October 8, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-schools-settle-parents-three-teens-who-died-after-hypnosis-n440556

Florida Schools Settle With Parents of Teens Who Died After Hypnosis
by M. ALEX JOHNSON
OCT 8 2015

IMAGE: George Kenney

A Florida school board will pay $200,000 apiece to the families of three students who died after they were hypnotized by former North Port High School Principal George Kenney, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

The 14-page agreement, approved Tuesday night by the Sarasota County School Board, settles a lawsuit filed by the families of Brittany Palumbo, 17, and Wesley McKinley, 16, who committed suicide in 2011, and Marcus Freeman, 16, who died in a car crash the same year.

George Kenney pleaded no contest in 2012 to practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license and served a year's probation. Sarasota County, Florida, Public Schools.

Kenney was placed on administrative leave after he admitted that he'd hypnotized Wesley on the day he killed himself. Brittany was found hanging in her closet about five months after Kenney had hypnotized her. Marcus crashed his car after he was taught self-hypnosis by Kenney, investigators said.

Kenney pleaded no contest to practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license and resigned in June 2012. He served a year's probation, and his current whereabouts aren't known.

"The School Board has concluded that a mutually acceptable settlement is in the best interests of all parties involved," Scott Ferguson, a spokesman for Sarasota County Schools, said in a statement to NBC News.

A 134-page independent investigative report released by the school board in 2011 revealed that Kenney had trained at a hypnosis center in Florida and was a member of multiple national hypnotists' group. He told investigators that he'd used hypnotherapy techniques on more than 35 students at the school, primarily to help them overcome test anxiety and improve their athletic performances.

Related: Hypnotist Florida Principal Faces Questions After Suicides

It eventually emerged that Kenney had hypnotized more than 70 students, faculty and staff over five years, all without a state license, and in the 2011 school board report, he admitted having disregarded at least three warnings to stop the sessions.

"I'm not saying I used great judgment all the time here," he said, according to the report. "I think I used poor judgment several times."

In statements Wednesday to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (PDF), the three students' parents faulted the school board for not having stopped Kenney.

"There's nothing that can bring Marcus back, but the Freemans hope this will give them some closure," said Marcus' mother, Dana Freeman, who called Kenney "a rogue principal."

Michael and Patricia Ann Palumbo, Brittany's parents, said they are "satisfied with the overall outcome, although this is a very hollow victory."

Wesley's parents, Charles McKinley and Margaret Jacobson, had a message specifically for Wesley's friends: that Wesley's death was solely the fault of Kenney and that "they did not let him down in any way."



http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-Self-Hypnosis

How to Perform Self Hypnosis

Three Parts:Preparing for HypnosisEntering HypnosisEnhancing Your Experience
Self-hypnosis is a naturally occurring state of mind which can be defined as a heightened state of focused concentration. With it, you can change your thinking, kick bad habits, and take control of the person you are—along with relaxation and destressing from everyday life. It's similar to meditation and results in a better you.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents-of-north-port-high-school-student-who-died-after-hypnosis-by-principal-speak-out/

Parents of student killed in hypnosis scandal speak out
CBS NEWS
October 8, 2015

Photograph -- brittany-palumbo.png, Brittany Palumbo FAMILY


The families of three Florida high school students who died after their principal hypnotized them have prevailed in a civil wrongful death suit against the school board.

Each family will each receive $200,000 in a legal settlement with the Sarasota County School Board. But the parents of one of the victims say the case is about raising awareness, not money, reports Vladimir Duthier of CBS News' digital network, CBSN.

Patricia and Michael Palumbo say their daughter, Brittany, was driven to succeed, giving up her weekends and time with friends to study. In her senior year at North Port High School, she went to her principal for guidance about college.

"George Kenney told her at the time he believed she had test anxiety and he could help her with that anxiety," said Patricia Palumbo.

A few months later, the teen took her own life.

"What I believe happened is my daughter went into her room that night and she blinked her eyes and she entered a calm and relaxed state that allowed her to go through what she went through," said the grieving mother.

Palumbo was one of three students who died in 2011 after they were hypnotized by Kenney. Sixteen-year-old Marcus Freeman was killed when he drove his car off a highway after he apparently hypnotized himself. Wesley Mckinley, also 16, committed suicide a month later.

An investigation found that despite repeated warnings from school board officials, Kenney hypnotized roughly 70 students and staff members from 2006 to 2011. One basketball player reported he was hypnotized up to 40 times to improve his concentration.

While it's unclear whether the hypnotism and deaths were linked, Kenney was placed on administrative leave in May 2011 and resigned the following year. He pleaded no contest to two counts of practicing hypnosis without a license. He received no jail time and served one year on probation.

The Sarasota County School Board said Tuesday's settlement was "in the best interests of all parties involved."

But the Palumbos told CBS News the school board failed them and this was about more than just money.

"The school board is as negligent as Dr. Kenney is, or Mr. Kenney, I should say," said Patricia Palumbo. "I need those other families to know that I'm trying to help their kids and their families so that they don't end up like my daughter and my family."

George Kenney gave up his teaching license in 2013 and was banned from reapplying. CBS News reached out for comment but received no response.



http://www.hypnotherapistsunion.org/statelaws

Hypnotherapists’ Union Local 472

Summary of State Laws Regarding Hypnosis

The majority of the United States exert little or no direct regulation over the practice of Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy, although other laws generally affecting the operation of any business will usually apply (e.g. truth in advertising, unfair business practices, etc.).

Colorado, Connecticut, and Washington are states that require mandatory licensure or registration.

California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas and Utah do not have mandatory registration, but do lay out specific regulations for the practice of hypnotism and guidelines for licensure exemption.

There are also a number of states with laws defining the practice of psychology or practice of counseling (which may require a license) that refer to terms such as “hypnosis” or “hypnotherapy.” It is unclear what the intent of such references are (for example, if hypnosis is listed as just one of many things that a psychologist may do – but that others may do as well – similar to coaching, research, interviewing, evaluating aptitudes and interests, consulting in legal decision making, vocational counseling, creative arts, and stress management). The states that we believe may fall in this category are marked with an asterisk (*). There may be additional states as well that fall in this category, in part, because laws sometimes change in between website updates and also because some states do not have online copies of their laws that we can research.

The following United States have no hypnosis laws that require mandatory registration or special certification for hypnotists or hypnotherapists. Instead, these states lay out guidelines to lawfully practice hypnosis or hypnotherapy without a license. These laws generally require that a hypnotist not advertise or perform medical services (such as diagnosing or treating medical conditions

Florida
In Florida, therapeutic hypnosis is regulated. It is unlawful for any person to engage in the practice of “Hypnosis” for therapeutic purposes unless such person is a “Practitioner of the Healing Arts” or a “Qualified Person.”

“Hypnosis,” as defined by statute, only applies to hypnosis “used in the treatment of any human ill, disease, injury, or for any other therapeutic purpose.” A “Practitioner of the Healing Arts” means a person licensed to practice medicine, surgery, psychology, etc.

A “Qualified Person” means a person deemed by the referring practitioner to be qualified by both professional training and experience to be competent to employ hypnotic technique for therapeutic purposes, under supervision, direction or prescription.

It is not clear how the law applies to hypnotists who expressly disclaim the practice of therapeutic hypnosis.

Because Florida’s statutes do not include a definition of the term “therapeutic hypnosis”, some cities and counties in Florida have taken different positions regarding the conditions under which hypnotherapists will be issued business licenses or tax receipts. For example, the city of Melbourne, Florida recently denied a hypnotherapist’s request for a tax receipt (formerly known as an occupational license); however, the city reversed its decision the same day and issued the tax receipt after the city received a letter from Matthew Brownstein (our union’s Florida “representative” and the Director of the Florida Institute of Hypnotherapy, in support of the hypnotherapist. Our union continues to monitor developments in Florida and work with Matthew Brownstein and the Florida Institute of Hypnotherapy in an effort to protect our profession from unnecessary restrictions in that state.

Reference: 32 Florida Statutes §485.000 et. seq.



http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy
Written by Anthony Watt | Published on December 10, 2013
Medically Reviewed by George Krucik, MD, MBA on December 10, 2013

How Hypnotherapy Works

A hypnotherapy session usually lasts about an hour. A trained therapist uses various relaxation techniques to guide the patient into a hypnotic state. In this state, the patient is still conscious and aware. But the body becomes more relaxed and the mind more responsive to suggestions from the therapist.

The therapist’s suggestions will depend on the condition or behavior being treated. Hypnotherapy can be used to help target unwanted or unhealthy habits and possibly replace them with healthier behavior. This can include being able to better control pain or anxiety or adjusting negative thought patterns that are causing depression.

Pros of Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis can be applied to improve a variety of conditions, from depression to anxiety and fear. Hypnotherapy is generally considered a safe method of treatment.

Cons of Hypnotherapy

The method does have some risks. The most dangerous is the potential for false memories (called confabulations) to be created in the patient. Some other potential side effects are headache, dizziness, and anxiety. However, these usually fade shortly after the hypnotherapy session.

Patients considering hypnotherapy should consult their physicians or psychiatrists to more accurately define their problems. It is possible that hypnotherapy could worsen conditions. People suffering from delusions, hallucinations, or other psychotic symptoms might not be the best candidates for hypnotherapy.

What the Expert Says

Hypnotherapy appears to work best when used with other forms of treatment, says Steve G. Kopp, a licensed mental health counselor and marriage and family therapist. The method can be used to help erode a patient’s resistance to other more traditional treatments.

“It seems most effective complementing cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal psychotherapy,” Kopp says.

Alone, hypnosis is not as effective as a depression treatment, Kopp says. For patients suffering from moderate depression, the technique has been about 15 percent effective when used on its own.

Kopp also warns that hypnotherapist quality varies widely. Therapists might be trained psychologists or people who got their training on the Internet. He suggests that anyone considering hypnotherapy should make sure the therapist is not only certified to perform hypnosis, but is also a trained mental health professional.



“Kopp also warns that hypnotherapist quality varies widely. Therapists might be trained psychologists or people who got their training on the Internet. He suggests that anyone considering hypnotherapy should make sure the therapist is not only certified to perform hypnosis, but is also a trained mental health professional.”

I have had a number of years of cognitive therapy and I approve of it, but I have never trusted hypnosis for any reason, including therapy. Good mental health counseling is a conscious and logical process. Drugs under psychiatric supervision are usually effective and safe if taken as prescribed and accompanied by talk therapy and/or group therapy, whereas hypnosis is a sort of “short cut” to a psychiatric goal. Psychiatric issues are rarely that shallowly based and simple. “Just don’t do that” doesn’t work if the behavior is deeply rooted. Cognitive therapy is slower, but it involves a thorough guided exploration of the inner thoughts that is TOTALLY under the patient’s control. It is also more effective in producing a reduction of symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Hypnosis and self-hypnosis have become entirely too popular among those who do not “believe” in psychiatric issues, or who are ashamed of having a problem in the first place.

We need to change our attitudes in this country toward contemplative, analytical and other psychiatric treatments. It reminds me of the two kinds of nicotine patches that are available in the neighborhood drugstore. One has a logical and very effective “step down” method in which the smoker starts with the patch that has a high dose of nicotine and graduates downward by dosage over a period of six weeks or more. The other patch is with one dosage only, after which the person is supposed to quit completely – by “will power” and macho thinking. That method is not going to be “easy” and frequently not even effective, since the only thing it is working on is the physical habit of reaching for your cigarettes whenever you feel anxious, bored or lacking in concentration. That is part of the addiction problem, but the drug nicotine is the main issue. No psychiatrist will allow their patient to stop taking a medication without following a dosage reduction plan.

Finally, the practice of hypnosis has been “flying under the radar” as have most psychiatric issues in the laws of states and the nation. Insurance companies are allowed to penalize mental health patients by charging them higher copays or denying payment altogether. Many people just don’t “believe” psychiatric issues are “real,” and as a result the field has been unregulated. I know the “conservative” people hate regulations, but they have solved many problems where the methods of policing and the courts or simple indoctrination, have failed. Throwing a psychiatric person in jail or worse, in an isolation cell, only make the condition worse, and that’s exactly where many of them end up.

This high school principal had no business using something as controversial as hypnosis on students who are having “test anxiety,” or any other behavior issue. If he wanted to “help” the student he should have suggested to the parents that they set the student up in therapy with a licensed and trained professional. I wouldn’t be surprised if a charge of sexual molestation while under hypnosis should come out in the news. This story is just a little strange.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-candidate-donald-trump-licenses-his-name-real-estate-lawsuits-over-failed-developments/

Failed developments in Trump-branded real estate led to lawsuits
CBS NEWS
October 8, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Donald Trump's "hurricane of words"


On the campaign trail, Donald Trump recently talked about his philosophy on settling lawsuits. CBS News took a closer look at a few cases Trump settled in the late 2000s that revealed some things about Trump's business dealings.

According to Forbes, the GOP presidential candidate's wealth is now estimated at $4.5 billion. Trump started making money when he actually owned buildings. But today, he doesn't own nearly 40 percent of the 62 buildings that bear his name.

Trump began licensing deals when he started to see the market going soft in the mid-2000s, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman. Putting his name on projects -- but not owning them -- meant he would not be responsible if the developments failed.

The Trump licensing partnership often works like this: A company wants to develop a property, and Trump either manages the property or just puts his name on it and gets a fee.

Investors say the Trump name was a great selling point, and they thought if it was good enough for Trump, it must be a safe bet.

"It was just going to be a nice place to go in retirement," William Flint said.

Flint is a retired financial planner who wanted to buy a vacation home for his family. In 2007, after seeing a new development planned for a location in Baja, Mexico, he put down a deposit so he could have a beachfront getaway just one hour from San Diego. Trump plugged the property in a promotional video as if he were the builder.

"I'm very, very proud of the fact that when I build, I have investors that follow me all over. They invest in me, they invest in what I build, and that's why I'm so excited about Trump Ocean Resort," Trump said in the video.

But in fact, he was never the developer. He sold his name for a half million dollars.

At a VIP party, condo buyers shared their faith in the project

"The Trump name was a big thing for us. We figured we can't go wrong with that," homeowner John Trujillo said in the promotional video.

But Flint grew concerned when he didn't see progress.

"Checked it another time -- still nothing is going on," he said.

Then came the final notice.

"We got a letter I believe from Trump Baja telling us that the deal wasn't going to go through. That they spent all the money," Flint said.

Financiers had pulled out, and the project is still a hole in the ground.

"I lost $168,000," Flint said.

Flint, along with almost 200 other condo buyers, sued to get their money back.

"How could you lose partnering up with Donald Trump? Donald Trump was an expert in these types of projects, or so we thought," Flint said.

Two of Trump's children bought units in the top floors.

In a deposition for a lawsuit regarding the property, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., conceded that his father's name could lead people to think a project was a solid investment.

"Is one of the things that you learned through this process is the Trump name brings stability and/or viability to the project?" Trump Jr. was asked.

"I don't know if it brings stability or viability, but I imagine certain people feel that," he responded.

"We thought he was running the show. He had skin in the game," Flint said.

But legally, Trump only had his name in the game. His attorney, Alan Garten, said the fact that Trump was not the developer was clearly spelled out in the contract Flint signed.

"So I understand that people may have been drawn to these projects because of the Trump name, but they're buying luxury, high-end real estate, and it's incumbent upon anyone to be accountable and responsible, to read the documents, like you would in any significant commercial transaction," Garten said.

In the end, Trump settled the Baja case. Around the same time, there was a 52-floor Trump building in Tampa that was never built. And Trump put his name on a 298-unit development in Fort Lauderdale that he was supposed to manage, but it was taken over by another company. Each project left disgruntled condo buyers who sued Trump, saying they wanted their money back.

"Some of these projects failed because of the worst economic real estate crash since the Great Depression," Garten said.

"Some people would say that licensing during an economic downturn actually protected Trump but left investors out in the cold. What do you say to that?" Goldman asked Garten.

"I believe I thought it was brilliant on his part to see the bubble coming and decide to focus more on licensing than development," Garten said. "I think what he saw was real estate prices at all-time highs and he just didn't see the value there. I don't think it left buyers out in the cold; I think buyers each need to make their own decision."

Flint said although he received a settlement payment, he still lost six figures.

"The settlement was for nowhere near the amount of money that we had invested in the project," Flint said.

Trump won one lawsuit in Fort Lauderdale, where the jury believed he was not responsible, and settled two others, admitting no wrongdoing. His attorney said any money from the Baja deal was eaten up in legal fees.




“According to Forbes, the GOP presidential candidate's wealth is now estimated at $4.5 billion. Trump started making money when he actually owned buildings. But today, he doesn't own nearly 40 percent of the 62 buildings that bear his name. Trump began licensing deals when he started to see the market going soft in the mid-2000s, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman. Putting his name on projects -- but not owning them -- meant he would not be responsible if the developments failed. The Trump licensing partnership often works like this: A company wants to develop a property, and Trump either manages the property or just puts his name on it and gets a fee. …. and they thought if it was good enough for Trump, it must be a safe bet. …. "I'm very, very proud of the fact that when I build, I have investors that follow me all over. They invest in me, they invest in what I build, and that's why I'm so excited about Trump Ocean Resort," Trump said in the video. …. But Flint grew concerned when he didn't see progress. "Checked it another time -- still nothing is going on," he said. Then came the final notice. "We got a letter I believe from Trump Baja telling us that the deal wasn't going to go through. That they spent all the money," Flint said. …. Flint, along with almost 200 other condo buyers, sued to get their money back. "How could you lose partnering up with Donald Trump? Donald Trump was an expert in these types of projects, or so we thought," Flint said. Two of Trump's children bought units in the top floors. In a deposition for a lawsuit regarding the property, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., conceded that his father's name could lead people to think a project was a solid investment. …. His attorney, Alan Garten, said the fact that Trump was not the developer was clearly spelled out in the contract Flint signed. …. "Some people would say that licensing during an economic downturn actually protected Trump but left investors out in the cold. What do you say to that?" Goldman asked Garten. "I believe I thought it was brilliant on his part to see the bubble coming and decide to focus more on licensing than development," Garten said. "I think what he saw was real estate prices at all-time highs and he just didn't see the value there. Trump won one lawsuit in Fort Lauderdale, where the jury believed he was not responsible, and settled two others, admitting no wrongdoing. His attorney said any money from the Baja deal was eaten up in legal fees. …. Trump won one lawsuit in Fort Lauderdale, where the jury believed he was not responsible, and settled two others, admitting no wrongdoing. His attorney said any money from the Baja deal was eaten up in legal fees.”

It is unethical if he knew the buildings were faulty, but it’s legal. The lawyer Garten said, "I think what he saw was real estate prices at all-time highs and he just didn't see the value there. I don't think it left buyers out in the cold; I think buyers each need to make their own decision." This is very true, not to defend Trump’s methods or intentions, but when investors buy a property they should look at the cost and their own ability to absorb a heavy loss, and as the lawyer says, be very aware of whether or not “the value is there.” For the last decade or so real estate prices have become outrageously high. A McMansion will understandably cost $200,000, but an ordinary ranch style house with just three bedrooms and no swimming pool should not. Real Estate people say it’s “Location, location, location.” So you’re paying for your neighbor’s social status and their social class or skin color. Trump sees a building as having a ceiling on its intrinsic value and therefore on its selling price, and so would I. Brick or stone is better than wood. If there’s something left after twenty years to successfully renovate, it will probably sell at a good price. Location can turn around over time into being a noticeably less desirable place in a decade or less, but a well-built house is going to last twenty years with a reasonable number of timely made repairs. Somebody is likely to mind less about the fact that the neighborhood is not so select anymore if the house is sturdy and roomy.

Unfortunately, there will eventually be an end to the value of it. Most roofs will have to be repaired sooner or later, and uncontrolled termites will destroy the structure silently. ("If you build it, they will come", you know). Real estate is an iffy and very costly investment, especially for people who know little about structural flaws, contracts and other such issues.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kids-say-they-slaved-on-utah-pecan-ranch-for-latter-day-saints-bishop/

Kids claim they slaved on ranch for polygamous sect
AP October 1, 2015

Play VIDEO -- The debate on child farm labor
Play VIDEO -- Filling in the blanks of historic child labor photos
40 PHOTOS -- Child labor photos from 1911


SALT LAKE CITY -- Children say they harvested pecans for years for a bishop in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Federal labor authorities suspect Paragon Contractors, located on FLDS land, used children and unpaid labor to pick pecans on the Southern Utah Pecan Ranch, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

New filings in the Labor Department's case include statements from people, some still minors, who said they worked the ranch. An affidavit from 21-year-old Alyssa Bistline says she was 13 years old when she started working.

"For five years, I was part of the main crew," Bistline's affidavit says, "and along with other girls would work every day in the sorting shed, where we would sort, hull and bag and nuts. I also sometimes helped the crews on the ground, pruning and picking up nuts.

"When working in the sorting shed, we began work at 7 or 8 a.m. and worked until around 10 p.m. During the 2012 summer, there were five to 10 other girls working with me between the ages of 12 and 20."

Paragon Contractors, owned by Brian Jessop, held the harvest contract. Bistline says Jessop works closely with FLDS bishop Lyle Jeffs, the brother of imprisoned FLDS President Warren Jeffs.

Bistline said Lyle Jeffs handed out ranch assignments.

A 14-year-old girl says in an affidavit that she started working at the ranch at age 10, and continued for two years. She said even girls with allergies had to work.

"And they were told to keep picking nuts until it gets bad enough that you can't work anymore and then maybe you can help with bagging nuts."

An affidavit from a 9-year-old boy says he was a ranch worker when he was 6 years old. Another from an 11-year-old girl says she was 7 and 8 years old when she worked the ranch.

"In November and December, it was really cold and sometimes there were lots of people clogging up the restrooms just trying to get warm," she says in her affidavit. "It kept a line going for hours. A lot of people were getting sick because the ground was always damp and people were crawling over the ground, picking up nuts."




"When working in the sorting shed, we began work at 7 or 8 a.m. and worked until around 10 p.m. During the 2012 summer, there were five to 10 other girls working with me between the ages of 12 and 20." Paragon Contractors, owned by Brian Jessop, held the harvest contract. Bistline says Jessop works closely with FLDS bishop Lyle Jeffs, the brother of imprisoned FLDS President Warren Jeffs. …. An affidavit from a 9-year-old boy says he was a ranch worker when he was 6 years old. Another from an 11-year-old girl says she was 7 and 8 years old when she worked the ranch. …. "In November and December, it was really cold and sometimes there were lots of people clogging up the restrooms just trying to get warm," she says in her affidavit.”

I will pass up the chance to say something hateful about the primitive FLDS religion, or rather cult. Religions shouldn’t get too much power any more than politicians or businessmen should. The lack of caring for human beings here is shocking and definitely not Christian; but there is one business that is as bad in some places as these huge farms, namely the hosiery and textile mills that existed in Thomasville, NC in the 1950s and ‘60s. There was one case reported in the news for refusing the workers, who were mainly women, the permission to go use the bathroom. It was said that they would sometimes wet their pants from waiting too long. One problem with such jobs is that the workers need the money so badly that they will put up with outrageous things just to keep getting a paycheck.

Child labor is another subject though, and a worse one. I thought it had been outlawed long ago, but apparently farm labor is exempted. We need a new set of laws to cover all the cases. See the videos mentioned above for more about that, and the following Wikipedia article on child labor in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States.

“Federal law

The main law regulating child labor in the United States is the Fair Labor Standards Act. In general, for non-agricultural jobs, children under 14 may not be employed, children between 14 and 16 may be employed in allowed occupations during limited hours, and children between 16 and 18 can be employed for unlimited hours in non-hazardous occupations.[1] A number of exceptions to these rules exist, such as for employment by parents, newspaper delivery, and child actors.[1] The regulations for agricultural employment are generally less strict, allowing children to work an unlimited number of hours on a farm and allowing them to do so during school hours if a parent or guardian works that same farm.[2]

State laws[edit]

States have varying laws covering youth employment. Each state has minimum requirements such as earliest age a child may begin working, number of hours permitted during the day, and how many hours are allowed to be worked during the week. The United States Department of Labor lists the minimum requirements for for agricultural work in each state.[3] Where state law differs from federal law on child labor, the law with the more rigorous standard applies.[1]”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-2016-gop-dr-ben-carson-gun-control/

Ben Carson defends comments about Oregon shooting
CBS NEWS
October 7, 2015

31 Play VIDEO -- Ben Carson on Oregon shooting: I would not just stand there
PHOTOS -- Umpqua Community College shooting
Play VIDEO -- Oregon student's quick thinking helps save classmate
Related article -- Poll: Ben Carson closes gap with Donald Trump


Ben Carson refused to back away from his controversial remarks on mass shootings that lit up the gun control debate this week. The GOP presidential candidate argued that everyone should attack a massive shooter and he would sacrifice his life if he were face-to-face with a gunman. He said he'd rather see a body with bullet holes over gun control.

"I want to plant in people's minds what to do in a situation like this because unfortunately this is probably not going to be the last time this happens," he said in an interview on "CBS This Morning."

Less than a week after the mass shooting on the Umpqua Community College campus in Oregon, presidential candidates have been addressing gun control and mental health issues. But Carson's latest comments defending the right to bear arms may be the most controversial, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman.

"I would ask everybody to attack the gunman because he can only shoot one of us at a time. That way, we don't all wind up dead," he told ABC News while chuckling on Tuesday.

"The accusation there, Dr. Carson, is that you appeared tone deaf and that you seemed callous in the laughter about a massacre and what you would have done," Fox News' Megyn Kelly said.

"I'm laughing at them and their silliness," Carson responded.

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"The people asking that question. Of course, you know, if everybody attacks that gunman, he's not going to be able to kill everybody. But if you sit there and let him shoot you one by one, you're all going to be dead," Carson said.

When asked if he was judging the victims, Carson said he was looking at "the big picture."

Ben Carson says he wouldn't want a Muslim president: "Not judging them at all. But, you know, these incidents continue to occur. I doubt that this will be the last one. I want to plant the seed in people's minds so that if this happens again, you know, they don't all get killed," he said.

On "CBS This Morning," Carson said that the case of Chris Mintz, the army veteran who was shot seven times while charging the shooter and ultimately saved lives, "verifies what I'm saying," although he did not know Mintz was when first asked about him.

"That's exactly what should be done and if everybody does that, the likelihood of him being able to kill as many people diminishes quite significantly," Carson said.

He deflected another question about the impossibility of knowing how he'd behave in that situation.

"We live in a culture now where people decide that everything you say - 'we need to set up battle lines,' and 'we need to get on this side of it or that side of it,' rather than of collectively trying to figure out how we solve the problem," he said. "It's sort of an immature attitude but it seems to be something that's rampant in America today."

As for seeking solutions to the problem of mass shootings in America, Carson advocated for studying the lives of each person who has carried out a mass shooting to see if there are patterns or early warning signs that would identify people who might be dangerous in the future.

"I think we have to for instance empower the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and number these cases," he said. "These people have already been working with mental health professionals, but nothing was done about it and we have to be able to move to the next step, not just recognizing that they're mentally ill but being able to take the appropriate interventional steps."

He said that the U.S. should "absolutely" look for a "mechanism" to keep weapons away from people that had been declared dangerous by a mental health professional, but added, "We need to study all the possibilities, and we cannot do anything that compromises the Second Amendment."

He also appeared on ABC's "The View" where he reiterated that kindergarten teachers should be armed with guns in their classrooms.

"Not all kindergarten teachers. I said people who are trained and understand all the implications and you're obviously not going to have a weapon sitting on the teacher's desk," Carson said.

The weapon would be secured in a place where kids can't get to it," he added.

"If the gunman comes in with an AK-45, or AR-15, how fast can that teacher go to the locked drawer and get that gun?" co-host Joy Behar asked.

"I want that teacher trained in diversionary tactics and whatever needs to be done in order to get there and I want there to be other people in that school who also know how to get to that gun," Carson said.

Carson stated that even his experience as a doctor removing bullets from victims of gun violence has reinforced his belief in the Second Amendment.

In a Facebook question and answer session he wrote: "There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking - but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away."

Other Republican candidates responded to the latest mass shooting with staunch opposition to stricter gun laws.

"Stuff happens. There's always a crisis," Jeb Bush said.

In Iowa, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton mocked Jeb Bush's remark.

"This isn't stuff that happens. We let it happen, and we have to act," Clinton said.

President Obama is going to Oregon to meet with the families of victims Friday. Some protests are expected, and Carson was asked if he would do the same as president. He responded probably not and suggested it would be politicizing the tragedy.

On "CBS This Morning," he said that if he were to go, his visit would attract less negative attention than Mr. Obama's "because I wouldn't be picking and choosing which groups I sympathize with."

Carson stated that even his experience as a doctor removing bullets from victims of gun violence has reinforced his belief in the Second Amendment.

Though he once supported a ban on military-style assault weapons, Carson's views have changed over the years, and he addressed his change of heart in his new book, "A More Perfect Union." On "CBS This Morning," he said the drafters of the Constitution "recognized that things would change, that we would become a more modern society," he said. "But we have to recognize that it was the principles that were important."

Carson said that the amendment was written to allow people to assist the military in case of an invasion and to protect themselves from an overly aggressive government. Arguing that people cannot have weapons that have become more advanced "violates that principle."



"The accusation there, Dr. Carson, is that you appeared tone deaf and that you seemed callous in the laughter about a massacre and what you would have done," Fox News' Megyn Kelly said. "I'm laughing at them and their silliness," Carson responded. "Who?" Kelly asked. "The people asking that question. Of course, you know, if everybody attacks that gunman, he's not going to be able to kill everybody. But if you sit there and let him shoot you one by one, you're all going to be dead," Carson said. …. As for seeking solutions to the problem of mass shootings in America, Carson advocated for studying the lives of each person who has carried out a mass shooting to see if there are patterns or early warning signs that would identify people who might be dangerous in the future. "I think we have to for instance empower the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and number these cases," he said. "These people have already been working with mental health professionals, but nothing was done about it and we have to be able to move to the next step, not just recognizing that they're mentally ill but being able to take the appropriate interventional steps." …. He said that the U.S. should "absolutely" look for a "mechanism" to keep weapons away from people that had been declared dangerous by a mental health professional, but added, "We need to study all the possibilities, and we cannot do anything that compromises the Second Amendment."

Like police brutality cases, the vast number of mentally disturbed individuals has not been counted and tabulated for later use so that they can then be DENIED the privilege of buying a gun or gun license. Many of such people "fall through the cracks," and get a gun with no problem; and the big loophole of course is the gun show situation. It is my understanding that people can buy guns at a gun show without showing ID.

We need a computer dedicated to just that issue, and I think it should be in the Department of Health or perhaps the FBI. The most reliable center of help on such issues is the FBI. They also may have more swat than the Department of Health or NIH. One article suggested that the CDC should keep the information, and they do I believe have the power of enforcement. Of course, the more Republicans and their ilk weaken the powers of federal government departments in order to "slim down" the government, the more they will be unable to handle the load of psychotics and felons trying to get guns.

Mandatory reporting to that central department should be made law, as some states have been lax about reporting issues surrounding police killings, and they probably can't, I think, be trusted with mental health problems either. Also there are the ocasional ethnic or religious killings -- the Fort Hood massacre and the one recently in the South Carolina church for instance, and of course abortion clinic workers. All in all, though, they are usually psychotic, fanatic or otherwise obsessed individuals rather than being a hit man or just a very disgruntled militiaman. So far, most of them in this country are not jihadists, but that may change as more refugees leave the Middle East and head for Europe and the US. I think a good list of names and a strong law prohibiting their buying a gun would really help. Yes, some will still "fall through the cracks," as Trump mentioned recently, but there would be an improvement.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cair-issues-warning-over-planned-armed-anti-islam-rallies/

U.S. group issues warning over planned armed anti-Islam rallies
CBS NEWS
October 4, 2015

Photograph -- Jon Ritzheimer, who gave this photo of himself wearing a "F--- Islam" T-shirt to CBS affiliate KPHO in May of 2015. KPHO
Play VIDEO -- Who are the Oath Keepers?

A series of anti-Muslim rallies being planned for October 10 across the country at mosques and other Islamic sites is raising the alarm among Muslim advocacy groups.

The Council for Islamic-American Relations [sic] (CAIR,) the nation's leading Muslim civil rights group, issued a warning to mosques nationwide Sunday to take additional safety measures ahead of the event.

In an interview with CBS News, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said his organization monitors hate groups regularly, and that the talk surrounding the planned day of rallies on October 10th was unusually concerning.

"At first we didn't want to take it public but at some level you have to warn the community about these potentially violent hate rallies," Hooper said.

CAIR cited a Facebook page titled "Global Rally for Humanity," as being the focal point for planning what is right now estimated to be 20 separate rallies nationwide. The group is calling on protesters to be armed where permitted.


The slogan for the group and their series of rallies is ""The World is Saying No To Islam," and a flyer widely circulated by the group mentions the "3%ers and Oathkeepers."

The Oathkeepers recently made headlines by showing up in Ferguson, Mo., during protests on the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, ostensibly to protect people working for a conspiracy theorist's website.

Hooper said some of the 20 planned rallies may not materialize, but that Muslims should remain vigilante regardless and work with law enforcement to prevent any violence.

At least one rally is reportedly being planned in Phoenix by a former Marine named Jon Ritzheimer, who previously organized an anti-Islam rally there in May of this year. CBS affiliate KPHO reports that the protesters had originally planned to meet at a nearby Denny's, but that the owner said he planned close the restaurant for a few hours around the rally. An area school also cancelled classes. The event went off without incident though.

NOTE – The name of this organization is not as stated above, but Council on American-Islamic Relations. See http://www.cair.com/



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

Oath Keepers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oath Keepers is an American organization associated with the patriot movement. It encourages members—some of whom are said to be current and former U.S. military and law enforcement officers— not to obey orders which they believe would violate the United States Constitution. The group is best known for its controversial presence in Ferguson, Missouri during protests and unrest in the city, and during which its members were armed with semi-automatic rifles[1][2] and asserted to be a far-right militia group.[3][4][5][6]

The organization describes itself as a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”[7] Oath Keepers was founded in March 2009 by Stewart Rhodes.[8][9] Rhodes is a Yale Law School graduate, a former US Army paratrooper, and a former staffer of Republican Congressman Ron Paul.[10]

Rhodes is reported to have taken inspiration from the idea that Hitler could have been stopped if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders.[11] In this same context, Stewart has compared Hillary Clinton to Hitler, writing in S.W.A.T. Magazine in 2008, '“It” (a full-blown totalitarian police state) cannot happen here if the majority of police and soldiers obey their oaths to defend the Constitution and refuse to enforce the unconstitutional edicts of the "Leader." Imagine that Herr Hitlery is sworn in as president in 2009. After a conveniently timed “domestic terrorism” incident (just a coincidence, of course) or yet another Prozac induced mass shooting, she promptly crams a United Nations mandated, Great Britain style, total ban on the private possession of firearms through a compliant, Democratically controlled Congress.'[12]

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an interview that the group has no history of political violence, but that, "The core ideas of these groups relate to the fear that elites in this country and around the world are slowly and steadily and nefariously moving us towards a one-world government, the so-called New World Order."[16]

In August 2015, John Karriman, a teacher at Missouri Southern State University's Police Academy and head of the Missouri chapter of the Oath Keepers used term “mulatto” to describe U.S. President Obama on CBC Radio’s As It Happens program.[17]

In the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) 2009 report The Second Wave: Return of the Militias, Larry Keller wrote that the Oath Keepers "may be a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."[34] Keller described Richard Mack, an Oath Keeper, as a "longtime militia hero"[34][35] and quoted him as having said, "The greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our federal government. ... One of the best and easiest solutions is to depend on local officials, especially the sheriff, to stand against federal intervention and federal criminality."[34] Mack, a former sheriff, responded by denying the claims, saying, "I have had no contact with any militia group and have never been a member of any militia."[36][37]

In 2009 the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote in a report that, "The 'orders' the Oath Keepers refuse [to obey] reveal their extreme conspiratorial mindset, because the 'orders' are not instructions ever likely to be actually handed down by Obama or his officials; instead, they are reflective of the anti-government conspiracy theories embraced by the extreme right."[38]

Quoting the Las Vegas Review-Journal, MSNBC political commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said, "Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Buchanan himself concluded that "America was once their country. They sense they are losing it."[39][40]
….



http://www.threepercenter.org/index.php

Welcome to threepercenter.org, an independent community for Three Percenters to discuss current and future events, network and spread the idea of the "Three Percent".

About Three Percenter

ThreePercenter.ORG is a Three Percenter community website promoting the ideals of liberty, freedom and a constitutional government restrained by law.

This site is run by freedom-loving Americans, however we can enjoy the company of those from other nations who share our cause.

What is a Three Percenter?

The Three Percent concept and idea was created by Mike Vanderboegh.

Roughly three percent of the population fought for liberty at any given time during the American war for Independence. With a colonial population of 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 only about 250,000 men served during the war with never more than 90,000 men serving at any given time.

Historians have estimated that approximately 40-45% of the colonists supported the rebellion while 15-20% of the population of the thirteen colonies remained loyal to the British Crown. The remaining 35-45% attempted to remain neutral.

A note: Threepercenter.org does not directly represent Three Percenters everywhere, we do however share in the Three Percenter spirit and ideology (and identify ourselves as Three Percenters). We cherish and work to defend our 2nd Amendment rights along with all our rights and liberties.



"Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Buchanan himself concluded that "America was once their country. They sense they are losing it."[39][40]”
Even Pat Buchanan is at least somewhat wary of the conservative fringe. A long time “conservative,” Buchanan has always shown at least in his comments a good deal of common sense and has never to my knowledge advocated violence by the Right.

3%ers and Oath Keepers are both in the far, far right range of opinion. I always tend to think of these people as being ignorant in all ways, but many are not. There are people who are involved in Survivalism and are preparing for one of two things – the Apocalypse and the takeover of the US government by the radical left. They are fearful. A highly religious Christian woman I know and her husband were doing some survivalist things. I didn’t know it until she told me that her husband was concerned about the breakdown of the American government and our society and was preparing for a reign of lawlessness.

That brand of paranoia is not new in the US. It’s just back again, like the poltergeists of the great old horror movie “Poltergeist.” I think the liberalizing of American society frightens and enrages such people. They want to make the culture and government of the US into a place where the laws are ruled by the Bible. Some of them think that when bad things happen it is a sign that God is angry at our culture and is punishing us.

Kim Davis and her attempts to stand up for what she sees as individual rights is typical. Individual rights means HER RIGHTS at all times. To me, laws are made not merely to set up a decent society, but also to protect those who would be downtrodden mentally or physically if they, in turn, were to stand up for what THEY believe in.

I want to see a great reduction of all the combative feelings that are showing up among us. America the Free doesn’t mean the freedom to abuse others over your particularly fondly held opinion. The only way to prevent societal lawlessness is to stop being lawless.





http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/10/08/446864301/bill-would-add-nurses-physician-assistants-to-pharma-disclosure-database

Bill Would Add Nurses, Physician Assistants To Pharma Disclosure Database
CHARLES ORNSTEIN
OCTOBER 08, 2015

Photograph -- Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and a Democratic colleague have introduced a bill that would require drugmakers and medical device companies to disclose payments made to physician assistants and nurses who can prescribe their products. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images


A bill proposed Wednesday by two U.S. senators would require drugmakers and medical device manufacturers to publicly disclose their payments to nurse practitioners and physician assistants for promotional talks, consulting, meals and other interactions.

The legislation would close a loophole in the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which requires companies to report such payments to doctors, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists and podiatrists. Companies have so far released more than 15 million payment records, covering August 2013 to December 2014.

As ProPublica and NPR reported in July, the 2010 law doesn't include nurses with advanced degrees or physician assistants, even though they, too, can prescribe medications. Some have gotten in trouble for accepting kickbacks.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., would expand the disclosure requirement beginning in 2017 to include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified registered nurse anesthetists and certified nurse midwives.

"We think that the void should be filled in order to have a complete record," Grassley said in an interview. "Transparency isn't an end to itself. Transparency is meant to bring accountability."

Because the data aren't publicly reported, it's unknown how much money these professionals receive from makers of drugs and medical devices, or whether that figure has increased since disclosure of payments to doctors was required. But in recent years, a few non-doctors have been criminally charged with taking kickbacks from industry.

A nurse practitioner in Connecticut pleaded guilty in June to taking $83,000 from Insys Therapeutics in exchange for prescribing its high-priced medication Subsys to treat cancer pain. In some cases, she delivered promotional talks attended only by herself and a company sales representative.

And in 2012, a physician assistant in Rhode Island was sentenced to six months in prison and six months of home confinement after pleading guilty to taking kickbacks from a medical device company. The company paid him $50 to $300 for each bone growth stimulator ordered by the surgeon he worked for — all told, some $120,000 between 2004 and 2011. The company, Orthofix, and several of its officials also pleaded guilty to charges including fraud, obstruction, kickbacks or perjury.

Blumenthal, the new bill's co-sponsor, said the Connecticut case was "a clear, loud alarm bell."

"Doctors need to be held accountable, but so do all the other providers," he said. "Requiring these companies to disclose gifts and payments made to other health care providers, not just doctors, is absolutely necessary in today's world."

Allan Coukell, senior director for health programs at the Pew Charitable Trusts, said that when the initial Sunshine Act was drafted, nurse practitioners weren't part of the discussion.

"It's an important step," Coukell said of the new legislation, called the Provider Payment Sunshine Act. "Nurse practitioners and physician assistants write a lot of prescriptions, and this creates a level playing field with the same kind of transparency as the original Sunshine Act created for physician payments."

A ProPublica analysis of prescribing patterns in Medicare's prescription drug program, known as Part D, found that nurse practitioners and physician assistants wrote about 10 percent of the nearly 1.4 billion prescriptions in the program in 2013. They wrote 15 percent of all prescriptions nationwide (not only Medicare) in the first five months of this year, according to IMS Health, a health information company.

For some drugs, including narcotic controlled substances, nurse practitioners and physician assistants were among the top prescribers.

Supporters of the new bill declined to handicap its chances of passage.

Separately, a bill called the 21st Century Cures Act, which passed the House of Representatives in July, includes provisions that would water down disclosure requirements in the Sunshine Act. Intended to speed the development of new treatments, the Cures Act would exempt companies from having to disclose the value of medical journal reprints and textbooks they give to physicians (they currently have to disclose them), as well as payments for continuing medical education and speaking engagements that do not promote a particular product.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which aggregates the industry disclosures and releases them once a year, said it does not comment on pending legislation. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners, a trade group, said it doesn't yet have an opinion on the issue.

Look up your doctor in our Dollars for Docs interactive database to see if he or she has received payments from drug or device companies in 2013–2014. Also read our story about doctors who had the most interactions with the industry.




http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/08/446898337/hero-in-french-train-attack-spencer-stone-stabbed-in-california

Hero In French Train Attack, Spencer Stone, Stabbed In California
Laura Wagner
October 8, 2015

Photograph -- French President Francois Hollande shakes hands with U.S. Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone on Aug. 24 after Stone and two friends were awarded the French Legion of Honor for subduing a gunman on a Paris-bound train.
Kamil Zihnioglu/AP


Spencer Stone, one of three Americans who thwarted a terror attack on a Paris-bound train this summer, was stabbed early this morning in Sacramento, Calif., according to an Air Force spokesperson.

Lt. Col. Christopher Karns said that he had no details on the circumstances surrounding the stabbing, according to The Associated Press, and that the incident was being handled by local law enforcement officials.

NPR's Richard Gonzales says Stone, 23, is reported to be in stable condition.

According to a statement from the Sacramento Police Department, the victim was stabbed multiple times in the upper body. Police did not identify Airman 1st Class Stone by name in the statement, saying that they "respect the identity of all crime victims."

Here's more from the police statement:

"On Thursday, October 8, 2015, at 12:46 a.m., the Sacramento Police Department received a call from a passerby that a subject had been stabbed in the area of 21st Street and K Street.

"The victim, a man in his 20s, was located on scene and transported to an area hospital by fire personnel.

"It is believed that the victim was out with a group of friends when a physical altercation led to the victim being stabbed multiple times in his upper body. Detectives were called to the scene to assist with the investigation and the victim is currently being treated for what appears to be non-life threatening injuries."

Sacramento police later tweeted that the stabbing appears to be alcohol-related.

Stone, 23, sustained serious injuries when he subdued the heavily armed man on the French passenger train. He slashed by a box cutter and required extensive surgery on his thumb. He also suffered an injuries to his right eye and arm.

As we reported, Stone and the other two Americans — Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler — were honored last month by President Obama in the Oval Office.




"Lt. Col. Christopher Karns said that he had no details on the circumstances surrounding the stabbing, according to The Associated Press, and that the incident was being handled by local law enforcement officials. NPR's Richard Gonzales says Stone, 23, is reported to be in stable condition. …. It is believed that the victim was out with a group of friends when a physical altercation led to the victim being stabbed multiple times in his upper body. Detectives were called to the scene to assist with the investigation and the victim is currently being treated for what appears to be non-life threatening injuries." Sacramento police later tweeted that the stabbing appears to be alcohol-related.”


It looks as though this man likes to fight and drink as well. He may go from hero to jailbird if he isn’t careful. Still, I’m glad his instincts kicked in on the train. He and his two compatriots saved the lives of the other travelers that day.




NASA ACTION ON THE MARS PROJECT


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-will-nasa-make-the-martian-a-reality/

How NASA will make "The
SPACE.COM
October 2, 2015

This photo shows Matt Damon as Mark Watney a scene from the film, "The Martian," directed by Ridley Scott. AP
Play VIDEO -- Director Ridley Scott on "The Martian" and water on Mars


NASA wants the world to know that putting boots on Mars is not just a sci-fi dream.

The space agency has been helping promote the new film "The Martian," which hit theaters across the United States Thursday, as a way to publicize its own plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s.

Setting up a crewed outpost on Mars is NASA's chief long-term goal in the realm of human spaceflight. Indeed, the space agency's operational robotic Mars craft -- the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) -- can be seen as scouts for the human pioneers to come, NASA officials say. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas]

"The evolution of a Martian starts with our science -- starts with our ground-truth that we get from our rovers -- and it builds up to human exploration," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science division, said at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during an event focusing on "The Martian" and the space agency's Red Planet plans.

Making it happen

NASA is working on a number of different fronts to make a crewed Mars mission happen, Green said.

For example, the agency and its partners are currently conducting an unprecedented yearlong mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). (Crewmembers generally stay aboard the orbiting lab for 5 to 6 months.)

Researchers are monitoring how NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko respond physiologically and psychologically to their extended time off Earth, in an effort to help prepare future pioneers for the long journey to Mars and back.

Furthermore, astronauts recently grew lettuce aboard the ISS -- and ate it as well -- as part of an experiment called "Veggie." The long-term goal of such projects is to make voyaging astronauts less dependent on Earth.

NASA is also developing a crew capsule called Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket to help get astronauts to, and from, distant destinations such as Mars. Orion aced its first uncrewed test flight last December, and the SLS is scheduled to make its maiden voyage in 2018.

Technological development is ongoing in other key areas as well. For instance, researchers are working to improve solar-electric propulsion systems, which use energy from the sun to strip electrons off gas molecules, then send these ions streaming out the back of a spacecraft to generate thrust.

"These are going to be huge ion engines that will allow us to haul tens of tons of material back and forth to Mars," Green said.

Much of this heavy gear -- which will consist of human habitat modules and other infrastructure -- must make it down to the Martian surface. That's a tall order, since the 1-ton Curiosity rover maxed out NASA's "sky crane" landing system. [How to Land on Mars: Martian Tech Explained (Infographic)]

So NASA is developing new tech, such as inflatable "decelerators" and an enormous supersonic parachute, to get 10-ton payloads down safely and softly on the Red Planet. NASA has tested a prototype of this system twice during balloon-aided flights off Hawaii; the decelerator worked perfectly, but the parachute tore both times.

Robotic Red Planet explorers

The science work being done by Red Planet robots feeds into the crewed effort as well. For example, data and images gathered by MRO have allowed researchers to determine that the dark streaks that appear on steep Martian slopes during warm weather are caused by liquid water -- a resource that future pioneers might be able to exploit.

"We're developing the science tools now -- the continually orbiting and roving on Mars -- to be able to get us the information to know what Mars is really like," Green said.

NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in 2020, will continue to build up the knowledge base, while also making concerted strides toward human exploration.

One of the Mars 2020 rover's instruments is a technology demonstration designed to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Another instrument, a ground-penetrating radar, is capable of discovering subsurface aquifers of liquid water, if any exist in the landing zone, Green said.

The path to Mars

NASA is not planning to make the big leap directly from low Earth orbit, where the ISS circles, all the way to Mars. Rather, the agency first aims to test technologies and gain deep-space experience in the "proving ground" of Earth-moon space.

One proving-ground project is the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which involves plucking a boulder off a near-Earth asteroid with a robotic probe and towing the chunk of space rock to lunar orbit for future visitation by astronauts.

NASA plans to accomplish this -- the robotic and crewed aspects (which will employ Orion and the SLS) -- by 2025.

And the first crewed Mars mission may land not on the Red Planet but on one of its two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. Such a strategy would prove out the technologies required to get to Mars orbit, and also dilute the risks and costs of a crewed Red Planet campaign, advocates say.

So some of the steps along the path to Mars still need to be worked out. But the ultimate destination -- the Martian surface -- is not in doubt, NASA officials say.

"[Putting] boots on Mars is possibly the most exciting thing humans will ever do," NASA chief Charles Bolden said last month during an event at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. that detailed NASA's crewed Mars plans.

"We have been engaged in getting to Mars -- getting humans to Mars -- for at least 40 years, beginning with the first precursors," he added. "I have no doubt that we can accomplish what we have set our minds to do."




“Setting up a crewed outpost on Mars is NASA's chief long-term goal in the realm of human spaceflight. Indeed, the space agency's operational robotic Mars craft -- the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) -- can be seen as scouts for the human pioneers to come, NASA officials say. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas] …. Researchers are monitoring how NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko respond physiologically and psychologically to their extended time off Earth, in an effort to help prepare future pioneers for the long journey to Mars and back. …. Technological development is ongoing in other key areas as well. For instance, researchers are working to improve solar-electric propulsion systems, which use energy from the sun to strip electrons off gas molecules, then send these ions streaming out the back of a spacecraft to generate thrust. "These are going to be huge ion engines that will allow us to haul tens of tons of material back and forth to Mars," Green said. Much of this heavy gear -- which will consist of human habitat modules and other infrastructure -- must make it down to the Martian surface. …. One of the Mars 2020 rover's instruments is a technology demonstration designed to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Another instrument a technology demonstration designed to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide, if any exist in the landing zone, Green said. …. So some of the steps along the path to Mars still need to be worked out. But the ultimate destination -- the Martian surface -- is not in doubt, NASA officials say.”

Exciting new things are available to us since the moon shot: “improve solar-electric propulsion systems, huge ion engines that will allow us to haul tens of tons of material back and forth to Mars, human habitat modules and other infrastructure, a technology demonstration designed to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide.” I hope and pray it all works as they plan for it to, or that they are able to improvise if it doesn’t, because when you're millions of miles from home with no help things could get dicey. I’m going to go see that new movie The Martian. A commentator on TV said that it is pretty close to the real science. I can’t wait!

October 5, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-commander-afghans-requested-deadly-airstrike-doctors-without-borders-hospital-kunduz/

U.S. commander: Afghans requested strike that killed 22 at hospital
CBS/AP
October 5, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Doctors Without Borders blames U.S. for deadly strike on Afghan hospital
Play VIDEO -- Pressure mounts on U.S. over bombed Afghan hospital


WASHINGTON -- The U.S. airstrike that killed 22 at a medical clinic in northern Afghanistan over the weekend was requested by Afghan forces who reported being under Taliban fire, and was not sought by U.S. forces, the top commander of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan said Monday.

Gen. John F. Campbell made the statement at a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference. He said he was correcting an initial U.S. statement that said the airstrike had been in response to threats against U.S. forces.

"We have now learned that on Oct. 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces," Campbell said. "An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports which indicated that U.S. forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf."

His revised account does not clarify whether the clinic was targeted in error or whether other mistakes may have been made by U.S. forces.

"If errors were committed we will acknowledge them," Campbell said.

He declined to provide more details, saying a military investigation is ongoing. He said he learned from the investigator that it was the Afghans, not the Americans, who requested the airstrike.

Campbell, whose headquarters is in Kabul, was in Washington on Monday because he is testifying before two congressional committees this week.

Meanwhile, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders continued to press U.S. and Afghan officials for an independent investigation into the bombing early Saturday of its hospital in Kunduz, in which at least 22 people were killed.

Christopher Stokes, the general director of MSF, the charity's French acronym, said on Monday he was "disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack."

The Afghan government has said that Taliban fighters were inside and shooting from the hospital, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports. Vickie Hawkins, Executive Director of MSF U.K., told Phillips that those comments are "outrageous."

"They are to an extent justifying the destruction of a fully functioning hospital," Hawkins said.




“The U.S. airstrike that killed 22 at a medical clinic in northern Afghanistan over the weekend was requested by Afghan forces who reported being under Taliban fire, and was not sought by U.S. forces, the top commander of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan said Monday. Gen. John F. Campbell made the statement at a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference. He said he was correcting an initial U.S. statement that said the airstrike had been in response to threats against U.S. forces. "We have now learned that on Oct. 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces," Campbell said. …. Campbell, whose headquarters is in Kabul, was in Washington on Monday because he is testifying before two congressional committees this week. Meanwhile, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders continued to press U.S. and Afghan officials for an independent investigation into the bombing early Saturday of its hospital in Kunduz, in which at least 22 people were killed.”

Unfortunately, no matter who requested it, according to Doctors Without Borders, bombing a health or religious building is against International Law. See the following BBC article.



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34444053

Afghan conflict: Is it ever legal to bomb a hospital?
October 5, 2015 3 hours ago

International charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has demanded an independent international investigation into the bombing of its hospital in the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

At least 22 people, including MSF staff, were killed in Saturday's early morning attack. MSF says dozens were injured and the hospital severely damaged by a series of air strikes lasting more than an hour.

The charity blames US-led Nato forces. But Afghan government officials have implied the hospital was being used by the Taliban for military purposes. The US is investigating the incident.

Who is saying what?

The Afghan defence ministry said "armed terrorists" were using the hospital "as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians".

But MSF says the warring sides were well aware of the hospital's location, and that the bombing went on for an hour despite repeated calls to US and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington to call off the strikes.

MSF also denied there were any militants in the hospital at the time of the strikes and said the attack amounted to a war crime: "Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the US air strike on Saturday morning."

On Monday, the US military changed its account of how the air strike came about, saying it was requested by Afghan forces under Taliban fire.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Campbell, also said no US forces had been under fire at the time, reversing an earlier statement, and acknowledged that civilians were accidentally hit.

The US had previously said insurgents had been firing at American personnel.

'I saw doctors and patients burning' - survivors speak to the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil
What do international rules say about the bombing of hospitals?

International humanitarian law bans any attack on patients and medical personnel - indeed, any attack on medical facilities, which are zones that must be respected under the rules of war.

Even if combatants, such as the Taliban, take refuge in them, they should not be attacked.

Under rules established by the International Criminal Court, any such incident would probably result in too high a number of civilian casualties - what is called the rule of proportionality.

According to Human Rights Watch, "given the hospital's protected status and the large numbers of civilians and medical personnel in the facility, attacking the hospital would still likely have been an unlawfully disproportionate attack, causing greater harm to civilians and civilian structures than any immediate military gain.

"The laws of war require that even if military forces misuse a hospital to deploy able-bodied combatants or weapons, the attacking force must issue a warning to cease this misuse, setting a reasonable time limit for it to end, and attacking only after such a warning has gone unheeded," the group said in a statement.

And under international humanitarian law rules, "in the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects".

Those same rules also state that "the parties to the conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects under their control against the effects of attacks".

And on the subject of medical units, they say that "units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances". However, "they lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy".

Have there been other such bombings elsewhere?

In February 2009, nine people were killed by shells which hit a hospital in a rebel-held area of north-east Sri Lanka.

The hospital, in the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu, Mullaitivu district, was hit three times in 24 hours, and shells were said to have hit a crowded paediatric unit.

Sri Lanka's army denied it was behind the shelling. It accused separatist Tamil Tiger rebels of using civilians as human shields.

The International Committee of the Red Cross at the time called the strikes "significant breaches of international humanitarian law".

A Palestinian employee inspects damages at the hospital in the Gaza Strip after an air strike last year

Last year, at least five people were killed and 70 injured by an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza.

Doctors at the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip say several Israeli tank shells hit the hospital's reception, intensive care unit and operating theatres.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a cache of anti-tank missiles in the hospital's "immediate vicinity".

"Civilian casualties are a tragic inevitability of [Hamas'] brutal and systematic exploitation of homes, hospitals and mosques in Gaza," it said in a statement.

Has something like this happened before in Afghanistan?

Experts point out that this is not the first time international humanitarian law may have been violated in Afghanistan's current conflict.

At least 18,000 civilians have died in 14 years of war. Hundreds of people have been killed in coalition raids and bombings - although many more have been killed in militant attacks.

At times, foreign and local troops have entered medical facilities to arrest people.
But because of its long-term implications on medical assistance, the Kunduz incident, in the words of one ICRC official, ranks as an especially serious one.




“Under rules established by the International Criminal Court, any such incident would probably result in too high a number of civilian casualties - what is called the rule of proportionality. According to Human Rights Watch, "given the hospital's protected status and the large numbers of civilians and medical personnel in the facility, attacking the hospital would still likely have been an unlawfully disproportionate attack, causing greater harm to civilians and civilian structures than any immediate military gain. "The laws of war require that even if military forces misuse a hospital to deploy able-bodied combatants or weapons, the attacking force must issue a warning to cease this misuse, setting a reasonable time limit for it to end, and attacking only after such a warning has gone unheeded," the group said in a statement. …. And under international humanitarian law rules, "in the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects". Those same rules also state that "the parties to the conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects under their control against the effects of attacks". And on the subject of medical units, they say that "units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances". However, "they lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."


“And on the subject of medical units, they say that "units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances". However, "they lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy." Maybe I’m misunderstanding this statement, but it appears to mean that a MASH unit or ambulance which is used purposely in an attack on “the enemy,” cannot maintain its protected status. Would you agree? So if Doctors Without Borders was actively fighting for the Taliban by offering them the hospital as cover, then its’ hospital would be fair game. However, I’m willing to bet that wasn’t the case. If Taliban fighters were in or on the property of the hospital, I believe that Doctors was unaware of the fact, and certainly not voluntarily helping them against Afghan government troops. Either way, I believe US forces should “err on the side of caution” and see to it that the do not bomb a hospital. We’re going to hear more about this, of course, and it won’t be good.




http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33072-how-conservative-state-think-tanks-will-spin-alec-s-2016-agenda

How Conservative State "Think Tanks" Will Spin ALEC's 2016 Agenda
By Brendan Fischer, PR Watch | Report
Friday, 02 October 2015

(Photo: Money via Shutterstock)

This week, a shadowy network of state-based, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups will convene with Koch operatives and other big donors in Grand Rapids, Michigan to coordinate their 2016 agenda for all 50 states.

The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of state-branded groups, like the Civitas Institute in North Carolina and the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which appear to be independent yet actually are operating from the same national playbook. SPN plays a key role in driving the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) agenda, particularly by providing academic-like cover for ALEC's corporate-friendly policies.

Union-busting, attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, privatization of higher education, and other items are on the SPN meeting agenda this week, offering a preview of the right-wing state legislative strategy for 2016.

The importance of the sprawling SPN network cannot be understated. SPN and its affiliates take in more than $80 million cumulatively each year, and documents provided to The Guardian in 2013 show that SPN coordinates fundraising for the supposedly "independent" groups, from Maine's Heritage Policy Center to Kentucky's Bluegrass Institute.

A significant chunk of the funding for SPN and its affiliates flows through Donors Trust and Donors Capitol, which are "donor-advised funds" that give funders an added layer of anonymity. Known funders of SPN and its affiliates include a number of usual suspects, such as the billionaire Koch brothers and the Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation, as well as big tobacco companies like Altria/Phillip Morris and telecommunications players like AT&T and Time Warner. SPN's president, Tracie Sharp, has noted that "grants are driven by donor intent," and that "the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen."

This week's meeting will take place at a resort named for Amway, the company that fueled the enormous wealth of the DeVos family, which has underwritten parts of the SPN-ALEC agenda.

Coordinated, National Effort Advances ALEC Agenda

ALEC and SPN are, for the most part, interconnected, which is little wonder, given that SPN was housed with ALEC at the Heritage Foundation when it was founded in the late 1980s. Indeed, the topics discussed at this week's SPN meeting overlap significantly with the agenda at ALEC's annual meeting in July.

Where ALEC connects lobbyists with state legislators and promotes corporate-drafted model legislation, SPN affiliates provide the ground support. After an ALEC bill is introduced in a state, the SPN affiliates create the appearance of in-state support for the effort, generating "studies" or "news" stories purporting to show the benefits of the legislation or drumming up a façade of grassroots support.

The enactment of right-to-work in Wisconsin this year provides a good example of this coordinated effort.

Wisconsin ALEC politicians introduced a word-for-word copy of the ALEC "Right to Work Act" in early February. A week later, one of the SPN affiliates, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), published a "study" from ALEC Scholar Richard Vedder purporting to show that right-to-work would be great for Wisconsin's economy. (The study was very similar to reports that Vedder penned for SPN affiliates in Minnesota and Ohio).

David Koch's Americans for Prosperity - an SPN associate member - dropped at least $1 million in pro-right to work TV ads. Groups associated with SPN, like Michigan's Mackinac Center and the Heritage Foundation, testified in favor of the Wisconsin bill. And SPN member the MacIver Institute was "a leading voice during Wisconsin's battle to become the 25th Right to Work state in the country," according to a recent SPN publication.

And throughout the Wisconsin right to work debate, the Koch-connected Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity - an SPN associate member that operates state-based "news" sites on the Watchdog.org platform - published stories on its "Wisconsin Watchdog" website boosting right to work and deriding protesters.

All of those same groups - ALEC, WPRI, AFP, Mackinac Center, Heritage, MacIver Institute, Franklin Center/Watchdog.org - will be represented at this week's meeting, as will representatives of the funders that backed these policies, like the Charles G. Koch Foundation and Koch Industries' lobbying arm.

Right to work in Michigan followed a similar pattern in 2013, with the SPN member in the state, the Mackinac Center, playing a key role in laying the groundwork for the measure and promoting the word-for-word ALEC right to work act. Later that year, SPN singled out the Mackinac Center's president, Joseph Lehman, for its highest award, the "Roe Award," for his group's role in making Michigan a right to work state. (Notably, despite being credited for this legislative victory, Mackinac told the IRS it did zero lobbying in 2013.)

As the failure of Scott Walker's presidential bid indicated, bashing unions may have limited resonance among the electorate - but it remains a top priority for big donors, and in turn, remains a top priority for SPN and ALEC.

SPN has several anti-union sessions at this week's meeting, including one called "Labor Unions in the Modern Workplace" featuring Rebecca Friedrichs, the plaintiff in the upcoming US Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that could eviscerate public sector unions.

Attacking the EPA Clean Power Plan

A major priority for ALEC and SPN in recent months has been pushing back on the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," which is a set of rules limiting carbon dioxide pollution from coal plants.

This week, SPN will hold two separate sessions attacking the Clean Power Plan rules, with presentations from groups like the Koch-backed Independent Women's Forum and the coal industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

SPN member the Beacon Hill Institute has been central to the anti-Clean Power Plan effort, generating studies purporting to show the costs of the EPA plan - but without actually analyzing the plan. In February, The Guardian revealed that the notorious PR flak Richard Berman (called "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes) was secretly funding the Beacon Hill Institute studies, which were released and promoted by SPN member think tanks.

So far in 2015, Beacon Hill has released seven "studies" purporting to show the impact of the Clean Power Plan rules in seven states, in partnership with seven SPN member think tanks. As Media Matters has described, those include:

Iowa: Public Interest Institute, February 2015
Louisiana: Pelican Institute for Public Policy, February 2015
New Mexico: The Rio Grande Foundation, January 2015
North Carolina: The Civitas Institute, January 2015
South Carolina: Palmetto Promise Institute (formerly Palmetto Policy Forum), February 2015
Virginia: Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, March 2015
Wisconsin: MacIver Institute for Public Policy, January 2015


ALEC has also been organizing a state-level campaign against the rules. The group organized legislators to press their state attorneys general into joining litigation backed by the energy industry that challenges the regulations, adopted a model resolution attacking the plan, and adopted a model bill that would create new hurdles for the Plan's implementation. At its most recent meeting, ALEC adopted the "Environmental Impact Litigation Act," a bill that effectively allows corporate interests to hire a state's Department of Justice as their own private attorneys. The bill creates a corporate-backed fund for states to sue over federal environmental laws - such as the Clean Power Plan - guided by an "environmental impact litigation advisory committee" made up of political appointees and representatives of "individuals representing agriculture and energy trade commissions."

Privatizing Higher Ed

Another session, called "Winning the War of Ideas in Higher Education: a Toolkit for State Reformers," is sponsored by the Pope Center for Higher Education, one of the many North Carolina-based institutions founded and funded by billionaire discount store magnate Art Pope, a close associate of the Koch brothers and an ALEC alum. Pope is credited with flipping North Carolina's legislature to Republican control in the 2010 elections, and bankrolling Governor Pat McCrory's win in 2012 (for which Pope was rewarded by being appointed budget director). Pope is also on the board of the Bradley Foundation and previously chaired David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

This session is described in the SPN agenda as informing attendees "how your state can improve higher education- by limiting spending, fostering competition and protecting students' civil liberties. Successful reforms in North Carolina can be a model for your state."

By most measures, North Carolina is hardly a model for higher education policy. Since 2008, the state has cut its higher education spending per-student by 25 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Public Priorities, and tuition has gone up by nearly 35 percent over the same period. The state and university have additionally limited financial assistance for low-income students.

Yet according to those leading the presentation - Jay Schalin and Jenna Robinson of the John W. Pope Center - the crisis in higher education isn't cost or access. As The Nation reported earlier this year, Schalin says the main problem with higher education "has to do with the ideas that are being discussed and promoted," those being "multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism."

North Carolina is a "model" for SPN because it is ground zero for the right-wing attach on academia. Art Pope's network has led the charge not only to slash education funding in North Carolina - under the theory that higher education is an economic good, and that "subsidized" low tuition distorts the market - but also to shut down programs housed at the university that advocated for the poor and promoted civil engagement, and to instead create privately-funded education programs that advance the ideology of billionaire donors like Pope.

Earlier this year, the Pope Center for Higher Education released a report entitled "Renewal in the University" celebrating privately-funded centers that promote "the morality of capitalism" in order to balance "academia's gradual purging" of courses dedicated to "liberty, capitalism, and traditional perspectives."

It looks an awful lot like a calculated quest for power: cut public funding for universities, creating a financial shortfall, making it impossible for universities to turn-down funding from billionaires like the Popes and Kochs - even when strings are attached. It is a slow means of privatizing universities, of giving billionaires the ability to pull the strings at public universities, and to reshape academia in order to advance a personal ideological agenda.

Freeing the Poor and Learning From Amway

Other sessions include:

"The Lessons from Amway for Nonprofits," modeled after the multi-level marketing scheme that made the DeVos family billionaires. The DeVos' are big funders of some SPN member organizations as well as school privatization efforts, and Betsy DeVos herself will be speaking at SPN on how "to revolutionize the country's antiquated education model."

A workshop attacking municipal broadband (a longtime ALEC priority) sponsored by telecom industry front group "Coalition for the New Economy." The session will be moderated by a representative of the "news" site Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity/Watchdog.org.

"Freeing the Poor from the Government Poverty Trap through Policy Solutions and Private Services," which will include a presentation from the Foundation for Government Accountability, the Florida-based group best known for promoting welfare drug testing laws that critics say humiliate the poor.

A session highlighting a purported "lack of respect for job creators in many state policies," and a discussion of "how to build respect for job creators, remove barriers to employment and address this foremost concern of Americans."

"Case Studies in Effective Executive Branch Outreach," with presentations from groups like the Illinois Policy Institute and Ohio's Buckeye Institute.

"Free Market Approaches to Lowering Health Care Costs and Improving Access," with a presentation from the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, who developed the challenge to the Affordable Care Act that was rejected by the US Supreme Court in King v. Burwell.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

BRENDAN FISCHER

Brendan Fischer is the Center for Media and Democracy's law fellow and a returned Peace Corps Volunteer - El Salvador.

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“This week, a shadowy network of state-based, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups will convene with Koch operatives and other big donors in Grand Rapids, Michigan to coordinate their 2016 agenda for all 50 states. The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of state-branded groups, like the Civitas Institute in North Carolina and the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which appear to be independent yet actually are operating from the same national playbook. SPN plays a key role in driving the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) agenda, particularly by providing academic-like cover for ALEC's corporate-friendly policies. Union-busting, attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, privatization of higher education, and other items are on the SPN meeting agenda this week, offering a preview of the right-wing state legislative strategy for 2016. …. A significant chunk of the funding for SPN and its affiliates flows through Donors Trust and Donors Capitol, which are "donor-advised funds" that give funders an added layer of anonymity. Known funders of SPN and its affiliates include a number of usual suspects, such as the billionaire Koch brothers and the Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation, as well as big tobacco companies like Altria/Phillip Morris and telecommunications players like AT&T and Time Warner. SPN's president, Tracie Sharp, has noted that "grants are driven by donor intent," and that "the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen." …. Where ALEC connects lobbyists with state legislators and promotes corporate-drafted model legislation, SPN affiliates provide the ground support. After an ALEC bill is introduced in a state, the SPN affiliates create the appearance of in-state support for the effort, generating "studies" or "news" stories purporting to show the benefits of the legislation or drumming up a façade of grassroots support. …. Wisconsin ALEC politicians introduced a word-for-word copy of the ALEC "Right to Work Act" in early February. A week later, one of the SPN affiliates, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), published a "study" from ALEC Scholar Richard Vedder purporting to show that right-to-work would be great for Wisconsin's economy. …. As the failure of Scott Walker's presidential bid indicated, bashing unions may have limited resonance among the electorate - but it remains a top priority for big donors, and in turn, remains a top priority for SPN and ALEC. …. A major priority for ALEC and SPN in recent months has been pushing back on the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," which is a set of rules limiting carbon dioxide pollution from coal plants. …. In February, The Guardian revealed that the notorious PR flak Richard Berman (called "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes) was secretly funding the Beacon Hill Institute studies, which were released and promoted by SPN member think tanks. So far in 2015, Beacon Hill has released seven "studies" purporting to show the impact of the Clean Power Plan rules in seven states, in partnership with seven SPN member think tanks. …. At its most recent meeting, ALEC adopted the "Environmental Impact Litigation Act," a bill that effectively allows corporate interests to hire a state's Department of Justice as their own private attorneys. …. Privatizing Higher Ed: Another session, called "Winning the War of Ideas in Higher Education: a Toolkit for State Reformers," is sponsored by the Pope Center for Higher Education, one of the many North Carolina-based institutions founded and funded by billionaire discount store magnate Art Pope, a close associate of the Koch brothers and an ALEC alum. …. By most measures, North Carolina is hardly a model for higher education policy. Since 2008, the state has cut its higher education spending per-student by 25 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Public Priorities, and tuition has gone up by nearly 35 percent over the same period. The state and university have additionally limited financial assistance for low-income students. Yet according to those leading the presentation - Jay Schalin and Jenna Robinson of the John W. Pope Center - the crisis in higher education isn't cost or access. As The Nation reported earlier this year, Schalin says the main problem with higher education "has to do with the ideas that are being discussed and promoted," those being "multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism."

Dangerous ideas – "multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism." We should include the idea that the earth revolves around the sun, and that when Jesus says “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” he means all races and all religious groups (even when you don’t agree with them). When the Declaration of Independence declared “all men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” Jefferson in his heart meant that to include black slaves. Of course, he wasn’t decent enough to free Sally Hemming when his wife died and let her pursue a free life rather than simply making her his permanent mistress and the mother of his additional children. That’s because good ideas only go so far when it comes to living up to their standard. But it’s “dangerous” to teach those things as basic truths, because that changes the degree of malleability of our American citizens. A truly well-educated public is harder to quash and confuse, even when most of them are too poor to buy legislators like the Koch brothers can. Educated and truly patriotic people can detect these neo-fascist ideas that are being promulgated now by ALEC and those other “think tank” organizations, and arise against them. How did “good” become so perverted? “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing” springs to my mind, and I think it is pretty much true. The reason ISIS is triumphing in Iraq and Syria is that the local residents won’t organize themselves and stand up against them like the Kurds have been doing. Timidity should not be confused with virtue in my opinion. Unfortunately, when I went to Google to trace the famous quotation and credit its' originator, I found nothing but confusion.

See the following article: “http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/
The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing
John F. Kennedy? Edmund Burke? R. Murray Hyslop? Charles F. Aked? John Stuart Mill?” It is too long to quote, but it's very interesting. Read it for information or fun, whichever. I “read at” it just for fun.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-invading-turkish-airspace-no-accident-us-official/

Russia invading Turkish airspace no "accident": U.S. official
CBS/AP
October 5, 2015

Video -- A fighter jet believed to be Russian is seen flying over Latamneh, in the northern Syrian governate of Hama, Sept. 30, 2015, in video posted online by anti-government activists.


The incident comes amid Turkish concerns over Russian airstrikes in Syria that have targeted some foreign-backed insurgents. Turkey - along with NATO ally the U.S. and others -- have conflicting positions with Russia on the Syrian regime, with Russia backing President Bashar Assad and Turkey insisting on his ouster.

"Obviously, along with quite a bit of Russia's behavior in Syria right now this just confirms our deep concern over what they're doing and continues to call into question their intent, and certainly raises questions about basic safe combat, professional behavior in the skies," a senior U.S. defense official told CBS News. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss sensitive military matters and spoke on condition of anonymity, added: "I don't believe this was an accident."

Turkey said Monday that a Russian warplane along the Syrian border violated its airspace, prompting it to scramble F-16 fighter jets and summon the Russian ambassador in protest, reports CBS News correspondent Holly Williams.

A fighter jet believed to be Russian is seen flying over Latamneh, in the northern Syrian governate of Hama, Sept. 30, 2015, in video posted online by anti-government activists.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed Monday to take all necessary measures to protect Turkey's borders from violation.

Russia admitted the plane had entered Turkey but insisted it was "by mistake." They tried to assure Ankara it would not happen again.

In Madrid, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday that the U.S. is conferring with Turkish leaders about the infringement.

Davutoglu said during an interview with Haber Turk television that NATO-member Turkey would enforce its rules of engagement if its airspace is violated. Those rules call for the treatment of any element approaching the Turkish border from Syria as an enemy.

"The Turkish Armed Forces have their orders," he said. "The necessary will be done even if it's a bird that violates Turkey's border ... Our rules of engagement are clear."

A Foreign Ministry statement said Monday that a Russian warplane entered Turkey's airspace near the town of Yayladagi, in Hatay province on Saturday. Two F-16 jets intercepted the Russian aircraft and forced it to fly back into the Syrian airspace.

Also Monday, Turkey's military said a MIG-29 jet had harassed two Turkish F-16s for five minutes and 40 seconds on Sunday by locking its radar onto them. In a brief statement, the military said the incident occurred while 10 F-16s were patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border. The military said it did not know which country the MIG-29 belonged to.

Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded that Russia avoid future infringements, the Foreign Ministry statement said. It warned that Russia would be held "responsible for any undesired incident," that may occur. The same message was also relayed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov by telephone.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed solidarity with Turkey and said the situation would be taken up at a meeting later on Monday.

"I call on Russia to fully respect NATO airspace and to avoid escalating tensions with the Alliance," Stoltenberg said. "I urge Russia to take the necessary steps to align its efforts with those of the international community in the fight against ISIL."


Davutoglu told Haber Turk television that Russia assured Turkey that the airspace would not be violated again.

"The information we got from Russia this morning is that it was an incident that occurred by mistake," he said. "They said they are respectful of Turkey's borders and that it would not happen again."

Last week, Turkey issued a joint statement with its allies involved in the U.S.-backed campaign against the Islamic State group asking Moscow to cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting the IS.

On Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Russian airstrikes were unacceptable and a grave mistake that could alienate Moscow in the region.

Russia says the airstrikes that began Wednesday are targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, but at least some of the strikes appear to have hit Western-backed rebel factions.




“The incident comes amid Turkish concerns over Russian airstrikes in Syria that have targeted some foreign-backed insurgents. Turkey - along with NATO ally the U.S. and others -- have conflicting positions with Russia on the Syrian regime, with Russia backing President Bashar Assad and Turkey insisting on his ouster. "Obviously, along with quite a bit of Russia's behavior in Syria right now this just confirms our deep concern over what they're doing and continues to call into question their intent, and certainly raises questions about basic safe combat, professional behavior in the skies," a senior U.S. defense official told CBS News. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss sensitive military matters and spoke on condition of anonymity, added: "I don't believe this was an accident." …. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed solidarity with Turkey and said the situation would be taken up at a meeting later on Monday. "I call on Russia to fully respect NATO airspace and to avoid escalating tensions with the Alliance," Stoltenberg said. "I urge Russia to take the necessary steps to align its efforts with those of the international community in the fight against ISIL." Davutoglu told Haber Turk television that Russia assured Turkey that the airspace would not be violated again.”

"I know the press likes to focus on body language, and he's got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom,” were the words of President Obama on Putin. He is unquestionably aggressive, and is not a believer in a strictly democratic society. He and many Russians behind him are believers in power at any cost. So are many of our own Republicans, especially in the Tea Party, but during the whole time I have been alive they were generally considered “hawks.” Democrats tend to try to talk before attacking. I agree with that philosophy because it prevents wars many times. Even I, at 70 years old, if someone pushes me down and I can still walk, I will come up fighting. That’s partly because I’ve always had “a temper,” and also because I believe that self-defense is not only my right but necessary. That’s why I approve of Turkey’s stepping up in this incident strongly. Immediately the Russians backed down.



http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/02/445379809/stuff-happens-comment-creates-firestorm-for-jeb-bush

'Stuff Happens' Comment Creates Firestorm For Jeb Bush
Jessica Taylor
OCTOBER 02, 2015

Photograph -- Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush acknowledges the crowd while being introduced before speaking at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in San Francisco in January.
Jeff Chiu/AP


Jeb Bush sparked controversy yet again with his word choice on the campaign trail Friday.

When asked about Thursday's shooting at an Oregon community college, the former Florida governor argued for caution against more gun control as an instant reaction, saying that "stuff happens, there's always a crisis" you have to respond to when in leadership.

"I had this challenge as governor," Bush said of the way government should respond after such incidents. "Look, stuff happens, there's always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something, and it's not necessarily the right thing to do."

Bush wasn't flippant in discussing the tragedy on Thursday, earlier calling it "heartbreaking." But when asked about the appropriate response to these types of incidents, Bush cautioned that "more government" wasn't "necessarily the answer."

The "stuff happens" part of his remark is what many on Twitter and Democratic opponents immediately zeroed in on.

And in the full context, Bush isn't dismissive of the shooting in Roseburg, Ore., that killed nine people.

President Obama was asked about Bush's remarks at his Friday afternoon news conference. He responded, "I think the American people should hear that and make their own judgments based on the fact that every couple of months we have a mass shooting. And they can decide whether they consider that 'stuff happening.' "

Bush spokeswoman Allie Bradenburger criticized the furor, calling it "sad and beyond craven that liberal Democrats, aided and abetted by some in the national media, would dishonestly take Governor Bush's comments out of context in a cheap attempt to advance their political agenda in the wake of a tragedy."

But it's another statement — and one that Bush didn't back down from speaking with media after the event — that the Republican is left having to explain as his poll numbers slip. And there have been others.

Just last week, Bush said Republicans didn't have to promise "free stuff" to win over African-American voters.

"Our message is one of hope and aspiration," Bush said. "It isn't one of division and get in line and we'll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting — that says you can achieve earned success."

But the remark echoed one Mitt Romney made on the campaign trail in 2012, saying that if people "want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff."

Here are some of his other controversial comments:

He said "I'm not sure we need half a billion dollars in funding for women's health programs" when asked about defunding Planned Parenthood. He later said he misspoke and just believed that the money shouldn't be given to the organization but instead to other centers.

To expand the economy to the 4 percent growth he projects, Bush told the New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board that "people need to work longer hours." Bush later clarified he meant boosting the hours of part-time or underemployed people, not adding longer work hours for full-time employees.

Amid criticism for using the term "anchor babies" — a derogatory term for women who come to the U.S. to have babies so that they gain birthright citizenship — Bush said he wasn't referring to Hispanics, but that "frankly it's more Asian people" who are guilty.

Bush said we should not have a "multicultural society" in the U.S., which slows assimilation to American society.

After first fumbling an answer on whether he would have gone into Iraq as his brother did "knowing what we know now," Bush spent a week trying to finally walk it back before saying, "I would not have gone into Iraq."

While one single comment or gaffe hasn't been responsible for Bush's tumble in the polls, many Republicans have said the inartful comments over several months suggest rust on the part of the former governor — who hadn't run for office since 2002, well before the age of social media and instant reporting.

So no, Bush wasn't callously dismissing this week's tragic shooting in Oregon by any means. But word choice is important for any candidate — especially for Bush, given the way he needs to shake the image of George W. Bush's presidency. And continued comments he is left explaining aren't good news for his own White House hopes.




“When asked about Thursday's shooting at an Oregon community college, the former Florida governor argued for caution against more gun control as an instant reaction, saying that "stuff happens, there's always a crisis" you have to respond to when in leadership. "I had this challenge as governor," Bush said of the way government should respond after such incidents. "Look, stuff happens, there's always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something, and it's not necessarily the right thing to do." Bush wasn't flippant in discussing the tragedy on Thursday, earlier calling it "heartbreaking." But when asked about the appropriate response to these types of incidents, Bush cautioned that "more government" wasn't "necessarily the answer."

Well, I suppose we can’t honestly expect Bush to go against the standard party line, even when we have massive problems in our society. The fact that the US has many more of these insane shooter incidents than other countries doesn’t make him want to explore deeply what might be the solutions. Donald Trump, at least, did say recently that we should do more about mental illness. Better computer tracking of cases of mental illness would help a lot. We as a society can’t keep track of the cases. This particular young man didn’t go to an ordinary high school, but to a special one which is specifically for the mentally disabled and disturbed. Was he schizophrenic, perhaps? There was something there to find, and it wasn’t picked up, because he was able to buy his guns legally, and the last article I saw said that he had not 6 like I first heard, but 17. We need to make a cutoff in how many guns a buyer can collect, and put him on the FBI watch list. Gun obsession alone has popped up in a number of these killings. The average, normal good citizen just won’t do such horrible things. We need to catch them before they kill and treat their illness.

October 4, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-bars-palestinians-jerusalem-old-city/
Israel takes historic measures against Palestinians
CBS/AP
October 4, 2015

Photograph -- A Palestinian woman looks out of a bus window during clashes between Palestinians protesters and Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron October 4, 2015. REUTERS/MUSSA QAWASMA
Photograph -- palestinians Dome of the Rock
A member of the Palestinian scouts raises a baton during a ceremony commemorating the birth of Prophet Mohammed, known in Arabic as 'al-Mawlid al-Nabawi' outside the Dome of the Rock in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site, in the old city of Jerusalem on January 3, 2015. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES


JERUSALEM - In an unprecedented measure, Israeli police barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday in response to stabbing attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded three others, as Israel's prime minister vowed a "harsh offensive" to counter rising violence.

Tensions have flared in recent weeks over an Old City holy site sacred to Muslims and Jews, a series of so-called "lone wolf" attacks on Israelis and a security clampdown, which on Sunday saw Israeli troops launch a bloody arrest raid in the West Bank.

The violence comes as diplomatic relations between Israel and Palestinian officials appear to be reaching a new nadir. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said last week at the U.N. that he would no longer be honoring his signed agreements with Israel.

Abbas -- citing among other things the clashes in the Old City -- called the state of affairs in Israel "unacceptable," and he repeatedly slammed Israeli leaders for breaking promises "as an occupier." As a result, Abbas said, the Palestinian people will no longer recognize any agreements they have signed thus far with them.

"They are not listening to the truth," Abbas said.

The latest spike in violence comes at a time when many Palestinians no longer believe statehood through negotiations with Israel is possible. Israeli commentators raised the possibility of a third uprising, though Abbas has so far prevented major outbreaks of violence despite his growing friction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In response to the recent violence, Israeli police said they would prevent Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from entering the Old City for two days during a Jewish holiday. Palestinians who live, work and study within the Old City, as well as Israelis and tourists, will be allowed in.

"This is a drastic measure that's being taken in order to make sure there are no further attacks during the Jewish festival where you can see thousands of people visiting the Old City," Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Israel captured the Old City and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and later annexed the areas. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.

Some 300,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem, making up about a third of the city's population. They live in the predominantly Arab eastern district and have residency status in the city, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.

They are usually free to enter the Old City in east Jerusalem, where major Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites are located. Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann said it is the first time since Israel captured the Old City in 1967 that it has prevented Jerusalem's Palestinians from entering.

In the latest attack, Israeli police say a Palestinian teenager stabbed and moderately wounded a 15-year-old Israeli early Sunday morning in Jerusalem before being shot dead by Israeli police.

Israeli TV showed footage of the alleged assailant walking along the city's light rail tracks as bystanders screamed, "Shoot him!" In the video, a police car arrives on the scene, multiple gunshots are heard, and the attacker is then seen lying on the ground.

The attack came hours after a Palestinian teen fatally stabbed two Israelis in the Old City and wounded the wife and toddler of one of the slain men, before the attacker was shot dead by an Israeli police officer. Israeli officials identified the victims of Saturday's attack as Aharon Banita, a 21-year-old soldier, and Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, a father of seven who was a rabbi at a seminary in the Old City's Muslim Quarter.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks over a major holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators have clashed repeatedly there in recent weeks.

The unrest has spread to the West Bank, where at least 18 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli troops Sunday during an Israeli arrest raid. On Friday, an Israeli couple was killed in a Palestinian drive-by shooting in the West Bank.

Netanyahu said he would meet with security officials Sunday to decide on a "harsh offensive on Palestinian Islamic terror," according to a statement on his Facebook page. "We are in an all-out war against terror," Netanyahu wrote.

Israel's leading newspaper commentator, Nahum Barnea, called the recent violence the "Third Intifada," referring to Palestinian uprisings in the 1980s and the early 2000s. "Not calling it by name allows the political and military establishment to evade, repress, shirk responsibility," he wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

But Hani al-Masri, a Palestinian political analyst, said it was not likely the start of a new Intifada. "Intifada needs a leadership and the Palestinian political leadership is against it," he said.

Relatives of the teen behind Sunday's attack identified him as Fadi Alloun, 19, from traditionally Arab east Jerusalem. On Saturday, he wrote on his Facebook page: "Either martyrdom or victory."

Muhannad Halabi, the 19-year-old Palestinian behind the deadly stabbing attack on Saturday, also wrote a post on Facebook before the attack: "What's happening to our holy places? What's happening to our mothers and sisters in the Al-Aqsa mosque? We are not the people who accept humiliation. Our people will revolt."

The sacred hilltop compound is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two biblical Jewish temples. Muslims revere it as the Noble Sanctuary, where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven in a night journey.

Non-Muslim visitors are only allowed to enter the site at specific hours and are banned by police from praying there. Many Muslims view Jewish visits as a provocation and accuse Jewish extremists of plotting to take over the site. Israel has promised to ensure the delicate arrangement at the site and insists it will not allow the status quo there to be changed.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops shot and wounded at least 6 Palestinians in an arrest raid in the Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian hospital director said. The refugee camp was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the second Palestinian intifada.

Monther Irshaid, director of the Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin, said the Palestinians were shot in the legs with live bullets and two suffered serious leg injuries.

Additionally, Red Crescent spokeswoman Arrab Fukaha said another 22 Palestinians sustained light injuries from live fire in clashes with Israeli forces at several other locations in the West Bank, while about 100 others were lightly hurt from rubber bullets.

The clashes broke out as troops surrounded the home of a Palestinian suspect. Witnesses said Israeli troops fired a "small missile" at the house to force the suspect out. The Israeli military said a few dozen Palestinians attacked troops with pipe bombs and that troops responded with "riot dispersal means."

Troops arrested two Palestinians suspected of "terror activity," the army said. One armed suspect barricaded himself inside a building and a fire broke out during the arrest, the army said without elaborating. The army said troops found explosive devices inside.




“In an unprecedented measure, Israeli police barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday in response to stabbing attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded three others, as Israel's prime minister vowed a "harsh offensive" to counter rising violence. Tensions have flared in recent weeks over an Old City holy site sacred to Muslims and Jews, a series of so-called "lone wolf" attacks on Israelis and a security clampdown, which on Sunday saw Israeli troops launch a bloody arrest raid in the West Bank. …. The latest spike in violence comes at a time when many Palestinians no longer believe statehood through negotiations with Israel is possible. Israeli commentators raised the possibility of a third uprising, though Abbas has so far prevented major outbreaks of violence despite his growing friction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In response to the recent violence, Israeli police said they would prevent Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from entering the Old City for two days during a Jewish holiday. Palestinians who live, work and study within the Old City, as well as Israelis and tourists, will be allowed in. …. Some 300,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem, making up about a third of the city's population. They live in the predominantly Arab eastern district and have residency status in the city, but do not hold Israeli citizenship. They are usually free to enter the Old City in east Jerusalem, where major Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites are located. Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann said it is the first time since Israel captured the Old City in 1967 that it has prevented Jerusalem's Palestinians from entering. …. The unrest has spread to the West Bank, where at least 18 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli troops Sunday during an Israeli arrest raid. On Friday, an Israeli couple was killed in a Palestinian drive-by shooting in the West Bank.”

This sounds more like criminal activity than war. Two separate assaults by teenagers using the weapon of choice, knives and an armed Palestinian opposition to a “bloody arrest raid” by Israelis in the West Bank. At least one Palestinian militant stated that they will try to avenge the offensive and disrespectful behavior by the Israelis. However, as Hani al-Masri, a Palestinian political analyst, said, "Intifada needs a leadership and the Palestinian political leadership is against it.” It does come after diplomatic relations recently broke down between the two groups. It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys. According to Wikipedia, the governor of Kentucky intervened with the result that 10 people were wounded and “nearly a dozen” were killed. The US Supreme Court made a final decision, causing 7 to be given life in prison and one was hanged.

The real problem in these kinds of things is that hatred on both sides runs rampant, and there is no respect for law or peace. It’s all about vengeance. I don’t know from the article what the “bloody arrest raid” was about; to me “arrest” means that the action is for a specific crime by specific suspects, not just a general desire to go bash some Palestinian heads in. Even with those “arrests,” there is too much of the generally undisciplined “tit for tat,” and eye for eye and tooth for tooth in it. It looks like something a court of law should solve. I wonder if there are any ordinary prisons for criminals over there? To me, this is a criminal matter.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-president-bashar-assad-i-would-leave-office-if-it-would-help/

Assad: I would leave office if it would help
CBS/AP
October 4, 2015

Photograph -- Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency SANA on August 25, 2015. REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- Obama: Russia will get bogged down in Syria


BEIRUT - Syria's President Bashar Assad said Sunday he would be willing to step down if he thought it would help.

Assad was speaking in an interview with Iran's Khabar TV, parts of which were aired Sunday.

President Assad, approaching the five-year mark in Syria's civil war, which began with protests against his family hegemony over the country's politics, has publicly resisted calls to step down. His message to Iranian TV was couched, however, in language that blamed the West for "supporting terrorism," and he said so long as that continues, he will not step down.

In the interview, Assad also said the air campaign by Russia against terrorists in his country must succeed or the whole region will be destroyed.

He said that Russian campaign has the potential to succeed because it is supported by Iran and has international, if not Western, support. He called on countries that support the armed opposition to stop, which would increase the chances of the campaign to succeed.

Assad's comments are the first since Russia launched an intensive air campaign against rebel positions in Syria Wednesday, saying it is targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorist organizations. Some of the airstrikes hit Western-backed fighters.

Syria's foreign minister made similar comments at the U.N. on Friday, saying that airstrikes against ISIS group "are useless" unless they are coordinated with the Syrian government, as the international community scrambled to respond to Russia's airstrikes in his country.

Addressing the summit of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, Walid al-Moallem said Russia's decision to start bombing targets was based on the Assad government's request and is effective because it supports Syria's efforts to combat terrorism.

"Terrorism cannot be fought only from the air, and all of the previous operations to combat it have only served its spread and outbreak," al-Moallem said.

The United States, which opposes Assad and conducting its own airstrikes against extremists in Syria, has questioned Moscow's assertion that it is targeting Islamic terrorists there, saying the areas hit close to Homs are strongholds of the Syrian opposition to Assad. Allies in the U.S.-led coalition have called on Russia to cease attacks on opposition forces and to focus on fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants.




“His message to Iranian TV was couched, however, in language that blamed the West for "supporting terrorism," and he said so long as that continues, he will not step down. In the interview, Assad also said the air campaign by Russia against terrorists in his country must succeed or the whole region will be destroyed.”

“… and other terrorist organizations. Some of the airstrikes hit Western-backed fighters.” One of my favorite sayings is “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” That’s exactly what is going on here, and the US is again opposing Russia in, as the article calls it, a “proxy war.” Tactically, one could say it is necessary, as the competition for oil, land use for military purposes, and overall status ranking are involved in the Middle East as they are in Ukraine. Russia is willing – perhaps eager – to bomb ISIS into surrender if they can. Putin has stated that he wants to stop them before they get to Russia, and the US had better be thinking about that, also. I can only hope that that Russian and US forces will succeed in soundly defeating them, as ISIS is very much like a rabid dog. It needs to be destroyed.

I would very much prefer peace in the area, but the prevalent hatreds there make that impossible, so I will take victory. We should at least get in some good licks against ISIS, if we are to claim any of the spoils. I hope we can do that without coming to blows directly with Russia. We have done better by cooperating with them in areas such as the space program and WWII against Germany, Italy and Japan. We should not forget, also, that Russia is just a few hundred miles across the Bering Strait from Alaska, and has already put out a quirky claim on Arctic waters with a Russian flag dropped to the bottom of the sea there. They also have “mischievously” come close to some of our cities and military planes in the last couple of years, which is annoying to me if not frightening. I have a combination of hope and dread for the events of the next ten or so years. The more economic and cultural matters become problematic the more likely that some kind of hot war may break out somewhere. I am reminded that Jesus says, somewhere in the Bible, “there will be wars and rumors of wars,” and when I look back at world history from the very beginning to the present, that dark statement is the exact truth. I pray and hope for peace, but it is usually short-lived and incomplete.




http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/04/445773358/doctors-without-borders-kunduz-airstrike-was-war-crime

Doctors Without Borders: Kunduz Airstrike Was 'War Crime'
Scott Neuman
OCTOBER 04, 2015

Photograph -- The burned Doctors Without Borders hospital is seen after explosions in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, on Saturday. Doctors Without Borders says 12 staff members and 10 patients were killed in the attack and 37 others wounded.
AP


NATO in Afghanistan says it will lead an investigation into an airstrike in Kunduz this weekend that hit a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, killing 22 people — an attack that the humanitarian organization, also known as Doctors Without Borders, has called "a war crime."

A U.S.-led airstrike on the northern Afghan city was carried out on Saturday but the circumstances surrounding it remain murky. NATO acknowledges only that the raid occurred near the charity's hospital.

As we reported yesterday, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan released a statement saying that the strike "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility."

The NATO coalition says it "has directed a preliminary multi-national investigation known as a Casualty Assessment Team." It says that an initial investigation would be complete in "a matter of days."

"Additionally, the U.S. military has opened a formal investigation, headed by a General Officer, to conduct a thorough and comprehensive inquiry," it said in a statement.

But MSF's General Director Christopher Stokes, saying in a statement that the group operates "[under] the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed," insisted that anything less than a fully independent probe of the incident would be unacceptable.

"Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient," Stokes said.

"We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched. We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law," Stokes said.

In an interview on Sunday's Weekend All Things Considered, MSF Executive Director Jason Cone, said it has been the "darkest couple of days in our organization's history."

Speaking with WATC host Michel Martin, Cone reiterated Stokes' description of the attack as "a war crime."

"This was a known structure, and for that reason we have to presume until otherwise that this act is both a grave violation of humanitarian law, and can rise to the level of a war crime until we have an independent investigation that tells us otherwise," he said.

Answering an earlier claim by the Afghanistan's interior minister that "terrorists" had been taking refuge in the hospital, Cone fired back:

"We do not run hospitals around the world allowing combatants to enter our facilities and militarize them," he tells NPR. "That would be a red line for us. It puts both our patients and our staff at risk and we would never accept that under any circumstances."

Kunduz, which briefly fell to the Taliban last week before a government counteroffensive, is reportedly experiencing a growing humanitarian crisis. Even so, MSF says it has all but abandoned its Kunduz hospital in the wake of the attack.

"All critical patients have been referred to other health facilities and no MSF staff are working in our hospital," Kate Stegeman, the communications manager for MSF, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.

"Some of our medical staff have gone to work in two hospitals where some of the wounded have been taken," she said.




“A U.S.-led airstrike on the northern Afghan city was carried out on Saturday but the circumstances surrounding it remain murky. NATO acknowledges only that the raid occurred near the charity's hospital. As we reported yesterday, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan released a statement saying that the strike "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility." …. It says that an initial investigation would be complete in "a matter of days."
"Additionally, the U.S. military has opened a formal investigation, headed by a General Officer, to conduct a thorough and comprehensive inquiry," it said in a statement. But MSF's General Director Christopher Stokes, saying in a statement that the group operates "[under] the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed," insisted that anything less than a fully independent probe of the incident would be unacceptable. …. "We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched. We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law," Stokes said. …. Answering an earlier claim by the Afghanistan's interior minister that "terrorists" had been taking refuge in the hospital, Cone fired back: "We do not run hospitals around the world allowing combatants to enter our facilities and militarize them," he tells NPR. "That would be a red line for us. It puts both our patients and our staff at risk and we would never accept that under any circumstances."

I don’t see it in this article, but on NPR in my car this morning I heard the statement that even if the hospital had “allowed” insurgents to enter and shelter there, a hospital, church, mosque, or other similar place of refuge is considered safe haven for everyone who is within it, at least to the limit that military assault on the building is a war crime. I must say, I don’t believe our soldiers or bombers would have purposely bombed the hospital, but the report today also stated that our forces were well aware of the location of the hospital, so they should have been sufficiently careful to avoid an attack, especially a prolonged attack as the organization claimed. Gross negligence is grounds for claims to be brought against us as well as intention. There has been no clear-cut statement that the attack came from our forces at all, however, so I think we need to wait to hear more.





http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/04/445763565/life-ring-from-missing-cargo-ship-recovered-coast-guard-says

Flotsam In Area Where Cargo Ship Went Missing, Coast Guard Says
Scott Neuman
October 4, 2015

TWITTER -- U.S. Coast Guard ✔ @uscoastguard
MIAMI – Coast Guard search and rescue crews have located multiple objects in the water in the search area for the El… http://pier.me/6mG
12:20 PM - 4 Oct 2015


The Coast Guard says it has located several objects floating in the water near the spot in the Bahamas where a 790-foot cargo ship and its crew of 33 went missing last week after issuing a distress satellite notification amid hurricane-force winds and waves.

U.S. Coast Guard pilots searching for a third day for the El Faro - a roll on, roll off container ship — found life jackets, containers and an oil slick on the water.

A statement issued by the Coast Guard said that "[the] objects have not been confirmed to be from the El Faro at this time." In an earlier statement, however, the Coast Guard said that a life ring was recovered earlier and that it verified to be from the ship.

The statement said that two HC-130 Hercules, the Cutter Northland and an MH-60 Jayhawk were involved in the search.

The El Faro, built in 1975, is variously described as 735-feet and 790-feet in length. It left Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 29. On Oct. 1, authorities received a satellite notification saying the vessel had lost propulsion and was listing in hurricane conditions off Crooked Island, Bahamas. The message said that the ship had been taking on water but that all flooding had been contained.

The ship has a crew of 33, 28 of them Americans.




“The Coast Guard says it has located several objects floating in the water near the spot in the Bahamas where a 790-foot cargo ship and its crew of 33 went missing last week after issuing a distress satellite notification amid hurricane-force winds and waves. U.S. Coast Guard pilots searching for a third day for the El Faro - a roll on, roll off container ship — found life jackets, containers and an oil slick on the water. A statement issued by the Coast Guard said that "[the] objects have not been confirmed to be from the El Faro at this time." In an earlier statement, however, the Coast Guard said that a life ring was recovered earlier and that it verified to be from the ship. …. It left Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 29. On Oct. 1, authorities received a satellite notification saying the vessel had lost propulsion and was listing in hurricane conditions off Crooked Island, Bahamas. The message said that the ship had been taking on water but that all flooding had been contained. The ship has a crew of 33, 28 of them Americans.”

As you can imagine, there is consternation and grief in Jacksonville today, as most or all of the crewmen were residents here. The ship went out at a time that the storm had not reached hurricane strength, but I still think they should have waited and watched the storm, or followed another route to carry it farther out to the East and away from the storm area. The Island where the ship’s contents were found, Crook Island, was shown on news footage yesterday under very stormy conditions of wind and rain. Hurricanes, and even tropical storms, are never exactly “safe,” as many who decided to stay home and shelter in place have found. They also are never fully “predictable,” though our storm watching abilities have improved tremendously since I was young. Watching them has been a part of my life forever, as I come from North Carolina which gets hit at least a glancing blow nearly every year, and sometimes with considerable devastation. I hope these sailors will return safe by some miracle.





http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/03/445309516/heres-1-thing-washington-agreed-on-this-week-sentencing-reform

Here's One Thing Washington Agreed On This Week: Sentencing Reform
Carrie Johnson
October 3, 2015

Photograph -- A cell at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, which President Obama visited in July. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would apply only to federal crimes and federal prisons, which house a shade over 200,000 inmates — a tiny fraction of the population detained in jails and state facilities.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images


It's wonder enough in sharply-divided Washington that nine Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate came together this week to do anything, let alone touch the once politically charged arena of crime and punishment.

But groups as different as the ACLU and Koch Industries had joined this year in a coalition to press for change, and so too did senators as different as Iowa Republican Charles Grassley and Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin.

Prison populations will not drop significantly until we start asking how we can punish violent offenders more intelligently and less severely. -- John Pfaff, Fordham Law School

Lawmakers called their new bipartisan bill a "landmark" in the area of criminal justice and said it represents a major retrenchment from tough mandatory sentencing laws adopted in a wave of drug-fueled violence during the 1980s and 1990s.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, put it this way: "The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act is the most substantial criminal justice reform legislation introduced since the inception of the 'tough on crime' movement and is the best indication we have that those days are over."

All drug dealers are committing 'serious' crimes whether they are armed, physically violent, or not. -- Jon Adler, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association

Criminal justice experts and prisoner advocates offered a sense of cautious optimism, with caveats. For one, the bill would apply only to federal crimes and federal prisons, which house a shade over 200,000 inmates, a tiny fraction of the population detained in jails and state facilities.

Second, the plan seeks to limit solitary confinement for juvenile offenders and offers them a pathway to expunge their criminal records. But experts say the federal system incarcerates fewer than 50 juveniles, and an even smaller number is believed to be held in isolation.

The number of current and future prisoners the legislation would touch is hard to define. But people who have been pushing for change told NPR one of the most important elements of the bill would make retroactive 2010 changes that reduce the disproportionate punishments between people sentenced to prison for crack cocaine offenses and people sentenced to shorter terms for crimes involving powder cocaine. A key author of the bill, Iowa's Grassley, said that fix alone would apply to 6,500 people behind bars now.

Other provisions would reduce mandatory life without parole sentences for people who have committed three drug crimes to 25-year prison terms, and reduce mandatory minimum 20-year sentences for two drug crimes to 15-year mandatory terms.

"The bill isn't the full repeal of mandatory minimum sentences we ultimately need," said Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "But it is a substantial improvement over the status quo and will fix some of the worst injustices."

In fact, the legislation creates a small number of new mandatory minimum penalties for certain domestic violence and terrorism crimes. But experts said in practice, those penalties would apply to "almost no one," in the words of Fordham Law School Professor John Pfaff.

Pfaff said he had a bigger problem with how lawmakers had drawn the lines about which inmates would be eligible for sentencing breaks. "Prison populations will not drop significantly until we start asking how we can punish violent offenders more intelligently and less severely," Pfaff said. "Super-long sentences for violent offenders do not give us any extra deterrent effect and they over-incarcerate in that even violent offenders generally age out of aggressive behavior."

The president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association raced to disagree. Jon Adler, whose group represents 28,000 active and retired federal law officers, said he doesn't consider drug dealers "non violent" criminals.

"I remain concerned that the bill underestimates the impact of drugs and violence on victims by playing with the definition of what is considered a 'serious' offense," Adler said in a statement. "Because the poison that they deal kills people every day, all drug dealers are committing 'serious' crimes whether they are armed, physically violent, or not."

The Federal Law Enforcement Association threw its support behind other parts of the bill, such as a proposal that would offer lower risk, nonviolent prisoners who graduate from classes and drug treatment programs credits towards early release. That measure is the result of a bipartisan push from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

An analyst at Human Rights Watch has concluded the bill as it stands now "may be the best policy reform available from the Senate."

And then, there's the even more politically fractious U.S. House of Representatives, where Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte R-Va. intends to introduce justice overhaul legislation in a piecemeal fashion.

President Obama, who's made criminal justice reform a big part of his legacy, said he wants a bill on his desk to sign by the end of the year. Not even the Senate bill's sponsors would venture a guess as to whether that's in the realm of the possible in today's Washington.




“Lawmakers called their new bipartisan bill a "landmark" in the area of criminal justice and said it represents a major retrenchment from tough mandatory sentencing laws adopted in a wave of drug-fueled violence during the 1980s and 1990s. Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, put it this way: "The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act is the most substantial criminal justice reform legislation introduced since the inception of the 'tough on crime' movement and is the best indication we have that those days are over." …. Criminal justice experts and prisoner advocates offered a sense of cautious optimism, with caveats. For one, the bill would apply only to federal crimes and federal prisons, which house a shade over 200,000 inmates, a tiny fraction of the population detained in jails and state facilities. Second, the plan seeks to limit solitary confinement for juvenile offenders and offers them a pathway to expunge their criminal records. But experts say the federal system incarcerates fewer than 50 juveniles, and an even smaller number is believed to be held in isolation. …. A key author of the bill, Iowa's Grassley, said that fix alone would apply to 6,500 people behind bars now. Other provisions would reduce mandatory life without parole sentences for people who have committed three drug crimes to 25-year prison terms, and reduce mandatory minimum 20-year sentences for two drug crimes to 15-year mandatory terms. …. In fact, the legislation creates a small number of new mandatory minimum penalties for certain domestic violence and terrorism crimes. …. . "Super-long sentences for violent offenders do not give us any extra deterrent effect and they over-incarcerate in that even violent offenders generally age out of aggressive behavior." …. "I remain concerned that the bill underestimates the impact of drugs and violence on victims by playing with the definition of what is considered a 'serious' offense," Adler said in a statement. "Because the poison that they deal kills people every day, all drug dealers are committing 'serious' crimes whether they are armed, physically violent, or not." The Federal Law Enforcement Association threw its support behind other parts of the bill, such as a proposal that would offer lower risk, nonviolent prisoners who graduate from classes and drug treatment programs credits towards early release. That measure is the result of a bipartisan push from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. ….

The wrangling between the House and Senate may not produce a bill that the President can sign by the end of the year as he hopes, but this work is much needed, especially as lots of the offenders are young and personally immature, with the possibility of changing with help into healthier and more reliable citizens who can come out of prison and get a job. There are already job programs for newly released people and I think there should be halfway houses and mental health help for them as well. In fact I’m sure it’s mainly a matter of guiding them into a psych clinic, 12 Step Program, halfway house, etc.

If it’s like coming off of drugs or alcohol, the first year or so “clean and sober,” is the most difficult. People who are living rough lives on the street are very, very often addicted to multiple substances, and really breaking a habit like that requires a support system. I always praise AA and NA because they are free of charge and composed of fellow addicts who ALL are in it together – “peers” and not patients.

I think strictly psychiatric programs, except for the purely mentally disturbed, do not give the personal support of a friendship with a more experienced group member who can talk to you daily if needed and give their “experience, strength and hope,” as well as a trusting talking relationship. A psychiatrist is helpful for an addict in recovering from their active drug use habit, but addiction is not a purely psychiatric illness. It is lack of hope, bad personal habits, lack of good healthy friends who are not pursuing a criminal life, etc. They need daily helpful contacts.

I hope that these Congressmen and Senators in their wisdom, will try to set some of these things up for every person who comes out of prison, because they will have a rough voyage to travel from prisoner to good citizen, and that is the only acceptable goal. Signing in once a week with a parole officer, who probably has no personal interest in them anyway, just can’t meet these people’s needs. It’s good, but it’s not sufficient. Recidivism is likely to occur without a good peer group program, and avoiding it will require daily, weekly, monthly personal support. So many of these prisoners end up going back to their old habits and getting incarcerated again. It’s a sad thing to see, and it’s not simply that they are “bad” people, either. There are crimes that I think deserve life or more than just a few years in prison, but it’s mainly rape, aggravated assault, family violence, robbery, murder of course, and other vicious crimes. I don’t consider doing some drugs to be “vicious,” nor even many cases of selling drugs either. If a dealer beats up someone who can’t pay what he owes, that’s vicious.