January 10, 2017


News and Views


JEFF SESSIONS HEARING AND COMMENTARY BELOW – THREE ARTICLES

FOR ALL, OR MOST, OF THE SALIENT POINTS IN SENATOR SESSIONS’ HEARING THIS MORNING, READ THE CBS ARTICLE BELOW. FOR OTHER INTERESTING COMMENTARY SEE THE OTHER ARTICLES ON RACISM CHARGES, HIS OPPOSITION TO THE HATE CRIME LAW, THE HILLARY CLINTON EMAILS MATTER, AND “NUMEROUS” CHARGES OF PLAGIARISM COMMITTED BY MONICA CROWLEY WHO IS TRUMP’S NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE. THE PLAGIARISM CHARGES SEEM TO BE DOCUMENTED, BUT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN HAS NOT COMMENTED YET. THAT APPOINTMENT WILL NOT BE UP FOR APPROVAL BY THE SENATE, HOWEVER, SO I'M SURE WE'LL SEE MORE FROM TRUMP ON IT LATER.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-sessions-senate-confirmation-hearing-attorney-general-live-blog/

Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing for attorney general -- live blog
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
January 10, 2017, 9:28 AM



http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/jeff-sessions-confirmation-hearing-233394

Sessions: Racism allegations ‘damnably false charges’
Racial issues were raised even before the hearing started.
By SEUNG MIN KIM and JOSH GERSTEIN 01/10/17 07:00 AM EST Updated 01/10/17 02:02 PM EST


Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, directly addressed allegations of racism that have dogged him for three decades — defiantly declaring those accusations "damnably false charges.”

Deviating from his prepared remarks, Sessions addressed the allegations that sank his bid for the federal judiciary in 1986 — accusations that ran the gamut from making racially improper comments to not protecting voting accessibility for black voters in a high profile voter fraud case. He was also accused of being sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.

“These are damnably false charges,” Sessions told the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “The voter fraud case my office prosecuted as in response to pleas from African-American, incumbent elected officials.”

Noting that he prosecuted a KKK member who murdered a black teenager, Sessions added: “I abhor the Klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology.” In later questioning, Sessions addressed the racism allegations again.

"The caricature of me in 1986 was not correct," Sessions said, his voice rising. "I do not harbor the kind of animosity and race-based discrimination ideas that I was accused of. I did not."

During the first hours of the high-stakes hearing, senators ran through reams of questioning on legal affairs and contentious policy issues — such as immigration, abortion and waterboarding — to more obscure topics such as Sessions’ views of the role of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. Though tense at times, the tone stayed relatively civil without much in the way of political fireworks.

The one exception was Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who delivered the most contentious grilling of the day, essentially accusing Sessions of lying about the number ofdesegregation and civil rights cases he brought as the U.S. Attorney in Mobile, Ala., and about the extent of his involvement in those cases.

“It’s fair to expect sitting before us you’re not going to misrepresent your own record,” Franken said he zeroed in on Sessions statement to National Review in 2009 that he “filed 20 or 30 civil-rights cases to desegregate schools and political organizations and county commissions when I was a United States attorney.” Sessions conceded that statement appeared to be an exaggeration.

In response to some of the first questions of the hearing, Sessions also made a surprise announcement: declaring that he will recuse himself from all issues related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email account. He said his rhetoric on the issue during the campaign could lead people to doubt he’d be fair in considering the matter.

“I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question… I believe the proper thing for me to do would be for me to recuse myself from any questions regarding those kinds of investigations regarding Secretary Clinton that were raised during the campaign,” Sessions said.

The attorney general pick also appeared to offer an implicit rebuke to President-elect Donald Trump, who declared during a debate that he would instruct his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor who would put Clinton “in jail” over her handling of the email matter. Sessions said, in essence, that he would not accept such an instruction and would instead formally recuse himself.

RELATED -- Sessions: Racism allegations 'damnably false charges'
PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
Inside Sessions' strategy to combat racism allegations
By NANCY COOK and SEUNG MIN KIM

Sessions, despite his staunchly conservative views on abortion and gay marriage, testified before the committee that the Supreme Court has ruled on those issues and that he will “follow” those decisions. On immigration, Sessions said he has “no objection” to abandoning President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration because “it is very questionable in my opinion, constitutionally.” But he declined to spell out what specifically the Trump administration plans to do with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or what he would do with the 740,000 so-called Dreamers who’ve gotten work permits under DACA.

And Sessions also said he does not favor banning Muslim immigrants from the U.S., as Trump initially proposed.

“I believe the president-elect subsequent to that statement made clear he believes the focus should be on individuals coming from countries that have a history of terrorism,” the Alabama senator said. He explained his decision to vote against a 2015 amendment from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) urging no religious test in the immigration process, saying he was concerned the measure suggested that one’s religious views could never be taken into account by the government, no matter how radical those views.

In another departure from the president-elect’s public comments, Sessions said he’s inclined to trust the FBI’s conclusion that the Russian government carried out a hacking campaign aimed at interfering with the recent U.S. presidential election.

“I’m sure it was honorably reached,” Sessions said of the FBI’s finding, while noting that he has not been briefed by the FBI on the subject.

Under questioning by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is one of the most outspoken Republican lawmakers on the issue, Sessions said he sees such hacking episode as disturbing. However, Sessions linked it to alleged hacking of the U.S. Government by China and others.

“I think it’s a significant event,” Sessions said. “We have penetration apparently throughout our government apparently by foreign entities.” He also called for “developing some protocols which when people breach our systems a real price is paid even if we can’t prove the exact person who did it.”

PHOTOGRAPH -- 170109_jeff_sessions_2_gty_1160.jpg
PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
Sessions faces decision on politicizing Justice Department
By ISAAC ARNSDORF

He had come before before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing Tuesday with a simple message to his fellow senators: You know me. His prepared remarks touched on a litany of policy issues in the purview of the Justice Department — voting accessibility, police-community relations, war on terror, even gay rights. But his message, at its core, is one that emphasizes his deep ties with senators.

“You know who I am. You know what I believe in. You know that I am a man of my word and can be trusted to do what I say I will do,” Sessions told senators. “You know that I revere our Constitution and am committed to the rule of law. And you know that I believe in fairness, impartiality and equal justice under the law.”

Even before the hearing began, the racial issues were dramatically brought to the fore. A few minutes before the session kicked off, a pair of protesters from the liberal group Code Pink donned Ku Klux Klan attire and began shouting at Sessions.

“Jefferson Beauregard, here we are. We're here for you,” one protester said. “You’re the man. You're the man that's going to bring the whiteness back to the South."

Those demonstrators were quickly escorted out by Capitol Police who flanked both sides of the public area of the spectators’ gallery, although many who didn't join in the early protest remained seated in that section.

In her opening remarks, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, acknowledged that her and other Democrats’ personal relationships with Sessions “makes this very difficult for me.” But she also spoke of “so much fear in this country,” especially in black communities, and noted that Sessions has pushed an “extremely conservative” agenda on issues such as immigration a religious freedom.

“There is a deep fear about what a Trump administration will bring in many places and this is the context in which we must consider Senator Sessions’ record and nomination to become the chief law enforcement [official] of America,” Feinstein said. “Communities across this country are concerned about whether they will be able to rely on the Department of Justice to protect their rights and freedoms.”

Sessions also tried to head off criticism from Democrats Tuesday by stressing that attorneys general must retain an air of political independence, even from the president who nominates them in the first place.

Sources say Sen. Chuck Grassley said he is willing to let Congressional Black Caucus members testify at Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing after a group of outside witnesses.

Black lawmakers to testify at Sessions hearing
By SEUNG MIN KIM and JOHN BRESNAHAN

Sessions’ fellow Senate Republicans worked to highlight Sessions’ character to not only the public, but to Democrats who for weeks promised a detailed grilling for Sessions before the Judiciary Committee, despite the clubby chamber’s tradition of senatorial deference when one of their own is nominated to the Cabinet.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), in his own comments kicking off the confirmation hearing, emphasized Sessions’ familiarity to members of the committee – both his policy views and how he’ll approach his prospective new job as attorney general.

“Every member of this committee knows from experience that, in his new role, Senator Sessions will be a leader for law and order administered without regard to person,” Grassley said at the hearing. “Leadership to that end is exactly what the department now needs.”



http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/09/politics/matthew-shepard-jeff-sessions-hate-crimes/

First on CNN: Matthew Shepard's mother blasts Trump AG pick Sessions' votes on hate crimes law
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 12:04 PM ET, Mon January 9, 2017


Washington (CNN)The mother of Matthew Shepard is urging senators to oppose Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions' nomination to become President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general, citing his opposition to hate crimes legislation.

In a report issued by the Human Rights Campaign, Judy Shepard -- whose son Matthew was beaten and left to die in Wyoming in 1998 in a crime motivated by anti-gay sentiment -- blasted Sessions for opposing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2009.

A Sessions spokeswoman, meanwhile, says he would enforce hate crimes laws as attorney general -- even though he opposed them in the Senate over constitutional concerns.

Judy Shepard's comments come just before Sessions' confirmation hearing, set to begin at 9:30 a.m. ET Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Judy Shepard wrote that Democrats and Republicans had helped push for hate crimes legislation in Congress, but that "Senator Jeff Sessions was not one of these members."

"In fact, Senator Sessions strongly opposed the hate crimes bill -- characterizing hate crimes as mere 'thought crimes.' Unfortunately, Senator Sessions believes that hate crimes are, what he describes as, mere 'thought crimes,'" she wrote.

"My son was not killed by 'thoughts' or because his murderers said hateful things. My son was brutally beaten ... with the butt of a .357 magnum pistol, tied him to a fence, and left him to die in freezing temperatures because he was gay. Senator Sessions' repeated efforts to diminish the life-changing acts of violence covered by the Hate Crimes Prevention Act horrified me then, as a parent who knows the true cost of hate, and it terrifies me today to see that this same person is now being nominated as the country's highest authority to represent justice and equal protection under the law for all Americans."

She wrote that Sessions "has forfeited opportunity after opportunity to stand up for people like my son Matt and has, instead, used his position of power to target them for increased discrimination and marginalization, thus encouraging violence and other acts deemed to be hate crimes."

The report also cites other positions Sessions has taken that the Human Rights Campaign argues are anti-LGBT -- including his opposition to the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, his support for anti-sodomy laws and his opposition to same-sex marriage.

The report comes as Sessions is under fire for his stances on LGBT rights.

The pro-LGBT rights Lambda Legal CEO Rachel Tiven said Monday that Sessions "has demeaned and dismissed LGBT people at every turn -- especially those of us who are also immigrants, women, and people of color. He is a lifelong opponent of civil rights, and he is unfit to serve as Attorney General."

A source familiar with Sessions' thinking said he opposed hate crimes legislation in the Senate over concerns about its constitutionality, including vague terms that could have allowed re-prosecution of those who had been acquitted and the law's lack of a direct tie to Congress' power over interstate commerce.

A Sessions spokeswoman said as attorney general, he would enforce hate crimes laws -- even though he did not back them as a senator.

"Senator Sessions believes that all Americans, no matter their background, deserve effective protection from violence and that crimes committed on the basis of prejudice are unquestionably repugnant," said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Sessions spokeswoman. "While he may have had disagreements about what was the most effective policy to combat such crimes, as Attorney General, he will be fully committed to enforcing the laws -- even those for which he did not vote."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-sessions-says-hell-recuse-himself-from-matters-involving-hillary-clinton/

Jeff Sessions says he'll recuse himself from matters involving Hillary Clinton
CBS NEWS
January 10, 2017, 11:33 AM

Photograph -- U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Sessions to become U.S. attorney general on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque - RTX2YC12 REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- Attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions faces confirmation fight


Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told Senators he would recuse himself from matters involving Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, should they arise during his tenure as attorney general.

Jeff Sessions Senate confirmation hearing - live updates

During Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, noted that Sessions made “a number of statements” about the investigation into the former secretary of state’s handling of classified emails and about the Clinton Foundation during the course of the 2016 campaign.

Now that Sessions is the attorney general nominee, Grassley said, “Some have expressed concern about whether you can approach the Clinton matter impartially in both fact and appearance. How do you plan to approach those concerns?”

Sessions admitted that some of the things he said could raise questions about his objectivity and said he’d thought about the matter.

“It was a highly contentious campaign. I, like a lot of people, made comments about the issues in that campaign,” Sessions conceded. “With regard to Secretary Clinton and some of the comments I made, I do believe that could place my objectivity in question. I’ve given that thought. I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind [sic] of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton and that were raised during the campaign -- or could be otherwise connected to it.”

During the campaign, Session told CNN at one point, “The fundamental thing is you cannot be secretary of state of the United States of America and use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation,” Sessions said. “That is a fundamental violation of law and that does appear to have happened.”

To be certain, Grassley asked him explicitly whether he’d recuse himself from matters related to both the Clinton email investigation and the Clinton Foundation. “Yes,” was Sessions’ one-word response.

The two discussed outgoing Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who, Grassley said, had deferred -- and not recused -- on the matter of the Clinton investigation after an outcry over her unscheduled tarmac meeting in Phoenix with former President Bill Clinton while the FBI wrapped up its investigation into Clinton.

“[Lynch] did not officially recuse, and there is a procedure for that which I would follow. And I believe that would be the best approach for the country because we can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute. That’s not in any way that would suggest anything other than absolute objectivity,” Sessions said. “This country does not punish its political enemies, but this country ensures that no one is above the law.”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-official-accused-of-numerous-instances-of-plagiarism/

Trump official Monica Crowley accused of numerous instances of plagiarism
CBS NEWS
January 10, 2017, 2:07 PM

Photograph -- Monica Crowley smiles as she exits the elevator in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016. President-elect Donald Trump announced Crowley as senior director of Strategic Communications for the National Security Council. EVAN VUCCI, AP


Monica Crowley, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run communications for the National Security Council, is being accused of numerous instances of plagiarism that took place throughout her career.

CNN reports that HarperCollins will no longer sell new copies of Crowley’s 2012 book after a number of instances of plagiarism were found. And according to a Monday report by Politico Magazine, Crowley plagiarized a number of passages in her 2000 Columbia University PhD dissertation.

How Trump will move forward with leaders of intel community
Play VIDEO
How Trump will move forward with leaders of intel community

The Politico report states of the dissertation that “a dozen sections of text that have been lifted, with little to no changes, from other scholarly works without proper attribution.” Crowley’s thesis advisor and Columbia University have not commented on the report.

In particular, Crowley’s is alleged by Politico Magazine to have plagiarized sections from books by historians John Lewis Gaddis and Thomas Christensen.

Before being selected to become senior director for strategic communications for the National Security Council, Crowley was a prominent conservative pundit and researcher for former President Richard Nixon. She was first accused of plagiarism in 1999, when an article she wrote about Nixon for The Wall Street Journal was amended with an editor’s note saying it contained “striking similarities” to an article written by historian Paul Johnson in 1988.

Last week, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski reported that Crowley’s 2012 book “What The Bleep Just Happened” plagiarized the work of numerous other authors. That discovery led HarperCollins to stop issuing new copies of the book.

The Trump transition: Foreign policy and national security
Play VIDEO
The Trump transition: Foreign policy and national security

“The book, which has reached the end of its natural sales cycle, will no longer be offered for purchase until such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material,” the publisher said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday.

In a statement to CNN, the Trump transition team initially defended Crowley: “Monica’s exceptional insight and thoughtful work on how to turn this country around is exactly why she will be serving in the Administration. HarperCollins — one of the largest and most respected publishers in the world — published her book which has become a national best-seller.

“Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.”

Crowley’s new role in the White House does not require Senate confirmation, and she has not yet responded to the new plagiarism allegations.



OLYMPIANS CHARGE SEXUAL ABUSE BY PHYSICIAN

IT DOES SEEM TO ME THAT WHENEVER A MAN IS IN A POSITION OF VERY CLOSE INTERACTION WITH YOUNG PEOPLE, BOTH MALE AND FEMALE, THERE IS A MUCH GREATER LIKELIHOOD OF SUCH ABUSE THAN IF WOMEN ARE IN CHARGE. MOST WOMEN DON’T GET IN THE NEWS FOR SEXUAL CHARGES WHICH AMOUNT TO MOLESTATION RATHER THAN MUTUAL CONSENT. OF COURSE, THERE ARE PROBABLY YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN IN THESE CASES WHO ACTUALLY DO CONSENT EVEN IF THEY ARE LEGALLY UNDERAGE. THAT DOESN’T TELL ME THAT AN OLDER OR SIMPLY MORE POWERFUL PERSON SHOULD NOT BE CHARGED WITH A CRIME, HOWEVER. IT’S SIMILAR TO CASES OF “UNDUE INFLUENCE” IN WHICH AN ELDERLY OF PHYSICALLY DISABLED PERSON IS “CONVINCED,” POSSIBLY BY COERCION TO GIVE LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO THE CAREGIVER.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/usa-gymnastics-michigan-state-dr-larry-nassar-sued-by-18-athletes-alleged-sexual-assaults/

USA Gymnastics, Michigan State, Dr. Larry Nassar sued by 18 athletes over alleged sexual assaults
CBS NEWS
January 10, 2017, 2:03 PM

Photograph -- Larry Nassar, an osteopathic physician, works with patient Kim Wilson, 15, in East Lansing, Mich., on July 15, 2008. Nassar was a doctor for the U.S. gymnastics, trampoline and tae kwon do teams during the Olympics in Beijing. BECKY SHINK/LANSING STATE JOURNAL


DETROIT - A Michigan doctor accused of sexually abusing gymnasts was sued Tuesday by 18 women and girls, the latest legal action over alleged assaults, mostly at his clinic at Michigan State University.

The lawsuit against Dr. Larry Nassar, Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and a Lansing-area gymnastics club was filed in federal court in western Michigan. It makes claims of civil rights violations, discrimination and negligence.

CBS News usually doesn’t name people who allege sexual abuse, but one of the plaintiffs, Rachael Denhollander of Kentucky, talked publicly about the lawsuit. She said she was assaulted by Nassar in 2000 when she was 15 and visited him because of wrist and back injuries.

Denhollander, who was a gymnast, said she didn’t file a complaint at the time because she believed her “voice would not be heard.” She said Nassar was held in high esteem at Michigan State. He also was affiliated with USA Gymnastics.

The abuse alleged by the 18 women and girls occurred over 20 years. Most were minors at the time and “cloaked with innocence and trust of their youth,” attorney Stephen Drew told reporters.

Nassar now faces at least five lawsuits. Through lawyers, he’s denied the allegations. He’s also charged with possessing child pornography and sexually assaulting a girl at his Holt, Michigan, home and is being held in jail without bond.

In a statement, Michigan State declined to comment on the lawsuit but said campus police are investigating Nassar with state and federal authorities. Outside lawyers also are advising the university on an internal review of Nassar’s clinical work. He was fired in 2016.

There was no immediate comment from Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics. The group has cut ties with Nassar.




From my emails today:

https://mg.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=9df4v04sti3om

THURSDAY: Tell your Senators to stop Sessions

Mari Schimmer, Democracy for America Today at 5:26 PM
To
Lucy Warner

This message contains blocked images.Show Images Change this setting
Message body
Lucy --

Donald Trump has nominated a Cabinet full of bigots, billionaires, and bullies. One of the worst is Senator Jeff Sessions, the white supremacist that Trump nominated for Attorney General. Confirmation hearings for Sessions start tomorrow.

People across America have been mobilizing to stop Sessions. So Trump and Senate Republicans cooked up a new strategy to try and get these picks through: they're going to hold numerous confirmation hearings at once.

Trump and the Republicans are hoping to overwhelm us (and the media) with outrageous news about these awful picks so that we're unable to effectively respond.

We're going to fight back -- by going directly to Senators' offices. Last month Democracy for America members joined a progressive coalition to demand Senators block Jeff Sessions and Trump's other cabinet picks. More than 600,000 people signed that petition.

Now it's time to deliver those signatures to your Senators -- and tell them you expect them to oppose Jeff Sessions. DFA members are going to Senators' offices this Thursday. Can you join them?

YES, I will sign up to deliver petitions to my nearest Senate office on Thursday and urge Senators to vote against Jeff Sessions.

No, I can't make it, but I will chip in $3 or more to help DFA fight Trump's Cabinet.

Jeff Sessions is the white supremacist who was deemed too racist to confirm to a federal judgeship by a Republican Judiciary Committee in 1986. He has a history of saying racist things about black subordinates, has been accused of blocking the hiring and promotion of people of color, and called the ACLU and NAACP "un-American."

If confirmed, Sessions would be in charge of the Department of Justice. That means he would be responsible for enforcing the country's civil rights laws, voting rights laws, and women's rights laws, despite a history of opposing all of them.

The other confirmation hearings starting this week including these appalling picks:
Betsy DeVos (Secretary of Education) -- A billionaire committed to destroying public schools, Betsy DeVos wants to give our schools to Wall Street cronies while imposing a right-wing social agenda at the same time. The New York Times reported that the education policies she helped impose in Detroit led to a "total and complete collapse" of that city's school system. She once said that her work on vouchers -- taking taxpayer money away from public schools and giving it to religious schools -- helped "advance God's kingdom."

Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State) -- A wealthy oil company CEO, Tillerson has close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Tillerson would also help Trump destroy international climate agreements and has consistently opposed action to help stop global warming.

In the coming days, Americans from across the political spectrum will come together to fight back against Jeff Sessions and Trump's terrible Cabinet picks. Republicans narrowly control the Senate, so it only takes a few Republicans to flip and block these nominees. It won't be easy -- but it is possible, particularly if we can show up at Senators' offices in their home states.

DFA members are mobilizing to deliver more than 600,000 petition signatures to Senate offices on Thursday with a clear message: Block Trump's Cabinet. Can you join them?

YES, I will sign up to deliver petitions to my nearest Senate office on Thursday and urge Senators to vote against Trump's Cabinet picks.

No, I can't make it, but I will chip in $3 or more to help DFA fight Trump's Cabinet.

Thank you for standing up to Donald Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires, bullies, and bigots.

- Mari

Mari Schimmer, Organizing Director
Democracy for America



Mother Jones and Rachel Maddow almost always bring something good to my day’s emails. The following story on the extreme and usually unmentioned dangers of childbirth, and the fact that certain ways of handling it, are much better than others, is one of those. If you are considering becoming a mother, I suggest you read this one. At the very least I personally would probably opt for caesarean section. In the old days, a woman would often be criticized as being selfish and cold if she simply decided not to give birth at all. Unfortunately, they were not equally criticized for child abuse in the form of harsh and often a downright unintelligent upbringing for kids. “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” was the watchword. Thank goodness for a better set of medical and social views these days. Now if mainstream medical doctors would just start to institute the squatting birthing technique as many “primitive” cultures do, which prevents the baby from having to fight gravity on its’ way out, and it gives the woman less likelihood of tearing the birth canal, etc. Read the article below for the frequently permanent damage many women endure, including death. It’s too long an article for me to put it in here, however. Just read it for yourself.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/childbirth-injuries-prolapse-cesarean-section-natural-childbirth
KIERA BUTLER JAN/FEB 2017 ISSUE

THE SCARY TRUTH ABOUT CHILDBIRTH
"Having a baby left you with a horrible, debilitating, embarrassing injury? You’re not alone. . . . ."




ON THE REPEAL OF AFFORDABLE CARE FROM LAPROGRESSIVE BELOW

See the Republicans floundering in political danger as they try to eliminate Affordable Healthcare. The foreseeable disaster of causing hundreds of thousands of people to have, suddenly, no insurance whatsoever, or something that is much more expensive than they can afford, may be the best thing that has happened to liberals in this country since Martin Luther King. True privation of that kind will cause many of those social conservatives to rethink the economic conservatism that always goes along with it as the crowds gathering in the streets of America grow larger, louder, and more violent. Unless I’m wrong, even Donald Trump will pay attention. Minority people aren’t the only ones who can’t pay heavy medical bills. We need Bernie in office instead Trump, with his one-payor health care that covers all. Some tax adjustments on the Billionaires would pay for that.


https://www.laprogressive.com/republicans-repealing-obamacare/
Republicans Flummoxed Over Repealing Obamacare
BY PETER DREIER
POSTED ON JANUARY 7, 2017




Maddow on latest Trump Trick

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-tests-media-with-aggressive-schedule-848803395544?cid=eml_mra_20170106

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/5/17
Trump tests media, burying controversy in tight schedule

VIDEO -- "Rachel Maddow reports on the oddly cozy relationship between Donald Trump and the National Enquirer as the tabloid turns cheerleader for Trump, and notes how Trump and Senate Republicans are trying to stifle coverage of Trump's cabinet with a tight schedule. Duration: 14:10"




https://www.laprogressive.com/bernie-2017/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+Newsletter&utm_campaign=65795a9630-LAP+News+-+11+August+16+PC&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9f184a8aad-65795a9630-286822829

How to “Feel the Bern” in 2017
BY LAUREN STEINER
POSTED ON JANUARY 4, 2017


Many Bernie Sanders supporters, volunteers, and national convention delegates were disappointed when Bernie did not win the Democratic nomination for President. While it’s not productive to re-litigate the primaries, most of us are certain that had Bernie been the nominee, he would have beaten Donald Trump soundly. Alas, that is not the situation we are faced with going into 2017.

After Bernie lost the nomination, he quickly pivoted into action mode, launching a new organization, Our Revolution, to support progressive candidates and ballot initiatives. The Bernie network mobilized, and we scored major victories.

Next, Bernie was appointed chair of the new Outreach Committee of the Democratic Party, quite a feat seeing as he is still not a party member. Many of us who supported Bernie because of his stands on the issues are taking a wait and see attitude about the Democratic Party. Will Bernie be able to transform it into one that represents the 99% and not the 1%? Or will he be shepherding progressives into a corporate party only to be co-opted or stymied?

The election of Chuck Schumer, who raises more money from Wall Street than any other senator, to lead Senate Democrats, and the re-election of Nancy Pelosi, who thinks the Democrats did nothing wrong during the campaign, to lead House Democrats, are not good signs. And if the party does not choose reformer and major Sanders surrogate Keith Ellison to head the DNC next month, we will have our answer.

I am skeptical about the party’s ability to change and am part of a new campaign started by former campaign staffers and super volunteers to recruit Bernie to start a new people’s party.

I will write more about this after we launch. In the meantime, read this excellent article by Nick Brana laying out the case for it. And “like” our Facebook page to join the campaign or just follow our progress.

How are other Sanders supporters feeling the Bern in 2017? Some have gone into the Green Party and are trying to build up that party. Others like me are continuing to work on the issues we were working on before the campaign: fighting fracking, fossil fuel infrastructure projects, education privatization, corporate trade deals, and racial injustice, etc. And we will also be fighting to keep the victories we have already won that will no doubt be threatened under a Trump presidency, such as net neutrality, Medicare and Medicaid. Implementing the idea he advanced in his stump speech to mobilize the grassroots on behalf of policies, Senator Sanders has reached out to Democratic colleagues to organize rallies on January 15 to fight cuts in health care.

Still others are following Bernie’s lead in running for local offices and taking over their state Democratic parties. Here is an article about the pushback faced in Michigan, Florida and Nebraska, just to name a few states. Here in California, we have important elections coming up this weekend, January 7 and 8, in which many Bernie delegates and volunteers are running.

These Assembly District Election Meetings (ADEMs) are held every two years to elect seven women and seven men to be Assembly District Delegates (ADDs) for their area. These elected delegates represent one-third of the delegates to the state party. ADDs are responsible for planning and attending informational meetings throughout the region and working with other delegates to represent their community. They are also elected by voters in their district to vote on behalf of the community they represent at Regional Meetings and the California Democratic Convention. Those who are also elected to serve as Executive Board members are responsible for representing their community at the semi-annual executive board meetings. These delegates vote on the state party platform, resolutions, and propositions, and elect the party chair. For a complete description, please watch this short YouYube video.

Most Bernie delegate candidates are not career party people who are committed primarily to their own advancement in the party. Many are activists or concerned citizens who just joined the party for the first time, because they were inspired by Bernie Sanders and agreed with him on the issues that need to be tackled, be they income and wealth inequality, climate change, single-payer health care, corporate trade deals, or other issues Bernie has championed.

As lead organizer of Los Angeles for Bernie, I saw first hand how hard these individuals campaigned for Bernie here in California. Even after he conceded and endorsed Hillary two weeks before the convention, our Bernie delegates went to Philadelphia to fight for Bernie’s issues. Unlike the Hillary delegates, who were there to party and enjoy a pre-scripted dog and pony show, we Bernie delegates worked hard every day to promote important issues to the rest of the delegates and to the world via the 15,000 media outlets that were there.

I wrote about our TPP protests at the convention here. There was not an article written on the TPP since that convention that did not feature a photo of us holding our “No TPP” signs on the convention floor. We feel that Bernie and his delegates were instrumental in the defeat of the TPP. Those who were not delegates but just ardent Sanders supporters also went to Philly to join the protests on the streets.

This is the level of dedication and commitment that Bernie delegates and volunteers will bring to the Democratic Party here in California. The best opportunity to advance progressive issues will be on the state level, seeing as Trump and the GOP have a majority on the federal level. Bernie has proven this just this week when he stood with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who announced a proposal to provide free public college to New York residents whose family income is less than $125,000.

In California, we do not have to worry about Republicans. While Democrats make up a super majority of the state legislature, we do have corporate Democrats who take money from Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Ag and other special interests. The establishment candidate for state party chair took $12,500 a month from Big Pharma to oppose Proposition 61, the ballot initiative that would have reduced prescription drug prices for 14% of Californians. The California Nurses Union is supporting his opponent, the reform candidate.

Bernie 2017

Ourside the Rules Committee meeting at the Philadelphia Convention: Bobby Shearer, Noemi Tungui, Lauren Steiner, Jason Schadewald, Melissa Michelson, and Anne Mohr.

Since Big Pharma spent $127 million to defeat Prop. 61, you can be sure they and the insurance industry lobby will pull out all the stops to defeat the single-payer health care bill the nurses union and Health Care for All will be pushing forward. We need Bernie people in the party to fight for this and other progressive policies, like banning fracking and providing tuition-free college.

So if you really want to do something to defeat the Trump agenda and continue to fight for Bernie’s issues, I urge you to go out and vote this weekend in the ADEMs. If you #DemExited after the primary or if you are registered Green or No Party Preference, you can re-register right there the same day. These individuals plan to fight for you. Will you help them get there?

With pride, I give you my list of endorsements for ADEM by district. To find out what Assembly District you are in, go here. To find the location of your meeting and to read all the candidates statements, go here. I would look for activists and people who are involved in issue organizations not just people who brag about being lifetime members of the party and cite all the offices they’ve held. To see other progressive candidates, go here. You can vote for seven men and seven women. Many of these people I’ve listed are running on slates, so when you go to vote, please check out their slates. If you know of any other Bernie people I have missed, please feel free to name them in the comments of this article.

FOR A LIST OF 79 CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY DISTRICT CANDIDATES GO TO THE WEBSITE ABOVE.




AN EXTRAORDINARILY MISGUIDED YOUNG MAN GETS A DEATH SENTENCE

https://www.yahoo.com/news/roofs-fate-soon-rest-hands-12-federal-jurors-082244212.html

Dylann Roof sentenced to death for killing 9 church members
Meg Kinnard and Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press
January 10, 2017 5:50 PM 13 minutes ago

Jury begins deliberations in Dylann Roof trial


CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Dylann Roof was sentenced to death Tuesday for killing nine black church members during Bible study in a racially motivated attack, the first person to face execution for federal hate crime convictions.

A jury deliberated his sentence for about three hours, capping a trial in which Roof did not fight for his life or show any remorse. At the beginning of the trial, he addressed jurors directly, insisting that he wasn't mentally ill, but he never asked them for forgiveness or mercy, or explained the crime.

He threw away one last chance to plead for his life on Tuesday, telling jurors: "I still feel like I had to do it."

Every juror looked directly at Roof as he spoke for about five minutes. A few nodded as he reminded them that they said during jury selection they could fairly weigh the factors of his case. Only one of them, he noted, had to disagree to spare his life.

"I have the right to ask you to give me a life sentence, but I'm not sure what good it would do anyway," he said.

When the verdict was read, he stood stoic and showed no emotion. He will be formally sentenced Wednesday.

Roof told FBI agents when they arrested him a day after the June 17, 2015, slayings that he wanted the shootings to bring back segregation or perhaps start a race war. Instead, the slayings had a unifying effect, as South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its Statehouse for the first time in more than 50 years and other states followed suit, taking down Confederate banners and monuments. Roof had posed with the flag in photos.

The attacker specifically picked out Emanuel AME Church, the South's oldest black church, to carry out the cold, calculated slaughter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson said.

The 12 people Roof targeted opened the door for a stranger with a smile, he said. Three people survived the attack.

"They welcomed a 13th person that night ... with a kind word, a Bible, a handout and a chair," Richardson said during his closing argument. "He had come with a hateful heart and a Glock .45."

The gunman sat with the Bible study group for about 45 minutes. During the final prayer — when everyone's eyes were closed — he started firing. He stood over some of the fallen victims, shooting them again as they lay on the floor, Richardson said.

The prosecutor reminded jurors about each one of the victims and the bloody scene that Roof left in the church's lower level.

The jury convicted him last month of all 33 federal charges he faced, including hate crimes.

Roof did not explain his actions to jurors, saying only that "anyone who hates anything in their mind has a good reason for it."

Nearly two dozen friends and relatives of the victims testified during the sentencing phase of the trial. They shared cherished memories and talked about a future without a mother, father, sister or brother. They shed tears, and their voices shook, but none of them said whether Roof should face the death penalty.

Richardson recalled Jennifer Pinckney's remarks about her husband, Clementa, who was remembered for singing goofy songs and watching cartoons with their young daughters in his spare time.

After more than two hours of discussions, jurors re-watched a speech by one of the victims, Clementa Pinckney, the church pastor and a state senator. In it, Pinckney talks about the history of Emanuel and its mission.

Roof acted as his own attorney and did not question any witnesses or put up any evidence.

The last person sent to federal death row was Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 2015.


Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/ .

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jeffrey-collins .



ROOF’S BACKGROUND

This article below uses the same words that I see in nearly all of these shooting cases. The culprit was unusually “quiet,” and in one statement, “emotionless.” To me that means introverted at least, and possibly that he is dangerously “out of touch with reality” or even given to hallucinations. People don’t always exhibit what is going through their mind in a visible way. If people “talk to themselves,” without being aware of it they are probably hallucinating. Small children, of course, do that naturally up to a certain age, but I think that if a 6 or 7 year-old of mine were still doing it, I would take him to a child psychiatrist for evaluation or even therapy.

Another common theme is that a kid who had done well in school starts to fail, perhaps suddenly, in the early puberty years. He also, as in this case may begin to “act out” in aggressive ways, as Roof did. The fact that his father was accused by his wife of physical abuse may also indicate that he abused his son as well, as those men are often given to bouts of violence in general. That does commonly contribute to real mental illness in children, and the abusiveness probably goes back years; the younger they are when it happens makes their condition worse. Many people when they do finally go into therapy really don’t remember what the early stressors were. That’s the reason for the years and years of talk therapy with a trusted professional rather than merely the group therapy experience that is so often used. Both would help, however, along with a well-chosen and dose adjusted drug.

Another thing that jumps out as me is the extremely disjointed school and residence experiences of this young man. Having to adjust to multiple changes in home or school environment also leads to problems, which occurred in Roof’s case. Unfortunately, in this case as in so many others, no adult stepped in and got the child into mental health care. “Normal” people tend to truly ignore symptoms of mental illness or interpret them inaccurately, even when the relative in question is violent. So often a violent child will simply be physically or mentally “punished” as a “bad” kid, in a way that does no good toward “healing” his or her anger and, instead, turns the anger into hatred, while producing very often a kind of externally induced insanity. I think some insanity is truly inherited, but much of it is directly related to early life problems. As to the racism that he finally espoused, I think he probably really did get it from the society at large (we are talking about South Carolina) and the Internet. Heaven knows, the Internet is full of really psychologically dangerous things for kids and for some adults. I love the Internet, but there are things that I just don’t want to delve into.

Issues like these are what I think is often going on with the “sociopaths” or “psychopaths.” A psychiatrist was quoted in one of the shooter articles a couple of years ago, as saying when asked what causes psychopathology, “People should stop torturing their children.” Of course, most people don’t actually mean to “torture” their children, but they have too little instinct, personal empathy or intellectual insight into parenting to know what they really should or shouldn’t do in rearing a child. I think one of the most basic reasons for that is that “getting pregnant” is too often an accident, and not one that makes the parent happy. That unhappiness is very frequently shifted over to the child. Pregnancy is usually an uncomfortable thing, and often comes with serious depression which can cause a dislike of the child itself. The result is that their child becomes more and more unhealthy mentally, and suddenly kills the family pet or a sibling, starts a fire, or does some other horrifying thing. The parents are often overcome with societal shame over the abnormality that has emerged in their otherwise spotless façade of social acceptability, so that rather than immediately calling in a psychiatrist to help the child, they inflict a severe punishment. Sometime down the road, the boy (rarely a girl) then buys the gun he needs and starts shooting.

People in this country don’t know much about what they should worry about versus what is “normal,” and tend to place most of their awareness on the externals. That’s because that’s easier than learning what we need to know, or accepting what is painful. If a family member is openly hallucinating, that’s “bad,” but being preternaturally silent may be viewed as being “obedient,” which is “good,” right? It reminds me of that really shocking movie that I was allowed to see when I was young called “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” Alongside that, of course, is the really scary Patty Duke movie, “The Bad Seed.”

On to Dylann Roof now.



https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/us/charleston-shooting-dylann-roof-troubled-past.html?_r=0

Dylann Roof’s Past Reveals Trouble at Home and School
By FRANCES ROBLES and NIKITA STEWART
JULY 16, 2015

Photograph -- Dylann Storm Roof, 21, charged with killing nine black parishioners in a Charleston, S.C., church last month, appeared in a South Carolina court on Thursday. By Reuters on Publish Date July 16, 2015. Photo by Randall Hill/Reuters. Watch in Times Video »

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The young man accused of the terrible crime was a bug-eyed boy with a bowl haircut who came from a broken home and attended at least seven schools in nine years. Many afternoons, he would sit silently on the curb in front of his roomy yard and, when he tired of it, move to a different curb. He helped neighbors with their yard work, but they still found him strange.

Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old white man charged with killing nine black parishioners in a storied Charleston, S.C., church last month, attended solidly middle-class, racially integrated schools, grew up with black friends and came from a respected family, his grandfather a well-known local lawyer. But court records suggest that his divorced parents struggled with finances when he was a teenager, with his mother being evicted from her home in 2009 and his father’s once-successful business renovating historic homes falling into debt and closing a few years later.

By the time he was in high school, Mr. Roof was struggling with his classes, attending the ninth grade twice before dropping out. He floated in and out of jobs, took drugs and drank, had run-ins with the police, began reading white supremacist websites and, in the months before the massacre, boasted of wanting to start a race war, friends and investigators say.

But nothing in the records, and nothing in his friends’ memories, offer a clear explanation to the question haunting South Carolina and the nation: How did the silent young man with no record of violence in his past come to be accused of killing nine people who had gathered to pray?

"When he opened up, you could tell something was wrong at home. He wasn’t at peace,” said Taliaferro Robinson-Heyward, who attended middle school with Mr. Roof. “It wasn’t like he was a mean person, but you could tell he had a darkness to his life.”

In his first court appearance since a dramatic hearing last month where relatives of the shooting victims said they forgave him, Mr. Roof sat impassively as his lawyer waived bail in state court on Thursday. Judge J.C. Nicholson of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court set a trial date of July 11, 2016, on the charges: nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Mr. Roof, who could face the death penalty if convicted, has not entered a plea. His public defender, D. Ashley Pennington, also told Judge Nicholson he believed that Mr. Roof was competent to stand trial.

Judge Nicholson also continued until Wednesday an order blocking the release of any documents, photographs or recordings in the case, saying he will let it expire then unless parties in the case request an extension.

Mr. Roof was born in 1994 to Amelia and Franklin B. Roof, a construction contractor who liked to ride Harleys. The birth came three years after his parents had divorced. But their reconciliation did not last: When Dylann Roof was 5, his father, known as Benn, remarried.

Photo -- A service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., after nine parishioners were killed. Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times

School records suggest that Mr. Roof often moved back and forth between Lexington, a rural mostly white community, where his mother lived, and Columbia, about 20 minutes away, where his father owned houses.

The Lexington School District, where Mr. Roof attended fourth, eighth and ninth grades, described him as a “very transient student.”

In Columbia, he was in class with black students and the children of professors who worked at the nearby University of South Carolina.

“I remember him as somewhat shy, and that he never penetrated into the ‘in’ crowd,” said Ted Wachter, the retired principal of Rosewood Elementary School, where Mr. Roof attended fifth grade.

Mr. Robinson-Heyward, who is black, said he saw little evidence of bigotry in the young Dylann. “To me, in the seventh grade, he saw black just as he saw white, you know,” said Mr. Robinson-Heyward, 20, who works in a funeral parlor and helped prepare for burial the bodies of two of the shooting victims.

Another childhood friend, Caleb Brown, recalled a class assignment that required students to go home and ask about their heritage.

With a child’s inquisitiveness, Mr. Roof asked his mixed-race friend, who had darker skin and curly hair, about his background and learned that Mr. Brown’s father was black.

“That didn’t change his behavior toward me,” Mr. Brown said in an interview.

The boys became friends at the behest of their mothers, having sleepovers, skateboarding and playing Nascar racing video games. Mr. Brown recalled Mr. Roof’s mother being welcoming and tolerant of all of races.

“He wasn’t the most popular kid, but he wasn’t upset about that,” Mr. Brown said.

When he was in middle school, Mr. Roof’s mother told her friends that her son was beginning to founder in school. “‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’” a friend, Kimberly Konzny, recalled her saying. “She said it was boring to him.”

Photo -- Caleb Brown, a childhood friend of Dylann Roof's who is of mixed race, said that fact did not change Mr. Roof's behavior toward him. Credit Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Several of Mr. Roof’s friends said he often complained that his father put him to work landscaping. Even in his youth, Mr. Roof began to exhibit a greater interest in smoking grass than cutting it. At 13, his mother caught him spending $50 he had earned landscaping on marijuana, Ms. Konzny said.

“‘You ain’t going to see him for a while; he’s grounded,’” Ms. Konzny recalled his mother saying.

In an interview with The Daily News, Mr. Roof’s former stepmother, Paige Mann, said she raised him while his father traveled up to four days a week. She described her stepson as “a loner and quiet and very smart — too smart.”

“He was locked in his room looking up bad stuff on the computer,” she said. “Something on the computer drew him in — this is Internet evil.”

In her 2009 divorce filing from Mr. Roof, Ms. Mann described a comfortable life, including a car that cost $700 a month, a 3,000-square-foot, custom-built home in Earlewood and four other properties, including two homes in the Florida Keys.

The couple at one point moved to the Keys, but the school district there said Mr. Roof was never enrolled, and neighbors did not remember much about him except that he was scrawny for his age.

The move destroyed the marriage, Ms. Mann said in the divorce records, and the couple returned to South Carolina separately in late 2008. The Keys house was later lost to foreclosure as the elder Mr. Roof’s construction business collapsed and he defaulted on a business loan, court records show.

Ms. Mann claimed that she left because her husband had been abusive, and offered photographs to prove it. Benn Roof hired a private detective to document her liaisons with another man.

That family turmoil took place at about the time Mr. Roof was entering ninth grade in Lexington. School records show he repeated the grade, completing the last three months of his second stint of ninth grade back in Columbia, in 2010. After that, neither district has any record of his attendance.

Photo -- The mostly white neighborhood in Lexington, S.C., where Mr. Roof lived on and off with his mother. Credit Stephen B. Morton for The New York Times

His childhood friends say they lost touch with Mr. Roof after high school and were reacquainted only this year, when he joined Facebook. He reached out to Ms. Konzny’s sons, friends from his childhood in Lexington.

In May this year, Mr. Roof spent several nights a week sleeping on Ms. Konzny’s sofa and watching movies. He was the only one in the group who had a car and some spending money, so he drove the friends places and often showed up at their trailer home with bottles of Taaka vodka.

“He was a lot more quiet,” Ms. Konzny’s son, Joseph C. Meek Jr., 20, said. “He was, like, emotionless.”

Mr. Meek’s younger brother, Jacob, said Mr. Roof recently watched a documentary about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and praised the assassinated civil rights leader, but was bothered by the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. “He doesn’t use the N-word,” said Jacob, 15. “He says ‘African-American.’”

But Joseph Meek admitted that he knew his friend harbored racist views and talked of doing “something big.” But Mr. Meek did not try to alert the authorities.

Jacob Meek remembered how Mr. Roof would call his father, pretending to be at work when he had actually quit his landscaping job weeks earlier. Mr. Roof’s relatives declined to comment or did not respond to several messages left at their homes. John Delgado, a lawyer representing the family, said, “They are still grieving and at loss to explain this horrific incident.”

This year, Mr. Roof had at least three encounters with the local police. In February, he attracted attention at a shopping mall when, dressed in black, he asked store employees about how many people were working and what time they would be leaving. A police officer searched him and found Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opiate addiction, and he was charged with a misdemeanor. A few weeks later, a police officer questioned him for loitering at a park and found semi-automatic rifle parts in his car trunk, but he was not charged. In April, Mr. Roof was arrested at the same shopping mall, where he had been barred for a year, and was convicted of trespassing, a misdemeanor.

It was also in April that Mr. Roof went into a gun store in West Columbia and bought a .45-caliber handgun with money his father had given him for his 21st birthday. Last week, the F.B.I. said Mr. Roof should have been barred from making the purchase because he had admitted to possessing drugs, but a breakdown in the background-check process allowed the sale to go through. The police said the gun he purchased was used in the church killings.

The arrest was particularly surprising to people familiar with Mr. Roof’s grandparents, Joe and Lucy, who are known for taking walks in their tree-lined Columbia neighborhood and greeting neighbors they run into along the way.


Video -- U.S. By Associated Press 2:04
Victims’ Families Address Dylann Roof -- Family members of those killed Wednesday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., addressed the shooting suspect, Dylann Roof, in court. By Associated Press on Publish Date June 19, 2015. Photo by Pool photo. Watch in Times Video »

Tameika Isaac Devine, a Columbia city councilwoman who lives on the grandparents’ street, rang their doorbell three days after the massacre.

“Lucy was visibly upset. She kept saying, ‘We’re so sorry, we are so sorry,’ ” said Ms. Devine, who is African-American. “They said they were going to stay prayed up and ask the Lord to help them through this. From what I know of them, their grief was sincere.”

Todd Rutherford, a state legislator who represents the grandparents’ district, noted that in Columbia, the mayor is black and African-American Democrats make up the majority of the City Council and the school board. And while some whites fled integration, the Roofs stayed put, he added.

“Roof’s father and grandfather both live in neighborhoods where they are surrounded by African-Americans,” Mr. Rutherford said. “Dylann Roof can be racist if he wanted to, but he would have had to have done it in his house.”

Benn Roof liked hosting parties and often invited his black and Hispanic employees, one former neighbor said.

Several former neighbors, none of whom wished to have their names used because they did not want to be associated with the case, said the same thing: The Roofs were as normal as normal could be.

Yet a website that Mr. Roof created included photographs of him with patches from white-ruled African governments on his clothes and others of him waving the Confederate battle flag. He sported the number “88” on his clothes, which appeared to be a reference to the white supremacist code for “Heil Hitler.”

On that website, investigators say, he posted a 2,500-word essay that complained bitterly about black crime, citing incidents described on the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group.

He also praised segregation, saying, “Integration has done nothing but bring Whites down to the level of brute animals.”

“A lot of people feel children learn that, they are taught intolerance and discrimination,” Ms. Devine said. “I don’t feel that is something Joe Roof would have taught or tolerated. Someone had to teach him that. So where?”

Correction: July 22, 2015
An article on Friday about Dylann Storm Roof, who has been charged with killing nine black parishioners in a Charleston, S.C., church, misstated the type of rifle parts found in his car trunk during an earlier encounter with the police. They were from a semiautomatic — not an automatic — rifle.

Chris Dixon contributed reporting from Columbia, S.C., and Anthony Cave from Cudjoe Key, Fla. Kitty Bennett and Susan Beachy contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on July 17, 2015, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: A Church Shooting Defendant With ‘a Darkness to His Life’. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe


RELATED COVERAGE
Clerical Error Played Role in Gun Sale to Dylann Roof JULY 13, 2015




THE END OF WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE TWO VERY GOOD PRESIDENTIAL TERMS IS COMING. MCDONOUGH SPEAKS OF OBAMA’S HARD WORK AND DEDICATION EVEN AT THIS POINT. SEE BELOW.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-obama-chief-of-staff-denis-mcdonough-exit-interview/

Obama chief of staff on president's farewell address
CBS NEWS
January 10, 2017, 7:52 AM

President Obama will deliver his farewell address tonight in Chicago. The president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told CBS News’ Charlie Rose about the speech.

“He’s still working [on] the speech, but I think what you’ll hear... is a lot of what you’ve heard since he started. It’s partly why he wanted to go back to Chicago to give the speech, because this is a place where working on the South Side of Chicago and the neighborhoods … in the shadows of the abandoned steel mills, as a community organizer with people who had been knocked out of jobs that theretofore had been real paths to the middle class, that he recognized that he had a gift for organizing,” McDonough said. “He had a gift for getting people working together towards the same goal. And I think that’s what you’ll hear a lot about from the president tomorrow, the importance of sticking together, working together, standing up for what you believe in, and then fighting like hell for it.”

McDonough also described what he wants the country to know about President Obama.

Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on President Obama's dedication
Play VIDEO
Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on President Obama's dedication

“I am routinely amazed at how hard this guy works, this president works, while making it look effortless,” McDonough told CBS News’ Charlie Rose.

“His grace under pressure or something?” Rose asked.

“I think so, or recognition that there is a right answer out there and he is bound to get it,” McDonough said. “He goes up to the residence every night with a stack of binders and he doesn’t come down until they’re read or he doesn’t go to bed until they’re read, whether that’s till 3:00 in the morning. The point is that this is a really hard job and the problems that land on his desk are really hard problems. And he takes that really, really seriously. And to be witness to that and party to that, is not only extremely interesting intellectually, but I think speaks to his dedication to making sure that he lives up to the expectations that of the American people.”