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  • Bashar al-Assad—The Fall of a Rabid AntiSemite

    Sunday, December 08, 2024
    When Pope John Paul II visited Damascus in May 2001, Bashar used his welcoming speech to denounce the Jews, saying, “They tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.”   read more
  • Longtime U.S. Policy in Afghanistan Allows Military Allies to Rape Children

    Tuesday, September 22, 2015
    The raping of boys bothered many soldiers. Those that took action to stop it have been punished by the military. Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain, was relieved of his command after he beat up an American-backed militia commander who kept a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people,” Quinn said “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did...”   read more
  • VW Programmed Diesel Cars to Cheat on Emissions Tests

    Tuesday, September 22, 2015
    VW used a computer algorithm to fool emissions testing equipment on hundreds of thousands of cars since 2009. EPA's Cynthia Giles said the cars emit as much as 40 times the level of pollutants allowed under law, posing a public health threat. “The software was designed to conceal the cars’ emission of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that contributes to the creation of ozone and smog, which are linked to a range of health problems, including asthma attacks...and premature death,” said the Times.   read more
  • Hedge Fund Ethics Hit Drug Industry as “Rare Disease” Loophole Causes Cost of Medicine to Suddenly Skyrocket

    Tuesday, September 22, 2015
    After acquiring Daraprim, Shkreli jacked up the drug’s price overnight from a per-tablet price of $13.50 to $750. The move could result in some patients paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the drug. Turing’s 5,000% price increase could potentially bring the company tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year in sales. Some hospitals may now have difficulty keeping the drug in stock due to its cost, resulting in treatment delays for patients.   read more
  • Federal Appeals Court Okays Fingerprinting of Gun Owners in D.C.

    Tuesday, September 22, 2015
    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the city can allow gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed, complete a firearms safety training course and pay specified fees. The ruling also requires rifles and shotguns be registered along with handguns. The court approved fingerprinting, along with the $35 fee charged by the city, because the judges said it can keep people from obtaining firearms by using a counterfeit driver’s license.   read more
  • Is It Time to Retire FBI Crime Statistics?

    Tuesday, September 22, 2015
    The groups argue the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, established in 1929, should replace its Summary Reporting System (SRS) with the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) within the next five years. A gradual transition from SRS to NIBRS has already been in progress, but the coalition is urging the agency to set its sights on a complete changeover within that time frame. Currently, more than 6,500 law enforcement agencies, representing 34 states, regularly report to NIBRS.   read more
  • GM Executives Avoid Prosecution for 124 Deaths Caused by Cover-Up of Faulty Ignition Switches

    Monday, September 21, 2015
    The Obama administration has once again allowed a big corporation to buy its way out of jail. This time, the corporation is General Motors, which was fined $900 million for covering up its faulty ignition switches that caused at least 124 deaths. Thousands of GM cars had the faulty ignition switch, which could cause the car’s engine to switch off without warning. GM engineers knew early on that the switch was problematic, but didn’t begin recalling affected vehicles until February 2014.   read more
  • Median Income of Average U.S. Households Smaller than 15 Years Ago

    Monday, September 21, 2015
    In 1999, the median income of U.S. households was $57,843 in 2015 dollars. In 2014, that family was making only $53,657, down 7.2% from 1999. Americans still haven’t recovered the income they had before the recession that began at the end of the George W. Bush administration; the median income in 2007 was $57,357. But as usual, life’s good if you’re among the wealthy. The richest 5% increased from $196,000 to $206,600.   read more
  • Republican Senate Stalls Confirmation of Judges…Slowest Rate in 62 Years

    Monday, September 21, 2015
    The delays in confirmation mean that many courts are woefully understaffed. Some of the seats have been open for more than a year and a few for as many as three years. Republicans claim they are only doing with President Barack Obama’s nominees what the Democrats did to George W. Bush’s, but the numbers show that’s just not true. In the last two years of the Bush administration, with a Senate controlled by Democrats, 68 judges were confirmed.   read more
  • U.S. Spent $500 Million to Train Anti-ISIS Rebels in Syria…Only 4 or 5 are Still Fighting

    Monday, September 21, 2015
    The program turned out to cost about $100 million per fighter, with only four or five still fighting ISIS, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, head of the United States Central Command, told a senate hearing on Wednesday. Launched in May, the program’s initial goal was to train 5,400 fighters in the first year. The effort fell far short of that promise, producing between 100 and 120 anti-ISIS warriors.   read more
  • Anti-Union Republican Legislators Suffer Setbacks in Missouri and Idaho

    Monday, September 21, 2015
    In Missouri, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a so-called “right-to-work” law that would end requirements to join a union or pay fees to a labor organization to keep a job. Such laws are often a death-knell for unions, with non-members enjoying the benefits fought for by organized labor, but not paying their fair share for representation. The bill was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon and on Wednesday, the legislature failed to override Nixon’s veto.   read more
  • Trust in Judicial Branch Hits New Low as Republicans Turn against Courts

    Sunday, September 20, 2015
    Trust in the judicial branch has fallen, with only 53% of respondents saying they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the courts. That’s down from 76% six years ago and the decline can be attributed to the numbers plummeting among Republicans. Only 42% of Republicans say they trust the third branch of government, falling 17 points in the past year.   read more
  • Federal Civil Rights Commission Harshly Criticizes Homeland Security Dept.’s Treatment of Immigrant Detainees

    Sunday, September 20, 2015
    The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has found conditions in facilities holding undocumented immigrants to be so bad that it has recommended the release of families being held in them. The report was passed by a 5-2 vote with three of the yes votes coming from commissioners appointed by President Barack Obama, whose administration policies they now criticize.   read more
  • Nine Census Bureau Employees Each Charged for 100 Days of Work they didn’t Do

    Sunday, September 20, 2015
    --Nine CHEC employees submitted records for at least 100 days’ worth of work they didn’t do. --One employee was paid for 160 days of work he didn’t perform. --One employee spent much of his time trying to get friends and relatives on the office’s payroll. --Another employee was found to be having a sexual interaction with an applicant for whom the employee was involved in the background check.   read more
  • Colorado Raises more Money from Marijuana Tax than from Alcohol Tax

    Sunday, September 20, 2015
    The Colorado Department of Revenue has reported that it collected nearly $70 million in marijuana taxes during the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Alcohol taxes generated less than $42 million during that period. The state made so much money from marijuana taxes that it was required by law to have a tax “holiday,” during which pot sales would not be taxed.   read more
  • New Jersey Court Rules that Casino can Fire “Babes” for Gaining Weight

    Sunday, September 20, 2015
    The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa hires “Borgata Babes” to serve cocktails to its casino patrons. The Babes, both men and women (but mostly women), are told upon hiring that they’ll be “part fashion model, part beverage server, part charming host and hostess. All impossibly lovely.” To maintain their standard of loveliness, Borgata requires that its Babes gain no more than 7% of their body weight.   read more
  • Wage Gap between Men and Women Drops to “Only 21%”

    Saturday, September 19, 2015
    A report from the U.S. Census Bureau show the gender wage gap reached an all-time low last year. Women who were fully employed earned 78.6% of what men made, up from 77.6% in 2013. The gap is the smallest since 1960 when the Census Bureau began collecting such data. But the improvement wasn’t much to speak of, according to Frida Garza at Quartz. “Put in context, there hasn’t been a meaningful narrowing of the country’s gender pay gap since 2007, when it was 77.8%,” she wrote.   read more
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