End of Show Mixes: - UKPMX - Gx2 -Oh My Bosh - Danny Loos-Secret Agent Paul-Stepford Wives-PlaceBoing- Dave Courbanou - Able Kirby - Jungle Jones - Chris Wilson - Tom Starkweather - Conan Salada - Future Trash - Phantomville Billy Bon3s - Sir Seat Sitter
Phone bone grown from shoddy body tone, it's shown Young people are developing "horn-like" bone spurs, it's claimed, and smartphone-induced posture problems are apparently to blame.
In a February 2018 paper published in Nature Scientific Reports that's only now receiving widespread media attention, David Shahar and Mark G. L. Sayers, researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, found that 41 per cent of young people's skulls (that's folks aged 18-30) exhibited exostosis, or bone spurs, on the backs of their skulls.
Across all age groups, the paper stated, the typically prevalence of "enlarged external occipital protuberances" is 33 per cent. So about eight per cent of young people deviate from the norm, with men being about five times more likely than women to have budding bone bumps on the backs of their heads.
The researchers' findings are based on analysis of 1,200 anonymized radiographs of adults, ages 18-86, and represent an expansion on their 2016 study that saw similar unexpected bone growth involving 218 participants, ages 18-30.
Top, the surprisingly long enthesophytes of a 28-year-old fella, and below the smaller enthesophytes of a 58-year-old bloke. Troubling, terrifyingly troubling, no? ... Credit: Shahar et al. Click to enlarge
The new bone formations, ranging from 10 to 30 millimetres in size, "may be linked to sustained aberrant postures associated with the emergence and extensive use of hand-held contemporary technologies, such as smartphones and tablets," the researchers state in their paper.
In a University of the Sunshine Coast news release this week, Shahar said such large "horn-like" bone growths used to be exclusive to older individuals as a consequence of skeletal load and posture.
According to Shahar, the findings present an early warning of the risk of bone and joint damage arising from bad posture and highlight the need for preventive intervention related to device-based posture problems.
"We hypothesize that the sustained increase load at that muscle attachment is due to the weight of the head shifting forward with the use of modern technologies for long periods of time," he noted.
According to a 2016 study of Canadian University students and staff, study participants spent an average of 4.65 hours per day using a handheld mobile device, with 68 per cent of students reporting neck pain. And other studies indicate that prolonged use of smartphones contribute to posture problems and pain.
A related skeletal change attributed to declining physical activity was documented in a 2014 study: our elbows are becoming more frail.
Skeptics of the research note that the paper lacks sufficient detail to understand the claimed results. For example, Figure 4, a chart of showing the prevalence of an enlarged external occipital protuberance in both sexes across age groups, shows the spurs being more common among women than men. Yet the paper claims the skeletal issue was seen more often in men.
Anecdotally, a pediatric radiologist told The Register that she hasn't seen phone-induced bone spurs in her practice. ®
Review: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It's time to switch. '' Silicon Valley
By Geoffrey A. Fowler | The Washington Post Columnist
You open your browser to look at the web. Do you know who is looking back at you?
Over a recent week of web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the web.
This was made possible by the web's biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software.
Lately I've been investigating the secret life of my data, running experiments to see what technology really is up to under the cover of privacy policies that nobody reads. It turns out, having the world's biggest advertising company make the most-popular web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop.
It made me decide to ditch Chrome for a new version of nonprofit Mozilla's Firefox, which has default privacy protections. Switching involved less inconvenience than you might imagine.
My tests of Chrome versus Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker ''cookies'' that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer, but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality.
Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you'd think would be private. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and loan service's log-in pages.
And that's not the half of it.
Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you're logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your web activity to target ads. Don't recall signing in? I didn't, either. Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail.
Chrome is even sneakier on your phone. If you use Android, Chrome sends Google your location every time you conduct a search. (If you turn off location sharing it still sends your coordinates out, just with less accuracy.)
Firefox isn't perfect '' it still defaults searches to Google and permits some other tracking. But it doesn't share browsing data with Mozilla, which isn't in the data-collection business.
At a minimum, web snooping can be annoying. Cookies are how a pair of pants you look at in one site end up following you around in ads elsewhere. More fundamentally, your web history '' like the color of your underpants '' ain't nobody's business but your own. Letting anyone collect that data leaves it ripe for abuse by bullies, spies and hackers.
Google's product managers told me in an interview that Chrome prioritizes privacy choices and controls, and they're working on new ones for cookies. But they also said they have to get the right balance with a ''healthy web ecosystem'' (read: ad business).
Firefox's product managers told me they don't see privacy as an ''option'' relegated to controls. They've launched a war on surveillance, starting this month with ''enhanced tracking protection'' that blocks nosy cookies by default on new Firefox installations. But to succeed, first Firefox has to convince people to care enough to overcome the inertia of switching.
It's a tale of two browsers '' and the diverging interests of the companies that make them.
The cookie fight
A decade ago, Chrome and Firefox were taking on Microsoft's lumbering giant Internet Explorer. The upstart Chrome solved real problems for consumers, making the web safer and faster. Today it dominates more than half the market.
Lately, however, many of us have realized that our privacy is also a major concern on the web '' and Chrome's interests no longer always seem aligned with our own.
That's most visible in the fight over cookies. These code snippets can do some helpful things, like remembering the contents of your shopping cart. But now many cookies belong to data companies, which use them to tag your browser so they can follow your path like crumbs in the proverbial forest.
They're everywhere '' one study found third-party tracking cookies on 92 percent of websites. The Washington Post website has about 40 tracker cookies, average for a news site, which the company said in a statement are used to deliver better-targeted ads and track ad performance.
You'll also find them on sites without ads: Both Aetna and the FSA service said the cookies on their sites help measure their own external marketing campaigns.
The blame for this mess belongs to the entire advertising, publishing and tech industries. But what responsibility does a browser have in protecting us from code that isn't doing much more than spying?
In 2015, Mozilla debuted a version of Firefox that included anti-tracking tech, turned on only in its ''private'' browsing mode. After years of testing and tweaking, that's what it activated this month on all websites. This isn't about blocking ads '' those still come through. Rather, Firefox is parsing cookies to decide which ones to keep for critical site functions and which ones to block for spying.
Apple's Safari browser, used on iPhones, also began applying ''intelligent tracking protection'' to cookies in 2017, using an algorithm to decide which ones were bad.
Chrome, so far, remains open to all cookies by default. Last month, Google announced a new effort to force third-party cookies to better self-identify, and said we can expect new controls for them after it rolls out. But it wouldn't offer a timeline or say whether it would default to stopping trackers.
I'm not holding my breath. Google itself, through its Doubleclick and other ad businesses, is the No. 1 cookie maker '' the Mrs. Fields of the web. It's hard to imagine Chrome ever cutting off Google's moneymaker.
''Cookies play a role in user privacy, but a narrow focus on cookies obscures the broader privacy discussion because it's just one way in which users can be tracked across sites,'' said Ben Galbraith, Chrome's director of product management. ''This is a complex problem, and simple, blunt cookie blocking solutions force tracking into more opaque practices.''
There are other tracking techniques '' and the privacy arms race will get harder. But saying things are too complicated is also a way of not doing anything.
''Our viewpoint is to deal with the biggest problem first, but anticipate where the ecosystem will shift and work on protecting against those things as well,'' said Peter Dolanjski, Firefox's product lead.
Both Google and Mozilla said they're working on fighting ''fingerprinting,'' a way to sniff out other markers in your computer. Firefox is already testing its capabilities, and plans to activate them soon.
Making the switch
Choosing a browser is no longer just about speed and convenience '' it's also about data defaults.
It's true that Google usually obtains consent before gathering data, and offers a lot of knobs you can adjust to opt out of tracking and targeted advertising. But its controls often feel like a shell game that results in us sharing more personal data.
Get breaking news and alerts with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.
I felt hoodwinked when Google quietly began signing Gmail users into Chrome last fall. Google says the Chrome shift didn't cause anybody's browsing history to be ''synced'' unless they specifically opted in '' but I found mine was being sent Google, and don't recall ever asking for extra surveillance. (You can turn off the Gmail auto-login by searching ''Gmail'' in Chrome settings and switching off ''Allow Chrome sign-in.'')
After the sign-in shift, Johns Hopkins professor Matthew Green made waves in the computer science world when he blogged he was done with Chrome. ''I lost faith,'' he told me. ''It only takes a few tiny changes to make it very privacy unfriendly.''
There are ways to defang Chrome, which is much more complicated than just using ''Incognito Mode.'' But it's much easier to switch to a browser not owned by an advertising company.
Like Green, I've chosen Firefox, which works across phones, tablets, PCs and Macs. Apple's Safari is also a good option on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and the niche Brave browser goes even further in trying to jam the ad-tech industry.
What does switching to Firefox cost you? It's free, and downloading a different browser is much simpler than changing phones.
In 2017, Mozilla launched a new version of Firefox called Quantum that made it considerably faster. In my tests, it has felt almost as fast as Chrome, though benchmark tests have found it can be slower in some contexts. Firefox says it's better about managing memory if you use lots and lots of tabs.
Switching means you'll have to move your bookmarks, and Firefox offers tools to help. Shifting passwords is easy if you use a password manager. And most browser add-ons are available, though it's possible you won't find your favorite.
Mozilla has challenges to overcome. Among privacy advocates, the nonprofit is known for caution. It took a year longer than Apple to make cookie blocking a default.
And as a nonprofit, it earns money when people make searches in the browser and click on ads '' which means its biggest source of income is Google. Mozilla's CEO says the company is exploring new paid privacy services to diversify its income.
Its biggest risk is that Firefox might someday run out of steam in its battle with the Chrome behemoth. Even though it's the No. 2 desktop browser, with about 10 percent of the market, major sites could decide to drop support, leaving Firefox scrambling.
If you care about privacy, let's hope for another David and Goliath outcome.
Delta flights delayed after technical issue halts check-ins, boarding
Delta Air Lines warned Wednesday that flights may be delayed after a "technical issue" prevented passengers from booking, checking in and boarding.
"We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience they are experiencing as we work quickly to return our operations to normal," the airline said in a statement. "While we expect flight delays to extend into the evening at some of our busiest domestic hubs due to this issue and weather, we do not expect any technology-related cancellations."
Delta did not immediately say what caused the issue or how many flights were delayed.
The airline previously said a system-wide outage in August 2016 cost it $150 million in revenue. Outages have also hit American and United in recent years.
U.S. airlines suffered 34 computer outages between 2015 and 2017, and 85% of them caused flight delays and cancellations, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office that it published last week.
WATCH: Delta Airlines CEO on the new biometrics international terminal
Amazon drones could be used to spy on your home and spot intruders, patent reveals
A mazon wants to use its network of delivery drones to keep watch over customers' houses by forming a flying Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
The company has patented a system that it calls ''surveillance as a service'' which would see its network of delivery drones filming Amazon customers' homes from the skies while on their way to delivering packages.
The drones would look for signs of break-ins, such as smashed windows, doors left open, and intruders lurking on people's property. Anything unusual could then be photographed and passed on to the customer and the police.
Customers could request that Amazon's drones visit their property hourly, daily, or weekly, the filing said. The drones could also...
Used Nest cameras had bug that let their previous owners snoop on new owners | Daily Mail Online
Privacy fears after used Nest cameras were hit by bug that let their previous owner SNOOP on the person that bought it nextA worrying bug meant used Nest smart cameras could be quietly spied onUsers who got rid of their Nest cameras could spy on the feed even after resetting the device, as a result of an issue with a third-party smart home appGoogle said it fixed the issue and is issuing update automatically to Nest users By Annie Palmer For Dailymail.com
Published: 18:46 EDT, 20 June 2019 | Updated: 18:46 EDT, 20 June 2019
Google has reportedly fixed an issue in used Nest cameras that had fueled a wave of privacy concerns.
Used versions of Nest smart cameras were hit by a bug that could have potentially allowed the previous owner to snoop on the new owner's household.
All the while, the new owner would've had no clue that they were being spied on.
Scroll down for video
Google has fixed an issue in Nest cameras that had fueled privacy concerns. The cameras were hit by a bug that would have allowed the previous owner to snoop on the new owner
'We were recently made aware of an issue affecting some Nest cameras connected to third-party partner services via Works with Nest,' a Google spokesperson told Wirecutter.
'We've since rolled out a fix for this issue that will update automatically, so if you own a Nest camera, there's no need to take any action.'
The bug was initially discovered by Nest owners in a Facebook group for Wink, a third-party smart home platform that can be used to control a variety of devices.
Despite performing a factory reset, the user found they could still access the camera feed for their old Nest device by using Wink's standalone app.
As a result of the bug, the user's Wink account was still connected to the device, meaning they could tune into live feeds.
After the bug was spotted, Wirecutter verified the bug's existence by connecting a Nest camera to a Wink account and performing a factory reset.
The site found that it could access a 'series of still images snapped every several seconds.'
Google said it has resolved the Nest camera issue after it was spotted by a user. The company confirmed it was related to a third-party service and said it would roll out a fix automatically
Wirecutter verified the bug's existence on Nest's indoor camera, but it's not clear if it also affects other Nest devices.
It's also not clear how long the bug existed for before it was fixed by Google, or how many users were impacted by the issue.
Google confirmed that performing a factory reset should unlink the device completely from third-party services like Wink.
It comes as Google announced it was winding down the Works with Nest program last month, which allowed other device manufacturers to integrate with Nest devices.
Google getting rid of this program is a proactive move, in order to limit the amount of user data third parties have access to.
Instead, it will now be moving to the Works with Google Assistant program.
Under the Works with Google Assistant program, developers will have to integrate their devices not just with Google Nest, but also Google Assistant, giving 'small numbers of thoroughly vetted partners access to additional data.'
As many have pointed out, the latest Nest bug proves that moving to Works with Google Assistant could end up being a worthwhile move in protecting users' data.
WHAT IS GOOGLE'S SPY TOY?Google published a patent in 2015 that suggests creepy-looking teddy bears and rabbits could one day keep a watchful eye on children and adults, eavesdropping on everything we say.
The internet-connected devices would listen for instructions and interact with homeowners to switch lights on and off or turn on household appliances upon a simple vocal command, for example.
The toys, dreamed up by Google's secretive R&D division, have captured the attention of privacy campaigners, because they contain microphones, speakers and cameras.
The toys also feature motors to change their facial expressions and have the ability to connect to the internet.
Google's patent suggests the 'toy' would listen for a trigger word and upon hearing it, would turn to face the speaker.
Using cameras, it would check the person is making eye contact with the toy, the BBC reports
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Iran
Hal Turner Radio Show - BETRAYED! ATTACK TARGET LIST SENT TO IRAN BEFORE US STRIKE; ABORTED
The United States planned a military strike against Iran over its downing of a US Drone yesterday, but the attack had to be called-off because an American target list was forwarded to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp as the US operation got underway.
US Intelligence determined that a security breach had taken place and our pilots would be flying into a death trap had the operation been allowed to proceed.
As US fighter and/or Bomber aircraft were to take off for targets involving Iran, US intelligence intercepted "a communication" - they won't say whether it was a phone call, FAX, e-mail, or radio transmission - with a VERSION of the finalized target list that American forces were ordered to destroy.
The version Iran received was not the finalized list, but instead was one of the lists mulled-over prior to the final decision. Some of the targets on the list sent to Iran WERE on the final target selection list.
Upon receipt of the target list, US satellite assets watching Iran detected hasty moving of anti-aircraft and surface-to-air missile assets toward the targets to defend them.
It quickly became clear to US intelligence that American pilots could be flying to their deaths if the attack was allowed to proceed. President Trump was advised of this development and he allegedly ordered the mission ABORTED.
Very few people had direct access to those target selection lists and the release of a quasi-accurate list has sparked a ferocious military and law enforcement investigation into the leak.
"We know who had access to the particular list of targets that was sent to Iran and the investigation will move very swiftly to deal with those people" said one senior official. "As we proceed from this point, the leakers will be totally isolated from future target deliberations." he continued.
The remarks by this senior official seem to indicate the leak may not have come from inside the USA, but rather from an ally nation, who had been made privy to US thinking prior to the attack order being given.
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Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back
Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back MSN ^ | June 21, 2018 | Michael D. Shear, Eric Schmitt, Michael Crowley and Maggie HabermanPosted on 06/20/2019 10:20:25 PM PDT by Leaning Right
President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.
As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president's top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs ; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: iran ; trump Monthly donors needed! We currently have some very generous FReeper sponsors kicking in an additional $10 for each new monthly donor. Our fundraisers get a great boost each week when we process a batch of monthlies. Help speed up or even end FReepathons.
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I'm completely at sea on this. I have no idea what's going on here. So I'll just present this article without comment.
To: Leaning Right
To: Leaning Right
Fake news.
Tenor and context distorted as per normal.
3posted on
06/20/2019 10:32:58 PM PDT by
ifinnegan(Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
To: Leaning Right
4posted on
06/20/2019 10:37:09 PM PDT by
Delta 21To: Leaning Right
As if MSN has a clue. Are they tracking late night pizza deliveries to the Pentagon?
The track record on that metric is abysmal.
5posted on
06/20/2019 10:50:45 PM PDT by
Natty Bumppo@frontier.net(We are the dangerous ones, who stand between all we love and a more dangerous world.)
To: Leaning Right
Approved but pulled it back, oh yeah. Absolutely #FakeNews! The president of the United States has so called emergency war powers. Long time ago USS Samuel B. Roberts while on patrol at the Straits of Hormuz stocked a Iranian mine in retaliation operation praying mantis U.S. Navy almost wiped out the Iranian navy.
To: Leaning Right
Maggie Haberman is a lying skank who should never be given credibility.
7posted on
06/20/2019 11:10:16 PM PDT by
jospehm20To: Leaning Right
As if MSN would know, or could be trusted to tell the truth...
8posted on
06/20/2019 11:16:50 PM PDT by
marktwain(President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson
US '²approved strikes on Iran,'² then suddenly called them off | News | DW | 21.06.2019
President Trump had reportedly approved air strikes in retaliation for Tehran's downing of a US drone. A decision to pull back was allegedly made after Trump met with Congressional leaders.
US President Donald Trump had approved targeted strikes on Iran and then backed out, several US media outlets reported on Friday. The military operation was believed to be a response to the downing of a high-altitude US surveillance drone by Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier in the day, Trump had chosen not to reveal how the US would respond to the downing of the drone, instead telling reporters "you'll find out." US planes were reportedly in the air and ships were in position, but for unknown reasons, no missiles were fired.
Iran said on Friday that it had "indisputable" evidence that the US drone it shot down, worth about $130 million ('¬115 million), had violated Iranian airspace. "Even some parts of the drone's wreckage have been retrieved from Iran's territorial waters," said Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi.
Tensions between the US and Iran reached new heights last week after explosions hit two tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The White House accused Iran of involvement, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatening the use of force to protect its interests in the region.
Germany has urged all parties to avert all-out conflict and de-escalate the situation.
Read more: Opinion: A Persian Gulf war can have no winners
'No appetite for war'
President Trump met with Democrat and Republican leaders of Congress for a classified briefing on Iran, which lasted more than an hour. Senior Democratic lawmakers urged the president to de-escalate the situation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly urged a "strategic, smart" response, in coordination with US allies. She added that the American people have "no appetite" for a war with Iran.
But Republican lawmakers signaled support for the president.
Senior Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy said that measured responses were required, adding that "President Trump and his national security team remain clear-eyed on the situation and what must be done in response to increased Iranian aggression."
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to authorize and declare war. But previous administrations have been able to carry out foreign interventions without congressional approval, more recently, through the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of 2001.
Critics of Trump's Iran policy worry that the law, which grants the president authority to use force against terrorists connected with the September 11 attacks, could be used to justify intervention and bypass Congress.
Read more: The Strait of Hormuz: The world's most important oil choke point
ls,jcg/rt (Reuters, AP, AFP)
Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.
Giant explosion rocks Philadelphia refinery complex, gas prices rise
An explosion early Friday tore through a Philadelphia gasoline refinery, the East Coast's largest, sending shock waves for miles and raining debris on nearby neighborhoods, just as the busy summer driving season was beginning.
No injuries were reported, according to the Philadelphia Fire Department. One employee complained of chest pain and was examined on the scene.
The three-alarm fire at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery was contained but not under control, the fire department said. About 120 firefighters worked to cool off the areas around the fire to keep it from spreading.
Source: NBC10 Philadelphia
The fire turned the sky bright orange and shook the homes of startled residents. Some neighbors in South Philadelphia said debris rained from the sky into their neighborhoods after the explosions, according to NBC Philadelphia.
The outage occurred as the U.S. summer driving season kicks into high gear.
Gasoline futures jumped 3.5% Friday morning. Because RBOB futures reflect New York harbor prices, they are especially impacted by an outage in a refinery in Philadelphia, an important regional refining hub. Pump prices on the East Coast could rise 3 cents to 5 cents per gallon, Wells Fargo said in a note to clients Friday.
Natural gas prices also rose 1%.
"It's a serious outage that's going to greatly affect the East Coast in particular," said John Kilduff of Again Capital. "There's a cushion for drivers because we're well supplied, but if there's major damage, it's going to change that dynamic dramatically."
Gasoline demand in the U.S. reached a record high last week, according to government data released Wednesday. U.S. drivers consumed a record 9.9928 million barrels a day last week. That is up from the 9.3 million barrels a day used a year ago. It was also up from 9.877 million barrels a day the week earlier.
Refining stocks moved higher after the explosion. Valero Energy rose 1.5%, Phillips 66 was up 1% and HollyFrontier rose 1%.
The explosion erupted around 4 a.m. in a vat of butane, fire officials said.
"It is pretty much contained to that vat right now," the department said in a statement.
It briefly ordered a shelter in place due to smoke. No evacuations were ordered.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health said that preliminary testing showed no signs of ambient carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons (combustibles), or hydrogen sulfides in the air samples.
Source: WCAU Philadelphia
Philadelphia Energy Solutions was created from a joint venture between The Carlyle Group and Sunoco, which is a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, according to the PES website.
A source familiar tells CNBC that Carlyle owns 10% of the refinery.
The 1,300-acre complex near Philadelphia's international airport has a capacity of 335,000 barrels a day, and is the largest on the Eastern Seaboard, according to the site.
The 153-year-old complex was established in South Philadelphia one year after the end of the Civil War.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board told CNBC that senior leadership will be briefed on the incident at 9 a.m. and that the agency would have more information on its response plans after that.
PES and the other related companies did not immediately return calls for comment by CNBC.
'-- CNBC's Patti Domm, Michael Bloom, Jim Forkin and Tom Rotunno contributed to this report.
Trump approved cyber-strikes against Iran's missile systems - The Washington Post
President Trump approved an offensive cyberstrike that disabled Iranian computer systems used to control rocket and missile launches, even as he backed away from a conventional military attack in response to its downing Thursday of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, according to people familiar with the matter.
The cyberstrikes, launched Thursday night by personnel with U.S. Cyber Command, were in the works for weeks if not months, according to two of these people, who said the Pentagon proposed launching them after Iran's alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month.
[After a tense week, Trump strikes an unusually friendly tone toward Iran]
The strike against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was coordinated with U.S. Central Command, the military organization with purview of activity throughout the Middle East, these people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation remains extremely sensitive.
Though crippling to Iran's military command and control systems, the operation did not involve a loss of life or civilian casualties '-- a contrast to conventional strikes, which the president said he called back Thursday because they would not be ''proportionate.''
The administration on Saturday warned industry officials to be alert for cyberattacks originating from Iran.
The White House declined to comment, as did officials at U.S. Cyber Command. Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said: ''As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning.''
The cyberstrikes were first reported by Yahoo News.
[Trump's decision-making on Iran strike highlights absence of a confirmed defense secretary]
''This operation imposes costs on the growing Iranian cyberthreat, but also serves to defend the United States Navy and shipping operations in the Strait of Hormuz,'' said Thomas Bossert, a former senior White House cybersecurity official in the Trump administration.
''Our U.S. military has long known that we could sink every IRGC vessel in the strait within 24 hours if necessary. And this is the modern version of what the U.S. Navy has to do to defend itself at sea and keep international shipping lanes free from Iranian disruption.''
Thursday's strikes against the Revolutionary Guard represented the first offensive show of force since Cyber Command was elevated to a full combatant command in May. It leveraged new authorities, granted by the president, that have streamlined the approval process for such measures. It is also a reflection of a new Cyber Command strategy '-- called ''defending forward'' '-- that its leader, Gen. Paul Nakasone, has defined as operating ''against our enemies on their virtual territory.''
Cybercom launched an operation against Russia last fall to deny Internet ''trolls'' affiliated with the Internet Research Agency the ability to carry out political influence operations on U.S. social media platforms. But the operation against Iran was more disabling.
''This is not something they can put back together so easily,'' said one person, who like others was not authorized to speak on the record.
The digital strike was an example, two people said, of what national security adviser John Bolton meant when he suggested recently that the United States is stepping up offensive cyber activity. ''We're now opening the aperture, broadening the areas we're prepared to act in,'' Bolton said at a Wall Street Journal conference.
The United States in April designated the Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization in response to its destabilizing behavior across the Middle East.
Iranian cyber forces have tried to hack U.S. naval ships and navigation capabilities in the Persian Gulf region for the past few years. The Strait of Hormuz is a strategically important sea lane through which about one-fifth of the world's oil passes daily.
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to U.S. industry that Iran has stepped up its cyber-targeting of critical industries '-- to include oil, gas and other energy sectors '-- and government agencies, and has the potential to disrupt or destroy systems.
''There's no question that there's been an increase in Iranian cyber activity,'' said Christopher Krebs, director of DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. ''Iranian actors and their proxies are not just your garden variety run-of-the-mill data thieves. These are the guys that come in and they burn the house down.''
Krebs, in an interview, said, ''We need everyone to take the current situation very seriously. Look at any potential incidents that you have and treat them as a worst-case scenario. This is not you waiting until you have a data breach .'.'. This is about losing control of your environment, about losing control of your computer .''
He said the ''shift in geopolitical dynamics'' factored into the agency's warning.
The National Security Agency also urged industry to be vigilant. ''In these times of heightened tensions, it is appropriate for everyone to be alert to signs of Iranian aggression in cyberspace and ensure appropriate defenses are in place,'' NSA spokesman Greg Julian said in a statement Saturday.
Iran has unleashed destructive cyberattacks in the past. In 2012, it launched the Shamoon virus that nearly destroyed more than 30,000 business network computers at Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil company, and erased backup copies of data. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fierce adversaries.
Private-sector analysts have documented a gradual increase in cyber activity by Iran and its proxies targeting U.S. industry since 2014. It has often come in the form of spearphishing attempts seeking access to computer systems in the energy sector.
''In the last year, the activity has sped up,'' said Robert M. Lee, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Dragos , who conducted cyber operations for the NSA and Cybercom from 2011 to 2015 . ''In the last six months, we saw another hike. And last week, we saw additional activity.''
''The reality is we've been seeing more and more aggressive activity for quite some time,'' he said. ''It's just getting worse.''
ADOS
Moe from Virginia (also Moe Factz on YouTube)
Found NA before 2016 election ny googling News with No Agenda
We had him at Reptile people
HR40 was supposed to identify who should receive reparations
I understand the irony of a white man explaining th eblack man's problems, but I believe this is the most important political story today and it is NOT covered by M5M, if anything it is being obfuscated and demeaned because Black America is NOT unified, there is not 'Whole Black Community' (surprise surprise)
This is about the Real Black America - who built this country as slaves
I'm using a combo of our discussion over hours and days
Reparations is not Black ppl looking for a handout
Not an 'Obama Phone' movement
It is for 'services rendered' to the Democrat party
Forcing real action for their 2020 vote
Its about the money but not really
Black ppl want to be taken seriously as a voting block like all other voting blocks
We wanna see how bad Dems really hate Trump
Or if Republicans really want to reach out, make a good faith effort
In the past Dem candidates could show up to black churches the Sunday before elections and they had the black vote covered
Us "black" people have been taken for granted by the Dems for so long. And the last straw was Obama
CLIP - Reverend Manning Obama Fail
In 2016 it was the black man's fault that Trump got in
CLIP Yvette Carnell from 2016 on Trump being correct about blacks being poor
Especially after the Mueller Fail, now its black voters duty to protect the nation from Orange Man
Thats the game the Dems are playing
So a group was formed by the name ADOS. And it was decided that the black vote would not be given, except for exchange for something tangible.
Yvette Carnell
CLIP Yvette Carnell ADOS and DATA from feb NA 1114
Antonio Moore
CLIP Antonio Moore explains how after Mueller report Dems need Blacks to beat trump
Just like Jews / Palestinians / Even Gay Reparations being discussed
ADOS = Descendents of American Slavery only
CLIP Killer Mike traces his lineage 1 and 2
ADOS is to the black community, what MAGA was to the Republican party
We are being replaced by african south american and Caribbean immigrants
CLIP Antonio Moore on 'full throated M5M 'blacks' who are actually from carribbean
Also, we had affirmative action, but it has been misappropriated by non-ADOS blacks and other minorities
This movement is more about political maturation more than anything
Blacks have given their vote over for nothing for far too long.
Now they are coming with the BIG ASK
The first "demand" being reparations - THE BLACK AGENDA LISTINIG
That's why the discussion of reparations has been rekindled.
The Black "community" is NOT unified as the democrats wants
But in this recent hearing, ADOS representatives were purposely kept out of the discussion.
The black establishment is trying to undercut and suppress the #ADOS movement. So much so, they have resulted to calling them Russian bots
CLIP Joy Reid and Shireen Mitchell on ADOS being Russian Bots
The democrats have strung black people along for so long that, the reparations is a big ask to see if they serious or not.
How is OK for non-citizens to come to this country illegally and demand citizenship, but ADOS cant ask repayment for the blood and sweat that helped build this country?
CLIP California council meeting woman
DREAMers is a gross abuse of Dr King's words
Dems are stuck between a rock and a hard place...show ADOS they really care by stopping the acquisition of 'replacement' blacks by changing asylum law. That would be huge. But at the same time they fuck themselves with the brown people voting block.
Enter #Blexit and recently #BlackNotDemocrat
CLIP Candace Owens on What do you have to loose
Possible Trump Script:
The script needs to be clear: Illegal immigration is hurting all americans, and the democrats don't want to change the law because of the votes. That narrative is accepted now. Then state that dems are tring to replace real americans with new ones, then roll into the ADOS branding
Antonio Moore graduated from UCLA in 2002, and Loyola Law School in 2006. In recent years he worked as a producer on the Emmy nominated documentary entitled "Crack in the System presented by Al Jazeera". The film tells the story of the effects of Mass Incarceration, the Iran Contra & the resulting crack cocaine epidemic that swept across America. Mr. Moore is also an active member of the Urban League Young Professionals.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Moore
Inside Nipsey Hussle's Blueprint To Become A Real Estate Mogul
Golden Opportunity Zone: Even as his music career accelerates, Nipsey Hussle'--pictured at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards'--is focused on his next entrepreneurial move. (Photo by David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
GettyThe tattered stretch of West Slauson Avenue just off Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles isn't the first place you'd expect to see a Cadillac Escalade roll up and deliver a Grammy-nominated musician. At the tiny strip mall on the south side of the street, storefronts include an off-brand taco joint, a Boost Mobile outlet and an accountant's office advertising same-day tax refund advances up to $6,000.
This is where Nipsey Hussle decided to spend a recent Friday morning, and for good reason. His Marathon Clothing store, which peddles Crenshaw hoodies alongside his own music, occupies the corner of the L-shaped plaza. His history here goes back even further'--in fact, it's where he got his name.
''Before we was renting here, I was hustling in this parking lot,'' says Nipsey, 33, born Ermias Asghedom. ''It's just always been a hub for local entrepreneurs.''
Change is coming to Crenshaw, and Nipsey is aiming to be on its bleeding edge: This month, Nipsey and business partner Dave Gross swooped in to pay ''a couple million'' for the plaza. Within 18 months or so, they'll knock everything down and rebuild it as a six-story residential building atop a commercial plaza where a revamped Marathon store will be the anchor tenant.
In the meantime, a light rail line is rising to link Crenshaw '-- which, crucially, qualifies as a tax-advantaged Opportunity Zone '-- to Los Angeles International Airport and other key nodes of sprawling Southern California. The plaza will be among the first to benefit: There's a brand-new train station under construction just steps away.
Nipsey may not be hip-hop's biggest name, but he's certainly among the genre's most entrepreneurial. His slow-burn career started to catch fire six years ago when Nipsey offered 1,000 copies of his mixtape Crenshaw for $100 apiece'--Jay-Z bought 100 copies'--and rolled the profits into his label, All Money In. He released just 100 copies of a subsequent offering, Mailbox Money, with a price tag of $1,000.
''[Nipsey] was not trying to be independent just for the sake of it, but thinking about the benefits of being an independent artist,'' says Chris Lyons, who has known Nipsey for several years and runs Andreessen Horowitz's Cultural Leadership Fund, which counts Nas and Diddy as investors. ''The most important thing is his ability to just see where future trends are going and not being afraid to pioneer.''
Hussle's Convention: Diddy, Usher, Jay-Z, DJ Khaled and Nipsey Hussle at the Roc Nation Grammy brunch. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation)
GettyFor Nipsey, the hustle started at home. He grew up down the road from the plaza, in what he calls ''the worst house on the best block,'' cutting grass and shining shoes to make extra cash as a kid before falling in with local gangs. Fortunately, his musical role models were entrepreneurs as well, offering a way out of a dead-end path.
Dr. Dre, from nearby Compton, built Death Row Records into one of the most influential labels in hip-hop history before eventually shifting focus to his namesake headphone line. Watching Dre from up close and moguls like Jay-Z and Diddy from afar gave Nipsey "the blueprint of what could be done with the platform of being a successful rap artist," he says.
Nipsey started putting out mixtapes in 2005; on one of his early songs, Hussle In The House, he made sure to include a few financial lessons of his own. "Straight off the block, I sold dope to buy groceries," he rapped. "Now it's rap money, no advance, it's all royalties." Nipsey also prophetically flicked at his future Opportunity Zone gambit: "Pay taxes to these corners and put in work, it's a policy."
For his first music video, he wanted to do something that both represented his hometown and offered a path to earnings beyond music. Leafing through an old yearbook, he noticed a picture of local legend Darryl Strawberry in a vintage Crenshaw High School baseball jersey. Nipsey ordered a batch of throwback blue-and-yellow shirts with ''Crenshaw'' scripted across the front to wear in the shoot.
When the video ended up on MTV, scores of people started asking about ''Crenshaw Clothing.'' Nipsey had other ideas. A friend had given him a book called The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing, packed with Procter & Gamble case studies. As Nipsey ruminated on these lessons in the context of his own journey, the word ''Marathon'' came to him'--it had more potential, he thought, than Crenshaw, a location most people couldn't place on a map.
Nipsey flirted with major labels, signing with Epic but leaving in 2010'--with his catalog intact '-- after a management change left his official debut album in limbo. While continuing his prolific mixtape output, he became obsessed with the notion of social currency, prompting the release of his $100 mixtape in 2013.
''I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets,'' he told Forbes at the time. ''And it's possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.''
Meanwhile, Nipsey continued to give away other mixtapes to satiate his fans, who in turn supported him by buying concert tickets and merchandise. He turned down new record deals because the labels all seemed to want a piece of his burgeoning broader business.
He didn't need the cash, thanks to his ancillary income and his TuneCore catalog, which was earning him monthly royalty checks in the low six figures. After a couple of years, though, Nipsey had built up a good amount of leverage. He decided to cut a deal with Atlantic that enabled him to make Victory Lap, his official major label debut.
''It's a partnership. '... I shook hands and said I wouldn't give full details, but we're sharing everything: profit, masters,'' he says. ''I was holding out for a long time for these terms.''
Nominated for Best Rap Album at this year's Grammy Awards, the record paired his rapidly improving socioeconomic status with a career-long message of fiscal responsibility. In one verse, he blustered about Benzes and Bentleys'--and touted his trust accounts alongside the "million-dollar life insurance on my flesh."
Gross Profits: With investing partner Dave Gross (left), Nipsey Hussle is building a business boosted by a tax break popular with billionaire venture capitalists.
Elmo KebourAt the same time, Nipsey was looking for other ways to expand his empire. He met Gross, a private-equity and real-estate investor, courtside at a Lakers game several years ago. (''We started drinking tequila,'' says Nipsey. ''By the third quarter, we was more friendly.'') They bonded over Gross's idea for an inner-city co-working space now known as Vector90.
They eventually teamed up to buy the plaza on West Slauson, currently zoned for buildings that max out at 40 units. Nipsey and Gross are aiming for 100 units, which requires a lengthy entitlement process, so they've been working with the city and local council members on the details'--hence the long timeline. And they're building smart.
Buried in the tax overhaul of 2017 is a provision to encourage investment in state-designated low-income enclaves known as Opportunity Zones. Under the law, investors can shift capital gains into institutions located in these areas, where the capital is taxed at a reduced rate; new opportunity investments can grow tax-free.
There are basically no limits on the amount of money that can be plowed into an Opportunity Zone or the amount of tax that can be avoided. Is it possible the program is excessively business-friendly? Not for its ambitious goals, backers say.
"The incentive needs to be powerful enough that it can unlock large amounts of capital, aggregate that capital into funds and force the funds to invest in distressed areas," billionaire Sean Parker told Forbes last year. "Instead of having government hand out pools of taxpayer dollars, you have savvy investors directing money into projects they think will succeed."
Parker was part of a diverse group of Opportunity Zone proponents that included Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican, and Cory Booker of New Jersey, a Democrat. Like Parker, they argue that bold moves are necessary to fix entrenched ills: To qualify for the program, an area must have a median household income 80% less than nearby neighborhoods' or a poverty rate of at least 20%.
Gross and Nipsey saw a perfect fit for Crenshaw.
''This is the quintessential Opportunity Zone investment,'' says Gross. ''The law is supposed to support ground-up entrepreneurship, giving opportunities and jobs to all communities and improving the neighborhood.''
The purchase of the plaza also marks the beginning of a coalition called Our Opportunity'--led by Gross, with Nipsey as a founding partner'--that will aim to team with local legends in 10 cities as part of a broader Opportunity Zone-based fund. From there, Nipsey envisions building a tax-advantaged lifestyle empire, all linking back to his music.
''The vision is to launch franchises,'' says Nipsey, imagining a line of The Marathon Clothing stores, barbershops, fish markets, restaurants. ''There's such a narrative to this parking lot'--that's a part of my story as an artist.''
For more on the business of hip-hop, check out my Jay-Z biography Empire State of Mind and follow me on Twitter.
The Maggie Awards recognize contributions made by the media and arts that enhance the public's understanding of reproductive rights and health care issues.
Our highest honor, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award, is presented annually to recognize leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.
Recipients 1966 - 20152015 Dr. Willie Parker
2014 Nancy Pelosi
2013Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
2012Philip Darney, MD, MSc and Uta Landy, PhD
2011Anthony D. Romero
2010Ellen R. Malcolm
2009U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
2008Kenneth C. Edelin, MD
2007Dolores Huerta
2006Karen PearlAllan Rosenfield, MD
2005Gloria Feldt
2004Ted TurnerForum for Women, Law, and Development of NepalK-MET of Kenya
2003Jane Fonda
2001Kathleen Turner
2000Nafis Sadik, MD
1998The Reverend Howard Moody
1997Louise Tyrer, MDRobin Chandler Duke
1996Justice Harry A. Blackmun
1995Jane Hodgson, MD
1994Fred Sai
1993Richard Steele, Audrey Steele Burnand, Barbara Steele Williams
1992Faye Wattleton
1991The Honorable Bella Abzug
1990Mufaweza Khan
1989Henry Morgentaler, MD
1988Ann LandersAbigail Van Buren
1987Phil Donahue
1986Jeannie I. Rosoff
1985Guadalupe de la VegaMechai Viravaidya
1984Bishop Paul Moore
1983Katharine Hepburn
1982Madame Jihan Sadat
1981The Honorable William G. Milliken
1980Mary S. Calderone, MDSarah Weddington, Esq.
1979Alfred E. MoranThe Honorable Robert Packwood
1978Julia HendersonFrederick S. JaffeEdris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD
1977Bernard Berelson, PhD
1976John Rock, MD
1975Cass Canfield
1974Harriet F. Pilpel, JD
1973Sarah Lewit Tietze and Christopher Tietze, MD
1972Alan F. Guttmacher, MD
1971Louis M. Hellman, MD
1970The Honorable Joseph D. Tydings
1969Hugh Mackintosh Foot
1968The Honorable Ernest Gruening
1967John D. Rockefeller III
1966The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.General William H. DraperCarl G. Hartman, MDPresident Lyndon Baines Johnson
Biographies2015Willie J. Parker, MD, MPH, MScWillie J. Parker is a reproductive justice advocate. He is a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky, and holds degrees from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Michigan. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and trained in preventive medicine and epidemiology through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Parker currently provides abortion care for women in AL, MS, PA, GA, and IL, and is the former Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC. He is the physician plaintiff in the federal lawsuit preventing the closure of Mississippi's only abortion clinic, a case currently in request for hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. Currently residing in his hometown of Birmingham, AL, his work includes a focus on violence against women, sexual assault prevention, and reproductive health rights through advocacy, provision of contraceptive and abortion services, and men's reproductive health. He is a board member of The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and URGE.
2014Rep. Nancy PeolosiFor 27 years, Nancy Pelosi has represented California's 12th District in the House of Representatives. She is the Democratic Leader of the House for the 113th Congress. From 2007-2011, Pelosi served as Speaker of the House, the first woman to do so in American history. She first made history in November 2002 when House Democrats elected her the first woman to lead a major political party in Congress. Rep. Pelosi was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Care Act. During the health care reform debate she led her colleagues in Congress as they stood strong against attempts to insert the Stupak abortion ban into the bill. Against tremendous odds, she delivered the necessary 219 votes to send the bill to President Obama's desk.
2013Dr. Ruth K. WestheimerDr. Ruth Westheimer is a psychosexual therapist who pioneered speaking frankly about sexual matters on radio with her program, Sexually Speaking. It began in September of 1980 as a fifteen minute, taped show that aired Sundays after midnight on WYNY-FM (NBC) in New York. One year later it became a live, one-hour show airing at 10 PM on which Dr. Ruth, as she became known, answered call-in questions from listeners. Soon it became part of a communications network to distribute Dr. Westheimer's expertise which has included television, books, newspapers, games, home video, computer software and her own website.
Dr. Ruth has opened the door for generations of Americans to ask questions and speak openly about topics that were once '-- and too often still are '-- considered off limits. She is an inspiring pioneer who understands that there's no such thing as too much information when it comes to sexuality.
2012Philip Darney, MD, MSc and Uta Landy, PhDThrough the development of an abortion and family planning training program, Philip Darney, MD, MSc, and Uta Landy, PhD, are greatly responsible for the preparation of a new generation of abortion providers. The origin of their program began in 1991 when Darney established the first Fellowship in Family Planning at the University of California, San Francisco, mentoring OB/GYN doctors on a small scale. This program slowly expanded to include 6 universities. By 1999, the need for further expansion was recognized and a formal program in OB/GYN residencies '-- later named the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning '-- was established, led by Landy out of the Bixby Center at UCSF.
The mission of the Ryan Program is to increase and strengthen training opportunities in abortion and contraception for residents in obstetrics and gynecology, and to encourage and support residents' exposure to evidence-based clinical care and research in the field of family planning. The Ryan Program has established over 60 programs in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and is responsible for the abortion care training of nearly 10,500 OB/GYN residents. With the shortage of qualified abortion providers (there are no providers in 87 percent of U.S. counties and in 97 percent of rural areas), Landy and Darney have made an enormous impact in the effort to ensure that women across the country have access to the full range of quality health care.
2011Anthony D. RomeroAnthony D. Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's premier defender of liberty and individual freedom. Since taking office in 2001, he has been successful in nearly doubling both the organization's budget and staff, allowing the ACLU to expand their initiatives, including the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. Through litigation, advocacy, and education, this project works to uphold the rights of individuals to decide freely, without governmental hindrance or coercion, whether or not to bear a child. Additionally, it works to ensure that all members of society have access to sexuality education, contraception, abortion access, prenatal care, and childbearing assistance. In presenting this award, PPFA President Cecile Richards said, ''Anthony is a true friend, ally and hero. For years, he and his team at the ACLU have fought to safeguard women's rights and health. Anthony's leadership has been unwavering, and we know that we can count on him for the hard fights ahead.''
2010Ellen MalcolmEllen Malcolm founded and served as president of EMILY's List for 25 years, until 2010, and now serves as the chair of the board of directors. EMILY's List is a political action committee dedicated to recruiting strong pro-choice Democratic women to run for office, raising support and funds for their campaigns, training them to win tough races, and reaching out to women voters to motivate them to vote. Malcolm has worked tirelessly as an activist and philanthropist for many years, successfully helping more than 100 female candidates who support Planned Parenthood's mission and values get elected to federal and state offices. Additionally, in 2003, she helped create America Coming Together (ACT), an enormous national organization devoted to empowering and mobilizing voters. Malcolm served as ACT's president in 2003 and 2004, helping to raise over $145 million for a well-developed voter contact effort in key states.
2009Secretary of State Hillary Rodham ClintonOn January 21, 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as the 67th secretary of state of the United States, after nearly 4 decades in public service as advocate, attorney, first lady, and senator. Born in Chicago, October 26, 1947, Secretary Clinton graduated from Wellesley College and Yale Law School, where she met Bill Clinton, whom she married in 1975. During her 12 years as first lady of Arkansas, she advocated for education and the well-being of children and families. In 1992, Gov. Clinton was elected president, and First Lady Hillary Clinton became an advocate for health care reform and worked on many issues relating to children and families.
In 2000, Hillary Clinton made history as the first first lady elected to the U.S. Senate, and the first woman elected statewide in New York. She won reelection in 2006. Sen. Clinton served on the Armed Services Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Budget Committee, among others. Additionally, she worked across party lines to build support for the expansion of economic opportunity and access to quality, affordable health care.
Secretary Clinton is the author of best-selling books, including her memoir, Living History, and her groundbreaking book on children, It Takes a Village.
2008Kenneth C. Edelin, MDKenneth C. Edelin, MD, has dedicated his life to ensuring that women have access to safe and legal reproductive health care services. In 1973, Dr. Edelin became the first African American to be named chief resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston City Hospital. The following year, after performing a legal second-trimester abortion, he was indicted for manslaughter and convicted by an all-white jury (9 men and 3 women) in 1975. In 1976, the verdict was overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Dr. Edelin's triumph over those who sought to impose their personal religious and political views as the law of the land is still powerfully relevant, and was graphically described in his book, Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom.
Dr. Edelin went on to become chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine, director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston City Hospital, and gynecologist-in-chief at Boston University Hospital. From 1990''1992, he served as chairperson of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. One of the heroes of the reproductive rights movement, Dr. Edelin's lifelong commitment to women's health and rights truly embody the values and courage of Margaret Sanger.
2007Dolores HuertaFor more than 40 years, Dolores Huerta has been a strong and passionate leader in the struggle for social justice in the United States. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association, the predecessor to the United Farm Workers (UFW). As one of the key negotiators for the union, Huerta secured the first health and benefit plans for farm workers and became one of the union's most visible spokespersons. Through grassroots efforts, which included boycotts and marches, the union helped bring awareness to the social and health issues affecting America's farm workers. Throughout her life, Huerta has been concerned with the plight of workers, immigrants, and women, and has harnessed the power of community organizing and political action to improve the lives of others. Now a great-grandmother in her 80s, she still works long hours in the name of ''La Causa.''
2006Karen PearlKaren Pearl served as interim president of PPFA from 2005 to 2006. During her tenure, she emphasized the importance of collaboration, uniting the efforts of the national organization and Planned Parenthood affiliates to fight for medical privacy in Kansas and for teen safety in California, and she joined with a broader coalition in opposing the nominations of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Alito and Roberts. For the 10 years prior to her stint at PPFA, she was president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County (PPNC). Based in Hempstead, NY, PPNC served more than 40,000 clients and had an annual budget of more than $6 million in 2005.
Pearl served as a member of the PPFA Board of Directors, chair of the Affiliates Chief Executives Council, chair of the New York State Affiliates of Planned Parenthood, and vice-chair of Planned Parenthood Advocates of New York. Dedicated to improving women's lives, her leadership at Planned Parenthood exemplified an unwavering commitment to advancing reproductive rights and health.
Allan Rosenfield, MDAllan Rosenfield, MD, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University for 20 years and a professor of gynecology and obstetrics, was legendary for his work on reproductive health, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and human rights. He served as chairperson of PPFA from 1985 to 1986. He also served the Guttmacher Institute in a number of leadership roles, including as a board member from 1983 to 2004, as well as chair of the board, Executive Committee, and science advisory panel; and in 2006 he was elected an emeritus member of the Guttmacher board.
Before he joined Columbia University, he served for 6 years in Thailand as a representative of the Population Council and an advisor to the Ministry of Public Health on family planning. He was a pioneer in pursuing reproductive health programs to raise the status of women in less-developed regions as a means of supporting economic development. He is known for his focus on maternal health when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.
2005Gloria FeldtGloria Feldt served as PPFA president from 1996 to 2005, setting a bold, proactive agenda to advance reproductive health and rights worldwide. Her innovative thinking and courageous leadership were the driving forces behind contraceptive equity legislation passed in many states and increased public awareness of the need for accessible emergency contraception. Previously, she was a Planned Parenthood affiliate chief executive in West Texas and in Arizona, Head Start teacher, and activist in the civil rights movement. Among other honors, she was named a 2003 Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine and one of the top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers by Vanity Fair magazine. She was featured in most major media, including The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Today show, and Good Morning America. She's the author of The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back and Behind Every Choice Is a Story.
2004Ted TurnerTed Turner, one of the most successful businessmen in the world, is an ardent supporter of family planning worldwide. After being expelled from Brown University, he took over his father's billboard business at 24, and in 1970 began assembling the Turner Broadcasting System. In 1990 he founded the Turner Foundation to develop policies and practices to reduce population growth and encourage family planning. The Turner Foundation has supported PPFA, Planned Parenthood of New Mexico, Catholics for a Free Choice, SIECUS, the Global Fund for Women, and The Alan Guttmacher Institute. He's a committed philanthropist, who founded the United Nations Foundation and then pledged $1 billion to it for distribution to UN programs.
The Forum for Women, Law and Development of NepalThe Forum for Women, Law and Development, founded in 1994 and located in Kathmandu, Nepal, is a nongovernmental organization that aims to eliminate discrimination against women in Nepal. Its priorities are fighting discriminatory laws, combating human trafficking, implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and promoting international human rights. The forum engages in a variety of advocacy programs aimed at making Nepal accountable for its commitments to human rights declarations, conducting research on socio-legal issues, providing legal aid and counseling to those in need, building regional, national, and international networks of women, and lobbying to reform discriminatory laws and policies. Thanks to the Forum's efforts, abortion is now legal in Nepal, protecting the health and lives of thousands of women as a result.
K-MET of KenyaK-MET, founded in 1998, began as Kisumu Medical Education Trust, a collaboration between two Kenyan doctors, Dr. Solomon Orero, current director of K-MET, and Dr. Khama Rogo, a leading Kenyan ob/gyn. When the 2 men began working together, they treated more than 60 women suffering from unsafe abortions in the national hospital on any given day. Now known as K-MET, their organization today is a treatment and referral network of physicians, nurses, and community health workers in the western part of Kenya that reaches thousands of women. Members are trained to recognize health complications that are the result of unsafe abortions and either provide treatment or refer patients to appropriate care. The network comprises more than 341 members nationwide. More recently, K-MET has worked with Planned Parenthood to expand its services into home-based care for people with HIV/AIDS and adolescent/youth sexual and reproductive health services in 5 of Kenya's 8 provinces.
2003Jane FondaJane Fonda is one of the most famous actors in the world, but her larger-than-life reality has never stopped her from remembering those whose daily lives could not be more different. The daughter of actor Henry Fonda, she has won 2 Oscars, an Emmy, and numerous other awards, but her greatest contribution to society may be her tireless work as an advocate for those who cannot gain the public eye themselves. Fonda founded G-CAPP, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and has been a donor, supporter, speaker, and activist for Planned Parenthood of Georgia. At the same time she's dedicated herself to campaigning for women's rights and healthy sexuality. She's openly criticized the media for sending the wrong message to young people about sex, and gave an Atlanta hospital $1.3 million to help prevent teenage pregnancy.
2001Kathleen TurnerKathleen Turner, an Oscar-nominated movie and stage actor, grew up as the daughter of a U.S. ambassador, living in Canada, Cuba, Washington, DC, England, and Venezuela, and speaking 5 languages. As a college student in Missouri, she went to a local Planned Parenthood health center for information about contraception, thus beginning a lifelong association with the organization. A longtime advocate for reproductive rights and health, Turner has used her public position and fame to publicize the need for greater access to family planning services and to advocate for reproductive rights. Turner joined the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Board of Advocates and became chair of the group. She has traveled around the country speaking on PPFA's behalf.
2000Nafis Sadik, MDNafis Sadik was born in Jaunpur, Pakistan, to a conservative Muslim family, but her father believed in educating his children equally, and Sadik attended medical school in Karachi and did her internship in Baltimore, MD. In 1952 she returned to Pakistan, where she married and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in rural communities. The women she met there, who had no control over their own fertility, convinced her of the inextricable relationship between family planning and women's status in traditional societies. After serving as the director of Pakistan's national family planning service, she began working for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund in 1971, and she was appointed executive director, with the rank of under-secretary-general, in 1987. After leaving UNFPA in 2000, she was appointed by the UN secretary-general in May 2002 to serve as his special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
1998The Reverend Howard MoodyHoward Moody was, according to The Village Voice, ''a longtime activist and one of the stalwarts of the religious left.'' He was born in Dallas, TX, and ordained in the American Baptist Church and the United Church of Christ. He began his activist career in the 1950s working with drug addicts and prostitutes out of his parish in Greenwich Village, where from 1956''1992 he served as the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church. In the pre-Roe years, Moody was a dedicated supporter of reproductive rights, and in 1967 he organized the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, which helped women obtain safe, illegal abortions. The founder of an interfaith group called Religious Leaders for a More Just and Compassionate Drug Policy, Moody spent his life working to improve the lives of the most marginalized members of society always aiming, in his words, to ''stir up '... compassion.''
1997Louise Tyrer, MDLouise Tyrer, MD, was born in Shanghai, the daughter of Seventh Day Adventist missionaries. Exposed to the dire conditions of poverty early on, she became acutely aware of the ways in which lack of access to reproductive health care perpetuated the cycle of poverty and despair. After obtaining her medical degree, Tyrer established a private practice in Reno, Nevada, where she treated local prostitutes whom no other doctor would see. In 1970 she was the first woman to be hired as a full-time staff physician by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Chicago. She joined PPFA in 1975 as its first vice president for medical affairs, and later went on to serve as medical director of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. An ardent advocate of mifepristone, she was instrumental in bringing the drug to the United States, and she continues to work to protect women's reproductive health and choices.
Robin Chandler DukeRobin Chandler Duke grew up in Baltimore, MD, the daughter of Catholic lawyers. She left school at 16 and went to New York, where she worked first as a department store model and then as a fashion editor, while also finding time to co-found the first Girl's Club of New York. In 1961 Duke met U.S. Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, and they were married 7 months later. Her commitment to family planning efforts led her to take on an extraordinary variety of roles. She served as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, president of the National Abortion Rights Action Committee, consultant for the United Nation Fund for Population Activities, chair of Population Action International, trustee of the Planned Parenthood Foundation, and U.S. ambassador to Norway. Her tireless activism led one writer to quip, ''Duke is an action verb disguised as a person.''
1996Justice Harry A. BlackmunJustice Harry A. Blackmun made his mark on reproductive rights and American history in 1972, when he authored the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, thereby establishing as a matter of law a woman's constitutional right to choose abortion. Born in Illinois, Blackmun received his undergraduate and legal degrees from Harvard, and was admitted to the Minnesota Bar in 1932. When he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970, he was a moderate conservative. But over the 24 years he spent on the Supreme Court bench, he became progressively more liberal. An intellectually rigorous judge, he nevertheless was always concerned with the human stories behind the cases that he heard.
1995Jane Hodgson, MDJane Hodgson, MD, is the only physician in U.S. history to be convicted of performing an abortion in a hospital. In 1971, she provided an abortion for Nancy Widmeyer, a 23-year-old mother of 3 with German measles, who agreed to serve as a test case for the Minnesota law banning abortions. After being arrested and convicted, Hodgson was in the process of appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was decided, overturning her earlier conviction. Once abortion was legal, she played an integral role in establishing abortion services in Minnesota. More than 15 years after Roe, she was also the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Hodgson v. Minnesota, where she unsuccessfully challenged a parental notification statute that required a teenage girl to notify both parents before getting an abortion. She was a founding fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
1994Fred SaiFred Sai, an internationally renowned advocate for women and adolescents' reproductive health and rights, was born and educated in Ghana. He attended the Harvard School of Public Health on a World Health Organization Fellowship in 1959, and co-founded the Ghana Planned Parenthood Association. Serving as the director of medical services for Ghana from 1970 ''1972, Sai played an integral role in developing the nation's population policies. The president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation from 1989 ''1995, Sai participated in several major international and national conferences on family planning, including the International Conferences on Population in Mexico City in 1984 and in Cairo in 1994. The recipient of numerous awards, he's an honorary professor of community health at the University of Ghana Medical School, and an advisor on population, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS to the president of Ghana.
1993Richard Steele, Audrey Steele Burn, and Barbara Steele WilliamsAudrey Steele Burnand, Barbara Steele Williams, and Richard Steele, the children of Harry and Grace Steele (another daughter, Virginia Steele Scott, died in 1975), spent their lifetimes supporting the arts in Orange County, CA, higher education throughout California, and family planning on a national scale. The 3 siblings served as the Board of Directors for the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation, never drawing a salary, and always shunning the limelight. Despite their aversion to the public eye, however, the Steeles gave away more than $70 million dollars between 1953 and 1991. The foundation was the single largest donor during that time to IPAS, the International Projects Assistance Services, an international family planning group, and was a major supporter of PPFA. According to Richard Steele, lack of access to family planning and the resultant population problems were "the root of all evil.''
1992Faye WattletonFaye Wattleton was the first woman to lead Planned Parenthood after its founder, Margaret Sanger, and the first black woman and youngest person to ever hold the post. She earned a BS degree in nursing from Ohio State University and MS degree in maternal and infant health, with certification as a nurse-midwife, from Columbia University. Her clinical rotation introduced her to the toll of illegal abortion '-- that year, approximately 6,500 women were admitted to Harlem Hospital for complications from incomplete abortions. She worked as a nurse in Dayton, OH, for 3 years before becoming the CEO of that city's Planned Parenthood affiliate. Eight years later, she was named president of the national organization and, under her leadership, from 1978''1992, PPFA became the nation's seventh-largest charitable organization. The author of a memoir, Life on the Line, and a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, she is the founder and president of the Center for the Advancement of Women.
1991The Honorable Bella AbzugBella Abzug (D-NY) was a pioneer in American politics and the women's rights movement. In the 1950s and 1960s she was a labor lawyer, attorney with the ACLU, and leader in the civil rights and anti-McCarthy movements. She was the first Jewish woman elected to the House of Representatives (1970) and one of only 12 women in the House at the time, founding the National Women's Political Caucus and authoring numerous bills aimed at preventing sex discrimination and improving women's status. After leaving Congress, she served as the co-chair of the National Advisory Committee on Women from 1977''1978 until she was fired by President Jimmy Carter for criticizing his budget cuts to women's programs. In response, she founded Women USA, a grassroots political action organization, and co-founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization, an international activist and advocacy network. A fiery advocate for women's rights, she once said, ''Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.''
1990Mufaweza KhanMufaweza Khan began her family planning advocacy in the early 1970s by going door to door in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, providing advice and information to Muslim women who never left their homes and had no contact with the outside world. The recipient of the Center for Development and Population Activities' 2002 Women's Global Leadership Award, Khan has been the executive director of Concerned Women for Family Planning (CWFP) for 26 years. CWFP serves low-income women throughout Bangladesh, and has outpatient clinics and programs in 13 provinces. Over the years, CWFP has expanded to encompass a range of projects empowering Bangladeshi women, including family planning services, micro-credit lending, educational programs, and AIDS initiatives. ''Women were able to capitalize on opportunities,'' Khan has said, ''only when they stopped being victims of their own fertility.''
1989Henry Morgentaler, MDHenry Morgentaler, MD, was born in Lodz, Poland, to a Jewish family. Between 1940 and 1945 he was imprisoned first in the Lodz Ghetto, and then in Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. Upon liberation, he began studying medicine in Germany, Belgium, and Canada, and became involved in the Humanist movement. After receiving his medical degree he served as the director of the Civil Liberties Union in Montreal, and in 1968 established a reproductive rights clinic that provided abortions in Montreal. During the next 20 years, Dr. Morgentaler underwent 4 trials for performing illegal abortions, and was imprisoned once for 10 months. In 1983 he opened 2 more clinics, in Toronto and Winnipeg. Finally, in 1988 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled Canada's abortion law unconstitutional and dropped all charges against Dr. Morgentaler. He said of the decision, ''For the first time, it gave women the status of full human beings able to make decisions about their own lives.''
1988Ann LandersEppie Lederer, who wrote under the pen name Ann Landers, was considered responsible for making the advice column a modern phenomenon. Her concise and clever style nurtured several generations of readers, who wrote to her with vexing questions about every topic imaginable. A dedicated liberal, she used her column as a sounding board to promote open and public discussion of family and sexuality, while maintaining a traditional sense of personal morality and responsibility that encouraged her enormous readership to trust her advice. She began writing ''Ann Landers'' in 1955, at a time when public figures were supposed to avoid controversial topics, but she attacked them head-on. She was particularly supportive of women's reproductive rights, telling Time Magazine, ''For years '...I have taken a strong stand against the church or state telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies."
Abigail Van BurenAbigail Van Buren, known to her millions of readers as ''Dear Abby,'' began her advice-giving career only a few months after her sister, Eppie Lederer, began publishing the ''Ann Landers'' column in 1955. A staunch supporter of women's reproductive rights, she used her public voice to encourage men, women, and teens to communicate openly and responsibly about sex, family, marriage, reproductive health, and women's rights. In the late 1980s she began advising readers with questions about reproductive health, pregnancy, and abortion to consult their local Planned Parenthood centers. When criticized by anti-choice ideologues for her recommendations, she pulled no punches, using her columns to expose their disingenuous and coercive tactics. Her daughter, who also is named Abigail Van Buren and who took over her mother's column in the 1990s, continues her mother's legacy as a staunch supporter of Planned Parenthood and reproductive choice.
1987Phil DonahuePhil Donahue is widely credited with inventing the talk show platform, from which he consistently advocated for women's rights, reproductive choice, and freedom of speech. The recipient of 9 daytime Emmys and the Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award (2003), Donahue retired for the second time in February 2003. His long television career was marked by an honesty and integrity rarely seen in today's television talk shows. From its very first episode in 1967, The Phil Donahue Show tackled controversial issues like school prayer, abortion, politics, and AIDS. Donahue's audience was predominantly female, and he made a point of educating women about reproduction, abortion, and birthing techniques, even when his shows were banned by local affiliates for being too controversial or graphic in nature. He was called ''the original activist as [TV] host.''
1986Jeannie I. RosoffJeannie I. Rosoff was born in France, where she received a degree in law from the University of Paris before emigrating to the United States in 1948. A tireless advocate for family planning causes, she was instrumental in the passage of Title X federal family planning legislation and was one of the first to document the problem of teen pregnancy in America. She served as PPFA's special projects coordinator and associate director of PPFA's Center for Family Planning Program Development. In 1978, she became president of The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), a position she held until 1999. Under her leadership, AGI expanded its reputation as a global expert on reproductive rights and health. She was said to combine ''an almost mythical intuition about what makes people tick '... with very hard work.''
1985Guadalupe de la VegaGuadalupe de la Vega, also known as the ''Margaret Sanger of Mexico,'' has been called the ''moving spirit'' of family planning in her country. In 1955, she founded and ran the Red Cross Youth Committee in Monterrey, and she founded and ran the Young Women's Association, Friends of the Blind, and the Juarez Red Cross Women's Association. She also founded the first maternal/child health and family planning program in Juarez, using community-based contraceptive distribution for the first time in Mexico. In 1981, she founded and became the first president of FEMAP, the Mexican association of private family planning associations. Over the years FEMAP has founded a hospital and several clinics, educated sex workers and others about HIV/AIDS, worked to improve environmental health and sanitation, and even run programs to keep young people away from gangs, drugs, and violence.
Mechai ViravaidyaMechai Viravaidya is Thailand's foremost family planning and sexual health education advocate. Thanks to his work, in Thailand, a condom is known as a ''mechai.'' The founder and chairperson of the Population and Community Development Association of Thailand (PDA) and a recipient of many awards, including the 1997 United Nations Population Award, he's worked tirelessly since 1970 to promote safer sex and family planning. His methods are often innovative. At his Condoms & Cabbages restaurants, for instance, diners are presented with a plate of condoms instead of after-dinner mints. Largely as a result of his efforts, the Thai population growth rate dropped from 3.4 percent in 1968 to 1.2 percent in 1996, and more than 70 percent of Thai women now use contraception. The World Bank called a Thai government program initiated by Viravaidya, ''one of the most successful and effective family-planning programs in the world.''
1984Bishop Paul MoorePaul Moore was born in Morristown, NY, and attended Yale. A Marine captain, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. After being discharged in 1945, he attended General Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1949. An early advocate of ordaining women, he was made bishop of the New York Diocese in 1972. Bishop Moore was a champion of the marginalized, suing landlords to integrate public housing and ordaining the first lesbian Episcopal priest. Under his tenure, the dioceses seat, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, was revived into a vibrant seat of cultural and religious worship, used for everything from circus performances to rallies against racism. Although he retired in 1989, Bishop Moore continued to speak out vocally on the relationship between religion and progressive social policies until his death. He will always be remembered for being, as The New York Times called him, the ''consummate urban priest.''
1983Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was born in Hartford, CT, to a doctor and a suffragist. After attending Bryn Mawr College, where she began acting, she appeared on Broadway before breaking into films with 1932's A Warrior's Husband. Although she was nominated for Oscars 12 times, and won 4 of them, she was never content to stay within the confines of Hollywood. It was a habit she learned from her mother, also named Katharine Houghton Hepburn, who helped found the birth control movement and Planned Parenthood with Margaret Sanger. In 1981 Ms. Hepburn and Planned Parenthood began a successful collaboration, including a fundraising letter signed by Ms. Hepburn that raised $1 million. In 1988, PPFA established the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Fund in honor of both the mother and the daughter.
1982Madame Jihan SadatJihan Sadat, the former first lady of Egypt, was the second wife of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981. A world-renowned advocate for women's rights, she was responsible for the Egyptian Civil Rights Law, which advanced equality in Egyptian law and society. Born to an Egyptian father and English mother, Sadat was raised as a Muslim but attended Christian schools. After marrying her husband, Sadat set up cooperatives in Egyptian villages for peasant women, established orphanages, pressed her husband to support family planning, and pushed for legislative reform, including a law that allowed 30 Parliament seats to be filled by women and one that gave women the right to sue for divorce while retaining custody of their children. Called a ''supreme pragmatist,'' she received a doctorate after her husband's assassination, and went on to teach and lecture around the world.
1981The Honorable William G. MillikenWilliam G. Milliken (R), a member of the Michigan State Senate from 1961 to 1964, held the office of Michigan lieutenant governor from 1965 to 1969, during which time he worked for social service reforms. As governor of Michigan from 1969 to 1982, he worked for the provision of adequate sexuality education in schools, adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment, citizens' right to privacy, and comprehensive health care. Governor Milliken used the power of his office to help ensure the preservation of the American family, which depends on the family members' right to reproductive choice. Ten times during his tenure, the Michigan legislature passed bills to prohibit the use of Medicaid dollars to finance abortions for poor women, and 10 times Governor Milliken vetoed those bills on the grounds that poor women cannot be denied a right that the U.S. Supreme Court extended to all other women. He steadfastly maintained his commitment to the struggle for human rights and the right of every individual to freedom of reproductive choice.
1980Mary S. Calderone, MDMary S. Calderone, MD, was a leader in the fight to expand availability of and access to comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education, thereby promoting healthy human sexuality. As a physician, educator, author, editor, public speaker, and internationally recognized authority on sexuality education, she increased awareness of the crucial link between sexuality education and family planning. In her remarkable career she served as co-founder and president of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, medical director of PPFA, and adjunct professor of human sexuality in New York University's Department of Health Education.
Sarah Weddington, Esq.Sarah Weddington played a vital role as a Texas attorney in winning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. In 1972, she became the first woman elected from Austin to the Texas House of Representatives. Serving 3 terms as a state representative, she supported the use of nurse practitioners in family planning, the rights of minors to family planning services, and the right of Planned Parenthood to provide services; in addition, she successfully led efforts to block all anti-abortion legislation. From 1978 to 1981, as assistant to President Carter, she was an advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and worked on the selection of women nominees for the federal judiciary. In 1979, she hosted a White House reception in honor of the 100th birthday of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Ms. Weddington was able to translate her beliefs in the fundamental rights and freedom of the individual into action that served to improve the life and health of all American women.
1979Alfred E. MoranAlfred Moran spearheaded the development of outstanding family planning services in New York City. As CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City, he established a service policy for teenagers; created a youth program involving parents, educators, and public service agencies; and launched a citywide pregnancy-prevention program for adolescents. He also helped to organize the New York City Family Planning Council and the Committee for Legal Abortion, and was co-founder of the New York State Abortion Education program and the New York State Coalition for Family Planning. Mr. Moran also provided expert testimony before various legislative committees and commissions dealing with reproductive health and was a consultant to other family planning organizations and many public service agencies nationwide.
The Honorable Robert PackwoodSenator Robert Packwood (R-OR) was a major force in protecting and extending the right of all people to exercise choice in deciding the size and spacing of their families. His unwavering record in support of reproductive health and rights was instrumental in shaping a positive climate for and increasing public awareness of reproductive health issues. He was the first to advocate a broad range of reproductive health services, and as early as 1970 sponsored a bill to legalize abortion nationwide. Sensitive to the family planning needs of low-income families in the United States and abroad, he consistently supported federal funding for reproductive health care and repeatedly led the fight against restrictions on access to services.
1978Julia HendersonJulia Henderson, an associate commissioner at the UN, joined the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 1971 as secretary-general. During the years of her leadership (1971''1978), IPPF's membership grew from 72 nations to 94, and the federation gained complete freedom in the allocation of its funds, contributed by 25 governments. After her retirement, she continued to study international population issues for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. In 1991, Ms. Henderson, at age 75, won the United Nations Population Award. Addressing a symposium on World Population Day, July 11, 1991, she stressed the link between family planning and health and environmental problems. She also noted that better education for girls and improving the status of women in developing countries are essential in reducing birthrates and raising living standards. Ms. Henderson said that family planning ''is a matter of human rights and sound child welfare policy.''
Frederick S. JaffeFrederick S. Jaffe was a leader in helping to achieve national recognition of the right of individuals to make their own private childbearing decisions. He helped expand access to reproductive health services wherever the need was greatest '-- in rural communities and among the young and the poor. He created the PPFA Center for Family Planning Program Development, which later became The Alan Guttmacher Institute. In his work on reproductive biology and population policy with the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and in his books on reproductive rights, he argued that institutions and people can learn the principles of scientific theory and that scientific theory should be used to enhance social policy.
Edris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD Edris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD, was a pioneer in the tradition of Margaret Sanger. She founded Mexico's first family planning clinic, La Asociaci"n Pro-Salud Maternal, in Mexico City in the early 1960s at a time when Mexicans spoke of birth control only in whispers. By 1970, the facility had 30,000 registered clients and a staff of more than 80. In Puerto Rico, Dr. Rice-Wray carried out the first field study of oral contraceptives and helped set up 72 public health units where condoms, diaphragms, and spermicides were distributed. Her practice of teaching nurses in the clinics how to fit patients with diaphragms was considered revolutionary at the time. Dr. Rice-Wray also conducted sexuality education classes in jails, clinics, and at PTA meetings.
1976John Rock, MDJohn Rock, MD, the first scientist to perform in vitro fertilization of a human ovum in a test tube, was best known for his participation in the production and clinical testing of the oral contraceptive, i.e., the pill. In 1924, he started one of the nation's first fertility clinics in Brookline, MA. A professor of gynecology at Harvard University, he continued treating infertility until his retirement. Father of 5 and grandfather of 19, Dr. Rock, a devout Catholic, believed his church should accept the birth control pill, which he saw as comparable to the so-called ''rhythm method'' because it mimicked the body's natural endocrine chemistry.
1977Bernard Berelson, PhDBernard Berelson, PhD, was a professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Ford Foundation's Behavioral Sciences Program. In 1962 he moved on to the Population Council, where he became president in 1968. At the Pop Council, he initially worked on communication research, and one of his innovations was an audiovisual kit for delivering family planning messages to non-literate communities. Dr. Berelson was the originator of the first periodical to disseminate results of family planning studies to the international community; the prime force in organizing an international conference on family planning programs; and the creator of a cooperative international postpartum hospital program to provide family planning information and services. He was a scholar who combined research and academic careers with the pursuit of practical solutions to family planning concerns.
1975Cass CanfieldCass Canfield was chairperson of PPFA from1959 to 1961 and then later of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Along with his lifelong dedication to reproductive rights, the other great passion in his life was editing and publishing books. He produced works by James Thurber, Thornton Wilder, John F. Kennedy, and Eleanor Roosevelt, eventually rising to the position of chairman of the board of Harper & Row (now known as HarperCollins). He put his reputation for success in business at the service of reproductive rights, gaining respect for our cause from other leaders of communications corporations. He believed in the importance of augmenting the volunteer strength of Planned Parenthood with a core of full-time professionals. And he realized the necessity of expanding the reproductive rights movement to developing nations to foster economic and human development.
1974Harriet F. Pilpel, JD Harriet F. Pilpel, JD, championed privacy and reproductive rights over a long and distinguished legal career. In 1936, after graduating from Columbia University Law School, she assisted attorney Morris Ernst in preparing a landmark case, United States v. One Package, which challenged the U.S. government's seizure of a shipment of contraceptive devices that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had ordered from a Japanese physician. Renowned Judge Augustus Hand ruled that the seizure stemmed from an insupportably limited reading of the federal Comstock law, which classified birth control as obscene. In preparing the case, Pilpel and Ernst marshaled an impressive body of evidence documenting the broad positive impact of contraception on maternal health and well-being. A prominent advocate for women's rights, Pilpel was a member of the Commission on the Status of Women for both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and served as PPFA's general counsel for many years until her death.
1973Christopher Tietze, MD, and Sarah Lewit TietzeChristopher Tietze, MD, and Sarah Lewit Tietze, leading authorities on the demographic and public health aspects of human fertility and its regulation, were the first to compare detailed estimates of the mortality risks of contraception, abortion, and childbearing. The1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, was based in part on the results of their research. migr(C)s from Vienna and Russia, respectively, Dr. and Mrs. Tietze married and collaborated on many projects while working for the Population Council. Dr. Tietze was involved with the major national reproductive health and rights groups, and served on 7 World Health Organization scientific groups concerned with human reproduction. They authored or coauthored 250 scientific papers, more than 100 of which were on abortion. Dr. Tietze's greatest legacy was the introduction of rational, scientific means for assessing contraceptive safety and efficacy and identifying the effects of abortion policy on maternal health.
1972Alan F. Guttmacher, MDAlan F. Guttmacher, MD, served as PPFA president from 1962''1974. He fought successfully for development of federally funded domestic and international family planning programs and also helped block the efforts of demographers and politicians who urged coercive methods to halt population growth. Playing a crucial role in the development of the birth control pill and IUD, he was also a strong and articulate advocate for teen access to contraception and a woman's right to safe and legal abortion. Dr. Guttmacher joined the birth control movement in the 1920s when he was an intern, after witnessing a woman die from a botched abortion. Throughout his career, his motivation was to end discrimination in medical care based on class or race. In the 1950s, he helped end the ban on prescribing contraception at New York City's municipal hospitals, which provided the bulk of medical care for the poor.
1971Louis M. Hellman, MDLouis M. Hellman, MD, founded the family planning clinic at the College of Medicine of the State University of New York, where doctors and nurses from around the world learned procedures that enabled them to establish similar clinics in their homelands. He also recognized that nurse-midwives could alleviate the doctor shortage in family planning clinics. In 1958, he defied the New York municipal hospital system's ban on prescribing contraception, initiating a citywide revolt, led by Planned Parenthood, which succeeded in lifting the taboo on family planning in New York City public hospitals. He served as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and as chair, Advisory Committee on Obstetrics and Gynecology, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he headed studies that reviewed the benefits and risks of oral contraception.
1970The Honorable Joseph D. TydingsSenator Joseph D. Tydings guided Congress toward recognizing family planning as a basic human right of all Americans. He introduced 15 different bills concerned with the provision of family planning services and the exploration of population issues. In 1966, when he first introduced legislation to provide voluntary family planning services to American women, such services were virtually nonexistent. The following year, he led the way as Congress included family planning services in the maternal and child health provisions of the Social Security Act amendments and in the Economic Opportunity Act amendments. He also worked for the inclusion of family planning provisions in foreign aid legislation.
1969Hugh Mackintosh FootHugh Mackintosh Foot, otherwise known as Lord Caradon, was noted for his strong and farsighted leadership in the area of international family planning and population issues. He came from a notable liberal family, and he and his 2 brothers, Labor members of Parliament, were known as ''The Three Left Feet.'' Lord Caradon spent 30 years in the British Colonial Service, serving as an ambassador to the United Nations and as the governor-in-chief and captain-general of Jamaica and the governor and commander-in-chief of Cyprus when both were British colonies. He was credited with bringing rival Greek and Turkish leaders together to form an independent republic in Cyprus and was an integral part of the United Nations group that investigated and condemned South Africa's apartheid system. As a 3-time president of the United Nations Security Council, Lord Caradon was also intimately involved in the creation of Resolution 242, which set out intricate guidelines for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In recognition of his work he was knighted by King George VI in 1951, and became a life peer in 1964.
1968The Honorable Ernest GrueningErnest Gruening launched the effort to recognize family planning in federal policy, particularly in regard to U.S. international family planning policy. After receiving his medical degree from Harvard, he became a crusading journalist instead, and later was managing editor of the New York Tribune and editor of The Nation and New York Post. Switching to politics, he was governor of Alaska from 1939 to 1953, during which time he helped enact an anti-discrimination law ensuring equal rights for native Alaskans and white Alaskans. Later, as a senator from Alaska from 1959 to 1969, he introduced legislation in 1965 to establish offices of population in the Department of State and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While the bill did not pass, the resultant hearings, which lasted 3 years, raised awareness of the importance of population issues to world peace, economic development, and individual well-being, with an emphasis on personal freedom and equal access to medical services. He served as honorary vice chairman of PPFA from 1969 to 1973.
1967John D. Rockefeller IIIJohn D. Rockefeller III was instrumental in organizing the 1974 United Nations World Population Conference, the first government-sponsored conference on population. Attendees adopted the World Population Plan of Action, which established voluntary family planning as a basic human right, pledged improvement in the status of women worldwide, and gave high priority to contraceptive research. In 1952, he founded the Population Council, an international, nonprofit institution that conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research. Mr. Rockefeller's own words illustrate his lifetime concern with population issues: ''Our real concern is not with abstractions and negative controls, but with the quality of human life. Our goal is the enrichment of life '-- creating conditions that will enhance human dignity and the attainment of the individual's full potential.''
1966The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sparked the conscience of the nation as he courageously and selflessly gave direction to the early civil rights movement in the United States. Resisting bigotry, inspiring women and men worldwide, and advancing social justice and human dignity, he also lent his eloquent voice to the cause of worldwide voluntary family planning. Both he and Margaret Sanger challenged unjust laws, cruel social customs, and blind prejudice that still hold people in ignorance, poverty, and despair. Mrs. Coretta Scott King delivered her husband's acceptance speech on his behalf, saying, ''There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. '... Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by non-violent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her."
General William H. DraperGeneral William H. Draper was responsible for the first official recommendations that the U.S. government help other nations, on request, to deal with population issues. In 1959, as chairman of President Eisenhower's Committee to Study the Military Assistance Program, he published the ''Draper Report,'' which recommended the inclusion of family planning assistance in the foreign aid program. He was a founder of the Population Crisis Committee, a member of the governing board of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and a special consultant to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). General Draper's administrative, negotiating, and fundraising skills resulted in international programs that recognize the role of population growth in economic development and respect the reproductive health needs of individuals.
Carl G. Hartman, MDDr. Carl G. Hartman was one of the world's leading specialists in embryology and the physiology of reproduction. His research conclusively established the role of the endocrine system in the reproductive process and helped lay the groundwork for the development of modern birth control. A scientist and educator, he authored 7 textbooks and more than 200 articles in scientific journals. Dr. Hartman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1937 and received the Squibb Award (1946) for work in endocrinology and the Lasker Award (1949) for research in human fertility. A long-time head of the Planned Parenthood Research Committee, he praised Margaret Sanger who, he said, ''saw the need for research to make birth control methods more effective. '...''
President Lyndon Baines JohnsonPresident Lyndon Baines Johnson singled out the need for family planning as one of four critical health problems in the nation as a central element of his administration's War on Poverty. To carry out his mandate, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare developed a program to provide contraceptive services for low-income, married women, and the U.S. Agency for International Development began providing contraceptives in its overseas development programs. President Johnson placed the prestige and influence of his office behind legislative and administrative actions to increase funding and staffing for voluntary family planning services for those who need them most, here and around the world.
California's Black America tossed under the buss in favor of Brown illegals
LOS ANGELES, January 26, 2018: The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), EB-5, E-2, work visa and chain migration programs, has created a new level of hell for Black America. In Los Angeles, the epicenter of illegal immigration, racial tension is at an all-time high, the opportunity for Blacks is at a new low.
The furtherance of America's native Black communities is being pushed to the back of the bus in favor of political policies and the dissenting work programs alliances being made against black.
DACA and liberal policies are tearing apart the middle class and poor communities in Black America Taxpayer dollars are wasting away in the fight for citizen rights for non-citizens. Many urban Black America city residents are finding immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants taking their place in line for jobs and opportunities.
The 1990's EB-5 program and E-2 work visa is the fastest way to get into the USA where immigrants are given leverage over Black Americans. Think about it, when looking at a map from another country where do you go? What areas can you change or fit in?
If you are here illegally you go to the big cities and break into poor urban black communities.
Liberals will argue illegals came here with money and a small window. They say immigrants build their business from the ground up, and Black people have the same chance as the immigrants, but that is not true. By leveraging immigrants with EB-5 programs, and E-2 work visa, the jobs they take are the jobs Black youth are counting on.
Political leaders dominance control of America stimulates the U.S. economy through job creation, capital investment by foreign investors and exterminating working Black dreamers out of their community.
Lifting illegal immigrants 'out of the shadows'It will take more than low unemployment rates to lift Black America upPresident Trump has not fully digested the depth of what Republicans and Democrats have done to the children of indigenous Black America. Black Americans are now displaced and disenfranchised refugees.
Under Obama, our first generation Black president gave the DACA Dreamers new life and power over Americans, particularly Black America. Using the legacy of Martin Luther King and other leaders, Brown is riding atop the pain of the indigenous Black slave's history of suffrage, liberal progressives have taken the civil rights movement hostage, merging it with the demands of DACA, refugees and illegal immigrants.
Brown is hired over Black. Inner city Blacks are stepped over on the ladder to success
Illegal immigrants pushing Black America out of their communitiesIn Los Angeles, on the streets, we see Black homelessness growing. Immigrants discriminate against Blacks. Our affirmative action rights are being stripped away and police brutality now suffers bias judgment against Blacks in favor of illegal immigrants.
Ask yourself, would a Black American have received the same sentence as the illegal immigrant with multiple felonies that murdered Kate Steinly in San Francisco? Would that same person, if a Black American, been allowed out of prison in order to kill in the first place?
Kate Steinle verdict: Illegal immigrant found not guilty, the debate continues We have seen groups overtake neighborhoods before. Asian businesses hire family first. Immigrant Indians, as former Vice President Joe Biden noted, do the same.
Brown business immigrants, who do not assimilate to America, only hire other immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants that speak the same language. Unlike immigrants that came to America at the end of the 19th century, there is no national demand to be in America as an American.
Over the recent past, the flow of immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants are coming to America with high hopes and easy access to political favoritism. Black citizens who are now blocked from neighborhood opportunities in favor of Brown illegal immigrants.
Politicians have not sought to make an equal Black and White society. Their motivation is to enshrine an evolved form of slavery and keep Blacks in their chains.
Time for black America to rip off their voter plantation chains Black Americans were innovators in the progressive growth of America.At one point Black Americans knew how to progress in American. They owned banks that were able to support business and housing goals. They founded churches that became neighborhood social centers that honored their culture.
Thanks to the infrastructure of government's divisive policies endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans, governmental programs began to disable their minds, to keep poor Black America dependent on government largess. To promise Black America ''government will take care of you'' in exchange for their votes.
And because of those policies, the world perception now is that black Americans are generationally lazy with no work ethic.
Which is far from the truth.
America was built on the back of blacks yet immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants who are stealing the Black American Dream. Blacks are America's nation of people, now back in chains and being pushed behind illegal immigrants and refugees.
White Americans history with Black Americans is still a womb that has not healed.In 1861 CSA President Jefferson Davis was the first and only president of the Confederate States. A Democrat and a slave-owner Davis said all black people are 'not fit to govern themselves', and they should be treated in a manner similar to 'lunatics, criminals, and children''.
These words still resonate as Liberal politicians have put shackles on the minds of Blacks in America. CSA President Jefferson Davis wish for the government to stand on the backs of Black America still lives on.
All while President Trump has shown no plan of action to deal with this inherited America problem.
In 2018 African Americans are the most disabled and displaced under value culture of people in their own country, where their fathers and fathers-fathers were born. Immigrants apply leverage over Black people who simply never saw it coming.
They continue to vote for Democrats who are creating a sanctuary state out of California. A sanctuary state where Blacks are not welcome.
Democrats against Black Americans are elected officials, and Blacks stupidly elected them. Today's immigration policies are designed to replace a nation of black Americans with fresh new brown voters.
By putting Black Americans before Brown illegal immigrants, Republicans at all levels will find Blacks returning to the Republican Party that first removed our chains. But only in if the Republican party and President Trump remove the blinders and address the problem with more than low-unemployment.
How does the Trump administration solve the problem in the Black communities?Nonstop Democrat harassment means President Trump's priority has shifted towards The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Have Democrats ever once threatened to shutdown the government unless the inner city and poor Blacks are lifted up?
No. Instead DACA has become an immigration policy to allow some individuals, those who entered the country as minors, to colonize the state of California as they take on a majority presence, mostly through chain migration programs, in California's cities.
Amnesty for illegals throws Black America off the bus A tax-plan is not enough to cure Black America With the new trickle-down tax plan, black people are seeing no clear agenda for any ''New Deal'' promise to Blacks who supported Trump. Like previous administrations, President Trump has not fully digested the depth of what Republicans and Democrats have done to the children of the indigenous black slave families in America.
The new deal Trump has shown is no deals for Blacks, yet gives huge concessions to illegal immigrants and Dreamers. Current political policies, gives immigrants huge leverage over established Black America.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), EB-5, E-2, work visa and chain migration programs are political malice policies with hidden agendas to furthering an extinction of Black people, and needs to be reformed.
We need no DACA programs and no more chain migration into Black American communities.
Shirley HusarShirley Husar is an urban conservative freelance writer and CEO of UrbanGameChangers.com, Political Activist, licensed real estate agent, Co.Founder/CEO of Story.com, a tech start-up and 2016 Surrogate for President Donald Trump for the state of California. She is also 2016 delegate for the 27th Congressional District, consisting of Pasadena, Altadena and other cities. Residing in County of Los Angeles California.Appointed by the 38th California Governor, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger to the position of Governor Appointee Board Member for The Geologists and The Geophysicists for the State of California Governor '' Appointee Board Member served for 4 years. Server as a California Republican Party Delegate, RNC Delegate for 2004 and 2017. Follow/contact Shirley via: YouTube,Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and UrbanGameChangers.comServed as a California Republican Party Delegate for 10 years and was an RNC Delegate for 2004. Follower Shirley at Twitter, Facebook and her blog, Urban GameChanger.com; The National known Hip Hop Republican TV and Hip Hop Republican.com
Cornell University Disinvites Black Christian Pro-Life Speaker over Her Belief in Biblical Marriage | CBN News
Jannique Stewart. (Screenshot courtesy: Life Training Institute/Vimeo)
A black Christian speaker was recently disinvited from an on-campus debate due to her biblical beliefs about sexuality. It's just the latest example of American universities blocking Christian views from the spotlight.
Earlier this year, Jannique Stewart, a pro-life speaker with the Life Training Institute had been invited to speak at Cornell University's Political Union (CPU) "regarding the fact that abortion is a moral wrong."
In a Facebook post on Mar. 23, Stewart wrote that in a shocking phone call she had been disinvited from the event because of her outspoken beliefs regarding biblical sexuality - that sexual activity should be reserved for marriage and natural marriage defined by God as the union of one man and one woman.
Stewart noted in her post that it was made clear to her that she was being disinvited because of her views.
"It was explained to me that having someone on campus who believed the way I did was tantamount to allowing a racist to speak who held pro-slavery and pro- holocaust views," she wrote.
Stewart was also told by the group that their concern was that many of the students would be offended by my beliefs and would not be able to focus or listen to her speech.
When she reminded the Cornell group that they were overtly discriminating and disinviting her because of her conservative views, they reconsidered and decided not to disinvite her, but suggested it might be better for another speaker to come in her place who did not hold such views.
Stewart told the group things would remain the same and she would be looking forward to speaking on April 23. Then she received another telephone call in which she was disinvited for a second time because of her outspoken beliefs.
Later that same day, Princeton University's Robert George, director of Princeton's Madison Program, shared her post and wrote:
"Evidently, no Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Orthodox Jew, or Muslim, who believes what his or her tradition of faith teaches about sex and marriage is permitted to engage in debate at the Cornell Political Union. Even someone who, following thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus, Xenophanes, and Plutarch, holds to traditional morality on philosophical grounds without the benefit of scriptural revelation, is ineligible to be a debater. If Plato or Aristotle were around today, they would be barred. Think about that for a second."
"Among the most appalling practices of the contemporary left is its attempt to secure its position on sex and marriage by stigmatizing anyone who dissents from it as a "bigot' or "hater"--the equivalent of a racist--and thus excluding them and shutting down all debate," George wrote. "We're seeing this all over the country. It is a sin against the House of Intellect. The bullies who commit it need to be stood up to. Their victims need to refuse to be intimidated. And all men and women of goodwill need to stand with them."
"Where oh where are the old fashioned, honorable liberals?" he asked.
Cornell alum Brad Smallridge accused Stewart of lying about why she was disinvited in a comment on her Facebook page, but he did not present another explanation.
Watch Stewart's pro-life presentation for the Life Training Institute.
Stacey Abrams: 'Credible Political Path' for Reparations for Black, Native Americans | Breitbart
Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams believes there is a ''credible political path'' for reparations for African Americans and Native Americans.The New York Times asked Abrams, who will reportedly announce this week whether she will run for Senate in Georgia, for a Sunday feature if there is a ''credible political path'' for making reparations a reality.
''I do,'' Abrams said. ''I think that reparations make sense. We need to determine what that looks like. Because we've refused to have the conversation about it, we've never been able to get to the analysis and therefore the prescription. But we have to acknowledge that in the United States of America it wasn't simply that we didn't like a certain group, we've built '-- no. Not we, they. The government built systems designed to exclude and to diminish the capacity of communities to participate in their own economic survival.''
Abrams, who has not closed the door on a potential 2020 presidential bid, added that ''reparations are a necessary conversation for two groups: African-Americans and Native Americans.''
''Those are the groups that by law had been stripped of their autonomy and their participation in our society,'' Abrams continued. ''And I think there's a credible path because people are talking about it.''
Nearly all of the Democrats running for president who have been asked about reparations have endorsed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's (D-TX) bill to create a commission to study the issue while Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who was former President Barack Obama's Housing and Urban Development Secretary, has been the only candidate to date to express an openness to cash payments for the descendants of slaves.
''[I]t's interesting to me that when it comes to Medicare for all, health care, you know the response has we need to write a big check, that when it comes to tuition-free or debt-free college, the answer has been we need to write a big check,'' Castro has said. ''So if the issue is compensating the descendants of slaves, I don't think the argument about writing a big check ought to be the argument you make if you're making the argument that a big check needs to be written for a whole bunch of other stuff. If under the Constitution we compensate people because we take their property, why wouldn't you compensate people who actually were property?''
As a specific group with a specific justice claim, the #ADOS movement demands a specific agenda with policy prescriptions that address the losses stemming from the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing, mass incarceration and immigration.
We demand a New Deal for Black America which includes, but is not limited to:
We need set asides for American descendants of slavery, not ''minorities'', a throw-away category which includes all groups except white men. That categorization has allowed Democrats to use programs like affirmative actions as ''giveaways'' to all groups in exchange for votes. The bribery must end. That begins with a new designation on the Census with ADOS and another for Black immigrants. Black immigrants should be barred from accessing affirmative action and other set asides intended for ADOS, as should Asians, Latinos, white women, and other ''minority'' groups. In addition, ADOS hiring and employment data must be demanded for all businesses receiving tax credits, incentives, and governmental support. As well as all governmental agencies national, state and local. It is our belief that this will show that there are minimal if any ADOS professionals in fields including but not limited to engineering, medical, legal and tech.Once affirmative action is streamlined as a government program only and specifically for ADOS, the program should be fully reinstituted.The Supreme Court decided wrongly when it gutted the Voting Rights Act. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution article ''It's Time to Solve the Mystery of the 100,000 Mystery Votes'' indicates, the protections outlined in the Voting Rights Act are essential to protecting the rights of ADOS in America. Reinstituting the protections of The Voting Rights Act is a key part of our agenda.Black businesses only received 1.7% of the $23.09 billion in total SBA loans under President Obama's SBA (Small Business Administration), after having previously received 8.2% under President George W. Bush. Succeeding as an entrepreneur requires capital, so our agenda demands that 15% of SBA loans be distributed to ADOS businesses.We seek a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan targeted to ADOS communities, including, but not limited to, the Black Belt, Flint, Michigan. A Reuters examination published in 2016 found 3,000 cities with poisoning rates higher than Flint.Residents of majority ADOS areas that have been poisoned under the federal, local and state government's watch, such as not only Flint, Michigan, but Denmark, South Carolina, and others, must be financially compensated for the benign neglect of the Environmental Protection Agency and the government in general. The Justice Department must also institute protections which exact heavy fines and federal criminal prosecution for future offenders.Mass incarceration has wreaked havoc on Black American families. By some accounts there are literally more black males imprisoned than all women are incarcerated on the planet. To give context there are 20 million black males, and they largely descend from slavery. While there are 4 billion women globally, both groups producing the same number of incarcerated. The reinvention of slavery through use of the 13th Amendment is chronicled by Douglas Blackmon in his PBS documentary ''Slavery by Another Name'', it is our position this must be corrected. We demand a immediate assessment of the numbers of the #ADOS prison populations at the state & federal level. We also demand that there be review if punishment (bail amounts, sentence lengths, amount of time served before parole) is being levied at unfairly high levels on #ADOS based on gender and race for similar crimes to other groups. We demand that there be real prison reform in the form of investment into counseling, job training, and rehabilitation for our incarcerated.In the early eighties America committed to ''strengthen the capacity of historically Black colleges and universities to provide quality education'' in Executive Order 12320. President Obama undermined that commitment with changes to the PLUS Loan requirements. We call for legislation to triple the current federal allotment to HBCUs. Schools like Georgetown, built by slaves, have an endowment of over a billion dollars. This is a transfer of wealth from ADOS to whites. Our agenda demands that the federal government fully endow our remaining HBCUs in a dollar amount that meets the budgetary needs of each institution. In addition, ADOS students who attend HBCUs should receive a discount in the form of a 75 percent tax credit, given that our inability to pay the rising cost of education is directly tied to the racial wealth gap coming from slavery. ADOS who choose schools outside of the HBCU network should receive a 50 percent government funded credit.Findings published in USA Today concluded that top universities graduate ADOS in tech, but those graduates can't find jobs in Silicon Valley. Only 2% of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies are Black, according to the report,and many of those are Black immigrants, not ADOS. And according to a study by Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman, American colleges graduate more tech workers than tech companies need, hence the H1-B program reduces opportunities for ADOS searching for careers in technology. The government must strictly limit the number of H1-B Visa workers tech companies that flow in each year.Audit the banks to see if there are patterns of racial discrimination in lending, and require these banks to extend loans to ADOS businesses. These banks received bailout from taxpayers and owe a debt to all taxpayers, regardless of race. In addition, banks such as Wells Fargo used predatory schemes historically, not just during the Great Recession, to eviscerate Black Wealth. Lending to Black businesses and institutions would be a beginning for banks to redress the harm they've caused to the ADOS community.Mandate that the government's advertising budget include Black media. There is no ADOS community without our own media. Incentivize through legislative action that all major companies spend 10% of their advertising budget with ADOS media in exchange for tax credits. In addition, mandate that 10% of government advertising for governmental agencies, armed forces and other ancillary programs go to majority ADOS owned media companies.ADOS college debt should be forgiven in the same way losses were forgiven for the banks on Wall Street. Those executives oversaw the evaporation of billions in global wealth. ADOS graduates bought into the idea that the key to success in life was an education, and there was a place for us in America, only to find after graduation that we were locked out. We can't afford to bear the burden of a lie.A health care credit to pay for medical coverage for all ADOS. This would cover surgery, pharmaceutical, and counseling needs. As an example we would like to see a Lineage Therapy, whereby #ADOS leadership, in co-operation with licensed therapists and psychiatrists, develop a therapy curriculum to help members of the ADOS understand and manage their ancestral traumas. This therapy should come at no cost to the ADOS community.America has never atoned for its original sin of slavery in the form of reparations. It is our position that H.R. 40 be passed, and additional supportive measures implemented. We need to gather the data on the level of wealth that was lost as a direct result of slavery, and the era of Jim Crow that followed. The paper ''The Economics of Reparations'' assessed the value today as:Professor Sandy Darity Jr.'--a leading economist and premiere scholar in the area of American reparations'-- and Dania Frank have illustrated using the work of Vedder, Gallaway and Klingaman, the gains in wealth to white southerners from ownership of blacks in 1859 was $3.2 million. In today's dollars, the value of that debt is estimated to be somewhere between $5 to $10 trillion dollars, depending upon the interest rate used for compounding purposes.
#ADOS demands that there be a real review of direct payouts needed to be made to eligible recipients from gathered data, and progress be made toward making #ADOS families whole.
Without these measures being instituted, ADOS are locked out of the country our ancestors built during chattel slavery. Without reforms through transformative government, we will be left to continue living a third world life in a first world country.
#ADOS was started by the brain trust of Howard graduate and host of the Breaking Brown political show, Yvette Carnell, and UCLA alumnus and attorney, Antonio Moore who hosts the weekly radio show Tonetalks. ADOS'--which stands for American Descendants of Slavery'--seeks to reclaim/restore the critical national character of the African American identity and experience, one grounded in our group's unique lineage, and which is central to our continuing struggle for social and economic justice in the United States.
In his book, American Slavery, American Freedom, the historian Edmund Morgan concludes that slavery was not a contradiction of American freedom, but rather that slavery was the institution that made white freedom possible. In other words, slavery was not a mistake so much as a precondition for a societal hierarchy which requires descendants of slaves to remain a bottom caste and be made to suffer the necessary failures of a brutal economic system. This was followed by a Jim Crow-era that saw #ADOS become actual contagions that lead to a destruction of wealth; through federally-supported, discriminatory practices like redlining, black presence literally made wealth disappear in communities, all while American whites'--and more recently, immigrants'-- enjoy advantage in a land of apparently equal opportunity that was in fact manufactured on the back of black failure.
According to Yale historian David Blight, ''by 1860, there were more millionaires (slaveholders all) living in the lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States. In the same year, the nearly 4 million American slaves were worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial asset in the entire U.S. economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined.''
Codified by government and exploited by private actors, the creation of an #ADOS underclass served as the financial engine of a nation that never recognized the debt it owed to the group as a result. As such, the #ADOS movement is underpinned by the demand for reparative justice in making the group whole, and as a necessary component in fulfilling the promise of opportunity from which, by design, ADOS have been historically excluded and denied.
The truth of ADOS life is seen nowhere more clearly than the racial wealth gap in this country:
Closing the racial wealth gap requires a New Deal for Black America. President Trump's assertion during the 2016 Presidential campaign that Black Americans ''have nothing to lose'' was met with defiance by those on the Left, but the data supported the statement. From over all wealth levels, to home ownership, to student debt levels and beyond African Americans across this nation are suffering. According to a study from Brookings, half of Black Americans who are born poor stay poor. Most Black kids who are born into middle class families are downwardly mobile. And as Duke University economist Dr. William ''Sandy'' Darity, and co-founder of the ADOS movement, Antonio Moore, along with other researchers observed in their study What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap, the concentration of ADOS at the bottom economically is a consequence of lack of wealth transfers and multi-generational oppression, not individual agency or cultural patterns:
#ADOS #AmericanDOS sets out to shift the dialogue around the identity of what it is to be African American in an effort to move the discussion from melanin, and properly center the discussion around lineage.
Why do Holocaust survivors get reparations, but Black Americans are told to forget their history?
In October of last year, President Obama awarded $12 million dollars in ''assistance'' to Holocaust survivors. The money was given to help these deserving survivors to help the ''quarter of whom live below the poverty line.''
This gift was a continuation of Germany's efforts to pay Jews reparations from 1952. Then, Germany awarded over a billion dollars primarily to the government of Israel, which had resettled many Holocaust survivors. This money genuinely helped a community who had lost everything '' family members, friends, homes, clothing, jewelry, their livelihoods. It helped people who had lost everything and had to rebuild with nothing.
Reparations helped these people put their lives back on track. Much of the original reparations payment in 1952 went to building Israeli infrastructure, and look at how powerful and strong Israel is today.
As a Jew, when I read about the Holocaust, it boils my blood and makes me sick. I remember as a young girl, I was obsessed with Hitler and World War II, and learning about every circumstance that led to this enormous event in the history of my people. On my father's side, we lost many family members to the Holocaust. It wasn't just reading about history. It was personal.
When I learned about the reparations that were paid by the German government, I was pleased. No, it did not bring back my lost family members, and it didn't reverse the blow that was dealt to an entire generation of my people, but it was comforting to know that at least they weren't being sent home empty-handed. At the very least, it ensured a roof over the heads of these victims.
No, it wasn't everything, but it was at least something.
I will never forget the night when I was driving home with a family friend and we were arguing about many things: the election, the state of our economy, etc. We had been clashing over our opposing socio-political views for some time, but she really shocked me when we started talking about our views on racism in the United States.
I mention something off-hand about reparations for the Black communities in our country who have descended from slavery, and she turns to me the skyline of Manhattan gleaming in the background behind her, a place that represents diversity, a place that accepted her as an immigrant, and she explodes.
''Oh, come ON! Slavery was 150 years ago! They need to get over it! Just stop already!''
''Why?'', I retort. ''Why not? What, us Jews can holler ''Remember the Holocaust'' until our throats are sore, but Black people have to forget their history?''
''Come on Liz, it's not the same, and you know it.''
But why? Why isn't it the same?
Consider that. A government paid billions of dollars to a group of people its former leader tortured for a period of 12 years. Twelve years. This conversation is not meant to derail those classic arguments that some Jews posit: that their people have suffered because of anti-Semitism for thousands of years, so reparations were owed to them.
I am focusing on the fact that Jews suffered extreme hardships (bodies enslaved, children torn from their mothers, over 6 million dead, business destroyed, homes ransacked, wealth stolen) from one government in particular for just twelve years, and that government paid the survivors billions of dollars.
Now take the issue of reparations for Black people in this country '' those descended from slaves, which is estimated to be approximately 85-90% of the Black population.
For over three hundred years, Black people suffered extreme hardships under slavery '' bodies enslaved, children torn from their mothers, hundreds of thousands dead, wealth stolen. True, many of these atrocities were committed by regular White people'...but the U.S. government often sponsored and supported the actions of these regular people, going as far as to enact the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which bound law enforcement to return runaway slaves to their master'...even if the slave was in a free state, even if that ''free'' state was against it.
Even after slavery was outlawed, Black people still suffered extreme hardships, sponsored and protected by the U.S. government. They were lynched, had business destroyed, homes ransacked, and wealth stolen, just like Jews. The only difference is that the Black community suffered at the hands of the state-sponsored violence for much longer than twelve years. Between slavery, Jim Crow, and the contemporary school to prison pipeline, I would say the suffering lasted (and continues to) for over four hundred years.
So why is it ridiculous for Black Americans to ask the U.S. government for reparations? After all, the U.S. just paid 12 million dollars to Holocaust survivors.
Critics say that reparations to Holocaust survivors are just that: payments to survivors, not descendants of survivors. They argue that paying reparations to people who never ''did the time'' is foolish and not useful.
However, I would argue for reparations for descendants of survivors if the original survivors did not receive any benefits to their hardships. Why? When wealth is stolen, it is not easily replaced.
After slavery ended in the United States, slaves were supposed to receive reparations of 40 acres and a mule. This sentiment was not enforced, and so Black people were sent out in the world with nothing. Even when something was built and a moderate amount of wealth was created, like in the town of Durham, North Carolina, threatened Whites would burn businesses to the ground.
A quick Google search of ''black wealth vs. white wealth'' brings forth an abundance of articles that all state the same thing: Black wealth is significantly lagging in comparison to white wealth. One article even says that it will take Black families over 200 years to amass the wealth that white people have today. How can one confidently say that billions of dollars given to former slaves, especially at the time that slavery ended, would not have narrowed this gap?
As a Jewish woman, who has family living in Israel, I wholeheartedly support reparations for the Black slave-descendant community. I can only think back to when I learned about German reparations to Jews: '''...at least that. It's not everything, but AT LEAST''. I cannot imagine reading about the atrocities of the damage that was inflicted on my people, and then to learn that NOTHING was done in an attempt to help remediate that damage.
It's time for all Jews to stand up and support the Black community when it comes to requests for reparations. Even if symbolic, if the United States can find it in its heart (and budget) to help Holocaust survivors, then it can help slavery survivors.
Trump Rotation
Rob Reiner: 'My Energy Is Focused On Making Sure Trump Doesn't Serve Another Term'
Appearing on the PBS series, Firing Line, Hollywood director and left-wing activist Rob Reiner warns the two dozen Democrats who are running for president not to attack each other in the runup to the 2020 primaries.''I don't want to see the country destroyed,'' Reiner exclaimed during his visit to the PBS talk show.
''My energy is going to be focused on making sure Trump doesn't serve another term,'' the This is Spinal Tap director told host Margaret Hoover. ''We cannot have that. I'm, not just as a Democrat, I'm as an American I don't want to see the country destroyed.''
The Hollywood denizen then insisted that the ''good Republicans'' he has spoken with agree with him.
''And the good Republicans that I talk to all the time are like, their hair is on fire,'' Rob Reiner exclaimed. ''They don't understand why those people in Congress are in this cult, where they're worried about their election. At a certain point, you've got to say, 'I care more about this country than I do about my getting r-elected.'''
"I don't want to see the country destroyed." Director @RobReiner talks about channeling his political activism into the 2020 election. He says he hopes the Dems don't pick fights with each other because he wants "the strongest person to emerge'...to take on Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/2Kqj0fEpSQ
'-- Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) May 9, 2019
Reiner also had some advice to the Democrats vying for the 2020 Democrat nomination.
''My mantra has always been, support everybody. Support everybody and don't trash anybody,'' Reiner said of his effort to usher in a socialist-Democrat regime in Washington.
Sadly, he feels that advice is already being ignored by his party.
''But it's also already been thrown out the window because the minute Joe Biden announced '-- and the way you know it works in politics '-- whoever is the perceived frontrunner at any point gets all the fire from the other candidates, so I'm hoping that they keep their powder dry because, ultimately, we want the strongest person to emerge and that person to take on Donald Trump.''
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
Trump threatens reporter with prison time during interview - The Washington Post
President Trump, who lashes out at the news media daily, is extra sensitive to Time magazine because he's long prided himself on being featured on its cover. (Evan Vucci/AP) Colby ItkowitzCongress, campaigns, health policy, Pennsylvania politics
June 21 at 10:18 AMPresident Trump, in an interview this week and on Twitter on Friday morning, again suggested criminal action against American journalists.
During a sit-down interview with Time magazine, Trump showed the reporters a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. When a photographer tried to snap a photograph of the letter, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told him he couldn't.
Later in the interview, the subject turned to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, and a reporter asked about sworn testimony that Trump tried to limit the investigation to only ''future election meddling.''
Rather than answer, Trump lashed out about the photographer's attempt to take a shot of the letter from Kim, according to a transcript of the interview that Time released Thursday night.
''Well, you can go to prison, instead, because if you use, if you use the photograph you took of the letter that I gave you .'.'. '' Trump started.
When the Time reporter interjected to continue his line of questioning, Trump went on, ''confidentially, I didn't give it to you to take photographs of it '-- so don't play that game with me.''
''I'm sorry, Mr. President. Were you threatening me with prison time?'' the reporter asked.
Trump didn't answer directly, but launched into a rant about Time's unfavorable coverage of him.
''So go have fun with your story,'' Trump said. ''Because I'm sure it will be the 28th horrible story I have in Time magazine because I never, I mean, ha. It's incredible. With all I've done and the success I've had, the way that Time magazine writes is absolutely incredible.''
Trump, who lashes out at the news media daily, is extra sensitive to Time magazine because he's long prided himself on being featured on its cover '-- this interview will mark his 29th cover story.
Trump has been so enamored with his own appearance in the national publication that he had a fake Time cover with his portrait and the headline: ''Donald Trump: The 'Apprentice' is a television smash!'' framed and hung in several of his golf clubs.
On Friday, Trump also weighed in on an email between a New York Times reporter and the FBI's director of public affairs that was obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. In the 2017 email, the reporter writes that his colleagues had learned in their reporting on the Russia investigation that the FBI was scrutinizing Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, for meeting with Russians.
''Just revealed that the Failing and Desperate New York Times was feeding false stories about me, & those associated with me, to the FBI,'' Trump tweeted. ''This shows the kind of unprecedented hatred I have been putting up with for years with this Crooked newspaper. Is what they have done legal? .'.'. ''
Judicial Watch claims the email is evidence of ''FBI-media collusion.'' Emailing an agency spokesman to verify new information gleaned through reporting is standard journalistic practice.
Trump has made the news media a top adversary since his early days as a candidate but only started tweeting about ''fake news'' and ''enemy of the people'' after he was elected. He's used derogatory terms for reporters, calling them ''crazed lunatics'' and ''the opposition party.''
This isn't the first time Trump has suggested jailing journalists. Former FBI director James B. Comey recalled in a conversation with the president regarding leaks in the media that Trump said that one solution would be to have reporters ''spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend and they are ready to talk.''
Trump faces rape accusation from author E. Jean Carroll - Axios
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StoriesE. Jean Carroll in 2015 and President Trump. Photos: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for ELLE; Peter Summers/Getty Images
In a New York magazine cover story published Friday, author E. Jean Carroll accused President Trump of raping her in a dressing room of New York's Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
Why it matters: Carroll's accusation is the 16th allegation of sexual misconduct or assault levied against the president throughout his time in public life '-- all of which he has denied.
An Excerpt from E. Jean Carroll's 'What Do We Need Men For?'
Donald Trump assaulted me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago. But he's not alone on the list of awful men in my life. E. Jean Carroll. Photo: Amanda Demme for New York Magazine
E. Jean Carroll. Photo: Amanda Demme for New York Magazine
E. Jean Carroll. Photo: Amanda Demme for New York Magazine
My first rich boy pulled down my underpants. My last rich boy pulled down my tights. My first rich boy '-- I had fixed my eyes on his face long enough to know '-- was beautiful, with dark gray eyes and long golden-brown hair across his forehead. I don't know what he grew up to be. My last rich boy was blond. He grew up to be the president of the United States.
The first rich boy's name was James. He was raped by his grandfather. He was raped by his uncles. He was beaten by his father. My mother told me the stories much later. When James was 6, he was taken away from his father and given to a rich couple, Arthur and Evelyn. Arthur and Evelyn were best friends with my parents, Tom and Betty. One day my parents gave a party. Everyone brought their kids. Arthur and Evelyn drove up from Indianapolis with James to the redbrick schoolhouse where we lived, deep in the hills north of Fort Wayne. As the parents drank cocktails in our big yard with the scent of the blooming wads of cash infusing every inch of Indiana just after WWII, the kids played up on the hill beside the schoolhouse.
James was 7 and a half or 8, a bloodthirsty, beautiful, relentless boy. He ordered everyone around, even the older kids. To me he said, ''I'm going to shove this up you again.''
We'd played this game before. Our families had gone on a camping trip to Pokagon State Park, and I learned that an object could be shoved up the place where I tinkled. I don't remember now what it was, probably a stick, or maybe a rock. It felt like being cut with a knife. I remember I bled.
''I don't want to,'' I said.
We were standing on the hill. James looked at me with his feral gray eyes.
He wadded up a piece of fabric '-- it was a light blue-violet shade and looked fluffy, like a bunched-up hairnet
''Put this in your underpants,'' he said.
He pulled up my dress and crammed the balled-up material down my pants. Late at night, when the guests had gone home, I took off my dress, pulled down my pants. And there it still was, the wadded-up thing.
James and I played so many ferocious games while camping that summer: hooking each other with fishhooks, holding each other underwater, tying each other up, shooting each other with cap guns, chasing each other with garter snakes, dumping hot embers on each other's heads. I am not putting him on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List '-- whether he belongs there is for him to decide. It is his uncles, his father, his grandfather who belong on such a list.
Now, about this Most Hideous Men of My Life List: It is a list of the 21 most revolting scoundrels I have ever met. I started it in October 2017, the day Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey published their Harvey Weinstein bombshells in the New York Times. As the riotous, sickening stories of #MeToo surged across the country, I, like many women, could not help but be reminded of certain men in my own life. When I began, I was not sure which among all the foul harassers, molesters, traducers, swindlers, stranglers, and no-goods I've known were going to make the final accounting. I considered Matt Lauer, Bill O'Reilly, and the giant dingleberry Charlie Rose, all guys whose TV shows I was on many times and who made headlines during the rise of #MeToo. But in the end, they do not make my Hideous List.
Hunter S. Thompson '... now, there's a good candidate. I know. I wrote his biography. Does Hunter, the greatest degenerate of his generation, who kept yelling, ''Off with your pants!'' as he sliced the leggings from my body with a long knife in his hot tub, make the list? Naw.
And if having my pants hacked off by a man lit to the eyebrows with acid, Chivas Regal, Champagne, grass, Chartreuse, Dunhills, cocaine, and Dove Bars does not make the list '-- because to me there is a big difference between an ''adventure'' and an ''attack'' '-- who, in God's name, does make my Hideous List?
After almost two years of drawing and redrawing my list, I've come to realize that, though my hideosity bar is high, my criteria are a little cockeyed. It is a gut call. I am like Justice Potter Stewart. I just know a hideous man when I see one. And I have seen plenty. For 26 years, I have been writing the ''Ask E. Jean'' column in Elle, and for 26'¯years, no matter what problems are driving women crazy '-- their careers, wardrobes, love affairs, children, orgasms, finances '-- there comes a line in almost every letter when the cause of the correspondent's quagmire is revealed. And that cause is men.
Viz.: the man who thinks 30 seconds of foreplay is ''enough,'' the man who cheats on his wife, the man who passes women over for promotion, the man who steals his girlfriend's credit cards, the man who keeps 19 guns in the basement, the man who tells his co-worker she ''talks too much in meetings,'' the man who won't bathe, the man who beats his girlfriend's dog, the man who takes his female colleagues' ideas, the man who tries to kill his rich wife by putting poison in her shampoo. Every woman, whether consciously or not, has a catalogue of the hideous men she's known.
As it turns out, a Hideous Man marks practically every stage of my life. And so, Reader, from this cavalcade of 21 assholes, I am selecting a few choice specimens. One or two may not be pleasant for you to read about, I apologize. But if we all just lean over and put our heads between our knees, the fainting feeling will pass. No one need be carried from the room.
Carroll being crowned Miss Indiana University in 1963. Photo: Elinor Hendrix/Courtesy of the author
When I entered Indiana University, I was the most boy-crazy 17-year-old in the nation.
If you'd met me my freshman year, you would never have imagined I was born to be an advice columnist. But imagine it now. Thirteen miles from the Bloomington campus, there I am: young Jeanie Carroll, driving with a boy down a hilly back road in Brown County State Park, where IU students go on October Sundays to supposedly look at the famous leaves.
My situation in life '-- my father being a Beta Theta Pi from Wabash College, my mother being a Kappa Delta from UCLA, my wild wish to pledge either Pi Beta Phi or Kappa Kappa Gamma, my rah-rah disposition, my total ignorance of what is going on in the world, the fact that I never crack a book '-- all are equally against my becoming a columnist, the first requirement of which is acknowledging that there are other beings on the planet besides boys.
How I end up in that car, who the boy is'¯'... well, I don't remember. I've been looking through my 1961 datebook, and each day is so chock-full of the names of boys who called me, the names of boys whom I expected to call me and didn't, the names of boys who did call me but I didn't care if they called me, the names of boys who if they didn't call me I was never going to speak to again, the names of boys who if they called me I would not pick up the phone, and the names of boys I would have my roommate, Connie, call and ask if they called me while she was on the line with a boy who was begging me to call him back, I can't figure out who this boy is. But meet No. 1 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List.
He belongs to that class of boys who are not athletes and so must make their mark on campus with their devastating looks or gobs of money. I don't remember this boy having either. I remember this boy's thing is his car. It is a stick shift. Nobody knows how to ''drive a stick,'' he says, except him and A.' J. Foyt, the Indianapolis 500 winner, and so I am amazed when he releases the clutch like he's stepping on a yellow-jacket nest and grinds the gears when he pulls over in the dirt and stops.
I look around. ''I gotta get back to the dorm,'' I say.
He turns off the engine.
''Youuuuuuuu liiiitttttttttllllllllllll prrrrrrrrrrrrik teeeeeeeeeeez,'' he says. This opening compliment, ''You little prick tease,'' is paid to every girl at some point or other in 1961, and I don't wait to be paid another. I open the car door and slide out.
What am I wearing? Tennis shoes, jeans, big sweatshirt, and '-- blam, he lunges from the car and bolts his arms around me. We crash, like felled trees, to the ground.
We land in grass covered in yellow leaves. Thanks to Mr. Weber, my high-school biology teacher, I can, with 100 percent confidence, say those yellow leaves are poplar leaves. They crackle as I struggle to get up.
Straddling me, the boy looks zonked out of his mind with the possibilities. He pushes my sweatshirt up to my neck.
I remember the thought flashes through my mind that could I have foreseen the circumstance of a boy throwing me down and pushing my sweatshirt up to my chin, I would not have worn a padded bra. A padded bra makes a girl look like she lacks something.
''I don't want to wrestle,'' I say. ''Get off!''
He pins my arms over my head by my wrists.
''Get off!'' I say again.
He is holding my wrists with both his hands, and, before I can react, he changes his hold to one hand and, with his free hand, pulls a knife out of his back pocket.
''See this?'' he whispers.
I look at it. At the time, I own two Girl Scout knives, a Girl Scout knife-safety certificate, and my own personal hatchet, and the neighbor kids believe I have reached a height of felicity rarely attained on Illsley Place, our street, because of my winning 30'¯rounds of mumblety-peg, a game where we throw pocketknives at each other's bare feet. So, yes, I can ''see'' his knife. It's a jackknife, a knife with a folding blade, dark brownish-gray, made out of some kind of horn, about five or six inches. If he opens it, it will measure, end to end, 10 or 11 inches. It's not the knife. Well, it is the knife, but it's the look on his face that scares me.
''Get off,'' I say.
He pushes my bra up over my breasts. I can smell his excitement; it's like electrified butter, and I zero in on the fact that he must use two hands to open the knife.
''Get off!'' I say.
''I am gonna get off,'' he whispers.
He lets go of both of my wrists for two seconds to open the knife, and I roll out from under him and run.
I was voted Best Girl Athlete in high school, but I was a high jumper, not a runner. I outrun this boy nonetheless. And on a twisty back road through tangled orange-and-scarlet thickets, a young couple in a car pick me up about a quarter-hour after I escape. The girl says, ''I'll bet a boy tried something with you,'' and I say, ''Yeah,'' and that is the last word I utter about the attack until now.
Had I been an artist, I could have carried the front seat of the car the boy was driving wherever I went on Indiana University's campus to protest his assault like Emma Sulkowicz carrying her mattress around Columbia University in the greatest art show of 2014, but I didn't think of it. Perhaps hauling around just the gearshift would have sufficed. But, like many women who are attacked, when I had the most to say, I said the least.
Let's just double-check my diary: Do I write that I went to the campus police and reported the boy? Do I say I went to the university health clinic and talked with a therapist? No. I say:
BE IT KNOWN'--
That from this day forth I will not except [sic] or go on any dates that are not of my choice '-- they must be boys who are to my liking [I can't read what I crossed out here]. I have to [sic] many things to do '-- rather than waste my time with CREEPY BOYS.
(signed) Jeanie Carroll
E. Jean Carroll. Photo: Amanda Demme for New York Magazine
After college and bumming around Africa, I arrive in Chicago, ready to start my so-called career. I meet one of those semi-good-looking, brown-haired, unimpeachably but forgettably dressed young men who are vice-presidents because their fathers own the company, in this case an employment agency''and''accounting firm''type thing, which, despite the gloss of its golden promise, no longer exists.
He hires me to help ''land new accounts.''
''You start tonight,'' he says.
''Great!'' I say.
''We're meeting the people from Marshall Field's. Be at the Pump Room at eight o'clock.''
''Wow!'' I say. ''The Pump Room!''
Congo-green paisley taffeta dinner suit, whisk-broom eyelashes, Rorschach-inkblot eye shadow, stacked heels, Marquis de Sade hair bow, and skirt up to here, I arrive in the Pump Room. I remember lots of white linen. Sparkling silver. The ma®tre d' escorts me to a booth, where No.'¯13 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List rises to greet me and says, ''They canceled.''
''Oh dear,'' I reply.
''Never mind,'' he says. ''Sit down.''
He orders drinks, an extra glass of ice, tells me in detail about the new suit he is wearing, and then says, surprised, ''Oh damn! My ex-wife just walked in.''
My false eyelashes spring open like parasols.
A smashingly put-together woman with a flamboyant mane of rich red hair is being escorted with an older chap (he is probably all of 35) to a table across the room. When they are seated, my boss raises his glass to her. She nods and raises one eyebrow at him.
''She's a cunt,'' he says.
Ten minutes later, an odd thing happens. My boss's ex-wife takes her chap's hand and raises it to her lips. A moment later, my boss takes my hand and raises it to his lips.
I jerk my hand away.
''Just a welcome smooch,'' he says. ''Don't be bourgeois.''
He orders another drink. Across the room, my boss's ex-wife glances at us and puts her two very, very red open lips on her chap's cheek and '-- well, there is no verb available '-- squishes her lips up and down and sorta rolls them around his face like she is the press-and-steam girl at a dry cleaner.
By now, the question has occurred to you: Why does this woman seem so unfazed by all this horrible crap?After she concludes, my boss picks up the glass filled with ice, globs in a mouthful, crunches it for a few seconds, and then plants his freezing lips and tongue on my face.
I nearly fly out of the booth.
''GET OFF!'' I cry. ''Ewwwwwww!''
''You're soooo booooooozzzzshwaaaaahh,'' says my boss.
''Keep it in your mouth, mister!'' I say. ''Where's the waiter? I need more bread and butter!''
I am not a foodie. Give me a three-cheese foot-long with a mound of red onions on it or a couple of Amy's organic black-bean burritos and I'm happy. But wild, half-witted, greener-than-green Jeanie Carroll, 50 years before #MeToo, 40 years before women even begin expecting things could be different Jeanie Carroll, who takes her licks and doesn't look back, is not about to pass up a dinner in the goddamn Pump Room!
I have the filet mignon. (One of the last times I ever eat meat, so disgusting is this night.)
My boss? He orders another drink and becomes more and more excited, slobbering on my hand like a Doberman playing with his squeaky toy, and meanwhile my boss's ex-wife '-- who I now, half a century later, suspect was actually his wife and this was a little game they played to spice things up '-- starts rubbing her chap's leg.
My boss and I can't really see her doing it, as the table linen hangs nearly to the floor, but it is clear from the feverish action of her upper body that she is rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, and when her chap's eyes close, she goes on rubbing until, with his face still smeared with lipstick and looking like a sophomore standing on the free-throw line in a tied game, the chap stands up, heaves a wad of cash on the table, grabs the wife, and they scamper toward the exit. My boss asks for the check.
My Jean Rhys Good Morning, Midnight room in the old Hotel Eastgate on Ontario Street no longer exists. But at the time, it is only a dozen or so blocks away, and my boss insists on driving me home. It is my first ride in a Mercedes. I am surprised at how uncomfortable the stiff leather seats are. Two or three blocks from my place, my boss runs a red light, stomps the brakes, skids to a halt, and, jabbering about ''that cunt'' or ''a cunt'' or ''all cunts,'' jams his hand between my legs so hard I bang my head into the dashboard trying to protect myself. I open the car door and bound into the traffic.
My boss must be doing the following things: pulling over, getting out, etc., because as I am about to turn in to the Hotel Eastgate, I look back and see him weaving toward me in a drunken trot. I remember that his legs look menacingly short. I run into the empty hotel lobby. Spurt past the desk. No manager in sight. Check the elevators. Decide to take the stairs two at a time. Hit the second floor. Feeling for the room key in my jacket pocket, I run down the hall, and as I try to put the key in the door, my boss catches me from behind and clamps his teeth on the nape of my neck. I kick backward at his shins, manage to get the key to work, jab a backward elbow into his ribs, squeeze into my room, and push, push, push the door closed.
Have you ever shut a dog outside who wants to come in? My boss scratches and whimpers at that door for the next quarter of an hour. The next day, I get a new job '-- and never has my lack of all talent been put to better advantage '-- as a greeter-and-seater at Gino's East, the Chicago pizza joint beloved by mob guys, journos, and TV glamorosi, and do not so much as call No.'¯13 to tell him I quit.
Do I attract hideous men? Possibly. But I've also encountered many creeps, villains, dickwads,and chumps simply because I've been around a long time. I was mostly single, free of encumbrances, and working in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s, when a woman could scarcely walk down the street without getting hit on or take a job without being underpaid.
So '... we may proceed to No. 15 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List: Les Moonves, chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer of the CBS Corporation.
This happens in the time '-- one of the happiest of my happy life '-- when I am booming around the country writing for Esquire. I have been interviewing Moonves in the lounge of the Hotel Nikko in Beverly Hills for a story (presciently titled by my editor ''Dangerous Minds,'' February 1997), and the short, gravel-voiced Moonves apparently takes one look at me '-- a 50-something journalist in a pair of old brown-and-beige oxfords '-- and his life is no longer his own.
After the interview is finished (and for a man like Moonves, talking about himself for an hour and a half is as good as downing two gallons of Spanish fly), he follows me to the elevator. When I turn to say good-bye, he says: ''You're smart.''
I say: ''Thank you!''
He says: ''Smart enough to choose an out-of-the-way hotel,'' and he steps into the elevator behind me and, his pants bursting with demands, goes at me like an octopus. I don't know how many apertures and openings you possess, Reader, but Moonves, with his arms squirming and poking and goosing and scooping and pricking and prodding and jabbing, is looking for fissures I don't even know I own, and '-- by God! '-- I am not certain that even if I pull off one of his arms it won't crawl after me and attack me in my hotel bed. Hell, I am thrilled I escape before he expels his ink.
Naturally, I do not mention this in the article. I am a member of the Silent Generation. We do not flap our gums. We laugh it off and get on with life. (Moonves, for his part, told New York he ''emphatically denies'' the incident occurred.)
Carroll cheerleading at Indiana University in 1965. Photo: Courtesy of the author
By now, Silent Generation aside, the question has occurred to you: Why does this woman seem so unfazed by all this horrible crap? Well, I am shallower than most people. I do not dwell on the past. I feel greater empathy for others than for myself. I do not try to control everything. But mainly, I think it is because I have done the thing no Indiana University football team has ever done in history '-- I have won a national championship: Miss Cheerleader USA. And they fly me to Washington, D.C., to meet President Lyndon Johnson in the Rose Garden. My photo (in a swimsuit!) plays on front pages across the nation. I get a big scholarship and appear on the TV quiz show To Tell the Truth.
This championship is, in fact, so important to the Indiana athletic department that they put me on billboards all over the state of Indiana '-- giant images of an ecstatic Jeanie escaped from her bottle, soaring above the stunned crowd in the Indiana University football stadium, a big i on my crimson sweater, cheerleading skirt aswirl, legs split like the atom.
And, well, I've never really come down '... have I?
I'm up there, perpetually, eternally, forever in mid-leap, urging the crowd to never lose hope. I was a cheerleader in grade school. I was a cheerleader in high school. My sisters, Cande and Barbie, were cheerleaders; my brother, Tom, was a pole vaulter, so he jumped too. Today I open a letter for my column, I read the question, and what do I do? I start shouting and yelling and cheering at the correspondent to pick herself up and go on. And, by God! The correspondent does pick herself up and does go on! Because if she doesn't, I keep yelling at her. And every now and then I shout at myself, ''Get the hell up, E. Jean! You half-wit! My God! Get on with it!''
And many women my age just ''get on with it'' too. It is how we handle things: Chin up! Stop griping! We do not cast ourselves as victims because we do not see ourselves as victims. While the strategy has worked for me, I wish I hadn't waited so long to say something about two of my Hideous Men.
Beauty contests are such a rage when I am growing up that my camp '-- a Girl Scout camp! '-- holds yearly pageants. So it happens that the first beauty contest I am nominated for is Miss Camp Ella J. Logan. (Later I'll win Miss Indiana University, no doubt due to my ''talent'': I take to the stage dressed as Edith Sitwell and perform a dramatic reading of Dick and Jane.)
There is no talent portion at camp, alas. We contestants walk up and down the dock; the judges, who've roared across the lake in a magnificent Chris-Craft and who are now seated in deck chairs, call my name.
I walk over and whisper: ''What?''
They whisper: ''You are Miss Camp Ella J. Logan.''
After they put the papier-mch(C) crown on my head, the cape on my shoulders, and give me the baton covered in Reynolds Wrap, Old Cam, No. 6 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List, the waterfront director, takes me out in a boat and runs his hands under my shirt and up my shorts. He is breathing and moving his hand slowly and hotly, and I fight no battles in my head. My mind goes white. This is Cam. This is the man who has watched me grow from an 8-year-old Brownie Scout, and his notice is an honor. This is Cam, who teaches me to swim and dive and awards me the coveted White Cap! This is Cam, who continues to run his hand inside my shorts and under my blouse '-- even in the dining room during dinner, under the table, squeezing my thighs, shoving his fingers '-- saying, ''You're my girl. You're my girl. You're my girl,'' and making me Girl Scout''promise ''not to tell anyone.''
I am astonished by what I'm about to write: I keep laughing.He does this until I go home. I am 12.
My friends will be stunned to read this. My sisters and brother will be speechless. But Aly Raisman, the great Olympian gymnast, and the more than 150 young women who spoke out in court about Lawrence Nassar, the USA Gymnastics team doctor, will not be shocked. Nassar abused some of the young women in front of their own mothers. Nobody saw it.
And old Cam? He writes a book called The Girl Scout Man. It is listed in ''rather remarkable'' condition, though there is some ''light foxing and some very modest yellowing of the pages,'' on Abe Books, the rare-books dealer. Here is a shortened version of its description:
''This loving homage to Girl Scouting is a record of many of the experiences and incidents and occurrences spanning the over twenty-five years of dedicated service of Cam Parks, done mostly at Camp Ella J. Logan, near Fort Wayne, Indiana, on the shore of Dewart Lake. If you, Reader, are an alumnus of Logan '... memories of time spent at this camp may well be sweeping over you right now.''
No thank you.
As a Scout, I returned to Camp Ella J. Logan year after year, becoming tall and womanly, receiving letters from boys with swak written on the backs of the envelopes, going on weeklong canoe trips, and completing my counselor-in-training program.
Cam I avoided. Never once did I speak to him or look at him again, but my brain does not avoid him. He and his maroon swim trunks may have been dead these last 40'¯years, but old Cam and the boat are the events '-- of all the events in my life '-- that somehow swim constantly back into my head. And it's Cam who, when he dies at the age of 72 and the story starts going around that he was ''suddenly dismissed'' from coaching, causes me the most pain.
I could have spoken up! Maybe not when I was 12. But when I was 25. He died when I was 34. I might have stopped him.
Which brings me to the other rich boy. Before I discuss him, I must mention that there are two great handicaps to telling you what happened to me in Bergdorf's: (a) The man I will be talking about denies it, as he has denied accusations of sexual misconduct made by at least 15 credible women, namely, Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Cathy Heller, Temple Taggart McDowell, Karena Virginia, Melinda McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, Jessica Drake, Ninni Laaksonen, Summer Zervos, Juliet Huddy, Alva Johnson, and Cassandra Searles. (Here's what the White House said: ''This is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.'') And (b) I run the risk of making him more popular by revealing what he did.
His admirers can't get enough of hearing that he's rich enough, lusty enough, and powerful enough to be sued by and to pay off every splashy porn star or Playboy Playmate who ''comes forward,'' so I can't imagine how ecstatic the poor saps will be to hear their favorite Walking Phallus got it on with an old lady in the world's most prestigious department store.
On the Ask E. Jean show, which aired from 1994 to 1996. Photo: Courtesy of the author
This is during the years I am doing a daily Ask E. Jean TV show for the cable station America's Talking, a precursor to MSNBC launched by Roger Ailes (who, by the way, is No. 16 on my list).
Early one evening, as I am about to go out Bergdorf's revolving door on 58th Street, and one of New York's most famous men comes in the revolving door, or it could have been a regular door at that time, I can't recall, and he says: ''Hey, you're that advice lady!''
And I say to No. 20 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List: ''Hey, you're that real-estate tycoon!''
I am surprised at how good-looking he is. We've met once before, and perhaps it is the dusky light but he looks prettier than ever. This has to be in the fall of 1995 or the spring of 1996 because he's garbed in a faultless topcoat and I'm wearing my black wool Donna Karan coatdress and high heels but not a coat.
''Come advise me,'' says the man. ''I gotta buy a present.''
''Oh!'' I say, charmed. ''For whom?''
''A girl,'' he says.
''Don't the assistants of your secretaries buy things like that?'' I say.
''Not this one,'' he says. Or perhaps he says, ''Not this time.'' I can't recall. He is a big talker, and from the instant we collide, he yammers about himself like he's Alexander the Great ready to loot Babylon.
As we are standing just inside the door, I point to the handbags. ''How about'--''
''No!'' he says, making the face where he pulls up both lips like he's balancing a spoon under his nose, and begins talking about how he once thought about buying Bergdorf 's.
''Or '... a hat!'' I say enthusiastically, walking toward the handbags, which, at the period I'm telling you about '-- and Bergdorf's has been redone two or three times since then '-- are mixed in with, and displayed next to, the hats. ''She'll love a hat! You can't go wrong with a hat!''
I don't remember what he says, but he comes striding along '-- greeting a Bergdorf sales attendant like he owns the joint and permitting a shopper to gape in awe at him '-- and goes right for a fur number.
''Please,'' I say. ''No woman would wear a dead animal on her head!''
What he replies I don't recall, but I remember he coddles the fur hat like it's a baby otter.
''How old is the lady in question?'' I ask.
''How old are you?'' replies the man, fondling the hat and looking at me like Louis Leakey carbon-dating a thighbone he's found in Olduvai Gorge.
''I'm 52,'' I tell him.
''You're so old!'' he says, laughing '-- he was around 50 himself '-- and it's at about this point that he drops the hat, looks in the direction of the escalator, and says, ''Lingerie!'' Or he may have said ''Underwear!'' So we stroll to the escalator. I don't remember anybody else greeting him or galloping up to talk to him, which indicates how very few people are in the store at the time.
I have no recollection where lingerie is in that era of Bergdorf's, but it seems to me it is on a floor with the evening gowns and bathing suits, and when the man and
I arrive '-- and my memory now is vivid '-- no one is present.
There are two or three dainty boxes and a lacy see-through bodysuit of lilac gray on the counter. The man snatches the bodysuit up and says: ''Go try this on!''
''You try it on,'' I say, laughing. ''It's your color.''
''Try it on, come on,'' he says, throwing it at me.
''It goes with your eyes,'' I say, laughing and throwing it back.
''You're in good shape,'' he says, holding the filmy thing up against me. ''I wanna see how this looks.''
''But it's your size,'' I say, laughing and trying to slap him back with one of the boxes on the counter.
''Come on,'' he says, taking my arm. ''Let's put this on.''
This is gonna be hilarious, I'm saying to myself '-- and as I write this, I am staggered by my stupidity. As we head to the dressing rooms, I'm laughing aloud and saying in my mind: I'm gonna make him put this thing on over his pants!
There are several facts about what happens next that are so odd I want to clear them up before I go any further:
Did I report it to the police?
No.
Did I tell anyone about it?
Yes. I told two close friends. The first, a journalist, magazine writer, correspondent on the TV morning shows, author of many books, etc., begged me to go to the police.
''He raped you,'' she kept repeating when I called her. ''He raped you. Go to the police! I'll go with you. We'll go together.''
My second friend is also a journalist, a New York anchorwoman. She grew very quiet when I told her, then she grasped both my hands in her own and said, ''Tell no one. Forget it! He has 200 lawyers. He'll bury you.'' (Two decades later, both still remember the incident clearly and confirmed their accounts to New York.)
Do I have photos or any visual evidence?
Bergdorf's security cameras must have picked us up at the 58th Street entrance of the store. We would have been filmed on the ground floor in the bags-and-hats sections. Cameras also must have captured us going up the escalator and into the lingerie department. New York law at the time did not explicitly prohibit security cameras in dressing rooms to ''prevent theft.'' But even if it had been captured on tape, depending on the position of the camera, it would be very difficult to see the man unzipping his pants, because he was wearing a topcoat. The struggle might simply have read as ''sexy.'' The speculation is moot, anyway: The department store has confirmed that it no longer has tapes from that time.
Why were there no sales attendants in the lingerie department?
Bergdorf Goodman's perfections are so well known '-- it is a store so noble, so clubby, so posh '-- that it is almost easier to accept the fact that I was attacked than the fact that, for a very brief period, there was no sales attendant in the lingerie department. Inconceivable is the word. Sometimes a person won't find a sales attendant in Saks, it's true; sometimes one has to look for a sales associate in Barneys, Bloomingdale's, or even Tiffany's; but 99'¯percent of the time, you will have an attendant in Bergdorf's. All I can say is I did not, in this fleeting episode, see an attendant. And the other odd thing is that a dressing-room door was open. In Bergdorf's dressing rooms, doors are usually locked until a client wants to try something on.
Why haven't I ''come forward'' before now?
Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who've come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun. Also, I am a coward.
Carroll, Donald and Ivana Trump, and Carroll's then-husband, television-news anchor John Johnson, at an NBC party around 1987. Photo: Courtesy of the author
So now I will tell you what happened:
The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.
I am astonished by what I'm about to write: I keep laughing. The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway '-- or completely, I'm not certain '-- inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle. I am wearing a pair of sturdy black patent-leather four-inch Barneys high heels, which puts my height around six-one, and I try to stomp his foot. I try to push him off with my one free hand '-- for some reason, I keep holding my purse with the other '-- and I finally get a knee up high enough to push him out and off and I turn, open the door, and run out of the dressing room.
The whole episode lasts no more than three minutes. I do not believe he ejaculates. I don't remember if any person or attendant is now in the lingerie department. I don't remember if I run for the elevator or if I take the slow ride down on the escalator. As soon as I land on the main floor, I run through the store and out the door '-- I don't recall which door '-- and find myself outside on Fifth Avenue.
And that was my last hideous man. The Donna Karan coatdress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening. And whether it's my age, the fact that I haven't met anyone fascinating enough over the past couple of decades to feel ''the sap rising,'' as Tom Wolfe put it, or if it's the blot of the real-estate tycoon, I can't say. But I have never had sex with anybody ever again.
From What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, by E. Jean Carroll. Copyright (C) 2019 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group. James, Arthur, and Evelyn are pseudonyms.
Makeup by Caitlin Wooters at Art Department; Hair by Clay Nielsen at Art Department.
*This article appears in the June 24, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
Donald Trump, His Attack, and 20 Other Hideous Men
Armageddon
L.A. council members propose taxing landlords who leave homes vacant - Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles should penalize landlords who keep homes vacant as the city suffers a housing and homelessness crisis, several members of the Los Angeles City Council declared in a proposal unveiled Tuesday.
City Councilmen Mike Bonin, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Paul Koretz and David Ryu are asking city staffers to come back with options for an ''empty homes penalty'' or vacancy tax, which would likely have to go before voters for approval. They cited U.S. Census Bureau data estimating that as of two years ago, there were more than 100,000 vacant units across the city.
''In a time when people are sleeping on our streets '... we have 111,000 homes in Los Angeles'' sitting empty, Bonin said. ''We need to take action to put those homes back on the rental market.''
Doing so, he and other council members argued, could prod landlords to bring more housing back into use to relieve pressure on the housing market, as well as generate new revenue for affordable and homeless housing.
''This measure simply says: If you want to have a housing unit in this city, while we are in this crisis, and you insist on keeping it vacant, you're going to participate in helping us solve the problem,'' Harris-Dawson told reporters.
Imposing a penalty on vacant units could also nudge landlords to bring rents down, Harris-Dawson argued. ''We have buildings all over the city, some of them very close to where we stand right now, where they're vacant because the price they're asking is inconsistent with what people can pay,'' he said.
Exactly what a tax would look like, what kind of properties it would cover and how it would be enforced remain to be decided, but Bonin and other council members pointed to other cities around the country and the world that have imposed some kind of penalty for empty homes.
In November, Oakland voters threw their support behind a tax of up to $6,000 per parcel on properties that are ''in use'' fewer than 50 days annually, which city officials estimated would bring in anywhere from $6.6 million to $10.6 million a year.
In Canada, Vancouver officials credited a similar empty homes penalty '-- structured as a 1% tax on taxable assessed value '-- with bringing vacant units back into use in its tight housing market. It has several exemptions, including for homes that are undergoing major renovations or where the principal resident travels or lives out of town for much of the year.
The District of Columbia also imposes higher taxes on vacant and blighted properties, although an audit two years ago found the program had lost out on potential revenue due to mismanagement. And similar taxes have also been employed in some cities in France, where an analysis by a doctoral candidate found they had been responsible for driving down vacancy rates.
The plan was cheered by an alliance of tenant and housing advocates, including the progressive organizing group Ground Game L.A., the Coalition for Economic Survival, the Southern California Assn. of Nonprofit Housing and Abundant Housing, which advocates for building more housing for people of all income levels.
''No single policy will fix this crisis that has been decades in the making,'' said Chelsea Byers, a board member with Abundant Housing. ''And still every unit makes a difference.''
Chris Roth of Ground Game L.A. said he had been distressed to see newly built condominiums sitting dark, night after night. ''It's just painful to see that kind of disparity, compared to the folks that are sleeping on the streets,'' Roth said.
The idea of a vacancy tax galled Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, which advocates for apartment building owners.
Yukelson noted that the L.A. vacancy rate was low and argued that it represented a normal level of churn, ''not some owner conspiracy to hold units off market.'' The only reasons an owner would not rent out habitable units, he argued, was because they were preparing for major construction or a sale.
''Why would any owner want to keep their units vacant '-- so that they cannot collect rent? '... It is just one more example of poorly thought out housing policy that will only cause more property owners to want to exit the business,'' Yukelson concluded, pointing to several recent initiatives at City Hall, including financial support to help tenants get legal representation and barring landlords from refusing to accept Section 8 vouchers.
The California Apartment Assn. said in a statement Tuesday that ''rather than penalizing housing providers, the city should examine its existing fees and regulations and look for ways to encourage and incentivize housing providers to keep their units occupied.''
In Vancouver, the vacancy tax has succeeded in raising money, said Thomas Davidoff, director of the University of British Columbia's Center for Urban Economics and Real Estate. Home prices have also come down.
But Davidoff said it is hard to know what role the tax played in lowering prices, because government officials have taken numerous steps to try to make housing more affordable. The effect on rent is also unclear because of a lack of robust data, Davidoff said.
The new proposal, which was seconded by Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, still has to be vetted by the council as a whole, which is supposed to hear back from city staff on options. Housing and planning officials are also supposed to report back on the amount of vacant, habitable housing in Los Angeles.
Bonin told reporters that he would like to get the proposal before voters as soon as March, citing fresh urgency from the recently released numbers from the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. The annual point-in-time count showed a 16% increase in the homeless population of Los Angeles this year.
What Everyone Should Know About City Council's Actions to Keep Austinites Safe and Housed '' Mayor Steve Adler
An Update on Austin's Homelessness ChallengeThere is very constructive, overwhelmingcommunity consensus on the urgency of the need to address homelessness in ourcity. Homelessness advocates, law enforcement officials, local businesses,neighborhoods and city residents are all ready to work toward solutions to allthree of the distinct kinds of challenges that homelessness presents, beyondassisting those that need our help:
Public Safety threats include things likeaggressive panhandling, aggressive approaching, touching, threatening,intimidating, blocking, impeding, and trespassing on someone's privateproperty.Public Health hazards include things like exposureto unsanitary conditions, drug paraphernalia and human waste.Unhoused Living challenges arise when we are exposed to and directly presentedwith disruptive mental health or physical conditions that do not constitutepublic safety threats or public health hazards but nonetheless are difficult orupsetting to confront.This Thursday, Austin City Council willconsider three matters that seek to address these three issues.
Thefirst is a proposed ordinance that maintains all the tools the police departmentcurrently has to address any threat to public safety or public health hazard,without criminalizing non-threatening unhoused living challenges. The newordinance removes the allowance of arresting or ticketing someone who '-- in anofficer's opinion and judgment '-- is neither threatening public safety norpresenting a public health hazard. This change will be applied to threeprovisions of city code:
City Code, Section 9-4-11,''Camping in Public Area Prohibited''.City Code, Section 9-4-14,''Sitting or Lying Down'...in the Downtown'...'' City Code, Section 9-4-13,''Solicitation Prohibited'' (will be expanded to all non-solicitation, aggressiveconfrontations)Theseproposed changes to city code maintain APD's ability to deal with threats topublic safety and public health hazards, but no longer make it a crime to sit,lie, camp, or solicit in a manner that is not posing such threats or hazards.It is worth noting that city code on solicitation is actually broadened, underthis measure, to include any ''aggressive confrontation,'' whether or notsolicitation is involved.
The second matter Council will consider on thesubject of homelessness is a proposed resolution which asks the City Manager togive the Council and community better options than now exist to deal with thenon-threatening, unhoused living challenges. These could include steps such asidentifying places where camping would and would not be allowed and providing asafer place for families that are currently sleeping in their cars along ourstreets and moving toward more housing (shelters and permanent).
The third anticipated Council action this week will be taking a real step forwardby locating a shelter which could provide an additional safe place where peopleexperiencing homelessness can be referred for individual assessment andservices to address their particular challenges on the way to more permanenthousing. More such capacity will be required, but this is an important nextstep.
If these measures pass, police will have thetools they need to deal with the health and safety concerns sometimesassociated with some of those experiencing homelessness. Additionally, the citywill be moving toward more effectivelydealing with the non-threatening, unhoused living challenges in our communityby providing real solutions rather than the ineffective, inefficient, andmorally tenuous criminalization of an already difficult life situation.
The backdrop for all of these updates is thework Council is doing in addition to the items on this week's agenda. Otherefforts to address homelessness include re-scoping the ARCH downtown, moving $8million of federal funding toward supportive homelessness housing and expandingthe convention center to create a $4 million to $10 million dedicated annualfunding stream.
We have much work still to do in service ofthe goal of making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring. But as Mayor,I'm committed to preserving the coalition of community partners and maintaininga focus on constructive results.
Any Collusion?
GOP Rep. Says 'Pervy' Democrats Asked Hope Hicks About Her Love Life
California Rep. Devin Nunes said Thursday that ''old, pervy'' Democratic congressmen asked former White House communications director Hope Hicks about her love life during a closed-door House Judiciary Committee interview Wednesday.
''Nobody quite understood why she was back in the U.S. Capitol yesterday doing essentially another deposition,'' Nunes said of Hicks during an interview on Fox News. ''My sources that were inside and did the interviewing said it was quite embarrassing to watch the Democratic congressmen essentially ask Hope Hicks about her love life.''
''I think that's very bizarre to have a bunch of old, pervy congressmen asking somebody who has no new information about her love life,'' Nunes added. ''I think the American people would be ashamed if they knew what actually happened in that room.''
Nunes, who is the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, did not identify his sources for information about Hicks' deposition.
Hicks left the White House on March 29, 2018.
Hicks was questioned for several hours about her work for President Donald Trump on the campaign, during the presidential transition period and in the White House. She reportedly declined to answer questions about her White House stint after Trump asserted executive privilege.
New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary panel, subpoenaed Hicks in May. Nadler requested documents and other information from 81 individuals and organizations associated with Trump.
Nunes detailed his allegations on FoxNews:
Other sources reported that Nadler repeatedly called Hicks ''Ms. Lewandowski'' in an apparent attempt to suggest that Hicks had been romantically-involved with former Trump campaign manager (and now pro-Trump PAC director) Corey Lewandowski '-- a bizarre and demeaning verbal assault.
On page 12 of the (limited) transcript released, Rep. Nadler first called Ms. Hicks the wrong name.
Chairman Nadler. No, sir. Are you asserting any privileges in declining to answer the question?
Mr. Purpura. We are not, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Nadler. Ms. Lewandowski?
Ms. Hicks. As a former senior adviser to the President, I'm 12 following the instructions from the White House.
Then, on page 20, Rep. Nadler did it again.
Chairman Nadler. Ms. Lewandowski '-- sorry '-- Ms. Hicks, read the next two sentences also if you have it.
Ms. Hicks. Sure. The President directed that Sessions should give a speech publicly announcing '-- the dictated message went on to state.
Finally Hicks, who was supposed to be there to answer questions relating to the Russian investigation, defended herself and corrected Rep. Nadler. On page 25, this interaction happened:
Chairman Nadler. Yeah. Ms. Lewandowski, I think, in reading this '--
Preoccupied with being a jerk? Unbelievable. Where are the feminists on this crap?
Trump accused Democrats on Wednesday of ''putting wonderful Hope Hicks through hell.''
So sad that the Democrats are putting wonderful Hope Hicks through hell, for 3 years now, after total exoneration by Robert Mueller & the Mueller Report. They were unhappy with result so they want a Do Over. Very unfair & costly to her. Will it ever end? Why aren't they'...'....
'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2019
Green New Deal
'Climate Emergency': Ireland Set to Ban Private Cars | Climate Depot
In order to avert a ''climate apocalypse'', the government plans to force people ''out of private cars because they are the biggest offenders for emissions'', according to transport minister Shane Ross whose proposals '-- which include banning fossil fuel vehicles from towns and cities nationwide '-- are posed to cripple ordinary motorists, local media reports. Launching the plan in Dublin, leader Leo Varadkar outlined his vision for an Ireland of 'higher density' cities consisting of populations whose lifestyles and behaviors have been totally transformed by 'carrot and stick' policies outlined in the climate plan.
By: Marc Morano - Climate Depot June 20, 2019 12:52 PM
Drivers will be forced off the roads in Ireland and the population packed into ''higher density'' cities under a long-awaited climate plan which will 'revolutionize' people's lifestyle and behaviors, according to local media.BY VIRGINIA HALE
''Nudge'' policies such as huge tax hikes, as well as bans and red tape outlined in the plan, will pave the way to a ''vibrant'' Ireland of zero carbon emissions by 2050 according to the government, which last year committed to boost the country's 4.7 million-strong population by a further million with mass migration.
In order to avert a ''climate apocalypse'', the government plans to force people ''out of private cars because they are the biggest offenders for emissions'', according to transport minister Shane Ross whose proposals '-- which include banning fossil fuel vehicles from towns and cities nationwide '-- are posed to cripple ordinary motorists, local media reports.
Launching the plan in Dublin, leader Leo Varadkar outlined his vision for an Ireland of 'higher density' cities consisting of populations whose lifestyles and behaviours have been totally transformed by 'carrot and stick' policies outlined in the climate plan.
''Our approach will be to nudge people and businesses to change behaviour and adapt new technologies through incentives, disincentives, regulations and information,'' the globalist prime minister said.
''We are going to change how electricity is produced and consumed, how our homes and workplaces are heated; the way we travel; the types of vehicles we purchase; and how food is produced.
''It's about vibrant, populated city centres, liveable, with excellent amenities and transport as we embrace higher densities.''
The document, which was unveiled on Tuesday, features more than 180 measures to decarbonise the Irish economy including making private car ownership prohibitively expensive '-- with petrol and diesel car sales banned by 2030, a date by which it says general carbon tax will be increased from '¬20 a tonne to ''at least'' '¬80.
In addition, the plans demand that coal and peat-fired power stations are replaced with wind farms and other ''green'' energy sources in order to meet the requirement that 70 per cent of electricity will be generated from renewables by 2030.
But plans to dramatically slash carbon emissions by ditching tried and tested energy sources such as coal and nuclear in favour of renewables will necessarily result in a collapse in living standards according to scientists including Cambridge engineering professor Michael Kelly, who has previously explained that such proposals ''represent total madness''.
''In energy terms the current generation of renewable energy technologies alone will not enable a civilised modern society to continue,'' he asserted in a peer-reviewed paper published in 2016, pointing out that renewables such as solar, wind, and hydro power supply just seven per cent of electricity needs globally while ''the rate at which fossil fuels are growing is seven times that at which the low carbon energies are growing''.
The Hughes Medal-decorated physicist cautioned: ''The call to decarbonise the global economy by 80% by 2050 can now only be described as glib in my opinion, as the underlying analysis shows it is only possible if we wish to see large parts of the population die from starvation, destitution or violence in the absence of enough low-carbon energy to sustain society.''
Biggest-ever offshore wind turbine's tower rolls into Rotterdam | Recharge
The tower sections of GE Renewable Energy's 12MW Haliade-X prototype have arrived in the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
World's first 100-metre-plus wind turbine blade out of mouldsRead moreThe four segments, fabricated at contractor GRI's factory in Seville, Spain, will now be bolted together as part of the flagship machine, which will measure 260-metres tall from base to tip once fully assembled with nacelle and blades, being manufactured at GE's Cherbourg and Saint-Nazaire plants in France.
Recharge was the first to report development of the giant turbine when it was unveiled in March last year as a rival to the giant machines offered by MHI Vestas and Siemens Gamesa.
Vattenfall recently announced it would deploy of the Haliade-X 12MW on its future projects in European waters.
Electric Car-Owners Shocked: New Study Confirms EVs Considerably Worse For Climate Than Diesel Cars | Zero Hedge
The Brussel Times reports that a new German study exposes how electric vehicles will hardly decrease CO2 emissions in Europe over the coming years, as the introduction of electric vehicles won't lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions from highway traffic.
According to the study directed by Christoph Buchal of the University of Cologne, published by the Ifo Institute in Munich last week, electric vehicles have "significantly higher CO2 emissions than diesel cars." That is due to the significant amount of energy used in the mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, and manganese, which are critical raw materials for the production of electric car batteries.
A battery pack for a Tesla Model 3 pollutes the climate with 11 to 15 tonnes of CO2. Each battery pack has a lifespan of approximately ten years and total mileage of 94,000, would mean 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometer (116 to 156 grams of CO2 per mile), Buchal said. Add to this the CO2 emissions of the electricity from powerplants that power such vehicles, and the actual Tesla emissions could be between 156 to 180 grams of CO2 per kilometer (249 and 289 grams of CO2 per mile).
German researchers criticized the fact that EU legislation classifies electric cars as zero-emission cars; they call it a deception because electric cars, like the Model 3, with all the factors, included, produce more emissions than diesel vehicles by Mercedes.
They further wrote that the EU target of 59 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2030 is "technically unrealistic."
The reality is, in addition to the CO2 emissions generated in mining the raw materials for the production of electric vehicles, all EU countries generate significant CO2 emissions from charging the vehicles' batteries using dirty power plants.
For true emission reductions, researchers concluded the study by saying methane-powered gasoline engines or hydrogen motors could cut CO2 emissions by a third and possibly eliminate the need for diesel motors.
"Methane technology is ideal for the transition from natural gas vehicles with conventional engines to engines that will one day run on methane from CO2-free energy sources. This being the case, the German federal government should treat all technologies equally and promote hydrogen and methane solutions as well."
So maybe Elon Musk's plan to save the world with electric cars is the biggest scam of our lifetime...
SJWBLMLGBBTQQIAAPK
Colorado school shooter claims he was retaliating against criticism over transgender transition | TheHill
A student accused of opening fire at a Colorado school reportedly told investigators that he targeted peers who made fun of him for his gender identity, court documents show.
Alec McKinney, 16, and Devon Erickson, 18, allegedly decided to carry out the shooting after exchanging messages on social media the day before the May 7 attack at STEM School Highlands Ranch near Denver, the documents show.
The shooting resulted in the death of 18-year-old Kendrick Ray Castillo; eight others were injured.
The police records, which were unsealed Thursday, show McKinney telling officers in an interview that he intended to ''shoot and kill'' kids who made fun of him, ''hated him'' and called him ''disgusting'' and other names for being transgender.
McKinney, who was born female, said he identifies as male and was beginning to transition.
He wanted ''the kids at the school to experience bad things'' and ''suffer from trauma like he had to in his life,'' court documents show.
McKinney reportedly reached out to Erickson on Snapchat the night before the shooting about carrying out the plan, but McKinney told investigators that he'd been planning the shooting for weeks.
McKinney reportedly told Erickson that he was ''super suicidal'' and that he wanted to get revenge on ''a lot of people,'' adding that he was thinking about killing his mom and siblings, court documents show.
Erickson said McKinney threatened to kill him and other students if he told anyone about the plan.
Both teenagers reportedly told police that they broke into a gun safe at Erickson's home before walking to the school with a guitar case and backpack concealing the firearms, according to the affidavit. Erickson reportedly took the two handguns used in the shooting from his parents, a law enforcement source told CNN, adding that both guns were purchased legally.
Erickson told law enforcement officials that the two used cocaine in his basement before going back to school. According to the affidavit, they used the middle school entrance because, they said, they knew they would be able to get the guns into the school from there.
Both students face criminal charges, including first-degree murder. McKinney has been charged as an adult, according to The Denver Post.
There is no cure, so the focus is on protecting children.
Pedophilia, the sexual attraction to children who have not yet reached puberty, remains a vexing challenge for clinicians and public officials. Classified as a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual behavior, researchers have found no effective treatment. Like other sexual orientations, pedophilia is unlikely to change. The goal of treatment, therefore, is to prevent someone from acting on pedophile urges '-- either by decreasing sexual arousal around children or increasing the ability to manage that arousal. But neither is as effective for reducing harm as preventing access to children, or providing close supervision.
The understanding of pedophilia has evolved over time, so each successive edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has defined this disorder in a slightly different way. The current edition, DSM-IV, categorizes pedophilia as a disorder only if the sexual fantasies or urges involve prepubescent children (defined as 13 or younger), if they last at least six months, if the individual has acted on them, or if they cause marked distress (including legal problems). The DSM-IV also specifies that a person be at least 16 years old and at least five years older than the prepubescent child.
The draft version of DSM-V, now undergoing review, proposes several changes to the diagnosis of pedophilia. One is to expand the definition of this disorder to include hebephilia, an attraction to children who are going through puberty. The hybrid category, pedohebephilia, would consist of the pedophilic type (attracted to prepubescent children, generally younger than 11), the hebephilic type (attracted to pubescent children, usually ages 11 through 14), and the pedohebephilic type (attracted to both). In another significant change, the draft suggests that the use of pornography depicting prepubescent or pubescent children for six months or longer should be considered a symptom of pedohebephilia.
Key points Pedophilia is a sexual orientation and unlikely to change. Treatment aims to enable someone to resist acting on his sexual urges.
No intervention is likely to work on its own; outcomes may be better when the patient is motivated and treatment combines psychotherapy and medication.
Parents should be aware that in most sexual abuse cases involving children, the perpetrator is someone the child knows.
Limitations of research One challenge in the scientific literature is that most of the studies on pedophilia have involved men convicted of crimes against children, and experts estimate that only one in 20 cases of child sexual abuse is reported. It remains unclear how prevalent pedophilia is in the general population. Research on convicts may not apply to people with pedophilic tendencies who live without detection in the community or suffer silently while controlling their impulses.
Researchers also do not agree about what proportion of child sex abusers are pedophiles. Other types of offenders include sexually curious or abusive adolescents who molest younger children, hypersexual adults who opportunistically target children, and people who act impulsively (rather than in response to erotic attachment) under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Moreover, about half of all child sexual abuse victims are 12 to 17 years old (postpubescent), so their assailants don't meet the strict definition of pedophilia.
There is more agreement on other issues. Nearly all people with pedophilic tendencies are male. Studies of child molesters have reported that only 1% to 6% of perpetrators are female. Co-occurring disorders, such as personality disorders or mood disorders, are common in people with pedophilic tendencies. And about 50% to 70% of people with pedophilic tendencies are also diagnosed with another paraphilia, such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, or sadism.
Consensus now exists that pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation, not something that develops in someone who is homosexual or heterosexual. Some people with pedophilic urges are also attracted to adults, and may act only on the latter urges. Because people with pedophilic urges tend to be attracted to children of a particular gender, they are sometimes described in the literature as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual pedophiles. Roughly 9% to 40% of pedophiles are homosexual in their orientation toward children '-- but that is not the same as saying they are homosexual. Homosexual adults are no more likely than heterosexuals to abuse children.
Several reports have concluded that most people with pedophilic tendencies eventually act on their sexual urges in some way. Typically this involves exposing themselves to children, watching naked children, masturbating in front of children, or touching children's genitals. Oral, anal, or vaginal penetration is less common.
Fears about predatory behavior are valid. Most pedophiles who act on their impulses do so by manipulating children and gradually desensitizing them to inappropriate behavior. Then they escalate it. Pedophiles are able to do this because in most cases they already know the children or have access to them. In about 60% to 70% of child sexual abuse cases involving pedophiles, the perpetrator is a relative, neighbor, family friend, teacher, coach, clergyman, or someone else in regular contact with the child. Strangers are less likely to sexually abuse children '-- although they are more likely to commit violent assaults when they do.
Estimates of recidivism vary because studies define this term in different ways. One review found recidivism rates of 10% to 50% among pedophiles previously convicted of sexual abuse, although this could include anything from an arrest for any offense to reconviction on a crime against a child. One long-term study of previously convicted pedophiles (with an average follow-up of 25 years) found that one-fourth of heterosexual pedophiles and one-half of homosexual or bisexual pedophiles went on to commit another sexual offense against children.
When confronted about sexual abuse, convicted pedophiles often rationalize their actions, such as insisting that a victimized child acted seductively or enjoyed the encounter. These rationalizations may reflect an inability to empathize with the child, which could be part of a co-occurring antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder.
Some researchers fear that the growth of Internet communities for people with pedophilic tendencies may encourage users to act on their sexual urges and share information about how to elude detection. But other commentators note that these online communities actually make it easier for law enforcement officials to lure and entrap potential offenders before they commit a sexual crime.
Management options Treatment is effective only if a patient with pedophilia is motivated and committed to controlling his behavior '-- attributes that are difficult for mental health professionals to assess. Outcomes are better when treatment combines psychotherapy and medication.
Psychotherapy. Most psychotherapies used to treat pedophilia incorporate the principles and techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy. The focus of therapy is to enable the patient to recognize and overcome rationalizations about his behavior. In addition, therapy may involve empathy training and techniques in sexual impulse control.
The most common type of cognitive behavioral therapy used with sex offenders, known as relapse prevention, is based on addiction treatment. Relapse prevention is intended to help the patient anticipate situations that increase the risk of sexually abusing or assaulting a child, and to find ways to avoid or more productively respond to them. Reviews that have included uncontrolled and nonrandomized studies concluded that relapse prevention programs reduced recidivism. Only one randomized controlled trial has evaluated how effective a relapse prevention program was, however, and it included sex offenders who had assaulted adults as well as those who hurt children. After an average of eight years, there was no significant difference in recidivism between sex offenders who underwent relapse prevention therapy and controls who did not undergo treatment.
Aversive conditioning, a behavioral method directed at associating a pedophilic fantasy or desire with an unpleasant sensation such as nausea, an electric shock, or a bad smell, was once popular. Although a review concluded that aversive conditioning might increase someone's ability to control sexual attraction to children in the short term, there is no evidence that this approach is effective over time.
Drug treatment. Drugs that suppress production of the male hormone testosterone are used to reduce the frequency or intensity of sexual desire. Although physical castration is another option, testosterone suppression offers advantages such as the need for follow-up visits (which aids in monitoring behavior). It may take three to 10 months for testosterone suppression to reduce sexual desire.
Investigators were once optimistic about the potential of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in treating pedophilia. But only case reports and open-label trials find that SSRIs are helpful; this has not been demonstrated in randomized, placebo-controlled trials. However, SSRIs may be a useful adjunct to other treatments, because they not only subdue sexual ruminations and urges but also help with impulse control.
Preventing child sexual abuse State programs such as Megan's Law and the Adam Walsh Act seek to limit where convicted sex crime offenders may live and work. Meanwhile, school- and community-based educational programs offer advice about how to identify situations that may endanger children, how to recognize behaviors such as inappropriate touching that may desensitize children so that they are more easily victimized, and how children can protect themselves.
Unfortunately, little evidence exists about how effective these efforts are. Most studies that have evaluated the efficacy of educational programs have examined specific components, such as whether young children understand the concepts being taught, rather than long-term outcomes. Only two observational studies have examined whether these educational programs actually prevent childhood sexual abuse; one concluded that it did, while the other found no benefit.
Other public education programs, such as "Stop It Now" (www.stopitnow.org), target bystanders '-- people who suspect that a child is being sexually abused, but may not know how best to intervene. The preliminary research suggests that such programs may help.
In an effort to better understand pedophilia and find ways to intervene before sexual crimes occur, researchers are now trying to broaden study populations to include people who voluntarily seek treatment in response to community outreach rather than a court order. One example of this is Prevention Project Dunkelfeld, based at the University of Berlin. The word "dunkelfeld" is German for "dark field," and refers to the fact that most people with pedophilic tendencies remain invisible in the community because they have not been charged with or convicted of crimes. The project deliberately used nonjudgmental language in media advertisements to recruit participants. (One example: "You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behavior. There is help.") So far, the project's preliminary reports offer no guidance for clinicians.
There is some encouraging news. Sexual crimes against U.S. children, as recorded by law enforcement agencies, declined 53% between 1992 and 2006. A review identified four possible explanations for the decline: economic growth, increased numbers of police and child protection workers, greater efforts to identify and prosecute child sex offenders of all types, and increased treatment of aggressive behavior.
It is unclear whether these factors are reducing activity by people with pedophilia, because the original data and the review are not limited to individuals with the disorder. Until we know more, parents and others who want to protect children from pedophiles are best advised to watch for the subtle stalking behaviors that may precede physical contact '-- and to remember that most sex offenders of any type approach children they know.
Blanchard R. "The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Pedophilia," Archives of Sexual Behavior (April 2010): Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 304''16.
Hall RC. "A Profile of Pedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders, Recidivism, Treatment Outcomes, and Forensic Issues," Mayo Clinic Proceedings (April 2007): Vol. 82, No. 4, pp. 457''71.
Seto MC. "Pedophilia," Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (2009): Vol. 5, pp. 391''407.
For more references, please see www.health.harvard.edu/mentalextra.
Share this page: Disclaimer:As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
2020
Is Hillary Clinton secretly planning to run in 2020?
The messages convey a sense of urgency, and are coming with increasing frequency. They are short, focused reactions to the latest ''outrage'' committed by President Trump.
Some end by asking for money, some urge participation in protests. All read as if they are sent from the official headquarters of the resistance.
Hillary Clinton is up to something.
Five times in the last month alone, she sent emails touting her super PAC's role in combating President Trump. Most seized on headline events, such as the family separation issue at the southern border.
Under the message line, ''horrific,'' she wrote June 18: ''This is a moral and humanitarian crisis. Everyone of us who has ever held a child in their arms, and every human being with a sense of compassion and decency should be outraged.'' She said she warned about Trump's immigration policies during the 2016 campaign.
Three days later, she was back again, saying that her group, Onward Together, raised $1 million and would split it among organizations working to change border policy, including the American Civil Liberties Union and a gaggle of immigrant, refugee, Latino and women's groups.
And the day after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, Clinton introduced a newly minted resistance partner. Called Demand Justice, it promises to protect ''reproductive rights, voting rights and access to health care'' by keeping Senate Democrats united in opposing any conservative Trump nominee.
The instant, in-house nature of Demand Justice was reflected by the name of its executive director: Brian Fallon, Clinton's campaign press secretary.
In truth, Fallon's role doesn't tell us something we didn't know. Onward Together, formed in May 2017, is a Clinton 2020 campaign vehicle in waiting.
Its homepage says the group ''is dedicated to advancing the vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election.''
Advancing the vision? More like advancing the candidate who collected those votes despite not having a vision.
With the Democratic Party locked in a battle between its far left wing and its far, far left wing, no single leader has emerged to unite it. Clinton is trying to play that role by being a mother hen to the fledgling activists drawn to politics by their hatred of Trump.
If they were active in 2016, they most probably supported Bernie Sanders in his primary challenge to Clinton. But by helping to fund them now, she is putting them in her debt for later.
Ah, but will she need their support later? Is she really going to make a third run for the White House?
Not long ago, I told a group of friends, all liberal Dems, that I believed she was keeping open the possibility of a rematch against Trump, and might already have decided to run.
It was unanimous '-- they were horrified. ''I would not give her a single cent,'' one man, formerly a big donor to Clinton, said emphatically.
Their reasons are no surprise: Her moment has passed, she was a terrible candidate and her endless claims of victimhood are tiring rather than inspiring. It's time to find new blood.
Those assessments are unassailable, and certainly are shared by the 20 or so Dems lining up to take their shot at the nomination.
Moreover, there isn't any clamoring for another Clinton run in Hollywood or other leftist hotbeds. They want a new blockbuster, not a sequel to failure.
So she's toast, right? Maybe.
On the other hand, the odds are zero that she is playing community organizer just to be a kingmaker. When it comes to money and power, the Clintons assume charity begins at home.
Here's how I believe she sees the playing field, and why she can't be ignored.
First, because there's no clear front-runner for the nomination 18 months into Trump's presidency, Clinton remains the closest thing to an incumbent. She's also got numerous advantages, from name recognition to campaign experience to an off-the-shelf cabinet, that could give her a head start.
Second, a crowded, diverse field diminishes the chances of anyone knocking her off. Recall how Trump outlasted 16 GOP rivals by having a committed core of supporters that grew as the field shrank. Clinton could be in a similar position '-- unpopular among many, but also unbeatable by a single opponent.
Third, looking ahead to the 2020 primaries, she sees no reason to fear the favorite daughters and sons in key blue states. She would almost certainly beat Sen. Kamala Harris in California, Sen. Cory Booker in New Jersey and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York.
And please '-- forget Sanders and Joe Biden. Sanders is already 76 and Biden, at 75, has never been a viable candidate for president and still isn't.
Fourth, money is not an issue. Some donors will resist Clinton at first, but any Dem nominee can count on all the money in the world to run against Trump.
To be clear, there are scenarios where Clinton doesn't run. Health reasons, for example, or a younger rival could rocket to the top of the pack and become the party's next Barack Obama. Either way, recurring nightmares of two previous defeats would send her back to wandering through the Chappaqua woods.
For now, I am convinced Clinton wants to go for it. Doubters should recall the line about pols who get the presidential itch: There are only two cures '-- election or death.
Besides, the third time could be the charm.
The Empire State of anarchyFor their next trick, will New York Dems try to secede from the United States?
First, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed cockamamie schemes to avoid new federal limits on state and local tax deductions. Now Manhattan Assemblyman Richard Gottfried fantasizes about a ''workaround'' for the Supreme Court ruling that allows municipal workers to skip union fees.
Remember way back when Dems warned Donald Trump would not accept the election results if he lost? Well '...
Doth protest too muchMost immigrants are grateful for the opportunity and freedom they find in America. Then there is Therese Patricia Okoumou.
An immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where civil war is endless and where protesters are shot, the 44-year-old Okoumou caused visitors to be evacuated from Liberty Island on July 4th when she climbed the base of Lady Liberty to protest American immigration policies.
She was also arrested in a demonstration last year. In 2011, she was hit with $4,500 in fines after illegally posting ads for services as a personal trainer, The Post reports.
Since America isn't up to her standards, Okoumou should try another country. Perhaps a return to her homeland would make her happy.
Hot-dogged competitorThe stomach-turning quote of the week comes from Joey Chestnut, the Nathan's July 4th hot-dog-eating champ. Judges initially ruled he ate 64 dogs in 10 minutes, but Chestnut knew he had eaten 10 more.
''At the end,'' he said, ''I knew I'm at 74 '-- 64 feels a lot different in the stomach than 74.''
Vaccines
Kelsey, M.S. on Twitter: "Since pharma-owned NY was successful taking away medical & religious freedom, the measles freak out seems to be completely over. Dems gave away freedom over a fake ''epidemic'' where everyone recovered with lifetime immunity. #
LONDON'S knife epidemic is out of control with more than 30 deaths in the capital since the start of 2019.
With last year being London's bloodiest in almost a decade, as the number of homicides reached 135, the plague of knife crime is not nearing its end.
4
Charlotte Huggins was stabbed to death in Camberwell, London, just after 4am on January 1 Credit: Facebook All the knife deaths across London so far this yearAs of June 16, there were at least 31 fatalities from stabbings in London this year.
Two people were fatally stabbed in separate knife attacks in the capital, in the first six hours of 2019 - Charlotte Huggins, 33, and Romanian bouncer, Tudor Simionov, also 33.
Charlotte was the first knife murder victim of the new year. She died in Camberwell, London, just after 4am on January 1.
The second person to be killed was Mr Simionov, who was stabbed to death by gatecrashers outside a New Year's Eve party in London's exclusive Mayfair area.
Shocking video footage captured outside the party shows Tudor being mobbed by thugs seconds before he was stabbed to death.
And as of February 19, three teenagers have already lost their lives in London this year.
Jaden Moodie, 14, Nedim Bilgin, 17 and Lajean Richards, 19, were all killed as a result of stabbings.
Dennis Anderson, 39, died in East Dulwich and 34-year-old Polish national Kamil Malysz was found dead at his home.
And on February 8 mum Aliny Mendes, 39, was stabbed to death outside a school in Cheam, Surrey, Greater London.
A man aged in his 40s arrested on suspicion of murder and a second man, aged in his 50s, arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender continue to be quizzed in custody.
Police confirmed at least one of the suspects "was known" to the stay-at-home mum, who is originally from Brazil.
4
Jaden Moodie was stabbed to death on January 8 Credit: PA:Press AssociationOn February 18 a man collapsed and died at The Wesley Hotel, near Euston Station after being knifed. He was later identified as Bright Akinleye, 22.
On February 21, a 23-year-old man named as Glendon Spence was stabbed to death in Lambeth.
And on February 25, David Lopez-Fernandez, 38, was pronounced dead after being found with stab wounds in Tower Hamlets.
Che Morrison, 20, died on February 26, after being stabbed at Ilford station.
On March 1, Jodie Chesney, a 17-year old girl was founded knifed to death in a playground in Romford.
Police were called to a park after reports of a knife attack close to St Neot's Road in Harold Hill, east London, at 9.25pm on Friday.
Cops found the teenager suffering with a stab injury before she was pronounced dead around an hour later.
Elize Stevens, 50, died of stab wounds in Hendon on March 2 and David Martinez, 26, was stabbed to death in Leyton, East London, on March 6.
He was knifed in the back and neck and left to die in the arms of passers-by after being dragged from his home in broad daylight.
A woman live streamed his death on Facebook and even TOUCHED the victim as paramedics battled to save him.
On March, 7, 17-year-old Ayub Hassan was knifed multiple times outside a Waitrose supermarket near West Kensington Tube station.
Good Morning Britain star Alex Beresford told viewers he was "deeply saddened" to confirm that his cousin, Nathaniel Armstrong, 29, was fatally knifed in the early hours of Saturday, March 16, in Fulham.
Met Police said on April 3 that Lovel Bailey, 29, of Birmingham, was arrested at Gatwick Airport, and charged with Nathaniel's murder.
4
17-year-old Abdirashid Mohamoud, from the Brentford area, was murdered in Isleworth on March 22 Credit: Met PoliceOn March 22, a 17-year-old boy, Abdirashid Mohamoud, of Brentford, was stabbed to death near flats in Isleworth, West London, after being chased by two attackers.
Met Police said that a man, 22, was arrested on March 30 on suspicion of murder and has been "technically bailed".
An "innocent" Pinner newsagent was killed after a knife attack on March 24.
Ravi Katharkamar, 54, was found stabbed to death in his shop "for a few pounds, with police confirming a 44-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
On March 28, aspiring music producer Zahir Visiter, 25, was reportedly stabbed to death for a £60,000 watch before the knifemen fled into a mosque near Regent's Park.
He became the 31st murder victim in Lawless London so far this year.
The music producer was reportedly stabbed to death for a £60,000 watch before the knifemen fled into London Central Mosque near Regent's Park.
A hero dad-of-three, Gavin Garraway, 40, was fatally knifed in broad daylight in Clapham, South London, on March 29.
It was claimed that he was trying to protect his brother. His murder came days after the death of his dad, Farda Spy, a "legendary" musician known as I Spy.
4
Knife crime is escalating in London Credit: PA:Press AssociationZion Chiata, 18, has been charged with Garraway's murder and possession of a bladed article, say the Met Police.
A 22-year-old man who was stabbed to death on April 1 after being chased by a gang through the streets of Kentish Town in London has been named locally as Calvin Bungisa.
Met Police said: "We believe several male suspects came out of Vicar's Road and chased the victim down Grafton Road before fatally attacking him."
Calvin's family, who described him as a happy man who "was always laughing", had fled war in Congo.
On April 24, a 21-year-old man was stabbed to death in a string of four knifings in just seven hours across London.
A man died after he was stabbed in Hackney, Frampton Park Road on April 27. He was attacked at 2.45pm and died in hospital.
On May 1, a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Hackney in Somerford Grove.
Two teens were left fighting for life on May 6 after being stabbed in Islington, North London.
Cops found a 17-year-old boy injured in Fairbridge Road shortly after 5.30pm on Bank Holiday Monday.
Ten minutes later, a man - who police believe is aged 18 - was found stabbed less than half a mile away in Sussex Close.
On May 27, a 23-year-old man died after being stabbed during a vicious knife fight in East London.
The day after a man in his 30s, died in hospital after being stabbed in Forest Gate.
On the weekend of June 14-16, police made 14 arrests after five separate attacks in London left three men dead and three injured in just 24 hours.
An 18-year-old man was stabbed to death shortly before 5pm on June 14 in Wandsworth, South London.
A man in his 30s died after he was stabbed to death in Tower Hamlets the following day, June 15.
Why have schools introduced 'knife arches'?On April 29, it was reported that schools will be forced to install knife arches because of the knife crime epidemic.
Met Police officers will also have the power to stop and search on the streets '-- without proving reasonable grounds to suspect that person is carrying a weapon.
The latest crackdown on weapon carrying has been introduced in Lambeth, Wandsworth and Merton in south London.
Scotland Yard is desperately trying to beat back the surging knife crime trend '-- which saw a 17-year-old boy stabbed "six times" in broad daylight over the weekend.
Knife arches will be introduced in schools across the three south London boroughs to tackle the growing amount of youth violence.
Chief Superintendent and Basic Command Unit (BCU) for south west London Sally Benatar said: "Knife arches will be in place at schools over the next two weeks and officers have increased reassurance patrols around the Balham area in light of last Wednesday's stabbing.
"We prioritise effective safeguarding, and our schools officers are working hard to protect and educate our young people in the dangers of carrying knives."
All the stabbings, fatal and non-fatal, across London in 2019January 1 - Charlotte Huggins, 33, stabbed to death in CamberwellJanuary 1 - Tudor Simionov, 33, stabbed to death in Park LaneJanuary 1 - Two men - also security guards - aged 37 and 29, and a woman, aged 29, were also stabbed at the private party in Park Lane. They had come to Tudor's aid during the attackJanuary 5 - A mum in her 30s was fighting for her life and two others wounded in a triple stabbing in broad daylight in Leyton, East London on January 5. She was attacked in front of her two childrenJanuary 5 - Man, 26, found suffering from knife wounds in NewhamJanuary 8 - Jaden Moodie, 14, died after being stabbed in Waltham Forest after his moped was rammed off the road, witnesses claimedJanuary 11 - Woman in her 50s stabbed in WallingtonJanuary 19 - Two men, aged 20 and 18, attacked and stabbed in EdmontonJanuary 20 - Man, 57, found with stab injury in KewJanuary 27 - Polish national Kamil Malysz, 34, stabbed to death in Acton. A man, 33, has been arrested after the deathJanuary 29 - Nedim Bilgin, 17, stabbed to death in IslingtonFebruary 3 - Two teens found with knife wounds "may have been attacked in Feltham Park", Met Police sayFebruary 5 - Lajean Richards, 19, a Domino's delivery driver, was stabbed to death outside his family home in BatterseaFebruary 5 - Teenager, 18, rushed to hospital after being stabbed at around 1am on Drummond Street, near Euston station in central London.February 6 - Teen boy stabbed on London bus in HackneyFebruary 8 - Two males - aged 16 and 28 years old '' were found suffering from stab wounds in Wood GreenFebruary 8 - Mum-of-four Aliny Mendes, 39, was stabbed to death while walking with one of her children near Meadow Primary School in Cheam, Surrey.February 9 - Man, 23, in critical condition after being knifed in NeasdenFebruary 9 - Boy, 16, suffers stab wound after a fight in HayesFebruary 10 - Dennis Anderson, 39, stabbed to death in East Dulwich in a "row over a cigarette" outside an off-licence in East DulwichFebruary 18 - Bright Akinleye stabbed to death in Euston after collapsing in a hotel lobbyFebruary 21 - A 23-year-old man was stabbed to death in Lambeth.February 22 - A teenager was knifed to death in Wood Green, North London, just after 8pm.March 1 - Jodie Chesney, 17, was knifed to death in a playground in Romford. She was found dead on March 2.March 6 - David Martinez, 26, was stabbed in the street in Leyton, East London.March 7 - A 17-year-old boy is stabbed in broad daylight in Kensington.March 9 - A 19-year-old boy is stabbed in North Finchley and is currently fighting for his life in hospital. He was stabbed in the chest on the 134 bus at Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill.A boy, 17, has now been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. A pal said the teen was stabbed after LOOKING at the attacker.March 9 - A man, believed to be 18-years-old, was stabbed on Edgware Road. His injuries aren't considered to be life-threatening.March 10 - A a 19-year-old was left fighting for his life after being stabbed near flats in East Dulwich in South East London.March 16 - Nathaniel Armstrong, 29, was stabbed to death on the same street where Jill Dando was shot dead in 1999.March 22 - Abdirashid Mohamoud, 17, was stabbed to death in Isleworth, West LondonMarch 23 - Four people were stabbed - three teens and man in his 20s - in three separate attacks across the capitalMarch 24 - A man in his 40s in Hackney was fighting for lifeMarch 24 - In North West London a murder investigation was launched after a man was found stabbed to deathMarch 25 - Ravi Katharkamar, 54, was stabbed to death "for a few pounds" while opening his newsagents in Pinner, North West LondonMarch 25 - A 15-year-old boy was left in a critical condition after being stabbed on Dartmouth Road, Forest Hill, South East London at 4.10pmMarch 26 - Six people, including four teenagers, were stabbed in different locations across the capital within six hours of each otherMarch 28 - A 17-year-old was repeatedly stabbed in Markhouse Road, in Walthamstow, East London.March 28 - Zahir Visiter, 25, was found stabbed at 6.15pm in Westminster - he later died in hospital while armed cops sealed off a mosque near Regent's Park.March 29 - Gavin Garraway, 40, was fatally knifed through the window of his car in Clapham, South London, before his attackers sprinted away. He is the 32nd murder victim in the UK capital this year.March 30 to April 2 - A series of five knife attacks were carried out in the N18 area of Edmonton, North London. Aged from 23 to 52, all were slashed from behind in the street during "seemingly random attacks", the Met police said. Two victims were left in a critical condition while a third, in his 30s, is fighting for his life in hospital.April 1 - Calvin Bungisa, 22, was stabbed to death in a busy road after being chased through the streets of Kentish Town at about 8.30pm.April 1 - Two men were stabbed outside student halls in WembleyApril 3 - A man in his 40s died in Harrow, North London after a 'machete attack'.April 5 - A man in his 20s was stabbed in broad daylight outside Ilford station at around 3.30pm.April 6 - A woman, in her 20s, was stabbed in the stomach on Holloway Road, Islington, just a mile from Arsenal's Emirates stadium.April 6 - A teenager was stabbed in Kingsbury, north west London.April 6 - A man was knifed in Brixton.April 8 - A man, aged in his 20s, died in Manor Park, East London at around 9.30pm after being shot and stabbed.April 21 - A 21-year-old died from stab injuries after a gang attacked him in Harlesden.April 24 - A 21-year-old man was stabbed to death in a string of four knifings in just seven hours across London.April 27 - A man died after he was attacked in Frampton Park Road, Hackney at around 2.45pm.April 28 - A 17-year-old boy was stabbed "six times" on a London bus in broad daylight with a "long knife.May 1 - A 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Hackney.May 2 - A man was rushing to hospital in a life-threatening condition after reports he was stabbed in Camden Town, North London at 12.17am.May 2 - A 15-year-old boy was airlifted to the hospital after he was found with stab wounds in Valley Grove, next to Charlton Athletic's football stadium.May 5 - Junior Urugbezi-Edwards, 18, was stabbed to death after being chased down a street in south-east London.May 6 - Two teens aged 17 and 18 were left fighting for their lives after a stabbing in Islington, North London.May 16 - Barrington Davis was found dead in his flat in south-east London.Initially the 54-year-old's death was treated as non-suspicious however a post-mortem test revealed he had suffered multiple stab wounds.May 28 - Ismaila Ceesay, 33, was killed after being stabbed in the abdomen in Forest Gate, east London.June 14 - An 18-year-old man was stabbed to death in Wandsworth, south London.June 15 - A man in his 30s was stabbed to death in Tower Hamlets, East London.Figures at a glance
The number of homicides, including murder and manslaughter, have risen from 649 to 730 - an increase of 14 per centKnife crime has also increased by eight per centThe number of admissions to hospital for assault involving a sharp instrument have increased by 15 per centThe rate of robberies have increased by 17 per centPolice have recorded an increase of 41 per cent relating to stalking and harassment offencesOverall crime from 12 months to the end of September 2018 went up by seven per cent to a total of 5,723,182How many stabbings were there in London in 2018?Figures from London's Metropolitan police showed that knife crime surged by 16 per cent in the capital year-on-year in 2018, as Britain's crime epidemic continues.
There were 1,299 stabbings in London up to the end of April, according to official statistics from the Met Police.
In 2017-18, there were 137 knife offences for every 100,000 people in the capital.
2018 was London's bloodiest year in almost a decade as the murder toll reached 134.
I have information about a murder. What should I do?You can contact the police directly by phoning 101.
Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, call the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The service creates a report that doesn't contain any information that could identify you.
Any young people with details about violence or knife crime can visit www.fearless.org where they can also pass on information anonymously - the I.P. address will not be traced.
Fearless is part of the Crimestoppers charity, and is also independent of the police.
If you need help or information to support someone you suspect is involved in knife crime, visit www.knifefree.co.uk or LondonNeedsYouAlive.
FAMILY WIPED OUT Two toddlers 'drowned in bath and laid face-down on bed' next to dead mum
BABYSITTER RAGE Teen broke baby's legs and ribs in temper because it would not stop crying
JURY'S OUT Cyber attack on criminal justice system leaves court cases in chaos
Warning
VIOLENT RAMPAGE Shocking CCTV shows gang batter family unconscious in city centre alley
FACING EXECUTION Sex killer Googled 'rape fantasies' before abducting and BEHEADING student
JAILBIRDS OF PREY Dangerous crooks are enjoying falconry displays & pet visits behind bars
Did crime increase in the UK in 2018?The number of murders in the UK increased from 649 in 2017 to 739 in 2018 - rocketing by 14 per cent, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Knife crime is up at eight per cent and violent crimes up by 19 per cent.
Chief Constable Bill Skelly, National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for crime recording and statistics, said: "Rising crime, increased terrorist activity and fewer police officers have put serious strain on the policing we offer to the public.
"We are determining the additional capabilities and investment we need to drive down violence and catch more criminals - and we will make the case at the next Government Spending Review."
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott admits 'she's disappointed' with London Mayor Sadiq Khan's claim it'll take 10 years to tackle knife crime
London murder rate overtakes New York as knife crime rises - Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - London police investigated more murders than their New York counterparts did over the last two months, statistics show, as the British capital's mayor vowed to fight a ''violent scourge'' on the streets.
There were 15 murders in London in February against 14 in New York, according to London's Metropolitan Police Service and the New York Police Department. For March, 22 murders were investigated in London, with 21 reports in New York.
In the latest bloodshed, a 17-year-old girl died on Monday after she was found with gunshot wounds in Tottenham, north London, a day after a man was fatally stabbed in south London.
''The Mayor is deeply concerned by violent crime in the capital - every life lost to violent crime is a tragedy,'' a spokeswoman for Mayor Sadiq Khan said in a statement on Tuesday.
''Our city remains one of the safest in the world ... but Sadiq wants it to be even safer and is working hard to bring an end to this violent scourge.''
Including January's figures, New York had still experienced more murders so far this year than London. The cities have a similar-sized population.
Gun violence is much less of a problem in Britain, which has strict gun control laws, than in the United States, and most British police are not equipped with firearms.
But British politicians and police are increasingly expressing concern about London's rising murder rate, which is driven by a surge in knife crime. Of the 47 murders in London so far this year, 31 have been committed with knives.
Britain's interior ministry said it was consulting on new laws to further restrict dangerous weapons, including banning online stores from delivering knives to residential addresses and making it an offence to possess certain weapons in public.
''This government is taking action to restrict access to offensive weapons as well as working to break the deadly cycle of violence and protect our children, families and communities,'' a Home Office spokesman said.
Khan, who has been in office since May 2016, is from the opposition Labour Party. Before him, Conservative Boris Johnson was mayor for eight years. The national government has been run by the Conservatives since 2010, with Prime Minister Theresa May previously serving as interior minister from 2010 to 2016.
Britain's most senior officer, London police chief Cressida Dick, said gangs were using online platforms to glamorize violence, adding that disputes between young people could escalate within minutes on social media.
The Ben Kinsella Trust, an anti-knife crime charity named after a young victim, said social media amplified a range of other factors that have contributed to the crisis.
Slideshow (7 Images) The charity's CEO Patrick Green said there had been extra funding to tackle knife crime, which he welcomed, but added that the government needed to act with more urgency and that budget cuts affecting youth services had played a part.
''This has been a horrendous year. It's looking like it'll be worse that last year, which was worse than the year before,'' he told Reuters.
''The response so far has been too slow... It feels like we're in a crisis and we need to respond in that way.''
Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison and Estelle Shirbon
MH17
'It was to blame Russia from the beginning': Malaysia PM fires back at MH17 probe '-- RT World News
Malaysia is ''unhappy'' about the findings of the Dutch-led inquiry into the MH17 crash, which pointed the finger at Russia even before the probe began, the country's PM said, noting that there was more politics than fact-finding.
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister, voiced his unease after the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) revealed the latest results of the investigation. The group was quick to implicate Moscow '' and this is why, according to the PM, Malaysia isn't convinced of the probe's integrity.
We are very unhappy. From the very beginning, it became a political issue on how to accuse Russia of the wrongdoing.
''Even before they examined the case, they have already claimed it [the shooting down of MH17] was done by Russia,'' the prime minister said as cited by the local media.
On Wednesday, the JIT flagged four individuals '' three Russians and one Ukrainian '' as key suspects in the tragedy.
The investigators accuse them of playing a significant role in shooting down the MH17, by receiving a surface-to-air Buk missile, allegedly from Russia. Both Moscow and the international investigators agree that the Malaysian Boeing, with 298 people on board, was taken down by a Buk missile.
Also on rt.com We regret 'baseless' accusations by intl probe Russian military complicit in MH17 crash '' Moscow Moscow, however, insists the Buk belonged to the Ukrainian military, and was a type of missile not in service in the armed forces of Russia anymore.
Malaysia, which has kept an eye on the investigation since its inception, wants ''proof of guilt [that Russia did it].''
So far, ''there is no proof, only hearsay,'' Mahathir insisted.
The crash was also investigated by the Dutch Safety Board, which focused on the technical part of the tragedy. Notably, it criticized Ukraine for not closing the airspace during the 2014 armed conflict in the east which also contributed to the fatal incident. However, their final report contained many ''inconsistencies'' and ''unsubstantiated claims,'' Moscow has said.
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AOC
Member Of Polish Parliament Invites AOC To See Some REAL 'Concentration Camps' - DC Clothesline
Member Of Polish Parliament Invites Left-Wing Mouth Ocasio-Cortez To See Some REAL 'Concentration Camps'
By JonDougherty
A member of Poland's parliament has invited 'Democratic Socialist' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to fly to their country to see what real ''concentration camps'' look like after she accused our Department of Homeland Security of running some along the U.S.-Mexico border.
As noted by The Conservative Brief, Ocasio-Cortez has been under fire from conservatives after claiming on her Instagram account earlier this week that DHS and Border Patrol were rounding up illegal aliens and stuffing them in concentration camps, comparing it to the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, in which more than six million were exterminated.
She doubled down, though, after being criticized for her remarks (she even used ''never again'' in her Instagram video, a phrase widely known to be associated with the Holocaust), proving she is completely clueless (and outrageous):
My heroes are the ones who stood up when it wasn't easy.
Kids are dying in cages on our border. Families are being put in ''freezers'' & ''dog pounds.''
Years from now, people will look for the journalists, officials, & everyday people who stood up for what was right in real-time.
'-- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 19, 2019
NBC News' Chuck Todd took Ocasio-Cortez to the woodshed over her remarks, sort of, but he couldn't do it without doing his best to claim that the migrant camps are the fault of Republicans and, specifically, POTUS Donald Trump '-- as though the GOP and the president are responsible for the open doors/open border policies of the past that are serving as magnets to the U.S.
Ocasio-Cortez's comparison of ICE detentions to concentration camps did border detainees "a tremendous disservice" #MTPDaily
"She said she didn't use those words lightly," Chuck Todd said. "Well, neither did I." pic.twitter.com/5CIOfWn7BQ
'-- Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 19, 2019
But perhaps no one has had a better response than Polish parliamentarians, who extended to AOC an open hand and an invitation to an educating experience touring real concentration (death) camps built by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Dominik Tarczynskiinvited her to ''visit my ancestral homeland and study the concentration camps'' so that she can learn how they differ from the detention centers.
Tarczynski also said that people in Poland become ''agitated'' when someone ''cheapens the history'' and tries to use it for ''political point-scoring.''
With this letter, I am formally inviting @AOC to come to Poland,where Adolf Hitler set up the worst chain of concentration camps the world has ever seen, so that she may see that scoring political points with enflamed rhetoric is unacceptable in our contemporary Western societies pic.twitter.com/ivOTfmiCfo
'-- TARCZYÅSKI Dominik (@D_Tarczynski) June 20, 2019
It was a great gesture, but it's not very likely that Ocasio-Cortez will come. She and her party are too closed-minded and politically, morally, and culturally bankrupt.
This article originally appeared at The National Sentinel and was republished with permission.
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5G
Mysterious 5G Health Warning Fliers Pop Up in Astoria
Public Health Warning! Signs in Astoria read that the location could be a possible future site of a 5G antennae.
NY1 found dozens of fliers posted all across Astoria, places like 30th Avenue, 31st Street and Ditmars Boulevard. Many are posted near schools.
While residents we spoke with were curious about the mysterious warning, most were not concerned.
"If it's about cellphone towers, I'm not too worried about it. I have a cellphone in my pocket right now," said one resident.
5G is a new wireless technology. According to experts, it could be as much as 10 times faster than existing 4G connections.
The flier says 5G antennas are a source of constant radio frequency microwave radiation, and it claims studies have shown chronic exposure could cause cancer. It says there's more information available at 5GCrisis.com.
"I do wonder who would be behind it. Someone must have a little incentive," said a resident.A New York Times report suggests that Russia is behind a propaganda campaign to raise questions about 5G, perhaps to get Democratic governments tied up in fights over the technology.
The link on the flyers led us to Doug Wood, who heads Americans for Responsible Technology. He says his group has nothing to do with the fliers, or with Russia, but he's not surprised people are questioning the potential impact of the technology.
"I think there are a lot of people who trying to raise awareness about this issue, because so many people don't know what 5G is," said Wood.
Wood says his science-based group is not being alarmist but believes the technology is too new to be thoroughly tested.
That's something Ted Rappaport, the director of NYU Wireless, disputes. He says he's been researching 5G frequencies since the 1990s.
"The frequencies we're using in cellular are 10,000 times weaker than the frequencies we know cause health effects. The people need to be more worried about putting on sunscreen to block ultraviolet radiation or getting too many x-rays or flying above 10,000 feet than they need to worry about wireless," said Rappaport.
The latest guidance from the National Cancer institution suggests there is no correlation between radiation from cellphone use and cancer.
Out There
You can own a flag from the Apollo 11 mission, if your pockets are deep enough '' BGR
We're now just one month away from the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, and owners of some seriously sought-after space relics are putting their memorabilia on the auction block in the hopes of capitalizing on the hype.
RR Auction is hosting the bidding for a number of rare artifacts that traveled to the Moon decades ago and as you might expect, prices are out of this world. Among the items being offered is a roll of 70 mm film that was taken to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, as well as an American Flag that traveled around the Moon during the Apollo 15 campaign.
The flag, which measures just under six inches on its longest side, was carried to the South Pole in January of 1970 and then made the trip to space in the Command Module Endeavor on the Apollo 15 mission. It's also signed by Dave Scott, commander of the mission, and comes with a letter of certification, also signed by Scott.
As interesting as that story is, the roll of 70 mm film from the Apollo 11 mission might have it beat:
Extremely rare second-generation 70-mm positive film roll from Magazine S of the Apollo 11 Hasselblad camera, containing 126 of the most iconic images from the first lunar-landing mission.
The roll features photographs taken by Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin during their historic two-and-a-half-hour lunar EVA at Tranquility Base on July 20, 1969, with color images including: moments from inside the Lunar Module Eagle immediately prior to Armstrong leaving the spacecraft.
The relics are up for sale right now and are already fetching some impressive cash, but have not yet reached their pre-auction estimates. The flag, for example, is currently priced at around $1,500 but is expected to eventually net as much as $10,000. The film roll, on the other hand, has already reached over $7,000 of an estimated $8,000 final price and could go much higher.
Conclusion (because why not just get to the point, silly)Facebook is very knowingly exploiting a very specific gap in regulations and technology made possible by the cryptocurrency industry that will allow their planned ''Libra'' cryptocurrency to flow into the black market economy while still being compliant with traditional financial entities' compliance policies.
(I don't use ''black market economy'' as a bad word here. The right to financial services should be universal, since leaving the control to gatekeepers creates a tool that is much more likely to be successful at oppressing people than at keeping the bad guys out. The problem with the Libra is that it's a part of Facebook's broader surveillance capitalism strategy. I'm a privacy proponent and I usually spend my free time writing guides on Privacy & Cryptocurrency for the Human Rights Foundation. In a previous life, I built cryptocurrency exchange platforms.)
How the ''exploit'' worksThe exploit works by following a playbook that was written by the Bitcoin industry. The exploit emerges in the gaps of a little puzzle consisting of a few key players:
Cryptocurrency exchanges (''on- and off-ramps'') where you can buy and sell bitcoin for dollarsBanks who give the exchanges their bank accountsRegulators who set the know-your-customer (KYC) & anti-money laundering (AML) rulesBlockchain analysis firms who monitor cryptocurrency transactions for ''suspicious activity''Bitcoin users who buy and sell bitcoin at cryptocurrency exchanges and then distribute them into the global Bitcoin ecosystemHere's a diagram showing how they view their relationships with each other:
The basis of the exploit lies in combining the pseudonymity of Bitcoin's public key cryptography with the transparency of the Bitcoin blockchain. The transparency gives the participants in the diagram above the ability to surveil the Bitcoin system and produce reports that ticks all the boxes necessary for regulatory compliance. But the pseudonymity of the system still makes it easy enough for anyone with a computer to circumvent those exact surveillance methodologies when it's necessary (more info here & here).
In the world of financial surveillance, the surveillers know they're not going to catch every bad guy. It's typically enough that you can demonstrate that you're able to provide insight into a sufficient portion of transactions coming in to your platform and that you possess far-reaching blacklisting capabilities and keep updated lists of blacklisted entities. And because most activity in the Bitcoin system (89.7%) originates from speculators who typically do not bother to circumvent surveillance, the pie-chart diagrams the blockchain analysis firms produce on behalf of their clients will indeed look compelling.
What this number-based exercise completely fails to capture is the underlying potential embedded in the pseudonymous design to circumvent surveillance whenever and wherever it is needed.
To understand this better, by analogy, let's say that a government wanted to surveil 3D printers so that no one prints guns in their homes. To make sure that 3D printers are not being used for this purpose, every 3D printer starts coming with government-installed webcams attached to them. As soon as this happens, websites start popping up with software to patch your printer to send a static video stream to the webcam to hide your activities. Now, let's say 98% of the 3D printer owners do not have any interest in printing 3D guns or manipulating the video stream, so they just leave the webcams on. If the government was a blockchain analysis company, they would produce a diagram with detailed reports showing how they've effectively observed and cataloged 98% of all 3D printing activity, and that 3D printing is one of the most transparent systems in the world and that the country is safeguarded against 3D-printed guns.
That's essentially how the system of bitcoin surveillance works today. The on- and off-ramps may be regulated, but the bitcoins themselves are fickle and leak through their cracks. This is an amazing deal for bitcoin, because it means it can both trade at regulated venues and serve the institutional market while at the same time trickle down into the hands of every person of every walk of life on the planet. Transparency and pseudonymity '-- it is the ultimate combination that any aspiring form of digital currency should try to emulate for global reach.
And with the Libra, Facebook is intentionally cloning these two properties. Listen closely to what David Marcus says in the video below. David Marcus is the Director of Libra and VP of Messaging Products at Facebook, but he is also a bitcoin fan and up until recently sat on the Board of Directors of the largest cryptocurrency exchange business in the U.S.: Coinbase.
Why Facebook is doing thisThe reason why Facebook is doing it is because they believe the plan has a chance of working. And if it is successful, it pushes an enormous amount of the regulatory responsibility (KYC/AML) of operating the the on- and off-ramps away from Facebook and to the cryptocurrency exchanges where the Libra is traded. It's letting the market figure out a way to give people access to the Libra that works, any way that works, just like it has worked for bitcoin for 10 years. In fact, opening up the opportunity for anyone to run a Libra exchange means that there's probably even going to be some exchanges that will try to avoid KYC/AML regulations altogether, furthering the Libra's reach into the world.
Many cryptocurrency exchanges have been operating without licenses and without any particular regulatory oversight in the past, and some still do today. And whenever one gets shut down or implements KYC/AML restrictions, another one pops up somewhere else that doesn't, sometimes by people who are unaware of the fact that they're breaking any rules. And sometimes, not even the regulators in that region are aware whether any rules are being broken.
From Libra.org.The LocalBitcoins platform which helped people to meet in person to trade bitcoin for cash envelopes successfully operated without ID requirements for 7 years before being forced to remove the option earlier this month.
But the ''gap'' isn't fully gone yet. There still exists platforms such as Bisq and Hodl Hodl where people are still able to circumvent these types of regulations. Here's a quote from a blog post that Hod Hodl recently posted when LocalBitcoins shut down in Iran:
The main difference between Hodl Hodl and other P2P cryptocurrency exchanges is that we do not hold user's funds and do not have KYC/AML procedures. Hodl Hodl is also cheaper than most of the other P2P exchanges, with a maximum fee of 0.6% per trade.
So, by combining the properties of pseudonymity and transparency into their own Libra blockchain, Facebook hopes to achieve this sweet spot of simultaneous regulatory compliance and regulatory arbitrage, allowing the Libra to spread all over the world like wildfire while other businesses to shoulders the heat. And why wouldn't it spread like wildfire? The Facebook app family (Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram) is home to ~2.5 billion users. And the Libra, being backed by a basket of national currencies and government debt securities, is probably going to be a more stable currency alternative than what anyone else can provide in today's world except for maybe the Federal Reserve.
It's an e-commerce play, dummyTed Livingston did a great writeup on what the long-term ambitions are with all of this in what he calls the WeChat Playbook. Basically, the most plausible scenario is that once you've sold your current money for the Libra, Facebook is going to do everything they can to make sure you never need to take your money out of its family of apps again. They will do this by offering you the ability to pay for everything there; sending money to friends, shopping online, paying inside physical stores, paying your bills, buying airplane tickets, bus tickets and even tipping beggars on the street.
Forget credit cards and cash in China. 85% of all payments in China now occur over mobile payment apps using QR codes, primarily through WeChat Pay (which used to be just a chat app) and Alipay.Critics are going to complain that the Libra will be a tool for Facebook to extract even more data about its users, to which Facebook is going to respond that they have no special insight or control over the Libra blockchain, because they are just one of 100 validator nodes from the Libra Association. This is mostly true, so save yourself some time and don't fall into this argument trap.
That doesn't mean that Facebook isn't going to be able to harvest data about the purchases that occur within their own app ecosystem. Facebook has already begun clawing at this today with the roll-out of in-app purchases in Instagram (buying from brands without leaving the app) and Facebook Marketplace. If the Libra is your currency of choice and the Facebook app family is its natural home, the conversion rate between you and the targeted ads Facebook shows you will likely increase considerably. With one-click purchases, the advertising companies will always be just one click away from your money. And who makes money from that, except for the advertising company? The company selling the ad-space!
And then we haven't even mentioned that the Libra's backers will be able to extract enormous interest earnings from the Libra Association sitting on giant piles of everyone's cash in the ''real world'' while everyone else is just sending around funny Libra tokens on a blockchain in the cloud.
The Libra MasterplanSimply put, the Libra Masterplan is loaning pages from the Bitcoin playbook and the WeChat playbook both at once. If successful, it makes the Libra accessible to everyone on the planet while offloading the regulatory burden of operating the on- and off-ramps to other business. With the massive network effects of its ~2.5 billion users app ecosystem, it has the potential to create the largest digital money platform that has ever existed, where it can record all purchases you make, market goods and services to you on a daily basis and leverage the existing fact that Facebook already knows more about you than almost anyone else.
What happens next (and what this means for the cryptocurrency industry)In the grand scheme of things, a successful Libra is probably going to do more for bitcoin in terms of warming users up to the idea of cryptocurrency than nothing has ever done in the past. Moreover, since the Libra is a ''stablecoin'' at the mercy of central banking monetary policy, it doesn't pose a significant threat to bitcoin as an investment vehicle. Thus, a successful Libra is probably a net good for bitcoin. That said, the regulary response to the Libra during the coming year is going to carry significant repercussions to the Bitcoin industry in the short-term, as I lay out below. I see four potential scenarios moving forward.
Scenario 1: No Libra Launch
Regulators put a stop to Facebook's plans before they even materialize, citing privacy issues, or that they do not like the idea of Facebook sitting on such vast sums of reserves, or fears that the Libra would have a destabilizing effect on the economy. Everything goes back to normal.
Scenario 2: Libra launches, but with KYC (bad for bitcoin)
In this scenario, regulators are OK with the reserve structure but see through the Libra transparency-pseudonymity masterplan. The Libra Association can attempt to please regulators by restricting the blockchain to only process transactions coming from wallets that have been verified with government ID, such as Facebook's own Calibra wallet. While this is a possible outcome (and technically easy for them to implement), it also eliminates the entire purpose of the Libra blockchain.
In this case, the Bitcoin industry is in trouble as well, because it is currently exploiting that exact same transparency-pseudonymity loophole. Why should regulators shut the door for the Libra to operate in this way, but spare bitcoin?
Scenario 3: Libra launches, without KYC (good for bitcoin case)
In this scenario, the Libra launches in the exact form as they envision it today. Ideally, this means that there isn't anything wrong with the Bitcoin playbook either and we can all stop stressing. The Libra and bitcoin can then compete with each other, or complement each other, on their own merits.
Scenaro 4: Libra launches, without KYC (bad for bitcoin case)
In the worst case, regulators take note of the transparency-pseudonymity loophole, but notices that the Bitcoin project has a wildly different relationship than the Libra when it comes to privacy. In bitcoin, the project's developers and supporters are always seeking new and innovative ways to eliminate the effectiveness of the blockchain analysis firms. And there's no ''Bitcoin Association'' you can regulate if things start going south. It is possible that the Libra brings so much heat to the cryptocurrency industry that in the turmoil that erupts, the Libra is the only cryptocurrency that passes regulatory scrutiny on the virtue of being the absolutely easiest cryptocurrency to control and surveil.
Thanks to Joey Krug for useful feedback.
CLIPS
VIDEO - Joe Rogan Experience #1315 - Bob Lazar & Jeremy Corbell - YouTube
AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) -- A 9-year-old living near Austin is spreading a message of love and inclusiveness as he performs as a drag queen.
Keegan performs in drag as Kween KeeKee.
A third-grade teacher asked her class what they wanted to be when they grow up, and Keegan wrote in his memory book these words: "gender creative."
'Love your child unconditionally': Mom of 10-year-old 'drag kid' DesmondKeegan said he can be himself when he's wearing a dress.
VIDEO: 10-Year-Old Drag Kid talks bullying and being yourself alwaysHe also has a message for anyone who might struggle with their identity.
"I want the world to know that you can be special, and you can be who you want to be," Keegan said. "You can be a vegetarian, you can even be a veterinarian. You can be LGBTQ. You can be a drag queen, drag king."
Keegan usually goes by the pronouns "he," "him" and "his." His family says Keegan has acceptance and support at a school in their conservative, Christian town outside Austin.
VIDEO: Glam Lab gets a rainbow makeup tutorial for Pride MarchSEE ALSO: 10-year-old drag queen facing threats of violence
Copyright (C) 2019 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO - Donald Trump is So Right About How Poor Black People Are - YouTube
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VIDEO - Qaadi ð¨ð... on Twitter: "The party of KKK @TheDemocrats @PeteButtigieg just told African American voters in his city that he doesn't need their support because they are not important. This is how liberals and Democrats treat Blacks. This is bad
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VIDEO - CJ Pearson on Twitter: "''The black community has literally been destroyed by racist, illegal immigration'' #BlackNotDemocrat https://t.co/GbLyHFElOl"
'He lives next door with his big floppy hair and his ever-flappin' jaw': Bizarre moment Boris Johnson's neighbour breaks out into rap about PM hopeful outside his homeBoris Johnson has been described as having 'floppy hair' and 'ever-flapping jaw' The song was written by south London rapper Too Many Ts, who lives next doorMr Johnson, 55, has been living with his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds Police were called to the flat last night after neighbours heard 'loud noises' By Darren Boyle for MailOnline
Published: 19:28 EDT, 21 June 2019 | Updated: 20:41 EDT, 21 June 2019
A south London rapper has written a song about his new neighbour Boris Johnson and the sudden arrival of Fleet Street photographers outside his house.
The performer, known as Too Many Ts, stepped outside of his home in Camberwell, south east London to perform his new song, inspired by the Tory party leadership contender.
Journalists and photographers arrived on the street shortly after 7pm yesterday when it emerged police had been called to the flat Mr Johnson, 55, shares with his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds.
South London rapper Too Many Ts entertained journalists and photographers with a song about his new neighbour Boris Johnson, 55, who moved to Camberwell, south London with his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds
The entertainer gave an impromptu rendition of his song 'Boris, Boris, He Lives Next Door'
The performer said Mr Johnson has 'big floppy hear and ever-flapping jaw'
A neighbour called the police shortly after midnight on Friday after hearing a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging.
The Guardian reported Ms Symonds could be heard telling Mr Johnson to 'get off me' and 'get out of my flat'.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed they attended the scene after receiving reports that a resident' was concerned for the welfare of a female neighbour'.
One of Mr Johnson's new neighbours, Too Many Ts wrote a brief song.
He described Boris Johnson as having 'big floppy hair' and an 'ever flapping jaw'.
The Boris Johnson song 'Boris, Boris, I live next door with his big floppy hair and ever-flapping jaw.
'Boris, Boris, he lives next door, his bike's outside but his money's off shore.
'Boris, Boris, he lives next door, I asked for some sugar but he said I'm too poor.
'Boris, Boris, don't come knocking on my door, mate, wer wer wer wer wer wer wer.
'I was heading to a festival and getting into my car.
'When I saw all you guys must be waiting on a star.
'There were cameras in your hand ''hey mum, I must have made it large''
'The paparazzi's here but those flashes didn't start.
'Then I heard a mumble grumble and I turned I nearly stumbled, I thought it was a womble but it was that Tory dumb-dumb.
'Blonde hair, eye bags, pot-belly, typecast '' Boris Johnson's moved in '' right next door to my gaffe.'
In the song, he describes the former foreign secretary as having his 'money off shore'.
He claims the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP would not give him any sugar as he was 'too poor'.
Remarking on the number of photographers encamped on the south London street, Too Many Ts claimed: '
'I was heading to a festival and getting into my car.
'When I saw all you guys must be waiting on a star.
'There were cameras in your hand ''hey mum, I must have made it large''
'The paparazzi's here but those flashes didn't start.
'Then I heard a mumble grumble and I turned I nearly stumbled, I thought it was a womble but it was that Tory dumb-dumb.
'Blonde hair, eye bags, pot-belly, typecast '' Boris Johnson's moved in '' right next door to my gaffe.'
Mr Johnson, who is the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, announced last autumn that he and his wife Marina Wheeler were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.
The couple said the decision had been taken some months earlier.
The announcement of the split came after newspaper allegations about Mr Johnson having had another extra-marital affair.
Mr Johnson's spokesman has not responded to repeated calls for comment.
Boris Johnson, pictured at a campaign event as news of the police arrival at his home broke. He has so far refused to address the matter
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VIDEO - Antonio Moore on Twitter: "Thanks to @CornelWest for mentioning #ados on @cnn @donlemon we created this discussion on reparations and they tried to recast it by bringing in people that don't understand the topic at the HR40 hearing. It is #ados
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Video During a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, President Trump responded to questions about Iran shooting down a United States surveillance drone. Credit Credit Erin Schaff/The New York Times WASHINGTON '-- President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.
As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president's top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.
Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.
The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.
[For Mr. Trump, ''judgment time is coming'' on how to respond to Iran.]
The abrupt reversal put a halt to what would have been the president's third military action against targets in the Middle East. Mr. Trump had struck twice at targets in Syria, in 2017 and 2018.
It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward.
Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.
The retaliation plan was intended as a response to the shooting down of the unmanned, $130 million surveillance drone, which was struck Thursday morning by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, according to a senior administration official who was briefed on the military planning and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plans.
The strike was set to take place just before dawn Friday in Iran to minimize risk to the Iranian military and civilians.
But military officials received word a short time later that the strike was off, at least temporarily.
IRAN
Bandar Abbas
Iran said drone shot down here
U.S. said drone shot down here
Persian Gulf
Dubai
Iran's territorial waters
Gulf of Oman
Abu Dhabi
OMAN
50 MILES
IRAN
Bandar Abbas
Iran said drone shot down here
U.S. said drone shot down here
Iran's territorial waters
Gulf of Oman
Abu Dhabi
50 MILES
OMAN
IRAN
Bandar Abbas
Iran said drone shot down here
U.S. said drone shot down here
Persian Gulf
QATAR
Dubai
Iran's territorial
waters
Gulf of Oman
Abu Dhabi
OMAN
Muscat
50 MILES
IRAN
Bandar Abbas
Iran said drone shot down here
U.S. said drone
shot down here
Iran's territorial waters
Gulf of Oman
OMAN
50 MILES
[The U.S. and Iran are once again hurtling toward potential crisis. Here's a timeline.]
The possibility of a retaliatory strike hung over Washington for much of the day. Officials in both countries traded accusations about the location of the drone when it was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile launched from the Iranian coast along the Gulf of Oman.
Mr. Trump's national security advisers split about whether to respond militarily. Senior administration officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; John R. Bolton, the national security adviser; and Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, had favored a military response. But top Pentagon officials cautioned that such an action could result in a spiraling escalation with risks for American forces in the region.
Congressional leaders were briefed by administration officials in the Situation Room.
The destruction of the drone underscored the already tense relations between the two countries after Mr. Trump's recent accusations that Iran is to blame for explosions last week that damaged oil tankers traveling through the strait, the vital waterway for much of the world's oil. Iran has denied that accusation.
Iran's announcement this week that it would soon breach one of the key limits it had agreed to in a 2015 pact intended to limit its nuclear program has also fueled tensions. Mr. Trump, who pulled the United States out of the 2015 pact, has vowed that he will not allow Tehran to build a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump insisted that the United States' unmanned surveillance aircraft was flying over international waters when it was taken down by an Iranian missile.
''This drone was in international waters, clearly,'' the president told reporters on Thursday afternoon at the White House as he began a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. ''We have it all documented. It's documented scientifically, not just words.''
Asked what would come next, Mr. Trump said, ''Let's see what happens.''
Iran's government fiercely disputed the president's characterization, insisting that the American drone had strayed into Iranian airspace. Iran released GPS coordinates that put the drone eight miles off the country's coast, inside the 12 nautical miles from the shore that Iran claims as its territorial waters.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in a letter to the Security Council that the drone ignored repeated radio warnings before it was downed. He said that Tehran ''does not seek war'' but ''is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea and air.''
Congressional Democrats emerged from the president's classified briefing in the Situation Room and urged Mr. Trump to de-escalate the situation. They called on the president to seek congressional authorization before taking any military action.
''This is a dangerous situation,'' Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. ''We are dealing with a country that is a bad actor in the region. We have no illusions about Iran in terms of their ballistic missile transfers, about who they support in the region and the rest.''
Iran's destruction of the drone appeared to provide a boost for officials inside the Trump administration who have long argued for a more confrontational approach to Iran, including the possibility of military actions that could punish the regime for its support of terrorism and other destabilizing behavior in the region.
Video A Times analysis of a video and images publicly released by the U.S. Defense Department indicates that an Iranian patrol boat removed an object from a tanker in the Gulf of Oman on June 13 that may have been a limpet mine. Credit Credit U.S. Dept. of Defense But in his public appearance, Mr. Trump initially seemed to be looking for a way to avoid a potentially serious military crisis. Instead of directly accusing the leaders of Iran, Mr. Trump said someone ''loose and stupid'' in Iran was responsible for shooting down the drone.
The president said he suspected it was some individual in Iran who ''made a big mistake,'' even as Iran had taken responsibility for the strike and asserted that the high-altitude American drone was operating over Iranian air space, which American officials denied.
Mr. Trump said the episode would have been far more serious if the aircraft had been a piloted vehicle, and not a drone. It made ''a big, big difference'' that an American pilot was not threatened, he told reporters.
Last year, Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear pact with Iran, over the objections of China, Russia and American allies in Europe. He has also imposed punishing economic sanctions on Iran, trying to cut off its already limited access to international trade, including oil sales.
Iran has warned of serious consequences if Europe does not find a way around those sanctions, though it has denied involvement in the attacks on tankers near the vital Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iran said it would soon stop abiding by a central component of the nuclear deal, the limit on how much enriched uranium it is allowed to stockpile.
Both Washington and Tehran said the downing of the drone occurred at 4:05 a.m. Thursday in Iran, or 7:35 p.m. Wednesday in Washington. The drone ''was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz,'' the United States Central Command said in a statement. ''This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace.''
Iran's ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the region.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, the Air Force commander for the Central Command region in the Middle East, said the attack could have endangered ''innocent civilians,'' even though officials at Central Command continued to assert that the drone was over international waters. He said that the closest that the drone got to the Iranian coast was 21 miles.
Late Thursday, the Defense Department released additional imagery in an email to support its case that the drone never entered Iranian airspace. But the department incorrectly called the flight path of the drone the location of the shooting down and offered little context for an image that appeared to be the drone exploding in midair.
It was the latest attempt by the Pentagon to try to prove that Iran has been the aggressor in a series of international incidents.
[What we know and don't know about Iran shooting down an American drone.]
Iran's foreign affairs minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said in a post on Twitter that he gave what he said were precise coordinates for where the American drone was targeted.
Image An image from Iranian state television's English service purportedly showing a surface-to-air missile being launched to shoot down an American surveillance drone. Credit Press TV ''At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace,'' he said in a tweet that included coordinates that he said were near Kouh-e Mobarak. ''We've retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down.''
Mr. Trump's comments on Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office reflected the longstanding tension between the president's desire to be seen as tough on the world stage and his campaign promise to make sure that the United States did not get tangled in more foreign wars.
The president has embraced a reputation as someone who punches back when he is challenged. Only months into his tenure, Mr. Trump launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an air base in Syria after a chemical weapon attack.
But he has often talked about ending American involvement in long-running conflicts abroad, describing his ''America First'' agenda as having little room for being the world's police force. In a tweet in January, he said he hoped that ''Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes'' would ''eventually come to a glorious end!''
According to Iranian news media, a foreign minister spokesman there said that flying a drone into Iranian airspace was an ''aggressive and provocative'' move by the United States.
Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said crossing the country's border was ''our red line,'' the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.
''We are not going to get engaged in a war with any country, but we are fully prepared for war,'' Mr. Salami said at a military ceremony in Sanandaj, Iran, according to a translation from Press TV, a state-run news outlet. ''Today's incident was a clear sign of this precise message, so we are continuing our resistance.''
Iranian news media said the drone had flown over Iranian territory unauthorized, and reported that it had been shot down in the Hormozgan Province, along the country's southern coast on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Both the United States and Iran identified the aircraft as an RQ-4 Global Hawk, a surveillance drone made by Northrop Grumman.
''This was a show of force '-- their equivalent of an inside pitch,'' said Derek Chollet, a former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs during the Obama administration, speaking of Iran's decision to shoot down the drone.
James G. Stavridis, who retired as a four-star admiral after serving as the supreme allied commander at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, warned that the two countries were in a dangerous game that could quickly spiral out of control. He described Iran's downing of the drone, which costs about $130 million, as a ''logical albeit highly dangerous escalatory move by Iran.''
Michael D. Shear and Michael Crowley reported from Washington; Eric Schmitt from Palo Alto, Calif.; and Maggie Haberman from New York. Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper, Eileen Sullivan and Emily Cochrane from Washington; David D. Kirkpatrick, Megan Specia and Michael Wolgelenter from London; and Daniel Victor from Hong Kong.
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Trump Approves Strikes Against Iran but Delays Carrying Out the Attack
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