June 30, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.npr.org/2015/06/29/418490411/arsonists-hit-6-black-churches-in-5-southern-states

Investigators Probe Fires At 6 Black Churches In 5 Southern States
Sam Sanders
June 29, 2015

Photograph -- Pastor Bobby Jones points to the cross on top of Glover Grove Baptist Church, where he has preached for more than 30 years. The steeple was one of the only parts of the church left standing.
Photograph -- Will Huntsberry/NPR Flowers left at the front door of Glover Grove Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina. Will Huntsberry/NPR


Glover Grove Baptist Church is nestled in a woody, quiet part of Warrenville, South Carolina, surrounded by trailer homes and old cars. The congregation is small, about 35 people according to local reports. You have to look hard online just to find a phone number or an address.

Hours before President Barack Obama spoke to a packed house in Charleston last Friday in another black church, delivering the eulogy for State Senator Clementa Pinckney, Glover Grove Baptist Church burned to the ground.

It is one of at least six black church burnings in the South, all of which have taken place in the week-and-a-half since nine people were killed in Emanuel AME Church.

Fires in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee, are both being investigated as arson. Authorities in Macon, Georgia, are investigating another there as "suspicious." A fire at a Tallahasee, Florida, church was likely caused by electrical problems, authorities have said. Another in Gibson County, Tennessee, may have been caused by lightning. One burning in Charlotte is being investigated to determine if it could have been a hate crime.

Adonica Simpkins lives in a trailer home right next to Glover Grove Baptist Church. "I actually think it might be a hate crime," she said, looking across a field to the church's remains on a sticky, sunny South Carolina afternoon. "The way things are happening these days, you never can say. Look how they went up there and shot someone in the church, or other churches burning down. It's just so much going on in the world. You never know."

The burning actually woke Simpkins up that Friday morning, and she was one of the first to call 911, right before she walked down the road to the pastor's house to make sure he saw it, too.

"You could actually feel the heat from the church," she said. "The actual power lines, just started, pop, pop, pop! Then the power went off. It was terrible. You could see straight through the church, how it was burning."

Another nearby resident, George Mack, said of the flames, "It was like standing inside of a volcano, with the lava flowing. It was so hot."

The pastor of Glover Grove, Bobby Jones, walked around the charred building Sunday evening with NPR, pointing out everything that used to be.

"The pulpit, the highest place, that's the pulpit," he said as he gazed past the caution tape. "My office used to be right there. And it's gone. All my robes, and everything, all my stuff is in that room right there, it's gone." He vacillated between tears and declarations of his faith as he spoke, assuring us, and perhaps himself as well, that everything would be okay. "When you see me crying," he said, "it's not sad. It's joy. I just thank God for what he's done, and what he's going to do, and what he did in the past."

Only two walls and the steeple still stood, with a large, unscathed white cross on top. The roof was gone. And just about all of the inside of Glover Grove Baptist Church was blackened and charred. Some things remained, covered in ash: the hollowed-out shell of a snare drum, a few chairs in the kitchen. You could still make out lyrics and notes on some pages of hymnals. Some church pews were still standing, but they were totally burnt as well.

When asked if he thinks the fire was a hate crime, Jones hedges. "I hope not. I hope from the bottom of my heart that it's not. I'm 72 years old, and I've never had a problem out of anybody."

When pushed, Jones says he doubts it was an electrical fire. He's an electrician himself, and he says all of the equipment in the church was working fine before the fire. He thinks a person may very well have set the blaze. "If it's a hate crime, it had to be somebody that's not from here."

Richard Cohen is the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he says the recent burnings of black churches throughout the south are "very, very suspicious."

"Black churches have long been the focus of civil rights activity," Cohen told NPR. "And for this reason they've been targeted historically."

There was a string of them in the 50s and the 60s, during the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most notorious was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four young black girls.

A wave of church burnings swept the nation again in the 90s, prompting then-President Bill Clinton to sign the Church Arson Prevention Act, a law that increased jail time for people who burn churches.

As to this recent wave of church burnings, Cohen said, "It's not unreasonable to suspect that what we're seeing [now] is a backlash to the taking down of the Confederate flag, the determination of our country to face its racial problems."

Whatever the cause of the Glover Grove fire, Adonica Simpkins says she will still be afraid. We asked her what it's like to be a black person in South Carolina.

"I tell you what, I wouldn't walk down this road. I wouldn't walk down this road," she said, sighing as she pointed down the road where Glover Grove sits. "It's so much hate. You might walk down the road and hear the word n*****, for nothing. People used to be riding by, and just throw bottles at black folks."

Less than half a mile from the church and Simpkins' home, a Confederate flag waves on a front porch.

State investigators told NPR on Sunday that they have not yet determined a cause in the Glover Grove Baptist Church fire. The Aiken County Sheriff's department has turned over its investigation to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and the FBI is investigating as well.

Jones is confident he'll rebuild. But this kind of tragedy isn't totally new to him.

"We had another church that burned down, over across the woods there," he said. "That's been, what, maybe 30, 32 years ago, no 34 years ago. I believe that was an arson."

Jones says before that church burned, he'd often find offensive messages written on the outside walls. Often, three letters, he said. "They put KKK."




“Glover Grove Baptist Church is nestled in a woody, quiet part of Warrenville, South Carolina, surrounded by trailer homes and old cars. The congregation is small, about 35 people according to local reports. You have to look hard online just to find a phone number or an address. Hours before President Barack Obama spoke to a packed house in Charleston last Friday in another black church, delivering the eulogy for State Senator Clementa Pinckney, Glover Grove Baptist Church burned to the ground. It is one of at least six black church burnings in the South, all of which have taken place in the week-and-a-half since nine people were killed in Emanuel AME Church. …. Fires in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee, are both being investigated as arson. Authorities in Macon, Georgia, are investigating another there as "suspicious." A fire at a Tallahasee, Florida, church was likely caused by electrical problems, authorities have said. Another in Gibson County, Tennessee, may have been caused by lightning. One burning in Charlotte is being investigated to determine if it could have been a hate crime. …. Richard Cohen is the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he says the recent burnings of black churches throughout the south are "very, very suspicious." "Black churches have long been the focus of civil rights activity," Cohen told NPR. "And for this reason they've been targeted historically." There was a string of them in the 50s and the 60s, during the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most notorious was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four young black girls. A wave of church burnings swept the nation again in the 90s, prompting then-President Bill Clinton to sign the Church Arson Prevention Act, a law that increased jail time for people who burn churches. …. Whatever the cause of the Glover Grove fire, Adonica Simpkins says she will still be afraid. We asked her what it's like to be a black person in South Carolina. "I tell you what, I wouldn't walk down this road. I wouldn't walk down this road," she said, sighing as she pointed down the road where Glover Grove sits. "It's so much hate. You might walk down the road and hear the word n*****, for nothing. People used to be riding by, and just throw bottles at black folks." Less than half a mile from the church and Simpkins' home, a Confederate flag waves on a front porch. …. "We had another church that burned down, over across the woods there," he said. "That's been, what, maybe 30, 32 years ago, no 34 years ago. I believe that was an arson." Jones says before that church burned, he'd often find offensive messages written on the outside walls. Often, three letters, he said. "They put KKK."

I would love to be able to praise the virtues of Americans, as some highly patriotic people do, but I just don’t see the evidence for it. I think some 50% or so of our citizens are moral and ethical – whether or not they are church members – but a painfully high percentage, some 20% maybe, are personally and socially tinged with these group hatreds of all kinds. I grew up as a somewhat more isolated young person than some – I didn’t buy a poodle skirt when they were popular or fight to get on the Cheerleading Team. I didn’t date a football player – I generally found them arrogant and not the kindest people I knew. I did study my school subjects, join a nice adult-supervised group, the Girl Scouts, and tried to follow the golden rule.

When I was maturing there was little evident racial hatred in Thomasville in my crowd. My parents were pretty typical Southern whites. I remember several anti-Jewish comments anti-black jokes. My parents didn’t talk about injuring blacks or hating them. By the same token, I was not sensitized to the subject of toleration and equality, either. It hadn’t hit the news yet by 1955 as an important issue, and white people were by and large simply satisfied with Jim Crow status quo. That unfortunately included me.

I remember in my teenage years noticing the separate bathroom facilities, etc. and I did feel that it was unfair, but there simply was not a push being asserted to make changes coming from the black communities or from the federal government, and I literally knew only two or three black people by face or name. I do remember that my brother-in-law came in once, talking excitedly and with some laughter, about a cross burning outside town, which my sister quickly hushed up. In my Middle School years the first sit down strike happened at a lunch counter in Greensboro, and the newspaper carried a photograph of a large gathering of black people facing down three large German Shepherds and four or five policemen, and it was really shocking to me. While I hadn’t started trying to work to help black people yet, I also had no racial hatred at all toward them, and that photograph was very frightening.

My in-group instincts have never been as highly developed as some teens and young adult’s are. As a result, when a hostile group interaction starts I don’t immediately move to join in on the conflict with the people of my skin color over “the enemy.” That is the thing that keeps us from progressing in the South – there has always been a strong group or gang mentality here, with frequent waving of the Dixie flag, etc. We need to talk in an open and positive manner to people of other races, so as to learn their cultural ways and see their inner person. If anyone smiles at me and speaks in a fair and friendly way, I am open to them as a friend. This is not blanket trust but just a little faith that they are not going to be dangerous to me necessarily, and is the result of long years of experience with getting to know individuals personally. When people do that, those knee-jerk group hatreds don’t form in the first place, and the fear melts away, too. That makes us a more decent as well as a safer society.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/confederate-flag-debate-sparks-heated-confrontation-south-carolina/

Confederate flag debate sparks South Carolina clash
CBS NEWS
June 30, 2015

Play VIDEO -- After Charleston funerals, where does U.S. stand on race?
23 PHOTOS -- Places the Confederate flag still flies
49 PHOTOS -- Charleston shooting, Police were forced to separate the protesters.


A heated confrontation unfolded in the shadow of the South Carolina statehouse over the Confederate flag, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.

"That flag just does not deserve to fly at all in South Carolina and we want it down," one person said.

People for and against the display of the controversial banner, clashed Monday in the state's capital, Columbia.

"The blood on my teeth, the blood on my hands is no comparison to the Southern blood that runs through my veins," Joe Lindler said. He was hit during the brawl and said "racism has no part" in the flag.

"I'm gonna tell you one thing, I ain't sitting down; this'll just make me walk taller," he said.

"We do have tension, we do have feelings and we do have emotions," a preacher said. "When you got them coming past here, taunting certain words, you're messing with the emotions of the people."

Tony Gradel said the recent tragedy at Emanuel AME Church "has nothing to do with that flag up there."

"Just because nine people lost their lives in a church in Charleston, which I'm not downplaying at all, still a tragedy, has nothing to do with that flag standing up there," he said.

On a campaign stop in West Columbia on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said the state needs to move forward -- without it.

Bree Newsome of Charlotte, N.C., climbs a flagpole to remove the Confederate battle flag at a Confederate monument in front of the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., June 27, 2015.
"The symbols that have divided the South in many ways, the symbols that were used in most recent modern history, not at perhaps at the beginning of the time, but the symbols were racist," he said.

The Confederate flag is no longer flying over Fort Sumter, South Carolina, where Southerners fired the first shots of the Civil War.

And on Saturday, activist Brittany Newsome climbed 30 feet up the statehouse flagpole and took the rebel flag down.

"You come against me with hatred, and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today," she said.

Newsome was arrested and charged with defacing monuments on capitol grounds.

The flag was put back up immediately, but the South Carolina legislature reportedly has enough votes for the two-thirds majority needed to bring it down for good. State lawmakers will take up the bill to remove the Confederate flag on July 6th.

"Do the right thing and vote with us to bring the flag down," State Sen. Kevin Johnson said.

The KKK is planning a rally at the statehouse next month. In the meantime, the community is bracing for its final funeral. The last of the nine victims killed in the June 17th Emanuel AME Church shooting will be laid to rest on Tuesday.




“And on Saturday, activist Brittany Newsome climbed 30 feet up the statehouse flagpole and took the rebel flag down. "You come against me with hatred, and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today," she said. Newsome was arrested and charged with defacing monuments on capitol grounds. …. State lawmakers will take up the bill to remove the Confederate flag on July 6th. "Do the right thing and vote with us to bring the flag down," State Sen. Kevin Johnson said. The KKK is planning a rally at the statehouse next month.”

One step forward and two steps back – sounds like a dance, right? It’s the way racism flares up again every time anyone tries to dig it up by the roots. I believe eventually fair and unbiased thinking will win out. I don’t think the White Supremacists are actually in the majority, but they are vocal and sometimes violent in fighting for that inherited social status that white skin has always, unjustly, accorded them. The law itself is moving toward full rights for minorities case by case, and I think that the public will follow along with it.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/whitey-bulger-letter-massachusetts-high-school-teens-offers-rare-look-life/

Whitey Bulger's "shocking" letter to high schoolers
CBS NEWS
June 29, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Ex-FBI agent accused of lying in “Whitey” Bulger trial


Three Massachusetts teens are holding onto a piece of "most wanted" history from legendary crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger.

The girls wrote to him looking for his take on leadership as part of a school project -- and he wrote back, expressing regret for a life he called "wasted," reports CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano.

"It was definitely shocking to see a letter from, basically, a serial killer, in your mailbox," Brittany Tanish said.

Bulger never testified during his trial, so the letter is a rare look at his life in his own words.

The one-page handwritten note was sent from a high-security federal penitentiary in Florida.

In it, 85-year-old Bulger wrote: "There are many people more deserving of your time and interests... Don't waste your time on such as I. We are society's lower, best forgotten, not looked to for advice on 'leadership'... I'm a 9th grade dropout from school and took the wrong road."

"I think that he was very remorseful and regretful, and kind of trying to stray us away from choosing him for a project," Mollykate Rodenbush said.

The three young women, now entering their senior year of high school, were working on a National History Day project about leadership and legacy.

"He was a primary source. Why not ask the source himself what he thought his legacy was?" Michaela Arguin said. "Even though he didn't directly answer it, what he did say was a lot different from what people think, like, he really is all about."

Bulger was captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011 after 16 years on the run.

He was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to two life terms plus five years for his role in 11 murders, federal racketeering, extortion and conspiracy.

"It seemed pretty genuine to us. I mean, he still did it and he's still a horrible guy, but it was definitely a different side," Brittany said.

At the end of the letter, time-stamped by the prisoner at 1:10 a.m, Bulger said:

"My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame and suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon. Advice is a cheap commodity; some seek it from me about crime. If you want to make crime, pay 'go to law school'... best of luck in the future... sincerely James Bulger."

Bulger's lawyers said he didn't get a fair trial and a federal appeals court is scheduled to hear a request to have his 2013 conviction overturned. He is not expected to attend the arguments in Boston next month.




"I think that he was very remorseful and regretful, and kind of trying to stray us away from choosing him for a project," Mollykate Rodenbush said. The three young women, now entering their senior year of high school, were working on a National History Day project about leadership and legacy. …. He was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to two life terms plus five years for his role in 11 murders, federal racketeering, extortion and conspiracy. "It seemed pretty genuine to us. I mean, he still did it and he's still a horrible guy, but it was definitely a different side," Brittany said. At the end of the letter, time-stamped by the prisoner at 1:10 a.m, Bulger said: "My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame and suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon. Advice is a cheap commodity; some seek it from me about crime. If you want to make crime pay, 'go to law school'... best of luck in the future... sincerely James Bulger."

I’m glad to see that Bulger expresses regret about his crimes and “wasted” life. I don’t see why this article terms the letter “shocking,” unless the attempt by these kids to interact on the human level with a criminal is shocking. It’s bold and experimental, but no one was hurt at all and Bulger showed his human side. Most criminals, I would guess, wouldn’t reply at all to such a letter. Interestingly, he said he dropped out of school in the 9th grade. The step from being a school dropout to getting involved in crime, while by no means inevitable, is very commonplace. Some of those kids who drop out are black – much stressed in the press – but there have always been white kids who do these things, too. The Republican-backed financial attacks on the public school system can only make this worse. Above all, the parents of the nation need to support their local schools and guide their kids toward learning as a lifetime goal, and whenever possible, they should go to colleges and community colleges to get a leg up in life so they don’t turn to crime. Bulger wisely advised these students to do that. It looks to me like a spark of conscience in the killer’s soul, and it makes me feel good.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/early-human-may-have-had-neanderthal-great-great-grandparent/

Early human may have had a Neanderthal for a great-great-grandparent
By MICHAEL CASEY CBS NEWS
June 22, 2015

Photograph -- DNA taken from a 40,000-year-old modern human jawbone from the cave Peștera cu Oase in Romania reveals that this man had a Neandertal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back. SVANTE PÄÄBO, MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY

It turns out early modern humans had even more Neanderthal DNA than previously thought.

In a study published Monday in Nature, Harvard Medical School's David Reich and his colleagues examined one of the oldest humans ever found in Europe and determined that his genome contained more Neanderthal DNA than any human previously studied - and at least three times more than what is found in present day humans.

"This individual had 6 to 9 percent of the genes from Neanderthals and that is a lot. That is about the size of a whole chromosome - one the 23 packets of DNA you get from your parents - and it would have effected biological traits," Reich, a professor of genetics, told CBS News. "It is about as much DNA as you get from a great-great-grandparent."

That means the specimen - known as Oase I, whose jaw bone was discovered in a cave in Oase, Romania and who lived between 37,000 years and 42,000 years ago - may have had a Neanderthal relative in their family tree as recently as four to six generations back.

The closest-known extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, a shorter and stockier member of our lineage who lived in Europe and Asia starting around 300,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of modern humans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa between 40,000 to 80,000 years ago. Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago.

Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany is among the pioneers in the field, having spent 16 years looking at this issue. Reich joined Pääbo's team in 2007 and they have since had a number of breakthroughs.

The 40,000-year-old jawbone from Romania represents some of the earliest modern-human remains in Europe. SVANTE PÄÄBO, MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY

They demonstrated that humans living outside of Africa have much as 2 percent Neanderthal DNA. They also sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal in 2010 and showed last year in a Nature study that Neanderthal DNA in modern humans was associated with genes affecting type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease, lupus, biliary cirrhosis, and smoking behavior.

Along with showing that Oase I had Neanderthal DNA, the latest study sheds light on where the interbreeding between the two ancestors may have taken place.

By examining Oase I genome, Reich and his colleagues were able to demonstrate the interbreeding was not limited to the first human ancestors to leave Africa or people in the Near East. It probably occurred later, they surmised, and probably happened in Europe and about 200 years before Oase I lived.

And because Oase I doesn't share more alleles - a variant of a gene - with later Europeans than he does with East Asians, Reich said it suggests that this was a "pioneer" population, which didn't mix with modern Europeans.

"If you try and understand how it is related to modern humans today, it doesn't bear a particular close relationship to modern day Europeans. It's actually slightly closer, if anything, to present day East Asians," Reich said.

"For us, that was a surprise and very interesting and exciting," he said. "This sample seems to be part of an initial pioneer population of modern humans in Europe that overlapped with Neanderthals, interbred with them and kind of died out and was replaced by other waves of movement from other places. Those people (in Europe) today are descended from this later wave."

The next step, Reich said, to further understand these interactions between early humans and Neanderthals by finding other specimens which "carry morphological traits suggestive of a mixture with Neanderthals."




“It turns out early modern humans had even more Neanderthal DNA than previously thought. In a study published Monday in Nature, Harvard Medical School's David Reich and his colleagues examined one of the oldest humans ever found in Europe and determined that his genome contained more Neanderthal DNA than any human previously studied - and at least three times more than what is found in present day humans. "This individual had 6 to 9 percent of the genes from Neanderthals and that is a lot. That is about the size of a whole chromosome - one the 23 packets of DNA you get from your parents - and it would have effected biological traits," Reich, a professor of genetics, told CBS News. "It is about as much DNA as you get from a great-great-grandparent." …. The closest-known extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, a shorter and stockier member of our lineage who lived in Europe and Asia starting around 300,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of modern humans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa between 40,000 to 80,000 years ago. Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago. …. Along with showing that Oase I had Neanderthal DNA, the latest study sheds light on where the interbreeding between the two ancestors may have taken place. By examining Oase I genome, Reich and his colleagues were able to demonstrate the interbreeding was not limited to the first human ancestors to leave Africa or people in the Near East. It probably occurred later, they surmised, and probably happened in Europe and about 200 years before Oase I lived. And because Oase I doesn't share more alleles - a variant of a gene - with later Europeans than he does with East Asians, Reich said it suggests that this was a "pioneer" population, which didn't mix with modern Europeans. …. . It's actually slightly closer, if anything, to present day East Asians," Reich said. "For us, that was a surprise and very interesting and exciting," he said. "This sample seems to be part of an initial pioneer population of modern humans in Europe that overlapped with Neanderthals, interbred with them and kind of died out and was replaced by other waves of movement from other places. Those people (in Europe) today are descended from this later wave."

Until the DNA studies came out, archaeologists were into long descriptions of “the Beaker Folk,” etc., with conclusions based more on their artifacts than on their physical characteristics. Those scientists decided on the basis of a Neanderthal skeleton found with a stooped posture that the Neanderthals must have been more ape-like than modern humans. A later archaeologist said that he was, in fact, arthritic and aged. They also concluded that because the Neanderthal stone work and a certain lack of artwork showed less innovation than the Modern Humans’ did, proving that they probably weren’t as intelligent. Other scientists decided that their larynx and mouth shape were not as likely to have been able to pronounce as many vocalizations either. In other words, he probably was in all ways more primitive. The fact that a group of Neanderthals did produce the preferred more modern stone work was put down to their being imitative. In the early days of archaeology there was a strain of racial bias as well. Different physical characteristics were put down to their inferiority in all ways.

In fact, cultural interchange and “imitation” is basic to the formation of new ideas. A tribe in a rainforest somewhere who have had no contact with the outside world will be culturally “behind” all other groups who have traded -- and “imitated” others -- for thousands of years. That isn’t because they aren’t as bright! It’s because they are isolated. Most of the time “new” ideas evolve rather than popping into being whole like Athena springing from Zeus’s forehead in full battle gear. (I have always loved that reference, so I couldn’t resist using it just now.) Even an inventive person still “learns” most of his concepts from others. The advancement of mankind technologically and culturally has as much to do with the free mixing between cultural groups as it does with any particular group’s intelligence. As a result, I’m proud and happy to have Neanderthal genes. I love the long continuum down through the several million years that modern people have been evolving. See “Timeline of human evolution,” in Wikipedia. That article places primates at 75 million years ago, hominids at 15 million, the “genus Homo and close human relatives” at 2.5 million, modern humans at .5 million and “fully modern humans” or Homo sapiens sapiens at .2 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_humans gives a long and detailed article on “Anatomically modern humans” as today’s science views it.


http://www.definitions.net/definition/Freebase

Oase is the newfound skull thought to be from sometime in the first 5 000 years of human habitation of Europe It was found in a cave in southwestern Romania with other human samples from the time The skull has the same proportions as modern human craniums and has other features that are non-Neanderthal.






http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boys-mow-lawn-to-keep-elderly-texas-woman-out-of-jail/

Boys mow lawn to keep elderly Texas woman out of jail
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS NEWS
June 12, 2015

Photograph -- Texas woman Gerry Suttle, pictured with the Reynolds brothers, who mowed her lawn to try to keep her from being arrested KWTX

RIESEL, Texas -Four young brothers helped out an elderly Texas woman by mowing her lawn after a warrant was issued for her arrest over her high grass, reports CBS affiliate KWTX.

Several weeks ago, Gerry Suttle, of Riesel, east of Waco, was issued a notice to appear before a judge because the grass on a lot she owns across from her home was more than 18 inches high, violating city code. After she didn't appear, a warrant was issued for her arrest, reports the station.

Suttle, 75, told the station she never received the notice.

Four brothers who didn't know Suttle but learned of her plight through a news report decided to pitch in and help by mowing the lawn.

"We haven't met her yet but she's 75 years old and she needs some help mowing," said Blaine Reynolds, one of the boys. "That's the least we could do."

Suttle told the station she's grateful for the boy's help.

After the boys mowed the grass, Suttle was told Wednesday she needed to go to court and sign documents indicating she didn't receive the original notice to appear about the lawn in order to have the warrant dropped. But Thursday, she received another court summons,reports the station.

"It is very heartbreaking to see that someone that I didn't even know came out and spent two hours in the sun doing what we thought the city wanted done and then them turn around and say 'no,'" Suttle said.

City representatives haven't returned calls to KWTX. She's due in court June 16, and Suttle says she's prepared to fight the city.

Meanwhile, the Reynolds brothers have offered to help again.

"I'd do it for her a second time, or a third time," Blaine Reynolds said. "Anything to keep that lady from having to go to court."




“Several weeks ago, Gerry Suttle, of Riesel, east of Waco, was issued a notice to ap-pear before a judge because the grass on a lot she owns across from her home was more than 18 inches high, violating city code. After she didn't appear, a warrant was issued for her arrest, reports the station. Suttle, 75, told the station she never received the notice. Four brothers who didn't know Suttle but learned of her plight through a news report decided to pitch in and help by mowing the lawn. "We have-n't met her yet but she's 75 years old and she needs some help mowing," said Blaine Reynolds, one of the boys. "That's the least we could do." …. After the boys mowed the grass, Suttle was told Wednesday she needed to go to court and sign documents indicating she didn't receive the original notice to appear about the lawn in order to have the warrant dropped. But Thursday, she received another court sum-mons,reports the station. …. City representatives haven't returned calls to KWTX. She's due in court June 16, and Suttle says she's prepared to fight the city.”

This story brings up as many questions as it answers. I wonder if the city is trying to force Ms. Suttles to sell her property? Or trying to make money for the court through charging her fines? I would like to know what the other two summonses are about. I’m glad to see that she is fighting the city. See another version on the matter below.


http://thefreethoughtproject.com/arrest-warrant-issued-75-year-old-woman-uncut-grass/

Cops Protect Town from Hardened Criminal, Issue Arrest Warrant to 75-yo Woman for Tall Grass
By Jay Syrmopoulos on June 11, 2015

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear……unless you’re a 75-year-old woman with tall grass.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/arrest-warrant-issued-75-year-old-woman-uncut-grass/#l7KHzRMUSTVm95vf.99

Riesel, Texas – Seventy-five-year-old Gerry Suttle was stunned when she received a call from the local police chief, informing her that she had a warrant issued for her arrest.

“I’ll be 76 in July,” Suttle said. “I’m 75 now, and I’ve never had a speeding ticket, never had a parking ticket and now here I am got a warrant for my arrest from the big city of Riesel.”

Suttle’s arrest warrant was for failure to appear before a judge on a matter regarding the height of the grass on a property she owns across the street from her home.

Referencing the grass, Riesel police chief Danny Krumnow stated, “It has grown up, and the court had issued her letter and then court issued a warrant for failure to appear.”

Suttle says she never received a letter informing her of the court date and that she now fears driving.

“My name is on the list. If I get stopped, I’ll get picked up,” a clearly distressed Suttle said.

Does law enforcement truly have nothing more pressing to focus on than a 75-year-old woman whose grass is too long??

Why aren’t people able to have a natural lawn without the expectation of some cookie cutter yard standard by which all properties must be judged?

Suttle’s son said that he would come mow the grass, as his mother isn’t physically able to do so, but that the city may not drop the arrest warrant.

Regardless of the outcome, Suttle believes the whole ordeal is ridiculous and that the city needs to leave her alone.

“Straighten their act up. Read the state laws, before bailing off into something stupid,” Suttle said.

With all the ways the American people are fleeced of the hard earned money by law enforcement; does the system really need to target this elderly woman for having “too long” of grass?

This absurd arrest warrant comes on the heels of an equally asinine incident, also in Texas, in which two young girls had their lemonade stand shut down by local cops for not having the correct permit. The good news there is that the girls are refusing to roll over and are opening their stand up again this weekend.

In April, another Texas resident, Rick Yoes, was sentenced to 17 days in jail for the length of his grass.

And some folks still have the gall to call this country the Land of the Free.

Monday, June 29, 2015



News Clips For The Day


SUPREME COURT ACTIONS TODAY


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-upholds-use-of-drug-implicated-in-botched-executions/

Supreme Court upholds use of drug implicated in botched executions
CBS/AP
June 29, 2015

Photograph -- This Oct. 9, 2014 photo shows the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. AP PHOTO/SUE OGROCKI, FILE VIA CBS AFFILIATE KFMB

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court upheld the use of a controversial drug in lethal injection executions Monday, as two dissenting justices said for the first time that they think it's "highly likely" that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional.

The justices voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The drug was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that took longer than usual and raised concerns that it did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep.

Justice Samuel Alito said for a conservative majority that arguments the drug could not be used effectively as a sedative in executions is speculative.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "Under the court's new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake."

Alito responded, saying "the dissent's resort to this outlandish rhetoric reveals the weakness of its legal arguments."

CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford said the case created a deep divide among the justices.

"I've covered the court for 21 years," Crawford told CBSN. "That argument in this case was the most contentious that I remember seeing."

In a separate dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said the time has come for the court to debate whether the death penalty itself is constitutional. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Breyer's opinion.

"At a certain point in the near future, we're going to face head on another challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty," Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute told CBSN.

The Supreme Court's involvement in the case began in January with an unusually public disagreement among the justices over executions.

Then, the court refused to block Oklahoma inmate Charles Warner's execution over the objection of the four liberal justices. In a strongly worded dissent for the four, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "The questions before us are especially important now, given states' increasing reliance on new and scientifically untested methods of execution."

Eight days later, the justices agreed to hear the case of three other Oklahoma death-row prisoners. It takes just four votes among the nine justices to agree to hear a case, but five votes to place a hold on an execution.

When the case was argued in late April, the justices engaged in unusually combative exchanges about the Oklahoma case and impassioned debate about capital punishment more generally.

Among the conservatives, Justice Samuel Alito said death penalty opponents are waging a "guerrilla war" against executions by working to limit the supply of more effective drugs. On the other side, liberal Justice Elena Kagan contended that the way states carry out most executions amounts to having prisoners "burned alive from the inside."

In 2008, the court upheld Kentucky's use of a three-drug execution method that employed a barbiturate as the first drug, intended to render the inmate unconscious.

But because of problems obtaining drugs, no state uses the precise combination at issue in that earlier Supreme Court case.

Four states have used midazolam in executions: Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma. Also, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Virginia allow for midazolam, but they have not used it in executions.

Last April, Oklahoma botched the execution of inmate Clayton Lockett, who writhed and strained on the gurney before finally dying of a heart attack. It was later revealed that some of the three drugs used in the execution didn't enter Lockett's system because the vein they were injected into -- in his groin -- collapsed, and that failure wasn't noticed for 21 minutes. Lockett died after 43 minutes.

Executions in Arizona and Ohio that used midazolam also went on for longer than expected as the inmates gasped and made other noises before dying.

Meanwhile, the court challenge has prompted Oklahoma to approve nitrogen gas as an alternative death penalty method if lethal injections aren't possible, either because of a court ruling or a drug shortage.



http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/oklahoma-death-penalty-gas-chamber-117156.html#.VZGHrPlViko

The Trouble with Oklahoma’s New Execution Technique
A more humane way to die? The history of American executions says don’t bet on it.
By AUSTIN SARAT
April 20, 2015

On Friday, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a law giving the state a new tool to use in executions: a chamber filled with nitrogen gas. If lethal injection—Oklahoma’s preferred execution method—is declared unconstitutional or becomes unavailable due to a drug shortage, the law would authorize use of a gas chamber that executes inmates by depleting the oxygen supply in their blood.

In her signing statement, Fallin reiterated both her support for the death penalty as well as her belief that nitrogen hypoxia would deliver death “effectively and without cruelty.” As Fallin put it, “The bill I signed today gives the state of Oklahoma another death penalty option that meets that standard” and insures that execution is painless and humane.

Oklahoma’s revival of the gas chamber is a response to the well-documented crisis now plaguing lethal injection, arising from drug shortages and a series of botched executions. Other states reliant on lethal injection have revived long-abandoned execution methods as well: Tennessee last year brought back the electric chair, and Utah recently reinstated the firing squad.

Compared to those, nitrogen seems humane. Coverage since Fallin’s announcement has focused on the fact that nitrogen is an inert gas that would be administered directly by having the condemned breathe it in through a device like those used when anesthesia is given before surgery, simply putting the inmate to sleep.

But we have been down this road before. Each new technology for execution used in the United States—the electric chair, the gas chamber, lethal injection—was introduced with claims and promises about its humanity. Lethal injection itself was adopted for its ease of administration, with claims that it would be “more humane relative to other methods.”

It has not worked out that way.

In fact, every method of capital punishment used in the United States has suffered from a significant failure rate. In recently completed research, I examined every American execution from 1890 to 2010 and found that, during that period of time, 3 percent of those executions were botched. In raw numbers that means that about 300 executions involved some kind of prolonged suffering or significant technological failure.

It might seem frivolous to worry about the humanity of capital punishment. After all, these offenders are handed the worst sentence our legal system can mete out. But the Constitution guarantees even criminals liberty from cruelty in punishment. Over the decades, the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that the legitimacy of capital punishment depends precisely on the belief that there is a way to insure that executions will be safe, reliable and humane.

Yet the long history of American executions suggests that no such magic bullet exists—and the gas chamber itself is an excellent illustration. What is now being said in Oklahoma about nitrogen gas has eerie parallels to what was said almost a century ago when the gas chamber first became part of America’s panoply of execution techniques. That occurred in 1921, when two Nevada Assemblymen, J.J. Hart and Harry Bartlett, introduced the so-called “Humane Execution Bill” to replace hanging with new gas-chamber technology. So convincing was the gas chamber’s promise of humane execution that the Hart/Barlett bill passed the state assembly almost unanimously, before being sent on to the Nevada Senate, where it was approved the very same day. Less than two weeks later, Governor Emmett Boyle, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, nonetheless signed the bill into law.

The Nevada law—in line with the most advanced thinking of its time—called for executions to take place while the condemned was asleep. Death row inmates were to be housed in air-tight, leak-proof cells, separate from other prisoners. On the day of the execution, valves would be opened that would fill the chamber with gas, killing the prisoner painlessly.

Around the same time that Nevada embraced the gas chamber, the Medical Society of Pennsylvania, reviewing that state’s execution methods, also focused its attention on gas as the most humane way to extinguish life. A Medical Society committee recommended that carbonic acid be used as the lethal agent in all Pennsylvania executions. At the time, a doctor named J. Chris Lange wrote in the Pennsylvania Medical Journal, “Death will happen quickly after the gas ascends to a level with the mouth and nose of the prisoner. To insure the absence of all punishment but death itself it is a necessity that the action of the heart be stilled during natural sleep. … Experiments on animals have convinced the committee that the gas does not act as a poison in the usual sense of the word; it merely deprives the animal of oxygen by displacement of the air, the consequent death being the result of an auto-intoxication, at least in large part. … It is a species of starvation which is fatal in from 3 to 8 minutes.”

Lange concluded that such a death—“without preliminaries” and “without the possibility of accidents”—would “leave the criminal little more to dread of the future than the common lot of all mankind.” While Pennsylvania did not end up adopting the gas chamber, 11 other states did so.

As it turned out, the actual practice of execution by lethal gas diverged substantially from the promises of its proponents. Many of those who died in the gas chamber did so neither quickly nor painlessly. Instead, they suffered grisly, prolonged, agonizing deaths as they slowly suffocated. By the close of the 20th century, my research shows, five out of every 100 executions by lethal gas had been botched, and the eventual demise of the gas chamber came as death penalty proponents, propelled in part by gruesome spectacles of the people dying by oxygen deprivation, sought new alternatives.

The lesson of this history is that, no matter their views about capital punishment, Americans should be wary of those who now would have us believe that nitrogen—or any execution method—will do what no other technology of execution has been able to do, namely insure that the deaths we impose are neither gruesome nor cruel. The American belief in scientific progress has helped to legitimate the death penalty, reassuring citizens that somewhere, behind the wall, a death is taking place that meets constitutional standards of punishment.

Sometimes it does. But it is statistically certain that sometimes it won’t—and that a policy of executing prisoners is simply inseparable from occasionally botching those executions. Despite the reassuring pronouncements of politicians like Fallin, the revival of the gas chamber reveals more about the lengths to which some states will go to retain the death penalty as a criminal punishment than about their concern to minimize the suffering of those we execute.

Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched executions and America’s Death Penalty.





CBS -- “The Supreme Court upheld the use of a controversial drug in lethal injection executions Monday, as two dissenting justices said for the first time that they think it's "highly likely" that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional. The justices voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The drug was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that took longer than usual and raised concerns that it did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep. …. "At a certain point in the near future, we're going to face head on another challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty," Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute told CBSN. The Supreme Court's involvement in the case began in January with an unusually public disagreement among the justices over executions. Then, the court refused to block Oklahoma inmate Charles Warner's execution over the objection of the four liberal justices. In a strongly worded dissent for the four, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "The questions before us are especially important now, given states' increasing reliance on new and scientifically untested methods of execution." …. Among the conservatives, Justice Samuel Alito said death penalty opponents are waging a "guerrilla war" against executions by working to limit the supply of more effective drugs. …. Last April, Oklahoma botched the execution of inmate Clayton Lockett, who writhed and strained on the gurney before finally dying of a heart attack. It was later revealed that some of the three drugs used in the execution didn't enter Lockett's system because the vein they were injected into -- in his groin -- collapsed, and that failure wasn't noticed for 21 minutes. Lockett died after 43 minutes .… Meanwhile, the court challenge has prompted Oklahoma to approve nitrogen gas as an alternative death penalty method if lethal injections aren't possible, either because of a court ruling or a drug shortage.


POLITICO -- “On Friday, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a law giving the state a new tool to use in executions: a chamber filled with nitrogen gas. If le-thal injection—Oklahoma’s preferred execution method—is declared unconstitu-tional or becomes unavailable due to a drug shortage, the law would authorize use of a gas chamber that executes inmates by depleting the oxygen supply in their blood. …. Other states reliant on lethal injection have revived long-abandoned exe-cution methods as well: Tennessee last year brought back the electric chair, and Utah recently reinstated the firing squad. Compared to those, nitrogen seems hu-mane. …. In fact, every method of capital punishment used in the United States has suffered from a significant failure rate. In recently completed research, I examined every American execution from 1890 to 2010 and found that, during that period of time, 3 percent of those executions were botched. In raw numbers that means that about 300 executions involved some kind of prolonged suffering or significant tech-nological failure. …. That occurred in 1921, when two Nevada Assemblymen, J.J. Hart and Harry Bartlett, introduced the so-called “Humane Execution Bill” to re-place hanging with new gas-chamber technology. So convincing was the gas cham-ber’s promise of humane execution that the Hart/Barlett bill passed the state as-sembly almost unanimously, before being sent on to the Nevada Senate, where it was approved the very same day. Less than two weeks later, Governor Emmett Boyle, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, nonetheless signed the bill into law. The Nevada law—in line with the most advanced thinking of its time—called for executions to take place while the condemned was asleep. Death row inmates were to be housed in air-tight, leak-proof cells, separate from other prisoners. On the day of the execution, valves would be opened that would fill the chamber with gas, killing the prisoner painlessly. …. American belief in scientific progress has helped to legitimate the death penalty, reassuring citizens that somewhere, behind the wall, a death is taking place that meets constitutional standards of punishment. Sometimes it does. But it is statistically certain that sometimes it won’t—and that a policy of executing prisoners is simply inseparable from occasionally botching those executions.”

Jesus shamed a group of Jewish men into stopping an intended execution of a woman by stoning for the crime of adultery. Interestingly, nowadays it’s still a sin but it is not a crime, except in some Muslim countries. In the US of the 1600s under the tender mercies of the Pilgrims, heretics and “witches” were executed by piling huge stones upon their bodies until they were literally squashed to death – ruptured bones, organs and tissues, and probably a very slow death. In the 1600s in England the convicted criminal actually tipped the executioner so he would see to it that his axe blade would be sharp. Queen Anne Boleyn is said to have requested a French executioner who used a sword rather than an axe. (See the website www.spectator.co.uk/features/.../anne-boleyns-last-secret/) . Wikipedia has a detailed article under the heading “Hanging” on four different ways to proceed with a hanging, some of which are more humane than others.

Death is painful and not instantaneous in most cases. Personally, of all the methods I’ve heard about, the firing squad (blindfold and all) seems to me to be the most humane, because if a few good marksmen are involved in it, there should be a heart or head shot, either of which will usually kill within a few minutes, especially if the bullet enters the brain from behind at the bottom of the skull where the Medulla Oblongata lies. It is the center of the autonomic nervous system which controls the most basic bodily functions such as the heartbeat and breathing. One news article in the last few months said that some Tea Partier in a Western state has actually recommended that the firing squad be brought back as the method of choice.

I sometimes feel that a particular criminal has commit a crime so horrible that he should indeed receive the death penalty. Rapists, especially child rapists, who torture and then kill their victims are included in that list. They aren’t safe to walk the earth among ordinary and civilized people. I feel that this young idiot Roof who went into the Charleston church and summarily executed some dozen people who had just done him the honor of allowing him to pray among them certainly does that. He killed in cold blood, without remorse, because he thought the hallowed doctrine of White Supremacy needed to be impressed upon the minds of the US citizens. I feel sure he will be executed over that heartless act.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-will-reconsider-texas-affirmative-action-case/

Supreme Court will reconsider Texas affirmative action case
By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS
June 29, 2015

Photograph -- Attorney Bert Rein (L), speaks to the media while standing with plaintiff Abigail Noel Fisher (R), after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in her case on October 10, 2012 in Washington, D.C. MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will revisit a case regarding the contentious issue of affirmative action in school admissions.

The court first heard the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) in 2013, but it effectively punted the issue that year, sending the case back to the lower courts. Now that it is hearing the case again, the court may limit affirmative action policies nationwide, or simply at UT Austin.

The case was brought to the court by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who applied to UT Austin as a high school senior in 2008. She filed suit against the school after she was rejected, arguing the university's consideration of race didn't meet standards previously set by the Supreme Court.

While the University of Texas defended its consideration of race, most students are accepted into UT Austin through the "Top 10 percent" law -- a program that doesn't consider race. The "Top 10" program grants automatic admission to the top students in every Texas high school. Fisher did not qualify for the program. In 2008, just 216 accepted students accepted outside of the "Top 10" program were black or Hispanic.

In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court used the wrong standards to evaluate the Texas college's admissions policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that the Fifth Circuit should not have given UT Austin as much deference on the matter of whether its limited approach to racial considerations met the standard set by the Supreme Court in 2003. That year, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court rejected the use of racial quotas but said that schools could consider race as part of a "holistic" review of a student's application.

The next year, a federal appeals court panel once again upheld the UT Austin policy, so Fisher again appealed to the Supreme Court.

While the Supreme Court avoided ruling on the actual issue of affirmative action in 2013, some justices tipped their hand in the case. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that she would affirm the Fifth Circuit's ruling that upheld the Texas program. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas suggested they would overrule Grutter v. Bollinger all together.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself the first time the case was heard because she had participated in the case as solicitor general while it was before the court of appeals. She will recuse herself once again. With just three of the four liberal justices on the case, it seems likely the court will rule in favor of some limits on affirmative action or more narrowly on the UT Austin policy.




The Supreme Court on Monday said it will revisit a case regarding the contentious issue of affirmative action in school admissions. The court first heard the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) in 2013, but it effectively punt-ed the issue that year, sending the case back to the lower courts. Now that it is hear-ing the case again, the court may limit affirmative action policies nationwide, or simply at UT Austin. The case was brought to the court by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who applied to UT Austin as a high school senior in 2008. She filed suit against the school after she was rejected, arguing the university's consideration of race didn't meet standards previously set by the Supreme Court. .… The "Top 10" program grants automatic admission to the top students in every Texas high school. Fisher did not qualify for the program. In 2008, just 216 accepted students accepted outside of the "Top 10" program were black or Hispanic. …. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court used the wrong standards to evaluate the Texas college's admissions policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that the Fifth Circuit should not have given UT Austin as much deference on the matter of whether its limited approach to racial considerations met the standard set by the Supreme Court in 2003. That year, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court rejected the use of racial quotas but said that schools could consider race as part of a "holistic" review of a student's application.”

Personally, I think that relative poverty in their growing years should be used to the same purpose as race and Hispanic culture. A child who does not grow up hearing a fairly high level of vocabulary in English used in the house is at a disadvantage when it comes to reading and composing in that language, and that sets them behind in all their other courses. Also, if the father and mother didn’t learn a reasonable amount about history, science, philosophy, and other academic subjects, it is unlikely that they will be able to aid the children in their studies and homework tasks. However, if the parents both insist (without physical punishment and shaming, of course) that the child will do his homework every night before bed and read all those extra books that the school recommends, it is my belief that a normally intelligent kid can do pretty well in High School. After all, we aren’t talking about Harvard or Yale.

Of course, if they go out and run the neighborhood every day after school, or sneak out the window every night to meet their boyfriend and do drugs like some do, their chances aren’t good. Most often the kids who do those things will be poor, perhaps with both parents holding more than one job and therefore unable to supervise them. In a certain percentage of the time, however, the kids who don’t study are “the popular kids” and well-to-do. They simply are not disciplined by the parents for much of anything and they learn to be “wild” kids. I am interested in this particular new article to know what the background of the white girl who filed the lawsuit over not being admitted was. The article didn’t’ say. If she was well-to-do she has no excuse in my opinion for failing to study, which is apparent enough from the fact that her grades were not in the top 10% of her class. She should have made it into the state college with no problem. Of course, in reality, this is just a test case to try to knock black and Hispanic kids out of receiving the help that some of them do need. “Conservatives” have fought every attempt since the 1950s to intervene in their behalf on any issue. Otherwise how could those states make laws requiring blacks to read a page from the Constitution to prove they have the right to vote in elections??




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanders-going-for-the-grassroots/

Bernie Sanders' challenge - how much will the grassroots do for him?
By HANNAH FRASER-CHANPONG CBS NEWS
June 29, 2015

Photograph -- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, addresses a town hall meeting in Henniker, New Hampshire, June 27, 2015. CBS/HANNAH FRASER-CHANPONG

Manchester, New Hampshire -- Bernie Sanders is eliciting some effusive responses from voters: one man called him the "penicillin" that the country needs, while another compared him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The independent Vermont senator drew crowds of hundreds this weekend in New Hampshire and, with them, a host of compliments. But Sanders often cut those comments short.

"This is not about me," he would say. "It's about you."

Sanders repeatedly asked voters during his seven-stop, two-day swing to take his vision to their friends and neighbors, even those who are Republican.

5 things to know about Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders: Enough is enough

There have been stories written about Sanders closing in on frontrunner Hillary Clinton, and one reporter in Rochester, New Hampshire, asked him about the fact that he doesn't bring up the tightening polls. Sanders responded, "We'll let the reality speak for itself...You saw the turnout: 500 people in Nashua yesterday. I think we're doing pretty well."


Play VIDEO
Bernie Sanders explains why he’s different from Hillary Clinton

Sanders has surprised many, even his closest aides, as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of voters have turned out to see him speak in recent weeks.

But in order to take his presidential campaign to the next level, Sanders and his aides will need to turn the crowds' interest in him into something more meaningful.

"The biggest challenge in this campaign," Phil Fiermonte, Sanders' field director, told CBS News on Sunday, "is taking these 200,000 people who want to help Bernie and getting them to be doing constructive activities that are going to help get him elected."

And that means he'll need more than just their votes.

Sanders has a talent, Fiermonte said, for connecting with ordinary voters. Throughout his latest swing through the Granite State, Sanders consistently delivered fiery speeches dotted with wry, witty moments. When one questioner at a stop at a high school in Durham mentioned President Obama, Sanders joked dryly, "Yeah, I've heard of him." But Sanders is mostly serious as he lays out his populist vision.

"He's talking about the issues that are affecting families and seniors and children," said Jane Lang, a senior activist from Salem who voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012 and had expected to support Clinton in this election. "When I hear Bernie speak, I hear him speaking for the people."

Lang said she's still "shopping" for a candidate to support, but she seemed to be in the minority at Sanders' events.

"My mind is very much made up," said Patrick Duffy, a car salesman from Nashua who attended Sanders' town hall there. "I know I'm not even going to consider any other candidate. I've heard it all before from the other candidates."

But one of those other Democratic candidates has a distinct advantage in New Hampshire. While Sanders was driving from town to town Saturday, volunteers who support Clinton were fanning out statewide for the campaign's first "Day of Action," which brought dozens of volunteers together to knock on doors and lock in commitments to vote for Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner.

Sanders' campaign is just picking up the keys to its first office in New Hampshire this week, in Concord, and it will soon open its doors to voters who want to learn more, volunteer their time and host house parties or canvass. In Iowa, Sanders has a bigger presence. His campaign announced last Monday that he hired five new Iowa-based staff to help organize and communicate with his supporters there.

"He's riding the wave," said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. "That's fun to do, but ultimately you have to grind it out on the ground. Right now, Clinton's in a better place to do that."

Fiermonte couldn't say how soon the campaign's ground operation in New Hampshire would be up and running, but Sanders said that he will do "his best to run a 50-state campaign."

"We're going to win because we're going to do politics the very, very old fashioned way, the way I always do it," Sanders said to a crowd of 300 in Henniker, N.H. "You win it the old fashioned way: talking to people, knocking on doors, talking on the phone. In order to do that, we need a strong grassroots movement."

Beyond manpower, Scala said that Sanders also needs to prove that he is electable. As President Obama's second term comes to an end, Democratic activists in New Hampshire now have their first chance in years to explore all of the directions that the party could take.

"It's one thing to say you like Sanders' ideas now, in June," Scala said. "It's another thing to be able to say in December and January that Sanders has a legitimate path to not only the nomination, but also to defeat a Republican come 2016."

Bonnie Wright, a supporter from Salem, N.H., said she broke her own rule when she sent Sanders a donation on the day he announced.

"I was concerned at first," she said, "but as I'm looking at the growing momentum I think maybe he can [win]."

Lang said she was torn.

"Then again," Lang said, "I look back at 2008. Everybody said Hillary was a shoo-in and look what happened. We all started working for Obama and we got him in."

Sanders, for his part, seems to be prepared for the long haul. Even with a tight schedule and the next event more than an hour drive away, Sanders lingered at his campaign stops to take question after question from attendees.

"That's his personality," Fiermonte said. "He's a long distance runner, not a sprinter. He runs circles around the 20-year-old folks in the Senate office."




"He's talking about the issues that are affecting families and seniors and children," said Jane Lang, a senior activist from Salem who voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012 and had expected to support Clinton in this election. "When I hear Bernie speak, I hear him speaking for the people." Lang said she's still "shopping" for a candidate to support, but she seemed to be in the minority at Sanders' events. "My mind is very much made up," said Patrick Duffy, a car salesman from Nashua who attended Sanders' town hall there. "I know I'm not even going to consider any other candidate. I've heard it all before from the other candidates." …. "He's rid-ing the wave," said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. "That's fun to do, but ultimately you have to grind it out on the ground. Right now, Clinton's in a better place to do that." …. "We're going to win because we're going to do politics the very, very old fashioned way, the way I always do it," Sanders said to a crowd of 300 in Henniker, N.H. "You win it the old fashioned way: talking to people, knocking on doors, talking on the phone. In order to do that, we need a strong grassroots movement." Beyond manpower, Scala said that Sanders also needs to prove that he is electable. …. Bonnie Wright, a supporter from Salem, N.H., said she broke her own rule when she sent Sanders a donation on the day he announced. "I was concerned at first," she said, "but as I'm looking at the growing momentum I think maybe he can [win]." Lang said she was torn. "Then again," Lang said, "I look back at 2008. Everybody said Hillary was a shoo-in and look what happened. We all started working for Obama and we got him in."…. . Even with a tight schedule and the next event more than an hour drive away, Sanders lingered at his campaign stops to take question after question from attendees. "That's his personality," Fiermonte said. "He's a long distance runner, not a sprinter. He runs circles around the 20-year-old folks in the Senate office."

When I first read the bold and visionary things he has said I felt cheered, as though a real economic liberal was in the race. When I heard him on two news talk shows I was impressed with his delivery, depth of thought and eloquence. Now I see a description of his campaign style. I am planning to vote for him, especially since I haven’t see another Democrat as capable. When the time gets closer I will try to send him a small monthly amount on my credit card, and maybe do some door to door contacts or telephone calls here in Jacksonville for his campaign. I’m beginning to get excited already!





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-to-univision-employees-youre-banned/

Donald Trump to Univision employees: You're banned!
By AMANDA MIKELBERG CBS NEWS
June 26, 2015

Photograph -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally, Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump isn't waiting to be elected to start building borders.

Trump, whose Miss USA pageant was dropped from the Univision network following his remarks about Latinos during a campaign address, has already threatened to sue the station for hundreds of millions of dollars, and now has escalated the conflict to ban all Univision employees from his Trump Doral Miami golf course.

Earlier this week Trump lost Univision's support to air the pageant on July 12 after the mogul said that Mexican immigrants are "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists." On Friday, the pageant's planned host, actress Roselyn Sanchez, resigned as Trump's employee, remarking that it would be "inconceivable" to go on hosting the show.

In his letter Trump promised that if he becomes president he would erect a "meaningful border ... not the laughing stock that it currently is," reported TMZ, and is apparently beginning with establishing strict border control at his golf course.

In response to banning Univision employees from playing golf on his 800-acre golf course and resort, the network sent a memo to all of its employees to avoid patronizing any Trump properties, anywhere.

"As part of this decision, UCI employees should not stay at Trump properties while on company business or hold event/activities there," the company directive stated.




“Trump, whose Miss USA pageant was dropped from the Univision network follow-ing his remarks about Latinos during a campaign address, has already threatened to sue the station for hundreds of millions of dollars, and now has escalated the conflict to ban all Univision employees from his Trump Doral Miami golf course. …. In his letter Trump promised that if he becomes president he would erect a "meaningful border ... not the laughing stock that it currently is," reported TMZ, and is apparently beginning with establishing strict border control at his golf course. In response to banning Univision employees from playing golf on his 800-acre golf course and resort, the network sent a memo to all of its employees to avoid patronizing any Trump properties, anywhere.

I would say how I feel about Donald Trump, but it would take too long. I will simp-ly say that I feel certain he hasn’t a chance in a million to win the presidency.




http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/29/418557691/supreme-court-blocks-obama-administration-plan-on-power-plant-emissions

Supreme Court Blocks Obama Administration Plan On Power Plant Emissions
Brian Naylor
June 29, 2015

The Supreme court has ruled against an Obama administration effort to limit toxic mercury emissions from power plants, saying the costs of compliance with regulation should be taken into account.

In a 5-4 decision, the court sided with industry and 23 states that challenged the Environmental Protection Agency over the rules for oil- and coal-fired utilities, which the EPA estimated would cost $9.6 billion dollars annually. The states and industry groups said the cost estimate far outweighed the benefits the rules would produce, estimated at $4 million to $6 million per year.

The courts majority agreed, saying the EPA interpreted the regulation "unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants."

NPR's Nina Totenberg has this background on the case, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency:

"The regulations have been in the works for nearly two decades. Work on them began in the Clinton administration, got derailed in the George W. Bush administration, and then were revived and adopted in the Obama administration.

"The regulations were subsequently upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., last year.

"They stem from 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, which ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to expedite limits on power plant emissions of mercury and 188 other dangerous air pollutants.

"Mercury is considered one of the most toxic pollutants because studies show that when it falls from the atmosphere, it readily passes from fish and other sources to a pregnant woman's unborn fetus and the fetal brain, causing neurological abnormalities and delays in children. The EPA estimated that 7 percent of American women of childbearing age — millions of women — were being exposed to the pollutant in dangerous amounts."




“The Supreme court has ruled against an Obama administration effort to limit toxic mercury emissions from power plants, saying the costs of compliance with regulation should be taken into account. In a 5-4 decision, the court sided with industry and 23 states that challenged the Environmental Protection Agency over the rules for oil- and coal-fired utilities, which the EPA estimated would cost $9.6 billion dollars annually. The states and industry groups said the cost estimate far outweighed the benefits the rules would produce, estimated at $4 million to $6 million per year. The courts majority agreed, saying the EPA interpreted the regulation "unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants." …. "The regulations have been in the works for nearly two decades. Work on them began in the Clinton administration, got derailed in the George W. Bush administration, and then were revived and adopted in the Obama administration. "The regulations were subsequently upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., last year. They stem from 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, which ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to expedite limits on power plant emissions of mercury and 188 other dangerous air pollutants.”

“The EPA estimated that 7 percent of American women of childbearing age — mil-lions of women — were being exposed to the pollutant in dangerous amounts."

There are a frightening number of babies and also adults being poisoned by environmental chemicals. The case of asbestos-caused illnesses is still a problem, though supposedly it is no longer in use in construction and other industrial activities. I saw a law office’s advertisement for potential patients just recently. When I think of the number of times that we kids would go running out to see the DDT truck that came down the streets on summer nights, I am appalled. As far as I know I haven’t been injured, however. The truth is that life in an industrialized society has its advantages and its dangers.





http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/29/418521823/supreme-court-backs-arizonas-redistricting-commission-targeting-gridlock

Supreme Court Backs Arizona's Redistricting Commission Targeting Gridlock
Bill Chappell
June 29, 2015

U.S. states' efforts to counter extreme gerrymandering won a victory Monday, as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a bipartisan Arizona panel that draws the state's districts. The court's vote was 5-4; Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, as did Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the opinion for the majority, in which her citations included James Madison writing in The Federalist Papers.

"The people of Arizona turned to the initiative to curb the practice of gerrymandering," Ginsberg wrote, "and, thereby, to ensure that Members of Congress would have 'an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people.' "

Ginsberg continued, quoting a 2005 gerrymandering case: "In so acting, Arizona voters sought to restore 'the core principle of republican government,' namely, 'that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.' "

Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission was formed 15 years ago, after the state's voters approved Proposition 106 and amended the state's constitution to take redistricting power away from the Legislature (which later filed suit).

In his dissent, Roberts said that the majority's position "has no basis in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution, and it contradicts precedents from both Congress and this Court."

Saying that if the people of Arizona want to change the electoral process, they should focus on passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Roberts concluded, "Unfortunately, today's decision will only discourage this democratic method of change."

As for the effects Arizona's commission has had, here's what Arizona Public Media reports:

"The independent commission drew boundaries after the 2000 census and again after the 2010 census. In the 2012 election, five Democrats and four Republicans were elected to Congress in Arizona. In 2014, five Republicans and four Democrats were elected."
The case could have effects far beyond Arizona; more than a dozen other states, including California, have adopted similar processes as they try to break up partisan gridlock that results from drawing polarized districts.

Today's ruling has been hotly anticipated, particularly ahead of the 2016 election cycle. The ruling "could affect as many as one-third of congressional districts," NPR's Jessica Taylor writes for It's All Politics.

A large part of the debate over the case hinged on one word: "legislature."

From the Constitution's clause on elections:

"The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof."

The two sides have argued over whether "legislature" in the clause can be interpreted to refer to voters who enact a law via ballot initiative.

When the case was argued back in March, the Arizona Legislature's lawyer, Paul Clement, said, "The whole idea of the Constitution was that we're going to form a republican government, that we can't have direct democracy."

The Constitution, Clement said, gave authority over elections to elected officials, not to the public. But Ginsberg and the rest of the majority disagreed, mentioning not only the efforts to combat gerrymandering but also dozens of voter initiatives that shape how Americans vote, such as mail-in ballots and voter ID laws.

But Chief Justice Roberts did not agree — and he cited the 1913 shift in how U.S. senators are chosen to show his disapproval. He wrote:

"Just over a century ago, Arizona became the second State in the Union to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment. That Amendment transferred power to choose United States Senators from the Legislature' of each State, Art. I, §3, to 'the people thereof.' The Amendment resulted from an arduous, decades-long campaign in which reformers across the country worked hard to garner approval from Congress and three-quarters of the States.

"What chumps! Didn't they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term 'the Legislature' to mean 'the people'? The Court today performs just such a magic trick with the Elections Clause."

Here's how NPR's Nina Totenberg described the case back in March:

"In a state with 35 percent registered Republicans, 35 percent Independents, and 30 percent Democrats, the congressional map the commission drew had four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, and three competitive districts.

"Infuriated Republican state legislators wanted a bigger slice of the pie, however, and after the Arizona Supreme Court frustrated their effort to fire the commission's chair, they challenged the commission as unconstitutional, appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."




“U.S. states' efforts to counter extreme gerrymandering won a victory Monday, as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a bipartisan Arizona panel that draws the state's districts. …. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the opinion for the majority, in which her citations included James Madison writing in The Federalist Papers. "The people of Arizona turned to the initiative to curb the practice of gerrymandering," Ginsberg wrote, "and, thereby, to ensure that Members of Congress would have 'an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people.' "Ginsberg continued, quoting a 2005 gerrymandering case: "In so acting, Arizona voters sought to restore 'the core principle of republican government,' namely, 'that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.' " …. Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission was formed 15 years ago, after the state's voters approved Proposition 106 and amended the state's constitution to take redistricting power away from the Legislature (which later filed suit). …. The case could have effects far beyond Arizona; more than a dozen other states, including California, have adopted similar processes as they try to break up partisan gridlock that results from drawing polarized districts. Today's ruling has been hotly anticipated, particularly ahead of the 2016 election cycle. The ruling "could affect as many as one-third of congressional districts," NPR's Jessica Taylor writes for It's All Politics. …. The two sides have argued over whether "legislature" in the clause can be interpreted to refer to voters who enact a law via ballot initiative. When the case was argued back in March, the Arizona Legislature's lawyer, Paul Clement, said, "The whole idea of the Constitution was that we're going to form a republican government, that we can't have direct democracy." The Constitution, Clement said, gave authority over elections to elected officials, not to the public. But Ginsberg and the rest of the majority disagreed, mentioning not only the efforts to combat gerrymandering but also dozens of voter initiatives that shape how Americans vote, such as mail-in ballots and voter ID laws.”

This case may lead the way to Florida and others moving to stop the silly Gerrymandering and picture ID requirements. Republicans absolutely do not want to play fair. Of course, I don’t want to see Democrats caught playing dirty pool, taking bribes, etc. either.

June 28, 2015


News Clips For The Day


GAY ISSUES


https://news.yahoo.com/uniquely-nasty--the-u-s--governments-war-on-gays-191808993.html

Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government's War on Gays
By Michael Isikoff

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Yahoo News presents a new 30-minute documentary, “Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays,” reported and narrated by chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff. The film explores a dark and little-known chapter in America’s recent political past, when gays and lesbians were barred from working for the federal government and the FBI, through its“sex deviates” program, secretly collected hundreds of thousands of files on the sex lives of American citizens.

“Uniquely Nasty” includes never-before-seen government memos by legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (read by George Takei) and John Steele, a top lawyer for the U.S. Civil Service Commission (read by Matt Bomer) asserting that gays were “not suitable” for federal employment. “Uniquely Nasty” is divided into three chapters.

Chapter 1 — The Story of Charles Francis

A veteran Republican public relations consultant, Charles Francis was once a close friend of George W. Bush who served as the then Texas governor’s emissary to the gay community during the 2000 election. But Francis grew disillusioned by the Bush re-election campaign’s use of same-sex marriage as a wedge issue in 2004. “You have to be ready to be thrown overboard, and we were,” Francis says in the film. He then launched a new campaign to dig up government files documenting a forgotten history of decades of federal persecution of gays and lesbians.


Chapter 2 — The Story of Lester Hunt

As the FBI was launching its “sex deviates” program aimed at identifying and outing gays and lesbians working for the federal government, Lester Hunt Jr. — the son of Democratic Senator Lester Hunt — was arrested for soliciting gay sex from an undercover police officer in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. The arrest triggered a blackmail plot by two allies of Sen. Joe McCarthy, leading to the senator’s suicide — an event that inspired the novel “Advise and Consent” and haunted a generation of gays in politics.

Chapter 3 — The Story of Charlie Baker

In the mid-1960s, after a top aide to President Lyndon Johnson was arrested for having oral sex in a YMCA bathroom, there was a new crackdown to ferret out gays working for the government. The anti-gay campaign continues for years and, in 1971, Charlie Baker was fired from a low-level job at the U.S. Bureau of Standards for engaging in “homosexual activities.” But Baker fought back, enlisting the help of gay activist Frank Kameny, who bombarded government officials with letters accusing them of “entrenched bigotry” and “obscene ideas.” Baker finally goes to court and wins one of the first victories upholding the rights of gays to work for the federal government. In April 2015, he got married to his longtime partner, Rod, on a beach in Florida.

Along with the film, Yahoo News is releasing for the first time in their entirety a cache of long-secret government memos that have been uncovered in recent years by Francis, working with a team of lawyers from the firm of McDermott Will & Emery. Also included in this package are stories about the history of the FBI’s “sex deviates” program; a profile of Robert Gray, a gay Republican lobbyist and Washington powerbroker who secretly lived in fear of the FBI; a story about how Watergate hero Archibald Cox, in his days as John F. Kennedy’s solicitor general, sought to bar gays from federal employment; and the role of “Advise and Consent” in intimidating gays in politics, such as former congressman Barney Frank, from leaving the closet.

We invite you to submit your comments. You can also upload personal testimonials, documents, letters, photographs or other material related to this dark chapter in our history. See our instructions below on how to submit.




“The film explores a dark and little-known chapter in America’s recent political past, when gays and lesbians were barred from working for the federal government and the FBI, through its“sex deviates” program, secretly collected hundreds of thousands of files on the sex lives of American citizens. …. , Lester Hunt Jr. — the son of Democratic Senator Lester Hunt — was arrested for soliciting gay sex from an undercover police officer in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. The arrest triggered a blackmail plot by two allies of Sen. Joe McCarthy, leading to the senator’s suicide — an event that inspired the novel “Advise and Consent” and haunted a generation of gays in politics. …. The anti-gay campaign continues for years and, in 1971, Charlie Baker was fired from a low-level job at the U.S. Bureau of Standards for engaging in “homosexual activities.” But Baker fought back, enlisting the help of gay activist Frank Kameny, who bombarded government officials with letters accusing them of “entrenched bigotry” and “obscene ideas.” Baker finally goes to court and wins one of the first victories upholding the rights of gays to work for the federal government.”

I imagine the fear of homosexual activities is one of the most deeply seated of all social viewpoints. Gay behavior has not always been banned in all societies, however. In fact in Ancient Greece and Rome it was often preferred and wasn’t frowned upon, even the use of young children for sexual purposes. Sexual activity of any kind with a child is shocking to them in that they are not emotionally or physically ready to participate in it, and are likely to be mentally disturbed as a result. The rape of anyone, adult or not, is equally damaging in all cases and should certainly be punished strongly under the law.

To punish two consenting adults with prison terms merely for engaging in their preferred type of sex is not the same situation, however, and unjustified in my view. Extending from there into present times, we get into cases of persecution by the law and by the public at large. Several years ago a young gay man was found tied to a tree and killed in a rural area, I can’t remember where now. This article above on the government’s denying gays federal jobs is really unfair to me, in that what they are doing is generally speaking a “victimless crime” -- or not even illegal at all. Most gay adults are not rapists.

The occasional school teacher, especially of young children, who molests the kids under his or her care is a case that I would think should be punished severely. Unfortunately, schools oftentimes don’t actually prosecute such teachers, but rather fire them and then, strangely enough, fail to have them arrested or even write the crime into their work record, resulting in that same offender being immediately hired by another school district. Schools are afraid of being sued by the transgressors, and may also fear public comment which could arouse questions about the safety of the school environment.

A case like that came up locally here in the news a year or so ago. The high school was scrambling around to avoid being criticized for the fact that some unspecified type of sexual activity had happened there, and parents were complaining to the School Board when rumors about it came out into the open. Unfortunately a school is not a completely safe and secure environment, and parents often feel panicked when anything like that happens. The result has been more and more often the hiring of armed guards at the school. That may be inevitable, but I don’t like it either, especially if a principal sends in a uniformed and armed guard to break up a simple disagreement between two students. Such a guard was arrested for injuring a student within the last six weeks. I don’t personally believe that most cops are qualified to manage teens, or at least as well as the teachers and principals are. Police have too great a tendency to get rough physically with them.





http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/conservatives-resist-gay-marriage-ruling-texas-defiant/ar-AAcccqw?ocid=iehp

Conservatives resist gay marriage ruling; Texas defiant
Tribune News Service, by Maria Recio
June 27, 2015

Photograph -- AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez Brad Sanders, right, embraces his partner Michael Perez as they and Kenneth Denson, left rear, and Gabriel Mendez, center rear, learn of the U.S. Supreme Courts news allowing same…
Photograph -- Eric Gay/AP Photo Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Austin, Texas, June 3, 2015.

Conservatives responded forcefully to the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, but nowhere more so than in Texas, which openly defied the ruling.

"No Texan is required by the Supreme Court's decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage," said Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Resistance to the ruling was deep-felt across the conservative spectrum and in many of the 14 states, including Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have had laws forbidding same sex marriage. To opponents of gay marriage, religious liberty trumps the Supreme Court.

"No court can overturn natural law. Nature and Nature's God, hailed by the signers of our Declaration of Independence as the very source of law, cannot be usurped by the edict of a court, even the United States Supreme Court," said Frank Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

In a directive to all Texas state agencies that he issued after the court's decision, Abbott, who was the state attorney general before being elected governor last year, said that religious liberty would take priority over the legalization of gay marriage — potentially stopping the issuance of same-sex licenses and enabling officials to refuse to perform marriage ceremonies.

"The government must never pressure a person to abandon or violate his or her sincerely held religious beliefs regarding a topic such as marriage," Abbott said.

Texas banned same-sex marriage in a 2005 constitutional amendment.

Abbott's memo forbids retaliation against anyone who refuses to implement the Supreme Court decision, although numerous jurisdictions in urban areas, such as Houston's Harris County and San Antonio's Bexar County began issuing licenses to gay couples.

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton personified the state's hierarchy in its opposition, saying "no court, no law, no rule, and no words will change the simple truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Matt Angle, executive director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic PAC, said of Texas leaders, "What they're doing now is George Wallace-like. They are intentionally blocking compliance with the law of the land."

The late Alabama Gov. George Wallace famously stood in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama in 1963 to keep it segregated, despite the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which integrated public schools.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization, wrote the Texas leaders and those of the other states with laws against gay marriage urging immediate implementation of the court's ruling.

"Delaying the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples is not only unlawful, but allows the discriminatory impacts of an unconstitutional law to continue," said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow.

But in the Magnolia State, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hunt said, the decision "is not immediately effective in Mississippi." A circuit judge had issued a stay on an order lifting the state's same-sex marriage ban and Hunt said the state cannot proceed until the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifts it, a process that could take several days or more.

In Louisiana, Attorney General James D. "Buddy" Caldwell said, he was "extremely disappointed" by the ruling.

"It fails to respect traditional marriage as defined by Louisiana voters, and is yet another example of the federal government intrusion into what should be a state issue," he said.

Moreover, Caldwell said, "the Attorney General's office said that it has found nothing in today's decision that makes the court's order effective immediately. Therefore, there is not yet a legal requirement for officials to issue marriage licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples in Louisiana."

Kentucky, by contrast, which has banned gay marriage since 2004, quickly moved to issue licenses. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Steven Beshear sent a letter to all the county clerks in the state, saying that the state "must license and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples."

"Neither your oath nor the Supreme Court dictates what you must believe," said Beshear. "But as elected officials, they do prescribe how we must act."




“Conservatives responded forcefully to the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, but nowhere more so than in Texas, which openly defied the ruling. "No Texan is required by the Supreme Court's decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage," said Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. …. To opponents of gay marriage, religious liberty trumps the Supreme Court. "No court can overturn natural law. Nature and Nature's God, hailed by the signers of our Declaration of Independence as the very source of law, cannot be usurped by the edict of a court, even the United States Supreme Court," said Frank Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. In a directive to all Texas state agencies that he issued after the court's decision, Abbott, who was the state attorney general before being elected governor last year, said that religious liberty would take priority over the legalization of gay marriage — potentially stopping the issuance of same-sex licenses and enabling officials to refuse to perform marriage ceremonies. …. Abbott's memo forbids retaliation against anyone who refuses to implement the Supreme Court decision, although numerous jurisdictions in urban areas, such as Houston's Harris County and San Antonio's Bexar County began issuing licenses to gay couples. …. "Neither your oath nor the Supreme Court dictates what you must believe," said Beshear. "But as elected officials, they do prescribe how we must act."

Changes in laws are rarely simple or clear-cut. One state leader has even said that since there is no date specified in the new decision it is not, therefore, legally binding. The few times I have read the actual text of a law, the wording was convoluted, the paragraphs ran on and on, and many of the words don’t follow standard English usage. As a result law cases follow one another endlessly, especially when there is a group who very much wants to overturn the law. I’m sure this one will be the same.





http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-companies-are-speaking-up-about-gay-marriage/ar-AAcc2jH?ocid=iehp

Why companies are speaking up about gay marriage
The Washington Post
Jacob Bogage
June 27, 2015

Photograph -- © Ben & Jerry’s Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s

Looking for Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream? The company renamed it, "I dough, I dough," on Friday to celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage. A bevy of other companies -- like Southwest Airlines and Target -- tweeted their celebrations as well.

We’re renaming Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to “I Dough, I Dough” in our Scoop Shops http://t.co/J8Kd69hr29 #LoveWins pic.twitter.com/5bm2Oa8YTL

AT&T turned its blue globe logo into a rainbow an hour after the ruling was announced. Fast casual chain Chipotle tweeted "Homo estas? Very well, thank you. #LoveWins" to its more than 650,000 followers.

One of the most striking reactions to the high court's historic decision was the overwhelming support from the nation's corporate giants, marking a departure from when American companies shied away from controversial social issues.

The enthusiastic business support for the ruling is a reflection of the popular groundswell of support for gay marriage, analysts said. Companies risked more financial harm if they stayed silent on the issue rather than voicing an opinion that alienated clients who side with the court's dissenters, they said.

"Anytime you take a stand on an issue you will polarize some part of the marketplace," said Allen Adamson, chairman of brand-consulting firm Landor.

The support from some of the country's largest companies raised the ire of some conservatives who threatened to take their business elsewhere.

After Southwest tweeted "#SouthwestHeart beats for love," with the hashtags "MarriageEquality" and "LoveWins," David Lane, founder of the American Renewal Project, threatened to do just that.

"If Southwest Airlines wants to get embroiled in the cultural battle over same-sex marriage -- and alienate 50 percent or so of your customers -- this tweet is a good way to do that," Lane wrote to Southwest in an e-mail he provided to The Washington Post.

"I think the businesses that are doing this are very shortsighted," he said later in an interview. "I think the only way they walk this back is if there’s pain involved."

Southwest, which didn't return requests for comment, operates hubs in the South and Midwest, regions where support for gay marriage is the lowest in the country.

The question for these companies, analysts said, is who do you want to upset? Saying nothing will land businesses in the doghouse with young consumers who want companies to be corporate citizens, not just salesmen, Adamson said. But alienating conservatives comes with its own risks.

Corporations need to build their own identities beyond their product, he said. Those tactics traditionally were reserved for issues where the country's opinion was united, like during times of war or after natural disasters.

Now, if businesses don't say something, consumers -- especially millennials, a demographic companies are desperate to make brand-loyal -- are likely to walk away.

"If a company doesn’t stand up, customers will vote with their wallet and go elsewhere," Adamson said. "And it's not because there's better coffee or jeans or airplanes."

Levi Strauss & Co. has a history of speaking out on social issues, including being an advocate for HIV/AIDS education, and has not shied away from weighing in on gay marriage.

It was the first company to file a friend of the court brief when the California Supreme Court debated same-sex marriage in 2007. Today, it sent out multiple posts on Twitter in support of the decision and featured a rainbow-themed logo.

"Consumers care about value and they also care about values," said Anna Walker, Levi's senior director of public policy and advocacy.




“The enthusiastic business support for the ruling is a reflection of the popular groundswell of support for gay marriage, analysts said. Companies risked more financial harm if they stayed silent on the issue rather than voicing an opinion that alienated clients who side with the court's dissenters, they said. "Anytime you take a stand on an issue you will polarize some part of the marketplace," said Allen Adamson, chairman of brand-consulting firm Landor. …. "If Southwest Airlines wants to get embroiled in the cultural battle over same-sex marriage -- and alienate 50 percent or so of your customers -- this tweet is a good way to do that," Lane wrote to Southwest in an e-mail he provided to The Washington Post. "I think the businesses that are doing this are very shortsighted," he said later in an interview. "I think the only way they walk this back is if there’s pain involved." …. The question for these companies, analysts said, is who do you want to upset? Saying nothing will land businesses in the doghouse with young consumers who want companies to be corporate citizens, not just salesmen, Adamson said. But alienating conservatives comes with its own risks. …. Now, if businesses don't say something, consumers -- especially millennials, a demographic companies are desperate to make brand-loyal -- are likely to walk away. "If a company doesn’t stand up, customers will vote with their wallet and go elsewhere," Adamson said. "And it's not because there's better coffee or jeans or airplanes."

A case in point here is one which unfolded on Facebook within the last year or so. It concerned the “open carry” laws. Suddenly news articles and photos began to appear on the website showing what I can only call “gangs” of thirty something men parading though places such as Target and Walmart with huge automatic weapons and ammunition containers strapped across their inevitably fat and flabby bodies like a Mexican Bandito in an old movie. They were demonstrating their right to carry the weapons anywhere. Within a month the photos were being copied from one Facebook page to another with derisive comments made by the posters. In addition, thousands of email, tweets, and comments on the Walmart or Target Facebook pages flooded into their corporate offices. It was more effective than I expected, because both stores issued statements that open carry on their premises was absolutely unacceptable. For the last few months I have seen no more of those photos. It seems to be a dead issue now except among the unhappy “rednecks” who were so incensed about their guaranteed freedoms in the first place.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-gov-time-to-move-on-from-same-sex-marriage/

GOP gov.: "Time to move on" from same-sex marriage
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
June 28, 2015

Play VIDEO -- LGBT activist: Fight goes on after landmark marriage ruling Play VIDEO
Video –- Same-sex opponent: conservative beliefs need to be respected

Possible Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich believes it's "time to move on" from the same-sex marriage issue in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling.

"I do believe in traditional marriage and the court has ruled and it's time to move on," Kasich said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, adding that there's "so many other things now that we have to focus on."

Gov. John Kasich talks issues ahead of possible 2016 run
Kasich, who has not yet officially announced a bid for the White House in 2016, believes the country needs to wait and see "how this evolves."

"I think everybody needs to take a deep breath to see how this evolves," the Ohio governor, who was the named defendant in the original lawsuit brought by Jim Obergefell over same-sex marriage, said. "But I know this. Religious institutions, religious entities - you know, like the Catholic church - they need to be honored as well. I think there's an ability to strike a balance."

But while the Republican governor has conceded that "it's the law of the land and we'll abide by it," some in the conservative wing have expressed their willingness to take on the same-sex marriage fight over the long term.

Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention told CBS' "Face the Nation" that people of faith "are not going to simply surrender" their traditional marriage views because of the Supreme Court ruling.

"We didn't make up our views on marriage and sexuality, and we can't unmake them," Moore said Sunday. "We understand that in the short term, things are very stacked against us here, but we ought to have the pluralistic American environment where we can agree to disagree."

Instead, Moore added, "we're going to have to take a page from the pro-life movement and see this as a long-term strategy."

"I don't think that an infinitely elastic view of marriage is sustainable," the evangelical leader said. "I think we have to be the people who keep the light lit to the old ways when it comes to marriage and family and that's going to be a generation-long skirmish."

In a nod to the upcoming 2016 elections, Moore acknowledged that it's "not something that's going to be resolved in a presidential election or two."

Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin also appeared on "Face the Nation" to praise the ruling, but called for more progress when it came to LGBT rights.

"While this was a monumental leap forward in this country, we still have a long ways to go," Griffin said. "You know, in a majority of states in the country still today, after this ruling, you can be married at 10:00 a.m., fired from your job by noon and evicted from your home by 2:00, simply for posting that wedding photo on Facebook. And so, as you look at the battles ahead, we've got to bring full and comprehensive non-discrimination protections to everyone living in every state in this country and that's the next battle in Congress."

SEE ALSO: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/same-sex-couples-still-cannot-marry-in-louisiana-mississippi/




"I do believe in traditional marriage and the court has ruled and it's time to move on," Kasich said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, adding that there's "so many other things now that we have to focus on." Gov. John Kasich talks issues ahead of possible 2016 run. Kasich, who has not yet officially announced a bid for the White House in 2016, believes the country needs to wait and see "how this evolves." "I think everybody needs to take a deep breath to see how this evolves," the Ohio governor, who was the named defendant in the original lawsuit brought by Jim Obergefell over same-sex marriage, said. "But I know this. Religious institutions, religious entities - you know, like the Catholic church - they need to be honored as well. I think there's an ability to strike a balance." …. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention told CBS' "Face the Nation" that people of faith "are not going to simply surrender" their traditional marriage views because of the Supreme Court ruling. "We didn't make up our views on marriage and sexuality, and we can't unmake them," Moore said Sunday. "We understand that in the short term, things are very stacked against us here, but we ought to have the pluralistic American environment where we can agree to disagree." Instead, Moore added, "we're going to have to take a page from the pro-life movement and see this as a long-term strategy." …. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin … said "While this was a monumental leap forward in this country, we still have a long ways to go," Griffin said. "You know, in a majority of states in the country still today, after this ruling, you can be married at 10:00 a.m., fired from your job by noon and evicted from your home by 2:00, simply for posting that wedding photo on Facebook.”

Griffin’s wry and wise comment is undoubtedly the truth. It’s too early for fullscale celebrations. The other shoe hasn’t dropped yet! I believe real progress has been made, but just like the black/white social issues feelings on this one are deep and raw. Personally, I’m happy about it. I am prepared for news of another sort, however. I pray it won’t take the form of renewed violence towards gays.





http://news.yahoo.com/python-eats-porcupine-regrets-later-heres-why-114016276.html

Python Eats Porcupine, Regrets It Later (Here's Why)
LiveScience.com By Elizabeth Palermo
June 27, 2015

Ever wonder what might happen if a python ate a porcupine? Well, wonder no more. One of these giant snakes — which kill prey by suffocating it and then consuming it whole — recently dined on a porcupine and didn't live to brag about it.

On June 14, a cyclist riding along one of the mountain bike trails at the Lake Eland Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, spotted a very engorged snake. The cyclist snapped a few photos of the gluttonous python and posted them to social media, where they quickly attracted the attention of locals who wanted to see the python themselves. Lots of people came to the park in the following days just to view the swollen snake, according to Jennifer Fuller, general manager at the game reserve.

At the time the photos were taken, no one knew what the snake had eaten, just that it must have been something fairly large. On the Lake Eland Game Reserve Facebook page, park staff and visitors speculated as to what the snake may have swallowed for dinner, suggesting everything from a small warthog to a baby impala to an errant child (that last one was posted as a joke). [See Images of the Engorged Python Dining on Porcupine]

But on Saturday, June 20, park rangers found the python dead near the bike trail. They decided to cut it open and have a look inside. What they found was one heck of a snack: a 30-lb. (13.8 kilograms) porcupine.

It isn't unusual for pythons to eat porcupines, Fuller told Live Science in an email. In fact, many species of snakes eat porcupines and other horned or quilled animals, according to a study published in 2003 in the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetology. And while a 30-lb. meal might sound like too much to digest, it isn't if you're a python.

As Fuller noted, pythons in the Lake Eland Game Reserve have been spotted consuming even larger prey, including adult oribi antelope, which can weigh nearly 50 lbs. (22.7 kg). Pythons possess the incredible ability to alter their metabolism, as well as the size of their organs, after a meal. This allows the a python to digest prey that is much larger than the snake is, according to a study published in 2013 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It still isn't clear if this python's spiky meal was actually responsible for the predator's death. Rangers found the snake underneath a rocky ledge, where it had apparently fallen. On impact, the quills inside its engorged belly may have pierced the python's digestive tract, which could have killed the animal, Fuller said.

In the 2003 study, entitled "Prickly food: snakes preying upon porcupines," researchers found that when a snake eats a porcupine, the animal's quills are left undigested and are easily detectable in the snake's gut. Sometimes, the quills will even pierce all the way through the snake's body, according to the study. But there's no word yet on whether this particular snake died because it was pierced by quills or because it fell off a ledge (or because it was pierced by quills as a result of falling off the ledge), Fuller told the Australian news website News.com.

Rangers at the reserve stripped off the python's skin after removing the porcupine from the predator's digestive track. They also took measurements of the snake's massive body, which was 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) long. Special attention was paid to the animal's head, which features a highly flexible jaw that allows the animal to open its mouth wide to swallow prey whole.

Despite popular belief, a python's jaw does not actually dislocate when the snake is eating. The two lower jaws move independently of one another, and the quadrate bone at the back of the head attaches the jaw loosely to the skull, allowing the jaw to move around freely.




“But on Saturday, June 20, park rangers found the python dead near the bike trail. They decided to cut it open and have a look inside. What they found was one heck of a snack: a 30-lb. (13.8 kilograms) porcupine. It isn't unusual for pythons to eat porcupines, Fuller told Live Science in an email. In fact, many species of snakes eat porcupines and other horned or quilled animals, according to a study published in 2003 in the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetology. And while a 30-lb. meal might sound like too much to digest, it isn't if you're a python. As Fuller noted, pythons in the Lake Eland Game Reserve have been spotted consuming even larger prey, including adult oribi antelope, which can weigh nearly 50 lbs. (22.7 kg). Pythons possess the incredible ability to alter their metabolism, as well as the size of their organs, after a meal. This allows the a python to digest prey that is much larger than the snake is …. researchers found that when a snake eats a porcupine, the animal's quills are left undigested and are easily detectable in the snake's gut. Sometimes, the quills will even pierce all the way through the snake's body, according to the study. But there's no word yet on whether this particular snake died because it was pierced by quills or because it fell off a ledge…”

Biology is always interesting to me – the patterns of life are so very varied and unpredictable – but in a few cases it has tended to turn my stomach. This is one of those. A snake, even if it was over 12’ long, eating something bigger than it is, seems very spooky to me, and its having jaws that are so loosely connected in its mouth that they can stretch out like that is not for me. My favorite animals are relatively small and furry, with enough intelligence to communicate on some level with humans. A photograph I saw on the net last month really shocked me. It was of a black animal of some kind hanging upside down by its feet to a fence with a grown man standing beside it to show its size. It looked to be about five feet long, and as you may have guessed, it was of all things a bat. I don’t like any bats at all, and when they are as long as I am tall, the thought of them horrifies me.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elijah-cummings-not-enough-to-take-down-confederate-flag/

Cummings: "Not enough" to take down Confederate flag
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
June 28, 2015

As the debate rages on over the removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina's capitol, one Democrat is saying that taking down the "symbol of racial hatred" is only the first step.

"I think it is a major thing that has to happen, and it will happen, I agree. And I applaud the folks in South Carolina for doing that. I also applaud the Governor of Alabama for doing what he's done, taking down the flag," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "But that is simply is not enough. That is simply a symbol of bigotry, a symbol of racial hatred, a symbol of inequality for me and for so many others."

Several Republican leaders have called for the removal of the Confederate flag from where it flies near South Carolina's capitol building, after a gunman with white supremacist ideologies killed nine people at a historic black church in Charleston. Gov. Nikki Haley, joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, said Monday that it was "time to move" the Confederate symbol.

"Now we must begin to address racial disparities and inequalities themselves," Cummings added. "And I think that's the most important thing. Again, it's good to take the flag down, but now we have to move beyond that."

On Friday, at the funeral service of pastor and State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the president also threw in his support for the Confederate flag's removal, saying that doing so was not an insult to the South's Confederate ancestors but that it "would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought - the cause of slavery - was wrong."

But the president also called for progress beyond taking down the symbol. Cummings said that that he believed Obama wanted the nation to "pull the blinders from over our eyes."

"We don't have the right to remain silent about what we see. In the past, we've put Band-Aids on the symptoms," the Maryland Democrat said. "[We've] said okay we've got a problem here, so we'll do something there and here. But the fact still remains."

Rather than ignore systemic racist practices, Cummings wants the nation to focus on issues like joblessness, healthcare access, education, and the criminal justice system -- "things that go to the quality of life of African Americans and other people."

"Let's begin to act. It's nice to talk. But at some point the talk has to turn into deeds, to actually affect people's lives from day to day," Cummings said.

And for cities like Baltimore, where racial tensions flared after the death of a young black man in police custody, there's still "a long way to go."

Cummings, who represents a large swath of Baltimore County in the House of Representatives, has a lot of hope for the progress made since violent protests rocked the city in April. Baltimore hasn't, he said, "slipped back to business as usual."

"I don't think Baltimore will ever be the same," Cummings said. "Is it going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy. Dealing with problems that have been systemic for so long. It's going to be very difficult."




“Gov. Nikki Haley, joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, said Monday that it was "time to move" the Confederate symbol. "Now we must begin to address racial disparities and inequalities themselves," Cummings added. "And I think that's the most important thing. Again, it's good to take the flag down, but now we have to move beyond that." …. But the president also called for progress beyond taking down the symbol. Cummings said that that he believed Obama wanted the nation to "pull the blinders from over our eyes." "We don't have the right to remain silent about what we see. In the past, we've put Band-Aids on the symptoms," the Maryland Democrat said. "[We've] said okay we've got a problem here, so we'll do something there and here. But the fact still remains." Rather than ignore systemic racist practices, Cummings wants the nation to focus on issues like joblessness, healthcare access, education, and the criminal justice system -- "things that go to the quality of life of African Americans and other people." …. And for cities like Baltimore, where racial tensions flared after the death of a young black man in police custody, there's still "a long way to go." Cummings, who represents a large swath of Baltimore County in the House of Representatives, has a lot of hope for the progress made since violent protests rocked the city in April. Baltimore hasn't, he said, "slipped back to business as usual." "I don't think Baltimore will ever be the same," Cummings said. "Is it going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy. Dealing with problems that have been systemic for so long. It's going to be very difficult."

Progress and action. I think the average US citizen now is more aware of a need for that than a year ago. The term “before Ferguson” will be used fairly often, I think. At least I think of it that way. The way the racist incidents have popped up across the country in the last six months with each incident having eerie similarities like the killer declaring “I feared for my life.” It is becoming clear to the observer that the racism we are fighting is indeed “systemic.” It isn’t “a few bad apples.”

We need to sniff out and identify enclaves of the White Supremacy belief system and check them out to see how active they are, as it is from such groups that Roof the SC killer latched onto their website’s propaganda and decided to “take action” because he thought that most people just weren’t brave enough to do it. Neighbor talks this mantra to neighbor and sometimes religious leaders preach it, because he thought that most people just weren’t brave enough to do it. Neighbor talks this mantra to neighbor and sometimes religious leaders preach it in the pulpit. There is at least one group of churches called “Christian Identity” churches and they preach against both Jews and blacks. It’s a lack of good mental health that causes this, but it is also what I have to call “evil,” and “the God of my understanding” is surely not in support of these things. I am trying to see that I don’t enter into rancorous interactions with people of any other race of religion, because I believe that doing good actually counteracts evil. I also believe, however, that as white citizens, we have to speak up for fairness, opportunity and freedom for all. I try to do that with this blog, and I am finding no lack of grist for the mill in the daily news reports.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/benghazi-committee-chair-wants-john-kerry-to-testify-on-clinton-emails/

Benghazi Committee Chair wants John Kerry to testify
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
June 28, 2015

After recent revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not turn over all her email records relating to Libya, the top Republican on the Benghazi committee says he intends to take the issue all way to the current State Department head.

"I have met with Secretary Kerry's chief of staff privately. We've talked on the phone last week. Our next interaction will be public," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If I don't get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself."

The Republican congressman, who has spearheaded efforts to recover Clinton's private emails relating to Benghazi, says that while he understands Secretary Kerry's schedule can be demanding, "he is the only thing standing between me and a completed investigation."

Gowdy said that he will call on Clinton herself to testify "just as soon as the Department of State decides to give me the documents that I need."

The State Department said that only 15 emails were missing in their records handed over from Clinton's private server -- all of them predating the 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility.

On the heels of Gowdy's scathing statement Thursday on the latest email revelations, the Clinton camp responded with criticism that the Republicans on the Benghazi committee were "clinging to their invented scandal, one that's on life-support."

"Their latest witch-hunt is based on the testimony of a non-government employee and a set of documents he turned over," Clinton campaign John Podesta said in a statement to CBS News. "That leaves one question that prominently remains: What, if anything at all, does this have to do with Benghazi?"

Gowdy fired back at Podesta's biting remarks on Sunday, saying "the murder of four of my fellow Americans is not an invented scandal."

"We were asked by our colleagues in the House to look at all policies, all activities, all decisions that led up to the attacks in Benghazi, the patency of the attacks themselves, the administration's response and the aftermath," Gowdy said.

The email revelation, the Republican congressman asserted, "undercuts" the arguments Clinton had made when she said that she had turned over all word-related emails to the State Department.

"I have met with Secretary Kerry's chief of staff privately. We've talked on the phone last week. Our next interaction will be public," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If I don't get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself."




“…. the top Republican on the Benghazi committee says he intends to take the issue all way to the current State Department head. "I have met with Secretary Kerry's chief of staff privately. We've talked on the phone last week. Our next interaction will be public," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If I don't get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself." …. Gowdy said that he will call on Clinton herself to testify "just as soon as the Department of State decides to give me the documents that I need." The State Department said that only 15 emails were missing in their records handed over from Clinton's private server -- all of them predating the 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility. …. "Their latest witch-hunt is based on the testimony of a non-government employee and a set of documents he turned over," Clinton campaign John Podesta said in a statement to CBS News. "That leaves one question that prominently remains: What, if anything at all, does this have to do with Benghazi?" Gowdy fired back at Podesta's biting remarks on Sunday, saying "the murder of four of my fellow Americans is not an invented scandal." "We were asked by our colleagues in the House to look at all policies, all activities, all decisions that led up to the attacks in Benghazi, the patency of the attacks themselves, the administration's response and the aftermath," Gowdy said.”

I wonder if anybody really knows whether or not they have all the emails. It is clear that the Republicans want to continue to attack Dems over a matter that has never been sufficiently well explained in the first place. It seems they think somebody (who??) told the marines to “stand down” and left the embassy without protection. Now that would be a real scandal if it isn’t actually an error by the chain of command, but I question whether or not it is true. I wonder if Wikipedia has any comments on it? See the “Factcheck” article below.


NOTE: For complete Factcheck timeline on the events on the ground, see my “Thoughts and Researches” blog collection on website: “manessmorrison2.blogspot.com” for this whole article on the events at the embassy.


http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/
Benghazi Timeline

The long road from "spontaneous protest" to premeditated terrorist attack.
Posted on October 26, 2012 | Updated on May 2, 2014

Summary

The question won’t go away: Did President Obama and administration officials mislead the public when they initially claimed that the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi began “spontaneously” in response to an anti-Muslim video?

The question surfaced again on Oct. 25 — more than six weeks after the incident — when government emails showed the White House and the State Department were told even as the attack was going on that Ansar al-Sharia, a little-known militant group, had claimed credit for it.
We cannot say whether the administration was intentionally misleading the public. We cannot prove intent. There is also more information to come — both from the FBI, which is conducting an investigation, and Congress, which has been holding hearings.

But, at this point, we do know that Obama and others in the administration were quick to cite the anti-Muslim video as the underlying cause for the attack in Benghazi that killed four U.S. diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. And they were slow to acknowledge it was a premeditated terrorist attack, and they downplayed reports that it might have been.
What follows is a timeline of events that we hope will help put the incident into perspective. We call attention in particular to these key facts:

There were no protesters at the Benghazi consulate prior to the attack, even though Obama and others repeatedly said the attackers joined an angry mob that had formed in opposition to the anti-Muslim film that had triggered protests in Egypt and elsewhere. The State Department disclosed this fact Oct. 9 — nearly a month after the attack.

Libya President Mohamed Magariaf insisted on Sept. 16 — five days after the attack — that it was a planned terrorist attack, but administration officials continued for days later to say there was no evidence of a planned attack.

Magariaf also said the idea that the attack was a “spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.” This, too, was on Sept. 16. Yet, Obama and others continued to describe the incident in exactly those terms — including during the president’s Sept. 18 appearance on the “Late Show With David Letterman.”
Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was the first administration official to call it “a terrorist attack” during a Sept. 19 congressional hearing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did the same on Sept. 20. Even so, Obama declined opportunities to call it a terrorist attack when asked at a town hall meeting on Sept. 20 and during a taping of “The View” on Sept. 24.”