February 29, 2016


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-declines-to-condemn-kkk-leader-david-duke/

Donald Trump declines to condemn KKK leader
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
February 28, 2016, 3:04 PM

Play VIDEO -- Trump security ruffles protesters making KKK comparisons


When he was given the opportunity to denounce Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on a political talk show on Sunday, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump declined to take it.

During the CNN interview, "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper asked the billionaire: "Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?"

Trump told CNN: "I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists."

Last week Duke, a white nationalist and a former KKK grand wizard, urged his radio show listeners to vote for Trump, saying that a ballot cast against the New Yorker would be "treason to your heritage." He also called Trump's candidacy an "insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans" and prompted his fellow nationalists to volunteer for the campaign.

Shortly after Duke announced his support, the Anti-Defamation League urged Trump to "distance" himself from the prominent Klan figure.

But on Sunday, when pressed again if he would condemn Duke, Trump responded that he'd "have to look at the group."

"You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I would have to look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them," he said. "And, certainly, I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong."

Tapper questioned: "The Ku Klux Klan?"

"But you may have groups in there that are totally fine," the GOP candidate shot back. "And it would be very unfair. So, give me a list of the groups, and I will let you know."

Trump's final words on the subject: "Honestly, I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I have ever met him. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him. And I just don't know anything about him."

A look back at Trump's involvement in politics, however, indicates that he had been, in fact, familiar with Duke in the past.

In 2000, after Trump decided he would not launch a presidential campaign as part of the Reform Party, he issued a statement that derided the KKK figurehead.

"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. [Pat] Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. [Lenora] Fulani," Trump said. "This is not company I wish to keep."

And during a Friday press conference, Trump had indicated that he would "disavow" Duke.

Trump also made waves Sunday morning for another race-related comment during a separate interview with Fox News.

When asked about a court case involving fraud claims against Trump University currently playing out in New York, the White House hopeful said the judge presiding over the issue "has been extremely hostile to me."

"I think it has to do with perhaps the fact that I'm very, very strong on the border," Trump said. "Very, very strong on the border. And he has been extremely hostile to me."

He added of the judge: "Now, he is Hispanic, I believe. He is a very hostile judge to me. I said it loud and clear."

When asked by Fox News why he bothered to bring up the judge's ethnicity, Trump blamed it on the television host, Chris Wallace.

"Because you always bring it up, Chris," Trump accused. "Because you always say how the Hispanics don't like Donald Trump. You always bring it up in your poll numbers. You say that Hispanics don't like Donald Trump. You're the one that brings it up."

Trump's recent antics are providing ample fodder for his rivals -- particularly Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

On Sunday, both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio chimed in on the "abhorrent" KKK and Trump's lackluster response.

Tweets:

Ted Cruz ✔ ‎@tedcruz
Really sad. @realDonaldTrump you're better than this. We should all agree, racism is wrong, KKK is abhorrent. https://twitter.com/cnn/status/703955338589036545 …
12:11 PM - 28 Feb 2016

Marco Rubio ✔ ‎@marcorubio
We cannot be a party that nominates someone who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan.
1:49 PM - 28 Feb 2016

And Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders weighed in Sunday via Twitter:

Bernie Sanders ✔ ‎@BernieSanders
America's first black president cannot and will not be succeeded by a hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK.
2:17 PM - 28 Feb 2016

Rival Hillary Clinton also retweeted Sanders' post.

Even Trump's surrogates are having a hard time defending Trump's campaign and presidential platforms.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who endorsed Trump on Friday and who has since hit the trail to stump for his one-time rival, admitted in a television interview that "of course there are things I disagree with" Trump about.

"Donald Trump and I are not going to agree on every issue," Christie told ABC News.

He added, for instance, that "the idea of banning all Muslims from this country is ridiculous, and the reason it's ridiculous is because you don't need to do that to make America safe."

"When Donald Trump said that, he was dead wrong. And he's dead wrong now," Christie said.

The former 2016 candidate also shrugged off questions about how Trump would accomplish his campaign promises, particularly border wall that the businessman has repeatedly said he would force Mexico to pay for.

"The fact is that he's going to have to answer that question," Christie said. "He will."



Trump is an opportunist who wants as much personal attention as he can get, and what would be better than being President? To some degree that's common to most politicians, but some do have more devotion to helping their fellow man than others. He says the first thing that hits his head sometimes as a joke, and then makes a contradictory statement later when he is pressed about it. In this case, rather than speaking against the former head of the KKK as he did in 2000, he says now that he doesn’t know who he is! Ridiculous! Almost everybody in the US knows who David Duke is, and that the KKK is a violent hate group.

We must remember that groups and people like that are not “conservative,” but radicals and terrorists. If you don’t believe that, look at the KKKs earlier history when they burned black churches, killed “uppity” blacks outright, threatened anybody white or otherwise who gave them any support, or who dared to speak out against the White Supremacist political candidates who in the South dominated the scene both locally and statewide. There were even some members of the legislature in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s who had a history of KKK membership.

Modern day KKK members, as they undoubtedly did also in the past, have infiltrated certain police departments and state governments. One woman officer was recently demoted or perhaps fired for transmitting racist emails among the police department. Some fire departments also have mistreated black firemen, in one case putting a noose on his bed. Another time a picture of a monkey was posted on their website with a racist comment. Painfully, countless other such things have been done by our “good” citizens against President Obama.

Not all white people by any means are of this stripe, but there is enough of this poison in our society these days that it sickens and angers me. I do hope a good Democrat will be elected in 2016 who will replace Scalia on the Supreme Court and carry some more liberal legislators on his/her coattails. In almost a week I will be able to go vote for Sanders. I can’t wait!


About the Reform Party of 1990:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_the_United_States_of_America

Reform Party of the United States of America
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the party founded by Ross Perot. For the competing party founded in 1997, see American Reform Party.

The Reform Party of the United States of America (RPUSA), generally known as the Reform Party USA or the Reform Party, is a political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot.

Perot, who had run as an Independent in the 1992 presidential election and wanted to participate also in the 1996 presidential election, thought Americans were disillusioned with the state of politics as being corrupt and unable to deal with vital issues. Perot claimed to represent a viable alternative to Republicans and Democrats.

The party has nominated several notable candidates over the years, such as Perot himself, Pat Buchanan, and Ralph Nader, but its most significant victory came when Jesse Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota in 1998.

2000 presidential election[edit]

The Reform Party's presidential candidate for the 2000 election was due federal matching funds of $12.5 million, based on Perot's 8% showing in 1996. Early on, there was a failed effort to draft Ron Paul.[3][5]

Donald Trump entered the race briefly, giving television interviews outlining his platform. Trump was progressive on social issues, and supported allowing openly gay soldiers in the military, saying: "it would not disturb me."[6] Trump considered himself a conservative, but criticized Pat Buchanan, saying: "I'm on the conservative side, but Buchanan is Attila the Hun."[7] He withdrew from the race citing the party's infighting,[8] as did Jesse Ventura and the Minnesota Reform Party. Donald Trump stated: "So the Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep.".[9][10] "Mr Duke" was a reference to David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Pat Buchanan decided to leave the Republican Party because: "The Republican Party at the national level has ceased to be my party. This divorce began around the end of the Cold War when President (George) Bush declared it to be a New World-order party and began intervening all over the world. While he and I were allies and friends during the Cold War, I just felt that once the Cold War was over the United States should return to a more traditional non-intervention foreign policy."[11]




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/5-klan-members-arrested-at-vicious-california-brawl-released/

5 Klan members arrested at vicious Calif. brawl released
CBS/AP
February 29, 2016, 5:00 AM

Photograph -- Violence broke out when counter-protesters arrived before a planned demonstration in Anaheim, California by KKK members on February 27, 2016 CBS LOS ANGELES


ANAHEIM, California -- Five Ku Klux Klan members who were arrested following a vicious brawl in Anaheim were released because evidence shows they acted in self-defense, police said.

Seven people who remained in custody were seen beating, stomping and attacking the Klansmen with wooden posts, Sgt. Daron Wyatt said Sunday.

A police statement said the clash, which erupted after six Klan members arrived at a park Saturday for a planned anti-immigration rally, was started by a larger group of 10 to 20 counter-protesters who had "the intent of perpetrating violence."

Police said the Klansmen stabbed three counter-protesters with knives and the decorative end of a flag pole.

"Regardless of an individual or groups' beliefs or ideologies, they are entitled to live without the fear of physical violence and have the right, under the law, to defend themselves when attacked," the statement said.

Mayhem ensued Saturday as soon as the Klan members pulled up in a black SUV for an anti-immigration rally they had advertised in advance and pulled out signs saying "White Lives Matter."

Dozens of protesters swarmed in and someone smashed a window. The SUV then sped away, leaving three Klansmen dressed in black shirts decorated with the Klan cross and Confederate flag patches outnumbered.

"(The counter-protesters) were so angry, they would have torn these folks limb from limb," said Brian Levin, who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "I was afraid for their lives."

Levin, who went to Pearson Park expecting to record the rally for research, found himself protecting the Klansmen until police could intervene. On a video Levin shot and posted to Twitter, he later asked one of them, "How do you feel that a Jewish person helped save your life today?"

"I thank you. I thank you," said the Klansman, waving away the question with his blood-spattered arm. "I would have saved a colored man's life," he added.

Much of the clash was captured on video and posted online. In one, a man cries "I got stabbed," lifting his T-shirt to show a wound to his stomach. A fire hydrant where the man briefly sat was covered in blood.

Police told CBS Los Angeles they had determined that one Klan member was responsible for all three stabbings. They said he acted in self-defense.

Despite the change in tone from police, community activist Rev. James Stern told the station he is calling on the U.S. and California attorneys general to prosecute the Klan.

"We've known for a long history time, everywhere the KKK mobilized, they bring about violence, you don't bring a knife to a peaceful rally," Stern said.

Stern says the KKK -- or any other organized hate group -- should be indicted under the federal Rico Act, which is designed to combat organized crime and has been used in the past against L.A. street gangs.

"If it's not done, it's another form of racist, of justice for one group and not for the other," Stern says.

The reverend told CBS Los Angeles he is planning a news conference in Beverly Hills on Monday asking people of all races to come together against the KKK's hate.

As for Saturday's bloodshed, the DA will still need to review the police findings.

Like many other cities across the United States, Anaheim has a history intertwined with the KKK. What sets the city apart, however, is its decisive backlash after the Klan gained four of five City Council seats in 1924. Those Klansmen were ousted in a recall election after their affiliations with the Klan became public and following a nighttime KKK initiation rally that attracted an estimated 10,000 people to the city park where Saturday's violence erupted.

"The only reason we remember Anaheim for the Klan is because they fought the Klan so hard," said Phil Brigandi, an Orange County historian and author. "The more the Klan came out of the shadows, the more people became aware of it and the opposition grew."

In the near century since then, Anaheim has gone from 95 percent white to become 53 percent Hispanic and 27 percent white, according to data with the U.S. Census Bureau.

"We're a far cry from those terrible times and the Klan is really an anachronism," Levin said. "Anaheim is now a diverse community that is in many ways an amusement and sports capital of California. This is just an example of how a small group of people can tarnish the name of a community."

Rosa Madrigal, who was at the park Sunday with her husband and three children, said she was shocked to even hear about the KKK holding a rally in Anaheim, let alone the violence that ensued.

"I didn't even think it was true when I heard it," said Madrigal, 25. "It's crazy, especially in a park where you take your kids."

When the melee started, Levin said he saw no uniformed officers.

Wyatt said police were there and engaged with people at one end of the fight, and called for additional resources to deploy to the other end. The event stretched along an entire city block, he said.

Police Chief Raul Quezada said his officers were able to respond quickly enough to arrest all but one of the main participants, a counter-protester who remains at-large.

The Klan members were booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon before being released. The seven people who remained in custody were booked for assault with a deadly weapon or elder abuse for stomping on a Klan member who's older than 65 years old, Wyatt said.

Though the Klan members were released, prosecutors will review the case and decide whether to file criminal charges, he said.

Chris Barker, who identified himself as the imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told The Associated Press by phone from North Carolina that his members were holding a peaceful anti-immigration demonstration and acted in self-defense.

"If we're attacked, we will attack back," said Barker, whose organization lists Pelham, N.C., as its headquarters. Last year, the group drew headlines when it protested the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol.

Nationwide, the number of active KKK groups increased to 190 in 2015 after falling in 2013 and 2014, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

In January 2015, packets containing fliers from the "Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" and condemning the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were left in the driveways of about 40 homes in Santa Ana, about 8 miles south of Anaheim.


“Despite the change in tone from police, community activist Rev. James Stern told the station he is calling on the U.S. and California attorneys general to prosecute the Klan. "We've known for a long history time, everywhere the KKK mobilized, they bring about violence, you don't bring a knife to a peaceful rally," Stern said. …. Stern says the KKK -- or any other organized hate group -- should be indicted under the federal Rico Act, which is designed to combat organized crime and has been used in the past against L.A. street gangs. ….
"If it's not done, it's another form of racist, of justice for one group and not for the other," Stern says. The reverend told CBS Los Angeles he is planning a news conference in Beverly Hills on Monday asking people of all races to come together against the KKK's hate. …. Like many other cities across the United States, Anaheim has a history intertwined with the KKK. What sets the city apart, however, is its decisive backlash after the Klan gained four of five City Council seats in 1924. Those Klansmen were ousted in a recall election after their affiliations with the Klan became public and following a nighttime KKK initiation rally that attracted an estimated 10,000 people to the city park where Saturday's violence erupted. …. The seven people who remained in custody were booked for assault with a deadly weapon or elder abuse for stomping on a Klan member who's older than 65 years old, Wyatt said. Though the Klan members were released, prosecutors will review the case and decide whether to file criminal charges, he said. …. The SUV then sped away, leaving three Klansmen dressed in black shirts decorated with the Klan cross and Confederate flag patches outnumbered."


"If we're attacked, we will attack back," said Barker, whose organization lists Pelham, N.C., as its headquarters. Last year, the group drew headlines when it protested the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol.” As the Rev. Stern said, “you don’t bring a knife to a peaceful rally.” That is one of the first things I noticed in this article, the knife. I would like to see video of the very beginning, whether the counter-demonstrators actually did “swarm” the SUV and start to attack them as the exited the car as the article says. Rev. Stern’s statement that the RICO Act should be used against the Klan is very true. That kind of thing is what it is for, rather than merely city mobsters or black street gangs. Yes, of course, use it on those groups, but not solely on them. Somehow our authorities can’t always come to the viewpoint that right-leaning white people can be criminals, too. In their case, it’s always “exercising their freedom of speech.”




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-cruz-suggests-donald-trumps-tax-returns-show-ties-to-mafia/

Ted Cruz suggests Donald Trump's tax returns show ties to Mafia
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
February 29, 2016, 10:02 AM

Play Video -- GOP Is Defaulting On My Loyalty Pledge

Ted Cruz on Sunday suggested that Donald Trump's tax returns might reveal that he has ties to the Mafia.

"There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the Mafia. Now maybe his tax returns show that those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported," Cruz said on ABC's "This Week."

Cruz said that ABC had reported that Trump had done deals with S&A Concrete, which he said is owned by two of the big crime families in New York. Cruz also suggested Trump's involvement in Atlantic City could have led to connections with the mob.

"Maybe that's what his tax returns show. We don't know," he said.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Cruz said he would be "thrilled" if Trump released anything.

"The critical point, as Mitt Romney said, the fact that he's scared to release shows that there's a bombshell. Maybe it's the case that Mitt Romney is richer than Donald Trump," Cruz said. "Maybe he has given support to Planned Parenthood. Or maybe it's the case of Donald's' business dealings with the Mafia."

His comments came only two days before Super Tuesday, when 13 states hold primaries or caucuses this week.

Last week, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney called on Trump to release his tax returns and said that they likely contain "a bombshell." But at CNN's debate Thursday night last week, Trump said he couldn't release them yet because he's being audited by the IRS.

Trump said Romney "looked like a fool" when he delayed releasing his returns in the last presidential election until he filed them in September 2012, about a month before the election.

"I will absolutely give my returns," Trump said, but added he can't release them because he's currently being audited.

After the debate, Trump suggested to CNN that the IRS is auditing him "maybe because of the fact that I'm a strong Christian."

Cruz, like Marco Rubio, released two-page summaries of the last five years of their tax returns over the weekend.



“Cruz said that ABC had reported that Trump had done deals with S&A Concrete, which he said is owned by two of the big crime families in New York. Cruz also suggested Trump's involvement in Atlantic City could have led to connections with the mob. "Maybe that's what his tax returns show. We don't know," he said. …. After the debate, Trump suggested to CNN that the IRS is auditing him "maybe because of the fact that I'm a strong Christian." Cruz, like Marco Rubio, released two-page summaries of the last five years of their tax returns over the weekend.”


"The critical point, as Mitt Romney said, the fact that he's scared to release shows that there's a bombshell. Maybe it's the case that Mitt Romney is richer than Donald Trump," Cruz said. "Maybe he has given support to Planned Parenthood. Or maybe it's the case of Donald's' business dealings with the Mafia." Maybe it’s an attack by Martians. This story asks interesting questions, but gives no proof of anything. I will keep my eyes open for more stories in the future.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dnc-vice-chair-rep-tulsi-gabbard-resigns-endorses-bernie-sanders/

DNC vice chair resigns, endorses Bernie Sanders
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
February 28, 2016, 10:35 AM

Photograph -- In this Dec. 27, 2014 file photo, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii speaks in Ahmadabad, India. AP
Play VIDEO -- Is Bernie Sanders in trouble after South Carolina loss?


Democratic National Committee vice chair and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down from her post at the DNC and throwing her weight behind Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

"First of all, I am resigning from the DNC so I can support Bernie Sanders for president," Gabbard said early Sunday during NBC's "Meet the Press" panel.

Gabbard, one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in Congress, stressed the importance of a leader with a "military mindset," which she described as a candidate who knows "importantly, when we don't use [U.S.] military power."

She pointed to Sanders, a Vermont Independent, as the White House hopeful with that knowledge.

"As a veteran and as a soldier, I've seen first-hand the very high human cost of that war," said Gabbard, who served two tours of duty in the Middle East. "I think it's most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander-in-chief will be to recognize the necessity to have a commander-in-chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgement."

DNC Chair, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, accepted Gabbard's resignation Sunday.

"Congresswoman Gabbard is a role model who embodies the American ideal that anyone can dream big and make a difference," the Florida congresswoman said in a statement. "She is also a colleague in Congress and a friend, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside her when our Party unites behind whoever emerges as our nominee."

The surprise announcement Sunday is not the first time Gabbard has split with the DNC. In November, the top committee official said that she had been disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada, after she had publicly called out for more debates.

Gabbard's endorsement of Sanders comes just a day after Hillary Clinton notched a big victory in South Carolina's primary Saturday night.

But looking to the long term, the Hawaii Democrat emphasized Sanders' electability over the former secretary of state.

"You've seen the groundswell of support that he's gotten -- not only in our or two states but in states across the country -- I think this where there's a hunger for a leader, a commander-in-chief who is honest, who has integrity, who exercises good judgement," Gabbard said.



"Gabbard, one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in Congress, stressed the importance of a leader with a "military mindset," which she described as a candidate who knows "importantly, when we don't use [U.S.] military power." She pointed to Sanders, a Vermont Independent, as the White House hopeful with that knowledge. …. DNC Chair, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, accepted Gabbard's resignation Sunday. "Congresswoman Gabbard is a role model who embodies the American ideal that anyone can dream big and make a difference," the Florida congresswoman said in a statement. "She is also a colleague in Congress and a friend, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside her when our Party unites behind whoever emerges as our nominee." …. "You've seen the groundswell of support that he's gotten -- not only in our or two states but in states across the country -- I think this where there's a hunger for a leader, a commander-in-chief who is honest, who has integrity, who exercises good judgement," Gabbard said.”


“In November, the top committee official said that she had been disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada, after she had publicly called out for more debates.” So you can’t have a disagreement with the DNC over what looks to be a noncontroversial matter without being “disinvited?” Maybe she spoke heatedly about it. Whatever, it makes me feel more comfortable about giving all my meager donations directly to Bernie Sanders. I am beginning to be more concerned about the present day makeup and leanings of the party, as I have about Clinton herself. It’s too much like a return to the old “smoke filled rooms” of my younger years. There are also rumors that many Democrats have actually taken money from right-leaning Big Business, even the dreaded Koch Brothers. Clinton’s voting record doesn’t make me feel good about her either. I hate to see the Party be absolutely split, but I think there is a definite fracture of philosophy already. I hope for the desired unity which Wasserman mentions will indeed come about. The Dems, when we vote in full force, are probably stronger than the Republicans, but if our various groups – ethnic, social and political – don’t pull together we won’t win elections.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-high-school-fight-club-went-on-for-over-decade/

Students: Real-life high school "Fight Club" lasted a decade
CBS NEWS
February 29, 2016, 7:04 AM

Related: Virginia daycare teacher convicted in "baby fight club"


California school officials are investigating an alleged "fight club" on a high school campus after several videos of students punching each other surfaced last week, prompting complaints from parents.

The students are from Nevada Union High School, about an hour north of Sacramento. The district superintendent said she only learned about the fight club recently, but the fights may have been going on for years, reports CBS News correspondent Carter Evans.

The videos show students pummeling each other, wearing boxing gloves but no protective gear.

The fights apparently took place during school hours in a dilapidated clubhouse used by the baseball team as other students looked on.

"We immediately opened an investigation. We've shut down the location where the fight had taken place," said Superintendent Louise Johnson.

Current and former students told CBS station KOVR the fights have been held for more than a decade, with kids getting knocked out, receiving bloody noses and black eyes and even going home with concussions.

"Parents have been aware, coaches have been aware, you know, prior to it being brought to our attention," said Nevada Union High School Principal Dan Frisella.

Senior James Herlitz is friends with some of the students in the videos and he insists they had no malicious intent.

"No one was trying to like, 'Oh I am going to beat this kid up,'" Herlitz said. "Just some guys having fun, laughing, playing music and boxing."

At least three videos were reportedly posted online last week, but have since been deleted. The teenage fighting club ring has drawn comparisons to the movie, "Fight Club," about a recreational fighting league for adult men.

"It really blew my mind. I was surprised kids could get away with things like that," said a parent.

The high school is trying to determine which students were involved. The district said it is investigating whether any school personnel should also be disciplined.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/virginia-day-care-worker-convicted-baby-fight-club-article-1.2497416

Virginia day care worker convicted for torturing toddlers in 'baby fight club'
BY ALFRED NG
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, January 14, 2016, 5:25 PM

The first rule of baby fight club is — don’t ever have a baby fight club.

A judge found a former Virginia day care worker guilty of more than a dozen abuse charges, including child cruelty, after she started a “baby fight club” with the toddlers in her class.

In a horrifying case of abuse, Sarah Jordan was convicted for traumatizing her Minnieland Academy class, full of 16-month to 2-year-old toddlers, and faces 41 years in prison.

The Tyler Durden-wannabe’s little tykes fight club was busted after a Sept. 2013 report by the Virginia Department of Social Services accused her of abusing children for at least six months.

The investigation showed Jordan, 31, and fellow teacher Kierra Spriggs would encourage brawls between babies while roughing up some children herself.

One witness reported seeing the day care staff’s cruel antics: stomping on toddler’s toes when the babies weren’t wearing shoes, and laughing.

During the summer, the report said the twisted teachers targeted toddlers who were afraid of water and dunked them into a portable pool, cackling as the terrified children cried.

They would also blast kids in the face with a powerful hose and dump buckets of water on their heads.

Instead of helping toddlers change their dirty diapers, the staff would tell them to “get away and that they stink,” the report stated.

Jordan was also accused of feeding children “Flaming Hot Cheetos” and laughing as they reeled from the intense spiciness.

During her trial, she denied all of these accusations, but admitted to light water-play with the kids.

“I used it to get the children wet, like a sprinkler,” she said.

Jordan’s cruel antics traumatized the toddlers, parents testified at the trial.

Parents said the kids turned violent at home, mimicking the monster teacher and stomping on their parents toes, NBC Washington reported.

"She would stomp her mom's feet. She would run in and slap us for no apparent reason and start giggling," Adam Smith testified.

Some became terrified of water and refused to take baths. Most toddlers cried when they had to go to the center.

Jordan's sentencing will be on May 6.

ang@nydailynews.com



BABY -- “The investigation showed Jordan, 31, and fellow teacher Kierra Spriggs would encourage brawls between babies while roughing up some children herself. One witness reported seeing the day care staff’s cruel antics: stomping on toddler’s toes when the babies weren’t wearing shoes, and laughing. …. Parents said the kids turned violent at home, mimicking the monster teacher and stomping on their parents toes, NBC Washington reported. "She would stomp her mom's feet. She would run in and slap us for no apparent reason and start giggling," Adam Smith testified. …. During her trial, she denied all of these accusations, but admitted to light water-play with the kids.”


HIGH SCHOOL -- “Current and former students told CBS station KOVR the fights have been held for more than a decade, with kids getting knocked out, receiving bloody noses and black eyes and even going home with concussions. "Parents have been aware, coaches have been aware, you know, prior to it being brought to our attention," said Nevada Union High School Principal Dan Frisella. …. The students are from Nevada Union High School, about an hour north of Sacramento. The district superintendent said she only learned about the fight club recently, but the fights may have been going on for years, reports CBS News correspondent Carter Evans. The videos show students pummeling each other, wearing boxing gloves but no protective gear.”


If there was any question in my mind of the result of physical aggressiveness (or mental) toward children, this removes all doubt. It makes them vicious rather than obedient. Some parents think they have to frighten their children into good behavior, but in fact a gentle approach is not only more effective, it is far less emotionally and mentally damaging. The teenagers in this case were – unless later news articles tell differently – apparently doing these things on their own, though some parents and “coaches” are believed to have been aware of the fight groups before Principal Frisella and apparently at least one other unnamed other official, were made aware of it. I do hope that at least is true, though I can’t imagine coaches condoning it either. Some vague idea of “toughening boys up” is sometimes expressed by grown men, but it is simply indecent in my opinion.

Even if a boy does seem like “a sissy,” working with him one to one in order to increase his self-confidence would work much better, and without teaching something that is specifically evil. I believe a very timid child should be treated by a child psychologist with talk therapy or groups; and if he is the victim of bullies, he can be given martial arts training which would probably help him defend himself. He should also be taught how to VERBALLY resist such assault.

In addition, the bullies should be effectively corrected and probably sent into therapy. I have heard that the reasons why bigger or more aggressive kids bully others is also due to mental or emotional problems. Sometimes they are bullied or abused at home.

One major problem with our schools is that they are full to a point of overcrowding in most conditions and adult supervisors are simply unable to keep track in many cases of who the aggressor is. This inhibits effective learning, because kids are literally not safe at school anymore. Sad stuff!

The Baby Fight Club above is even more shocking, because we assume that intelligent and sane adults wouldn’t even consider doing such a thing. Of course, the photo of that woman looked like she was either drugged or unintelligent. The population in this country is getting too big, especially in large cities, for parents to form a really effective opinion of where and how their kids are being cared for while they are away at work. Some of the “academies” are not good businesses of any kind, and their child care workers are by no mean well selected. They should have some kind of child psychology and teaching training mandated at least on the state levels, and possibly on the national level before they can be hired, and strong supervision. In both these cases, there seems to have been no one in charge.



http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-republican-party-brink-coming-apart-n527901

MEET THE PRESS
First Read: A Republican Party on the Brink of Coming Apart
by CHUCK TODD, MARK MURRAY and CARRIE DANN
FEB 29 2016, 1:48 PM ET

Play video -- Donald Trump criticized for not disavowing KKK's David Duke 3:12
Photograph -- Image: Today in Pictures Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pauses as he speaks during a campaign rally at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Jacquelyn Martin / AP


A Republican Party on the brink of coming apart

In the last 72 hours, the Republican presidential contest no longer resembles that final scene in Reservoir Dogs we wrote about a month ago. Instead, it has become Mad Max: Fury Road — chaotic, brutal, disturbing, and still mesmerizing. (Discuss amongst yourselves who in the GOP field is Immortan Joe, Imperator Furioisa, or the dude playing the fire-spewing guitar.) Just consider the rhetoric on the campaign trail and on the Sunday morning shows

Donald Trump on Marco Rubio: "I go back and I see him with makeup. And it's like he's putting it on with a trowel."
Rubio on Trump: "The guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup. Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whoever did that to his face."

Trump on Rubio: "He has really large ears, the biggest ears I've ever seen." Rubio on Trump: "And you know what they say about guys with small hands." Ted Cruz on Trump: "Multiple news reports have reported about his dealings with, for example, S&A Construction, which was owned by "Fat Tony" Salerno, who is a mobster who is in jail. It is owned by two of the major New York crime families."

Throw in the Mussolini retweets, David Duke, and the Republican operatives and politicians (including Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse from last night) who say they will NEVER support Trump if he's the nominee. This is more than a mess for the Republican Party; it is the GOP potentially coming apart before our very eyes -- no matter who ultimately becomes the party's nominee or how long it takes. As our friend Amy Walter observes, "That rumbling sound you hear is the GOP breaking apart. It's been divided for years, but Trump is catalyst for its 'creative destruction '"

In damage control, Trump blames faulty earpiece for KKK answer

In an interview on "Today" this morning, Trump was asked why he didn't disavow David Duke and the KKK in an interview yesterday. "The question was about David Duke and various groups," Trump said, explaining that he had previously disavowed Duke. When he was pressed that the question was about Duke and the KKK, Trump said he misheard the question. "[I had] "a very bad earpiece, and you could hardly hear what [CNN's Jake Tapper] was saying." More Trump: "I have no problem with disavowing groups, but I'd like to know who they are."

. . . .”



“Just consider the rhetoric on the campaign trail and on the Sunday morning shows. Donald Trump on Marco Rubio: "I go back and I see him with makeup. And it's like he's putting it on with a trowel." Rubio on Trump: "The guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup. Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whoever did that to his face."


I certainly feel that the Republican Party needs to purge itself of the Tea Party Far Right and keep the more sensible people in, but it seems they are fighting instead against the seemingly rabid attacks of Donald Trump; and that is perhaps because his dangerous popularity among the blue collar whites, whom they have all been courting for years by trying to out-bigot each other, has mushroomed beyond the realm of being merely challenging and is verging into that of the frightening.

It looks as though “Little Marco Rubio” is quite capable of defending himself against Trumps slights and insults by going at him verbal blow for blow. Rubio said two things that are crude to the nth degree, not that Trump’s comments haven’t been as bad or worse throughout this whole campaign, but Rubio is much more clever and funny about it, for instance “He should sue whoever did that to his face."

I do enjoy seeing someone mercilessly insult Trump as he does others. Most importantly, all the three anti-Trump contenders have vowed that they will never support Trump as the Republican Party candidate. I hope that doesn’t mean that they will throw the towel in at the end of Trump actually does get the nomination. They need to boycott the party and encourage their followers to do the same.



http://abcnews.go.com/US/justice-clarence-thomas-breaks-decade-long-silence-bench/story?id=37285926

Justice Clarence Thomas Breaks His Decade-Long Silence on the Bench
By AUDREY TAYLOR
Feb 29, 2016, 12:41 PM ET

Related: Obstacles Along the Road From Nominee to Supreme Court Justice
How Antonin Scalia's Death Will Affect the Supreme Court


Justice Clarence Thomas broke his silence today after ten years of not asking a question on the bench.

Thomas last spoke from the bench on Feb. 22, 2006. Today, he asked nearly a dozen questions during oral arguments in the case of Voisine v. United States, which examines whether convictions for reckless misdemeanor domestic violence assault can prevent firearm ownership.

Thomas asked one of the lawyers to provide an example of when a constitutional right can be taken away for a misdemeanor violation.

“Can you give me...this is a misdemeanor violation. It suspends a constitutional right. Can you give me another area where a misdemeanor violation suspends a constitutional right?” Thomas asked. "You're saying that recklessness is sufficient to trigger a violation -- misdemeanor violation of domestic conduct that results in a lifetime ban on possession of a gun."

He continued: "Well, let's say that a publisher is reckless about the use of children, and what could be considered indecent displace and that triggers a violation of, say, a hypothetical law against the use of children in these ads, and let's say it's a misdemeanor violation. Could you suspend that publisher's right to ever publish again?”

Assistant to the Solicitor General Ilana Eisenstein responded, "I don’t think you could suspend the right to ever publish” to which Thomas followed by asking, “So how is that different from suspending your Second Amendment right?

This is the second time in a week the public has heard from Thomas. Last Thursday, Thomas was asked questions by TMZ after a luncheon.



This almost seems like a change in his personality, perhaps brought on by having a good psychotherapist, because to say nothing for ten years is not healthy. I had no idea that he had been mute, and I must wonder why. Being a conservative, it’s not surprising that he would be interested in the gun issue, but the more basic question of how one of our guaranteed rights -- such as the right to vote due to having a felony on ones’ record, for instance -- can be abridged for a whole lifetime over a misdemeanor really does sound to me like and important question. The fewer situations in which our basic rights can be taken away, the better. For a capital crime, that makes more sense, but even in those cases prisoners don’t lose the right to appeal or be treated humanely in prison, even at the point of execution.

To me, it shouldn’t be true of a felony either. Prisoners should, in my view, get their basic civil rights back after they have served their time, and without a formal procedure like having to make a written plea to a court or state office either. I’m especially thinking of the fact that so many black people lose their right to vote when they go to prison for relatively minor crimes, which can be beefed up to constitute a felony by a combination of circumstances.



http://www.becketfund.org/sikh-army-captain-fights-pentagon-to-practice-faith/?utm_content=buffer2471d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Sikh Army Captain fights Pentagon to practice faith
Bronze Star recipient asks court to protect turban and beard
For Immediate Release: February 29, 2016
Media Contact: Melinda Skea, media@becketfund.org, 202-349-7224


WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Army Captain Simratpal Singh filed a lawsuit earlier today asking a federal court to protect his right to wear his Sikh turban and beard while serving in the Army. Captain Singh initially received a temporary accommodation in mid-December, allowing him to report to his new assignment in Fort Belvoir, Virginia with beard and turban intact. But now the Army is imposing new hurdles, signaling it will refuse to make the accommodation permanent, thereby forcing him to seek the court’s protection.

A Bronze Star recipient and West Point graduate, Captain Singh faces being forced to compromise his faith despite the fact that the military already accommodates nearly 50,000 soldiers with beards for medical or other reasons (NYT article.) The accommodation was only the fourth time the military has granted such an accommodation since imposing a ban in the 1980s.

“Captain Singh is a decorated war hero. The Army should be trying to get more soldiers like him, not banning them from serving or punishing them for their beliefs,” said Eric Baxter, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Captain Singh. “It’s time for the Pentagon to stop playing games and start doing the right thing – for Captain Singh, for Sikh Americans, and for all Americans.”

Captain Singh, a devout Sikh with a family history of military service, graduated West Point with honors and then served in Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for his work clearing IEDs. During his time in the Army, Captain Singh has completed Ranger School and his Master’s degree. After nine years of being forced to choose between his faith and his country, the Army granted him two back-to-back temporary religious accommodations that protect him into March 2016. However, just before next month’s deadline, and after Captain Singh passed standard protective-mask testing, the Army demanded he undergo a series of additional tests that other soldiers permitted to wear beards for medical reasons are not required to complete. This discriminatory testing could threaten Captain Singh’s ability to continue serving his country with a permanent accommodation.

“I am proud to fight for my country, which includes fighting to protect others’ religious beliefs,” said Captain Simratpal Singh in December after receiving his temporary accommodation. “I simply ask that I be able to continue serving without being forced to give up a core part of my own faith—of who I am.”

Observant Sikhs have served in the U.S. military—including in combat zones and in Special Forces—from at least World War I through the Vietnam War. The Army has granted nearly 50,000 permanent exemptions to its beard ban for medical reasons. And just this summer, a D.C. federal court held that the Army violated federal law and its own regulations by barring a Sikh from applying to join the military because of his turban and beard.

“This ban is wrong. Sikh Americans have proven time and again that they can serve with honor and excellence,” said Harsimran Kaur, Legal Director for the Sikh Coalition, which serves as co-counsel for Captain Singh. “Our military’s work is too hard and too important to be weighed down by unnecessary limitations on who can do the job.”

“For years we have worked to avoid litigation under the guiding belief that the U.S. military would finally do the right thing,” said co-counsel Amandeep Sidhu, McDermott Will & Emery LLP. “The U.S. Constitution and RFRA make it clear that Captain Singh has the right to practice his faith in the military and we are confident that the court will agree.”

On February 29, the Becket Fund and the Sikh Coalition, along with co-counsel at McDermott Will & Emery, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to permanently protect Captain Singh’s religious freedom and allow him to keep his beard and turban while serving in the military.

For more information or to arrange an interview with a Becket Fund attorney, please contact Melinda Skea at media@becketfund.org or 202-349-7224. Interviews can be arranged in English, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Additional Information:

Complaint (February 29, 2016)
Second temporary religious accommodation (Jan. 8, 2016)
First Temporary Religious Accommodation (Dec. 9, 2015)
Request for Religious Accommodation (Oct. 21, 2015)
Singh v. Carter Media Kit (Images, press releases, legal docs, news)
###

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions and has a 100% win-rate before the United States Supreme Court. For over 20 years, it has successfully defended clients of all faiths, including Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Native Americans, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians (read more).



“U.S. Army Captain Simratpal Singh filed a lawsuit earlier today asking a federal court to protect his right to wear his Sikh turban and beard while serving in the Army. Captain Singh initially received a temporary accommodation in mid-December, allowing him to report to his new assignment in Fort Belvoir, Virginia with beard and turban intact. But now the Army is imposing new hurdles, signaling it will refuse to make the accommodation permanent, thereby forcing him to seek the court’s protection. …. ‘This ban is wrong. Sikh Americans have proven time and again that they can serve with honor and excellence,’ said Harsimran Kaur, Legal Director for the Sikh Coalition, which serves as co-counsel for Captain Singh. “Our military’s work is too hard and too important to be weighed down by unnecessary limitations on who can do the job.” … On February 29, the Becket Fund and the Sikh Coalition, along with co-counsel at McDermott Will & Emery, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to permanently protect Captain Singh’s religious freedom and allow him to keep his beard and turban while serving in the military.”


From this article it seems as though Singh only recently applied to serve in his beard and turban after 9 years of following the military rules. First they gave him a temporary permission, but now are reneging. There is no reason given. The army’s own precedent of granting permits to 50,000 other Sikhs and others on the matter of beards (the article doesn’t mention the turban as a subject of prohibition) and the DC Federal Court’s position against the Army on this have not produced an exemption for him. In addition, he has a long record of good service with medals, so one would think they would want to keep him enough to honor his religious freedom. The Becket Foundation and Singh have filed a complaint with the DC Court to win a guarantee of his rights of religious freedom.

There may be some in the legislature or the military who distrust the look of a beard and turban on grounds of its’ similarity to that of a practicing Muslim, which is a group that is increasingly under fire across the country and Europe as well. Sikhs are not religious or political radicals, however, but just the opposite.

See the Wikipedia article below. Excerpts: “The development of Sikhism was influenced by the Bhakti Movement.[21][22][23] Sikhism developed while the region was being ruled by the Mughal Empire (in the year 1469). Two of the Sikh gurus – Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur, after they refused to convert to Islam, were tortured and executed by the Mughal rulers.[24][25] The Islamic era persecution of Sikhs triggered the founding of the Khalsa as a movement for freedom of religion.[24][26] A Sikh is expected to embody the qualities of a "Sant-Sipāhī" – a saint-soldier.[27][28]”

“The fundamental beliefs of Sikhism, articulated in the sacred scripture Guru Granth Sahib, include faith and meditation on the name of the one creator, unity and equality of all humankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for social justice for the benefit and prosperity of all, and honest conduct and livelihood while living a householder's life.[6][7][8] With over 25 million adherents worldwide, Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world.[9]”

Rather than being a part of Islam, Sikhism is a reaction of some North Indians against the rule of Islam, in which two Sikh leaders were put to death for refusing to convert. Unlike a few groups of Islam, Sikhs try to sow peace rather than war. They should be allowed to wear their turban and beard as it is harmless in their case.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism

Sikhism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sikhism (/ˈsɪkᵻzəm/; Sikkhī, Punjabi pronunciation: [ˈsɪkːʰiː]), or Sikhi[3] (from Sikh, meaning a disciple, or a learner), one of the youngest amongst the major world religions, is a monotheistic religion that originated in the Punjab region of South Asia (subcontinental India) during the 15th century.[4][5] The fundamental beliefs of Sikhism, articulated in the sacred scripture Guru Granth Sahib, include faith and meditation on the name of the one creator, unity and equality of all humankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for social justice for the benefit and prosperity of all, and honest conduct and livelihood while living a householder's life.[6][7][8] With over 25 million adherents worldwide, Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world.[9]

Sikhism originated with the birth of Guru Nanak in 1469, and the ten Sikh Gurus established and advanced the religion over the centuries. In Sikh religious philosophy, the word Guru also refers to God, and God and Guru are often synonymous in Gurbani (the sacred writings of the Sikh Gurus).[10][11] Guru Nanak considered God as his Guru, he projected himself as God's mouthpiece and servant, but maintained that he was a teacher, was not a reincarnation of God or in any way related to God.[12][13] In 1708, before his death, Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru in human form, decreed that the holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, would be the final and perpetual Guru of the Sikhs.[14]

Sikhism emphasizes Simran (meditation on the words of the Guru Granth Sahib), that can be expressed musically through Kirtan or internally through Nam Japna, as a means to feel God's presence, and to have control over the "Five Thieves" (lust, rage, greed, attachment and conceit).[15] Hand in hand, secular life is considered to be intertwined with the spiritual life.[16] Guru Nanak taught that living an "active, creative, and practical life" of "truthfulness, fidelity, self-control and purity" is above the metaphysical truth, and that the ideal man is one who "establishes union with God, knows His Will, and carries out that Will".[17] He also established the system of the Langar, or communal kitchen, in order to demonstrate the need to share and have equality between all people.[18] Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru, established the political/temporal (Miri) and spiritual (Piri) realms to be mutually coexistent.[19] The Sikhs also reject claims that any particular religious tradition has a monopoly on Absolute Truth.[20]

The development of Sikhism was influenced by the Bhakti movement.[21][22][23] Sikhism developed while the region was being ruled by the Mughal Empire. Two of the Sikh gurus – Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur, after they refused to convert to Islam, were tortured and executed by the Mughal rulers.[24][25] The Islamic era persecution of Sikhs triggered the founding of the Khalsa as a movement for freedom of religion.[24][26] A Sikh is expected to embody the qualities of a "Sant-Sipāhī" – a saint-soldier.[27][28]

Sikhi and Sikhism[edit]

Sikhi is a monistic religion founded by Guru Nanak during the 15th century holding that there is one supreme entity holding control of the entire universe. This singular entity is then divided into two categories the Nirgun, invisible and the Sargun, the visible and capable of attributes. This one entity is referred to as Ik Onkar.

Adherents of Sikhi are known as Sikhs (students or disciples), the Khalsa. According to Devinder Singh Chahal, "The word 'Sikhi' (also known as Gurmat) gave rise to the modern anglicized word 'Sikhism' for the modern world.".[29]



http://vspages.com/monism-vs-dualism-4430/

Monism vs. Dualism

Difference Between Monism and Dualism

Monism and dualism are philosophical concepts. These words explain themselves. Mono means one and monism advocates the oneness of soul while dualism advocates the existence of individual soul and the supreme soul.

According to Monism everything in this universe is unified into one and there is no diversification in the universe while dualism does not believe in this concept.

Monism finds its roots in Indian Philosophy. According to this philosophy Brahman is comprised of space and matter and is the supreme entity in this universe. Time, energy, existence of everything on this universe is believed to have its core in the Supreme Brahman.

February 28, 2016


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-mayor-james-butts-people-killed-police-shooting-unconscious/

Mayor gives details on deadly police shooting in Calif.
CBS/AP
February 27, 2016, 3:08 PM

Photograph -- City of Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. attends an event on Oct. 14, 2014, in Inglewood, California. JOE SCARNICI/GETTY IMAGES FOR DIRECTV


A Southern California mayor said that a man and a woman killed in an officer-involved shooting last weekend were unconscious when police first encountered them.

Inglewood police Lt. Scott Collins said in a statement that around 3 a.m. Sunday officers approached a car that had stopped in the street. A woman in the car had a gun and officers took cover and ordered the man and woman out of the car, Collins said.

Officers then opened fire. Collins did not say whether the man or woman fired the weapon or what led officers to open fire.

CBS Los Angeles reports that the woman died at the scene and the man died after being rushed to a hospital.

On Tuesday, Inglewood Mayor James Butts didn't say what prompted the officers to shoot, but he told KNBC-TV the officers found the people in the car unconscious and tried "to rouse" them and "de-escalate the situation" for about 45 minutes.

"At some point obviously they were conscious because somebody felt threatened," Butts told the TV station.

A gun was recovered at the scene, Collins said.

The mayor didn't provide further comment to the station, stressing the importance of the police completing their investigation.

The station and other media outlets identified the deceased as Kisha Michael, 31, a single mother, and Marquintan Sandlin, 32, a single father.

No officers were injured in the incident.



Here is another deadly police shooting, with a muddled and suspiciously incomplete explanation. I hope the officers involved really had just cause, as it will be another log on the fire if they didn’t. Interestingly, this mayor in the photograph is black. I hope that will help in the achievement of justice here.



http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-klan-rally-in-anaheim-erupts-in-violence-one-man-stabbed-20160227-story.html

Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; three stabbed, 13 arrested
Los Angeles Times
By James Queally, Contact Reporter
February 27, 2016

Photo Gallery -- Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence
Photograph -- Planned KKK rally today in Anaheim brings condemnation: 'It's really sad'

Three people were stabbed, including one who was critically wounded, and 13 were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence Saturday, police said.

A small group of people representing the Klan had announced that it would hold a rally at Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m., police said. By 11 a.m., several dozen protesters showed up at the park to confront the Klan.

About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived and were escorted by police around the edge of the park.

Violence erupted and some of the protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read "Grand Dragon." At some point, a protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed.

The Ku Klux Klan's ugly, violent history in Anaheim

A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he "stabbed him in self-defense." Several other people were also handcuffed.

Witnesses said the Klansmen used the point of a flagpole as a weapon while fighting with protesters.

Two other people were stabbed during the melee, said Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim Police Department. One of those was a protester but the identity of the other victim was not clear.

Two Klansmen and three protesters were arrested following the fracas, Wyatt said.

Kobe Sato, 18, of Anaheim said a crowd swarmed the KKK members when they arrived at the park and began to display Confederate flags.

Brian Levin, director of CSU San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said he was standing next to the man in the Grand Dragon shirt when a crowd of protesters carrying weapons swarmed the Klansmen.

A brawl broke out and one of the Klansmen was knocked to the ground and kicked. Levin said he later saw the man's arm bleeding.

Levin said he pushed the Klan leader away as the violence continued and a protester was stabbed.

Levin said he asked the man, "How do you feel that a Jewish guy just saved your life?"

"Thank you," the man replied, according to Levin.

A large crowd gathered at the park, with many demanding to know why Anaheim police did not have a larger presence at the scene before the violence broke out.

Levin was also critical of the lack of police presence prior to the melee.

"There were no police officers here when this started happening," Levin said.

The Klan has a long and troubling history with the city. Klansmen were once the dominant political force in Anaheim, holding four of five City Council seats before a recall effort led to their ouster in 1924.

At the height of the group's power in Orange County, nearly 300 Klansmen lived in Anaheim, patrolling city streets in robes and masks. A large KKK rally once attracted 20,000 people to the city.

KKK activity nationwide has decreased dramatically in recent decades, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which estimated the group has between 5,000 and 8,000 members across the country.

The group's activities have been sporadic in Southern California in recent years. Last summer, at least 100 residents of Whittier and Fullerton awoke to find packets containing KKK fliers, rife with racist rhetoric, and candy in their driveways. A Santa Ana neighborhood was also blanketed with KKK fliers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day last year, police said.

An eight-foot cross was burned outside the home of a black man in Anaheim Hills in 2003, and the FBI investigated the case as a hate crime, but police did not specifically link that case to the KKK.

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in Southern California.



I didn’t realize that the KKK had been active much beyond Missouri or Texas to the West. I have heard of a lynching in one of the Great Lakes states in the early 1900s, and in the last ten years there was a report of KKK flyers being placed in lawns in a Northern middle class neighborhood. The article didn’t say that there had been a rally, cross burning or any positive response to the flyers. Northern people are not all immune to the lure of hating a scapegoat, however. Just because they are very often better educated doesn’t mean that they have used that to improve their inner self. That’s a matter of conscience and empathy.



http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/02/25/Former-KKK-leader-Duke-says-voting-against-Trump-is-treason-to-your-heritage/6401456437829/

Former KKK leader Duke says voting against Trump is 'treason to your heritage'
By Ann Marie Awad
Feb. 25, 2016 at 5:26 PM

Photograph -- Former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke called on his supporters Thursday to vote for Donald Trump and volunteer for his presidential campaign. File photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI | License Photo


BATON ROUGE, La., Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Former Louisiana lawmaker and Klu Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke said Thursday that a vote for Sen. Ted Cruz or Sen. Marco Rubio over Donald Trump "is really treason to your heritage."

Duke, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump in the past, called on his radio listeners to back Trump's bid for the White House.

"Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage," he said on the David Duke Radio Program Wednesday, referring to Cruz and Rubio. "I'm not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven't formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do."

Duke called Trump's campaign an "insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans," and urged his listeners to volunteer for Trump's campaign.

"Get off your duff. Get off your rear end that's getting fatter and fatter for many of you every day on your chairs. When this show's over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump's headquarters, volunteer," he said.

Despite the encouragement, Duke has not endorsed Trump, and the real estate magnate has previously said he doesn't want Duke's endorsement. However, Duke is not the only white supremacist who has been rooting for Trump to win the presidency.

As Trump continues to rise in popularity, white supremacist websites have enjoyed a boom in traffic and white supremacist groups have been actively campaigning for Trump.

While Trump has said he repudiates attention from white supremacists like Duke, more than half of Trump's retweets are from purported white supremacist accounts.

Earlier this week, polling in South Carolina found that 20 percent of those who voted for Trump in that state's primary opposed freeing the slaves during the Civil War.



“But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do." …. While Trump has said he repudiates attention from white supremacists like Duke, more than half of Trump's retweets are from purported white supremacist accounts. Earlier this week, polling in South Carolina found that 20 percent of those who voted for Trump in that state's primary opposed freeing the slaves during the Civil War.”


“Treason to your heritage.” I had a troll on G+ who called me “a traitor to my race.” Like everyone I do have a “heritage” and a “race,” but I owe them no allegiance if they are following a path that I disagree with, especially if it is deeply evil. ‘Nuff said!! This is 2016, not 1865. Duke is a known fascist, so it’s hard for me to understand why he keeps popping up in the political realm. Can it be that the US population is simply steeped in that sort of vileness and unwilling to modify it, much less give it up?

“Opposed freeing the slaves!” Hmmm! That’s like Cliven Bundy famous statement just a couple of years ago that he thought that blacks may have “better off picking cotton.” What I really don’t understand is why the Republican party doesn’t drum people like that out of their ranks. It only makes them repugnant to moderate and decent voters of all parties. Eisenhower, Colin Powell, and Nelson Rockefeller were all Republicans, and the Republican Party was, as modern day Republicans are fond of saying, “the party of Lincoln.” Too bad they don’t follow the philosophy of Lincoln.

One article on the Republican Party’s change of course philosophically talked about a conspiracy of sorts, at least a conscious strategy, among Republicans to GAIN VOTING POWER by catering to the KKK and other rightist voters, in the South, especially, which was their tar pit until 1964, and you all know what happened in 1964. I remember when the state of NC voted Democrat every time, and when the Republicans took over in the South. They courted the radical right and ended up victors among those who were still living emotionally as though they were a part of the Old South. Separate public facilities of all kinds and “minstrel shows” were part of the whole pie. In those days the Democrats were the more rightist, at least about racial issues. See the article below for a very interesting discussion of this issue.

Duke called Trump's campaign an "insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans," and urged his listeners to volunteer for Trump's campaign. He isn’t the first to say things like that. The infamous NRA letter using the term “jack booted thugs” to describe federal agents, and suggesting that a “well-armed” populace can defend itself against their government is bad enough. Clearly it is largely propaganda, but I think that very wording, with its’ strong emphasis on emotion and not intellect, was at least partly responsible for the uprising of the last 20 or so years of “militias” around the country, especially in the south and west, and I don’t think it’s harmless, either.

People who are full of hate need only some encouragement to become violent, and “a crowd” of compatriots to bolster their courage. Duke’s statement is as bad or worse, because it implies that those gun worshippers will actually attack “the government.” I Googled the word “insurgency” to be sure of its’ meaning and it is defined as a call to take up arms against a government. From Oxford Dictionaries: “in·sur·gen·cy” means “an active revolt or uprising”: "Rebels are waging an armed insurgency to topple the monarchy."

I don’t know whether Duke was using this precise term carefully or loosely, but there have been statements by some on the far right – Bundy’s crowd just recently and another militia member in the South several years ago, for instance – of an upcoming “race war,” and in the case of Bundy, an armed fight against the Federal government. In both cases deeply damaging internal breakdown is being anticipated gleefully, rather dreaded as a sad thing. The average man carries in his genes the desire to fight physically, and sometimes only needs an excuse to do so. I think that’s a big part of what is going on within the ranks of too many police forces across the country. It’s emotional and irrational.

There’s so much antigovernment talk now that it’s hard for me to fathom its emergence from an essentially peace-loving South. How do they think a nation this size could possibly take care of society’s needs without a large and well-organized “government?” Before we had governments, we had tribal hunter-gatherer societies and chiefs. With the agricultural revolution of the Neolithic came changes that I do tend to call “progress,” though the absolute “freedom” of the individual was reduced.

Today’s conservatives, especially Southerners, tend to think we could go back to the days when Europe’s less wealthy individuals came over here in ships to take free land grants (killing the American Indians who lived there, of course); when the population was much, much smaller than it is now, and our American wealthy and middle class began to develop. As a result of that, our Constitution was born and we fought our forebears, the Brits. The whole proposition that we should do away with a mostly well-regulated government and society in lieu of disorder or perhaps a new Constitutional Convention in which our civil rights will almost certainly be diminished, really infuriates me. That is actually being proposed by several Tea Partiers in and outside of Congress right now. It’s not paranoia. The goals of these militias and other rightist people are not merely to make a war of words, or even massive and potentially threatening “demonstrations” as the blacks sometimes use, but something which sounds to me as though it goes beyond exercising their First Amendment rights, and into the range of treason.

Why is nothing being done about the far right? Even if we feel that an actual attempt at insurrection, as defined here, is necessary to prefer charges, those in Oregon did in fact shoot at Federal agents. That half dozen or so who are to be tried, are not charged with treason – just “conspiracy to impede the duties of federal officials through the use of ‘force, intimidation, or threats.’” They are likely to serve quite a few years in prison for that, but it still isn’t treason.

That term, which can carry the death penalty or at least life imprisonment, has been used within my memory in trials of actual spies caught operating against this country, but not against these home grown terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh and the Bundys. If the Oregon outlaws had been communists rather than fascists, they would have been judged more harshly, I think, and perhaps even shot down rather than arrested. Whatever the political view, though, I don’t want to see the rule of law disrupted in such ways with impunity. I also worry about the trend toward a highly compromised form of our democratically controlled government. We really mustn’t let that happen.

About the fairly recent Moderate or Liberal Republicans, see the following interesting Wikipedia article.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican

Rockefeller Republican
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Liberal Republican -- "Liberal Republican" redirects here. For the 1872 political party in the United States, see “Liberal Republican Party (United States).”


The Rockefeller Republicans, otherwise called Liberal Republicans, were members of the Republican Party (GOP) in the 1940s–1970s who held moderate to liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York (1959–1973) and Vice President of the United States (1974–1977). Rockefeller Republicanism has been described as the last phase of the "Eastern Establishment" of the GOP, which had been led by New York governor Thomas E. Dewey. The group's powerful role in the GOP came under heavy attack in 1964 and it lost most of its influence. At a discouraging point in the 1964 primary campaign against Barry Goldwater in California, political operative Stuart Spencer called on Rockefeller to "summon that fabled nexus of money, influence, and condescension known as the Eastern Establishment. 'You are looking at it, buddy,' Rockefeller told Spencer. 'I am all that is left.'"[1]

Definition[edit]

The term largely fell out of use by the end of the twentieth century, and has been replaced by the terms "moderate Republican" and, pejoratively, "RINO" (Republican In Name Only).[2] Rockefeller Republicans were typically moderate to center-right, vehemently rejected conservatives like Barry Goldwater and his policies, and were often, but not necessarily, culturally liberal. They espoused government and private investments in environmentalism, healthcare, and higher education as necessities for a better society and economic growth, in the tradition of Rockefeller. In general, Rockefeller Republicans opposed socialism and government ownership. They supported some regulation of business and many New Deal–style social programs. A critical element was their support for labor unions. The building trades, especially, appreciated the heavy spending on infrastructure. In turn, the unions gave these politicians enough support to overcome the anti-union rural element in the Republican Party. As the unions weakened after the 1970s, so too did the need for Republicans to cooperate with them. This transformation played into the hands of the more conservative Republicans, who did not want to collaborate with labor unions in the first place, and now no longer needed to do so to carry statewide elections.[3]

In foreign policy, most wanted to use American power in cooperation with allies to fight against the spread of communism. They wanted to help American business expand abroad. Richard Nixon, a moderate establishment Republican within the Party's contemporary ideological framework, but who ran against Rockefeller from the right in 1968 and was widely identified with the cultural right of the time, nevertheless was influenced by this tradition within his party. Nixon set up the Environmental Protection Agency, supported expanded welfare programs, imposed wage and price controls, and in 1971 announced he was a Keynesian.[4] Rockefeller Republicans were most common in the Northeast and the West Coast, with their larger liberal constituencies; they were rare in the South and Midwest.[5]



https://www.facebook.com/groups/writersforbernie/

Ryne Tipton
February 21 at 11:52pm

“This came straight from the heart in a conversation I had yesterday with people in the Tri-Cities Bernie Group. A lot of times I meticulously edit the things I write, but this (except for two words) is what I typed about people who are afraid to vote with their heart and conscience:

"It's really disappointing to watch people who lose their idealism.

And on some level, I really don't understand it. I don't have a ton of life experience (obviously :P), but I have been raised to know right from wrong.

I know that it's wrong when people work 40 hours a week and still can't make a decent living. I know that it's wrong when people can't afford a college education, or can't receive basic medical care without bankrupting themselves.

So... why, if people really listened to their conscience, would they not organize for a better world? Sure, be realistic. Realize that failure may be very likely. But at least you tried. And then you get back up and try again and again. Eventually, people will decide that enough is enough and things will change. Maybe you'll never see it. But somewhere, someone will benefit from the hard work you did to make things not so bad, from the compassion you gave for people you might not ever meet or know.

What life is worth living if we have to settle for everything? If we can never demand that things change, and make a difference? Failing miserably and having some dignity about it is so much lighter on your conscience than selling your soul for some success.
I get that people are afraid of failure. But, God, we don't ever go anywhere without making mistakes, without taking risks. Some people are just so afraid of giving up what relative affluence they've built up throughout their life, and so afraid of having faith in something. And that's something else I don't have time for.

If you know what's right and what's wrong and believe, then you have the moral responsibility to act. When did we become so afraid of believing in something and so ashamed of really taking part in making the world a better place? That's what I want to know.

Because if these people who keep standing up for the status quo were really to look hard at themselves, they'd realize that they really don't believe in democracy and apple pie and all the things they've supposedly instilled in their kids. Instead, they're just cowards.

I'm glad I've met people so far who've shown me that as you get older, you don't have to resign yourself to cowardice. You can still have the courage to stand up for what's right. And that's really excited me about you all."



“Failing miserably and having some dignity about it is so much lighter on your conscience than selling your soul for some success.” Rightly or wrongly, I have always felt this way about life. It’s a chance to do something good, or bad, and we all do some things that are bad, but if we sit down and don’t do anything good, that is worse. It was Jesus who said in Matthew 5:13, English Standard Version, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”



http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/02/22/467386572/did-obama-inspire-a-big-debate-on-identity-you-weighed-in

Did Obama Inspire A Big Debate On Identity? You Weighed In
LEAH DONNELLA
Updated February 23, 201611:41 AM ET
Published February 22, 201612:21 PM ET

Photograph -- In what ways has Obama's presidency altered the landscape of the United States? Laurie Avocado/Flickr Creative Commons


Last week, Code Switch raised the curtain on "The Obama Effect," our quest to understand what the nation's first black president has to do with the big national conversations on identity and inclusion swirling in full force right now.

That quest began with you. On Friday, we took to Twitter with the hashtag #NPRObamaEffect and asked you to weigh in: If somebody else had come into office on Jan. 20, 2009, do you think we'd be having all these conversations about identity? Has the way you identify yourself as a person of color — or as a white person — changed over the last eight years? Have your personal politics around race shifted post-Obama?

Some people said yes, but weren't lining up to credit Obama.

Many others seemed to think that Obama's presidency has changed the country's landscape in some important ways, even if the changes didn't come from any specific action.

The Obama Effects that you all identified spanned a range of topics, but we noticed a few categories in particular that seemed to have gotten a lot of attention. Some of you noted that Obama's presidency opened up opportunities for people to talk about race, period.

A lot of people went further, saying that Obama hadn't just created space for these discussions, his personal identity allowed for a sense of nuance that previous conversations had been lacking.

This seemed particularly salient for multiracial folks. Some saw Obama's mixed racial identity as a chance to more fully embrace their own. Others experienced the opposite.

We talked about how the Obama family's tenure in the White House relates to feminism, respectability and visibility.

And we speculated about what all this means for the future.

It's clear that there's a lot to sort through, and this is just the beginning. We hope that you'll keep your eyes open for The Obama Effect and keep weighing in on Twitter with the hashtag #NPRObamaEffect.

EMBEDDED COMMENTS:

A.C. Valdez ‎@ACVTweets -- .@GeeDee215 Who doesn't change how they see themselves over 8 years, regardless of the president? #NPRObamaEffect
1:11 PM - 19 Feb 2016

Chenjerai Kumanyika ‎@catchatweetdown -- @GeeDee215 the reality of BO - rather than his political focus- gave us a common, unavoidable thing that u had to process #NPRObamaEffect
1:50 PM - 19 Feb 2016 · Clemson, SC, United States

Sol to Seed Farm ‎@soltoseedfarm -- #NPRObamaEffect reignited a conversation that many in America thought had ended, or at the very least had been silenced.
1:45 PM - 19 Feb 2016

salvador acevedo ‎@salacevedo -- #nprobamaeffect Obama's presidency brought to the surface lots of conversations about identity that needed to be exposed and told
1:20 PM - 19 Feb 2016

Chenjerai Kumanyika ‎@catchatweetdown -- Obama presidency created an opportunity for folk to bolster a variety of compelling and conflicting political narratives #NPRObamaEffect
1:25 PM - 19 Feb 2016 · Clemson, SC, United States

Chenjerai Kumanyika ‎@catchatweetdown -- We're also witnessing unprecedented economic incentives for media companies to focus on race punditry and election coverage #NPRObamaEffect
1:15 PM - 19 Feb 2016 · Clemson, SC, United States

Jonathan Blanks ‎@BlanksSlate -- @GeeDee215 Once more amorphous, #NPRObamaEffect has made it easier to identify & gauge the depth and severity of US racial blind spots
1:19 PM - 19 Feb 2016

Steven Thrasher ‎@thrasherxy -- Before he came in, no one young, black & gay was getting published in mainstream publications about race & sexuality #NPRObamaEffect
1:08 PM - 19 Feb 2016

Adrian Florido ‎@adrianflorido -- @GeeDee215 And Obama has forced people to change their views of what Americans look like/where they come from. #NPRObamaEffect
1:14 PM - 19 Feb 2016


ABOUT MICHELLE VS FEMINISM:

http://www.forharriet.com/2012/09/michelle-obama-feminism-for-black-women.html#axzz41NgNIDeq

"No one can take feminism from women of the African diaspora. It is a black woman's birthright because we could never seek solace in the protections of womanhood narrowly defined. It is ours, yet it seems at every turn, someone is trying to wrestle it from us. Since her appearance at this year's Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama has again been placed at the center of an old debate regarding her feminist credentials.

In front of an audience of millions, the First Lady poured out her love for her spouse of twenty years and affirmed her commitment to her children. She does this often, but this time the stakes were higher. Her husband would accept the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in a few days.

Mrs. Obama has, since she took residence in the White House, described herself as "Mom-in-Chief." The moniker is safe and comforting for a nation socialized to view Black women as the antithesis of the studied grace she embodies. Some women, usually those with race and/or class privilege, view her embrace of the term as a betrayal. One writer called it "degrading." Michelle's presence as the most visible black woman in America hasn't lived up to everyone's hopes. Even Black women lament that Michelle Obama cast off her work, pedigree, and aspirations. She could have been our Hillary. She's certainly smart and charismatic enough to be "Feminist-in-chief." And although some view her as a "feminist megastar," she's evaded that role. Since her husband's campaign, her impressive career history has been downplayed. She's assured us time and again she's a devoted wife not a political adviser."


About the issues of having a (gasp!!) black president, I can only say that it was high time and that our society will be improved by the experience. He has been a good Democratic president – so alright, he’s not a conservative – and a good man. Until I hear to the contrary from RELIABLE sources, I will maintain that view. One of the Internet chat sessions I saw said that he drinks heavily, is at least verbally abusive and is gay. Yadda, yadda, yadda!

About Michelle’s feminism or the lack thereof, I’ve always been by my nature a feminist, even before I had heard the term, but I believe in women making a place for children and a loving relationship with a man (whether or not he’s their husband) in their lives. Of course, if they DON’T want to be married or have children, that’s okay, too. In particular, I believe in women taking charge in their own life like a full-scale American citizen, rather than “taking orders” from anyone, including their husbands. The conservative branches of the Christian religion tend to preach against that view, but then I’m a UU, so that’s okay; and when I was a United Methodist in my young years I never heard any talk of that sort. Also, nobody even once asked me “Have you been saved,” as happened with one Baptist friend. I know such people mean well, but I just don’t like it.

I resent Michelle’s being called “degrading” to her feminism by calling herself “Mom-In-Chief”, because she is by no means one of those passive, timid women that we were all supposed to be in the 1950’s. (Read “The Feminine Mystique.”) Besides, there’s nothing degrading about paying close and loving attention to her children, or about taking a noticeably second place to the President in the making of national decisions. She has been active in social issues, as First Ladies usually are. Hillary Clinton’s being put into a central position in the development of health care plan when Bill was in office, was the thing that was out of the ordinary, though in my opinion a good thing. Why not?! Finally, there has been absolutely no sign of abuse or even marital stress between them, though racists and other rightwingers have published disgusting statements about Obama and Michelle both being gay/lesbian and even having a sham marriage. They have somehow managed to produce two very healthy, intelligent and beautiful daughters, so I feel sure neither of them is homosexual. A great deal of what I hear from some is pure bilgewater, and I ignore it.


The term “code switch” which is used in the above article mystified me, so I looked it up. This is what I found.

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/07/176352338/faq

What is Code Switch?

Code Switch is a team of seven NPR journalists who cover race, ethnicity and culture. Our work appears on-air and online, across NPR's shows and digital outlets. We produce this blog, a Tumblr, a Twitter stream, and a Facebook feed.

Who's on the team?

You can see full bios of all the team members here.

Where does the blog get its name?

In linguistics, "code-switching" means mixing languages or patterns of speech in conversation. But as our writer Gene Demby explains: "We're looking at code-switching a little more broadly. Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves all the time. We're hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities — sometimes within a single interaction.

"We decided to call this team Code Switch because much of what we'll be exploring are the different spaces we each inhabit and the tensions of trying to navigate between them. In one sense, code-switching is about dialogue that spans cultures. It evokes the conversation we want to have here."

Why cover race, ethnicity and culture?

As you've probably heard, the U.S. is in the midst of a big demographic shift. Over the next few decades, people of color will come to compose a majority of the country's population, a transition that's already happened among the nation's youngest residents. Already, race, ethnicity and culture play a starring role in some of the biggest stories unfolding in the news, and that role will only increase as this demographic shift continues. We want to cover these matters with the depth, nuance, intelligence and comprehensiveness they deserve.

How can you contribute?

Check out our pitching guidelines here!


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/yancy-noll-murder-road-rage-turned-deadly-or-thrill-kill/

Yancy Noll murder: Road rage turned deadly, or "thrill kill?"
By PAUL LAROSA CBS NEWS
February 26, 2016, 12:31 PM

Photograph -- yancynollcarhero.jpg -- The Subaru Yancy Noll was driving when he was fatally shot at a Seattle intersection in 2012 "48 HOURS"
Play VIDEO -- Preview: A Student of Murder


SEATTLE --In 2014 in Seattle, a young engineer admitted during his first degree murder trial that he shot a man driving in the car next to him four times in the head.

Why would a murder defendant admit that? Because he believed the jury would understand his reasons--the engineer said it was the only way he could defend himself against uncontrollable road rage by the other driver.

Engineer Dinh Bowman, at one time considered a genius and child prodigy, says the incident began when he accidentally cut off a car driven by a man named Yancy Noll as both men were driving home from work in August 2012. Bowman says that Noll followed him off the highway and exploded in rage when the cars came to a stop side-by-side at a red light in a quiet residential neighborhood.


"I felt like it was just this crazy bad dream, and I was runnin' from a monster," said Bowman who was driving a BMW convertible sports car. "There was sort of-- a stream of swearin'

"I think the phrase that caught my attention was 'You better learn how to drive that fancy car, dick boy. Or you're gonna get yourself f***ed up.'"

After a bottle went flying in his direction, Bowman says he feared for his life. Bowman says he retaliated by pulling out his gun and firing. He asked the jury to understand his desperate measures: "If I didn't do something right then, I was goin' to die."

Prosecutors scoffed at Bowman's defense and claimed that there was another reason entirely that he killed Yancy Noll--a thirst to commit the perfect murder of a stranger, and that this was not road rage but a thrill kill. That story will be featured this week on "48 Hours."

Road rage is a well-known phenomenon. A detailed AAA study done in the 1990s found that road rage resulted in 218 murders over a seven-year period. Other published reports claim that as many 1,500 injuries and deaths can be traced to road rage in any one year.

Whatever the number, the parade of murders linked to road rage seems never to fade from the headlines.

But why do people explode in rage when behind the wheel and get so aggravated over a perceived or real slight that they drive recklessly or, in Bowman's case, pull out a gun and fire? What is it about driving that pushes some people's buttons?

Psychologists point to something called "deindividuation," defined as "loss of self- awareness and of individual accountability in a group."

California psychologist Robert Nemerovski has studied road rage extensively. He says that, although most of us don't think of driving as social, "it consists of countless subtle interpersonal interactions per mile," he told the Pacific Sun newspaper in an extensive interview.

At the same time, however, cars make us feel anonymous and foster the idea that no one knows who we are as we drive along alone, sometime with tinted windows. The car is, in essence, our domain.


That combination of factors, Nemerovski says "has been shown in several prominent studies to lead to a psychological state called 'deindividuation,' which is believed to reduce our inhibitions to perform antisocial behavior. Essentially, if we believe no one can identify us, we are more likely to engage in antisocial, even hostile behavior."

It is not an accident that the most serious road rage incidents occur when a person is driving alone. If others are present in the car, drivers are less likely to act out in the most extreme way.

If road rage on some level is something that many of us are familiar with, might Dinh Bowman's unique defense work with the jury? Prosecutors scoffed at his defense and said Bowman was "a student of murder" who'd been training himself to commit the perfect murder for years.

When he found the "right" victim under the "right" circumstances, they said, he blasted away.

Paul LaRosa is a "48 Hours" producer. Watch the full investigation into Yancy Noll's murder and the case against Dinh Bowman during "A Student of Murder," Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.


“In 2014 in Seattle, a young engineer admitted during his first degree murder trial that he shot a man driving in the car next to him four times in the head. Why would a murder defendant admit that? Because he believed the jury would understand his reasons--the engineer said it was the only way he could defend himself against uncontrollable road rage by the other driver. …. Bowman says that Noll followed him off the highway and exploded in rage when the cars came to a stop side-by-side at a red light in a quiet residential neighborhood. "I felt like it was just this crazy bad dream, and I was runnin' from a monster," said Bowman who was driving a BMW convertible sports car. "There was sort of-- a stream of swearin.' "I think the phrase that caught my attention was 'You better learn how to drive that fancy car, dick boy. Or you're gonna get yourself f***ed up.'" …. "If I didn't do something right then, I was goin' to die." Prosecutors scoffed at Bowman's defense and claimed that there was another reason entirely that he killed Yancy Noll--a thirst to commit the perfect murder of a stranger, and that this was not road rage but a thrill kill. …. Prosecutors scoffed at his defense and said Bowman was "a student of murder" who'd been training himself to commit the perfect murder for years. When he found the "right" victim under the "right" circumstances, they said, he blasted away.”


“…cars make us feel anonymous and foster the idea that no one knows who we are as we drive along alone …. Psychologists point to something called "deindividuation," defined as "loss of self- awareness and of individual accountability in a group." …. Essentially, if we believe no one can identify us, we are more likely to engage in antisocial, even hostile behavior. …. It is not an accident that the most serious road rage incidents occur when a person is driving alone. If others are present in the car, drivers are less likely to act out in the most extreme way.”

I’ve heard this analysis of road rage before, though it lacks one other issue which was mentioned then. People in cars feel much more “protected” than they actually are, and in addition they are moving much faster than an individual can in the “natural” (caveman) state. Speed is exhilarating. That feeling included FREEDOM, joy and excitement. It is like a dose of methamphetamine. It alters the mental state of the driver, perhaps as much as being a part of an abusive crowd leads to bullying or even gang rapes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “group think” is very dangerous. This story reminds me of the recent disgusting incident in NYC when a huge gang of motorcyclists surrounded and began to bedevil an Asian man (which may or may not have been the cause of it.) He, also, “feared for his life,” and he simply ran over the violent young idiot who had inserted his cycle in front of the man’s car, then slowing down rapidly to make the driver feel fear. As can happen, that backfired on him. In this case, the driver did indeed win his self-defense case in court, especially since one of the cyclists had taken video of the whole incident and published it. The cops got his video and arrested something in the range of a dozen of those bikers based on the video. These things make me fear for the future of civilized society, and doubt the basic intelligence of the human animal. When I was young I thought the phrase “Man is the measure of all things” was not only right, but good. Nowadays as I live more and more years, I’m not so sure.


The young engineer Bowman declared in court, "If I didn't do something right then, I was goin' to die." I dispute the logic of this claim. All he had to do was zoom off at top speed through the red light, turn at the next corner and another until he got back to the highway where he could proceed on his way. If he wanted to call the police and report the matter, that would also be good. This increasingly popular defense that “I feared for my life,” is so convenient and rote that it infuriates me. Generally, it’s police who do that, but anybody can try it. I’ll bet as it keeps popping up, it will become so obvioiuly specious – without proof, especially -- that courts will become less willing to acquit on the basis of it. Though some self-defense law is needed, we should to amend or abolish that “Stand Your Ground Law,” partly on the simple ground that it is redundant. It is popular among gun-lovin’ rightists so they can have an excuse to use those phallic symbols of theirs.

Everybody has some right to a self defense judgment in all or nearly all parts of the US already, but they do have to prove their case that their extreme degree of fear was “reasonable,” and that they have to ATTEMPT TO FLEE. The Stand Your Ground laws remove that requirement. Too often the one who kills under Stand Your Ground is white and the victim is one of several minorities. Cases in point: Zimmerman and Dunn, both, sadly in the state of Florida. It’s just a thinly disguised permit to kill.

See the following: http://www.husseinandwebber.com/case-work/criminal-defense-articles/floridas-stand-ground-law/

“STAND YOUR GROUND: HISTORY AND SCOPE
In a highly publicized move, the Florida Legislature enacted in 2005 what has been popularly known as the “Stand Your Ground” law. This law, as codified in Sections 776.012, and 776.013, Florida Statutes, provides that a person is justified in the use of deadly force and has no duty to retreat if either:the person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself, or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony;or the person acts under and according to the circumstances set forth in Section 776.013 (pertaining to the use of force in the context of a home or vehicle invasion).

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law does not create a new type of affirmative defense. The principle that a person may use deadly force in self-defense if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm has been the law in Florida for well over a century. See Lovett v. State, 30 Fla. 142, 163-164 (Fla. 1892). Rather than creating a new defense, “Stand Your Ground” broadens the scope of a self-defense claim by establishing a general “no duty to retreat” rule.”



http://news.yahoo.com/patricia-arquette-calls-on-congress-to-ratify-the-equal-rights-amendment-144806459.html

Patricia Arquette calls on Congress to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment
By Michael Walsh Yahoo News
February 27, 2016

Photograph -- Patricia Arquette accepts the award for best actress in a supporting role for “Boyhood
View gallery -- . Equal Rights Amendment supporters voice their disapproval of the 22-16 vote against E.R.A. in the Florida Senate …
View gallery -- Actress Jennifer Lawrence attends The Dinner For Equality co-hosted by Patricia Arquette and Marc Benioff on February 25, 2016 in Beverly Hills, Calif...
Actress Jennifer Lawrence attends The Dinner For Equality co-hosted by Patricia Arquette and Marc Benioff on February …


Hollywood may be embarrassed when its pay inequality and lack of diversity enter the spotlight, but in many ways these are symptoms of larger problems.

Patricia Arquette has launched a petition calling for lawmakers to vote in favor of ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to give women a clear constitutional basis for challenging discrimination.

It’s not a new issue for Arquette. The critically acclaimed actress’ impassioned plea for pay equity at last year’s Academy Awards sparked a national discussion about sex-based discrimination.

Now she’s doubling down on her calls for full equality for women under the law.

“We’re not saying women are better than men. All it says is all people are equal in the United States regardless of their sex. And who can argue with that?” Arquette said in an interview with Yahoo News.

On Thursday, just days before the 2016 Oscars, Arquette and Equal Rights Advocates, a women's rights nonprofit, launched a petition on Change.org to compell Congress to finally ratify the ERA, which reads “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

First introduced in 1923 by suffragist Alice Paul, the bill finally picked up steam in the 1970s (passing both the House and the Senate and getting endorsed by presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter) but was only ratified by 35 states — three states short of the minimum needed to become federal law.

The ERA would require the judicial system to treat discrimination claims by women the same way it treats those on the basis of race, religion or national origin. Without the amendment, Arquette says, women’s rights are left open to interpretation.

In 2011, much to the chagrin of feminists, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, said, “Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.”

To counteract this argument, the ERA would provide a clear constitutional basis on which women could challenge gender-based discrimination.

Arquette also applauded California Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of the state’s Fair Pay Act last year, but said women need change at the federal level because they cannot be beholden to whoever happens to be in office at the time.

Last year, actress Jennifer Lawrence spoke out against the gender pay gap after the Sony e-mail hack revealed that she had been paid far less than her male co-stars. Arquette, who empathized with Lawrence, said the “Hunger Games” star unfairly caught a lot of heat and was perceived as a “spoiled wealthy actress” by people who missed the point.

“When I see Jennifer Lawrence stand up and speak, I see 33 million women and children behind her back, standing up and needing her to open her mouth,” Arquette said. “And I feel so grateful that she did and I really hope that we all can stand up with her and say this is not acceptable.”

Filmmaker Kamala Lopez recently worked with Arquette on the film “Equal Means Equal,” a documentary about the treatment of women in the U.S. today. She says that people often look at different issues facing women individually but need to deal with sexism holistically.

“One of the things a Supreme Court justice [Scalia] said very clearly was, ‘Look, the Constitution was written, and women were not included in it. It was deliberate. It was part of the culture of the time. But don’t try to shoehorn the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment or Title IX or Title VII to actually grant women basic human and civil rights.’ And he’s right,” she said to Yahoo News.

In 2009, Lopez was inspired to direct “Equal Means Equal” after doing research for her first film, “A Single Woman,” about Jeannette Rankin, the first American woman elected to Congress.

Her new film brings together real-life stories and legal cases to make a compelling argument for passing the ERA.

“It comes down to all of us Americans standing up for what we know is right and who we are as a country and the basic values that we share,” she said. “And I have great faith that we’ll be able to work together to make this happen.”

As of Saturday morning, the petition had garnered 48,323 signatures. Arquette and Equal Rights Advocates will decide when to deliver it to the recipients: the House, the Senate and governors across the nation.

The petition can be found at change.org.


“First introduced in 1923 by suffragist Alice Paul, the bill finally picked up steam in the 1970s (passing both the House and the Senate and getting endorsed by presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter) but was only ratified by 35 states — three states short of the minimum needed to become federal law. The ERA would require the judicial system to treat discrimination claims by women the same way it treats those on the basis of race, religion or national origin. Without the amendment, Arquette says, women’s rights are left open to interpretation. …. Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, said, “Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.” To counteract this argument, the ERA would provide a clear constitutional basis on which women could challenge gender-based discrimination.”


“In 2009, Lopez was inspired to direct “Equal Means Equal” after doing research for her first film, “A Single Woman,” about Jeannette Rankin, the first American woman elected to Congress.” I heard of this film, but not knowing the subject, didn’t go see it. I’ll try to check it out from the library. The ERA was one of the big issues of my women’s rights involvement of the 1970s. It’s a shame that such a simple form of fair interchange is still being denied. Of course, blacks are still intimidated in many ways since the Civil Rights wins of the ‘60s and ‘70s. In a democracy, life shouldn’t be such a struggle as it still is today. The Great Society has yet to come forward and become a reality.




WHAT MAN HATH WROUGHT


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/un-science-report-warns-of-fewer-bees-other-pollinators/

Report warns many wild bees may be heading for extinction
AP February 26, 2016, 11:27 AM

Photograph -- 11 PHOTOS, Bringing the bees


WASHINGTON -- Many species of wild bees, butterflies and other critters that pollinate plants are shrinking toward extinction, and the world needs to do something about it before our food supply suffers, a new United Nations scientific mega-report warns.

The 20,000 or so species of pollinators are key to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of crops each year - from fruits and vegetables to coffee and chocolate. Yet 2 out of 5 species of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, said the first-of-its-kind report. Pollinators with backbones, such as hummingbirds and bats, are only slightly better off, with 1 in 6 species facing extinction.

"We are in a period of decline and there are going to be increasing consequences," said report lead author Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research at the University of Reading in England.

And it's not just honeybees. In some aspects they're doing better than many of their wild counterparts, like the bumblebee, despite dramatic long-term declines in the United States and a mysterious disorder that has waned.

The trouble is the report can't point to a single villain. Among the culprits: the way farming has changed so there's not enough diversity and wild flowers for pollinators to use as food; pesticide use, including a controversial one, neonicotinoid, that attacks the nervous system; habitat loss to cities; disease, parasites and pathogens; and global warming.

The report is the result of more than two years of work by scientists across the globe who got together under several different U.N. agencies to come up with an assessment of Earth's biodiversity, starting with the pollinators. It's an effort similar to what the United Nations has done with global warming, putting together an encyclopedic report to tell world leaders what's happening and give them options for what can be done.

The report, which draws from many scientific studies but no new research, was approved by a congress of 124 nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.

"The variety and multiplicity of threats to pollinators and pollination generate risks to people and livelihoods," the report stated. "These risks are largely driven by changes in land cover and agricultural management systems, including pesticide use."

But these are problems that can be fixed, and unlike global warming, the solutions don't require countries to agree on global action - they can act locally, said Robert Watson, a top British ecological scientist and vice chairman of the scientific panel. The solutions offered mostly involve changing the way land and farming is managed.

"There are relatively simple, relatively inexpensive mechanisms for turning the trend around for native pollinators," said David Inouye of the University of Maryland, a co-author of a couple chapters in the report.

One of the biggest problems, especially in the United States, is that giant swaths of farmland are devoted to just one crop, and wildflowers are disappearing, Potts and others said. Wild pollinators especially do well on grasslands, which are usually more than just grass, and 97 percent of Europe's grasslands have disappeared since World War II, Potts said.

England now pays farmers to plant wildflowers for bees in hedge rows, Watson said.

There are both general and specific problems with some pesticide use, according to the report.

"Pesticides, particularly insecticides, have been demonstrated to have a broad range of lethal and sub-lethal effects on pollinators in controlled experimental conditions," the report said. But it noted more study is needed on the effects on pollinators in the wild. Herbicides kill off weeds, which are useful for wild pollinators, the report added.

The report highlighted recent research that said the widely used insecticide neonicotinoid reduces wild bees' chances for survival and reproduction, but the evidence of effects on honeybees is conflicting.

In a statement, Christian Maus, global pollinator safety manager for Bayer, which makes neonicotinoids, said: "The report confirms the overwhelming majority of the scientific opinion regarding pollinator health - that this is a complex issue affected by many factors. Protecting pollinators and providing a growing population with safe, abundant food will require collaboration."

Potts said global warming is "very clearly a real future risk" because pollinators and their plants may not be at the same place at the same time. England has seen one-quarter of its bumblebee species threatened, and those are the type of bees most sensitive to climate change, he said.

England has lost two species of wild bumblebees to extinction and the U.S. has lost one, Inouye said.

The story of honeybees is a bit mixed. Globally over the last 50 years, the number of managed honeybee hives - ones where humans keep them either as a hobbyists or as professional pollinators - has increased, but it has dropped in North America and Europe, where there is the most data, the report said.

Potts said the number of managed hives in the United States dropped from 5.5 million in 1961 and dropped to a low of 2.5 million in 2012, when colony collapse disorder was causing increased worries. The number of hives is now back up slightly, to 2.7 million.

Dennis van Engelsdorp, a University of Maryland bee expert who wasn't part of the report, praised it for looking at the big picture beyond honeybees.

Doing something is crucial, he said.

"Everything falls apart if you take pollinators out of the game," vanEngelsdorp said. "If we want to say we can feed the world in 2050, pollinators are going to be part of that."



“The 20,000 or so species of pollinators are key to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of crops each year - from fruits and vegetables to coffee and chocolate. Yet 2 out of 5 species of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, said the first-of-its-kind report. Pollinators with backbones, such as hummingbirds and bats, are only slightly better off, with 1 in 6 species facing extinction. …. Wild pollinators especially do well on grasslands, which are usually more than just grass, and 97 percent of Europe's grasslands have disappeared since World War II, Potts said. England now pays farmers to plant wildflowers for bees in hedge rows, Watson said. …. In a statement, Christian Maus, global pollinator safety manager for Bayer, which makes neonicotinoids, said: "The report confirms the overwhelming majority of the scientific opinion regarding pollinator health - that this is a complex issue affected by many factors. Protecting pollinators and providing a growing population with safe, abundant food will require collaboration." …. Potts said the number of managed hives in the United States dropped from 5.5 million in 1961 and dropped to a low of 2.5 million in 2012, when colony collapse disorder was causing increased worries. The number of hives is now back up slightly, to 2.7 million.”


Pesticides, over cultivation, global warming, and an as yet undiagnosed condition called “hive collapse,” plus a lack in recent times of beekeepers are all parts of a crisis in the survival of bees. Bee keepers, of course, are no help to any of the other pollinators, most or all of which are also in danger. What jumps out to me here is the over-cultivation and city development that has removed not only our forests but our grasslands. We take that for granted, especially if we are “conservative” because we “need more housing,” but it doesn’t have to be separate houses for each family or situated on large tracts of land. I like high rise city housing, personally. I lived the last 35 or so yers in Washington DC and now in Jacksonville, and though I miss the quietude and privacy of a separate house, I like the neighbors and activities.

Land preservation is a movement in this country which has existed at least since the 1970s (not to mention Teddy Roosevelt and the first of the national parks). There was a great documentary on PBS about some people who are buying and preserving prairie land untouched. Others such as enlightened farmers, are following an old practice called letting fields “lie fallow” for a year or two before being used again for agriculture, including grazing. That’s good because it allows wildflowers and grass to grow awhile, and provides plants for honeybees. We should also be planting trees while we’re at it. More greenery of any kind means more O2 and less CO2, and that’s another big plus.

Why can’t we as a society do some common sense things that don’t even cost much extra money? The old argument that money unearned is the same as money lost is not necessarily true. A farmer who loses money on an unplanted field for a couple of years will gain more money from it later as the soil hasn’t been continually deprived of nutrients during that period and, especially if it is planted with clover or soybeans, will be all the more fertile when he does start to plant it again. In that farming method, the farmer simply plows the clover or soybeans under to enrich the soil. Both of those, and all legumes, are “nitrogen fixing” plants and contribute to improving the soil for later agriculture. Nitrogen is one of the basic ingredients in fertilizers.

Our modern “factory farming,” is a process of intensive cultivation in which vast tracts of land are stripped, overused, and then replaced with a heavy use of chemicals to continue a high production. It is not only highly destructive to the soil; it produces a similar situation to the problem during the 1920s “dust bowl,” a condition in which the soil had no root systems to hold it in place, due by the way to the same kind of poor management that we are doing again now. When a prolonged drought struck, the soil literally blew away. I’ve seen photos of the “dust storms,” in which huge amounts of red dust blew in leaving an absolute mess and even threatening life. It’s possible to get enough dirt in the lungs to die. Here we are, doing these things again, and in addition we seem to be having lots of droughts also, at least in California. It seems we really don’t learn anything from experience.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-math-teacher-anthony-yom-solves-ultimate-calculus-problem/

Los Angeles math teacher solves ultimate calculus equation
By MIREYA VILLARREAL CBS NEWS
February 25, 2016, 7:20 PM

Play VIDEO -- Meet 2 students who earned perfect score on AP calculus exam
Photograph -- villarrealcalculusteacher.png, Anthony Yom helps students in his AP Calculus class CBS NEWS
Photograph -- villarrealcalculusteacheren.png
Anthony Yom CBS NEWS


LOS ANGELES -- From the outside, Lincoln High School does not look like a place that inspires greatness. It's old, with gates on the windows, in a tough East L.A. neighborhood.

But look beyond all of that, and you'll find Anthony Yom. The son of Korean immigrants, Yom teaches what is considered the hardest class in school -- Advanced Placement Calculus.

"One of my strategies is really to make sure to provide an environment where kids are not ashamed of asking questions," Yom said.

His approach to teaching goes beyond calculating the slope of a curve. Yom makes his class meet after school, on weekends and even holidays. And the hard work has paid off.

"I am sure when after they get the score and I ask them was it worth it, every one of them says it was worth it."

For three years in a row every student that has walked into his class has passed the AP Calculus test. This year one student, Cedrick Argueta, got every question right.

"His style of teaching commands respect," Cedrick explained. "Mr. Yom is very likeable. He likes to get to know his students on a personal level."

"They know that I sincerely care about them, and it is prepared for them with love."

Argueta and Yom were both honored by the L.A. school board, and President Obama invited Cedrick to the White House Science Fair.

The 17-year-old wants to go to Cal-Tech and become a rocket scientist, while Yom's focus is on his next batch of calculus students.


“But look beyond all of that, and you'll find Anthony Yom. The son of Korean immigrants, Yom teaches what is considered the hardest class in school -- Advanced Placement Calculus. "One of my strategies is really to make sure to provide an environment where kids are not ashamed of asking questions," Yom said. His approach to teaching goes beyond calculating the slope of a curve. Yom makes his class meet after school, on weekends and even holidays. And the hard work has paid off. …. For three years in a row every student that has walked into his class has passed the AP Calculus test. This year one student, Cedrick Argueta, got every question right. "His style of teaching commands respect," Cedrick explained. "Mr. Yom is very likeable. He likes to get to know his students on a personal level." "They know that I sincerely care about them, and it is prepared for them with love."


“Prepared for them with love” is the best possible scenario for people to learn, young and old. That means that the teacher knows the student personally and has an active interest in their personal welfare. The need for that is due to the fact that as we walk through life we are simultaneously encountering good and bad events each day which require an adjustment. That is particularly true of teenagers, but young kids as well. A psych textbook I had stated that kids have been shown to learn much better in a one to one situation with a caring and encouraging teacher, rather than a harsh, restrictive, browbeating teacher.

In the early years, that should be the parents, but by kindergarten they are usually hungry for companionship and encouragement from outside sources. The best teachers are gentle, but thorough, and they understand that each student learns differently and has different gifts. This teacher, Yom, taught intensively and even on weekends and holidays. Some don’t think that is the best way for kids to learn, and that they need time off, but it does resemble those complete emersion courses for language teaching and music camps for kids who show a gift. Calculus, after all, is not first year math, and is generally taken by those who show a love and a gift for it, so the extra pressure probably helps them.

This is a very encouraging story about an often depressing situation in the massive, factory-like educational environments that we call our school systems. Too often what is being produced are social misfits, emotionally depressed kids and worse, a kind of mental robot who can recite certain impressive speeches, which is okay, but they can’t form a personal philosophy that includes empathy and good citizenship. Part of our basic humanity needs not only to be protected, but taught, and lots of physical punishment is not the way to instill those things.

I do believe in clubs and activities which give kids a chance to open their wings and fly, and nowadays, seminars on subjects like the bullying problem, the trap of drugs, abstinence from sex until they are mature, empathy for outsiders such as other races, political philosophies, gender issues and religions. Common Core recommends more course work of that kind, and the conservative citizens think that rigid and robotic “patriotism” should be stressed instead. They fear individuation. Not thinking, rather than thinking, is the rule of that segment of our society. To say that it is stultifying to the progress of what I consider to be “an education,” is an understatement. As you can tell, I think we have a long way to go.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/02/26/468166791/when-beef-is-off-limits-beaver-and-muskrat-make-it-to-lenten-menu

When Beef Is Off Limits, Beaver And Muskrat Make It To Lenten Menu
ALAN GREENBLATT
February 26, 20162:35 PM ET

Photograph -- Beaver barbecue at Bootleggin' BBQ in St. Louis, Mo. Though many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, in some parts of the country, water-dwelling mammals have long been considered fair game.
Alan Greenblatt for NPR
Photograph -- Brenton Brown is the co-owner of Bootleggin' BBQ in St. Louis, Mo., which is now serving "humanely trapped" smoked beaver on Fridays during Lent.
Alan Greenblatt for NPR



It doesn't taste like chicken and it's definitely not a fish, but some people in St. Louis are eating beaver for Lent.

Many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays in observance of Lent, the season of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter. The church has made exceptions — at times, in some places — for aquatic mammals such as beavers, muskrats and capybara.

That's good enough for Brenton Brown. "A friend of ours said that the Catholic Church is fine with this for Lent," says Brown, co-owner of Bootleggin' BBQ in St. Louis, which is now serving "humanely trapped" smoked beaver on Fridays during Lent.

Beaver is a secret menu item, discussed on social media but not listed at the restaurant. "We started going down the rabbit hole, so to speak, of how we could market the beaver," Brown says.

Brown says beaver sales "almost doubled" last Friday compared to the previous week, the first time it was on offer. On Friday, Brown wore a t-shirt decorated with a mildly suggestive illustration of a beaver. It read, "God said it was OK. #Lent2016."

According to Dolly Jørgensen, an environmental historian in Sweden, the medieval theological debate about forbidden foods during Lent didn't distinguish between mammals and fish, but rather, creatures of the land and sea. So, while meat from chicken, cows and sheep was considered off limits, "other animals that spent their time in the water qualified as aquatic and could be eaten at Lent," she wrote.

That doesn't mean beaver is kosher for St. Louis Catholics during Lent. "I've checked with our chancellor for canonical affairs, and he is not aware of any current dispensations along these lines in the Archdiocese of St. Louis," says Gabe Jones, a church spokesman.

The archdiocese itself is running an #EatMoreFish promotion. It hardly seems necessary. In heavily Catholic St. Louis, the Friday night dinner scene is dominated this time of year by dozens of fish fries, including one at a suburban church that offers "God's cod" – which diners can pick up via drive-thru or enjoy while seated in the gym.

Adam's Smokehouse, another entrant in the city's bustling barbecue scene, doesn't even bother staying open for dinner on Fridays during Lent. "I saw my numbers from previous years and realized there's not that much business for the season," says co-owner Mike Ireland. "I respect everyone's wishes and what they want for those days."

In other parts of the country, it's been a longstanding habit to eat water-dwelling mammals during Lent. Muskrats are traditional in parts of the mid-Atlantic, for instance. The Southern Grille in Ellendale, Del., is serving muskrat during this Lenten season.

The dish is quite common in parts of Michigan. This time of year, lots of churches and social clubs host muskrat dinners — so many that the local stock has been partially depleted: Muskrats are being shipped in from Ohio.

Michigan's tradition dates back to the War of 1812, when area battles devastated harvests and farmers lost most of their livestock, according to Ralph Naveaux, the retired director of the Monroe County Historical Museum. Muskrats emerged as an important protein source.

Naveaux attends a half-dozen or so area muskrat dinners every year, including parish suppers.

"You'll hear legends about muskrats and also beaver being classified as fish, because of their lifestyle of being in the water all the time," Naveux says. "In more recent times, of course, we don't classify it as a fish, scientifically. But as an immemorial custom, this is still considered something that can be eaten for Lent."

Naveaux says a popular local preparation is to stew muskrat meat in a sauce of creamed corn. Newbies tend to prefer it fried in a little batter. The trick is to make sure to get rid of the musk glands, and then parboil the funky meat ahead of any other preparation.

"When you're cooking any sort of wild game, probably your best bet is to start off with a really small taste and go from there," says Doug Paine, chef at the Hotel Vermont in Burlington.

Paine served beaver at a wild game night last fall. "I made little hand pies out of it," he says. "People weren't eating a lot of it, but they did enjoy it."

Back at Bootleggin' BBQ in St. Louis, the beaver meat sits in good-sized chunks — six ounces of it confronting you on the plate. Served in gumbo, tacos or over a white-cheddar garlic mashed potato, Bootleggin's beaver has a mild, beefy flavor, with dark afternotes. It's chewy and pairs pretty well with a strong English ale.

"It's got the beef consistency, but it's got some woodiness to it," Brown says. "You can tell that's their diet."

Alan Greenblatt is a writer based in St. Louis, Mo.


“Many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays in observance of Lent, the season of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter. The church has made exceptions — at times, in some places — for aquatic mammals such as beavers, muskrats and capybara. That's good enough for Brenton Brown. "A friend of ours said that the Catholic Church is fine with this for Lent," says Brown, co-owner of Bootleggin' BBQ in St. Louis, which is now serving "humanely trapped" smoked beaver on Fridays during Lent. …. On Friday, Brown wore a t-shirt decorated with a mildly suggestive illustration of a beaver. It read, "God said it was OK. #Lent2016." …. "I've checked with our chancellor for canonical affairs, and he is not aware of any current dispensations along these lines in the Archdiocese of St. Louis," says Gabe Jones, a church spokesman. …. In other parts of the country, it's been a longstanding habit to eat water-dwelling mammals during Lent. Muskrats are traditional in parts of the mid-Atlantic, for instance. The Southern Grille in Ellendale, Del., is serving muskrat during this Lenten season. The dish is quite common in parts of Michigan. This time of year, lots of churches and social clubs host muskrat dinners — so many that the local stock has been partially depleted: Muskrats are being shipped in from Ohio.”


Most modern, middle class city dwellers respond with an immediate distaste to the idea of eating anything other than beef, sheep, pigs, or chickens. That is ridiculous. Just look across the water to Europe. Horses are eaten there, and in lots of Asian countries cats and dogs, also. As for muskrats, they are rodents, but not “rats,” per se. They are used over much of the US for food, and their relative the capybara is relished in Latin America. I have eaten quite a few squirrels and rabbits. I heard, and I don’t doubt it, that the cute little Chihuahua was bred by Southwestern American Indians for food. See the following article on evidence for this view. It’s not very long, and is well worth reading. http://lostworlds.org/ancient-chihuahuas-roamed-eaten-southeastern-u-s/, Ancient Chihuahuas Once Roamed, and Eaten, in Southeastern U.S.?



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/27/marine-who-says-clinton-tried-to-cover-up-benghazi-removed-from-campaign-rally.html

Man claiming to be Marine says Clinton tried to 'cover' up Benghazi removed from campaign rally
Published February 27, 2016
FoxNews.com

A man was removed Friday by police officers from a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in South Carolina, after raising questions with husband and former President Bill Clinton about his wife’s role in the Benghazi terror attacks.

“Four (Americans) were killed and your wife is trying to cover it up,” said the protester, who said he’s a Marine sergeant and eight-year, active-duty veteran.

Hillary Clinton was secretary of state during the Sept. 11, 2012 terror attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Families of the victims say Clinton told them in the immediate aftermath of the attacks that the strikes were inspired by an online, anti-Islamic video. Clinton’s emails show she knew within hours of the strikes that they were terror related.

“I heard you,” Bill Clinton said at the rally in Bluffton, S.C., in an effort to respond to the protestor, over cheer and boos and before sheriff deputies removed him. “You listen to me now.”

Clinton is the Democratic frontrunner in the race, leading primary challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by double digits in national polls and in South Carolina, which on Saturday is holding its Democratic primary.

However, polls show voters still have deep concerns about Clinton's trustworthiness over such issues as Benghazi and her uses as secretary of state of a private email server for official correspondence.

Emails from Steven in the months before that attacks show that the State Department, which Clinton ran from 2011 to 2013, didn’t response to his request for better security at the outpost.

Clinton needs “to take responsibility for dropping the ball,” the Marine told the Island Packet/Beaufort Gazette outside the venue, after being removed. “The fact that she is not in prison now is mind-blowing.”


Seriously guys, disrupters of that type are always removed, and usually sooner than in this case, when a candidate is speaking. What’s new here? It’s certainly not as shocking as the presence of a carrier of one of those malicious tales that the far right is always circulating inserting himself where he isn’t wanted. He should attend his own party’s pep rally instead.