Not only that, but I can't understand how he could think that was logical reference to use to make the point that the Syrian refugees aren't dangerous and aren't going to be a problem. I can't think of a more dangerous and a more serious problem faced by America's indigenous people than the pilgrims and their ilk. I mean that really didn't end well for Native Americans. I wouldn't compare the Syrian refugees to the Pilgrims. That's just scary and a really dumb example to boot.

I find this particular quirk of human beings quite fascinating and also very depressing. It kind of makes me not want to bother explaining and linking facts when making a point. But I recently came across an interesting article that looks at the issue in much more depth. Here's the link if you want to read it. There's a little hope. It's a bit long though.

http://lifehacker.com/can-rational-a...nds-1590008558

re: branding, marketing, persuasion (...)
 

Branding, marketing, and persuasion, is an conceptual progression whose roots are deeply embedded within Antonio Gramsci's doctrine of Hegemony:

"The rule of one class over another is not dependent on economics or physical power, but on persuading the ruled to accept an system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class,"
~ James Joll (U. K., 1977).

When I think of current political issues arising across the landscape of societies, here, near or abroad, I trend toward literature authored by Czeslaw Milosz (who formerly lived under two dictatorships during his early years, before defecting to the west (US), then taking up departmental studies as an professor at UC-Berkeley. And, available literature by Antonio Gramsci whose brilliant treatise was penned while imprisoned during fascist Italian dictatorship, during the end years of his life.

CBS news, this morning, released a video pertaining to women and children fleeing for their lives. And the journalist (Mandi Patikin?) iterated the fleeing women's narrative, as: " I saw death behind me....And I never stopped running."

There's so much to learn from those who've lived through or currently in the most harrowing of circumstances in life.

I have fled for my life, not like people I've mentioned above, but in circumstances of my own where there was no other choice but to flee for my life and the lives of my children. My heart is tender and filled with compassion for those who flee hostile situations where it's no other choice before you but life or death. It is those kinds of situations that ultimately shape your perspective in ways that deeply marks ones convictions, develops the kind of scruples which determine and add definition to an person's proverbial vocabulary of life experience.

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts, tonight. :candle:

Mainstream media aka corporate media is being blamed for Trumps popularity in some circles. It is certainly true that the media has favored the big orange head with more than his fair share of attention, but if that's all it took then he could just tap dance his way to popularity on the strength of his media favoritism. The real problem isn't that the media gives Trump too much attention, it's that the American people are listening because he's singing their tune. This didn't happen in a vacuum. The GOP with their outrageous politics has primed the pumps for decades. Encouraging hatred and anger with the Tea Party, radicalizing Congress with their far right fascist leaning fanatical candidates, they have been setting the stage for this for awhile now. You could crush Donald Trump and squeeze his orange noggin until pulp comes out but the anger and hate that is consuming Americans would still be there just waiting for someone to come along and manipulate that energy for votes.

Ummm.... that's a lot of $
 

$700 million mine-hunting drone can't find explosives

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/remote-mine-hunting-drone-fails-tests/index.html

A mine-detection system the U.S. Navy invested nearly $700 million and 16 years in developing can't complete its most basic functions, according to the Pentagon's weapon-testing office.

The Remote Minehunting System, or RMS, was developed for the Navy's new littoral combat ship. But the Defense Department's Office of Operational Test & Evaluation says the drone hunting technology was unable to consistently identify and destroy underwater explosives during tests dating back to September 2014.

Ex-Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw cries after jury convicts him of rape

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/us/oklahoma-daniel-holtzclaw-verdict/index.html

For about six months, Daniel Holtzclaw preyed on women in one of Oklahoma's poorest neighborhoods, exploiting his police badge to intimidate them into keeping quiet.

Canada welcomed its first planeload of refugees last night. 25,000 refuges will make Canada their home by March. And not only are they finding acceptance from all Provinces but Canada's very pretty Prime Minister was there in person to welcome the arrivals and help them find warm clothes to protect them against harsh Canadian winters.

Here are some remarks from Trudeau's speech concerning the refugees just before their arrival:
"First of all, thank you for being here. And thank you for the gorgeous smiles I see. This is a wonderful night where we get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about, we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations.

"But it's not just about receiving them tonight. It's about the hard work we're all going to do in the coming weeks, months and indeed years to ensure that everyone who passes through here tonight and in the weeks and months to come are able to build a life for themselves, for their family and also contribute fully to the continued growth of this extraordinary country."

"Tonight they step off the plane as refugees. But they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada, with social insurance numbers, with health cards, and with an opportunity to become full Canadians.

"This is something that we are able to do in this country because we define a Canadian not by a skin colour or a language or a religion or a background. But by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams that not just Canadians but people around the world share. And how you will receive these people tonight will be something they will remember for the rest of their lives, but also I know something that you will remember for the rest of your lives. And I thank you deeply for being a part of this because this matters, tonight matters, not just for Canada but for the world.

"Merci beaucoup, mes amis."

Some quotes from the article (not from Trudeau's speech LOL):
"Canadians eager to show their support for the newcomers weren’t deterred by the fact that they couldn’t do so face to face.

A handful of people gathered at the international arrivals gate at Pearson bearing signs and gifts.

...dropped off dozens of bags brimming with snacks and plush toys for the children, as well as hats and mittens for the adults. ...having made arrangements with airport security to have the items -and several hundreds more bags – brought to the designated terminal where the government flight landed."

Another plane arrives in Montreal tomorrow. So many people wanted to go to the airport to welcome them (including my wife) that for security and logistic reasons that's not going to be possible. But I think it will be clear enough to the refugees aka new permanent residents of Canada that they are very welcome indeed.

Damn those refugees hit the jackpot.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2394286/li...ees-to-canada/

Looks like Trump is no anomaly. Racism is as American as apple pie. Even the highest court in the land is not immune to racist rhetoric. We seem to be teetering on the edge of something wicked. To quote William Faulkner "the past is never dead. it's not even past." It's scary really. My fervent hope is that people's eyes will open and this will be the beginning of truth and healing. But then that's always my fervent hope and it hasn't come to fruition yet. But since I'm quoting how about a little Dickinson “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -


NYT Rewrites Scalia to Make Him Sound Less Racist

New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak (12/9/15) recounted a startling moment in the Court’s oral arguments over the University of Texas’ affirmative action plan:

In a remark that drew muted gasps in the courtroom, Justice Antonin Scalia said that minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”

“I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible,” he added.

But part of the reason that the remark drew “muted gasps,” surely, is that that’s not what Scalia said–he didn’t say minority students “with inferior academic credentials” would be better off at worse schools, he said African-Americans in general would. Here’s the whole passage:

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less–a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas…. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.

He goes on to suggest that “really competent blacks” would be better off if they were “admitted to lesser schools”:

I’m just not impressed by the fact­­ that the University of Texas may have fewer [black students]. Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe some, ­­you know, when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks, admitted to lesser schools turns out to be less. And I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.

This is not a person talking about a subset of blacks with a particular kind of educational background; taking his words at face value, this is a person asserting that African-Americans as a whole belong in “lesser schools” that are not “too fast for them.” (Or that “there are those who contend” that that is the case, if you want to give Scalia credit for that circumlocution.)

The fact that a Supreme Court justice justifies eliminating affirmative action on the basis of openly racist views ought to be big news. By sugarcoating what Scalia actually said, the New York Times disguises that news–making the ethnic cleansing of America’s top schools a more palatable possibility. Perhaps that shouldn’t make me gasp.

http://commondreams.org/views/2015/1...nd-less-racist


Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday morning, CNN reports Minority Leader Harry Reid pushed back on the comments, saying, “These ideas that he pronounced yesterday are racist in application, if not intent. I don’t know about his intent, but it is deeply disturbing to hear a Supreme Court justice endorse racist ideas from the bench on the nation’s highest court. His endorsement of racist theories has frightening ramifications, not the least of which is to undermine the academic achievements of Americans, African-Americans especially.”

http://time.com/4144454/harry-reid-j...scalia-racist/

I saw this today and did some digging. When one looks at it out of context, it sounds like something it may not be.

Scalia was speaking to the academic theory of "mismatch" which both sides filed briefs on. While the briefs were not the central argument of the cases, they are relevant.

Questioning legal arguments and briefs is part of the process of making your case.


“I don’t think,” Mr. Scalia said, “it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.” He was addressing Gregory G. Garre, the lawyer defending the University of Texas at Austin’s affirmative action policy, which supplements the automatic admission of top-ranking students from all high schools across the state with the use of race as one factor in a “holistic” approach to admissions.

In asking such a pointed question, Mr. Scalia was stepping into a long debate over what has been called the mismatch theory of college admissions.

The proponents of the “mismatch effect” say that large allowances based on a student’s race are harmful to those who receive them, that they learn less than they would if they attended a college more closely matched to their level of academic preparation, receive lower grades, become academically discouraged and socially segregated. Critics say that the “mismatch” research is based on flawed assumptions that cannot be validated by other researchers, and that the evidence is more likely to show that all students, regardless of race, benefit from enrolling at the most challenging college that will accept them.

Stuart Taylor Jr., a Princeton graduate, lawyer and writer who co-wrote the 2012 book “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It,” said Mr. Scalia’s lack of eloquence had made what he said sound worse than it was.

In the current case, Mr. Taylor is counsel on an amicus brief propounding the mismatch theory, on behalf of his co-author on that book, Richard Sander, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, law school. “Students who are admitted with far lower grades and test scores and other indicia of academic capability are almost certain to do badly academically, and we think, and this is more debatable, that they’re also likely to do worse in their careers and other departments of life than they would if they were getting good grades at some less prestigious school,” Mr. Taylor said.

He said the idea was not to reduce the number of black students going to college, but to admit them to schools where they would be more likely to succeed. “Martin Luther King didn’t go to a fancy college,” he said. “Thurgood Marshall didn’t go to a fancy college. Colin Powell didn’t go to a fancy college.”

Oren Sellstrom, one of the lawyers on a brief attacking the mismatch theory, said that “there is a vast body of social science evidence that shows exactly the opposite of what the mismatch theory purports to show, that actually minority students who benefit from affirmative action get higher grades at the institutions they attend, leave school at lower rates than others, and are generally more satisfied in higher education, and that attendance at a selective institution is associated with higher earnings and higher college completion rates.”

Mr. Sellstrom called the mismatch theory “paternalistic,” and said that the concern Mr. Scalia’s remarks raised for him was that, “At root he does not believe that students of color belong at elite institutions. I hope that’s not the case, but the tenor of the remarks certainly suggests that that is underlying his thinking.”

The article.

I think in any context it sounds exactly like what it is.

More on that Supreme Court case.


Abigail Fisher Deserves an 'F' for Her Race-Baiting Supreme Court Case Aimed at Boosting Subpar White Students

The admissions case in front of SCOTUS is about putting mediocre white students ahead of talented people of color.

Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in what is easily the most baffling case it’s going to hear this session, yet another attack on affirmative action policies at state universities, in this case the University of Texas at Austin. If ever there was a case that has no business in front of the high court, it is this one. The suit is a nuisance suit, it’s poorly argued, it’s disingenuous, it’s been heard before and, to make everything even more bizarre, the plaintiff’s claim to injury is demonstrably untrue. This is a case that should have been laughed out of court years ago, but instead, this is the second time — second time! — it’s being presented in front of the Supreme Court.

At stake is the claim made by Abigail Fisher, now 25, who hails from a wealthy suburb of Houston called Sugar Land, that she was deprived of her rightful admission at UT Austin because, in her view, some person of color who didn’t deserve it stole it from her.

Throughout her now seven-year campaign to make the school pay for not letting her in, Fisher has never been able to produce any evidence that the school tossed her application to make room for a less qualified minority applicant. That’s because, as UT Austin has maintained throughout this ordeal, Fisher was never getting in to their school. Fisher’s GPA and SAT scores weren’t high enough, and she didn’t have enough external accomplishments to convince the school to give her a shot otherwise. As Pro Publica explained at the time:

It’s true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino. Forty-two were white.
Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher’s who were also denied entry into the university that year.

Fisher’s case only makes sense if you assume that people of color are inherently less worthy than white people. How else do you justify an argument that assumes that every white person should have been given a shot before minority students do?

This assumption of the inherent superiority of white people, even above those people of color who have more appealing applications, was reflected in Antonin Scalia’s remarks during today’s case.

From transcript, what Scalia said today on whether black people would be better served at "less advanced" schools pic.twitter.com/ikYGnjqM5p
— Irin Carmon (@irin) December 9, 2015

Instead of telling her where to shove it, the Supreme Court sent Fisher’s case back to the appeals court. Now she and her lawyers are back again. This time, they’ve tweaked their argument a bit, trying to argue that diversity itself is an illegitimate goal for schools and, to add a bit of extra nastiness sauce to it, they’re claiming that diversity is bad for students of color.

In other words, Fisher and her lawyers are concern-trolling the Supreme Court.

Most of UT Austin’s admissions are on the basis of high school class standing — about 80 percent of its class in the year that Fisher applied. But the other 20 percent are determined in a holistic fashion, by looking at grades, extracurricular activities, test scores, writing samples, the usual stuff. Because of the school’s commitment to diversity, race and class background is also taken into consideration. Someone who shows potential but faced some obstacles gets a closer look than someone who hasn’t had similar obstacles.

When you read about this case, it quickly becomes self-evident why the admissions committee didn’t think Fisher had some hidden potential that wasn’t reflected in her grades. Fisher, however, has decided her unparalleled genius is going unnoticed because of the notorious racism against white people. But since that argument hasn’t gotten her very far, her lawyer, Edward Blum, is now trying a different tactic to argue that schools should admit mediocre white people over talented students of color: His claim is that giving students of color an opportunity somehow hurts them.

“Rigorous judicial review,” Blum’s new petition argues, “would have revealed that UT’s ‘qualitative’ diversity interest is in fact illegitimate. It depends on the assumption that, as a group, minorities admitted through the Top Ten Percent Law are inherently limited in their ability to contribute to the university’s vision of a diverse student body, merely because many come from majority-minority communities.”

Translated from legalese to English: It’s supposedly racist to let students of color with middling grades into UT Austin, because you’re assuming they can’t do better. It’s a particularly rich argument, considering that Fisher is arguing that she should have been given the first shot, before any students of color, at getting in with middling grades.

But the school is arguing that they should have a right to evaluate a student beyond grades, at least in the 20 percent of cases at stake here. Students who get in with less than stellar grades (most of whom are white, we must remember) usually do so by making a case that they have potential. Taking someone’s racial background and the obstacles they faced from it is part of making that case.

Blum’s argument says more about his and Fisher’s racial prejudices than it does about the school. It’s they who assume that non-whites students must have been given a leg up because they couldn’t hack it on their own. But when it comes to Fisher, they employ a different assumption, believing, against all evidence to the contrary, that she must be good enough to deserve a spot. There’s a word for casually assuming the worst about people of color while assuming the best, even in the face of contrary evidence, of white people. Needless to say, it’s not a word commonly associated with doing well by people of color.

The “diversity is bad for students of color” argument is clearly disingenuous, but it’s really just cover for the larger argument that Blum is making, which is that universities have no interest in having diverse student bodies. Unfortunately, this claim, even without the doing-it-for-the-black-kids justification, has a warm audience with the conservative justices. As the Wall Street Journal liveblog demonstrates, Samuel Alito was arguing from the bench that as long as you have some black students, then you don’t really need to work to make sure that the student body’s diversity is reflexive of the country at large.

John Roberts got snotty, asking, ““What ‘unique perspective’ does a minority student bring to a physics class?” It’s interesting how he assumes the purpose in having black students is not to educate those students, but only if they can bring a “unique perspective” for the benefit of white students.

But of course, the purpose of universities, especially land grant colleges like UT Austin, is not just about giving white people a good college experience. It’s about improving society, as a whole. And that whole includes black people, who are currently underrepresented in higher education. UT Austin found a way to balance its duty to provide education to improve lives for people, all kinds of people, with their duty to maintain a level of educational excellence. Let’s hope the Supreme Court doesn’t chuck that in favor of a system whose only purpose is to elevate white mediocre students like Abigail Fisher over promising students of color.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...aimed-boosting

re: dismantling critical civil rights cases, et al
 

Concern-trolling: what a catchy phrase for a jacked up way to subversively apply an disingenuous tactic meant to upend hard won civil rights land mark cases.

It's no small wonder that racism is hard to dismantle, when iit's like a cancer cell, spotted on an x-ray picture that a highly trained technician took from a fully robed justice, sitting on a bench bought and paid for by (....).

Excellent article, Miss Tick.

Dear Justice Scalia: Here’s what I learned as a black student struggling at an elite college

By Afi-Odelia Scruggs

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia might have thought he was simply debating the merit of race-based admissions at the University of Texas. But he lit a fire when he cited a friend-of-court brief that argued some blacks would do better at “slower-track” schools instead of being “pushed ahead in classes that are too fast” for them.

Scalia’s comment came from “mismatch theory,” which ironically advocates for the soft bigotry of low expectations.

According to its proponents, affirmative action harms students who aren’t ready for a strenuous academic environment. In a ripple effect, they will avoid struggle by opting for easy majors or dropping out altogether. Therefore, it’s best that they be guided to the shallow end of the educational pool: less-selective institutions where they can be more comfortable and successful.

The only thing new about the mismatch theory is the name. It’s actually the same old institutionalized racism that steered generations of African Americans into trade schools instead of universities. It’s the pernicious whisper beneath current suggestions that perhaps college isn’t for everybody.

The mismatch theory gets one thing right: Under-prepared black students will struggle at a demanding educational institution.

I know, because I was one.

Affirmative action helped me get into the College of the University of Chicago back in 1971. The school had not been closed to blacks. Carter G. Woodson, the originator of Black History Month, got a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the university around 1907. But pressure to integrate brought dozens of African Americans to the college, not two or three.

The university touted its “life of the mind.” The atmosphere was so intense, college students joked it was the place where fun went to die. I remember an institution with meager student services and a stunning insensitivity to black youngsters. During a weekend recruiting visit for students of color, economist Milton Friedman explained how laws barring discrimination interfered with a business owner’s right to determine his customers.

Still, I figured I could hang. My standardized test scores were among the highest at my integrated school in Nashville, Tenn. I thought I was a prodigy.

I was 16 when I moved into my dormitory. Immediately, I realized how inadequate my education had been. My high school teachers had just made mention of Plato and Aristotle. Several of my college classmates had read them. I had two years of high-school Spanish, but I couldn’t pass the college’s proficiency test. By the end of freshman year, I knew I’d have to grind to graduate.


I finished in four years with a degree in Russian and a 2.5 grade-point average. Perhaps I’d have made better grades at a “slower-track” school. But all lessons aren’t academic. Here’s what struggling at an advanced institution taught me:

How to set my own standards for success: My second-year Russian teacher calculated his grades on mistakes made. By chance, I compared notes with a white, male student. I’d made 11 mistakes. He’d made 10.5. Yet I was a C+ and he was B-. When I approached the teacher, he suggested I consider another major.

The pattern continued throughout the year. Clearly, the professor had made up his mind. He was the only instructor for the required class, so I couldn’t avoid him. Instead, I studied for knowledge instead of a grade. I relied on intrinsic motivation, instead of going for the extrinsic reward.

That teacher helped me make another major decision. After reading “The Death of Ivan Ilych” in Russian three times to prep for his final, I was thoroughly done with Russian literature. I got my doctorate in Slavic linguistics.

How to advocate for myself: My teachers showed me subtly and overtly that they didn’t think I was smart enough to attend the university. I stopped trying to show them otherwise. My goal was to become a University of Chicago alumna. I found a mentor. I pulled all-nighters studying and writing papers. I raised the money to attend a summer language institute in Vermont. My teachers marveled when I returned speaking fluently. I knew then that my work had paid off.

How to become entitled: I watched the white kids around me with awe. If they wanted to drive across country, somehow they finagled a car, gas, and places to stay. If they decided to learn the blues, they ended up hanging out with the best guitarists on the South Side of Chicago. They took their good fortune in stride, as if it was the way of the world.

Until I came to college, I’d never lived intimately with people who assumed life would unfurl for them. My expectations swelled. I might have to yank at the knobs, but doors would open for me.

How culturally limited white people really can be: My dorm kitchen was the hangout, where we cooked and chatted. One evening a couple friends glanced at the vegetable I was chopping.

“What’re you fixing?” one asked.

“It’s a sweet potato,” I said, puzzled.

“A what?”

I was stunned. If sweet potatoes were foreign to them, what else was? More importantly, what did I know that they didn’t? Growing up in the South, I’d placed white folks on a pedestal. In college, I began to dismantle that throne.

Compassion: My tenure at the University of Chicago was punishing, competitive and life- changing. Throughout my academic career, I’d been one of the smartest kids in my school. My test scores were high. So were my grades. At college, I wasn’t just ordinary; I was ignored.

In Nashville, my teachers expected great things from me. At Chicago, my teachers expected nothing — and seemed surprised when I disappointed them.

Ultimately, my confidence in my intellectual abilities got me through. Along the way, however, I wondered about students who didn’t have my assurance. What would happen to them?

The mismatch argument is flawed because it assumes under-prepared black students will opt to fail instead of push to succeed. Ultimately, I wonder what proponents are actually trying to protect: a system that includes black students who are like I was, or a status quo that keeps them out?

When I'm looking for something to engage me on an intellectual level, I won't search the Washington Post for it, nor will I depend on it to explain legal issues and arguments. I don't depend on any one newspaper article to conclude things for me. I don't see reading a heartfelt article as being in danger of being told what to think. Facts are not even that persuasive for most people. Thought does not have to be separate from emotion. I have always believed thinking and feeling are both equally important in coming to any conclusion. Feeling your way through thoughts opens you up to all sides and all the dark corners of issues. But when it comes to the mismatch theory, I don't need to weigh the information on an intellectual and cognitive level rather than an emotional one, I already know what racist crap it is. To me it is almost as startling to hear a Supreme Court justice spewing this bull as it is to hear Trump's racist, xenophobic hate speech. Almost as startling but even more nefarious because it masquerades as a perfectly logical theory when in reality it is more racist rhetoric used as a popular argument against affirmative action. On the surface it seems to profess that students with lesser academic qualifications don't benefit from being admitted to a more competitive college, but it is really saying we don't want universities to concern themselves with diversity. However we will continue to encourage them to over extend other less academically qualified students for all kinds of reasons other than race. But responding only to the idea that students with lesser academic qualifications don't benefit from being admitted to a more competitive college, in actuality there is no proof that this is so. It's a racist mime that hides it's ugly face behind concern and when I hear these kinds of things I almost long for Trumps openly hateful words that cannot be construed as anything but what they are. Here is a less emotional argument although I can't imagine this kind of thing doesn't warrant some emotion.


http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...tion-mismatch/

The argument that black students, or less prepared students of any race, don't end up benefiting from affirmative action because they can't keep up with the work is known as mismatch theory. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is its most prominent advocate. In his dissent in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court's last high-profile affirmative action case, in 2003, he described elite colleges as "tantalizing" underprepared students with admissions offers.

"These overmatched students take the bait, only to find that they cannot succeed in the cauldron of competition," Thomas writes.

The only way to prove the mismatch theory true or false would be to randomly assign minority students with similar academic backgrounds to different colleges and see what happens. That's obviously impractical. But the bulk of research suggests that in fact, students who are admitted to competitive colleges despite being less academically qualified than their peers end up doing fine.
•Students from underrepresented communities who attend selective colleges are more likely to graduate than students with similar academic qualifications who do not.
•A 2013 study from two sociologists, Michal Kurlaender of the University of California Davis and Eric Grodsky from the University of Wisconsin, looked at an unusual situation at the University of California. Budget struggles led the university to admit fewer students than it had expected to, and it cut out students who were on the academic margins, weaker than other applicants. Then the budget situation improved, and so students were admitted after all. Those students who barely made the cut performed no worse than students from a similar educational background who were admitted through the normal admissions process.
•A 2007 study of students whose SAT scores were lower than the average SAT score of other students at their college found those students were not less likely to drop out, although in some cases they earned lower grades.
•Students from minority groups benefit more, in terms of lifetime earnings, from attending a selective college than their white peers, according to research from economists Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger.

Some research has supported the mismatch idea. A 2012 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that after California banned affirmative action, graduation rates went up for black and Latino students, and attributed part of the increase to a better academic fit between students and colleges.

But the paper didn't consider that graduation rates for these students were already on an upward trend. An analysis by Matthew Chingos, now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, found that graduation rates grew less than they otherwise would have if the affirmative action ban had not passed. In other words, banning affirmative action ended up holding back minority students.

Mismatch theory is always brought up in the context of affirmative action. But universities admit less academically qualified students for all kinds of reasons — because they're the children of alumni or donors, due to athletic or musical talent, and so on. There isn't nearly as much concern about how those students fare, and some research has found they're more likely to drop out than other students, including those admitted through race-based affirmative action.


Scalia was right about one thing: Many black scientists don't graduate from big public research universities like the University of Texas.

But that's not because they struggle to keep up with the work. It's because historically black colleges punch far above their weight when it comes to enrolling and graduating black science majors.

Nationally, black students are 11 percent of the undergraduate population, but they make up only 9 percent of degree recipients in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known as STEM.

Fewer than 10 percent of black college students are enrolled at historically black colleges and universities, and those colleges typically have smaller endowments and fewer resources.

Yet one-third of black students who received an undergraduate degree in math or statistics did so at an HBCU. So did 37 percent of black students who received a degree in the physical sciences. Among black students who went on to earn a PhD in the STEM fields — a tiny slice of PhD recipients — more than one-third started their education at a historically black college.

This doesn't mean historically black colleges are "lesser schools" or "slower-track schools," as Scalia implies. It suggests that they might have something to teach the University of Texas about diversity in the sciences.

I guess you really didn't care for that other article. Well I am happy that you found this one more to your liking.

Not everyone reads the healthcare news and research thread but this is very important so am posting here too
 

Antidepressants taken during pregnancy increase risk of autism by 87 percent
14th December 2015

Researchers came to their conclusion after reviewing data from the outcomes of 145,456 pregnancies.

The study published today in JAMA Pediatrics used data from the Quebec Pregnancy Cohort and studied 145,456 children between the time of their conception up to age ten. The study accounted for a number of other factors that have known links to autism, including genetic predisposition to autism (i.e., a family history of it), maternal age, depression itself, and certain socio-economic factors such as being exposed to poverty. Exposure to antidepressants was defined as the mother having had one or more prescription for antidepressants filled during the second or third trimester of the pregnancy.

Researchers suspect that because serotonin is involved in numerous pre- and postnatal developmental processes, antidepressants that inhibit serotonin (particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors known as SSRIs) will have a negative impact on the ability of the brain to fully develop in-utero.

The study published today in JAMA Pediatrics used data from the Quebec Pregnancy Cohort and studied 145,456 children between the time of their conception up to age ten. The study accounted for a number of other factors that have known links to autism, including genetic predisposition to autism (i.e., a family history of it), maternal age, depression itself, and certain socio-economic factors such as being exposed to poverty. Exposure to antidepressants was defined as the mother having had one or more prescription for antidepressants filled during the second or third trimester of the pregnancy.

Researchers suspect that because serotonin is involved in numerous pre- and postnatal developmental processes, antidepressants that inhibit serotonin (particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors known as SSRIs) will have a negative impact on the ability of the brain to fully develop in-utero.

We spoke with study senior author Professor Anick Bérard, Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre about the study. The full research team includes: Odile Sheehy, CHU Sainte-Justine, Laurent Mottron, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, and Takoua Boukhris, Université de Montréal.

ResearchGate: What were your results?

Anick Bérard: Using antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), during the 2nd/3rd trimesters of pregnancy increases the risk of having a child with autism (87 percent increased risk of autism with any antidepressants; more than doubling the risk with SSRI use specifically) – this risk is above and beyond the risk associated with maternal depression alone (maternal depression was associated with a 20 percent increased risk of autism in our study). Given the mounting evidence showing increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcome with antidepressant use during pregnancy, our study shows that depression should be treated with other options (other than antidepressants) during this critical period.

Indeed, 80-85 percent of depressed pregnant women are mildly to moderately depressed; exercise and psychotherapy have been shown to be efficacious to treat depression in this sub-group. Therefore, we acknowledge that depression is a serious condition but that antidepressants are not always the best solution.

RG: We normally think of the first trimester as being the riskiest time for the fetus, but this study was actually in the second and third trimesters. Why is the risk greater later in pregnancy?

AB: 1st trimester exposure is problematic for embryogenesis; 2nd/3rd trimesters are critical for brain development. Hence, the critical time-window for our study was the later part of the pregnancy.

NOTE: Rest of this important article at research gate, link below:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/po...-by-87-percent

This is hilarious. And by hilarious I mean horrifying with a side order of spit in the face and a kick in the gut to women everywhere.

Apparently it is possible to trip and fall and accidently stick your penis inside someone's vagina...along with your hand filled with semen. Women need to be careful to date only guys with good balance. And it goes without saying if someone dates a clumsy guy that automatically will make the whole thing her fault. Although it seems as thought this is considered to be a no fault sex act. Aw man penises are going to be falling into vaginas all over the place.

http://jezebel.com/man-who-claimed-h...red-1748294505

... the English guy from last week who deflected rape charges by saying he had probably fallen inside his 18-year-old victim? Turns out he was recently acquitted! So, I was wrong, courts will actually believe anything that comes from the mouth of a rich middle-aged man.

Developer and millionaire Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, reportedly took two women, aged 18 and 24, home with him after a night at a club. The 18-year-old reported that early in the morning, she woke up to Abdulaziz forcing himself on top of her. Abdulaziz, however, explained to very understanding authorities that he had gone to check if the girl had wanted a t-shirt to sleep in or a taxi home, when she pulled him on top of her. His penis must have been poking out of his underwear, which led to accidental penetration.

His semen and DNA were found inside the victim, which he said was probably because he had gotten it on his hands after having sex with the 24-year-old. Which means he somehow fell penis and hand first into a woman.

During the trial, Judge Martin Griffiths reportedly allowed the defense to present 20 minutes of evidence in private. The jury acquitted Abdulaziz after a half an hour of deliberations.

“I’m fragile,” Abdulaziz said. “I fell down but nothing ever happened between me and this girl, nothing ever happened.”

---it turns out Abdulaziz is fragile and women are holes.

Congress repeals country of origin labeling for meat
 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- It will be hard to tell where your beef and pork comes from with the repeal of the country of origin labeling in the United States.

Congress repealed the rules, which began in 2009, with a measure added to the omnibus budget bill passed on Friday. Obama signed the bill into law Friday.

The repeal comes after the World Trade Organization found the labels were unfair to meat producers outside the United States. Canada and Mexico last week were granted permission to impose more than $1 billion in import tariffs on U.S. goods if the labels were not removed.

A wide range of industries lobbied Congress to remove the labelling requirement out of fear that tariffs would spread to other U.S. exports, from furniture to frozen orange juice.

Story

HuffPost
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The unintended hazards of a global economy, global law, and global sanctions.

I don't eat meat so this doesn't affect me personally, however, if I were a meat eater, I would be kind of concerned. We all know how careful China is with food production.

I always wonder the motive behind the laws that are enacted. I believe that people have the right to know where their food came from and the right to make the decision if they believe it is safe enough to ingest.

So, there have been no details released yet but all of the schools in one of NH's cities were ordered closed due to a "detailed and credible threat".

Welcome to the 21st century I guess.

Communities across the country are mourning the loss of six American airmen killed Monday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike attacked their patrol near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen

Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen, 36, of Plymouth, Minnesota, was assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida.

As a gay service member, Vorderbruggen was a strong advocate against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibited gay and lesbian service members from openly serving in the military. The policy was repealed in 2011.

One year later, Vorderbruggen married her partner, Heather Lamb. Vorderbruggen, 36, leaves behind her wife and young son, Jacob.

“It is important to us that she be remembered first as an Air Force officer, loving mother, wife, daughter and sister, above all else, not primarily by her sexual orientation," Lamb told The New York Times.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=35923348

Justin Trudeau --- Canadian Prime Minister
 

I recently read lots of inspiring articles about Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.


From what I have read, it makes my heart feel good for those who live in Canada that they have elected such a beautiful example of leadership, to lead their country during perilous times.

The article below gives the reader a chance to learn about Mr. Trudeau. It's a breath of fresh air. For those who read the article, I hope you'll take delight in this story about his life, his ambitions, and what he hopes to accomplish, as he collaborates with like-minded souls in Canada.

Link to article, below:

https://www.liberal.ca/rt-hon-justin-trudeau/

Photo credit: Victims of Crime (organization).
 

National Stalking Awareness occurs annually in January.

In my state, we have some of the toughest laws on the books which includes being able to prosecute an stalker to the fullest degree possible.

If you're stalking someone, please stop.

Stalking is not romantic, it's not okay, it's not a joke:
Stalking is an crime.

http://www.victimsofcrime.org/images...e.jpg?sfvrsn=0

I never know which news thread to put this type of news, here, the feminist news thread or ?. Please feel free to move it elsewhere if this is not a good place for it. :)

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has given Marine Corps brass two weeks to submit a plan to train male and female recruits together at boot camp and fully integrate officer candidate school.

He's also calling for the Marines to make all job titles gender-neutral as the service opens currently closed ground combat jobs to women..."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...=dod_160108.nl

Not sure if I should have made a new thread for this but I am putting it here
 

Kim Davis to Attend State of the Union Address, Attorney Says
by EMMA MARGOLIN

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who spent five nights behind bars last year for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, will attend tonight's State of the Union address, the conservative legal group representing her said in a statement Tuesday morning.

Also in attendance will be Davis' attorney, Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. According to the group, their presence "will be a visible reminder of the Administration's attack on religious liberty and an encouragement for people of faith to stand."


Kim Davis speaks after being released from jail. NBC News
"Kim and I are encouraging all people of faith to get involved in the political process, to vote for people who support your values, and to never give up," Staver said in a statement. "Our 'one nation under God,' is worth our continued prayers and active support."

Davis has earned many fans in the Republican Party for her defiant stand last year against a Supreme Court ruling that required her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Doing so, she said, would violate her Christian beliefs -- an argument that failed to convince a federal judge she should be exempt from the landmark decision making marriage equality the law of the land. That judge found Davis in contempt of court and sent her to jail for five nights.

Despite becoming a hero to many in the GOP -- including two Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, who were with Davis on the day she was released from jail -- Liberty Counsel will not say which Republican lawmaker invited her to attend tonight's State of the Union.

"We are not publicizing that information," Charla Bansley, Liberty Counsel's communications director, told MSNBC. "I don't think we'll ever publicize it."


Of course the will not publicize who invited her. It is enough to know Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee support her it's like they found their new Sarah Palin, in Kim Davis. Now they want to use her for a demonstration during the SOTU address, Surprising, not, I am sure as the weeks start to get closer we will be seeing much more of this woman.
I find it tacky and tasteless to use her to make a statement like this.
It just shows me the GOP will grab at whatever they can to try and swing it towards the GOP. Kim Davis should still be in jail and definitely not attending Obama's address to Congress.

The super bowl is here once again and it has long been believed that this event is responsible for the highest incidence of human trafficking in the form of sex trafficking in the US. Now I am reading stories that this is not the case. That labor trafficking is much more of an issue than sex trafficking and that authorities use the belief of the increase in under age sex trafficking to harass and endanger consensual sex workers. It is also noted that much of the 686 million in federal funding to combat human trafficking goes toward maintaining the six-figure salaries of the leaders of anti-trafficking organizations. Most of the biggest anti-trafficking organizations like the Polaris Project do not provide direct services to victims. Groups like the Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project claim the anti-trafficking efforts are more about making sure lobbyist groups get their grant money. To quote an ESPLERP board member, “I am outraged that the Polaris Project gets millions a year in funding, to create policies that violate the human rights of sex workers, and put them at great risk of violence, often from the police during the raids they claim are rescues."

A 2011 report put together by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women reads, “There is no evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking.” Some are saying that money that is spent on efforts to combat what many in the trenches believe to be a myth during the super bowl could be better allocated to support year-round services like emergency shelters. The raids around and during the sporting event put consensual sex workers in danger. Consensual sex workers are harassed and arrested not sex traffickers. Treating sex work as if it is the same as sex trafficking both ignores the realities of sex work and endangers those engaged in it.

Sex is only one aspect of human trafficking. So, what about labor trafficking? Labor trafficking another serious form of human trafficking is often lost in the concern for sex trafficking. People leave their homes for the promise of a good job in the US, enter the country legally and find themselves forced into what can only be described as slave labor. Their complaints are silenced with threats of deportation, abuse and even harm to their families at home. According to Safe Horizon, one of the largest providers of services for victims and survivors of human trafficking they hear "from survivors every day what it is like to be a human link in a cruel and profiteering business supply chain that allows us to have a clean hotel room on vacation, at a sporting even or get food at a restaurant."

Here are the links to a couple of articles that believe increased sex trafficking during the super bowl is a myth and takes away money and support from the real issues of human trafficking. People can read about it if they wish and come to their own conclusions about the validity of the claim.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariel-...b_9163046.html

http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-rela...ry-likely-myth

Banning of Coverage for Conversion Therapy
 

Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia Dead at 79
 

Critical Obama is able to get a nomination approved or that a Democrat is elected in November!
 

Senior U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia found dead at West Texas ranch

By Gary Martin Updated 4:14 pm, Saturday, February 13, 2016

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said.
Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.

According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.

Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, of the Western Judicial District of Texas, was notified about the death from the U.S. Marshals Service.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said he was among those notified about Scalia's death.

"I was told it was this morning," Biery said of Scalia's death. "It happened on a ranch out near Marfa. As far as the details, I think it's pretty vague right now as to how," he said. "My reaction is it's very unfortunate. It's unfortunate with any death, and politically in the presidential cycle we're in, my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected."

The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation.

Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-...nd-6828930.php

Here’s a Way to Hold Wall Street Accountable

By Margaret Flowers and Jill Stein

In the past 15 years, the U.S. has weathered devastating aftereffects of two financial bubbles: the “dot-com” bubble in the late 1990s, which burst in early 2000, and the housing bubble, which burst in 2008. Many pundits contend that the 2008 financial crisis is over and that we are in recovery, but the reality is that the “recovery” has really been only for those at the top who were bailed out by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve. Foreclosures and high levels of non-participation in the economy continue, as do underemployment, temporary jobs and wage stagnation.

Half the people in this country have no savings and two-thirds cannot handle an unexpected expense of more than $500, including not being able to borrow what they need from family or friends. The low-wage “recovery” has devastated the middle class, with 51 percent of workers now earning under $30,000 a year. Economist Jack Rasmus describes the current situation:
“The real US economy since 2008 has grown at only roughly half to two-thirds its normal rate. Decent-paying jobs in manufacturing and construction today are still a million short of 2007 levels. Median wages for non-managers are still below what they were in 2007, and households are piling on new debt again to pay for rising medical costs, rents, autos, and education. Retail sales are slowing.”

In fact, major retail chains in the U.S. are planning to close hundreds of stores this year, and many that stay open are carrying low inventories of goods.

Part of the reason for the “recovery” was a massive buyback of bonds and toxic derivatives that were based on risky mortgages that brought on the crash. This was done in the form of “quantitative easing,” through which the Federal Reserve bought up tens of billions of bonds and bad bank debt each month for a total of $3.5 trillion. A 2011 audit of the Federal Reserve found that $16 trillion had been allocated to banks and corporations for “financial assistance” after the 2008 collapse. As a result, the Fed is currently leveraged 77 to 1—more than double what Lehman Brothers was when it failed in 2008.

Bill Black, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a financial fraud expert, says that “fraud is “pervasive” among “most elite financial institutions.”
The reality is that there are no ethics on Wall Street. Everyone is playing against each other and using whatever tools there are—even some they do not fully understand—to make money without regard to the impact they will have on others. It is an “As long as I get mine, then screw the rest” mentality. This mentality has been enabled over the past decade or so by the lack of meaningful oversight. Basically, this behavior occurs because those involved are getting away with it and raking in millions, if not billions, of dollars as their reward. If fraud creates wealth, people will engage in it until they are stopped.
During the savings and loan debacle in the late 1980s, Black oversaw the re-regulation of the industry. He reports that the savings and loan crisis was 1/160th the size of the 2008 financial crisis, yet it led to 30,000 criminal probes, which in turn led to 1,000 felony convictions. In the 2008 crisis, no top-level bank executive has been held accountable for the widespread fraud.

According to Black, “The three epidemics that drove the [2008] crisis are appraisal fraud, ‘liar’s’ loans (collectively, these were the loan origination frauds), and the resale of those fraudulently originated mortgages through fraudulent ‘reps and warranties’ to the secondary market and the public.” In liar’s loans, the bank agrees not to verify important information, such as income of the borrower.

Contrast this with the response to the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland. There they prosecuted the heads of the banks, sending 29 to jail, and let the big banks fail and nationalized them without taking on their outstanding debt. Iceland also maintained its social safety net, unlike the United States, by rejecting austerity measures. The result is that today Iceland’s economy is stable.

If the U.S. had followed a similar path out of its crisis, we would probably be in a better situation than we are today. It’s not too late to take action.

Bill Black recently co-founded Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU) with three other whistleblowers. Their biographies are impressive. Gary Aguirre, a lawyer, is a Securities and Exchange Commission whistleblower. Richard Bowen, a Citigroup whistleblower, has 35 years of banking experience. And Michael Winston blew the whistle on Countrywide Financial’s liar’s loans.

The founders of BWU created a 19-step plan that a president could implement within a minimum of 60 days, without much action by Congress, to rein in the corruption on Wall Street and immediately shrink the big banks. They are currently reaching out to President Obama and all of the presidential candidates, looking for someone who has the courage and integrity to implement the plan.

So far, negative interest rates are being imposed by central banks in Japan and the European Union on commercial banks, but there is no guarantee that negative interest rates won’t trickle down in some way, overtly or through fees, to depositors. Most banks are reluctant to do this out of concern that people will switch banks. One financial institution in Switzerland has started to use negative interest with large depositors.

There are signs that negative interest rates could spread to the United States. On Thursday, Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve, told the Senate Banking Committee that her agency is studying negative interest rates again in case they become necessary. And recently there have been murmurs of large financial institutions urging a move to a cashless society.

As late-stage capitalism rears its ugly and predatory head, we have a narrowing opportunity to tame, and hopefully defeat, the beast. Money is an institution that can be used for public good or as a weapon to drive widening wealth inequality. It’s up to us as a society to decide.

We can bail out the people through bottom-up approaches such as a basic universal income, which would immediately eliminate poverty. We can invest in local solidarity economies. We can create public banks at the municipal, county and state level to fund infrastructure projects and local needs, and postal banks to provide services to the unbanked, who make up nearly 30 percent of the population. We can even rein in Wall Street and end the culture of corruption.

These solutions and others are already being put into place. The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is experimenting with a basic income. Latin American countries such as Brazil and cities in the U.S. including New York are building solidarity economies that promote worker-owned cooperatives and other forms of community wealth-building entities. Public banks are common in other countries, and movements for public and postal banks in the U.S. are gaining ground. North Dakota has had a public bank for nearly 100 years.

It’s up to us to be aware that these solutions exist and take action collectively to demand that they be enacted. This begins by asking the basic question: Will we continue to allow the financial elites to control the global financial system and extract wealth from us and our communities, or will we take control collectively and democratically to create economic institutions that serve everyone?

If you believe, as we do, that Wall Street’s looting and plundering should end and money should serve the public interest, then we urge you to raise awareness of the BWU’s 19-step plan. And we urge you to find out what you can do in your community to take back control of money from Wall Street. In addition to the sources cited above, we recommend the Democracy Collaborative as another resource for information on how to do that.
A different world is possible.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/...table_20160213

Johnson & Johnson liable for ovarian cancer death linked to talcum powder
 

On Monday a St. Louis jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $72 million to the family deceased plaintiff Jacqueline Fox, who alleged the company’s talc-containing products contributed to the development of her ovarian cancer. Fox died at age 62 just before the trial began.

She had been using Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body powder for feminine hygiene for more than 35 years. Shower to Shower in particular was marketed by Johnson and Johnson for feminine hygiene with the memorable slogan “Just a sprinkle a day helps keep odor away.”

When the company introduced the slogan in the ’80s, there was already decade-old published research linking talc to an increased risk for ovarian cancer including one study where a majority of ovarian tumors had particles of talc embedded in them.

Bloomberg reports that “J&J is facing about 1,200 suits claiming studies have linked its Johnson’s Baby Powder and its Shower-to-Shower product to ovarian cancer. Women contend the company knew of the risk and failed to warn customers.”

The St. Louis jury found Johnson and Johnson guilty of negligence, conspiracy and fraud. Ted G. Meadows, a Principal with Beasley Allen and plaintiff’s attorney, said, “Jacqueline Fox was an incredible lady whose life was cut far too short by the callous decisions by the bosses at Johnson and Johnson. Inside J&J folks have known for decades, literally decades, that the talc contained in its products could cause cancer. Instead of warning customers, J&J executives made the deliberate decision to hide the risk and keep on selling. The internal documents tell a horrifying and infuriating story of corporate greed and indifference to human life. We are honored to represent the family of Ms. Fox and to bring to light the misdeeds of this company.”

According to Bloomberg the jury agreed with this assessment: “The jury foreman, Krista Smith, called the company’s internal documents ‘decisive’ for jurors, who reached the verdict after four hours of deliberations. ‘It was really clear they were hiding something,’ said Smith, 39, of St Louis. ‘All they had to do was put a warning label on.’”

The company also could have switched to the safer alternative of corn starch, which in 1999 the American Cancer Society advised women use for feminine hygiene.

http://www.rightinginjustice.com/new...llion-verdict/

Orange County used to be a hotbed for the John Birch Society, racists are everywhere
 

Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; three stabbed, 13 arrested

James QueallyContact Reporter

Three people were stabbed, including one who was critically wounded, and 13 were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence Saturday, police said.

A small group of people representing the Klan had announced that it would hold a rally at Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m., police said. By 11 a.m., several dozen protesters showed up at the park to confront the Klan.

About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived and were escorted by police around the edge of the park.

Violence erupted and some of the protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read "Grand Dragon." At some point, a protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed.

A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he "stabbed him in self-defense." Several other people were also handcuffed.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...227-story.html

Supreme Court reverses Alabama court that denied lesbian woman's adoption

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 6:02 p.m. EST March 7, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reversed an Alabama court's refusal to recognize a same-sex adoption.

The justices upheld a challenge brought by an Alabama woman after her state's highest court refused to recognize the adoption she and her former lesbian partner were granted in Georgia.

The couple never married and have since split up. But the case presented a test of an issue that crops up occasionally in state and federal courts since the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage: Can gays and lesbians be denied adoption rights?

The case was brought by "V.L.," as she is identified in court papers, against her former partner "E.L.," who gave birth to three children between 2002-04 while the couple was together. To win adoption rights for V.L., they established temporary residency in Georgia.

Now that they have split, E.L. agreed with the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled in September that Georgia mistakenly granted V.L. joint custody. E.L.'s lawyers argued that "the Georgia court had no authority under Georgia law to award such an adoption, which is therefore void and not entitled to full faith and credit."

Not so, the Supreme Court ruled. "A state may not disregard the judgment of a sister state because it disagrees with the reasoning underlying the judgment or deems it to be wrong on the merits," its reversal said. Rather, Alabama must give "full faith and credit" to the Georgia court's decision.

The high court previously had blocked the Alabama court's action while considering the case, temporarily restoring V.L.'s visitation rights.

Adoption rights for same-sex couples are among the issues remaining in the wake of the high court's June decision legalizing same-sex marriage. About 30 states grant "second-parent adoptions" to gay and lesbian couples by law or lower court rulings. Such adoptions benefit adults who do not share a biological connection, while ensuring that children have two legal parents — particularly in case one dies or is incapacitated.

Lawyers for V.L., including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the case has broad implications for any gay or lesbian adoptive parents who travel or move to Alabama.

“The Supreme Court’s reversal of Alabama’s unprecedented decision to void an adoption from another state is a victory not only for our client but for thousands of adopted families,” Cathy Sakimura, the center's family law director, said. “No adoptive parent or child should have to face the uncertainty and loss of being separated years after their adoption just because another state’s court disagrees with the law that was applied in their adoption.”

The case could affect other states that challenge or deny same-sex adoptions, according to a brief submitted by adoption and child welfare agencies.

"While at least 30 states have permitted second-parent adoptions, almost all of them have done so under statutory frameworks that, like Georgia’s, do not expressly embrace the concept," the brief says. "As a result, the number of children who could be adversely affected by the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision is large."

The lawyers told the justices in court papers that same-sex adoptions "have been granted since at least the mid-1980s, long before same-sex couples could marry." They estimated that hundreds of thousands of such adoptions now exist.

The most recent statistics from the Williams Institute at UCLA indicate an estimated 65,000 adopted children live with a lesbian or gay parent.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2...iage/78760574/

This April Fools’ Day, Congress will play a cruel trick on the country’s most destitute people: It will make their food disappear. They will lose access to food stamps—not because they’re no longer in need of assistance, but because, in a way, they need it too much.

A twisted legislative quirk embedded in the Clinton-era welfare reform law is timed to go into effect after March 31 in several states, blowing a gaping hole in the already threadbare social safety net.

The cuts purport to impose fiscal discipline on poor people who are “able-bodied adults without dependents” (ABAWD)—meaning adults without young children. The rule sets a three-month limit on food stamps for across a three-year period “when they aren’t employed or in a work or training program for at least 20 hours a week.”

The formula, which suggests a lack of “work ethic,” does not account for how long you’ve been searching for a job, or local social conditions. The main defining characteristic of the “able-bodied” is apparently that they’re breathing—and hungry. “These are not people who are sitting on their sofas eating bonbons,” says Margarette Purvis, head of Food Bank for New York City. “Our system does not have the adequate resources for all of these ‘able bodies’ to do exactly what the government is supposedly saying what they want them to do. The systems are not there. Plain and simple.”

The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) estimates that between 500,000 and 1 million people nationwide, most of them living in extreme poverty, “will lose SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits as a result of states’ reimposition of the three-month time limit.”

In many areas, the cuts will be triggered automatically because previous legislative waivers, which temporarily shielded local households from the time limit, have lapsed. Of the 23 states where the cuts will be newly instituted this year, according to CBPP, 19, including New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Connecticut, have waivers that are losing eligibility this year. Lawmakers in Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, and West Virginia are voluntarily “choosing to reimpose the time limit,” presumably because they think taking people’s food aid away is worth the “savings” for state coffers.

New Yorkers are casualties of the city’s tragic arithmetic of inequality. The huge wealth gap has skewed the area’s economic profile enough to push Manhattan out of waiver eligibility, so local socioeconomic indicators essentially price the neediest out of their benefits. Local antipoverty organizations project that 53,000 people across New York State are due to lose their benefits (typically around $190 per month). These households will experience funding reductions equivalent to an estimated 31 million meals per year.

The cuts are one component of the Clinton administration’s infamous 1996 welfare reforms, which imposed harsh limits on benefits through bureaucratic “sanctions” and onerous work requirements, which exacerbated extreme poverty and pushed many out of the welfare system altogether.

The victims of the cuts do not match the facile stereotype of the single jobless male deadbeat sponging off welfare. It simply means they are childless adults—half of a childless couple, a single parent of a 19-year-old, or a caregiver to an elderly parent.

About half of the affected individuals are white, a third are black, and 10 percent Latino; about 40 percent are women. About 40 percent live in the suburbs, with the same portion in cities. Arguably, the people targeted for cuts are those who can least afford them: CBPP reports that the individuals in the ABAWD group generally “either don’t qualify for unemployment insurance or any other federal or state cash or food assistance benefit,” or they’ve been out of work for so long (generally more than half a year) that they’ve used up their unemployment insurance.

According to CBPP, the ABAWD population “are more likely than other SNAP participants to lack basic job skills like reading, writing, and basic mathematics”—hampering their prospects in a “recovering economy” where over four in 10 unemployed people have been jobless for 15 weeks or more. Besides, a job alone doesn’t preclude deep poverty; about half of families with children on food stamps actually earn income from work.

Whether states are proactively implementing the SNAP cap or just letting benefits lapse out of malign neglect, antipoverty groups argue that a more comprehensive approach to hunger is needed—not merely through emergency aid, but programs that look beyond whether people are superficially “able” to work and that contemplate the social burdens the poor face when struggling toward self-sufficiency.

Since most of the affected states lack comprehensive employment assistance programs, advocates argue that simply cutting benefits would only ensure they show up to their next job interview even more miserable and hungry.

Antihunger groups are now pinning their hopes on pieces of corrective legislation pending in Congress, to at least provide some economic support to the affected populations by preventing SNAP termination until emergency job-training programs are implemented.

In some cases, CBPP warns, underfunded and understaffed local welfare office caseworkers may neglect to flag individuals with “temporary disabling injuries or mental illness” who should qualify for an individual exemption. And those private charities that conservatives praise as a surrogate for public assistance for the hungry are themselves resource-starved.

According to Food Bank surveys, in the city’s shadow sector of food aid, roughly half of the food pantry network is running on empty: driven by volunteer labor alone, or struggling with dwindling stocks and budget deficits.

“If the average soup kitchen or food pantry in this city was a person, they too would be low income,” Purvis says. “And that’s where we’re telling these people, who have nothing, to go.”

So on April 1, an unknown number of able bodies will be told the government has no relief left for them. Then, perhaps, their bodies will line up at their local church pantry, only to find empty shelves. That’s what they get for being too able, yet too poor, while living amid too much wealth.

http://www.thenation.com/article/con...le-in-america/

EU's migration policy gets rough
 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's emerging migration policy is looking increasingly like Donald Trump without the hair.

Except that, unlike the Republican presidential frontrunner, who wants to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep migrants out of the United States, the Europeans are willing to pay their neighbor Turkey to do the job for them.

Seven months and a million migrants after Chancellor Angela Merkel declared a "welcome culture" for Syrian refugees in Germany, the European Union is rushing to erect "No vacancy" signs along its internal and external borders.

Under fierce political pressure in her own conservative camp and from an insurgent right-wing populist party, the Alliance for Germany (AfD), Merkel's mantra of "We can do this" is morphing into "The Turks can do this for us".

In a surprise overnight deal she negotiated with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last week, Ankara offered to take back all migrants, including Syrian refugees, who cross from its shores into Europe from now on or are intercepted off its coast.

Having thus sealed its most porous border to irregular migrants, the EU would admit a limited number of carefully vetted Syrian refugees directly from Turkey - one for each Syrian asylum seeker Ankara took back from Greek Aegean islands.

The lucky few would be chosen with the help of the U.N. refugee agency from among those who had waited patiently in camps in Syria's neighbors, not those who had paid smugglers thousands of euros for a risky sea crossing. They would be sent to those EU countries that agreed last year to take in a quota, although some states are resisting that.

Stifling doubts about the legality of such a blanket return policy, discomfort at outsourcing it to a partner many of them see as worryingly authoritarian, and irritation at the price Turkey is demanding, stunned EU leaders gave their provisional assent.

DESPERATION

European public opinion is so petrified by images of tens of thousands of bedraggled migrants trekking across muddy fields and highways toward western and northern Europe - and populists have made such capital out of those fears - that governments are desperate to halt the flow.

Another summit in Brussels this week is due to conclude the Faustian bargain, granting Turkey 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion)in aid to keep refugees on its soil, an accelerated path to visa-free travel for Turks and faster EU membership talks in return for its agreement to act as Europe's gatekeeper.

European Council President Donald Tusk says regaining control of Europe's external borders is a condition for gaining public acceptance to take in refugees. In practice, it looks more like a way of keeping them out, if it can be implemented.

Human rights groups and volunteers who work with refugees are outraged to see Europe slamming shut its open door for victims of war and persecution.

EU lawyers are working overtime to try to make it legal. The Geneva Convention on refugees requires signatories to examine individually each claim for protection submitted by an asylum seeker on their soil.

The German-Turkish deal would get around that provision by declaring Turkey a "safe" third country to which irregular migrants could be returned under a bilateral Greek-Turkish readmission agreement.

The United Nations' top human rights official has said that could entail illegal "collective and arbitrary expulsions".

Apart from the moral issues raised by this dodge, there are several legal problems. Turkey restricts its application of the Geneva Convention to refugees from Europe. People fleeing war or persecution in the Middle East and Asia will not be covered unless Ankara amends its laws.

Turkish officials say they will ensure Turkey complies with international law to fulfill its part of the potential EU deal.

Even so, lawyers say asylum seekers who reach Greece have a right to appeal against being sent back to Turkey if they fear for their personal safety there. A Greek court would have to hear each appeal before a person could be removed.

There is no appropriate court on the Greek islands, and Greek justice is notoriously slow.

EMBARRASSMENT

At the same time, the rush to declare Turkey "safe" could hardly have come at a more embarrassing time for the EU.

President Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up a military crackdown on Kurdish militants, the government has seized Turkey's best-selling newspaper, critical journalists face prosecution and jail, and businessmen and public officials close to a dissident Muslim cleric have been purged.

Unlike Trump, most EU leaders do not declare they want to prevent more Muslims settling in their country, with the exception of Hungary's Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico, who have stressed preserving their countries' Christian identity.

However, anti-immigration campaigners like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands openly cite Islam as a reason for rejecting refugees, and they are increasingly setting the agenda for mainstream politicians. They oppose visa-free travel for Turks in Europe for the same reason.

France, which has a tradition of political asylum and took in tens of thousands of Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s, is limiting its intake of Syrian refugees now, citing security concerns following last year's Islamist attacks in Paris.

Like other west European countries, France has struggled to integrate second and third generation young people of Muslim or north African origin. The place of Islam in public life is fiercely contested in these secular societies, and resentments from Algeria's war of independence still simmer.

European politicians may be aghast at the rhetoric of Trump, who has said he wants a database to register and track Muslims in the United States and would bar any Muslim entering the country until Congress could act.

But if the pact with Turkey goes through as conceived, the EU will be retreating into a "fortress Europe" policy for fear of its own Trumps.

http://news.yahoo.com/trump-without-...153030643.html

I get a kick out of reading articles in the corporate owned media like the NY Times and the Washington Post. Well, not so much a" kick out of" as a "kick in the gut" leaving me positively winded when I realize how much of this crap is fed on a daily basis to a really large percentage of the country. Mainstream corporate owned media is the only source they have from which to form their understanding of the world. It's disturbing as the media slants the public view against its own best interests perpetuating corporate propaganda, using ideas and phraseology geared to advance the agenda of the elite. Almost without notice they slip in terminologies, using them frequently in numerous articles until they becomes accepted as fact. Ideas like manufacturing jobs being a part of an "Old economy" and that there has been "a generation-long transition of the US away from manufacturing and into a diverse, information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world." There is so much wrong with these kinds of statements that I am awe struck at the audacity of these corporate shills. I shudder at the callous and harmful intentions behind perpetuating these distortions.

America has lost over 6 million manufacturing jobs since 1998. Is this because manufacturing is part of an old economy and now the US has transitioned to a diverse information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world? Have corporations stopped manufacturing things? Is that what we should believe? Or maybe we are to believe that manufacturing jobs, agricultural jobs, this kind of work, is now simply beneath us as a country; that it is part of the old economy and now we are all about the new economy? We simply transitioned away from all that old stuff and we did it by choice, on our own. Our newly evolved selves intertwined with the rest of the world into that diverse information driven economy. Apparently engineering, high-tech and service industries are poised to become the next members of the "old economy" that we will transition away from, since something like 42 million jobs in those industries are at risk of being outsourced next.

As a college education becomes so expensive that a whole generation of Americans will begin adult life already in soul crushing debt, the possibility of finding employment that will support them dwindles before their eyes. It might be puzzling for them to understand that while they live in a diverse information driven economy there are less and less jobs. Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that the old economy worked quite well for 98% of the population. That is until our government sold us out and gave corporations a free ride with free trade. That gave them the ability to exploit cheap labor in other countries and to get away with never needing to consider the implications of their actions on the environment. Here is a good article on the problem with "free trade".


http://commondreams.org/views/2016/0...lem-free-trade

Our country’s “free trade” agreements have followed a framework of trading away our democracy and middle-class prosperity in exchange for letting the biggest corporations dominate.

There are those who say any increase in trade is good. But if you close a factory here and lay off the workers, open the factory “there” to make the same things the factory here used to make, bring those things into the country to sell in the same outlets, you have just “increased trade” because now those goods cross a border. Supporters of free trade are having a harder and harder time convincing American workers this is good for them.

“Free Trade”

Free trade is when goods and services are bought and sold between countries without tariffs, duties and quotas. The idea is that some countries “do things better” than other countries, which these days basically means they offer lower labor and environmental-protection costs. Allowing other countries to do things in ways that cost less “frees up resources” which can theoretically be used for investment at home.

Opponents of free trade ask for tariffs to “protect” local businesses, jobs, wages and the environment from being undermined by low-cost goods from countries where people and/or the environment are exploited.

Free trade is generally sold as offering lower prices to consumers. It is also sold with claims that it “opens up foreign markets” to U.S. exporters. But it also opens up U.S. markets to imports.

Does Trade Really “Open New Markets?”

“When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy.”
– President Barack Obama

“[W]hen 95 percent of the people we want to sell something to live outside of the United States, we must open foreign markets to American goods and services so we can create jobs at home.”
– U.S. Chamber of Commerce

“Ninety-five percent of America’s potential customers live overseas, so closing ourselves off to trade is not a solution.”
– Hillary Clinton

It is a fact that only 5 percent of the world’s population lives in the United States. The problem is that the line of argument that opening up trade “opens markets” brings with it certain misleading assumptions. It assumes first that non-U.S. markets are not already being served by local companies. Second, it ignores that free trade also opens our own markets to others. Third, it ignores that U.S. companies already can and do sell to most of the world’s markets and vice versa. (For example, U.S. companies were already moving production to Mexico before NAFTA, the North American Free-Trade Agreement.) Suggesting that alternative approaches to trade would “close us off from trading” or “wall our economy off from the world” are ridiculous straw-man arguments.

If local companies are already meeting the needs in U.S. and non-U.S. markets, what does a trade deal really enable? Trade deals indeed “open up new markets” – for giant, predatory multinational corporations. They enable large, predatory companies that have enormous economies of scale to come in and dominate those markets, putting smaller, local companies out of business. So trade deals mean the biggest multinational companies get bigger and more multinational – at the expense of all the other companies. This includes enabling non-U.S. corporations to come to the U.S. and take over markets already served by smaller companies here.

The net result of allowing goods to cross borders without protecting local businesses is a “more efficient” manufacturing/distribution system powered by the biggest and best capitalized operations. The rest go away. Economists will tell you that these increased efficiencies allow an economy to best utilize its resources. But obviously one effect of this “increased efficiency” is fewer jobs, resulting in lowered wages on all sides of trade borders.

After NAFTA, for example, smaller, more local Mexican farms were wiped out by large, efficient American agricultural corporations that were able to sell corn and other crops into Mexico for low prices. The result was a mass migration northward as desperate people could no longer find work in Mexico.

Economists say even this is good because when costs are lower the economy can apply its resources more efficiently and increased investment can put the displaced people to work in better jobs. But we can all see that in our modern economy that’s not what is going on. Investment in our economy is not increasing, partly because the resulting downward wage pressure has resulted in an economy with decreased demand. Fewer customers with money to spend is not a good environment for investment. Instead of these “freed up” resources (money) being used to provide better jobs with higher wages for everyone, they are instead being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

As for opening new markets for American exporters, note that the record since the ascendance of free-trade ideology in the 1970s we have seen continuing and increasing U.S. trade deficits, with imports exceeding exports, resulting in flat wage growth.

Freeing up trade does not “open new markets” as much as it enables giant, multinational corporations to become even more giant and more multinational – at the expense of smaller companies and the rest of us.

Comparative Advantage

Economists say that free trade allows us to take advantage of the “comparative advantages” offered by other countries. A comparative advantage exists when one country can do something better than another country. For example, Central and South America can grow bananas better than the U.S., and we can grow wheat better than they can. So trading wheat for bananas makes sense.

Unfortunately, economists also say that low labor and environmental-protection costs are a comparative advantage. They say it is good for U.S. companies to take advantage of countries with governments that exploit labor and the environment, because they offer lower costs for manufacturing. (Of course, the ultimate form of such a comparative advantage would be slavery.)

Here’s the thing. Buying goods from low-wage and low-environmental protection countries means not making them here anymore. “Trade” increases, but so does our country’s trade deficit as imports rise and exports fall. Factories here close, people here get laid off, wage pressures here increase and overall demand in our economy decreases.

When “thugocracies” that exploit workers and do not protect the environment are able to offer a comparative advantage over our democracy, then free trade makes democracy with its good wages and environmental protections into a comparative disadvantage.

Free Trade Undermines Democracy And Wages

“Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest nation on earth.” – Abraham Lincoln.

Democracy has a short term “cost” with a longer-term gain. In countries where people have a say, the people say they want higher wages and benefits, good infrastructure, good education, a clean environment, safety on the job, and other services. These things all lead to a prosperous economy later, as long as benefits from this system are fed back into maintaining that infrastructure, education and services. This prosperous economy made America a desirable market to sell things to.

When the country and the idea of democracy were young we “protected” this concept with tariffs, so that goods from places where labor was cheap (or free) did not undermine our democracy. Those tariffs in turn funded investment in infrastructure and other common needs that enabled productivity gains that made our goods competitive elsewhere. But generally companies here served the population here and grew and prospered along with the rest of us.

At some point elites and free-market “economists” began an effort to convince us that “free trade” is a good thing and “protectionism” is not. We used to “protect” our country’s manufacturing base from being undermined by goods from low-wage countries that don’t protect workers or the environment. Then we didn’t.

“Free trade” broke down those borders of democracy. It enabled goods from low-wage countries into the U.S. with no protective tariffs. This made the low wages and lack of environmental and worker protections in some countries into a “comparative advantage” – which meant democracy because a comparative disadvantage. We stopped “protecting” American jobs, and allowed companies to freely lay off workers and close factories here and we have seen what has happened since.

The fact is, a democracy cannot “play by the same rules” as a country that can make people live in barracks at the factory and call them out to work at midnight if an order comes it, make them stand all day, pay them very little, pollute the environment, etc. The rules should instead be that we impose a tariff on goods from such countries unless they “level the playing field” and “play by the same rules” as democracies by giving people a say, paying more and protecting the environment.

Free trade became a scam intended to get around those costs of democracy – good wages, environmental protection and other common goods – but also to use cheap foreign labor and low regulation as a wedge to drive down those costs here as well, and ultimately weakening democracy itself. Every time you hear that regulations make “us” “less competitive” etc. you are hearing an appeal for our country to become more of a low-wage, low-cost “thugocracy.”

Does Protecting Democracy Cause Trade Wars And Depressions?

Free-trade advocates claim that restoring tariffs to protect wages and democracy would start trade wars and even cause recessions and depressions. One claim they make is that tariffs helped cause the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economist Paul Krugman took on that argument in 2009’s “Protectionism and the Great Depression,” writing,

I’ve always seen this as an attempt at a Noble Lie; there’s no good reason to believe that it’s true, but it has been used to scare governments into maintaining relatively free trade.

But the truth is quite different, as a new paper by Barry Eichengreen and Doug Irwin shows. Protectionism was a result of the Depression, not a cause. Rising tariffs didn’t even play a large role in the initial trade contraction; like the spectacular trade contraction in the current crisis, the decline in trade in the early 30s was overwhelmingly the result of the overall economic implosion. Where protectionism really mattered was in preventing a recovery in trade when production recovered.

As for trade wars, economist Ian Fletcher points out in “Free Traders Can’t Name a Single Trade War“:

Trade wars are mythical. They simply do not happen.

If you google “the trade war of,” you won’t find any historical examples. There was no Austro-Korean Trade War of 1638, Panamanian-Brazilian Trade War of 1953 or any others. History is devoid of them.

[. . .] Trade wars are an invented concept, a bogeyman invented to push free trade.

The giveaway, of course, is that free traders claim both that a) trade wars are a terrible threat we must constantly worry about, and b) it’s obvious no nation can ever gain anything from having one. Think about that for minute.

Voters Finally Pushing Back

These are the reasons that voters across the country are finally pushing back against politicians selling “free trade.” Friday’s post, “‘Free Trade’: The Elites Are Selling It But The Public Is No Longer Buying” explained how Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are gaining from their opposition to free trade deals like NAFTA and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership. From the post: “Voters have figured out that our country’s current ‘free trade’ policies are killing their jobs, wages, cities, regions and the country’s middle class. Giant multinational corporations and billionaires do great under free trade, the rest of us not so much.”

Free trade encourages further exploitation of workers and the environment in other countries and here. It helps fuel calls inside of our own country for “less regulation” (fewer environmental protections), “right-to-work” laws (that break unions and lower wages) and “more competitive” tax policies (that defund democracy and our ability to provide public services) to “attract” companies back to the U.S.

It is time for Washington elites to scrap our current “free trade” negotiating model that allowed giant, multinational corporations to dictate our trade policies, and open up the process to all of the stakeholders, including labor, environmental, consumer, human rights and other groups. Then we can begin to negotiate trade policies that lift American workers along with workers across the world, while protecting the environment.

Nail bombs and ISIS flag found in search
 

Brussels attacks: Zaventem and Maelbeek bombs kill many

More than 30 people are believed to have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.

Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, with 11 people reported killed.

Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near EU headquarters an hour later, leaving about 20 people dead.

Brussels police have issued a wanted notice for a man seen pushing a luggage trolley through the airport.

He was pictured in CCTV footage with two other suspects who are believed to have died in the blasts.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.

Belgium has raised its terrorism alert to its highest level. Three days of national mourning have been declared.

Prime Minister Charles Michel called the latest attacks "blind, violent and cowardly", adding: "This is a day of tragedy, a black day... I would like to call on everyone to show calmness and solidarity".

'The worst thing I've seen'

Two blasts tore through the departures area of Zaventem airport shortly after 08:00 local time (07:00 GMT).

A suicide bomber was "probably" involved, the Belgian prosecutor said.

Eleven people were killed and 81 wounded in the blasts, Belgian Health Minister Maggie de Block said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869254