Saturday, May 2, 2015
Why Does ‘Never Again’ Keep Happening Again
Genocide is the systematic and deliberate attempt to extinguish a race, ethnic group, social group or religion.After the most well documented and systematic act of genocide in recorded History, the so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Problem perpetrated by the death cult known as the Third Reich, the surviving Jewish people adopted the motto, “Never Again.” They had been the target of countless pogroms throughout History and this was their vow, this is their pledge to themselves, “Never Again!”
This seems to have been ratified by the victors of World War Two at the Nuremburg Trials where they convicted anyone they could find who was even remotely responsible and convicted them of crimes against humanity. It has been ratified over and over again since by war crime trials before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Never Again! As a world we have all affirmed it. Genocide is a crime against humanity and it cannot, it will not be tolerated and yet NEVER AGAIN keeps happening again....
Friday, May 1, 2015
Fury rises at Disney over use of foreign H-1B workers
At the end of October, IT employees at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts were called, one-by-one, into conference rooms to receive notice of their layoffs. Multiple conference rooms had been set aside for this purpose, and in each room an executive read from a script informing the worker that their last day would be Jan. 30, 2015.
Some workers left the rooms crying; others appeared shocked. This went on all day. As each employee received a call to go to a conference room, others in the office looked up sometimes with pained expressions. One IT worker recalls a co-worker mouthing "no" as he walked by on the way to a conference room.
What follows is a story of competing narratives about the restructuring of Disney's global IT operations of its parks and resorts division. But the focus is on the role of H-1B workers. Use of visa workers in a layoff is a public policy issue, particularly for Disney.
Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of thePartnership for a New American Economy, a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. Last Friday, this partnership was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press.....
Some workers left the rooms crying; others appeared shocked. This went on all day. As each employee received a call to go to a conference room, others in the office looked up sometimes with pained expressions. One IT worker recalls a co-worker mouthing "no" as he walked by on the way to a conference room.
What follows is a story of competing narratives about the restructuring of Disney's global IT operations of its parks and resorts division. But the focus is on the role of H-1B workers. Use of visa workers in a layoff is a public policy issue, particularly for Disney.
Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of thePartnership for a New American Economy, a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. Last Friday, this partnership was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press.....
The Appalling Mr. Zarif
Not since Baryshnikov has a foreigner so captivated a New York
audience. “A Conversation with H.E. DR. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran” played the other day at NYU. The show ran for just 90 minutes, but reviews were spectacular. Give this man a Tony: Zarif slayed ’em.
“Demonstrating suave fluency in English and a familiarity with American history and law,”wrote the New York Times, “Iran’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the United States would risk global ostracism if it were to scrap a signed international pact that resolves the Iranian nuclear dispute.” Zarif, the Times went on, “was easygoing and smiling, living up to his image as a diplomatic charmer to an audience that was polite and respectful.” Not to mention sycophantic.
Zarif, adds Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, “comes off as practically American.” Why? Well, “He went to college in the United States, at San Francisco State University, and to graduate school at the University of Denver. As Ambassador to the United Nations, he lived in New York for five years. His English is perfect.”
Perfect English? Is that all it takes to have reporters and diplomats praise your suavity and charisma, chuckle at your jokes, cavil to your every demand? Bibi Netanyahu’s English is perfect too—but Hell will freeze before he sees Zarif’s press.
I don’t find the Iranian foreign minister a “diplomatic charmer” at all. His demeanor at NYU was arrogant, insulting, bullying, unrepentant....
“Demonstrating suave fluency in English and a familiarity with American history and law,”wrote the New York Times, “Iran’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the United States would risk global ostracism if it were to scrap a signed international pact that resolves the Iranian nuclear dispute.” Zarif, the Times went on, “was easygoing and smiling, living up to his image as a diplomatic charmer to an audience that was polite and respectful.” Not to mention sycophantic.
Zarif, adds Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, “comes off as practically American.” Why? Well, “He went to college in the United States, at San Francisco State University, and to graduate school at the University of Denver. As Ambassador to the United Nations, he lived in New York for five years. His English is perfect.”
Perfect English? Is that all it takes to have reporters and diplomats praise your suavity and charisma, chuckle at your jokes, cavil to your every demand? Bibi Netanyahu’s English is perfect too—but Hell will freeze before he sees Zarif’s press.
I don’t find the Iranian foreign minister a “diplomatic charmer” at all. His demeanor at NYU was arrogant, insulting, bullying, unrepentant....
Thursday, April 30, 2015
REPORT: FELLOW PRISONER CLAIMED FREDDIE GRAY WAS ‘TRYING TO INJURE HIMSELF’ IN POLICE VAN
As the internal investigation continues into the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray, a document has leaked that claims a fellow prisoner in the van with Gray told police that the deceased man was “trying to injure himself.”According to The Washington Post a prisoner who was also being transported in the police van on April 12 said he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” and said that he felt that Gray “was intentionally trying to injure himself.”
Until now there has been no speculation on how Gray could have entered the police van in perfectly functional condition only to be found unresponsive by the time the transport van arrived at the police station a half-hour later.
Gray was arrested on April 12 on a gun related charge but died seven days later after suffering a spinal cord injury in the van.
The unnamed prisoner could not see Gray, as a metal partition separated the two inside the vehicle.
Gray’s family attorney has disputed the document...
How California Cities Are Making Millions Seizing Property and Money From Law-Abiding Citizens
In a small number of cities clustered in Los Angeles County, Calif., people are seeing their property and money seized by law enforcement through civil asset forfeiture, and it’s making police departments tens of millions of dollars.California has safeguards in place to protect innocent people from the harmful practices of civil asset forfeiture. However, a new report from the Drug Policy Alliance found that such measures haven’t stopped law enforcement agencies from using federal forfeiture laws to circumvent state policies.
The Drug Policy Alliance, an organization focused on drug policy reforms, examined the cities that lead California in seizures per capita. The cities—Baldwin Park, Beverly Hills, Gardena, Irwindale, La Verne, Pomona, South Gate, Vernon and West Covina—are all located around Los Angeles County and collected more than $43 million in revenue from forfeitures between 2006 and 2013.
“We use federal forfeiture,” Baldwin Park Police Capt. David Reynoso told the Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s just more beneficial to us.”
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Baldwin Park, with a population of 75,390, collected $4.9 million in federal forfeiture revenue from 2006 to 2013 and participated in 565 seizures from 2008 to 2013.
The city of Irwindale, meanwhile, saw $802,800 in revenue from the Justice Department’s forfeiture program and has a population of 1,422.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance’s findings, law enforcement agencies in the California cities studied used revenue from civil asset forfeiture to pay for...
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Media, Environmentalists Were Wrong: How the Gulf Coast Roared Back After Oil Spill
Five years ago this week a blowout of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast tragically claimed 11 lives and spilled 3 million barrels of oil from the damaged wellhead into the Gulf. It’s hard to forget the video images of thick oil day after day gushing into the region’s waters.It was a horrific accident that caused substantial damage to the ecology and commerce of the region. Gulf area wildlife, portions of the shoreline, tourism, fishers and shrimpers, and energy sector employment suffered large losses in the aftermath of the spill.
BP has paid close to $27 billion in penalties, payments to aggrieved parties, and clean up costs in one of the largest payouts for an accident in American history. This is enough money to hand every man, woman, boy, and girl in Chicago or Houston a $10,000 check. In addition, as the result of a court ruling last fall finding BP acted with willful misconduct and gross negligence leading up to the spill, BP could have to pay another $13.7 billion in Clean Water Act penalties.
But the good news on this fifth anniversary is that...
Monday, April 27, 2015
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:
The Pirate's Cove has:
Proof Positive has:
The Woodsterman has:
The Other McCain has:
Average Bubba has:
The IRS vs. the Church
The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents.
The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is also seen in the monitoring of Christian churches by the IRS in response to a lawsuit filed on December 27, 2012 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) concerning sermons that are considered by the political left to be political speech by tax-exempt organization in alleged violation of federal law. These sermons, often criticizing ObamaCare’s encroachment on freedom of religion through its mandates among other issues, are considered electioneering by the atheist left.
The FFRF sought enforcement by the IRS of the 1954 Johnson Amendment which states that tax-exempt groups, including churches, are not allowed to endorse political candidates. But the FFRF stretches that law to interpret churches taking positions from the...
The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is also seen in the monitoring of Christian churches by the IRS in response to a lawsuit filed on December 27, 2012 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) concerning sermons that are considered by the political left to be political speech by tax-exempt organization in alleged violation of federal law. These sermons, often criticizing ObamaCare’s encroachment on freedom of religion through its mandates among other issues, are considered electioneering by the atheist left.
The FFRF sought enforcement by the IRS of the 1954 Johnson Amendment which states that tax-exempt groups, including churches, are not allowed to endorse political candidates. But the FFRF stretches that law to interpret churches taking positions from the...
Sunday, April 26, 2015
The Men Who Started the Hugo Awards Controversy
A prominent editor of speculative fiction (a term that encompasses both science fiction and fantasy) declared in 2013 that the genre had “moved away from the white male Anglo Saxon Mayberry of its youth and towards a more mature, diverse, and inclusive future.” His words were an encapsulation of trendy opinion among certain sorts of spec-fic fans. They were also flat-out wrong. If early science fiction and fantasy had an ideology (a doubtful proposition at best) it was techno-cultural utopianism—the opposite of the conservatism of The Andy Griffith Show. The giants of the field wrote in explicit support of civil rights, sexual liberation, and women’s equality. But ideologues must exaggerate past evils to justify their present excesses, and so down the memory hole go Heinlein’s 1961 A Stranger in Strange Land and LeGuin’s 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness.2013 was also the year a conservative-leaning author, Larry Correia, (later joined by Brad Torgersen) decided to take a stand against this kind of demographic obsessiveness. Beginning that year, they began to promote a slate of candidates each year for speculative fiction’s most prestigious awards—the Hugos—and urged readers on their personal blogs to nominate the candidates en masse. This year it worked. Their slate dominates this year’s nominations. A predictable wave of outrage followed, culminating in an over-the-top hit piece in Entertainment Weekly. Correia and Torgersen have become boogiemen to liberals and folk heroes to conservatives.
In all this fuss, the quality of their work has been largely overlooked. Both writers recall an earlier time in speculative fiction’s development, before the New Wave of the sixties and seventies brought in experimental literary techniques. Correia is the better-known of the two. His hugely popular...
Montana Bill to Help Block Federal Militarization of Police Signed into Law
By Michael Maharrey - A bill that would heavily diminish the effect of federal programs that militarize local police was signed into law on Thursday. Introduced by Rep. Nicholas Schwaderer (R-Superior), House Bill 330 (HB330) bans state or local law enforcement from receiving significant classes of military equipment from the Pentagon’s “1033 Program.” It passed by a 46-1 vote in the state Senate and by a 79-20 vote in the state House. On Thursday, Gov. Steve Bullock signed it into law.
The new law will prohibit state or local law enforcement agencies from receiving drones that are armored, weaponized, or both; aircraft that are combat configured or combat coded; grenades or similar explosives and grenade launchers; silencers; and “militarized armored vehicles” from federal military surplus programs.
But, as The Guardian reported last fall, handouts of such equipment from the Pentagon are far from the only way that the federal government has been militarizing local police. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants used to purchase such equipment amount to three times the value of the equipment given away by the Pentagon.
HB330 closes this loophole by banning...
These Blue States Have Tried the Elizabeth Warren Model. Their Residents Are Fleeing.
So, if income redistribution policies are the solution to shrinking the gap between rich and poor, why do they fail so miserably in the states?
Day after day, the middle class keeps leaving California. The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation.
The blue states that try to lift up the poor with high taxes, high welfare benefits, high minimum wages and other Robin Hood policies tend to be the places where the rich end up the richest and the poor the poorest.
California is the prototypical example. It has the highest tax rates of any state. It has very generous welfare benefits. Many of its cities have a high minimum wage. But day after day, the middle class keeps leaving. The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation. The Golden State, alas, has become the inequality state.
In a new report called “Rich States, Poor States” that I write each year for the American Legislative Exchange Council with Arthur Laffer and Jonathan Williams, we find that five of the highest-tax blue states in the nation—California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois—lost some 4 million more U.S. residents than entered these states over the last decade. Meanwhile...
