May 7, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fort-mcmurray-fire-double-size-canada-officials-fear/

Officials fear massive fire could make big jump in size
CBS/AP
May 7, 2016, 7:23 AM

Play VIDEO -- Wildfires rage on in Alberta, Canada
Photograph -- A wildfire burns as evacuees who were stranded north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, head south of the city on Highway 63, May 6, 2016. REUTERS/CHRIS WATTIE
Play VIDEO -- Overnight shift in massive Canadian wildfire
Play VIDEO -- Residents scramble to flee huge Canadian fire


EDMONTON, Alberta -- Canadian officials fear a massive wildfire could double in size by the end of Saturday as they continue to evacuate residents of fire-ravaged Fort McMurray from work camps north of Alberta's oil sands city.

Thousands more displaced residents will get a sobering drive-by view of their burned out city as convoys continue Saturday.

Police and military will oversee another procession of hundreds of vehicles, and the mass airlift of evacuees will also resume. A day after 8,000 people were flown out, authorities said 5,500 more were expected to be evacuated by the end of Friday and another 4,000 on Saturday.

More than 80,000 people have left Fort McMurray in the heart of Canada's oil sands, where the fire has torched 1,600 homes and other buildings. The mass evacuation forced as much as a quarter of Canada's oil output offline and is expected to impact a country already hurt by a dramatic fall in the price of oil.

CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports one homeowner who monitors his security cameras on his iPhone watched flames devour everything in his living room in less than two minutes. The video was taken just after thousands were ordered out.

The Alberta provincial government, which declared a state of emergency, said Friday the size of the blaze had grown to 249,571 acres or about 386 square miles. No deaths or injuries were reported.

Chad Morrison, Alberta's manager of wildfire prevention, said there was a "high potential that the fire could double in size" by the end of Saturday. He expected the fire to expand into a more remote forested area northeast and away from Fort McMurray. Extremely dry conditions and a hot temperature of 81 Fahrenheit was expected Saturday along with strong winds, he said.

Morrison said no amount of resources would put this fire out, and what was needed was rain.

"We have not seen rain in this area for the last two months of significance," Morrison said. "This fire will continue to burn for a very long time until we see some significant rain."

Environment Canada forecast a 40 percent chance of showers in the area on Sunday. Morrison said cooler conditions were expected Sunday and Monday.

About 1,200 vehicles had passed through Fort McMurray by late Friday afternoon despite a one-hour interruption due to heavy smoke, authorities said.

Jim Dunstan was in the convoy with his wife, Tracy, and two young sons. "It was shocking to see the damaged cars all burned on the side of the road. It made you feel lucky to get out of there," he said.

In Edmonton, between 4,500 and 5,000 evacuees arrived at the airport on at least 45 flights Friday, airport spokesman Chris Chodan said. In total, more than 300 flights have arrived with evacuees since Tuesday, he said.

A group that arrived late Friday afternoon was greeted by volunteers who handed out bottled water and helped direct people where to go next.

Among them was Chad Robertson, a fuel truck driver who was evacuated from Husky Energy's Sunrise project, northeast of Fort McMurray. He said that when the fire started, even though the flames were relatively far away, "everyone started panicking."

Robertson said he had plans to go to a friend's house in Edmonton before heading home to Nova Scotia.

Scott Burrell, from Kelowna, British Columbia, was waiting with others in an airport terminal that had been repurposed for evacuees who were resting and waiting for flights. He said he was working for a scaffolding company at a plant called Fort Hills when the fire broke out Tuesday.

"We were working overtime and I just saw what looked like a massive cloud in the sky, but I knew it was fire," he said. "The very next day was my day to go home. Ends up we weren't going home that day."

Burrell and others were evacuated by plane Friday, after spending three days with families who arrived at the work camp because they were evacuated from their towns. He said he and other workers rationed food to help the families who were coming in, and some offered up their living spaces.

Burrell planned to catch a flight back to British Columbia.

About 25,000 evacuees moved north in the hours after Tuesday's mandatory evacuation, where oil sands work camps that usually house employees were used to house evacuees. But the bulk of the more than 80,000 evacuees fled south to Edmonton and elsewhere, and officials are moving everyone south where it is safer and they can get better support services. The convoy was stopped for an hour because of smoke.

Police were escorting 50 vehicles at a time, south through the city itself on Highway 63 at a distance of about 12 miles south and then releasing the convoy. At that point another convoy of 50 cars begins.

All intersections along the convoy route have been blocked off and evacuees are not being allowed back to check on their homes in Fort McMurray. The city is surrounded by wilderness, and there are essentially only two ways out via road.

Fanned by high winds, scorching heat and low humidity, the fire grew from 29 square miles Tuesday to 39 square miles on Wednesday, but by Thursday it was almost nine times that - at 330 square miles. That's an area roughly the size of Calgary, Alberta's largest city.

The fire was so large that smoke is blanketing parts of the neighboring province of Saskatchewan where Environment Canada has issued special air quality statements for several areas.

The region has the third-largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Greg Pardy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said that as much as 1 million barrels a day of oil may be offline, based on oil company announcements. That's just over a third of Canada's total oil sands output, Pardy noted.



Canadian officials fear a massive wildfire could double in size by the end of Saturday as they continue to evacuate residents of fire-ravaged Fort McMurray from work camps north of Alberta's oil sands city. Thousands more displaced residents will get a sobering drive-by view of their burned out city as convoys continue Saturday. Police and military will oversee another procession of hundreds of vehicles, and the mass airlift of evacuees will also resume. A day after 8,000 people were flown out, authorities said 5,500 more were expected to be evacuated by the end of Friday and another 4,000 on Saturday. More than 80,000 people have left Fort McMurray in the heart of Canada's oil sands, where the fire has torched 1,600 homes and other buildings. The mass evacuation forced as much as a quarter of Canada's oil output offline and is expected to impact a country already hurt by a dramatic fall in the price of oil. …. Extremely dry conditions and a hot temperature of 81 Fahrenheit was expected Saturday along with strong winds, he said. …. Morrison said no amount of resources would put this fire out, and what was needed was rain. …. In Edmonton, between 4,500 and 5,000 evacuees arrived at the airport on at least 45 flights Friday, airport spokesman Chris Chodan said. In total, more than 300 flights have arrived with evacuees since Tuesday, he said. A group that arrived late Friday afternoon was greeted by volunteers who handed out bottled water and helped direct people where to go next. …. About 25,000 evacuees moved north in the hours after Tuesday's mandatory evacuation, where oil sands work camps that usually house employees were used to house evacuees. But the bulk of the more than 80,000 evacuees fled south to Edmonton and elsewhere, and officials are moving everyone south where it is safer and they can get better support services. The convoy was stopped for an hour because of smoke. Police were escorting 50 vehicles at a time, south through the city itself on Highway 63 at a distance of about 12 miles south and then releasing the convoy. At that point another convoy of 50 cars begins.”


Horrible as this condition is, the Canadian government is doing a very good job of the evacuation. 80,000 people have been moved to other locations and more are still coming. Unlike Florida when a huge hurricane called Floyd was sitting just off the Jacksonville coast and headed for Jacksonville, and there was little or no discipline in how the highway was being used. In Canada, the police are using their squad cars to escort convoys of 50 cars at a time out on the highways. It’s organized and efficient. What happened in Florida is that our main north/south highway, I-95, was so full of stopped cars that it really did “look like a parking lot.” I was finally released from my job by the city the night before, when most people had already wisely evacuated. I, unfortunately, made it down to the highway too late. When I saw the situation I turned west and went to a shelter that was over there. Luckily the hurricane moved on to the north without coming straight in the city.

Next time that happens I plan to go west first and on into Alabama. The good news, though, is that the highway department made an announcement shortly after that the next time it happened, which it inevitably will, they are going to open up all lanes to exclusively northbound traffic forcing other traffic to use another route.

We also had a really large fire in Florida a few years after I moved down here which caused an evacuation. That one destroyed multiple square miles, including part of the beautiful Okefenokee Swamp. The topsoil in a swamp is made up of several feet of rotted and very carboniferous leaves, and is therefore highly combustible. It kept breaking out again in a number of places after the firefighters got it put out. It was weeks before that one was officially declared out.

I am terribly sorry for what is happening to the Canadians now. They haven’t had time to take many things, perhaps including clothing. I do hope the motels and hotels won’t charge them an arm and a leg to stay wherever they end up. I also hope they will get some financial help from the government to help them cope with the enormous personal cost they have incurred.




Horrific Child Abuse And Eugenics – Three Articles


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-children-tied-outside-had-hundreds-of-scars-injuries/

Children leashed outside Texas home had hundreds of scars, injuries
CBS/AP
May 6, 2016, 5:09 PM

Photograph -- Authorities said eight children at this San Antonio, Texas, home were taken into protective custody and two parents arrested after two toddlers were found tied up Thursday, April 28, 2016. KENS
Photograph -- download-op4cp14625496353242145815ver1-0.jpg, The mother of the two children found outside, 30-year-old Cheryl Reed, is charged with two counts of injury to a child with bodily injury KENS/SAN ANTONIO


SAN ANTONIO -- Two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home had suffered hundreds of scars and injuries from months, perhaps years, of abuse, a sheriff's official said Friday.

Doctors who treated the children after they were found April 29 determined they had old injuries indicating a long period of abuse. One of them also was suffering from hypothermia and had a broken arm resulting from the way she was tied to a garage door using a dog leash, Bexar County sheriff's spokesman James Keith said.

Authorities initially said the children were 2 and 3 years old, but Keith says they may be a year older.

"Unfortunately, child abuse is a major problem here, and in this case we're just glad we were able to find these children before any further harm could occur to them," Keith said, explaining that deputies went to the home after a neighbor called about a child who could be heard crying for hours.

The girl's brother was found tethered to the ground by a dog chain that was clamped to his ankle. Several piles of human feces were found nearby, and the boy was wet, indicating he was left in the rain.

"There was obvious evidence that a switch had been used on the children," Keith said, referring to a slim tree branch.

Keith said the two children, along with six others found alone inside the home, are in state custody. The six other children showed no apparent signs of physical abuse, but investigators are determining whether they may have suffered mental anguish, Keith said. Those children range from 10 months to 10 years old.

The mother of the two children found outside, 30-year-old Cheryl Reed, is charged with two counts of injury to a child with bodily injury and was being held Friday at the Bexar County jail, CBS affiliate KENS reported. She was arrested Thursday at a San Antonio motel.

Keith said investigators are still trying to learn the relationship between Reed and two others who have been charged in the matter: Deandre Dorch, 36, accused of injury to a child by omission, and Porucha Phillips, 34, facing counts that include injury to a child by omission.

Phillips is the mother of the six children found in the home and Dorch is the father to some. Phillips, who is pregnant, is being held at the Bexar County jail, and authorities were searching Friday for Dorch.

Deputies moved Phillips to another unit Friday after she claimed she was assaulted by other inmates, according to KENS. A spokesperson for the sheriff's office told the station there was no physical evidence to support Phillips' allegation but that the department was investigating.

Reed at some point left to travel to California where she needed to address a child-protective matter in that state, Keith said, and had promised to pay Phillips and Dorch, either for rent or to look after her two children. The couple became angry when Reed failed to pay, and Dorch may have threatened her, according to Keith.

Deputies said prior to her departure, a witness saw Reed beat her children with a switch, KENS reported.

It appears the trio moved with their children to San Antonio from California in November, Keith said.

Investigators do not know who tied up the two children found in the back yard, but Keith said they had been under the couple's care since February.

It wasn't clear if Reed had an attorney who could address the allegations against her, but an attorney for Phillips told the San Antonio Express-News that he had spoken only briefly with her.

"She's just trying to figure out what happened, just like I am and the police," Alan Futrell told the paper. "It's too early to say anything."


CBS -- “Doctors who treated the children after they were found April 29 determined they had old injuries indicating a long period of abuse. One of them also was suffering from hypothermia and had a broken arm resulting from the way she was tied to a garage door using a dog leash, Bexar County sheriff's spokesman James Keith said. …. "Unfortunately, child abuse is a major problem here, and in this case we're just glad we were able to find these children before any further harm could occur to them," Keith said, explaining that deputies went to the home after a neighbor called about a child who could be heard crying for hours. The girl's brother was found tethered to the ground by a dog chain that was clamped to his ankle. Several piles of human feces were found nearby, and the boy was wet, indicating he was left in the rain.”


“Keith said the two children, along with six others found alone inside the home, are in state custody.” This is certainly good news, at least. I personally do think that mentally incompetent people should not rear children, but I wouldn’t really vote for a renewal of sterilization laws as this article suggests. Look at the shocking grounds stated in the PsychologyToday article on the NC eugenics law which was NOT REPEALED UNTIL 1974. People who were considered to be INFERIOR were sterilized. Besides, some abusive people are not suspected of doing such a thing, largely because they are wealthy, and therefore they very likely will not be stopped and certainly not sterilized. A wealthy man from “a good family” is too often considered to be “above reproach.”

As for eugenics programs, we must stop seeing people as being either unacceptable or something near royalty, and judge all life as being of value. I would like for us to be better than that, especially in the US. This is not South Africa. From Psychology Today comes this excerpt:

“North Carolina sterilized some 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974 for a range of reasons, including findings by authorities that they were lazy, promiscuous, or poor. State records have revealed the extent of the discriminatory nature of the program: ‘North Carolina's sterilization program zeroed in on welfare recipients. Over the last 15 years of its operation, 99 percent of the victims were women; more than 60 percent were black.’”

Besides, in solving the recurrent problem of child abuse, we can do much better at stopping the cycle of abuse, through using more humane and yet effective methods to “control” our children’s behavior or to prevent the mistreatment by parents from continuing unabated. Parents need parenting lessons including how to talk to children gently and informatively so that they will understand, and not have to hate their parent. Many children who are repeatedly shamed, assaulted, isolated from the family love and support are very likely to be mentally and emotionally damaged, including even becoming cruel themselves as they grow up.

In an article written by a psychologist some ten years ago, in which he answered the question of how to prevent sociopathic abusiveness and cruelty in adults, he said “Stop torturing your children.” A beaten child is very likely to learn anger and hatred rather than any form of virtue, which is what’s wrong with this country today. With our extreme stress on the EXACT words in the Bible and blind “belief,” we have departed from the heart of the teachings of Jesus and the Ten Commandments. The heart of his teachings is LOVE.

From my earliest years I was aware of child neglect and abuse. It was visible. Nearly all Southern children had some experience with physical and/or mental/emotional abuse. It is my opinion that frequent intimidation of children physically, sexually or mentally will destroy the positive and loving “soul” that they are born with, along with their self-confidence, which tends to lead directly to educational and personal failure, and even crime. A loving but “firm” and rational upbringing on the other hand is universally helpful, including teaching them how to treat their pets, smaller brothers and sisters or friends. Lots of children are given a hapless kitten or puppy and then not STOPPED from pulling its’ ears and picking it up by the tail. Gentleness is not instinctive in all cases, but rather taught. Unfortunately, parental love is not fully instinctive either, but learned by example. It’s true that an abused child will be very likely to grow up either too timid to fend for himself in the world or become an abuser like his parent. If a kid has joined a violent street gang, there’s a reason for that other than that he is just a “bad seed.”

It’s my belief that well-parented kids do not join a gang and become wannabe killers, nor do they heartlessly abuse their children as adults. The cause of that syndrome frequently takes the form of the persistent withholding of the (supposedly natural) parental love in their early years; rather than going to the trouble of talking to them in a compassionate way about right and wrong rather than screaming at them and slapping them. Saying you love them and giving them a good hug at least daily, and MEANING IT is the cure to many psychiatric and social problems. We must remember that cooking dinner and putting it on the table is just not enough. Another study I read long ago was about the fact that babies who, from early days, were not held and hugged daily “failed to thrive.” That’s a real medical term and it means that they are sickly and prone to crying. In my view it’s because they are clinically depressed, even at that early age. Touch and warm eye to eye contact are basic to a child’s mental health.

Beginning in the early 1900s in the good old USA, a number of states including my state of North Carolina had at least some forced sterilization laws, which were based on eugenics. There was a philosophical craze about the value of eugenics in those days. It was a belief at the time that misbehavior or mental disorder were inherited characteristics. Men and women who were considered mentally incompetent were sterilized to prevent them from bringing forth any children who might be carrying tainted genes. Unfortunately and not surprisingly, more blacks were sterilized than whites. Does that sound like Hitler to you? See the following shocking article from Psychology Today. Society should make progress rather than going backward. Will we make it all the way back to the Dark Ages, I wonder?

I personally would advocate removing all abused children from the home, certainly, and allowing the abusive parent to AGREE to have his/her tubes tied (which is usually reversible) until he completes two or more years of intensive psychotherapy including in groups with members of the same type. It is commonly said that AA works because everybody there are alcoholics or drug addicts. There are NO psychiatrists their unless they are also alcoholics. It promotes understanding and wisdom coming from those who are succeeding in staying away from a drink “one day at a time.” A harsher recommendation is below in the article by a group called dangerousintersection.org. One of the plans mentioned is compulsory sterilization, and another is more likely to be successful without depriving anyone of the human rights. That is called Project Prevention, which “offers cash incentives to women who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol to use long-term or permanent birth control.” This, unfortunately, doesn’t include the parents who are simply cruel, unconcerned about anyone except themselves or are borderline insane. I do think a lot of abusers are sociopathic or victims of a more ordinary type of insanity. I think there is a place in any society for asylums in which the most dangerous are permanently housed under lock and key.

There was a TV documentary about group therapy for abusers, specifically of ungovernable anger and sheer cruelty. Some people do actually “recover” to become full humans with some empathy and anger control. People in long-term group therapy learn from each other and support one another. That’s why kids join gangs, but unlike a street gang the message that is learned is a good one. You don’t learn how to hot wire cars or engage in pointless territorial “warfare” in a good type of group. A good therapy group functions like a viable family rather than the dysfunctional ones in which so many kids grow up.

A fairly long prison sentence for severely abusive or negligent parents would very likely help, too. Leaving children chained up outdoors like dogs is severe. (I suggest anyone who wants to understand that more fully should watch the Billy Bob Thornton movie called “Slingblade.”) People who do those unspeakable things to children, spouses, or to anyone else have committed a very serious crime which should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and they are mentally ill as well, so they should be hospitalized involuntarily. They could serve out their prison sentence there is they are uncontrollable.

That naïve and bizarre Ronald Reagan era idea of opening up all the permanent mental hospitals because that is against the patient’s civil rights is totally wrong-headed. Some painful things are necessary. When he did that is when we began to have large numbers of wild-eyed and ranting homeless people wandering the streets of Washington, DC.

I don’t believe healthy people are into battery of those close to them. Chronic child abusers, include sexual abusers, very often are convicted for the crime, but the sentence they receive is only months to a few years and it just doesn’t change the way they think. They’re just as dangerous when they get out. It doesn’t even inconvenience them very much.

I think ten years in prison with mandatory psychotherapy would be a good combination. One of the problems, though is that our society doesn’t, in large measure, consider abusiveness to be a “real” crime. There is even an old built-in belief that that I ran across in my teens that “a man” has a “right” to “discipline” any member of “his” household. That not only STINKS, it is truly dangerous for our society and it is producing generation after generation of criminals. See both of the articles below. Perhaps the most cogent and decent comment below is “Every child is interconnected with my world. Every child is, in essence, my child.”

The article below states that not North Carolina or any other overtly racist state, but California. SEE EXCERPT -- California … involuntary sterilizations, which were widely performed on prison inmates, people in mental institutions, and women considered to be bad mothers. Such sterilizations were motivated by both perceived individual and social goods, but had deep-seated prejudice as well as scientific inaccuracies built into their assumptions (Stern 2005). Concepts of “feeble-mindedness” were historically entangled in deeply problematic ways with ideas of race, class and gender (Stubblefield 2007). This California selection is from a really good article on eugenics, (Excerpts only appear below) go to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eugenics/, Eugenics, First published Wed Jul 2, 2014:

“Eugenics” is a term loaded with historical significance and a strong negative valence. Its literal meaning—good birth—suggests a suitable goal for all prospective parents, yet its historical connotations tie it to the selective breeding programs, horrifying concentration camps, medical experiments, and mass exterminations promoted by Germany's Nazi regime in World War II. Undoubtedly, we have an obligation never to forget the Holocaust, or to allow history to repeat itself. . . . Philosophers have recently begun to explore the possibility of “liberal” as opposed to “authoritative” eugenics (Agar 2004). Liberal eugenics would be based upon individual free choice, pluralist values, and up-to-date scientific understanding of genetics and epigenetics. Furthermore, advocates of liberal eugenics aim to be sensitive to the effects of problematic but deeply entrenched social problems (e.g., racism, sexism, heterosexism) on individual choice. Authoritative eugenics programs, in contrast, were coercive state programs designed to promote social goods, and were based on problematic assumptions about hereditability. Liberal eugenicists point to significant developments in our understanding of genetics to help distinguish contemporary liberal eugenics from its problematic predecessors. . . . .

1. Short history of eugenics
Although philosophers have contemplated the meaning and value of eugenics at least since Plato recommended a state-run program of mating intended to strengthen the guardian class in his Republic, the modern version of eugenics had its start with the 19th century cousin of Charles Darwin, British scientist Francis Galton (1883). Galton was interested in “improving human stock” through scientific management of mating; his explicit goal was to create better humans. His ideas were taken up widely in the early part of the 20th century by seemingly well-intended scientists and policy makers, particularly in the United States, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries. Notable eugenicists included Alexander Graham Bell and Margaret Sanger. (For an excellent history of eugenics, see Kevles 1985.)

Eugenicists had two-fold aims: to encourage people of good health to reproduce together to create good births (what is known as “positive” eugenics), and to end certain diseases and disabilities by discouraging or preventing others from reproducing (what is known as “negative” eugenics). In the United States, programs to encourage positive eugenics involved the creation of “Fitter Family Fairs” in which families competed for prizes at local county fairs, much in the way that livestock is judged for conformation and physical dexterity (Stern 2002). Negative eugenics took the form of encouraged or forced sterilizations of men and women deemed unfit to reproduce (in the language of the day, this included individuals who were “poor, mentally insane, feeble-minded, idiots, drunken” and more). At the time, many eugenicists seemed to assume that social and behavioral conditions, such as poverty, vagrancy or prostitution, would be passed from parent to child, inherited as traits rather than shared as common social situations. (For an interesting discussion of the relevant social moral epistemology, see Buchanan 2007.)

Racist, sexist, and classist assumptions pervaded the discourse. Alarm calls were raised about the lower birth rates among white Protestant Americans compared to the large immigrant Catholic populations of Italian and Irish descent. German scientists and policymakers visited the United States to learn from their methods, and when the Nazis came to power in Germany, they began eugenic policies of their own. Early German policies called for involuntary euthanasia of people in institutions whose physical or mental illnesses were considered incurable. Such individuals were considered to have “lives unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben). The Nazis also encouraged selective breeding for Aryan traits (e.g., athletic, blond and blue-eyed). This policy quickly expanded to include bans on marriage between particular groups, forced sterilization, and then internment in concentration camps for individuals belonging to groups deemed inferior (i.e., people who were disabled, homosexual, diagnosed with psychiatric conditions, communists, considered to be Roma/gypsies, and/or Jewish). The purported aim was to promote the “health” of the German population by controlling those who were “unhealthy.”

. . . . Involuntary eugenic sterilizations of “feeble-minded” women in a variety of states didn't officially end until the 1970s, and may continue covertly in some state institutions. California had the highest rate of involuntary sterilizations, which were widely performed on prison inmates, people in mental institutions, and women considered to be bad mothers. Such sterilizations were motivated by both perceived individual and social goods, but had deep-seated prejudice as well as scientific inaccuracies built into their assumptions (Stern 2005). Concepts of “feeble-mindedness” were historically entangled in deeply problematic ways with ideas of race, class and gender (Stubblefield 2007)."



http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/05/23/sterilize-chronically-abusive-parents/

Sterilize chronically abusive parents
Erich Vieth | May 23, 2007

We like to think of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as days when young children give lots of hugs to their loving parents. We don’t like to consider that these days are also days when thousands of innocent children are beaten by their parents, their anguished cries often not heard outside of their dysfunctional homes. Saddest of all, these children are condemned to be beaten and screamed at by the people they trust most.

In 1988, I was waiting for an elevator at the State office building where I worked as an Assistant Attorney General. Many social workers had their offices in the same building, and several of those social workers were also waiting for an elevator.

All of a sudden, a middle-aged man started yelling at a three-year-old boy, who started crying. The boy weighed about 40 pounds. The man quickly got angrier and started smacking the boy violently with the palm of his hand-maybe it was his fist. Whump! Whump! Whump! The little boy was now breathless and whimpering. Like the other half-dozen people waiting for an elevator, however, I did nothing but stand there horrified. The man cocked his arm back to strike the boy yet again when one of the social workers jumped forward and yelled at the man: “Stop hitting that child!”

With that, the man looked confused, then angry, then more confused, then meek. The social worker further instructed him: “follow me.” The man followed the social worker, presumably to the social worker’s office. It did not appear that the social worker knew this man. This social worker, now a hero in my mind, stepped forward because it was the right thing to do. He intervened because there was a child being mistreated. It was that simple.

I am not proud of the fact that I stood there doing nothing while the man repeatedly struck the fragile little boy. There was a window of 15 to 20 seconds during which I could’ve simply stepped up and told the man to stop. Why not? What did I have to lose by trying?

I was not the first person to freeze when I was uncertain of what to do. As Robert Cialdini writes in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984), whenever we are unsure of ourselves, “when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct.. . . especially in an ambiguous situation, the tendency for everyone to be looking to see what everyone else is doing can lead to a fascinating phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance. [This phenomenon of “pluralistic ignorance” [see below] explains] the failure of entire groups of bystanders to aid victims in agonizing need of help.”

(Page 129) The classic case of this was the homicide of Catherine Genovese, who died in Queens, New York City, when at least a dozen people failed to pick up their phones to call the police, even though they heard the awful and unmistakable sounds of Ms. Genovese being viciously attacked. Cialdini explains this phenomenon further:

In times of uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We can learn, from the way the other witnesses are reacting, whether the event is or is not an emergency. What is easy to forget, though, is that everyone else observing the event is likely to be looking for social evidence, too. And because we all prefer to appear poised and unflustered among others, we are likely to search for that evidence placidly, with brief camouflaged glances at those around us. Therefore everyone is likely to see everyone else looking unruffled and failing to act. As a result, and by the principle of social proof, the event will be roundly interpreted as a non-emergency . . . the fascinating upshot [of this phenomenon is that] the idea of “safety in numbers” may often be completely wrong.

While Cialdini’s book might explain my inaction, it does not excuse it. My shame in not acting on that occasion has provoked me to speak up during a subsequent similar situation. But speaking up does not necessarily solve any child-abuse problems. Speaking up might only embarrass and frustrate the parent in public. Who is to say that that an attempt at intervention won’t provoke that parent to simply go home where he or she will secretly beat the holy crap out of their child?

I recalled my own inaction when I recently heard of another child abuse incident through two friends of mine. They were on public transportation when they heard a mother start screaming at a tiny child and beating him. Not entirely certain of what to do, my friends turned around and glared at the woman, only to see that she had other small children in her care in addition to the small child she was attacking. One of my friends looked straight at the woman and told her “you need to go to parenting classes.” Predictably, this did not provoke goodwill on behalf of the woman. In fact, it caused her to glare back at my friends. As she left the train, my friends feared that the mother was going home where she could privately inflict more damage on her children.

Child abusers are cowards. Through their actions, they claim that they have rights to beat and scream at children simply because they are the parents. Unfortunately, the courts show great deference to violent people just because the little people the adults are punching kicking and demeaning are their own children. At Court, then, child abusers hide behind tiny human shields. “Judge, you wouldn’t want to break up our family, would you?”

Child abusers, even those who have been convicted of the crime of child abuse, even those who have had children removed from their own homes, are free to have more children. And many of them do have more children.

A friend of mine works in a family court in a large city. He told me that he is surrounded by liberal-minded co-workers (many of them off-the-charts liberal), including many child welfare workers (those who work with abused and neglected children). I asked him what most of those liberal-minded child welfare workers think of mandatory sterilization of those parents who do grievous harm to their own children or kill them. He said that most of his liberal co-workers are in favor of mandatory sterilization under those circumstances. His perception is that it only takes a few months of seeing the kinds of things that dangerously dysfunctional parents regularly do to innocent children before the most liberal social worker wants to shout: Stop! No more children! While I was going to law school, I worked in a Juvenile Court (this was 25 years ago) and I felt this way too. I know that most of the people with whom I worked back then (they were of a variety of political stripes) felt the same as me.

Of course, this is a highly contentious topic. Who wants to intervene in others’ reproductive choices? On the other hand, this topic (abusive parents who keep having more children) is a topic on which our society should have an unblinkingly honestly conversation. When a parent kills his or her own child (not by an accident), should he or she be able to just keep having more children and abusing them too? The family courts are full of growing families who are repeat customers. The children who survive horrific abuse often go on to commit crimes of their own before settling in to have unplanned children of their own, which they themselves abuse. Some of those highly dysfunctional families are enormous (5 or 10 kids or more), and all 8, 9 or 10 of them can end up in family court to be tended to by the workers who shake their heads while doing what they can. In fact, there’s a common saying among many (liberal) child welfare workers: “Don’t breed them if you can’t feed them.”

How bad does child-abuse get? You might not have the stomach for this dark reality, but consider reading the case studies found at this article at Wikipedia. (they are listed under the title “Notable incidents of child abuse”). Then consider the grim statistics:

An estimated 872,000 children were determined to be victims of child abuse or neglect for 2004 . . . More than 60 percent of child victims were neglected by their parents or other caregivers. About 18 percent were physically abused, 10 percent were sexually abused, and 7 percent were emotionally maltreated. In addition, 15 percent were associated with “other” types of maltreatment based on specific State laws and policies. A child could be a victim of more than one type of maltreatment.

I have two young children (ages six and eight). My wife and I work hard to nurture them and challenge them. Doing this takes an enormous amount of discipline. I could name a dozen All-Star parents that have inspired me to try to be a better parent myself. None of them makes parenting look easy. Parenting is hard rowing, and there are not many shortcuts to doing the job well. Feeding the children and giving them a place to sleep is the bare minimum. In our competitive society, conscientious parents need to teach their children many skills they will need to survive as citizens and human beings. After being a parent for a few months, I was startled to learn that being a good parent is as difficult as being a lawyer, a doctor or an airplane pilot. Parenting is a profession that is equally exhausting.

Many people lack the basic skills to take care of children, however. We occasionally see these parents in the relatively few places where socio-economic classes mix, such as on mass transit and sidewalks. When we see these parents lash out at their children, physically and emotionally, we want to run away and magically forget what we just saw. It’s just too damned awful to contemplate what it’s like for those children to be stuck in those homes.

So, what can we do about such dangerous parents? For one, we need to realize that we, as a society, are standing around succumbing to “pluralistic ignorance.” No one else is doing much of anything, so we don’t either. There’s lots of miniature Catherine Genoveses getting hurt, and most of us are doing nothing but looking the other way.

This issue is not about inflicting reproductive restrictions upon people because they have fewer social economic resources or because they are of differing “races” (to me, “race” is a useless term). What I am about to propose is equally relevant to every parent everywhere in America: Having children is a privilege and it triggers a heavy responsibility. Parents who are documented child abusers should not be allowed to have more children.

We commonly take away privileges when people demonstrate that they are unqualified to engage in dangerous activity. Habitual drunks are not allowed to drive cars. Incompetent doctors and lawyers (at least the worst of them) are not allowed to continue practicing medicine or law. Similarly, incompetent parents should not be allowed to create additional children. Here are my two proposals:

Proposal One

Any person who, on two or more occasions,

A) is convicted of child abuse or
B) who is deemed so incompetent as a parent that a court removes a child from his or her home for an extended period (e.g., more than six months) should be sterilized.

A parent qualifies if he or she has any two of the above—2 A’s, 2B’s or an A & a B. The people to be sterilized would be those who have been convicted of child abuse or from whose homes the children were removed. If both parents qualify, then both should be sterilized.

I fully understand that accusations are often thrown around as part of divorce cases. Irate spouses sometimes accuse perfectly innocent people of abusing their children. On the other hand, consider this situation: if a person is convicted of child abuse on one occasion and then has another child removed from their home, aren’t we fairly confident that this is not the sort of person who should be allowed to have custody of more children?

Proposal Two

We should institute government programs along the lines of Project Prevention. Project prevention offers cash incentives to women who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol to use long-term or permanent birth control. Here’s an excerpt from an article describing the problem and Project Prevention’s solution:

After Cathy Mayne saw a flyer near her grandson’s elementary school that read, “If you’re addicted to drugs, get birth control — get cash!” she called CRACK on Nicole’s behalf. The organization’s premise is radical, if dizzyingly simple: CRACK gives addicts $200 (they’ll throw in an extra $50 if a participant recommends a friend) and sets up the medical procedures at a public hospital or clinic. All Nicole had to do was sign a release form, and two weeks later she had her tubes tied at a local hospital. She received a check the following month.

Here’s another article describing Project Prevention’s plan.
Many organizations, such as the ACLU, strongly object to programs like Project Prevention. See here, for example. (and see here and here). These sites argue that waving cash in front of crack addict is taking advantage of them. I don’t agree. In my opinion, if you can’t turn down $200 for immediate gratification, you’re not qualified to be a parent in the first place. To be a real parent, you need to be able to exercise constant self-sacrifice. The good parents I know say “no” to their own urges dozens of times every day. Good parents constantly sacrifice their needs for those of their children. Anything less characterizes a suspect parent.

Not too long ago, I compared the process for adopting a child from China to the ability of dangerous parents to have additional biological children. My wife and I understood that we needed to be fully qualified and trustworthy in order to raise a child. Therefore, we acquiesced to the Chinese requirement to produce a clean criminal record and to show that we were in good health, that we had people willing to step forward and recommend us as parents, and that we were willing to invite a social worker over for a home study.

How different it is when someone wants to have an additional child biologically! Under current law, it is no hurdle to having additional children that you have had 4, 5 or six children taken away from you because you have been declared dangerous. It is no hurdle that you are constantly high on crack cocaine. It is no hurdle that you allow your current children to wallow in their feces, that you’ve threatened to kill your them or that you are screwing them up so badly that they will never have a chance to take advantage of any school, no matter how good. Under current law, you can have more of your own biological children no matter how crappy and dangerous you are as a parent.

The topic of eligibility requirements for having one’s own biological baby is truly a 3rd rail of American politics. So much so, that we can’t even discuss the possibility of requiring the sterilization of people who are certified as likely to maim or kill their own children. Oh, well, I just mentioned it. How awful that I would dare to suggest that to have biological children, a potential parent must not have a track record of hurting or killing his/her own children! The widespread reluctance to discuss this issue surprises me, because people convicted of child abuse aren’t noted for having a strong governmental lobby. Anyway, it’s time to start this conversation.

Allowing parents who are dangerous to have more children is irresponsible. It is dangerous to victims too small and too young to protect themselves. It drains the energy of our society to bear the costs of children who are being tortured, who then often grow up to do the torturing. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you don’t think I’ve set the bar in the right place, but shouldn’t there be a bar somewhere? At some point, should we dictate to dangerous parents that they can’t have more children?

At bottom, here’s how I think of it. Every child deserves to have a safe and loving home. Every child is interconnected with my world. Every child is, in essence, my child. It’s time to have a dialogue to determine how to stop this cycle of violence.


Pluralistic ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignoranceWikipedia

“In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but incorrectly assume that most others accept it, and therefore go along with it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes."


https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/genetic-crossroads/201309/involuntary-sterilization-then-and-now

Genetic Crossroads
Involuntary Sterilization Then and Now
Jessica Cussins Jessica Cussins
Posted Sep 05, 2013

Sterilization laws may be in the past, but the practice and ideology lives on
Posted Sep 05, 2013

Victims of forced and coerced sterilizations carried out under North Carolina’s decades-spanning Eugenics Board program finally received some good news earlier this summer: The state legislature has agreed to spend $10 million to compensate them for the abuse they suffered. Offering compensation to those who are still alive – 177 men and women have come forward and been verified so far – is an important recognition of the moral and practical failure of this eugenic practice.

North Carolina sterilized some 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974 for a range of reasons, including findings by authorities that they were lazy, promiscuous, or poor. State records have revealed the extent of the discriminatory nature of the program: “North Carolina's sterilization program zeroed in on welfare recipients. Over the last 15 years of its operation, 99 percent of the victims were women; more than 60 percent were black.”

The decision to compensate sterilization victims has been a long time coming. The state established the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation in 2010, but the agency was temporarily forced to close its doors last summer when the Senate brought the compensation effort to a halt. Its ultimate success is in large part a testament to the passion of advocates such as Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized at the age of 14 after giving birth to a child that resulted from rape. She had no idea of what had been done to her until years later when she tried unsuccessfully to start a family with her husband.

North Carolina will be the first US state to offer compensation to victims of sterilization, but could inspire some of the other thirty states that had similar eugenics laws to follow suit. Coming to terms with this history is hugely important. It’s easy in hindsight to recognize what it was: in the words of medical reporter Elizabeth Cohen, a “horrific chapter in American history.” At the time, however, as she points out, “the programs were supported by some of the nation's most respected doctors, lawyers, and social workers.”

Most Americans are unaware of the country’s eugenic legacy. That is also true in California, where some 20,000 people, including a disproportionate number of Latinos, were sterilized under state auspices. As a group of California high school students pointed out in an online petition to incorporate this history into the curricula,

"Learning about eugenics in California is not simply about being more informed, or redressing past wrongs, but about considering difficult questions about justice, equality, and human rights. We have seen how these questions are now more important than ever, as we move into an uncertain age of genetic science."

Unfortunately, involuntary sterilizations, as well as the ideology that informs them, are not behind us. They still occur today, often arranged by people who seem to genuinely believe they are helping society.

Guernica magazine recently reported that Kenyan doctors have been sterilizing HIV positive women, sometimes without their knowledge. Israel reportedly targeted Ethiopian Jews for long-term contraception. Sweden only just changed a 30-year-old law that required transgender people to undergo sterilization before they could legally be recognized as another gender.

But involuntary sterilizations also occur much closer to home.



EXCERPT -- “The state legislature has agreed to spend $10 million to compensate them for the abuse they suffered. Offering compensation to those who are still alive – 177 men and women have come forward and been verified so far – is an important recognition of the moral and practical failure of this eugenic practice. North Carolina sterilized some 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974 for a range of reasons, including findings by authorities that they were lazy, promiscuous, or poor. State records have revealed the extent of the discriminatory nature of the program: “North Carolina's sterilization program zeroed in on welfare recipients. Over the last 15 years of its operation, 99 percent of the victims were women; more than 60 percent were black.”


“lazy, promiscuous, or poor” -- The state established the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation in 2010, but the agency was temporarily forced to close its doors last summer when the Senate brought the compensation effort to a halt.” I don’t want to say that the Rightwingers are evil, but some of the things they do are. Perhaps they do it because they are mentally incompetent, and they should be sterilized instead! That is against my principles, however, so I will just leave it with the statement, a veritable cry out to the universe, “Those on the far right really suck!”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/london-elects-sadiq-khan-first-muslim-mayor/

London elects Sadiq Khan its first Muslim mayor
AP May 6, 2016, 7:39 PM
Last Updated May 7, 2016 7:52 AM EDT

Photograph -- sadiq-khan.jpg, Sadiq Khan, Britain's Labour Party candidate for mayor of London, leaves after casting his vote in the London mayoral elections at a polling station in south London on May 5, 2016. REUTERS/STEFAN WERMUTH


LONDON -- Sadiq Khan became London's first Muslim mayor Saturday, as voters rejected attempts to taint him with links to extremism and handed a decisive victory to the bus driver's son from south London.

Khan hailed his victory as the triumph of "hope over fear and unity over division."

His win was the most dramatic result in local and regional elections that produced few big changes but underscored Britain's political divisions ahead of a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union.

Labour Party candidate Khan received more than 1.3 million votes -- 57 percent of the total -- to Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith's 43 percent, after voters' first and second preferences were allocated.

Turnout was a relatively high 45.6 percent, up from 38 percent in 2012.

Khan's victory seemed certain for hours from partial results, but the official announcement came past midnight -- more than 24 hours after polls closed -- after delays due to what officials called "small discrepancies" in the count.

Khan was elected to replace Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson after a campaign marked -- and many said marred -- by U.S.-style negative campaigning. Goldsmith, a wealthy environmentalist, called Khan divisive and accused him of sharing platforms with Islamic extremists -- a charge repeated by Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior Conservatives.

Khan, who calls himself "the British Muslim who will take the fight to the extremists," accused Goldsmith of trying to scare and divide voters in a proudly multicultural city of 8.6 million people -- more than 1 million of them Muslim.

The attacks, criticized by some senior Conservatives, appear not to have deterred voters from backing Khan. London has seen attacks by Islamic extremists, including July 2005 suicide bombings that killed 52 bus and subway commuters, but has avoided the level of racial and religious tensions seen in some European cities.

"Fear does not make us safer -- it only makes us weaker," Khan said in his victory speech. "And the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city."

Former Conservative strategist Steve Hilton told the BBC that Goldsmith's campaign had brought back "the 'nasty party' label to the Conservative party" -- and said Khan's victory sent a "positive and powerful message about London."

Even Goldsmith's sister criticized his tactics. Journalist and socialite Jemima Goldsmith tweeted: "Sad that Zac's campaign did not reflect who I know him to be -- an eco-friendly, independent-minded politician with integrity."

Labour, Britain's main opposition party, performed strongly in the capital, taking more than 40 percent of Londoners' votes. That and Khan's victory were bright spots for Labour, which was pushed into third place in Scotland, where it was once dominant.

The Conservatives under popular Scottish leader Ruth Davidson became the main opposition in Scotland's Edinburgh-based parliament -- an unprecedented situation in a region that shunned the party for decades.

The pro-independence Scottish National Party secured a third term in government in the county's parliamentary elections, but failed by two seats to retain a majority. That may lessen the party's appetite to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence.

SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon said the party had "won a clear and unequivocal mandate" and would form a minority government rather than seek a coalition.

While Labour's losses in Scotland were humiliating, the party fared less badly overall than many had predicted. It lost only a handful of council seats and held on to control of major English cities including Birmingham, Newcastle and Sunderland.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the party had "a lot of building to do" in Scotland, but had "hung on" in England. But the results will do little to soothe restive Labour lawmakers who think Corbyn's left-wing policies are a turn-off for many voters.

In Wales, which has traditionally been pro-Europe, the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party gained seven Welsh Assembly seats, and the party also won two London Assembly seats, their first ever.

Votes were also being counted in the contest for Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant power-sharing assembly. Full results there were not expected until later Saturday, but the major British Protestant party, the Democratic Unionists, appeared on course to retain its leading role in power.

Britons will vote on June 23 on whether the country should leave the European Union. Andrew Blick, a constitutional expert at King's College London, said the results underscore how difficult the referendum campaign will be, as attitudes nationally seem to be so complex.

"We don't know where the mood is," he said. "There are lots of different moods. What message do you push ahead with in the campaign when you have so many different opinions?"



“Sadiq Khan became London's first Muslim mayor Saturday, as voters rejected attempts to taint him with links to extremism and handed a decisive victory to the bus driver's son from south London. Khan hailed his victory as the triumph of "hope over fear and unity over division." …. Labour Party candidate Khan received more than 1.3 million votes -- 57 percent of the total -- to Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith's 43 percent, after voters' first and second preferences were allocated. …. Goldsmith, a wealthy environmentalist, called Khan divisive and accused him of sharing platforms with Islamic extremists -- a charge repeated by Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior Conservatives. …. Khan, who calls himself "the British Muslim who will take the fight to the extremists," accused Goldsmith of trying to scare and divide voters in a proudly multicultural city of 8.6 million people -- more than 1 million of them Muslim. ….
"Fear does not make us safer -- it only makes us weaker," Khan said in his victory speech. "And the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city." Former Conservative strategist Steve Hilton told the BBC that Goldsmith's campaign had brought back "the 'nasty party' label to the Conservative party" -- and said Khan's victory sent a "positive and powerful message about London." …. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the party had "a lot of building to do" in Scotland, but had "hung on" in England. But the results will do little to soothe restive Labour lawmakers who think Corbyn's left-wing policies are a turn-off for many voters.”


“Britons will vote on June 23 on whether the country should leave the European Union. Andrew Blick, a constitutional expert at King's College London, said the results underscore how difficult the referendum campaign will be, as attitudes nationally seem to be so complex. "We don't know where the mood is," he said. "There are lots of different moods. What message do you push ahead with in the campaign when you have so many different opinions?"

This is a good description of what has happened politically this last several years in the US, especially since the first black man was elected president. I wouldn’t be surprised if both our major parties split into separate factions. Our Democrats have grown fat and lazy and the Republicans have been leaning much farther over to the Right. Our elections would be harder to predict or even understand if we had four or more parties, but those of us who do hold essentially opposite viewpoints could have a party that we can more wholeheartedly support. Both parties would be smaller, and in my opinion “winner take all” won’t be fair anymore. This article speaks of “power sharing.” We always do a lot of “power sharing” in this country (though perhaps that wasn't what the writer was referring to), but some 15 years ago we succeeded in having less mud slinging than we do now. This last campaign season has been almost unbearable. In the old days, it was generally done with more equanimity and productivity than we have had since the Tea Party emerged, and right behind them, the Trumpites.

Trump has wised up and won’t accept David Duke’s approval now, he said, but Duke isn’t running personally and many of Trump’s hysterically loyal crowd are composed of that same sort of people, the disgruntled blue collar whites, so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. The Tea Party was stimulated directly, I believe, by the simple fact that a black man won the election by a landslide, and doesn’t even have the good grace to talk, dress and act like a n@!#%r. He's clearly an educated and intelligent man. For those reasons, they simply have to hate him. He has won in more ways than one. I do hope that this Islamic mayor will not run into the kinds of verbal abuse that Obama has had. I wish him well, and will watch for news about him in the future.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-jeb-bush-wont-be-voting-for-in-the-general-election/

Who Jeb Bush won't be voting for in the general election
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
May 6, 2016, 4:58 PM

Play VIDEO -- Trump campaign spokesperson: Split in GOP is nothing new


Jeb Bush said Friday that he won't vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the general election this fall.

"In November, I will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I will support principled conservatives at the state and federal levels, just as I have done my entire life," the former GOP presidential candidate and former Florida governor wrote in a Facebook post.

Bush congratulated Trump on securing his place as the GOP's presumptive nominee, saying that he had tapped into the anger and frustration of the U.S. electorate. Then, he went on to explain why the billionaire wouldn't be getting his vote: Trump, he wrote, has not demonstrated a strong character, respect for the Constitution and hasn't been "a consistent conservative."

"These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy," he said, adding, "Hillary Clinton has proven to be an untrustworthy liberal politician who, if elected, would present a third term of the disastrous foreign and economic policy agenda of Barack Obama."

This comes after his brother and father, former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, said this week that they would not endorse Trump for president. Mitt Romney said Thursday he wouldn't be attending the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July and Speaker Paul Ryan said that he's "not ready" to back Trump.

Throughout the primary campaign, Trump often attacked Bush and they argued about Bush's family legacy like Bush 43's handling of 9/11 and leading the U.S. into war in Iraq. Bush called Trump a "master of manipulation" and he dropped out of the race in February after losing South Carolina's GOP primary.

Lindsey Graham also said Friday that he doesn't plan to vote for Trump or Clinton.

"I just don't think Donald is a reliable conservative Republican and quite frankly, he lost me when he said my friend John McCain was a loser because he was captured as a POW. He lost me when he accused George W. Bush of lying to the American people about the Iraq War, and he thinks Putin's a good guy, so, I just can't go there," the South Carolina senator, who also ran for president, said in an interview with CNN. "I'm just glad we're having the convention in Cleveland, not Area 51. I think Donald Trump has gone to places where very few people have gone, and I'm not going with him."

Trump released a blistering statement Friday afternoon in response to Graham.

"I fully understand why Lindsey Graham cannot support me. If I got beaten as badly as I beat him, and all the other candidates he endorsed, I would not be able to give my support either. Every time I see Lindsey Graham spew hate during interviews I ask why the media never questions how I single handily destroyed his hapless run for president," Trump said.

Bush and Graham both signed a Republican National Committee loyalty pledge, which says that if they didn't win the GOP nomination, "I will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is."



"In November, I will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I will support principled conservatives at the state and federal levels, just as I have done my entire life," the former GOP presidential candidate and former Florida governor wrote in a Facebook post. Bush congratulated Trump on securing his place as the GOP's presumptive nominee, saying that he had tapped into the anger and frustration of the U.S. electorate. Then, he went on to explain why the billionaire wouldn't be getting his vote: Trump, he wrote, has not demonstrated a strong character, respect for the Constitution and hasn't been "a consistent conservative." …. This comes after his brother and father, former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, said this week that they would not endorse Trump for president. Mitt Romney said Thursday he wouldn't be attending the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July and Speaker Paul Ryan said that he's "not ready" to back Trump. …. Lindsey Graham also said Friday that he doesn't plan to vote for Trump or Clinton. "I just don't think Donald is a reliable conservative Republican and quite frankly, he lost me when he said my friend John McCain was a loser because he was captured as a POW. He lost me when he accused George W. Bush of lying to the American people about the Iraq War, and he thinks Putin's a good guy, so, I just can't go there …."


Well, I agree with all of these mainstream Republicans, especially Graham. Between Trump’s making fun of the fact that McCain was somehow inferior because he was captured, which makes no sense to me unless he believes that a good soldier will always “fight to the death,” and his statement that he likes Putin, or at any rate can “get along” with him, frightens me. Putin is not only a snake in the grass, he’s an aggressive one. My favorite quip was again by Graham, when he said, "I'm just glad we're having the convention in Cleveland, not Area 51. I think Donald Trump has gone to places where very few people have gone, and I'm not going with him." For any of you who are too young to remember what Area 51 is, go to Google and look it up. It’s a great story.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pakistan-solar-kids-medical-mystery-doctors-baffled-brothers-vegetative-night/

Mystery of Pakistan's "solar kids" baffles doctors
AP May 6, 2016, 8:47 AM

Photograph -- Abdul Rasheed, 9, front, and Shoaib Ahmed, 13, lie in a bed at a hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, May 5, 2016.


ISLAMABAD -- The two brothers have come to be known as the "solar kids" and their case has completely mystified Pakistani doctors.

Aged nine and 13, the boys are normal active children during the day. But once the sun goes down, they both lapse into a vegetative state -- unable to move or talk. Javed Akram, a professor of medicine at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had no idea what was causing the symptoms.

"We took this case as a challenge. Our doctors are doing medical tests to determine why these kids remain active in the day but cannot open their eyes, why they cannot talk or eat when sun goes down," he said, as he visited the pair at his hospital.

Akram said the government was providing free medical care to the siblings, who come from an impoverished family.

The brothers are undergoing extensive medical testing in the capital, Islamabad, and samples of their blood have been sent to overseas specialists for further examination, he said. Researchers are also collecting soil and air samples from the family's home village.

Mohammad Hashim, the father of the two brothers, comes from a village near Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. He and his wife are first cousins and two of their six children died at an early age. Their other two children have not displayed any unusual symptoms.

His simple theory: "I think my sons get energy from sun."

But doctors have already dismissed the idea that sunlight plays a role, noting that the boys can move during the day even when kept in a dark room or during a rainstorm.

During the day, 13-year old Shoaib Ahmed and his brother Abdul Rasheed did indeed seem normally active, energetic and cheerful as they emerged from their hospital room on Friday and walked to a nearby canteen to have tea.

"I will become a teacher," Shoaib Ahmed told the AP, while his younger brother said he wants to be an Islamic scholar.



“The two brothers have come to be known as the "solar kids" and their case has completely mystified Pakistani doctors. Aged nine and 13, the boys are normal active children during the day. But once the sun goes down, they both lapse into a vegetative state -- unable to move or talk. Javed Akram, a professor of medicine at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had no idea what was causing the symptoms. "We took this case as a challenge. Our doctors are doing medical tests to determine why these kids remain active in the day but cannot open their eyes, why they cannot talk or eat when sun goes down," he said, as he visited the pair at his hospital. …. He and his wife are first cousins and two of their six children died at an early age. Their other two children have not displayed any unusual symptoms. His simple theory: "I think my sons get energy from sun." But doctors have already dismissed the idea that sunlight plays a role, noting that the boys can move during the day even when kept in a dark room or during a rainstorm. …. "I will become a teacher," Shoaib Ahmed told the AP, while his younger brother said he wants to be an Islamic scholar.”


Theories: The boys may have an extreme case of sudden onset Seasonal Affective Disorder; they could have a rare flea borne virus causing repeated temporary comas; they have inherited an equally rare gene causing temporary hibernation like bears; or finally, perhaps like Donald Trump, they were taken up into a space ship by aliens and given experimental treatments. Whatever it is, I have a strong suspicion that this story is completely bogus.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-disavows-david-dukes-remark-about-jewish-extremists/

Donald Trump disavows David Duke's remark about "Jewish extremists"
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
May 6, 2016, 10:57 AM

Play VIDEO -- Ryan "not ready" to support Trump as GOP takes sides


Donald Trump on Thursday disavowed comments made by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke about "Jewish extremists."

"Antisemitism has no place our society, which needs to be united, not divided," Trump said in a statement to The New York Times, adding that he "totally disavows" Duke's remarks.

On his radio show Wednesday, Duke talked about "Jewish extremists" who he says opposed Trump in the primary campaign. In the past, Duke has encouraged his listeners to vote for Trump, praising the billionaire's candidacy as "an insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans."

"Jewish chutzpah knows no bounds," Duke said, according to the Times. "I think these Jewish extremists have made a terribly crazy miscalculation because all they're really going to be doing by doing the 'Never Trump' movement is exposing their alien, their anti-American-majority position to all the Republicans."

The onus is now on Donald Trump to make unequivocally clear he rejects those sentiments and that there is no room for Duke and anti-Semitism in his campaign and in society," CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said.

Once Trump issued a statement disavowing Duke, Greenblatt said, "While no one should associate Mr. Trump's own views with David Duke's hatred, it is vital for political leaders to use their bully pulpit to speak out against bigotry,"

This all came as the world mourned on Thursday the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Trump, who's now the presumptive GOP nominee, got into trouble in February after failing to denounce Duke in a CNN interview.

"Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?" Jake Tapper asked Trump.

"I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists," said Trump, who later disavowed Duke.



“This all came as the world mourned on Thursday the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust for Holocaust Remembrance Day. .… On his radio show Wednesday, Duke talked about "Jewish extremists" who he says opposed Trump in the primary campaign. In the past, Duke has encouraged his listeners to vote for Trump, praising the billionaire's candidacy as "an insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans." …. This all came as the world mourned on Thursday the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Trump, who's now the presumptive GOP nominee, got into trouble in February after failing to denounce Duke in a CNN interview. …. "I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists," said Trump, who later disavowed Duke.”


Trump talks about Hillary being dishonest. How could any American citizen say that he doesn’t even know who Duke and White Supremacists are and what they represent? After enough flak from the world and especially the Republican establishment he has finally been courageous and wise enough to say he doesn’t want the White Supremacist vote. Well, he sure has spent a long time cultivating their favor.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/campaign-2016-donald-trump-trial-date-set-in-trump-university-lawsuit/

Trial date set in Trump University lawsuit
CBS/AP
May 6, 2016, 10:14 PM

Photograph -- In this May 23, 2005, file photo, real estate mogul and Reality TV star Donald Trump, left, listens as Michael Sexton introduces him at a news conference in New York where he announced the establishment of Trump University. AP
Play VIDEO -- Trump University professors earned commissions to push training on students
Play VIDEO -- Web Extra: Donald Trump sets the record straight on Trump University allegations
Play VIDEO -- Behind Donald Trump's claims about Trump University


SAN DIEGO -- Donald Trump will go to trial in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University after the presidential election but before the inauguration, setting the stage for a president-elect to take the witness stand if he wins the White House.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on Friday scheduled trial for Nov. 28 in the suit that alleges people who paid up to $35,000 for real estate seminars got defrauded. The likely Republican nominee planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify, Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli said.

"He has very, very strong feelings about this case," Petrocelli told reporters.

Petrocelli asked for a trial after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but the judge raised concerns about distractions if Trump wins the election. The attorney said the period between the election and swearing-in is extremely hectic for a president-elect but that it was preferable to holding a trial during the campaign.

The lawsuit is one of three that accuse Trump University of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate.

The California suit, initially filed by Orange County resident Tarla Makaeff, accuses Trump of misleading students at the university, which cost $35,000 for an "elite"' membership, CBS affiliate KFMB reported.

The suit says Trump University, which no longer operates and was not accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring students to buy more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

Trump, who appears on a list of defense witnesses for the trial, has repeatedly pointed to a 98 percent satisfaction rate on internal surveys. But the lawsuit says students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticize their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous.

Last year, CBS News conducted a three-month investigation of Trump University, reaching out to dozens of former students and reviewing hundreds of comments about the program.

Curiel, a judicial appointee of President Barack Obama, has been eager to get to trial and had planned for it this summer before Trump's surge in the primaries. The case was filed in 2010, making it the second-oldest on his docket.

Still, he expressed concern about a trial during the campaign, partly out of concern for jurors' safety.

"Will they be able to stay clear of the media frenzy?" he asked. "Ultimately that's my Number 1 concern."

Since the early 1980s, Trump personally has been sued at least 150 times in federal court, records show. Only a handful of those cases are pending, with the ones involving Trump University -- two in California and one in New York -- being the most significant.

Trump has railed against the judge in the San Diego case, calling him hostile and suggesting his positions may be the result of Trump's stance on border security. The likely GOP nominee has noted Curiel's ethnicity.

Trump said of the judge at an Arkansas rally in February: "I believe he happens to be Spanish, which is fine. He's Hispanic -- which is fine."

Petrocelli said he would not ask for the judge to be removed from the case, despite Trump's views.

"He's got very strong views about everything and he expressed his own views," Petrocelli said.

Jury selection may begin shortly before Nov. 28, and the trial was expected to last a month or longer, the judge said.

The New York suit, filed in 2013 by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, accuses the billionaire and others of making phony claims to convince more than 5,000 people, including 600 New Yorkers, to "spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got."

The civil lawsuit, which seeks at least $40 million in restitution, accused the school of engaging in illegal business practices by running an unlicensed educational institution from 2005 to 2011 and making false claims about its classes.

Earlier this month, a New York judge A New York judge [sic] heard procedural arguments in the lawsuit, including a debate over whether the case should be decided by a judge or a jury.

Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern told both sides to return after a higher court rules on an appeal.

Schneiderman said Trump would be an "essential" witness when the case goes to trial.

"As we will prove in court, Donald Trump and his sham for-profit college defrauded thousands of students out of millions of dollars," Schneiderman said.



“Donald Trump will go to trial in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University after the presidential election but before the inauguration, setting the stage for a president-elect to take the witness stand if he wins the White House. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on Friday scheduled trial for Nov. 28 in the suit that alleges people who paid up to $35,000 for real estate seminars got defrauded. The likely Republican nominee planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify, Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli said. "He has very, very strong feelings about this case," Petrocelli told reporters. …. The California suit, initially filed by Orange County resident Tarla Makaeff, accuses Trump of misleading students at the university, which cost $35,000 for an "elite"' membership, CBS affiliate KFMB reported. The suit says Trump University, which no longer operates and was not accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring students to buy more and, in the end, failing to deliver. …. Petrocelli said he would not ask for the judge to be removed from the case, despite Trump's views. "He's got very strong views about everything and he expressed his own views," Petrocelli said. Jury selection may begin shortly before Nov. 28, and the trial was expected to last a month or longer, the judge said. The New York suit, filed in 2013 by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, accuses the billionaire and others of making phony claims to convince more than 5,000 people, including 600 New Yorkers, to "spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got." The civil lawsuit, which seeks at least $40 million in restitution, accused the school of engaging in illegal business practices by running an unlicensed educational institution from 2005 to 2011 and making false claims about its classes.”


So Trump’s an absolutely despicable grifter. What else is new? How could so many people actually want to vote for him?