April 30, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-protesters-breach-baghdad-green-zone-storm-parliament/

Anti-government protesters breach Baghdad's Green Zone
CBS/AP
April 30, 2016, 8:46 AM

Photograph -- Followers of Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are seen in the parliament building as they storm Baghdad's Green Zone after lawmakers failed to convene for a vote on overhauling the government in Iraq April 30, 2016. REUTERS/AHMED SAAD


BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of protesters climbed over the blast walls surrounding Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone for the first time on Saturday and stormed into parliament, carrying Iraqi flags and chanting against the government.

The breach marked a major escalation in the country's political crisis following months of anti-government protests, sit-ins and demonstrations by supporters of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Green Zone is home to most ministries and foreign embassies and has long been the focus of al-Sadr's criticism of the government.

The Baghdad Operations Command said all traffic attempting to enter the capital through the city's main checkpoints was halted after the breach, and additional police and military units have been deployed to the Green Zone, closing the checkpoints on the compound's outer perimeter and blocking internal roads.

Earlier Saturday, al-Sadr accused Iraqi politicians of blocking political reforms aimed at combating corruption and waste. While al-Sadr didn't call for an escalation to the protests, shortly after his remarks his supporters began scaling the compound's walls. A group of young men then pulled down a section of concrete blast walls to cheers from the crowd of thousands gathered in the streets outside.

The Reuters news agency reports that protesters chanted "The cowards ran away!" - apparently referring to the departed politicians - as the protesters crossed a bridge over the Tigris River.

Cellphone video uploaded to social media showed dozens of young men running through the halls of parliament, chanting slogans in support of al-Sadr and calling for the government to disband.

"We are all with you (al-Sadr)," one group of men yelled as the entered the building's main chamber.

Increasingly tense protests and a series of failed reform measures have paralyzed Iraq's government as the country struggles to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and respond to an economic crisis sparked in part by a plunge in global oil prices.

A broad-based protest movement last summer mobilized millions and pressured Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to submit a proposal to reduce the size of the Cabinet and replace political appointees with independent technocrats.

But that proposal has been stalled in the face of Iraq's entrenched political blocs, and in recent months al-Sadr's movement has come to monopolize the protests.

Earlier on Saturday, a bombing in a market filled with Shiite civilians in Baghdad killed at least 21 people and wounded at least 42 others, according to police and hospital officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it used a three-ton truck bomb. The extremist group regularly carries out attacks targeting the security forces and the country's Shiite majority.



“Hundreds of protesters climbed over the blast walls surrounding Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone for the first time on Saturday and stormed into parliament, carrying Iraqi flags and chanting against the government. The breach marked a major escalation in the country's political crisis following months of anti-government protests, sit-ins and demonstrations by supporters of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Green Zone is home to most ministries and foreign embassies and has long been the focus of al-Sadr's criticism of the government. …. The Reuters news agency reports that protesters chanted "The cowards ran away!" - apparently referring to the departed politicians - as the protesters crossed a bridge over the Tigris River. Cellphone video uploaded to social media showed dozens of young men running through the halls of parliament, chanting slogans in support of al-Sadr and calling for the government to disband. …. A broad-based protest movement last summer mobilized millions and pressured Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to submit a proposal to reduce the size of the Cabinet and replace political appointees with independent technocrats.”


“But that proposal has been stalled in the face of Iraq's entrenched political blocs, and in recent months al-Sadr's movement has come to monopolize the protests.” This sounds very much like our frequent political deadlock in the US legislature, especially since the Tea Party popped up like a mushroom several years ago. Of course the ruling party in Iraq has been avoiding much desired reforms and the dominance of political appointees over “independent technocrats,” who do sound like, relatively speaking, “the good guys” to me. Intelligent, educated, independent and hopefully principled government workers are the ideal.




Annoying, Devious and Dangerous Disinformation In the US:

Those pop-up ads down below that article which you really wanted to read come in several kinds “Childhood Photographs of the World’s Most Evil People,” and more. Those sites are titillating and interesting, if they didn’t put viruses on my computer, but the scary “financial collapse” ads are much more disturbing to me. The naïve Rightist blue collar factors in our country gravitate toward those. My downstairs neighbor is always listening to a late night call in show which ranged from conspiracy theories to Bigfoot. I asked whether he believed that stuff or not, and he said “I don’t know.” There are people who just don’t/can’t read and don’t/can’t think. They are actually dangerous because they do vote.

Ron Paul is featured on one of those pop-ups, put out by the investment group called Stansberry Research, which as you might expect, is a discredited organization featuring unlikely and unreliable investment schemes. In 2003 and 2007 the organization was charged and convicted of fraud (just like Donald Trump).

Two things strike me particularly: first, one of the company names for Stansberry’s umbrella group is “Pirate Investors LLC,” which to any wise person should ring an alarm bell; second, one of their videos is described in Wikipedia as “’The Project to Restore America,’ a 2012 endeavor aimed at restructuring American governance. [3][7]”

Hillary was right. There really is “a vast rightwing conspiracy” and it actually is trying to take over this country. Several of the Dominionist leaning politicians who are filling the ranks of the Tea Party have actually advocated for declaring Christianity as our state religion. Wanting folks to repent is one thing, but mandating it in a democracy is unacceptable. Things are really getting spooky.

Of course there are also a bunch of scam artists who just want to get rich off the backs of the poor and, all too often, very ignorant segments of our society. Instead of saving the few spare dollars they get to achieve more education and a better job, they go for get rich quick schemes like these. See the following from Wikipedia. Trump appealed to these same people with his “online university.” Maybe I’m prejudiced, but an “online university” which is actually accredited – only those who want to fleece the public outright.


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

Stansberry Research
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stansberry Research is a privately owned American publishing company. The company is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices in Florida, Oregon, and California.[1] The company specializes in investment research with an information services product line consisting primarily of monthly and bi-monthly advisory newsletters written by a variety of financial editors.[1][2] Topics include natural resource, power, oil and mining company investments, as well as health care and biotechnology.[1] Value, corporate bond and alternative investing are also featured. The company claims its newsletter has subscribers in over one hundred countries.[1]

History[edit]

Stansberry Research (previously Stansberry & Associates) was founded in 1999 as an independent investment research firm.[1] In addition to his editorial duties, company founder, Frank Porter Stansberry, writes opinion pieces in a variety of financial publications discussing diverse and controversial issues ranging from the auto bailout to the European financial panic, among others.[3][4][5][6] Other Stansberry public information efforts include production of a 2011 infomercial entitled "The End of America," as well as the founding of "The Project to Restore America," a 2012 endeavor aimed at restructuring American governance.[3][7]

In 2014, Snopes.com investigated the firm's claim that United States currency will "collapse", and found such claims to be false. [8]

. . . .

SEC case[edit]

In November 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Stansberry of fraud committed while he edited various newsletters published under the umbrella of Agora, Inc. and Agora subsidiary, Pirate Investors LLC.[15][16][17] In August 2007, the court found Stansberry guilty with the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and subsequently denied a 2009 appeal.[17][18][19] Stansberry sought to shed light on the controversy in a March 2010 self-authored, third party blog piece entitled "Why The SEC Sued Me-And Why You Should Care."[20]


MORE ON STANSBERRY --

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/right-wing-conspiracy-theory-barack-obama-third-term

The Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama's Third Term -- Our Kenyan-born, secret Muslim president has apparently cooked up a sneaky plot to subvert the 22nd Amendment.

Image -- Probably not. benson./Flickr
Chart: Almost Every Obama Conspiracy Theory Ever
Audio -- Limbaugh on “Third Term” rumor

Barack Hussein Obama is hatching a secret plot to pull off the ultimate power grab: securing himself a third term in the White House.

At least that's the narrative being spun by right-wing conspiracy theorists, who seem to believe Obama is modeling his presidency after fictional Nixon in Watchmen.

Among the main proponents of this theory—which comes in several different flavors—is Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a publishing firm that hawks financial advice—and has a history of promoting dubious claims. Even before the president won reelection, the company began blasting out emails to subscribers of various conservative newsletters, warning of the coming third term of Obama. The emails went out as paid advertisements through the right-leaning Townhall.com, Newsmax, Human Events, and Gingrich Marketplace (a spokesman for Newt Gingrich and the vice president of Human Events both claimed this email blast was a mistake).

The emails alerted readers to a vague—and somewhat counterintuitive—theory: Some unspecified but major event will lead to an epoch of American economic prosperity. Because it will happen under Obama's watch, he'll claim full credit and receive an unprecedented boost in approval ratings, giving him a mandate to demand and subsequently obtain a third term. If you're confused, below are screenshots of two of the emails: (See website for images.)

These messages are accompanied by a slideshow titled "The Third Term — INSIDE: The Secret Plan to Retain Power Through 2020" and narrated by Stansberry & Associates founder Frank Porter Stansberry. It discusses how Obama will become American history's greatest tyrant, responsible for implementing "the most terrifying socialist policies" the country has ever seen. "The Third Term" also highlights the company's supposed track record of correctly predicting the future, and invites readers to check out their trading and investing services and other pricey products.

Stansberry has something of a checkered past when it comes the claims appearing in his newsletters and online videos. In 2010, he released a similar slideshow called "End of America" (77 minutes long), in which he predicted waves of violence and tumult across the United States and the impending implosion of the American economy—an argument that contradicts the premise of "The Third Term." In 2003, the SEC filed a complaint against him for pushing false information via his financial newsletter. In 2007, Stansberry (and his investment firm, then called Pirate Investor) was ordered by a federal court to pay $1.5 million in civil penalties and restitution. Stansberry Research did not respond to a request for comment.

Other conspiracy mongers who have recently jumped on the Obama-third-term-prophecy bandwagon are radio host Alex Jones—who has featured Stansberry on his show—and birtherism promoter and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah. Over at the conservative forum Free Republic, commenters have ruminated on a related theory. In this scenario, Michelle Obama runs for president in 2016 and wins, thus allowing Barack to run the government as a shadow president. Among the first to prognosticate an Obama power grab was Rush Limbaugh, who was way ahead of the curve: He predicted a third Obama term in the summer of 2009, when the 44th president had just barely moved into the White House:

The third-term theory isn't limited to the far right: Technorati writer Sreedhar Pillai has also mused about a possible third term, and Faheem Younus at the Washington Post's faith blog posted on why war with Iran could grant Obama a Roosevelt-like run.

It's unlikely that this theory will gain much traction nationally (though the third-termers have achieved enough publicity to earn their theory derisive words from Chris Matthews on MSNBC). From a purely legal perspective, there are solid obstacles to the president achieving this alleged goal, mainly the 22nd Amendment. It plainly states:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

President Obama—who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade—likely knows this already.

"There is no evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It's a right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans."

But, just to double check, we asked a few experts about the Obama-third-term theory. "There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term," David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, told Mother Jones. "Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It's a right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans."

As a thought experiment, if Obama and his political allies did want to take a stab at repealing the amendment (in a time of economic boom, or whenever), they'd be in for a political fight that would make passing the Affordable Care Act look like a stroll in the park. "As a practical matter, no constitutional amendment can occur without being supported by both major parties," said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. "Constitutional amendments require two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-quarters of the states to ratify. No party controls that much. That's all you need to understand. So, no, Barack Obama will not be serving a third term."

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and Bush-era FEC commissioner (and one of the nation's foremost voter fraud crusaders), agrees: "I'm going to attempt to not laugh at this," Von Spakovsky told Mother Jones. "I don't like Obama's policies, but even I don't believe he would try to get a third term in direct contravention of the 22nd Amendment. Particularly because he couldn't. There is a constitutional prohibition as well as a practical one: When you submit an application in every state and in Washington, DC, to the state election official to qualify to get on the ballot, they simply won't accept an application from someone who violates the 22nd Amendment."

Technically, it wouldn't be unprecedented for an American politician to launch an effort to lengthen a term, or seek an extra four years. Early in President Reagan's second term, congressional allies attempted to find support for amending the Constitution to give him a chance to potentially serve a third term. And when Nixon was in office, there was a proposal to expand presidential terms to six years. Both initiatives were quickly abandoned.

As Von Spakovsky said, "This is not a realistic fear that anyone should have."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-unity-california-intense-backlash-election-2016/

Trump calls for GOP unity in face of intense backlash
CBS NEWS
April 30, 2016, 7:25 AM

Play VIDEO -- Is contested GOP convention still a possibility?
Photograph -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the California Republican Party Convention on April 29, 2016, in Burlingame, California. RAMIN TALAIE/GETTY IMAGES
Play VIDEO -- Protesters delay California Trump appearance
Play VIDEO -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence endorses Ted Cruz
Play VIDEO -- Ted Cruz: Maybe Boehner was "auditioning" to be Trump's VP


In San Francisco, hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the venue where Trump was about to speak to the California GOP convention. The crowds forced him to leave his motorcade and even scale a small barricade to get in through the back.

Many of the protesters were angry over Trump's stance on immigration. Once inside, the GOP presidential front-runner told the convention his entrance was "like crossing the border."

CBS News' Craig Boswell reports that with Trump less than 300 delegates away from clinching the GOP nomination, tensions are running high both inside and outside of the party. Establishment Republicans are accepting he could be their candidate, but opposition to the man and the message shows little sign of letting up.

"That was not the easiest entrance I've ever made," Trump said at the convention after protesters forced him to arrive on foot Friday. "Oh boy, felt like I was crossing the border actually. It's true. I was crossing the border, but I got here."

Trump was in California ahead of the state's June 7 primary, where the most delegates of the nominating cycle will be awarded.

"I speak to the people in this room because there has to be unity in our party," Trump said. "There has to be unity in our party."

He's wooing mainstream Republican audiences who are showing signs of accepting he is the likely nominee.

"I will do my duty and vote for the man if it's Trump because I want a Republican in the White House," said Lois Shade of Glendora, California.

Trump now has 80 percent of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

"I'm up by 400 or so delegates," Trump said. "I'll be up by more than 500 when it's over, and we'll be up by five million votes, OK?"

Ted Cruz addresses the same California audience Saturday. The Texas senator has been camped out in the crucial state of Indiana, which holds its primary Tuesday.

There, he picked up a key endorsement from the state's Gov. Mike Pence, who avoided taking shots at Trump.

"I'm not against anybody, but I will be voting for Ted Cruz in the upcoming Republican primary," Pence said on the Garrison radio show.

In an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" airing Sunday, Cruz again responded to former House Speaker John Boehner, who referred to him as "Lucifer in the flesh," suggesting Boehner may want to return to Washington.

"I kind of wondered if Boehner was auditioning to be Donald Trump's vice president," Cruz said. "You know, a Trump-Boehner ticket would really say the Washington cartel in all its force - one has been funding the cartel, the other has been giving in to Democrats for years."

After Cruz addresses the California convention Saturday, it's back to Indiana, where the state's 57 delegates are seen as critical as to whether Cruz can stop Trump from winning the nomination before the GOP convention in July.



“The crowds forced him to leave his motorcade and even scale a small barricade to get in through the back. Many of the protesters were angry over Trump's stance on immigration. Once inside, the GOP presidential front-runner told the convention his entrance was "like crossing the border." …. Establishment Republicans are accepting he could be their candidate, but opposition to the man and the message shows little sign of letting up. …. He's wooing mainstream Republican audiences who are showing signs of accepting he is the likely nominee. "I will do my duty and vote for the man if it's Trump because I want a Republican in the White House," said Lois Shade of Glendora, California. Trump now has 80 percent of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.”


Republicans have spent the last 30 years or so wooing the South and other ultraconservative parts of the country over to their side by the old “dog whistle” talking points, and now they can’t control them. I wonder if they’re sorry?



http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/man-mirror-sends-shocking-anti-drunken-driving-message-n564981

Man in the Mirror Sends Shocking Anti-Drunken-Driving Message
by MIKE BRUNKER
NEWS APR 30 2016, 12:19 PM ET

Play -- Mirror Campaign Works to Prevent Drunk Driving 1:26


“A guy walks into the restroom at a bar and looks in the mirror ...”

It sounds like the setup for a one-liner, but for customers at a bar in Los Angeles, it was anything but a joke.

See an exclusive interview with MADD founder Candace Lightner on Weekend Nightly News at 6:30 ET tonight

Rather than seeing their own likeness when they looked into the mirror, the patrons at this party — many of them obviously tipsy — saw Kris Caudilla looking back at them in blue prison overalls. And he wasn't just looking, he was talking, sharing his tragic story and warning them not to make the same mistake he did by driving drunk.

The after-hours apparition was not the result of too many cocktails. Caudilla was playing the leading role in a different kind of public service announcement aimed at building new momentum in the fight against drunken driving.

A video of the restroom encounters, titled "Reflections from Inside," shows Caudilla, 32, at the RMC Correctional Facility in Lake Butler, Florida, preparing to go on camera before cutting to an unidentified L.A. bar where patrons are whooping it up at a private party.

The scene then switches to the men's restroom, where male patrons come face to face with Caudilla, who greets them from the mirror with a friendly "What's up, man?"

After appearing to exchange a few pleasantries with the stunned partygoers, Caudilla tells them he's speaking to them from prison and recounts how in January 2010 he killed St. Johns County, Florida, Deputy James Anderson Jr., a 44-year-old married father of four, in a head-on collision while driving home after a night of drinking with friends.

"I made the choice to drink. I made the choice to get in the car," Caudilla tells them after explaining that he is serving a 15-year sentence for DUI manslaughter. "You don't have to make that choice."

The message appears to hit home with the patrons, several of whom assure Caudilla that they have no intention of getting behind the wheel.

The spot was created by the Y&R Miami Bravo advertising agency on behalf of We Save Lives, a highway safety nonprofit led Candace Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Lightner, 70, who founded MADD after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunken driver in 1980, told NBC News that the agency proposed focusing on a perpetrator of a tragedy rather than the victims that are traditionally featured in such PSAs.

"I said why not, because the numbers haven't shifted, even though more laws have passed and PSAs abound," she said, referring to U.S. drunken driving deaths, which have remained flat in recent years after declining sharply from the early 1980s until 2010.

Kris Caudilla warns a patron at a Los Angeles bar not to make the same mistake that put him in prison by driving home drunk in a scene from a public service announcement by We Save Lives, a group created by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) founder Candace Lightner. We Save Lives

The filming of the spot involved some technical trickery, since prison officials would not let Caudilla interact live with the bar patrons. Instead, his statements and questions were filmed in advance and played on cue via a monitor behind the mirror in response to the comments of the drinkers.

The partygoers were aware they were being filmed but didn't know why, accounting for their genuine surprise when they encountered the man in the mirror. It was only at one specific party where Caudilla's video played.

The PSA also was created with social media in mind, with the idea that a talking bathroom mirror might prove popular online.

The strategy appears to be working: the PSA already has been viewed more than 35 million times on social media in the U.S. alone since it was published April 8. All told, it has at least 75 million views in more than 25 countries, according to a spokeswoman for We Save Lives.

After seeing the modest initial goal of 1 million views quickly eclipsed, MADD's Lightner said her group now has a much higher milestone in mind.

"We decided let's go for it and set a goal of reaching 500 million drivers around the world," she said. "It's like there are no boundaries when it comes to language."



“See an exclusive interview with MADD founder Candace Lightner on Weekend Nightly News at 6:30 ET tonight. Rather than seeing their own likeness when they looked into the mirror, the patrons at this party — many of them obviously tipsy — saw Kris Caudilla looking back at them in blue prison overalls. And he wasn't just looking, he was talking, sharing his tragic story and warning them not to make the same mistake he did by driving drunk. …. After appearing to exchange a few pleasantries with the stunned partygoers, Caudilla tells them he's speaking to them from prison and recounts how in January 2010 he killed St. Johns County, Florida, Deputy James Anderson Jr., a 44-year-old married father of four, in a head-on collision while driving home after a night of drinking with friends. "I made the choice to drink. I made the choice to get in the car," Caudilla tells them after explaining that he is serving a 15-year sentence for DUI manslaughter. "You don't have to make that choice." …. The spot was created by the Y&R Miami Bravo advertising agency on behalf of We Save Lives, a highway safety nonprofit led Candace Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)."


"I said why not, because the numbers haven't shifted, even though more laws have passed and PSAs abound," she said, referring to U.S. drunken driving deaths, which have remained flat in recent years after declining sharply from the early 1980s until 2010.” Socializing with alcohol is inextricably entwined in the structure of US society, as well as in most other countries around the world, with the exception of many or most Islamic people, who are famous for banning alcohol in their countries. A great documentary on jihadists who were preparing themselves to blow the crowd around them up for the glory of Allah, showed that they actually did several interesting things first. One is that they made a will, and another is they engaged in a sort of orgy of Islamic sins, including drinking. Was that to make them so depressed that they would willingly blow themselves up, I wonder? I say that, because it wasn’t spontaneous, but on a list of things issued by al Qaeda to “prepare them.” Sick and evil!

Whatever the reason they do that, it is a universal situation that we humans respond to societal influences like fear of financial insecurity, social embarrassment, etc. by getting emotionally “flaky” – abusing drugs, wild sex, violence, and crimes. So if we do wind up with an addiction to the fascinating substances, we can first decide that we WANT to stop drinking and then seek help. I recommend a good psychologist and NA or AA to confront the matter directly and work toward control. This unique intervention by We Save Lives is inventive, but it will still take more than that to manage the problem. The good news is that enough years later and the likelihood of cravings will disappear, especially if we continue to attend meetings, etc.



http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/kasich-gay-people-probably-born-way-n565201

Kasich: Gay People 'Probably' Born That Way
by KAILANI KOENIG, POLITICS
APR 29 2016, 11:54 PM ET

Video -- Kasich and Questioner Get into Exchange Over 'Being Born Gay' 2:07
Related: Kasich and Cruz Had a Week Filled With Hail Marys
Play -- Donald Trump calls for dismissal of LGBT bathroom bill: 'Leave it the way it is' 1:20


SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Friday was pressed by a man in California to answer whether or not he believed people are born gay, setting off a lengthy and somewhat testy exchange that resulted in the Republican presidential candidate declaring that he believes gay people are "probably" born that way.

"Do you believe that some people are born gay?" asked Kelly Bryan, 62, of San Francisco, who attended the Commonwealth Club of California event where Kasich was the featured guest. He later described himself as a Democrat who plans to vote for Hillary Clinton.

"I'm a 62-year-old gay man who came out to both of my parents at 19," Bryan said. "And I've been gay for 45, over 40 years. Gay people are human beings and not a lifestyle choice. Please respond without prayer being an answer."

The next nearly 7 minutes set off a somewhat heated back-and-forth that the moderator tried to end numerous times while Kasich allowed it to continue.

Kasich first launched into describing what religion means to him and that he believes "we'd all be better off in this country if we prayed more." Then, without answering the man's initial question, he turned to the issue of religious liberty laws, as he generally does when he's asked about LGBT issues. "In terms of me, I don't believe in discrimination, I think there is a balance, however, between discrimination and people's religious liberties," Kasich said.

"But I think we should just try to, like, take a chill pill, relax, and try to get along with one another a little bit better instead of trying to write some law to solve a problem that doesn't frankly exist in big enough numbers to justify more lawmaking."

"I THINK WE SHOULD JUST TRY TO, LIKE, TAKE A CHILL PILL, RELAX, AND TRY TO GET ALONG WITH ONE ANOTHER A LITTLE BIT BETTER."

"Republicans don't believe in marriage equality, it's your platform," Bryan responded. "Well, is it?" Kasich asked. "Yes," Brian answered. "I haven't read that thing lately," Kasich said, then Brian told him, "you really should know what you're doing."

"Well, no, they don't tell me what to do by the platform," Kasich rebuffed. "The Republican Party is my vehicle and not my master, okay? I have a right to define the Republican Party, too, okay?" He went on to mention that he believes in "traditional marriage" but also attended the gay wedding of a friend.

When Bryan challenged him again on if people are born gay, Kasich first tried to dodge an answer. "I'm not gonna get into all the analysis of this or that, I'm not gonna do that," he said. As the moderator tried to move the conversation along to the next question, Kasich bounced back. "You know, sir, probably. I mean, I don't, I don't know how it all works, okay? I mean, look. Are they? You know, probability they are. Okay?"

Bryan pressed Kasich about states like Kentucky and Mississippi that have recently passed laws he felt discriminated against the LGBT community, while the moderator again tried to move the discussion to the next question. "No, let me finish, let me finish," Kasich interrupted. "I'm not in favor of that. I'm not in favor of discrimination against anybody."

"But they're using religion," Brian continued, as Kasich responded, "They are not me. Okay? They are not me. I'm telling you my views, okay?" He later reiterated, "Do I think that people are, are, you know, born gay? Probably. I've never studied the issue. But I don't see any reason to hurt you or to discriminate you or make you feel bad or make you feel like a second class citizen."

"One other thing," Kasich added near his conclusion. "Sometimes people, people say that they're religious, okay? Just because I say that I'm a Ford Falcon doesn't make me one. Don't you understand what that means? Just because I say I'm faithful doesn't mean that I am. Just because I make a statement. And don't put everybody who you think, you know, has religion and believes in God, don't put everybody in the same barrel."

After the event, Bryan, who said he was a member of the Commonwealth Club of California and regularly attends their events, told NBC News that he didn't expect a very different answer from Kasich, who he called an "awful candidate."

"I simply wanted it to be answered that gay people are born gay and that it is not a lifestyle or chosen because why would anyone choose to be gay?" he asked, adding, "He had to cop to saying, gay people are, his word, 'probably are born that way' and that was probably the winningiest [sic] point and that was my first question."

Rights for LGBT couples have been a frequent topic of somewhat dramatic exchanges at Kasich's events across in the country. In February in Michigan, Kasich was challenged by a self-described Democratic student who told him it wasn't "enough" for him to claim he had attended a gay wedding. And earlier this month, during a stirring back-and-forth at an MSNBC town hall with Chris Matthews, Kasich stated that he supports "moving on" from the debate over gay marriage, saying of the current laws on the books, "exactly where it is now, I'm fine with it."



"Do you believe that some people are born gay?" asked Kelly Bryan, 62, of San Francisco, who attended the Commonwealth Club of California event where Kasich was the featured guest. He later described himself as a Democrat who plans to vote for Hillary Clinton. …. "But they're using religion," Brian continued, as Kasich responded, "They are not me. Okay? They are not me. I'm telling you my views, okay?" He later reiterated, "Do I think that people are, are, you know, born gay? Probably. I've never studied the issue. But I don't see any reason to hurt you or to discriminate you or make you feel bad or make you feel like a second class citizen." …. And earlier this month, during a stirring back-and-forth at an MSNBC town hall with Chris Matthews, Kasich stated that he supports "moving on" from the debate over gay marriage, saying of the current laws on the books, "exactly where it is now, I'm fine with it."


"Well, no, they don't tell me what to do by the platform," Kasich rebuffed. "The Republican Party is my vehicle and not my master, okay? I have a right to define the Republican Party, too, okay?" Just as I have on some other things that Kasich has said, I like him 200% more than Cruz, Trump, Gov. Scott of FL, and all of the Tea Partiers en masse. Kasich speaks as one who thinks deeply for himself and has a heart. Philosophy without a heart is not only useless, it’s dangerous. In a democracy, that is what I ask of all good citizens. “TAKE A CHILL PILL” is great advice, and shows a sense of humor, which is important in a president.



http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/movies/will-ferrell-walks-away-controversial-reagan-project-n564976

Will Ferrell Walks Away From Controversial Reagan Project
by ADAM HOWARD
POP CULTURE
APR 29 2016, 5:32 PM ET

Video -- Will Ferrell Pulls Out of Controversial Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's Movie
Ronald Reagan
Photograph -- U.S. President Ronald Reagan during a news conference in the White House briefing room, Nov. 25, 1986. Bob Dougherty / AP, file
RELATED: Inside Ronald Reagan's hidden history
Image: Will Ferrell, Will Ferrell attends the world premiere of "Zoolander 2" in New York. Evan Agostini / AP
RELATED: Trump The Next Reagan?


Before it even went into production, a planned satire of Ronald Reagan to be produced by and starring Will Ferrell inspired an outpouring of criticism from conservatives and members of the former president's family.

And by Friday, according to The New York Post, the actor backed out of the project.

According to Variety, the still-untitled project is based on a script from Hollywood's legendary "Black List," an annual collection of the most popular, yet-to-be produced screenplays in the industry.

The film, if it goes forward without Ferrell, will almost surely stoke controversy because its plot purportedly portrays Reagan as suffering from dementia while he was still in office.

"The REAGAN script is one of a number of scripts that had been submitted to Will Ferrell which he had considered. While it is by no means a [sic] 'Alzheimer's comedy' as has been suggested, Mr. Ferrell is not pursuing this project," a spokesperson for the actor told the Post on Friday.

MSNBC has reached out to Will Ferrell's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions, which was reportedly developing the film, for comment but has not heard back at this time.

Reagan went public with his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994, and while there has long been speculation about his state of mind during his second term in office, there has never been any hard evidence that he suffered from Alzheimer's while president.

Condemnation of the film project came swiftly, and not surprisingly the loudest objections came from right-wing circles — not only because of Ferrell's participation (the "Anchorman" star is a supporter of Democratic candidates and causes, and has a history of sneaking subversive progressive messages into his mainstream comedies), but also because of the potential insensitivity to the health of the former president.

"Alzheimers is not joke…It kills. You should be ashamed," Reagan's son Michael tweeted.

And Reagan's daughter Patti Davis has penned an open letter to Ferrell, in which she wrote: "Perhaps for your comedy you would like to visit some dementia facilities. I have — I didn't find anything comedic there, and my hope would be that if you're a decent human being, you wouldn't either."

Those on the right side of the political spectrum have taken exception to Hollywood's attempts to portray "The Gipper" in the past.

In 2003, CBS was forced to yank a highly touted miniseries about the Reagans after conservative critics railed against the casting — James Brolin, who was cast as the former president, was attacked for being the spouse of outspoken liberal Barbara Streisand — and for dialogue that alluded to Reagan's widely reported apathy during the initial outbreak of the AIDS crisis. Showtime eventually aired the series and Brolin was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for his performance.

Lee Daniels' film "The Butler" faced similar criticism 10 years later for depicting Reagan, played by the late British actor Alan Rickman, as being indifferent on civil rights issues. The film covers the 40th president's refusal to support sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa and portrayed him as being generally chilly towards African-American members of the staff at the White House.

"Across the political spectrum, historians, biographers, and former Reagan aides have condemned the movie's outrageous caricature of Ronald Reagan as historically inaccurate and personally unfair, many noting that the president didn't have a racist bone in his body and was actually remarkable in his sensitivities and warmness to blacks and other minorities," wrote Mark Joseph and Paul Kengor in a column for Forbes at the time.

"Reagan," a sure-to-be more flattering biopic based on two books by Kengor, has been in the works for several years. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film "tells Reagan's story through the eyes of Viktor, a KGB agent who kept tabs on Reagan's activities from the time when he was an anti-Communist leader of the Screen Actors Guild."

In 2013, the news that Hollywood icon Michael Douglas would eventually be playing Reagan in a big screen interpretation of the former president's historic 1986 nuclear summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik was also greeted with a collective groan from many on the right, due to the "Wall Street" star's perceived lefty leanings.

Ironically, Reagan had a long history with Hollywood as an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild. And although he represented a conservative moment that was at odds with many of his peers, he did enjoy an unprecedented level of support from celebrities when he mounted his ultimately successful 1980 campaign for the White House.

"The irony is that Reagan brought Hollywood stagecraft values to the presidency," author and journalist Will Bunch told MSNBC on Thursday. "You could make the argument that Reagan was kind of stepping stone towards Trump, in terms of the way he communicated with the public."

Bunch has been making a concerted effort to bring the Reagan image back down to earth ever since he published his book "Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy" in 2010. In the years since that book's release, the public's perception and conservative worship of the former president has only inflated more.

"He's become more of an icon for people than a real person," Bunch said.

This new movie, which dares to explore one of the more sensitive aspects of his persona, could chip away at many preconceived notions of the former president.

"You could make the argument that doing this movie is courageous in a way. I think there's always been this fear of kind of challenging the narrative of Reagan that's taken hold," argues Bunch, although because the president's Alzheimer's is such a difficult and potentially offensive subject matter, he believes the filmmakers are taking a huge risk.

"I wonder if the studios are really underestimating the level of outrage I would expect this to generate," he said.

Exaggerated comic portrayals of deceased former presidents in Hollywood movies are nothing new. For instance, 1983's "The Right Stuff" depicted Lyndon Johnson as a bit of a lumbering, needy buffoon. Richard Nixon — usually with arms raised in his signature peace sign pose — has become a familiar whipping boy for laughs in films like "Dick" (1999) and "Black Dynamite" (2009). Even dramas like "Selma" and "Frost/Nixon" have not shown these leaders in the best light.

However, history has not been as kind to those presidents, which may speak volumes about how this new Reagan project has already been received. Presidents' reputations are constantly evolving depending on the current mood of the electorate.

For instance, former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight has scored huge applause lines on the stump by comparing the current GOP front-runner Donald Trump to Harry Truman, who left office with some of the worst approval ratings in recorded history. Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz has had a penchant for name-checking former President John F. Kennedy, who had for decades been a liberal icon.

Then there's Bill Clinton. Prior to Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency, many liberals and even some conservatives were downright sanguine about the 42nd president, but in this election cycle buyer's remorse for his 1994 crime bill and welfare reform initiatives has proven to be a perpetual thorn in the side of his wife's campaign for the presidency.

Reagan, despite provoking a partisan response when he was actually in the White House, is now credited by both Republicans and Democrats with elevating the nation's mood, sense of patriotism and for contributing to the end of the Cold War, although how much of a direct role he played in that historic feat is still in dispute.

"Clearly people who agree with ideology and people who completely disagree with his ideology both agree that he had an ability to move people," said Bunch. But Republicans risk overplaying their hand by harping on the former presidency's legacy so much that they produce a kind of Reagan fatigue within the electorate. (Debate drinking games already feature references to the ex-president as a familiar call to chug.) And the backlash that Hillary Clinton received for implying that the Reagans were strong in their response to the HIV/AIDS crisis suggests the voters are more informed on the former presidency than one might suspect.

And as income inequality has increasingly become a top concern for voters across the political spectrum it will be hard to ignore the Reagan administration's complicit role in helping shape our modern economy. As an increasing number of voters will be coming of age without any nostalgia for the Reagan years, the movies may be the new battleground for defining his legacy.

This article originally appeared on MSNBC.com


“While it is by no means a [sic] 'Alzheimer's comedy' as has been suggested, Mr. Ferrell is not pursuing this project," a spokesperson for the actor told the Post on Friday. MSNBC has reached out to Will Ferrell's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions, which was reportedly developing the film, for comment but has not heard back at this time. …. Lee Daniels' film "The Butler" faced similar criticism 10 years later for depicting Reagan, played by the late British actor Alan Rickman, as being indifferent on civil rights issues. The film covers the 40th president's refusal to support sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa and portrayed him as being generally chilly towards African-American members of the staff at the White House. …. Bunch has been making a concerted effort to bring the Reagan image back down to earth ever since he published his book "Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy" in 2010. In the years since that book's release, the public's perception and conservative worship of the former president has only inflated more. "He's become more of an icon for people than a real person," Bunch said. This new movie, which dares to explore one of the more sensitive aspects of his persona, could chip away at many preconceived notions of the former president. …. And the backlash that Hillary Clinton received for implying that the Reagans were strong in their response to the HIV/AIDS crisis suggests the voters are more informed on the former presidency than one might suspect. …. And as income inequality has increasingly become a top concern for voters across the political spectrum it will be hard to ignore the Reagan administration's complicit role in helping shape our modern economy.”


I certainly think that anything that portrays physical disability as humor is grotesque. That, after all, is what Trump did a few months ago when he imitated a reporter with a neurological disorder by stuttering and flailing his arms around over his head. We good people of the earth should avoid those things. We don’t have to be either Republican or Democrat to be a decent human being. That’s why I leave some warmth in my heart for a lot of people I don’t care for, but that doesn’t include those who are essentially cruel. They should be punished, perhaps by a public caning, as a young American was in one of the SE Asian countries in the last ten or so years. He had committed a small but unacceptable crime, and had the same attitude about it as the “Affluenza” teen last year. That’s “just my opinion,” of course.



http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/29/475801199/ebola-carriers-why-the-virus-keeps-coming-back

Ebola Carriers? Why The Virus Keeps Coming Back
Heard on All Things Considered
MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF
April 29, 2016 5:37 PM ET

Chart of incidence in three African nations from the World Health Organization (go to website)


Just when health officials think the Ebola outbreak is over in West Africa, the virus pops up again seemingly out of the blue. It's happened at least five times so far.

Now scientists are starting to figure out why: The virus can lay [sic] dormant in a survivor for more than year and then re-emerge to infect others.

It's called a "persistent infection." It's rare. But it has played a big role in keeping Ebola around in Liberia, an international team of scientists reports Friday in the journal Science Advances.

"We believe that most, if not all, the clusters of new Ebola cases have come from [persistent infections in] survivors, but sometimes it's very hard to determine that with certainty," says Dr. Thomas Frieden, who directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.

Typically when a person recovers from Ebola, the immune system clears out the virus from the blood and other tissues and the person isn't contagious anymore.

But sometimes, the virus finds its way into parts of the body where the immune system can't reach it — such as inside the eyes, spinal fluid, breast milk and testes.

That last one is the big problem, says Dr. Daniel Bausch, an infectious disease expert at Tulane University. "Sexual transmission is our No. 1 concern," he says.

Scientists have known for years that Ebola can linger in the semen of men who've recovered — and that sexual transmission was possible. But a cluster of cases in Guinea this past March suggest semen can stay infectious for more than a year, far longer than previously thought.

So far, sexual transmission has likely caused at least two of the Ebola flare-ups recorded in Guinea and Liberia — which, in some ways, is a relief, Bausch says.

"Of course, I'm never going to say that sexual transmission is a good thing," he says. "But it's kind of comforting that these [flare-ups] are from a mode of transmission that we understand more and more about."

So what about the other flare-ups? That's where the new study comes in.

When Ebola first returned to Liberia last June, epidemiologists were stumped. They couldn't tell where the seven infected people had caught the virus.

So Jason Ladner and his colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases went hunting for clues. They isolated Ebola from the patients' blood and sequenced the genomes.

"People were saying this is probably the most important Ebola genome sequence that has been generated thus far," Ladner says, because they hoped it would tell them how Ebola had returned to Liberia.

When Ladner and his team got the results, they were quite surprised. The sequence for each patient's virus almost perfectly matched the one circulating in Liberia nearly a year earlier. During that time, the virus should have mutated. But it didn't. It was like the virus was frozen in time.

That meant the new cases in Liberia came from a dormant virus, hidden inside a survivor for more than a year.

Ladner and his team aren't sure who that survivor is. They have some hints that the flare-up might have begun when a woman passed the virus on to a man, perhaps through sexual contact — which would be a first. So far, only male-to-female transmission has been documented among survivors.

So that's the next medical question to probe — can sexual transmission go both ways?


Excerpt -- “Now scientists are starting to figure out why: The virus can lay [sic] dormant in a survivor for more than year and then re-emerge to infect others. It's called a "persistent infection." It's rare. But it has played a big role in keeping Ebola around in Liberia, an international team of scientists reports Friday in the journal Science Advances. "We believe that most, if not all, the clusters of new Ebola cases have come from [persistent infections in] survivors, but sometimes it's very hard to determine that with certainty," says Dr. Thomas Frieden, who directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. …. But sometimes, the virus finds its way into parts of the body where the immune system can't reach it — such as inside the eyes, spinal fluid, breast milk and testes. That last one is the big problem, says Dr. Daniel Bausch, an infectious disease expert at Tulane University. "Sexual transmission is our No. 1 concern," he says. …. During that time, the virus should have mutated. But it didn't. It was like the virus was frozen in time. That meant the new cases in Liberia came from a dormant virus, hidden inside a survivor for more than a year. Ladner and his team aren't sure who that survivor is. They have some hints that the flare-up might have begun when a woman passed the virus on to a man, perhaps through sexual contact — which would be a first. So far, only male-to-female transmission has been documented among survivors.”



So progress marches on. For a good rundown on Ebola vaccine efforts up to October 2015 at least, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_vaccine. A number of other articles are on the Net under the heading “Ebola vaccine development” which proclaim incomplete but promising successes. See the following:

http://www.nature.com/news/successful-ebola-vaccine-provides-100-protection-in-trial-1.18107, Successful Ebola vaccine provides 100% protection in trial, Study also demonstrates ability to develop a vaccine quickly during an outbreak., Ewen Callaway, 31 July 2015.

An experimental Ebola vaccine seems to confer total protection against infection in people who are at high risk of contracting the virus, according to the preliminary results of a trial in Guinea that were announced today and published1 in The Lancet. They are the first evidence that a vaccine protects humans from Ebola infection.

“We believe the world is on the verge of an efficacious Ebola vaccine," Marie-Paule Kieny, the World Health Organization's assistant director-general for health systems and innovation, said during a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, today.

The results also have implications for outbreak response in general. "This is illustrating that it is feasible to develop vaccines much faster than we’ve been doing," says Adrian Hill, a vaccine scientist at the University of Oxford, UK, who is involved in testing a different Ebola vaccine. “We just need to go on and develop them and get on with them before outbreaks appear.”



http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/europe/austria-tough-migrant-laws/index.html

Austria passes tough new asylum laws as attitudes to migrants harden
By Tim Hume, Atika Shubert and Milena Veselinovic, CNN
Updated 12:10 PM ET, Thu April 28, 2016

Photograph -- Austria passes stringent new asylum laws 02:34
Related: War forced half of all Syrians from their home -- here's where they went
Related Video: A year in the life of migrants 01:47
Graphic map – Barriers along Western Balkan Migration Route To Western Europe
26 Photos -- Europe’s Migration Crisis In 25 Photos [sic]
Related Video -- Small Austrian town has a big heart for migrants 02:59
Amnesty: New laws breach international obligations
Graphic Chart -- Millions On The Move … More Refugees Than The World Has Seen In Decades
Related: Greece sends first migrants back to Turkey under new deal


(CNN)Austria has passed controversial new laws restricting the right of asylum that would allow authorities to turn away most migrants at the border if a state of emergency is invoked.

The laws, among the toughest European responses to the migrant crisis, come as the country prepares to build further fences along its borders, and amid public anger over a shocking child rape case involving an Iraqi migrant.

The legislation, passed Wednesday, allows Austria's government to declare a state of emergency over migration if it deems the country lacks the capacity to receive, house and integrate the number of people who want to enter, said Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck.

He said it would give authorities sweeping powers to block migrants from entering if they deem the country from which they are directly entering -- not their homeland -- is safe.

Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, said the laws were "a glaring attempt to keep people out of Austria and its asylum system."

The measures would breach its obligations under international law by preventing access to protection for thousands of refugees, Amnesty said.

Addressing Austria's Parliament on Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "concerned that European countries are now adopting increasingly restrictive immigration and refugee policies."

"Such policies and measures negatively affect the obligations of member states under international humanitarian law and European law," he said.

"I welcome the open discussions in Europe -- including in Austria -- on integration. But I am alarmed again about growing xenophobia here and beyond. All of Europe's leaders should live up to the principles that have guided this continent."

But Grundboeck, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said Austria's measures were necessary as vast numbers of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa continue to make their way along the so-called Balkan route through southeastern European countries to prosperous "destination countries" in the north.

"What we cannot accept is that migrants just transit through countries without being registered and accommodated," he said.

Austria has been primarily a transit point into Germany, the main destination country for migrants.

But it also received more than 88,000 asylum applications last year, he said.

New border fences proposed

The laws were passed as Austrian authorities announced they were making preparations to be able to erect a 370-meter (404-yard) fence at the Brenner Pass on the border with Italy as well as fences at two border crossings to Hungary.

Grundboeck said the preparations were in place so that authorities would be able to erect the fences if migrant flows required it.

A fence was recently erected along the Spielfeld border crossing between Austria and Slovenia, he said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi condemned the news of the potential closure of the Brenner Pass, saying that "the possibility of closing the Brenner is blatantly against the European rules, as well as against history, against logic and against the future."

Horrifying rape case

The moves in Austria comes days after the far-right Freedom Party won the first round of the country's presidential elections, and as the trial of an Iraqi asylum seeker accused of raping a child played out this week in a court in Vienna.

The defendant, 20, has been charged in the rape of a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in December.

He admitted the attack in court Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the criminal court in Vienna told CNN.

She said the case had been postponed as the court awaited a report on the victim from a child psychologist. If the victim is found to be suffering serious psychological consequences, the sentence could be increased from a potential 10 years to 15 years, she said.

The man told police he had committed the attack due to a "sexual emergency" as he had not seen his wife in four months, prosecutors said.

Initial stance was more welcoming

The case has contributed to hardening attitudes toward migrants in Austria, which initially responded to the migrant crisis with a more welcoming stance.

It follows a spate of sex attacks blamed on migrants across European cities on New Year's Eve, including hundreds of reported assaults of women by a mob of migrants in Cologne, Germany, and sexual assaults of women in Salzburg, Austria.

Earlier this month, the first migrants were deported from Europe to Turkey as part of a controversial new deal between the European Union and Ankara to tackle the migration crisis.

The plan was agreed upon last month as Europe struggles to respond to the largest migration crisis since World War II. More than 1 million people made "irregular arrivals" inside Europe's borders in 2015 alone, many of them displaced by the Syrian civil war.

CNN's Lindsay Isaac and Claudia Otto contributed to this report.



EXCERPT -- “He said it would give authorities sweeping powers to block migrants from entering if they deem the country from which they are directly entering -- not their homeland -- is safe. Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, said the laws were "a glaring attempt to keep people out of Austria and its asylum system." …. Austria has been primarily a transit point into Germany, the main destination country for migrants. But it also received more than 88,000 asylum applications last year, he said. …. The laws were passed as Austrian authorities announced they were making preparations to be able to erect a 370-meter (404-yard) fence at the Brenner Pass on the border with Italy as well as fences at two border crossings to Hungary. …. A fence was recently erected along the Spielfeld border crossing between Austria and Slovenia, he said. …. The moves in Austria comes days after the far-right Freedom Party won the first round of the country's presidential elections, and as the trial of an Iraqi asylum seeker accused of raping a child played out this week in a court in Vienna. The defendant, 20, has been charged in the rape of a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in December. He admitted the attack in court Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the criminal court in Vienna told CNN. …. Earlier this month, the first migrants were deported from Europe to Turkey as part of a controversial new deal between the European Union and Ankara to tackle the migration crisis. …. The plan was agreed upon last month as Europe struggles to respond to the largest migration crisis since World War II.


"I welcome the open discussions in Europe -- including in Austria -- on integration. But I am alarmed again about growing xenophobia here and beyond. All of Europe's leaders should live up to the principles that have guided this continent." But Grundboeck, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said Austria's measures were necessary as vast numbers of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa continue to make their way along the so-called Balkan route through southeastern European countries to prosperous "destination countries" in the north.”

There are some very real problems here. One, as ISIS continues to destroy life in Iraq and Syria, this desperate migration will continue unless we can figure out some helpful but not overly oppressive ways to protect all of the nations along the way. The new agreement with Turkey to take refugees back is a good thing. When the hordes of children from Central America were crossing the Rio Grande last year, Obama’s people made an agreement with Mexico to stop them at the border and send them back to their countries of origin, and I haven’t seen news of a similar crisis since then. I think maybe it worked. That didn’t involve “erecting a wall,” but it did involve a strong effort by Latin American countries to stop the flow.

Perhaps a similar agreement with teeth in it would make the Balkans and other European countries cooperate, likewise sending the migrants back. Maybe if that happened the migrants would stand up and fight ISIS like the courageous Kurds do. The Kurds lose fighters, too. They just don’t throw down their weapons and run.

The Austrian law allowing them to be sent back directly to the last country they crossed, thus preventing them from coming through one country after another is not illogical. Mexico didn’t clamp down on its’ southern borders until the US, with some other Latin American nations, confronted them and helped work out a plan. In other words, just putting up fences is not enough, and at the same time is probably too much. Do we want to go back to the living conditions of 1000 AD?

If not, we do need to do something about the overall problem. I understand those Europeans who regret the restrictions of the EU in a number of ways, and the fact that people can pass through from country to country without having to show their passport sounds unwise or even dangerous to me. I think the EU needs to modify its’ agreement to solve internal problems and allow flexibility for the various nations.

It is a very unfortunate thing, however, that the measure has been enacted under the influence of a far right political party in Austria. That sounds like the whole dangerously Rightist uprising that is including the US as well as Europe. Is this merely a kind of group hysteria based on fear of "the other?" I dread to see what the results are going to be. The world does usually work through its’ problems. Sometimes, however, nations and even whole peoples are all but decimated before there is a solution.

April 28, 2016


New and Views


INSIDE POLITICS TODAY

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-boehner-calls-ted-cruz-lucifer-in-the-flesh-miserable-sob/

John Boehner calls Ted Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh," "miserable" SOB
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
April 28, 2016, 9:38 AM

Play Video -- Boehner Says Goodbye To House Colleagues

John Boehner sounded off a litany of insults for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz Wednesday night, labelling the Texas senator "Lucifer in the flesh" and a "miserable son of a bitch."

"I have Democrat friends and Republican friends," the former House speaker said during a frank on-stage discussion at Stanford University Wednesday. "I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Boehner, who retired from Congress at the end of October, also let loose on the two other GOP candidates in the race.

Of his relationship with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Boehner said that he was "my friend, and I love him" -- but with the caveat that Kasich "requires more effort on my behalf than all my other friends."

Boehner said he was on friendly terms with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, adding that he often played golf with the New York business mogul and billing their friendship as one between "texting buddies."

The ex-congressman seemed to accept that Trump would be the party's nominee and said that he would vote for him if that prediction came to pass. Boehner said he would not, however, cast a ballot for Cruz if the Texas senator won the nomination.

After Boehner's comments gained traction on social media, Cruz responded to the insults in a tweet Thursday morning:

Ted Cruz ✔ ‎@tedcruz
Tell me again who will stand up to Washington? Trump, who's Boehner's "texting and golfing buddy," or Carly & me? https://twitter.com/bosnerdley/status/725689480926101505 …
10:23 AM - 28 Apr 2016

Boehner also weighed in on the Democratic primary contest, according to the Stanford Daily, the university newspaper that first reported Boehner's comments. The former House speaker praised Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as the most honest politician in the White House race. Of Clinton, who he has known for 25 years, Boehner called her accomplished and smart.

He predicted, however, that if Clinton's email scandal escalates, a surprise could come out of the Democratic race.

"Don't be shocked ... if two weeks before the convention, here comes Joe Biden parachuting in and Barack Obama fanning the flames to make it all happen," Boehner said.

The Ohio Republican also commented on the retirement life, looking back at his time in Congress with fondness for the "knuckleheads" and "goofballs" that worked there.

"I think my proudest accomplishment is walking out of there the same jackass I was 25 years before," he said.



“He predicted, however, that if Clinton's email scandal escalates, a surprise could come out of the Democratic race. "Don't be shocked ... if two weeks before the convention, here comes Joe Biden parachuting in and Barack Obama fanning the flames to make it all happen," Boehner said. The Ohio Republican also commented on the retirement life, looking back at his time in Congress with fondness for the "knuckleheads" and "goofballs" that worked there. "I think my proudest accomplishment is walking out of there the same jackass I was 25 years before," he said. …. Of his relationship with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Boehner said that he was "my friend, and I love him" -- but with the caveat that Kasich "requires more effort on my behalf than all my other friends." Boehner said he was on friendly terms with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, adding that he often played golf with the New York business mogul and billing their friendship as one between "texting buddies."


"I think my proudest accomplishment is walking out of there the same jackass I was 25 years before," he said.” I take this to mean that he wasn’t bought out to change his personal opinions. His high praise of Bernie Sanders and John Kasich is nice, too. He doesn’t say what he thinks of Joe Biden, except to predict that he will be the party’s last attempt to control the presidential nomination and prevent Sanders from getting the center spot. Sanders doesn’t play ball.

I do hope that the party won’t do that. As Boehner said, Sanders is probably the most honest and one of the brightest politician I’ve seen in years. I don’t think that his unabashedly left-leaning (overly idealistic, radical, foolish) and stubborn plan to stay in the race is anything other than heroic, given the Koch/Big Money controlled politics of today. We also have a few other true liberals, but not as many as we need. If Biden were to take the nomination on a draft I wouldn’t hate it, because I also think he is intelligent and (from all I know of him) honest. That doesn’t mean he isn’t too cozy with a centralist majority in the party for my tastes, but I think he, like Sanders and Obama before him, is courageous and will try to do a fair and wise job. I wish I still trusted Hillary completely, but I don’t, as much as I want to at any rate. I will still vote for the Democrat who runs to prevent Republicans of any stamp from being elected president. This is an emotionally fraught election for me, in that I am truly worried about the outcome. As for Boehner, I have always liked him, and thought he was better than any of that Tea Party crew. I am concerned with his close relationship with Trump, though.



Related:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-not-running-for-president-i-regret-it-every-day/

Joe Biden on not running for president: "I regret it every day"
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
January 6, 2016, 6:08 PM

Photograph -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walks back to the Oval Office after Biden announced he will not seek the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, during an appearance in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington October 21, 2015. REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA


After a lengthy soul-searching process that ended with the vice president turning down a 2016 bid, Joe Biden still thinks about the campaign that might have been.

"I regret it every day," Biden said during a round of interviews with local television news affiliates, "but it was the right decision for my family and me."

Biden, who flirted with the possibility of a White House run for months before deciding against it in October, has previously said he had made the "right decision" not to launch a campaign.

"I plan on staying deeply involved," he told WVIT, an NBC affiliate in Connecticut.

He added that so far this election cycle, there has been "real robust debate between Hillary and Bernie" and noted that "we've got two good candidates" -- seemingly omitting the third Democratic primary competitor, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

The vice president also spoke with several news stations to address the latest White House executive actions on guns, which the president announced Tuesday.

"We do have to feel a sense of urgency about it," an emotional Obama said from the East Room of the White House. "People are dying and the constant excuses for inaction no longer do."

The president's plans involve expanding background checks during gun sales and strengthening enforcement of existing gun laws. The president also plans to improve care for the mentally ill and promote information-sharing to prevent them from buying guns.

Like Mr. Obama, who will join a CNN-hosted town hall on Thursday to discuss gun violence, Biden is participating in a media blitz to wrangle support for the executive actions, which could still face considerable legal and Congressional hurdles.

Speaking with CBS' Roanoke, Virginia affiliate WDBJ -- a station victimized by gun violence last August when a reporter and photographer were shot dead on live television by a former disgruntled employee -- Biden countered the argument that "we're going to confiscate everyone's gun."

Of gun-rights activists, Biden said that "we're not infringing on their rights at all."

"They can stand by their gun if they're legally entitled to have a gun under the Constitution," he added, adding that the executive actions were "modest in relative terms."

Biden further claimed the new actions would have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre.

"Imagine what would have happened had Virginia reported the mental state of the shooter in Blacksburg down at Virginia Tech," he said. "I mean, you know, you say well Joe you're not going to solve--would have solved that. Wouldn't have been able to have a gun."

Asked whether the latest executive actions go far enough, the vice president said "no, they don't."

"I don't think there's any rationale why someone, a hunter needs to have a clip that can hold 40 rounds in it or 60 rounds in it, if you're going to do that we ought to at least give the deer a kevlar vest or something to give him an even chance," Biden said. "I mean this is ridiculous. We don't need some of the stuff that's out there."

He explained further the initiatives to implement more "smart gun" technologies, saying, "Why can't you have a gun [where] you cannot fire the gun unless your thumbprint is identifiable? We have the technology to be able to do that. We can drive down the cost so that it will not impede you, a law-abiding citizen buying a gun that's a smart gun."

And to WCSC, a CBS affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina -- where a shooting rampage killed nine black church-goers in June -- Biden defended the president's actions as well-intentioned.

"He wants to make sure people who shouldn't own a gun don't get one," Biden said of the president. "He wants to make it quicker for people who are able to own a gun under the law to be able to own a gun. That's the whole background check system."

The vice president further assured that rather than changing the laws completely, Mr. Obama's actions are all about "enforcing the existing law on the books."

"If you are mentally ill, if you are a felon, if you are an abuser in a domestic violence, you are not allowed under the law, consistent with the Constitution, to own a weapon," he said.

The vice president also addressed the recent North Korean claim to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, saying only that the White House was "trying to run down the assertion."

"I'm not at liberty to tell you what we can certify now," Biden told WDBJ, "but we are determining whether the claim is accurate."



“After a lengthy soul-searching process that ended with the vice president turning down a 2016 bid, Joe Biden still thinks about the campaign that might have been. "I regret it every day," Biden said during a round of interviews with local television news affiliates, "but it was the right decision for my family and me." …. "I plan on staying deeply involved," he told WVIT, an NBC affiliate in Connecticut. He added that so far this election cycle, there has been "real robust debate between Hillary and Bernie" and noted that "we've got two good candidates" -- seemingly omitting the third Democratic primary competitor, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. …. "Imagine what would have happened had Virginia reported the mental state of the shooter in Blacksburg down at Virginia Tech," he said. "I mean, you know, you say well Joe you're not going to solve--would have solved that. Wouldn't have been able to have a gun." Asked whether the latest executive actions go far enough, the vice president said "no, they don't." "I don't think there's any rationale why someone, a hunter needs to have a clip that can hold 40 rounds in it or 60 rounds in it, if you're going to do that we ought to at least give the deer a kevlar vest or something to give him an even chance," Biden said. "I mean this is ridiculous. We don't need some of the stuff that's out there." …. He explained further the initiatives to implement more "smart gun" technologies, saying, "Why can't you have a gun [where] you cannot fire the gun unless your thumbprint is identifiable? …. "If you are mentally ill, if you are a felon, if you are an abuser in a domestic violence, you are not allowed under the law, consistent with the Constitution, to own a weapon," he said.”


What I really hate about the “conservative” views, in so many cases, is that they either attempt to violate the spirit or the letter of the Constitution so some of their loyalists can have an extreme amount of societal privilege, or they are based on irrational thought patterns, from extreme patriotism to extreme religiosity. Basic logic is something that they fight tooth and nail.


HEROES -- TWO ARTICLES


http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/04/28/teacher-of-the-year-2016/

Connecticut History Teacher Named National Teacher Of The Year
April 28, 2016 9:30 AM

Photograph -- 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes (Credit: CBS This Morning)
Tweet: CBS This Morning ✔ ‎@CBSThisMorning
JUST IN: Congratulations to @JahanaHayes on being named 2016 National Teacher of the Year! #NTOY16
8:45 AM - 28 Apr 2016
Play CBS News Video
Tweet: CBS This Morning ✔ ‎@CBSThisMorning
All the mistakes that I have made… It really reminds me of what it means. -- @JahanaHayes on lessons learned #NTOY16
8:50 AM - 28 Apr 2016


HARTFORD, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) — A Connecticut high school history teacher chosen as the National Teacher of the Year says she was surrounded by poverty, drugs and violence as a child but imagined other possibilities for her life with help from educators.

Jahana Hayes teaches at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury.

The honor by the Council of Chief State School Officers was announced Thursday. Hayes will be recognized by President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony on Tuesday.

“I have so many emotions — it’s exciting, I’m nervous, thrilled, blessed, grateful,” Hayes told “CBS This Morning.”

The 44-year-old Hayes grew up in a Waterbury housing project and became a teenage mother while still in high school. She says the influence of her own teachers taught her that a school’s job sometimes overlaps with the job of parents, and she wants her students to know there are no dead ends.

“Everyone has a gift and I think that once you figure out what that gift is and you make a connection with them and meet them wherever they are, that learning occurs,” Hayes said.



“A Connecticut high school history teacher chosen as the National Teacher of the Year says she was surrounded by poverty, drugs and violence as a child but imagined other possibilities for her life with help from educators. …. Hayes will be recognized by President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony on Tuesday. …. The 44-year-old Hayes grew up in a Waterbury housing project and became a teenage mother while still in high school. She says the influence of her own teachers taught her that a school’s job sometimes overlaps with the job of parents, and she wants her students to know there are no dead ends. …. “Everyone has a gift and I think that once you figure out what that gift is and you make a connection with them and meet them wherever they are, that learning occurs,” Hayes said.”


“… there are no dead ends.” This article is about “faith, hope and love.” This lady is right. All of my “best” teachers were also those for whom I had more than a little bit of LOVE. They weren’t irascible old witches, socially biased against me or hostile in any way, and they were themselves interested in the lessons. They enjoyed thinking and talking about it, and welcomed questions and class discussion. There are some teachers who are just doing it to have a job. Others, just like the abusive parents around the world, don’t really like children. If there were a way to detect who they are on the first interview, perhaps we could see that they aren’t hired in the first place. They should go get a job in business and try to climb the corporate ladder. Jahana Hayes “has the right stuff.” A great teacher builds good citizens and warm, sane human beings from the kids who are put into her care.



http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/German-Shepherd-Helps-Rescue-Children-from-House-Fire-in-Central-Florida-377248281.html

Family's German Shepherd Helps Rescue Children From House Fire in Central Florida
The dog, named Maxx, helped crews navigate through thick smoke to find the 4-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl

April 28, 2016

Photograph -- Maxx is recovering from his injuries at a veterinary hospital and is said to be doing well, Photo credit: Seminole County Sheriff's Office


A German shepherd helped firefighters find his owners' two young children as flames ripped through the family's central Florida home, authorities said.

The dog, named Maxx, helped crews navigate through thick smoke to find the 4-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl Monday night in their burning home in the Orlando suburb of Longwood, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

Moments earlier, neighbors who saw the fire spreading called 911, broke windows and helped rescue the children's mother, Margo Feaser, a 12-year veteran of the sheriff's office who currently serves as an auto theft investigator.

Firefighters then were able to rescue Feaser's husband and the two children, with Maxx's help.

Family members were hospitalized and their conditions ranged from serious to critical. Maxx was treated for smoke inhalation and is said to be doing well.

A GoFundMe page has been established to help the family's medical, veterinary, and other housing expenses as they work to recover from the effects of the fire. As of Wednesday morning, more than $11,000 had been raised to help the Feaser family.

In addition to her role with the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, Feaser served three years in the U.S. Army and is a member of the Army National Guard. Her husband is also a military veteran.



“Moments earlier, neighbors who saw the fire spreading called 911, broke windows and helped rescue the children's mother, Margo Feaser, a 12-year veteran of the sheriff's office who currently serves as an auto theft investigator. The dog, named Maxx, helped crews navigate through thick smoke to find the 4-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl Monday night in their burning home in the Orlando suburb of Longwood, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. …. Family members were hospitalized and their conditions ranged from serious to critical. Maxx was treated for smoke inhalation and is said to be doing well. A GoFundMe page has been established to help the family's medical, veterinary, and other housing expenses as they work to recover from the effects of the fire. As of Wednesday morning, more than $11,000 had been raised to help the Feaser family. …. Family members were hospitalized and their conditions ranged from serious to critical. Maxx was treated for smoke inhalation and is said to be doing well.”


I’ve always loved dogs, especially smart, courageous and beautiful dogs like a German Shepherd. See the poor dog’s photo on the site. He looks miserable with his head down and his right front leg is splinted and bandaged all the way up. He apparently sustained more than “smoke inhalation”. If you can help them a little, there is a“GoFundMe” page that has been established to help the family's medical, veterinary, and other housing expenses as they work to recover from the effects of the fire. As of Wednesday morning, more than $11,000 had been raised to help the Feaser family.” I did post this to Facebook and send the GoFundMe account $10.00. If lots of people do that, they will receive enough to start over again, hopefully. If not, pass this on by Facebook so others will see it.



http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/maine-gov-paul-lepage-has-history-controversial-remarks-n492826

Maine Gov. Paul LePage Has History of Controversial Remarks
by CORKY SIEMASZKO
POLITICS APR 28 2016, 12:56 PM ET

Video -- A Short History of Gov. LePage's Controversial Comments 1:43
Play -- Maine Governor's Remarks About Out-Of-State Drug Traffickers 0:32


Racist, insensitive, crude — these are just some of the adjectives that have been used to describe the shocking remarks that Maine's outspoken governor has made over the years.

But Gov. Paul LePage has rarely apologized for speaking his mind like he did this week after he stalked off-stage just 45 seconds into a speech at the University of Maine at Farmington, calling student protesters "idiots" on the way out.

The last time LePage, a Republican and Tea Party favorite, issued a mea culpa was in January after saying that out-of-state drug dealers come to Maine to peddle heroin and impregnate "white girls."

Here are some of LePage's other "greatest hits":

"Lovely people, but you've got to have an interpreter."

That was LePage over the weekend discussing the accents of Indian immigrants while criticizing a referendum proposal to raise Maine's minimum wage to $12. He also said he couldn't understand workers "from Bulgaria." And he made a crude remark about President Barack Obama, saying Obama stands for "one big-ass mistake, America."

"Tell them to kiss my butt."

That was LePage's response to criticism from the state's NAACP after he opted not to attend Martin Luther King Jr. ceremonies in Bangor and Portland back in 2011. To be fair, LePage did attend a MLK breakfast in the town of Waterville.

"As your governor, you're gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying 'Gov. LePage tells Obama to go to hell.'"

That was LePage's warning shot to the White House during his 2010 campaign.

"The only thing that I've heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards."

That was LePage in 2011 dismissing concerns about the chemical BPA in plastic bottles.

"The minute we start stifling our speech, we might as well go home, roll up our sleeves and get our guns out."

That was LePage fuming after he was barred last May from speaking at a state Appropriations Committee meeting.

"What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet."

LePage made the unfortunate comparison in 2012 during his weekly radio show and later apologized to anybody he offended, "especially the Jewish community."

Maine State Sen. Troy Jackson "claims to be for the people, but he's the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline."

LePage said this in 2013 after Jackson gave the Democratic response to the governor's budget veto.

"If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can't afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school."

LePage said that in 2012 while discussing school choice during a talk at a local community college.



Little beards??? -- This man is a science-hater, it seems to me. In this case, he has underestimated the health problems with BPA. Read the list below. Men can have bad effects also, so he had better watch what he eats from microwaved plastic products. BPA doesn’t produce estrogen actually, but an “estrogen mimic” called estradiol, and can cause estrogen dominance just as natural estrogen does. See the two articles below.

http://www.ecopedia.com/health/estrogen-dominance-how-food-affects-men-and-women/

Estrogen Dominance: How Food Affects Men and Women
By Ginger Shelby
“1030 days ago” (From 4.28.16)

Photograph -- Beef with extra fat from added estrogen is a key part of the American diet.

Estrogen dominance occurs when estrogen levels in the body overpower all other hormones. For many years menopause has been treated as if it is a disease state resulting from a hormone deficiency, presumably from the failure of the ovaries. At the first sign of symptoms, women are encouraged to go out and get estrogen replacements so that their estrogen does not fall after the woman’s menses have stopped. New evidence connects too much estrogen in the system to a plethora of conditions and side effects…and these do not only affect women. Men can suffer the symptoms of estrogen dominance too.

What are the Symptoms of Estrogen Dominance? Estrogen dominance over stimulates the brain and glands, causing a number of symptoms that will be all too familiar to some, even some men. It can cause headaches, breast area swelling and tenderness, bloating, decreased sex drive, mood swings, weight gain, cold extremities, hair loss, thyroid disease, slowed metabolism, and excess facial hair on women. It is also associated with fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, and insomnia. It has also been linked to increased allergies, autoimmune disorders, blood clots, infertility, and a number of reproductive organ cancers. Those with abnormally high estrogen also experience an acceleration of the aging process. All of these conditions are worsened by stress of any type. The symptoms are similar for both women and men. The most common complaint from men is decreased sex drive and tenderness or swelling in the breasts.



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-how-harmful-are-bisphenol-a-plastics/

HEALTH
Just How Harmful Are Bisphenol A Plastics?
Patricia Hunt, who helped to bring the issue to light a decade ago, is still trying to sort it all out
By Adam Hinterthuer on September 1, 2008

Bisphenol A is an endocrine disruptor that can mimic estrogen and has been shown to cause negative health effects in animal studies. Bisphenol A closely mimics the structure and function of the hormone estradiol by binding to and activating the same estrogen receptor as the natural hormone.



“Racist, insensitive, crude — these are just some of the adjectives that have been used to describe the shocking remarks that Maine's outspoken governor has made over the years. …. But Gov. Paul LePage has rarely apologized for speaking his mind like he did this week after he stalked off-stage just 45 seconds into a speech at the University of Maine at Farmington, calling student protesters "idiots" on the way out. The last time LePage, a Republican and Tea Party favorite, issued a mea culpa was in January after saying that out-of-state drug dealers come to Maine to peddle heroin and impregnate "white girls." ….”


Our culture is definitely worse than when I was young about insensitive and crude comments among folks who consider themselves to be top notch examples of the human race. We used to be just as conceited, but more refined in general. The Tea Party have brought in a vicious group who are more than class conscious, they are also White Supremacists. The bit about “impregnating white girls,” is not a mere hint at what he meant by “out of state drug dealers.” It’s just like this usage of the term “thug” in the last few years to mean, specifically, “black thug.” The classical meaning of it did not refer to race at all, but to any brutish and violent man. These clever modern racists can avoid saying “nigger” and often get away without the punishment they will get otherwise. This article by CORKY SIEMASZKO has skewered him, however. Of course the crudest of the Far Right will cheer him on for his comments. I don’t think he’ll ever make it to the Presidency, though.



THINGS WE MUST NOT FORGET:

This article is too long for me to do the usual excerpts and (humble attempts at) analysis, so read it all, look at the videos, etc. There’s a scary set of 38 photos of Hitler’s army in Europe. You may want to put it on Facebook, email it friends, etc. Mainly, I hope we all will take note of our own attitudes and viewpoints and those of our friends. Better still, run for public office and include social issues in your platform. Above all, vote for a Democrat or an intelligent and honest Independent if you can.

From Wikipedia on America First:

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has praised America First and used its name as a slogan. "The achievements of that organization are monumental," writes Buchanan, "By keeping America out of World War II until Hitler attacked Stalin in June 1941, Soviet Russia, not America, bore the brunt of the fighting, bleeding and dying to defeat Nazi Germany."[15]

On April 27, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump gave a foreign policy speech with an 'America First' platform. "America First will be the overriding theme of my administration"[16]



http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/27/opinions/trump-america-first-ugly-echoes-dunn/index.html

Trump's 'America First' has ugly echoes from U.S. history
By Susan Dunn
Updated 8:02 AM ET, Thu April 28, 2016

Editor’s Note: Susan Dunn is a professor of Humanities at Williams College and the author of 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler -- The Election Amid the Storm, from which several passages in this essay are adapted. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.


Related: Louis C.K.: 'Insane bigot' Donald Trump 'is Hitler'
Video -- Donald Trump’s entire foreign policy speech 38:34
Related: Trump responds to Hitler comparison
38 Photographs -- Hitler’s troops
Photograph -- Susan Dunn
Related: Anne Frank's stepsister compares Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler
Related: Ex-Mexican President Fox: Donald Trump reminds me of Hitler
Video -- Polish family reveals grim WWII Jewish hideout 02:17


(CNN)"My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people, and American security, above all else. That will be the foundation of every decision that I will make. America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration."

It is extremely unfortunate that in his speech Wednesday outlining his foreign policy goals, Donald Trump chose to brand his foreign policy with the noxious slogan "America First," the name of the isolationist, defeatist, anti-Semitic national organization that urged the United States to appease Adolf Hitler.

The America First Committee actually began at Yale University, where Douglas Stuart Jr., the son of a vice president of Quaker Oats, began organizing his fellow students in spring 1940. He and Gerald Ford, the future American president, and Potter Stewart, the future Supreme Court justice, drafted a petition stating, "We demand that Congress refrain from war, even if England is on the verge of defeat."

Their solution to the international crisis lay in a negotiated peace with Hitler. Other Yale students -- including Sargent Shriver, who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and Kingman Brewster, the chairman of the Yale Daily News, future president of Yale and ambassador to the Court of St. James -- joined their isolationist crusade.

Robert Wood, the board chairman of Sears, Roebuck, agreed to act as their group's temporary chair. The growing organization soon included powerful men like Col. Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune; Minnesota meatpacker Jay Hormel; Sterling Morton, the president of Morton Salt Company; U.S. Rep. Bruce Barton of New York; and Lessing Rosenwald, the former chairman of Sears.

There would soon be several hundred chapters and almost a million members, two-thirds of whom resided in the Midwest. Charles Lindbergh would officially join America First in April 1941, serving as the committee's principal spokesman and chief drawing card at its rallies.

Seeking to brand itself as a mainstream organization, America First struggled with the problem of the anti-Semitism of some of its leaders and many of its members. It had to remove from its executive committee not only the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford but also Avery Brundage, the former chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee who had prevented two Jewish runners from the American track team in Berlin in 1936 from running in the finals of the 4x100 relay.

Still, the problem of anti-Semitism remained; a Kansas chapter leader pronounced President Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt "Jewish" and Winston Churchill a "half-Jew."

After Pearl Harbor, the America First Committee closed its doors, but not before Lindbergh made his infamous speech at an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in September 1941. After charging that President Roosevelt had manufactured "incidents" to propel the country into war, Lindbergh proceeded to blurt out his true thoughts.

"The British and the Jewish races," he declared, "for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war." The nation's enemy was an internal one, a Jewish one. "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government," he contended. Booing began to drown out the cheers, forcing him again and again to stop, wait out the catcalls, and start his sentences over.

Lindbergh's unambiguous message was that Jews living in the United States constituted a wealthy, influential, conspiratorial foreign "race" that had seized "our" media and infiltrated "our" political institutions. They were the alien out-group, hostile to "us."

He put American Jews on notice that America's "tolerance" for them rested upon a fragile foundation.

"Lindbergh ought to be shipped back to Germany to live with his own people!" shouted a Texas state representative before the House of Representatives in Austin passed a resolution informing the aviator that he was not welcome in the Lone Star State. Across the country, newspapers, columnists, politicians and religious leaders lashed out at Lindbergh.

"The voice is the voice of Lindbergh, but the words are the words of Hitler," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. "I am absolutely certain that Lindbergh is pro-Nazi," wrote New York Herald Tribune columnist Dorothy Thompson.

Donald Trump did not give an irrational speech on foreign policy Wednesday. Why then did he poison it with the sulfurous expression "America First," reminiscent of one of the ugliest chapters in recent American history?



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

America First Committee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The America First Committee (AFC) was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 paid members in 450 chapters, it was one of the largest anti-war organizations in American history.[1][2] Started on September 4, 1940, it was dissolved on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the war to America.

Membership[edit]

The AFC was established on September 4, 1940, by Yale Law School student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr. (son of R. Douglas Stuart, co-founder of Quaker Oats), along with other students, including future President Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart.[3] Future President John F. Kennedy contributed $100, along with a note saying "What you all are doing is vital."[4][5] At its peak, America First claimed 800,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters, located mostly in a 300-mile radius of Chicago.[1]

The AFC gained much of its early strength by merging with the more left-wing Keep America Out of War Committee, whose leaders included Norman Thomas and John T. Flynn.

It claimed 135,000 members in 60 chapters in Illinois, its strongest state.[6] Fundraising drives produced about $370,000 from some 25,000 contributors. Nearly half came from a few millionaires such as William H. Regnery, H. Smith Richardson of the Vick Chemical Company, General Robert E. Wood of Sears-Roebuck, Sterling Morton of Morton Salt Company, publisher Joseph M. Patterson (New York Daily News) and his cousin, publisher Robert R. McCormick (Chicago Tribune).

The America First Committee had its share of prominent businessmen as well as the sympathies of political figures including Democratic Senators Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Republican Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, with its most prominent spokesman being aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.

Other celebrities supporting America First were novelist Sinclair Lewis, poet E. E. Cummings, Washington socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, film producer Walt Disney, and actress Lillian Gish. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright attempted to join, but he was rejected when the local board decided that he had a "reputation for immorality". The many student chapters included future celebrities, such as author Gore Vidal (as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy), and the future President Gerald Ford, at Yale Law School.

Issues[edit]

When the war began in September 1939, most Americans, including politicians, demanded neutrality regarding Europe.[8] Although most Americans supported strong measures against Japan, Europe was the focus of the America First Committee. The public mood was changing, however, especially after the fall of France in spring 1940.[9]

The America First Committee launched a petition aimed at enforcing the 1939 Neutrality Act and forcing President Franklin D. Roosevelt to keep his pledge to keep America out of the war. They profoundly distrusted Roosevelt and argued that he was lying to the American people.

On the day after Roosevelt's lend-lease bill was submitted to the United States Congress, Wood promised AFC opposition "with all the vigor it can exert." America First staunchly opposed the convoying of ships, the Atlantic Charter, and the placing of economic pressure on Japan. In order to achieve the defeat of lend-lease and the perpetuation of American neutrality, the AFC advocated four basic principles:

The United States must build an impregnable defense for America.
No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America.
American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war.
"Aid short of war" weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad.



Charles Lindbergh speaking at an AFC rally

Charles Lindbergh, a frequent guest of Hitler's in 1930s Germany and an admirer of the buildup of the Nazi air force, the Luftwaffe, had been, unsurprisingly, actively involved in questioning the motives of the Roosevelt administration well before the formation of the AFC. Lindbergh adopted an anti-war stance even before the Battle of Britain and before the advent of the lend-lease bill. His first radio speech was broadcast on September 15, 1939, over all three of the major radio networks (Mutual, National, and Columbia). Lindbergh urged listeners to look beyond the speeches and propaganda they were being fed and instead look at who was writing the speeches and reports, who owned the papers and who influenced the speakers.

On June 20, 1941, Lindbergh spoke to a rally in Los Angeles billed as "Peace and Preparedness Mass Meeting," In his speech of that day, Lindbergh criticized those movements which he perceived were leading America into the war. He proclaimed that the United States was in a position that made it virtually impregnable and pointed out that when interventionists said "the defense of England," they really meant "defeat of Germany." Lindbergh's presence at the Hollywood Bowl rally was overshadowed, however, by the presence of fringe elements in the crowd.

Nothing did more to escalate the tensions than the speech Lindbergh delivered to a rally in Des Moines, Iowa on September 11, 1941. In that speech he identified the forces pulling America into the war as the British, the Roosevelt administration, and the Jews. While he expressed sympathy for the plight of the Jews in Germany, he argued that America's entry into the war would serve them little better. He said in part:

It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution the Jewish race suffered in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy, both for us and for them.

Instead of agitating for war the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.[10]

With the formal declaration of war against Japan following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Committee chose to disband. On December 11, the committee leaders met and voted for dissolution. In the statement which they released to the press was the following:

Students at the University of California (Berkeley) participate in a one-day peace strike opposing U.S. entrance into World War II, April 19, 1940

Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained.
We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory.[11]

Communists were antiwar until June 1941 and tried to infiltrate or take over America First.[12] After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, they reversed positions and denounced the AFC as a Nazi front (or infiltrated by German agents).[13] Nazis also tried to use the committee: at the trial of the aviator and orator Laura Ingalls,[14] the prosecution revealed that her handler, Ulrich Freiherr von Gienanth, a German diplomat, had encouraged her to participate in committee activities.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has praised America First and used its name as a slogan. "The achievements of that organization are monumental," writes Buchanan, "By keeping America out of World War II until Hitler attacked Stalin in June 1941, Soviet Russia, not America, bore the brunt of the fighting, bleeding and dying to defeat Nazi Germany."[15]

On April 27, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump gave a foreign policy speech with an 'America First' platform. "America First will be the overriding theme of my administration"[16]