marble falls
marble falls's JournalArizona sheriff puts inmates on bread and water
(Reuters) - Dozens of inmates in Arizona jails run by a sheriff who has been a controversial figure in the national immigration debate have been put on a diet of bread and water for desecrating U.S. flags that hang in each cell, authorities said on Friday.
Maricopa County lawman Joe Arpaio, who has been called "America's toughest sheriff," said 38 inmates were currently getting these meals twice a day as punishment for destroying government property while in custody at six jails.
"These inmates have destroyed the American flag that was placed in their cells. Tearing them, writing on them, stepping on them, throwing them in the toilet, trash or wherever they feel," Arpaio said in a statement. "It's a disgrace to those who have fought for our country."
The punishment will last for seven days, he said, and a second offense would bring 10 more days of the sparse diet.
A sheriff's spokesman said the bread provides the daily requirement of calories and nutrients that is necessary. There are about 8,300 inmates in the jail system.
<snip>
Dan Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, called the move a "publicity stunt."
"It's certainly not illegal, but what he is doing is bad policy," Pochoda said. "It's just another vindictive policy that has nothing to do with running a good jail system."
<snip>
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/24/us-usa-arpaio-flags-idUSBREA0N1II20140124
West Virginia Officials Say Water Ban to be Lifted Soon
Source: Time Magazine
West Virginia Officials Say Water Ban to be Lifted Soon
But authorities unable to provide clear timetable
By David Stout Jan. 13, 2014Add a Comment
?w=360&h=240&crop=1
Residents line up for water at a water filling station at West Virginia State University, in Institute, West Virginia, January 10, 2014.
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After an estimated 300,000 West Virginians spent the weekend without tap water, following a massive chemical spill in the Elk River, officials say tests show life may return to normal soon — without specifying exactly when. “I believe that we’re at a point where we can say that we see light at the end of the tunnel,” West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin told a group of reporters on Sunday.
<snip>
Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water, said he was optimistic that the ban would be lifted soon. “I don’t believe we’re several days from starting to lift, but I’m not saying today,” told McIntyre.
On Thursday, state officials announced that approximately 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, a chemical used to process coal, had leaked from a storage tank into the Elk River, just one mile from the West Virginia American Water plant.
Environmentalists have long chided West Virginia’s lax industrial regulations, which activists claim are a result of the enormous sway companies working in coal-related industries have in the state.
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2014/01/13/west-virginia-officials-say-water-ban-to-be-lifted-soon/
Trump to New York GOP: I'll Run for Governor if We Skip Primary
Source: Newsmax (yeah, I know - Newsmax)
Trump to New York GOP: I'll Run for Governor if We Skip Primary
Image: Trump to New York GOP: I'll Run for Governor if We Skip Primary
Saturday, 11 Jan 2014 01:08 PM
By Sandy Fitzgerald
Donald Trump is ready to run for governor of New York if the state's Republicans will unify behind him, but state GOP Chairman Ed Cox says Trump should officially declare his candidacy if he's serious about seeking the state's top spot.
Trump told the New York Daily News, after a two-hour meeting with 50 Republicans in his office on Friday, that he is seeking full support of the party and wants no primary elections.
"You can’t have primaries," said Trump. "You can’t have all the wasted time and effort in doing that. You have to pick somebody and go to win. If that couldn’t happen, I wouldn’t do it."
<snip.
Trump is already gathering some support among Republicans who think he is the only person who and defeat Cuomo. The billionaire is also expected to report that his campaign coffers already have more than $30 million available.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/new-york-governor-donald-trump-rob-astorino/2014/01/11/id/546561?promo_code=142BF-1&utm_source=142BFSun_sentinel_and_Orlando_Sentinel_generi&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1
They'll never do it, but we can hope.
Sarah Palin’s Advice on Syria: ‘Let Allah Sort it Out’
http://kysdc.com/3107803/sarah-palins-advice-on-syria-let-allah-sort-it-out/?omcamp=scribol&utm_source=hexagram.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hexagram.comFormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin seems to have an endless supply of inappropriate and ignorant comments when it comes to politics, and her latest comments do not disappoint.
While speaking at the annual meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Saturday, Palin criticized President Obama and his decision to intervene with the fighting in Syria.
“We’re talking now more, new interventions, I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he’s doing … well, in these radical Islamic countries aren’t even respecting basic human rights, when both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, Allahu Akbar, I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say: Let Allah sort it out.”
This past Thursday President Obama agreed to supply military support to Syrian rebels after intelligence agencies confirmed the Syrian military had used chemical weapons on its people. The use of weapons like the nerve agent sarin crossed the ‘red line’ necessary to trigger American involvement, said the president.
From July, but this is the first I've heard of it.
John Boehner is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/12/john-boehner-is-mad-as-hell-and-hes-not-going-to-take-it-anymore/?tid=pm_politics_popJohn Boehner is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore
By Chris Cillizza
December 12 at 1:36 pm
A remarkable thing happened Thursday morning in Washington. House Speaker John Boehner told tea party conservative groups exactly what he thought of them.
John Boehner channeled Howard Beale in "Network" today.
John Boehner channeled Howard Beale in “Network” today.
“Frankly I just think they’ve lost all credibility,” Boehner said of groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth, who have come out in opposition to the budget compromise deal expected to be voted on later Thursday in the House. “I don’t care what they do.”
Boehner’s rebuke of these outside groups is the culmination of several years of legislative setbacks orchestrated by a tea party wing that views any form of compromise as capitulation. From the thwarted “Plan B” during the fiscal cliff debate to the farm bill to relief funds for Hurricane Sandy victims to the government shutdown, Boehner has watched with increasing frustration this year as groups like Heritage, the Club and Senate Conservatives Fund have driven an immoveable wedge within the House Republican conference.
Boehner’s outburst was his second in as many days — on Wednesday he accused these groups of ”using our members and…..the American people for their own goals” — and is simply the latest sign that the GOP establishment has had just about enough of tea party conservatives. In late November, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who faces a primary challenge from his ideological right in 2014, said that “the Senate Conservatives Fund is giving conservatism a bad name,” adding: “They’re participating in ruining the brand.” And, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the author of the latest budget compromise and the party’s 2012 vice presidential candidate, lashed out at Florida Sen. Marco Rubio Thursday morning for opposing the deal; “Read the deal and get back to me,” Ryan told Rubio during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”.
What explains the Republican establishment’s newfound bravery when it comes to tangling with the tea party? Two big things:
1) The tea party is at historic lows in terms of public opinion. In new Gallup polling, just 30 percent of people view the movement favorably; even one in three self-identified conservatives say the dislike the tea party. Condemning unpopular things is, you guessed it, popular.
2) There’s safety in numbers. McConnell threw the first stone. But now that other prominent figures within the party are coming forward to say, essentially, enough is enough, it’s now become less politically risky to add your voice to that chorus.
<snip>
Chris Cillizza is founder and editor of The Fix, a leading blog on state and national politics. He is the author of The Gospel According to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics and an MSNBC contributor and political analyst. He also regularly appears on NBC and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. He joined The Post in 2005 and was named one of the top 50 journalists by Washingtonian in 2009.
Graham: Senate Will Challenge White House on Iran Deal
Graham: Senate Will Challenge White House on Iran Deal
Monday, 25 Nov 2013 01:31 PM
By Audrey Hudson
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that despite the Obama administration's interim deal with Iran the Senate would pass a bipartisan measure forcing sanctions against the rogue nation until its nuclear capability has been completely dismantled.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, the South Carolina Republican said on CNN's "New Day" that sanctions will come out of Congress in the next couple of weeks to ensure Iran dismantles its reactor rather than suspends construction as the deal requires.
"You stop enrichment, not just pause it," Graham said.
"Right now, the interim deal leaves their capability totally intact. The new round of sanctions will be focusing on the end game, and it is coming soon," Graham said.
Graham is the latest in a growing line of Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill who oppose the deal with Iran, which requires the country to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in aid that would flow without sanctions.
The Obama administration has warned Congress not to move ahead with sanctions, but Graham's statement is the strongest yet that lawmakers are not willing to let the White House deal stand.
"This deal doesn't represent the fact that we are dealing with some of the most thuggish people in the world," Graham said.
Why has Eric Cantor been so quiet lately?
My inquiring mind just needs to know why he's been keeping such a low profile. Did he campaign for the Cuccinelli?
How to Avoid a ‘Big Mac’ Heart Attack
#t=0If you thought Walmart asking its low-wage workers to donate food so their fellow workers in need can eat at Thanksgiving was outrageous, wait until you see this video of helpful tips to relieve stress, feel fuller on less food and stay healthy for the low-wage workers at McDonald’s from the company’s McResource hotline.
(Yes, it’s the same help line that encourages McDonald’s employees to seek out government help to meet the ends that their paychecks won’t.)
Here’s the best one. “Breaking food into pieces often results in eating less and still feeling full.” Of course, earning paychecks that would allow workers enough money to buy groceries to feed their families would help, too.
Want to avoid a heart attack? The McResource line suggests taking “two vacations a year to cut attack risk by 50%.” That might be tough if a worker has followed the line’s suggestion elsewhere to help boost income by taking a second job.
Chewing gum and going to church can help lower stress and blood pressure, McDonald’s workers are advised. Of course, once in church, they can offer up a prayer for a living wage that likely will be heard more favorably than asking McDonald’s for a raise.
If McDonald’s workers just shut up about their low wages and lack of respect—something the company would surely love—it would lower their stress levels because, says McResource, “stress hormone levels rise by 15% after ten minutes of complaining."
Take a look at the video from Fast Food Forward, the New York group made up of workers helping to organize the fast-food strike/living wage movement that has picked up steam across the country during the past year. While watching it you‘ll either laugh, cry, cuss or maybe all three.
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/How-to-Avoid-a-Big-Mac-Heart-Attack
More than a quarter of civilians shot by HPD in 5 years had no weapon
More than a quarter of civilians shot by HPD in 5 years had no weapon, and the last officer charged in a shooting was in 2004
By James Pinkerton
Houston police fired their guns at civilians more than 100 times in the last five years, resulting in numerous injuries and deaths, but never in charges against the officers.
About the series
<snip>
From 2008 to 2012, officers shot 121 people, 52 of them fatally.
Police say their lives or others were threatened in all those incidents, although more than a quarter of the civilians shot by the Houston Police Department during that time were unarmed. Of the unarmed people shot, 10 died. They include a mentally ill double amputee in a wheelchair and a Navy veteran diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Officers shot unarmed civilians who “reached” or “grabbed” for their waistlines — or held objects such as cellphones or a hairbrush that police mistook for weapons.
Harris County grand juries have cleared HPD officers of criminal wrongdoing in all shootings from 2008 to 2012 that they have reviewed so far, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.
The last time an HPD officer was charged for a shooting was in March 2004, when Arthur Carbonneau was indicted in the death of 14-year-old Eli Escobar Jr. Carbonneau was convicted of negligent homicide in that case. Since then, Houston police officers have been cleared by Harris County grand juries 288 consecutive times for shootings.
<snip>
Very few HPD patrol vehicles, meanwhile, have dashboard cameras, denying officers and the public a proven method of documenting whether or not the use of force is appropriate. Jeff Monk, manager of HPD’s open records unit, said he was not aware of any HPD shooting from 2008 to 2012 that was captured on a dashboard camera.
Nearly 100% cleared
<snip>
“There is no requirement that one has to be armed,” for an officer to use deadly force, McClelland said. “If I’m out here in the middle of the street, and I’m fighting for my life and you’re getting the best of me, and I decide to use deadly force to save my life, I have not committed a violation of the law even if you only had a paper clip in your pocket.”
His officers also rarely face discipline internally for shootings.
In the five years of records examined by the Chronicle, investigators with HPD’s internal affairs division reviewed 636 shootings of all types by officers, including shootings of animals and accidental discharges. They ruled that only one shooting was not justified and ordered a supervisor to counsel a patrol officer whose unholstered gun went off as he struggled to detain a suspect in August 2008.
The newspaper’s findings prompted serious questions among community activists and experts about the judgment shown by HPD officers. The number of shootings of unarmed suspects, in particular, alarmed Larry Karson, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Houston-Downtown.
“If one-quarter of the people you’re shooting are not truly a danger to the officer, it brings into question the training of the officers,” Karson said. “Are they getting an appropriate amount of training in what is called 'shoot/no-shoot' situations to learn to pay attention to things like cellphones, since we all now carry them?”
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/investigations/item/Bulletproof-Part-1-Unarmed-and-Dangerous-24419.php
Part 1 of a 3 [art series. Well worth the read/
Man Dances Like No-one is Watching, OH, the joy!
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