notably former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who said in a recent FOX News interview, "We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police."

Several of the president's remarks came before the shooting deaths of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, at the hands of a killer who suggested he was acting in retaliation for the deaths of Garner and Brown. In a statement after those shootings, Obama emphasized "his profound respect and gratitude for all law enforcement officers who serve and protect our communities, risking their own safety for ours everyday."

Some African-Americans worry that Obama's focus on changing police interactions with blacks is too narrow and potentially ineffective. And they argue that the recent comments by both the president and the First Lady on their personal experiences with racial profiling, such as Obama being mistaken for a valet in his years before being elected president, aren't representative of the much more dire situations many minorities face.

"Talking about how you can't get a cab is not the same thing as talking about how you live in an impoverished neighborhood or go to a failing school. It sort of makes the way racism works in America seem sort of quaint, people are being mean to you, as opposed to things that are consequential and things that are systemic," said Gene Demby, the lead blogger at NPR's "Code Switch," which covers issues of race, ethnicity and culture.

The last few weeks are part of a broader shift by the first black president in addressing race more directly. During his 2008 campaign, Obama invoked race rarely and only when necessary, delivering a well-received speech on the issue after the controversy surrounding his onetime pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Once in office, Obama publicly criticized Holder after the attorney general said America was a "nation of cowards" when it came to directly confronting racial issues. The administration felt that Holder's comment was incendiary.

After a national controversy started in 2009 after the president himself declared a Massachusetts police officer had "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, who is black, Obama aides say they realized the president needed to be very deliberate when he addressed racial issues.

But the administration has changed its approach since Obama won reelection, adopting policies directly targeted at blacks and other minorities and interjecting itself into racial controversies.

In the last two years, Obama has attempted to limit jail sentences for people who commit non-violent drug crimes, strongly condemned voter ID provisions decried by civil rights leaders and created My Brother's Keeper, a set of initiatives designed to benefit black and Latino young men.

And, perhaps most memorably, the president himself has spoken in personal terms about race, saying "Trayvon Martin could have been me," after George Zimmerman was found not guilty in Martin's shooting death.

But in that 2013 speech about Martin, the president hinted he would not be looking to deliver more addresses on America's racial divide.

"There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race," he said at the time. "I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have."

Over the last two months, if not quite a formal "conversation on race" as Bill Clinton convened in the 1990's (an initiative Obama has privately disparaged, according to aides), the president has set in motion a process both to discuss issues of minorities and policing more explicitly and to enact some policy changes. Obama and his aides organized a White House meeting with some of the protesters from Ferguson. He conducted an interview on race with BET's "106 & Park", a program with a large audience of young African-Americans, the group the White House wanted to reach.

His administration also formed a task force on policing in the wake of the deaths of Garner and Brown, and the president has embraced having more officers wear body cameras.

"He seemed very intent that future conversations would be about progress we make and not us spinning our wheels," said Brittany Packnett, one of the young activists in Ferguson who met with the president last month and is now serving on the task force.

And with polls showing that Americans feel race relations are at their lowest point in more than a decade —and blacks in particular expressing concerns — Obama has tried to reframe those perceptions.

The focus should be on policing, not "stewing in the hopelessness of race relations in this country," he told NPR in an interview.

He has argued emphatically that no matter what Americans say in polls, race relations are in fact improving.

"The task force that I formed is supposed to report back to me in 90 days — not with a bunch of abstract musings about race relations, but some really concrete, practical things that police departments and law enforcement agencies can begin implementing right now to rebuild trust between communities of color and the police," Obama said at a recent press conference.

In part, the president seems to be reacting to the protest movement on policing around the country, and he is not the only prominent figure who has embraced some of its ideas. In a recent speech, Hillary Clinton, Obama's potential successor, declared "black lives matter," one of the phrases that the protesters in Ferguson and New York often invoke. Obama has praised NBA player Lebron James and other athletes who have worn shirts that say "I can't breathe," the phrase Garner used as New York police had him in a chokehold.

With the president's attention on these issues now, civil rights advocates are now trying to push him to adopt policies beyond the body cameras. The NAACP Legal Fund is urging the Department of Justice to require police departments that get federal funding to have all of their officers undergo racial bias training. Other activists, including Packnett, say the federal government should stop sending excess military equipment like armored vehicles to local police departments, a proposal Obama's team has so far rejected.

"I get the sense that he really wants to lead on this issue, but that he feels like his hands are tied in leading such a diverse American population. Some will think he's talking about race too much and taking us backward, while others will think he's not talking about it enough," said Aaron Graham, a Washington D.C. pastor who attended one of the meetings Obama convened on race and policing last month.

"He's settled for a more pragmatic approach of wanting to see and celebrate incremental policy change. While policy change is important and has the power to restrain evil and injustice, what our country needs is much deeper than just legislative change," said Graham. "We need our president to find his moral voice again."





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/07/375535255/new-house-leadership-passes-a-tax-cut-scoreboard

New House Leadership Passes A Tax Cut 'Scoreboard'
Lauren Hodges
JANUARY 07, 2015

In a move to cement their party's fiscal ideology, Republicans used the first vote of the new Congress to change the rules for estimating the economic consequences of major legislation.

"Dynamic scoring" is an analysis that requires macroeconomic projections be used when analyzing major bills. Republicans argue, for example, that tax cuts bring in more revenue to the government, not less, because they lead to economic growth which increases tax revenues. The new rules require the non-partisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to use dynamic scoring.

The New York Times reported that under the new law, the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Tom Price, R-Ga., will be able to send tax-related bills to the "scoreboard" to be tallied, dynamic-style.

"We're saying, 'If you think a piece of legislation is going to have a big effect on the economy, then include that effect in the official cost estimate,'" Price said. "So if you think a bill is going to help or hurt the economy, then tell us how much."

The rule was passed along party lines, 234-172, as Democrats criticized the process as a way to hide the real costs of tax cuts favored by Republicans. Ranking Democrat of the House Ways and Means Committee Sandy Levin said Tuesday that the law was not a good way to gather more information about tax policy.

"Republicans today are extending their embrace of voodoo economics by wrapping their arms around voodoo scorekeeping.

They are changing House rules to be able to cook the books to implement their long-held, discredited notion that tax cuts pay for themselves.

I think that former Reagan and George H. W. Bush administration official Bruce Bartlett said it best: 'It is not about honest revenue-estimating; it's about using smoke and mirrors to institutionalize Republican ideology into the budget process.'

That's what this is all about."

In an earlier statement, Levin called it "trickle-down economics," a Republican-favored theory that would provide tax breaks and the like to corporations and the wealthy, projecting that the benefits would eventually reach the lower classes through hiring, spending, services and other transactions.

The scoring rule was passed Tuesday as part of a package that also included an extension of the panel on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The GOP lawsuit against President Obama for his recent executive actions was also extended in the vote.




“In a move to cement their party's fiscal ideology, Republicans used the first vote of the new Congress to change the rules for estimating the economic consequences of major legislation. "Dynamic scoring" is an analysis that requires macroeconomic projections be used when analyzing major bills. Republicans argue, for example, that tax cuts bring in more revenue to the government, not less, because they lead to economic growth which increases tax revenues. The new rules require the non-partisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to use dynamic scoring.... The rule was passed along party lines, 234-172, as Democrats criticized the process as a way to hide the real costs of tax cuts favored by Republicans. Ranking Democrat of the House Ways and Means Committee Sandy Levin said Tuesday that the law was not a good way to gather more information about tax policy. "Republicans today are extending their embrace of voodoo economics by wrapping their arms around voodoo scorekeeping. They are changing House rules to be able to cook the books to implement their long-held, discredited notion that tax cuts pay for themselves.... The scoring rule was passed Tuesday as part of a package that also included an extension of the panel on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The GOP lawsuit against President Obama for his recent executive actions was also extended in the vote.”

In other words, the House Republican war against Obama and truthful economic dealings, plus the discredited issue of Benghazi, is ongoing and presumably to be escalated. See the following article by Bernie Sanders on the issue of dynamic scoring. He states that the bill will provide biased and inaccurate data to be used in decision-making, and vows to fight it in the Senate. “The basic problem with what the right-wing economists call “dynamic scoring” is that it requires the CBO to count hypothetical growth as additional revenue. “That means counting the chickens before they hatch,” Sanders said.“

Twitter Bernie Sanders ✔ @SenSanders
The purpose of dynamic scoring is to conceal – not reveal – how Republican policies will affect the economy: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/new-math …”



http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-calls-dynamic-scoring-a-gimmick, Sanders Calls ‘Dynamic Scoring’ a Gimmick, Says First President Bush was Right about ‘Voodoo Economics’, Tuesday, January 6, 2015 –

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, today blasted a proposed new House rule that would make the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation use a discredited notion that today’s Republicans call “dynamic scoring” but President George H.W. Bush labeled “voodoo economics.” 

“The Republicans have hatched a plan to force the CBO to cook the books and paint a rosy picture of the benefits of trickle-down economics. They call it ‘dynamic scoring.’ In fact, it’s a gimmick to help justify more tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable corporations. It’s what the first President Bush called voodoo economics – and he was right,” Sanders said.

“The purpose of dynamic scoring is to conceal – not reveal – how Republican policies will affect the economy,” he added.



The senator said the main reason Republicans want to change the budget rule is to disguise the impact of their plan to give more tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. In fact, part of the reason the deficit is smaller today is that Congress in 2012 finally let tax cuts expire for the top 1 percent.

“What history shows,” Sanders said, “is that when you give tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, the rich get richer, corporate profits climb and the federal deficit soars. In these difficult times, we need realistic economic projections, not discredited theories, not voodoo economics.”

In vowing to fight any effort to adopt a similar rule in the Senate, Sanders said former heads of CBO and tax committee opposed dynamic scoring because they said it would force them to provide estimates based on “highly uncertain” assumptions. “The Republicans are politicizing the budget process in a way that will undermine the credibility of the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, which have provided unbiased, nonpartisan analysis on the cost of tax and spending bills,” Sanders said.



http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/07/372691919/a-bed-of-mouse-cells-helps

human-cells-thrive-in-the-lab

A Bed Of Mouse Cells Helps Human Cells Thrive In The Lab
Richard Harris
Correspondent, Science Desk
JANUARY 07, 2015

A drug that is used worldwide to treat malaria is now being tested as a treatment for cervical cancer. This surprising idea is the result of a new laboratory technique that could have far-reaching uses.

Our story starts with Dr. Richard Schlegel at Georgetown University Medical Center. He's best known for inventing the Gardasil vaccine to protect women from cervical cancer.

Schlegel wished he could take cancer cells from women who came to the hospital for treatment and grow them in the lab to learn more about this disease.

"People have tried growing cells in culture before, but they've been very crude experiments, essentially," he says. Most of these freshly collected cells die off quickly in the lab.

But Schlegel had an idea for a radically new method to grow all sorts of human cells. The secret to keeping them alive indefinitely is to grow them on a bed of cells that come from mice. These mouse cells have been blasted with radiation to prevent them from multiplying, and the culture is then treated with a compound (called a ROCK inhibitor) that regulates cell growth.

You can see these spindly cells coating the bottom of a flask when you look at them through a microscope.

Schlegel says he doesn't know exactly what these mouse cells provide the human cells to keep them alive and growing. "There are probably several growth factors that they secrete that are important ... and we have experiments ongoing to identify what those factors are," he says.

If he can figure that out, eventually he can dispense with the mouse cells. But for now, the layer of mouse cells is the key.

So far, he has grown more than 30 types of cancer cells — as well as many normal human cells that he studies for comparison. All told, Schlegel says, he has grown up cells from 700 different samples of human tissue.

Recently he took some cervical cancer cells and started dosing them with drugs to see what would kill them. He tried all sorts of other available medicines, not not just drugs used to treat cancer.

And much to his surprise, he found that a drug commonly used to treat malaria will also kill cervical cancer cells. It's a form of artemisinin.

Schlegel is now collaborating with researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to test this drug in women who have precancerous growths on their cervix.

Dr. Connie Trimble is running the drug trial at Johns Hopkins. She will offer this drug to women who are likely to require cervical surgery in the coming months. She hopes that, instead, the drug will kill off the cervical cancer cells in women, as it did in the lab.

"If it works, this is a game-changer," Trimble says, "because it puts control of treatment in the hands of the woman. In low-resource settings, or settings where women don't have access to health care, they can do it themselves."

Doctors already know this anti-malarial drug is safe, so it could be a front-line treatment in parts of the world where surgery simply isn't available. It would require an easy diagnostic test women can use at home; Trimble says that's also in the works.

And cervical cancer is just the start. Dr. David Rimm at the Yale University School of Medicine learned about the Georgetown cell-growing method when it was first published two years ago. And now he's using it to generate cell lines.

"It's pretty cool," he says. "We have over 100 [types of cells growing] in our facility."

Rimm says this is a huge step for research labs. It used to be that he could only study a few perpetually growing cell lines, and those were biologically pretty messed up.

"We can now have 40 or 50 cell lines from 40 or 50 different tumors from a population, and they all grow," he says. "And we can now do cell-line type studies, but on populations of cell lines as opposed to two or three."

That gives him the same advantages scientists get when they test new drugs on dozens of people instead of just a few.

Schlegel says at least 30 labs around the world are now using this technique, which is called "conditional reprogramming" of cells. And at the moment, everyone is hopeful that it will be the next big thing for studying diseases in the lab. But it's still just a bit early to make that bold of a claim.




“A drug that is used worldwide to treat malaria is now being tested as a treatment for cervical cancer. This surprising idea is the result of a new laboratory technique that could have far-reaching uses. Our story starts with Dr. Richard Schlegel at Georgetown University Medical Center. He's best known for inventing the Gardasil vaccine to protect women from cervical cancer.... Schlegel says he doesn't know exactly what these mouse cells provide the human cells to keep them alive and growing. "There are probably several growth factors that they secrete that are important ... and we have experiments ongoing to identify what those factors are," he says. If he can figure that out, eventually he can dispense with the mouse cells. But for now, the layer of mouse cells is the key.... Recently he took some cervical cancer cells and started dosing them with drugs to see what would kill them. He tried all sorts of other available medicines, not not just drugs used to treat cancer. And much to his surprise, he found that a drug commonly used to treat malaria will also kill cervical cancer cells. It's a form of artemisinin. Schlegel is now collaborating with researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to test this drug in women who have precancerous growths on their cervix.... "If it works, this is a game-changer," Trimble says, "because it puts control of treatment in the hands of the woman. In low-resource settings, or settings where women don't have access to health care, they can do it themselves." Doctors already know this anti-malarial drug is safe, so it could be a front-line treatment in parts of the world where surgery simply isn't available. It would require an easy diagnostic test women can use at home; Trimble says that's also in the works.... And cervical cancer is just the start. Dr. David Rimm at the Yale University School of Medicine learned about the Georgetown cell-growing method when it was first published two years ago. And now he's using it to generate cell lines.... That gives him the same advantages scientists get when they test new drugs on dozens of people instead of just a few. Schlegel says at least 30 labs around the world are now using this technique, which is called "conditional reprogramming" of cells. And at the moment, everyone is hopeful that it will be the next big thing for studying diseases in the lab. But it's still just a bit early to make that bold of a claim.”

This article shows three different uses for a new procedure – treating cervical cancer without requiring surgery and potentially other types of cancer as well, generating new cell lines, and possibly studying other diseases in the lab. I wonder if this will allow scientists to study these “conditionally reprogrammed” human cells in the laboratory without having to test drugs on chimps and other unfortunate animals. That would be a great advantage to those of us who love animals.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/06/371659141/what-schools-could-use-instead-of-standardized-tests

What Schools Could Use Instead Of Standardized Tests
Anya Kamenetz
Lead Blogger, Education
JANUARY 06, 2015

Close your eyes for a minute and daydream about a world without bubble tests.

Education Week recently reported that some Republican Senate aides are doing more than dreaming — they're drafting a bill that would eliminate the federal mandate on standardized testing.

Annual tests for every child in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, plus one in high school, have been a centerpiece of federal education law since 2002. No Child Left Behind, the current incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires them.

But this law has been overdue for reauthorization since before President Obama took office. The Senate plans to take the matter up early this year.

Discussions about cutting back on these requirements comes at a time of growing concern about the number of tests kids take and the time they spend taking them. Parents in some communities have formed "opt out" groups and removed their children not only from federally mandated tests but also the legions of state- and district-required tests that have followed.

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the country's largest school districts have spoken out in favor of reducing the number of standardized tests students take. The national teachers unions and other traditionally Democratic groups are on board with the idea too.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he is concerned about testing too, but he has written he "strongly believes" in annual tests as an educational tool.

Missing from this debate, however, is a sense of what could replace annual tests. What would the nation do to monitor learning and ensure equity and accountability if states didn't have to test every child every year?

Here are four possible answers. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, they could all happen at the same time, as different states and districts make different decisions.


Sampling. A simple approach. The same tests, just fewer of 'em. Accountability could be achieved at the district level by administering traditional standardized tests to a statistically representative sampling of students, rather than to every student every year.

That's how the "Nation's Report Card" works. Formally known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, it's one of the longest-running and most trusted tests in the U.S. education arsenal, even though it's not attached to high stakes. It's given to a different sample of students each year, in grades 4, 8 and 12. The widely respected international test PISA is given to a sample of students too.

Stealth assessment. Similar math and reading data, but collected differently.

The major textbook publishers, plus companies like Dreambox, Scholastic and the nonprofit Khan Academy, all sell software for students to practice math and English. These programs register every single answer a student gives.

The companies that develop this software argue that it presents the opportunity to eliminate the time, cost and anxiety of "stop and test" in favor of passively collecting data on students' knowledge over a semester, year or entire school career. Valerie Shute, a professor at Florida State University and former principal research scientist at ETS, coined the term "stealth assessment" to describe this approach.

Stealth assessment doesn't just show which skills a student has mastered at a given moment. The pattern of answers potentially offers insights into how quickly students learn, how diligent they are and other big-picture factors.

"Invisible, integrated assessment, to me, is the future," Kimberly O'Malley, the senior vice president of school research at Pearson Education, told me. "We can monitor students' learning day to day in a digital scenario. Ultimately, if we're successful, the need for, and the activity of, stopping and testing will go away in many cases."

Applying this approach on a national scale using scientific methods has never been done, in part because the products are still new. It would probably require a large outlay in terms of software, professional training and computer equipment — and would result in a corresponding windfall for companies like Pearson.

Multiple measures. Incorporate more, and different, kinds of data on student progress and school performance into accountability measures.

Statewide longitudinal data systems now track students in most states from pre-K all the way through high school (and in some states, college). That means accountability measures and interventions don't have to depend on the outcome of just one test. They could take a big-data approach, combining information from a number of different sources — graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, teacher-created assessments and, eventually, workforce outcomes. This information, in turn, could be used to gauge the performance of students, schools and teachers over time.

As part of a multiple-measures approach, some districts are also collecting different kinds of information about students.

Social and emotional skills surveys. Research shows that at least half of long-term chances of success are determined by nonacademic qualities like grit, perseverance and curiosity. As states expand access to pre-K, they are including social and emotional measures in their definitions of "high quality" preschool. As one component of a multiple-measures system, all schools could be held accountable for cultivating this half of the picture.

The Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland survey both students and teachers on social and emotional factors and use the results to guide internal decision-making. The district uses the Gallup student poll, a 20-question survey that seeks to measure levels of hope, engagement and well-being.

"Engagement" is basically a measure of how excited students are to be in the building. Last year, 875,000 students took the Gallup poll nationwide, in grades 5-12. According to one study, student hope scores on this poll do a better job of predicting college persistence and GPA than do high school GPA, SATs or ACT scores.

Game-based assessments.
Video-game-like assessments, such as those created by GlassLab and the AAA lab at Stanford, are designed to get at higher-order thinking skills. These games are designed to test things like systems thinking or the ability to take feedback — measures that traditional tests don't get at. Of course, they are still in their infancy.

Performance or portfolio-based assessments.
Schools around the country are incorporating direct demonstrations of student learning into their assessment programs. These include projects, individual and group presentations, reports and papers and portfolios of work collected over time. The New York Performance Standards Consortium consists of 28 schools, grades 6-12, throughout New York State that rely on these teacher-created assessments to the exclusion of standardized tests. These public schools tend to show higher graduation rates and better college-retention rates, while serving a population similar to that of other urban schools.

Inspections.
Scotland is a place where you can see many of the approaches above in action. Unlike the rest of the U.K., it has no specifically government-mandated school tests. Schools do administer a sampling survey of math and literacy, and there is a series of high-school-exit/college-entrance exams that are high stakes for students. But national education policy emphasizes a wide range of approaches to assessment, including presentations, performances and reports. These are designed to measure higher-order skills like creativity, students' well-being and technological literacy as well as traditional academics. Schools and teachers have a lot of control over the methods of evaluation.

At the school level, Scotland maintains accountability through a system of government inspections that has been in place in the U.K. since 1833. Inspectors observe lessons, look at student work and interview both students and staff members.

This piece is adapted in part from The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing, But You Don't Have To Be (PublicAffairs, 2015).




"Education Week recently reported that some Republican Senate aides are doing more than dreaming — they're drafting a bill that would eliminate the federal mandate on standardized testing.... Parents in some communities have formed "opt out" groups and removed their children not only from federally mandated tests but also the legions of state- and district-required tests that have followed. The Council of Chief State School Officers and the country's largest school districts have spoken out in favor of reducing the number of standardized tests students take. The national teachers unions and other traditionally Democratic groups are on board with the idea too. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he is concerned about testing too, but he has written he "strongly believes" in annual tests as an educational tool.”

Techniques which are not new, but rather a return to established high quality teaching methods, are suggested in this article. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive measurement devices – Sampling, Stealth assessment, Multiple measures, Social and emotional skills surveys, Game-based assessments, Performance or portfolio-based assessments ( These include projects, individual and group presentations, reports and papers and portfolios of work collected over time), and Inspections.”

The school system of Scotland uses “a sampling survey of math and literacy” and includes all of those testing methods, with only one mandated national test – a series of high-school-exit/college-entrance exams that are high stakes for students.” This sounds like our College Board Exam, but there is also a mandatory test to get a high school diploma. That is more stringent than our US requirements. Examiners sample student performance during their schooling, which happens all over the UK since 1833. We have no “examiners,” of course, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Student achievement problems could be caught early rather than at the time of graduation.

There is also available online now “software for students to practice math and English. These programs register every single answer a student gives.” Schools “could take a big-data approach, combining information from a number of different sources — graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, teacher-created assessments and, eventually, workforce outcomes. This information, in turn, could be used to gauge the performance of students, schools and teachers over time.”

This sounds like the time honored method from the era before standardized testing. “'Teacher created assessments', graduation rates, discipline outcomes” – how novel and straightforward. That sounds like a win-win to me. I especially am against failing either a student, a teacher, or a school on the basis of one of these tests because exactly what the students have been taught is not really known. Surely no teacher says exactly the same thing as others have before them, nor has any student learned a perfect and uniform set of facts, phrased in exactly the way they appear on the test. Knowledge is not so cut and dried as some of those tests would indicate, and maybe we could avoid scandals like the teacher going along behind the student to see what answer he has given on a test, and actually correcting his answer. That was done to avoid having her teaching being judged insufficient, and created a scandal in several schools a few years ago.

Going back to a freeform and dynamic classroom setting would eliminate the hated mandate to “teach to the test,” and allow a lively and creative method of learning. I believe students would be more interested under those conditions and would study more on their own, reading to find out the answers to questions which they form in their own minds from the textbook and from classroom discussion. As a result they would learn more over a wide variety of subjects, and be better prepared for, say, a law degree. A lawyer has to think on his feet and argue points rather than accepting verbatim the information at hand. I think too much rigid teaching creates a mind that cannot go beyond the narrow scope of its learning – great slaves but not great masters.