PARDON THIS LONG PERIOD WITH NO POST, AND THE HUGE BACKLOG OF ARTICLES THAT HAS OCCURRED. PLEASE GLANCE THROUGH THEM TO SEE WHAT YOU WANT TO READ CLOSELY. THEY ARE ALL IMPORTANT IN SOME WAY.


March 19 thru 21, 2017


News and Views


SAD TO SAY, THIS FIRST ARTICLE BELOW IS A NEWS STORY IN WHICH AN AVID TRUMP SUPPORTER DECIDED TO PUNISH A NEWSMAN WITH AN INVOLUNTARY SEIZURE BY THE USE OF A STROBE LIGHT. THIS TWEET IS ON THE EMOTIONAL LEVEL WITH A “SOVEREIGN CITIZEN” JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, WHO GOT HIS JOLLIES BY PUTTING A LIVE RATTLESNAKE IN A CITY EMPLOYEE’S MAILBOX. FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE FOND OF THE LAW AND HOW IT WORKS, GO TO WIKIPEDIA AND SEARCH “SOVEREIGN CITIZENS.”

THEY’RE LOOKING INTO A NEW LAW TO COVER THIS ATTACK BY MEANS OF THE INTERNET. THAT’S GOOD. TROLLS OF ALL KINDS ARE ALL OVER THE INTERNET THESE DAYS. I WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE THAT TOTAL “FREEDOM” IS WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY, BUT I SEE THINGS THAT MAKE THAT AN IMPOSSIBLE VIEWPOINT FOR ME. I DON’T WANT THE DEATH PENALTY, BUT A NOTICEABLE TERM IN PRISON IS ONLY FAIR FOR SHEER VICIOUSNESS THAT ENDS IN DEATH. THIS MAN, FROM THE ARTICLE, KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THE STROBE COULD DO, AND THAT THE REPORTER SUFFERED FROM EPILEPSY.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-twitter-arrest-seizure-reporter-20170318-story.html
Seizure-inducing tweet leads to a new kind of prosecution for a new era
Max Ehrenfreund and Antonio Olivo
Washington Post
March 18, 2017

The arrest of a Salisbury, Maryland, man accused of giving a well-known journalist a seizure by sending him a flashing image online represents a new kind of prosecution for a new kind of crime.

The journalist, Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald, suffered a seizure in Dallas after viewing the flashing animation when he received it via Twitter late last year, according to a statement from the Justice Department. Eichenwald had written about his epilepsy and publicly described a similar attack several weeks before the Dec. 15 incident, and authorities said the alleged attacker sent Eichenwald the image in an attempt to hurt him as revenge for what he saw as the reporter's critical coverage of President Donald Trump.


Experts on cybersecurity said the incident was not the first in which technology was used to expose medically vulnerable people to injury, but some said it was the first time they've heard of prosecutors bringing criminal charges in such a case.

"This is a new era," said Kevin Fu, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan.
Authorities took John Rayne Rivello into custody Friday on suspicion of sending Eichenwald the image along with the message: "You deserve a seizure for your post." Rivello has no previous criminal history, according to public records.

Legal experts compared the alleged crime to sending a letter bomb in the mail, or to purposely giving a person a dangerous allergic reaction.

"What is new, because of the technology, is the ease with which certain individuals can be targeted across state lines by remotely distant perpetrators," said Andrea Matwyshyn, a law professor at Northeastern University.

In 2008, hackers introduced seizure-inducing images onto the website of the Epilepsy Foundation, an organization that provides resources for people with the condition. The group quickly moved to address the vulnerability, and although several users reported headaches and conditions that can be precursors to seizures, none were reported.

Although epilepsy is relatively common - about 4 percent of Americans have some form of the condition - very few have seizures triggered by flashing lights.

"If you were going to target a particular person with epilepsy, you would have to know that this particular person was light sensitive, and that would be very rare," said Jacqueline French, the Epilepsy Foundation's chief scientific officer and a professor at New York University.

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Kurt Eichenwald ✔ @kurteichenwald
Twitter agreed to an expedited order in our effort to locate the user who intentionally caused me to have a seizure. https://www.scribd.com/document/334699195/Rule-202-Order-signed-12-19-16-copy …
9:08 AM - 20 Dec 2016
Photo published for Rule 202 Order_signed 12.19.16_copy
Rule 202 Order_signed 12.19.16_copy
Court order allowing for subpoenas to Twitter for identity of user.
scribd.com
1,184 1,184 Retweets 4,082 4,082 likes

Eichenwald declined to comment Saturday and referred questions to his lawyer, who did not respond to a request for comment. In his essay describing the first incident last fall, he said he received a video that contained a strobe light, with flashing circles and images of Pepe the Frog - often used as an alt-right meme online - flying toward the screen. In that case, he avoided a seizure by dropping his iPad. The similar message on Dec. 15 triggered convulsions.

Rivello, 29, apparently knew that Eichenwald would be sensitive to the images, authorities said. His father, David Rivello, declined to comment Saturday about his son's arrest when reached by telephone. Several other relatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Neighbors in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, said Rivello lives alone in the house that he grew up in, usually seen only when he was out mowing the lawn or arriving home in a pickup truck that appeared to have a bad muffler.

Rivello told one of his neighbors that he worked as a financial markets day trader. He appeared to live modestly.

"I've only talked to him a couple of times," said Phillip Kemmerlin, who lives next door. "I've never really seen him walking in or out with anybody. I didn't know he was a political type of guy."

Online, Rivello has been exuberant about his hard-right politics, often tweeting dozens of times per day about his support for Trump and his frustration with anyone out of step with the White House agenda.

Newsweek reporter asks Twitter for ID of Trump supporter he says caused seizure
His latest Twitter handle - "Meme Magic Mike" - features photos of a scowling Trump in sunglasses and a leather biker's jacket and describes Rivello as a "drinker of leftist tears. Snowflake* melter."

Between sneering jabs at cable television host Rachel Maddow or U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rivello repeatedly highlights what he characterizes as a feud with Eichenwald and dismisses any pain the Newsweek reporter has experienced.

"This reminds me of a boy who cried wolf over a Pepe cartoon," he wrote on March 10 in response to a tweet by Eichenwald about a white woman at an airport complaining about being racially profiled at the security checkpoint.

"He accused me of 'attempted murder' by deadly Pepe meme back in October," he wrote about Eichenwald.

The taunts inspired some of Rivello's 3,365 followers to post similar strobe images to Eichenwald's Twitter handle.

"Dammit Goldstein, ur bitin' my style!" Rivello typed in reply to a December post featuring a sad face framed by furiously blinking lights.

Although the Constitution offers broad protections to critical speech in public forums, experts said it is unlikely Rivello could successfully defend his actions as protected expression.

"This doesn't even get in the door of the First Amendment," said Danielle Citron, a legal scholar at the University of Maryland. "It doesn't have expressive value. . . . It doesn't express someone's autonomy of views and opinions. It's not contributing to the marketplace of ideas."

Citron said there are other types of medical cyberattacks that could prove harmful to others and be considered crimes, such as the possibility that someone could hack into and take over a pacemaker or an insulin pump and kill a patient. Johnson & Johnson warned patients last year that the company had identified a vulnerability in one of its insulin pumps, a device used by about 114,000 patients, Reuters reported.

"This problem isn't a one-off with Kurt Eichenwald," Citron said. "It's of a piece with all sorts of other phenomena."

Hospitals are also at risk. In 2015, federal regulators warned that a drug pump manufactured by the medical-device company Hospira could be hacked, with potentially deadly consequences.

Fu, of the University of Michigan, said that a more common problem is malicious computer code, circulating online or on portable drives, that can end up in hospitals' systems. A hacker might not be specifically targeting the hospital, but the code could cause the medical hardware to malfunction all the same.

"It's about knowing what's at risk," Fu said. "You can't protect what you don't know you have."

Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.

ABOUT THE ALT-RIGHT TERMS OF HATRED FOR ALL OTHERS, SUCH AS “SNOWFLAKE,” GO TO THIS INTERESTING LIST BY LA TIMES: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminology-20161115-story.html



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-law-enforcement-deportation-list-20170320-story.html
Trump administration releases list of police agencies that didn't help feds with deportations
Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post
March 20, 2017

Photograph – Deportation -- An undocumented Guatemalan immigrant, chained for being charged as a criminal, prepares to board a deportation flight to Guatemala City, Guatemala, at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on June 24, 2011, in Mesa, Arizona. (John Moore / Getty Images), Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

Homeland Security officials on Monday unveiled a list of law enforcement agencies that refused to detain immigrants arrested for crimes in the United States so that the federal government could deport them, a sign of a looming Trump administration crackdown on sanctuary cities nationwide.

Federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in a conference call with reporters, said the list was not an official compilation of sanctuary cities. Instead, it was a snapshot of law enforcement agencies that refused to honor a total of 206 detainers issued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.

The list shows that cities and towns are failing to help immigration authorities deport potentially serious criminals, including people arrested or convicted of drunk driving, aggravated assault, and homicide, the Homeland Security officials said.

Advocates for immigrants say it is unconstitutional for local police to detain someone for a civil deportation proceeding when the judge in their criminal case has ordered them released on bail.

But the federal officials called the refusal to cooperate a "clear public safety" risk and said the number of cases will rise as the Trump administration targets a broader group of immigrants for deportation.

"There are some very serious crimes for which we asked the law enforcement agencies to turn over to us and they failed to do so," an immigration official said during the call.

The National Immigration Law Center estimates that approximately 600 jurisdictions limit their cooperation with ICE. Avideh Moussavian, a staff lawyer at NILC, said police often cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies on criminal matters, but emphasized that immigration violations are civil, not criminal.

Photograph -- Trump says sanctuary cities are hotbeds of crime. Data say the opposite.

"They've created this totally false narrative that somehow local law enforcement is obstructing their work because they're not holding people when the local law enforcement authorities have no basis for holding that person any longer," Moussavian said.

President Donald Trump ordered Homeland Security to compile the list of noncooperative agencies and cases in his Jan. 25 executive order intensifying deportation efforts.

The order included a particular focus on deporting criminals, and said jurisdictions that don't cooperate with such efforts violate federal law and "shield aliens from removal from the United States."

He said the jurisdictions are putting American citizens at risk by releasing criminals who should be deported, and who in some cases have committed additional crimes after getting out of jail.

In the order, Trump also instructed Homeland Security to draw up a list of sanctuary cities that ignore immigration detainers so that the administration can deny them federal funding. Officials said Monday they hoped that list would not be necessary and that cities and towns would change their policies, as some jurisdictions have done recently, and cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Related: 'You feel lost': Deported U.S. vets in Mexico hope for return under Trump camp
Related: Trump vs. sanctuary cities: What you need to know
Related: Thousands of ICE detainees claim they were forced into labor, a violation of anti-slavery laws
Related: As Trump's deportation plans take hold, anxiety grows in Florida's farm fields


THE GOOD LIFE – THE HAPPIEST, OR THE LEAST UNHAPPY?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/welcome-to-the-happiest-country-on-earth/
https://www.facebook.com/CBSSunday
CBS NEWS March 19, 2017, 9:17 AM
Welcome to the happiest country on Earth

With this year’s updated U.N. rankings due out tomorrow, the country that’s defending its title as the world’s champion of happiness is, quite possibly, NOT your first guess: Faith Salie reports our Cover Story:

When you picture the happiest place in the world, you might imagine white-sand beaches and swaying palm trees. But it turns out, the happiest place is a bit different.

Welcome to Denmark, a small country of nearly six million people. No tropical beaches here -- just rain for about 50% of the year. But despite the weather, this country still maintains a sunny disposition … so sunny, in fact, it’s been named the happiest country in the world.

denmark-bicycle-path-waterfront-620.jpg
Denmark was named the Happiest Country in the World in 2016. CBS NEWS
“What we find when we study happiness around the world is that the definition is quite similar,” said Jeffrey Sachs, an author of the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, which ranks the happiness of 156 countries, and consistently places Denmark at or near the top of the list.

“People want to live well,” said Sachs. “They want to have money in their pocket and in the bank. They want to trust their government. They want to be healthy.”

Last year, America came in 13th place, behind Israel, and just a few notches ahead of Mexico and Brazil.

It’s a ranking that might leave us scratching our heads. Americans love to chant, “We’re Number One!” but we aren’t always. What does Denmark have that we don’t? Free healthcare, for one. And free education. And what about maternity leave?

“I think it’s 12 months in which the parents can share,” said Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Institute, located in Copenhagen. “Five weeks of paid vacation per year. It’s not bad!”

Salie asked, “How can we be as happy as you guys?”

“I think it’s the welfare state,” Wiking replied. “It is focusing on reducing extreme unhappiness, and investing in public goods that create quality of life for all.”

But this comes at a steep cost. Danes pay more income tax than any other nationality -- as much as 60%.

“If you asks Danes, ‘Are you happily paying your tax?’ Eight out of ten will say, ‘Yes, to some degree I’m happily paying my tax,’” Wiking said. “And I think that’s because people are aware of the huge benefits they get in terms of quality of life.”

denmark-people-in-park-620.jpg
The scene in Copenhagen. CBS NEWS
Sachs says there are other benefits, too, like the fact that Denmark has one of the highest income equality and lowest poverty rates of any Western nation.

“Basically, social mobility is high because the obstacles are very, very low,” he said. “You’re really given the basics for a good, healthy, productive life.”

“What do you say to someone who’s like, ‘Yeah, but that’s socialism and we’re Americans’?” Salie asked.

“I say it’s what they call social democracy. The idea, is, ‘We’re a market economy. We’re privately owned. We better compete,’ so they have to be at the top of the game in technology, in research and development, in science, in quality of education.”

While Denmark excels in these areas, not everyone would call it a utopia.

“Danish people don’t strike me as cheerful, so much as just, like, content: Everything’s fine.” Salie noted.

“You can say, we are the happiest country in the world,” said Wiking. “I like to say, we’re the least unhappy.”

Danes still face the same struggles as everyone else. The country has the highest cancer rate in the world, in part due to its smoking and drinking habits. Large portions of the population also suffer from alcoholism and depression.

Still, it hasn’t stopped Americans like Dina Honour from moving here. What surprised her the most about living in Denmark? “How much we like it!” she laughed.

Originally from Boston, Honour moved to Copenhagen in 2011 with her British husband Richard and their two sons. They liked it so much, they decided to stay.

“Family life balance is phenomenally better than it would be back in the U.S.,” she told Salie. “The Danes, they leave work at five o’clock and they’re home for dinner by 5:30, so Richard is home for dinner every single night. We both agree that it’s probably the best decision that we’ve made as a family.”

denmark-richard-steggall-dina-honour-620.jpg
American ex-pat Dina Honour, with her husband, Richard Steggall, now happily reside in Denmark. CBS NEWS
The family has adopted two uniquely Danish philosophies, that they say keep Danes smiling a bit more than the rest of us.

“Hygge” encourages people to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. “There’s no real translation into English,” said Richard Steggall. “It is a Danish phenomenon. It is a Danish thing. You know, for quite a large part of the year, it gets quite gray here, gets dark very early in the afternoon. And hygge, this sense of bringing light and warmth and friendship into a house, it’s trying to make things cozy and happy.”

The second uniquely Danish term is something called “The Law of Jante.” For Danes, that means living simply. Showing off wealth just isn’t their style.

“It seems like in order for America to borrow from this Danish notion of happiness, Americans would have to give up things that are so prized, like exceptionalism and competitiveness,” said Salie.

“Yeah, I struggle with that myself,” Honour laughed. “I think maybe we just need to focus a little bit more on helping others and taking others into consideration. And I don’t think that means abandoning the idea of the individual. I think it just means finding a little bit more of a balance.”

denmark-sidewalk-cafe-620.jpg
Who wouldn’t be happy here? CBS NEWS

It’s a philosophy that’s even mentioned on the government’s website, which says money is not as important as social life.

So maybe the elusive secret to happiness isn’t that much of a secret after all.

Philosophers, Sachs noted, “have been telling us for millennia, ‘Don’t just chase the money.‘ They’re right. America’s gotten richer, a lot richer, over the last 50 years. But we’ve not gotten happier.”

It’s worth pondering how we Americans can get our hygge on.

“We have learned to take each day as it comes a little bit more and to not always be thinking about what’s next, what’s next, what’s next,” said Steggall. “I think career-wise, family-wise, school-wise ...”

“Maybe we’re more Danish than we think!” Honour laughed.


MEETUP-- A FEW MONTHS AGO, THE GOAL WAS TO FOLLOW BERNIE SANDERS’ VIEWS, NOW IT’S TO OPPOSE TRUMP. READ THIS INTERESTING ARTICLE ON BECOMING MORE POLITICALLY ACTIVE.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/meetup-leaps-into-the-trump-resistance-movement/
AP March 19, 2017, 3:44 PM
Meetup leaps into the Trump resistance movement

Photograph -- In this March 13, 2017 photo, staff members of Meetup are at work in the company’s New York office. Meetup.com is taking a leap into the Trump resistance. AP

NEW YORK -- Meetup is taking a leap into the Trump resistance.

The New York-based networking site will unveil plans in the coming days to partner with a labor group -- under the guidance of a former Hillary Clinton aide -- to coordinate protests among more than 120,000 activists already involved with anti-Trump Meetup groups.

It’s a risky move for a tech company that has helped millions come together to share interests of all kinds, from hiking to languages to President Donald Trump himself. But it reflects an increasing willingness of some major technology firms to push back against the Republican president.

Trump administration faces critical week ahead
Play VIDEO
Trump administration faces critical week ahead

Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman told The Associated Press that the new arrangement, to be known only as #Resist, gives the loosely organized protest movement the infrastructure needed to execute large responses to the new president’s policies.

“It’s one thing for a CEO to say, ‘I’m going to stand up against a politician,’” Heiferman said. “It’s even further for the company itself to mobilize people.”

For Heiferman and other tech leaders, Trump’s push to block immigration from several Muslim-majority countries marked a tipping point.

“When a certain line is crossed,” he said, “we have a civic duty not to be quiet.”

The White House did not respond to a request Friday for comment about Meetup’s plans.

About 40 technology companies met privately this month in New York City to brainstorm ways to push back against Trump policies on immigration, transgender protections, women’s health and arts funding, as well as more traditional technology issues like net neutrality and encryption.

meetup2.jpg
In this March 13, 2017 photo, Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup, talks during an interview in New York. AP

The meeting was designed to “get beyond handwringing and move toward real action,” said Michal Rosenn, general counsel for the Brooklyn-based company Kickstarter.

Kickstarter and Meetup were also among 58 technology companies that signed a friend-of-the-court brief on Tuesday charging that the White House’s revised immigration plan would harm their employees and customers.

Airbnb, Apple, Twitter and Yelp filed a court brief late last month to protest the Trump administration’s decision to rescind guidance that instructed schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The car service Lyft recently pledged $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Meetup, which employs 175 people and claims 30 million users worldwide, has gone further than most.

Tech companies join forces to stop Trump's travel ban
Play VIDEO
Tech companies join forces to stop Trump's travel ban

Disturbed by Trump’s initial push for a travel ban, the firm held a company-wide “resist-a-thon” last month and unveiled more than 1,000 new “#resist” Meetup groups that didn’t have to pay the standard $15 monthly fee to advertise their events on the site. Currently, there are more than 1,000 Meetup groups devoted to the Trump resistance across the country.

Meetup hired Clinton’s former digital organizing director, Jess Morales Rocketto, to coordinate the new organizing platform with a group allied with the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

The Meetup software is “ready-made for rapid response,” Morales Rocketto said, and has already been used to mobilize Trump protesters in recent weeks, including resistance events at Boston Logan’s airport and a march in Mississippi.

Such actions alienated customers like Maria Lozinsky, a Trump supporter in Aurora, Colorado. She reacted by disbanding Meetup groups she had led for people interested in interior design and science fiction.

“It’s just so sickening,” she said of the proliferation of anti-Trump groups.

“That’s their right,” she said. “But it’s my right to leave.”

Meetup won’t be restricting the ability of pro-Trump groups to use its main site, which it insists is nonpartisan.

How do Americans feel about President Trump?
Play VIDEO
How do Americans feel about President Trump?

Marketing and branding experts suggest that in the short run, it could be a zero sum game for companies that wade into politics. Inevitably, some offended customers will leave, while others take their place.

Yet, typically, customers who agree with a business’ political stand have short memories, said marketing Professor Larry Chiagouris, of Pace University’s Lubin School of Business.

“Those who are hostile have longer memories and are more likely to hold a grudge,” he said.

Political consultant Liz Mair, who also advises private businesses, warned that the biggest risk in this case “is Trump taking retaliatory action against entities he sees as inherently opposed to him.”

Ultimately, however, political stands by businesses often have little long-term impact on a company’s brand, said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys Inc., a New York customer research firm.

“It’s a little thing at best,” he said.

Neil Blumenthal, co-CEO of the web-based global eyewear retailer Warby Parker, which was among the companies that filed legal briefs opposing Trump’s immigration and transgender policies, acknowledged political activism could turn some consumers off.

“There’s always the risk that when you stand for something there can be a backlash,” Blumenthal said. “The bigger risk is to stand for nothing.”



http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/schiff-defends-committee-examining-russia-trump-connections-n735391?cid=eml_nbn_20170319
EXCLUSIVE POLITICS MAR 19 2017, 11:28 AM ET
Rep. Schiff: ‘Circumstantial Evidence of Collusion’ Between Trump Campaign, Russia
by KAILANI KOENIG

WASHINGTON — Despite denials from some top intelligence officials that there was any evidence of collusion between associates of Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russian operatives while Moscow tried to interfere with the 2016 election, Rep. Adam Schiff on Sunday defended the House Intelligence Committee continuing to look into the matter.

Two weeks ago on "Meet The Press," James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, denied that any evidence of such collusion existed while he oversaw the work of U.S. intelligence agencies. The Trump administration has also reiterated those denials.

Play Schiff: Investigation Needs to Know if Evidence of Collusion or Deception 3:40

But this Sunday on "Meet The Press," Schiff, D-Calif., told host Chuck Todd, "I was surprised to see Director Clapper say that because I don't think you can make that claim categorically as he did. I would characterize it this way at the outset of the investigation: There is circumstantial evidence of collusion. There is direct evidence, I think, of deception and that's where we begin the investigation."

Schiff is the ranking Democratic member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"There is certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation," he added. "The American people have a right to know and in order to defend ourselves, we need to know whether the circumstantial evidence of collusion and direct evidence of deception is indicative of more."

Play Full Schiff: End Trump's Wiretap 'Wild Goose Chase' Facebook Twitter Embed
Full Schiff: End Trump's Wiretap 'Wild Goose Chase' 7:35

On Monday, the House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 election. Schiff noted that the committee's inquiry has a broad scope examining various techniques and methods Russia used.

"I think people need to understand we are in a global war of ideas," Schiff said. "It's not communism versus capitalism but it is authoritarianism versus democracy and Putin is very much at the vanguard of that autocratic movement, and that ought to concern all of us."

The congressman has been briefed on matters related to Trump's still-unsubstantiated accusation that former President Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower before the election. The White House has not offered any evidence to support this claim, first tweeted by Trump two weeks ago, and instead has asked Congress to investigate. A spokesperson for President Obama roundly rejected the idea.

Schiff on Sunday said there was still no evidence to support Trump's accusation, responding to comments made by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in an earlier interview on "Meet the Press."

"Once again, no evidence to support the president's claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor," Schiff said. "And you know what, I have a lot of respect for Susan Collins but I have to differ with her on this. [She said,] 'We need to get to the bottom of this.' We are at the bottom. There is nothing at the bottom."

"I hope that we can put an end to this wild goose chase because what the president said was just patently false, and the wrecking ball it created now has banged into our British allies and our German allies," Schiff added. "It's continuing to grow in terms of damage and he needs to put an end to this."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/after-merkel-meeting-trump-says-germany-owes-more-to-nato/
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS March 18, 2017, 11:12 AM
After Merkel meeting, Trump says Germany owes "vast sums" to NATO

A day after hosting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House, President Trump said Saturday that Germany owes “vast sums of money” to NATO.

Mr. Trump, who’s spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, tweeted that he had a “great” meeting with Merkel despite some reports that he implied suggested otherwise.

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes.....
9:15 AM - 18 Mar 2017
18,876 18,876 Retweets 81,582 81,582 likes

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
...vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!
9:23 AM - 18 Mar 2017
17,238 17,238 Retweets 73,495 73,495 likes

During a joint press conference Friday between the two leaders, Mr. Trump said that he told Merkel that NATO members need to contribute more to the alliance.

“I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO, as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defense,” he said. “Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years, and it is very unfair to the United States. These nations must pay what they owe.”

Photograph -- President Trump speaks as he holds a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room of the White House in Washington March 17, 2017. REUTERS/JIM BOURG

NATO says that its members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) each year on defense. While the U.S. spends the most of any nation, more than 3 percent of its GDP, countries like Germany and France are lagging behind. According to NATO figures, Germany spent 1.2 percent of its GDP last year on defense and France spent 1.8 percent of its GDP.

As for the “fake news” comment, Mr. Trump might have been referring to an awkward moment that transpired in the Oval Office when the press yelled out that they should shake hands. Mr. Trump didn’t respond. Merkel asked him something about a handshake and he still didn’t respond. They later shook hands at the press conference.



WHAT KIND OF LEADERS DO WE WANT – LIARS AND IGNORAMUSES? THIS STORY ISN’T NEW NOW, BUT IT IS VERY IMPORTANT. OUR PRESIDENT NEEDS TO BE RESPONSIBLE IF HE IS CAPABLE OF DOING SO, AND REMOVED FROM THE WHITE HOUSE IF HE ISN’T. HE JUST CAN’T GIVE UP HIS TENDENCY TO “MOUTH OFF” AND WASPISHLY “TWEET,” RATHER THAN EXPRESS HIMSELF IN AN INTELLIGIBLE, SERIOUS AND HONEST MANNER WHICH WILL ADD SOMETHING TO THE NATIONAL DISCUSSION. PERHAPS THE CONGRESS COULD INTERVENE TECHNOLOGICALLY AND SHUT DOWN HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/trump-dont-blame-me-when-i-quote-fox-news
Trump: Don't Blame Me When I Quote Fox News
They report, we repeat.
DAVID CORN
MAR. 17, 2017 4:05 PM

Photograph – Angela Merkel and Donald Trump at White House

Donald Trump does not like taking responsibility for White House screwups. He'll blame anyone else he can think of—even his friends at Fox News.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer set off an international incident when he suggested that British intelligence might have spied on Trump during the campaign in response to a request from President Barack Obama. Spicer made this remark while once again trying to defend his boss, who two weeks ago tweet-claimed—without offering any evidence—that Obama had "wiretapped" him at Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Since then the GOP chairs of the congressional intelligence committees (and many others) have declared there is no proof to back up Trump's reckless charge, which apparently was based on a Breitbart news story that itself was based on a statement (or rant) by right-wing radio talker Mark Levin*.

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
6:35 AM - 4 Mar 2017
51,006 51,006 Retweets 145,428 145,428 likes

The obvious conclusion is that an angry Trump had tweeted out fake news falsely accusing his predecessor of criminal activity. But Spicer has continued to contend that Trump's allegations had a factual basis of some sort. And at the Thursday briefing he cited Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano, who claimed on that network that Obama had used the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)—the British version of the National Security Agency—to eavesdrop on Trump with "no American fingerprints on this." (Napolitano is no credible source. Like Trump, he has appeared on the radio show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In 2010, Napolitano told Jones' audience that it's "hard for me to believe" that World Trade Center Building 7 "came down by itself" and that the 9/11 attacks "couldn't possibly have been done the way the government told us.")

Yet here was the White House depending upon a conspiracy theorist to charge that Obama enlisted the Brits to conduct illegal surveillance against Trump. The GCHQ went into a tizzy. Breaking with its tradition of almost always staying silent on public controversies, the British spy agency released a statement that said, No way! It called the allegation Spicer embraced "ridiculous." (British journalists were shocked to see any response from the supersecretive GCHQ.) And British officials told reporters they had privately received some form of apology from White House officials.

Yet on Friday afternoon, at a short press conference with German leader Angela Merkel, Trump indicated that he believed there was nothing to apologize for. Asked by a German reporter about the wiretapping allegation, he made a reference to "fake news" without addressing the matter. When a second German reporter pressed Trump on the issue, Trump first made a joke that he had something in common with Merkel. (The NSA had listened in on her cellphone.) Then he dismissed the significance of Spicer's citation of the Fox News report: "We said nothing. All we did was quote…a talented lawyer on Fox." The German reporter, Trump said, "shouldn't be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox."

Fox News, for its part, wasn't sticking to Napolitano's crazy story. Following the press conference, Fox anchor Shep Smith reported the network "has no evidence of any kind" to support the notion that Obama (with or without the Brits) had spied on Trump.

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Shepard Smith just said Fox News has “no evidence of any kind” that Trump was surveilled “at any time, any way."
3:05 PM - 17 Mar 2017
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To sum up, the White House was citing phony information from Fox that Fox wouldn't stand by. And now Trump was basically saying, You can't hold me and my White House accountable for what we say. If someone says it on Fox News, that's good enough for us. In other words, they report, we repeat.

This is a stunning statement and admission from a president: There is no need for me to confirm anything before tossing it out from the bully pulpit. It may not be a big news flash at this point, but Trump was eschewing any responsibility for White House statements. This is apparently Trump's standard: If an assertion appears on Breitbart or on Fox News—if a conspiracy theory is spouted by a right-wing talk show—then it can be freely cited by the president of the United States without any consequence. With this stance, Trump has fully embraced his position as fake-newser-in-chief.



https://www.laprogressive.com/trump-merkel-press-conference/
The Deeply Disturbing Trump-Merkel Press Conference
BY WILLIAM J. ASTORE
POSTED ON MARCH 18, 2017

Yesterday’s Trump-Merkel Press Conference was disturbing on several levels. Worst of all was the scene of a German Chancellor listening to an American president boast about how strong his military is, and how much stronger it soon will be. Not that long ago in historical terms, Germany was a country that stressed military dominance. Two lost world wars cured Germany of its militarism. American militarism has taken its place.

As Trump responded to questions, again and again he returned to the U.S. military, vowing that he’s going to strengthen it from its “depleted” condition, perhaps to a level of power that “we’ve never seen before.”

When you forge a bigger hammer, you tend not to leave it unused in the tool shed. No — you look for bigger nails to strike.

America as a country is “very strong, very strong,” said Trump, a “very powerful company/country,” and soon the U.S. military would be “stronger,” and “perhaps far stronger than ever before.” Naturally, the president added that he hoped he wouldn’t have to use that “far stronger” military, even as the U.S. military garrisons the globe at more than 700 bases while launching ongoing attacks against “radical Islamic terrorism” (Trump loves enunciating those three words) in places like Yemen.

This coming year, Trump is enlarging the military with a fresh influx of $54 billion. “My generals,” as Trump likes to refer to James Mattis and John Kelly and Company, support him in part because he’s boosting military spending. But will they continue to support Trump and his advisers like Steve Bannon when the President uses that “much stronger” military in unwise ways?


When you forge a bigger hammer, you tend not to leave it unused in the tool shed. No — you look for bigger nails to strike. As Trump noted at the press conference, he’s not an isolationist. “Fake news,” he said.

That Trump, with his “far stronger” military, is not an isolationist is disturbing “real” news indeed. Small wonder that the German Chancellor looked discomfited; her country has seen it all before.

What price military dominance? Perhaps Chancellor Merkel could explain that to President Trump, if only he’d listen.


MARK LEVIN, YOUTUBE 21 MINUTES –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2VRo5sfvg



TWO LETTERS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP

https://www.laprogressive.com/president-mike-pence/
Dear Mr. President: Who’s That Looking Over Your Shoulder?
BY DAN EMBREE
19 March 2017

Here in rural Gatos Gordos County, New Mexico, the budget news is being well received. Huff Swaggar, the biggest landowner (305 sections – in terms you can relate to, almost exactly the size of New York City, and a house bigger than Mar-a-Lago) told his fellow Republican Committee members that he plans to use some of his share of the $4 million tax reduction he’ll get from the repeal of Obamacare to bolster the local economy – by sinking a couple of natural-gas test wells and building a pig farm outside the village of Brisas Dulces.

The drillers he expects to bring in from Texas can live in the houses soon to be vacated by the staff of the closed-down Water-Quality Testing Station of the EPA and the trailers he rented to the Meals-on-Wheels lady and the old Cervantes sisters who worked in the After-School-Lunch program. They’ll be moving on.

Huff’s workers admiringly call him El Explotador de los Trabajadores. That apparently means “The Job Creator”.

Huff is also counting on some savings in the wages he pays his ranch-hands, partly because there will likely be no increase in the minimum wage, but especially because the work requirement for people on Medicaid will force the local lay-abouts with imaginary disabilities off their couches and back onto the horses they fell off in the first place. Their wives who were idling away their days listening to Public Radio fill their heads with liberal chatter about equal this and equal that can get back to teaching the alphabet to their kids the way my mother did instead of expecting Sesame Street to do it for them.

The hospital in Sal Si Puede, the county seat, will lose its nurse training program run by the National Institute of Health, but that loss will be offset by the expected decline in patients formerly counting on handouts from Obamacare, who will now exercise their choice to opt out of healthcare altogether in favor of food, heat, shoes, and an iPhone8 – a dumb choice, but what can you do?

There are whiners, of course, who complain that they are too old to join the Army – they should have thought of that while they had the chance. And some cannot see that we must sacrifice to get The Wall built, now that Mexico has reneged. Why, just last year, a woman from Guatemala was found working illegally as a motel maid to support her two kids who were so-called citizens.

All in all, it’s working. It’s just a trickle so far, but it’s flowing down hill.

18 March 2017


Dear Mr President,

I see that you’ve removed Mike Pence as an addressee on the “Contact the White House” website. This makes sense because he doesn’t actually live there – though in fairness to him, he’s pretty clearly planning on it. And he must get there early and stay late because it’s hard to find a photo of you that doesn’t have him in the background. He’s replaced Mike Flynn as your shadow – always just behind to your left, smiling a complacent smile, as if contemplating a pork roast he knows he’ll get to carve if only he is patient. And he is patient.

Pence is patient because he’s a believer. He believes is [sic] all those positions – anti-gay, pro-life, anti-thug, pro-cop, strong military, pro-wall, pro-farm-subsidy, anti-welfare, pro-coal, anti-regulation, anti-immigrant, pro-business, anti-labor, free-market, America first, school-choice, global-warming-as-a-theory, health care for those who can afford it, parental consent (for everything), religious-toleration-up-to-a-point, anti-taco-truck (as in What’s a taco?), and strictly missionary – positions that you occasionally espouse but later disregard in a way that we call “pragmatic” or “flexible”. We Maganistas* count on you to take crazy positions at rallies, but most of us won’t stick around if you try to enact them. You understand this; Pence doesn’t.

Not only does Pence actually believe all that stuff, but he knows how things work – what the difference is between fiscal policy and monetary policy, between a check and a balance, between an executive order and a federal statute, between Arizona and New Mexico. That makes him scary – and not just to you.

So I think you are wise to limit his contact with people who vote. Keep him busy going to funerals, meetings, fact-finding missions – interviewing street-people in LA, visiting the troops in Mosul, making speeches at Berkeley and Harvard, sampling the water in Flint. When you look over your left shoulder, he should not be there, smiling silently.

On the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, that’s where he was, coming down the steps of the Capitol right behind you and Paul Ryan and a few other officials after a Friends of Ireland lunch, everybody but you in green ties (oops!), and Pence smiling like he was waiting for something to happen.

I tell you what – Dwight Eisenhower never let Richard Nixon get behind him coming down the stairs.

Dan Embree

Please circulate. And write him a letter. https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Earlier letters to President Trump


*Maganistas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonism
Magonism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Magonism[1][2] (Spanish: Magonismo) is an anarchist, or more precisely anarcho-communist,[3][4] school of thought precursor of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It is mainly based on the ideas of Ricardo Flores Magón,[5] his brothers Enrique and Jesús, and also other collaborators of the Mexican newspaper Regeneración (organ of the Mexican Liberal Party), as Práxedis Guerrero, Librado Rivera and Anselmo L. Figueroa.[6][7]

Magonism and anarchism

The Mexican government and the press of the early 20th century called as magonistas people and groups who shared the ideas of the Flores Magón brothers, who inspired the overthrow of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and performed an economic and political revolution. The fight against tyranny encouraged by the Flores Magón contravened official discourse of Porfirian Peace by which the protesters were rated as the Revoltosos Magonistas (i.e. "Magonist rioters") to isolate any social basis and preserve the image of peace and progress imposed by force.[8]

Both of Flores Magón's brothers, like other members of the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), used the term magonista[9] to refer to the libertarian movement that promoted; as they felt they were fighting for an ideal and not to elevate in power to a boss or a group, they called themselves "liberals", as they were organized in the PLM, and later "anarchists". The same Ricardo Flores Magón affirmed: Liberal Party members are not magonistas, they are anarchists!. In his literary work Verdugos y Víctimas (i.e. "Executioners and Victims"),[10] one of the characters responds indignantly when he was arrested and judged: I'm not a magonist, I am an anarchist. An anarchist has no idols.

Magonist thinking was influenced by anarchist philosophers such as Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and others such as Élisée Reclus, Charles Malato, Errico Malatesta, Anselmo Lorenzo, Emma Goldman, Fernando Tarrida del Mármol and Max Stirner. They were also influenced by the works of Marx, Gorky and Ibsen. However, the most influential works were the ones of Peter Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, at the same time they were influenced by the Mexican liberal tradition of the 19th century and the self-government system of the indigenous people.[11]

Magonism and indigenous movement[edit]

Magonistas in Tijuana in 1911
See also: Magonista rebellion of 1911
Indigenous peoples, since the Spanish conquest of Mexico, searched to preserve the practice of direct democracy, decision-making in assembly, rotation of administrative charges, the defense of communal property, mutual aid as the community exploitation and rational use of natural resources, shared anarchist principles raised by the magonists.[12]



I first contemplated the fact that I personally experience White Privilege, while reading the webpage of Black Lives Matter. It explains their position very well and isn’t hostile in tone at all. Having White Privilege doesn’t make me a bad person, per se, but one who needs to look around more often at the Black People I see and talk to. That is the dues that I think I owe. Open up my heart. Interact. Respect and don’t judge. Learn what they have to teach me. And, heaven knows, don’t BLAME.

https://www.laprogressive.com/white-privilege-makes-people-uncomfortable/
‘White Privilege’ Makes Some Uncomfortable
BY JAMES HAUGHT
POSTED ON FEBRUARY 5, 2017

Years ago, I visited our state’s former black mental hospital and fell into conversation with a witty, friendly, black psychiatrist.

He taunted me: “You’re a racist, you know.”

“No, no, no,” I protested — but he continued:

“Just look at yourself. You were born white, male and smart. You could go out into the world and take whatever you could get — and you never stopped to think that I couldn’t do it.”

“Just look at yourself. You were born white, male and smart. You could go out into the world and take whatever you could get — and you never stopped to think that I couldn’t do it.”

I was speechless. Finally, I answered: “Damn! You nailed me precisely.”

Whites needn’t feel ashamed of their privilege — but they should work hard to ensure that everyone in every ethnic group gets the same benefits.

Until that moment, I never saw clearly that society stacked the deck in my favor, giving me benefits not available to minorities. It was sobering. Later, I learned that sociologists call my advantage “white privilege.”

Currently, the wealthy white community of Westport, Conn. (average family income $150,000), is in an uproar because a human rights group and the public library invited high school students to write essays on the topic: “In 1,000 words or less, describe how you understand the term ‘white privilege.’”

To the surprise of sponsors, a backlash arose. Some white parents felt insulted and claimed that the essay contest was designed to make their teens ashamed of their benefits. National news coverage followed.

The chairman of the Westport human rights group, a retired black IBM vice president, replied:

“There’s a lot more controversy around it than many of us expected…. All of a sudden, we’re race-baiting or trying to get people to feel guilty. That’s not what it’s all about.”

Actually, the topic isn’t simple. There are many other sorts of privilege beyond race. People born with high I.Q. have advantage over those born with less. Americans with normal weight and appealing features get better acceptance than those who are heavy or homely. People with affluent parents who sent them to good universities have a leg up over youths from blue-collar families who couldn’t afford college—or graduate with crushing student loan debt (which is much worse for black graduates). Foreign-looking people with odd names — especially Hispanics — don’t get the same breaks as standard white Americans. Despite years of female progress, males still hold advantage. Despite progress, gays still are less accepted than “straights.”

I was born in the 1930s in a little West Virginia farm town with no electricity or paved streets. But even there, I was privileged. My father was the town postmaster and my mother a teacher — which put us in the white-collar elite, compared to sweaty farmhands. It gave me confidence and self-worth that never left me.

Last year’s “Black Lives Matter” crusade spotlighted racial privilege. At one protest, a white woman held a sign saying, “They don’t shoot white women like me.” That’s another white privilege.

Here’s the bottom line: Whites needn’t feel ashamed of their privilege — but they should work hard to ensure that everyone in every ethnic group gets the same benefits.

James A. Haught
PeaceVoice



http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/6-things-paul-ryan-doesnt-understand-about-poverty-i-didnt-either
6 Things Paul Ryan Doesn’t Understand About Poverty (But I Didn’t, Either)
We need to change the conversation about poverty and inequality. It starts with compassion and kindness.
By Karen Weese / Salon March 14, 2017
Editor's Note: This article was published on March 10, 2014, but it remains timely.

Nicole Larson was the kind of person whose smile always made you want to smile back. It was only after a while that it struck you: She always smiled with her mouth closed.

It had been six years since Nicole last sat in a dentist’s chair, seven since her last full exam or X-rays. Childhood dental visits had been rare: Her parents’ low-wage jobs never had insurance, and after paying for rent and heat and food, there was rarely much left. As an adult, she worked long hours as a waitress and hotel housekeeper, but those jobs lacked insurance, too, and the meager pay always ran out before the month did.

So Nicole learned to white-knuckle it through toothaches, popping handfuls of ibuprofen. She brushed constantly, rinsing with every oral rinse the drugstore sold. And she perfected a dimpled, twinkle-in-the-eye smile that always got a smile in return … but didn’t require her to open her mouth.

But today all that was about to change. She had landed a new job — still minimum wage, but this time with dental coverage. She sat in the waiting room, praying that today would be the day the pain finally stopped for good.

The dentist called Nicole into the exam room, poked and prodded a bit, and listed some treatment options. Nicole crossed her fingers.

But then he stood up and shut her file abruptly, not even trying to hide his disdain. “Look, there are plenty of things we could do,” he said frostily, hand on the doorknob. “But if you’re just going to let everything go to hell like this, there’s really no point.”

And the door clicked shut behind him.

* * *

It was nearly a year before Nicole even tried another dentist, too afraid of more humiliation, of being treated as if her condition was the result of some moral failing, instead of the logical outcome of a lifetime of low wages and no insurance.

But she couldn’t help wondering: What had made an otherwise nice, competent, community-minded, churchgoing professional suddenly morph into such a jerk?

Americans, by and large, are a charitable bunch. Need canned corn for the food drive? Pairs of gloves for the church “mitten tree”? Dolls and bears for Toys for Tots? We’re all over it … and we’ll probably give you three.

But our compassionate instincts have some blind spots, no matter whether we vote red or blue. It’s not because we’re heartless (well, usually, anyway). It’s rather because we so often don’t understand the back story to what we’re seeing, or the unseen factors in play.


The rude dentist wasn’t a cartoon villain; heck, most of the time he was probably a pretty nice guy. The problem was that he was utterly unable to imagine a life unlike his own, in which dental care wasn’t a given — where if there are five things on the list of essentials and the money runs out after item four, you just can’t have number five, no matter how bad the pain. There was nothing in his personal experience to suggest the existence of such a life. He’d never imagined it, and no one had ever made him try.

So he felt nothing when he crushed Nicole’s hope and pride in two short sentences; indeed, he didn’t realize he was doing it at all.

* * *

Fortunately, most of us are much more perceptive than that dentist. But there may be gaps in our experience that, despite our best intentions, leave us with blind spots about American families living in poverty. Here are a few things we may have missed:

Hi, I’m right here

Maybe she wipes your child’s face at day care. Maybe he mops the floors at your church. Maybe she makes the beds in the hotel you stay at. Maybe he trims your shrubbery and mows your lawn. Maybe she lifts your elderly aunt in and out of her wheelchair each day at the nursing home.

Most middle-income Americans have no idea how many of the people around them every day are living in poverty. We think of “the poor” as only elsewhere, in inner cities or far-off trailer parks, anywhere but here. We tell ourselves that the poor are simply slackers who don’t want to work … or that the only folks earning wages you can’t live on are teenagers working summers at McDonald’s, who will of course go to college in the fall.

But it’s not true. Fifty-seven percent of the families below the poverty line in the U.S. are working families, working at jobs that just don’t pay enough. They’re not teenagers, they’re not lazy, and they’re not somewhere else. (After all, if every McDonald’s employee is a high school student, how can I buy a Big Mac at noon on a school day?) These folks are childcare workers, janitors, house cleaners, lawn-service workers, bus drivers, hospital aides, waitresses, nursing home employees, security guards, cafeteria workers and cashiers — and they’re the people who keep the rest of society humming along for everybody else.

“Nah, it’s not for me! It’s for a friend!”

“Enjoy!” said the church volunteer gaily, heaving a large box of food into my arms. “That ought to keep your family going for at least a week!”


“Oh, it’s not for me,” I said quickly … and then cringed because it sounded so much like a lie. (“No, really! It’s for a friend!”)

The volunteer smiled, nicely but skeptically. “OK … well, have a good week.”

Ironically, it really was for someone else, a nursing home worker I’d been urging for weeks to sign up for the food program. (I ran a small housing nonprofit serving low-wage workers for nine years, and we’d met through that organization. It’s also where I met most of the other people quoted in this article.) When she declined, I offered to pick up the food for her. How bad could it be?

So I was flabbergasted by my sudden, intense need to make sure that a total stranger — whom I would never see again, mind you — would not think I needed food from a food pantry.

But the nursing home aide was not surprised at all. “It kills something in you, no matter how nice they are,” she said. She’d been to one, once. “I hated it because I do everything I’m supposed to — go to work every day, pinch pennies — and still I had to stand there with my head down like I’d done something wrong, just because I make eight bucks an hour and it’s not enough. You feel so ashamed.”

Which is why the line at the local food bank is but a small slice of all the struggling families in a given area, she added. Most are at home trying to make a box of noodles last two nights instead of one.

Unfortunately, the emotional toll of poverty is not limited to the food bank. Low-wage families often get dirty looks for using food stamps in the checkout line (which is especially galling if — like many food stamp recipients — you’re employed and just need a small supplement to make ends meet).

And they often work in jobs that don’t garner much respect in the first place. They’re treated as replaceable, invisible or both.

Think about it. Right now, you could easily name your doctor, your kid’s teacher and a prominent local business owner. But, quick: Can you name the lady who cleans your office? The school janitor? Any nurse’s aide in your grandmother’s nursing home? Any waitress or cashier, anywhere?

If you held one of the latter jobs, what would that mean for your sense of yourself, of how much you were worth? Sure, we all have days where we feel unappreciated at work. But most white-collar workers get at least the occasional nice performance review, bonus, or thanks.

But nobody ever praises a cleaning lady for polishing the faucets extra well, as Barbara Ehrenreich illustrates memorably in her classic book “Nickel and Dimed.” Hotel housekeepers only hear from the boss if they’re suspected of stealing. Garbagemen have folks look right at them and not even see them at all.

Day after day, it has an effect, no matter how much confidence you were born with, or how much bravado you project. I remember sitting in the home of a hotel housekeeper as her phone rang and rang. “Do you want to get that?” I asked. “No,” she said, “it’s my son’s teacher.” “You’ll just call back later?” “No,” she said again.

At first I was flabbergasted (she’s trying to help your child!). But as we talked, I realized that, unlike a middle-income parent, she didn’t see the teacher as a peer, reaching out to discuss a matter of mutual interest. She saw the teacher as an authority figure — another higher-up telling her she was “less than,” another boss telling her she’d screwed up, this time as a parent. What looked for all the world like apathy and defensiveness turned out to be a profound lack of confidence and a tattered sense of self-worth.

(After many more conversations, she did eventually call back, and I am proud to report that she regularly attends parent-teacher conferences. But I was struck by how profoundly I — and, I suspect, the teacher — had misunderstood her perspective.)

What you see is what you expect

When researchers at Princeton University showed two groups of viewers the same video of a little girl answering questions about school subjects, they told the first group that her parents were affluent professionals. They told the second group that she was the daughter of a meat packer and a seamstress.

The girl, named Hannah, performed right at grade level on the videotaped test, answering some questions correctly and missing others. But when asked about her performance, the first group, primed to believe she was wealthy, felt that she had performed above grade level. The second group, primed to believe she was not, felt that she had performed below.

It was the same video, mind you — the same girl, answering the same questions in the exact same way. But their conclusions were totally different.

Sometimes we see what we’re looking for … and what we’re looking for changes based on the context.

When a well-off child acts up in school, it is often assumed to be a health problem that requires medical attention or treatment. When a low-income child acts up, it is more often assumed to be “problems at home.”

“We eat dinner at the table at my house every night, I help them with homework, they go to bed every night by 9:30, and I take them to church every Sunday,” said Nicole, mentioned at the beginning of this article. “But when my son acts up and I have to meet with the school, that’s the first thing out of their mouths – -‘parenting problems,’ ‘problems at home.’ I hate that that’s their first assumption.”

Of course, sometimes maybe it is problems at home. But sometimes it’s not — and sometimes middle-class and affluent families have family problems, too.

We have a similar double vision in other areas, too.

We want compassion and therapy for our friend whose depression spiraled into prescription-drug abuse, but expect the low-wage worker caught out by the loading dock with a baggie of Vicodin to be fired … even though it’s the exact same thing. We call celebrities who drink and crash their cars “troubled,” but construction workers who do so “drunks.” Our society says middle-class seniors who transfer assets so they qualify for Medicaid nursing-home care are “just being practical” (there are whole legal practices built around helping them do it) … but the thought of a low-income family doing anything to qualify for additional government assistance for food or heat or medical care makes us collectively lose our minds.

Somehow we are looking at the same situations, yet registering very different things.

The Ramen-noodle fallacy

In the living room of my first apartment, there was a mustard-yellow beanbag chair, a hand-me-down lamp and an ancient fake-wood-sided TV that made a loud kachunk when you changed the channel. I didn’t earn much, and joked that my unimpressive car could do zero to 60 in 10 minutes flat.

It could be tempting to say we “understand poverty” because of experiences like this, when we lived in small apartments or considered Ramen noodles a legitimate entree.

But it is not necessarily the same at all. A lot depends on what — and more important, who — is around you.

It is much easier not to panic about tight finances when Mom and Dad have a guest room you can always move back to (even if you never actually do). It helps if you have a medically trained friend you can call in a pinch, especially if you don’t have insurance.

It helps when Aunt Ginny can give you her hand-me-down furniture, or Uncle Bob will sell you his old but reliable car. It helps when there’s someone in your family who can advise you about applying to college or buying a home. It’s reassuring to know that, no matter how bare your cupboard, there will be a full spread of food when you go home for the holidays, and family and friends who can help you, standing in the wings.

All that stuff feels like background noise, right up until we stop and imagine what life would have been like without it. Sure, maybe we would have managed just fine regardless … but maybe we wouldn’t have (and it certainly would have been more stressful).

It is one thing to be a brave, precarious little boat when you are surrounded by the Coast Guard. It is quite another when you are surrounded by boats sinking faster than you are, looking to you for help.

The magic belt that’s not so magic

The director of a New York nonprofit was sitting in a conference room, listening to her well-heeled board members talk about the organization’s low-income clients. They just need to tighten their belts! they kept saying.

“Yet all these women were sitting there with Gucci handbags that cost more than the clients make in a month,” the director recounted later. “And I thought, ‘You guys are going to lecture them about unnecessary spending? Really?’”

One can counter, of course, that you get to buy luxuries when you have the resources, which is true. But it does not necessarily follow that if money is tight, the only possible explanation must be your wild and irresponsible spending.

It might just be that there’s not enough money to start with.

I’ll never forget the first time I sat down with a nurse’s aide who was struggling financially, confident that with some commonsense “belt-tightening,” I could get her budget back on track. Just few minutes in, I started to sweat. She already shopped at Aldi and the Salvation Army. She had a pay-as-you-go cellphone, just for emergencies. She set her thermostat at 63 degrees. There was nothing to trim.

And when I added up her expenses and subtracted them from income, the resulting figure was $3. $3. The entire financial cushion of a woman working full-time at a societally useful job in the richest country in the world was less than the cost of a gallon of milk.

I was speechless.

She read my expression and smiled wryly, forgoing the “I told you so” I so clearly deserved. “I can’t ‘tighten my belt,’” she said quietly. “There is nothing left to tighten.”

There’s no give in the finances of a low-wage family: no margin for error, no wiggle room to account for the inevitable vagaries of life. Each day is spent tiptoeing along the edge of a canyon, knowing that the slightest breeze could push you right in.

Things that seem fairly minor to middle-income families — an unexpected car repair, a high heating bill during a cold snap, a trip to the E.R. when little Connor breaks his arm — are cause for total panic, because there’s no cushion to absorb them. Pay for that car repair and now there’s not enough for the light bill; forgo the light bill and now there’s a late fee; pay for all that and now there’s not enough for the rent.

It takes almost nothing to start a real avalanche.

My head started to hurt. People sometimes say folks are poor because they make “bad decisions,” but she wasn’t doing anything wrong (and society needs nurse’s aides, after all, so it seems reasonable to hope you could be one without worrying about starving).

What’s more, I could think of many middle-income and well-off people who’d made “bad decisions” without spiraling into poverty; the difference was just that they’d had the resources to fix them. (They could afford counseling and medication for the depression that sparked the alcohol problem, pay off credit cards just by trimming back on vacations and eating out. They could go back for a second semester after partying and flunking out, because it hadn’t taken their entire life savings to get them there for the first.)

But she had no cushion. There could be no surprises. She could not make mistakes. And she had to lead her life on the edge of a cliff — holding her breath, trying not to panic, calculating tradeoffs about even the smallest expenditure — every single day.

I had never realized that simply being poor, even on a good day, was so utterly exhausting.

Of Mickey D’s and cable TV

In the years I spent working with low-wage families, I realized that they were not struggling because they ate at McDonald’s or had cable … but sometimes they ate at McDonald’s or had cable because they were struggling. This is an important distinction.

If you are a single parent working for low wages, you do not shop for fun. You do not go to the gym, go to the movies, remodel the kitchen, take a road trip, visit amusement parks, build a deck, go skiing, join a swim club, or sign the kids up for dance class.

Why? Because all of those things cost money, require items that cost money, or require a car reliable enough to go long distances. Your fun is limited to things that are nearby, cheap or free, that you can do after work when it’s dark and you’re exhausted, while supervising your kids at the same time. Other than reading, that sounds a lot like TV.

And while of course it’s cheaper and healthier to eat every meal at home, what if you’ve just worked 12 hours scrubbing hotel bathrooms, and the nearest grocery store is a bus ride away? Or what if it’s little Bobby’s birthday, and a Happy Meal is the only treat you can afford?

“What I had not understood until I found myself in true poverty is that it means living in a world of ‘no,’” writes Alex Andreou in the Guardian. “Ninety-percent of what you need is answered no. Ninety-nine percent of what your kids ask for is answered no. Cinema? No. Night out? No. New shoes? No. Birthday? No.

“So if the only indulgence that is viable, that is within reach, that will not mean you have to walk to work, is a styrofoam container of cheesy chips, the answer is a thunderous ‘YES.’”

Obviously none of this is cause to eat fast food every night or buy the fanciest cable package on the market — and conversations about these expenses are worth having, respectfully, with struggling families. But sometimes choices that seem foolish from the outside make a lot more sense from within.

* * *

There are many prescriptions for combating poverty, but we can’t even get started unless we first examine our assumptions, and take the time to envision what the world feels like for families living in poverty every day.

“Compassion is a skill that we get better at with practice,” writes theologian Karen Armstrong.

It just takes a little imagination.


Karen Weese is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Dow Jones Investment Advisor, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Everyday Family, and other publications.



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/why-its-fair-and-necessary-call-trumps-chief-strategist-stephen-bannon-white-nationalist
Here's Why It's Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump's Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion
Stephen Bannon said he was.
DAVID CORN NOV. 14, 2016 4:26 PM

After Donald Trump announced he was appointing Stephen Bannon to a top job in the White House as chief strategist, I sent out a tweet referring to a Mother Jones story that reported on how Bannon, when he was head of Breitbart News, the far-right conservative site, provided a haven for white nationalists. In response, Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and conspiracy theory advocate (he wrote a book claiming Lyndon B. Johnson killed John F. Kennedy), tweeted at me: "'White Nationalist' my ass. Stop with the childish name calling….we don't call you a communist."

There was a major problem with his tweet: I am not a communist, and Bannon is indeed a champion of white nationalists and white supremacists. And this is according to an expert on this matter: Stephen Bannon.

In July, Bannon, who soon would leave Breitbart to become a top campaign aide to Trump, was interviewed by journalist Sarah Posner. He proudly declared of Breitbart, "We're the platform for the alt-right." The alt-right is an extreme but not well-defined wing of the conservative movement that rants against immigrants, Muslims, the globalist agenda, and multiculturalism and that generally advocates white nationalism (if not white supremacism—in this world, there is a difference). The alt-right also generates a hefty amount of anti-Semitism. (For more on the alt-right, see here and here.)

In that interview, Bannon did claim that not all alt-righters were racists and anti-Semites. "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right?" he said. "Maybe. Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements." But that was whitewashing. How do we know? Because of Breitbart's own coverage.

In March, the website published an article headlined "An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right," which was co-written by Milo Yiannopoulos, a prominent figure in the movement. It noted that the alt-right opposed "full 'integration'" of racial groups: "The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved." This piece cited Richard Spencer, a 30-something Duke Ph.D. dropout, and his AlternativeRight.com website as "a center of alt-right thought."

What does Spencer, the intellectual guru of the movement, advocate? He is quite explicit: an all-white United States. This is not a secret. In a recent interview with Mother Jones, Spencer explained his belief that America's white population is endangered, due to multiculturalism and immigration, and he advocated "a renewed Roman Empire," a dictatorship where only white people could be citizens. "You cannot view another white person as your enemy," he remarked. His goal is a white ethnostate. How to get there may be unclear. He added that he hoped America's nonwhites can be convinced to leave the country on their accord: "It's like presenting to an African that this hasn't worked out. We haven't made each other happier. We are going to have to take part in this paradigmatic shift together." During the campaign, Spencer declared, Trump "loves white people."

Race is central to the alt-right. Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, notes, "The alt-right, in a nutshell, believes that Western culture is inseparable from European ethnicity." That is, being white. Whether its activists prefer white nationalism (saying that different races can't get along so nonwhites should somehow be separated from white America) or white supremacism (saying that whites are inherently superior to others), this is a racist movement. And its activists have also traded in anti-Semitism, often hurling anti-Semitic jabs at journalists who write about the alt-right or Trump. By the way, Bannon's ex-wife did once accuse him of making anti-Semitic remarks. (Bannon denied making the comments.)

There are not many dots to connect in this picture, and the lines between them are clear. Whatever he might believe, Bannon is a self-proclaimed ally of the alt-right. (Shapiro notes that Bannon may not buy all its guff, but "he's happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them." And regarding Bannon, Lisa De Pasquale, a Breitbart contributor, on Monday said on the To the Point radio show that promoting the alt-right at Breitbart was "good for his business model.") And the alt-right promotes white nationalism (if not white supremacism). So journalists who do not report that Trump has selected for a top spot in the White House an enabler of white nationalists—which certainly could qualify Bannon as a white nationalist himself—are doing the public and the truth a disservice. Thanks to Trump, a comrade of racists—many of whom are now cheering his appointment—is slated to help run the US government. This fact should be front and center, as the nation heads toward the Trump era.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/stephen-bannon-fan-french-anti-semite-who-sided-nazis
Stephen Bannon Is a Fan of a French Philosopher...Who Was an Anti-Semite and a Nazi Supporter
Charles Maurras was sentenced to life in prison for complicity with the Nazis.
PEMA LEVY MAR. 16, 2017 1:22 PM

Photograph -- Olivier Douliery/Pool via CNP/MediaPunch/IPX via AP

Stephen Bannon, President Donald Trump's chief strategist, recently spoke approvingly of the ideas of an anti-Semitic French intellectual who was sentenced to life in prison for cooperating with the Nazis during World War II.

In an article on Bannon's interactions with European right-wing nationalists who want to break apart the European Union, Politico reported last week that Bannon has "expressed admiration for the reactionary French philosopher Charles Maurras, according to French media reports confirmed by Politico." Recent articles in French media claim Bannon favorably cited Maurras to a French diplomat. Politico describes Maurras as a Catholic nationalist—like Bannon—and notes that Bannon has parroted several of Maurras' ideas. A hero to members of Europe's far right, Maurras is a natural fit for Bannon, who has expressed support for Brexit and France's National Front movement and is known to hate the European Union.

But Maurras was more than a nationalist. He was an infamous anti-Semite, whose anti-Jewish views were central to his outlook. From 1908 to 1944, Maurras edited the anti-Semitic paper L'Action Francaise, the organ of an eponymous movement that was anti-democratic and pro-monarchy. The movement was born out of the Dreyfus Affair, an international controversy in which an innocent Jewish soldier was convicted in 1894 of passing secrets to the Germans, a crime for which he was later exonerated. The movement's "founding prejudice" was that Dreyfus was in fact guilty and that those who supported him were undermining France, according to Frederick Brown's The Embrace of Unreason: France, 1914-1940. Maurras spent years writing anti-Semitic articles. He referred to the French government, known as the Third Republic, as "the Jew State, the Masonic State, the immigrant State."

In 1936, Maurras served eight months in prison for inciting the attempted assassination of Jewish politician Léon Blum and other French officials. According to Carmen Callil's Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France, Maurras penned numerous articles calling for Blum to be lynched and shot in the back and have his throat slit.

Maurras blamed World War II on the Jews, faulting them for the German occupation of France. "The barbarous occupation of 1940 would not have taken place without the Jews of 1939, without their filthy war, the war they undertook and they declared: our occupiers were introduced by them, it was the Jews who launched us into catastrophe," he wrote, according to 2001 article by Callil in the New Statesman. Callil also noted that Maurras' newspaper supported the Nazis and "named names, hunted down enemies, and called for hostages, resistants, Jews and Gaullists to be shot." In his political column during the war, Maurras wrote that "if the death penalty is not sufficient to put a stop to the Gaullists, members of their families should be seized as hostages and executed."

At the end of the war, Maurras was sentenced to life in prison for complicity with the Nazis. He reportedly called his conviction "Dreyfus' revenge." Due to his failing health, he was released from prison shortly before his death in 1952.

According to Politico, Bannon approvingly cited Maurras' distinction between what the French philosopher called the "real country" of the people and the "legal country" led by government officials. Maurras put Jews in the latter category, according to Brown, and referred to all Jews as foreigners.

Maurras is not the only racist or anti-democratic intellectual Bannon has gravitated toward. According to Politico, he has been in contact with Curtis Yarvin, a blogger who believes democracy is a failed form of government and whose ideas are influential to the white nationalist "alt-right" movement. The Huffington Post recently reported that Bannon is a big fan of a racist French novel, The Camp of the Saints, about immigrants invading Europe. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Bannon is one of Trump's most influential advisers, and political observers see his hand behind some of the administration's most controversial moves, including Trump's ban on immigration from a handful of Muslim-majority countries and the White House's inexplicable decision to not mention Jewish victims in a statement on International Holocaust Memorial Day. Maurras tried to bring down democracy and international institutions; today European leaders fear Bannon is aiming for the same.



http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/chuck-berry-father-rock-n-roll-dies-90-missouri-police-n699311?cid=eml_nbn_20170318
POP CULTURE MAR 18 2017, 8:47 PM ET
Chuck Berry, Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Dies at 90
by KALHAN ROSENBLATT

Revolutionary blues singer Chuck Berry, often referred to as the "poet laureate" and "father" of rock 'n' roll, died Saturday, police in Missouri said. He was 90.

Officers responded to Berry's home outside St. Louis on Saturday afternoon and found him unconscious, the St. Charles County police said on Facebook. First responders were unsuccessful in reviving him and pronounced him dead at 1:26 p.m. local time.

VIDEO -- Play Chuck Berry, Legendary Rock 'N' Roll Pioneer, Dead at 90 Facebook Twitter Embed
Chuck Berry, Legendary Rock 'N' Roll Pioneer, Dead at 90 1:41

One of the first inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Berry wove together beguiling narratives, fusing rhythm and blues with country and western — transfixing the nation.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton called Berry "one of the 20th Century's most influential musicians."

Known for chart-toppers such as "Johnny B Goode," "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," Berry's career rocketed in the 1950s after signing a record deal with Chess Records at the behest of musician Muddy Waters, according to Rolling Stone.

Image: Berry
In this Oct. 17, 1986 file photo, Chuck Berry performs during a concert celebration for his 60th birthday at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Mo. James A. Finley / AP

His first hit, "Maybellene," spent nine weeks in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard R&B chart and also rose to No. 5 on the pop charts. Berry reshaped the 1950s with a unique sound that appealed to both sides of a racially divided country.

"I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political — I don't want that, never did," Berry told the New York Times in 2003.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement Saturday that Berry "created the rock sound."

"Chuck Berry is rock and roll. The undisputed original poet laureate, he influenced every rock and roll artist after him and every guitarist that ever plugged in," hall of fame President and CEO Greg Harris said in a statement.

"Today, we celebrate his poetry, his artistry and his massive contributions to 20th century culture," Harris said. It's fitting that he was the first person inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Rock and roll as we know it would not exist without him. Hail Hail, Rock and Roll. Hail Hail, Chuck Berry."

Many of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll have cited Berry as an inspiration thanks to his earworm tunes.

John Lennon once said: "If you had tried to try and give rock 'n' roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck 'Berry.'"

The Twitter account run by Lennon's estate was among those paying tribute to the legendary musician Saturday. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr also expressed his condolences: "R I P. And peace and love Chuck Berry Mr. rock 'n' roll music."

Leonard Cohen believed, "all of us are footnotes to the words of Chuck Berry," while Bob Dylan dubbed him the "Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll," Peter Guralnick recalled in Rolling Stone in October 2016.

Berry's signature duck walk was adopted by the likes of admiring bands such as The Who and AC/DC.

Despite mesmerizing the country with his infectious hooks and rhythm, he was temporarily pulled from the spotlight in 1959 when he was arrested for violating the Mann Act by driving an underage girl across state lines from Texas to his native Missouri, according to Biography.com. He spent two years in federal prison.

Chuck Berry New Year's Eve Concert
Chuck Berry performs at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill on Dec. 31, 2011 in New York City. Bobby Bank / WireImage

As a teenager, Berry — born Charles Anderson Edward Berry to Martha and Henry Berry in St. Louis — was convicted of an armed robbery and spent 1944 to 1947 in reform school.

After his release, Berry worked an assembly line and studied cosmetology, before finding his place in American history with a guitar in his hands and a captain's hat on his head.

Later in life, Berry would serve another prison stint after running into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, Rolling Stone reported.

But he would always return to the stage, even as he aged, playing shows into his mid-80s.

On his 90th birthday, Berry announced he was releasing his first LP in 38 years, slated to hit stores this year. He dedicated the album to his wife of 68 years, Themetta "Toddy" Berry, whom he is survived by.



DEBTOR’S PRISON – IT'S NOT NEW, BUT NOT IN THE REPORTED NEWS IN RECENT YEARS, EITHER, SO WE HAVE FORGOTTEN IT ACTUALLY EXISTS HERE. IT ISN’T LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL, MIND YOU, BUT IT HASN’T BEEN STAMPED OUT EITHER. IT’S LIKE BLACK MOLD AND RABIES. SOME THINGS NEVER DIE. A “CONSERVATIVE” POLITICIAN IN THE LAST FEW YEARS DID SUGGEST THAT WHEN PEOPLE CAN’T PAY THEIR BILLS THEY SHOULD DO LABOR TO BRING THEM UP TO THE BALANCING POINT RATHER THAN RECEIVE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES.

WHY NOT JUST HAVE A ROBUST FEDERAL/STATE/LOCAL/BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP TO PROVIDE JOBS FOR ALL, BLACK OR NOT, AND SKILLS EDUCATION FOR THOSE WHO NEED THAT, AS A GREAT MANY DO OF ALL SKIN COLORS. TOO MANY AMERICANS CAN’T READ ABOVE THE FIFTH GRADE LEVEL. IN A COMPUTER GEARED ECONOMY, THIS JUST WON’T DO. OF COURSE, THAT’S THE DEMOCRATIC WAY, SO IF IT “WON’T DO,” WE’RE IN FOR SOME WORSE SOCIAL DISSATISFACTION IN THE FUTURE. NOW THAT THE TEA PARTY RULE THE PHILOSOPHICAL MILIEU, I ASSUME THAT WILL COME SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I SAW REFERENCE TO COURTS, USUALLY IN LESS POPULATED AREAS RATHER THAN LARGE CITIES, WHO INCARCERATE PEOPLE (ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY BLACK PEOPLE) FOR THE OLD BROKEN TAILLIGHT PLOY.

THE REASONS FOR HATRED OF POLICE OFFICERS ARE AS COMMON AS GRASS, AND UNTIL RECENTLY, NOT SUCCESSFULLY CHALLENGED BY ANY WIDESPREAD REFORM OF THE LAW IN ALL WAYS, FROM POLICING PROBLEMS TO CROOKED JUDGES. THE LETTER OF THE LAW ITSELF IS ALSO PART OF THE PROBLEM. EQUAL JUSTICE BEFORE THE LAW IS THE QUESTION HERE, AND TO SOME OF US WHO EVEN HAPPEN TO BE WHITE, IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT.

MIGHT MAKES RIGHT ISN’T AND NEVER WILL BE DECENT AND HONEST, AND CERTAINLY NOT “CHRISTIAN.” EVEN IF THOSE ON THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAP DO HAPPEN TO BE BROWN SKINNED OR OTHERWISE “DIFFERENT” CULTURALLY, THEY ARE COVERED UNDER AMERICAN RIGHTS AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HUMAN RIGHTS. RIGHT NOW, THE MOST UNPOPULAR GROUP IS THE ISLAMIC PEOPLE OR ANYONE WHO LOOKS LIKE THEM, FOR INSTANCE SIKHS WHO DO WEAR TURBANS, BUT ARE AN INDIAN RELIGION INSTEAD. I NOTICE, THOUGH, THAT SEVERAL TIMES SINCE I HAVE BEEN DOING THESE NEWS ARTICLES, WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS HAVE STILL INDULGED IN HATE SPEECH AGAINST JEWS AND THE LGBT POPULATION AS WELL. IN THE 1970’S IT WAS “HIPPIES,” AND OTHER ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS. NEXT TIME IT IS LIKELY TO BE ME, FOR THE SIMPLE CRIME OF DISSENTING. “TRUMP-THINK” IS LIKE THAT.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-city-agrees-pay-dozens-jailed-debtors-prison-n734946?cid=eml_nnn_20170317
NEWS MAR 17 2017, 4:39 PM ET
Alabama City Agrees to Pay Dozens Jailed in ‘Debtors Prison’
by JON SCHUPPE

GRAPH -- Lawsuits in 15 states seek to end the practice of incarcerating people who can't afford court fines or bail. Jon Schuppe


A small Alabama town has agreed to dole out $680,000 among nearly 200 poor people it had jailed for failure to pay court fines, settling a case that embodied a national movement to fight what reformers call the criminalization of poverty.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2015 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, alleged that Alexander City ran "a modern-day debtors prison" in which indigent defendants people had to pay off fines by serving time in the municipal jail at a rate of $20 a day.

Almost immediately after the suit was filed, the city of 15,000 changed its policies to allow poor people to pay off fines differently, either in installments or through community work, Alexander City's lawyer, Larkin Radley, said.

Play -- Attorney Describes 'Debtors' Prison' Scheme Targeting Poor Minorities 0:46

That brought the city more in line with a 1983 Supreme Court decision that banned jailing people because they couldn't afford to pay fines ─ a standard that eroded as the country moved to incarcerate more people and as local governments turned to municipal courts to help bolster revenues.

Related: Sentenced to debt: Some tossed in prison over unpaid fines

The rise of fee-based jailings drove stories of lives ruined ─ lost jobs, crippling debt, spiraling poverty. That, in turn, led to legal challenges that claimed courts were violating people's constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

The backlash fueled lawsuits by civil rights groups in more than a dozen states, mostly in the South, targeting court systems small and large. The reformers' legal victories have slowly piled up, backed by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which became focused on the issue during its investigation of Ferguson, Missouri where it found a court system that emphasized revenue over justice.

Image: Amanda Underwood
Amanda Underwood, who sued Alexander City, Alabama after she was jailed twice because she couldn't afford traffic fines. Russel Estes / SPLC
Related: Civil Rights Advocates Applaud Feds' Fight Against 'Debtors' Prisons'

In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center turned its focus on Alexander City.

The lawsuit focused on a two-year span in which about 190 people were jailed for failing to pay fines. The lead plaintiffs were Amanda Underwood, a mother jailed twice for failing to pay traffic fines, and D'Angelo Foster, who said he lost his job while in jail for not being able to pay fines related to guilty pleas for driving under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Lawsuits in 15 states seek to end the practice of incarcerating people who can't afford States where jailing practices are under fire
court fines or bail. Jon Schuppe
Although the city quickly moved to reform its jail system, the two sides took much longer to agree on how much to pay the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. With help from a mediator, the SPLC and city agreed to a settlement, announced this week, that promises each plaintiff $500 per day they spent in jail. Underwood and Foster will be paid $15,000 each, according to court documents.

That, along with $202,000 in lawyers' fees, bring the total payout to $680,000.

Underwood, a mother of five, said in an interview that she planned to use the money to get back her suspended driver's license and to find stable housing. "I just want to get my life back on track with my children," she said.

Related: Reformers Seek to Undo Growth of New 'Debtors' Prisons'

Radley, who represented Alexander City, said the settlement was a better outcome than risking a trial that could have resulted in a much larger award. He also noted that the city's insurer was seeking a judge's ruling on whether it would have to pay for the claims.

SPLC Deputy Legal Director Sam Brooke said he hoped the settlement would be noticed by other courts with systems similar to the one Alexander City used to have ─ and persuade them to change.

"The thing about modern-day debtors prisons is you never know where they're going to be," Brooke said. "They happen in places with local jurisdictions that have little oversight. That's the only way a modern-day debtors prison can flourish. It only happens with people who are otherwise not accountable and no one is paying attention to them."



DEATHS OF 2017

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jimmy-breslin-legendary-author-and-columnist-dead-at-88/
AP March 19, 2017, 1:36 PM
Jimmy Breslin, legendary author and columnist, dead at 88

41 Photographs – Notable deaths in 2017
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/notable-deaths-in-2017/5/