|
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
|
The presidential distrust, once mainly confined to the intelligence community’s assessments about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, has now spread across a range of global issues, including assessments on North Korea, Iran, climate change and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
By Greg Miller @ WashingtonPost.com, Dec. 11
[....] “There is extraordinary frustration,” a U.S. intelligence official said. The CIA and other agencies continue to devote enormous “time, energy and resources” to ensuring that accurate intelligence is delivered to Trump, the official said, but his seeming imperviousness to such material often renders “all of that a waste.” [....]
[...} U.S. officials involved in interactions with the White House said that the disconnect between spy agencies and the president is without precedent and that senior analysts have spent the past year struggling to find ways to adapt to an arrangement they described as dysfunctional.
Many have taken to writing “for the record,” officials said, meaning that they generate reports to document intelligence community warnings on North Korea, Iran and other subjects.
Briefings of Cabinet officials have taken on new urgency, officials said [....]
via the Tweet, this link is free premium National Journal content til 12/17:
By Sarah Smith @ Star Telegram via MiamiHerald.com, Dec. 9. Link is to Part I of 5 parts, note menu @ top
[....] The network of churches and schools has often covered up the crimes and helped relocate the offenders, an eight-month Star-Telegram investigation has found. More than 200 people — current or former church members, across generations — shared their stories of rape, assault, humiliation and fear in churches where male leadership cannot be questioned.[....]
One hundred and sixty-eight church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children, the investigation found. At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement.
Compounding the problem is the legal statute of limitations. For many alleged offenders, the statutes on the crimes have expired.
Many of the allegations involve men whose misconduct has long been suspected in the independent fundamental Baptist community. But most of their victims have not publicly come forward, on the record, until now. Even pastors have for the first time — in interviews with the Star-Telegram — acknowledged they moved alleged abusers out of their churches rather than call law enforcement.
From Connecticut to California, the stories are tragically similar: [....]
By Sarah N. Lynch @ Reuters.com, updated an hour ago
WASHINGTON - A proposed overhaul of America’s prison policies and criminal sentencing standards was being revised on Monday as U.S. lawmakers scrambled to win enough support for it ahead of the end of the year, senators said.
Revisions to the bill could pressure Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring it up for a vote, which he has so far declined to do, despite broad bipartisan support and backing by President Donald Trump.
The lame-duck session of Congress is expected to end this month. Backers of the bill fear delaying it until next year could give opponents more time to pick it apart.
Entitled the First Step Act, the bill would make it easier for deserving inmates to be released from prison into halfway houses or home confinement, create programs to reduce recidivism, and prevent first-time non-violent offenders from facing harsh mandatory minimum sentences. [....]
The mace in Parliament is the symbol of royal authority and without it neither House can meet or pass laws.--from www. Parliament.uk
Journalists have been beaten, arrested, and robbed in the wake of the civil revolt that paralysed the country earlier in the year
By Toby Stirling Hill from Managua @ TheGuardian.com, Dec. 10
Nicaraguan TV journalist Miguel Mora was driving home from work when he was pulled over by armed police.
“They ordered me take off my glasses and put a hood over my head,” says Mora, who directs the 100% Noticias news channel. “Then they took me by the neck and forced me into a pickup, where an officer told me: ‘You’re responsible for the death of police. If you keep fucking around, we’re going to kill you and your whole family.’”
It was the sixth time Mora had been detained by police in the space of a week. He also faces criminal charges of “inciting hate”, while drones have filmed his house and armed men on motorbikes track his movements.
Such intimidation is part of an escalating assault on press freedoms in Nicaragua, unleashed in the wake of the civil revolt that paralysed the country earlier in the year [....]
Luntz's tweet citing graph from FiveThirtyEight's Dec 7 article to which I link:
That Luntz is tweeting this is the most amazing thing about it, must mean a change in tastes among GOP voters, he knows this stuff:
Dozens of companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but the data shows how personal it is.
By Jennifer Valentino DeVries, Natasha Singer, Michael H. Keller & Aaron Krolik @ NYTimes.com, Dec. 10; interactive feature
[....] Yet another leaves a house in upstate New York at 7 a.m. and travels to a middle school 14 miles away, staying until late afternoon each school day. Only one person makes that trip: Lisa Magrin, a 46-year-old math teacher. Her smartphone goes with her.
An app on the device gathered her location information, which was then sold without her knowledge. It recorded her whereabouts as often as every two seconds, according to a database of more than a million phones in the New York area that was reviewed by The New York Times. While Ms. Magrin’s identity was not disclosed in those records, The Times was able to easily connect her to that dot.
The app tracked her as she went to a Weight Watchers meeting and to her dermatologist’s office for a minor procedure. It followed her hiking with her dog and staying at her ex-boyfriend’s home, information she found disturbing.
“It’s the thought of people finding out those intimate details that you don’t want people to know,” said Ms. Magrin, who allowed The Times to review her location data [....]
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take a case with big implications for women's health care, Planned Parenthood and whether states can effectively block people from using Medicaid for health care services at Planned Parenthood.
The result is that people can continue to use Medicaid money for pregnancy-related Planned Parenthood (and similar organizations) services. Now, this is not for abortion-related services. Federal law prohibits people to use Medicaid money for abortion.
By Heather Murdoch @ VOANews.com, Dec. 7, from MOSUL, IRAQ
[....] On average, IS has conducted 75 attacks a month in Iraq in 2018, claiming more than 1,500 civilian lives, according to new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group.
The death toll is considerably less than in 2017, when IS still held physical territories, but the group appears to be refocusing its efforts on government targets, the report says.
"Islamic State militants are seizing on local grievances," it reads, "taking advantage of ungoverned space by operating from cell structures to conduct hit-and-run attacks, kidnappings for ransom, targeted assassinations, and bombings using improvised explosive devices."
Iraqi security forces are conducting near-daily operations to thwart these attacks, capturing and killing fighters as well as launching airstrikes, including a cross-border offensive in neighboring Syria that killed 40 militants last month, according to the Iraqi military [....]
