| Former federal prosecutors describe the Roger Stone sentencing reversal as unprecedented Posted: 12 Feb 2020 06:45 PM PST  Legal experts and former federal prosecutors say the Justice Department's reversal of the sentencing recommendation for President Trump's former campaign adviser is an extraordinary development that could have a long-term impact on public perception of federal law enforcement's independence from political interference.
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| 'Horrifying': Mass burial held for 2,411 fetal remains found in abortion doctor's home Posted: 13 Feb 2020 11:47 AM PST  Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, who died Sept. 3 at 79, was one of the Midwest's most prolific abortion doctors. He performed the abortions from 2000 to 2002.
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| The Democrats Are Missing the Biggest Issue of the 2020 Election Posted: 14 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  How the nation's leaders will address the most pressing political reality of our time—namely, the crumbling of the American status quo and, more ominously, the global status quo. America is struggling through a Crisis of the Old Order.
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| Sherpas upset by plan to collect trash – and bodies – on Everest Posted: 13 Feb 2020 08:13 PM PST  Nepal's government plans to have the army clean up 77,000 pounds of waste on Mount Everest, BBC Nepali reports.
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| Florida 'red flag' gun law used 3,500 times since Parkland Posted: 13 Feb 2020 09:12 PM PST  A 23-year-old man who posted on Facebook, "I don't know why I don't go on a killing spree." A West Palm Beach couple who shot up their home while high on cocaine. All four Florida residents had their guns taken away by judges under a "red flag" law the state passed three weeks after authorities say a mentally disturbed man killed 17 people in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland two years ago Friday. Advocates of Florida's red flag measure say before it existed, it was often difficult to remove firearms from those making threats or suffering severe mental breakdowns.
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| Gaza balloon attacks re-emerge as threat to Israel Posted: 13 Feb 2020 06:00 PM PST  As the bunch of brightly-coloured balloons floated into Gaza's evening sky, there was a piercing crackle of gunfire. Moments earlier, the balloons had been launched by a group of masked young Palestinian men huddled near the Al-Bureij refugee camp. Explosives tied to balloons and kites first emerged as a weapon in Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, during intense protests in 2018, when the devices drifted across the border daily, causing thousands of fires in Israeli farms and communities.
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| Assistant principal accused of raping 16-year-old avoids jail Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:20 AM PST  An assistant principal charged with raping a 16-year-old student in Missouri has avoided jail time by accepting an Alford plea, allowing her to assert innocence while acknowledging the evidence proves her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.Elizabeth Giesler, who served as the assistant principal of Ste. Genievieve Middle school in eastern Missouri prior to the indictment, accepted the Alford plea earlier this week, according to court records.
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| Step Inside the Artist's Home Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST |
| Trump says John Kelly has a 'military and legal obligation' to 'keep his mouth shut' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 09:17 AM PST  The president criticized John Kelly after remarks from his former chief of staff at an event Wednesday night questioned a number of Trump's decisions.
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| U.S. Navy warship seizes alleged Iranian weapons Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:51 AM PST  A U.S. Navy warship seized weapons believed to be of Iranian "design and manufacture," including 150 anti-tank guided missiles and three Iranian surface-to-air missiles, the American military said on Thursday.
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| Three Honduran policemen killed in shootout to free jailed MS-13 gang leader Posted: 13 Feb 2020 05:22 PM PST |
| The DNC was reportedly 'intimately involved' with the creation of the infamous app that botched the Iowa caucuses Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:36 AM PST  National Democratic party officials had requested access to the app before the caucuses, according to a report by Yahoo News.
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| Venezuelan president says arrest of Juan Guaidó "will come" Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:45 AM PST  Maduro made the remark in a meeting with the international press three days after Guaidó returned from a tour to the U.S. and Europe, in defiance of a court order prohibiting him from leaving the country. Despite the order, migration officials let Guaidó enter when he arrived on a commercial flight at Venezuela's main international airport. Maduro said that the day Venezuela's justice system decides Guaidó should be imprisoned "for all the crimes he's committed," he will be jailed.
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| Who is Mexico's president? Ummm... say Democratic candidates Posted: 14 Feb 2020 02:02 PM PST  He is the president of a top US trading and security partner but two of the Democratic candidates for the White House couldn't name the leader of Mexico. Asked in a Nevada election forum Thursday held by the Telemundo channel and the League of United Latin American Citizens, neither Amy Klobuchar nor Tom Steyer could recall the name of the leader of America's immediate neighbor to the south: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. "I forgot," said billionaire Steyer, when asked if he could name Mexico's president.
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| Five inmates escape from Ohio correctional facility Posted: 13 Feb 2020 05:40 PM PST  They broke out of a first-floor window and ran away sometime Monday night or Tuesday, according to a police report.
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| Pope Francis's dream Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  With the easy credulity that has become so typical of journalists during his pontificate, many observers, both Catholic and secular, expected Pope Francis's recent apostolic exhortation to relax the ancient discipline of clerical celibacy for some priests of the Roman Rite. This did not happen.An entire column (indeed a document very much longer) might be devoted to the question of why so many people insist upon seeing Francis as some kind of antinomian liberal modernizer. But it seems to me somehow unimportant. Instead, the correct response to Querida Amazonia ("The Beloved Amazon") is joy. Here at last is a return to the great intellectual themes of Laudato si', the 2015 papal encyclical in which the Holy Father first articulated his critique of the neoliberal revolution in economics, the globalized regime of spoliation, exploitation, infertility, and distractedness that make possible the supposed "economic miracle" of consumerism. For Francis all of these things — the climate crisis, wage slavery, the mirage of technological progress, greed — exist along a sinuous continuum of immiseration; the planet is being destroyed because we are destroying one another because we are destroying ourselves.It is no accident that the present document is organized not in chapters but as a series of four "dreams." Many of the footnotes refer either to documents from the recent Amazonian synod held in Rome or to Francis's own previous utterances. I do not think any comparable papal document has contained so many quotations from poets.The pope's emphasis on imaginative literature is not incidental. What he seems to suggest throughout is that there are certain truths that cannot be articulated in prose. If philosophy, according to Hegel, is always an exercise in belatedness, then perhaps it is only through art that we can express the most serious longings of our age. This is why, despite the inevitable presence of jargon, the exhortation itself is full of poetic expressions, including some ("This dream made of water," "a dance of dolphins") which impress themselves effortlessly upon one's memory.Francis's ostensible theme in this reflection is the destruction of the Amazon and her indigenous peoples, both physically and spiritually, at the hands of neoliberal capitalism, leaving the soil exhausted and fruitless and the men and women of the region impoverished and atomized in cities where they live as strangers. But this sense of "bewilderment and uprootedness" extends well beyond the Amazon. It is, in fact, the defining characteristic of modern life. Overcoming these evils in South America and throughout the world will involve something more than international climate summits or NGO-sponsored PowerPoint presentations. It will require nothing less than the destruction of the existing order of things and its replacement with a new humane form of social organization whose first principles are not the acquisition of wealth or the pursuit of fleeting pleasures but love, fraternity, and serenity.It would be interesting to know what, in addition to those sources that appear in the footnotes, has informed the pope's thinking here. It has been known for some time that Francis is devoted to the great anti-modern philosopher Fr. Romano Guardini and that he is a keen Wagnerian. When the pope calls upon readers "to enter into communion with the forest" so that "our voices will easily blend with its own and become a prayer," it is difficult not to imagine the figure of Siegfried (for whom the corrupt order of Valhalla possesses no charms because he has grown up outside it) following the quiet song of the woodbird to the ring. There are echoes here also of the late Heidegger, with his horror of mankind becoming the slave of technology and his insistence upon philosophy and even "thought" giving way to the musings of artists. But I must admit that the book I thought of most when reading his reflections on "integral ecology" was Frank Herbert's Dune, in which the boy hero uses aboriginal "desert power" to overthrow a mechanized galactic empire. It is precisely this sort of synthesis between indigenous capability and political will that Francis seems to be proposing when he says that the solution to the present ecological crisis will "combine ancestral wisdom with contemporary technical knowledge." In any case, it is no surprise that a thinker so wide ranging in his interests should address his reflections not only to the Catholic faithful but to "all persons of goodwill." People of every political tendency, from the more humane voices among the new nationalists in the United States and Europe to leftists attempting to imagine what a world would look like without economic growth as we currently understand it, would profit from engagement with these ideas.How likely is it that Francis's vision will be fulfilled in our lifetimes? I think attempting to answer this question is the wrong response (though it is worth pointing out that in the last century the turn against laissez-faire economics was influenced to a greater extent than is widely acknowledged by papal encyclicals). In fact, I think it would even be a mistake to consider this exhortation a teaching document in any narrowly pedagogical sense. Instead it should be welcomed on the terms in which it is presented: as a dream, one that all persons of good will can dream together.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about the Democratic primary fight Bill de Blasio will reportedly endorse Bernie Sanders Bloomberg vs. Trump would be a clash of oligarchs
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| Top White House official suggests China is not being 'honest' and has 'motives' in the coronavirus fight, as Beijing faces suspicion over how it records infections Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:22 AM PST  China has altered some of its figures for how many people are infected by the coronavirus, adding to suspicion about how its handling the crisis.
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| Pompeo 'outraged' by United Nations list of firms with settlement ties Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:32 PM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said he is "outraged" by the U.N.'s publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israel's West Bank settlements.
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| Chinstrap penguins are starving to death in Antarctica as the temperature hits record highs. Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:25 PM PST  Here are six photos that show how researchers are studying the crisis among penguins as the planet continues to warm.
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| A Gulag: Confederate Prison at Andersonville Was 'the Deadliest Ground of the Civil War' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:10 AM PST  Being a POW for either side wasn't fun.
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| One of Klobuchar’s Biggest Backers Is ‘the Worst Company in the World’ Posted: 13 Feb 2020 01:53 AM PST  Near the end of a debate performance that arguably pulled her presidential campaign back on track, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) made the case to New Hampshire voters that her family's hardscrabble background would immunize her from the corrosive effect of money in politics."I can't stand the big money in politics," Klobuchar said in an exchange about the outsize influence of the super-rich in government. "I didn't come from money, and I just simply think people don't look at the guy in the White House and say 'Can we get someone richer?' I don't think they think that.""I am not," Klobuchar reassured the audience, "a billionaire."But while the Minnesota senator has successfully parlayed her grandfather's work in an Iron Range mine into working-class bona fides, some of Klobuchar's most important longtime backers are billionaires and billion-dollar corporations. Chief among them: Cargill, the agriculture behemoth and the largest privately held company in the United States, which has donated a small fortune in campaign contributions over the course of Klobuchar's political career.The agribusiness titan, 90 percent of which is still owned by the descendants of founder William W. Cargill, is based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Minnetonka, and has a hand in nearly every political office in Minnesota—all but one member of the state's congressional delegation received donations from Cargill in the 2018 election cycle.But even among Minnesota politicians, Klobuchar ranks among Cargill's favorites. The senator is the top recipient of donations from Cargill's PAC and employees this cycle, receiving almost five times as much as the conglomerate's next favorite member of Congress, and has been one of the company's top recipients for much of her political career.The relationship has been mutually advantageous. On issues ranging from greenhouse-gas-emissions regulation to labels for genetically modified food to sodium in school lunches, Klobuchar has voted in line with Cargill's extensive lobbying agenda. Klobuchar has also gone out of her way to cite Cargill as a "private-sector leader" in environmental issues, despite a long record of fines for environmental violations and accusations that it has profited from the use of child slave labor in West Africa.Klobuchar has even sourced staff from Cargill's ranks. In 2015, she hired a former Cargill lobbyist who eventually rose to become her legislative director.Klobuchar's campaign denied that past votes that benefited the company were a result of anything other than the senator's personal convictions, noting that she has authored antitrust legislation intended to prevent hyperconsolidation in industries like agriculture and has "led efforts to reform the farm support payment system.""Senator Klobuchar has long been a leader when it comes to prioritizing America's family farms and standing up to Big Agribusiness," a campaign spokesperson said. "While special interests may think they own Washington, they don't own Amy Klobuchar. Throughout her career, Senator Klobuchar has worked to get big money out of our politics and reform our broken system, and as president she will continue to prioritize that fight."Cargill's top brass and corporate PAC, at least, have not taken that promise seriously.David MacLennan, Cargill's chair and chief executive since 2013, has long been one of the top donors to both Klobuchar and Cargill's political action committee, itself a major bankroller of Klobuchar's political campaigns. MacLennan and his wife also appear on Klobuchar's list of campaign bundlers—those who have raised at least $25,000 for the campaign by gathering contributions from other donors. Altogether, Cargill and its employees have donated nearly $120,000 to her various campaigns, according to Open Secrets—although since her campaign launch last year Klobuchar's presidential campaign has not accepted corporate PAC donations.In turn, Klobuchar has frequently been a reliable vote on various bills of extreme interest to the agribusiness giant.In 2011, Klobuchar voted opposite a vast majority of her Democratic colleagues, as well as future presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on an amendment that would have suspended the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions for two years, and would have exempted the American agricultural industry from greenhouse-gas-emissions rules.That same year, Cargill had spent $380,000 lobbying Congress on greenhouse-gas regulations and green energy, among other issues, according to Senate lobbying disclosures. Also in 2011, Klobuchar wrote a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging the Obama administration to continue counting tomato paste as a vegetable in school lunches, and to "reconsider the quantity and the proposed timeline" of a plan to cut sodium consumption in school lunches in half."It is imperative to take into account the change in taste preferences of school-aged children," Klobuchar wrote at the time, telling the secretary that "reducing current actual sodium consumption by 54 percent is virtually unattainable when serving a dairy-based center-of-the-plate item—such as pizza—with a recommended serving of low fat milk."That same year, Cargill had spent $360,000 lobbying Congress on sodium-reduction and the USDA's school meal program, according to lobbying disclosures. The next year, Klobuchar cast multiple votes against efforts to roll back, phase out, or otherwise overhaul a federal program that guarantees profits for the American sugar industry through tariffs on foreign sugar, price controls, and a unique loan program that allows growers to pay back loans in sugar form if the market crashed.Cargill, unsurprisingly, forms one-half of the largest sugar trader in the world.In 2016, Klobuchar was one of three Democrats to vote for a bill in committee that would have blocked state labeling requirements for genetically modified foods, siding with Republicans in the Senate Agriculture Committee that would thwart state attempts to tell consumers that foods include genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Cargill publicly thanked members of the Agricultural Committee for their vote against GMO labeling."We appreciate the hard work of both Republicans and Democrats to find a workable solution to give consumers in all 50 states accurate and consistent information on their food label," Cargill said in a statement applauding the bill's passage out of committee. The measure also stipulated the creation of a taxpayer-funded public education campaign explaining the benefits of "agricultural biotechnology."Klobuchar has not always supported legislation that served Cargill's corporate interests. In 2007, her first year in office, she pushed an amendment to the 2008 Farm Bill that would have established a $750,000 income cap on commodity support payments, which would have favored small and family farms over corporate agribusinesses. She has also publicly called for increasing the corporate tax rate and raising renewable-fuel goals, both of which Cargill opposes.In spite of Cargill's opposition, Klobuchar has also supported voluntary country-of-origin labeling for agricultural products, which, as the name implies, would allow agribusinesses to opt in to declare where their products come from. But Klobuchar was a cosponsor of legislation that aimed to repeal mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef, pork, and chicken in favor of a voluntary system—a system that critics say creates a loophole for agribusinesses to avoid saying that their products aren't grown or raised in the United States.Klobuchar's work in Congress that benefited Cargill and the agribusiness industry extends beyond the nuts and bolts of farming. Klobuchar has, for example, name-checked Cargill both on the Senate floor and in speeches and press releases as a model corporate citizen on carbon emissions and environmental sustainability—despite the conglomerate being labeled "the Worst Company in the World" last year by former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who was instrumental in passing environmental and food-quality reforms during his three-decade tenure in Congress, over its history of "deforestation, child labor, and pollution.""Cargill's dithering results in a continuing environmental and human rights disaster," Waxman wrote at the time. "And because Cargill's reach is so broad, they drag other companies into aiding and abetting their environmental destruction and human rights abuses, too."Two years ago, Klobuchar went against the vast majority of her Democratic colleagues—including future rivals Sens. Sanders, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren—to oppose a farm bill amendment that would overhaul checkoff programs for agribusinesses. These programs collect funds through taxes on farmers and ranches and redistribute them into advertising and research budgets related to that commodity.Checkoff programs have helped fund some of the most iconic advertising campaigns for American agribusiness, including "Got Milk?" and "Beef: It's What's for Dinner." But the programs have come under fire in recent years from farmers and ranchers who say that some of the money being collected from the sale of their products is being used instead to fund lobbying efforts on behalf of policies and companies that hurt family farms and rural communities—meaning that their own business profits are being used to pave the way for policies that harm their businesses.Among the companies that disproportionately benefit from the program, and sit on the National Cattlemen's Beef Association product council: Cargill.Small family farmers have urged for an overhaul to the checkoff system that they feel advocates against their interests with their own money—and worry that agribusiness conglomerates could put them out of work if politicians don't do so."The pork checkoff hasn't done a darn thing for me, except take my money to promote big industrial ag," said Chris Petersen, a pig farmer in Clear Lake, Iowa, who has been involved in production agriculture for 40 years. Petersen, who is the vice president of the Iowa Citizen Action Network and a regional representative of Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, told The Daily Beast that the rise of industrial-scale agriculture operations like Cargill is a threat to family farms and rural communities—and that defenders like Klobuchar clearly don't have farmers in mind in supporting them."Everybody needs money, but there's better ways of doing it, OK?" Petersen said. "The way the family farm is today, politically, we need some friends… Warren's been good on it, Sanders has been good on it, Booker's been good on it. But Klobuchar, she's kind of taken a different position on all that stuff.""She's running around saying she's another Paul Wellstone, yeah? Oh, really?" Petersen asked sarcastically, of the late Minnesota senator who came up in the agricultural labor movement and who Klobuchar has cited as a political mentor. "Paul Wellstone was a personal friend of mine, and she's no Paul Wellstone."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Classmates rally, help release woman from immigration detention Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:03 PM PST  Meidy Guzman's release means returning to school, and possibly graduating with her classmates, while also seeking asylum and battling possible deportation.
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| Gang kills four police in operation to free leader Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:25 AM PST  Armed men killed four police officers and wounded another four as they freed a leader of the notorious MS-13 gang from a court in Honduras, authorities said. Around 20 gang members opened fire Thursday outside a court in El Progreso, around 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa, the security ministry said in a statement released later that day. During the attack, Alexander Mendoza, known by his alias "Porkys," was able to escape.
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| Mike Bloomberg once said taking too much money from the rich and giving it to the poor was a bigger problem than income inequality Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:19 AM PST  "I think income inequality is a very big problem. But the bigger problem is, you can take money from the rich and move it over to the poor," he said.
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| More GOP who voted in primary feel more allegiance to Trump than to party Posted: 13 Feb 2020 07:12 PM PST  The Democrats may have been the main attraction on Primary Night in New Hampshire this week, but Republicans also voted in their primary, and CBS News polled them on Tuesday, too.
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| Giuliani claims he can 'prove' a 'Democratic scam' in Ukraine with iPad full of 'reports' he never actually shares Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:21 AM PST  Rudy Giuliani has a fresh crop of claims about Democrats' dealings in Ukraine — an iPad full of "proof" he won't let anyone else see.The former New York City mayor made a Fox Business appearance on Thursday night to push any corruption in Ukraine on Democrats' shoulders. "They're going to be very surprised when they see the report that I have" apparently revealing an "unaccounted for" $5.3 billion in Ukraine aid during the Obama administration, Giuliani said, not exactly specifying who "they" are. That aid gap apparently explains "how all those oligarchs become oligarchs," Giuliani said, making some chomping noises and motions to imitate his interpretation of how money is laundered.Giuliani goes on to mention this mysterious report over and over, which apparently shows how "not just" the Bidens engaged in a "huge Democratic scam" in Ukraine. "That's why they're so crazy on the subject of Ukraine, and why they want to literally kill me," Giuliani said of Democrats, without any proof of this murderous plot. "I don't think it. I can prove it," Giuliani claimed again before breaking out a tablet containing a "document" that does just that — not that he actually shows it to the audience.> .@RudyGiuliani says there is more to this Ukraine corruption scandal than the Bidens \- Giuliani says he has the proof, and he's ready to EXPOSE the corruption - and that's why people are after him, watch: TrishRegan pic.twitter.com/sjYstoyUdE> > — Trish Regan (@trish_regan) February 14, 2020Giuliani hasn't publicized any proof for his claims, and more than 12 hours after claiming "we're gonna reveal the whole thing," still hasn't done so.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about the Democratic primary fight Bill de Blasio will reportedly endorse Bernie Sanders Bloomberg vs. Trump would be a clash of oligarchs
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| The casino hub of Macau will give residents money to keep its economy going during the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:35 AM PST  Macau recently shut down its casinos, the city's primary industry. It has stemmed an outbreak of the coronavirus and hopes to keep the economy afloat.
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| Mystery: Did Iranian Pilots Encounter a Mach 10 Drone or Some Sort of UFO? Posted: 13 Feb 2020 06:30 PM PST  The truth is out there.
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| Jimmy Hoffa associate who was suspect in disappearance dies Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:35 AM PST  Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien, a longtime associate of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa who became a leading suspect in the labor leader's disappearance and later was portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film, "The Irishman," has died. O'Brien's stepson, Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, said in a blog post that O'Brien died Thursday in Boca Raton, Florida, from what appeared to be a heart attack. O'Brien was a constant companion to Hoffa in the decades when the labor leader developed the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful unions in the nation in the from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.
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| Israeli mayor orders Palestinian 'surrender' billboards removed Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST |
| Truck spilling cement on roadway causes 'violent crash,' killing 2 Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:46 PM PST  A driver traveling northbound drove over the wet mortar, jumped the median and hit a car going southbound, police said.
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| Foreigners stranded in Wuhan by virus tell of fear and rations Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:53 AM PST  Hunkered down at the epicentre of China's virus epidemic and cut off from the world, the remaining foreigners in Wuhan are eking out a life in fear. As of Monday, 27 foreigners in China had been infected with the virus -- 22 of whom were in quarantine, officials said. Ruqia Shaikh, a Pakistani postdoctoral researcher stranded at Wuhan's Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said most students at the school were confined to their dormitories, watching TV.
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| Police arrest 2 teenagers in killing of 2 boys in California Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:27 AM PST |
| 'An introvert's dream': Here's what it's like for passengers on board the quarantined coronavirus cruise Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:32 PM PST  The Diamond Princess cruise ship is currently under a 14-day quarantine, where Cheryl and Paul Molesky have been posting regular vlogs.
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| House Republicans say stealing polling data through open blinds is kosher. Democrats say it's creepy. Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:59 AM PST  The campaign organizations for House Democrats and Republicans — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — agree on the facts of what happened Wednesday night, Politico reported Friday morning: NRCC staffers walked across the street to the DCCC's headquarters to stake out some Democratic candidates, saw the blinds open on a DCCC polling meeting, and snapped some photos, nabbing pricy and potentially useful proprietary polling data on races Democrats are focusing on in November.Republicans think they hit the jackpot, Democrats found the tactics "totally out of bounds, and downright creepy," Politico reports. "The NRCC and DCCC have disagreed on where to draw the line when it comes to opposition research. The Republican committee, for example, has declined to sign an agreement to not use hacked information in its campaigns."Still, the DCCC didn't exactly take the high road. "When you have no ideas or accomplishments to run on, you creep in the bushes, take pictures through people's windows, and invade their privacy," communications director Cole Leiter told Politico. "The next time the NRCC is looking for tips on running winning campaigns, all they have to do is call us — we'll be more than happy to explain why Kevin McCarthy is the minority leader." If the DCCC doesn't start closing its blinds, a phone call might be superfluous.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about the Democratic primary fight Bill de Blasio will reportedly endorse Bernie Sanders Bloomberg vs. Trump would be a clash of oligarchs
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| New Jersey Invests in Fossil Fuels, Shunning Others’ Carbon Pullback Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:36 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- While climate-change activists are urging Harvard University's endowment and New York City's pension fund to rethink their fossil-fuel holdings, New Jersey says the best way to fight for cleaner energy is as an investor.Phil Murphy's administration says that joining a global oil-and-gas divestment wave would eliminate its shareholder voice. Climate activists, though, say New Jersey's holdings in Exxon Mobil Corp. and others like it contradicts the Democratic governor's vow to help tackle global warming.In January, Murphy set a goal for 100% clean energy by 2050 and made New Jersey the first state to require builders to evaluate the climate impact of projects to win approval. Those steps, he said, will help counteract President Donald Trump's support for coal, withdrawal from the 2016 Paris Accord and other attacks on greenhouse-gas reduction policy.Still, Exxon is the New Jersey pension's 10th-largest stock holding, with an almost 1% portfolio share as of Oct. 31. The state has holdings in 148 energy stocks, including Phillips 66, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and China Shenhua Energy Co., that make up 3.7% of the equity in New Jersey's $80 billion pension."Why are you investing in companies that are involved in the destruction of people's habitats -- and then fueling extreme weather events that affect other parts of your portfolio?" said Tina Weishaus, a spokesperson for the DivestNJ Coalition, a group of environmental organizations that's pressuring the State Investment Council to abandon fossil fuels and urging lawmakers to ban such investments.The S&P 500 energy sector returned 7.6% in 2019, the index's weakest performance by far, and is expected to continue a years-long streak of lagging behind the broader market amid a glut in supplies and threats to demand. Since Murphy took office in January 2018, Exxon has lost 30% of its value.Murphy, a retired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. senior director, said at a Feb. 11 news conference in Maple Shade that the state has a "sort of social responsibility parameter that applies to our investment decisions, which are taken by the investment council, not by yours truly."The state investment division is seeking climate-risk analysts and planning to hire a sustainable portfolio manager, according to Jennifer Sciortino, a treasury spokesperson.The division "believes the best financial outcomes will result from active engagement on climate change issues," Sciortino said in a statement. "Divestment, in contrast, eliminates the division's influence as a shareholder and, consequently, its ability to effect positive change that may lead to favorable investment returns."Plant EmissionsExxon spokesperson Casey Norton declined to comment on New Jersey's holdings, but said the company has invested more than $10 billion in pollution-lowering technology over 20 years."We're committed to doing our part to identify scalable solutions for the dual challenge of meeting a growing demand for energy and lower emissions," Norton said in an email.Over 10 years, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, California State Teachers' Retirement System and the Colorado Public Employees' Retirement Association lost more than $19 billion as a result of their fossil-fuel investments, according to Toronto-based Corporate Knights, a research firm that promotes sustainable business.Fund overseers disagree on whether divesting or investing is a better tool for climate change.Calpers, the largest U.S. pension fund with $404 billion, and the $252 billion Calstrs have cited their proxy power as among the reasons to stay in fossil fuels. Trustees of Grinnell College in Iowa studied divestment for its $2 billion endowment and in 2018 concluded they had "not found any compelling evidence that the action of divesting fossil fuel stocks has an impact on climate change, particularly as a result of financial pressure."On the other side of the debate, the University of California said in September that it would cut non-renewables from the $13.4 billion endowment and $80 billion pension fund."We must meet the needs of our current operations and the current requirements of our retirees without compromising our ability to serve future students, staff members and faculty," according to a statement posted to the website of Jagdeep Singh Bachher, the school's chief investment officer.A Feb. 4 Harvard faculty vote called for the $40 billion endowment fund to get out of oil and gas; two days later, Georgetown University President John DeGioia said the $1.66 billion endowment will drop non-renewable energy."Divestment allows us to divert more capital to fund development of renewable energy projects that will play a vital role in the transition away from fossil fuels," Michael Barry, Georgetown's chief investment officer, said in a news release.In January, New York City's pension board created a panel to explore divestment for the $216 billion fund. The New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest U.S. public pension with $226 billion, said it was reviewing 27 mining companies that derive at least 10% of their revenue from coal burned to produce electricity."Investors who fail to face the risks and seize the opportunities presented by climate change put their portfolios in jeopardy," State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, whose Climate Action Plan seeks to cut the state pension's carbon footprint, said in a statement.To contact the reporter on this story: Elise Young in Trenton at eyoung30@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, Stacie Sherman, William SelwayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| World War II Taught The Air Force Why Flying Tanks Are King Posted: 14 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  America's B-25G was the first, but it wouldn't be the last.
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| Well, impeachment didn't work – how else can Congress keep President Trump in check? Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:44 AM PST  Donald Trump's removal of impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the White House and intervention in his friend Roger Stone's sentencing have prompted concern that the president's acquittal in his recent impeachment trial may embolden him to further expand executive power while avoiding accountability.But the conclusion of the trial in the Senate should by no means end congressional oversight of the executive branch. As a legal scholar and political scientist, I know that a healthy, stable democracy depends on people knowing what their government is doing so they can hold elected officials accountable through elections. Our constitutional system ensures transparency and accountability by authorizing legislative branch oversight of the executive.This is more important now in the aftermath of the first ever presidential impeachment trial to take place without witness testimony or a full investigation of the facts. Oversight is one way to ensure government transparency. The Constitution authorizes Congress to exercise oversight as part of the carefully crafted balance of powers among the three branches of government.Impeachment is an important check on presidential power. However, it is the most rarely used of the multiple tools Congress has to review, monitor and supervise the executive branch and its implementation of public policy.Congress can also exercise oversight through the power of the purse, which allows it to withhold or limit funding. And it can use its power to organize the executive branch, which it uses to create and abolish federal agencies.In addition, Congress makes laws, confirms officials and conducts investigations. Shining a lightThe tool Congress is most likely to use – investigations – is also the most likely to be affected by the impeachment trial. Investigations can be an effective mechanism for ensuring governmental transparency because they publicize what government agencies have, or have not, been doing. Both the House and the Senate have broad investigative powers implied in the Constitution that have been used to probe the executive branch and private sector over the years. Each chamber has wide powers in setting out the parameters and expected outcomes of an inquiry. Either the House or the Senate can direct staff to obtain documents and interview potential witnesses. These efforts usually culminate in committee hearings and a report made available to the public. Congressional investigations have effectively shined light on questionable executive branch conduct in the past. They exposed the Reagan administration's diversion of funds from sales of arms to Iran to aid the Nicaraguan Contras, George W. Bush administration's misrepresentation of intelligence to justify the Iraq War, and President Nixon's attempts to cover up the Watergate scandal.They have also revealed waste and abuse by federal agencies, including corruption related to the FBI's use of confidential informants and mismanagement by leadership in the Department of Justice's Environmental Crimes Program.In addition to fostering transparency and governmental accountability, investigations alert Congress to gaps in the law. For example, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' inquiry into the 2008 financial crisis led to greater consumer protection and regulation of the banking sector in the Dodd-Frank Act. Existing oversight investigations into Trump's policies and him personally will continue. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Reform has at least two pending investigations. One is looking into the Department of Education's policies on federal student loans, campus sexual harassment and protections for students at for-profit colleges. Another is investigating the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the census. Meanwhile, investigations into Trump's borrowing and banking practices prior to becoming president will continue. So will efforts to compel the Treasury Department to release Trump's tax returns. Impeachment's shadow?But as the impeachment trial shows, the president can stonewall efforts to hand over information. Currently, federal courts are hearing multiple court cases in which House committees have sought information from or about the president.More disputes between Congress and the executive branch are likely. Recently, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform threatened to subpoena Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos after she refused to attend a public hearing. And Attorney General William Barr agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Department of Justice's reversal of its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone. Trump's acquittal may embolden him to persist in his arguments for absolute immunity and reassert them if, for example, DeVos is subpoenaed or Barr testifies. But ultimately, the courts may have more impact on future oversight than the impeachment trial as they have the power to order disclosure of information. Left in the darkCongress is not limited to investigations when it comes to holding the president accountable. Congress persists in its attempts to use its war powers to restrict Trump's actions in Iran. The House recently passed a measure requiring congressional pre-approval before any money was spent on attacking Iran and voted to repeal the 17-year-old authorization for the Iraq War, which the Trump Administration used to justify the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. And the Senate passed a resolution to limit President Trump's ability to use force against Iran.Congress has several other mechanisms for exercising oversight. It can defund, redirect, or even eliminate federal agencies and refuse to confirm presidential appointments. But it remains to be seen whether it will continue to pursue vigorous oversight. The impending election could distract or deter Democrats, who want to refocus their line of attack on Trump by disputing his record on the economy. Meanwhile Republicans, who fear electoral repercussions if they alienate the president's base, are unlikely to seek more oversight.Without oversight, people are left in the dark about what their government is doing. And a misled or uninformed public weakens the only other mechanism available to hold the executive branch accountable: elections.[You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * After the trial of Donald Trump, impeachment has lost some of its gravitas * This is how ancient Rome's republic died – a classicist sees troubling parallels at Trump's impeachment trialKirsten Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| New York Mayor de Blasio endorses Sanders in 2020 Democratic race Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:50 PM PST  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential race on Friday, the Sanders campaign said. De Blasio, a liberal who dropped out of the Democratic contest in September, will travel with Sanders on Sunday and Monday to Nevada, which holds its caucuses on Feb. 22, a campaign announcement said. The endorsement comes after Sanders, who was born in New York but represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate, came out of the first nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire as a front-runner among the Democrats vying to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
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| Penned lions still on offer at trophy hunting convention Posted: 13 Feb 2020 12:26 PM PST  An undercover video recorded by animal welfare activists shows vendors at a recent trophy hunting convention promoting trips to shoot captive-bred lions in Africa, despite past public assurances by the event's organizers that so-called canned hunts wouldn't be sold.
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| Teacher allegedly told student who didn't stand for national anthem, 'go back to your country' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 10:19 AM PST  A group of students held a sit-in at the Chicago high school in protest. The district said the alleged remark would "run counter to our beliefs and priorities."
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| Man declared incompetent in San Francisco pier killing case Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:45 PM PST  A Mexican man who was acquitted of killing a woman on a San Francisco pier in a case that became a national flashpoint was found incompetent to stand trial Friday on federal gun charges. If neither side disputes the findings, the court will discuss whether the defendant should be treated locally for mental illness or sent to a federal facility outside California. Defense attorney Tony Serra said he would contest the finding.
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| China is diagnosing coronavirus patients by looking for 'ground glass' in their lungs. Take a look at the CT scans. Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:32 PM PST  The scans aren't as thorough as a blood tests, but doctors in Wuhan are reportedly running short on test kits.
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| The Multibillion Dollar Canal Carving a Rift Through Erdogan's Turkey Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:07 AM PST  The largest infrastructure project Turkey has ever undertaken is angering environmentalists, opposition politicians and potentially Moscow
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| The Wacky New Anti-Abortion Tactic Taking Off Across America Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:36 AM PST  When Santa Rosa County's Board of Commissioners met Thursday morning, items on the agenda included improving the drainage on Tibet Drive, upgrading the local boat ramp, and allocating money to buy new scoreboards at Chumuckla Park.Then, at the end of the meeting, came a far more controversial and divisive matter, one that is likely to have an impact beyond the Florida community of 150,000 people.Dozens of local residents, many holding placards and pointing fingers, lined up to speak for and against a proposal to become the first "abortion sanctuary city" in Florida. The wacky—and possibly unconstitutional—concept, which co-opts a label used by liberal cities that protect undocumented immigrants, has taken off in small, deeply conservative towns across Texas in the last six months. Waskom, a Texas town of 2,000 people, was the first city in the U.S. to become a "sanctuary city for the unborn" after its all-male board voted unanimously last July. Eleven more Texas towns, mostly in the state's east, followed suit, although a handful of towns have voted against proposed ordinances.The local ordinances vary in severity. Waskom's outlaws abortion (which it called "murder with malice aforethought"), makes it unlawful to assist someone to get an abortion, and prevents Planned Parenthood and other reproductive services (which it calls "criminal organizations") from operating within city limits. Violating the local health ordinance can incur a fine. Some other towns' ordinances allow family members of an unborn baby to sue the abortion doctor; not all have included provisions for rape and incest. Most are in towns with no abortion services anyway.The movement has been pushed by Mark Lee Dickson, a pastor from Longview, Texas, who first proposed the idea to Waskom's mayor and has since set up a website with printable petitions that people can submit to their local boards."I knew it was a crazy idea," Dickson said. "Once it passed in Waskom, it was, 'Well, what's next?' And it just made sense that if [abortion providers] aren't going to come to Waskom now, they're just going to go somewhere else, so we need to make sure other cities are safe as well."Dickson said he'd been contacted by people in Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Indiana. In Santa Rosa County, which neighbors Pensacola and includes the small cities of Milton and Navarre, the vote on Thursday became so heated that the Board of Commissioners, which was split on whether to adopt the resolution, decided it should go to a county-wide referendum instead.Santa Rosa would become the first place outside Texas to adopt the concept, potentially kicking off a trend for other cities in the U.S..One of the county's commissioners, Lane Lynchard, said he didn't think it was right for a local board to wade into divisive national issues."It has accomplished nothing other than pitting people against one another," he said on Thursday, adding that 80 percent of emails and messages he'd received on the issue were against it. "We can't legislate people's beliefs. I think we need to stick with governing the county."Another commissioner, Dave Piech, was booed by attendees when he said the resolution had morphed into divisive name calling."Actions speak louder than words," someone shouted as Piech insisted he was anti-abortion but thought it was beyond the purview of five male commissioners.Local resident Alison Hartman, a mother of 10, said the board "needed to stand up and be a voice for the rest of the county.""All you old people that stood up and said you're 'pro-choice' and against babies," she said, pointing toward a small crowd of abortion-rights activists. "If it was your grandbabies, it'd be different."In Texas and Florida, where some form of abortion is legal, anti-abortion ordinances are likely to be unconstitutional, more a headline-grabbing move for small-town activists. But they scare women away and confuse them into thinking abortion is not legal in those places, abortion providers say."The idea of a sanctuary from one's constitutional rights is a new twist," The Very Reverend Katherine H. Ragsdale, president of the National Abortion Federation, said, adding that it was a new tactic from an old playbook of demonization and policy manipulation.The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas called the Waskom ordinance a "grandstanding mechanism" and said abortion access was a constitutional right.Sara Latshaw, deputy political director of the ACLU of Florida, said they were "disappointed that Santa Rosa commissioners have decided to prolong this political theater instead of focusing on local matters. Any such resolution or referendum is just a tactic to shame those in need of care."Several towns have voted down proposals due to the risk of potential lawsuits. Dickson likened the ordinances, which are stronger than largely symbolic resolutions, to local bans on cigarette sales or sugary sodas. He said cities that have passed ordinances have been subjected to threats; Waskom had clothes hangers mailed to the town recently."It's caused a lot of hate to come towards some of these cities and it is not something that any of them take lightly," he said.Residents in Santa Rosa will vote on the proposal in November.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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