November 27, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://news.yahoo.com/north-south-korea-hold-rare-talks-005744160.html


North, South Korea agree to high-level talks next month
By Park Chan-Kyong
November 26, 2015

Related Stories

North, South Korea to hold rare talks next week AFP
North, South Korea plan further talks to improve ties after standoff Reuters
2 Koreas hold border talks to discuss improved ties Associated Press
UN chief Ban Ki-moon to visit North Korea: Yonhap AFP
Rival Koreas agree to meet at border village next week Associated Press
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Photographs -- View gallerySouth Korea wants regular reunions for families separated … South Korea wants regular reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War (AFP Photo/KPPA)


Seoul (AFP) - The two Koreas agreed Thursday to hold a rare high-level dialogue next month, in line with an accord struck in August aimed at easing cross-border tensions.

A Unification Ministry official in Seoul said the two sides would meet at the deputy minister level on December 11 in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, just inside North Korea.

Agreement on the dialogue was reached at working-level talks held Thursday in the border truce village of Panmunjom, which ran late into the night.

Unification Ministry Spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told reporters that the North Koreans had initially demanded a set agenda for the Kaesong meeting, but later agreed to Seoul's proposal for a "comprehensive discussion of pending issues related to improving ties".

Although any talks between the two Koreas are generally welcomed as a step in the right direction, precedent suggests it is still too early to hope for any significant breakthrough in December.

- Protocol challenges -

A similar effort back in June 2013 saw both sides agree to hold what would have been the first high-level dialogue for six years -- only for Pyongyang to cancel a day before the talks were scheduled to begin.

In the end, it was a matter of protocol -- the North felt insulted by the South's nomination of a vice minister as its chief delegate -- that smothered the initiative before it had even drawn breath.

Jeong said Seoul had pushed for the Kaesong meeting to prioritise the issue of regular reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, which cemented the division of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea, however, wanted the initial focus to be on a resumption of visits by South Korean tour groups to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort.

The tours, a source of badly needed hard currency for the cash-strapped North, were suspended by the South in 2008 after a female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard.

Thursday's meeting in Panmunjom marked the first inter-governmental interaction since August when the two sides sat down to defuse a crisis that had pushed them to the brink of an armed conflict.

- Building on August accord -

That meeting ended with a joint agreement that included the commitment to resume high-level talks.

Under the terms of the August accord, Seoul switched off loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border after the North expressed regret over mine blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers.

The South interpreted the regret as an "apology" and admission of responsibility, but the North's powerful National Defence [sic] Commission later stressed that it was meant only as an expression of sympathy.

The move to resume high-level contact comes amid diplomatic shifts in the northeast Asia region that have left North Korea looking more isolated than ever, with Seoul moving closer to Pyongyang's main diplomatic and economic ally China, and improving previously strained relations with Tokyo.

Earlier this month, the leaders of South Korea, China and Japan held their first summit for more than three years in Seoul.

Although the focus was on trade and other economic issues, the three declared their "firm opposition" to the development of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is already under a raft of UN sanctions imposed after its three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye recently reiterated her willingness to hold face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un -- but only if Pyongyang showed some commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

The two Koreas have held two summits in the past, one in 2000 and the second in 2007.

The United Nations is also understood to be in discussions with North Korea over a visit by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon -- possibly before the end of the year.

Ban had been scheduled to visit in May this year, but Pyongyang withdrew the invitation at the last minute after he criticised a recent North Korean missile test.




“A Unification Ministry official in Seoul said the two sides would meet at the deputy minister level on December 11 in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, just inside North Korea. Agreement on the dialogue was reached at working-level talks held Thursday in the border truce village of Panmunjom, which ran late into the night. Unification Ministry Spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told reporters that the North Koreans had initially demanded a set agenda for the Kaesong meeting, but later agreed to Seoul's proposal for a "comprehensive discussion of pending issues related to improving ties". …. Jeong said Seoul had pushed for the Kaesong meeting to prioritise the issue of regular reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, which cemented the division of the Korean peninsula. North Korea, however, wanted the initial focus to be on a resumption of visits by South Korean tour groups to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort. The tours, a source of badly needed hard currency for the cash-strapped North, were suspended by the South in 2008 after a female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard. …. That meeting ended with a joint agreement that included the commitment to resume high-level talks. Under the terms of the August accord, Seoul switched off loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border after the North expressed regret over mine blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers. The South interpreted the regret as an "apology" and admission of responsibility, but the North's powerful National Defence [sic] Commission later stressed that it was meant only as an expression of sympathy. …. Earlier this month, the leaders of South Korea, China and Japan held their first summit for more than three years in Seoul. Although the focus was on trade and other economic issues, the three declared their "firm opposition" to the development of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. North Korea is already under a raft of UN sanctions imposed after its three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.”


I will be deeply impressed if North Korea can be brought to an agreement to abandon its’ nuclear weapon’s program, and also if China will stop harassing South Korea. See the following article listing the recent disputes and issues between them. http://www.cfr.org/south-korea/south-korea-seeks-balance-relations-china-united-states/p29447, “South Korea Seeks to Balance Relations with China and the United States -- Current Issues in U.S.-ROK Relations,” Author: Han Suk-hee, Associate Professor, Yonsei University. I certainly want to see at least one part of the globe become free of the threat of war which could and probably would involve the US.




A MATTER OF WORDS?


http://news.yahoo.com/democrats-problem-radical-islam-091643745.html

The Democrats’ Problem with ‘Radical Islam’
By Kim Ghattas
November 27, 2015 8 hours ago


In the wake of the Paris attacks, there’s plenty to be written about the inflammatory comments and factually incorrect statements that Republican presidential candidates are making about Islam and Muslims — from comparing them to rabid dogs to ambiguous calls for a database of Muslim-Americans. And with reports about hate crimes against Muslims on the rise in Western countries, there’s reason to worry about how the debate is fanning the flames of hatred.

But the Democrats’ rhetoric is problematic too, for very different reasons.

When Hillary Clinton was asked whether she would use the term “radical Islam’’ during the Democratic debate on Nov. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa, she demurred. She had referred to “radical jihadist ideology” in her opening statement, and then invoked President George W. Bush. She quoted him speaking after the 9/11 attacks saying “we are at war with violent extremism.” The same term is used often by President Barack Obama’s administration.

During the debate, Bernie Sanders never uttered the word Islam. When pressed about whether he would use the term radical Islam, he said, “I don’t think the term is what is important.” Martin O’Malley spoke mostly about American-Muslims’ sense of belonging in the United States and settled on the term “radical jihadis” when pushed about defining the problem as radical Islam.

During a speech a few days later in New York, Clinton took another stab, referring to “an ideological movement of radical jihadism.” Although she went further than President Barack Obama in addressing the issues at hand, she also took several jabs at Republicans for obsessing about “a clash of civilization or repeating the specific words radical Islamic terrorism.”

The White House has shown a particular allergy to making any link between extremist violence and the religion that the terrorists claim to espouse. In his press conference in Antalya, Turkey, at the G20 summit last week, President Barack emphasized that “ISIL does not represent Islam. It is not representative in any way of the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims.”

But is that sufficient to answer people’s questions and anxieties – and are Democrats accurately diagnosing the problems facing the Middle East, whether the president, administration officials or presidential candidates?

It’s ironic that while U.S. officials and Democratic politicians refuse to say “radical Islam”, these very words, in fact, are commonly used in Arabic across the Middle East: Islam mutatarrif. When I asked a handful of friends in Beirut — Muslim and non-Muslim — what they thought of Democrats refusing to use those two words to describe what drives militant groups like the so-called Islamic State, they seemed puzzled by the apparent obfuscation.

So I asked a number of experts from the region who are based in the Middle East or in Washington if the Democrats are being too political [SIC] correct, and if there is a potential downside to their rhetorical choices. This isn’t a comprehensive survey, but I was struck by the consensus around three key points.

No one envies Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or any Democrat trying to come up with smart answers on this issue amid the current atmosphere.

“The Democrats are fumbling, as we saw in the debate,” said Mukhtar Awad, an analyst at the Center for American Progress whose work focuses on Egyptian Islamists. “They’re not sure what to say, out of fear of being politically incorrect.”

But it is, of course, about more than just being politically incorrect. Whether it’s creating a permissive environment for anti-Muslim attacks in the United States, or feeding anti-Americanism in Muslim countries, which can increase the potential for attacks against Americans or U.S. embassies, there are many consequences to using loose terminology.

“This is a tricky one for non-Muslim Westerners to get right,” said Faysal Itani, a resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “I can understand why non-Muslims would want to de-link the ideology from the religion, to discourage anti-Muslim bigotry and avoid alienating Muslims from the West, which would feed the jihadist narrative of “the West vs. Islam.”

To be fair, despite the fear-mongering today among many GOP presidential candidates, the last Republican president spoke out against using jihadist violence as an excuse for anti-Muslim bigotry. “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” President George W. Bush said. “Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”

Most people outside of the United States will not differentiate between statements by various Republicans, say, or Democrats and administration officials. It will all be conflated as the current U.S. attitude toward the Middle East, with the consequence of putting Muslims on the defensive. Still, the Democrats’ approach also has downsides.

Tiptoeing around the word doesn’t help, whether in describing the militants, the ideology, or the groups using violence.

Itani warned that taking the word “Islam” out of the discussion “makes the conflict appear much less complicated than it is, which in turn makes it easier for Western governments to pursue shallow policies toward jihadist Islamism.” This has been seen so far, he said, by a U.S. strategy that seems to consist largely of air strikes, “with no thought to the milieu in which [jihadists] operate, as if they are some anomaly from Mars that has nothing to do with the dire state of Muslim civilization.”

The discussion about the state of Muslim civilization is already much more audacious in small pockets of the Middle East than any discussion being had in the United States, including by Muslim-Americans. From a small but growing trend of atheism, to Egyptian preachers like Islam al-Buhairi, who openly defy the strict austere interpretation of the Quran, or television anchors daring enough to call attention to the content of sermons by Saudi preachers, there is no shortage of candid voices on the issue. After a string of attacks against Shiite mosques in the kingdom earlier this year, Saudis even openly debated the role of clerics in stoking sectarianism with extremist religious rhetoric. Saudi commentator Ibrahim Shaalan tweeted in Arabic, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, Daesh, that the group’s “actions are but an epitome of what we’ve studied in our school curriculum. If the curriculum is sound, then Daesh is right, and if it is wrong, then who bears responsibility?”

Hassan Hassan, a fellow resident at Chatham House and co-author of the bestselling book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, said that debate should have been encouraged by governments and religious authorities. Instead, governments in the region silenced it by insisting that the violence — whether in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Syria — had nothing to do with Islam. Countries like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates also pushed allies, including the United States, to stop using the term “Islamic State.”

French officials and increasingly Obama administration officials have obliged. Both have taken to using the word “Daesh” to describe the organization, not wanting to use terminology that includes the word “Islamic.” But nothing peeves Arabic-speakers more as a useless exercise in semantics, because Daesh is simply the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham — al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. In other word, it incorporates the term “Islamic” as much as the English-language acronym.

While terminology can be important in efforts to delegitimize an organization, this argument isn’t going to make a dent in IS’s reputation for its members or sympathisers. More crucial is what the group is called in Arabic on popular television stations such as al-Jazeera, which uses the term “Organization of the Islamic State” (Tanzeem al-Dawla al-Islamiyya), conferring some legitimacy to it.

Hassan believes that the best way to delegitimize the organization is to actually call it by its chosen name, “The Islamic State,” and describe its state as a caliphate. If you avoid using these words, Hassan said, “it’s as if you’re saying that an Islamic State is much purer than what ISIS is trying to do. We need to make sure that what they’re doing, the horrible things they’re doing to people inside the region, remains associated with [the idea] of an Islamic State.”

Otherwise, Hassan warns, we’re not dealing with the root ideology and even if the organization is defeated, the idea will remain, and someone else will try again to define and impose his own vision as the true, pure version of Islam in a caliphate.

By playing along with some Arab governments’ denial of the existence of a problem with the ideology of those on the fringes of Islam, Nadia Oweidat, a lecturer of Islamic thought at Georgetown University, argued that the Democrats’ approach can actually backfire on religious reformers. The tactic “can potentially alienate those who want to reform Islamic thought,” she said. “[I]f the problem is viewed as non-Islamic, then you don’t need to address Islamic thought.”

Democrats should call Islamist extremism what it is, and encourage debate.

The experts I spoke to all came up with variations on the same terms to describe militants using violence to achieve their aims: “Jihadist Islamists” or “Islamist extremists”. This helps narrow the description to what is a very specific modern ideology and, according to Awad, to make sure that the “starting point in the debate is not the average Muslim, practicing his five pillars of the faith.”

It is still not up to the United States or any Western country to call for reform within Islam, argued Itani. “Western criticism of Islam — even of its fringe jihadist forms — may simply make Muslims even more defensive and less likely to have an honest debate about their religion” he said.

But Oweidat believes that the United States and Europe do have a role in sparking a conversation on this issue. “Western strategy, whether explicitly or quietly, must be to help those who are trying to further the debate about freedom of conscience, freedom to debate religious issues,” she said.

That’s a tricky proposition, because it can be seen as interference in domestic affairs. Saudi Arabia, for example, has pushed back hard against any criticism of the jailing and flogging of Saudi blogger and dissident Raif Badawi, who was convicted by a Saudi court of “insulting Islam.” In another shocking development, Ashraf Fayad, a Palestinian poet living in Saudi Arabia and a leading member of the country’s nascent art scene, has just been sentenced to death for apostasy. His friends believe he is being punished for posting a video of religious police lashing a man in public.

Whether the president is a Democrat or Republican, the nature of U.S. alliances with some Middle East countries, as well as massive arms deals, remains an obstacle to tough conversations about matters of faith. In her CFR speech, Clinton touched on the issue by saying that “the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as the schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path to radicalization.” That may be a fine statement for a presidential candidate — but probably not a conversation that a sitting U.S. president would have with the Saudi king.

But for Democrats, whether Obama or the presidential candidates, the best way to set themselves apart from the Republican approach of appealing to fear isn’t to pooh-pooh people’s anxieties, or to obfuscate and dismiss the problem. Rather, the best strategy is to name it accurately, explain it to the public, and lay out smart, comprehensive strategies that go beyond a bombing campaign.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images




“In the wake of the Paris attacks, there’s plenty to be written about the inflammatory comments and factually incorrect statements that Republican presidential candidates are making about Islam and Muslims — from comparing them to rabid dogs to ambiguous calls for a database of Muslim-Americans. And with reports about hate crimes against Muslims on the rise in Western countries, there’s reason to worry about how the debate is fanning the flames of hatred. But the Democrats’ rhetoric is problematic too, for very different reasons. …. She had referred to “radical jihadist ideology” in her opening statement, and then invoked President George W. Bush. She quoted him speaking after the 9/11 attacks saying “we are at war with violent extremism.” The same term is used often by President Barack Obama’s administration. During the debate, Bernie Sanders never uttered the word Islam. When pressed about whether he would use the term radical Islam, he said, “I don’t think the term is what is important.” Martin O’Malley spoke mostly about American-Muslims’ sense of belonging in the United States and settled on the term “radical jihadis” when pushed about defining the problem as radical Islam. …. In his press conference in Antalya, Turkey, at the G20 summit last week, President Barack emphasized that “ISIL does not represent Islam. It is not representative in any way of the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims.” But is that sufficient to answer people’s questions and anxieties – and are Democrats accurately diagnosing the problems facing the Middle East …. But it is, of course, about more than just being politically incorrect. Whether it’s creating a permissive environment for anti-Muslim attacks in the United States, or feeding anti-Americanism in Muslim countries, which can increase the potential for attacks against Americans or U.S. embassies, there are many consequences to using loose terminology. …. To be fair, despite the fear-mongering today among many GOP presidential candidates, the last Republican president spoke out against using jihadist violence as an excuse for anti-Muslim bigotry. “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” President George W. Bush said. “Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.” …. Itani warned that taking the word “Islam” out of the discussion “makes the conflict appear much less complicated than it is, which in turn makes it easier for Western governments to pursue shallow policies toward jihadist Islamism.” This has been seen so far, he said, by a U.S. strategy that seems to consist largely of air strikes, “with no thought to the milieu in which [jihadists] operate, as if they are some anomaly from Mars that has nothing to do with the dire state of Muslim civilization.” The discussion about the state of Muslim civilization is already much more audacious in small pockets of the Middle East than any discussion being had in the United States, including by Muslim-Americans. From a small but growing trend of atheism, to Egyptian preachers like Islam al-Buhairi, who openly defy the strict austere interpretation of the Quran, or television anchors daring enough to call attention to the content of sermons by Saudi preachers, there is no shortage of candid voices on the issue.”


I do believe that our Democratic candidates are right to avoid fanning the fire of religious and cultural hatred, while rightfully damning the fanatical and violent crimes of groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc. Even George W. Bush carefully described it as “a war on terror” and explained that the US has Islamic friends. Social scientists say that it is the poverty and hopelessness in some areas which are generating anger and violent jihadist in the US and elsewhere. A news article some years ago explained that the term jihad simply means “struggle,” so violence of the type that is threatening society now is not specifically sanctioned in the Koran; or as some religious phrase it, “it isn’t Islam.” This article makes clear that there is an active dialogue among Muslims now on combatting such poisonous rhetoric, which is the most hopeful thing in this article. They say “hope springs eternal,” and certainly every day brings new possibilities of a better future. It’s time to pray.






http://www.cbsnews.com/news/german-arrested-on-suspicion-supplying-paris-terror-attacks-gunmen-with-weapons/

2 weeks later, possible new lead in Paris attacks
CBS NEWS
November 27, 2015

Related story -- France: Assad's troops could help fight ISIS


In a sober reminder of the death and destruction brought by ISIS, French President Francois Hollande led a memorial service Friday in Paris, exactly two weeks after the terror attacks on the city, during which the names of all of the victims were read aloud.

The service was held at a former military hospital where Napoleon is buried -- where the nation usually honors its war heroes.

But two weeks later, it's not just France and Belgium that are dealing with the implications of the Paris terror attacks.

In Germany, a man was arrested on suspicion of supplying the Paris gunmen with weapons, reports CBS News correspondent Debora Patta. Two other Germans were also arrested, but in what has now become a familiar pattern, they were quickly released without charge.

In Belgium, prosecutors announced an unidentified man was charged with being involved in "terrorist attacks and taking part in the activities of a terrorist group." Authorities arrested the man in Brussels Thursday. No other details were provided.

It took more than 10 minutes for all 130 names of the Paris victims to be read out. They ranged in age from 17 to 63. They were daughters and sons, parents and friends. Each one loved, each one mourned -- all victims of the mass killings by ISIS in Paris.

Then silence to remember the moment when ISIS stormed the Bataclan concert hall killing nearly 90 people and blew themselves up outside restaurants and bars in Paris killing many more.

French President Francois Hollande then moved from a very emotional ceremony to a renewed declaration of war against ISIS.

"I promise you solemnly that France will do everything to destroy the army of fanatics who carried out these crimes," Hollande said.

It's not just talk, Hollande has been working hard to strengthen the coalition forces fighting ISIS. In a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin Thursday, the two leaders appeared at a joint media conference with Hollande saying they had agreed to increase the exchange of intelligence, intensify U.S.-led coalition attacks on ISIS and significantly only target ISIS.

But in a complete about turn Friday, Russia's presidential spokesman denied there was a deal saying the West was not ready to work in a single coalition. The implication of this is that Russia in all likelihood will continue its attacks on rebel groups, some backed by the West, fighting against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

In Belgium, police continue their manhunt for two Paris suspects. After five days of police raids, they are no closer to finding them; Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini are still on the run.

For the first time since the attacks, Brussels' metro system reopened fully on Friday as the city tries to return to normalcy.




“But two weeks later, it's not just France and Belgium that are dealing with the implications of the Paris terror attacks. In Germany, a man was arrested on suspicion of supplying the Paris gunmen with weapons, reports CBS News correspondent Debora Patta. Two other Germans were also arrested, but in what has now become a familiar pattern, they were quickly released without charge. In Belgium, prosecutors announced an unidentified man was charged with being involved in "terrorist attacks and taking part in the activities of a terrorist group." Authorities arrested the man in Brussels Thursday. No other details were provided. …. In a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin Thursday, the two leaders appeared at a joint media conference with Hollande saying they had agreed to increase the exchange of intelligence, intensify U.S.-led coalition attacks on ISIS and significantly only target ISIS. But in a complete about turn Friday, Russia's presidential spokesman denied there was a deal saying the West was not ready to work in a single coalition. …. In Belgium, police continue their manhunt for two Paris suspects. After five days of police raids, they are no closer to finding them; Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini are still on the run. For the first time since the attacks, Brussels' metro system reopened fully on Friday as the city tries to return to normalcy.”


I’m glad to see that things are calmer now. The business about Russia agreeing to stop bombing the anti-Assad forces and instead bomb the obvious bad boys ISIS, and then amazingly denying that it has so declared, defies belief. Lying to your own people is one thing, but lying to the whole world just makes you a pariah. I understand why Turkey shot their plane down over their “careless” or purposeful flight into their territory. Now they’re asking Turkey for an apology. Putin is really pretty disgustingly conceited and dishonest.




TRUMP TALES


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/25/trump-blasted-by-new-york-times-after-mocking-reporter-with-disability/

Trump draws scornful rebuke for mocking reporter with disability
By Jose A. DelReal
November 26, 2015 at 4:45 PM

Photograph -- a rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 24, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump mocks New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski who is disabled. (Reuters)
Photograph -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Columbus, Ohio. (AP /Paul Vernon)
*See Original 2001 Kovaleski Article below


Businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump is under fire for mocking a New York Times reporter with a congenital joint condition during a campaign rally in South Carolina this week, drawing a scornful rebuke from the reporter and others who called Trump’s actions “despicable.”

The incident occurred as Trump was defending his recent claim that he had witnessed thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001, as the World Trade Center collapsed. The assertion has since been fact-checked and discredited by law enforcement and government officials who were in New Jersey in the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks.

On stage Tuesday, Trump berated Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski for his recent recollection of an article he had written a few days after the attacks. Trump appeared to mock Kovaleski's physical condition; the reporter has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms.

“Now, the poor guy — you've got to see this guy, ‘Ah, I don't know what I said! I don't remember!' " Trump said as he jerked his arms in front of his body.

The gesture was all the more personal because Kovaleski frequently covered Trump while reporting for the New York Daily News between 1987 and 1993, a tumultuous period for Trump in which he struggled through several financial setbacks.

“The sad part about it is, it didn’t in the slightest bit jar or surprise me that Donald Trump would do something this low-rent, given his track record,” Kovaleski said.

In his speech Tuesday, Trump defended his recollection of the Muslim revelers by citing a 2001 article by Kovaleski, who worked for The Washington Post at the time, noting that “authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.”

Those allegations were never corroborated but have persisted in online rumors in the 14 years since the attacks. In an interview on CNN this week, Kovaleski said he did not recall “anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds, of people celebrating.”

Trump doubled down on seeing the celebrations in a statement Thursday and said that “despite having one of the all-time great memories,” he did not remember Kovaleski.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Kovaleski said he's sure Trump remembers him — and his condition. In video footage of Trump’s speech, the candidate said the article had been "written by a nice reporter" before he began the impersonation, seemingly indicating familiarity.

“I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic] is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence. I don’t know if he is J.J. Watt or Muhammad Ali in his prime — or somebody of less athletic or physical ability,” Trump said in a statement to The Post. “Despite having one of the all-time great memories I certainly do not remember him.”

Trump added that he thought Kovaleski's previous comments to the press “seemed like (again without knowing what he looks like) he was groveling and searching for a way out from what he wrote many years before.”

Kovaleski's comments to CNN and other news organizations did not contradict the 14-year-old article, which described the detainment and questioning of "a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river." In the interviews, Kovaleski pointed out that there were never any reports of thousands or even hundreds of Muslims celebrating, as Trump has claimed to have witnessed.

This is not the first time Trump has been accused of mocking a person’s physical appearance. In a July interview with NBC news, Trump lashed out at columnists Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer after the latter called the candidate a "rodeo clown."

“I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?” Trump said at the time.

Critics speculated that Trump had intentionally mocked Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down, while others said the comments were about Goldberg. Krauthammer contacted The Washington Post on Thursday to say that Trump's comments were about Goldberg, not himself.

Trump was also condemned in September after disparaging comments he made about former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina's physical attractiveness surfaced in an interview with Rolling Stone.

"Look at that face!" Trump reportedly told Rolling Stone. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!"

The real estate mogul later said the comment was about Fiorina’s “persona” and not her appearance.

Kovaleski's friends and colleagues took to social media this week to defend him — and excoriate Trump.

"@sergenyt is one of the best reporters — and best people— I know. This is despicable," ESPN reporter and author Don Van Natta Jr. wrote on Twitter.

"The measure of men. Know this: Serge Kovaleski, aka @sergenyt, is a journalistic rock star and one great colleague," wrote Times reporter Dan Barry.

The Times also issued a sharply worded statement Wednesday: “We think it's outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters,” a spokesman for the Times said.

Trump took specific aim at the New York Times in his statement Thursday.

“They should focus on the survival of their newspaper and not on dishonest and very bad reporting about me,” he said. “The New York Times has become more and more irrelevant and rapidly becoming a total joke — sad!”

This story has been updated to clarify to whom Trump directed his comment about the “guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.”

Jose A. DelReal covers national politics for The Washington Post.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/18/northern-new-jersey-draws-probers-eyes/40f82ea4-e015-4d6e-a87e-93aa433fafdc/

Northern New Jersey Draws Probers' Eyes
By Serge F. Kovaleski and Fredrick Kunkle
September 18, 2001 Follow @KunkleFredrick

Nov. 23, 2015: Fact checking Donald Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims celebrated 9/11 attacks]


The FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has led agents back to a familiar area: northern New Jersey.

It was there, in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, that a Muslim cell plotted the 1993 bombing of the twin towers and sought to destroy other New York landmarks as part of an urban guerrilla war against the United States.

It is believed that 13 of those detained by federal authorities for questioning in its probe into the worst terrorist act in U.S. history are from northeastern New Jersey, some from the same Journal Square area where suspects in the 1993 bombing lived.

Teams of agents have also conducted myriad interviews and seized computer and paper records at apartment buildings, businesses, hotels and motels in at least 10 towns and cities in northern New Jersey -- from Weehawken to Wayne, and Fort Lee to Florham Park. Furthermore, FBI teams and state troopers have done the same at several flight training schools and charter businesses at small airports in the area, including the Morristown and Teeterboro airports.

At Morristown Municipal Airport, Tom O'Looney, president of Certified Flyers Inc., said investigators left him a 20-page FBI watch list containing the names of 300 people. Michael Glover, director of American Flyers at the Morristown airport, said authorities asked him about any foreign nationals who may have attended his flight school. But Glover said none were on his rolls.

Law enforcement officials said northeastern New Jersey could be potentially fertile ground as 4,000 FBI special agents search for accomplices, associates and ultimately further clues about last Tuesday's devastating terrorist strikes against symbols of American financial and military might.

In October 1995, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who delivered fiery sermons at a run-down mosque in Jersey City, was convicted of directing the conspiracy to blow up the United Nations, an FBI building, and three bridges and tunnels linking New York and New Jersey. He was also convicted of being part of a plot to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sayyid Nosair of Jersey City and Cliffside Park was also charged in the 1990 killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane in Manhattan. The Kahane murder was the beginning of a series of militant acts by the Muslim cell that was encouraged by Abdel-Rahman, the group's spiritual leader.

One such act was the Feb. 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and inflicted $500 million worth of damage.

“The area in and around Jersey City has provided individuals in the past who were bent on terrorism. So I am sure that area is of great interest to investigators right now," said James K. Kallstrom, the former head of the FBI's New York office. "They are not knocking down any straw men at this point. I think now is the time when the broad spectrum of possibilities has to be looked at."

In Jersey City, an urban enclave of 240,055 people that is home to one of the largest Arab populations among U.S. cities, members of that Middle Eastern community said they are being unfairly targeted and misunderstood by the FBI.

“First of all, I think the people [convicted] of the bombing of the World Trade Center were innocent. . . . The Muslims are an easy way out, especially when you don't know who committed the act," said Essam Abouhamer, director of the Altawheed Islam Center. "The message of Islam is to be peaceful with yourself and others."

Hasam Ibrahim, 37, who came to the United States 16 years ago from Egypt and owns a limousine company in Jersey City, said he and others in similar circumstances moved here in search of better lives and are proud to be Americans.

“It is impossible," he said of suggestions that a terrorist cell in or around Jersey City may have helped plot the deadly attacks last week. "People here from the Middle East just want to work and have good lives. I love the United States. I eat in the United States. I earn money in the United States, and my children go to schools in the United States. A lot of people in this Arab community feel like me."

Investigators said at least two of the hijackers, Nawaq Al Hamzi and Salem Al Hamzi, are believed to have had addresses in Wayne and Fort Lee. They apparently rented a mail box in Fort Lee, at Mail Boxes Etc.

In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.

Over the weekend, authorities raided a small apartment building in Jersey City to search an apartment rented by two men who were detained in Texas on Wednesday, on possible immigration violations. Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, and Ayub Ali Khan, 51, both from India, were taken into custody Wednesday on an Amtrak train in Texas, carrying $5,000 in cash, hair dye and box cutter knives -- weapons said to have been used by the hijackers. During the raids in Jersey City, authorities detained a third man, Abdoul Salam Achou, 37, whose visa application allegedly expired on Sept. 1.

Investigators also detained three men in Elizabeth, N.J., who were carrying a large amount of cash and a one-way ticket to Syria. The three men, Ahmad Kilfat, 45, Mohammad Mahmoud Al Raqqad, 37, and Nicholas Makrakis, 27, were in a red Pontiac that matched an FBI description of a vehicle connected with the attacks.

Yemina Barbosa, 46, who lives across the street from the three-story apartment house on Tulip Street in Passaic, N.J. -- a mostly black and Latino neighborhood where Kilfat and Al Raqqad were thought to live -- said expensive, "sporty" cars would often park in front of the house.

Neighbors said a car that they believed belongs to the two men was towed tonight from in front of the apartment house, after the vehicle was examined by a bomb squad.




“In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.” This is apparently the only reference found to the incident Trump claims to have seen on TV, and it does not mention “thousands” of such partiers. So far local police forces have denied this, but the story must come from somewhere. Hopefully we will know more as time passes. I am ignoring the issue of Trump's despicable physical imitation of a disabled reporter and his likewise reference to a man who "can't buy a pair of pants," which sounds suspiciously like a reference to a conservative pundit's paralysis from the waist down. Trump denies that, but it makes perfect sense, and otherwise makes none. Trump has a pattern of saying something intensely disgusting and abusive and then denying it. It's a lot like Putin, I think.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-woman-breaks-window-husband-fort-worth-house-fire/

Woman, 80, breaks window to try to free husband from fire
CBS NEWS
November 27, 2015

Photograph -- Crews work the scene after a house fire in Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 26, 2015. KTVT-TV


FORT WORTH, Texas -- A house fire in Fort Worth on Thursday sent two elderly people to separate hospitals, CBS DFW reports.

It happened at around 10:30 a.m. on the city's southeast side.

Emergency crews arrived at the scene to find light smoke coming from the structure and an 80-year-old woman, Lula Johnson, on the ground near the front of the home. She told firefighters that she had broken a window to escape from the house and that her husband was still inside.

"I seen that smoke coming in on me, and I had to get out of there," Johnson told KXAS-TV. "I got out through the help of the Lord."

Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman Kyle Clay said Johnson was breaking a window to help her husband escape.

Rescue workers quickly found the 79-year-old man, James Johnson, who was said to be in cardiac arrest.

He was removed from the house and transported by ambulance to JPS Hospital in Fort Worth in critical condition.

Johnson is now hospitalized at Parkland Hospital in the burn unit.

The man's wife was released from Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth after being treated for smoke inhalation and lacerations suffered while trying to evacuate from her home.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.




This is a case of true heroism. An 80 year old being strong enough and alert enough to do this deserves an award. Bless them both.





http://www.npr.org/2015/11/26/457246585/reconsidering-the-pilgrims-piety-and-americas-founding-principles

Reconsidering The Pilgrims, Piety And America's Founding Principles
Tom Gjelten
Updated November 26, 2015

Photograph -- The Mayflower, the ship in which the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic to the New World in 1620. Three Lions/Getty Images
Photograph -- The written account of William Bradford, the Pilgrims' most famous governor (played by Roger Rees in PBS film The Pilgrims) provides much of what is known about the Pilgrims' experience. Courtesy of Tim Cragg/PBS
Video -- Republican activist David Barton speaks before testifying before the Texas State Board of Education in 2009. RELIGION
Photograph -- RELIGION, Cue The Tape: How David Barton Sees The World


The Pilgrims are among the early heroes of American history, celebrated every Thanksgiving for their perseverance in the New World against great odds.

To Christian conservatives, they are role models for another reason as well: They were deeply committed to their Christian faith and not afraid to say so.

In the Mayflower Compact, the governing document signed shortly before the Pilgrims disembarked in Massachusetts' Provincetown Harbor, Pilgrim leaders said they undertook their voyage across the Atlantic "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith."

Some Christian activists cite that declaration as evidence for their claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, notwithstanding the fact that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written more than 150 years later and incorporated a much broader variety of early American views.

Puncturing Myths About The Pilgrims

In countless retellings over the past 400 years, the Pilgrim story has become part of American mythology, and fact has not always been separated clearly from fiction. The Pilgrims, a new PBS film released in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, attempts to set the record straight.

"Our aim is just to say, 'Hey, what really happened?'" says Ric Burns, who wrote and directed the film. "What made the Old World intolerable to these people who came over? What did they believe? What happened to them along the way? How were they transformed by the extreme nature of the experience they had?"

Viewers are reminded that much of what we know about the Pilgrims comes from the written recollection of their most famous governor, William Bradford. Portions of his account are read in the film by the actor Roger Rees.

The description of the settlers as "pilgrims" comes from Bradford himself, who recalled lines from Hebrews 11. "They desired a better country," Bradford wrote, "a heavenly one, wherefore God was not ashamed to be called their God."

It is from Bradford's account, narrated in the PBS film, that we know about the cruelty of the Pilgrims' first few months in the New World, when half of the settlers died from starvation or disease.

"It was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and harsh," according to Bradford's account. "What could they see but a hideous, desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men?"

In his film, Burns punctures some of the myths associated with the Pilgrims. They made peace with some of the Indians they encountered, but they slaughtered others. They were devout, but they weren't exactly proponents of religious freedom: People who didn't accept their strict beliefs were expelled from their community.

'Advancement Of The Christian Faith'

It is clear, however, that the Pilgrims leaders set up their colony with the intent that it be governed by biblical principles, as evidenced by the Mayflower Compact. David Barton, an evangelical whose references to history have won him attention in conservative Republican circles, has often cited the Pilgrims' dedication in the Mayflower Compact to "the advancement of the Christian faith."

"It says those people came here to propagate the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ," Barton said a speech available online. "That was their goal, and that's what they were gonna pursue in America."

The Most Influential Evangelist You've Never Heard Of
David Barton in 2004.

Secular historians, he continued, have downplayed that reference.

"We're talking about a government document here with a lot of evangelical language in it," he declared. "Most people today are willing to concede that religion is OK if you keep it in private. Keep it at home or keep it at church, but ... you don't want it at school. You don't want it in the courthouse. ... Those aspects of our heritage that are religious and also show public religious expression, we pretty much ignore today."

In an interview with NPR, Barton says the Pilgrims' story makes clear that America was founded as a Bible-based Christian nation.

"If you look back at the Pilgrims, they gave us private property out of the Bible," he says. "They gave us civil rights out of the Bible. They gave us elected government out of the Bible. You'd have to say, a lot of [our heritage] was shaped by biblical principles, and that's why the courts said we're a Christian nation."

Barton is quoting an 1892 Supreme Court ruling that includes a reference to "a mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."

'One Little Pocket Of Colonial America'

Historians, however, have disputed the extent to which the Pilgrims can be counted as among America's founding fathers.

"This is one little pocket of colonial America," says John Fea of Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Penn. He has written widely on America's early religious history.

"It's hard to make the same argument if you're studying Virginia or Pennsylvania or the Carolinas or Georgia," Fea says. "We've taken that New England model and extrapolated from it over the last 200 or 300 years into some kind of view of the nation as a whole."

Fea notes the absence of any reference to the Bible in either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.

"There are a lot of arguments that say, 'This was just in the air. The Bible would have influenced their construction, even though it's never mentioned,'" he says. "But as a historian, I need a smoking gun. Maybe they left it out because they deliberately wanted to leave it out."

As for the Pilgrims, the PBS film shows their history to be turbulent and often messy.

"Let me tell you," says Burns. "This is more like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in many ways than it is like, 'Let's all sit down for turkey for Thanksgiving.'"



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Trinity_v._United_States

Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892),[1] was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding an employment contract between The Church of the Holy Trinity, New York and an English (Anglican) priest.

1885 law[edit]
Contracts to import labor were forbidden by Federal law, and specifically by the Alien Contract Labor Law, an Act of Congress passed in 1885 prohibiting "the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia."[2]

Court decision[edit]
The court held that a minister was not a foreign laborer under the statute even though he was a foreigner. Page 143 U. S. 471 includes the following quotes:

"subject, is granted and secured; but to revile, with malicious and blasphemous contempt, the religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of that right. Nor are we bound by any expressions in the Constitution, as some have strangely supposed, either not to punish at all, or to punish indiscriminately the like attacks upon the religion of Mahomet or of the Grand Lama, and for this plain reason, that the case assumes that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors."

"If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life, as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find every where a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters, note the following: the form of oath universally prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, "In the name of God, amen;" the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath, with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day; the churches and church organizations which abound in every city, town, and hamlet; the multitude of charitable organizations existing every where under Christian auspices; the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and aiming to establish Christian missions in every quarter of the globe. These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. In the face of all these, shall it be believed that a Congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation?"

“There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. Com., 11 Serg. & R. 394, 400, it was decided that, ‘Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania.”

The court used the soft plain meaning rule to interpret the statute in this case. Justice David Josiah Brewer made a principle of statutory construction that "It is a familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers." Its decision stated that "the circuit court did err when it held that the contract hiring an English rector was within the prohibition of the statute, which disallowed a "...person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration, of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, into the United States ... under contract or agreement ... to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States..."

Christian nation[edit]

The case is famous for Justice Brewer's statements that America is a "Christian nation."

These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. 143 U.S. 457 (1892)[3]


In a 1905 book titled: "The United States: A Christian Nation", Justice Brewer explained further:

In his first chapter, Justice Brewer further explains the Christian founding of America. His second chapter explains the Christian duty of citizens to America to ensure the advancement of the nation under biblical and Christian principles. He argues that civilization is dependent upon the advocacy of Christianity, and to the degree that citizens are willing to advocate these principles, to that degree they and the nation will be blessed. Finally, Justice Brewer argues that the world will be blessed, not primarily through material advances, but through allegiance to the principles of Christ that transforms the individual, the family, the nation, and the world.[4]

Legislative intent[edit]

This case is cited most often in legal cases for its holding on how legislative intent can be determined. For example, in the case of United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), in which the Supreme Court held that the prohibitions against racial discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not bar all affirmative action programs by private employers which favored racial minorities, the Supreme Court quoted, as part of its analysis, Holy Trinity's principle of statutory interpretation that "[i]t is a 'familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers.'" Weber, 443 U.S. at 201, quoting Holy Trinity, 143 U.S. at 459. The Weber Court said that the language of Title VII "must therefore be read against the background of the legislative history of Title VII and the historical context from which the Act arose." Id.

Justice Antonin Scalia, referring to the holding in the Holy Trinity decision as the "prototypical case" in which a judge follows the intent of the legislature rather than the text of the statute, wrote that this was in opposition to his judicial philosophy of textualism. The textualist position holds that courts should follow the text of a law rather than attempt to read exceptions into the law in accordance with the legislative intent. Scalia has thus criticized the principle of the Holy Trinity case as "nothing but an invitation to judicial lawmaking."[5]

In Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 (1989),[6] Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor, rejected this approach to determining Congressional intent. Kennedy wrote:

"The central support for the Court's ultimate conclusion that Congress did not intend the law to cover Christian ministers is its lengthy review of the 'unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation,' and which were taken to prove that it could not 'be believed that a Congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation.' I should think the potential of this doctrine to allow judges to substitute their personal predilections for the will of the Congress is so self-evident from the case which spawned it as to require no further discussion of its susceptibility to abuse."' [7]





NPR -- “In the Mayflower Compact, the governing document signed shortly before the Pilgrims disembarked in Massachusetts' Provincetown Harbor, Pilgrim leaders said they undertook their voyage across the Atlantic "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith." Some Christian activists cite that declaration as evidence for their claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, notwithstanding the fact that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written more than 150 years later and incorporated a much broader variety of early American views. ….


This is the first time I’ve seen the phrase “Christian Activists” used, but it is a very apt term for what is going on in politics these days, much better than “religious freedom.” Religious freedom is the belief that other faiths have as much right to their freedom as do Christians, and that no religious group will be exempt from the laws of the nation and, worse still, declared the “state religion” of the USA. Christian activists are just another part of the Rightwing movement in this country which aims to destroy our freedom rather than add to it. They just want to do it in such a low level way that they will get away with it without causing public alarm. Unfortunately the Supreme Court is playing into their hands too often nowadays.




http://www.npr.org/2015/11/25/457369313/obama-administration-says-house-bill-would-give-cover-to-white-collar-defendants

Obama Administration Says House Bill Would Give 'Cover' To White-Collar Defendants
Carrie Johnson
Updated November 25, 2015

Photograph -- "As far as I know ... there is no problem of over-incarceration for rich, white financial or environmental executives," defense lawyer Jeffrey Robinson of the American Civil Liberties Union said. Aleksandar Dancu/iStock


The bipartisan effort to overhaul the criminal justice system for drug offenders has hit a speed bump.

Some members of Congress are trying to tie those lighter punishments for drug defendants to a new bill that the Justice Department says would make it harder to prosecute a range of crimes from food safety to business fraud.

The plan, passed by voice vote by the House Judiciary Committee to little notice last week, would require prosecutors to prove guilt to a higher standard in many cases, by default.

Among those who object: Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates.

"It would end up meaning that some criminals would go free as a result, because we simply would not be able to meet that standard of proof," Yates told NPR in an interview. "If this proposal were to pass, it would provide cover for top-level executives, which is not something we think would be in the best interest of the American people."

The White House had a shorter response: "In the president's view, criminal-justice reform should only make the system better, not worse."

For supporters, including Judiciary Chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the measure is a common sense response to the huge number of criminal laws on the books.

"This is a very carefully crafted bill," Goodlatte said during a committee markup last week. "Its intent is ... to protect American citizens who did not know or have reason to know they were violating federal law."

Goodlatte calls that over-criminalization. His committee has held a series of hearings on the issue, focusing attention on cases of fishermen who faced federal criminal penalties for paperwork violations, among others.

The idea of requiring prosecutors to prove a defendant intended to break the law gets a lot of support, in theory. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has been pushing for changes. And Vikrant Reddy, a senior fellow at the Charles Koch Institute, which studies criminal justice, said the case for an overhaul is "clear-cut."

"There's this old quote from the guy who was the head of Stalin's secret police," Reddy said. "He said, 'find me the man and I'll show you the crime,' because we had so many crimes on the books that you could get anybody on anything so long as you looked hard enough."

For the Obama administration, which has made overhauling the justice system a top priority, the new bill on criminal intent represents a get-out-of-jail free card for many defendants, especially businesses and corporate officials who distribute fruit, vegetables and medicines that are contaminated.

But some lawyers following the sentencing proposals as they move through Congress said they don't have enough information about the new bill on criminal intent. Amit Narang of Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group, said with public confidence in the government's ability to investigate Wall Street executives at a low ebb, now is not the time to "undermine" efforts to hold them accountable.

Jeffery Robinson, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU is taking no position on the bill.

"Our view is the people who want this bill passed should make a list of the statutes that this bill would impact so that people can see what statutes we are talking about," Robinson said.

He said adding criminal-intent provisions to a spate of justice overhaul proposals moving on Capitol Hill could endanger the broader effort to dial back tough mandatory prison sentences imposed during the war on drugs. Robinson said there's a string of research about the costs of incarceration and the disproportionate impact on African-Americans and Hispanics.

For instance, Pew Charitable Trusts has issued a new report concluding that federal prison time has surged since 1988, with time served by drug offenders who make up about half of the prison population rising more than 150 percent.

"As far as I know, and I've been a defense lawyer for 34 years, there is no problem of over-incarceration for rich, white financial or environmental executives," Robinson said.

He said he's not opposed to helping those white-collar defendants, by any means, but in the absence of more information, he's not sure they have a problem Congress needs to solve.




"The bipartisan effort to overhaul the criminal justice system for drug offenders has hit a speed bump. Some members of Congress are trying to tie those lighter punishments for drug defendants to a new bill that the Justice Department says would make it harder to prosecute a range of crimes from food safety to business fraud. The plan, passed by voice vote by the House Judiciary Committee to little notice last week, would require prosecutors to prove guilt to a higher standard in many cases, by default. Among those who object: Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates. He said adding criminal-intent provisions to a spate of justice overhaul proposals moving on Capitol Hill could endanger the broader effort to dial back tough mandatory prison sentences imposed during the war on drugs. Robinson said there's a string of research about the costs of incarceration and the disproportionate impact on African-Americans and Hispanics. …. As far as I know, and I've been a defense lawyer for 34 years, there is no problem of over-incarceration for rich, white financial or environmental executives," Robinson said. He said he's not opposed to helping those white-collar defendants, by any means, but in the absence of more information, he's not sure they have a problem Congress needs to solve.”


The way politicians think is amazing. It’s intricate, secretive and infinitely biased, in this case toward the Right. Doing things in an open and fair way is simply not in their agenda when money and power are involved. They want to make a businessman who produces and sells spoiled or contaminated food to be subject to a standard that the act was done purposely to cause harm. The goal is probably simply to get rid of that pile of rotting tomatoes by canning them and selling them to the poor, perhaps in Latin America. Waste not, want not! Their goal is probably not to kill anyone, but if they do, it doesn’t matter, right? This story angers me, as a number of them do. Corporate and other high level crime too often brings a very light sentence. I had heard before about the minimum security prisons those people go to, with “country club” amenities, while a poor person may well spend weeks and months in solitary confinement with a punitive form of food called “the loaf.” One hand washes the other, after all. They can’t get lots of contributions from the wealthy unless they cater to their needs.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/marco-rubio-airstrikes-against-isis-should-target-oil-plants/

Marco Rubio: Airstrikes against ISIS should target oil plants
By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS
November 26, 2015


The United States has conducted thousands of air strikes against ISIS, but Sen. Marco Rubio said that they're not "well targeted" and should focus more on destroying the oil infrastructure controlled by the extremist group.

The 2016 presidential candidates: How they'd fight ISIS

"The rules of engagement - it's not allowed [airstrikes] to be as successful as necessary," Rubio said in an interview with NBC that aired Thursday morning. "They've unnecessarily avoided taking strikes because they're concerned if they blow up the oil plant, there might be civilians, even one, killed. That's a legitimate concern we have, but we must destroy the revenue source, which is the ability to generate oil."


The United States has since last year targeted airstrikes at oil refineries held by ISIS. Just recently, the Pentagon stepped up the strikes against ISIS's oil infrastructure.

Two recent airstrikes, CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin reported earlier this week, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market. By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in $1 million a day in revenues. To avoid civilian casualties, U.S. planes first dropped leaflets warning the drivers and then conducted staffing runs to scare them away.

As Rubio suggested, the U.S. until recently avoided targeting oil tanker trucks for fear of killing civilians. However, the Pentagon has loosened its rules on civilian casualties.

Rubio has previously said he'd increase the number of U.S. special forces fighting ISIS on the ground, but in the interview that aired Thursday, he declined to say how many.

"The goal is to have enough special operators on the ground to support a coalition of 25,000, 30,000 Sunni Arabs on the ground fighting," he said.




I don’t often agree with Rubio, but I think that it would be more effective for us to bomb oil tankers and other supply vehicles if possible rather than letting them go through for fear of injuring civilians. I’m concerned that bombing alone is not very helpful to the cause of stopping ISIS. It’s also prone to accidents like the bombing of a hospital a few months ago. That was not only embarrassing, it was truly careless and it does “appear to be” a war crime – just like torture. As far as I know the only actual ground fighters are the Iraqi army, the Kurds and the Iranian troops. The hope that Assad might be persuaded to send his troops after ISIS, at least for now, as was mentioned in another article above on the subject of Putin's and Hollande's agreement to cooperate. That would be very helpful as well.